The Mithras Conspiracy

by M. J. Polelle

  His cell phone vibrated with an incoming call.

  It had to wait until the final act of his masterwork.

  The players in the ritual below appeared to him like a beehive in concentric circles of hierarchy. At the base of the obelisk sat the mitered Celestine VI, the queen bee, swathed in a vestment of scarlet brocaded in gold. Surrounding the base sat the drones in three sections: the cardinals in scarlet, the bishops in purple, and the priests in white. Waving handkerchiefs and banners, the worker-bee laity, buzzing with excitement, stood behind the roped-off seating area. The only exception to the iron law of hierarchy was the pope’s insistence the front row be reserved for the gravely ill. The chants of “Viva il Papa” puzzled Rocco, who was unable to comprehend such devotion to a stranger.

  The Mass would end soon. When would the grand finale arrive? Had something gone wrong? He checked voice mails. Several from his aunt. Was it about his mother? Next to him an old woman in a black dress and white hair in a bun fingered a rosary. She reminded him that cell phone calls were not allowed. Anyone else he would have told to go to hell, but she looked too much like his mother. He pocketed his cell.

  A police helicopter drifted from the southeast in a flight path over St. Peter’s Square toward the northwest. Rocco raised his binoculars to the obelisk. A strip of bunting had come loose near the top, flapping in the wind. He scraped the side of his face with his fingernails. What if the pilot saw a C-4 stick behind the bunting?

  The helicopter veered to the east and away like a dragonfly uninterested in the terrain. When he was a boy, his mother would fondle his hair and say he was born under a lucky star. He longed to hear her voice. The old woman in black had moved away. He took out his cell and punched in his aunt’s telephone number.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me. Rocco.”

  “Where are you, Rocco? I kept calling, but you didn’t answer.”

  “How’s Mama?”

  “The medical report is bad . . . very bad.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  “I can’t. She went to St. Peter’s Square.”

  “What? Where did you say?”

  “The Mass of Deliverance. Her nun friend gave her a ticket for the front row reserved for the sick. The pope will bless them. Your mother prays for a medical miracle.”

  “Jesus Christ.” He hung up, stunned. He punched in some numbers and stopped. They’ll trace the call. He ran as fast as he could from the viewing gallery and took the elevator down. He punched the ground-floor button again and again to make the elevator go faster.

  He ran from the square to the nearest bar, which had just opened for business. The retro fifties pub displayed an antique pay phone in one corner and in the other a jukebox playing “Angel Mother” in the background: Angel Mother, I am overjoyed we are together at last . . . He deposited a coin in the pay phone and dialed.

  “Police?”

  “This is the police emergency number.”

  Angel Mother, you are in my heart always.

  “A bomb is about to go off in St. Peter’s by remote control.”

  “What’s your name?”

  Angel Mother, caressing your face, I am at peace.

  “That’s not important.”

  “Where are you?”

  Your fingers, so frail and slender, I hold them never to let go.

  “Hurry, for the love of God. The obelisk is riddled with C-4 about to explode.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I put it there.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Leone awoke from a Sunday doze on his sofa to feel Mondocane licking his face. The kitchen telephone rang on and on, overpowering the TV chatter. The caller would be his ex-wife demanding to know why the great detective had no information about their missing daughter. Grateful his voice mail didn’t work, he had no obligation of a return call when she hung up without a message.

  Waiting for the ringing to stop, Leone snapped off two pieces of cold sausage from the fridge. Mondocane snapped up one on the fly. Leone ate the other one before downing five milligrams of hydrocortisone to fight off fatigue and aches. The continued ringing of the telephone jangled his nerves. Will she never give up? Avoid stress, the doctor had said without explaining how a detective did that. He grabbed the telephone receiver. “I told you I don’t have any information.”

  “What?”

  Enzo Rossi. His new inspector.

  Eyes on the television, Leone said, “Sorry. I thought you were somebody else.”

  The TV showed the pope sitting on stage in front of the obelisk.

  “Why the call?”

  “An anonymous tipster reported a bomb about to go off in St. Peter’s Square.”

  “Might be another prankster.”

  “He knew about C-4. Said it would detonate on the Vatican obelisk.”

  Celestine VI talked to an assistant holding a palm frond.

  “Did you trace the call?”

  “Couldn’t. He used a pay phone.”

  “Pay phone? Only a few of those antiques left.”

  “I have a hunch about the location. Should I check it out?”

  Professor Fisher had warned about the possibility of St. Peter’s resting on ground used for Mithraic ceremonies. Some interpreted the incomplete Latin word Petr on an ancient fragment under the basilica as referring not to Saint Peter but to rock-born Mithras. Petrus in Latin meant rock, and upon this rock the Church was to be built.

  “Do you hear me, Commissario? Should I check out my hunch?”

  “We don’t have time. Get a bomb squad over to the square right away.”

  On three legs, Mondocane hobbled over to Leone and brushed against him.

  “And then pick me up.” Leone massaged the dog’s throat. “I’ll wait downstairs. We’re going to St. Peter’s Square.”

  The TV showed a drizzle floating down into the square. The yellow-and-white bunting on the obelisk snapped in the wind. The pope looked upward, and within seconds two umbrellas vied for the honor of shielding his head. Like mushrooms, umbrellas popped open throughout the throng. The TV camera operator panned the transparent pope mobile crawling to a stop just behind the seated clergy. The driver exited and stood at attention.

  “Get the pope the hell out of there,” Leone ordered the TV set, just before grabbing his blue Gore-Tex police jacket on his way out of the apartment.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  “Out of the way,” Leone yelled at a trucker blocking Inspector Rossi’s attempt to pass. The inspector swerved the squad car around the truck and revved the engine on the way to St. Peter’s Square. The wipers clicked back and forth across the wet windshield with the regularity of a time bomb.

  Even if Roma Rinata wasn’t involved, Celestine VI had wild-eyed enemies who would stop at nothing to harm him. Leone kept an eye on Christian extremists who claimed the closet-Muslim pontiff was the Antichrist, as well as on Muslim extremists who never forgave his teenage conversion to Christianity. He feared another Santo Stefano Rotondo fiasco, but even more, a dead pope. He’d lose face if the call was a hoax, and a pope if it was not . . . unless he arrived in time.

  The squad car jolted onto the sidewalk, stopping less than a foot away from boxes of blood oranges arranged before a grocery window. The inspector got out and surveyed the vehicle.

  “What’s going on, Rossi?”

  “We blew a tire.”

  Leone scrambled out the door and into the grocery. He ordered the owner to switch the overhead TV to the Mass in St. Peter’s Square. The unctuous voice of the announcer opined the ceremony might be terminated if the drizzle worsened. A contingent of Swiss guards waited for Celestine VI to descend the makeshift platform decorated with flowers.

  Rossi’s voice came from behind. “The rain’ll prevent an explosion.”

  “Not if it’
s C-4.”

  Murmuring among themselves, several customers stared at Inspector Rossi’s arm. “Put this on, Rossi.” Leone tossed his jacket to the inspector. “Most citizens don’t like tattoos on their police.”

  “You can call me Enzo.”

  “Let’s keep it professional, Inspector Rossi,” Leone said, keeping his eyes on the TV. “Find out what’s taking the bomb squad so long.”

  Just then the crowd in the square parted as the bomb squad sprinted through the opening to the obelisk. Swiss guards closed ranks before the platform stairway, where the pope stood blessing the seriously ill in the first row before he descended. Their captain and the bomb squad leader huddled alone in discussion.

  “What’s taking so long?” Leone asked the TV set.

  The announcer proclaimed the cessation of rain a sign from God. A rainbow formed over St. Peter’s Square. Umbrellas snapped shut. The services would continue.

  Leone jammed numbers on his cell. The bomb squad leader answered.

  “Stop the chitchat.” He pressed the cell against his ear. “Get the pope out and disperse the crowd at once. Do you understand?”

  “We can’t. The captain demands identification. He says we could be terrorists masquerading as the bomb squad. He says he can handle things without us.”

  “Are his brains up his ass?”

  “It’s a power play. He won’t budge.”

  “To hell with him. Use force to get through if you have to.”

  “Bravo. A shootout between us and them on national TV. Good thinking.”

  “Put the cretin on your cell. I’ll talk to him.”

  The clock above the TV set ticked on.

  The TV camera zoomed in for a close-up. As the pope prepared to leave the platform, an honor guard of Swiss soldiers in red-plumed helmets waited behind their captain with upraised pikes. The captain motioned the driver of the pope mobile forward.

  “Put the captain on your cell, I said.”

  “He refuses to talk to you, Commissario.”

  The camera zoomed closer on the captain. That horse face with the beady eyes struck a chord in Leone’s brain. Where had he seen it before?

  “If he doesn’t talk to me, I’ll order his arrest.”

  “For what?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the head of the Vatican Gendarmerie? He once worked for us.”

  “This is a major crime. It’s beyond the Vatican security cops.”

  “You don’t have jurisdiction in this instance.” It was the captain of the Swiss guard speaking in guttural Italian on the cell. “The Swiss guard is responsible for the personal security of the Holy Father. We don’t need you.”

  That voice. Where had he heard it before?

  “C-4 is set to explode on the obelisk any moment. What are you going to do? Spear the C-4 sticks with your pikes? Let the squad through.”

  In this instance. That pretentious phrase sounded familiar. The speaker’s identity was on the tip of his tongue. He knew better than to force it.

  “I will consult my Vatican colleague, the inspector general of the gendarmerie.”

  “We don’t have time.”

  “I can’t let you interrupt a religious service on mere suspicion.”

  “The service is over and you know it.”

  “I forbid your men to scare the faithful.”

  “I got it.” The commissario felt a rush of remembrance. “In this instance,” he said, “you’re going to let them pass if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Who are you to order me around?”

  “I am Commissario Marco Leone . . . remember? I let you go after I caught you with the underage boy in the metro, late one night, with your pantaloons down.” He pressed his advantage. “I’ll arrest you for public indecency if you so much as set one toe outside the Vatican.”

  Over the speakerphone Leone heard the captain say to his men, “In this instance, let them pass.”

  ***

  A basket crane rumbling behind them, the bomb squad hustled past the Swiss guards toward the obelisk. Assistants escorted the limping pope down the platform stairs. The basket lowered to let the bomb experts board. Forming ranks along his path, the Swiss guards waited for Celestine VI to limp over to the pope mobile.

  The basket ascended alongside the obelisk.

  “Hurry,” Leone muttered to himself—or was it a prayer?

  Celestine VI stopped to bless a bawling youngster offered up by a pair of hands from the human mass straining at the barriers separating them from the Holy Father.

  Leone and Rossi looked at each other in resignation. Nightmare memories flitted through Leone’s mind like ghosts. Dealey Plaza, 1963. His hero, JFK, tempting fate. JFK shot dead like a deer in the crosshairs of an assassin’s rifle. The mental scars of the Secret Service officers who failed to prevent it.

  Not again.

  A chain of explosions ripped across the TV screen in bursts of white-hot flashes. An orange fireball burst into plumes of gray smoke roiling around the obelisk. The three-hundred-ton column of granite tottered and tumbled, raining stone chunks like meteorites on nearby chairs. Obelisk fragments shot into the more distant crowd with shrapnel force. The giant TV screens set up in St. Peter’s Square keeled over and shattered on the ground.

  As the floating debris settled, a battlefield of bodies lay near the explosion, some writhing, some deadly still. Those toward the rear of the assembly trampled over one another in a frenzy of flight. The cries in the square mingled with those of the customers inside the grocery. The stump of the obelisk remained upright, jagged and pitted. Breaking into sobs, the TV announcer exclaimed, “Holy Mary, Mother of God!” He pulled himself together and stated the obvious: terrorists had struck down the Holy Father.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Outside the Gemelli Polyclinic, Marco Leone waited in the squad car for news. He noticed that armed police checked visitor identification at the entrance. Questore Malatesta had fanned suspicion by reminding news outlets that a Muslim had tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II. And, as Leone predicted, the questore blamed the Egyptian Phoenix for the act of terrorism because it involved an obelisk, and obelisks were their obsession.

  A woman in black, reminding Leone of his grandmother, led a circle of other black-clothed women in a public recitation of the rosary under the tenth-floor room reserved for the pope. Young and old, the concerned and the curious clustered around the polyclinic in anticipation of a statement from the hospital on the pope’s condition. Just like the death of JFK, his idol, Leone suspected that Celestine VI hadn’t made it either. It was a dog’s world. The hospital staff must be figuring out how to break the bad news.

  Inspector Rossi exited the hospital with a downcast expression.

  Not waiting for the inspector to speak, Leone said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Not unless being in a coma is dead.”

  “They don’t want to admit he’s dead.”

  “Why wouldn’t they? More problems if they hide things.” He looked down into the passenger window. “They asked us to say nothing about the coma until they announce it.” Rossi took the driver’s seat. “Any news about the attack?”

  “Semtex maybe, probably military-grade C-4. A sophisticated operation using autonomous acoustic detonation.” Reading Rossi’s blank expression, Leone added, “The first blast generates sound waves setting off a chain reaction of explosions.”

  “Questore Malatesta.” Rossi hunched over the steering wheel. “Would you believe he’s telling people my tattoo . . . La Famiglia Sempre . . . is unacceptable because it suggests a crime family. Since when is devotion to one’s family suspect in Italy?”

  “Forget it. The man’s an idiot.”

  “I can’t. He found a police directive banning tattoos on the force if
they are indicative of a quote . . . abnormal personality . . . unquote. I have to see a psychiatrist for an evaluation.”

  “Really?” Leone laughed until he felt it in his belly, unable to remember the last time he had laughed so hard. He patted Rossi on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I know the department psychiatrist. He thinks Malatesta is the crazy one for referring these tattoo cases.”

  Rossi brightened. “I saved the good news for last.”

  “Good news? Must be a mistake.”

  “Were you always such an optimist, Commissario?” Rossi started the car. “No mistake. Shlomo texted me in code. Roma Rinata’s inducting him at midnight in the mithraeum under the Circus Maximus.”

  “Why didn’t he contact me?”

  Enzo shrugged. “Maybe because you don’t like texts.”

  “If Shlomo says so,” Leone said, “it’s likely false information.”

  “What have you got to lose?”

  “Just my reputation. Shlomo made a fool of me at Santo Stefano Rotondo.”

  “You’re right, Commissario. We shouldn’t take the chance he’s right this time. And then we’d have the misfortune of sweeping the whole terrorist gang into our dragnet and—”

  “You made your point.” Leone exhaled through his lips. “Get the SWAT team out there tonight.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Blindfolded and on his knees, Shlomo felt his head forced into water. The ringing in his ears grew louder. Water seeped into his mouth and nostrils. A vice squeezed his chest. When the muscle spasms became excruciating, the hands pressing his head under relented. His face bobbed up, gulping for air.