The Mithras Conspiracy

by M. J. Polelle

  “You’re a liar.”

  “You were one of the orphans . . . weren’t you?”

  Piso nodded. “Did you know, my clever cardinal, you unwittingly paid me to recover the Festus parchment when Renaldi had already stolen it on my behalf?”

  “Renaldi was supposed to work for me.”

  “He did . . . after he betrayed me.”

  “You promised not to hold it against him.”

  “I lied.”

  “If you had him killed, I can forgive you right here . . . if you let me go.”

  “You’re confused. I brought you here for your penance.”

  “It’s about ransom money, isn’t it? I can get all you want. Just let me go.”

  “The money?” Piso exploded into spasms of laughter. “Here I thought you a clever man. And you prove a fool. Shame, shame.”

  “You insult a prince of the Church.”

  On the edge of a claw-foot bathtub, Piso sat down opposite the cardinal. “What do you think your penance should be for attempting to destroy the Callinicus tomb?”

  “That Colombian savage, Stroheim, told you, didn’t he?” The cardinal wagged his finger. “Remove these manacles at once, or I’ll have you publicly excommunicated.”

  At Piso’s order, the guards removed them.

  Looking surprised, the cardinal rubbed his wrists.

  This sack of fat enjoys controlling others with his witch-doctor pronouncement of sin, guilt, and damnation.

  “Anything but that.” Piso feigned terror. “What must I do to avoid excommunication?”

  “First . . . kiss my ring.” The cardinal dangled a hand adorned with a gold ring inset with a cobalt-blue sapphire. “As a sign of remorse.”

  See my mushroom, little one. Kiss it.

  The words from the past burned through Piso’s brain. He shivered, remembering how this man had violated him in the chapel sacristy before Mass.

  In a show of mock reverence, Piso cleaned his lips with a towel.

  He drew the ringed finger to his lips.

  He sank his teeth into the finger.

  He ground down into the bone. Blood filled his mouth.

  The cardinal shrieked. He pounded Piso’s head with his fist until the guards tore Furbone away. Held fast, he howled.

  In the sink Piso spat out flesh, bone, and blood.

  The guards let Furbone slump to the floor. He sat there rocking and wailing over and over, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” cradling his finger stump in his other hand.

  He looked at Piso. “Why?”

  Piso grabbed the cardinal by his chubby cheeks and stared down into his eyes. “Don’t you remember me—Lucio, the child?”

  “My God.” The cardinal buried his face in his hands. “That was so long ago.”

  “And there were so many. Just flesh to be degraded and discarded.” He kicked Furbone. “For me it was only yesterday.”

  “Forgive me.”

  He held out his hands, dripping blood from his finger stump.

  “Forgiveness is against my religion.” Piso slapped the cardinal. “But penance for the unforgiven exists.”

  “What penance do you want? I’ll do it, anything.”

  “It is not what I want you to do. It is what I want to do to you.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  FROM

  TO

  SUBJECT: Carlos Stroheim

  Dear Marco,

  Carlos Stroheim merits your suspicions. Nazi father fled to Colombia through Vatican Ratline and married Amerindian woman. Their son, Carlos, educated in Argentina with scholarship from Piso Global Enterprises, Inc. Informers reported Carlos became secret leader in the neofascist Aryan Force in Colombia while respected archivist. Background check done when the Force tried opening Swiss bank account.

  Warm regards,

  Mattias

  PS: That Mormon guy, Wesley Bemis, now disfigured, back here causing trouble and crazier than ever. Claims he’s converting Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Saddam Hussein, Nero, Seneca, and someone called Callinicus. Had to arrest him for peeping into windows. An emotional wreck.

  “See this?” Marco Leone held the email printout. “Swiss police just filled me in on your role in the Aryan Force.”

  “So?” Stroheim put his gloved hands behind his head. “Political activity in Colombia years ago is not a crime here.”

  “What do you know about Roma Rinata?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “What’s your relationship with Lucio Piso?”

  “Beyond a scholarship his company gave me, I have none.”

  “Otto Fischer confessed to his son and me about Roma Rinata. He heard you and Riccardo Renaldi discussing Roma Rinata on a farm in the Maremma. We’ve untangled the farm ownership. It belongs to Piso.” Leone leaned forward in his chair toward the prefect. “What do you say now?”

  “I doubt he’ll repeat those lies in court.”

  Stroheim’s denials complicated things. Otto Fischer had died of presumed natural causes in his cell shortly before Stroheim’s arrival. No trial would now take place and no autopsy be done before an unpublicized and hasty burial. Certain members of the Italian political class had to be overjoyed. The death ensured the dirty secrets of World War II stayed buried. He had to move to Plan B.

  “We’ll see about that,” Leone said.

  Making sure Stroheim could overhear, Leone asked his complicit secretary by intercom to place a purported telephone call to Otto Fischer at Regina Coeli prison. Shortly afterward, Leone’s telephone rang with a purported call from Otto Fischer. On speakerphone, Inspector Rossi impressed Leone with a vocal impersonation of an elderly male speaking Italian with a German accent.

  “I thank you again, Signor Fischer, for your willingness to testify in court. Goodbye.” The commissario replaced the receiver. He folded his hands on the desk as though praying for Stroheim to break down and confess. “Are you ready to talk now?”

  “Only when Otto Fischer returns from the dead.”

  “How could you possibly know, unless . . .” Stroheim knew Otto Fischer’s killer.

  “Unless what? Otto Fischer’s poor health is public knowledge.” His gold-toothed smirk of cocky defiance infuriated Leone.

  “Professor Fisher and I will testify to what Otto Fischer said.”

  The prefect’s smirk shape-shifted into a pensive look. “I’ll take the chance.” He rubbed a gloved hand over his chin. “The hearsay statement of a dead Nazi told to a biased police officer and an alienated son isn’t enough to convict me.”

  The blinking and buzzing of the intercom interrupted the commissario’s racing mind. His secretary. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  “Does this someone have a name?”

  “Won’t say. He wants to see you immediately.”

  “Have someone cool his heels.” Picking up his train of thought, Leone slid Inspector Rossi’s investigative report across the desk. “Read it.”

  The prefect removed his gloves. Two hands emerged swollen red. He picked up the report, read it, and dropped it on the desk like a dirty rag. He swabbed his hands and chair arms with sanitizer tissue.

  “The report is true . . . insofar as it goes. The dagger used in Basso’s murder went missing a week before. And it’s also true I had temporary control over the traveling exhibit of Mideast antiquities containing the dagger while the cardinal was away.”

  “Then another thing is true.” Leone tapped two fingertips together. “You had the opportunity to procure the murder weapon.”

  “You think that’s enough?” He rubbed his hands in his lap. “In fact, now that I think of it, I remember misplacing the keys to the exhibit.” He glared at Leone. “Funny how it just came to me now.”

  “Where
is Cardinal Furbone? He’s your boss.”

  “I don’t know.” Stroheim seemed pleased with himself. “Ask his chauffeur. He was the last person to see the cardinal.”

  The intercom blinked and buzzed again. “Sorry, Commissario Leone. Mister Someone insists on seeing you . . . now.”

  “Tell him I decide who sees me when . . . and don’t interrupt again.”

  Those raw, cracked hands moved on the other side of his desk, one over the other, like crowded crabs jockeying for supremacy.

  And then it came to him.

  He rummaged through his files and pulled out the Basso autopsy report. He riffled through it and found the gem. He looked up. “The fingerprints on the murder dagger were worn away, just like I’ll bet yours are.”

  “Prove it.”

  “The passport office couldn’t fingerprint you. Yours were too worn away.”

  “That’s still not enough.” Stroheim put on his gloves and stood up. “So long. I have to get ready for Argentina.”

  “Why are you going there?”

  “Confidential Vatican business.”

  “By God, I’ll get you one way or another.” Leone slapped his hand on the desk. “I’ll tie up your trip in knots until you cooperate.”

  “Oh no you won’t.” The prefect sat down. He flashed a business card from his wallet. “Call this lawyer.”

  Blowing breath through rounded lips, Leone read the name of the same intelligence agent used by police when they contacted the AISE . . . Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna. Right there and then he placed a call to the lawyer. The lawyer confirmed over the telephone that the Agency for External Information and Security, the country’s foreign intelligence agency, needed Stroheim in Argentina as soon as possible for reasons of national security. “Keep his cover story confidential and your nose out of this, Marco” ended the conversation.

  A baldhead in aviator sunglasses barged through the office door despite the secretary’s plea to stop. The baldhead looked at the prefect. “You’re coming with me.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Leone jumped up. “I’m in charge.”

  The stranger flashed identification.

  Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna—AISI for short, the country’s domestic intelligence agency.

  “There’s some mistake.” Leone scratched his head. “Our AISE go-between just told me the AISE wants this guy on the next plane for Argentina.”

  It had to be a miscommunication between separate intelligence branches created as a result of the 2007 reform. That reform split the Italian Secret Service after the arrest of a general in army intelligence in the attempted Borghese Coup.

  “He’s lying through his teeth.” The bald AISI officer took off his aviator glasses and twirled them. “This guy and some key AISE higher-up are part of Roma Rinata. They’re on the verge of a coup d’état. Their terrorism in Rome is the opening act.”

  “Not again.” The commissario sank back into his chair. He glanced out the window into the past. Was history to be repeated?

  Before getting cold feet, neofascists had almost pulled off the 1970 Borghese Coup led by World War II Fascist Junio Borghese, the Black Prince. The attempted overthrow of the Italian government—orchestrated by CIA operatives—shriveled up under the spotlight of lawsuits and parliamentary investigations.

  “Stroheim,” the AISI agent said, “is going to Argentina to win support for the coup through contacts developed by Piso Global Enterprises. Lucio Piso is the new puppet master, and this man is one of the puppets.”

  “As I suspected.” Leone still had a missing piece. “How does Cardinal Furbone fit into Roma Rinata?”

  “He doesn’t. Piso abducted the cardinal for reasons not clear to us. We’ve tracked Furbone to Piso’s villa in the Maremma. We’re about to move on the villa.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  The baldhead motioned Leone outside the office and closed the door so Stroheim couldn’t hear. “The cardinal’s chauffeur is our guy working undercover in Roma Rinata.”

  “Appreciate the heads-up.” Leone shook hands with the agent. “I’ll take over now.”

  “This is our parade, friend.” The AISI agent reentered the office and handcuffed Stroheim. “We’ll question him in our own special way. Basso’s homicide is part of the domestic conspiracy. We have jurisdiction, and you don’t.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The driver braked in front of the locked-up Piso Aquarium outside the town of Grosseto. Lucio Piso piled out of the pickup with his henchmen. A custodian exited the aquarium to inform him all was ready. With the dedication of the building only days away, Piso ordered his underlings to clean up the premises once he finished his mission.

  Above the entrance, black lettering on a brushed-gold plaque proclaimed that the Piso Benevolent Association for the Protection of Orphans built the aquarium as a gift to the people of the Maremma region. His right-hand man confirmed opening day was reserved for orphans bused in from all over Italy at Piso’s expense. Each orphan was to be admitted and treated to a warm meal, gelato sweets, and a clown act without cost.

  He wiped away moisture from his eyes with the pretense that wind-blown dust had stung them.

  At the snap of his fingers, workers unloaded a trunk from the pickup onto a dolly. They trundled the load into the aquarium foyer. At his command, the workers stopped at the statue of Mithras he had bargained away from the clerical pedophile. The restoration exceeded his expectations. His artisans had retouched the golden locks of hair and replaced a lost opal eye. The god seemed to see the offering he had brought.

  Mithras had returned to Italy.

  “What happened,” said a henchman, “to the cross on the forehead?”

  “I had the desecration repaired.”

  “Isn’t he some kind of saint? Like Saint Michael?”

  “Enough.” Piso resented the understandable confusion. “We have work to do.”

  Saltwater tanks swarming with sharks and octopuses glowed around the walls of the low-lit interior. Workers set the trunk before the centerpiece of the aquarium, a cylindrical tank holding seventy-five thousand liters of salt water.

  As he marveled at his babies inside the tank, Piso wondered by what happy karma he had made this tank the main attraction before he knew its special purpose.

  The tank sparkled with the pinks and blues and yellows of fish playing hide-and-seek around a coral with fissures and crevices. Lying in wait, his darlings darted speckled heads in and out of dark openings camouflaged by undulating stalks of sea grass.

  The henchmen jerked Cardinal Furbone from the trunk. A bandage swathed the stump of his ring finger. They cut away the rope from his arms. While they held him fast, the aquarium guards creaked a grooved and mossy millstone end over end to the tank. Ever protective of its chosen one, the Fates had ordained that when he purchased the Maremma farmstead, he would find the abandoned stone once used to grind grain. The mill of the gods grinds slowly, but he would make it grind exceedingly fine.

  Piso ripped off the tape from the cardinal’s mouth.

  Furbone rubbed his swollen lips. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “The real question is what did you do to me.”

  “I helped you.” Furbone held out his clasped hands in supplication. “You were an unloved orphan.”

  Outraged at the sanctimoniousness of what he was hearing, Piso put his hands on his cheeks and rocked his head from side to side. Behind closed eyes, childhood images flashed. His head throbbed. “Don’t you remember,” he said, whining with a child’s voice, “our talk in your office?” The cardinal looked puzzled. “About what should be done to priests who molest children.”

  “You mean what Jesus said?”

  “Bravo.” The child’s voice became a predator’s roar. “You absolutely agreed with Matthew eighteen, verse six.�
�� Piso read from the New Testament. “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

  “You can’t mean—” Furbone pulled on his ears, wincing in pain.

  “Yes I do.” Piso rubbed his hands. “I read the Bible literally.”

  “I didn’t really harm you. I helped you, loved you, according to the classical Greek ideal of an adult male mentoring a young male.”

  His normal voice returned. “You odious piece of dung.” He bounced the New Testament off the cardinal’s head. “You whited sepulcher.”

  Piso’s henchmen pushed the cardinal up the mobile stairs leading to a platform surrounding the cylindrical tank. Joining them, Piso sliced the cardinal’s face with his straight razor. Strings of blood crisscrossed the cardinal’s cheeks.

  The guards fastened the millstone to Furbone’s neck.

  “Have mercy.”

  “Hurry.” Piso turned his thumb downward. “Drown him.”

  The cardinal cowered. “God have mercy on me.”

  The front doors swung open. Piso’s top lieutenant ran inside. “The cops are almost here. Time to scram.”

  As he sank to the aquarium bottom, Furbone held his breath, failing to climb an invisible ladder of bubbles back to the platform. A swirl of dark forms swarmed up to welcome him. He collided with the coral. Tangled gray and tan blurs spotted in black writhed over his body.

  The giant snaggletoothed moray eels tore away at his flesh. They gorged on him. He screamed out a silent volcano of bubbles. His lungs shouted for oxygen. He sputtered and choked as water flooded his lungs. Ripping him apart morsel by morsel, the eels squirmed and slithered over him. He flailed with hands and legs as they slid across his face.

  The opal eyes of Mithras beheld him dying and men running into the aquarium with submachine guns.

  Chapter Sixty-Six