The Mithras Conspiracy

by M. J. Polelle

  The AISI agent came alongside Leone, staring at the Baths of Caracalla, and put his sunglasses back on. “At sunrise, on Easter Sunday, sleeper cells across the country unleash the coup d’état. Piso marches triumphantly from the pagan baths in what he calls the resurrection of Rome. And before you can say Mussolini, Italy’s back to the future.”

  The audacity of the plan staggered Leone.

  The Rome Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to play Handel’s Easter oratorio, La Resurrezione, for Rome’s upper crust on Easter Sunday. The performance would take place inside the Baths of Caracalla on one of the world’s largest outdoor stages, reopened for this special performance.

  The prime minister had lost his head over a golden-haired soprano beauty, forty years his junior, rehearsing the role of Mary Magdalene. With the government facing collapse on the eve of a no-confidence vote, the political playboy scrapped his flurry of emergency meetings. Known more for dancing moves than political ones, the flitterbug of frivolity beelined to a symphony rehearsal earlier in the day without a security detail. An unexpected prize, he fell into the arms of the conspirators who had already taken the orchestra hostage before AISI learned of Piso’s whereabouts.

  “One more thing.” The scar on the cheek of the AISI agent quivered in a smile. “You’re taking temporary command of the operation.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Only until higher-ups name a replacement for the NOCS commander.”

  “Right. That’ll only take a year or so.” Leone rubbed his neck. “Questore Malatesta would never allow it.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Commissario.” The agent’s voice went somber. “Questore Malatesta has been relieved of his duties. He had knowledge of the conspiracy and his godson’s role in it. Yet he failed to report it or act against it.”

  “He went down for his godson.” Questore Malatesta was not an evil man. Just the wrong man for the job. “I still need the Polizia di Stato to approve this.”

  “The chief of police approved it.” The AISI agent put his hand on the commissario’s shoulder. “We need you. You trained with NOCS. You’re on the front line already. You have the leadership skills that—”

  “What about the carabinieri?”

  “Their chief of staff remained loyal, but the commander general is over there with Piso. Not a hostage, mind you, but one of the conspirators. We don’t know how far this cancer has eaten into the military branches.” The AISI agent grimaced. “That’s what we get for militarizing the carabinieri.”

  “They should demilitarize them, like they did the Polizia di Stato.” Leone looked at the Baths of Caracalla. “You’re in intelligence. You must know why I resigned from NOCS.”

  “How’s this?” The AISI agent rubbed his hand over his bald head like a good luck charm. “You took martial arts training with another cadet. He concealed a pulmonary condition. He died after you put him in a choke hold. You weren’t responsible. End of story.”

  “It didn’t feel that way.”

  “That was then. This is now.”

  “His brother’s a big shot in NOCS.”

  “His brother has gotten over it. So should you.”

  “I’ll take command . . . but on one condition.”

  “What is it?”

  “Give me a cigarette. I need one.”

  “You told me you don’t smoke anymore.”

  “To be exact, I said I no longer buy them.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  “I’m against a direct assault.” Leone returned to scrutinizing an architectural survey of the Baths of Caracalla in the command trailer. Finished in AD 217 by the Emperor Caracalla, the baths, covering the space of three soccer fields, had accommodated more than fifteen hundred bathers at a time. They were now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

  “The risk of damage is too great.” He looked up and opened the top buttons of his shirt to cool off. “We could cut off outside communications and wait him out.”

  “That won’t work.” Inspector Rossi fanned himself with a newspaper. “All Piso has to do is play out the clock. Rebels operating independently across the country, most still unknown to us, automatically start the coup on Easter Sunday. Time is on his side.”

  “That’s what Stroheim told the AISI. It doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  “Want to take the chance?”

  “You know what Piso’s messenger told us.” Leone drew his forefinger across his throat. “If we attack, they’ll slaughter all the hostages.”

  “The Alpine detachment could scale those walls at night.” Rossi removed binoculars from his neck. “They’ll surprise the guards and free the captive orchestra.”

  “Even if we seize the outdoor stage and free the orchestra without a massacre,” the commissario said, “Piso and his inner circle are holed up in the fortified bunker of the underground mithraeum. They’ll kill the prime minister and the negotiator held inside the mithraeum.”

  “Kill the prime minister?” A wicked grin spread across Rossi’s face. “Italy should be so lucky.”

  “Get serious.”

  “I am. If we crush the conspiracy in its shell, it’ll never hatch after the media blitz. Piso’s ringleaders won’t try a coup d’état with their leader dead or in chains.”

  “Let’s at least wait for the negotiator.” Would the sociopath inside let him go? “At least for now. We’ll know what Piso wants.”

  “You can’t negotiate with the devil. He’s just stalling.”

  “Have you forgotten? The Red Brigades murdered Prime Minister Aldo Moro when the government refused to negotiate.”

  “A little before my time.” Rossi scratched his head. “But not yielding was the right thing to do. I heard it broke the back of the Red Brigades.”

  Leone felt clammy and tired. “Easy to say when it’s not your life.” The humidity mired further thoughts. “We’ll decide when the negotiator returns.”

  “If he returns,” Rossi added. “Piso doesn’t have all his screws in place.”

  Chapter Seventy

  Across the esplanade abuzz with cicada songs, a figure zigzagged in the shadows toward the security perimeter set up by the Polizia di Stato around the Baths of Caracalla. After passing a watchword challenge, sentinels escorted the figure to Leone. He welcomed back the negotiator with a hug. “What did he say?”

  “He warned us not to storm the baths. Else everyone dies.”

  Leone waited for an armored personnel carrier to rumble past.

  “What about our offer?”

  “Went nowhere.” The negotiator wiped sweat off his brow. “The recommendation of leniency in return for surrender enraged him. He thinks he holds all the cards.”

  “How many men inside?” Leone fanned away twilight mosquitoes with his hat. “And the armament?”

  “Machine-gun emplacements outside the mithraeum entrance. The roundabout way they took me blindfolded through the grounds suggests land mines.” The negotiator twisted open a bottle of mineral water. “Kept me near the entrance, so I couldn’t determine the firepower inside.” He chugalugged the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Leone stooped to pet a panting Neapolitan mastiff accompanying the police canine unit on their way to patrol duty. He returned to the task at hand. “What about releasing the hostages . . . including the prime minister?”

  “Piso wants till Monday after Easter to consider it,” the negotiator said. “If we attack, everything’s off.”

  “The bastard’s trying to hoodwink us.” Leone clenched and unclenched his fists. “He thinks we don’t know the coup start time . . . sunrise, Easter Sunday.”

  “I let him believe we don’t know,” the negotiator said, tossing the water bottle aside. “We might be able to play this to our advantage.”

  “Damn.” Leone sighed. “He’s forcing us to take ac
tion before then.”

  “Looks that way.” The negotiator hesitated. “But he dangled one possibility . . . totally unacceptable. We give him a substitute hostage in place of the prime minister.”

  “Simultaneous exchange?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning . . . Good Friday.”

  “What hostage does he want?”

  “You . . . and no one else.”

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Enzo Rossi’s simmering silence made Leone feel more on edge. The inspector drummed his fingers on the dashboard of the parked squad car. Then Rossi erupted. “You can’t play hostage. Hostage exchanges are against departmental policy.”

  “You heard the negotiator.” Leone rolled down the front passenger window a little farther in search of a breeze. No one around to eavesdrop. “The prime minister screamed for me to be exchanged for him.”

  “Holy mother of God.” Rossi threw up his hands and turned to Leone. “The prime minister is saving his ass under duress. His orders have no validity.”

  “We need the prime minister.”

  “No we don’t. Prime ministers come and go. The country survives.”

  “Don’t let your emotions run away with you.” Leone opened the passenger door for more air. “Without a government in place . . . miserable as it is . . . Piso has a better chance of filling the political vacuum.”

  “Come on.” Rossi opened his door on the driver’s side. “If ever I saw a candidate for the Stockholm syndrome, it’s the prime minister.”

  “Where are you going with this Stockholm syndrome business?”

  “You saw the prime minister’s profile . . . a dependent personality with no core values. If he gets out, he’ll likely agree to whatever Piso wants, maybe even joining Roma Rinata and having us arrested.”

  “Spare me the psychobabble. We’re cops, not psychiatrists.”

  “Who’s supposed to take over when you’re inside?” Rossi waved to laborers working under the yellow glow of mobile sodium floodlights to cordon off the Baths of Caracalla with a final load of barricades and sandbags.

  “You can . . . until I come back,” the commissario said, remembering something in the architectural plans of the baths. A current of excitement pierced his lethargy.

  “What if you don’t . . .”

  “Come back?” He rubbed his chin. “Commissarios are replaceable.”

  “The new ones don’t have the military training you had.”

  “Brains are needed for this, dear Inspector Rossi. Not just guns.”

  Asking what the commissario was up to, Rossi followed Leone to the command trailer. Leone crouched over the architectural survey for the Baths of Caracalla.

  Three point two kilometers of tunnels ran along three different levels underground. Each tunnel measured six meters high and six across, wide enough for two ox carts to pass through with the tons of wood needed daily to fire up the fifty bath furnaces. And those were only the known tunnels. From the depths of his mind, a childhood memory about the tunnels floated to the surface of awareness. Leone grinned.

  That could be my subterranean surprise.

  “I know that look.” Rossi tapped Leone on the shoulder. “What’s up?”

  “I have a plan, Inspector Rossi.” The commissario rubbed his hands together. “But I need to get inside to scope out their defenses.”

  “One problem.” Rossi crossed his arms. “How can you give us the scoop if you’re a hostage inside?” He then tapped his head with his finger. “You’re always telling me to use this.”

  Rossi tapping his head. Tapping. Body language. That was the answer.

  The negotiator poked his face inside the trailer door. “What do I tell Piso?”

  “One minute before you turn me over to Piso.” Everything depended on coordination. “I must let Inspector Rossi know what I’m up to.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Under the Baths of Caracalla, reed pipes warbled the revival of the sacred taurobolium rite as a passing storm cracked thunderbolts on Good Friday morning. Clad in buckskin trousers and star-studded cape, Lucio Piso grew giddy behind the alabaster mask of Mithras in the swelter of a pit dug into the mithraeum.

  Above the pit, costumed Ravens, Bridegrooms, and Lions crowded the two stone benches running the length of the chamber to witness their leader’s beatification. Even those Soldiers guarding the entrance would witness his elevation. Just as he anticipated, the rising incantation of Nama . . . Nama . . . Sebesio and the sweet smell of incense trapped by limited ventilation intoxicated his besieged acolytes into a communal state of desperate destiny. Like berserkers, they would fight to the death.

  Crouched like a fetus within the dark pit topped with perforated planks, Piso shivered in anticipation of his blood baptism. The clomping of the white bull calf dragged in chains reverberated on the planks. As in classic days, the Ravens crowned the drugged beast with a garland of jasmine and magnolia blossoms and adorned its flanks with gilded cloth and tiny bells. He fought back against the near loss of consciousness in the fetid constriction of the pit.

  The Pater appointed to replace Carlos Stroheim the traitor intoned a prayer overhead before slitting the bullock’s throat. The hypnotic thumping of the drum accompanied bovine bellowing. Blood seeped through the perforations of the planks and plopped droplets one by one on the alabaster mask of Mithras. The Pater Patrum closed his eyes as the crimson blood of the baby bull fell faster, like a summer shower, in tune with the music, spattering his mask and stippling red his star-specked cape. He could not, must not, black out at this critical time.

  They, the upstarts of a Judean cult, thought they could obliterate Mithras by mocking his adherents.

  But we are not deceived in the caves.

  The inscription on the mithraeum wall above—Unconquered Mithras—had survived as did the images of Sol, the sun god, and Luna, the moon goddess. Even the fresco of Mithras in his stocking cap and solar disk had weathered the ages. They deceived themselves in thinking they had smothered the old ways. What they covered over was rising again and would soon poke its head above the earth at sunrise on Easter Sunday to spread its seed.

  The clash of cymbals joined the rising drumbeat. Blood streamed into the pit with the whiff of musky incense. Hunched over in the mithraeum’s womb, he licked the metallic-tasting blood from his lips. The musical frenzy stirred up thoughts of revenge while he hovered in a dream state on the edge of consciousness. Once he emerged victorious from the cave of Mithras, he would re-create the bronze bull of ancient torture and bake Stroheim inside until he moaned like the dying baby bull.

  The music ended. Two Ravens raised him up from the pit, his tunic dripping blood. The bullock knelt on its forelegs as though in prayer. He straddled the animal and stabbed it in the neck with his dagger.

  The creature collapsed dead in its own urine.

  Fanning out his cape like the wings of an avenging angel, the Pater Patrum proclaimed the dawning of a new age and the destruction of the old. At his feet, the prime minister rattled a cage whose dimensions forced him to crouch on hands and knees. He begged for release at whatever price the Pater Patrum demanded.

  The Pater Patrum drank from the chalice of the bull’s blood and passed it among the inner circle of Roma Rinata gathered round him. Chimes resonated through the mithraeum. With a blood oath they swore loyalty and hailed him with outstretched arms as the Father of Fathers, the anointed representative of Mithras on earth.

  He held up his hands. “You are mistaken.”

  Events showed the Mithras revival more than propaganda, more than his becoming the vicar of Mithras. Had not Virgil, the Roman poet, referred to the coming of a savior to restore the golden age? Lucio the puppet could not ascend to the truth, but the spiritually enlightened Pater Patrum could.

  “I am Mithras reborn.” />
  The Heliodromus broke the stunned silence with the cry “Mithras is reborn.”

  The congregation chanted the cry over and over, beginning in faltering tones and ending in a full-throated mantra. With eyes closed and mind numbed by the adulation, he felt the Heliodromus perfume his hair and wipe away the gore from his face with a warm sponge.

  “Commissario Marco Leone has arrived,” cried a guard at the entrance.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  With a butt kick, the Roma Rinata sentry propelled the prime minister toward the police negotiator waiting to receive him in the Good Friday hostage exchange. The playboy politician fell in the mud. He struggled to get up. Marco Leone cringed at the spectacle of the prime minister trying to adjust his toupee.

  They had broken the prime minister.

  They would not break him.

  On his way under guard to meet Lucio Piso, Leone calculated the number of defenders and their weapons. The armed men he passed had military training. A generator, air conditioner, and medical supplies showed foresight.

  Blood slicked the paving stones surrounding the pit in the main aisle like crimson gelatin. He placed his hand over his nose to block the stench. Not even improvised air vents could dispel the odor.

  Had Piso squirreled away reserves in the auxiliary chambers and web of tunnels running under the largest mithraeum in the Roman Empire?

  Everything depended on Piso not discovering the subterranean surprise.

  “My dear Commissario, welcome. I told you at the Hotel Elysian we would meet again.” Piso rose from his camp stool at the front of the main aisle. “I would like you to meet my cadre.”

  A Lion seated to Piso’s right lifted his mask. The minister of justice. Another Lion seated to Piso’s left raised his mask. The minister of foreign affairs. A Lion standing behind them lifted his. The minister of economy and finance. The commissario steadied himself, aghast at the extent of the conspiracy.