The Hounds of Rome - Mystery of a Fugitive Priest

by Tom Clancy

  Steve placed a call to his brother, Jonathon in Wayland.

  Jonathon’s voice was garbled, husky. “For God’s sake, Steve, what’s up? You’re calling me at five in the morning? Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m in Paris. Just arrived. I’m at the Royal Saint-Michel in the Latin Quarter. It’s noon here. Sorry. I forgot about the time difference. Just wanted to let you know I had to leave the Aleutians. The brothers showed up.”

  “I figured as much. There was a guy who stopped in the office a few weeks ago and I think he got your address in Dutch Harbor off the rolodex in my office. The card was missing.”

  “Must have been one of Rhinehart’s guys.”

  “Very likely. Well I’m sure sorry about it. It won’t happen again.”

  “How are you feeling these days?”

  “Not too good. But Marge has been wonderful. She’s taking really good care of me. Is Paris going to be your new home, Steve?”

  “No. Just a stop-off. After that I’m heading to Israel. I’ve booked a room in a boarding house right near the Western Wall in Jerusalem. “I’ll let you know my new address, but please be careful about my whereabouts. It seems as soon as I set my suitcase down somewhere, the monastery thugs show up.”

  “I will Steve. In fact, I’ve worked up a little plan to throw them off the track.”

  “Tell Marge I said hello and take care of yourself.”

  *****

  Father Angelo Mazzone picked up the phone in his office located over the Saint Callistus Catacombs on the Old Appian Way just south of Rome.

  “Pronto,” he said in the deep sonorous voice that Steve immediately recognized.

  “Angelo, it’s me, Steve. I’m in Paris.”

  “Steve, my old roommate. “Como esta? Why are you in Paris? On my last visit to America, you were pastor of a parish in Maryland. Are you on vacation?”

  “No, I’ve got a problem, Angelo. Since the last time I saw you my parish was taken away and I was sent to a monastery in Arizona. At the time I never knew why the cardinal sent me there. It was a hell-hole—run by a bunch of thugs, I left without permission and I hate to say it but now I’m on the run. I’ll be in Rome in about a month and when I get there, I’ll tell you all the details.”

  “Steve, old friend, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. But is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Yes, you may be able to help. I know you have high-level contacts at the Vatican. I’m trying to find out whether the Curia has taken any action of a case instituted by Cardinal Wollman and later taken over by Cardinal Rhinehart after Wollman died. It involves the validity of a human clone. I know the church is strenuously opposed to the cloning of humans. What I’m trying to find out is the Curia’s position on a person who was born as a clone through no fault of his own. And, could the church accept a clone in the guise of a Catholic priest, complicated by the fact that he might also be a mixed-breed chimera?”

  “Steve, as we used to say at the university, is this just a theological question to be pondered in endless research and discussions, or does it represent a real case?”

  “It’s real, Angelo, it’s me, and I’m anxious because I’ve been waiting for over a year to pick up word. I’ve been constantly on the run. Cardinal Rhinehart didn’t wait for an answer from the Vatican, he just moved quickly to force me out. He sent me to that monastery in Arizona. It’s run like a prison by monks who call themselves ‘brothers’.”

  “Which one? What name?”

  “The Passion Monastery.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  “The American cardinals and bishops don’t advertise it. It’s a place where they send bad priests—ones they gave up on and are trying to get out of the church. Believe me, I haven’t done anything wrong but they are saying my ordination was not valid. After I escaped they sent a couple of monks to bring me back. But there’s more to the story—these guys have an old axe to grind with me and I think they are really trying to kill me. They’ve made an attempt so far, but I managed to escape. And recently in Alaska, they tried again but I escaped at the last moment.”

  “My dear friend I find that really hard to believe. How could anyone in the church deliberately commit murder? But if they have been chasing you as far as Alaska, they must be very determined to bring you back according to the cardinal’s wishes. And if that place in Arizona is as bad as you say, I’ll do what I can to keep them from forcing you back there. And, may I ask, are you still performing the holy sacraments?”

  “Whenever I can, but it’s been spotty.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t had your right to say Mass and administer the sacraments revoked.”

  “Well if my ministerial duties have been revoked, I’m not aware of it.”

  “Where are you staying now, Steve?”

  “I’m at a small hotel—The Royal Saint-Michel in the Latin Quarter. I’ll only be here for a week or two because I’m heading to Israel, to the Holy Land, to do some meditating and probably a bit of sightseeing.”

  “Since it’s quite unlikely that I will get an answer while you’re still in Paris, I’ll contact you in Israel. Have you found a place to stay there?”

  “Yes, I’ll be at a guest house in Jerusalem run by a Jewish family, about a block from the Western Wall. I’ll mail you the address and I’ll get back in touch as soon as I arrive there.”

  “Why are you staying in a guest house? Why not stay in one of the monasteries? There are several of them in and around Jerusalem.”

  “Too dangerous,” Steve replied. “Monasteries communicate with one another.”

  “Yes, I see the risk. Well, goodbye old friend. God be with you.”

  “And with you, Angelo. I’ll need God and probably also a bit of luck.”

  *****

  After hanging up, Steve walked over to the mirror in his room. As he studied himself in the full-length mirror, he decided to change from the black priestly garb with the roman collar into casual street clothes. He was bent on wandering through the city and mingling with the crowds unnoticed.

  At Notre Dame, he said a few short prayers in a back pew. His visit was brief because he had taken the grand tour of the cathedral including the treasury containing the holy relics and had studied the famous rose stained glass window on his earlier visit. As he turned to leave, he looked up at the left side balcony and remembered that his earlier guide had said that it was the place where a sniper had hidden trying to assassinate Charles de Gaulle as he stood on the altar making a speech at the end of World War ll, just as the Germans were leaving Paris. After one missed shot, the assassin was shot by a gendarme.

  After leaving Notre Dame, Steve took a cab to the Arc de Triomphe at the head of the Champs Elysees. Walking down the broad avenue and hearing the constant honking of horns of the heavy traffic, he could hear the strains of Gershwin’s American In Paris ringing in his head. He marveled at the way Gershwin had captured the sounds of Paris in his music.

  He slipped into a chair at a sidewalk brasserie for lunch and was uncertain how to order because he knew only halting French. But he had no need to worry because the waiter was an American exchange student who immediately picked up Steve’s American accent. Like all the other waiters in the restaurant, he was strangely dressed in a sailor suit. Lunch consisted of Jambon de Paris, frites and espresso—to Steve it was ham, French fries and coffee. There didn’t seem to be any salad on the menu although there might have been, but Steve couldn’t recognize it. If I ate this way every day, he thought, I’d soon be as big as a fat overstuffed monastic friar. He had heard that many monasteries had little in the way of amenities to offer with the exception of copious amounts of food. Without that, they might have gone out of existence. Of course, the ascetic Passion Monastery in Arizona was different because being more on the order of a prison, there were few amenities.

  By chance, seated nearby was an older man in black with a roman collar. A distinguished looking man with hair graying at the temples.
Steve smiled in his direction at which point the clergyman walked over and took an empty seat right next to him. Good grief, Steve thought, a clergyman, undoubtedly a priest, on the prowl for converts.

  “I don’t want to sound rude,” Steve said, “but I don’t think I’m a good candidate for conversion because I’m a Catholic priest. Been there, done that, as they say.” Steve smiled and chuckled, trying to keep the encounter on the light side, as he popped another French fry into his mouth.

  The newcomer raised his eyebrows in surprise. “But as we used to say when I was a chaplain in the military, you’re out of uniform—what we call wearing mufti. How come?”

  “Before I answer that,” Steve replied, “I assume you’re an American. Tell me, what branch of the service were you in?”

  “U.S. Navy at your service,” the priest answered with a mock salute. My name’s Henry. And you are…?”

  “Steve Murphy.”

  “Where do you hail from, Steve?”

  “Various places,” Steve answered guardedly. Then, picking the most faraway place he could think of, said, “I spent a lot of time in Alaska. Ever been there?”

  “Can’t say that I have. I’ve been stationed in Naples—headquarters of the U.S. Sixth Fleet. Seen all of the Med, but not much else. I retired as a chaplain a few years ago. Now I’m attached to a monastery just outside of Paris. Incidentally, you’d be welcome to stay there while you’re in Paris.”

  Steve silently shuddered at the thought of staying in a monastery. The Passion Monastery had been enough for him. “Thanks, but I’m OK. I’m at the Royal Saint-Michel in the Latin Quarter.”

  “Don’t you find that expensive? I know it’s too rich for my blood.”

  “I managed to get a discount,” Steve said, a bit disappointed in himself for the lie. “In answer to your question, Henry, I’m in mufti as you call it because I want to do some sightseeing and just blend in with the crowd.”

  “Well, maybe we could join forces. I know this town upside and down. We can go everywhere except the Moulin Rouge—too many bare-breasted females there, they tell me. Can’t think of anything more disgusting.”

  Steve didn’t say anything, but he thought, What’s with this guy? Steve was of the opinion that women’s God-given bodies were hardly disgusting, but, of course, if one gazed at them with lustful eyes, he realized they could be an occasion of sin.

  Steve was reluctant to join up with another priest. There would be questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer, but he finally agreed to their spending some time together. It would help having someone who knew his way around. And it was only for a few days.

  *****

  The pair of priests spent three full days in the Louvre. At one point, Steve remembered something that made him chuckle. “I visited the Louvre,” he said, “when I was in Paris before but I was pressed for time, and I remember that I was tempted to do what the American newspaper columnist, Art Buchwald did when he visited the Louvre.”

  “Yes, I remember reading Buchwald’s column on occasion. But what did he do at the Louvre?” Henry asked, puzzled.

  “Well, Buchwald was also pressed for time, so he ran into the Louvre, saw the statue of Venus de Milo, hurried down another corridor to see the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and then to the Italian paintings gallery to see the Mona Lisa. Later, in an article he claimed it was possible to see ‘the big three’ in eight minutes flat.”

  “Not much of an art lover, I presume,” Henry responded with distaste.

  “Well, he did it as a gag. I suppose he was trying to prove a point that you didn’t have to spend a week at the Louvre, you could see its most famous treasures in just a few minutes.”

  After the days at the Louvre, Henry took Steve on almost a week of sightseeing in Paris. One day they walked through Les Invalides, formerly a hospital for wounded soldiers. “Never saw so many cannons lined up in my life,” Steve commented. “Are they expecting an attack on the building?”

  “No my friend. These are just ornamental. They’ve been brought back from the battlefields.”

  In Napoleon’s tomb in the church called Domes Des Invalides, they leaned on the railing on the second level looking down from the large circular opening at the huge red granite sarcophagus on the lower level that held the Corsican’s body.

  “It’s probably an overkill,” Henry said, “but in order to foil grave robbers, his body lies in six coffins similar to the way the Egyptian pharaohs were entombed. The first, closest to the body is made of tin; the second mahogany; the third and fourth of lead; the fifth of ebony and the sixth of oak all inside the red granite sarcophagus. Notice the statues around the marble floor surrounding his body. They commemorate Napoleon’s victories.”s

  “I didn’t realize he had won so many wars,” Steve commented.

  “He didn’t really.” Henry answered. He won most but not all. And, of course, he was exiled, but later returned to power for awhile. He died on St. Helena in 1821 and although he had been exiled, he was considered one of the greatest of French heroes. In a way, it’s similar to the attitude of many Russians towards Lenin. Although Lenin was the leader of the Communist revolution which was later repudiated, he is nevertheless still highly respected because as they say, ‘He was part of our history’. And I believe the French feel that way about Napoleon. When Napoleon’s body was brought back to Paris the entire city turned out for the funeral procession that went through the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elyseus to his final resting place in this church.”

  *****

  Leaving Napoleon’s tomb the pair walked to the Place de la Concorde. Henry pointed out that it was the site of the former guillotine where Henry VI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded along with thousands of others during the French Revolution. “I have a surprise for you,” Henry said. “Let’s take a cab to the police station. It’s actually police headquarters in Paris—called the Palais de Justice.”

  “I don’t get it,” Steve said. “Do they have a museum there or something?”

  “You’ll see.”

  At the guarded entrance, they walked through a metal detector. Henry had to surrender the five-inch metal crucifix tucked in his belt. It would be returned to him on the way out.

  Inside the courtyard, Steve was surprised to see a beautiful chapel completely surrounded by what appeared to be a four or five story office building.

  Henry, delighted by the look of surprise on Steve’s face, said the hidden chapel was unknown to most tourists. He explained that this was Sainte-Chapelle built by Louis lX, located in the courtyard of his famous palace that was later taken over by the Paris Halls of Justice. “It has been preserved as a museum,” he said, leading Steve inside the main entrance. Steve marveled at the chapel’s two-story-high stained glass windows. “Pretty convenient, having your own private church built inside your home.”

  But soon after leaving the Halls of Justice, there was one happening that seemed troubling to Steve. As a young man rode by on a bicycle, Henry leaned over and whispered in Steve’s ear, “Oh my, what an ass on that guy!”

  Steve momentarily thought Henry was making a joke about someone with an obese rear end, but when he looked around at the bicyclist, all he could see was a young man who seemed to be quite fit. He was beginning to become convinced that his new friend was gay.

  Later at Montmarte, as Steve was examining the paintings of the sidewalk artists, he saw Henry walk up to a young man and embrace him in a bear hug. The man responded by giving Henry a kiss on the cheek. In fact, a kiss on each cheek, after the French custom. But these kisses seemed to Steve to be more than just a polite greeting.

  After almost ten days of trotting all around town, with frequent stops for espresso at sidewalk cafes, Henry, always jovial and full of information, was seemingly just getting warmed up, but Steve, although fascinated, was beginning to get saturated with Paris sightseeing.

  One evening, the pair of priests sat at a table on a narrow sidewalk outside a small Italian rest
aurant in the Latin Quarter. It was the only table available. Inside, the restaurant was full. They were a bit unnerved by automobiles that crept down the side street just inches away from their table. One car mirror almost knocked the wine glass out of Henry’s hand.

  “Not too good from the standpoint of air pollution,” Steve commented.

  “Or the restaurant’s glassware,” Henry responded with a laugh. “Tell me, Steve, how are things going with the church in the United States? Haven’t been back there in many years and over here we only get paltry information.”

  “Things are not too good. And there’s a strange dichotomy you may have heard about: while the number of Catholics has increased by about a third in some forty years, now approaching 70 to 75 million, the opposite has happened with the clergy. Over three thousand American parishes no longer have a resident priest.”

  “What in heaven do the parishioners do? How do they get the sacraments?”

  “I guess many of them don’t. As I understand it, in the early years after Vatican II about ten thousand priests dropped out. Many stayed in the church but as deacons, and as members of the active laity. And since then, the numbers have fallen another ten thousand. So you’re talking about sixty thousand down to about forty thousand.”

  “How do you explain it?”

  “Not sure. Some of it was due to the expectation that Vatican II under John XXIII would permit priests to marry and, of course, after he died, that never happened.”

  “It might have under the liberal pontiff—John Paul I,” Henry commented, “but as I recall, he died only thirty-three days after being elected pontiff. One wonders if his election was not, as we might say, fully approved by the Almighty. And, an interesting historical fact: did you know that over a dozen popes died within one month after being elected to the pontificate?”

  “Yes,” Steve said with a shrug. “I suppose one explanation is that by the time they have acquired enough experience and influence, they’re old men. And the current pontiff is over ninety, isn’t he?”