The Templar Concordat

by Terrence O'Brien

  The Master turned as he was leaving. “Do your best Patrick. You probably know better than anyone how damaging this could be.”

  “I’m on it. I’m on it. He shuffled back to his table. “Infallibility. Hmmph. Whoever dreamed up that doozy should choke on his own pride.”

  Zurich - Friday, March 20

  Wednesday morning, an hour before the seven members of the Council of the Knights Templar were to meet, the Marshall and the Templar Chief of Intelligence presented themselves before the Master’s secretary in the outer office. The Marshall inclined his head toward the locked office and raised an eyebrow.

  “Deputy Commissioner of Banking for Switzerland, and a heavy hitter from the Bank of England,” whispered the secretary.

  “How long?”

  “They’ve been in there about an hour. Do I need to break it up?”

  “No. But hit the button. Hit it hard. We’ll be in there.” The two men walked into a small conference room and closed the door.

  The Master saw the purple light flashing below his desktop. Unusual. He quickly ran through the closing pleasantries, escorted the bankers to the door, and turned them over to a young woman who would usher them into their waiting limos.

  “In there.” The secretary pointed at the closed door.

  The Master entered the room and sat opposite the Marshall and Intel Chief. “Ok. What is it?”

  The Intel Chief looked up and said quietly, “We cracked the Blackberry code. The one Callahan got from that guy in Costa Rica.”

  He passed a sheet of paper to the Master. He silently read it, then placed it face down on the table.

  The Intel Chief pointed at the paper. “Those are the encoded messages that Rashid hadn’t opened yet. Since he hadn’t opened them, he didn’t know those details when Callahan and Marie interrogated him. He just never knew. Couldn’t have.”

  “Who decoded this? Who else knows? Any way Callahan could have read this? Marie?”

  “Nobody else. I did it myself. Callahan and Marie had the Blackberry with the clear message, nothing else. Our computers took a while to crack it. New code. So those two sure didn’t figure it out with a pencil on the back of an air-sick bag.”

  “Crap. Crap. Crap. So, Callahan and Marie know an attack is coming soon, but not these specifics. My God, what a mess this is.” The Master looked at his watch. “I think we have a Council meeting to go to. I’m afraid it will be a long one. A very long one.”

  Chapter Two

  Vatican - Easter Sunday, March 22

  The gates of the Vatican beckoned to all who felt the call of the Church, and Ibrahim heard the call. He had come for the Church. His electric wheelchair moved silently with the crowd, and he nodded his twisted head in thanks to people who let him pass. The Easter crowd was heavy with the faithful, and Ibrahim might not be much, but he was faithful to God.

  He was a poster child for mobile medical technology. His frozen right hand clutched a small joystick that guided his electric chair into St. Peter’s Piazza. Two plastic tubes trailed from his nostrils to a pair of oxygen tanks secured to the arm of the chair, and he clutched a palm-sized chunk of plastic that he pressed to the front of his throat when he wanted to speak. While no words ever came out of his mouth when he spoke, a hollow, mechanical croak came from the device when it detected vibrations from his ruined throat and vocal cords.

  But Ibrahim’s infirmities meant nothing this morning. He had rarely felt more alive, and had rarely felt closer to his God. What did a few physical problems actually mean in the full eternity of man’s existence? Man is not body, but immortal soul. Bodies come. Bodies go. Was that not what all religions taught? Even the false religions? The pagans? The Heathen? And hadn’t he sacrificed his body in the service of God? The closer he approached the ancient seat of Christianity, closer he came to God.

  He slowed the chair when the crowd began to bunch in front of the security stations. Since it was a major feast day, more than 300,000 people would flock to the Vatican. After terrorists had stormed the Pope’s residence the previous year, thirty stations had been strung across the entrance to St. Peter’s Square

  Checking all visitors was a physical impossibility without greatly restricting the access of the faithful to the Vatican. But all packages, strollers, and wheelchairs were checked. Also, anyone who simply looked wrong was checked. Anything from furtive eye movement to bulky clothing was a reason for a check. Wear a long coat, and get checked. Carry an umbrella, and get checked. Push a baby carriage, and get checked. Most people simply passed through under the eyes of the guards. But there were other eyes, too. Metal detectors, explosives sniffers, facial scanners, heat detectors and infrared cameras targeted each person coming through the stations.

  Ibrahim steered his chair toward an additional station located to the left of the others that handled the many people who were disabled or unable, for whatever reason, to efficiently move through the normal stations. The Vatican Security chief was very pragmatic. He simply figured he should move all the problems out of the general flow of people so everyone wasn’t inconvenienced by the few. Fewer distractions meant his people could do a better job.

  He waited behind two wheelchairs and a bent old woman with a walker furiously fingering her beads and mumbling her prayers. The guards were very methodical, checking the chairs and gently peeking under the blankets that covered crippled or missing legs.

  A guard caught Ibrahim’s eye and waved. “Happy Easter, my friend! Good to see you.”

  Ibrahim smiled and brought the voice amplifier to his throat. “Grazzi, Paulo,” the machine squawked. Paulo laughed and waved again, hardly understanding anything that machine was saying. He had seen Ibrahim every morning he had been on duty for the past year. The old man showed up for morning mass at St. Peter’s like clockwork. Once, while checking Ibrahim, Paulo had mentioned that his wife had just given birth to their first baby. The next day Ibrahim handed him a gift-wrapped statue of St. Christopher for the baby.

  While the guards checked the woman with the beads in front of Ibrahim, he lurched with a hacking cough that racked his whole body. He brought a small towel up to his face to catch the spittle that dripped from his lips down the front of his shirt. When security let the woman pass through, the two guards regarded Ibrahim with some hesitation. Small clots of blood stained the towel and dangled from his chin. Mucus slowly rolled from his nose, and the hand with the towel twitched violently.

  Paulo and two other guards stood helplessly by his side. They all wanted to help, but didn’t have a clue what to actually do.

  “My friend,” said Paulo leaning over the chair, “are you alright? What can we do?”

  Ibrahim feebly waved the hand with the towel dismissively, just missing Paulo, who skipped back to avoid contact with the dirty, wet cloth.

  He rammed the amplifier to his throat. “I’m Ok. Ok. Just a bit of a cough. A chill, maybe. You know? The air? But it is God’s air, no? Will we complain about God’s air? Today of all days? Isn’t today a great day?” He looked up sideways at the guards. “God will understand, won’t he?”

  Paulo eyed him with sympathy. “Yes, yes. God understands.”

  But when Paulo reached his scanner toward the chair to begin the security check, Ibrahim jerked horribly, croaked, and vomited all over himself and the chair. For a big man, Paulo pivoted like a cat to avoid the mess. He was quick, but not quick enough to avoid getting his leg and shoes sprayed.

  Ibrahim quietly sobbed with embarrassment and apologized. He was sorry, so very sorry. He feebly wiped at the ticket he clutched in one hand, the ticket that would allow him access to the special wheelchair section in St. Peter’s.

  The officer in charge of the station signaled Paulo to move Ibrahim and his chair to the side so he wouldn’t cause a backup in the line. Then he radioed for a nurse from the nearby aid station to check the poor man in the wheelchair.

  When the nurse finished cleaning Ibrahim and determined he was not in any real physical distress
, she wished him a happy Easter, gave him back his cleaned ticket and a fresh hand towel, put a cool bottle of water in his cup holder, and let him proceed into the Piazza toward the huge Basilica of St. Peter. Ibrahim thanked her and said he was going to God soon. The nurse thought she had never seen such simple and pure faith. So little time left for him in this life, yet such faith!

  Of the 300,000 people who entered the Vatican state that day, Ibrahim was the only one who passed through security without being checked.

  * * *

  Callahan walked along the top of the colonnade surrounding the huge Piazza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. He shared the top of the colonnade with 140 silent companions, all statues. He leaned up against St. Hubald and watched a group of spiky-haired teens who actually seemed a bit self-conscious in the middle of the huge crowd that gathered every Easter morning. The purple Mohawk hairstyles, unwashed black T-shirts, and studded belts set them apart. But terrorists rarely made a spectacle of themselves. “Look for the quiet loner,” his instructors had said. “Most people come to events with someone else, right? They come with a wife, or children, or their parents. Some even come with their dogs. Face it, terrorists don’t drag Mama along when they want to shoot the president or blow up Congress. Don’t get sucked in by the obvious. It steals your attention. If you let your attention be stolen, you’ve already lost.”

  A day like today was as bad as it could get. St. Peter’s could hold 60,000, and the Piazza that fronted it could handle another 300,000. On Easter they swamped the Vatican, and God only knew how many of them were deranged, criminals, certified nut cases, or terrorists. How many are in any group of 300,000?

  He dealt with the terrorists. Let the shrinks and the cops take care of the nuts and crooks. His job here was to provide the final, floating level of protection that just might catch the terrorist who slipped through all the other security nets. He looked for what the rest of the system overlooked. And since Costa Rica he knew what the rest of the system didn’t.

  Officially, he wasn’t at the Vatican since he was a Templar. But Zurich had connived to get Alberto Mancini, another Templar, into the number-two position in Vatican security, and he put Callahan on as a consultant.

  “Hell,” said Mancini, “if Zurich can bend the rules, so can I. And we sure need the help.”

  The mere presence of a Templar inside the Vatican was a violation of a six hundred-year-old Concordat between the Church and the Templars, and now there were two. But that was something for the Pope and the Templar Master to hash out. He just went where they told him to go.

  “We know there is an Al Qaeda attack coming,” Mancini told him, “but we don’t know when, we don’t know where, and we don’t know how. When you put all that together, it means we really don’t know squat.”

  “Zurich doesn’t have anything better than that?” asked Callahan. He knew they did, but was under orders to pretend he didn’t.

  Mancini shrugged. “Who knows what Zurich has? They might have the terrorists’ battle plans on an animated PowerPoint presentation. But you know how it is between the Templars and the Vatican. Zurich might know, but that doesn’t mean Zurich will tell.”

  This was a terrorist’s dream come true, thought Callahan. All these people stuffed in a confined space were sitting ducks. Mortars, RPGs, guns, bombs, anthrax? Anything would work. He caught himself, stopped day-dreaming about terrorists, and started looking for them.

  Everyone thought security was pretty good until last year when the gun battle erupted at the papal residence. Four terrorists had been killed by Vatican Security in a pitched battle, but before they died they had killed ten Vatican staff, fifteen tourists, and two armed security guards.

  After that fiasco, heads had rolled and careers were just memories. The professionals tried to employ all the modern tactics, but they ran straight into a brick wall named Pope Pius XIII.

  “St. Peter’s is the house of God, and the Vatican is the seat of God’s church,” he had screamed at his aides and the Italian generals. Anyone meeting the Pope for the first time was always amazed such a fragile body could produce such a screeching bellow.

  “I will not have the faithful denied access to the Lord,” he continued. He pointed his thin, shaking finger at the security chiefs. “It’s your job to make this work. We are not running a football game or a rock concert here. Don’t you even have a clue about what we are doing here? We are doing the work of the Lord. And the people will not be prevented from coming to the Lord.” He slammed his tiny fist down on his desk and most of his aides expected the hand to shatter. “Now do it!”

  So, Callahan kept looking, knew it was coming, and just hoped he found it before it found him.

  * * *

  Bishop Santini turned in front of the full-length mirror in his small Vatican apartment and frowned at what he saw. He expected the tall and trim athlete he remembered. Instead, a gray, skinny, stooped old man looked back. He really wasn’t old, but he looked it and he felt it. He placed his hand firmly on his midsection and straightened his shoulders. Better, much better, but it hurt his back too much.

  He unbuttoned his cassock and threw it into a chair. He was one of twenty privileged cardinals and bishops concelebrating Easter mass with the Pope in St. Peters, and he would look his best no matter what he had to do. God deserved it. The Pope deserved it, and, Santini smiled, his career deserved it.

  He had just adjusted the complicated laces on his back support when someone thumped on his door. It wasn’t a polite knock, applied with the deference and discretion owed a man of his standing. No, it was a rough thumping like someone trying to hammer down the door.

  Santini grabbed a robe, jerked open the door with a snarl, and stopped in his tracks. A large and round man wearing filthy coveralls stood in front of him. He held his hat in one dirty hand and offered a half salute with the other.

  “Good morning, Excellency,” the man said in strangely accented and broken Italian and English. “Isn’t it a fine Easter morning today?”

  Santini just stared.

  The man shifted on his feet and scratched at his face. “Excellency, I really don’t know how to say this. I mean we worked all night. It’s just not our fault, you see,” the man stammered. “This stuff is so old, and sometimes… well, you know… some things are just in God’s hands. You know what I am trying to say?”

  Now Bishop Santini could smell him as well as see him, and the odor drove him back a step. “Just stop right where you are. Tell me who you are and what you want.” Command came easily to Santini.

  The man shifted his feet around a bit. “Excellency, I’m afraid a large pipe… you know the one running under the Vatican Library? Well, it had a problem, and well… can those old books be cleaned? I mean not all of them were… Some are just fine. We wiped some of them off with a rag.”

  Santini’s heart raced. “Are you telling me there is a broken pipe in the Vatican Library?”

  “Why, yes, Excellency.” The man looked surprised. “That’s what I have been telling you.”

  The Vatican Library? Santini’s library? He thought of the priceless collections housed in the Vatican Library. It held material going back thousands of years that could never be replaced. The Church housed its official archives there, and its collection of art, literature, theology, and philosophy was world class. Manuscripts came from China, India, the Renaissance, and the Reformation, a collection started when the rest of the world was barely bathing. The Church had led the way. As the bishop in charge of the day-to-day operation of the library, Santini was responsible for every single scrap of paper in the collection. He was the scholar.

  He snatched up whatever he found in his closet and shot questions at the man who still hovered in the door. “When? What collection? How much damage? Why didn’t you call me?”

  The man clasped his hands in front of his chest and said, “Excellency, I don’t know. It’s… it’s a big sewer pipe and it’s a big mess.” The man laughed. “Ha, it shows a whole
different side of the Vatican.” He waved his hands, shook his head, and shrugged at the same time. “My partner should have closed the main valve by now, so it has probably stopped flowing.” He snorted again. “I hope nobody flushes.”

  The bishop’s hands shook with so much anger he could hardly tie his shoes. “Probably! Probably! It has probably stopped? Probably! You idiot!” He grabbed a large key ring, slipped an electronic card key on a lanyard over his head, and pushed out the door as fast as his once-strong legs could take him, down the corridor of the small residence he shared with other privileged Vatican officials. “Come with me,” he ordered. “We have to get there now.”

  “Excellency, some of the rooms… you know? They have fancy new locks. You have those keys?”

  “Yes, you moron.” Santini looked back. “I have every key for the library and those new security locks.”

  “Excellency, wait. Wait.” The man gestured with both hands. “Come this way. I have a maintenance cart out back. Come. It will be quicker than fighting our way through all those Easter people. They’re everywhere.”

  The maintenance cart was a small, three-wheeled van with a single seat for the driver. Santini stopped and looked at the fat man. “And how do we both fit in there? You can hardly fit yourself.”

  “Excellency. In the back. There is room in the back. We do it all the time. Hurry. We can be there in no time. Yes? Don’t sit on my lunch. Please.” The man huffed heavily, held open the back door, and gestured for Santini to enter.

  Santini heaved himself into the back, muttering all the way, “I’ll have your job for this. Somebody will pay. Do you know what is in the Vatican Library collection?”

  “Yes, Excellency. Books. But hurry. We will be there in no time.” The man shut the door on the bishop, glanced around, slipped a padlock through the hasp, and clicked the lock shut.

  * * *

  St. Peter’s Piazza is an ellipse stretching for 196 meters on the long axis, and 148 meters on the short axis. Each time Ibrahim crossed it on his way to St. Peter’s he marveled at its openness and beauty. Unity, harmony, variety, and balance. It was built by masters. Crossing the short axis of the square, he skirted to the left of Caligula’s huge obelisk. Built for the Pharaohs, then it was Caligula’s, and now it was the Pope’s, he thought. Who gets it next? Then the imposing dome of the Basilica disappeared behind the immense façade as he closed on the church. A stairway stretching the full width of the church gently led worshippers through the portico to the main front doors. He always approached the church straight on, as if he still had a fully functioning body and could proudly walk up those stairs with the body God gave him. But, as he always did, he turned left when he reached the first stair, and guided his chair toward a ramp that gave access to strollers and wheelchairs.