The growing light told him he was nearing the top; he turned a corner, and the brightness grew. Coming after the blackness of the trip through the mountain, the ambient light hit him like a tangible wave, knocking him back a step. He stopped to don a pair of sunglasses—not his signature pair of Ray-Ban Aviators, but a cheap pair of obviously fake Wayfarers he wouldn’t have been caught dead in a week ago. Between the glasses and the cheap straw fedora he had bought at the same tourist shop in the south end of Rome, his own wife wouldn’t have recognized him, not that she had done much more than glance in his direction in the past few years.
He was on a parapet overlooking the sprawling expanse of papal gardens below him. It was rumored that Pope John Paul III’s favorite pastime was strolling through them early in the dawn of each day, which made Giampaolo despise them all the more. Two doors led away from him. He chose the one on the right; its lock yielded to one of the keys on the ring he produced from his pocket. The narrow corridor twisted and turned in front of him, leading—at least according to the map—into the heart of the appartamento pontificio. There wasn’t a sound to be heard; the air was redolent of sandalwood, which the pope burned to remind him of his homeland.
One more turn, and he was there. He put his ear to the door; hearing nothing, he unlocked it and went inside. The pope’s private apartment sprawled in front of him. Unlike the rest of the palace, which was all marble and baroque architecture, John Paul III had redone his residence in a style that—Giampaolo concluded—said much about the man and his fitness to be pope. Simple wooden furniture and braided rugs clashed with the murals painted on the walls.
Walking to the back of the residence, he put on a pair of nitrile gloves and opened the door to the pope’s private study. Against the far wall, stacked high with an eclectic mix of books, including sacred texts on loan from the Vatican Pontifical Archive, primers on Italian grammar and vocabulary, and American crime fiction, of which the pope was said to be fond, was the pontiff’s massive mahogany desk. Setting the attaché case down on its surface, Giampaolo removed a bag of cocaine, depositing it in the central drawer. He considered stashing some away for his personal use, but he didn’t want to prolong his time in the study, with the ominous feel of the pope’s presence and the reek of sandalwood hanging in the air.
A pile of papers littered the back of the desk. Giampaolo extracted a sheet of parchment from the attaché case. The heavy paper was covered with flowing script; Pope John Paul III’s name adorned the top. At the bottom, a lead seal stamped with the Ring of the Fisherman confirmed that it was a papal bull—except that Pope John Paul III hadn’t written it, and had in fact never even laid eyes on it. He placed the fake document on top of the stack and dumped a bag full of pornographic magazines into one of the side drawers, where they wouldn’t be too obvious.
And that was that; he closed the attaché case and left as quickly as he’d come, making his way back to the villa in less than ten minutes. He turned around and took one last look at the palace on the hill above him, before getting into his Opel and driving away.
The drive to the Tyrrhenian town of Anzio was a pleasant one. The sky was blue, the air that rolled in through the open window of the Opel was warm and smelled of pine, and the radio blasted a succession of songs by Dave Matthews, whom Giampaolo adored. He parked the car at a trattoria, left the keys under the seat as per the arrangement he had made with the man he had paid to bring it to Rome, and wandered down to the harbor. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and the streets were bustling with the usual traffic: fishmongers selling the fruits of the Tyrrhenian Sea, fruit growers hawking produce from the Lazian countryside, and immigrants from Africa peddling selfie-sticks.
He walked past the beach, which was already lined with royal-blue umbrellas, thinking about the evening he had spent at the beachside restaurant here several years ago with his wife and her parents; the monkfish had been superb. After climbing the steps to the quay, he turned around, closed his eyes, and took in Italy for the last time: the soft whisper of the morning breeze, the smell of garlic and anchovies, the taste of sea salt on his tongue. And then the moment passed, and he walked the length of the pier and located the man who was picking him up, standing in a blue and white boat at the end of the dock. Without another look, he grabbed the ladder leading down to the water and descended as quickly as he could. The man on the boat helped him aboard, and they shoved off, motoring slowly at first, and then faster as they exited the harbor and entered deeper waters. Neither man spoke; there was nothing to say, and it was better this way, with only the whine of the outboard and the whistle of the wind to fill their ears.
Eight
Rome had a well-earned reputation for being one of the most snarled-up and congested cities in the world, a reputation it was living up to as Elena turned off the outer ring onto the Viale dello Stadio Olimpico. Marco glanced again at his diving watch, which reminded him that the mass would be starting in less than fifteen minutes. Elena, who had always had a knack for understanding what he was thinking, jerked the steering wheel, guiding the van into the breakdown lane. They drove past a long line of stopped cars and swerved back into the right lane as the traffic cleared ahead, setting off a medley of horn blasts and yelling.
“I hear the Vatican is nice this time of year.”
“What was that?” For a minute, he didn’t realize she was trying to distract him, to take his mind off what lay ahead, not to mention the difficulty of getting there.
“The Vatican. I hear it’s nice this time of year.”
Marco didn’t agree. The heat was appalling, the crowds were thick and noisy, and what little breeze there was smelled faintly of garbage.
“Really? I much prefer January.”
And he did. The cold drizzle kept the tourists away, and only the winter wind could be heard in St. Peter’s Square, whipping the cold spray from Maderno’s fountain toward the small line of faithful waiting to pass through the metal detectors.
“Personally, I don’t like the Vatican at any time of year.”
“No? Why is that?”
Elena changed lanes and continued down the Piazzale Maresciallo Giardino, which ran parallel to the River Tiber as it flowed out toward the Tyrrhenian Sea to the south and west.
“The man I loved chose the Church over me.”
“Why does that make you hate the Vatican?”
“It’s the embodiment of the Church. Why wouldn’t I hate it?”
He had always hoped her bitterness wouldn’t endanger her faith, but he had been hoping against hope, and he was not surprised to hear that her loyalty—to the Roman Catholic Church, at least—had been shaken, if not destroyed. He brooded about this as she wove her way through traffic and turned onto the Via Leone, the road named for Pope Leo IV, who had saved the Vatican from the Saracens by building the Leonine Wall around Vatican Hill.
“Then why are you helping me?”
“I’m not helping you, Marco, or the pope, or the Roman Catholic Church. I’m helping myself. I’m making sure I don’t spend the rest of my life in prison.”
Elena turned off the Lungotevere dei Mellini and stopped at a light on the Piazza dei Tribunali. Neither of them had spoken much in the last five minutes, as if neither had wanted to break the fragile truce that had been established between them. Sweat beaded underneath Marco’s beard and dripped onto the collar of his freshly starched Prima uniform as she swung left onto the Via Paolo VI, and the unmanned security gate materialized in front of them, positioned—as Marco remembered—at the beginning of the Via Tunica. He handed her the magnetic keycard; she swiped it through without even a tinge of expression on her face, just visible beneath the bulletproof visor of the riot helmet, which she wore tilted open. If Marco didn’t know better, she might be parking her car on her way to another monotonous night of work patrolling the Vatican Museum. The woman was constructed of stainless steel and titanium; small wonder that a man like him, made of mere flesh and bone, had been drawn to her.
/> The display asked for their six-digit authorization code; Elena typed it in, and the barrier ascended. The Via Tunica skirted the back of the colonnades—which obscured their view of the square to their right—and ended at the Petriano entrance, the main gateway into St. Peter’s Square from the south. Marco twisted to get a better view, but all he could see was the massive granite pillars that comprised the entrance, and the back of the large screen that had been set up to simulcast the celebration. Elena slowed as two unarmed Gendarmerie officers waved them down and pulled to a stop.
She lowered her tinted window, holding out the permit Marco had taken from the glove box. One of the officers inspected it briefly and mumbled a few words into his radio.
“You’re late.”
Elena shrugged her shoulders.
“Pull over there.” He pointed to a spot thirty meters ahead, across from a guard booth on the left-hand side of the road. “Don’t enter the square until the security officers have searched the vehicle.”
Elena nodded and parked the van by the curb as the officers went back to their post. Marco looked over at the guard booth without turning his head; a darkened window stared at him, but the adjacent door didn’t budge.
“What’s keeping them?” she asked.
“They’re expecting five vans.”
“How long will they wait?”
“It’s possible we became separated in the traffic … two or three minutes at the most.”
Marco lowered his window and stuck his head out, getting his bearings. He could hear Missa Papae Marcelli, the customary music to precede a papal mass, being played in the square to his right, but the Petriano entrance and several banks of loudspeakers still blocked his view. Three hundred meters behind him, to the west, he heard the distant sounds of the protest bubbling up from the Piazza Pius XI: the faint thunder of hundreds of stomping feet, along with angry shouts amplified by bullhorns.
Inside the guard hut, Ahmed Mansouri snatched up a cell phone from the top of the makeshift desk, dialing the number for Bandar al-Nashwan, the man he had paid to organize the protest in the Piazza Pius XI. “Are you ready on your end?”
Al-Nashwan didn’t answer right away. Then, “Yes, why?”
“We have to move up the timetable.”
“Is something the matter?”
Mansouri didn’t reply. He peered out the tinted windows and contemplated the van. From the outside, it appeared as expected. But he knew there was something wrong—not that he was going to tell al-Nashwan that. The vans were supposed to arrive together, in a tight formation of five in a line. If they had become separated in traffic, they would have re-formed on the Via Tunica before proceeding through the gate.
“We are ready, Ahmed. Say the word, and I will overrun the square.”
Mansouri could hear the angry crowd over the phone. Uncertainty gripped him; he wanted to call for instructions, but Mohammed eschewed cell phones. He was on his own.
He stared at the single van waiting patiently at the curb, looking for a hint of what to do. But there was none. He would have to rely on his gut, and his gut told him something had gone very wrong.
He kneaded his forehead as he made up his mind. “Send them into the square.”
He set the phone down and looked at the other man in the room, a young Saudi he had himself recruited to the cause. They exchanged no words; both knew they would not realize their dream of bringing the hated basilica to the ground. But all was not lost—they could still kill the pope who presided over it.
Mansouri picked up the phone again and called the man in position to make that happen: Sowsan bin Nawwaf, his oldest friend, who was waiting by the trapdoors in front of the obelisk with a rifle in his hands.
“Only one van made it, Sowsan.”
“I am sorry to hear that, Ahmed.”
“I have ordered the protesters to storm the square. You are ready on your end?”
Mansouri heard the sound of a weapon being cocked.
“I am ready.”
Al-Nashwan put away his cell phone and pushed his way to the head of the Piazza Pius XI, where dozens of excited teenagers were hurling curses and the occasional stone at the police officers barring their entrance into Piazza San Pietro. He stopped some way behind the front ranks of the protesters and sidled up to a group of three dozen people, older than the others and less animated. They stood there, hands in pockets as if bored, saying nothing. He looked them over; they were ill-dressed, unshaven, and unkempt. But al-Nashwan didn’t care; the rougher the better, especially considering the job they had to do. He grabbed one by the shoulder and pulled him close.
“It is time to earn your money.”
The man was short and stout and resembled a Neapolitan mastiff, especially in his face, which was wide and full of wrinkles. He looked around at his companions, and then at al-Nashwan.
“We want more money.”
“Why?”
The man nodded toward the large number of police awaiting them. “That’s why.”
Al-Nashwan rubbed his chin. He had guessed already that the ruffians would demand more, which was why he had offered a lesser amount to begin with.
“That wasn’t the arrangement.”
“Arrangements change.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand.”
For the kind of beating these men were going to take, he thought, it was more than fair. And it wasn’t his money.
“Done.”
Mastiff smiled, revealing a mouth with many missing teeth. Judging by the scars on his face, he’d earned his lack of dentition the hard way. He turned around and gathered his comrades, mumbling something that was lost in the yells of the crowd and the music coming from the large speakers on the edge of the grounds.
Al-Nashwan shouted for the way to be cleared, and the three dozen men bolted forward. They hurdled the barriers that had been erected to contain them and sprinted across the no-man’s-land between them and the Gendarmerie. The police officers barely had a chance to raise their batons, the only weapons they had, before the thugs were upon them.
Al-Nashwan jumped on top of a concrete barrier to get a better view. The melee was on. Bodies were everywhere: fists flew, legs kicked, and batons flashed. The sound of it was appalling: grunts of pain, the snap of breaking bones, and the sharp crack of batons hitting skulls. He watched for a minute, mesmerized by the sheer volume of the violence, before he realized his side was losing.
His mercenaries were fighting tenaciously, but they were outnumbered. He had been sure the mob would follow the initial assault, but they hadn’t. In fact, the beating the vanguard was taking was having the opposite effect. With every head that thudded against the tarmac, the throng receded.
He jumped down from his perch and grabbed a fistful of M-80s from his pocket. He ran deep into the crowd, lighting and dropping the firecrackers on the ground as he moved forward. By the time he reached the front, the first set of explosives had detonated. The back of the mob panicked, pushing forward to get away from the new threat. The second wave of explosions ignited the crowd further, and the last salvo catapulted them headlong into the line of Gendarmerie, who were screaming into their radios for reinforcements. The police swung their batons in a futile effort to resist, but they were too few. The mob poured forward en masse and swept aside the defenders. It breached the line and flowed into the square, bloodthirsty and riled. Behind it, the imams still bellowed into their bullhorns, further inciting the riot.
The throng followed the beat of the war drums, the urging of its masters. It was a single being now, a collective beast beyond the control of the individuals of which it was made. It invaded the square, moving in all directions at the same time, but mainly forward, in a direct line toward the pope.
Nine
Andreas Bruckentaler’s mouth was dry as he witnessed the crowd spilling into the square. But he recovered quickly, shouting instructions into his microphone as he ran up the front stairs toward the pope. To his amaz
ement, the pontiff was still standing behind the pulpit, delivering his homily, ignoring the angry mob descending upon him.
“Holiness!” Bruckentaler called out as he approached the marble lectern.
The pope stopped speaking and looked up, his large brown eyes taking in the situation in the square. Bruckentaler didn’t wait for orders. He grabbed the pontiff by the arm and started toward the north end of the platform. The rest of his team converged around them, and they ploughed through the stunned bishops in tight formation, two men to a side, forming a square around the pope.
When they reached the end of the platform, Bruckentaler risked a look to his right. The congregation, five thousand strong, had finally sensed the approaching throng, and were in the process of evacuating their seats—as quickly as possible and in any conceivable direction. To say it was chaos was to woefully understate the disorder. He looked away; the plight of the mass-goers was not his responsibility. His only concern was the safety of the pope, whose nearly eighty-year-old legs were having a difficult time keeping pace.
The problems began at the foot of the stairs. Whereas the hundred or so cardinals, bishops, monsignors, priests, and deacons on the crowded altar platform had moved aside to let the phalanx pass through, the panic-stricken crowd on the floor of the square did not. People were everywhere; they bounced off, scrambled around, and trampled over one another as they attempted to get away from the mob, which had already penetrated deep into the formerly empty space at the eastern end of the square.
Bruckentaler yelled more instructions, and the pope’s bodyguards changed position. Four remained in place around the pontiff, forming a tight diamond, with Bruckentaler taking point, employing his tall, wide frame like a shield. The other four marched in advance in V formation, using their halberds to clear the way. It was tough going, but they forged ahead, leaving behind a wake of bruises and injuries.
The Vatican Conspiracy: A completely gripping action thriller (A Marco Venetti Thriller Book 1) Page 6
