The Vatican Conspiracy: A completely gripping action thriller (A Marco Venetti Thriller Book 1)

by Hogenkamp, Peter

  The pope picked up a telephone and held a brief conversation. “Veal and peppers in twenty minutes.”

  “Will Oberst Jaecks be coming?”

  John Paul III shook his head. “Cardinal Lucci is joining us for dinner. He wishes to speak with you.”

  Cardinal Lucci arrived as dinner was being served. He was a small man with dark hair and light blue eyes the color of sapphires. He greeted Marco warmly and joined them at the table on the porch overlooking Lake Albano. A priest brought out a serving tray loaded with heaped dishes and a bottle of Chianti. Lucci poured three glasses and raised his own in a toast.

  “To a speedy recovery, Father Venetti.”

  Marco swallowed the wine, savoring the cool feel of fluid in his arid mouth. They ate in silence for a while, enjoying the food and the cool night air.

  He guessed the Cardinal Secretary hadn’t come all the way from the Vatican just for dinner, and he was correct; after a polite period, Lucci asked him to tell his story. Marco did as he was asked, regurgitating the entire episode, from Elena’s confession to the events in St. Peter’s Square with which they were both familiar.

  “I am sorry you were given this cross to bear, Marco.”

  Marco was sorry also. He’d used the washroom prior to dinner and had barely recognized himself in the mirror. There were dark smudges underneath his light blue eyes, and his normally tanned skin was pale.

  “On the other hand, I am happy the Lord chose you for the job. If it wasn’t for you, I would be dead, buried beneath the rubble of the basilica.”

  “Was I chosen, Holiness?”

  “Elena could have decided to seek absolution at a different parish. But she didn’t. The Holy Spirit guided her to you.”

  “Why do you think it was the Holy Spirit?”

  “Let me ask you a different question. Why do you think it wasn’t?”

  The breeze picked up, carrying with it the earthy smell of truffles and the tinkling of sheep’s bells from the pastures below.

  “There is something you should know. I was in love with Elena at one time.”

  The pope contemplated this without comment. Cardinal Lucci set down the piece of Brie he was eating.

  “When was this?”

  “Four years ago.”

  “Elena never said anything about it when I spoke to her yesterday.”

  “No, I am sure she didn’t, Eminence.”

  “You said this was four years ago. What happened?”

  Marco shrugged. “She realized I was never going to leave the priesthood, and I didn’t see her again.”

  “Until three days ago, that is, when the door of your confessional opened.”

  “She was terrified and desperate for absolution.”

  “And yet she didn’t confess to the priest at San Sebastiano Martire, the parish she has attended for the past four years.”

  “San Sebastiano? She was going there?”

  “Yes, she told me yesterday, and I confirmed it with Father DiPietro, the pastor of the parish. She had been attending mass on a fairly regular basis, and her daughter made her First Holy Communion there two years ago.”

  A dog barked below them, and Marco saw a Maremma sheepdog chasing a pair of sheep that had strayed from the flock. When it had herded them back to the group clustered underneath a large acacia tree, it returned to its spot on a knoll just above the animals entrusted to its charge. How many times, Marco thought, had this same scene played out in this dusty theater above the waters of Lake Albano?

  “Tell me something, Marco. Are you still in love with Elena?”

  A bead of sweat moistened his brow, and his mouth was parched. “I thought I was, Holiness, still, after all this time. But I don’t think I am now—maybe I never was.”

  “Don’t be ashamed of it. A man without love is nothing more than a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal, which explains the orchestra that plays continually inside the walls of the Vatican. No, what we need—what this world needs—is more love, not less of it.”

  The priest acting as their waiter reappeared and cleared the table, returning with a silver coffee service. Marco poured three cups of espresso and passed them out. He sipped at his, relishing the strong bite in the back of his throat and the churn of acid in his stomach.

  “I am sure it wasn’t easy to kill those men, Father Venetti, especially since you are a priest. But you were stopping terrorists, not robbing a bank. Imagine the carnage in St. Peter’s Square; there were five thousand people there this morning. You prevented a massacre. I agree with His Holiness. The Holy Spirit knew what It was doing when It chose you for the job. And let us all thank God for that.”

  Twelve

  Cardinal Lucci returned to the porch after seeing Father Venetti back to his room and leaned against the railing, turning his back on the world that had been conspiring against them. “Our enemies gather at the gate, Holiness.”

  “And yet the gates still stand, Eminence.”

  “But for how much longer? We are fortunate to be alive.”

  “We are fortunate to have a breeze like this on an otherwise oppressive night. We are alive for an entirely different reason.”

  “Which is?”

  “Father Venetti delivered us from this evil.”

  Lucci lifted his demitasse cup in appreciation. “Amen.” He leaned over and selected a piece of mango from a tray of fruit that had been set on the table. “And the next time?”

  “If and when the next time comes, we will again survive, as we have survived for over two thousand years. Who knows, perhaps you will be pontiff by then.”

  “I wish I shared your faith. Perhaps if you better understood the threats we face, you might—”

  “I might what? Be as pessimistic as you? You should spend less time inside the Vatican Security Office and let them do their job.”

  “There’s little chance of that.”

  “Can I ask you something, Vincenzo?”

  Here it comes, Lucci thought. It was rare for the pontiff to address him by his given name, and it always portended a subject he didn’t want to discuss.

  “For all your micro-management of the Security Office, what good has come of it?”

  “None that I can see.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  The pope poured two glasses of an Alsatian Riesling the priest had left to wash down dessert. Lucci accepted one and swirled it in the moonlight, creating sticky legs that crawled down the glass.

  “Holiness, there’s something you should know.”

  The pope gazed at him but said nothing.

  “Do you know Giampaolo Benedetto?”

  “The Inspector General of the Security Office?”

  Lucci nodded.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “How well?”

  “Well enough, I suppose. What about him?”

  “He’s missing. No one has seen him since yesterday.”

  The pope considered this news in silence for a minute. From the pursing of his wide mouth and the deep furrow in his dark brow, Lucci could see he wasn’t happy about it.

  “I suppose that means you think he was involved in the attack?”

  “You suppose correctly.”

  “Do you have any evidence to support your supposition?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. The terrorists had three men inside the Security Office. Benedetto hired all three within the past year. Normally, each would have had an independent background check, but he signed off on their hiring papers without one.”

  “Why was this allowed?”

  “I could blame staffing issues in the research department, but the truth is, Benedetto is the Inspector General of the Security Office. His family has worked for the Vatican for years. His grandfather was the chief of the Gendarmerie for two decades.”

  The pope acknowledged this with a small sip of wine.

  “He also issued all the documents giving the terrorists entry into St. Peter’s Square.”

  They were quiet
for a minute, with only the drone of the cicadas to distract their thoughts.

  “Why did he do it, Eminence?”

  “For the same reason Judas handed Jesus over to the chief priests.”

  “Thirty pieces of silver?”

  “Adjusted heavily for two thousand years of inflation, yes.”

  “It’s reassuring to see that human nature hasn’t changed much in two millennia.”

  Lucci didn’t comment—or mention that the Security Office had heard rumors that Benedetto was a racist as well—and turned to gaze at the distant waters of Lake Albano, shimmering in the weak moonlight.

  “Is it true about the Nigerians being involved?”

  “Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the attack, but I would hardly call them Nigerians. They are jihadist militants who happen to be based in Nigeria.”

  “They are Nigerians, just like I am. Why would my countrymen take up arms against me?”

  “Several of the other men involved are known Saudi terrorists; remember that. We have no idea who was really behind this attack.”

  “What do the Saudis have against me?”

  “I’m not sure really; they weren’t even on my list.”

  A camp of Mediterranean horseshoe bats whirled in the night air above them, occasionally getting close enough for Lucci to feel the rush of air as they flew past on the hunt for mosquitoes.

  “Your list?”

  “The list of people who want your papacy to end as soon as possible.”

  “Ah, that list … Who is on it?”

  “The Chinese, of course. You will remember I was dead set against your condemnation of their labor policies and human rights abuses.”

  “Am I supposed to just sit quietly and let these things happen?”

  A bat fluttered past Lucci’s head, close enough to mess up his hair, which was still mainly black, with only a few streaks of gray. He smoothed it straight back and placed his red zucchetto on top of his head in an effort to ward off further incursions.

  “The Indian government was not pleased with your criticism of their environmental policies.”

  “The earth was here before us and was given to us. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years.”

  Lucci had heard him say this many times before, and though he couldn’t agree more with him on this one issue—just about the only one—it made keeping him safe a much more difficult proposition. It also made for more mosquitoes, because the pope had forbidden the use of insecticides on all properties belonging to the Holy See. To combat the subsequent plague of the tiny blood-suckers, he had sanctioned the construction of scores of bat houses, and bats had become as ubiquitous as mosquitoes.

  “And then there are the Russians, Holiness.”

  “I knew you would be bringing them up.”

  “Yes, well, I did warn you not to announce your desire to seek unification.”

  “Is Christ divided? Did he ask St. Peter to be the rock upon which he would build eight different churches?”

  “I don’t think he did, no, but the Russians don’t really care about that, frankly. What they do care about is nipping any chance of renewed religious fervor in the bud. The powers-that-be in Russia have spent a lot of time and energy castrating the Russian Orthodox Church, to the point that Patriarch Alexy III never says anything even remotely political. Perhaps you should take a page from his book?”

  The pope dismissed this idea with a grimace and a wave of his fingers, which were thick and strong. It was rumored that the Vatican’s goldsmith had had to greatly expand the previous pope’s Ring of the Fisherman in order to get it to fit Pope John Paul III’s massive finger.

  “There will always be an angry captain to sound the war horn, Eminence. But why did these men heed its call? There’s a deeper evil at play. And if we want the basilica to stand for another two millennia, we had better discover what it is.”

  “Men have been killing each other for thousands of years, Holiness. It has been the method of choice for conflict resolution since Cain slew Abel.”

  “Sounds like you’re advocating for it.”

  Lucci shook his head. “Just observing it. As an Italian, I can’t help but be a student of history.”

  “And what do your studies tell you?”

  “That armed conflict is as inevitable as death.”

  “A strange thing for a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church to say.”

  “With all due respect, Pope Leo IX led his own army into battle against the Normans.”

  “And his army was decimated at Civitate. You need to be careful with history, Vincenzo. It is a dangerous thing. Despots throughout the ages have tweaked history to justify their actions. Great evils have been perpetrated under its banner.”

  “The same thing could be said for religion.”

  “For once we agree.”

  Lucci reached for the Riesling but changed his mind; excellent though the vintage was, the combination of alcohol, caffeine, and the pope’s rebuttals was having an unsettling effect on his stomach. Less than a year into his papacy, John Paul III had already achieved legendary status, simply by virtue of being the first black pope in over two millennia. But there was far more to him than the color of his skin. He was a truly spiritual man—rare for a pope—and an intellectual as well. Many a cardinal had skulked away from a discussion with him with his tail down like a beaten dog.

  “I hate to change the subject, Holiness, but there is something we need to discuss.”

  The pope didn’t reply. He pushed his chair back, springing up easily for a man of his great size and long years, and joined Lucci at the railing.

  “We need to issue a statement, the sooner the better. Today’s press release will buy us time, but the world will want to hear from you.”

  Lucci had crafted a brief story that had aired that morning. The short audio segment had credited an officer of the Gendarmerie with saving the pope’s life.

  “Have you given it any thought?”

  “Much. I am thinking about making an address in St. Peter’s Square tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps a more subtle response is in order. Why don’t we let the press office read your statement?”

  The pope shook his head. “We have an opportunity here.”

  Acid licked at Lucci’s throat, and he reached reflexively for the foil of Brioschi in his side pocket. He ripped open the packet, dumped the contents into a glass of water, and watched the bubbles rise to the surface. The pope was right, he thought. There was an opportunity here: an opportunity to castrate the Church forever. “An opportunity to do what?”

  “Emulate Christ. That’s what defines us as Christians.”

  If there was one thing Lucci hated, it was getting a catechism lecture from the pope. He took a long swallow of the antacid, but it was too late; he could already feel the sting in his esophagus.

  “When St. Peter cut off the ear of the High Priest’s slave, Christ placed it back on. We will do the same. We will fight hatred with love, prejudice with tolerance. There is no other way to respond.”

  “And how do you think that message will be perceived by the perpetrators of this mission?”

  “I have a different question. Suppose we track down and kill everyone responsible for the atrocity. What then?”

  Lucci said nothing.

  “Ten more terrorists rise from the ashes of each one killed. You can’t stop violence with more violence. You only beget more.”

  “You may not believe this, Holiness, but I agree with you on a philosophical level. But terrorism isn’t a philosophical problem. It’s real, and it requires a real solution.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as holding the perpetrators responsible so they don’t try again. I don’t think building a Muslim community center in Rome is an effective deterrent.”

  The pope laughed, easing the building tension. “How did you guess?”

  Lucci almost choked on a mouthful of his
Brioschi. “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

  “Nor does naïvety become you. It is a grave mistake to forgive the perpetrators before they are brought to justice.”

  “Justice? To whose justice are you referring? Man’s, or God’s?”

  “I have no authority to speak for God.” Lucci bit his tongue so that the words unlike you didn’t roll off it. “So I have to settle for whatever justice man can dispense. They will be watching, Holiness, the people who did this. And they will be listening to the tone of your message. If they don’t hear what they want to hear, they will set the dogs on us once again.”

  “Tell me what they want to hear.”

  “That you understand the social injustice that spawns the violence, that you apologize for the poverty of the Muslim world that creates the unrest, that you abhor the West’s lack of interest in addressing any of the real issues underlying the spread of terrorism.”

  “Well said. I may need to borrow some of your phrasing.”

  “If you want to destroy the Church, be my guest.”

  “These statements are not true?”

  “Of course they are true. But that doesn’t mean they should be uttered aloud, by you, in this situation.”

  “And here I was thinking the truth would set us free.”

  “Not in this case, Holiness.”

  Not in this case.

  Thirteen

  Abayd al-Subail was not an intelligent man, but he had survived this long in a difficult business for one reason: he relied solely on his instincts, and his instincts were good. He sat at his desk now, in the large office on the second floor of the six-stall garage located behind Haus Adler, peering sightlessly at the huge bank of flat-screen TVs displaying the continuous feed from all the CCTV cameras monitoring Prince Kamal el-Rayad’s property on the Untersberg, the monstrous peak towering over Salzburg. There was something wrong—something way beyond the failed attempt to kill the pope—and he knew it. His instincts told him so, and they were never wrong.

  He had told the prince as much months ago, but his boss had dismissed his concerns—for only the first time since he had been his bodyguard. And Abayd had been the prince’s bodyguard for a long time, ever since el-Rayad had assigned him the job on the playground sands of their elementary school. The prince’s father had decided not to send him to England like his older brothers, enrolling him instead at the local public school. In his father’s vision, he was to become a great man of the people, a leader grounded in the lives of ordinary citizens. In reality, the prince had been a pariah from the outset; the only grounding he’d received usually followed a well-aimed kick or punch from one of his classmates.