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

by Hogenkamp, Peter

  “Where, then?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  Maria came to clear the table, shooing the lizard away with her hand. Lucci waited until she had been gone for a minute, then nodded to Ferraro, and passed into the kitchen. His sister was standing in front of the sink, with her back still toward him, washing the china by hand as the dishwasher stood idle next to her.

  “Thank you for dinner, Maria.”

  She nodded.

  “It was delicious.”

  She rinsed the water glasses and dried them meticulously with a dish towel. Her pace was always the same, deliberate and methodical, never hurried.

  “I know what you are thinking.”

  Lucci said nothing. Maria moved on to the plates, which were the same pattern of Minton china that their mother had used.

  “You are thinking that I must regret marrying Eduardo against your advice.”

  “I try not to, but I can’t help feeling you would have avoided a lot of heartache if you hadn’t married him.”

  “I don’t regret it, Vincenzo. Not one little bit. He is a good man … you don’t know him like I do.”

  When the plates were washed and dried, she turned around and handed them to him, never once letting him see her face. Lucci opened the cupboard next to him and put them away.

  “Will you absolve Pietro?”

  “If he asks for absolution, of course, but he has never done so.”

  “He is sorry for what he did.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yes, he told me so.”

  Romulus returned, jumping up on the counter against which Lucci was leaning. He could feel the cat rubbing its spine against his back.

  “What will you give him for a penance?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  Twenty-One

  Marco glanced at his watch, confirming that Elena was late, not that he expected anything else. In all the time he had known her, he couldn’t recall a single event to which she had arrived on time. Nor did he mind particularly; the bench on which he sat and waited was only a few meters from Lago Albano. The waters lapped onto the sandy beach with such placidity he thought he might be lulled to sleep. A flock of white clouds had flown in on the westerly breeze, shading him from the evening sun, and the smell of grilled sardines wafted over from a beachside café just a few hundred meters down the shoreline. He nodded off.

  Elena was sitting next to him when he awoke. She was dressed all in black—he couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t—and her dark hair flowed down over her shoulders in long ringlets.

  “Enjoy your nap, Marco?”

  He had. It was the first time in the last week he had awoken not having been deeply entrenched in a nightmare.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  They made small talk for a while—you look good, Elena … so do you—as they watched the brightly colored kayaks glide over the lake, the beachgoers stroll around on the sandy shore, which had been imported from the nearby coast, and the clouds float past the dome of the church on the hill above the lake.

  “Let’s take a walk.”

  He got up, and she followed him down the path that encircled the lake. When they were clear of the beach, he waited for her to catch up, and they meandered down the track.

  “Are you and your family still in Rome?”

  “Yes, but we’re leaving this afternoon.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. Cardinal Lucci has made all the arrangements.”

  They stopped under the shade of a grove of oaks and allowed a runner to flit past. The man had so many water bottles strapped to him, Marco almost asked him for a drink.

  “Your sister and daughter … they are well?”

  “Well enough.”

  “They have been through a lot.”

  “I worry most about Gianna …”

  Marco bent down and picked up an acorn, of which there were dozens scattered on the grassy ground, providing sustenance for the squirrels that dodged about in the underbrush.

  “Gianna is her mother’s daughter, with her mother’s strength. She just needs time.”

  “It will be good to get out of the Vatican. It’s beautiful, and everyone has been so nice, but I am beginning to climb the walls.”

  “I know what you mean. There’s an old joke that gets retold in the Vatican all the time, that Pope Leo IV didn’t build the wall around Vatican Hill to keep the Saracens out … but to keep the Curia in.”

  She laughed easily, and they continued on, following the now cobbled path as it ascended a cliff that rose straight up out of the lake. At the top, the path merged onto a narrow road bordered by an adobe wall topped with flowerpots. A store on the other side of the road sold overpriced artwork; as Elena window-shopped, Marco sat on the wall and watched a scull race across the water. Ever since Lago Albano had hosted the rowing events for the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, it had become home to a number of rowing clubs, which still used the original buoy system put in place for the Olympiad.

  The path diverged from the road on the other side of the cliff and descended back to the lake, where it ran beneath a cluster of carob trees. A young family was enjoying a picnic dinner on the bank of a stream that flowed fast and noisy down the steep incline.

  “I’m glad you came. I’ve asked Cardinal Lucci about you, but he hasn’t said too much.”

  “Actually, I’ve been asking to come since the day after St. Peter’s Square. I was so worried about you.”

  She reached out and grasped his hand; her palm felt like velvet.

  “I’m fine, really.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “Okay, so I’m not, but tell me something, Elena. How am I supposed to be? I killed four men. It isn’t the easiest thing to live with.”

  “That’s why I came, Marco … to apologize.”

  “Apologize? For what?”

  She blushed slightly, staining her face pink, which contrasted nicely with her dark blouse.

  “For what? Look at yourself! It looks like you haven’t eaten or slept in weeks.”

  “I thought you said I looked good.”

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I am sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. I already told you that.”

  “I want you to know I am a very different woman now; I am just sorry you had to be the one to pay the price.”

  They enjoyed a glass of local wine at a café situated next to the trail and started back as twilight overcame the lake valley.

  “I need to talk to you about something,” Marco said.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not going back to Monterosso, at least not immediately.”

  Elena didn’t reply.

  “Cardinal Lucci has an assignment for me.”

  “Oh?”

  He stopped and looked around. They were on a secluded section of the path, well away from the closest people, in a grove of massive plane trees. The rays of fading light and the ambient sound—the clunk of oars moving in their locks, the cries of the gulls—were absorbed by the dense canopy of trees; it was dark and quiet.

  “He wants me to go to Austria.”

  “Austria? What for?”

  He told her about el-Rayad and the nuclear weapons, and the prince’s intent to deploy them inside the Vatican.

  “What does he expect you to do about it?”

  “He’s assembled some kind of assault team to kill the prince before he takes possession of the warheads. I’m to be part of a second team that provides reconnaissance and cover fire for the first.”

  She stared at him, narrowing her eyes.

  “What does he need you to do that for? Can’t he get someone else?”

  “No.”

  Her eyes narrowed even further. Her full lips disappeared into a line. “No? Why not?”

  “Because according to him, the pope trusts me. Lucci want
s me there so I can report to His Holiness when I get back.”

  “Why can’t he do it himself?”

  It was the same question Marco had asked himself many times since Lucci had requested he take part. Or had it been a demand rather than a request? He wanted to think it had been, to ease the burden on his conscience, which was already starting to bubble over like a witch’s cauldron.

  “He says the pope wouldn’t believe him.”

  A pair of young lovers ambled past, not giving them even a glance. They were so intertwined that it made for difficult locomotion, and it took them a minute to move out of earshot.

  “Are you going?”

  This is a matter of our continued existence on the face of the earth, Father Venetti. And we have no further time to debate.

  “I told him I would, but I am having second thoughts.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m a priest. I should be saying mass, anointing the sick …”

  She shrugged. “You can—and will—do those things for the rest of your life. This is your chance to serve the Church in other ways.”

  “I hadn’t expected you to be on Lucci’s side.”

  “I’m not on Lucci’s side. I’m just practical. Lucci is a powerful man. Saying no to him is a bad career move. On the other hand, if you do what he wants, you’ll be writing your own ticket.”

  “I didn’t become a priest to spend my time sucking up so I can make bishop.”

  She shrugged. “What’s the harm in going? He wants you there so you can tell the pope what happened.”

  It was the same thing he had told his conscience during its nightly interrogations of his soul.

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I am right, Marco. Go to Austria. Make Lucci happy. And then you can go back to Monterosso and watch time stand still.”

  Elena watched Marco head up the hill toward the Papal Palace, making short work of the steep gradient with his long strides. When he had disappeared behind a row of Italian cypresses that looked like they had been trimmed by a surgeon with a scalpel and a pair of magnifying loupes, she walked back to the waiting sedan and got in the back.

  She took her new cell phone out of her pocket as the driver—unseen and unheard on the other side of the darkened glass barrier that separated her from the front of the vehicle—engaged the transmission and merged onto the road, which was bereft of wheeled traffic. There had been no incoming calls. She turned the ringer on and left the phone on her lap, watching the lake disappear as the driver rounded the back of the hill, heading for the motorway and Rome.

  The phone rang after the car had reached the outskirts of the city. She answered it on the third ring.

  “How did your conversation with Father Venetti go?”

  “He’s still having second thoughts about going to Austria.”

  “Still? I thought that’s why I agreed to let you say goodbye to him. So that you could dispel his second thoughts.”

  She continued to stare out the window at the faceless suburbs.

  “You don’t know Marco very well, Eminence. He’ll always have second thoughts; it’s just his nature.”

  “Does that mean he won’t be going to Austria?”

  “No, of course not. I convinced him to go.”

  She imagined the slight trace of a smile appearing on Cardinal Lucci’s face. She heard—or thought she heard, anyway—the faint whisper of an exhale that might accompany that smile.

  “Excellent.”

  “Can my family and I get out of the Vatican now?”

  “In a few days, once Marco leaves for Austria. I want you around in case he loses his nerve again. You seem to have a good effect on him.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find a good home for you.”

  “I want to go back to Riomaggiore.”

  “Where the police found a dead terrorist in your kitchen? Where you are under investigation for smuggling and involvement with organized crime?”

  “I thought you told me you were going to smooth those things over?”

  The car passed under a street lamp, and the reflection of her face developed on the glass like a quadrangle of film in a bath of silver nitrate. The image was dark and grainy; the countenance that stared back at her seemed troubled.

  “I will make sure the Gendarmerie forgets they ever happened. But this will take time. If you go back now, there will be many questions that neither one of us wants you to answer. For the time being, it would be best if you and your family just keep a low profile and stay out of Riomaggiore.”

  The line went dead, and she was left alone with her reflection. After a time, she grew tired of its company and closed her eyes, dozing off for the rest of the trip.

  Twenty-Two

  The interrogation room of the Pagliarelli prison was exactly as Lucci remembered it from the last time he had come to visit his godson, six months previously: cramped, faceless, and redolent of sweat and desperation. Pietro Ferraro was exactly as he remembered him as well—short in height, with a wiry muscularity, also redolent of sweat and desperation. Lucci examined him in the gloom. Pietro was his mother’s son, with the same lean face and expressive eyes, which had grown dull and lifeless with the boredom of incarceration, and the same black hair with a tendency to curl.

  “Hello, Pietro.”

  Pietro nodded.

  “How have you been?”

  Like his mother, Pietro was a person of few words. He shrugged.

  “I want to talk to you about something.”

  A glimpse of expression returned to his dark eyes, but it faded as quickly as it had appeared.

  “I need your help.”

  If Pietro was curious about how he could help his godfather, it didn’t show in the slumped attitude of his shoulders and the downward lean of his head.

  “Anything, Eminence.”

  “I hope you mean that.”

  “I do, but how am I supposed to help you inside a prison?”

  The heat burned like a furnace in the tiny confines of the room. A bead of sweat dripped down from Lucci’s face, soaking into his collar.

  “If you are willing to help me, I can get you out of here.”

  “For how long?”

  “Forever.”

  Lucci dabbed his brow with a scarlet kerchief that matched his zucchetto.

  “I’m going to tell you what I have in mind for you. If you agree to go along with it, tonight will be your last night in this hellhole.”

  “I would do anything to get out of this place.”

  “Let me tell you first, and then you can make your decision.”

  Lucci repeated the same story he had told Pietro’s father.

  “What do you think?”

  It was a superfluous question, but one his conscience demanded he ask. Pietro’s answer was merely a nod of his head, but it spoke louder than a shout.

  “You understand what I am asking? You are not going to Austria for the fine mountain air. You are going to kill a Saudi Arabian prince hunkered down in a fortress, guarded by his own private army.”

  “What is the worst that can happen?”

  “I am glad you asked that.” Lucci cleared his throat, selecting his words with the utmost care. “The worst thing that could happen is being captured by the police and identified as your true self. That would be catastrophic. I think you understand my meaning?”

  Pietro nodded. Already Lucci could begin to see his nephew emerging from the hollow shadow of himself he had been a mere ten minutes ago: his shoulders had risen; his spine had become more erect.

  “Yes, I understand perfectly.”

  “And you wish to proceed?”

  Pietro looked around, taking in the walls of unpainted cinder blocks, the cheap laminate of the tabletop, the decades of grime coating the window separating the two men.

  “Immediately.”

  “Good.”

  “I have only one condition.”

  Lucci
paused; he had expected conditions from Eduardo, but not from Pietro, who had everything to gain by agreeing to his terms.

  “What is it?”

  “I want absolution.”

  Lucci wasn’t sure if Pietro could hear his sigh of relief.

  “Go ahead.”

  Pietro said the act of contrition, pausing often when he couldn’t remember the words, continuing once Lucci had spoken them for him.

  “I murdered a man. I slit his throat as he slept in bed next to his wife.” The words came out sharply, like the edge of a well-honed knife. “I knew it was wrong. But I did it anyway.”

  His voice faded into a stifled silence. Lucci felt the sobs coming before he heard them, shaking the desk at which he was sitting. He reached out to comfort his godson, but his hand rebounded off the divider, leaving him nothing to do other than sit and wait for the sobbing to end.

  “My father wanted him dead, but he hadn’t ordered it. I was just trying to win his approval.”

  The sobbing resumed. Lucci slipped the kerchief underneath the glass. Pietro ignored it for a second and then reached for it as if he were picking up something he didn’t want.

  “The only thing he said when I told him was that I should have killed the wife as well.”

  He wiped the tears away, but the sobs continued, the great heaving of his shoulders and spine, the whoops of air rushing into his chest.

  “I just couldn’t do it. She’d done nothing wrong.”

  Lucci sat patiently. From his long experience as a confessor, he knew that all sobbing stopped eventually. After a while, Pietro wiped his face one final time and pushed the now sodden kerchief back underneath the divider.

  “Caruso was one thing; his wife was another.”

  “Are you sorry you killed Caruso?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Go forth and sin no more.”

  Pietro crossed himself in synchrony with Lucci.

  “When I say ‘Go forth and sin no more,’ do you understand what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let me clarify, then, because I want there to be no ambiguity. It means that your involvement with the family business is at an end.”