The Seventh Commandment

by Tom Fox

  It took a moment, but across the vault Emil recognised him. ‘You’re that kid,’ the words came out contemptuously, ‘the one from the video. From the Church. Well, shit!’

  Thomás’s chest appeared to expand with a flux of new strength. ‘The prophecies have all come true!’ he bellowed.

  Emil responded with a peal of laughter. ‘The prophecies! I wrote those prophecies, you dumb fuck! Christ, fools come in all sizes.’ The laugh, again, redolent of even more spite than before. ‘Every plague, crafted in my sitting room with a pencil and a few swills of Scotch, you idiot little shit.’

  Thomás’s gaze was unnervingly steady.

  ‘There’s one more left,’ he said in a monotone.

  The comment gave pause to Emil’s laughter, not because he was affected by Thomás’s show of resolve or belief, but because for an instant he couldn’t actually remember what the next plague was supposed to have been. Only the first four were ever going to amount to anything, that had always been the plan. The fifth was the distraction at the heart of his whole smoke-and-mirrors campaign. The sixth and seventh had been added only for show. He and Laurence had thought them up over drinks and a hearty dish of pasta.

  But Emil’s body started to stiffen.

  The fifth plague, the blotting out of the sun that no man could accomplish, had happened.

  The prophecies have all come true. Thomás’s words echoed in Emil’s mind.

  The sixth plague had been . . .

  Christ. The sixth plague had been an earthquake.

  The ground trembled again beneath Emil’s feet.

  The prophecies have all come true.

  The seventh plague had been . . .

  Emil’s head snapped up and his eyes locked into Thomás’s.

  ‘No,’ the word fell from his lips. It was absurd. It couldn’t possibly be.

  Thomás raised his arms wide and looked upwards, heaven still above him even if there were layers of earth and construction in the way. He took a deep breath, then returned his eyes to Emil’s.

  ‘Then shall come the seventh plague,’ he pronounced solemnly. ‘The firstborn son shall die as he stands, and all the world shall know the power of the Lord.’

  Emil felt the blood drain from his extremities as he heard the words, words he and Laurence had penned and provided to a translator in a hoax that was supposed to have ended in wealth and luxury. Instead they came to him as a . . .

  A curse. The word was sick in its irony, but Emil was overtaken with only one emotion. He had to protect his son.

  Across the void between them, he saw Thomás reaching to his waist, his fingers pushing into a pocket.

  The little fucker’s going to kill André. The thought was a clear vision. The religious zealot was going to make Emil’s final ‘prophecy’ come true, and his son was going to pay the price.

  Emil moved with surprising speed. Spinning his left hand around André’s wrist, where he’d been pushing the boy to lower his weapon, he drew it up and grabbed it from him with his right. The Glock was already sliding snugly into his grip as Emil swivelled back towards Thomás. He was no practised shot, but at this range, no one could miss.

  He fired without hesitation. Three shots.

  Each hit their mark. A trio of red rosettes appeared almost simultaneously at Thomás’s chest, while sprays of red mist and gore flew out his back.

  Thomás faltered only a second, then fell to his knees. He seemed to hover there an instant, frozen in time. Then, motion. His last act was to draw his hand out of his pocket, where he’d been reaching when the gunshots came. What emerged, clutched between his fingers, was not the weapon Emil had feared, but a single sheet of paper, folded into a small rectangle. Angelina recognised it immediately for what it was: the translation of the prophecies which had led them to the churches, to St Peter’s, and ultimately, here.

  Thomás’s eyes looked up once more. For reasons Angelina would never comprehend, they looked neither shocked nor saddened. They simply looked content.

  Then the light of life went out of them. As his body started to tilt forward off his knees and into the pit, Heinrich shot upright and lunged forward to catch him. His muscular arm forced itself around the young man’s waist in time to prevent the fall, but Thomás’s life was already gone.

  Heinrich’s nostrils flared, his skin flushing red. His neck craned up across the pit. His gun rose.

  He fired back with the same speed Emil had evinced a moment before, but Heinrich didn’t need three bullets to take out his man. He had trained with a weapon his whole life. He knew his shot would be true. He squeezed down on his trigger the moment the barrel was aimed at Emil’s head.

  But at the precise instant Heinrich fired, the earth jolted once again. Not a violent thunder as before, but simply a small vibration. A lurch. Just enough to shift Heinrich’s balance.

  The bullet that torpedoed its way out of the end of his gun flew wide of its mark.

  Directly into the chest of André Durré.

  Emil stared in horror as his son’s torso was transformed into a mess of red. He didn’t even have the time to react, to reach out to him. He only saw the eyes of his firstborn son, his only son, go round as orbs as his eviscerated body fell backwards and disappeared into the pit below. Emil’s cry tore through the air.

  Though Thomás was no longer alive to say it, Angelina could hear his words echo from somewhere beyond.

  ‘The firstborn son shall die as he stands . . .’

  The final prophecy had been fulfilled. Just as they all had, one by one, to this very moment. This impossible moment of forgery and hoax that had culminated in the inexplicable blackness of the sky, the impossible shaking of the earth, and this strange moment of death.

  ‘They shall come, one by one,’ Thomás had said.

  ‘Until all the world shall know the power of the Lord.’

  PART NINE

  Aftershock

  91

  The next day

  The sun did not rise on Rome the following day. At least, not in a way visible to any of its inhabitants. The dense black clouds that unusually strong prevailing winds from the Strait of Sicily had blown over it at daybreak the day before had yet to depart, though they were thinning slightly. Beneath them they left a layer of grey-white ash that coated the Eternal City in a blanket of what could have been snow, rendering it ghostly in the limited light.

  The City of Seven Hills lay dormant beneath the remains of Pantelleria’s Montagna Grande volcano, whose sudden eruption more than three hundred nautical kilometres to the south had been a surprise to geologists the world over. The cloud of ash and gas that it belched into the air now covered a massive section of southern Italy, and already there were questions about what its long-term environmental impact might be on the region, not to mention what the unpredicted eruption meant for the renewed activity of the other supposedly dormant behemoths in the Strait of Sicily.

  The violent earthquakes that had shaken the Italian peninsula as far north as Bologna were after-effects of the eruption on Pantelleria, and it was another mystery that would consume the attention of geologists for years, how the shocks could have been felt so forcefully in Rome. Thirteen buildings had suffered what the city would formally call ‘significant or complete structural collapse’, while hundreds met the far end of the quake with fractures running through foundations and facades crumbled. Monuments had toppled and sinkholes had opened in numerous locations throughout the city. Even the obelisk at the centre of the Piazza San Pietro had suffered – not a complete collapse, to the relief of millions who cherished the Egyptian monument that had stood in the heart of Rome since the time of Caligula, but it no longer pointed up into the sky. It lay at an odd angle, the earth beneath it newly recessed, its red granite tip now aimed awkwardly at the dome of St Peter’s Basilica behind it.

  What struck Angelina Calla as particularly strange, in light of all the bizarre events that had taken place around her and the whole of Rome over the past seven
ty-two hours, was that as they had all ended, it was not these details that most consumed her.

  It was not even the details of the fate that ultimately would befall Emil Durré and his men. The fate they had hoped for – escape with the stolen wealth of the Vatican’s raw riches – was not to be. The drawn-out confrontation at the edges of the underground chasm had given the men of Heinrich’s rearguard Special Action Team time to work their way back up the access shaft and out on to the piazza. Having discovered that Emil’s crews had worked their way into the vault from its southern side, it didn’t take long to determine that it must have been via a connecting tunnel dug out from the sewer system. By the time André’s body had followed Ridolfo’s into the pit and his distraught father had darted into retreat, running with his remaining men towards what they thought was safety, the Swiss Guard was already waiting for them where their tunnel joined the sewer.

  Emil Durré was in custody, and Heinrich’s forces would not be the only ones questioning him and his accomplices over the coming days and weeks. The Polizia di Stato wanted their share of him, as did the Italian government. They would track down his friends, his companions, and there would be trials and prison terms to last out the years these men had thought they would spend in luxury. All those trials would be held behind closed doors, of course, and without press awareness. The Vatican still didn’t want the world knowing about the secrets, and the wealth, it hid beneath ground.

  ‘But the vault was destroyed,’ Ben had protested as Heinrich had told them this. The Major of the Swiss Guard had simply placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled.

  ‘Did you ever stop to think, Dr Verdyx, that it might not have been the only one?’

  So there were still secrets, and buried realities, and truths not to be publicly known.

  But, again, even these details were not what consumed Angelina the day after everything had concluded. She had more questions than she might ever be able to ask, much less answer, and more emotion pent up, seeking escape, than she knew what to do with. She’d been chased, shot at, and nearly buried alive. She’d met new faces, and watched too many of them killed in front of her.

  At the end of it all, however, there was one face she felt herself strangely compelled to see again.

  ‘Is he in there?’ she asked, motioning towards an antiseptically blue door.

  The duty nurse nodded. ‘But you can only have a few minutes with him. He’s still extremely weak.’

  But alive, Angelina muttered to herself. Relief filled her with spirit. She turned to Ben and, despite herself, reached out to take his hand.

  ‘I’m glad you let me come with you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad you wanted to come,’ he answered softly.

  Beyond the door, Father Alberto Alvarez was wrapped tightly in hospital blankets, an outline of his bandaged chest traced in contour and IV drips hosed into both arms. He was gaunt, pale, but his face brightened as he recognised the identity of his two visitors.

  ‘Benedict,’ he said with muted energy, ‘and Dr Calla.’ The priest smiled. Ben walked to his bedside and gently wrapped a hand around his fingers.

  ‘So,’ Father Alberto said, after a moment of silence that Angelina presumed was dedicated to an interior prayer, ‘it’s all over.’

  ‘It seems to be,’ she replied, drawing closer to him, standing beside Ben.

  ‘All God’s predictions have been fulfilled,’ he added.

  Angelina felt herself clench. At the end of the day, it always comes down to this, pronounced the familiar voice in her head.

  ‘I’m not sure God was as involved with these things as you suspected,’ she answered, trying to keep any trace of bitterness or sarcasm out of her voice. ‘These were the workings of men,’ a pause, ‘plus a few additions from the natural world.’

  Ben’s face remained stoic, but Father Alberto smiled knowingly in Angelina’s direction.

  ‘Ah yes, of course. The doubter must always doubt.’

  She flushed, but the priest’s expression was too kind to have meant her any injury.

  ‘In the end, the Lord’s commandment was heeded,’ he added.

  A brow rose involuntarily on Angelina’s face. ‘His commandment?’ She knew of ten of them.

  ‘I’m speaking of the seventh, of course,’ answered the priest.

  Angelina tried for the numeration in her head, but she didn’t know them well enough.

  ‘“Thou shalt not steal”,’ Ben recited from memory, lifting her out of her predicament.

  Angelina huffed. ‘I’m not sure all this was worth keeping a group of thieves from stealing a bit of gold. There have been far bigger heists in history.’

  Father Alberto sighed, then lifted a weak hand and beckoned Angelina closer.

  ‘Have you ever thought,’ he said as she drew near, ‘that the Lord might not be overly concerned with money, stolen or not?’

  Her eyes were a puzzle, mirroring her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry, Father. I don’t understand.’

  ‘That maybe,’ the priest continued, ‘the commandment is about stealing something else?’

  Angelina tried to interpret his meaning, but her emotions, her weariness, her confusion – they all warred against her.

  ‘Plagues, revelations, prophecies,’ Father Alberto finally said, ‘that’s pretty heady stuff. Holy, some would say.’

  She gazed into his eyes. Ben had said he found peace when he looked into them, and for a moment she wondered if she felt the same.

  ‘That kind of glory,’ the priest said, ‘should be reserved for God alone. It shouldn’t be taken into man’s hands. It shouldn’t be—’

  ‘Stolen,’ Ben said. His face was filled with sudden contentment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Angelina said, ‘I still don’t understand.’

  Father Alberto tapped a hand over hers. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And that’s okay. Understanding doesn’t always come in an instant. Tomorrow, my child, is another day.’

  Outside the hospital, Angelina walked alongside Ben in silence. She’d found the encounter with the priest oddly emotional. She had wanted, for reasons she didn’t fully comprehend, to know he was okay, that he’d survived the attack in his church which she had been powerless to prevent. But his words only evoked new emotions and frustrations.

  ‘I know you think this was all part of some divine plan,’ she said to Ben as they walked along the ash-covered street, ‘but I just can’t accept that.’

  ‘Nobody’s asking you to,’ he said calmly. ‘We each have to believe what we believe. These things can’t be forced.’

  ‘I just can’t bring myself to believe that God acts like this,’ she said. She caught herself. ‘That God exists at all, but that he would act like this in particular. That he would control events. Talk to people.’

  Ben slowed and turned to face her. ‘You’re telling me that never, not once in your life, have you heard God talking to you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not the superstitious kind, Ben,’ she answered. ‘I have my own inner voice, my thoughts, my conscience. They speak to me, urge me along.’

  ‘And you’ve never thought that voice might be . . . something more?’ Ben asked.

  Angelina peered into his eyes. No, she thought, I never have, but she was tired. Too tired to have this conversation today, now.

  Instead, she did the very last thing either of them expected. She leaned forward and kissed Ben on the lips, slow, but firm and with passion. As she drew away her face, she smiled, and he smiled back.

  The loner finds a companion, pronounced her familiar inner voice, and after the plagues are done, a new life begins.

  Author’s Note

  While this book is obviously a work of the imagination, I have tried to incorporate as much historical fact into its pages as I could. A few of the historical details contained within these chapters may be of interest to readers in their own right.

  The Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum, or ‘Vatican Secret Archives’, are of c
ourse real and as misunderstood as they are well known. Despite the implication of the name (the real meaning of which Ben Verdyx explains in the book), the Archives are open to scholars year round, and thousands have access to their extraordinary contents. They contain over eighty-five linear kilometres of shelving, a significant bulk of which is contained in a reinforced chamber that actually is called ‘the bunker’, sunk beneath the Cortile della Pigna of the Vatican Museums and opened by Pope John Paul II in 1980. The items mentioned in the novel as being in the Archives (with the exception of our invented tablet, which while invented is, in its opening lines, a literary play on Exodus 7:3–5, the preface to the ten plagues of Egypt) really are there – for example, the handwritten documentation of the trial of Galileo Galilei, the founding documents of the Curia – and the rule that no one may photograph or reproduce the contents of the indices remains in effect to this day. Nevertheless, even the oldest and most fragile of items are available to scholars for research; the only restriction is on modern stock. With the exception of three folios of specially released materials, no contents dating after February 1939 are available for review.

  The culture and language of the tablet in this book, Akkadian, is an extinct East Semitic cuneiform language tied to the cultures of the Ancient Near East – linked with the locales of Sumer, Mesopotamia, Babylon and the surrounding areas. The language flourished from the mid-third millennium BC up until about the fourth century BC. After that, its runic-like forms were known mostly only to ancient scholars and historians, with the last-known document in Akkadian dating from the first century AD. It is a captivating language in its visual form: triangular, conical and slashed indentations (a few of which can be seen on the cover of this book), normally impressed into clay or carved into stone, and it was used to transcribe both histories and the extraordinary mythologies of the Ancient Near East, which included such famous epics as Gilgamesh, the Enuma Elish (with strong parallels to the accounts of Noah and the flood of the Old Testament), and a host of others. Anyone who spends time with these myths, cultures and the language itself can easily see why a character such as Angelina would find it sufficient to captivate her curiosity for life.