CARDINAL MANNING’S FUNERAL WAS AS BIG AS HE HAD been, right down to his double-wide casket. The entry procession took forty minutes, with clerics, press, and dignitaries taking up most of the cathedral. There wasn’t any room for the ordinary Catholic. In a way, that was appropriate. Like most cardinals, Manning didn’t have any room in his life for the ordinary faithful. No reason his funeral should be any different.
Funerals are meant to be a consolation to the living and a spiritual help to the dead. Manning’s funeral was both of these things but mostly a show. When the show was over, Nate headed to the airport.
While he waited for his flight to be called, Nate watched as several archbishops and cardinals negotiated with the gate attendant to get themselves bumped up to first class. Odd, he thought, they look more like CEOs than priests. If you took off their collars and put on a tie, they would be like any other frequent flyer—pushy, bored, and impatient.
Brigid was often critical of the priests she had known growing up on Long Island. “Worldly men,” she called them. Nate’s own father had once called bishops “politicians in a dog collar.”
After the meal was served, Nate took a Benadryl to knock himself out. He slept the next six hours to Rome. On the approach to Fiumicino Airport, the flight attendant came around with hot towels and told people to prepare for landing. The warm terry cloth helped take the pressure creases out of his face made from leaning against the seat next to him.
Nate raised the window shade. Below was the sparkling water of the Mediterranean. The plane made a wide arc over the sea and flew over the beaches of Ostia. From his window on the port side, Nate could see the Eternal City, bathed in pink light as the sun rose over the Colli Albani, the hills of the dawn, just to the east of Rome.
It was a thrilling sight. Nate had only been to Rome once before, on a pilgrimage with the Knights of Malta. He was excited to be back.
Everywhere in the world, the morning brings a kind of rebirth. Rome’s streets were still relatively quiet as Nate’s taxi made its way into centro on the autostrada. For a place that had been a city since 700 years before Christ, Rome looked remarkably good. Spring rains had washed the cobblestones, and Rome’s netturbini were out in force with their long-handled witch’s brooms, gathering up the refuse deposited by three million Romans and a million tourists. Coffee shops were opening. The Romani, congenitally unable to stand in an orderly line, elbowed each other out of the way to order their morning cappuccini and cornetti from the baristas.
Tracy had recommended to Nate that he stay at the Columbus Hotel. “Close to everything,” he’d said. He was right.
As the taxi turned onto the Via della Conciliazione, the dome of St. Peter’s appeared through the windshield. Like most Catholic tourists, Nate felt a thrill at the sight.
A grand avenue leading from the Tiber River to St. Peter’s Square, the “Way of Conciliation” was built by Benito Mussolini as a “gift” to the city of Rome. It provides a magnificent entrance to St. Peter’s Square. Unfortunately, its construction required the complete demolition of an entire medieval neighborhood. Romans are still bitter about it.
The Columbus Hotel is halfway down the avenue between the river and the Vatican. It is a palazzo built in the late 1400s to house Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, a man accustomed to luxury. The cardinal lived there only a few years. Shortly after his house was finished, he moved down the street when he became Pope Julius II.
Della Rovere was a man who loved to decorate. The Columbus Hotel still has the frescoed ceilings he commissioned for his personal apartments. When he moved to the Vatican, he got busy redecorating there, too. He commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel.
Nate’s taxi pulled under the archway carriage entrance that led into the hotel’s central courtyard. The old-fashioned reception desk just inside still had little letter boxes for each room with a brass number above each. The porter at the door wore white gloves.
After check-in, the tiny elevator carried Nate and the porter to the second floor, the piano nobile. Nate’s room had once been part of della Rovere’s private apartment. The ceiling fresco showed cherubs guiding a chariot heavenward, the apotheosis of some Greek hero. Nate had no idea who was in the fresco, but he suspected it was the cardinal himself. It occurred to him that the painting had nothing to do with Christianity.
After a shower and a change of clothes, Nate went right to work. He had a 10:00 a.m. appointment with Monsignor Matthew Ackerman, the priest Tracy had suggested as a contact. Ackerman worked at the English language desk in the Congregation for Bishops.
Even after an eight-hour flight and only six hours of sleep, Nate stepped out of his room looking like he was about to do a photo shoot for GQ. In a black Canali suit and a starched, custom-made white shirt, with a red silk Ferragamo tie, he would have been more at home in fashionista Milan than in a dreary dicastery of the Vatican.
Most men buy suits to wear to work. Nate bought suits simply because he liked them. At six-foot-one and weighing 183 pounds, Nate made clothes look good. Brigid sometimes still seductively reminded him that he looked best in nothing at all.
Nate and Brigid both played the game of appearances. Their true operating philosophy was more Greek epicurean than Christian ascetic. Brigid was better at the game than Nate. He was blue collar from Charlestown. She was striving middle class from Long Island.
But they both had traded the child-centered marriage of their Catholic parents for the career-centered life of a professional couple. Living well had become the reward for a life of discipline and hard work. Children were not part of their long-term plan.
After breakfast, Nate made the ten-minute walk to Monsignor Ackerman’s office. The Congregation for Bishops was outside the Vatican walls, in a nondescript office building fairly close to Cardinal O’Toole’s apartment.
Many Catholics have the mistaken impression that working at the Vatican is glamorous. In reality, for most Vatican bureaucrats, life is fairly dreary. There are some elegant offices inside the Vatican, but the English language desk of the Congregation for Bishops was not one of them. Nate stepped through the glass doors into a whitewashed room with gunmetal gray desks and hard wooden chairs.
* * *
Monsignor Ackerman was hung over. Hunched over his desk, he cradled his throbbing head in his hands. He drank alone at home on Monday night, out of caution. He was unable to recall completely the events of Sunday night. He could remember dinner with his friends at the trattoria. He also could remember the walk to Angelo Azzuro through Trastevere. After that, everything blurred.
When he awoke on Monday, he found a business card in his shirt pocket from a writer at Panoramio magazine. Ackerman hoped he hadn’t said anything foolish. He also hoped he hadn’t done anything incriminating. He called in sick on Monday and went to bed. But Tuesday he absolutely had to be back at work, with all the tension of the Manning murder in the Vatican.
When Ackerman’s secretary tapped on his door and stuck her head into the room, he raised his head slightly and looked at her with bleary eyes. She had seen that look before. She said crisply, “Monsignore, your appointment has arrived. Mr. Condon from America.”
Ackerman sighed and said to her, dry mouthed, “Water, please.” The secretary returned with a pitcher of water. Nate Condon followed.
“Monsignore, this is Mr. Nathaniel Condon from New York.” Nate stepped through the doorway.
Ackerman inhaled, suddenly revived.
“Mr. Condon,” said Ackerman, stuttering a bit, “I was expecting … well, I don’t know what I was expecting. Please, sit down. I hope you had a pleasant flight from New York?” Ackerman extended his hand, and Nate shook it firmly.
“Thank you for seeing me, Monsignor. I was given your name by the Nunciature in Washington, DC, as a contact for my investigation on behalf of the Holy See.”
“Call me Matt,” said Ackerman flirtatiously. “May I call you Nate?”
“Please do,” said Nate, confusi
on showing on his face.
Ackerman, however, was pleased.
“As you may know,” continued Nate, “I have been asked by the Holy See to investigate the deaths of the cardinals. Former CIA Director Tracy thought I could use the help of an American working at the Vatican. I need the personnel files on each of these six cardinals. I also need whatever you may have on them, no matter how trivial. On occasion, I may need files on others as well.”
Nate slid a piece of paper across Ackerman’s desk with the names of the six dead cardinals. The priest looked at the paper and raised his eyebrows.
“Pezzi grossi,” said Ackerman.
“Pardon me?” asked Nate.
“VIPs. These are high-level people. I can’t just release their files without some authorization.”
“I have the highest level of clearance in the Church,” said Nate, using terminology more suited to the US government than the Church.
Nate could see he was not getting through, but he was a quick learner. “I have a letter from Cardinal O’Toole,” he added. “My authorization comes directly from His Holiness. You may call Cardinal O’Toole’s office to verify my commission.”
“Well, of course,” said Ackerman nervously. “As soon as I can verify your credentials, I will get the files. We don’t keep them here in this office. I could bring them around to your hotel.” Ackerman was curious to know where Nate was staying anyway.
“I’m staying at the Hotel Columbus,” said Nate. “Perhaps you could have a courier drop them off.”
“Oh,” said Ackerman, seizing an opportunity, “I would be delighted to bring them by as soon as they are ready. This will be a fairly large set of files. We will have to photocopy them. Most of our files are not stored digitally.”
Nate could see the fatigue in the priest’s eyes. “You look tired, Father. Are you sure it won’t be too much trouble?”
“No trouble at all. I get off at six. I could come by then.”
“That’s great. Why don’t you let me buy you dinner at my hotel? It’s the least I could do to thank you. Perhaps you could give me some additional insight into the investigation.” Nate knew how to make people feel important.
“Anything I can do to be of service to the Holy Father,” said the priest breathlessly. “It would be my honor. I’ll bring a paper copy and a flash drive for what we have electronically. I’ll get you a password for the cloud.”
Nate smiled. It amused him to think that the Church kept documents in the “cloud.” No doubt they were guarded by angels.
Ackerman seemed reluctant to end the conversation. “Will your wife be joining us?” he asked.
“No, my wife is traveling on business in Belgium. It will be just the two of us,” said Nate.
Ackerman smiled with obvious delight. Nate got up to leave for his next appointment downtown, at the Questura, the offices of the Carabinieri, the national police of Italy. Tracy had arranged for him to have access to Interpol records.
“Thanks, Matt,” said Nate, extending his hand to the priest. He squeezed Ackerman’s hand and said, “See you at six.” Nate was not oblivious to the power he had over the monsignor.
“I’ll look forward to it,” said the monsignor. As Nate turned to close the door behind him, he saw Ackerman collapse into his chair.
On the way to his appointment at the Questura, Nate pulled out his mobile phone to call Tracy back in Washington. He had arranged for international service and wanted to see if it was working.
It was 6:00 a.m. in DC. Tracy answered promptly. He was up already. The Roman traffic made it impossible to hear clearly, so Nate stepped into the doorway of a shop and covered his ear.
“Bill, it’s Nate. I’m making some progress here in Rome. I talked to that priest whose name you gave me. Did you find out anything on your end? What about your contacts at the agency or on the hill?”
“Zero on the hill,” said Tracy. “We’ll get no help from Senator Reynolds at the intelligence committee. He’s a Catholic, but he is pissed off at the Church. His bishop in Kentucky refused him communion because of his stand on gay marriage, at the funeral Mass for his sister, no less. These bishops are screwing themselves. They don’t understand politics. Unless you are one hundred percent pure on certain issues, they cut you off.”
Nate didn’t have time for a transatlantic tirade about the hierarchy. He pressed on. “What about your contacts at the agency?”
“We did better there,” said Tracy. “The cardinal in Chile was killed in a private clinic in Santiago where he went for a varicose vein operation. Hard to believe you could die from that. May have been a botched surgery or a reaction to the anesthesia. Perhaps it was a drug overdose. Anyway, what should have been same-day surgery turned out to be eternal.” Tracy chuckled, pleased with his own joke.
“The agency doesn’t have any other leads. There are no common threads, except that all are cardinals. Whoever is behind these deaths must have global reach. The agency thinks we should be looking at organized crime.”
Nate felt like he could have reached that conclusion without the CIA’s vaunted analysis.
Nate stepped back out onto the sidewalk and started walking toward the Tiber. “Did your pals at the agency weed out any suspects?”
“Well,” said Tracy, “just like you said in Georgetown, it’s probably not the Israelis. They don’t care about the Church all that much. They wouldn’t have reason to kill bishops in Chile, and certainly not in New York. No chatter at the agency about Israel and the Church.”
“Who else is out?” asked Nate, sitting down on a park bench near the Castel Sant’Angelo. He could just barely hear over the traffic. Behind Nate was the massive fortress of the Castel, a place where popes had taken refuge when Rome was under siege. Centuries ago, when people wanted to kill the top echelons of the Church, they sent an army to do it.
“It’s probably not the victims of pedophilia either,” said Tracy. “They would rather drag the bishops into court or through the mud in the newspapers. Not kill them. Like that priest from Chicago—what’s his name—Andrew Greeley said, they wouldn’t be satisfied even if the pope ordered every priest in the world castrated.”
Nate could hear the loyal Knight of Malta in Tracy’s voice. Tracy usually defended the hierarchy, even when they were wrong, especially about the child abuse scandals. Nate guessed Tracy was speculating.
“Why wouldn’t child abuse victims be suspects?” asked Nate.
“Oh, they’re just crazy,” said Tracy. “Angry and crazy.”
“Anger and insanity seem like pretty good qualifications for serial murder,” said Nate. “They would give you good motivation anyway.”
“They couldn’t do it,” answered Tracy. “They’re just not that organized. This would take organization.”
It seemed like Tracy wanted to steer him away from child abuse victims. He made a mental note—keep that avenue open.
“So, who does that leave us?” asked Nate.
“Well, I hate to say it,” said Tracy, “but probably it’s probably an inside job—somebody in the Church who wants control. Whoever would kill six cardinals must know the Church pretty well and has to care about it a whole lot. Why, I’m not sure. The only place more secretive than Langley is the Vatican.” Tracy chuckled at the irony.
“You’ve been helpful,” said Nate. “This narrows the scope.”
“By the way,” added Tracy, “that American monsignor’s name I gave you at Milano’s as a contact … what’s his name … Ackerman? Be careful with him. One of the people at the agency found his name on a list of possible Mafia contacts, the Naples branch of the Camorra.”
“I know the Camorra well,” said Nate. His work as a prosecutor in New York had brought him into contact with them. “They have a lot of contacts in the States. Maybe the FBI might know something. What kind of connection do they suspect to Ackerman?”
“Well, he hangs out at a gay bar in Rome that is known to be run by the mob. He may be doing a little
freelance work. Agency people said he might be a messenger for the mob. Just be careful about what you tell him.”
“I’m meeting him tonight for dinner,” said Nate. “I’ll be circumspect.”
“By the way,” added Tracy, “Peggy suggested another contact in Rome. That friend of hers, Father Murphy, from the Soldados de Cristo says that the vice rector at their seminary in Rome is an American who knows his way around the Vatican. She thought you might want to contact him, too. His name is Jim Farrell. As soon as Peg gets up, I’ll get his contact info and email it to you.”
Again Nate felt steered. Peggy seemed to be enamored of the Soldados. “OK,” said Nate. “Any help is welcome.”
They hung up. Nate hailed a taxi for the ride down to the Questura.
He only lasted a couple of hours at the police headquarters. Jet lag crept in, and Nate found himself falling asleep as he puzzled over the files on Italian mob bosses. He realized that his rudimentary Italian prevented him from understanding everything. Nate made a mental note to hire an Italian-speaking assistant. Surrendering to the fatigue, he asked the officer at the desk to make some copies for him from the files. Then he went out on the street and hailed a taxi for the ride back to the Columbus, intent on getting a couple of hours of rest before his dinner meeting with Ackerman.
* * *
Six o’clock is early for dinner in Rome. The dining room at the Columbus Hotel was practically empty, which suited Nate just fine. He didn’t want to have people listening in on their conversation.
Monsignor Ackerman had arrived right on time, carrying with him a large cardboard box filled with files on the dead cardinals. They took it up and locked it in Nate’s room, then went down to dinner.
Ackerman looked all cleaned up. He gave off a pleasing aroma, one Nate recognized. Jaipur by Boucheron. Brigid had bought it for him last year for their anniversary. The scent put Nate on the alert. Perhaps Ackerman thought this was more than a business dinner?
They ordered wine and dinner from a white-coated waiter. Nate got right down to business. “What did these six men have in common, besides the fact that they were all cardinals?”
Strange Gods Page 11
