by Glenn Cooper
He fought the pain and kept the prayers flowing wordlessly for only God to hear.
Suddenly, a different pain.
It seized his throat and upper chest.
The Pope looked down with the irrational thought that someone had sneaked up and was pressing heavily on his chest.
The pressure made him contort his face and close his eyes.
But he wanted to keep them open and fought to do so.
It was as if a flaming arrow had pierced his breast, burning through layers of flesh.
He couldn’t call out, couldn’t take a good breath.
He struggled to keep his gaze fixed firmly on the face of the golden Christ.
Dear God. Help me in my hour of need.
Monsignor Albano entered Cardinal Aspromonte’s dining room without knocking.
Aspromonte could tell from his drained face that something was amiss.
‘The Pope! He’s been stricken in his chapel!’
*
The three cardinals rushed up the stairs and hurried through the formal rooms until they entered the chapel. Fathers Diep and Bustamante had moved the Pope’s slumped body from the wheelchair onto the rug and Zarilli was kneeling over his one and only patient.
‘It’s his heart,’ Zarilli mumbled. ‘There’s no pulse. I fear—’
Cardinal Diaz cut him off. ‘No. He’s not dead! There’s time to administer Extreme Unction!’
Zarilli began to protest but Giaccone cut him off and issued sharp orders to Fathers Bustamante and Diep who hurriedly fled the chapel.
Aspromonte whispered to Diaz, ‘Under the circumstances, you can omit the prayers, even the Misereatur, and proceed to the Communion.’
‘Yes,’ Diaz said. ‘Yes.’
Both Giaccone and Aspromonte helped Cardinal Diaz lower himself next to the Pope’s body where he knelt and said a silent prayer.
The Pope’s secretaries ran back in with a tray of communion wafers and a red leather bag. Diaz took one of the wafers and said in a clear voice, ‘This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to His supper.’
The Pope was unable to respond, but Aspromonte whispered what he would have said, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.’
‘The body of Christ,’ Diaz intoned.
‘Amen,’ Aspromonte whispered.
Diaz broke off a small particle of wafer and placed it into the froth inside the Pope’s mouth. ‘May the Lord Jesus protect you and lead you to eternal life.’
Zarilli was on his feet now, looking mournful, ‘Are you finished?’ he asked Diaz. ‘It’s over. The Pope has passed.’
‘You are wrong, doctor,’ the old cardinal said icily. ‘He’s not dead until the Cardinal Camerlengo says he’s dead. Cardinal Aspromonte, please proceed.’
Everyone dropped back while Aspromonte took the leather bag from Father Diep and extracted a small silver mallet engraved with the Pope’s coat of arms.
He fell to his knees and gently tapped the Pope’s forehead with the mallet, ‘Get up, Domenico Savarino,’ he said, using the name that the pontiff’s mother had whispered to him as a child, for it was said that no man would remain asleep at the sound of his baptismal name.
The Pope remained motionless.
Another tap. ‘Get up, Domenico Savarino,’ Aspromonte said again.
The room was quiet.
He tapped the Pope’s forehead with the mallet for the third and last time. ‘Get up, Domenico Savarino.’
Aspromonte rose to his feet, crossed himself and loudly proclaimed the awful words: ‘The Pope is dead.’
‘The Pope is dead.’
This time the words were uttered by a man speaking into a mobile phone.
There was a pause and a deep exhalation. The man could almost hear the relief flowing from the other’s chest. Damjan Krek replied, ‘During Pisces. As predicted.’
‘Do you want me to proceed?’
‘Of course,’ Krek said sharply. ‘Do it tonight. Tonight is the perfect time.’
As the man walked calmly through the Piazza St Pietro, he knew that K was correct. Tonight was the perfect time. As word of the Pope’s death spread within the Vatican, laity and clergy alike scurried to say a prayer in the Basilica, then rushed to their desks for the onslaught of work.
The man was toting a black nylon bag, the kind used to shift tactical gear. If it was heavy no one would have known. Like those of a modern Atlas his prodigious shoulders looked like they could shift any weight. He wore a dark blue business suit with a small enamel pin in his lapel, his usual attire on most days. He was not handsome but his lean angularity and midnight hair turned heads quickly enough; he had always done well with the ladies.
Instead of heading up the stairs of the Basilica he veered toward a non-public door leading to the Sistine Chapel. He picked up his pace and heard the night air whistling through his clenched teeth. He felt the SIG pistol lying tight against his heart and the Boker folding knife against his thigh. At the door, a Swiss Guard in ceremonial dress stood stiffly, bathed in floodlight. The guardsman looked the man in the eye, then glanced at his shoulder bag.
‘Korporal,’ the man said quickly.
The guardsman saluted crisply and stepped aside. ‘Herr Oberstleutnant. Sad day.’
‘Indeed it is.’
Oberstleutnant Matthias Hackel moved through the drab deserted hall, his leather-soled shoes tapping the tiles. Ahead was a locked doorway leading directly to the Sistine Chapel. He had the keys, of course, but everything on this level was covered by security cameras. While the second in command of the Swiss Guards could go virtually anywhere in Vatican City with impunity, it was better to pass through basement corridors where surveillance cameras were few.
He climbed a set of stone stairs to the first basement level and followed a corridor until he was directly under the Sistine Chapel within a rabbit warren of small and medium-sized rooms packed with uninteresting and low-value items. The Vatican had intensely secure spaces for documents, books and art treasures but the contents of these rooms were rather more prosaic: furniture, cleaning supplies, outdoor security barriers.
The room which he now entered had no cameras and was visited so infrequently that he was certain he’d be able to work without any surprise interruptions. He switched on the lights and the chamber sputtered into sickly yellow-green fluorescence. There were stacks of simple, inexpensive wooden tables, each a meter and a half long, less than a meter wide, high enough for use by a seated man. They’d been purchased in bulk in the 1950s from a Milanese factory but still seemed relatively new owing to their light use. They had been taken out of storage and carried upstairs into the Sistine Chapel only five times in nearly six decades, each on the occasion of selecting a new Pope.
They didn’t look like much. But when covered in floor-length red velvet and crowned with gold-brocaded brown velvet they would take on a certain splendor, especially when laid out in precise rows underneath Michelangelo’s ceiling.
The nearest table would serve a more immediate purpose. The man placed his bag on it and smiled.
THREE
TOMMASO DE STEFANO LINGERED OVER his cigarette, seemingly fretful about his appointment. Above him, water cascaded from the fountain of entwined sculpted dolphins which had stood at the center of the Piazza Mastai since 1863. His wife had been trying to get him to stop smoking and even he wheezily acknowledged the necessity. Yet this entire Roman square was a monument to tobacco and it was, perhaps, historically appropriate to pay homage with a smoke.
Besides, he was nervous and even a bit timid. His awkwardness bore a similarity to the trepidation he felt a few years earlier when a cousin emerged from a six-year jail term for larceny. At the time he’d asked his wife helplessly, ‘What do you say to a man who’s life’s been interrupted like this? How are you doing? Haven’t seen you for a while? You’re looking good?’
Behind him was the rather grand ninet
eenth-century Pontifical Tobacco Manufacturing factory erected by the entrepreneurial family of Pope Pius IX, now a state facility concerned with monopolies. Facing him was a more pedestrian four-story structure of red sandstone built by the same Pope in 1877 to house and educate the girls employed by his tobacco factory. It probably hadn’t been an act of pure papal charity, more likely a calculated maneuver to keep a cheap workforce off the streets and free of venereal disease.
De Stefano stamped out his cigarette and crossed the square.
Though the tobacco factory was long gone the red building had endured as a school. A bevy of well-behaved teenage girls in blue and white tracksuits milled around under a sign: SCUOLA TERESA SPINELLI, MATERNA-ELEMENTARE-MEDIA.
De Stefano took a sharp breath and pushed the iron gate open. In the marble forecourt a young nun was conversing with the harried mother of a little girl who was running in circles, working off pent-up energy. The nun was black – African, judging by her accent – wearing the light blue smock of a novice. He chose not to interrupt her so he carried on through the courtyard into the cool dark reception hall. A diminutive bespectacled older nun in a black habit saw him and approached.
‘Good day,’ he said. ‘My name is Professor De Stefano.’
‘Yes, you’re expected,’ the nun said in a business-like manner that contrasted with the friendly way her eyes crinkled. ‘I’m Sister Marilena, the Principal. I think her class is finished. Let me get her for you.’
De Stefano waited, adjusting his necktie, watching the young girls rushing past to get outside.
When she appeared, a look of fleeting disorientation crossed his face. What had it been? Eleven years? Twelve?
She was still statuesque and darkly beautiful but seeing her now in a black scapular with her hair all but obscured by a nun’s veil seemed to derail him.
Her skin was milky, only a few shades darker than the high-necked white vest that she wore under her square-scooped habit, the traditional dress of her order, the Augustinian Sisters, Servants of Jesus and Mary. Though she wore no make-up, her complexion was perfect, her lips naturally moist and pink. In her university days she had dressed better than the other students and had used lovely fragrances. But even allowing for the plain garb of a nun she couldn’t help but look stylishly impeccable. Her eyebrows were carefully plucked, her teeth lustrous, her nails unvarnished but manicured. And despite her billowing habit it was clear that she still cut a slim figure.
‘Elisabetta,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Professor.’
‘It’s good to see you.’
‘And you. You look well.’ She held out both her hands. De Stefano grasped them, then quickly let go.
‘That’s nice of you to say. But I think I’ve become an old man.’
Elisabetta shook her head vigorously at that, then asked, ‘Shall we get some sun?’
The courtyard was littered with playthings for the younger children. Between two potted trees was a pair of facing stone benches. Elisabetta took one and De Stefano settled onto the other, automatically reaching into his pocket.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘There’s no smoking here – the children.’
‘Of course,’ De Stefano said sheepishly, withdrawing an empty hand. ‘I need to quit.’
There was a longish pause, broken when Elisabetta said, ‘You know, I hardly slept last night. I was nervous about seeing you.’
‘Me too,’ he admitted, barely hinting at how tense he still felt.
‘Most of my old friends drifted away long ago. Some of them were uncomfortable. I think others thought I had become cloistered,’ she said.
‘You’re able to see your family, then?’
‘Oh yes! At least once a week. My father lives nearby.’
‘Well, you look happy.’
‘I am happy.’
‘The life suits you, then.’
‘I can’t imagine doing anything else.’
‘I’m pleased for you.’
Elisabetta studied his face. ‘You look like you’d like to ask me why.’
De Stefano smiled broadly. ‘You’re very perceptive. Okay, why? Why did you become a nun?’
‘I almost died, you know. The knife missed my heart by a centimeter. I was told that some men scared away the attackers before they could finish me off. I spent two months in hospital. I had a lot of time to think. It wasn’t an epiphany. It came to me slowly but it took hold and grew, and anyway, I’d always been religious – I got that from my mother – I’d always been a believer. What I saw around me had an impact, too. All the unhappy, unfulfilled people: the doctors, the nurses, patients I met, their families. The nuns gliding through the hospital were the only ones who seemed at peace. I didn’t want to go back to university life. I realized how desperately unhappy I was, how empty, especially without my Marco in my life. Once I felt the calling everything seemed so clear.’
‘At the Pontifical Commission, many of my colleagues are in the clergy, of course. I’ve heard some of them speak about their decisions to choose a religious life. I’ve just never personally known someone before and after.’
‘I’m the same person.’
‘The same, I’m sure.’ De Stefano shrugged. ‘But for me a little different. Why this particular order?’
‘It had to be an active community,’ Elisabetta said. ‘I didn’t have the personality to be in a contemplative one. I love children, I like to teach. This order is dedicated to education. And I knew them. I went to school here, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘For eight years. Primary and middle school. Sister Marilena was one of my teachers! I was only ten when my mother died. Sister Marilena was wonderful then, she’s wonderful now.’
‘I’m delighted you found yourself.’
Elisabetta nodded, then looked at De Stefano steadily, ‘Please tell me why you wanted to see me.’
De Stefano cracked his knuckles like a man who was about to play the piano. ‘Three days ago, on Tuesday, there was a minor earthquake centered about fifty kilometers south of Rome.’
‘I wasn’t aware of that,’ she said.
De Stefano paused for several seconds before continuing. When he spoke again there was a slight but perceptible hesitancy in his tone. ‘It was hardly felt here but enough sub-surface energy reached the city to cause a small cave-in at the catacombs at St Callixtus in an area already weakened by previous subsidence and the recent heavy rains.’
Elisabetta arched her eyebrows.
‘It affected the zone just to the west of the wall you studied when you were a student,’ De Stefano said.
‘No one ever got permission to excavate there?’ she asked.
‘No, the decision had been taken, and when you left, well, there was no one who pressed for a reconsideration. I certainly didn’t. Archbishop Luongo was adamant at the time and he became my boss when I went to work at the Commission, so I didn’t make waves.’
‘But now there’s been a natural excavation,’ Elisabetta said.
‘Messy – but quite natural, yes, you’re right.’
‘And?’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ De Stefano said nervously. ‘We – I – need your help.’
‘My help?’ she asked incredulously. ‘As you see, I’m no longer an archeologist, Professor!’
‘Yes, yes, Elisabetta, but here’s the situation. We’ve found something that’s quite remarkable – and quite sensitive. So far only a very few people know about it but there’s a concern that it could get out and cause some unwanted disruption.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘The timing with respect to the Pope’s death is unfortunate. The Conclave is scheduled to begin in seven days – all the Cardinal Electors are coming to the Vatican and the eyes of the world will be on us. In the event that there might be a leak about St Callixtus, well, we’d need to have our story straight. We’d need to be able to offer some credible explanation to minimize the level of disruption wh
ich would undoubtedly occur.’
‘Just what did you find?’
‘I don’t want to tell you, Elisabetta, I want to show you. I want you to come out there on Sunday afternoon. We’ll have enough structural timbers in place by then to make it safe. Then I want you to work with me for a while at the Commission. I’ve got an office prepared for you.’
‘Why me? You’ve got an entire department at your disposal. You can get any expert in the world to come at the snap of your fingers.’
‘Time is critical. Today we’re bringing new workmen to the site to do the heavy work. We’ll have engineers involved, more people on my staff. We’ve got areas under tarps to minimize any risk from prying eyes but despite our best efforts, people will talk. We just can’t afford that, please believe me. I wish I could tell you more, but … The press could be informed at any time. The powers that be in the Vatican are very concerned. They are demanding that I produce a standby statement in the event of a leak but I don’t know what to write. There would be an unfortunate cloud over the new Pope if this comes out, especially if we’re caught fumbling for the correct words. You spent a full year doing research on the symbology outside the caved-in chamber. You’ve studied first-century AD Roman astrology exhaustively. You were one of my brightest students. I’m confident that you can hit the ground running. No one is in a better position to formulate an opinion quickly.’
Elisabetta stood up, vexed, her face flushed. ‘That was twelve years ago, Professor! I have a different life now. It’s out of the question.’
De Stefano rose in an attempt to stay level with Elisabetta but she was still almost a head taller than him. ‘Archbishop Luongo is pleased that you’re in the clergy. He believes you’ll have the right sensitivity to the issues and he won’t lose any more sleep over confidentiality. Tell me, did you retain your research notes and papers?’
‘They’re in my father’s apartment somewhere,’ she said distractedly. ‘But I can’t just leave my school. I can’t abandon my students.’
‘Arrangements are already being made,’ De Stefano said, his tone suddenly more forceful, more insistent. ‘This evening Monsignor Mattera at the Vatican, the gentleman in charge of all the Church’s religious orders, will be calling the Mother General of your order in Malta. Your Principal, Sister Marilena, will be informed tonight. The wheels are in motion, Elisabetta. You have to help us. I’m afraid you have no choice.’
