by Glenn Cooper
Major Capozzoli came rushing over and joined them.
‘Where did he get his information?’ Loreti asked. ‘Why didn’t he inform anyone else?’
‘His sister told him.’
‘Who in God’s name is his sister?’ Sonnenberg demanded.
‘She’s a nun.’
Both men stared at him.
‘Look, I don’t know the details,’ Lorenzo said, ‘but she was right. Zazo told me that Matthias Hackel was involved.’
‘Hackel!’ Sonnenberg cried. ‘You’re insane.’
‘Where is Hackel?’ Loreti asked.
Sonnenberg tried hailing Hackel on his radio but got no reply.
‘The last time I saw him he was here at the Domus,’ Capozzoli said. ‘It was about forty minutes before the blast.’
‘Why was he here?’ Loreti asked.
‘He said he wanted to check on Cardinal Giaccone.’
‘Christ!’ Loreti said. ‘Let’s get up there. Cappy, come with me. Lorenzo, take some men and look for Hackel. Check everywhere. Check his residence.’
Loreti, Capozzoli and Sonnenberg stood outside Room 202.
Loreti knocked.
There was no answer.
‘Cardinal Giaccone?’ he yelled. ‘Open it,’ he said to Capozzoli.
Capozzoli had a pass key. The small room was empty, the bed made. Giaccone’s robes were neatly laid out on the bedspread.
The bathroom door was closed and they heard a shower running.
‘Hello?’ Sonnenberg called out.
There was nothing but the sound of water.
Sonnenberg tried again, louder. ‘Hello?’
The water stopped and a moment later the doorknob turned. ‘Hackel? Is that you?’
Giaccone opened the bathroom door, fat, naked and dripping wet.
At the sight of the three men in his room he tried to shut the door again but Capozzoli stuck his foot against the jamb, then threw the door open.
‘You were expecting Oberstleutnant Hackel?’ Loreti asked. ‘Why? Come out and speak with us. Do you know what has happened?’
Giaccone said nothing.
He rushed forward like a small pink bull, tripping up Sonnenberg who fell unceremoniously on his backside.
Giaccone reached for something on the desk, under his red hat. When he turned they saw it.
He had a dangling pink tail.
They hardly noticed the small silver pistol in his hand.
But he pressed it to his temple, shouted, ‘I am Petrus Romanus!’ and pulled the trigger.
Lorenzo forced the lock of Hackel’s flat and burst inside.
The men swept through. It was empty.
‘Search the place,’ Lorenzo ordered. ‘Put on your gloves. Treat it as a crime scene.’
It was a small flat and meticulously tidy, which made it easy to sort through Hackel’s possessions and papers.
Among his household bills was a very non-domestic account that stood out: an invoice to a Geneva-based mining corporation, which would prove to be a shell outfit with a fake import license. It was from a US company, EBA&D, for a roll of flexible RDX explosive, Primasheet 2000.
They had their man.
Now they needed a motive.
Cardinals Diaz, Aspromonte and Franconi huddled together in a corner of the chapel on the ground floor of the Domus. Their cassocks were soiled and their faces were still grimy but they were unhurt.
‘Did you see his body?’ Franconi asked.
Aspromonte nodded. ‘I did. I tell you, Giaccone had a tail.’
Franconi rubbed his hands in agitation. ‘Lemures?’ he asked nervously. ‘One of us – a Lemures?’
Aspromonte said, ‘Before he shot himself he declared to the officers, “I am Petrus Romanus.”’
Diaz sputtered, ‘My God! Malachy! Is this prophecy coming to pass?’
‘We have many more questions than answers,’ Aspromonte said. ‘But there is no doubt now that the Church faces a time of unprecedented turmoil and struggle, the outcome of which we cannot be certain.’
‘Nothing must be said to the press about Giaccone’s “condition” or the circumstances of his death,’ Diaz insisted. ‘He had a heart attack when he heard the explosion. A heart attack. We must close ranks.’
‘The tragedy!’ Franconi sobbed. ‘Our greatest treasure, Michelangelo’s Chapel, gone!’
‘No, you’re wrong!’ Aspromonte scolded. ‘Somewhere in the world, perhaps here in Italy, is another Michelangelo. Buildings can be rebuilt. New paintings can be commissioned. But our greatest treasure, the Church, thank God, and its leadership have been saved because of the acts of a simple policeman and a simple nun.’
Diaz nodded. ‘We have work to do. I’m told that the Basilica only has damage to its northern exterior façade. The Sala Regia is quite badly damaged but the Palace is intact. We must find a place for the Electors to convene tomorrow. The Conclave must continue. We need a new Holy Father, now more than ever.’
Elisabetta and Micaela held each other and wept as they watched the terrible images on the television.
A reporter for RTV was interviewing a Slovenian family on pilgrimage to St Peter’s Square when the bomb went off.
The camera shook and thousands of people fell to the ground as one, screaming at the fireball that rose into the air.
‘Oh, God! Zazo!’ Elisabetta screamed.
Before Micaela stepped over Krek’s body, she kicked his chest just to make sure. She snatched the telephone from the coffee table and rang Zazo’s mobile. It went straight to voicemail.
‘I’m sure he’s okay,’ she mumbled. ‘He’s got to be okay.’
Elisabetta fell to her knees and began to pray.
She prayed for Zazo.
She prayed for the Cardinals.
She prayed for the Church.
She prayed for Micaela.
She prayed for herself.
In the distance they heard sirens. The insistent whooping got louder and louder until it stopped.
There were shouts in Slovenian, a brief but terrifying exchange of gunfire from the entrance hall and finally, after an unpleasantly long time, an urgent banging against the heavy oak door.
‘Police! We’re coming in!’
THIRTY-THREE
THE MOOD INSIDE the Basilica was as somber as it had been for any funeral Mass ever held under its hallowed dome. A few dozen Vatican insiders huddled in the dust-filled pews praying silently, as shell-shocked as the victims of the physical blast the day before.
Matthias Hackel’s black suit, white shirt and polished black shoes had been found on the bank of the Tiber near the Ponte Sant’Angelo. Perhaps he’d drowned himself, perhaps not, but the internal investigation was in its infancy and there were certainly no conclusions about possible accomplices yet. Because of this, Oberst Sonnenberg reluctantly ceded primary security to the Polizia di Stato and the Swiss Guards were remanded to barracks. The Gendarmerie were deployed to seal off Vatican City to all but critical employees and a small pool of international reporters.
Elisabetta, Micaela and their father sat in a rear pew, waiting silently.
At noon, Monsignor Achille, Cardinal Aspromonte’s private secretary, approached them, leaned over and whispered into Elisabetta’s ear.
She told Micaela and her father. ‘Wait here. They want to speak to me now.’
Elisabetta followed Achille through the aisle under the monument of Pius VIII to the passageway of St Peter’s Sacristy and Treasury. They walked over the marble floors to a museum-like room where three plush chairs faced each other. She looked up at the Crux Vaticans, the Vatican Cross, covered in leather, silver and precious stones. It was the Vatican’s greatest treasure, said to contain fragments of the True Cross.
Achille asked her to wait. Soon Cardinals Aspromonte and Diaz appeared. When Elisabetta rose to greet them Aspromonte smiled and told her to sit down again. They joined her, their chairs so close that their knees almost touched.
Diaz was ri
gid and imposing but Aspromonte’s full face was kind and avuncular; she warmed to him immediately.
‘Elisabetta Celestino,’ he said, clasping her thin, cold hand in his warm, generous ones. ‘Sister Elisabetta. The Church owes you an incomparable debt of gratitude.’
‘I was only serving God, Your Excellency. He has been my guide through this ordeal.’
‘Well, you’ve served Him well. Imagine what the world would look like today if you hadn’t succeeded. Tell me, how is your brother?’
‘We saw him this morning. They hope to release him from intensive care later today. He’s doing well.’
‘Good, good. He was so bold, so brave,’ Aspromonte said. ‘He saved many lives.’
‘Yes, he’s amazing,’ Elisabetta said. ‘But it’s sad that good men like Professor De Stefano, Father Tremblay and Cardinal Giaccone died. It’s sad that the great Sistine Chapel is no more.’
‘The Chapel will be rebuilt,’ Aspromonte said, releasing her hand. ‘De Stefano and Tremblay are greatly mourned. Cardinal Giaccone is a different matter.’
‘He was one of them,’ Diaz said curtly. ‘The head of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology was one of them!’
‘My God,’ Elisabetta said. ‘That’s how they knew. Even years ago when I was a student. He was a Lemures?’
The cardinals were dumbstruck by her response. ‘You know of them?’ Diaz whispered.
Elisabetta nodded. ‘I discovered some facts. I shared them with Father Tremblay and in return he told me certain things in the strictest confidence.’
‘Then you understand what we’ve been up against. Lord knows what harm Giaccone would have done to the Church if he’d been the only Cardinal Elector left,’ Diaz said angrily.
‘He would have been Pope,’ Aspromonte said.
‘A disaster,’ Diaz said, gritting his teeth and pumping a fist, as if the old boxer in him was itching to leave his corner and go another round.
Aspromonte opened his palms. ‘Sister, you must tell us what you think because you have seen them up close. You have spoken with one of their leaders.’
‘And God forgive me, and forgive my sister,’ Elisabetta said, ‘we took lives.’
‘Later, you will give your confession and you will be forgiven,’ Diaz said impatiently. ‘What is your impression of them?’
Elisabetta took a breath. ‘They want to destroy the Church. They hate it and everything it stands for. They want to trample all that is good, and if everything is destroyed in the process they’ll feel satisfaction at seeing the world in flames. They are pure evil.’
Aspromonte listened to her, doleful, his head shaking, as if keeping time to an unseen metronome. ‘We speak of the Devil all the time,’ he said, ‘but even for me, a man who is quite literal in my beliefs and my interpretation of the Bible, the Devil has always been something of a metaphor. Evil exists, of that there can be no doubt, but for there to be a physical embodiment like this! It is a fearful notion.’
Elisabetta felt she should only listen, not speak anymore, but she couldn’t hold back. ‘It makes the word of Christ that much more important, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes!’ Aspromonte agreed. ‘You are exactly right, Sister. We’ve always had work to do. Today we have work to do. Tomorrow we have work to do. It will never be done until the day Christ returns. We must be perpetually vigilant.’
Elisabetta felt an overwhelming sadness wash over her. ‘Could I ask a question of you?’
‘Of course, Sister,’ Aspromonte said.
‘My mother died when I was a girl. She was an historian. She found a document in the Vatican Secret Archives, a sixteenth-century letter from John Dee, a man who could have been a Lemures. Her research privileges were cancelled and within days she became ill and died. I think she was poisoned.’
‘What was her name?’ Aspromonte asked.
‘Flavia Celestino. She passed away in 1985.’
The Cardinals whispered among themselves. ‘We don’t know of her,’ Diaz said.
‘Before we were abducted, Father Tremblay told me that he knew the name of the man who had the John Dee letter removed from the archive. It was Riccardo Agnelli. He was the personal secretary to someone who is now a cardinal.’
‘I know Agnelli!’ Diaz exclaimed. ‘He died some years ago. I’ll tell you who he worked for! He worked for Giaccone!’
‘Then she was murdered,’ Elisabetta said, her eyes stinging.
‘I’m so sorry, my dear,’ Aspromonte said. ‘Your life has been traumatized again and again by these fiends.’ He reached for her hands and she gave them up freely. ‘Why, we must ask, has the Lord tried you so?’
Diaz interrupted impatiently. ‘An important question, I’m sure, but we have some practical work to do first. We have concerns about these matters becoming public. Imagine what the reaction would be among the faithful if they knew about the Lemures. And we aren’t even sure what we’re up against. Where are they lurking? And who knows how many of them even exist? Do you have any idea about these things?’
Elisabetta shook her head and Aspromonte released her hands.
Diaz leaned closer. ‘Perhaps these Slovenians and Giaccone were the leaders. Perhaps there aren’t so many of them. If Hackel hasn’t drowned himself he must be caught. Regardless, he will be identified as the perpetrator of the bombing. He was deranged, bitter, disgruntled after becoming aware that he would never become the head of the Guards. We have worked this out.’
Elisabetta listened incredulously. ‘I’m sorry, Your Excellency, maybe it’s not for me to say – but do you think it’s the right thing to suppress the truth?’
Aspromonte jumped in before Diaz could answer. ‘After hearing a preliminary report of your ordeal and reviewing the facts as we know them, the Cardinal Bishops met late into the night discussing the matter. I mustn’t speak of these deliberations but perhaps some members, myself included, were more inclined than others toward the view which I believe you possess. But we debated the issues with great solemnity and with prayerful guidance and we speak as one. We think it is better to spare the world such a great anxiety. We think there is more harm to be done than good.’ Then he added, ‘In the afternoon, we will start the Conclave again in this very room, under this great symbol, the Crux Vaticans. We will have a new Pope. Perhaps the new Holy Father will have a different view. We shall see.’
‘In the meantime,’ Diaz said, ‘we must have your silence. We know that Major Celestino will do his duty. We need your sister and father to do likewise. Can you guarantee their discretion?’
Micaela had never been accused of discretion, Elisabetta thought, but she nodded. ‘I will speak to them. I’m sure they will agree. But what about Krek? And the other man Micaela had to kill? Krek was a very wealthy man. The police were there. Surely this will come out!’
‘I think not,’ Diaz said. ‘The Slovenian Ambassador to the Vatican has had a busy night. The Slovenian government has no desire for the facts ever to be known about Damjan Krek. He was quite far to the right, certainly no friend of the country’s political leaders. They’ve already begun circulating the word that Krek and Mulej died in a murder-suicide. It seems that they were having a homosexual affair. Their bodies will be cremated.’
Elisabetta held her tongue. ‘And the skeletons of St Callixtus? What will become of them?’
‘They’re already on their way back to Italy. They’ll go into storage. The new Pope will choose the next President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology. Decisions will be made in good time.’
Elisabetta had only one more question. ‘And what of me?’ she asked.
Diaz rubbed his face. ‘I have to tell you, Sister, that you could be of great service to us here in the Vatican. I, for one, would like to see you pick up the staff that fell from Father Tremblay’s hand and continue his important work. No one is in a better position to fight these Lemures than you.’
Elisabetta’s lower lip quivered uncontrollably. ‘Please, Your Ex
cellency. I will do whatever the Church demands of me but I beg you, please let me go back to my school.’
Aspromonte smiled. ‘Of course you can, my dear, of course you can. Go in Christ.’
After Elisabetta had left them, the two cardinals faced each other, their expressions grim. ‘It’s a pity,’ Diaz said. ‘She’s young with an agile mind. It seems it’s left to old men like you and me to carry on this struggle.’
It was five o’clock in the afternoon.
They had been meeting for just three hours but the Cardinal Electors looked weary and shell-shocked.
They sat in the Sacristy of St Peter’s in a chamber that had never been intended for this purpose. Tables and an altar unused since the last Papal Synod had been brought in from the adjacent Paul VI Audience Hall.
A new batch of ballots had been hastily printed, each beginning with the words: Eligo in Summum Pontificem – I elect as Supreme Pontiff.
When they had put their pens down, Cardinal Franconi summoned the Electors one by one, in order of their precedence, to the altar where each man presented the ballot to one of the Cardinal Scrutineers and swore in Latin, ‘I call as my witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.’
When all the ballots had been cast, one Scrutineer shook the container and another removed a ballot and read the name aloud.
As the balloting progressed there was a growing chorus of whispers but when the senior Scrutineer read the results the whispers were replaced by silence.
Cardinal Diaz rose and stretched himself to his full height.
He strode to the row of tables on his right, stood in front of one man and looked down.
‘Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem?’ Diaz asked. Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?
Cardinal Aspromonte had been looking down at his clasped hands.
He turned his eyes upwards, met his old friend’s gaze and hesitated for a very long time before nodding. ‘Accepto, in nomine Domini.’
‘Quo nomine vis vocari?’ Diaz asked. By what name will you be called?
