by Walter Ellis
‘Three days, to be accurate,’ O’Malley said.
While they waited for their desserts, Aprea used his secure mobile to ask a colleague in the anti-terrorist police, DIGOS, if there had been any reports recently of Yilmaz Hakura or of Hizb ut-Tahrir operating in Rome. The man called back three minutes later. An undercover officer working in a housing project in the north of the city claimed to have seen him outside a hardline mosque about a month earlier, talking to some of the usual suspects. But he had vanished before backup arrived and the only evidence was a fuzzy photograph taken by the undercover officer using the camera on his mobile phone. Image enhancement suggested that the man might well have been Hakura – which would fit in with the prison protest and the bombing of the Lateran cathedral. But no further sightings had been made and the trail was now cold.
Next, Aprea called an expert from the Polizia Postale division of the Questura, responsible for computer crime. The officer was to join him in an hour’s time at the office of the prefect of the Secret Archive, Monsignor Asproni. Aprea telephoned Asproni himself and told him that he and a colleague would be along shortly to continue the investigation of the missing papers case. At 3.35 precisely, the specialist, complete with bag of tricks, sat down at the Monsignor’s desk and logged on. Aprea observed him closely, acutely aware of his own technical limitations. After a couple of minutes, the specialist emitted a satisfied grunt. The ‘file missing’ signal attached to the Battista papers had been overlaid on top of a previous indicator, since deleted. Using software developed by Britain’s MI5, he was able to recall the original message, thus confirming Dempsey’s claim that the Battista file had gone missing years before. Aprea said nothing to the prefect, but later, in Asproni’s office, asked him who in the library had the authority and access to amend computer entries, especially when a file went missing or had maybe been stolen.
The Monsignor took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
‘There could be five or six such people,’ he said, ‘plus myself and the vice-prefect. But that’s only the start. Before any substantive change can be made to the record, it is necessary first to inform me or my deputy. And any kind of investigation that’s carried out would, needless to say, have to have my personal sanction.’
Pressed to do so, the prefect then drew up a list of the names of those with authority to make online changes.
‘Could a switch be made without your knowledge?’ Aprea asked.
‘Of course,’ the priest replied. ‘But that would be quite irregular and most unethical.’
‘Assolutamente,’ Aprea said. He thanked Asproni for being so helpful and told him they’d be in touch.
Outside, he asked the specialist, ‘What do you think?’
‘I think anything’s possible. It’s a clever enough system, but the ones in charge aren’t necessarily the ones who know how it works.’
‘So you think we can rule out the Monsignor and his number two.’
‘I’d say so. But who knows? Maybe they’ve been to night classes.’
‘And Dempsey?’
‘He’s in the clear – at least so far as the charge of theft is concerned. Those papers went missing back in the 1970s, before he was even born. Unless he’s invented a time machine, the most they can get him for is unauthorized use of a computer.’
Aprea thanked his colleague and took out his mobile to give O’Malley the news.
At the same moment, at a terminal on the library’s reception desk, a message flashed up. The Battista file had been tampered with again. The security guard on duty picked up the telephone.
That evening, as he left his office to head home to his nearby apartment, O’Malley was surprised to find his nephew sitting on the Curia’s front steps.
‘Liam! What are you doing here? I was about to call you.’
‘I had a row with Maya.’
‘Aaah! What about?’
‘A bit awkward, actually. Her father was called to a meeting with the Vatican security service today. They told him about their inquiries and he had to admit to them that the person they are currently investigating in connection with the alleged theft of historical documents from the Secret Archive – i.e. me – is currently conducting a relationship with his daughter.’
‘Well, I can see how that wouldn’t look good.’
‘No. And it didn’t look any better when they told him I was embroiled in some sort of smear campaign against Bosani.’
‘Oh, dear Lord. The poor man. I must call him.’
‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. The long and the short of it is that Maya thinks I’m mad, or paranoid, or maybe both, and she doesn’t want to hear any more about anti-Islamic conspiracies. Matter of fact, she doesn’t want to hear anything more from me, full stop.’
‘She’ll get over it.’
‘You’re speaking from experience, are you?’
‘That’s not fair, Liam.’
‘No, I suppose not. I just wish I hadn’t let you talk me into this in the first place.’
‘I had no idea it would come to this.’
Dempsey stood up. ‘Yeah … well, it’s serious now. Where are you headed?’
‘Back to my apartment. I’ve got a lot to think about – more after what you’ve just told me.’
‘I’ll walk with you.’
‘Fair enough.’ They turned right, down the hill past the Santo Spirito hospital, towards the Jesuit Residence, named for Sant Pietro Canisio. ‘As it happens,’ O’Malley said, ‘I’ve got some good news for you.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes. A friend of mine, a top detective with the Rome police, has looked into your case. He got a computer expert who was able to confirm your claim that the missing papers had in fact disappeared back in the 1970s – before you were born. So you’re off the hook.’
At this, Dempsey brightened considerably. ‘Do the Vatican crowd know about this?’
‘They will,’ his uncle said. ‘My friend says he’ll make the call himself.’
‘So I’d have a clean slate?’
‘Clean as a whistle.’
‘That’s something, I suppose. So what else is new? Anything more on Bosani?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Tell me. Otherwise I’ll just spend all my time thinking about Maya and how stupid I’ve been.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’ O’Malley related the story of Rüttgers’ diary and how the provost of the German College had denied its very existence. The journal, he said, was now in the hands of the Camerlengo.
‘Interesting. So what you’re saying is that Rüttgers didn’t just disagree with Bosani, he doubted the basis of his faith?’
‘That’s what he wrote.’
‘So who’s this fellow Hakura?’
‘A bad lot. One of the most dangerous Islamists around. They say he learned his trade in Baghdad and wants to introduce suicide bombings to Europe.’
‘Jesus!’
‘Exactly.’
‘And Rüttgers believed Hukura met Bosani?’
‘You can see why I’m worried.’
‘But why would he do that?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘It’d be like Churchill inviting Stalin to celebrate the setting up of NATO. This gets curiouser and curiouser. Anything else?’
O’Malley told him about the portrait of Cardinal Battista in Bosani’s private office.
‘If you ask me,’ said Dempsey, ‘Battista’s the key to all this. According to Caravaggio, it was Battista who betrayed Christ, and now we have Bosani keeping a portrait of the same fellow in a place of honour in his private apartment – a portrait that ought to be worth millions but doesn’t officially exist.’
‘Yes,’ said O’Malley. ‘The problem is, we don’t know what the link between them is. If we work that one out, we’ll have a window into what it is that Bosani’s planning.’
‘A tough one.’
‘Very. So what do you say? Are you game? It’s entirely up to
you. I wouldn’t dream of pressuring you.’
Dempsey laughed at that one. He was in two minds. On the one hand, with an intensity that he could feel in the pit of his stomach, he realized that he didn’t want to lose Maya, a girl unlike any other he had ever known. She had made her opinion on the Bosani business admirably clear. On the other, how could he abandon his uncle and walk away from a possible rendezvous with history? He thought hard, then came to a decision. ‘I’ll help you,’ he said. ‘But on one condition.’
‘Name it.’
‘I’d like you to call Maya for me and explain what’s happened. Maybe if she hears it from you, she’ll simmer down.’
‘I’d be glad to. The three of us could meet up, maybe have dinner. Like you say, the whole business might not seem so crazy coming from the Black Pope. I’d make it clear to her that the Rome police are now convinced of your innocence and that, in any case, we wouldn’t expect her to do anything to compromise her father.’
‘Would that work?’
‘In my experience,’ O’Malley said, smiling.
‘In that case,’ said Dempsey, ‘I’m in.’
O’Malley did not even try to conceal the relief he felt. With Liam at his side and Aprea sleuthing in the background, maybe they were in with a chance. But the Vatican was a labyrinth, in which it was easy to lose sight of reality. Or maybe it was more like one of those Russian dolls, in which different personalities and identities were constantly revealed and you never knew what was true and what was lies. Intrigue, not faith, was the fuel that propelled the governance of the Church, and those who stood against it weren’t assured of their survival.
It was something O’Malley had known for a long time. Ever since 1978: the Year of the Three Popes.
29*
25 September 1978
John Paul I had been on the Throne of St Peter’s for thirty-one days. Declan O’Malley, SJ, was in his third year as vice-rector of the Irish College in Rome. During their previous meeting, the two men had discussed a fresh approach to the relationship beween Islam and the Catholic Church. But then events beyond the new Pope’s control had moved to centre stage.
The phone rang a few minutes after eight in the evening, just as O’Malley was sitting down to dinner in the college’s small refectory on the Via dei Santi Quattro. All calls after six o’clock were switched through to the office of the rector, Monsignor Eamonn Marron, as well as to the old bakelite instrument that stood on the sideboard in the priests’ dining room. After a moment, Marron, a White Father, came back and tapped O’Malley on the arm. ‘It’s for you,’ he said. ‘The Pope.’
O’Malley spluttered into the glass of wine he had just raised to his lips. ‘You’re having me on,’ he said.
‘I’m not,’ said Marron, smiling. ‘It really is the Holy Father, and if I were you I wouldn’t keep him waiting.’
The Jesuit jumped up, knocking over his chair, and ran to the phone. ‘Holy Father,’ he began, speaking Italian, ‘what an unexpected honour.’
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ came the voice, sonorous and musical, down the line from the apartment high over St Peter’s Square.
‘Good God, no, not at all. But whatever can I do for you? You have only to ask.’
‘I would like you to come over to my private lodging. Can you do that?’
‘Of course, Holy Father, of course. Do you mean now?’
‘If that would be convenient.’
‘I’m on my way.’
O’Malley was in such a rush that he didn’t replace the receiver properly and it was left to the rector, standing behind him, to tell His Holiness that his intended visitor had already quit the room. ‘Most kind of you, Monsignor,’ the Pope said. ‘Father O’Malley is, I think, a man of action. Is that the phrase? I shall await his arrival. In the meantime, please pass on my blessings to all your staff and residents and know that I intend, God willing, to visit the college as soon as it can be arranged. Goodnight, my son.’
The rector muttered his thanks, bade the Pope goodnight and put down the phone. Then he walked back to the dining table in a daze.
Luckily for O’Malley, there was a cab rank just around the corner from the college and the Irishman was quickly on his way across the city. Ten minutes later, as the taxi, an elderly Mercedes, swept along the Via Conciliazione, Mussolini’s homage to civic and religious virtue connecting Rome directly to the Vatican, he couldn’t imagine what it was that the Pope wished to talk to him about. They had corresponded once, years before, about the peculiar relationship between the Ottomans and the Venetian Republic. But that couldn’t be it. And on the single occasion on which they had actually met, in the Gesù, six weeks ago, it had mainly been the oppressive summer weather they had discussed, as well, he remembered, as a few words about the increased violence in Northern Ireland. But remarks he had made about the situation in Iran had struck O’Malley at the time as particularly far-sighted. The then patriarch remarked that the Muslim revival, based on oil, plus the expected coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran would spell deep trouble for the West. The resulting revival of Shia Islam would have long-term consequences, he said. Since then, the Lebanese civil war had broken out, resulting in the shelling of Christian communities by the Syrians, the invasion of the south of the country by Israel and, in the end, the expulsion of the PLO. O’Malley had been particularly concerned by the kidnapping and murder that year of two Irish peacekeepers by the South Lebanon militia, officered by Christians but increasingly Shiite in composition. The Arab oil producers were meanwhile consolidating their use of the oil weapon against the West, demanding a new attitude from America and Europe in their dealings with Islam. At the same time, demonstrations by pro-Khomeini zealots in Tehran were growing daily more intense and the feeling was that the Shah would not survive the year. Luciani was deeply concerned by the deepening sense of crisis in the world. But with the upcoming conclave dominating everybody’s thoughts, including his, there had been no time for more than a cursory discussion of the events and where they were leading.
O’Malley wondered if the new Pope wanted to revisit these themes. If so, his own prospects could be much altered in the days ahead.
They were almost there. ‘Drop me here,’ he said to the cab driver as they approached the entrance to St Peter’s Square. ‘I think I can manage the rest on my own.’
He got out, remembering to include a small tip along with the fare, and walked through the gateway. At the far side, he looked again in admiration and astonishment at the vast piazza, with St Peter’s Basilica straight ahead, its dome oddly receding the closer you got to it, and the Apostolic Palace to the right. Picking up his pace, he approached Bernini’s Colonnade and eventually halted at an enormous bronze door.
All of a sudden he realized that he didn’t have a written invitation, or indeed any proof of who he was. He had never owned a car, so he didn’t even have a driving licence. The two guards in their flamboyant blue and orange costumes closed their halberds against him.
‘I’m here to see the Pope,’ he began, somewhat unconvincingly.
At this, an older man stepped forward, dressed in a smart suit, with a small papal badge pinned to his right lapel. ‘Father O’Malley, is it?’ O’Malley nodded. ‘I’m Colonel Von Altishofen, commandant of the Guard. Please step this way; the Holy Father is expecting you.’
Two minutes later, after walking through several marbled halls and ascending a set of winding stairs, they arrived at a broad corridor with a tiled floor. The colonel led the way, then halted in front of a simple door. The two guardsmen on duty moved smartly to one side and the commandant pushed down on the handle.
The papal reception room was certainly comfortable, and definitely spacious, with some fine furniture and a collection of religious paintings that were obviously of the first rank, including, he thought, one by Raphael. But this, evidently, was not where he would meet the Pope. Instead, the colonel knocked twice on a second door before ushering him into a much sm
aller room containing two sofas, a couple of armchairs, an inlaid armoire, a coffee table and various lamps, as well as a surprisingly large television set. On one of the sofas, nearest the window, sat the Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Apostolic and Universal Church. He looked small and frail, dressed in his white silk robes, but offered a friendly smile to his visitor.
‘Father Declan O’Malley,’ said the colonel stiffly.
‘Thank you, Colonel. Most kind of you. That will be all.’
And then they were alone.
It was immediately clear to O’Malley that his host was under considerable strain. His skin was almost deathly pale and his eyes looked exhausted, as if he had been reading constantly and had no time for sleep. Three key issues dominated his thinking. First, the shadowy P2 Masonic Lodge, linking certain highly placed figures in the Hierarchy, even the Curia, to the Mafia and international banking, had to be confronted without delay. Second, the spread of so-called Liberation Theology in Latin America was threatening papal authority. ‘This unholy mix of Marxism and Christian thinking cannot be tolerated,’ Luciani told O’Malley. ‘And it is your own order, the Jesuits, who must find the way forward.’ But it was in connection with the third question – what the Pope judged to be an impending conflict between the Church and Islam – that he had invited the Irishman to join him.
Seated on an armchair opposite the pontiff, O’Malley was taken aback by the extreme candour of Luciani’s words, evidencing, he feared, a startling naivety. Surely, he told himself, the Holy Father must know that he couldn’t take on all the problems of the Catholic Church in a single campaign, however well-intentioned. That wasn’t how it worked. It was, rather, a matter of give and take, of reciprocity and compromise.
But it was not for him, even as a not-so-humble priest, to contradict the wishes of Christ’s Vicar on Earth. ‘I am at your disposition, Your Holiness,’ he said simply. ‘How can I help?’
