Sanctuary Creek
Page 9
“What’s your problem with Mitchell?” Samson asked, knowing there was a list a few pages long with most everybody in Party and Administration, but with Carter in particular.
“How many you want?”
“Top three.”
“He’s ugly, he’s an asshole and he’s just too damn smart.”
“I’d have to agree.”
“And you’re gonna have to agree a lot more in the next couple of days, Cardinal Samson. You really think you’re gonna be able to go one on one with him when it comes down to screwin’ around with the portfolio?”
Despite the fact he had a face not even a mother could love and the personality of a dead toad, going one on one with Bishop Mitchell Mitchell was a sure sign of stupidity and often a career derailer. Samson doubted that even Peter liked him in the personal sense. They never socialized. He’d never seen a joke shared or a warm confidence offered. But there was no question Peter trusted his counsel. And only weeks before, he’d overheard a conversation that led him to believe Mitchell’s rabbi was none other than Archie Knight himself.
“So what’s the top item on your agenda today, Cardinal Samson?”
“I was thinking of just going over to Castro’s office to get an idea of what’s up.”
“Not Castro’s, buddy. Your office.”
“Yeah,” Samson agreed. “My office.”
“Promise me one thing before you enter into your kingdom.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to watch your ass.”
“It’s only for a few days at the outside. What’s the big deal?”
“You know how those people are up in Admin. They’re always looking for something to make Party look bad.”
“What are you talking…?”
“I’m serious, Ter. Watch your ass.”
* * *
After picking up his sports coat, the two walked back to the Administration building, most of their conversation devoted to congratulating themselves on their recommendation to turn Phillips down for the job. Carter grinned as he got off the elevator on three, pushing the ninth floor button a couple times and advising his confederate to call if he got lost. Samson continued up alone, greeted as the door opened by a Vat.
“Hello, Secretary Samson,” he said, nodding to his right.
The acting Secretary walked to a reception desk, the woman behind it nodding pleasantly. “Good afternoon, Secretary Samson. I don’t believe we’ve met before,” she said, standing and offering her hand. “My name is Linda Elmendorf. I’m in charge up here.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Let me take you back to your office.”
She led him through a maze of halls to a corner office guarded by an extremely attractive woman who stood abruptly as they approached.
“Beetsee,” Elmendorf stated, “this is Secretary Samson. Secretary, Beetsee Esposito.”
“Juan told me… always said nice things about you, Beetsee.”
“Thank you, Secretary.”
“So I guess we ought to get down to business, huh?”
“The Pontiff’s secretary called around 2:30 and asked to speak with you as soon as you arrived.”
Samson reached for the phone on her desk but paused as he saw the look of surprise. “I guess I’ll call from in there,” he said as he turned and walked to his new workstation.
But it wasn’t a workstation. It was a massive suite. Although he’d never been in it, never in fact been in any of the Administration offices, its layout was immediately comfortable, a larger version of the biggest one down on three, Jeff Gayle’s.
There was an unwritten rule that came on line as soon as Peter was elevated to the papacy: The Party is one thing, Administration is another and unless there was an absolute necessity, members of one were not supposed to be involved with members of the other. Period. It was never clear to Samson what the precise underpinning was. But whatever hid behind Peter’s insistence, the directive oftentimes slowed daily operations to a halt as players in the two camps waited for confirmations or refusals of various concepts or projects from the other. It also created a competitiveness as each tried as best it could to beat the other to the punch, outshine the other in Peter’s eyes or blame the other when things went wrong.
He sat down at the huge desk at the far end of the main room and dialed up Rosalita, the surface empty except for a console, a PC and a note written in Castro’s hand: 2:00 p.m. Monday. RCCBN studios.
“The Pope would like to speak with you if you can spare a moment,” she said as soon as he identified himself. “Did you have a difficult time finding your office?”
“How do you know I’m in my office?”
“How else would you know I’d called?”
“You got me there, Rosie.”
“Hold on a moment.”
Peter picked up the phone a few seconds later.
“Terry?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“Cas… In my new office.”
“Okay. You see the blue button on the far right of your bank?”
“Yes.”
“Push it.”
Samson had noticed a similar button on Gayle’s phone in the past, a similar one on Peter’s, but never wondered what it was. Now he figured he knew.
“Secured?” he asked.
“Push it.”
Samson did and a few beeps and whirs filled the earpiece. “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Whenever we talk, I want you to always press that button. Do you understand?” Peter’s voice seemed more distant than ever, in physical detachment and somehow in qualitative detachment, too.
“Whatever you say.”
“Have you found out anything yet?”
Samson puzzled over the question. Find anything? Like what? Like Silver Piece, he realized. “I just got here.”
“Where have you been? It’s past one.”
“I was having lunch.”
“With who?”
“Carter Sherwood.”
“I’d prefer that you not talk to him any more unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Samson was stunned. Not only did Peter know that the two of them were good friends, neighbors and close professional associates, but the primaries were just a few weeks away.
“But the primaries…”
“Party can take care of that by itself.”
“But…”
“No buts. You can talk to Sherwood when we get all of this insanity out of the way.”
“Insanity?”
“All of this insanity, Terry. Juan’s death. The Council. The President. The Diaries. Silver Piece.”
“What about them?” Samson asked, trying to pick one that wouldn’t aggravate the man any more than he already sounded. “What about the President?”
“He called me again. He just won’t leave me alone so I can get some work done. I’ve got to get a lot of things done. I’ve got to get a lot of things out of the way.”
“Like…”
“Like the Diaries, like the pebble. How would you like to have a proposition like that one hanging over your head, the entire world waiting for you to tell them something they either want to hear or don’t want to hear?”
Samson had never heard Peter ramble like this. He was always so focused, so in charge. Maybe Carter was right. Maybe the pressure was…
“Well, I realize that…”
“Realize? Realize what? You don’t realize anything, Terry. You don’t know what it’s like. You’ve been on vacation. Do you think I ever get to go on vacation? Did it ever occur to you that… did it ever occur to anybody that perhaps I’d like to take a vacation, too? What’s with all of you people?” He paused then continued in a conciliatory tone. “I’m, I apologize. It’s not your problem. It’s mine.”
“I’m certainly…”
“I know. I know you are. I know you’re trying to help and I’m sure you’ll do a good job at Admini
stration.”
“Sure I will. You know that.”
“But we have to get some answers. We have to start making some sense out of everything that’s going on.”
“I agree,” Samson said, even though he didn’t know to what it was he was agreeing.
I don’t know if you’re listening, Sir. I don’t know where the old Peter went or where the new version came from, but just between you and me I think it would be better for all concerned if you let the old one return to the Creek.
“So what have you found out about Silver Piece?”
“I just got here. Remember?”
“Yes, yes,” the Pontiff replied. “You told me that. And I recall our earlier conversation today, and I think maybe I gave you the wrong impression about it.”
The wrong impression, Samson thought. The wrong impression? He had no idea what Peter was talking about nor a clue as to where the conversation would now lead. He could understand that Peter was upset. He could imagine how he felt. He recalled how he grieved in the days and weeks after Kim’s death, how the flood of emotions seemed as if it would never cease. How he feared each moment, knowing it could suddenly produce a completely new set of thoughts and emotions that had nothing to do with those preceding it. Peter was probably going through the same thing. And Samson had seen it before.
He recalled Peter in the wake of the death of Nicholas. He remembered the sadness, the subtle madness Peter endured, having at once to bury the man who meant so much to him and at the same time deal with the immense pressure of being seriously considered as his replacement. It lasted months, Peter dredging a wide moat nobody could cross except Juan Castro. With him now gone, Peter was on his own.
“So what impression should I have of Silver Piece?” he asked. “You didn’t give me much to go on.”
“Ah, Silver Piece. Silver Piece. Probably drove Juan to his death. He must have been on to something. He’d been looking into it for a while. He refused to advise me of the progress. Thought it was too dangerous. He was trying to protect me, protect the papacy. Protect the Church.”
“Who else knows about it?”
“I should have never let him shoulder the entire thing. I should have never let him take it on alone. I think that’s why he died. He couldn’t…”
“Who else knows about it?” Samson asked again.
“Silver Piece?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No one, Terry. No one knows. Only Juan knew and now he’s gone.”
“But you must have some…”
“Ideas about it?” Peter finished the thought. “Yes, I have some.”
“Could you…”
“You did press the blue button, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I never should have let him kill himself over something like this.”
“Anybody could have a heart attack,” Samson offered, summoning as much objectivity as he could muster.
“That’s true, Terry. Anybody could have a heart attack.”
“See?”
“It’s true, Terry. Anybody could have a heart attack, especially if that anybody injected a hypodermic needle full of air into his veins.”
Samson involuntarily pulled the phone away from his ear, instinctively feeling that he shouldn’t be listening to the words he was hearing in the melancholy, distant voice.
“He committed suicide?”
“People occasionally do that. People facing despair. People facing hopelessness.”
“Who… does anybody…?”
“Does anybody else know? Yes. I… well… you already know that I know. I should know. I was in the next room. Clarence knows but he can be trusted with the knowledge. I can trust Clarence with anything. Dr. Kopanski, I think, figured it out but I told him that I didn’t want an autopsy or anything like that so he can be trusted.” He paused. “And now you know.”
Samson felt like he’d been cold-cocked with a tire iron.
“I went to see him. Clarence and I went to see him after he called. We went to his house. Just the two of us.”
“It, it must…”
“But he did receive the Anointing of the Sick. Got right out of this world just the way we’d all like to, I guess.” He paused. “Have you ever thought about committing suicide, Terry?”
“I, uh…”
“Well, have you?” Peter paused. “I have. We all have. When it comes right down to it, if the Scriptures are to be believed, and our Lord had the powers he was supposed to have, one could make the argument He committed it Himself.”
Samson heard a beep on the line. Peter told him to hold on. For the minute he sat there, he couldn’t keep a single thought in his mind for more than a few seconds, each strange one replaced by another, each new one scurrying like a mouse through a maze, replaced by another, then another.
Peter’s voice returning through the earpiece startled him. His demeanor completely changed.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have to go. I’ll talk to you later. The password to the computer is CAS7XFG.”
Samson scribbled it down.
“That’ll help.”
“Call me later,” Peter ordered, then hung up.
Samson pushed the master power button on the keyboard and leaned forward as the monitor flashed on. After a series of images, numbers and codes raced past, he gazed at the legend Secretary of Finance/Department of Finance/Roman Catholic Church/Classified/ TamperProtect/0148332/0036632/[%100- 341%]AMIsys.26.26
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said to himself. Please make it simple and make it quick.
He slowly typed C-A-S-7-X-F-G
In a twinkling, he’d arrived.
ASSET FILESAMI SUPERNETJCPERSONALOTHER
Just for fun, he activated the first. Just for fun, the computer responded with a list of 27 primary folders containing 2053 secondaries.
In the prior century the Church had been wealthy, but not the kind of wealthy it was now. Before Sixtus, the wealth had been one of things. The Church was the largest private land owner in the world, the value of the real estate in its portfolio, from small country parishes to massive farms and ranches to prime blocks of property in every major and minor city in the Western hemisphere, virtually incalculable. Its medieval collection of art would be the envy of any ten museums, its collection of gems and jewelry rivaling almost any on earth. Its historic artifacts and antiques would make a curator swoon, as would the massive library collection. When the state was established through the Lateran Pact of 1929, its functional necessities were well-endowed—the municipal resources of Rome under its wing. The Church owned Aqua Marcia, the water company servicing both cities, and Montecatini Edison, the electric utility. The telephone company was a possession of the Vatican, as was the sanitation operation.
There was a large gold cache, located in the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, a number of Swiss banks and the Vatican Bank. There was what for most organizations would be a considerable securities portfolio, a broad-based collection of stocks and bonds securing interests in a rainbow of corporations. But that was kids’ stuff compared to the current stash, an astronomical payload courtesy of one catastrophic event and one extremely generous benefactor.
Samson stared at the lead designations.
SPPT INTERNAL BUDGET EXTERNAL BUDGET COMBINED BUDGET (1) OPERATING BUDGET COMBINED BUDGET (2) REAL ESTATE/CHURCH REAL ESTATE/COMMERCIAL ARTIFACTS/STATIC ARTIFACTS/FUNGIBLE UTILITIES PRECIOUS METALS/STATIC PRECIOUS METALS/FUNGIBLE SECURITIES (1) SECURITIES (2) SECURITIES (3) SECURITIES (4) CASH/INTERNAL CASH/EXTERNAL CASH/OTHER (1) CASH/OTHER (2) CASH/OTHER (3) CLASSIFIED/ PROJEC-TION CLASSIFIED/INTEGRATED CLASSIFIED/ COMBINED CLASSIFIED/OTHER STO
As he reached for the mouse, the Sanctuary Creek Warning Siren began to scream from the roof above his ceiling.
The Siren wasn’t heard that often, but when it was it got everyone’s attention. The last few times it had announced tornadoes in the area, one inside the Creek its
elf, ripping up a score of trees along the northern border; three disciples of the Cult breaching the Creek’s perimeter intent on desecrating the Cathedral with fire from automatic rifles, two who paid with long prison sentences, one with her life, and; the couple of fools who attempted a robbery of the Vatican Bank. It took only two bullets from the rifle of Lieutenant Dinn Mannbet, the VG’s ace sniper, to settle that.
Samson walked for the window, looking down on the headquarters of the fire department and the Vatican Guard. In a moment, three engines, two ambulances and a number of VG squads pulled out of their shelters and sped down the street in the general direction of the center of the property.
He followed the parade as far as he could until the yellow and white vehicles disappeared into the first line of trees bordering the Village on the east. Raising his plane of vision, he saw smoke spiraling into the sky from what had to be the farthest corner of the State. Brush fire was his first thought. Explosion of some kind was his second.
Samson watched the plume grow higher and blacker. The Siren wound down. The up and down song of the alarms of the emergency vehicles faded. He returned to his desk and examined the menu again. All of them appeared self-explanatory except the last: STO. He moved the cursor down to its position and pressed the Enter button. The computer asked for a password. He typed CAS7XFG. The computer responded Invalid Password. He then typed STO. Invalid Password. He stared at the medieval treasure hanging at the far end of Castro’s office, a painting similar to the one decorating the back of Peter’s office, another depiction of one of the critical moments of Christianity: the betrayal of Jesus by the traitor Judas Iscariot. He wondered why they’d chosen the similar subjects for their showpieces.