Patrick Carlton 01 - The Diamond Conspiracy

by Nicolas Kublicki

  “Because someone other than Waterboer purchased the ten million carats. Perhaps five million carats—half—could have been purchased by small operators, but not all. Ten million carats is far too much for small operators to buy up. In addition, our diamond production and sales figures show that those five million carats have never been sold. If they haven’t been sold, they’re stockpiled somewhere. If those diamonds can be found and dumped on the world diamond market simultaneously, it would cripple Waterboer.” He raised his cigar. “I realize the theory’s been around for years. But as sure as God made little green apples, given the enormity of the diamond supply purchased secretly during the Angolan civil war, it’s now possible.”

  Azimbe nodded, impressed by the possibility. “And if Waterboer can be crippled?”

  “It would end the civil war in South Africa, if Waterboer is in fact the main source of funds for the Volksfront, as we suspect. If the price of diamonds drops like a stone, if you'll forgive the pun, there is no reason for Waterboer to continue financing the Volksfront’s civil war to create an independent Orange Free State for Waterboer.”

  “But where does the Church fit in?” Benedetti asked. “Is not our purpose to have the Church show Africa and the world the true message of Christ? Assuming we know who holds the Angolan stockpile, how does the Church get to it? Quite candidly, it is a job more for spies and special forces than Vatican priests.”

  “Perhaps. As to what the Church might do, I will leave that to the eminent Office of the Vatican Secretary of State and the Vatican Bank.”

  73 CONFESSION

  St. Peter's Square

  Vatican City State

  12:12 A.M.

  Wrapped in heavy overcoats, Benedetti and Carlton walked off their dinner along the Colonnade of St. Peter’s Square next to the Belvedere Palace. Ice on the columns glistened in the moonlight that bathed the Eternal City in an otherworldly glow.

  “I was impressed by the way you shifted the conversation to Waterboer. Very clever, very clever. For all of your claims of simplicity and nervousness, you handled yourself as well as any Vatican diplomat. Particularly with our well-intentioned, but shark-like Rancuzzi. Bravo.”

  “Thank you.”

  The cardinal lowered his voice, as if fearful that the ageless columns would hear his words. “He has considerable influence with the Secretary of State and the Holy Father.”

  “He’s as sharp as diamond tacks, that one. I wonder what he thought of my theory of the Angolan diamonds. What they all thought.”

  Benedetti paused for a long moment before responding. “It does not matter what they thought. You planted the seed. For the moment, that is all that matters.”

  “With all due respect, Your Eminence, I don’t think we have the time for Romanita to run its course on this one. The civil war in South Africa rages on. Russian nationalism may have been dealt a severe blow in the North Sea, but not Waterboer.” And there was still Scott Fress to deal with, but he couldn’t tell that to the cardinal, although it wouldn’t surprise him if the man already knew.

  “Patience, my son. All in God’s time. Ah, here we are.” Carlton followed him up a flight of marble steps to a set of massive bronze doors. Benedetti could have used the secret side entrance, unguarded and open twenty-four hours, but he wanted Carlton to see the Basilica from its main entrance, the way every newcomer should experience its majesty.

  A member of the Vigilanza turned to them, gesturing with his arms. “E chiuso, e chiuso.” It’s closed. He looked annoyed at silly tourists wandering so late before looking more carefully at the man who approached. Then his eyes grew wide. “Eminenza. Scusi, Eminenza! Scusi, scusi!” He turned to the bronze doors, unlocked them, pulled one open with great effort, and saluted as the prince of the Church and his guest entered.

  “Grazie. Saint Peter’s Basilica, my son,” Benedetti announced.

  Carlton and Benedetti dipped the fingers of their right hands in holy water, knelt, and performed the sign of the cross. A series of lights turned on, illuminating the largest church in Christendom. Carlton rose, speechless. The rear altar, a few dozen yards from the entrance of typical churches, was over a football field away. He craned his neck, gaped at the gold coffered ceiling that floated far higher than the spires of many churches.

  Benedetti observed Carlton silently with a tinge of envy as the American walked down the central nave toward the immense baldachino supported by Bernini’s four curved bronze columns around the massive central altar. The scene transported the elder cardinal to the day, long ago, when he had walked down the nave of St. Peter’s Basilica for the first time as a young priest, thunderstruck by the power and immensity of the church. How he had walked around the church for hours and scrutinized every sculpture, every inscription. How the immense jeweled gold crucifix he had expected to find above the altar of the giant church was instead a simple white dove set against a yellow stained-glass background: the symbol of the Holy Spirit bringing forth peace to humanity. Any lingering doubt about his vocation had departed as he had fallen to his knees, in tears.

  He followed the young American down the nave until they arrived at the central altar, hundreds of feet under the towering dome. “The altar of Saint Peter,” Benedetti explained, anticipating Carlton’s question. “Only the successor to Saint Peter, the Holy Father, may celebrate Mass here.” He motioned down to an ornate gold box encrusted in rock that glowed a deep yellow. “There repose the remains of Saint Peter, the first pope.”

  In a smaller church, his words would have echoed, but the Basilica’s immensity absorbed the words into its imposing silence. He watched as Carlton knelt reverently before the central altar and prayed.

  Benedetti walked alone to the far altar, knelt in one of the dark wood pews under the white dove, and removed a rosary from his pocket. Crafted of simple pine beads strung together with coarse yarn and worn from years of prayer, it had been with Benedetti since the day of his ordination.

  He performed the sign of the cross, bowed his head. Pater noster. Qui est in caelis. Sanctificetur nomen tuum.

  After reciting five decades of the rosary, Benedetti continued kneeling, prayed in the Basilica’s reverent silence. Carlton was right, he reflected. Time was running out. The records and files and vaults of the Banco Napolitana Lucchese would soon be analyzed by the Guarda di Finanza in its search for evidence against Don Arcangelo. They would find the late Altiplano’s diamonds in the Order’s vault.

  Benedetti rose, placed the rosary in his pocket, and returned to the central altar. There, in the same position he had left him over a half hour before, Carlton still knelt on the cold marble floor, hands clasped together, head bowed in humble reverence. Whispers of the Our Father and the Hail Mary and the Glory Be streamed from his lips. He did not hear Benedetti’s footsteps. Benedetti was moved by the American’s faith. At its core, the Church and its religion were about faith.

  As the sight of the white dove above the far altar had done so many years in the past, the sight of Carlton prostrated with such humility erased all remaining traces of doubt from Benedetti’s mind. He looked up at the white dove in the distance and nodded.

  Gratia Deo.

  He knelt beside Carlton and gently touched him on the shoulder. Carlton turned, startled. “What—? Oh, sorry, Your Eminence.”

  The cardinal took a deep breath. “Now that we have both prayed, I have a confession to make.”

  Carlton smiled. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

  “No.” He averted his gaze from Carlton’s smiling eyes, paused. “I lied, my son.”

  Carlton crooked his head.

  “This morning. When you asked me about the diamond stockpile, I told you the Vatican Bank has no official connection with any stockpile.”

  “Yes?”

  “It was technically true, but a lie.”

  Carlton fixed Benedetti with a confused stare.

  “The Vatican Bank didn’t purchase any diamonds. Nor did it authorize
any purchase. But a Church official did. Without authority. The diamonds were purchased from Angola. And not five million carats. Nine.”

  Carlton’s eyes grew wide.

  Benedetti nodded slowly, grasped the heavy gold cross that hung around his neck. “Forgive me.”

  74 EXPLANATION

  Piazza del Popolo

  Rome

  10:01 A.M.

  Wrapped in the heavy Loro Piana cashmere overcoat MacLean had supplied, Carlton walked out of the Hotel Hassler, down the Spanish Steps, into the Piazza Spagna, turned right, and walked two blocks to the Piazza del Popolo. As its name suggested, the piazza was filled with people, even on this cold and overcast winter day. He looked around the large plaza and spotted the name ‘Rosati’ on a pink awning next to the church. He walked to the cafe, hands thrust deep in his pockets to ward off the cold. Both the enclosed outdoor area and indoor rooms were packed with well-dressed patrons who spoke with caffeinated animation. The well-known cafe smelled of espresso and cigarette smoke. Cardinal Benedetti sat at a corner table, dressed in layman’s clothes and surrounded by a protective moat of four empty tables on which were placed small cards that read ‘riservato’-reserved.

  Carlton rubbed his hands together briskly, cupped them, and blew into them. He sat at Benedetti’s right. “Not that I mind the exercise, but it’s cold as a popsicle out there,” he announced, omitting the honorific “Eminence” to avoid unnecessary attention.

  Benedetti leaned toward Carlton. “I’m sorry, but the walls in my house and office have ears.” He touched his own. “This is safer.”

  “Don’t these have ears too?” Carlton asked, jutting his chin toward the other patrons, removing his overcoat and handing it to a deferential white-jacketed waiter.

  “Fewer than the Vatican. Stefano here will keep these tables empty,” Benedetti announced, looking at the waiter. “Due espressi per favore, Stefano.”

  “Va bene. Grazie, Eminenza.” The man bowed slightly to the cardinal, eyeing Carlton curiously before leaving.

  Benedetti again leaned forward. “Now. About the stones.” The expression on his round face changed from cherubic to nervous. Carlton observed the deep wrinkles that years of worry had etched around Benedetti’s eyes. At present, the man before him was neither a cardinal nor the simple country priest he longed to be. He was director of the Institute for the Works of Religion. The Vatican Bank. “You have questions for me. Ask them.”

  “Why and where is a good place to start,” said Carlton. “Although frankly, right now I’m more interested in where.”

  “The two go hand in hand. Like the stones you sent to the bottom of the North Sea, there was a purpose behind amassing the Vatican stockpile. Not officially sanctioned by the Vatican, of course, that would be madness. But a purpose nonetheless. As you noted, the Angolan civil war discontinued centralized control over the country’s mines. Dozens of mines. The MPLA and UNITA both wanted control. The gap between the two allowed miners, dealers, and smugglers to grab stones and sell them outside Angola’s original Waterboer contract.”

  “To someone in the Vatican who was willing to pay.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who could want—”

  “Cardinal Altiplano, the Secretary General of the Order. One of the oldest and most famous orders of the Church. He rerouted funds earmarked for hospitals, universities, and missions to purchase the diamonds.”

  “But why? And how? I don’t understand. You said the Church is already skirting bankruptcy. How did he get the money?”

  “He wanted the Order to impose its beliefs on official Church doctrine, believing that those beliefs alone would save the Church. Perhaps believing himself a prophet. In fact, they were the beliefs of a long line of Altiplano’s doctrinally questionable predecessors who opposed the Holy Father not only on fundamental doctrine, but on the very legitimacy of the Holy See. For over two hundred years.

  The difference is that Altiplano’s predecessors fought their doctrinal war intellectually. Altiplano wanted to impose his beliefs outright. To do this, he felt he had to become the successor to St. Peter. Pope. His plan was to use the diamonds to bribe the College of Cardinals into voting for him at the next conclave, when the cardinals elect the next pope after the Holy Father passes away. Once he became pope, Altiplano could dismantle the Church’s power structure and remake its doctrine from within. The ranks of the clergy and the faithful laity could disagree and leave the Church, as so many did in the wake of Vatican II, but in any case the Church and its doctrine would be dramatically changed.”

  Carlton stared at him in disbelief.

  “I know it sounds crazy. And it is. Today, at least. But it has been done in the past. During the time of the Borgias, for example, cardinals regularly bribed each other with estates and titles to gain the papacy.”

  “It’s beyond scandalous,” Carlton replied. “And it shocks me, of course. But for our purposes, it is what it is. The question is what lies next. Do you liquidate the diamond stockpile by selling it to Waterboer? That would only strengthen Waterboer. But the Church would recover its money and probably far more if it played its cards right. As director of the Vatican Bank, you’d be able to give it a veneer of legitimacy by saying it was an investment and look how much money you made for the Church,” he said, testing the cardinal.

  Benedetti shook his head. “No. As you said, it would only strengthen Waterboer. I may be plagued by a scandal I had nothing to do with, but I will not make a pact with the devil to solve it. No.”

  The chair creaked as he reclined. “I thought long and hard about what Azimbe said last night; have been thinking it for some time. But always without the necessary opportunity. The Church can only set an example if it risks something. The Church must risk this stockpile, this fortune in a way that will do the most good.” He also reflected that the Church could save itself from scandal by implying that the diamonds had been purchased for such a purpose.

  The waiter arrived with two tiny cups of fragrant espresso and set them on the small table. He folded the bill and placed it under Carlton’s saucer, assuming that the cardinal would not be paying.

  “Grazie, Stefano.”

  “A le. Prego, Eminenza.”

  Carlton dumped a white sugar cube in his cup, stirred the oily black coffee with a tiny spoon, and took a sip.

  “If you don’t sell them to Waterboer, your options are to keep them, which serves no immediate purpose, sell them to others, which makes no sense because Waterboer would top anyone else’s price, or give them away. Giving them away won’t destroy Waterboer, of course. Waterboer is far too strong for nine million carats on the market to destroy it. But it might stop the civil war in South Africa if Waterboer is financing the Afrikaaner Volksfront. Maybe it will stop the dictatorship in the Congo. Maybe also Waterboer’s forced child labor in India. Whatever else it accomplishes, it will certainly show that for all the ridicule it receives in the secular world, the Church is not only a powerful force against evil, but it is an institution willing to use that force against evil. For all of humanity, not just for Catholics or other Christians.” Carlton finished his espresso, replaced the cup in its saucer, and leaned back in his chair. “For those reasons you must dump the diamonds.”

  “Si. You were correct in mentioning the strategy last night. It is a simple idea, yes,” he raised a finger, “but not simplistic. The reason it has been often discussed but never done is that greed prevents it. It always ended with Waterboer buying the diamonds at a premium from whoever planned on flooding the market. The problem is not whether to dump the diamonds, but how.”

  “So we get them out and flood the market.” Carlton felt relieved. He had discovered where the diamonds were, whose control they were under, and the Church had just agreed to dump them on the open market. Mission accomplished. “Compared to the North Sea operation, it’s as easy as—”

  “No.” Benedetti wagged his finger again. “You don’t understand. Dumping the diamonds isn’t the diff
iculty, getting them is the difficulty. The diamonds are in a vault at the Banco Napolitana Lucchese, here in Rome. The bank apparently is where Don Arcangelo, the head of a very powerful Sicilian mafia family, transferred a large part of its extortion, drug, and prostitution money. It is also believed to contain computer records of many important mafia transactions. Somehow, one of Sicily’s new generation of politicians, a seemingly incorruptible mafia fighter by the name of Orlando Leonida, discovered these transactions. He invoked a law that allowed the GDF—the Guarda di Finanza, similar to a combination of your Treasury Department and FBI—to seal the bank. The diamonds are in that bank. We can’t withdraw them because the bank is sealed. Nothing and no one goes in or out without judicial approval. Any day now, Leonida will finish making the proper judicial requests to have the GDF search through the bank’s premises and records with a - how do you say - a comb with little teeth.”

  “A fine-toothed comb.” Carlton sighed and took in the enormity of the obstacle. “I understand. The judicial order will allow the GDF to look in all the vaults, and they’ll discover the diamonds. Since the diamonds are in a vault belonging to or traceable to Altiplano, the trail will lead to the Church.”

  “Exacto. Not only will this create an enormous scandal, but every cardinal will get involved, each with a different plan. Committees will be organized and so on. It will become politically impossible to appropriate the diamonds and flood the market.” Benedetti drank his coffee in a single gulp.

  “So we have to get the diamonds out before the GDF searches the vaults. Can’t you simply ask the GDF for permission? After all, the Vatican is a sovereign state and you are the director of the sovereign state’s bank. Couldn’t you just order the withdrawal?”