‘God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to Himself, sending the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’
‘Thank you, uncle.’
Cardinal Venti slid an envelope across the desk to Maria and she slipped it into her handbag. He removed his stole and Maria kissed him goodbye.
‘See you next week, Uncle Michael.’
No sooner had she gone, Cardinal Venti returned his attention to his computer.
Father Stephen stood by the altar, holding the sword, wondering if the Holy Father knew of the dagger hidden inside its blade. Using a pocket knife, he shaved away the wax on its end and removed the remaining plug. From the hollow inside, he shook out loose bits of wax and a short wooden dowel. He briefly examined the dowel then tucked it in his brief case.
The Coke’s caffeine hit was subsiding, diminishing Father Stephen’s concentration. He reconnected the sword, covered it with the purple cloth, turned off the light and left the vault.
Cardinal Venti watched Father Stephen like a viper to a mouse. When the vault’s light went out it ended an excruciating afternoon for the Cardinal. Anger built inside him. He reached into his desk for more pills, this time red ones, not to be taken with alcohol. To be coherent for evening Mass he downed them with a gulp of iced water.
Father Stephen strolled to the Vatican hospital. A woman at reception showed him through to the x-ray department. There he handed a technician the length of dowel from inside the dagger, asking him to examine it. The technician left and returned in just a few minutes.
‘Father, the x-ray shows it’s just an ordinary stick.’
Father Stephen thanked the man and walked outside into a warm Rome evening.
In the vault the next morning Father Stephen powered up an arthroscopic lamp. He thought about his brief meeting with the Pope. His Holiness had handed him the code with his usual amiable smile and wordless blessing; no change in his unflappable demeanour; no conspiratorial hint in his gaze; no questions about the sword.
Father Stephen carefully removed the purple cloth covering the sword, disengaged the hilt and slid the arthroscope into the end of the dagger, scrutinizing the images on a handheld screen.
Inside the dagger was a lining of paper covered in writing. Father Stephen contemplated how to remove it.
The blue pills slipped down Cardinal Venti’s throat on a smooth river of whisky that partly dulled his angst at being denied the images on Father Stephen’s handheld device.
Father Stephen pinched an edge of the paper with fine tweezers, trying to ease it out, only to break off a tiny piece. Under the magnifying glass, the fragment appeared fibrous with a dark stain in one corner.
An e-mail popped onto Venti’s screen.
Thank you, Michael. Message received, riveting news.
Cardinal Venti clicked back to the vault, as excited as Carter crawling into Tutankhamen’s tomb. He ached to reach through the screen and snatch the dagger away.
Father Stephen sealed the piece of paper in a small snap-lock plastic bag and sat on the floor with his back against the wall. He asked the Holy Spirit for guidance, then taking a hacksaw blade from his case, sawed a piece off the end of the dagger to widen the hole.
The pale brown paper slid out of the dagger like it was dusted with talcum powder, but stayed tightly curled on the altar. It was certainly made from papyrus – a wetland’s sedge once common along the Nile Delta, but now almost extinct. If the papyrus scroll was as old as the sword, it was in surprisingly good condition for its age.
Father Stephen needed the advice of an expert before attempting to unfurl it. As head conservator and historian of the Vatican’s impressive art collections, Cardinal Venti’s knowledge of ancient history was encyclopaedic. He must broach the subject with him without raising suspicion, for he suspected the Cardinal to be both clever and manipulative.
33
Sister Dorothea showed Father Stephen into Cardinal Venti’s office. The Cardinal had been monitoring the vault since dawn and now the reason for the inactivity there was apparent.
‘Welcome, Father Stephen. Great to see you, my friend. How are preparations for the exhibition progressing?’ Venti was silky smooth.
Father Stephen kissed the gold ring on the Cardinal’s finger.
‘Thank you for seeing me at short notice, Eminence. The displays for the exhibition are nearing completion. You must be busy as well. I’m keen to see the updated art catalogues.’
‘Some wine, Father?’
‘Thank you.’
Cardinal Venti splashed two glasses half-full, pushing one across the desk.
‘Please have a seat. How can I assist?’ Cardinal Venti said.
‘What precautions should I take in unfurling an old and very delicate papyrus scroll?’
Cardinal Venti seemed genuinely interested.
‘It depends on a number of factors. Are you in possession of such a scroll?’ It would help to see it for myself,’ the Cardinal said.
‘I ask on behalf of a student,’ Father Stephen said unconvincingly, the Cardinal sensing the deception.
‘If it is not crumbling to the touch you can safely unroll it. Papyrus is quite resilient when dry. Cover it with a silk cloth and use a heavy book to keep it flat for twenty-four hours. If it starts to break or tear, stop immediately, it will need more expert attention. Let me know how the student fares.’ Cardinal Venti stared unsmiling at Father Stephen.
‘Thank you,’ Father Stephen said, taking a sip of wine.
‘There are many reasons for secrecy, Father. The Vatican could quell the anger stemming from the Sword of Golgotha with an explanation of some sort. Do you ever wonder where the Pope has hidden the precious weapon that drew the blood of our Saviour?’ Cardinal Venti found it difficult to subdue his frustration even under the influence of his blue pills.
‘Certainly, they are questions I have pondered and I continue to offer Masses to appease the vitriolic attacks on the Church.’ Father Stephen felt an evil spectre in the air and a nervous sweat blistered on the palms of his hands.
In his own mind, Cardinal Venti confirmed Father Stephen’s lie, justifying his secret observation of him.
‘Please keep in touch, Father,’ Cardinal Venti said.
He offered his ring to cue Father Stephen out.
‘Thank you, Eminence, for your time and the wonderful wine and perhaps I can return a favour,’ Father Stephen said, bowing.
‘I’m sure the chance will come sooner than you think, Father Stephen. God, bless you.’
Cardinal Venti signed the cross in the air, their eyes meeting momentarily. A mordant grin spread over the Cardinal’s face. Father Stephen felt a cold stare pierce the back of his head, and his stomach tumbled with anxiety as he left along the hallway.
Cardinal Venti refilled his glass to wash down five red pills, three more than usual, in readiness to celebrate Mass in eight hours’ time.
Unfurling the scroll revealed a ream of undecipherable characters. Father Stephen covered it with a silk pillowslip and slid a thick encyclopaedia volume on top. On Cardinal Venti’s advice, the papyrus needed a day to flatten. Not bothering with his briefcase, he left the vault in darkness at 3 p.m.
Cardinal Venti fell asleep in the chair at his desk and was soon snoring. On waking, he checked the computer screen but had missed Father Stephen exiting the vault. If the student followed his advice, Venti was optimistic the next envelope he gave to Maria would enclose a crucial detail. He stood groggily, holding the back of the chair while his head cleared. He re-corked the wine bottle and leaned over the desk to check his e-mail.
Father Stephen removed the encyclopaedia and the pillowslip, leaving the papyrus flat. Dark writing ran left to right down its length. It reminded him of the classical Greek of the Rosetta stone
, though he could not decipher any of it. With a digital camera, he took sequential close-up photographs of the script. Scientific tests on the fragment that broke off in his tweezers would hopefully yield clues about the ink and exact age of the papyrus.
Cardinal Venti strained to read the scroll, wishing the hidden camera had a zoom-function. The lines of words dissolved into a blur but he consoled himself knowing Father Stephen’s photographs would soon leave the vault. Venti believed they held the secret he desperately wanted.
Father Stephen repacked his briefcase with the equipment he’d brought into the vault, rolled the scroll around the dowel and re-inserted it into the dagger. He bent the solitary clasp holding the green garnet until it snapped off then filed the broken edge smooth.
Adding a spot of super-glue, he pushed the gem back into its receptacle, holding it in place till it stuck fast. Without sealing the end of the dagger Father Stephen re-joined the hilt to its blade.
Lastly, he balanced the sword on an electronic scale. A reflection in the weigh-plate caught his eye and he noticed the sprinkler head on the ceiling. Father Stephen climbed onto the altar, rubbing his thumb over a small glass bubble in the sprinkler’s tip. He was being watched.
Cardinal Venti sat back as Father Stephen’s head loomed large, filling the computer screen.
Father Stephen took the gum he was chewing and covered the tiny lens.
Cardinal Venti saw the hand approach and his screen went black.
Father Stephen faced a torturous dilemma. He had no idea how much the Holy Father knew about his activities in the vault and was undecided what to tell him. He got down off the altar, put the scales into his briefcase and realigned the Sword of Golgotha.
He crossed himself, asked God’s protection and left the holy sanctuary. The Swiss Guard carried the empty pine box as they climbed toward the upper levels.
Father Stephen returned to his room after evening Mass to find it ransacked. Clothing littered the floor, the upended mattress was stripped of its bedding, and every drawer had been rifled.
He reassuringly tapped the camera in his trouser pocket.
After spending an hour restoring his room he changed into pyjamas, locked the door - which he never usually did, and hid the camera under his pillow. Chess-like, he thought of his next move and the counter moves to follow. Tiredness overcame him and he slept. He did not hear the door handle being tried or see Cardinal Venti disappear down the corridor outside, like the ghost of death itself.
The Pope had the code ready when Father Stephen arrived the next morning.
‘Holy Father, my work in the vault is complete. I will not require the last day of access you generously granted me. A comprehensive report will be ready for you in two weeks.’
‘Father, thank you for all you have done. Do you have anything of interest to report in the interim?’
Father Stephen had prepared himself for such a question.
‘Holy Father, with your grace, I prefer to present my findings in their entirety. I think the report should be read as such.’
‘As you wish. God, bless you, Father.’
Father Stephen kissed the ring of the Fisherman and left. What the Pontiff did or didn’t know remained as much a mystery as the Sword of Golgotha itself.
34
Zachary Smith was an Italian billionaire and avid Lost in Space fan who considered himself the definitive expert on all eighty-three episodes of the sci-fi series.
He was also a genius with a photographic memory and an IQ of 210. Like William James Sidis, the child prodigy of the first half of the twentieth century, he was a language specialist and talented mathematician, fluent in twenty-five languages, passable in seventy. He resided in a minimalist glass and aluminium villa perched on stilts above the Tiber River, accessed by a long driveway ascending from the main highway.
Each day at precisely 10 a.m. he made himself a double espresso coffee in a stainless-steel cup.
A silver Ford turned off the highway, stopping in front of an imposing iron wall. A man leant out of the car and pushed a shiny button in a pillar to activate a sliding gate. He drove up the meandering road to a parking area below the villa. Zachary Smith stood on the doorstep in stone-wash jeans and a blue skivvy.
‘How are you, Steve?’
‘Never been better, Zach. How’s life on top of the hill?’
‘I’ll tell you over a cold beer.’
‘What brings you out of the city, Steve?’
Father Stephen put a finger to his lips, ‘Beers first.’
They stepped through the villa entrance onto a wide stone space fronted by massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Father Stephen stared in awe at the expansive view over the Tiber where a lonely barge plied against the current.
Zachary pulled two Peroni beers from the fridge. ‘Here’s to world peace, Steve.’
They charged bottles.
‘To world peace,’ Father Stephen repeated the much-maligned beauty pageant standard, then pulled a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and gave it to Zachary.
I have a copy of a document I hope you can translate. Make no reference to it in conversation.
Zachary’s curiosity was piqued.
‘Steve, follow me.’ Zachary lit the note on a gas ring and flushed the resultant ash down an adjoining sink. He led Father Stephen through a red door off the hallway into a room whose cedar walls were lined with book-filled shelves.
‘Nothing we say can escape here, Steve.’
‘Are you certain, Zach?
‘Would I lie to a priest?’
Father Stephen relaxed, sipping his beer.
‘What’s eating you, Steve?’
Father Stephen reached inside his jacket and produced an envelope.
‘Open it, Zach.’
Zachary slipped out the sheet of paper.
‘Where did this come from, Steve?
‘What does it say, Zach?’
‘Is this a joke?’
Father Stephen leant forward in his chair. ‘Read it to me, Zach.’
‘A most terrible event will come to pass. For now, I cannot divert the horror revealed to me. Be certain though, it will transpire like a thief in the night, silent and unexpected, a great torture of the minds of men, an earthly hell where despair will be life’s cornerstone.
The manifest is hidden. The map to lead you resides in a cave at the leper colony outside Tiberius.
I trust the future will bring a convergence of fate to avoid what is in store. There is evil afoot. Beware the greedy heart. Faith, of which I am deprived, will be your only weapon.
Salvation is possible, indifference eternally damning. May this message reach those of pure intent and righteous endeavour.
The prophecy seems irrevocably cast, yet there is much of the revelation beyond my understanding. All appears inadequate in the shadow of this grave prediction.
The nineteenth year of Tiberius.
Simon.’
‘Assure me it’s authentic.’ Zachary eyeballed Father Stephen.
‘Zach, scientific testing of the original document dates it around two thousand years old.’
‘I can think of a million horrible things that have transpired since; tortuous to the minds of men, filling them with despair.
‘Zach, I’m going to need help. Until two days ago, the message had probably not been seen since the day it...’ Father Stephen stopped mid-sentence.
‘What?’ Zach said.
‘You promised nothing we say can escape this room, Zach.’
‘Go on, Steve.’
Father Stephen took the sheet of paper from Zachary and scribbled a note on it.
‘You’ve held the Sword of Golgotha, Steve?’
‘I’m unsure who to trust. Someone inside the Vatican seeks the contents of this letter. I discovered a hidden camera in the vault where I examined the sword and photographed the scroll. Later my room was ransacked.
‘When we were in the vault together the Holy Father told Cardinal G
rasso to have faith, for the sword’s secret was known to him. I wonder if it’s the secret of the scroll and if he expected me to find it, confirming to him what he already knew. I have met with the Pope the last five mornings and he was straight-faced as ever. The surveillance is too sly to be his doing, Zach.’
‘Why were you given access to the sword, Steve?’
‘To detail it for the Vatican archives.’
‘Steve, if the Pope knew of the scroll’s message he would have already instigated a search for the map in Tiberius and a hunt for the manifest. You would have caught wind of it.’
‘Perhaps I should confide in the Holy Father, Zach.’
‘Who else knows the sword’s location, Steve?’
‘The Pope and Cardinal Grasso and whoever monitored the hidden camera.’
‘I want to show you something, Steve.’
Zachary led Father Stephen down a stairwell to the garage. He hit a switch, igniting a bank of fluorescent lights that illuminated a car in the centre of the floor.
‘What happened to your love of all things Italian, Zach?’
‘I couldn’t resist it.’
‘It’s stunning but...’
‘I know it’s extravagant and people are dying from starvation but the Golgotha Sword is worth a thousand of these. Either way it’s an indulgence, Steve. Let’s go for a spin?’
‘Later, Zach. Let’s go back upstairs’
‘Sure, but I insist we take it for a run this afternoon.’
Father Stephen admired the Vanquish until Zachary turned off the lights. Overlooking the Tiber, the men drank another beer and Zachary heated some healthy slabs of lasagne.
‘Zach, I’m attending a conference in Jerusalem in a week’s time. You could come with me to do a bit of poking around,’ Father Stephen said through a mouthful of food.
Zach put his plate down, keying three words into his laptop. Together they read a short article.
The Jesus Germ Page 15
