“If necessary we could do that,” Markwether said, finally. “But only as a last resort.”
“It’s almost Holy Week for the Roman Catholic Church,” Gravidovitch added, “and the celebration of Easter. We can’t even consider such a sacrilege.”
“If I say we consider it, we consider it,” the President snapped. “Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“But such an attack would also kill the she-apostles. Innocent babies and toddlers.”
“Maybe they’re only phonies,” Smits said. “Lori Vale claims she has eleven real she-apostles herself, and Dixie Lou faked the ones with her.”
“But they’re still children!” Gravidovitch insisted.
Secretary of Defense Smits shook his head. “There’s only one good way to deal with an enemy.”
With a solemn nod, Markwether added, “Sometimes there is no other way.” But memories of his brother intruded, when the two of them were small, playing in vacant lots and school yards. He fought to suppress the thoughts. Hopefully Zack wasn’t anywhere near Vatican City.
“Children are not our enemies, sir,” the Secretary of State said, daring to argue with the President. “This is the toughest part of our assignment. Dixie Lou Jackson may be a crazy woman, but I’m starting to think the Holy Women’s Bible has merit.”
“Are you daft?” Markwether thundered. Astonished at what he was hearing, he stepped off the bike and wiped his forehead with a towel.
“I’ve been reading it carefully myself,” Gravidovitch admitted, “and some of it does make sense.”
“What???”
“I have to agree with our esteemed Secretary of State,” Smits said. “I’m especially intrigued by the Gospel of Abigail, in which she—”
“Don’t ever say anything like that to me again!” Markwether boomed. “And the next time I summon the two of you I want to hear a plan of action. Not studies, not guesses, not a bunch of generalities. I want it all laid out in detail.”
“Yes, sir,” both of them said.
“Now get out of here and go to work.”
The two US Secretaries left hurriedly, with their proverbial tails between their legs.
* * *
Outside Lori’s apartment building, her father paused and spoke with one of the plainclothes guards stationed to protect her. This man was Trig Arnold, the private investigator he had hired to locate Lori in the first place. Now Trig was in charge of the guards assigned to her.
“You said in your e-mail that you’ve been inside the tunnel that leads from Vatican City to Castel Sant’Angelo,” Zack said, “one of the routes used by popes centuries ago to get to the fortress castle if the Vatican was ever attacked.”
“Yeah, that tunnel used to be a big secret, but one of my contacts got me in on the Castel Sant’Angelo side last year.”
“Can you get in again? I found information that there’s a second tunnel route down there, and it has a hidden intersection point with the main tunnel.” He handed the man an underground map that had been provided by the CIA, with the source information redacted.
As Trig looked the document over, he nodded. “This looks right for the main tunnel, but I’m not sure about the other one. I’ve heard about the secondary route, but this is the first time I’ve seen a chart it. A hidden intersection point, eh? How is it hidden?”
“I don’t know, but can you get into the main tunnel again?”
“Maybe, but it could be dangerous. The rumor mill says the UWW sent its attack squad through the tunnel system.”
“Main or secondary route?”
“Not sure.”
“In any event, I’m sure they’re out of the tunnel system by now, and have buttoned up everything on the Vatican side.”
Trig nodded.
“Be discreet about this, but see if you can get me more information. It’s important.” He handed a wad of high-denomination U.S. currency to him.
“I’ll go down there myself and see if I can find any sign of the hidden intersection point of the two tunnels.” The investigator scowled. “I wish this drawing was to scale, though.”
“It’s the best I can do,” Zack said. Putting on his aviator sunglasses, he added, “Do this as fast as you can, OK?”
Lori’s father spent the rest of the day pursuing military contacts, asking for drawings, histories, anything they could put their hands on. Because of his security clearance, he obtained thick piles of printouts.
* * *
Each evening, Deborah tried to spend time with Pope Rodrigo at his apartment in the Vatican Palace. She was impressed with him, not only for his great charm and intelligence but for his courage in the face of tremendous adversity. The apartment had no bugging devices in it, so Deborah Marvel felt confident saying whatever she wanted here.
“I worry about the Vatican employees that are still here,” the tall, distinguished old man said, “and I pray for them to the Lord Almighty.” He paused, and looked around, his eyes moist with emotion. “This apartment is my velvet-lined prison cell. The riches here are but a microcosm of the treasures of the Vatican, the greatest religious art the world has ever seen. To me, and to all Catholics, this city is a living entity, and a testimony to great achievement.”
“I’ve been trying to convince Dixie Lou not to harm you, little Martha, or the Vatican,” Deborah said. “A living entity. Yes, I am not Catholic, but I believe that is true. If Vatican City is destroyed, it would be a murder, wouldn’t it?”
“You are a sensitive woman.”
“And you’re wondering how I ever became involved with Dixie Lou Jackson. She wasn’t like that at first; power changed her. I originally joined United Women of the World for the ideals espoused by Amy Angkor-Billings. Like yourself, she was a great and inspirational leader. Of course, the UWW never had the riches or influence of the Vatican, but it had a strong moral footing, like Catholicism.”
“I do not agree with your Holy Women’s Bible, as you call it.”
“Well, the Gospel of Martha was falsified, but the rest—the other eleven gospels—are divine scripture, except for deleted references to a She-Judas.”
He shook his head.
“For a great religious figure such as yourself, it might be an impossibility to ever accept the new gospels. But you are a learned man. You know that there were political decisions made in the early centuries after Christ, when church authorities decided what to include in the Bible and what to omit from it.”
“They only omitted that which should have been omitted, and they included the real gospels.”
“Real gospels, yes. We agree on most of that. But there were other gospels that were—forgive me, Eminence, for saying this—stolen from women.” She looked away. “I speak too directly to you. I mean no disrespect.”
“It is obvious that you believe what you are saying. I sense a goodness in your heart, that you mean no harm, that you intend no blasphemy.”
She gazed at him, and felt comforted by the gentle, beatific expression on his face. Such a kind man, with such a depth of understanding. This must be the most difficult time of his entire life.
“I will help you in any way I can,” she promised, softly. “I would give up my life for you, sir.”
“My life is not my own,” he said.
Deborah felt that she needed to do more to help this great man. It was not enough to hold her tongue around Dixie Lou and attempt to persuade her not to harm people or treasures. She wanted to do more, and hoped Lori Vale would accept her offer. She gazed out a window, at the vast military force arrayed around Vatican City, and wondered if anyone would still be alive here after the fighting stopped.
Chapter 36
I am fascinated by the interplay of conscious and unconscious memory, and how the human mind cannot always retrieve information in its “databanks.”
—Amy Angkor-Billings
This evening was not the first time Dixie Lou Jackson had lost sleep, especially since taking over the reins of
the most radical women’s rights group in the world. With so many moving parts in her organization and so many things that could go wrong, she often found herself going off on what she called “negative jags,” in which her mind filled with nothing but bad things and she could not go to sleep, not even with medication.
When she joined United Women of the World, and began working with Amy Angkor-Billings, she used to be an optimistic person, a believer in her own abilities and inevitable triumphs. In those days, she still killed people secretly or had them killed, or did whatever else needed to be done, but always with a sense of bright purpose around her, as she basked in a rising tide of good fortune.
Her state of mind had changed drastically, and as she considered this in detail, she realized that it went back even further than her ascension to the top spot. It went back to her first encounter with Lori Vale. The teenager was like a Jonah, a shipmate who brought bad fortune to a voyage. While she wished Lori had never appeared, she also felt very strongly that it had to happen, that it was a destiny carved out for her by a power much greater than herself.
In the middle of the night, Dixie Lou wandered through the Vatican Palace, carrying a large, powerful flashlight, playing its beam off the paintings of the masters and the antique statuary. Angrily, she swung the flashlight and broke a statue, without caring what it was. She could turn the building lights on, but had ordered them shut off this evening for her personal enjoyment, despite the advice of her security people to the contrary.
She preferred darkness, and as a black-skinned person she sometimes thought this was her realm to rule. She had first thought of this as a ten-year-old child, playing in the basement, moving around in the midst of clutter and then switching off the lights, going faster and faster, testing her ability to avoid running into anything. At times, it seemed as if she could actually see in the darkness like a nocturnal animal.
One time when she was scurrying around downstairs, her mother came down and turned on the lights. “Child, what are you doing in here?” she asked.
“I’m Queen of Night and Shadow,” Dixie Lou had said. “With my black skin, I slide through darkness. I command the dark forces.”
Her mother was a large, profoundly religious woman, and hearing such blasphemy, she put on her most stern countenance. “Don’t talk such craziness! You act like black folks are allied with the devil, and that just ain’t so. We’re as good as any white folks, better than most of them. We believe in the Lord Jesus, not in any dark forces.”
With those words, which Dixie Lou never forgot, her mother grabbed her by the arm and dragged her upstairs. She then locked the basement, and forbade her from ever going down there again.
It also led to her mother forcing her even more than ever to read the Bible, and to memorize passages. Every day, the child had to demonstrate her learning through recitation, which she only did to stay out of trouble.
In her adulthood, Dixie Lou came to believe that Jesus Christ existed as a historical figure, but she never felt an affinity for Him, the Bible, or anything to do with Christianity. She only used religion to enhance her own career. In public and in council meetings she put on one face; in private, she whispered entirely different things to herself.
Now, as Dixie Lou stepped into Martha’s room, ever so silently so as not to awaken the mother in the next room, she shut off the flashlight. Moving like a black cat, she made her way across the room, until she heard the breathing of the child. Her eyes adjusted to the low light, and she saw the shadowy form of the sleeping baby.
Reaching down, she lifted Martha and carried her out into the hallway. “If I can’t sleep, you won’t either.”
She took Martha to one of the translators in an adjacent building, and rousted her from bed, too. By this time, half a dozen of Dixie Lou’s guards were following her with their own flashlights, concerned for her safety.
The translator, a woman with platinum hair and squinty eyes, tightened her robe as she answered the door. “Yes, ma’am?” she asked. Light from her room flowed into the hallway.
“Make her talk,” Dixie Lou said.
Abruptly, as the Chairwoman was handing Martha over in the doorway, the child began to babble, and then fell abruptly silent. The translator’s eyes grew large, and her jaw dropped.
“Well, what did she say?”
“She made no sense at all, just gibberish.”
“I heard words, and my own name repeated. What did she say? Tell me!”
“Uh, forgive me for saying this, Grand Messenger. In ancient Aramaic, the child said, ‘So many murders you committed, Dixie Lou Jackson, and such a devious, cowardly way you did them, creeping in like a thief in the night and stealing lives—’” Nervously, the translator said, “Forgive me for repeating such madness, but that is exactly what the child said. Of course, it is nonsense.”
“Get her out of my sight!”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll return her to her room.” Leaving her own door open, the translator ran down the hallway, carrying the child. Two guards broke away and accompanied her.
After ordering the other guards away from her, Dixie Lou stood alone in the corridor, in the light from the translator’s open door. The Grand Messenger of the Holy She felt a surge of panic and intense guilt, a sensation that she had been discovered, that her most closely guarded secret has been revealed. But she had no memory of it.
Dixie Lou realized that Martha wasn’t referring to the guard that she shot in the back of the head, or to the curator she had impaled on the Sword of She-God, or to any of the other murders she remembered, going back to her youth. No, the last she-apostle was referring to something else entirely.
It was as if the strange baby had tapped into a nightmare from the Grand Messenger’s subconscious—from the cimmerian recesses of her mind—and it was something Martha could recall but Dixie Lou could not.
I’m not remembering because I don’t want to, she thought. Because I would rather forget.
* * *
In the morning, Zack used his presidential security clearance to gain access to the NATO Commander’s office, on the top floor of an old building on Via del Corso. He brought Lori with him, and introduced her as his daughter.
“I am familiar with Lori Vale from the news reports,” General Kenneth Selkirk said, in a rolling Scottish brogue. Only in his early forties, he had a smooth face but gray hair and a matching mustache. He wore a tan uniform shirt with three gold stars on each side of the collar. Through the window behind him, Lori saw the gold-and-gray dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
“To insanity,” Zack said, as he and Lori dropped into a pair of Italian Renaissance chairs fronting his black onyx desk, an odd juxtaposition of styles. “Not mine—Dixie Lou Jackson’s.”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s what brought me to Rome myself. But war is always madness, isn’t it?”
“Since Dixie Lou isn’t willing to negotiate, you’re going to have to attack the Vatican, aren’t you?”
“I could speak to you about such matters because you are the President’s brother, but—” The General looked at Lori.
“I trust her completely. You can speak freely.”
Selkirk hesitated, then nodded. “The only question is, when to attack Vatican City, and on what scale. We’ve done the psychological analyses on Dixie Lou Jackson and have battered her reputation with propaganda. The only thing left now is to use force.”
“We have new information that you should know,” Zack said. On the desk, he placed a document that described details of the secret route that couriers had been using to get in and out of the Vatican, including its terminus in one of the subway stations. “Study this, General Selkirk, and you’ll see that it is very interesting information. I got it when a courier delivered a letter.”
The Commander examined the papers, then looked up. “It says here that Dixie Lou Jackson knows about this route, but your source is not sure if she used it in her takeover of the Vatican.”
Zack nodded. “It’s
a potential escape route for her, so I thought you’d want to incorporate it into your attack plan.”
“You’re right; we’ll add this to our tactical information. There is also the matter of how Jackson’s assault forces got into the Vatican in the first place. Presumably not by this courier route, because it’s so narrow and is accessed from a public place—although I suppose they could have entered it surreptitiously, concealing their weapons.”
“There’s a honeycomb of old passageways and chambers beneath Rome and Vatican City,” Zack said. “Have you investigated any of them as a means of getting our assault forces in?”
“Not seriously. They’re old and disused, not suitable for modern assault forces. We’re thinking more of parachuting commandos in.”
Zack handed him another document, the original CIA diagram. (His private investigator had not been able to develop any additional useful information.) “This describes two more subterranean routes that may be of interest to you. I’ve done my own research, and there are two tunnels that ancient popes used to use, and which have been closed off for some time now. They run from Vatican City to Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome.”
Selkirk looked it over, while Zack added, “These routes were used in centuries past to protect the pontiffs and cardinals in a variety of ways—for their personal safety in the event of an attack, and to permit them to sneak lovers in and out.”
“You say a courier delivered a letter to you?” the General asked.
“Actually, there were two letters from the Vatican, both written to my daughter.” He glanced over at her.
“Oh?” Selkirk set the documents aside.
Lori reached across the desk with the letter from Dixie Lou. “This is one of the letters,” she said. The paper made a crinkling sound.
After reading it, the commander said, “So, the Grand Messenger will talk to you, Miss Vale, but not to NATO?”
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