A Pius Man_A Holy Thriller

by Declan Finn

  “What did he look like?”

  “Father Williams.” She dialed Figlia’s office. “Gianni thought he was annoyed when people kept walking into his office. Just wait until I tell him this!”

  * * *

  Scott Murphy moved down the marble hall of the Vatican Museum, heading for the vault area that stored the Vatican Archives. He was about to turn the corner into the main hallway when he was pushed aside by a shadow.

  Murphy fell expertly and rolled to the side, hoping that if the shadow had a weapon, he would at least be a moving target. He looked up and the shadow was gone.

  In his ear, the communication piece registered an “oof!” Murphy tapped his ear. “Mani,” he whispered, “you all right?”

  “I just got run over by a priest.”

  Murphy frowned. “Williams?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Built and moved like him… same hair, too.”

  Murphy rose and stepped into the hallway, looking at the office door to the Vatican Archives. He saw the door closing, but that was it. “He may have done something to the archives.”

  “Great, now what?”

  * * *

  Wilhelmina Goldberg blinked and closed her cell phone. She rubbed her ear. “Ouch. I didn’t know that Figlia could get so damn loud.”

  Abasi pocketed the pistol. “The area’s secure… and what did you expect? This has been a bad day. He grabbed a case he probably shouldn’t have, and now someone’s breached his security twice today — once to steal the murder book and again to kill this poor schlub.”

  She looked at him. “Schlub?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve visited New York.”

  Goldberg smiled. “Ireland, New York, Rome, Egypt. You’ve got to tell me the story of your life one of these days. As for the schlub, I suspect he was killed for the guest logs.”

  Abasi said, “I’ll check, just in case… and yes, I have gloves on me somewhere.” He handed her the weapon. “You can stand guard this time.”

  Abasi moved away. Goldberg glanced at her cell phone in one hand, while holding the gun in the other. After a moment, she simply hit autodial. She let it ring three times until she finally got the classics department at NYU.

  “Goldberg.”

  “Hi, abba,” she said. “It’s me, Villie.”

  “You got in Rome okay?” came the voice of her father, laced with just a touch of a New York Jewish accent.

  “The arrival was good for about fifteen minutes. You should see it on CNN soon enough. A body got blasted out of a window and fell on a car… mine.”

  “Oy vey! What in God’s name—”

  “Well, funny you should say that,” she interrupted. “I’m in the Vatican right now. Listen, something’s come up, and I need some help.”

  “Such as?” he prompted.

  She took a deep breath, then asked, “Did Grandpa ever tell you about the war?”

  After a half-minute of silence: “I thought you’d never ask about that.”

  “It’s really important. I know he left Germany after Krystalnacht, and came to Italy; but after that, no one told me. It’s come up.”

  Her father sighed deeply. “He never talked about it. However, there was someone he talked to — an Israeli diplomat who wrote a book about the popes and the Holocaust, Pinchas Lapide. The name of the book is Three Popes and the Jews. The thing is, I never kept the book because my father was never in it. Somehow, he got lost in the rest of the mischegas.”

  “Understood. Thanks.”

  “Not a problem, but I’m glad you called. You should do it more often, maybe even call your mother.”

  Goldberg smiled. “Whatever you say, Dad. I’ve got to go, talk to you soon. Love you, bye.”

  Goldberg hung up. She thought for a moment, trying to remember the nearest library, aside from the Vatican, of course. Like they’d have a book on Popes written by a Jew.

  She put her cell phone away and slowly opened the door, gun ahead of her. She looked both ways, then stepped out, heading back the way she had come. She stopped, thought about it, and then moved in the opposite direction, heading down the hall, away from the entrance.

  Goldberg moved slowly forward. She turned the next corner and found a man dead center of her sights, matching the description Sean Ryan had given her — dark blond, almost brown hair, dark blue eyes, pale skin, vaguely Irish… maybe.

  “I was actually looking for you,” Scott Murphy said, smiling, ignoring her gun in his face. “Sean Ryan told you about me?”

  She nodded. “Good guess.”

  “Not really, he just struck me as the type. You want to put that away?”

  Goldberg smiled. “Not really. Where’s your partner?”

  “Watching the front door.”

  Goldberg sidestepped twice, until her back was against the opposite wall, keeping her eyes on him and covering her back.

  “You have good timing,” she told him. “I need you to help me with something.”

  Murphy blinked. “Wow, that’s fast, I usually have to make the offer first.”

  Goldberg rolled her eyes and snorted. “Puh-lease. I don’t have the time. You going to play?”

  He raised a brow and smiled. “I’m guessing you have something in mind?”

  She nodded. “Diplomatic papers; notes and papers of your diplomat Pinchas Lapide.”

  Murphy blinked. “My diplomat? You mean Israeli? Okay, where was he stationed?”

  Goldberg shook her head. “Can’t tell. But your guys should be able to put in a quick search. After that, I can tell you what happened in the Pope’s office building.”

  “Okay. One second.” Murphy slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellular phone.

  He dialed in a number from memory. “Murphy’s Morgue,” came a lightly accented female voice.

  “Hi,” Murphy answered, “I want to order a box. Name: Pinchas Lapide. Epitaph: a very diplomatic person.”

  Murphy smiled at Goldberg as the hold music of Hava Nagila played in the background.

  The Secret Service agent cocked her eyebrows. “You don’t even trust your secure lines?”

  Murphy just gave her a look, as though over eyeglasses he didn’t wear. “I work for Mossad, remember?”

  A minute later, the voice came back on the line: “Sorry, that box can’t be delivered. It’s made of mahogany.”

  Murphy left on his professional poker face, his eyes still on Goldberg, and he didn’t even blink. “And how’s that possible?”

  “Don’t ask me, I just work here.”

  “Okay, hold on.” Murphy took the phone away from his ear, and held his thumb over the microphone. “Is there something in particular you want about him?”

  Goldberg’s eyebrows arched. “Try the notes for his book Three Popes and the Jews.”

  Murphy nodded and said into the phone, “Can I have some book notes on the subject… you at least know there is a book, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” the other side answered, rather snippy, “I’m not stupid, but they’re the same.”

  Murphy blinked. “How’s that possible? I know the book has been published!”

  “That’s what we allowed to be published,” she snarked back at him. “There’s always more than is released in the book, you should know that.”

  Murphy’s patience was fraying, and he hoped it didn’t show. “Okay, understood. But this is me. I can get mahogany.” Spy-speak for, Do you know who I am?

  “Well, this is more like petrified wood than mahogany.”

  He blinked. “Really? Wow. I’ll talk with my guy, see if he can get me some.” Translated as, Do you know who my boss is?

  “Good luck.” IE: fat chance.

  “That bad?”

  “Worse.” Ouch. Translation: his boss’ boss classified it.

  “Understood. Bye.” Murphy hung up, chagrined. “I’m going to have to get back to you on that. Your documents are somewhere between classified and ‘we really should burn this.’ I need my boss to get them… o
r maybe even his boss.”

  “Why? He wrote a book on it.”

  “Well, some things don’t get published. You know the phrase ‘Every spy a prince’?”

  He slid his cell phone into his inside pocket. “The version around my Office is ‘Every diplomat an officer.’ I’ll have to send the request up through the chain of command. Now, what about you, what have you found? I know about the Spanish Steps attack and who you were there to pick up. Anything after that?”

  Goldberg finally lowered her gun, keeping it out and at her side in case he tried something. “Well, unless you want to talk about a Catholic brotherhood known as the Markists taking money from a drug dealer, no.”

  Murphy thought a moment. “Does this involve Cardinal Cannella?”

  Goldberg stared at him long and hard. “How’d you know?”

  “I think I know this story.”

  * * *

  Sean Ryan took a right out the door of the Pope’s office building, and interweaved himself through the colonnade. When you move, they can’t get you. Especially if you’re covered by marble.

  Sean smiled at the whole ordeal. Sure, Sean, join the family business in Hollywood, after your father and grandfather. At least grandpa was a real life war hero in a real life war, instead of dad, a Hollywood liberal who regularly made fun of mom’s job with the FBI.

  Sean had spent years in and out of production studios, learning the art of the continuity director, the prop man, the arts and crafts designers and forgers, latex and, most of all, stunt work. Like all Hollywood brats, he was raised with a private tutor. His teenage rebellious years had reacted to the artificiality of Hollywood by embracing “really real Catholicism” in a “conservative” Sunday school — conservative in the sense that they knew what the Pope was teaching.

  Sean’s physical endurance was shaped and molded by the Hollywood stuntmen he so admired. He would copy them, throwing himself into service around the set, and getting up at the crack of dawn to exercise. He wanted to do everything Daddy appeared to do in the movies. Sean had known better than to believe the movie magic — he wanted to be like the people who made his father look like an action hero.

  Sean’s mental endurance also helped, and that endurance had been honed every morning in his youth with a “retired” Jesuit who was a member of the Opus Dei– who had been what the Jesuits used to be — a uniquely situated teaching body that answered directly to the Pope himself. They were intellectual shock troops, able to enter a situation and decode the most complex doctrine into the reality of a simple message, only slightly more complicated than “Little children, love each other.”

  And he always thought best when his body was in motion. Like the philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas power-walking around his monastery, Sean weaved from one column to another, from one side of the square to another, and back again while he considered Pius XII and the recent murders.

  Sean finished walking through the pillars of the colonnade, then practically came to a stop. Father Williams. What the hell is he carrying now?

  The priest with silver hair had both hands in front of him, carrying five thick books in his arms. There was enough reading there to keep even a speed reader busy for a month.

  First dumping a book in the well, and then more of the same? What the hell is Father Williams’ problem with reading?

  Then Cardinal Cannella came out of the papal office, at least an hour earlier than expected. Sean smiled. Oh well. I’m not going to give Frank a problem by letting the Cardinal see me with him.

  Sean stepped behind a column, back against the marble, keeping out of sight. He stepped away once the Cardinal passed him, was about to turn when he heard the sound of flapping pages.

  The former stuntman ducked instinctively, letting the first book fly over his head. He whirled around in time to see a whole pile of ten pound books coming straight at him. He dropped to his hands and then bounced back up, feet first into the air, and he connected with… something.

  “Oof.”

  Sean came to his feet, looking constantly to find the attacker. He saw marble columns all around, but little else.

  He felt a disturbance of air and threw himself forward, into the column, quickly pushing off of it with his hands, ramming his shoulder into someone. His target spun and leapt forward, over the pile of books scattered on the ground, and rolled easily to his feet. Way too easily.

  Sean saw only the man’s black outfit and the Roman collar. The bit of light between the columns gleamed off the silver hair.

  The next detail that caught his attention was the match held above the priest’s head. He flicked the match head and hurled it at the books. The next moment, there was a blinding white-hot flame that sprang up between the two of them.

  Magnesium flash powder, son of a bitch!

  Sean whirled behind the column, blinded, hoping to buy some time before the priest attacked. He had seen Father Frank Williams in action, and didn’t want to be on the receiving end.

  I just hope the flash attracted someone. Sean raised his arm and cocked his elbow, ready to strike at the first sign of attack. He thought a moment, and then whirled around and leapt over the already-dying flames — he knew that flash powder went up in, well, a flash — and pounded empty air.

  He pivoted, expecting to find the priest on the other side of the column he himself had been hiding behind. Instead, he saw two Swiss Guards coming through the columns, halberds in hand. Both of them were coming for him. “Halt!”

  One of them thrust with a halberd, and Sean wheeled out of the way, grabbing the halberd and yanking firmly. The Swiss Guard was dragged forward, directly into the back end of Sean’s fist, immediately before being assaulted by a right hook.

  Sean turned to the other Swiss Guard before the first had even hit the ground, and looked down the barrel of a Beretta. Sean genuflected and thrust with the halberd like a spear, throwing the gun into the air; he followed up by slapping the guard upside the head with the flat of the axe.

  “I don’t need this!”

  Sean looked up at Giovanni Figlia, approaching with gun in hand. He leveled it at Sean, standing at least fifteen feet away, out of range of the pole-arm.

  “Thank you for realizing a gun is a long-range weapon,” Sean told Figlia. He stood, using the halberd as a staff. “When they wake up, you can ask why the hell they attacked me.”

  One of the two guards swore at Figlia. Sean looked down and saw the first guy he had decked was struggling to his feet. “Impressive, people usually stay down.”

  Figlia sighed. “You’d be surprised what they can take.”

  He turned to the guard and had a quick conversation. When he finished, he turned to Sean. “Apparently, there was a priest on the other side of the column who pointed to you and mouthed that he needed help.”

  “Can he identify the priest?”

  There was another quick exchange of German. Figlia raised an eyebrow. “Silver hair?”

  Sean nodded. “I saw that. Eye color?”

  The Swiss Guard shrugged.

  “It went by too fast,” Figlia said. He frowned with thought. “Why did he attack you?”

  “I was just hiding from Cardinal Cannella and …” Sean blinked. “You don’t think that was it, do you? In fact, I don’t know what else it could have been.”

  Figlia smiled. “It can join the list of questions to be answered… come on, I think you wanted to tend to Agent McGrail, yes? I managed to get her a room.”

  * * *

  Scott Murphy closed his cell phone and told Wilhelmina Goldberg, “I should be going before your friends show up. I left my boss a voice-mail, and I’ll try to contact you once he gets back to me. You have a cell?”

  Goldberg nodded, handing over a business card. “Can your partner stay out of sight? I hear she’s attractive, which sounds out of character for intelligence hiring practices.”

  Murphy smiled shyly and looked off to his left, down the hallway, trying to hide his reaction. Goldberg furrowed h
er brows and cocked her head in an attempt to get a better look at his face.

  “That pretty, huh? Amazing. Either that, or you’re a bad spy.”

  Murphy’s face evened out and he looked back at her. “I’m a damned good spy… Officer… I’ll see you later.” He turned and jogged lightly down the hallway, away from the main path.

  At the other end of the hall, Goldberg heard the sound of loud, pounding footsteps as Giovanni Figlia charged toward her. “Now what?”

  Goldberg jerked her head to the door. He stepped inside the office and swore. Figlia stopped and closed his eyes.

  “You know him?” Hashim Abasi asked, looking over the body.

  Figlia nodded. “Dr. Almagia. I mean, son of a bitch! His family has been with the library and archives department since the Second World War!”

  Goldberg blinked. She didn’t expect a history lesson. “What?”

  “His father was Professor Roberto Almagia,” he muttered. “Jewish cartographer who lost his job at the University of Rome to anti-Semitic laws in 1940. Pio Papa hired him immediately after to work in the Vatican library,

  “Pio who?”

  “Pope Pius XII,” Figlia answered, irritated. “He had Almagia work on a map of the German lands before sending it to the German Foreign Minister. Pius had a talent for annoying people.”

  Goldberg was developing the headache that Figlia had had for the last day. More history wasn’t helping it. “Anyway, I think I saw Father Williams just leaving here with the log books. If you hurry, you can find him.”

  * * *

  Sean Aloysius Patricus Ryan looked around the apartment set up for Maureen McGrail. “Nice digs.” He placed her luggage on one of the two beds.

  “Shouldn’t you be recovering from the attack of the killer priest?” McGrail asked.

  He shrugged. “Johnny boy has enough problems right now. Given the way things are going, I think I’d rather be here, out of the line of fire.” He smiled. “So, what do you think of the situation?”

  McGrail popped open a suitcase. “I came for a homicide, and I have enough dead terrorists, murdered academics, and killer priests – so aren’t I just wonderful? It’s hard enough just to remember the victims.” She bent over to look at her belongings. “Wasn’t I asking about Inna before?”