by Sam Cabot
“I’m sorry, Thomas,” said Lorenzo. “We had to improvise. You’d quit the search and were leaving Rome. Jonah had great faith in Professoressa Pietro and was perfectly happy to let you go, but I knew better. You were the key.” Lorenzo turned a sour eye on Livia, as though she’d been holding Thomas back. Then: “Thomas. The document. Please.” He put out his hand.
“Wait. I don’t understand. The phone call . . . Your abduction . . .”
“Catch up, Father!” Richter said. His thumb waggled from Lorenzo to himself.
“Desperation makes strange bedfellows,” Lorenzo said matter-of-factly. “Jonah came to me and, after I’d controlled my disgust at his very presence, convinced me the Concordat was more likely to be found if a Noantri was also on the trail. This one, to be precise.” He pointed the cigar at Livia. “I was revolted, but it was efficient. Thomas, let’s get out of here. It’s unbearable to be this close to them for long.”
Richter shrugged. “Livia, he thinks we smell funny. This from a man who can’t go anywhere without a stinking cigar. To have a flame always nearby, that’s it, isn’t it, Your Eminence? God, you Mortals are so easy to read. Fine, take it and go. It amounts to the same thing.”
Thomas looked from one man to the other. “It does? How can that be? You want to make it public. Lorenzo—” He stopped as he met Lorenzo’s eyes.
In a voice of infinite patience, Lorenzo spoke. “I told you once: centuries ago, a great mistake was made. It can’t be undone, but it can be corrected.”
“But the Church—if the world knows about this agreement, that the Church and the Noantri—”
“Yes.” Lorenzo stood relaxed and straight, like a man relieved of a burden. “The Church we know, compromised and corrupt, will finally fall.”
“And our people”—Jonah Richter smiled at Livia—“will be free.”
“Not for long!” Lorenzo spun on Richter in sudden, savage rage. “The new Church that rises will be fearless and mighty! The Church the Savior intended! It will put an end to your filthy kind!” He turned to Thomas; his voice dropped to a plea. “You understand, don’t you? All evil flows from them. In God’s image, but not human. Among us, not of us, degrading us, destroying us. Mocking the promise of the Resurrection. They must be stopped!”
Thomas felt shaky, as though engulfed by a tide that might sweep him away. This was the Lorenzo he knew, the friend he loved, raging against coming disaster as so often before. But this time he was wrong.
Whatever the true colors of Livia’s people, whatever the depth of their hearts and the desires inside them—however evil one or another of them might be, as one or another of Thomas’s people might also be—the Noantri nature was not as Lorenzo believed.
“No,” he said. “Lorenzo—”
“Give it to me!” Lorenzo grasped for the tube in Thomas’s hand. Thomas pulled his arm back but no need: Richter seized Lorenzo, flinging him into the altar. The shadows from the eternal flame bounced and danced, though the lamp stayed aright. Richter lunged, clamped a vise grip on Thomas’s wrist. He tried to pry the tube loose and would have succeeded but Livia wrapped him from behind in a bear hug. Thomas yanked his hand from Richter’s fingers as Richter, with an earthquake roar, blasted free, throwing Livia to the floor.
Richter leapt on Thomas and the two stumbled back. Thomas felt a sickening thud as his head slammed into the wall. Dizzy, pinned by Richter’s weight, he stretched his arm, lifting the tube as high as he could; he was taller than Richter and the man couldn’t reach it. Richter laughed. He stopped trying for the tube, instead wrapping both hands around Thomas’s throat. He squeezed and shook. Fiery knives sliced through Thomas’s skull every time the back of his head hit the stone again. Tiny red lights burst behind his eyes and he knew he’d lost. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t think. The tube began to slip from his fingers. His straining lungs begged for air. Our Father, who art in heaven . . .
“NO!” A howl echoed off the stone walls. “Leave him alone!” Thomas could barely make out Lorenzo staggering toward them. The Cardinal’s face purpled with effort as he tried to pull Richter away. He had no effect at all; then, with wonder, Thomas saw Lorenzo—rail-thin, seventy-three, and never a street fighter—make fists and hammer at Richter’s head and face.
The blows were ineffectual but Lorenzo was relentless. “Let go of him!” he rasped, and finally Richter turned, snarling. Thomas slipped down the wall as Richter dropped his grip and faced the Cardinal. A second’s pause; then one roundhouse punch to the jaw was all it took to lift Lorenzo into the air and hurl him across the room.
91
Livia, winded when Jonah threw her to the floor, pulled in deep breaths. She shook off her daze and looked up just in time to see the Cardinal, flying off Jonah’s fist, crash headfirst into a wall. Jonah spared himself a moment to grin in satisfaction. Then he turned back to where Thomas lay gasping on the floor. He reached down for the tube that had dropped from Thomas’s grip; but that moment was all Livia needed.
Leaping up, she tackled Jonah as she had the clerk at the Metro station. The tube flew from Jonah’s hand and bounced across the room. They rolled and wrestled; in the end he was stronger, though, and leveraged himself on top of her, pinning her down. Looking into her eyes, he grinned. “This was not how I imagined myself back in this position.” He leaned down and quickly kissed her. She lost her breath again. Then he jumped up, scanning for the tube. Livia shook off another, much different kind of daze, and followed his eyes. She saw him redden in anger: Thomas had recovered enough to crawl across the floor and grasp the tube, pulling it protectively close.
“Father,” Jonah said. “Don’t be silly. You’ll only get hurt more.”
Thomas couldn’t do more than shake his head as he lay on the floor, hugging the tube to him. When Jonah leaned down to take it, Thomas held it tight, engaging with all his remaining strength in what Livia knew would be a losing tug-of-war.
She leapt up. “Jonah!” He turned to face her. “Leave it! It isn’t time!”
He grinned again. A bead of sweat made a trail down his temple. “No. If I can’t make you understand, my darling, I’ll continue without you. Once we’ve Unveiled, you’ll know. You’ll thank me and come back to me. We have time. I can wait.” He reached down again and, with a grunt, yanked the tube from Thomas’s weakened grip. “Now move aside,” he said, but she filled the doorway and stood. “Livia. If we fight, I’ll win.”
“Still. I can’t let you take it.”
“Come with me.” His voice was soft. “I became Noantri to be with you. You took on this task to save me, you say. So come with me now.”
“And to save our people.”
“This will free our people.”
“It will destroy them.”
He took a step toward her. “There’s only one way you could stop me.”
She said nothing.
“But you won’t do it.”
“I will,” she said, but she knew he was right.
Another step, and he put a hand on her arm, as if to gently tug her aside. She shook it off and stood firm. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
Before she could answer Thomas lunged up from the floor, grasping for the tube in Jonah’s hand. A second late, Jonah pulled his hand away but he’d lost his grip. The tube flew through the air again, this time landing on the altar shelf. Jonah sprang toward it, stretched for it, but Thomas grabbed at his leg and he tripped. Flailing clumsily, trying simultaneously to kick Thomas away and to reach the tube, Jonah knocked the lamp over. Oil spilled down his arm, and in horror Livia watched flame catch fabric. She rushed forward, threw her arms around him to smother the fire, but he had the Concordat in his hand now and he broke free. The back of his jacket blazed as he leapt for the door.
“No!” she shouted. “If you run the air will feed the flames! Drop! Roll!”
She raced out the d
oor, through the courtyard, and down the steps, wild with fear as she saw the flames engulf him. If she could only catch up to him she could stop him, wrap him in her arms, choke off the fire; but he’d always been able to outrun her.
92
Livia had run after Jonah Richter. Thomas should have followed. She might need his help to wrest the Concordat from Richter’s hands. But Thomas could barely stand, certainly couldn’t run.
And there was something else.
Staggering to his feet, Thomas crossed the chapel to where Lorenzo lay, his head at an odd angle but otherwise sprawled like a man relaxing in the sun.
“Lorenzo. Father!”
Lorenzo opened his eyes.
“Thank God!” Thomas breathed, fumbling for his phone. “I’m calling for help.”
“Thomas.” Lorenzo’s voice was faint. “Find the Magdalene.”
“What? No, don’t talk. Help will be here—”
“I can’t move,” Lorenzo whispered. “I can’t feel my arms, my legs. Thomas, let me go. But find the Magdalene.”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t all. The Church you love . . . the Concordat wouldn’t have . . . it would have been built anew. Stronger, purer. But it won’t . . . you must find . . . find . . .” Slowly, his eyes closed. His lips continued to move, though no sound reached Thomas.
“No. No, Father, please. Lorenzo!” But there was nothing more.
Thomas knelt motionless on the cold marble, trying to will Lorenzo to open his eyes, to speak. Finally, rousing himself, he looked around. Oil from the now-extinguished eternal flame dripped from the altar onto the floor. He stumbled over, dipped his fingers in it, muttered the prayer consecrating it to God’s holy purposes. Returning to Lorenzo’s side, he traced the sign of the cross on Lorenzo’s forehead, and began: “Through this holy unction and his own most tender mercy may God pardon thee . . .”
93
Livia stepped slowly into the chapel under the Tempietto to find Thomas praying over the body of Lorenzo Cossa. In her hand she held the lead tube; in her heart, the indelible sight of Jonah, at the bottom of the steep steps, on his knees as the fire consumed him. His arms were raised high, one hand a triumphal fist; the other, holding the tube, suddenly hurled it out of the flames with what must have been his last strength.
By the time she’d reached him, nothing could be done. He was charred, devoured, destroyed, turning to ash in the still-dancing flames. She’d stood, numb, watching the fire die down. She’d said his name, once; then, carefully, methodically, as though it were someone else doing it, turned away and searched until she found the lead tube. Clutching it to her, she started back up the hill.
In the chapel, she knelt beside Thomas. After a few moments he turned to look at her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
His eyes held a question that she answered with a shake of her head.
“I’m sorry, too,” he told her.
In the silence, she opened her arms for him. He moved into her embrace. In the dim chapel, they shared their sorrow.
94
Anna had watched Jorge twist and flail as he fell. His descent wasn’t long and he’d hit the ground hard. It didn’t matter. The fall was camouflage. As a Noantri the impact wouldn’t have killed him; but what she’d done would, whether he’d fallen or not. She’d seen it begin. As he lay on the asphalt, tiny drops of blood started to leak from his eyes. There would be more, and then from his mouth, nose, and ears. His skin would turn purple, as though he’d been bruised all over. His internal organs, too, would bleed. Anna had given him a great gift some decades ago. He’d been unworthy of it, and now she had taken it back.
She’d wanted to stay and watch, because although this was a process much discussed among the Noantri, very few had actually seen it. Fascinated as she was, though, she knew she’d better move on. Jorge’s body would be discovered soon, and it would be just as well if she weren’t around.
Where was she going? She hadn’t decided, but it would be far. What she’d said about finding Pietro and the priest was bold talk, and with time she knew she could, but right now she wasn’t in a position to look. So far the Conclave didn’t seem to know that she’d been trying to thwart their plans; been trying, in fact, to usurp their power. At this point, she judged them likely to win. That idiot Jorge had put her and her faction too far behind. She had no idea where to go to pick up the chase now. To stay in the game she’d have to regroup, and she had a feeling the clock was running out.
She could live with that. She could live with that, she thought with a smile, for a very long time. Her followers were determined that the Noantri should Unveil, and their numbers grew with each passing year. When Anna decided their strength was sufficient, she’d step forward and confront the Conclave directly. She wouldn’t need the lost Concordat for that.
Anna had cast one last glance at the dying Jorge, whose blood was by then seeping along the street to flow in little rivulets down the hill. She headed in the same direction, down, saying goodbye to La Sapienza, to comparative lit, and, with a sigh, to the Serb professor she’d had her eye on. And to Anna Jagiellon, she supposed, for a while. That was all right. It was a big world.
Trotting down the steps, she found herself wondering two things: Why the foul cologne, which had made him so much easier to find? And why, when Jorge’s bloody dying eyes met hers, had she read in them, not pain, not anger, but gratitude, and joy?
95
Thomas walked beside Livia in the silence under the trees. The winding way through the Orto Botanico led them down the hill far from the sirens and flashing lights. Leaving the Tempietto they found something had happened, something so big, one wide-eyed tourist told another, that the road down the Janiculum had been closed and they all had to stay up top. The six tourists on the overlook argued among themselves, agreeing the problem was clearly terrorism, debating only what kind: domestic, foreign, bombs, bio-agents. Livia had relayed all this to Thomas as she’d listened in, unnoticed, from the cloister.
“We can’t stay here,” he said. “How will we get down?”
“Don’t worry. Come.”
He followed as she turned and headed in the other direction, back around the cloister to the road along the top of the hill.
Thomas, dazed and bruised, moved slowly. Walking at all was an effort, but he found, for the first time today, it didn’t take any extra work to keep up with Livia. Her steps were as fatigued as his; she appeared also weary, also dispirited. The Noantri body, he’d learned, could restore itself, come back rapidly from almost any injury. The Noantri heart, it seemed, not so.
She’d led him to the gates of the Orto Botanico, Rome’s Botanical Garden. They’d been prepared to climb the fence in case the Orto had been shut down, but in typical Roman style, either the word that no one was to go up or down the Janiculum hadn’t reached the Orto, or more likely, it had been received with a shrug and was being ignored. They paid their entrance fee, hoping the young man in the booth wasn’t on the lookout for fugitives. As it turned out, he was not, being barely sentient enough to notice customers. They headed down the curving pathway where fallen leaves whispered underfoot. The tracery of branches revealed the fading autumn afternoon, as though the tree canopy had given up trying to hide the sky. The few blooms still to be seen had withered; even the bamboo grove was fading from green to yellow.
Whatever had happened on the road they’d have to learn later. They couldn’t afford to be seen by the polizia or Carabinieri; and they couldn’t afford to wait. Richter was gone beyond recognition, an unexplained blaze exhausted to a smoking mound of ashes on a flight of stone steps; but Lorenzo’s body would not lie in the chapel long without someone, sightseer or caretaker, stumbling upon it.
Lorenzo’s body. Lorenzo had lied to Thomas and used him, had betrayed his trust and had intended to betray the Church. But anger, indignation,
resentment, even relief that Lorenzo’s plans had been thwarted—Thomas felt none of these. Instead, walking under empty branches, he searched himself, searched their fifteen years of friendship, for the failing. What in Thomas had made Lorenzo unwilling to trust him with this secret, unable to share his knowledge and his fears? They could have debated, talked, studied over it. They could have found another path. Why had it come to this?
96
Seated at the café in Piazza della Scala, Luigi Esposito had to admit to himself that he might be wrong. Wrong about Spencer George’s involvement in whatever was going on? No. The man was so clearly hiding something that Luigi suspected the uniformed scemi he’d been stuck with this morning could’ve seen it. But it was possible he was wrong about the value of a surveillance. It had been an hour since he left the interview with the historian and the man had not emerged. If nothing happened in the next hour or so, no one in or out, maybe the most useful thing Luigi could do would be to go back to the office and dig into George’s life. People peddling stolen art didn’t exist in vacuums. He’d find another path.
These were the thoughts running through his head when his cell phone rang. He didn’t need to check the screen; he’d thought it prudent to give the soprintendente his own ring tone.
“Esposito, where are you?”
“Piazza della Scala, sir. Still on the surveillance.”
“Leave. Your car’s close?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Take it, not a cab. Go to the Ambulatorio di Medicina Tropicale. On Via Portuense. The emergency room. Tell them who you are.”
“The emergency room? Who’s there?”
“You. They’re waiting for you.”
“I— Sir, what are you talking about? I’m fine.”
“Maybe not. That Argentinian, your suspect? He’s dead. Of a hemorrhagic fever.”
