30 Pieces of Silver: An Extremely Controversial Historical Thriller

by McCray, Carolyn

  “When was the obelisk added to St. Peter’s courtyard?”

  “It was moved from Caligula’s Circus to its current position in 1586 by Pope Sixtus the Fifth,” she answered automatically.

  “And the Basilica? When was it erected?”

  Rebecca fought answering him. She wanted to know where Davidson was, but whenever she was asked a historical question it was like a switch was flipped, forcing her to answer. “Sixteen-twenty-six, but some form of the shrine had existed since sixty-four AD.”

  The sergeant nodded sagely as they finished the short walk down the enclosed road. Vatican walls rose to each side, herding the visitors toward the official entrance. At this smaller gate awaited yet another checkpoint. The Paris bombings and the boating accident this morning must have spooked security, for all bags were being searched. A Christian suicide bomber was every pope’s worst nightmare.

  * * *

  Unlike Rebecca, Brandt didn’t need to fake being overwhelmed by his first visit to the Holy See, because it was his first visit, and the scope of the grounds far exceeded his expectations. Now he could see how thousands of worshippers could attend mass in St. Peter’s Square. he enormous courtyard curved into an oval with towering, curved colonnades embracing the space. Like God’s arms welcoming his children home.

  The first object that drew his eye was the obelisk that stood in the center of the courtyard. The Egyptian monument climbed over forty meters into the sky, but it was the base that captured the sergeant’s attention. Marble lions curved around the base, stalking, hunting.

  Whereas St. Peter’s life-size statue stood with his arms wide open, greeting visitors to his Basilica. Its gold and white dome glistened in the morning light. Other saints were perched on the roof of St. Peter’s Basilica, a Renaissance-style building, overlooking all those who entered the Square.

  Why couldn’t they be headed inside the Basilica rather than breaching the pope’s private quarters?

  Brandt knew from pictures that St. Peter’s interior vaulted high above, inspiring awe. Artwork covered every square inch of the walls and the enormous sculptures of Peter, the Crucifixion, and even Death were breathtaking.

  But he wasn’t going to see any of that nor the inside of the Sistine Chapel. Which was too bad since the Chapel’s exterior was none too noteworthy. It gave no glimpse of the artistry contained within. The Chapel’s exterior was a smooth beige with only a few, small buttresses adorning the building. It seemed almost impossible that such a drab casing could house Michelangelo’s masterpiece.

  Why couldn’t the damn bones be under there? For one thing it would be a hell of a lot easier to break into the Chapel, and secondly Brandt just wanted to witness the artist’s manifestation of faith for himself. What great testament to God had been created since then?

  But Brandt was reminded of his own duty as a squadron of Swiss Guard marched past. From their travels so far, he had counted twenty-seven guards, but who knew how many other guards were stationed within the tangle of buildings that lay outside of St. Peter’s Square? There was an entire museum wing to the north, and rooftops continued for acres. All of those reinforcements were but a hundred yards away from the Palace.

  But out of all of the other holy landmarks they had visited had been impressive, but the Vatican was its own country. You could put the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and even St. Matthias Church onto the grounds and still have room to play a regulation-sized baseball game. Since the time he was an altar boy, he had dreamed of visiting the Holy See, and now here he was.

  It wasn’t until Rebecca cleared her throat that the sergeant realized that he had stopped walking and just stood in the center of the square, soaking up the experience.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  He nodded, and Rebecca walked toward the building between the Basilica and the Chapel, the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s private residence, but Brandt found his feet reluctant to follow. It wasn’t the exterior that put him off. The Palace was crafted in a similar style to the Basilica, but made of a redder brick. If it were not situated behind the white colonnade and sat in the center of Vatican City, you might mistake the Palace for an older Italian office building. Just like the Sistine Chapel, there was very little exterior adornment, but what it held was precious beyond belief.

  The collar chafed his neck, reminding the sergeant of how far he had drifted from his faith. But some of his upbringing had clearly taken because Brandt realized there was a line he could not cross.

  * * *

  There were only two other parties in line in front of them when the sergeant tapped her shoulder. “We need to talk.”

  Rebecca glanced around. They weren’t exactly alone. To their right, the post office bustled with tourists buying Vatican-issued stamps. On the left was the only ATM in the world that had instructions in Latin that brought flocks of travelers just so they could take home the unique receipt. Not far down the street were the Holy See’s publishing offices. Sightseers and clergy alike swarmed the area.

  “Can’t it wait?”

  Brandt shook his head sharply.

  “Okay, then…”

  But the sergeant didn’t immediately speak. She had assumed he was going to give her instructions on what to do if their documents didn’t scan. Or remind her to stay two small steps ahead and to the left of him whenever they entered a room, but he just stood there, grinding his jaw.

  Now there was only one party of clergy ahead of them. “Brandt?”

  He whispered harshly. “I’m not killing anyone.”

  “Even without a gun, I’m not worried about your ability to—”

  “No, I mean I won’t kill. Not on holy ground. Not here.”

  Rebecca’s mind reeled. She had come to realize the sergeant was truly of faith, but wasn’t killing people trying to kill them his gig?

  Before she could argue, Brandt continued, “The guards. The staff. They’re innocent. I won’t shed their blood, not on holy ground.”

  “Okay, I get it, but what if we’re arrested or worse attacked?”

  The sergeant’s firm tone left no room for doubt. “If it comes to down to that, I will protect you with my life, but we’re going to have to rely on cunning to get through this.”

  As the guard waved them forward and asked for their documents, Rebecca wished Brandt had told her this a little earlier so she could have properly panicked.

  “Is the pope in attendance?” the sergeant asked the brightly garbed officer as he scanned their passes.

  “You are in luck. He is. His Holiness is taking private audiences on the second floor, but he might grace us with his presence following his afternoon respite.”

  Brandt showed no emotion, but Rebecca’s heart fell past her stomach and settled below her pelvis. The pope wasn’t supposed to be here.

  “I thought he was visiting Parliament this afternoon?” Brandt asked, his tone light, but she knew he must be near panic.

  The guard didn’t notice her nervousness. “He was, but after the boating accident the president felt His Holiness should stay in attendance.”

  The look flashed for only a split second, but Rebecca knew Lopez was in a whole bushel of trouble.

  * * *

  As they walked through the bronze doors to the Palace, Brandt felt the anger toward his corporal fade, then extinguish. Just standing within a building that had sheltered dozens of popes, Brandt found himself hard-pressed to have any negative emotion. If anything, the place made him even more certain of his vow.

  The Palace’s interior might not be as ornate as the Chapel or the Basilica, but the modest walls held a simple piety. Even though the foyer was spacious, there weren’t any vast murals or even statues. Only a few tasteful paintings of the saints graced the walls with a collection of crosses scattered throughout.

  Certainly the pope’s presence was an obstacle, but it didn’t necessarily scrub the mission. Like the guard said, His Holiness was receiving guests, which meant the pope’s rooms were vacant.
But they had to hurry. Brandt knew that when in attendance, the pope always retreated to his rooms after lunch.

  Quickly, the sergeant surveyed the hallways that branched off the main foyer, but he found only rows upon rows of office doors. From Lopez’s brochure, Brandt knew that the palace had over a thousand rooms with several enclosed courtyards and too many staircases to count. It was a literal labyrinth of bureaucracy.

  But offices weren’t what they were after. Brandt’s eyes followed the long, wide hallway until it ended in a sweeping black marble spiral staircase. The staircase that led to the second floor where the pope’s private rooms lay.

  Two Swiss Guard regulated traffic at the ground level, but only one was dressed in the typical striped uniform. The other wore a red jacket with gold trim and matching red socks.

  An officer. Both guards bore chest armor in addition to their helmets. Brandt also noted a heroism medal pinned to the sleeve of the junior officer. So he was no ordinary private, either. Just as Brandt had feared, once he heard the pope was in attendance, the Guard had sent their best and their brightest to secure the staircase.

  While most of the second-floor landing was obscured by the enormous staircase, Brandt could make out at least two other guards. One in red. One in stripes. A senior and a junior officer. The sergeant could guess there would be at least two more in front of the pope’s private residence. Six guards. All carrying swords. All experts in hand-to-hand combat. And he couldn’t hurt any of them.

  Pretending to appreciate the artwork, the sergeant followed Rebecca as she studied the paintings. However, he eavesdropped on the exchange between the guards and those who approached them. There was a mixture of German, the official language of the Swiss Guard, and Italian, Spanish, and even Mandarin. They were instructed that no one could climb the stairs for photographs until after the pope had retired to his quarters sometime in the next ninety minutes.

  An hour and a half.

  Maybe they didn’t need to rush. Maybe they could wait until the pope retired to his quarters, then wander up with the other tourists, hole up somewhere on the second floor, emerging once the pope headed downstairs for the afternoon.

  It sounded like a great plan, except for the glaring detail of the guards at the top of the stairs, but given ninety minutes, Brandt was certain that he could come up with a non-lethal way around them.

  He turned to update Rebecca on their timetable, but then he saw that look she always got just before she turned his world upside down.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Notice?”

  “The crosses. Look at the crosses.”

  * * *

  Rebecca was pleased that for once she had been the one to stop and appreciate the beauty. Brandt’s eyes surveyed the walls, scanning the hundreds of crosses. He glanced back to her, still confused.

  “The silver ones in particular,” she prompted.

  As he went back to his search, Rebecca admired the crosses again. There were so many. Some sparkled gold or silver, while others were made of rough wood or smooth stone. There was even an onyx one above a portrait of the black Madonna. The vast majority also had the figure of Christ upon the cross. It wasn’t until she started studying the ones that lacked his body that Rebecca realized they were all silver.

  The sergeant swung around to her. “They are inscribed in Latin.”

  She nodded. Not just inscribed in Latin, but each silver cross bore a single word, the same word on all.

  “Illiac,” Brandt read.

  “In English, ‘here.’ ”

  The sergeant added. “Or ‘the place.’”

  Rebecca smiled. He spoke Latin. Why she was surprised, she didn’t know.

  “May I help you?” a voice asked in Italian from behind them.

  Acting way too guilty, she turned around to find a red-coated guard. Crap. Her mind was too far back into the dim past that she couldn’t remember their cover story.

  Brandt, however, just chuckled and answered in Italian with a twangy Midwestern accent. “Sorry, we just got so wrapped up in the artwork. We’re looking for the Relics Library.”

  Despite the sergeant’s casual manner, the guard still seemed on alert. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. Within moments of entering the Palace, he had picked them out as possible threats. Maybe these guardsmen were that well trained after all.

  The guard answered in English with a thick German accent. “Might I inquire why you wish to visit the Library?”

  “Of course! We’re from Michigan, Detroit actually, and we work with inner-city kids. Well, to make a long story shorter, we’ve been blessed with our own parish. Which is just amazing given the city’s reluctance to donate the abandoned building, but our congregation went on a massive letter-writing campaign, appealing to the city council and our local bishop to help us out…”

  Rebecca stood amazed as the sergeant rambled on. Usually Brandt was all about brevity, but here the sergeant was going on and on about some fictitious church. And it was working. Whereas a minute ago the guard’s eyes were sharp with concern, they had glazed over as Brandt explained at length their ‘Chastity First!’ program.

  “Yes. Yes,” the guard interrupted. “But why do you need the Library?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just been the longest seven months getting the permits and county assessor on board—” Brandt appeared to refocus as the guard gave the international hand signal for hurry it up. “And we just broke ground when we were informed that St. Justine’s relic had been lost in the mail. Can you believe that, in this day and age? As you can imagine, we were horrified. We can’t have the church blessed until the Holy Relic is within the walls. And trying to reapply for another has just been so hard, what with the time difference and the language barrier. The Lonpreggs offered their frequent flyer miles, and—”

  “Take that hallway, then turn left at the juncture, then a right. The library will be the fifth door on the left,” the guard said, walking off before Brandt could entangle him in further conversation.

  “Thank you!” the sergeant answered heartily, but the man was already heading out the bronze door. More quietly, he said to Rebecca, “We’ll head that way, then double back.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “We won’t need to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  There were some days she loved computational archaeology more than others. Today she was near rapturous. “Keep walking, but look at the pattern of the crosses.”

  Two short steps behind her and to her right, Brandt followed, his eyes flickering across the walls. “They’re growing in number toward the northwest hallway.”

  “Yep, and I know exactly where they’re leading.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Vatican City

  As they headed deeper into the administrative offices, the crowds thinned. Brandt waited until they had made their first left, well out of sight of the astute guard, before he pulled Rebecca to a halt.

  “Hand me the map,” she said before he could ask her to explain.

  Brandt opened Lopez’s “The Vatican from an Architectural Viewpoint” map. “What are we looking for?”

  “What’s directly under the pope’s quarters?”

  The sergeant searched the map. “Nothing. Remember? It’s where you thought a staircase was hidden.”

  “But what if that’s not what’s hidden? What if the space is a chamber hidden by a false wall sealed off by one of these offices?”

  Brandt liked this idea way better than breaking into the pope’s bedroom. “Show me.”

  Rebecca pointed to the area in question. There were four offices that abutted the space. The northern one issued passports. The southern was in charge of health care for day laborers. The western office distributed the pope’s schedule to the international media. But it was the eastern one that Brandt was sure Rebecca meant. The Latin title needed no translating.

  Census. It seemed unassuming eno
ugh. The office was tasked with keeping track of the number of Catholics in the world, but the sergeant knew that Rebecca was more interested in the older meaning of the world.

  “Joseph and Mary were on their way to register with the Roman census when Jesus was born,” he stated.

  “The Romans required that everyone register in the town of their ancestors. Since Joseph arose from Bethlehem…”

  Brandt studied the map. What were the chances it was a coincidence that this office, that shared the same duty as the ancient census, abutted a strangely empty space directly above the location of the Roman mint?

  “It can’t hurt to check it out,” he agreed.

  So instead of taking the next right, they traveled a hundred feet and took the fourth left. Seventeen doors down, they stopped.

  “You going to talk our way in again?” she asked with a smile.

  “You know it.”

  * * *

  As Brandt pretended not to speak Italian to the harried-looking clerk, Rebecca studied the back wall. The wall that led to the hidden space was painted with a simple but moving mural.

  It might not be a Michelangelo, but it re-created the nativity manager perfectly with the Bethlehem star shining above it. Someone before them must have made the connection between the two censuses.

  “Please, we need to register our parish,” the sergeant insisted with just the right amount of exasperation in his voice.

  “Parish! Si! Si!” The man, who was obviously not accustomed to many foreign visitors, went on to ask them where the parish was and how many worshippers, but they both acted completely clueless.

  “English? Does anyone speak English?” Brandt asked like a typical American tourist.