by Tom Fox
But Alexander had always been a strong communicator. As long as he didn’t aim at any of the high-visibility or competitive areas of journalism—the kind that twenty-year-olds fought for and senior reporters clutched close to their chest—the paper provided a viable option. Add in the journalistically sexy angle of the ex-cleric with a chip on his shoulder and he’d been a natural enough fit for La Repubblica’s Church Life section, which amounted chiefly to a gossip column on whatever could be dug up from the murky depths of current ecclesiastical affairs.
And that had been that. For three years he’d probed the lower limits of what human attention could be persuaded to care about. Yes, occasionally there were sex scandals, and the election of a new pope, which had taken place only eleven months before, always brought excitement and attention. But the rest of the time … the rest of the time, “mildly interesting” was a height to which he could only hope to climb. And most days he was perfectly willing to sit at the base of that mountain, caring just as little about these things as the paper’s average reader.
He gazed up from his desk. Depressingly, his editor was still there. Alexander waited for the next barrage of choreographed abuse, but Laterza’s reddened face was gradually fading to a normal color. He looked for an instant like a child who’d been told by his parents that he had to do something nice for the boy next door, even though he’d much rather tie him to a flagpole and steal his bicycle.
“I’m giving you an assignment, Trecchio.” The words came out as if it disgusted Laterza to say them.
Alexander was startled. Management was generally happy to let him troll for stories himself.
“What sort of assignment?”
Laterza scowled. “There’s been some sort of activity over at St. Peter’s—something about the cripple standing upright. Quite the buzz online since the end of this morning’s Mass. Surely you’ve heard?”
“Online buzz doesn’t do much for me,” Alexander answered. “The bastion of idiots and gossips.”
“Well, those idiots and gossips have been hopping for the past two hours, and their hype is spreading.” Laterza gave him a pitying look. “Some of them have footage. Surely even you can make a story out of that.”
The Vatican: 9:31 a.m.
“Seal the doors. Do it now.”
The voice of Cardinal Secretary of State Donato Viteri was rich and resonant. He’d held his post, the highest in the Vatican city state apart from the pontiff himself, for twenty-three years, through the reigns of three different popes. The tall, broad-shouldered man was known for being neither friendly nor verbose: the kind of elderly clerical administrator that anyone who knew the Vatican considered old school and the droves of faithful everywhere else rarely encountered. Viteri was a man whose spirituality resided within, never bubbling to the surface in shows of piety or overt reverence—a prelate more at home behind a desk than an altar, who prayed with the same businesslike tones in which he conducted meetings or oversaw political functions. His love for the Church, he occasionally said, was manifest in a commanding, untiring practicality in overseeing its affairs. He did not give sermons but orders; and when he spoke, he expected to be obeyed.
“Which doors?” The commandant of the Swiss Guard, Christoph Raber, stood next to him, still in his colorful ceremonial attire from the Mass that had concluded only minutes before. Holding the rank of oberst, colonel, the highest of all military ranks in the Holy See and held by only one man, Raber was a bulky officer, pure muscle over firm bone, which even the billows of the formal attire could not make look less than fiercely imposing. In the hierarchical world of the Vatican, only the Pope and Cardinal Viteri himself were in a position to give Raber orders.
“All of them,” the cardinal completed his command.
A pause, long and awkward. But then, Raber thought to himself, everything that morning had been awkward. Inexplicable. The commandant, despite his long years of experience, had not yet fully regained his composure from the Mass.
“All of them?”
Viteri repeated the command, his voice exuding a finality that was not open to question. He rested his aging eyes directly on Raber. In this moment they were not the stalwart windows into an unflappable soul they were renowned to be. The cardinal’s brown eyes were troubled, the deep crow’s feet at their corners furrowed into trenches, as if the gravity of his instruction had affected the deliverer as much as the recipient.
Oberst Raber’s own expression only gave indication of his surprise for a fraction of a second. He’d had too many years of training to permit it to linger any longer. But underneath, the commandant’s surprise was overwhelming. In all his decades of service, such an order had never been issued.
“The whole basilica?”
St. Peter’s was a vast structure. Built to the aggrandizing standards of a pope who had inadvertently fostered the Protestant Reformation by seeking to pay for it by selling indulgences to the masses, it covered over five acres of land, with more than 163,000 square feet of floor space and one of the largest worshipping enclosures on the planet, where a walk from the main doors to the chancel was more than an eighth of a mile beneath soaring, gilded ceilings. And though parts of it were at various times closed to the public and lesser members of the clergy, it was unheard of for the whole complex to be locked down. St. Peter’s was the heart of Christendom, the seat of the Lord’s reign on earth, and it would not shut its doors until the end of time.
“No,” Cardinal Viteri answered, “not the basilica.”
Despite his best efforts at stoicism, Raber could feel the features change on his face. Even legendary Swiss unflappability had its limits. If the Cardinal Secretary of State had not meant St. Peter’s, then Viteri could only have intended his instruction to relate to one thing.
“Your Eminence, you mean the …” Raber’s voice trailed off.
“Every gate. Every street. Every point of entry,” Cardinal Viteri confirmed.
He placed an old hand on the commander’s shoulder, his gold episcopal ring shimmering in the basilica’s orange light. Viteri’s grip was as firm as his stare.
“Clear the remaining people out of here,” he said, motioning toward the worshippers and tourists still filling the church, “then shut down the Vatican.”
