by Declan Finn
“Can you hear anything?”
“No, can’t even read his lips. I’d get closer, but I doubt it’s safe.”
Shushurin nodded. Thus far, the priest had been leading them a merry chase all day, leading nowhere in particular. He was the only lead they had, now that the primary investigators were busy in the Vatican archives. So Father Frank became the major focus of the two spies.
“Do you really think that he’d risk having a conversation out in the open with someone who matters?
Murphy sighed. “Probably not, but it’s the best we have.”
Several hours later, Murphy and Shushurin were on the verge of killing this blasted Jesuit. He had dragged them all over Rome, as though he were trying to lose them, but not coming close to succeeding. He hadn’t acknowledged that he had noticed them, which would have been wise after failing to lose them for over three hours. He was either a good yet poorly trained spy, who was just wandering aimlessly, or …
“What if he’s been leading us on in order to delay us?” Murphy suggested as he rounded yet another corner, nearing the Emmanus Hotel.
“Well, it won’t do any good,” Shushurin replied alongside him. “He’s heading back to the Vatican. Time to end this.”
Murphy smiled. “What did you have in mind?”
She felt for her pistol. “Corner him.”
The smiled faded and Murphy stopped dead, touching her arm to stop her. “You mean confrontation? We’re spies, not knee-breakers. I know you’re with the Germans, but there’s got to be a limit.”
Shushurin closed her eyes. She liked this less than he did. “He’s been leading us in circles all day, and we’re wasting time we probably don’t have. Sean got attacked after concluding that there was an insider involved in whatever the hell this is. We’ve ruled out nearly everyone but Williams. Even Goldberg figured out that Father Williams is involved somehow. If we don’t pull him aside for a little chat, who will?”
Scott Murphy said, “All right, all right, when do you intend to jump him?”
She watched him cross the street, advancing towards the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square. “As soon as it’s convenient.”
* * *
Figlia returned from his dinner and siesta with his family refreshed and invigorated.
Only to find Sean Ryan already in the office, waiting for him, book in hand. “Hard day of papers?” the American asked with a smirk.
“Who knew that a priesthood like this could generate so much mishegas?” Goldberg grumbled as she led the way into the office, McGrail and Abasi behind her.
“Oh, it gets worse,” Sean Ryan told them as they walked into Figlia’s office.
The Secret Service agent glanced at him and said, “How would you know what we found?”
He smiled. “I’ve got a few notes from my reading. The Vatican released a whole slew of documents back in the 1970s in relation to World War II, and all the others were deleted because they were redundant. Did you find anything contrary to what I told you earlier? Did Pius XII order a village burned or bless Auschwitz as a service to humanity? Something — anything — to support the Nazis, or did he merely have the priests under his command support, facilitate, and secure the release of Jews during the Second World War?”
Goldberg frowned. “When you’re right, you act smug.”
Sean laughed. “Oh, Agent Goldberg, I was born that way. But it gets worse. You see, in 1967, Israeli Diplomat Pinchas Lapide stated that –”
“Pius XII saved about 860,000 Jews in World War II,” Goldberg said. “Father Frank told us. And that Einstein and Golda Meir both praised him for it.”
Sean nodded and raised the book in his hand to show the title: Three Popes and the Jews. “It’s all in here.” He flipped open the book at random. “Page 168, Pius XII spent his entire family inheritance on behalf of the Jews.”
Goldberg groaned and sat next to Abasi. “It’s been a long day, Ryan, hurry up.”
“Fine; from 1933 to 1939, there had been fifty-five Papal protests against Germany, and Secretary of State Pacelli filed each one. The Nazis even tried to talk German Cardinals against voting for Pacelli in the Papal Conclave. When Hitler invaded Poland, the end of the first month saw 214 priests executed, and 1,000 by the end of the year. When Vatican media reported it, the repressions increased so much that Archbishop Sapieha of Krakow asked the Pope to stop talking about it, ‘as it only made things worse.’ ”
Sean nodded. “A month later, Pius XII’s first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, called dictatorship ‘so abnormal that it is like a tumor,’ and condemned everything the Nazis had done. The New York Times gave it a three-column, above-the-fold headline, and the French dropped 88,000 copies of it on German troops from the air for propaganda purposes. It was even praised by groups of Rabbis the week it was published, and for weeks after.”
At which point even Maureen McGrail raised a brow. “That’s all in Lapide?”
Sean chuckled. He lowered the book and showed a piece of paper stuck between the pages. “This is my cheat sheet. I went through the microfiche and a few other books.” He shrugged. “After Summi Pontificatus, Catholic persecution skyrocketed. The encyclical itself was banned from Germany – no one was to talk about it, hand it out, and anyone who read it from the pulpit was arrested.’
“In October 1940, Pius told the Bishop of Campagna to aid interned Jews. The Bishop’s nephew, the police chief for the city of Fiume, give false papers to Croatian Jews who had made their way to northern Italy, sending them to his uncle’s Southern Italian diocese. Pius XII gave their operation ten thousand Italian lire.”
Abasi frowned with thought. “And how long did the Fiume operation last?”
“Until the police chief was thrown into a concentration camp, where he stayed until the day he died.”
* * *
Shushurin and Murphy followed Father Frank, at long last, to the Vatican. They both smiled their way past the Swiss guards at the front of the Pope’s office building, running as though to catch up with the tour group that had just entered.
They managed to catch up to the priest in the papal reception hall — which was designed like most rooms in the Vatican, with floors, walls, and ceiling of solid marble.
Father Frank heard a click, and stopped in the middle of the floor.
“Lieutenant!”
The priest turned to the two intelligence officers, Shushurin already holding a gun on him. “The proper designation,” he said softly, “is ‘Corpsman’. I’m glad to see you decided to stop playing around and talk with me. What can I do for you?” His eyes flicked to the gun. “Stechkin? I haven’t seen one of those since Iraq. I can’t imagine that you’re Russian, you’re too good. You’re not CIA, they would’ve just called. You’re not Mossad, they don’t try to use the deadly gorgeous except for a honey trap.” His eyes flicked to Scott Murphy. “You’re both good enough to be Mossad, but I’m betting you’re the man from Israel, and you’re from the Bundesnachrichtendienst.” He waved at the gun. “Would you mind putting that away? You won’t need it.”
Shushurin shook her head. “We know something of what you can do. I’ll feel safer holding on to this.”
Father Frank laughed, and with his other hand, he whipped out a long, full rosary, wrapped it around the Stechkin, and yanked it out of Shushurin’s hand, sending it to the other side of the room.
The rosary came back as Frank threw it into Shushurin’s face. She deflected it as though it was a straight punch, then twisted her upper body around to put power behind a right cross. Father Frank ducked underneath and rolled across the floor, trying to get some space between them.
Shushurin rushed him in the hopes that she could close before he got to his feet. Father Frank was spryer than he looked, and threw an uppercut as he sprung up from the floor. Shushurin deflected it with her left forearm, and countered with a right elbow. The point of the elbow glanced off of his temple, and the blow spun him around, and he used the momentum to turn it onto
a left backhand. She swung her left arm down like a pendulum to block it, and reacted with a right cross, smacking him across the face.
Frank Williams dropped one leg into a crouch, and kicked out with the other leg, sweeping Shushurin’s legs from under her. She hit the floor and rolled away, making sure he couldn’t take advantage of her predicament.
They both came to their feet at the same time, then charged each other once more.
* * *
“By 1941, the Nazis were so fed up with the Church, they suppressed the entire Catholic Press, except for ‘strictly theological works.’ The German Gestapo was so damned worried about the Pope they bribed officials to read the Pope’s mail. Pius even stated, ‘We ought to speak words of fire against the atrocities… and the only thing which restrains us, is the knowledge that words would make the fate of those wretches even worse.’”
Goldberg raised her hand to silence him. “Excuse me, but worse? After being gassed and cremated, nothing tops it, sorry.”
Sean raised an eyebrow. “Two million Jews had been saved in shelters within Europe; you piss off the Germans, maybe they break down that convent door anyway. That’s what happened in Holland in 1942 – they protested, and ended with a higher deportation rate than in any country in Western Europe. Upon hearing about Holland, the Pope put away a protest specifically condemning the Nazis, believing that if the Nazis would retaliate against civilians for the protests of bishops, they would retaliate even worse should the Pope speak out.
“Pius also knew that Adolf had a plan to kidnap him.”
Goldberg laughed. “What?”
“Operation Pontiff: Hitler’s plan to kidnap the Pope and occupy the Vatican. He had to be talked out of it several times by saner colleagues. Pius even signed a letter of resignation in case they wanted to use him as a puppet. He had offers of sanctuary from Ireland and Latin America, but he stayed. Even John Cornwell in Hitler’s Pope, accused him of ‘foolhardy valor’ for being involved in a plot to take out Hitler.”
* * *
Scott Murphy, confused and uncertain of how to intervene between Shushurin and the priest, looked for an opening Maybe he could get across the room and grab Shushurin’s gun? Possible.
The two combatants fired off an attack at the same time — Shushurin kicked for his side, despite her better judgment, and he swung for her stomach, both of them caught nothing but solid muscle.
Father Frank and Shushurin stepped back briefly, and then he unleashed a left uppercut. She swept it to the side with a forearm and fired a left cross. He pushed it aside with a deflecting palm, and clamped down onto her wrist, ready to follow through when she recoiled. She stepped in instead; they grabbed each other by the lapels and by coincidence, they both head butted each other at the same time.
Murphy smiled. This was his moment. With both of them dazed and confused, he’d have a chance to grab the weapon. He was about to go for it when he felt two large hands grab him by the neck and the belt and hurl him against a wall.
Murphy bounced off the wall and fell with a thud. He blinked the stars out of his eyes, and looked up to see a large, graying man standing in front of him, totally ignoring his existence.
“And now,” he said in a thick Russian accent, “we let your old mentor handle this, da, Frank?”
Murphy blinked harder. Was this the man who had attacked Sean Ryan? If so, he had completely discounted Murphy as a factor — did he think he’d been knocked out?
Well, that’s an advantage… so what? He’s too far out of the way for my pocket knife to slash his tendons, and I can’t crawl to him fast enough. Now what?
Step one, get off the floor.
* * *
Goldberg and Abasi almost leapt out of their chairs. “What!” they shouted.
Sean sighed. “Pius was involved in several plots against Hitler, one in 1940 when German soldiers tried to assassinate him, and in 1943.” Sean chuckled. “You remember that movie with Tom Cruise? The Valkyrie plot? Pius supported that one behind the scenes. In fact, there were five plots against Hitler that we know of, and Pius XII may have been involved with all of them.”
“Anyway, there was another problem with protests — they were counterproductive. Condemning Nazi propaganda only encouraged book sales. Reports from the camps said that things got worse every time the Pope spoke out. Even Mussolini said protests from the Church would have no effect on the Nazis ‘because they are true pagans.’ He should talk, he’s Italian. They’re almost all pagans.” He looked to Figlia. “No offense.”
Figlia laughed. “What offense? You should see the Neapolitans.”
Goldberg said, “Okay, that’s all very nice. But what exactly did he do?”
Sean stopped dead. “He ordered priests all over Europe to shelter and hide Jews from the authorities. In 1942, the Nazis believed that ‘every Catholic family shelters a Jew.’
Suddenly, Goldberg put up her hands like a football referee calling a time-out. “Okay, let’s stop before we go into a Dan Brown monologue. In short Pacelli – as Pope – emptied his own personal fortune to bankroll rescue attempts, and even used hefty parts of the Vatican funds; he allowed for forged certificates and documents to get Jews out of harm’s way all over Europe; he even ran a safe house in Rome itself –”
Abasi raised a finger. “Excuse me, he allowed for safe houses to be made out of Church property in Rome. That does not mean he ran them.”
Goldberg arched a brow. “He owned Castle Gandalfo, and it could only be opened with his personal approval. That’s running a safe house. Is that about the gist of this?”
“Just about.”
“So, what the hell is going on here and now?”
* * *
Manana Shushurin looked from the Jesuit to the newcomer who identified himself as Father Frank’s trainer. The former was on her right, the latter on the left.
She looked back and forth one more time and nodded to herself. “Right.”
The graying newcomer attacked with a right hook. She blocked it with her left arm and spun, turning the block into a left across his face. She almost ran into Father William’s left jab, but weaved around it, grabbed the left wrist and his belt, and hurled him into his partner using his own momentum.
The elder assailant grabbed Father Frank in mid-flight, pirouetted, and hurled him right back at her. She sidestepped the human missile, and Father Frank landed, rolling to his feet without a scratch. The other was about to take a swing at her when—
Scott Murphy leapt on the larger man’s back, wrapping the Jesuit’s fallen rosary like a garrote around his neck. The larger man stumbled and then threw his upper body forward, trying to throw Murphy off. Murphy let go of the rosary, and changed his hold to wrapping his right arm around the neck and his left arm around the attacker’s arm.
The gray-haired man growled and threw his entire body backwards, effectively body-slamming Murphy into the marble floor. Murphy had just barely raised his head in time to avoid having the back of his skull crushed by the impact — a move that saved his head, and allowed him to bite his attacker’s ear.
Shushurin turned to the Jesuit at hand, and Father Frank held his ground, not moving forward, and she waited, not eager to start again.
“There was no reason to pull a gun on me, miss,” he said so softly she could barely hear him over the sound of Scott’s grunting.
“I think there was. We know what you can do, and—”
“I gathered. I noticed you have similar training. I take it you were educated from birth as well?”
* * *
Figlia leaned back in his chair. “So, Father Williams was right. Everything he told us about Pius XII was true.”
“Actually,” Goldberg said with an almost-pout, “he underestimated it.”
McGrail raised a brow, curious about what conversation they were referring to, but moved on to the point. “So Gerrity and Yousef were both killed because they read this?”
Goldberg nodded. “Even I saw the instruct
ions were basically ‘save Jews.’”
Figlia smiled. “Well, at least the field of suspects is narrower.”
Abasi frowned. “Indeed.” He looked to Sean. “The American Catholic Church has disagreed with everything Rome has said for forty years. Americans have disliked everything papist since your Revolution — one British ‘intolerable act’ against the first colonies was to allow freedom of religion to Roman Catholics in Canada. Even now, your Church has been politically silenced in America, lest they risk their tax-exempt status.
“The supposed inaction of Pius XII has been used to beat upon the dogmas of the Church, using human actions as ’proof’ against natural law, an extension of divine law. Pius protested on the grounds of natural law — that we are one, no matter the flesh or the blood, and that blood itself specifically has no meaning. Catholics are against abortion, condoms and birth prevention — also using natural law, it is easier to just pretend, ignore, or defame Pius than to attack the principle. Attacking the Pope, disregard the teachings. Say the Church did or said nothing, and thus they don’t have to defend their principles, because there is now no other way — they have already ‘discredited’ the Church. And that is just America.”
Goldberg looked at him sideways. “Where do you come up with this?”
The Egyptian smiled. “As I said, I belong to a think tank, and religion is important where I come from… and my wife is Catholic.”
The Secret Service agent chuckled. “I suppose we should be glad you aren’t Catholic, or we’d be here longer.”
Abasi shook his head. “I can continue. The UN recently condemned the Catholic Church for, essentially, being Catholic – specifically, pro-Life. The Chinese have been worried that the Church would destroy them like they believe it destroyed the Soviet Union.. The same holds true for North Korea.”
“Why stop there?” asked a new voice.
They turned. At the door to Figlia’s office, in all of his bright, white papal vestments, stood the Pope, perfectly still in the doorway. “The Russian Orthodox Church is an arm of the Russian government — has been since the Tsars. Pius XIII looked to Abasi. “As for other suspects, you have every enemy to human rights. And remember, al-Qaeda sent someone to kill my predecessor, John Paul II.”
