The Venice Conspiracy

by Jon Trace

  Valentina and Rocco scribble notes while Vito continues to ask questions. ‘Are there any special markings or symbols on the tablets, Father?’

  Alfie answers with one eye permanently on the closed door, stopping whenever he hears a noise outside - feet in the corridor; footsteps coming his way; a door opening and banging shut. Each time he falls silent until he feels safe to continue. ‘There are many interpretations - some Vatican scholars see the drawings as representative of priests who turn away from the church because of their own doubts. Satanists see them as signifying the fall of Catholicism . . .’

  Valentina and Rocco scribble notes as Alfie tells them everything he’s learned. ‘The final tablet, the one on the far right of the artefact, shows Teucer and Tetia lying dead together with a newborn baby beside them. Again, this image is open to interpretation. Death in childbirth was, of course, very common and sceptics say the scene simply reflects that fact and represents a sad ending to the story of a young family struggling in ancient times.’ More movements in the corridor make Alfie stop again. He covers the receiver so no noise spills out, and waits until the sound of people walking and closing doors recedes. ‘However, there are documents in the secret archive that describe how Satan demonically possessed the body of a man who raped Tetia, the priest’s wife. If you believe that, then the child in the last tablet is the son of Satan.’ There’s silence at the other end of the line and Alfie can tell they’re struggling to understand the full breadth of what he’s telling them. ‘The theological notion is that Satan has spread evil into the DNA of future generations of Man, infecting the gene pool in perpetuity. The Catholic Church has for centuries studied rape and some scholars strongly believed that rapists sowed the seed of Satan.’

  Valentina can’t help but interrupt. ‘So female rape victims are to be branded as the mothers of Satan’s children?’ She can hardly hide her anger. ‘Father, you have no idea how a raped woman feels - and how much worse they would feel if this nonsense ever got listened to. It’s ridiculous—’

  ‘Valentina!’ Vito glares at her. ‘Father, please continue.’

  ‘Signorina, I agree,’ says Alfie. ‘I am only telling you what some in the Church believed. Remember there was a time when you could have been tortured to death for following any religion other than Catholicism. We are an august body,’ he adds sarcastically, ‘well used to persecuting women, preventing them taking holy orders and even falsely labelling them as witches, then drowning them to prove their innocence. ’

  He lets these points of mitigation sink in. ‘So: that leaves the first tablet - the one that shows a horned demon believed to be Satan in front of the gate of serpents. This piece is said to be the most important of the trio. When it is placed in its original position on the left of the trinity, it establishes Satan - not God - as the creator of all things. Thus when we pass through the gates of this life into the next, it is Satan we will have to face. The tablets also suggest that it is Satan who created man and woman and gave everyone free will to indulge themselves - not God. The middle tablet is interpreted as recognising that some people started believing in false gods - hence the netsvis impaled upon the staff of doubts. Then the final piece shows Satan’s wrath. He was so angered that he sent his own spirit to earth to take human form and punish the priest by raping and impregnating his wife.’

  Vito Carvalho blows out a long breath. It’s heavy stuff. Certainly the kind of religious psychobabble that the impressionable and evil would follow. ‘Father, do you know the whereabouts of all, or any, of the tablets?’

  ‘No,’ says Alfie. ‘Over the centuries, the Church has had one or more in its possession, but never all of them. According to the records I can trace - and there may be more in the archives that I have not yet found - Satanists have managed to unite all three, but not for long.’

  ‘And what happens when the three are united?’ asks Valentina. ‘Some kind of Satanic festival?’

  Now it’s Alfie’s turn to blow out a long breath. ‘You know how the Church is always asked why, if there is a God, does he allow terrible things like earthquakes, floods and diseases to happen? And you know how, when world leaders talk of terrorists blowing up innocent civilians they always say that evil people only have to get lucky once, while we have to get lucky every day? Well, there are those in the Church who believe that when the Tablets of Atmanta, or the Gates of Hell, as they are more appropriately known, are brought together they create that window of opportunity for the devil. The combined artefact opens a space in time during which God is powerless and the darkest of all deeds cannot be stopped.’

  ‘A window of opportunity for the devil?’ repeats Valentina incredulously.

  ‘Quite.’

  Vito almost daren’t ask the next question. ‘Father, we have found a symbol drawn in blood on altars in Venice.’

  ‘Three divisions of an oblong?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The rectangle is a symbol of the tablets, the sign of the conspirators of Satan. They have their roots in the north of Italy, back in the times of Teucer and Tetia, long before the first settlements were established in the marshes that became Venice.’

  Vito, Valentina and Rocco all exchange knowing looks. ‘Beneath the last symbol there was a number,’ continues Vito. ‘Would that have a significance?’

  ‘A six. I presume it is a six?’

  ‘It is.’

  The doors to the tiny office where Alfie is calling from burst open. Two Vatican guards, in full uniform, are facing him.

  ‘Six days,’ says Alfie, before they rip the phone from his hands. ‘You have six days before they make their last and most significant sacrifice, then the gates of hell will be unlocked and we’ll be powerless against the evil that’s let loose.’

  PART FIVE

  CAPITOLO LV

  1778

  Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia

  The tiny island’s terrible history floats in the night like an invisible but poisonous cloud.

  Lazzaretto Vecchio - Venice’s biggest burial ground, the home of the plague dead.

  Almost a century and a half earlier, the disease had devastated the city. More than a third of the population - around fifty thousand people - had been killed. Such was the toll, prisoners had to be released to ferry the dead - and the dying - out to the lazaret, Italy’s first quarantine island. Back then, it was more benignly known as Isola Santa Maria di Nazareth, but the saintly name was lost as the cadavers stacked up. The hospital did its best to cure the incurable, but it quickly became just a sorting office for the dead and the dying.

  Since then, it’s been uninhabited.

  Or so people believed.

  As Tommaso steps ashore, his nerves are in shreds. He remembers only too well the stories the brothers at the monastery told about the island and how mass graves were hurriedly dug to swallow rotting corpses that the city couldn’t cope with. He knows that the steps he now takes were once routes for carts full of wasted lives, corpses of men, women and children carried to communal pits to be burned.

  Oarsmen with lanterns fall in at the front and rear of the party as it heads further away from the shore and into what seems a dense thicket.

  The night is quickly becoming icy, and the ground underfoot hard and slippery. Someone in front stumbles and then the lanterns go out. A woman shouts. Lydia, by the sound of it.

  Something cracks into the side of Tommaso’s head. He thinks he’s cracked it against a low-hanging branch.

  Then another blow slams into his head. Much harder this time. Strong enough to knock him flat and to make him realise he’s being attacked. He rolls on the hard, slippery ground and covers his face to protect himself.

  Pain explodes in his right shoulder.

  Now in his side and thighs.

  A flurry of clubs smash his head, legs and arms.

  A knee thumps into his gut and stays there.

  They’re kneeling on him. Pressed so close to him that he can smell them.

  Alcoho
l. Garlic. Strange perfume.

  A fist pounds his face. Bone-jarring brutality. Blood and teeth in his mouth. He spits and coughs for air.

  Hands grab his legs and arms.

  He’s dizzy. Blacking out.

  Something rough touches his face.

  A rope.

  The last thing he’s conscious of is the smell and feel of the noose, as it slips over his busted nose and tightens around his throat.

  CHAPTER 61

  Present Day

  Venice

  Tom’s been unconscious for so long he has no idea of the length of time he’s been held. Certainly twenty-four hours. Maybe longer. Much longer.

  He feels as though he’s lost the ability to judge things. Doesn’t know whether it’s day or night.

  Whether he’s blind or his eyes are still bandaged.

  At times, he can’t even tell whether he’s awake or asleep.

  On the grey movie screen in his mind, familiar scenes flicker by: The Monica Vidic Killing. The Disneyland Murders. The Death of Antonio Pavarotti.

  The leading actors are always the same: Vito Carvalho, Valentina Morassi and Lars Bale. The minor ones equally familiar: Tina Ricci, Mera Teale, Sylvio Montesano and Alfie Giordano.

  But it’s all a mess.

  In his muddle of drug-induced plots and subplots, Tom has Vito cast as a Satanic high priest, Giordano as the killer of Antonio Pavarotti and Valentina Morassi as the secret owner of the Gates of Destiny. Drugs do that. They expand your mind, make you think differently, but warp everything in the process.

  While Tom has no exact idea how long he’s been held captive, he knows it’s running into days, not hours. He knows it, because he’s developing a tolerance to the drug they’re feeding him. The gaps between total immersion in his never-ending narcotic netherworld and gradual surfacing back into the air of the real world are becoming shorter and shorter. Whoever is shooting him the stuff is not as smart as they should be.

  Smart or not - they’re back.

  And they’re sticking another spike into Tom’s dartboard thigh.

  He doesn’t go under as quickly as normal, but he can feel it coming. A big heavy train full of the black coals of unconsciousness rumbling around the distant bends of his mind.

  It’ll be here soon.

  Flattening him. Dragging him under its wheels. Leaving him in pieces far down the tracks.

  The films are starting up again.

  Another muddle of plots - Satanists in silver cowls holding the Gates of Destiny. But this time they have nothing to do with Italy.

  South America.

  For some crazy reason, Tom’s imaginary director is setting this one in Venezuela.

  The train’s here now. Bearing down on him. Only yards away.

  Venezuela.

  The word sticks.

  Venezuela. Little Venice.

  The huge black cowcatcher hits him. Slams into his newborn thoughts. Trundles them through the screaming, hissing darkness.

  CHAPTER 62

  2nd June

  Carabinieri HQ

  It’s been a long time since Vito Carvalho has had to kick ass like he’s doing right now. Venice was supposed to be a retirement backwater, not a white-water ride around the jagged rocks of Satanism and ritual murder.

  He’s had Francesca Totti hounding the Vatican so much that he doubts she’ll ever be allowed into heaven. Straight after Alfie was forced to suddenly drop off the call, Vito had her send a Carabinieri unit from their Rome barracks across town to locate him. It hadn’t gone down well. The Vatican and the Pope are protected by the Swiss Guard, and they take any and every opportunity to point out that the Stato della Città del Vaticano is not only a country and a sovereign city-state, it also has jurisdictional independence from Italy and from the central authority of the Roman Catholic Church - a long-winded way of saying your badges and warrants don’t count for anything in here. But the Carabinieri can be enormously persuasive. After a day of reasoned argument, Vito resorted to hidden threats. Then after his hidden threats came some not so hidden ones. The end result was Father Alfredo Giordano’s release and his arrival any moment now at the Carabinieri HQ in Venice.

  While waiting for Alfie, Vito has had Valentina relentlessly pressing the FBI for anything and everything about Lars Bale and his California cult following. Similarly, Rocco Baldoni has been making himself universally unpopular by contacting every police arts and antiques unit across the world to trace the tablets. Almost as arduously, Nuncio di Alberto has been deployed to scour databases for everything ever written about Mario Fabianelli, his string of global businesses and the weird hippy commune on his private island. Finally, Vito himself has been busy monitoring and managing each and every action, while also issuing more alerts on the disappearance of Tom Shaman. In short, he and his team are stretched to the limits.

  The bloody image of the Gates of Hell and the ominous figure six hanging from it remains at the forefront of his mind. That, and the knowledge that the symbol was drawn two days ago. Time is ticking away. If the priest from the Vatican is right, then there are now only four days left on the countdown.

  Countdown to what?

  To something bad - that’s for sure.

  As the team file into Vito’s office for the latest update, he can see exhaustion etched across all their faces. Valentina’s especially. He should have cut her from the enquiry. But that’s no longer an option. He needs her now. Needs everybody to give him everything they can, even if it means wrecking their health.

  ‘So, what have we got?’ Vito stretches his arms above his head and feels his back crackle with stiffness.

  Valentina is first to speak. ‘Lars Bale - the man Tom Shaman visited at San Quentin more than ten years ago and apparently spoke to just a few days ago.’

  He cuts short his stretch. ‘Why didn’t we know about this?’

  ‘Because he didn’t tell us. He was probably on his way here to inform us when he disappeared.’

  Vito holds up his palms by way of apology.

  ‘Bale is now in his late forties,’ she continues. ‘He’s due to be executed in four days’ time.’

  ‘Is this our four days?’ Vito speculates.

  ‘Don’t know,’ says Valentina. ‘Almost two decades ago Bale had a small but dedicated following who believed he was some sort of chic, sexy antichrist. To cut a long story short, he aped Charles Manson, slaughtered innocent people and daubed signs and words in their blood.’

  ‘Our kind of signs?’ asks the major, sensing a breakthrough.

  ‘Our kind,’ confirms Valentina. ‘Though of course they weren’t recognised as meaning anything at the time. In one case, an LAPD patrolman walked right over the markings and practically obliterated them.’

  ‘And no one asked what the signs actually meant because he got caught?’

  ‘Exactly,’ says Valentina. ‘The FBI are sending some pro-filers to see him.’

  ‘Better late than never,’ says Rocco.

  Valentina glares at him. She still has a score to settle. And will. In her own time. ‘When Bale was arrested, all manner of Satanic paraphernalia was found in a squat he shared with his disciples, mainly women. There was the Satanic Bible, the complete works of Aleister Crowley and transcripts of the Black Mass in Latin, French and English.’

  ‘Not your normal bedtime reading,’ quips Vito.

  ‘Not at all.’ Valentina passes out a stack of photographs all bearing the crest of the FBI. ‘They also discovered these—’

  Vito fans them out. They’re photographs of paintings. ‘Not bad. For a crazy man, he had some talent.’ He shuffles through colour shots of modern art interspersed with charcoal sketches of what look like wizards and deserts. ‘Is this one of those old Etruscan priests we heard about, a netsvis?’ He holds up a print.

  ‘Maybe,’ says Valentina, ‘though I had him down as Dumbledore or that old guy out of The Lord of the Rings whose name I can never remember.’

  ‘Gandalf,’ says Vito
, putting the shot down. ‘So where are you going with all this?’

  ‘You’re not done,’ says Valentina. ‘Go to the last three prints.’

  Vito does as he’s told. The paintings are abstract, almost cubist, very crude, and nothing jumps out straight away.

  Valentina smiles. ‘The other way round. Turn them the other way round and lie them side by side.’

  Even before Vito does it he knows what he’s going to see.

  Through the cubist angles and the fire of red and black oils, familiar figures now leap out at him.

  A demon. A priest. Two lovers and their devil child.

  CAPITOLO LVI

  1778

  Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia

  When Tommaso regains conciousness, he finds he’s not the only one to have been beaten and bound.

  Tanina and Ermanno are sitting on the floor opposite him, backs against a damp brick wall, a thick black candle burning between them.

  The young monk guesses they’re in an old ward of the plague hospital.

  A place where thousands drew their last breath.

  Ermanno is motionless.

  Dead?

  Asleep?

  Or just unconscious?

  Tommaso is not sure which. The Jew’s face is bloody and bruised, his left eye so swollen that, if he is still alive, it’s unlikely he’ll ever be able to see through it.

  Tanina looks petrified. But apart from a face streaked with dirt and tears, she appears unharmed.

  Tommaso’s legs hurt, especially around the right knee. His ankles are bound and his hands, like those of the others, are tied behind his back.

  Tanina notices that he’s come round. ‘Tommaso, are you all right?’

  He understands he’s expected to put a brave face on things. ‘I think so. Are you?’

  She nods. ‘Yes. But Ermanno keeps losing consciousness. I’m worried about him.’ Her face creases, and he can see she’s fighting back tears.