by Mark Posey
Table of Contents
About Requiem Mass
Praise for Mark Posey’s Thrillers
Title Page
REQUIEM MASS
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About the Author
Other books by Mark Posey
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About Requiem Mass
The man who ordered her death lands in her lap...
The Cardinal Secretary of State, Giovanni Buscaglia, arrives in Philadelphia, his four henchmen by his side. Sister Jacobine shows up at his hotel to put an end to his attempted grab for power within the church. She never imagined that the consequences of her actions would rip her heart in two.
A Nun With A Gun is a series of short stories and novelettes about Sister Jacobine, the Pope’s hitwoman. They are best read in order.
1.0 Feet of Clay
2.0 A Port in the Storm
3.0 Excommunication
4.0 Requiem Mass
5.0 Den of Lions
6.0 The Narrow Gate
Thriller Short Story
Praise for Mark Posey’s Thrillers
Well-fleshed out characters to really care about, and a deep state plot that is very timely given current world affairs.
All in all, an enjoyable page-turner!
REQUIEM MASS
The knock on the front door was so soft, Alice wasn’t sure she’d heard it.
She and Mike had come to visit the Raffertys on Saturday morning with the requisite donuts and they were all gathered around the kitchen table. Cups of steaming coffee for the adults and plastic glasses of milk for Susie and Christine.
The laughter and conversation, almost shouted at times, was plentiful and easy. The company of friends, something Alice missed while living at the Vatican, was refreshing and uplifting.
Then, in a gap in the conversation, the light, almost not-there knock on the door came again. This time, they all heard it.
All four adults stiffened. Knocks on that front door had not been well-received, lately.
Alice, Mike and Rafferty sprang to their feet. Rafferty headed for the door, Alice and Mike stood in the middle of the living room, hands resting on the guns in their holsters.
Ready.
Rafferty peered through the peephole and immediately drew his head back. He glanced at Alice and Mike. “It’s just some old man.”
They relaxed slightly, hands still resting on the butts of their pistols.
Rafferty opened the door, bracing his arm across the opening.
The old man on the front steps was thin and stooped, with a full shock of silvery white hair. Alice recognized his hooked nose and square chin immediately.
She stiffened and narrowed her gaze. “Roberto.”
“I was sure you’d be here, my dear Alice.” Roberto’s accent was heavy Italian.
“What are you doing here?” Alice moved to the door, bristling.
Rafferty stepped back out of the way.
“It was the only way.” Roberto shrugged.
“The only way to what?”
“You know.”
“I am afraid I do not, Roberto. You will have to tell me.”
“To beg your forgiveness, my darling Alice. Buscaglia got into my head. I made rash decisions, to get him off my back. Decisions I shouldn’t have made...”
Mike scowled and glared at Alice. “Who the hell is this guy?”
“Please come in, Roberto.” Alice stepped back to allow the old man to move into the foyer.
He smiled at Mike and Rafferty, then at Geri and the girls as they came in from the kitchen.
Alice indicated them each in turn. “May I present Constable Michael Fredericks. Constable Martin Rafferty. His wife, Geraldine Rafferty and their two children, Susie and Christine.
Fredericks and Rafferty shook the old man’s hand and Geraldine strode forward with the girls in tow to shake his hand, too.
The old man laid his hands on the girl’s heads.
They shyly clung to Geri’s legs.
“Michael, Martin, Geraldine, girls, I present His Holiness, Pope Benedict the Seventeenth, Roberto Giovanni Giordano.” Alice swept a hand towards the old man.
Roberto looked up from the girls. His smile grew wider as he scanned their faces. Geri’s jaw had dropped. Mike and Martin both stood straighter, eyes wide.
Rafferty eased the door closed. The latch clicked quietly into place. No one else moved.
Alice looked at the Pope and shook her head. “I swear you do things like this just to see the shock on people’s faces.”
Pope Benedict the Seventeenth laughed softly. “One of the perks of the job.” His eyes were bright. The heavy Italian accent added extra syllables.
Geri recovered first. “Your Holiness, please join us. We were just sitting down for coffee.”
He inhaled deeply through his nose. “Are those donuts I smell?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“We will not get past the weather if you keep calling me that.” Roberto smiled at her. “All the protocols of the papacy are, how you say, a pain in the ass?”
Geri smiled as he gripped her shoulders, leaned and kissed her on each cheek. He pulled back and looked Geri in the eyes. “You are the woman who has looked after my Alice so well while she has been here in America?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“You can call me Bob.” He turned her around, linked arms with her at the elbow and together, he, Geri and the girls ambled into the kitchen.
Mike and Rafferty looked from them to Alice, eyes still wide.
“Bob?” Rafferty said.
Alice nodded. “Quite so.”
“Bob the Pope,” Mike chimed in. “Is that a kids’ TV show?”
Alice slapped him on the arm. “Michael, be quiet. He’ll hear you.”
Bob’s voice came loudly from the kitchen. “We will shop it around in Hollywood!”
Mike looked from Alice to Rafferty to the kitchen and back to Rafferty again. “I’m going to hell, aren’t I, Raf?”
Rafferty nodded and strode toward the kitchen. “Yeah, but not for that,” he threw over his shoulder.
Bob poked his head around the corner and speared Mike with a good-natured stare. “Sì, not for that. But for taking the last apple fritter—for that,” Bob held up his hand, one finger pointing up. He turned his hand over, so the finger pointed down. Then he whistled and moved the finger towards the floor. “Straight downstairs you go!” He laughed as though he’d made the funniest joke in the world and returned to the kitchen.
Mike looked at Alice, aghast. “He’s a comedian, too?”
Alice grimaced. “He only thinks he is,” she murmured.
“I heard that,” Bob cried. He poked his head around the corner again. “Come, you two! Join us. No time for smoochy-smoochy this morning.” He fixed his gaze on Mike. “You cannot let the very last apple fritter go to waste.”
Mike cringed. “I feel like a teenager, meeting my girlfriend’s father for the first time. Is he going to give me ‘the talk’, too?”
Alice shook her head and her eyes fluttered closed. “You have no idea.”
* * * * *
An hour later, the donuts were finished and the laughter had subsided.
While Susie and Christine went outside to play, Bob helped Geri wash the dishes and put on another pot of coffee.
Alice watched him washing while Geri dried and put away. He had tucked a tea towel into his waistband across the front of his pants. He looked like someone’s well-dressed grandfather. In reality, he was.
He would rarely get a chance like this. He was always ‘His Holiness’ or ‘Pope Benedict the Seventeenth’. He was never just plain ‘Bob’. That was why he enjoyed himself so m
uch, sitting around a kitchen table being just one of the gang instead of the focus of everyone’s attention.
Still, he was the Pope, and he was here, instead of wherever he was supposed to be. His absence would be noticed sooner rather than later. And it was unlikely he had come to enjoy the donuts.
After musing on this for a moment, Alice said, “Roberto? Why are you here?”
Still at the sink, he glanced over his shoulder. “I heard this was the place for donuts and good company.”
Mike, Geri and Rafferty all went still when Alice said, “Roberto, they will notice your absence soon.”
Bob sobered. His shoulders slumped. “Next week, we will visit Philadelphia. Be here three days. I will bring Buscaglia and his four pretenders.”
“Pretenders?”
“Sì, pretenders. They feign faith and believe only in the guns hidden under their coats. They defile the palace with their presence and hover around Buscaglia, their noses pressed to his backside.”
Alice nodded. “Yes, I know the men of which you speak.”
“Buscaglia has too much influence. Too much, how you say, pull in the church? He believes with you removed from the picture, he will have even more.”
“He is not entirely incorrect, Roberto.”
“Sì, Sì.” He waved her off. “They have done more than enough for the church in their short tenure. I am not sure the church will survive if they are allowed to do more.” He turned, his eyes blazing, and leveled a finger at Alice. “You will visit the five of them while they are here, my giusta mano destra.”
Rafferty and Mike both looked at Alice, eyebrows raised.
“Righteous right hand,” she translated.
Rafferty shot to his feet. “Come on, Mike. We gotta go.”
Mike looked confused. As did the rest of them.
“Go?” Geri said. “Where are you going?”
Rafferty held his hands out, imploring. “We’re police detectives. We can’t sit here and listen to these two talk about murdering five guys. Technically, we could arrest them right now.”
Bob held up a finger. “No, no arrest. Diplomatic immunity.”
“For you, sure. But not for Alice. Her diplomatic passport was revoked.”
Bob shook his head. “I reinstated her Vatican passport before I came here.”
Alice sat forward. “I do hope that has not alerted Cardinal Buscaglia.”
The Pope scoffed from his place by the sink. “Distruggerò la faccia di Buscaglia!”
Alice snickered and covered her mouth. She shook with silent laughter. “Roberto, punching one of your cardinals in the face will not play well on CNN. Although I, for one, would pay good money to see that.”
All of them jumped when the doorbell rang.
Geri caught her husband’s gaze. “You expecting anyone?”
Rafferty shook his head. “There’s only one person who comes to our door and actually rings the bell instead of pounding on it.”
Geri gasped. “Oh shit. This should be interesting.”
Rafferty rushed from the kitchen. Alice heard the front door open. “Boy, do you ever know when to show up to a party. And you brought donuts.”
Bob’s head snapped up. “I hope one of them is an apple fritter,” he called out.
“I didn’t know you had company,” Rachel’s croaky voice came from the front foyer. “I can come back.”
“No,” Rafferty said urgently. “No, you have to come in. Trust me.”
Alice could hear the shrug in Rachel’s voice. “Okay, I’ll come in.”
Alice glanced from Bob, who was hurriedly wiping his hands off on his tea-towel apron, to Geri, who was grinning expectantly.
Rachel wheeled into view. “Alice, so nice to see you,” she rasped. Rafferty stood behind her, holding the box of donuts.
“Hello, Rachel. I do hope you are well.”
Rachel wheeled into the kitchen. “Geri. Mike.” She nodded to each of them. Then she focused on the Pope at the sink. “Making your company do the washing up?”
Bob turned from the sink and stepped out from behind the island and over to Rachel, wearing his friendliest smile. He clasped his hands in front of him and his gaze went from Rachel’s veil to her scar and then to her wheelchair. “Did I hear something about donuts?”
Rachel’s smile became strained. Her brow furrowed. She held out her hand and Bob took it gently in his. “I’m Rachel. Martin’s sister.” She paused. Her gaze ran from Bob’s face to the tea-towel apron hanging from his waist and back to his face again. The furrow in her brow deepened. “Have we met? You look so familiar.” Her scratchy voice had an edge to it.
Alice stepped forward and put her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Rachel, may I present His Holiness, Pope Benedict the Seventeenth.”
Rachel’s free hand flew up to cover her mouth. She turned pale. Her gaze locked on Bob, their hands still clasped together.
Alice pivoted to face Bob. “Your Holiness. Sister Jacobine.” She raised her brows at him.
“Ah!” His gaze settled on Rachel’s scar. “You have done the name justice.”
Rachel brushed her fingertips over the scar on her face as her eyes filled with tears. “I tried. Thank you, Your Holiness,” she rasped, her voice thick.
He gently clasped the back of her neck with his free hand. Then he leaned down and kissed the scar on her forehead. “Sei bello,” he whispered and held her gaze with his own.
Rachel’s gaze flickered to Alice, questioning.
“He said, ‘You are beautiful.’”
Rachel clamped a hand over her mouth and turned red. The tears overflowed her eyes. “Thank you, Your Holiness.”
The Pope raised his hand, a finger extended. “No need to be so formal. Call me ‘Bob’”
Rachel blanched. “Bob?”
He nodded. “That is my name.”
Rachel giggled. “Bob. Okay then.”
Rafferty eased close to the table and set the box of donuts gently on the top.
“Ah!” Bob said. “I had better take my apple fritter before someone else does.” He threw the box open, scanned the contents and plucked the only apple fritter from the box. He bit into it and chewed with relish.
“Speaking of which,” Rafferty said and looked at Mike, “We should get out of here and let these two make their plans.”
“What do you mean?” Mike asked.
“Their plans for next week,” Rafferty said.
“I think we should stay, Raf. They might need our help.”
“We can’t. What they’re planning is illegal. We can’t be in on it.”
Mike shrugged. “All I heard was them planning how to keep Alice safe from Buscaglia and his cronies.”
Rafferty scowled. “C’mon, Mike. You know that’s not true.” He indicated Bob. “He wants them eliminated. We wouldn’t sit in on a group of gangsters planning to take out their competition in case we could help. This is no different.”
Rachel looked from one to the other. “What are you guys talking about?”
Rafferty looked down at her. “Trust me, Rach. You don’t want to know.”
“If there’s some threat to Alice or the Pope...Bob, then I definitely want to know.”
Rafferty growled in his throat. “Have all of you lost your minds? We’re talking about killing someone. Several someones. Mike and I took an oath to uphold the law. Even just knowing about it and not doing anything about it makes us parties in a conspiracy. We can’t just--”
“Now hang on, Raf. That’s not how I see it,” Mike said.
Rafferty’s eyes blazed. “You know that’s how it is.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’re just siding with your latest booty-call.”
Mike’s jaw dropped open. So did Geri’s.
“Marty!” Geri protested.
Mike moved so he was right in Rafferty’s face. “Say that again,” he growled.
Alice stepped between them, a hand on each chest. “Michael, sit down.”
“Why should I?”
“Because he is quite correct. You cannot be a party to this. You have to leave it to me.”
Mike’s face fell. “But I can’t just...”
Alice looked up into his eyes. “You can and you will. You cannot put your career in jeopardy for this. For me.”
Bob watched all of them. “She is right. This is something for Alice to deal with on her own. It is our problem. We will take care of it.” He popped the last bite of apple fritter into his mouth.
Then Bob whipped the tea towel out of his pants and tossed it on the counter. “It’s time for me to leave. Detective Fredericks, can you walk me to my car?”
Mike stared daggers at Rafferty. “Sure, Bob. Just give me a minute to stomp down on my indignation.”
Bob gathered his jacket from the back of a chair and moved around the kitchen saying goodbye.
As he took Alice’s hand, he said, “You know what to do, my dear Alice. I will see you next week at the Ritz-Carlton here in town.”
“Yes, Your Holiness. I will be there.”
Mike and Bob stepped outside. Alice watched them through the living room window.
They stood by the the car for a long moment. The Pope laid a hand on Mike’s arm and patted him on the shoulder before handing Mike something and getting into the back of his car.
The driver pulled away from the curb. Mike watched until the car turned the corner at the end of the block and moved out of sight.
Then he shook his head and walked slowly back to the house. When he entered, he handed Alice her reinstated Vatican passport.
This would be a long week, indeed.
* * * * *
Right on schedule, the Pope and his entourage arrived in Philadelphia with the usual fanfare, news coverage and crowds of people.
The crowds were always present when the Pope toured a city. It didn’t happen often, so when he was in town, he drew thousands of people. Some just wanted to see him in person, some wanted the touch of his hand, some actually hoped they’d speak with him. He had the same level of security as the President of the United States, when he travelled.
Alice and Mike watched on Mike’s television. Buscaglia was there, right by the Pope’s side. Alice knew Bob well enough to see he was uncomfortable conferring with Buscaglia. That would end this week. Bob would never have to feel that discomfort again.
