Papal Decree (17 page)

Every day was the same. It wasn’t a job for just anyone, only for the best of the best, men like David Barry, who at forty years old had the qualifications to replace Geoffrey Barnes, the former station chief who had died in service, may God rest his soul.

The director barely had time to enter his office and hang up his coat.

‘David,’ a harried woman called.

‘Good morning to you, too, Samantha,’ he greeted her pleasantly.

‘Good morning, David. Sorry.’ Samantha’s hair was mussed up, but David chose to ignore it. ‘We have a problem.’

‘We always do,’ he said dismissively, then immediately showed her a smile. ‘Talk to me.’

‘Last night two priests died in a church in Paris,’ she told him.

David sat down and gestured for Samantha to join him.

‘Two priests in Paris,’ he said, as if making a mental note.

‘But there’s more.’

There always is.

‘According to our sources, this happened while they were being questioned by inspectors from the Sûreté Nationale.’

David frowned. ‘The French police? What were they questioning them for?’

‘Two other murders that had occurred earlier.’

‘That’s complicated,’ David yawned. ‘Let’s take one thing at a time. Who killed the priests?’

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘We don’t know a lot, do we?’ he said, a little disgustedly. ‘We can’t waste resources on unimportant things, Sam.’ He sighed and smiled to lighten his condescending tone. He liked his people happy. ‘Anything else?’

Samantha was reluctant to say the rest, and David was an expert at reading people’s expressions.

‘Out with it.’

‘Jack … Jack Payne was with them,’ she finally said.

David’s eyes got wider. ‘Rafael?’

Samantha nodded and lowered her eyes.

‘Was he one of the victims?’

‘We still don’t …’

‘Know,’ he finished her sentence, irritated. He got up. ‘Call Aris, please.’

Samantha got up and left the office to do it.

Jack Payne, aka Rafael Santini, was a legend in the recent history of the CIA. A real son of a bitch who had been exposed as a double agent in the service of the Vatican. A priest of sorts. David Barry had been close to him, a friend, and felt betrayed when he discovered the truth in 2006. He felt hurt, and he wasn’t alone. He still hadn’t gotten over it.

Two minutes later a huge, heavyset man in a well-fitting suit came in. ‘David,’ he greeted him.

The two shook hands in support and loyalty.

‘Tell me everything you know,’ the director asked. ‘Something new with Rafael?’ The name still stuck in his throat.

‘My team is on the ground, but those French bastards aren’t going to be open with us.’ He took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘But we know that the Sûreté was there at the time and the questioning involved two other murders in Paris and Marseille.’

‘What’s in the news?’

‘This is interesting, too. Nothing, because they know nothing.’

‘The French are fuckers,’ David considered scornfully. ‘No press, then?’

‘Not yet,’ Aris said, taking another draw on his cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray on David’s desk.

‘Do we know who the other victims were?’

‘I should have that information within the hour,’ Aris replied.

‘Do we know whether Rafael was among the victims in the church?’ He felt no sympathy for a Judas.

Aris shook his head no. ‘But there’s a simple way to find out.’

Barry waited for his suggestion.

‘Call him up,’ Aris said with disdain.

‘Who?’

‘You.’

Barry sat back down in his chair. What a hell of an idea. It was the logical thing to do. Aris was intelligent and pragmatic. He was good at analyzing situations, seeing the options, and coming up with solutions.

‘This could scare off the game,’ Barry objected.

‘On the other hand we’ll find out if he was one of the victims and if he’s trying to hide something. Either way we win.’

Barry thought a few moments. What would Rafael be doing in Paris with the Police Nationale? Was he being questioned by them? Had he died? When he came to himself again, he took out his personal cell phone and checked his contacts under the letter R. No number for Rafael. Strange. He knew he had his number and hadn’t deleted it. A CIA agent never deleted anything, since he never knew when he’d need it someday. Finally he remembered. He pressed J, and after several Jacks, Jack Payne appeared. He was listed under the name by which Barry had first known him. The bastard.

After a few seconds of hesitation, he pressed the green key and brought the phone to his ear. It started to ring. One ring, two, three.
Pick up, pick up,
he said to himself. Four rings, five, six, and … someone answered.

‘Rafael?’ he asked with a firm voice. He congratulated himself for having waited. It was he. ‘Hello. It’s David.’

Rafael said something David listened to carefully. ‘Yeah, we haven’t talked in a long time.’ More words neither Aris nor Samantha heard, since David hadn’t activated the speaker. ‘I’m in Rome,’ he lied, ‘and I thought of you. Are you free for coffee?’

A few seconds later Barry disconnected the call with a
Perfect – I’ll see you there.
He looked at Aris and Samantha.

‘He’s alive,’ Barry stated the obvious. ‘And he’s lying, too.’

‘What did he tell you?’ Aris wanted to know. Curiosity was an occupational hazard.

‘He was about to hear confessions at six, but we could have dinner at eight,’ he said as he left the office.

The others followed him.

‘Sam, I want you to check flights leaving Paris for Rome around five and see if Rafael is on any of them.’

‘He’s on one,’ Samantha guessed and left them.

‘Are we certain Rafael was in Paris this morning?’ Barry asked.

‘Absolutely. He’s on the manifest for Alitalia. The French confirmed this. He used his own passport.’

They went into a room crowded with monitors and agents carrying out surveillance on them. The various images were from satellite or closed-circuit video, covering different points all over the world. Barry saw Staughton, who was manipulating a joystick while also looking at a screen.

‘Staughton,’ Barry called.

‘Hi, David. To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘Are you busy with something important?’

The monitor showed a woman talking on a cell phone on a busy street. She was carrying two shopping bags from Burberry. She was being filmed from above from a satellite four hundred miles high. Staughton zoomed out, and the monitor displayed the island of Britain.

‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ he answered.

‘I need to find the location of this number.’ Barry showed him the screen of his cell phone.

Staughton pressed a key that focused on the number. He rapidly dialed some keys and entered the number. He continued to send orders with impressive speed.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Staughton asked as he read the information that appeared on another monitor, along with a photo of Rafael, aka Jack Payne.

‘Do you know him?’ Aris asked.

‘Everyone knows Rafael. He gave me a lot of trouble.’ He also didn’t want to say a few ugly bruises. ‘When Barnes died he was there, too. He’s a tough son of a bitch.’

Barry knew the case. Rafael had nothing to do with the death of Geoffrey Barnes, Barry’s predecessor.

‘I need you to tell me where he is now.’

Moments later a red blinking signal appeared over a map on one of the screens.

‘He’s moving,’ Staughton informed him, continuing to strike the computer keys.

‘Where?’

‘In France. North of Paris, and taking off at high speed.’

The screen showed the red signal shifting toward the north on the map. Every time it blinked it shifted farther north.

‘Where is he? In a car?’ Aris asked.

‘No. He’s moving too fast.’

‘In a plane?’ Barry suggested.

‘We can’t pick up cell phone signals in a plane. Wait a minute,’ Staughton said, concentrating on his operations. A few moments later he left the keyboard and pressed the joystick: the image that hovered over the British Isles defined itself more and shifted to the south to focus on a long, narrow object moving very fast.

‘What’s that?’ asked Aris, who couldn’t see well.

‘The Eurostar,’ Staughton and Barry answered in unison.

The cherubim gave the room a kind of solemnity. There was one for every aesthetic taste, all probably commissioned to one artist, but produced by different pupils. There were the dandies, full of flowery details, with a shiny luster; the mischievous, who didn’t even try to hide their bad dispositions or, on closer analysis, their irritation; the indifferent, uncertain where they were looking, as if they could have been anywhere; others, with an austere expression, who confronted whoever looked at them; and then there was the one Hans Schmidt found most amusing, considering where it was placed. A small cherub, hovering over the prefect’s chair, was winking his eye, laying a finger over his lips to demand silence or, as Schmidt preferred to think, to warn him not to say anything incriminating. He made a mental note to find out who the artist of that piece was.

Hans Schmidt was calm, despite a sleepless night, thanks to the events that had tormented Tarcisio, which is to say that had tormented the church, but would not be alluded to in this hearing. The business here was something else, delicate also, but more personal, between the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church and Father Hans Schmidt – nothing so alarming that it could place the Roman Catholic world in crisis and bring down the Vatican like a house of cards. No. Here, the only person who could be ruined, if they desired, would be the Austrian iceman, though he appeared imperturbable.

Schmidt rose when the prefect of the congregation, in the person of Cardinal William, entered the hearing room accompanied by his court of jurors, though that term was never used. Secretary Ladaria followed him with five more counselors, the preferred title as Schmidt well knew. They all carried files and piles of papers. The Austrian knew very well that those learned, circumspect men had read his writings line by line and analyzed his books word by word so that nothing would escape. The congregation dedicated itself completely to its investigations.

As soon as the prefect sat down, the others followed his example, including Schmidt, who cast a complicit glance at the angel hovering over William’s chair.

‘Let us begin this hearing called by the prefect of the congregation in the name of the Holy Father Benedict XVI for the Reverend Father Hans Matthaus Schmidt regarding two of his publications,
Jesus Is Life
and
The Man Who Never Existed,
’ Secretary Ladaria, also a cardinal, proclaimed in a solemn but weak voice.

‘It is important to know that this is not a trial. No accusation has been made at this time,’ Cardinal William clarified. ‘The congregation has doubts about some of your writings and only wants to dispel these doubts. Understood?’

‘Perfectly, Most Reverend Prefect.’

‘I ask you kindly to respond to our doubts as best as you can. After the hearing, the congregation will decide if the ideas you advocate are damaging to the church or not.’

The rules and procedures understood, the prefect gave the floor to Monsignor Scicluna, a man whose wizened face looked a century old. Obviously he would have to be twenty years or more younger, since the positions consecrated to His Holiness required retirement at seventy-five without loss of honor and privileges. Even the servants of God are attacked by old age and senility. All are equal in the eyes of the Lord.

‘Reverend Father Hans Matthaus Schmidt,’ Monsignor Scicluna began faintly. ‘Having read your works attentively, I confess I am struck primarily by the titles, which are certainly peculiar. The first is
Jesus Is Life,
which I must say I agree with, though I’ll ask you to explain certain ideas in it. The second is
The Man Who Never Existed
. In both books we are dealing with the same person.’ He sipped some water to moisten his dry throat. ‘My first question to you is how can Jesus be life if, in your own words, He never existed?’

Schmidt had anticipated that this would be the first question. He hadn’t wasted time thinking of hypothetical questions. If the roles were reversed, he would logically ask this same question.

He straightened his back, not so much that he would show nervousness or disquiet, but because he wanted to be comfortable. He took his time opening a bottle of water sitting on the desk in front of him and poured some in a glass. He wet his lips, put the glass down, and smiled.

‘Good Morning, Reverend Prefect, Mr. Secretary, and you other counselors. I understand your doubt perfectly, my dear Monsignor Scicluna. On the one hand Jesus is life, and on the other, He never existed. What an outlandish idea … at first glance.’ His voice reverberated through the room. Everyone listened intently, and the cherub had closed his eyes, as if he didn’t want to listen. ‘The message I want to convey is that one can live in two ways. There is no one right way with Jesus or another wrong way without Him, or, if you wish, with whatever other divinity.’ Schmidt noticed some red faces and a deepening irritation in Scicluna’s. He wasn’t there to be friendly. He wanted to start out forcefully. ‘What I intend by
Jesus Is Life
is to provide teachings about how to live day by day in Jesus by abstracting the essence of His words, and in
The Man Who Never Existed
the same message without Jesus, because it is possible to live with Jesus or without Him, in God or without Him. However God is understood.’

‘What are you saying?’ Monsignor Scicluna protested, rising and bracing his hands on the table.

‘I have come to the conclusion that all forms of religion are true. The Jewish Bible is true, as is the Catholic, and all the others. The Torah is true, along with the Talmud and the Koran. We are neuro-divine.’ A clamor arose among the counselors, the prefect, and the secretary.

‘All forms of faith are true. Even believing in nothing is true,’ Schmidt concluded in the same reasonable manner.