Papal Decree (22 page)

‘Gentlemen,’ the voice of Schmidt, whom everyone had forgotten about, broke in. ‘Reverend Prefect, Mr. Secretary, and Your Eminences, I understand that you don’t agree with me. I want to tell you that my first duty and priority is to the church, which I serve and obey, in humility and abnegation.’ With those final words he lowered his head in a gesture of submission until he showed his bare neck to indicate he was at their mercy.

The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith rose from his chair, assumed an arrogant pose that matched his function, and looked at Reverend Father Hans Matthaus Schmidt sternly.

‘Good … this session was without doubt … intense.’ He hesitated to characterize the proceedings. ‘The prefect and the other counselors will deliberate and –’

The doors suddenly opening interrupted the prefect’s discourse. Four Swiss Guards, in dress uniform, entered and took position on either side of the door. Four more of their countrymen immediately followed.

‘What’s going on?’ the prefect wanted to know.

One of the guards, clearly the most senior, advanced to the center of the room.

‘This room is sealed until further notice.’

‘How ridiculous,’ the secretary spoke up. ‘You owe us respect, Daniel.’

‘I’m sorry, Your Eminences, but there has been a breach of security. At this time I have maximum responsibility for the Vatican. I beg your understanding.’

‘A security breach? What happened?’ the prefect asked.

Daniel hesitated. He didn’t know if he had to answer.

‘Don’t keep it secret, Daniel. What happened?’ William insisted.

‘A murder within the walls of the Vatican,’ the commander of the Pontifical Swiss Guard explained.

‘My dear God,’ the prefect let slip and sat down exhausted.

‘But who?’ the secretary inquired.

‘I’m not authorized to say. I am sorry to inform you that no one may enter or leave until further notice.’ He turned his back and looked at the Austrian priest. ‘Father Hans Schmidt?’

Schmidt confirmed with a nod, and then the other three guards surrounded him.

‘I must kindly ask you to accompany us.’

Schmidt got up, blushing slightly.

‘Where are you taking him?’ the secretary asked.

‘To the papal apartments. Orders of the Holy Father.

From the street, the church could not be seen. It was hidden under a dark, filthy viaduct. Above, the constant noise of trains made the foundations vibrate in that same place where it had stood long before there had been trains and viaducts. The church wasn’t always set in that kind of subterranean underworld, but within a community, and its tiled roof had shimmered in the weak British sunshine. People came to the small Catholic church for morning services, especially on Sundays. These days it was just a grimy, forgotten building under a viaduct, which sheltered Rafael from the light rain that had begun to dampen London.

He had abandoned the taxi a half mile from the British Museum, walked another few yards to Tottenham Court Road, and called another taxi, which left him a few hundred feet from the church. He quickly covered the distance to the Church of St. Andrew and found the door, bare of paint from the passage of time, open. He entered without making any noise. No one was there. A candle burned next to the altar. The church couldn’t hold more than fifty people, but rarely had that many over the years. Perhaps a handful of faithful still attended, more out of fear of God and respect for the priest than for any other reason. The walls, once white, looked darkened by cars and trains. The light was faint. Next to the candle were one or two low-voltage bulbs.

Rafael kneeled at the altar, blessed himself, and prayed briefly.

‘Hello,’ he heard a voice say.

Rafael got up and looked at a man with completely white hair. ‘Hi, Donald,’ he greeted him.

‘What the fuck,’ the other cursed.

Rafael smiled. ‘You were always gracious.’

‘What are you doing here, you prick?’ Donald was clearly not enjoying the visit.

‘Seeing a friend.’

‘You must have the wrong place. No one is your friend here.’

Rafael didn’t give the slightest sign of being offended. Donald greeted all his friends like this.

‘Have you got yourself into a mess, Santini?’

‘Have you ever seen me not in one?’ Rafael responded.

Donald said nothing for a few moments. He looked at Rafael disdainfully, then looked around the minuscule space and turned his back. ‘Follow me … or get out. Whatever you want.’

The sacristy was to the left of the altar as one approached.

When Rafael entered, Donald had already poured the golden liquid of a bottle of whiskey into two glasses. He opened a wooden box from which he took some tobacco and filled the bowl of his pipe. He struck a match and held it above the tobacco, sucked vigorously to get it lit, and in less than a minute was relaxing in a chair to enjoy the drink and tobacco. Rafael sat down also, without Donald’s invitation, and grabbed the second glass of malt scotch. He wasn’t in the habit of drinking in the morning, but he needed this one. It had been a long night. There were some who drank for fewer reasons than this.

‘How are things in Rome?’ Donald asked, finally breaking the silence.

Rafael sipped a little of his drink before replying. ‘Same as always.’

Donald frowned. ‘Still fucked up, huh.’ The Englishman got up and went over to a closet. ‘How many do you need?’

‘One.’

‘Only one?’

‘Only one.’

‘And they? How many are there?’ Donald’s voice was friendlier as he continued looking through the closet for something, with his back toward Rafael.

‘You never know, Donald.’

‘Of course not. That’s shitty.’

Donald approached with a package and a box and put them down by Rafael. ‘Take your choice.’

Rafael unwrapped the tissue around a Glock 19 9mm. He tried it out, chambered a load from the magazine he attached, and aimed. Then he opened the box that contained a Beretta 92FS of the same caliber. He didn’t even test it. He put it in his jacket pocket along with two magazines of 9mm bullets. Donald looked at him curiously.

‘Made in Italy,’ Rafael explained, getting out of the chair. ‘Has any Jesuit asked for your help?’

‘The Jesuits don’t need me. They have their own methods. Besides, they have Nicolas.’

‘Who is Nicolas?’

Donald got up and accompanied Rafael out of the sacristy. ‘Nicolas is the man who carries out their jobs. The Jesuit front line. He’s the one who solves their problems.’

‘Where can I find him?’ Rafael was visibly interested in this information.

‘I have no idea. I don’t even know where he’s from. Some Jesuit will know. He’s one of them. Talk to Robin.’

The two men went to the door.

Donald offered his hand. ‘I’m not going to wish you good luck because you’re a tough son of a bitch.’

Rafael smiled. ‘Keep your head down for a few days,’ he advised. ‘Things are going to get hot.’

‘Spill it, Sam,’ Barry ordered. He was not in the mood for bullshit. ‘I don’t want to hear
We don’t know.
’

The meeting was in the same room where they held briefings on ongoing operations or those being planned. Aris sat on Barry’s right, Sam on the left, Staughton, Davis, and Travis followed. No one sat at the opposite end.

‘The Italian and the taxi driver?’ Barry wanted to know.

‘They’re being interrogated as we speak,’ Aris informed him.

‘Let’s begin, then,’ the director ordered.

Sam got up and pulled her skirt down. She seemed nervous, tense, a little feverish, judging from her red cheeks.

‘Everything began about fifty years ago with an agreement between Pope John the Twenty-third and Ben Isaac.’

‘Ben Isaac.’ Barry thought it over. He tried to flesh out the name with more information, give him a face. ‘The Israeli banker?’

‘The same,’ Sam confirmed. ‘In 1947 he was one of the discoverers of the famous apocryphal gospels.’

‘The
what?
’ Aris asked.

Sam shrugged her shoulders in irritation. ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran.’

Aris raised his thumb to show he understood.

‘It seems there were some very important documents in these discoveries,’ Sam continued. Her nervousness disappeared as she got used to the male eyes focused on her. ‘Some of them were never made public, since they were covered by an agreement between the Israeli and the Vatican. That agreement was called the Status Quo.’

‘Interesting,’ Barry said. ‘Okay, let’s throw some light on the reason Rafael was in Paris.’

‘And in London,’ Sam added.

Barry looked at her, puzzled.

‘Ben Isaac has lived in London for more than fifty years,’ Sam explained confidently. ‘But there’s more … much more.’

‘Put Ben Isaac under surveillance as soon as possible.’

‘Already done,’ Sam replied.

‘Don’t keep us waiting, then, Sam,’ Barry said with a smile. ‘Go on, please.’

Sam continued. Ben Isaac and the agreement with John XXIII, John Paul II, the Three Gentlemen, the Five Gentlemen, Magda, Myriam, Ben Isaac Jr … Jesus Christ.

All the participants were silent. No one knew what to say. They considered the information silently.

‘Wow,’ Barry finally said. ‘That’s a lot.’

‘Why did those four people die?’ Aris threw in.

There was so much to know. Doubts, questions, misunderstandings, all the reasons for anger, wars and tortures. Jesus Christ? It wasn’t every day that a case like this came up. Nothing like this had ever appeared in the history of the CIA, a short history compared to that of the church.

‘There weren’t four. There were six,’ said a voice that had just entered the room.

‘Thompson. Welcome,’ Barry greeted him. ‘Have a seat.’

Thompson pulled out the chair across from Barry and sat down.

‘Six dead? What are you telling me?’ Barry asked.

Thompson threw a bunch of papers on the table. Transcripts, texts, and photos covered the surface.

‘Ernesto Aragones, Spanish priest, assassinated with a shot to the back of the head on Sunday in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.’

The others began to look at the papers.

‘This morning they killed a priest inside the Vatican.’

‘A what?’ Barry was scandalized. ‘What the hell is going on? Who was he?’

‘The curator of the Relics Room. Don’t ask me what it means.’

‘What’s the connection between all these people?’ Aris asked again.

‘Yaman Zafer, Sigfried Hammal, Aragones, and the priest today, Ursino, were part of what was called the Five Gentlemen,’ Thompson replied.

‘And the others?’

‘The others were Jesuits. According to what I was able to squeeze out of the Italian. The acolyte killed the priest to silence him, then committed suicide.’

Barry shook his head. ‘Who are we fighting with, folks?’

‘They don’t know themselves, from what I could find out,’ Thompson suggested.

‘Okay,’ Barry said thoughtfully. ‘Now we have something to work with. This Ben Isaac. Could he be Rafael’s target?’

‘He could be,’ Aris commented.

‘We need to find out what that agreement covers, and what Jesus has to do with all this.’ Barry thought rapidly, trying to sketch out a preliminary strategy.

‘I can try to pry out a little more, but I don’t think the Italian knew much to begin with,’ Thompson suggested, always practical.

‘Sam, did you book a flight to Rome?’

‘Of course. It leaves at five in the afternoon from Gatwick and arrives in time for supper.’

Barry was pleased. As director of the Agency for the European theater, he had a fleet of vehicles at his disposal. A Learjet 85, two Bell helicopters, several cars. He usually chose to fly commercial when his schedule permitted. His rule was not to waste taxpayer dollars, long before any president recommended the cost cutting.

‘Something is bothering me,’ Barry added.

Everyone looked at him, waiting for him to finish.

‘You mentioned Five Gentlemen, right?’ he asked Sam.

‘Yes.’

‘Four have died. There’s a pattern. Someone is out to kill these Gentlemen.’

He let the implication sink in.

‘There’s one left,’ Aris said. ‘Could it be Ben Isaac?’

‘We’ll have to set up a security perimeter in that case,’ Barry ordered.

‘No, Ben Isaac is very well protected. He doesn’t need our protection. They have a good security system, some former and current Mossad agents,’ Sam explained. ‘He’s not the fifth Gentleman.’

‘Who is, then? And why do they call them “Gentlemen”?’ Barry asked.

‘Because they had a gentlemen’s agreement of silence among them,’ Thompson explained.

‘The question is this,’ Barry advised, getting up. ‘They’ve assassinated four of the five, so someone is in danger. Find out who the fifth Gentleman is.’

‘Uh … we know,’ Sam said timidly.

‘Then spit it out, Sam. That person’s life is in danger.’

‘The fifth Gentleman is Joseph Ratzinger … the pope himself.’

Ben Isaac had a maxim he’d used for a long time in life, especially in business: everything has a price. An object, a jewel, a house, a business, a man, everything could be bought and sold. All you needed was capital, and Ben Isaac had more than enough money. But tonight the Israeli banker would learn a lesson that would strike down that maxim. There are people no amount of money can buy, even if all the coffers in the world are emptied. Ben Isaac had dealt with such a person only once before in his life, and it had not gone well. He felt lost, disoriented, and could think of nothing but his son, tied to a chair, mistreated, bloody, and beaten. Just the idea made him shiver, heartsick, and panic flooded his veins. He remembered Magda, his daughter, dead in the womb, and how he had not been there when she died. Some deal or some excavation, something more important, had required his attention at the time.

Myriam, alone in London so often, watching the rain fall or freeze, or the weak sun rising, without her husband. A day or two, a week. A phone call from Tel Aviv, another from Amman, an unexpected negotiation in Turin, a meeting in Bern, a meeting with the excavation team, who knows when and where, another with the team in a university in the States, to deepen his knowledge of something excavated, no big deal, he’d be back as soon as possible, a kiss.