The Dark Chronicles (59 page)

The great church stood in front of us, the dome now just visible, framed by a cloudless blue sky. It looked even more impressive than St Paul’s – but was it any more invulnerable? Sarah and I elbowed our way through the crowd, muttering ‘
Scusi – emergenza!
’ People let us pass, reluctant to show anger in such a place and perhaps sensing our urgency.

Sarah pointed towards a flight of stairs on the right-hand side of the colonnade, and we headed that way. Several Swiss Guards were posted as sentries around the entrance, their absurd costumes offset by the short rapiers holstered in them and the long halberds they held in their hands. I pulled away a low wooden barrier and we ran up the stairs. The nearest of the Guards turned to us, alarmed.

‘We need to speak to someone on the Pope’s staff immediately,’ I said, still panting. ‘It’s an emergency.’

He gave us a frozen look, and I became conscious that we were bruised, battered and wearing Ralph Balfour-Laing’s paint-flecked clothes.

‘Do you have any identification, please?’ said the Guard, a pug-faced man sweating beneath his ridiculous plumed helmet.

‘We’re from the British embassy,’ said Sarah. ‘Ambassador Mazzerelli will be able to vouch for us.’

He wasn’t impressed. ‘Ambassador Mazzerelli is not here,
signora
. Do you have any identification from your embassy?’

Sarah touched my arm, and I turned to see Severn and Zimotti making their way through the crowd, followed by Barnes and the beak-faced soldier. They were now just a few dozen feet away, and heading straight for us, holding up wallets as they made their way past: they had identification, of course.

I faced the Guard again. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘We are representatives
of the British government and we need to speak to someone on the Pope’s staff at once. You must stop the address at noon.’

‘
Signore
, I do not care who you are. We cannot allow anyone through simply because they claim to have an urgent matter. Please wait here.’

He made to leave and I leaned forward and grabbed his tunic by the sleeve. He swivelled round sharply, and I turned to Sarah.

‘How are those documents keeping?’ I said. She looked at me blankly, and for a terrifying moment I thought we might have lost them on the way, but then she reached into her overalls and removed the sheaf of papers. At my prompting she turned to the page she had been reading from in the car and thrust it into the hands of the Guard.

‘Just look at this,’ she said. ‘It’s a proposal by foreign governments to commit terrorist attacks in Italy and blame them on Communists. Here’ – she pointed to the relevant paragraph – ‘it mentions that ideal targets are religious events. May the fourth is circled in the margin—’

‘And that’s today,’ I broke in. ‘There may be a bomb in the church.’

The Guard’s momentary anger seemed to have calmed: perhaps he was used to such claims and was now certain he was dealing with a couple of cranks. I glanced back into the crowd. Severn and the others had already reached the first flight of steps.

‘This is not possible,’ the Guard was saying, and he handed the documents back to Sarah. ‘We have very good security measures here, and I myself was involved in the search of the Basilica this morning. But if you would care to wait here— ’

‘You don’t understand! The life of the Pope and everyone in this crowd may be at risk.’

He wasn’t budging, so I took Sarah by the arm and made to leave, then at the last moment turned with her.

‘Come on!’ We ran through the gap between the Guards, through
the massive arched doorway behind them. They let out a shout and began running after us.

*

We were in some sort of a hallway, with a thick red carpet and glittering chandeliers. A tall man in flowing robes with a red sash was already bustling towards us, the slapping of his slippers echoing against the marble floor.

‘What is this, please?’ he said. He had a narrow, ascetic face: a thin mouth, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. The Guards were now stationed behind us, their halberds drawn.

‘These people just broke in—’ our Guard started to explain, but I cut him off.

‘We are from British intelligence. We have information suggesting that there may be a bomb in the Basilica.’ I nodded at Sarah again, and she withdrew the papers and handed them over, pointing to the paragraph in question. The man took a pair of spectacles from his robe and began reading, but after a few seconds he handed the wad back officiously.

‘I have no way of knowing if these are genuine or not. Do you have any identification?’

‘That is what we asked, Cardinal—’ the Guard broke in, but the cardinal silenced him with a glare.

‘No,’ I said, ‘but there really isn’t time for that. You need to tell His Holiness to cancel his address.’

The cardinal started. ‘Impossible! Look at the crowd outside,
signore
. Many people have come a very long way to see His Holiness, and they will be very upset if he does not appear.’

‘They’ll be even more upset if he’s killed. Send these Guards out to explain that he’s not feeling well. The people will be disappointed, of course, but they will understand. What do you have to lose? If you find we have tricked you in some way, you can make a formal complaint to the British government and I assure you we will make a full public apology. But please – this is a very serious threat.’

He was quiet for a moment, then put out a skeletal hand to Sarah again. She returned the papers, and he looked down at them once more.

‘Impossible,’ he muttered.

I looked at him in despair, and started wondering if we could perhaps risk running past
him
. But then I remembered something. ‘Last month,’ I said. ‘There was a warning about a bomb here.’

He looked up at me, surprised. ‘Yes – but nothing was found.’

‘Because they didn’t know where to look. Someone
planted
it then, and it’s due to go off today.’

His eyes widened. He looked back down at the document, and then he seemed to reach a decision.

‘Do you know where they have placed it?’

I nodded.

He gestured to the lead Swiss Guard. ‘Take this man wherever he wants to go – and quickly!’

‘The dome,’ I told him. He glared at me for a moment, then bowed to the cardinal and showed us to a door at the side.

‘Follow me, please.’

*

The Guard took us quickly up a flight of stairs, then down a long carpeted corridor. We passed a magnificent statue of a horse and then pushed through a doorway into a small courtyard. There was a long queue of people waiting to take the lift up to the top. I had thought that the Pope’s address would have thinned the crowd inside the church, but by the looks of things it hadn’t made much difference. We rushed to the front of the line, and the Swiss Guard pulled aside the rope and asked the clerk in the ticket booth how long it would be until the next lift arrived. The clerk shrugged expansively.

‘Five minutes?’

Too long. I nodded to the Swiss Guard, and the three of us raced ahead to the staircase. I reached it first and started climbing the
narrow steps, turning past walls scratched with names and dates: tourists who wanted to leave their mark for posterity, I supposed. There were several other people making their way up the stairs, and I weaved my way around them, wondering how far behind Severn and Zimotti were.

I came out onto another courtyard, and there was the dome directly ahead, the cross and ball lit by the morning sun. To the left, beyond some pieces of scaffolding and canvas, the statues of the Apostles gazed out over the city. Could the bomb be here somewhere? I didn’t think so – not enough impact.
In
the dome, Barchetti had said. Keep going.

I could hear a low burring noise behind me and realized it was the lift descending – Severn and Zimotti might soon be coming up in it. I crossed the courtyard to the next flight of stairs, which was surrounded by white railings. A short flight up and I reached a narrow balcony that gave spectacular views both down into the church and up into the dome. Tourists were pressed along the balcony deciding which to photograph first, and I squeezed past them to the next archway. The stairs led down, confusing me for a moment, but then I saw the archway on the right. The sign above it read ‘I
NGRESSO
A
LLA
C
VPPOLA
’, and I leapt through it and saw the next flight leading up.

Christ, it was narrow. There was barely room to move, and as my leg muscles started to pulse with pain I regretted not taking the lift for the first part of the journey – I’d be lucky if I had any energy left by the time I reached the top. Then again, if we had waited for the lift Severn and Zimotti might already have caught up with us. I had to climb at a slower pace now because I was stuck behind an Australian woman complaining to her husband that she hadn’t had any breakfast and couldn’t climb on an empty stomach. I heard shallow breathing behind me, and turned to see Sarah, the palm of one hand resting against the wall for support as she climbed.

The staircase began spiralling, and through narrow slits in the
walls I caught glimpses of pink tiles, white statues, green trees. The stairs straightened again, and then started angling to one side as we squeezed between the inner and outer drums of the dome. It was getting warm, and a surge of dizziness flooded through me – I blinked and shook it away.

There was another spiralling stairwell, now with a rope instead of banisters, but it was mercifully short and we came out onto another balcony, this one in the open air. A mass of tourists stood by the low railings, and beyond them the city stretched out in the sunshine. I turned to see both Sarah and the Swiss Guard and raised my chin. The Guard pointed ahead, and I saw an iron ladder a few feet away, hanging almost vertically. I pushed through the crowd of people and grabbed hold of it, my heart racing. How long did we have until the bomb went off? I climbed hand over hand, until finally I was right in the copper-plated ball. I took a few seconds to recover my breath, then looked around.

There was nobody here, just a wooden bench, smooth from a billion tourists’ arses, and tiny slats looking down at the city. And somewhere, I was sure, a bomb. But where? Had I guessed wrong? Perhaps they had placed it in the church itself, or on the balcony the Pope would be standing on shortly… No. Barchetti had specifically mentioned the attack
in the dome
.

There was a clanging at the ladder and the Swiss Guard climbed into the space. Sweat was pouring down his face, and I felt a pang of sympathy – I hadn’t made the climb in that outfit. He glanced at me and immediately registered my confusion.

‘I told you,
signore
,’ he said. ‘We checked thoroughly this morning.’

My sympathy vanished. Triumphant little shit. But he was wrong. It
had
to be here.

There was another clang, and Sarah emerged, very out of breath.

‘What’s the programme now?’ I asked the Guard. ‘The Pope’s address is at noon, and then what? Mass?’ Perhaps they hadn’t planted the bomb yet, but would do shortly.

The Guard shook his head.

‘It is a much shorter Mass today, because at one o’clock there is a special service for the feast day of Santa Sindone.’

‘How much shorter?’ I asked. ‘Will the Pope be…’ I stopped. ‘What was that? The feast day of what?’

‘Santa Sindone.’ I stared at him blankly. ‘The Holy Shroud of Turin – the cloth Christ was buried in.’

May the fourth was the feast day of the Shroud. That was an iconic religious event, all right – even more so than the Pope’s regular Sunday address.

‘The Shroud. Where is it?’

‘In Turin,’ said the Guard, exasperated at my ignorance.

‘In the cathedral?’

He nodded. ‘The chapel attached to it. Every May the fourth, they remove the Shroud from the altar and—’

He stopped. There had been a loud noise below us. I glanced down the ladder and saw Zimotti emerging onto the gallery, holding up his identification wallet and shouting as he made his way through the crowd. The Guard turned to descend, but I grabbed him by the lapel and gestured for Sarah to stay where she was, too.

‘Does it have a dome?’ I asked. He looked at me uncomprehendingly, and I shook him. ‘The chapel housing the Shroud!
Does it have a dome
?’

He nodded, and tried to move a hand towards his rapier. I pushed it aside.

‘What time?’ I shouted at him. ‘What time is the service?’

There was more noise, and I could hear Zimotti’s voice below us. The Guard stared back at me blankly.

‘They begin at eight o’clock…’

The world slowed to silence, and I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I brushed past the Guard and reached for Sarah’s hand.

We were in the wrong place – the wrong bloody
city
. The attack wasn’t planned for here. It was planned for Turin, in less than nine hours’ time.

Sarah began to climb back down the ladder, and the Swiss Guard and I rapidly followed. I could hear Zimotti making his way through the crowd, and I pushed Sarah the other way, cursing myself for leading us up here. I had foolishly presumed that the next attack would revolve around an individual. But it wasn’t Christ’s representative on Earth that was the target, but Christ himself – or rather his followers. The documents had mentioned that religious events had an ‘easily understood and revered symbolism’. It was hard to think of anything more revered or symbolic than the Turin Shroud: millions of people around the world believed it to be the cloth Christ had been wrapped in after his crucifixion. It was perhaps the greatest icon of the Catholic Church, and an attack on its holy feast day would create headlines around the world. In Italy, the idea that the Communists were prepared to blow up innocent worshippers in a church would scare everyone away at the next election. And if they damaged the Shroud itself… but could they really be prepared to do that?

As we moved through the crowd looking for the stairway leading down, I spotted Severn coming round the other way, and froze. I grabbed Sarah by the wrist and ran in the only direction available, pushing through the crush of tourists until I reached the railing. The outside of the dome curved away, and I peered over to see the statues of the Apostles on the courtyard below, and beyond them the crowd in the square undulating like a giant moving carpet.