The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (22 page)

Over the centuries, as the Church
had expanded, so too had the administrative duties of the Roman Curia. Until, in modern times, it had taken on the size and function of a multinational corporation. Vatican, Inc.
The dollar is down. The euro is up. Gold is trading higher.
Beset with annual budget crises, sordid corruption and a swollen bureaucracy, the unwieldy leviathan was in dire need of an overhaul.

Leaning back in his shabby, velvet-covered chair, Franco stared out
of the French doors on the other side of the study and set his weary gaze on St Peter’s. His flat boasted an unobstructed view of the gleaming dome, the iconic masterpiece soaring above the tiled rooftops. A simple man, unlike some in the Curia, his residence was far from opulent, with the apartment’s sixteenth-century bones clearly visible, the windows framed with plain marble cornices and the ceilings braced with wooden beams. Two of the walls were lined with glass-encased bookcases with stacks of other books strategically placed throughout his study. The hallway that ran the length of the flat, as well as three of the walls in the dining room, was also lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. All-in-all, an austere residence more befitting an Aquinas-like theologian than a Prince of the Church.

Impatient for an update from Father Santos, Franco drummed his fingers on the wooden desktop. A few seconds later, he picked up his half-eaten
porchetta panino
. His housekeeper, Beatrice, had unobtrusively entered his study a short while ago, setting the luncheon plate on the edge of his desk.

There once was a time, during the high Renaissance, when powerful cardinals built magnificent palazzos where they held court supported by hundreds of retainers and sycophants. And though he could undoubtedly reside in more luxurious surroundings had he opted to live within the papal city, Franco had declined the
Vatican apartment set aside for the Prefect of the Secret Archives. Under normal circumstances his decision to live ‘off-campus’ would have rippled the papal waters, but in this instance Pius XIII was only too happy to have a cardinal that he considered a dangerous enemy sequestered in the Borgo.

Little did Pius know that an enemy cannot be hidden away like some crazy uncle in the attic.

Finished with the pork sandwich, Franco shoved the plate aside and got up from his desk. Placing his hands on the small of his back, he stretched, causing several bones to loudly crack. As he walked towards the set of French doors he momentarily stopped in front of the framed photograph of the Fiorio family, circa 1960. The blissful years before the infamous ‘Fall from Grace’. Before his mother’s divine visitation changed the course of their lives.

Opening the French doors,
Franco stepped out on to the rooftop terrace. As always, he tuned out the raucous sound of the traffic below; a constant in Rome. In addition to the small bistro table with two chairs, scattered around the base of the balustrade were pots of leafy shrubs and trailing vines, including several tomato plants brimming with ripened fruit. All tended to by Beatrice who, in addition to being a meticulous housekeeper and superb cook, was blessed with a green thumb. Deeply devoted to the Church, she was a consecrated virgin; and had been handpicked by his mother to manage his household when he was elevated to the cardinalate. The latter meant that Beatrice Vaccarelli’s loyalties were, first and foremost, to Rosella Fiorio.

Although ninety-one years of age and wheelchair bound at a senior retirement community in Baltimore, his mother was determined to keep tabs on Franco,
with the housekeeper acting as her eyes and ears. After the shameful debacle involving his brother Angelo, she wasn’t about to let her younger son veer off-course. She’d learned her lesson. In hard, painful fashion.

After Rosella’s second visitation from the Blessed Virgin Mary, there was no doubt
in her mind that Our Lady intended for her eldest son Angelo to join the priesthood and consecrate his life to Christ’s ministry. While Angelo, then fifteen years old, wasn’t nearly as certain, he did revel in the sudden attention that he received from family, parish priests and the nuns at Fourteen Holy Martyrs Catholic School. Despite the fact that money was always tight in the household coffers, funds none the less became available for Angelo to go on weekend retreats and various other activities sponsored by the archdiocese. The bill for those events was footed by parish benefactors who were certain that the Blessed Virgin had chosen Angelo for great things.

The prodding worked, Angelo finally relenting and entering the seminary; and breaking his girlfriend’s heart in the process. In the winter of 1968, he was ordained at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The day was one of joyful celebration for family and parishioners alike, one of their own about to begin a most holy undertaking.

Left on the sidelines, Franco was free to decide his own future having won an academic scholarship to Georgetown University, that great Jesuit institution of higher education. Since the family didn’t have the money to send him to college, he’d had to work his ass off to get there. Unlike Angelo’s divinely dictated aspirations, his were motivated by the fear of getting drafted into the military and shipped to Vietnam. It was one of the reasons why he’d decided on a philosophy major. Granted, he’d always been something of an argumentative bastard, but he could also drag that particular major out to years of graduate work, deferring the draft indefinitely.

Everything was running smoothly for Franco when, suddenly, ‘the Great Fall’ befell the Fiorio family.

It was early spring, midway into his junior year when Franco received a frantic phone call from his mother, ordering him to straight away drive home to Baltimore. Worried that Rosella may have fallen ill, he jumped into his beaten-up Volkswagen Beetle and made the forty-mile trip in record time. Leaping over the front gate, he ran inside the house, momentarily stopped in his tracks by the thick smell of Three Kings incense and the heat thrown off from the twenty or more lit votive candles set up on the altar in front of the Virgin’s statue.

But that was nothing compared to the welcoming committee that waited for him in the living room. In addition to his teary-eyed mother, the parish priest, Father McCarty, and Monsignor Hellerman were present. Wondering what incited the heavy artillery, Franco eased himself into the chair that had been placed in front of the sofa, inexplicably feeling like a prisoner in the dock.

Because his mother was too distraught to speak, it was Father McCarty who got stuck with the unpleasant task of informing Franco that his brother Angelo had left the priesthood under sordid circumstances; the announcement of which caused his mother to start sobbing anew. Clearly uncomfortable, the old parish priest, in a lowered voice, went on to say that Angelo had got involved with a woman whom he intended to marry. And to ensure that his mother never recovered from the shock, the woman in question was a Carmelite nun.

Franco didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Or to beat a hasty retreat. Because
suddenly
the room had gone very
quiet, all three of them – his mother, the priest and the monsignor – staring at him expectantly.

When, a few seconds later, his mother got up from the sofa and fell to her knees in front of his chair, flinging her arms around his waist as she begged his forgiveness, Franco was thrown into a state of complete confusion.

‘Forgiveness for what, Mom?’

‘I had the wrong son, Franco. All these years, I’ve been blind to the fact that Our Lady chose
you
to be Her Son’s emissary here on earth.’

Hearing that, Franco tried to break free of his mother’s embrace. But she only tightened her hold on him.

Not only did he love college, but he’d just started dating a cute girl in his Ethics class.
He didn’t want to become a priest!
He wanted to live a normal life. Raise a little hell. Then settle down. Get married. Have two point five kids. He did not want to pass out communion wafers at Sunday Mass.

Sensing that he was about to punt the ball, Monsignor Hellerman got up, walked over to the chair and put a staying hand on Franco’s shoulder.

‘You’ve been selected, Franco, by the Queen of Heaven, to continue Her Son’s work. There can be no greater joy for a man. To turn your back on Our Lady would constitute a grave sin.’

Terrified, the life he’d not yet lived passing before his eyes, Franco found himself wordlessly nodding his head. The fear of hell had been ground into him from an early age, the nuns at Fourteen Holy Martyrs having done a bang-up job. Since his father Sal had died two years earlier, he had no one in his corner. No one to argue his case. There was nothing he could do but capitulate.

In that instant, Franco felt as though he’d been shanghaied.

As the years passed and the fallout from the Second Vatican Council became more obvious, Franco belatedly realized that he’d been the victim of the lax morals that had infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church in the aftermath of those despised ‘reforms’. Angelo Fiorio wasn’t the only priest to leave the Church during that tumultuous period. By the late sixties and early seventies, they were leaving in droves. All jumping ship. Swimming ashore. And getting drunk as sailors.

Leaving the real men, like Franco, to clean up the mess.

In promoting their watered-down faith, the liberals
had sullied the purity of the Church. Seducing the clergy and laity alike, liberals were no different from Lucifer in the Garden. Forcing Roman Catholics to gorge on the false fruit of Vatican II.

Although it didn’t happen on that long-ago afternoon when he was pressured into joining the priesthood, in time Franco had his epiphany. When it did come, it was just as powerful, just as furious, as Paul’s instantaneous conversion on the road to
Damascus. In one shattering, life-altering moment, he was made to realize that he
was
the chosen one. The one who’d been selected by the Queen of Heaven to purify Her Son’s Church.

Hearing his mobile phone ring, Franco stepped back into his study and snatched the phone off his desk. Pleased that the call was from Gracián Santos, he hit the
TALK
button.

‘I’m listening. Go ahead,’ he said gruffly.

‘Forgive me if I’ve called at an inconvenient time, Your Eminence. However, there has been an unusual development that I thought you should be apprised of. The Englishman has gone to see a nobleman in Madrid.’

The skin on the back of Franco’s neck instantly prickled. ‘Do you know the nobleman’s name?’

‘According to my men, it is the Marqués de Bagá.’

Hearing that, Franco gasped aloud.
No! No! No!

The Marqués de Bagá had been very vocal about his intentions – he wanted to crush the
Vatican. Revenge for the
auto-da-fé
that destroyed the Knights Templar.

‘I need a moment,’ he husked, yanking the mobile away from his ear.

Horrified by the latest turn of events, Franco grasped his pectoral cross. So hard that the gold edges cut into the palm of his hand.

Why did
Caedmon Aisquith seek out the Marqués? Was the Englishman hoping to strike an alliance with the old aristocrat? Or was he simply seeking information pertaining to the Marqués’s ancestor, Fortes de Pinós?

Franco didn’t know on which side of the great divide the answer fell. While he had faith that the Englishman would relinquish the
Evangelium Gaspar
to save his daughter’s life, he couldn’t take the chance that a known enemy of the Church would be privy to the gospel’s explosive contents. Should that happen, there was no doubt in his mind that the Marqués de Bagá would use the ancient gospel like a weapon. One capable of obliterating the Roman Catholic Church.

I must stop the enemy in his tracks!

His mind made up, Franco put the phone back to his ear. ‘The Marqués de Bagá poses an imminent threat,’ he hissed. ‘Under no circumstance can we allow the Spaniard to obtain the
Evangelium Gaspar.
’

‘But, Your Eminence . . . perhaps
Caedmon Aisquith simply went to Madrid to gain information pertaining to the gospel’s whereabouts,’ Father Santos nervously argued.

‘No doubt he did. Which is why I want your men to wait until the Englishman takes his leave before dealing with the Marqués. And while they’re at it, I want them to sweep the premises clean and destroy any documents pertaining to the Sovereign Order of the
Temple.’

‘Wh-what does that mean?’ the priest stammered.

‘Do I have to spell it out for you?’

The question was met with silence.

Damn the man! He has balls the size of raisins
, Franco fumed silently.

Well aware that Gracián Santos was a coward at heart, Franco knew that he had to press the only leverage he had with the priest – his fear of losing Sanguis Christi to foreclosure. Without the fellowship, Santos would emotionally implode for Sanguis Christi was his child. His family. His
raison d’être.

Needing
Santos to stiffen his backbone, Franco said quietly, ‘I should have the funds to pay off your mortgage later this evening. As soon as your men secure the
Evangelium Gaspar
,
I’ll be able to wire you the money.’