by Alex Thomas
It had been a further setback for the master when Ciban of all people found out about the secret as future guardian of the faith. It was hard to take the fact that Ciban’s consecration could mean the end of the master’s plans. The traitor of all people!
The master noticed that his aggravation was making him shake slightly. His thoughts returned to the nun. To Catherine Bell, who was living a double life in the papal household. It appeared that Benelli had given her explicit instructions. She most likely knew the secret now too. How could she have protected Leo otherwise? But that was over now! The key to solving the problem was her death.
77
It had started to rain. Catherine stood with her jacket over her head in front of the Grotta di Lourdes and looked around. The rain had created flat puddles all about. Small pools of water had formed atop the black plastic tarps that they had placed over the imitation of the Lourdes grotto to protect it from the rain. Her gaze swept over the veiled crime scene and surrounding area. Ben was nowhere to be found.
"Ben?"
She slowly walked toward the supposed scaffolding and looked about. The jacket covering her head reduced her line of vision so much that she had to push it away to get a better view. The veiled Grotta seemed like a supernatural monster in the rainy darkness.
"Ben?"
No answer. Hopefully nothing had happened to him?
A vague feeling that she was being observed suddenly overcame her. She looked over her shoulder. The area in front of the Grotta was dark and empty.
Then she heard a quiet coughing – and steps.
"Catherine?"
Clearly Ben’s voice, even if it sounded somewhat muted as if he had a cold. He wore a hooded robe due to the weather, which is why she could not recognise his face.
"Are you still being haunted by your visions?" he asked. His voice sounded friendly and yet somehow – insidious? Why would he ask that? Did it have something to do with Thea’s murder?
"They aren’t just prophecies, but also memories." An inexplicable shiver ran across her skin. "How can I help you?"
Ben took a step closer and lifted the tarp over the Grotta. Catherine still couldn’t see his face. "Thea left you a message."
"A message – for me?" As she bent forward, she felt a needle stick into her neck. Then she saw the face beneath the hood. The scar above the one eye.
78
Cardinal Ciban pulled on a pair of latex gloves, opened the book that they found in deRossi’s flat and took out the mobile phone. The crime scene photos and the DVD with the film still lay on the table. The prefect turned on the mobile phone and looked through its cache. The first number was deRossi’s landline – the Vigilanza had found out at least that much – and they were still checking on the second.
Ben winced when he saw the second phone number in the deRossi’s mobile phone cache. "Good Lord above! That’s Catherine’s number!" he blurted out.
"Are you certain?"
Was Ben imagining things or had he just heard outright concern about the Vatican employee in Ciban’s voice?
He pulled out his own mobile phone and checked the cache to compare the numbers. No question whatsoever! The last phone call on deRossi’s mobile phone had gone to Catherine. Ben speed-dialled her number, but no one answered.
"Damn it! I have to go to the Apostolic Palace at once!"
Ciban grabbed Ben’s arm just as he wanted to leave. "Wait. Catherine and I had an agreement. She was not to leave the Palace without telling either myself or His Holiness." The cardinal went to his desk, picked up the phone receiver and dialled an internal Vatican number.
"Holiness, I fear we have a problem." He switched on the speakerphone so Ben could listen in.
"What is it, Eminence?"
"Sister Catherine. We couldn’t reach her on her mobile."
For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. Then the Pope said carefully: "As far as I know, Sister Catherine had just rung with Monsignor Hawlett and was just on her way to him."
"Monsignor Hawlett did not speak with Sister Catherine on the phone, Holiness."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Where was she to meet him?"
The Pope hesitated. "If Sister Catherine didn’t speak with Monsignor Hawlett, who says that I am really speaking with you, Eminence?"
"I have your secret number, Holiness."
"So what? – The murderer had the names and addresses of the apostles. Finding out my secret number should be a trivial matter to him."
Ciban sighed, then identified himself by a buzzword that, Ben supposed, came from a very personal confession.
"Sister Catherine told me she was to meet the Monsignor at the Grotta di Lourdes," said the Pope finally.
"At the Grotta di Lourdes?" repeated Ciban in disbelief.
"That is what Sister Catherine told me. Good Lord, hurry up then!"
The prefect had barely put down the receiver when Ben raced out of the office. Ben could hear Ciban calling to him: "Damn it, Ben. She most certainly won’t be there anymore!"
But he didn’t care. He had to do something. He had to find Catherine. It was imperative. Before it was too late.
79
Ben ran as if his life depended on it. When he reached the Grotta di Lourdes, he was soaked to the bone. He stood before the large arched imitation of the cave with the Maria statue and looked around him as the rain whipped against the ground and the tarps. He looked beneath the tarps just in case, but there wasn’t a trace of Catherine anywhere. He wasn’t certain if he should feel relief or not. It could mean she was still alive if he didn’t find her dead body here.
Ben reached for his mobile and dialled Catherine’s number once again. Maybe he’d be in luck this time. After a few seconds, a sound directly behind him startled him. The ringtone came from a nearby bush.
Oh no, please don’t let it be!, he thought.
He ran through the pelting rain, squatted down and combed through the shrubbery. He was relieved to find out that there was no dead body lying there. But he found Catherine’s mobile phone, grabbed it and checked whether she might have left a message for him. No dice. Disappointed, he pocketed the phone just as his began to ring.
"Yes?"
"It’s me. Ciban. Have you found Catherine?"
"No. But I found her mobile. It was lying in the bushes."
"That’s a good sign. At least it means that she is still alive."
Ben thought he heard major relief in Ciban’s voice. Or was he projecting his own immense hope onto the cardinal?
"But where is she?" he asked.
"I have been checking my past research once again. I am pretty certain I know who deRossi’s backer and secret mentor is."
"You know who the mastermind is?"
"Most likely, yes. Do you know Catherine’s favourite place in the Vatican?"
"Of course. The Sistine."
"If I’m not mistaken, Catherine was dragged from the Grotta to the Sistine. Be careful, Ben. I am most certain that deRossi and Catherine aren’t alone. I am on my way to you."
"Who is the backer?" Ben wanted to know.
"I’ll tell you when I get there." Ciban disconnected the call.
Darn, thought Ben, he couldn’t just stand there and wait for the prefect. He had to go to the Sistine. Straight away.
He began to run.
80
Catherine stumbled in a haze alongside deRossi who held her firmly in his grip and wouldn’t let her go for a second. Whatever he had injected into her neck made her have no will of her own and impaired her sense of balance. She staggered next to him as if in an absurd nightmare, as if she knew that she was dreaming without being able to break out of it. The dark walls surrounding her turned into oddly deformed grotesque tunnels as if they led to an ancient Egyptian tomb. She suddenly suffered a weakness attack, forcing her to stand still for a moment, but deRossi just held onto her even more tightly and pulled her ruthlessly alongside him.
Catherine attem
pted to suppress the lack of will that the drug created and at least to maintain a sense of clarity in some part of her brain, but the fog in her consciousness only allowed for her to stumble alongside the Monsignor.
DeRossi had taken her mobile phone away and had simply tossed it. So she didn’t even stand a theoretical chance of alerting Ben or Ciban; that is, if she could rid herself of her kidnapper. She suddenly grew very tired and her knees nearly buckled under the exhaustion she felt. Where was deRossi taking her anyway?
"I need a quick rest, please," she said.
"Out of the question, Sister. It is important that you keep moving, otherwise you really will fall asleep. What you are about to experience will be worth the effort. Believe me!"
To Catherine’s dismay, deRossi took it up a notch. They passed another tunnel, another chamber. The further they went in the underground labyrinth, the further Catherine thought they were getting from the Vatican. Was he taking her to Castel Sant’Angelo?
She suddenly remembered something from her childhood. That day when she and Ben had left the Institute and had gotten lost in the deciduous and coniferous forests at the Southern edge of Lake Michigan. It had taken two days for the ranger team led by Darius to find them and only because Catherine had stuck to the rules. Always walk downstream. Downstream…
She somehow had the feeling that the tunnel she was stumbling down under deRossi’s gruff command led upstream. Swaying unsteadily and losing strength by the minute, she pushed herself forward step by step until her legs gave out and she fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. DeRossi had grabbed her by the arm, but her collapse had been so sudden that he too lost his balance. He knelt in front of her and slapped her hard in the face. When that didn’t work, he gave her a second, then a third slap until she was halfway conscious again.
"You aren’t going to break down now, Sister. Not when you’re so close to your amazing performance."
Although Catherine was a nun, she had a hankering to punch deRossi’s lights out or at least to break his nose, which would fit so well to the scar above his eye. Unfortunately, she was so out of it that it affected her aim. Not to mention that she simply didn’t have the necessary strength to slap him down. DeRossi dragged her up forcefully and pulled her behind him along the tiny limestone pathway, up a narrow set of stairs to a side door that led directly to the Sistine Chapel.
The Sistine. Catherine’s favourite place. So it was after all…
She was to die here!
She numbly went through her options, or at least she tried. Her brain felt as if it were packed in oily cotton, barely able to put two and two together. DeRossi pushed her past two Swiss guards that lay left and right of the wide entrance door, unconscious or possibly even dead. He then led her through the antechamber like a life-sized doll, through the choir screen and finally pushed her into the larger area of the chapel reserved for the clergy on official occasions. At the other end of the Sistine, directly in front of the altar, stood a man in a black cassock with a scarlet red biretta. He was short and had his back to Catherine and deRossi. His entire focus seemed to rest on Michelangelo’s Last Judgement as if he were searching for something he hadn’t found yet.
"Eminence," said deRossi respectfully. "Sister Catherine Bell."
The cardinal turned slowly to her and her escort.
"Thank you, Nicola. Sister Catherine, it is nice to see you again. I enjoyed our last encounter at Benelli’s very much."
Although Catherine was extremely out of it, the shock raced through every fibre of her being, allowing her a moment of clarity. As if in a trance, she could do nothing else but to stare Cardinal Monti wide-eyed in the face.
81
Catherine looked spellbound at Cardinal Monti, then Michelangelo’s Apocalypse and then back to the old prefect. He was an old man, a tiny shrivelled twerp that wore a cardinal’s robe, but in this very moment, he seemed as dangerous and powerful as a demon, like an inexplicable anachronism that had stepped straight out of Michelangelo’s scenario of hell. Catherine wasn’t sure if it was the drugs that made the flood of images behind Monti come to life. The amply naked figures were watching her, moving about as if the old cardinal had a devilish power over them. Two angels carried the large book of the damned that weighed a ton.
The old Monti walked toward Catherine with an astoundingly firm stride and a smile that seemed to say he himself had staged the end of the world in all its glory.
"The most significant chapel in the history of Christianity," he said. "The Popes are elected here. The Holy Father is inducted into the final of all secrets and that although the secret is in principle evident to everyone."
He stood still, looked about the Sistine with a fiery gaze, observed the painting of Jesus’ life and finally said with a cawing voice: "The Jesus myth has indeed served us well. For the past two thousand years it has distracted Christianity from the actual truth. It is really rather simple: Man only sees what man wants to see. He adheres irrefutably to the old truths of faith. He wants old wine in new cups at best. If they wanted, everyone could actually be consecrated." Monti paused for a moment, took a deep breath and asked with a knowing smile: "How have you handled your consecration, Catherine?"
The young women simply stared at him as the drug continued to have her believe the images on the Sistine walls were alive. At the same time the marble floor swayed beneath her feet. It took everything she had not to collapse from sheer exhaustion. Monti didn’t notice any of it and deRossi, who was standing behind her, seemed to wait for her next moment of weakness. She was so dog-tired, so weak and yet something deep within her told her she had to buy some time. So she played dumb. What did Monti care about how Benelli had introduced her to the truth step by step and how she felt about it?
"I have no idea what you are talking about, Eminence. What do you mean?"
The cardinal surveyed her, curious, predatorily, distrusting, as if he expected a monstrosity to appear in her presence at any moment. But in the end he couldn’t help but explain to her what he meant.
"Let’s take the example of Apostle Andrew." His old voice quivered with excitement. "He performed a lot of miracles before he was crucified. And what about Matthew, Judas’ successor? He was a missionary in Judea, then Ethiopia where he performed many miracles as well. Or let’s think about John, Jesus’ favourite disciple. With a single word he destroyed the Temple of Ephesus, had its dead priest resurrected and survived a torturous bath of scalding oil in Rome. And Peter? He moved to Rome through Asia Minor and Greece, healed the sick and raised people from the dead. That is what I mean, Sister. Anyone can see it as long as he wants to and yet the apostolic mystery is a well-kept secret."
He cast Catherine a mocking look. "On top of all that, the apostles had not only a hard life, but a hard death too." He turned toward Michelangelo’s altar painting and pointed to Bartholomew who held his own skin in his hands. "It must be very unpleasant to be skinned alive. Or to be crucified upside down as Peter was. Not to mention how Simon was split in two with a saw. You don’t see much more torturous suffering and blood baths even in modern horror films."
He turned back toward Catherine. This time his movements appeared to be in slow motion. "But you know what’s really upsetting about the whole thing? That no one seems to care. Go to any pedestrian area and ask the people about the miracles the apostles performed or about the suffering they endured upon their deaths. You won’t get a single suitable answer…"
Let him talk, Catherine thought, attempting to remain standing on her shaky legs. The radiant colours of the renovated chapel around them ran together, creating islands of light and darkness as if they wanted to form new heavenly and hellish images. When she noticed that Monti’s flow of words threatened to dry up, she said foggily: "You haven’t mentioned Judas Iscariot."
The cardinal stared at her as if he hadn’t heard correctly. "I beg your pardon?"
"Judas. You haven’t mentioned Judas Iscariot. The apostle responsible for your consec
ration as former prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith. The apostle who ruined his reputation as a respectable disciple of Jesus Christ in the name of the secret. Without whose sacrifice there never would have been a new covenant between man and God."
"Hogwash. Any dummy knows Judas’ official story," said Monti with an oddly mild tone of voice. "Now to you, Sister. Have you never asked yourself who you truly are?" He took one step closer, but kept a certain distance as if she were a dangerous, highly poisonous snake. "Darius was your mentor all your life and vouched for you in front of Gasperetti. Benelli chose you as the only outsider to whom he revealed the secret. Innocence avoided your condemnation. Leo trusted you with his life. Even Ciban doesn’t seem to be in any hurry with your trial." He made a theatrical pause. "Who or what are you, Catherine? An angel? A demon? A sort of super-apostle?"
"It doesn’t matter who I am. But who gave you the right as a Christian to murder all these people?"
"People?" Monti literally spewed out the word. "Those aren’t people!" He pointed to the altar painting. "Haven’t you ever asked yourself why the angels and demons in the Last Judgement don’t have wings? Yes, they don’t even have an aura. Who are they, the sovereign, unapproachable messengers of heaven? And why aren’t you answering my question?"
Catherine would have loved to grab the old cardinal and toss him out of the chapel. With or without wings. The angels stood for all that is good. She had even seen winged beings in the auras of a few people. Or demons such as that teacher in her primary school who had murdered several boys. What did Monti know about such truths? He certainly hadn’t seen an aura, not to mention a winged soul, in his entire life. She wasn’t going to let him provoke her.
"I’m only interested in one thing…" she said stubbornly. Time. All she needed was a little more time. Something was happening to the chapel, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Was the drug making her crazy? "Why did you have Darius, Thea and all the others killed?"