“The medal is for doers, not believers.”
“On one condition.” Leone indicated his fellow officers. “That I accept it, not for me, but on behalf of the Polizia di Stato of Rome. They did the fighting . . . and the dying.”
“Agreed.”
“Please give us a blessing, Your Holiness.” Though the cry came from behind, Leone recognized the voice of Inspector Rossi. How could this be? His right-hand man was the in-your-face anticleric from Turin. He knew more colorful blasphemous curses than anyone in the department. An officer knelt on the floor to the inspector’s right. Another to his left. One by one they all fell to their knees except Leone. The pope blessed him anyway.
Mondocane barked at the pope as he raised his hand in blessing. He stooped to let the three-legged canine sniff his fingers and papal ring.
“If you, too, want a blessing,” the pope said, “you must stop barking . . . and lie down.”
Mondocane obeyed and wobbled down onto his stomach to Leone’s astonishment. He had never been able to command such obedience. Patting the dog’s head, the pope blessed Mondocane before an officer full of apologies for the dog’s behavior shooed Mondocane away.
After blessing the police, Celestine congratulated each for their heroism. Following the lead of the first officer in line, each knelt and kissed the pope’s ring. When Celestine VI approached Leone standing off to the side, he offered his ring.
“I won’t kiss your ring.” Leone looked at the ground. “Nothing personal.”
“Thanks for not doing so,” the pope whispered, winking and lowering his arm. “Just between us, all the grabbing and kissing aggravates my arthritic fingers.”
His identity blurred under motorcycle goggles, a green baseball cap, and a black leather jacket over his cassock, the pope told his secretary the time had come to return to the heavenly prison. As they sped away, Leone tipped his hat in farewell.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
In blue uniforms, the Swiss guard marching band struck up a brassy musical fanfare heralding Celestine VI’s Easter Sunday urbi et orbi address to the city and the world.
The afternoon sun broke through a previously overcast sky and illuminated rows of yellow tulips and purple azaleas decorating St. Peter’s Square under a crystal-blue sky dappled white with powder-puff clouds. God Has Delivered Us From Evil read a banner held aloft by three nuns while church bells gonged across Rome in thanksgiving for the failure of the coup d’état.
Overcome by the applause of a crowd he estimated at two hundred thousand, Leone hastened back to the section reserved for honorees after receiving the Benemerenti medal. Trying to avoid stepping on toes, he made his way through the seated row of honorees wearing identical Benemerenti medals glistening in the sun. He returned to the seat beside Professor Fisher, wearing a medal for his exploration of the Villa of the Papyri and the Callinicus sarcophagus.
He might as well tell the professor now. “My newfound American cousin is displeased. You haven’t returned her calls.”
“Mea culpa.” He tapped his chest with a fist in a gesture of theatrical contrition. “I’ve been very busy. His Holiness appointed me to a committee studying the theological implications of our recent discoveries.”
“I’m too busy at work . . . That’s what I told my now-alienated daughter.”
The crowd rustled and murmured. Celestine VI would appear at any moment above them in the Loggia of the Blessings framed by three other balconies on each side of the Loggia.
“I promise.” The professor’s face turned serious. “I’ll call today.”
“My advice is—”
Shouts and clapping erupted in St. Peter’s Square. Fisher pointed to the Loggia of the Blessings. Flanked on each side by an assistant in a white surplice, the pontiff entered the central balcony in the cream-colored vestments of skullcap and cassock. A flight of doves released into the air circled the papal chair in the loggia before flapping away. Celestine VI raised his right hand over the swirling tide of humanity in the piazza.
“No more tiara, no more chasuble, no more red shoes like an ancient Roman patrician.” Fisher laughed. “Prada’s losing business with this pope.”
Professional instincts on alert, the commissario scanned the facade of St. Peter’s and the surrounding roofs for the glint of a sniper’s rifle. It would take time to mop up all of Piso’s supporters. Did a desperado survive, ravenous for revenge? If only the Secret Service had looked up at the Texas School Book Depository Building in Dallas, his hero might not have died. The assassination of a pope on Leone’s watch was an if-only nightmare he’d never live down.
Everything looked as it should. Only police sharpshooters stood on the rooftops where he wanted them. The Vatican had its security on full alert. Besides the Swiss guards and the gendarmes, the Vatican Inspectorate of Public Security surveilled the crowd from blue-and-white mini Lamborghinis looking like souped-up golf carts.
About to begin his address, Celestine VI stumbled, grabbing at the microphone near the papal chair. The microphone squawked and screeched. Gasps and screams broke out around Leone. Leone jumped up.
Did somebody shoot the pope?
Two assistants guided the pope onto his chair and readjusted the microphone. Speaking into it, Celestine VI apologized for the alarm his clumsiness had caused. He quipped that infallibility did not extend to his feet. Silence greeted the pope’s remark until isolated titters in the crowd avalanched into laughter booming throughout St. Peter’s Square. A pair of prelates seated in front of Leone turned around to view the spectacle in lemon-lipped disapproval.
“Humor and laughter.” Fisher nudged the commissario with his elbow. “Something new in Saint Peter’s Square.”
“Dear brothers and sisters,” the pope began, setting aside the prepared text. “The Church needs to be forgiven as well as to forgive. Whatever was twisted in those who sought to overthrow our faith and country . . . the misguided among us helped twist. The misguided sought to bury truth, but truth cannot stay buried. It will rise, just as our Lord, Jesus Christ, arose from the tomb where his enemies thought him buried and forgotten.”
The microphone shrieked. The pope tapped it with his fingers. The noise subsided.
“Those who suppress truth in God’s name blaspheme by presuming to protect a God who needs no protection. They protect only their own fears of doubt and uncertainty.”
The pope’s voice cracked. He paused.
“We are but caterpillars, creeping along, heads down, searching our way, day by day, on the complex tapestry of life, unaware of the whole, but wandering . . . straying . . . until we . . .”
Celestine VI stammered.
A stroke? Leone looked around for medical assistance.
“Become butterflies,” the pope blurted out.
Celestine VI recovered his train of thought with an ever stronger voice. Humankind, he said, had to cling to the tapestry of life in faith, in love, and in the hope that someday they would, like butterflies, fly above the tapestry and see more of the grand design in what was once a tangle of threads.
The microphone emitted a series of squeals syncopating the pope’s thought into intelligible and unintelligible disconnected phrases, something about the invisible Church of Saint Augustine . . . not corruptible institutions with wolves within while sheep remain without . . . a community of God embracing all seeking truth with goodwill . . . The microphone stopped squealing.
“I intend to follow the examples of Benedict the Sixteenth and my namesake, Celestine the Fifth.” The pope’s voice came through loud and clear. “I have decided to retire from the papal office. I long to rejuvenate the remainder of my life in the service of the poor and the afflicted in my native Nigeria.”
The pope waved down the no-no chants of the multitude into a muttering of discontent, trailing off to acquiescence.
“My brother bishops are as
ked to submit resignations at seventy-five years of age. Why then should I . . . the Bishop of Rome . . . be exempt?”
He blessed the crush of people in the square and concluded with the words of Paul of Tarsus at the end of his mission. “I am poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.”
Leaving the national greetings in over sixty languages to a cardinal rumored to have the inside papal track, Celestine turned to leave.
A cascade of cheers from the common people below followed him into the Papal Palace.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Was he just late again or had he stood her up? Nicole Garvey shaded her eyes with her hand. She squinted down the Spanish steps for his arrival.
The Barcaccia Fountain in the Piazza di Spagna below fueled Garvey’s agitation. Chipped, scratched, and graffiti-riddled by waves of soccer hooligans from beyond the Alps, the hull-shaped sculpture lived up to its representation of a sinking . . . relationship . . . He should have phoned . . . It was sinking . . . Government funds for repair dried up . . . like their relationship . . . Rome never falls, it just crumbles . . . like their . . . Fifteen more minutes and—
He waved his way up the Spanish steps framed with potted bougainvilleas and crowded with lunchtime loungers. Composing herself, she held up a brown paper bag in a half-hearted salutation.
He stumbled against a cadaverous young man with a purple Mohawk haircut sitting on a step. The hooligan sprang up and kicked at Fisher. She hurried her way down to hear Fisher plead, “Scusi. Scusi.”
“Speak English. I’m not some bloody foreigner.” The hooligan waved a smashed panino in Fisher’s face. “You stomped my lunch. Now pay up.”
Fisher dropped coins into the outstretched hand.
“Go start a soccer riot somewhere,” Garvey said. “You shouldn’t be eating on the steps anyway.”
He wiggled his gimme-gimme fingers until Fisher donated more coins.
The shakedown rankled her. She held her peace. He wasn’t going to change. “Let’s go.” She nodded up the stairs to an open space by a staircase wall. “We have to talk.”
He followed her up the greater part of the 135 steps. She braced her back against the wall. “Why did you avoid me?”
“I didn’t.” He ran his forefinger along the inside of his collar. “Just busy.”
“You sold out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was in the Charlemagne Wing.” She set the paper bag down. “I heard you recant. All your brave talk about taking a stand went out the window.”
“Aren’t you overreacting?”
“Don’t patronize me just because I’m . . .” She bit her lower lip and looked up at the twin belfries of Trinity Church on top of the hill. “Just tell me why you did it.”
“They gave me back my professorship at the Greg. Now that I’m famous, if I may say so, I can’t just leave Rome and burn my bridges. I’ve got follow-up work here. I’ve got to—”
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
“The Greg is my home. It’s part of me.”
Thirty pieces of silver. They paid him thirty pieces of silver.
“What’s in the bag?”
She picked it up. “Are these yours?”
She pulled out three empty Jack Daniels miniatures.
“Why would they be?”
“I found them after you left my place . . . in my toilet tank.”
“I haven’t done airplanes in a while.” He took her arm. “What about us?”
“Us?” She moved away. “We can always be friends.”
“How?” He pointed to the home of John Keats at the foot of the steps. “Keats wrote his sweetheart that love was his religion and for love he could die. That’s more than friendship.”
“Don’t go maudlin on me. Keats was a hormone-riddled twenty-year-old about to die of tuberculosis.”
She regretted her tone. This man so mature in other respects had the romantic vulnerabilities of a pimply teenager.
“Is this what I get for trying to be honest?”
“Trying isn’t enough, Will.” He wasn’t making it easier for her. She hugged herself. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
“How can you say that? After everything . . . all the magic moments.”
“Please, Will. We’re not on stage.” Aware of people staring, she sat down on the steps. He sat beside her. “It won’t work,” she said.
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
“How about writing your own life script and not rehearsing someone else’s?”
“When can I see you again?”
“That’ll be hard to do.” She stood up and smoothed her slacks. “I’m accepting the visitorship at the University of Chicago.”
“What about me?” He looked up at her with puppy eyes.
“It all comes down to that, doesn’t it?” She waved goodbye. “Good luck.”
And then she was gone.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Suitcase at his side, Leone downed his afternoon espresso inside Da Pappagallo.
SEISMIC TREMORS VANISH
The front-page banner headline barricaded the face of the patron jammed next to him at the bar. Leone leaned in to skim the article under the subheading “Vatican Shores Up St. Peter’s Foundation.”
A bulbous-nosed man lowered the newspaper and shot the violator of his space a sour stare. Leone looked away, pretending to assess the qualities of a puff pastry in the showcase. The man harrumphed and returned to reading. Leone checked the time. They would have to leave for the airport soon.
“Much better inside than outside, no?” asked the owner of Da Pappagallo.
“I’d say so.”
“What? You agree?” The owner stooped across the bar and touched Leone’s forehead. “Hmmm . . . you must be sick.”
“Must be your coffee.” He looked toward the door.
“Relax. They’re always late.”
A moon-faced patron with a Roma fan scarf swirled around his neck grabbed the remote from the counter. “Time for the championship game between Roma and Lazio.” Other patrons shouted a chorus of approval.
The fan clicked on the TV above the gold, gleaming La Marzocco espresso machine flanked by bottles of liquor on the shelves. The maroon-and-orange jerseys of Roma, the city team, and the white and blue of Lazio, the regional team, poured onto the field amid the pandemonium of the packed stadium. Not even the Mithras conspiracy could derail a cultural ritual more enduring than any governmental upheaval.
His claws clattering on the tile floor, Mondocane scrambled through the doors of Da Pappagallo on a leash held by Inspector Rossi. He barked a greeting to Leone. The inspector released Mondocane. Mondocane cavorted and begged for food and attention as though he were showing off his prosthetic leg donated by the Leone Squad as a going-away present. The pointer made whole wagged his tail and waddled over to Leone. He sat on his haunches with four-legged ease.
“Thanks, Enzo, for walking him before we go.”
“No problem, boss.” Rossi looked worried. “Still not here?”
“Still not here.” Leone opened the travel carrier as Mondocane circled the trap. He tricked him inside with a dog biscuit and snapped the lid shut. “I got you.”
The patrons gathered round the TV and hooted approval. Roma won the coin toss. Leone cheered along. For him, Roma represented the nitty-gritty proletarian heart of the city against the right-wing team favored by Mussolini. Even with gentrification ripping through the old Jewish ghetto like typhus, knee-jerk loyalty for city fans like him remained a traditional badge of leftist sentiment.
Rossi handed the leash to the commissario. “With Malatesta gone, the boys in the know say you’re favored to take over as questore.”
“Are you trying to cheer me up or depress me?” Leone
hugged the inspector. “Thanks for everything.”
“Time to get back to the questura.” He shook the commissario’s hand. “Good luck . . . my friend.”
Soon after Rossi’s departure, Nicole Garvey entered, dragging her roller luggage with a carry-on bag perched at the top.
Happy to see her, Leone brushed her cheeks with his.
“Anyone meeting you at the Chicago airport?” she asked.
“Officer J-im Mur-phy, I think.” He pulled Murphy’s letter from the inside pocket of his jacket to confirm the name. He hoped to remember the spelling. “Chicago Police Department. Office of International Relations. He’s meeting me with a limousine and driver.”
The letter warned of an anonymous threat against his life if he came to Chicago. He was used to threats. No need to worry her. “And what about you?” he asked.
“I’m just a visiting professor in archaeology. Not some big shot who put down a coup d’état.” She nudged him with her elbow. “I have to make my own way to the campus.”
“Will I see my American cousin in Chicago?”
“Naturally.” She linked her arm with his. “You and I are family.”
“Time to go.” Leone picked up Mondocane in his carrier cage. “Mondocane and I are about to discover America.”
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the team at Girl Friday Productions for their top-notch assistance in the production of The Mithras Conspiracy. Without their help, the technical aspects of launching a novel into the marketplace of ideas and imagination would have daunted this writer. I am indebted to Sara Addicott for seamlessly coordinating the production of this novel from one end of the country in Seattle, Washington, to my home in Sarasota, Florida, despite a three-hour time lag.
My hat goes off to Scott Calamar and Wanda Zimba, whose copyediting and proofreading skills made The Mithras Conspiracy a better read than when they received it. Thanks is also owed Paul Barrett, Rachel Marek, and Georgie Hockett, for their design and marketing skills. I also extend my appreciation to any unknown soldiers at Girl Friday Productions who may have helped in the fight to get The Mithras Conspiracy published and to the late Jim Agnew, dogged researcher, who shared his love of fiction and never let me forget that writers are supposed to write no matter what.
The Mithras Conspiracy Page 30