The Celtic Conspiracy

by Hansen, Thore D.

  “Italians,” the older man said.

  “What?”

  “They were Italians. I saw their license plate.”

  Ryan groaned inwardly, knowing he needed to move faster than his body and his circumstances would allow. If his attackers were actually being controlled by the Vatican, then Shane, Deborah, and even the professor were in serious danger.

  * * *

  AUTOBAHN TOWARD ROME – 4:00 A.M.

  Salvoni sat fuming next to the driver of the bus. He had left some men back at the Magdalensberg to find out if Paltini had just seen a ghost or if Ryan had, against all odds, really managed to escape from the cave.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Did you find him?”

  “The people from the inn did and brought him inside, Padre.”

  “Unbelievable. How could this happen to us? Did he have anything with him?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Let me know if you learn anything else.”

  Salvoni was simmering with rage. The whole operation was threatening to slip through his fingers. First he had been ordered to wait, then the promised reinforcements never showed up, and now two of the interlopers were serenely making their way to Vienna on the autobahn, and the third, who he had assumed would never again see the light of day, was lying in a warm bed at the inn.

  Lambert would waste no time blaming Salvoni for everything. It was always the same story: when a scandal broke, they distanced themselves and pointed to the mistakes of particular underlings. That’s how they had managed for centuries to protect the Vatican and the Holy Father from any kind of investigation or harm.

  Salvoni’s cell phone rang again.

  “Yes.”

  “Padre, what we’re recording here is somewhat troubling,” one of his men said. “The judge is hoping that the find will allow him to take legal action against the Vatican.”

  Salvoni’s already raw nerves flamed. “Stop your work and get out of there. I’ll get back to you with your next orders.”

  * * *

  In Rome, Vincent Contas, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, was getting ready to receive the legendary “library of the pagans.” He was rarely at the archive so early, and he felt an eerie silence throughout the rooms where the historical treasures of the earlier Roman Inquisition were stored directly next to the rooms of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. Nowhere else on earth had an institution tried so intensely for centuries to control the most dangerous medium next to the Bible: the book.

  Contas was curious why the pagan Druids had been willing to suspend their ban on writing. As he looked around, he could see Padre Econo, who was setting up a room for the examination and conservation of the scrolls. He was one of the best restorers in the world and an acknowledged expert in the field of Celtic cultural history.

  “How are you, Padre?” Contas called to him from a good fifty feet away.

  “Oh, Cardinal, thank you. I’m doing splendidly. I see the excitement brought you here early today as well?”

  “Not so much as you might think,” Contas said, playing down the issue. “From antiquity to the present day, lost souls out there who have turned away from the Church are always pouncing on the legends of the Druids. They do this in the vain attempt to prove their pagan ideals, and they’ll often use questionable or ostensibly historical sources if need be.”

  “Now, Cardinal, for every word that has been written about the Druids, there are just as many erroneous ideas. Nevertheless, we know that there’s more to the story and...”

  “Save your energy, Padre. You know very well I don’t share your enthusiasm for this superstition. The time for these soulless denominations has passed, and it won’t come again.” Contas crossed himself. “The whole uproar isn’t because of the actual meaning of these artifacts. It’s just that they shouldn’t fall into hands that don’t mean us well.”

  * * *

  INN AT THE MAGDALENSBERG – EARLY MORNING

  Ryan was still lying down in the guest room. He had found the cell phone, covered in mud. His wallet, however, was missing, along with all of his travel documents. He’d managed to convince his rescuers not to call the police, assuring them that he would show his appreciation for their hospitality and help.

  “Thank you so much,” Ryan said to Irena, the waitress who had bandaged his wounds and laid out some fresh clothes on a chair. He was using a hair dryer in an attempt to dry out the cell phone enough to make it work again. He had to let MacClary know what was going on. He wasn’t getting anywhere, though. Frustrated, he turned off the dryer and lay back in bed to rest for a while.

  His eyes fell on the box with the parchment. He had been so lucky that the box hadn’t hit a stone when he fell back against the wall. Instead, it had slipped into a recess.

  Exactly 1,625 years after his druidic ancestor had written this parchment, it lay next to him now. Even with his meager knowledge of Latin, Ryan had been able to translate enough to know what a shattering effect this evidence would have. Most people still believed that the triumph of Christianity had led to a humanization of the wild, uncouth pagans.

  Christianity can’t imagine faith and love without a death toll, Ryan thought. The image of the crucified God, the passion history, and all the martyr legends apparently served only to prepare and justify their own atrocities toward the heretics and the pagans. Maybe, in the end, his scroll and the things that Deborah and Shane had brought to Dublin would lead Christians to accept their historical truth.

  Everything went dark again, but this time it was sleep that finally triumphed over his thoughts.

  VIENNA TO DUBLIN – MARCH 18, MORNING

  Shane had gotten less than two hours of sleep on the plane before they landed in Dublin. Instead of a commercial airline, MacClary had a chartered jet waiting for them at the airport. Everything else in Vienna had gone incredibly smoothly as well, and Shane was completely overwhelmed with the whole experience. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought he would get to take part in an adventure like this.

  It was gradually becoming clear to him that he had found more than just an explanation for people’s rootlessness. Thanks to the discoveries in the cave, he could now see the crossroad in front of him where humanity had made the wrong turn. Who knew what other truths Deborah would be able to glean from the parchment?

  Shane gently shook Deborah’s shoulder. “We’ve landed.”

  The linguist had curled up in the fetal position in her chair and was now looking at him, hollow eyed and pale. “What? Oh...has MacClary called yet?”

  Shane pointed out the cockpit window. On the edge of the landing field, they could see MacClary with Jennifer standing next to him.

  “Am I glad we’re here! I hope the scrolls have held up well,” Deborah said, giving one more huge yawn before she got herself out of the seat with some effort.

  The plane slowly came to a stop in front of a hangar. There they could already see a delivery van and MacClary’s limousine. Deborah grabbed her things and went to the boxes that they had put on the empty seats. The artifacts had to be brought immediately to the place MacClary had prepared for them. “I’ll be curious to see what else is coming our way,” Deborah said as she opened the door.

  “Adam, Deborah,” Jennifer said as they deplaned. “I am incredibly happy to see you. Let’s start right in packing up the boxes.”

  MacClary was about to greet them when his cell phone rang. He stepped to the side to take the call. But in the same moment he turned around, his whole face beaming. “Ryan! Where in the devil have you been? There should be an archaeology team from Vienna there by now and—”

  The professor’s expression dropped. He turned on the phone’s speaker so everyone could hear.

  “I was within an inch of being killed. Apparently our mission wasn’t a secret at all. Who did you discuss it with?”

  MacClary shook his head, at a loss. “No one! I don’t understand. Do you have any idea where thes
e people came from?”

  “I can’t tell you for sure who they were, but I can draw my own conclusions. They were very professional, and they didn’t think twice about leaving me in a burning cave. It’s a miracle I got out alive. The family that’s been taking care of me was able to see the license plate of the bus they drove away in. It came from Italy.”

  “But how could someone in Rome have found out about our plans? Where are you now?”

  “I’m still at the inn, waiting until the coast is clear. I’m afraid someone saw me when I escaped the cave. We can’t talk anymore right now. Someone might even be listening in on us. I’m going to throw away my cell phone, but I want to tell you one more thing. I’ve found what I was looking for. The circle is complete, and I won’t take any chances. I’m not safe near you right now. The thing that you’ve been discussing, purely theoretically, with Jennifer, well, let’s just say that it might actually be possible.”

  The color rose on MacClary’s face. “What do you mean by that? Please, stay where you are. I’ll have you picked up and brought safely to Dublin...”

  “No, listen to me. We’ll do this differently. Plan B. I think you know the best place for me to go. In any case, I’ll need some time to recover. When the dust has settled a bit, I’ll contact you again. I have a good friend who can help me. Ronald, trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

  MacClary seemed resigned to Thomas’s will. “One last question, Thomas. What happened to the rest of the artifacts?”

  “Everything was destroyed or stolen. Put Deborah on the phone.”

  “You’re on speaker.”

  Deborah stepped closer so Thomas would be able to hear her clearly. “Thomas, damn it, what happened? You—”

  “Ronald will explain it. We don’t have much time. Please take care of yourselves. You have to translate the parchments quickly, and they have to be stored in an absolutely secure spot.”

  “What are you going to do in the meantime?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll join you with the other scroll soon enough. I have to get off now. See you soon.”

  “Thomas...” Deborah stopped speaking into the phone when she realized Thomas was no longer there. “Why does he always have to be so pigheaded?”

  “What happened?” Jennifer asked impatiently.

  “He wants to go to Washington,” MacClary said. “But I don’t understand...”

  “Don’t you, Ronald?” Jennifer interrupted. “It’s pretty obvious what he wants to do in Washington. It was you who put these crazy ideas in his head. Now, apparently, he believes that he really has something there.”

  “He does have something,” Deborah said.

  Shane had been watching the conversation as though he hadn’t been standing in the middle of it. Now he intervened. “Wait a minute; let’s go over this again calmly. We have dozens of parchments here. We have Thomas with another apparently explosive scroll, and we seem to have some sort of henchmen from the Vatican who are most likely examining and preserving the remaining scrolls.”

  “How do you know that?” Deborah said. “Perhaps they destroyed everything. And even if they bring the artifacts to Rome, how does that help us?”

  MacClary took a step toward them. “Can we discuss this later? We have to get away from here.”

  “Where are we going?” Shane asked.

  “I was lucky. My many invitations to the bustling embassies in Dublin have given me access to a basement where Deborah can work protected and undisturbed.”

  Shane made eye contact with MacClary. “And what will you do?”

  “First we’ll drive home. Not a word to Ms. Copendale, though. She’d wring my neck if she found out about your adventures, and especially about Ryan, and I don’t want to burden her old heart any more than necessary. Jennifer and I will fly to Washington as soon as we can. I think it’s time to do some investigating.”

  ROME – MARCH 18, MORNING

  Lambert was still waiting for a phone call from Salvoni. He hadn’t spoken with the man since yesterday, and he was starting to get a bad feeling. Perhaps he should have taken old Morati’s warnings more seriously and paid more attention to Salvoni’s advice.

  As he turned the corner, he saw to his surprise and relief that the Vatican bus was parked in front of the entrance and that Salvoni’s men had already brought most of the artifacts into the archive. Lambert entered and couldn’t believe his eyes. He had rarely seen so much activity here. The room was full of boxes, and at least a dozen men were running around, frantically working on the preparations for storing and examining the artifacts. Salvoni was sitting in one of the back rooms making telephone calls. He gave a quick wave to Lambert.

  “Good, just keep waiting there,” Salvoni said into the phone. “He has to come out sometime. When he does, follow him. You’ll be getting more backup. But don’t grab him unless he’s carrying something suspicious. Do you understand?”

  When Salvoni hung up, Lambert confronted him. “Why didn’t you report back to me?”

  “Excuse me, Cardinal, but your last remarks left me with the impression that you felt Padre Morati and I were wasting our time chasing after an old and irrelevant legend. I have conducted myself accordingly.”

  “Very well. The good Lord will know what the truth of the matter is. You, on the other hand, still seem to be seeking satisfaction. Weren’t you the one who asked for more trust between us? Unless I am sorely mistaken, you are still sworn to God and the Holy See, not to your own wounded vanity.”

  Salvoni seemed to consider this briefly, then abruptly changed the subject. “Why didn’t we get any reinforcements last night? If we had, we would have had no problems completing the expedition.”

  “Well, unfortunately, recent events have made even our Austrian friends less eager to get mixed up in a sticky situation for us. I managed to arrange plenty of time for you by postponing the arrival of the archaeological team from Vienna. At least I could take care of that much.”

  “How? I don’t understand.”

  “Your judge just made the find official,” Lambert said resentfully. “I only found out about it through a contact in the foreign ministry. That was how I was able to arrange for the necessary delay.”

  Salvoni looked away and then glanced back up at Lambert. “Well, perhaps you should see what we’ve brought back, Cardinal.”

  Salvoni guided him toward the artifacts. Even a cursory glance at the scrolls left a lasting impression. Lambert walked around between the restorers and the boxes until his eyes locked onto one particular parchment. He could only make out a few lines, but the words Genesis and Pharaoh made him immediately uneasy. As he continued, he found a young worker translating a treatise against the Christians written by a Druid who had lived at the court of Theodosius I. It depicted with startling clarity the practices for which the pagans of Europe had been first denounced and then persecuted, tortured, and killed for having. There was a report in different handwriting about the religious tolerance of the Christians until Constantine seized power. Then suddenly even the original Christians were being persecuted. The report ended with the escape of many Christians into the deserts of the Middle East, or even as far as India.

  Lambert sat down and tried to process what he was seeing. He could never have imagined that a find like this would be possible, but he was sure now that what lay before him was as significant as the Qumran scrolls. It didn’t matter what else they found. If these writings were made public, they would fan the flames of the atheists, the critics of the Church, and those scientists who were disseminating all sorts of theories about a creation without God. This criminal nonsense was already fueling speculation among the faithful and the unfaithful throughout the world. Even in the pontifical academy there was an increasing number of people discussing this sacrilege—and with complete impunity.

  On another scroll there were drawings of stags, bulls, boars, and hares, the graven images of the Celts. The Druids identified themselves with these animals. They were
their familiar spirits, deeply anchored in the Celtic consciousness. Lambert knew from his own research that the ancient religions didn’t identify these images with gods; they only used them as representative symbols. The cults related to this so-called idol worship had been used for ages as proof of the animalistic and godless nature of the pagan religions. It didn’t matter if Ambrosius or Gregory of Nyssa were called to be the chief witnesses: the extermination of the pagans was from the outset a holy duty of the Church.

  The sheer volume of these artifacts was alarming, even more so because a great number—it was impossible to say how great—was in the hands of a powerful critic of the Church. Lambert would have to report all this to the Holy Father. This matter couldn’t be swept under the carpet, and as soon as the public got wind of it, it would come back to haunt the Church. This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.

  “Salvoni, I have to beg your forgiveness, and probably even more so that of Padre Morati, but we’re concerned here with documents from a time when the young Church of Jesus Christ had to ward off an unbelievable number of lies and heresies. We cannot allow these things to get into the wrong hands again. What does MacClary actually have?”

  “I can’t tell you for sure, but before we got there, one of my men saw several boxes being transported away. And then there is this Thomas Ryan, who attacked me in the cave. He got away, but empty-handed, and we have his papers.”

  “Good. Give them to me. I’ll use every channel to make sure we get ahold of him, and you should keep your people there as well. Perhaps we can make MacClary see reason. We’ll try to frame him for this. In the meantime, try to figure out what he’s planning and what he has.”

  “Cardinal, I’m afraid that will be difficult,” Salvoni stammered. “We had to pull our people out of Dublin. I just can’t be sure that we haven’t been compromised.”