Sign of the Cross

by Glenn Cooper

  ‘Consider it done, professor. I will issue a decree to the cardinal librarian and the cardinal archivist. I hope that as a result of this special privilege that you will come and visit us often. My door will always be open to you.’

  ‘Thank you, Holy Father. I’m humbled and grateful.’

  Their walk complete, the pope told Cal there was one more thing he wished to say.

  ‘You know, professor,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye, ‘if you had offered the Holy Lance to the Vatican, we would likely have accepted it.’

  Cal had only one more full day in Rome before his flight home, but he was too dog-tired to do anything that night but hang out in his hotel room and order dinner in. He’d heard from Irene that Giovanni was recovering in the hospital, fortified by blood transfusions and mama’s food. If all went well, he’d be discharged in the morning and taken straight back to Monte Sulla to celebrate Sunday Mass. It would be a media circus but he was determined to get on with life as a parish priest.

  Irene was staying with her mother, aunt and nephew in the Carabinieri flat on the Via Veneto. At noon, they’d be driven back to Francavilla but before they left, he’d see her for coffee. He was anxiously still trying to work out what he’d say. He wanted to see her again, he wanted her in his life but how was that going to work? And what did she want? He poured all three of the minibar vodkas into a glass and gulped them down. Within seconds the clear medicine took effect and he felt his anxieties melting away. He’d wing it with Irene in the morning. He was good at winging it with women.

  There was a knock on the door and a muffled announcement of room service. He was sunk so low into his chair that he had to work to push himself free of it.

  If he weren’t tipsy, he might have thought more of the waiter’s ill-fitting jacket, his tortured rendition of ‘buonasera signore’ and his leaving the door ajar after he wheeled in the cart. And he might have reacted more aggressively when the waiter lifted the cloche to reveal not a plate of rigatoni, but a semi-automatic pistol quickly pointed at his chest.

  Cal backed up a few paces, suddenly more attentive to the waiter’s face. It belonged to an older, distinguished man, a gentleman with an unmistakable air of privilege. The white service jacket was an absurdity, not just because of its fit but because this man didn’t seem to have a servile bone in his body.

  ‘Professor Donovan,’ Schneider said. ‘Finally.’

  He recognized it as the disembodied Germanic voice from Jerusalem.

  The room door opened and closed again.

  Gerhardt he recognized from sight. The big blonde man, wearing the clothes of a hotel worker, was holding the same pistol and suppressor Cal had seen him wielding in Munich.

  His sense of revulsion was overwhelming.

  This was the man who had stripped and humiliated Irene.

  This was the man who had left them to die by fire.

  And this was the man who was probably going to kill him tonight with a bullet he wouldn’t hear.

  ‘Please don’t move, Professor,’ Schneider said.

  Gerhardt took a few long strides to get behind Cal. Immediately he felt a sharp then a burning pain from the needle Gerhardt had stabbed into his buttock.

  ‘Now you may sit,’ Schneider said.

  The effect of the injection was swift. Cal wobbled onto the sofa while Gerhardt adjusted the drapes. Schneider removed his white jacket and substituted it for a fine cashmere sports coat neatly folded in the warming tray of the food cart. He sat opposite Cal, casually resting his pistol on his lap.

  Cal felt a need to try and count the wavy lines forming and dissolving in front of his face. When he lost count he started again. He tried to say the count out loud but if anything came out he couldn’t hear it.

  There was another cart in the room. He tried to stand up to announce that there was no need for all these carts, but he only managed to get halfway up. Gerhardt was there to prevent his body from striking the corner of the wrought iron coffee table. In one athletic move, the muscular fellow had Cal up on a big shoulder and tipped into a hotel laundry cart.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  He figured it out quickly enough.

  Whatever had been in the syringe had worn off. He was no longer in his hotel room. He swiveled his neck from side to side getting the lay of the land. This was a private home. He was in a large bedroom with modern paintings on the wall. A plug-in security camera was pointed at him from a chest of drawers.

  Cal was expecting to find himself tethered to the bed but surprisingly he wasn’t. He put his feet down and tentatively took a few steps, but his head felt like a water balloon stretched to the breaking point. He sat back down and tried to find an effective place to rub away his throbbing headache.

  Two sets of footsteps were coming up the stairs. Apparently he’d been the video entertainment for the Germans.

  ‘Where are we?’ Cal asked Schneider.

  ‘Not so far from the city center. A quiet villa on the Via Appia Antica.’

  ‘Nice place to live. Yours?’

  ‘It belongs to a colleague.’

  ‘Also a nice place to die,’ Gerhardt said, playfully waving his gun. ‘We’re not far from the catacombs.’

  ‘So why am I still alive?’

  Schneider pulled up a chair.

  ‘This doesn’t require a lot of fuss and it doesn’t require a long, drawn out interrogation,’ he said. ‘You will tell us what we need to know and there will be no pain. If you refuse, there will be unbelievable pain and then it will still come to the same conclusion. And this is quite important for you to know; if you give us bad information we will interrogate and we will hurt Irene Berardino and Giovanni Berardino. One or both of them will probably tell us what we need to know before they are killed. Today, the police are watching them. Tomorrow they will no longer be under protection. Do you understand your situation?’

  Cal nodded. He understood perfectly.

  ‘Good. You already know what I am going to ask. Tell me what happened to the relics. They belong to us and we want them back.’

  Cal massaged his eyes. A wave of nausea rippled his gut. Typical, he thought. I’m going to die with a hangover.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Cal asked. ‘You want to have another crack at Israel?’

  Schneider sighed. ‘Curious to the last. The mark of an academic. We followed your curious wanderings around Italy and Germany to see what you’d find about our mutual interests. You did well. Too well. We tried to kill you twice. The third time won’t be lucky. So, it will be Israel or New York or Los Angeles or any place with a large number of Jews. We’ll finish what Hitler started and take it from there.’

  ‘Teutonic knights, riding into the sunset.’

  ‘No. The sunrise. Dawn of a new day and all that. Now come, I’m not here to talk about the past or the future. Only the present should concern us. Where are the relics?’

  Cal was thinking fast about how he was going to play this out. At this stunningly depressing moment all he really cared about was protecting Irene. His story had to be convincing and the best way to persuade someone of the truth was to tell the truth. Mostly.

  ‘The thorn was burned to ash. We tried to pick it up but it was dust.’

  ‘Pity,’ Schneider said.

  ‘You believe him?’ Gerhardt said.

  Schneider shrugged. ‘So far, yes. The other relics?’

  ‘They’re at the bottom of the deep blue sea.’

  That elicited a deep frown from the older man. ‘Oh yes? How did this happen?’

  ‘We went to Tel Aviv the next day. I rented a jet ski and went out a long way into the Mediterranean. First I tossed the lance, then I rode some more and I tossed the nail. No landmarks, no GPS coordinates. I couldn’t find them if my life depended on it, which I guess it does.’

  ‘And why did you do this?’

  ‘Didn’t want you assholes or any assholes in the future to blow up Jews, or Christians, or Muslims, or people of any stripes. It didn’t t
ake a lot of thought.’

  ‘An historian who destroys precious historical artifacts,’ Schneider said, standing up. ‘How very disappointing.’

  ‘You’re just going to accept what he says?’ Gerhardt asked. ‘Let me ask him my way.’

  ‘I think he’s telling the truth. In any event he is unlikely to change his story, even with your methods. When we have the girl and the priest, we will see if they tell the same story. Then we’ll know for sure.’

  Cal stood too, prompting Gerhardt to raise his gun and slide in between Schneider and the professor.

  ‘I’ve told you everything,’ Cal said, his voice rising and his head pounding. ‘Leave them alone.’

  ‘It’s no longer your concern,’ Schneider said. ‘Give me the gun, Gerhardt.’

  ‘Why?’ the big man asked.

  ‘Despite a long and interesting life, there’s something I’ve never done. I’ve never killed a man. I think this would be a good time to rectify this. Is the safety off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  The handoff between the two men took no more than two seconds and in that time, Cal made one last desperate attempt to stay alive.

  As Schneider was raising the gun to waist level, Cal threw himself forward, chopping at his gun arm with his left hand and swinging his right fist into Schneider’s forehead.

  Before Gerhardt landed the first blow to his midsection, Cal heard three sounds in rapid succession: Schneider’s low grunt as the man tumbled to the floor, the clattering of the gun against the tiles and the low, pneumatic percussion of a silenced round discharged into a wall.

  Gerhardt was an enraged bull, pounding Cal with heavy fists and jackhammer knees. Cal tried to fight back but his fists seemed to be hitting concrete. Nothing he could do was slowing down the hailstorm of blows.

  The big man also did some kicking and Cal got hammered with a boot to the abdomen that sent him falling backwards against the dresser. He hit it hard and fell to his knees. There was something horribly vulnerable being doubled over like this. Gerhardt was closing the short distance and if Cal stayed down he was going to get kicked in the head and that would be it. Reaching for something, his hand caught against the handle of a dresser drawer. He tried to pull himself up but he pitched forward, the drawer flying out of the dresser, scattering matronly underwear around the room.

  Gerhardt stood over him measuring him for an incapacitating blow. Maybe a boot slammed down on his neck or maybe a two-handed ax-chop to the back of his head.

  The ax it was.

  Gerhardt started to lower the boom like an executioner, when Cal blindly swung the drawer by its handle with every last bit of his strength.

  There was a crunching sound of wood or skull or both.

  Gerhardt was on the floor next to him surrounded by pieces of wood. He was still moving. His arms and legs were pushing against the ground, attempting to right his big, toppled body.

  Cal was on all fours. His hand was empty. He wanted to stand and he used the dresser like a ladder to get to his feet. There was a crystal lamp on the dresser, a fancy, feminine fixture, lying on its side next to fallen picture frames and shattered glass. The lamp found its way into Cal’s hands and when he lifted it over his head, the cord unplugged itself and the lamp went dark.

  He heard himself shouting, ‘You’re not going to hurt her again, you’re not going to hurt her again,’ and he saw blood, so much blood. The crystal lamp buried itself over and over inside Gerhardt’s skull.

  Schneider moaned and woke to see a battered, mangled head.

  At first he seemed to smile, thinking perhaps that it was Donovan’s, but the truth hit him and he began to wail, ‘Gerhardt! No!’

  Cal was panting for breath. The room was a slowly spinning top.

  Both men saw Gerhardt’s pistol at the same time but Cal made the first move.

  He lunged for it, felt the rough grip in his fist and wheeled around, looking for his target.

  Schneider was lurching down the hall, his shoulders hitting one wall, then the other until there was a door in front of him.

  Another bedroom.

  He closed the door behind him and locked it.

  Cal followed, raging at him, screaming, ‘You’re not going to hurt her again, you bastard!’

  Schneider frantically searched the desk, then the nightstands to the left then the right of his bed. He’d been told it was there, in case he ever needed it. There he found a small revolver, its cylinder full. Cal was putting his shoulder to the bedroom door.

  Schneider ran into the bathroom, locked that door too and faced the mirror over the sink.

  He was a little boy again.

  He was his father.

  He was himself.

  He stared at his reflection. ‘Don’t look away!’ he screamed as the gun pressed to his temple went off, showering his brains against the pretty wallpaper.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘No, I insist,’ Cal told Irene over the phone. ‘I’m doing well. They’re discharging me this afternoon. You need to stay with your mother. I’m pushing off my flight. I’ll come to you in Francavilla. You just have to promise one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That you won’t make fun of my face. It looks remarkably like an aubergine.’

  He was at a private clinic in Rome, under the care of the pope’s personal physician, but he hadn’t required much in the way of treatment. He was bruised and battered, but there were no broken bones beyond a hairline fracture to a couple of ribs. But he was sick of hospitals and wanted out. He’d been a patient three times this summer, three more times than the past thirty years combined.

  His physician came by after lunch and did a final cursory exam before declaring him fit to travel with a rib binder.

  ‘You don’t know Umberto Tellini, do you?’ Cal asked the doctor.

  ‘Of course. Everyone knows Tellini.’

  ‘Do you know if he’s on duty today? I’d like to say goodbye.’

  ‘In fact, I’m sure he is not at the clinic. I’m personally covering his patients. He’s taken the day off.’

  ‘When you see him, tell him I’m sorry I missed him.’

  ‘It was good of you to come and visit me,’ Giovanni said.

  He was in the garden of his parish house in Monte Sulla, taking in the sunshine and using the quietness of the afternoon to think, meditate and, most of all, pray.

  ‘What kind of a doctor would I be, if I didn’t come to check on my most esteemed patient?’ Tellini said. He was carrying a small medical bag.

  ‘I didn’t know I was your patient,’ Giovanni said, looking up from his bench. He caught himself. ‘I’m sorry. That was rude.’

  ‘Don’t apologize. The Vatican is concerned about your health. I will personally communicate with the pope when I return to Rome.’

  ‘I’m feeling stronger. The bleeding has stopped, you know.’

  ‘Has it?’

  ‘Ever since the nail was …’

  Tellini took a few steps forward, looming over the priest. ‘Was what?’

  ‘Lost.’

  ‘Lost where?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. You’d have to speak with Professor Donovan about that.’

  ‘But here I am, speaking to you.’

  Giovanni didn’t like the new, hard edge to Tellini’s voice.

  ‘As I’ve said, doctor, thank you for coming to visit. Please tell the pope I am well. I’m afraid I must resume my prayers now.’

  Tellini’s face changed from solicitous to menacing. ‘Where is it?’ he said.

  Giovanni stood. ‘You must go now.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I will have to call out if you don’t leave.’

  A knife appeared in Tellini’s fist. ‘For the last time, will you tell me where we can find the nail?’

  ‘We?’ Giovanni asked.

  ‘This is bigger than one man. I’ve lost compatriots. Killed in my own house. It doesn’t matter. We endure. And
we must have it.’

  Giovanni sighed heavily. ‘I believe that men like you must never possess it. And you won’t. You must believe me. The nail will never be found. It’s but a sliver of iron at the bottom of a vast and deep ocean.’

  The doctor let out a shuddering sigh and raised his hand. ‘Then there’s this.’

  The sun glinted off the polished steel as Tellini thrust the knife fast and deep into the priest’s chest.

  Cal knew he’d be making a detour well before he saw the sign for Monte Sulla. He was in Abruzzo, on his way to see Irene in Francavilla, when an overwhelming feeling of serenity washed through him and with it came the urge to say a final goodbye to Giovanni.

  In Francavilla, Irene had been food shopping for her mother, when she too was struck by a sense of tremendous peacefulness that made her feel light and airy.

  Pulling into the high, medieval town, Cal parked his hire car in the piazza of the Church of Sante Croce. The last time he’d been there, Padre Gio had been celebrating mass and it had been a madhouse. He had no doubt that Sunday would be a riotous occasion, the first Sunday since their priest rejoined his church. But today, all was quiet.

  He knocked on the door to Giovanni’s parish house and was greeted by both the nuns, Sister Vera and Sister Theresa. They were wearing aprons powdered with baking flour and both seemed happy.

  ‘Professor Donovan,’ Sister Vera said. ‘I don’t think we were expecting you but you must stay for supper. Padre Gio will be so pleased to see you. He told us how you saved him and his family.’

  ‘I hope I won’t be disturbing him.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Sister Theresa said. ‘He’s in the garden praying. You missed the doctor by the better part of an hour. He said he couldn’t stay for supper.’

  ‘Which doctor?’

  ‘Dr Tellini. He came by to see how Padre Gio was doing.’

  Cal went through the lounge to the back garden.

  At first he didn’t see anything, but then his eye fell upon a stone bench and a dark shape on the ground behind it.

  ‘Oh Jesus.’

  He walked to the bench slowly, trying to postpone the inevitable for a few moments.