The Seventh Commandment

by Tom Fox

  No, no, no, Emil’s thoughts raced. I can’t have them killed. Not until I know what they’ve said, and to whom.

  He yanked his phone from his pocket and hit the speed dial for Ridolfo’s number. He had to modify his men’s instructions before they carried out the orders he’d barked at them when they’d spoken forty-five minutes ago.

  But the line simply rang and rang.

  39

  Headquarters of the Swiss Guard

  Apostolic Palace, Vatican City

  ‘What do you mean, they just walked out?’ Major Heinrich glowered at Corporal Yoder. The junior officer was in fact significantly taller than Heinrich, but the Major seemed to wither down upon him all the same. ‘You were supposed to keep an eye on them!’

  ‘Keep an eye on them, sure, as long as they chose to stay put. But they weren’t under arrest.’

  ‘It took us two teams to bring them in! We barely kept them alive!’

  Max Yoder stood tall. ‘The Papal Swiss Guard may not detain Italian or foreign nationals within the Holy See without a writ of arrest or significant findings of criminal behaviour likely to lead to the issuance of such a writ.’ He recited the code from their training manual verbatim, then looked down directly into the eyes of his superior officer. ‘Major, sir.’

  Heinrich kept the man’s gaze, clenching his jaws and rubbing his molars together with the tension of frustration. The Corporal was, however, correct. The relations between Vatican City and the Italian government were delicate and based on a fragile trust between what were technically the agents of two different governments, overlapping in a packed, tense territory inside the borders of a single Italian city. Overstepping the boundaries of that agreed code of conduct, even in a minor way, tended to have disproportionately vast repercussions. And this was hardly minor. Detaining two Roman citizens would lead to word of the Swiss Guard having effected their capture in the first place – outside of Vatican City, on Italian State territory, without the knowledge or cooperation of the Polizia di Stato – which would open up a can of worms that Vatican–Roman relations did not need.

  He turned away from the other Guardsman. Behind him, rows of glass desks housed computers that were manned by the Investigations Division of the Papal Swiss Guard, humming with electrical whirs and the constant finger-tapping of focused computer work. The machines had only been brought back to life fifteen minutes ago, a sudden power outage having cut every trunk into the city – including their high-tech offices beneath the stone grandeur of the Apostolic Palace. The Guard’s control rooms were only back in the running thanks to a bank of petrol-powered generators on reserve in a wire-mesh cage at ground level, precisely for such emergency situations.

  It was the first time they’d ever had to be used.

  Heinrich wasn’t yet able to wrap his head around the events of the day. Cardinal Forte’s suspicions over the text that had been unearthed near San Clemente had proven well founded, but it had come as a shock to learn that Calla and Verdyx were not the culprits behind it that Heinrich had suspected. They’d barely managed to sweep up the two academics in time before others – presumably the actual individuals responsible for whatever the hell was going on – succeeded in their attempt to kill them off.

  Now they were out of their hands. Fine, fend for yourselves out there. His thoughts were hard, realistic and unemotional, yet deeper inside he knew that Verdyx and Calla might still be relevant to their work.

  ‘Put a track on their phones,’ he said, directing the words towards a desk where a young man in the informal business dress of the Guard seemed to expect such instruction, ‘and whatever else you need to tap to keep an eye on them. I’d like to know where they go from here.’

  Heinrich turned away without waiting for affirmation of his instruction. He knew his men would follow it diligently.

  Angelina Calla and Ben Verdyx were no longer his primary subjects of interest. Having ensured that Cardinal Forte and the other senior members of the Curia were updated on the affairs of the afternoon, his chief interest was in identifying who was behind their attempted assassination. It was an elaborate and difficult process, to start from complete unknowns and work back to something solid. CCTV footage from the site of each attack could be used to try to identify assailants – hoping for a shot clear enough to run facial recognition, or perhaps a vehicle with plates that could be processed. These would lead to data trails, which would lead to identities, which Heinrich was convinced would eventually lead to concrete persons that could be called in and questioned. All they needed was time.

  ‘Sir,’ a voice suddenly broke the silence, ‘outside. In the piazza.’ The man who spoke was audibly alarmed, his words curt and tense. To the members of the Guard, ‘the piazza’ always meant St Peter’s.

  ‘Report,’ Heinrich commanded.

  ‘There’s been gunfire. The public security squads on ground level are already responding.’

  Heinrich’s skin went cold. It wasn’t with fear, but with determination.

  Whoever was wreaking havoc on the city had just brought it into his own walls. And that, for a man of devotion of Heinrich’s calibre, was a step too far.

  40

  Via della Conciliazione

  Central Rome

  Ben’s face was completely pale. The lack of blood flow to his capillaries, his body protectively sending more to his core organs as a defence mechanism, gave him a ghostly pallor that offset his brown eyes, transforming them into deep wells that interrupted his face. It had taken several seconds of driving before Angelina had felt secure releasing her protective huddle over him, allowing them both to return to an upright position in the back of the taxi cab, the wind from the shattered right window whipping her red hair into a frenzy.

  She was terrified, and wasn’t yet sure when the lump in her throat – where it felt her heart had leapt and taken up permanent residence – might melt away.

  But another feeling swirled in her well of over-provoked emotions. Indignation.

  Angelina Calla was a good person. A smart person. She’d had her challenges in life and she’d always met them. She kept to herself, out of trouble. Yet in the span of a single day she’d been chased through the streets, twice. Shot at, twice. Kidnapped. And, apparently, all because the language she’d failed to make a career out of knowing was involved in events in which she played no part and about which she knew nothing.

  Screw it, she thought from the back of the cab, clenching her fists, I have had just about enough of this. Her rising resentment overwhelmed her panic. The time had come for Angelina to push through the barriers thrust in front of her. Whatever they were.

  She turned to Ben. The motion fired new shots of pain through her leg and she diverted her gaze down towards the shredded fabric above her left knee. She hadn’t had a chance yet to examine the wound closely, and a new knot tightened in her stomach at the thought of what the gunshot might actually have done to her.

  ‘Let me have a look at that.’ Ben’s voice emerged over the constant flow of terrified, abusive profanities emanating from the driver in front. He’d spotted Angelina’s hand moving towards her wound, and he gently diverted it away and attempted to examine the injury as best as he could in the back of the fleeing car. He tore at the fabric slightly to enlarge the opening around the wound, and as he did Angelina felt angry jolts of agony course through her nerves.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ben muttered, ‘I know that must hurt.’

  ‘Just . . . just tell me how it looks.’ Angelina had closed her eyes, sparks and explosions going off at the backs of her eyes.

  ‘It doesn’t look deep,’ he answered a moment later. ‘I mean, I don’t know anything about gunshot wounds, but this doesn’t look that bad.’

  She could have smacked him. Not that bad? It’s a gunshot-fucking-wound! But in reality she was grateful for even an amateur diagnosis. She bit her lower lip to control the pain.

  ‘The wound’s only a couple of centimetres long and, like I said, not very de
ep. I think it needs to be cleaned out.’ Ben sat back upright. ‘Maybe some sutures.’

  Angelina had always hated hospitals, and especially stitches. The one time she’d had them sewn into a wound on her hand, the feeling of the needle weaving its way through her flesh – even through the anaesthetic – had made her sick. The tactile memory of the sensation threatened to overturn her stomach again.

  ‘Let’s just get it cleaned out,’ she answered. ‘If it’s not deep, it doesn’t need sutures.’

  The profanities from the driver barrelled through the Plexiglas divider with new intensity. He hadn’t stopped yelling since their frenzied drive had begun.

  ‘Turn left here!’ Angelina shouted back at him. The volume of his shouts increased again, but the car swerved left a moment later. Angelina sighed, relieved to be off the main street. Traffic was as bad as she had ever seen it, and the sound of horns constant in her ears. Something had provoked tension on the city’s streets tonight. ‘Keep changing direction every few streets.’ She leaned forward, her eyes watering from the pain. ‘That is, unless you want the shooters to catch up with us.’

  For only an instant, the driver’s face blanched in the rear-view mirror. A second later he was back at his shouting, but seemed to grasp the point.

  Angelina flopped back into her seat. The shooters. They’d come after them like animals, and all for this stupid tabl—

  She suddenly spun to her side. ‘Ben, give me your phone.’ He hesitated, processing, but a moment later fished his mobile out of his pocket. To the relief of them both, it hadn’t been damaged in the run and dive for the car.

  The taxi swerved harshly to the right as the driver altered his course yet again. His foot was pressed heavily on the accelerator.

  Angelina switched on the phone and followed Ben’s instructions for the access code, then navigated her way to the photo roll, scrolling through the series of images they’d taken in the bunker. The final photograph, as she remembered, was by far the clearest. She pinched and spread her fingers over the display to zoom in on the individual lines and characters imprinted on the hardened clay. The resolution was adequate if not astonishing, though the bumpy motion of the car made it almost impossible to read.

  Angelina saw something else on the display, however, that registered perfectly clearly despite the jolts of motion. The battery indicator in the upper right-hand corner was at two percent, already flashing red. With her own phone already out of juice and Ben’s almost to the point of giving up the ghost, Angelina was afraid they might lose the photo they’d taken, so with a few nimble keystrokes she’d attached it to an email and clicked the button to send it to herself from Ben’s account. There was no reception at all from wherever they were at the instant, so the email’s ‘Sending’ status bar simply began to rotate.

  Ben glanced over his shoulder – a motion that had been compulsively repetitive since Angelina’s focus had shifted to the device. There had been no further signs of pursuit since the driver had started changing directions, and as he caught sight of the image of the tablet on his phone, Ben settled back into his seat, the pallor of his face altering once again.

  His lips, as before, started to move in silence.

  Angelina clicked the phone closed. The email still hadn’t sent, but it could work on that in the background. The device’s power reading had already fallen to one percent, meaning keeping the display bright was going to threaten a shutdown before the email got delivered. She passed the phone back to Ben, thumping it against his knee to call his attention back from wherever it had wandered.

  He looked ashen. Vulnerable. He’d been strong when he needed to be, focused when it was required, but Angelina recognised that here, in this moment, all his weariness showed.

  And his lips were moving.

  ‘The bright places shall become dark . . .’

  She could barely make out the syllables over the engine noise and grumbles from the front.

  ‘What was that?’

  He didn’t appear to notice her. His lips kept moving, his eyes locked ahead and his voice hardly a whisper.

  ‘Then shall come the fog . . .’

  The words were senseless, and Angelina felt the rising warmth of compassion. Ben was not dealing well with the situation, though she knew she was hardly coping in perfect form herself. Adrenaline, indignation and intrigue had kept her going, but she sensed she must look just as haggard as Ben, and she felt that beneath the tension she was likely as exhausted as he. The day had been physically, mentally and emotionally overwhelming. If they didn’t get some rest, they were done for.

  But she didn’t feel safe going home. These people, whoever they were, clearly knew who she was. As Ben was just as much a target as she, going to his home was out as well.

  She faced forward towards the driver, ignoring the fresh jolt of pain in her leg.

  ‘Take us to a hotel,’ she demanded, banging on the divider between them.

  The driver glanced over his shoulder, incredulous. ‘Which fucking hotel would madame like?’ he shouted, sarcasm embedded in his anger. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Rome’s a bit fucked up tonight! People on edge, everyone out on the goddamned streets! Traffic ain’t exactly light!’

  Angelina realised the poor man, who looked only a few days over twenty, was probably in shock himself, but she had only so much emotional energy to expend on strangers.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she answered, ignoring his tone, ‘take us to something out of the way. Not too big, not too small.’

  ‘And what about my fucking car!’ the man shouted again. ‘You shot out my window! I just paid for this!’

  ‘We did not shoot out your window,’ Angelina answered. ‘The men behind us did.’

  ‘Whatever, lady. The window’s still out.’

  Irritated, Angelina turned to Ben. ‘I’m cash-strapped,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘How much do you have with you?’

  Ben’s mind was still elsewhere, but he fished his wallet out of his trousers and passed it to her. Angelina ran a thumb through the small collection of banknotes inside. ‘Looks like about a hundred and eighty euros.’ Without waiting to seek his permission, she reached forward to hand the driver the cash.

  ‘There’s a hundred and eighty. That should cover your window, and the drive. Now get us to a hotel.’

  41

  Across Rome

  The lights in Rome had been dark since nightfall, and every hour had increased the sense of dread. There had been no explanations, only repeated claims by officials that ‘this sort of event shouldn’t be possible’. But it was not only possible, it had been predicted. And the people knew this. They’d been told it would happen, and it had, and as the minutes scraped along, it was beginning to terrify them.

  The average Roman citizen was educated, enlightened and no more prone to superstition than a man or woman in any other modern culture. But there were few who didn’t mutter the word – whether in disdainful dismissal or in an increasingly tense worry – that seemed planted on everyone’s lips.

  Prophecy.

  The words of the tablet which had been circulated on the Internet had predicted the darkness, and it had come. Just like the river. It couldn’t be denied. And guns had come with the water. And deaths. And fear.

  Just what was going to come with this darkness?

  But amidst the streets flooded with people taking to their cars, not sure where they were going but content to be moving somewhere, the darkness came to an abrupt end.

  In an instant Rome was bright again. As if at the flip of a switch – not in phases or cyclically regenerated power flows as was the case when any large-scale grid system was reinitiated. As the lights of Rome had twinkled out in the blink of an eye, so did they return. Street lamps snapped back to attention, interior fixtures of houses and flats popped back to life, even televisions and kitchen utilities which had been in use before the strange outage whirred and garbled back into electric action.

  Impossible, the offi
cial line resonated in the populace’s memory, the electricity in Rome doesn’t switch on and off like a lightbulb.

  But it did. And the instant it had, the city went racing for answers.

  The Internet exploded with activity the moment the citizens of Rome were able to reconnect their computers to WiFi networks, cable feeds and cellular data connections. But there were no answers to be found. No official explanations. So the people had nothing else to take in but guesswork and hypothesis.

  Or a video, which many had seen before.

  They returned to it now with new viewers in the tens of thousands. The video clip ran only three minutes, and featured its lone man speaking directly into a camera, reading them the revelations contained on a tablet.

  ‘You have tasted the prophecy,’ he said as the video rounded into its final seconds, ‘but we know the whole. We knew it before, and we know it now.’

  The man on the screen coughed, and with him the whole of Rome held its breath.

  ‘Like all prophecy, it speaks of what is to come. Next . . .’ He leaned into the camera as the file ran with only six seconds to go.

  ‘It speaks of the fog.’

  42

  The island of Pantelleria

  100 km south-west of Sicily

  305 nautical miles south of Rome

  On the hillside of the Cinque Denti caldera that formed one of the two peaked features of the Pantelleria island-scape, the small research module sat on concrete foundations that had been poured more than forty years before. Its operations were largely unmanned in modern times, the last eruption to have been recorded of the semi-defunct volcanic island dating back to 1891, and that underwater and several kilometres off the coast. Still, the research module retained its importance as one of a network of geological stations that monitored the whole Mediterranean basin on a continuous basis.