The Seventh Commandment

by Tom Fox

  The evening sky was normal, but nothing else was. The city was tense. For a moment, Angelina thought she could still catch a whiff of the fog’s strange scent in the air, left over from the morning. And she remembered the river, as they all did. And the darkness. And their terror started to creep into her bones – bones she could not, however, allow to be governed by that fear. She marched forward with Ben and Thomás in tow.

  The church was locked, of course. Six p.m. was its standard closing time, like most major churches in the city, after which only the exterior of edifices could be enjoyed, not the glories contained within. So she and Ben surveyed the structure, Thomás following them and doing his best to join in the work. But beyond its overwhelming proportions and beauty, there was little that appeared to relate to the purpose of their search. There were no crosses to set alight. No cauldrons or fonts or foundations that might suddenly burst into flame. There were no monuments at all outside St John’s, apart from an obelisk that was off to its side at the rear of the connecting palace. Hardly a focal point for a plague.

  Angelina was beginning to wonder if their interpretation had been wrong. They had come to it so surely, so quickly – perhaps too quickly. Perhaps this wasn’t where fire would consume—

  It was then that Angelina caught the first, and the only, thing that seemed unusual in her whole survey of the space around the basilica.

  Across the Piazza di Porta San Giovanni, a car was parked in front of a closed magazine shop. Within it, Angelina could just make out the figures of two men.

  Of itself the sight shouldn’t have startled her, yet something tugged at the nerves in Angelina’s neck as she watched them. They were not getting into the car, nor getting out. Neither appeared to be talking on a phone. They weren’t passing the time reading the paper. They sat in their car, statuesque, motionless.

  Increased nervousness pulsed through Angelina’s skin. Two men . . . two men . . .

  Could these be the two from before? Could these be—

  But the question was never completed. Angelina’s words faltered in her head as the massive structure of the Archbasilica of St John Lateran burst into a ball of fire.

  71

  Rome

  The enormous basilica exploded in flame, the sudden brightness like a new sun replacing the one that had set behind it only minutes before.

  Though ‘exploded’ was not quite the right word. There was no roiling boom, no shaking of the earth or the structure of the building itself. No walls rattled or fell, and no windows shattered, launching stained-glass particles out over the surrounding streets. There was no whoosh, no bang – the church was simply, suddenly, alight in a strange, ethereally blue fire.

  For twenty seconds the fire glowed that strange, supernal colour. The whole basilica was enveloped in the blue tongues of its surprising appearance. But then flame did what flame always does: it consumed. Its heat grew and the unnatural blue turned a more earthly orange and began to char its way through wooden rafters, to melt leaden window casings, and to splinter and crack windows which at last fractured and fell. Sixty seconds after it had spontaneously begun, the Archbasilica of St John in Lateran was an enormous tower of fire.

  Not far away, across the city, the same thing happened to the ancient, though significantly smaller, edifice of Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis – the famed church built on the spot where Christ had caught Peter fleeing persecution, querying his cowardice and turning him back towards the swords and crosses. The flames appeared suddenly over the whole structure which stood at the gateway to the ancient Appian Way, glowed an unearthly blue, then consumed it.

  And it happened, too, at the famed ruins of the Terme di Caracalla, the ancient baths that had been in use up until the nineteenth century. And at the convent of Suore Dorotee, with its orange chapel standing cosily beyond low stone walls. All four revered structures, all simultaneously. In the twinkling of a single eye.

  It would take some time for a news helicopter flying high above to provide the images to confirm it, but somehow the whole populace seemed to know, even before the photographs came, that these four sites were not random. Some felt the warnings they had received had come by a supernatural power; others that they were a hoax. But they were all convinced that it was part of a plan – somebody’s plan. That the events around them, including this one, were happening with purpose.

  From above, the lines between them traced the shape of a perfect cross, laid out over the city, with St John Lateran at the top of the central line.

  Just as they knew it would.

  Just as the prophecy had said it would.

  ‘And in the fourth place, a cross of fire shall consume their holy things, the seat of the Mighty See at its head.’

  72

  In front of St John Lateran

  The flames leaping from the edifice of St John’s Basilica sent the sparse crowds outside into a panic. River, darkness, fog: but a massive cathedral consumed in flames was another kind of shock altogether. The plagues befalling Rome were becoming more aggressive. More . . . destructive.

  Bodies ran from the triangular courtyard towards each of the streets that served as outlets from the church. Thomás felt the impulse to follow them. His eyes had taken in the catastrophe in awe, the words ‘the fourth plague’ on his lips amidst the roaring noise of the flames, but his demeanour quickly changed from awe to fear. He turned towards Ben and the two began retracing their path away from the cathedral at a sprint.

  Ben grabbed Angelina’s shoulder as he drew closer to her, pulling her along with them, but she kept her feet planted solidly on the pavement. He noticed her intensity, stopped, and followed the line of her eyes across the street.

  ‘That car,’ Angelina yelled, straining to be heard over the noise of the fire and the screams of panicked bystanders running from the scene, ‘it’s been there since before the fire started . . . and the two men in it haven’t moved.’

  It’s more than that. They hadn’t so much as flinched.

  She’d strained to see their faces, but the distance didn’t allow for identification. ‘I don’t know who they are,’ she shouted to Ben, whose own eyes were now glued on the car and its unmoving occupants, ‘but I’m pretty sure they’re the “them” of your janitor’s last words. Nobody just sits and watches something like this that calmly.’

  But even as her words came, so did the first motion from the car. The front wheels turned outward and it began to move slowly away from the kerb.

  ‘Shit!’ Angelina cried. ‘They’re leaving!’

  She made to bolt after them, but Ben reached out a strong hand and grabbed her by the back of her top. They had no way to stop them, much less catch them.

  ‘Ben!’ she shouted, spinning on him, an arm extended in the car’s direction. ‘They’re our only connection! We can’t lose them!’

  But Ben didn’t answer. He simply held her firmly and stared past her fingertips as the car drove slowly off, his eyes bearing down on its number plate and his lips reciting the numbers and letters over and over again as he strove to commit them to memory.

  In the car

  Bartolomeo kept both hands firmly on the leatherette steering wheel and his eyes straight forward on the road. People were running in panic, other cars were jolting out of parking spaces, and he didn’t want to hit anyone. He kept his speed slow, just under the limit, and drove carefully.

  But his focus didn’t prevent him from speaking to the man in the passenger seat.

  ‘The others have all gone off?’ he asked.

  Yiannis was on his phone, nodding and muttering ‘okays’ and ‘mm-hmms’ into the device as he received a report over the line. A moment later he flipped the old phone closed and turned towards Bartolomeo in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Each one. Right on time, like clockwork!’ Bartolomeo didn’t move his eyes to look at him, but he knew there would be a smile beaming from Yiannis’s features. ‘The cross, as the prophecy predicts, is burning.’

  Yiannis d
eserved his evident satisfaction. Coming up with the method to effect this particular plague had been a stroke of genius on his part. Taking advantage of the thick fog they’d produced for the third plague, they’d ensured it was especially concentrated around the sites of the four buildings they would employ for the fourth. The cover of the nearly opaque mist had been ample for four teams with high-pressure hoses to draw close to each structure and spray a coating of clear solvent over their stone surfaces, wooden awnings, everything they could reach. The pressure allowed them to get the solvent up from ground level to about five metres high on walls, doors and windows – and that, Yiannis had assured Bartolomeo and Emil, would be enough. It was a particularly syrupy, thick substance that had a slow evaporation rate, which meant it would still be more than potent enough by the time nightfall came, when electronic triggers – remotely controlled devices barely the size of a packet of cigarettes, which the teams had placed in position after concluding the spraying – could be fired by wireless signal. They would ignite the concentrate, which had a near-instantaneous flash rate, meaning the structures would be surrounded by flame almost instantly. The chemical burned at a low temperature for the first thirty or forty seconds, meaning that it wouldn’t consume the buildings immediately; and, as the pièce de résistance, Yiannis had instructed their chemists to include a mineral that would ensure the initial flame was an impossible, other-worldly blue.

  ‘About as plague-y as you can get, I think,’ he’d described it during the planning phases. The line had made even Bartolomeo smile.

  Though at the moment, he wasn’t smiling. He was pleased the plague had come off as planned, but he was disturbed. As they’d waited for the exact moment to press their remote trigger from the side of the road, Bartolomeo had watched three people emerge from a bus and make their way into the courtyard in front of the basilica.

  One was a young man whose face Bartolomeo had seen on a video recording last night. Part of the PR manoeuvre Laurence had been so critical in setting up. And the taller one – Bartolomeo recognised him immediately as the man he and Yiannis had been tasked to kill alongside the river yesterday morning. The one who’d got away.

  ‘Those three people in the square,’ Bartolomeo finally said, ‘just now. I know who they are.’ The third had to be the woman that Ridolfo and André had been meant to take out. They’d failed as well.

  ‘Yeah,’ Yiannis answered, his voice suddenly serious. ‘I saw ’em too.’ He fidgeted beneath his seatbelt. ‘Should we turn around? Go back and take them out? I mean, how many fucking tries does it take?’

  Bartolomeo shook his head. He had the same impulse, of course. He didn’t like leaving any job unfinished. But Emil had been clear: the moment the flames were lit, all hands were to be on deck for the final push.

  ‘They’re no longer important,’ Bartolomeo said, keeping the wheel steadily pointed forward. ‘This will all be over by morning.’

  73

  Outside the Lateran Basilica

  The one thing that was absolutely clear as Angelina, Ben and Thomás backed away from the flaming hulk of St John’s Basilica, was that Ben had been right. The Akkadian text found on the tablet near San Clemente, however it may have come to be there, whoever may have forged it, was not only tied to a group that was bringing its ‘prophecies’ to reality, but it had also served as an effective map, once their trio had understood what it meant. It had led them to this spot.

  And it would also lead them to the next. Ironically, it would do so even more clearly. If the details that had pointed towards St John Lateran had been somewhat specialised allusions, the details for the fifth plague were not.

  They knew the place, and even the time.

  ‘Shouldn’t we, er, tell someone about this?’ Thomás asked as Ben guided them away from the flaming cathedral. ‘I don’t know, the police?’

  ‘You don’t think someone’s already called the fire brigade?’ Ben answered, shaking his head. ‘I don’t think we have to make that our responsibility.’

  ‘But we do need to tell someone,’ Angelina said. ‘Especially as we know details about where we need to be next.’

  ‘We need to be?’ Thomás repeated. ‘I’m not sure I want to be anywhere near whatever comes after . . . this.’

  Ben faced Angelina. ‘If we go to the police, we’ll have to start at the very beginning. Explain everything, convince them of everything.’

  Angelina understood. ‘We don’t have that kind of time.’ Not with the next prophecy so precisely scheduled.

  ‘But,’ Ben continued, ‘there’s another option. This is church property, after all.’

  Angelina’s face brightened. ‘It so happens, you and I had the chance to make the acquaintance of a certain member of the Swiss Guard yesterday.’

  Thomás screwed up his brow. ‘You two hang out with the Swiss Guard?’

  ‘Let’s just say they had a way of capturing our attention when they wanted to speak to us,’ Angelina answered, and there was a wry smile on her face. She turned towards Ben. ‘Can you call them?’

  Ben had already dialled.

  ‘Hello,’ he said once the line had connected. ‘I’d be grateful if you could connect me to the central office of the Swiss Guard in Vatican City. Yes, I’ll accept the connection charge.’ He paused while the operator carried out the request.

  ‘Good evening,’ Ben said calmly a moment later. ‘Would you be so kind as to connect me to Major Hans Heinrich. Tell him it’s Ben Verdyx and Angelina Calla. And tell him it’s urgent.’

  74

  Headquarters of the Swiss Guard

  Apostolic Palace, Vatican City

  This time, when Angelina and Ben walked into the offices of the Papal Swiss Guard, they did so without their hands cuffed behind their backs or hoods over their eyes. They had made their appointment with Major Heinrich, who had instructed them to arrive as soon as they could. Darkness was once again covering the Vatican as Angelina and Ben approached, though this time the lights were lit and the domes and colonnades glowed in their brilliant splendour. They were met by guards who recognised them on sight, and escorted them together with Thomás into the belly of the Palace.

  ‘I’ve never been here before,’ Thomás confessed as they moved through the venerable space. His eyes were wide. ‘It always seemed so . . . worldly.’ But worldly apparently didn’t exclude captivating, and he soaked in the surroundings with visible awe.

  When at last they reached the underground level that housed the Guard’s central command station, the trio passed through two security checkpoints and were led into Heinrich’s office. A fogged glass door drew silently closed behind them.

  ‘I sure as hell hope you’re over any thoughts of us being involved in any of this,’ were the first words out of Angelina’s mouth. Her eyes lasered into the Guardsman’s.

  If Heinrich was surprised by the accusatory greeting, he didn’t let it show. ‘No, Dr Calla, we are not.’

  She huffed.

  ‘In fact, we know precisely who is,’ Heinrich continued. He reached to a flat screen display on his desk and swivelled it to face his three guests.

  ‘Do any of you recognise this face?’

  Angelina stared at the screen. A man’s shoulders and head were captured there: gaunt, though not sickly. Well groomed, but not overtly handsome. His eyes seemed to bear the lines of experience, and while he didn’t look particularly sage or motivated, there was something unsettling in his stare.

  Angelina had never seen him before.

  ‘Me neither,’ Thomás added as Angelina shook her head in the negative.

  Ben’s reaction, however, was altogether different.

  ‘That’s . . . Dr Durré. Right? I remember the face.’ Heinrich nodded. Ben continued, ‘We worked together at the Archives for a few months. Back before he was . . .’

  ‘Sacked,’ Heinrich said sternly. ‘For gross violations of professional ethics and misconduct.’

  Ben merely nodded again. From the look on his
face, Durré was the last person he’d expected to have brought to his attention here.

  ‘Since that time,’ Heinrich continued, ‘let’s just say that he’s collected a rather different assortment of colleagues. He appears to have been royally pissed off at having been kicked out of the establishment, and his new companions all have that trait in common. None of them quite fits in with a wholly above-board outlook on life.’

  Major Heinrich reached down to his keyboard and entered a few commands, then used the arrow keys to cycle through a series of additional photographs. He announced the names as the images came up on the screen facing Angelina, Ben and Thomás.

  ‘Ridolfo Passerini, age twenty-seven, a man with an unimpressive background and a few tags from his juvenile record, mostly relating to retaliatory acts against those who mocked him for his facial deformities.’ The headshot was from a CCTV camera, grainy and black-and-white, but the deformities were still evident.

  ‘André Durré, age twenty-four, and Emil’s son,’ Heinrich continued as the next image flashed on to the display. A young man, slender and well dressed, with magazine-worthy good looks. ‘An intimate friend of Mr Passerini. Never seems to have excelled at much. Lived with his mother in Belgium until a few years ago. Came under his father’s wing, and since then has been picked up on a string of petty crimes. No charges that stuck.’

  Angelina was frozen in place. ‘It’s them,’ she said, her left hand reaching out of its own accord and grabbing Ben’s. ‘Those are the two men who shot at us in St Peter’s Square. I recognise the one with the deformed face.’