Strange Gods

by Peter J. Daly

  Nate popped up another slide, showing Lohrman’s body and head, bluish and discolored. Nate saw the attendees grimace at the corpse.

  Nate continued, “The forensic toxicology tests showed levels of various toxins in his system. Lohrman was known to have an allergy to some types of anesthesia. It was recorded on his pre-op admission form. It was either gross negligence, or the drug was intentionally administered. The anesthesia that he was allergic to was administered in a lethal dose. This caused the cardinal to go into cardiac arrest on the operating table.”

  “Did they try to revive him in the clinic?” asked the Interpol captain.

  “They tried,” said Nate, “but it was a small surgery clinic, not a hospital. They did not have much of a staff. An ambulance came, but by the time it got there, he was dead.

  “Chilean officials are still investigating, but it was clearly not a simple error. There had to be multiple violations of protocol in the clinic. And the anesthesiologist has disappeared. It seems that he has family members connected to a Colombian cartel.”

  The audience in the library shook their heads but reacted little. They were not easily shocked.

  After a brief pause, Nate picked up the thread. “The evidence points to the murder of Cardinal Lohrman by organized crime, probably agents of drug cartels interested in continuing their money laundering. If he was getting out, that may have been enough to kill him.

  “It is probable that Cardinal Salazar may have tipped off the Camorra here in Italy that Lohrman was a loose cannon. He used Ackerman as the go-between. Ackerman talked to a reporter from Panoramio, and the reporter wrote stories that identified who the Camorra should kill.”

  The Italian magistrate shook his head. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “These people have connections everywhere. Money is their passport.”

  Nate agreed. “One thing is for sure, they certainly did not want to lose the IOR as a money laundering outlet. Cardinal Salazar has talked to us about that. Salazar and Monsignor Donato Scarpini, the assistant manager at the bank, are both currently under arrest by the Italian police. They have both given detailed accounts of their connection to money laundering for the Mafia and for the Latin American drug cartels. It also appears that Cardinal Crepi and Monsignor Ackerman were deeply involved in all of this.”

  “Madonna Santa,” said Cardinal Santini, a longtime friend of Cardinal Crepi.

  “Why would Luciano be involved in such things?”

  Nate looked at the cardinal. “Shame,” he said.

  “Shame and scandal. The Camorra knew details from Crepi’s past. Actually, details involving both Cardinal Crepi and Cardinal Salazar,” responded Nate. He flashed a slide of Gianluca up on the screen, along with a slide of a newspaper article from the time of the boy’s death.

  “It seems that Salazar and Crepi had a sexual relationship with this young man on a ferryboat from Naples to Sicily. The boy died in their room, as an accident, or was killed. We are not sure. In any case, the Camorra threw his body overboard and made it appear to be a drowning. From that moment on, Crepi and Salazar worked for the Mafia as much as the Church.”

  Nate flashed the newspaper photo of Crepi and Salazar, standing on the dock in Palermo. O’Toole was surprised to see how these two men had looked more than forty years ago.

  Nate paused. There was an inward taking of breath that could be heard from all of the listeners. Even these worldly men were shocked.

  Nate took a drink of water from a glass on the table nearby and picked up the presentation again.

  “It seems that in light of recent scandals, the board of the IOR was discussing possible changes in the operation of the bank, or perhaps even closing it. The three murdered cardinals were all strong advocates of these changes. The Mafia may have murdered them to stop the bank reforms.”

  “So, Manning, deCapo, and Lohrman were on the board of the IOR,” said Tracy. “What happened to deCapo?”

  “Poison,” said Nate. “The toxicology shows high levels of opiates in his bloodstream and stomach. He probably ingested it while having lunch. He had respiratory problems in the restaurant and was disoriented and slurring his words, according to the police report. They thought he had too much wine. Certainly the wine and the drugs could have been lethal. It was no accident.

  “But what I can’t figure out is why the mob or drug cartels would kill three members of the board of the IOR. Was there some urgency about reform? Was the goose going to stop laying golden eggs?”

  “I think I know why,” said O’Toole. “Pope Thomas was weak. If any one of those three were elected the new pope, the IOR was going to be reformed. The Mafia wanted to be sure that no insider at the IOR would be able to move against them.”

  “The death of Pope Thomas,” said Nate, “has given new urgency to the question of bank reform. Somebody new will be in charge after the election of the new pope. Cardinals Crepi and Salazar, who had been helping the Mafia, wanted to preserve the status quo regarding the bank so their friends could continue laundering money. But they could see their days were numbered.”

  The head of the Vatican police raised his hand to ask a question. “So, why did Cardinal Crepi commit suicide?”

  “It appears that my investigation sent the Camorra into a panic,” said Nate. “Monsignor Ackerman was killed because he was unable to get this investigation terminated. In simple terms, the Mafia thought he talked too much. For years he had been acting as a go-between for Cardinals Crepi and Salazar and the Camorra. Monsignor Ackerman used the press and his contacts at a gay bar here in Rome to communicate with the Mafia. They suspected he had violated the code of omerta. That’s why they killed him. The code of silence is even more important than their money laundering. Omerta is the glue that binds the Camorra and the Cosa Nostra and all the other branches of the Mafia together. They could not overlook the violation of their code.

  “After Ackerman was murdered, Crepi knew that his service to the Mafia could be exposed and that his usefulness to organized crime might be coming to an end. The cardinal was a methodical man and a realist.”

  “That is true,” interjected the head of the Swiss Guard.

  Nate nodded. “Rather than live a life stripped of all his comfort and privilege and looking over his shoulder in fear, Crepi chose death.”

  “His final act of pride,” said O’Toole. Nate nodded again and returned to his slides. He put up an image of Ackerman.

  “Before Monsignor Ackerman died, I spoke to him about his own involvement with Crepi and Salazar. I recorded the conversation. He verified everything we have heard so far about money laundering. He also said that his leaks to a journalist for Panoramio helped identify who the Mafia should kill, though Ackerman did not know at the time, that these leaks would lead to murder.

  “Ackerman also gave me a lead to follow regarding Cardinals Crepi and Salazar and the death of the boy in Naples forty-two years ago. I went down to Naples and interviewed the boy’s mother, who informed me that the medical examiner found no water in the boy’s lungs. He was clearly dead when he hit the water.

  “Cardinal Salazar confirmed this and that the Camorra helped the cardinals cover up the boy’s death. They were faithful lieutenants for the Mafia. But eventually, of course, they also received some substantial financial rewards. They were very attached to the money the Mafia gave them.”

  The Italian magistrate interjected, “Of course they were. Money was their real god.”

  Nate put up slides of two faces. “Arrests have been made. Don Franco Virgilio of the Di Lauro clan and a bartender from a Mafia-operated gay bar have been arrested.” A slide of Stefano appeared.

  “Other related people are being rounded up by the Italian police, thanks to the inspector here.” The Interpol inspector nodded in acknowledgment.

  “Unfortunately,” said the Italian magistrate, “this will hardly put a dent in their operations. They will probably be out of jail before the end of the week.”

  “That may be true,
” said Nate, thinking of Giulia Luppino, the mother of the dead boy in Naples. “But the arrest of the capi will lead us to people lower down. Maybe there will be a brief interruption in the Mafia activities on the local level. Perhaps even in drug-infested Scampia.

  “One thing that even the Mafia seems shocked at is child molesters. They might take retribution on their own on those who covered up the death of a young boy, even if it was more than forty years ago.”

  Nate paused again to take a drink of water. He thought to himself that maybe the gates of the Vele would stay open for a while and maybe the nightmare that started forty-two years ago for Giulia Luppino would come to an end.

  “But there seems to be one more cardinal you did not discuss,” said the head of the Swiss Guard.

  “Right,” said Nate. “Cardinal Ignacio Garcia of Guadalajara. Cardinal Garcia died in the crossfire of what appeared to be a shootout between rival drug cartels at the Monterrey airport in Mexico.”

  Nate projected some images of Mexican newspaper headlines. “You may have read about the horrific and public killings done by the drug cartels in Mexico that have claimed innocent bystanders. There was one shooting at a gambling casino in Monterrey earlier that year that killed over forty innocent people. At a ranch just north of Monterrey on the way to Matamoros, more than a hundred bodies were found. Sometimes the cartels have stopped buses and killed everyone on the bus, even children who just happened to be on the bus, when they only wanted one person. They did not want to leave any witnesses.

  “But,” said Nate deliberately, “I don’t think this was the case with Cardinal Garcia. He was not an innocent bystander. He was the target.”

  “Why do you think that?” asked Cardinal Santini. “Who made him the target?”

  “As shocking as it may seem,” said Nate, “I think he was targeted by people within the Church.” There was an audible gasp from the two cardinals and the employees of the Vatican in the room.

  “Who?” they demanded.

  “The evidence points to the Soldados de Cristo,” said Nate. Bill Tracy jerked uncomfortably in his chair and opened his eyes wide. Nate paused for a moment to let the accusation sink in, and then he continued.

  “Cardinal Garcia was a longtime opponent of the Soldados,” said Nate. “He was especially suspicious of their founder, Monsignor Marcel Marcelino. It is now well known that Marcelino was sexually, financially, and morally corrupt. Garcia was an outspoken critic of the Soldados, who could not and would not risk the possibility of him becoming pope. Just a week before his death, Garcia preached the last in a series of four homilies, criticizing fanatical groups in the Church. He especially singled out groups led by despicable and corrupt men, who had little appreciation of the gospel of Christ. It was obvious he was referring to the Soldados. They could not abide such criticism.”

  O’Toole interrupted the flow of Nate’s presentation. “Garcia’s reputation for reform was gaining notice, not only in Mexico, but also here in Rome. He was pretty clearly a leading papabile.”

  “Precisely,” said Nate. “The Soldados had motive and means to kill Garcia. They wanted him out of the way, because it was too big a risk for them that he might be elected pope. A Mexican pope who was opposed to the Soldados would have been a mortal threat to their existence.”

  Nate flashed a portrait of Cardinal Garcia on the screen.

  “I interviewed the cardinal’s secretary,” said Nate. “He told me that Garcia had received threats in the weeks leading up to his death.”

  “Yes,” said the Interpol inspector. “We had reports of that. I’ve brought them along.”

  Nate projected up on the screen images of newspaper articles with pictures of Cardinal Garcia and accounts of his sermons.

  Nate projected photos of Marcelino on the screen next, followed by photos of his mistresses, children, and homes. He gave some of the details about Marcelino’s extensive corruption.

  Tracy covered his eyes as Nate probed the more lurid details.

  “The Soldados founder had not one, but two secret mistresses and families he supported with money from the religious order. He regularly had sexual relations with seminarians in his order and swore them to silence. He also used undue influence to induce vulnerable widows to give up their fortunes to him.” Nate looked over at Tracy and thought about Peggy.

  “All of this has been well documented,” said Nate. “Monsignor Henry Rodriguez has been assigned by the Holy See to investigate the Soldados and to oversee their operations. He has, at times, been concerned for his own safety.”

  “But why would anyone stage a shootout at the airport?” asked the Italian magistrate. “Why not kill him quietly?”

  “Reputation,” answered Nate. “The shootout at the airport was not just a killing. It was character assassination. The cardinal’s killers wanted to make it look like Garcia was involved with the drug cartels, maybe even on their payroll. Shootings like that were so common in Mexico, they knew that it would hardly be investigated. If it really were a drug hit, the police would just leave it alone.”

  Nate projected news photos of the cardinal’s corpse, lying askew, half-dismounted from his black Lincoln, in the departure ramp of the Monterrey airport.

  “Even the murder of a cardinal would be just another drop in the sea of blood. It was well known that the drug cartels would not hesitate to kill a priest or a bishop. So, why not a cardinal?

  “If they had killed judges, police chiefs, prosecutors, and journalists, a cardinal would only be one more dead man. The shooting did not just attack Cardinal Garcia’s body. It also attacked his reputation. People just assumed that he must have been involved in the dirty drug wars of Mexico. So, the Soldados didn’t just rid themselves of their enemy. They also ruined his reputation. It was a public relations bonus.

  “After all, if Cardinal Garcia was a target of the drug cartels, it implied that he was somehow involved with them. If he was in league with the cartels, then the Soldados’ chief critic would have been neutered.”

  Nate flashed up headlines from Mexican papers showing that the cardinal was suspected of drug dealing.

  “Cardinal Garcia was an honest man. The Soldados made him into a drug dealer,” said Nate.

  “But why would the Zetas or some other cartel shoot a cardinal on behalf of the Soldados?” asked the Interpol inspector.

  “Easy,” said Nate. “Money. They are assassins for hire, just like the Mafia that killed Manning in New York. It was the ideal crime for the Soldados. All they had to do was pay the money to the cartels to do the crime. The drug cartels got the blame, but they didn’t care. The Zetas or the Sinaloa cartels are happy to do any crime if you pay them enough.”

  “The Soldados have many people working in Rome,” said O’Toole. “In some ways, they are a bigger threat to us than the Camorra. We can close the bank and even close the diplomatic corps. That would make the Church a lot less useful to the Mafia. But it is a lot harder to deal with a religious order as big and as worldwide as the Soldados.”

  Cardinal Santini nodded in agreement. “They are more like a movement than a community. They have their lay group, Regnum Dei. They have money and houses and lots of fanatical followers.

  “Even though we have arrested Marcelino and a few others, they still have their acolytes.”

  O’Toole agreed, for the first time becoming visibly agitated. “They want to take us back to the ultramontane church of the 1800s, when the pope was an absolute monarch and the Church was a cultural fortress.”

  “Even if we arrest the ones who are responsible for the crimes, we cannot turn off the movement,” said Santini. He added, “The Soldados are always comparing themselves to the Jesuits in their early days. Maybe we should treat them just like we treated the Jesuits in the eighteenth century and suppress them for seventy or eighty years.”

  Santini and O’Toole chuckled. The reference was lost on Tracy and Nate; even though they had gone to Jesuit schools, they didn’t know that the Jesuit
s were once suppressed by the pope.

  “What should we do about Mendoza?” asked the head of the Swiss Guard. It was his job to guard the conclave, and his tone of voice was serious.

  “We begin the conclave in three days. How can we have a cardinal in the conclave who may have been involved in the murder of his fellow cardinal and countryman?”

  Nate thought about the police report he had received from the police captain just before the meeting.

  “The Soldados are nervous about this investigation,” said Nate. “They were responsible for an attempt on the life of my wife and me on the autostrada yesterday.”

  O’Toole interrupted. “The Italian police can arrest the guys who attacked you on the autostrada, but the Church can’t keep Mendoza out of the conclave. We don’t have any proof against him. Even if we did, he has not only a right, but also an obligation, to be in the conclave. That’s his duty as a cardinal. We have to let him in.” O’Toole continued, “The Soldados are an even bigger problem than the Camorra.”

  The Italian magistrate raised his eyebrows. “That’s something I don’t hear too often, that somebody is a bigger problem than the Camorra,” he said.

  They sat there in stunned silence for a minute or so. These revelations about the extent of corruption in the Church and the threat presented by the Soldados de Cristo were a lot to take in, even for sophisticated men.

  “But what about the murder of Manning?” asked O’Toole. “Who was responsible? That’s how this whole investigation got started.”

  Nate picked up the thread again. “The investigation thus far indicates that it was the Mafia behind the murder of Manning, but they used New Church to carry it out. They got New Church to use a Belgian contact working at Rockefeller Center in New York to leave the door to a balcony across from the Cathedral open. The Mafia was able to come in and set up a remotely controlled gun.

  “They were all using each other: New Church, the Mafia, and their friends in the hierarchy. Only the Camorra had the money and the connections to make Manning’s murder happen. New Church was their unwitting co-conspirator. They thought they were working for a like-minded Church reform group.”