by Rene Fomby
“Okay. I understand. I guess.”
“No, my friend, it’s not about understanding. It never has been. It’s about faith. Faith in God, faith in the Church, faith in the infallibility of the pope. As Saint Paul once said, ‘know that a man is not justified by works of the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.’ And right now, when our faith is being tested the greatest, when our faith is being stretched to the point of snapping, we must trust that the Lord saved Orso for a reason, that his rescue from the chapel at the very last minute was a sign from Heaven itself.”
“Nothing less than a miracle,” the bald one agreed, although his face said otherwise.
“Exactly, Savio. So now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to head over to the hospital to greet our new pope. While I’m gone, I trust you’ll make the proper arrangements for his return to the Vatican, and his presentation to the Church.”
“I will.” Savio started to rise, then stopped and sat down again, his face turned down toward the table.
“What is it, my brother?”
“It just hit me, Joseph. This attack on the very heart of our faith by the leaders of Islam. How are we possibly going to survive this? Can we still find a way to turn the other cheek, even after this? Or is Christianity doomed to enter another dark era, pursuing vengeance against our enemies instead of peace?”
“Only time holds the answer to that question, I’m afraid. And, of course, God Himself. I think we are going to need our prayers now more than ever before. Beseech Him to help us find our way out of the darkness ahead. Jesus said He was the light of the world. We will need that light for certain in the days and months ahead to help us see through the blindness of our hatred, our anger at all that has happened.”
Savio nodded, still only partly convinced. “But what if this is not the time to turn the other cheek? What if this is our calling to rid the world of these wretched Islamic demons, to rid our house of prayer of its own den of thieves? Can we afford to continue to show weakness in the face of our enemies? Shall we continue to lead our little lambs to slaughter? If godless Islam grows to think of us as timid, how long can Christianity continue to survive its attacks upon our people, our institutions? The insults to our faith?”
“Good questions, my friend. Very good questions, indeed.”
41
Vatican Laboratory
It took several hours to load everything into the freight elevator, moving excruciatingly slowly to keep from damaging any of the priceless amphorae, perhaps the most complete historical record of early Christianity in existence. Documents that the Knights Templar had rescued from the fabled Library of Solomon, plus the entire Library of Eusebius, containing the very first copies of the New Testament and other foundational documents dating back to Origen himself, the first true Christian scholar and chronicler. The sealed glass plates containing the documents that Mehmed had removed from the first five amphorae were already thankfully crated and fully cushioned, and Sam packed the backup disk drives and other media containing copies of Mehmed’s document scans into a large cardboard box and carried it onto the elevator herself.
They were just getting ready to wrap things up and head for the train station on the third floor when Gavin thought of something.
“Sam, you remember the other night, you mentioned something about a strange set of doors blocking off much of the fourteenth floor. Doors even your top-security IDs wouldn’t unlock.”
“Yeah, they had almost the entire floor cordoned off. Why? Is it important?”
“I was just thinking—I’m pretty sure, like me, you’ve near about memorized every nook and cranny of Vatican City, so you know that the Vatican has just one little jail, off to the south of St. Peter’s Basilica, mostly used for pretrial detention. But the thing is, even back in the day when the Vatican jail was being used, it’s incredible tiny, and now it’s used more often as a storage shed than as a prison facility. Plus, after the plane crash, even that’s closed down.”
“I think I’m following you, Gavin. So, if they don’t have a high-security facility to hold Mehmed in—”
“Then where the heck are they holding him?” Gavin sat down at Mehmed’s computer and quickly powered it up. “And I think we both know the answer—the Vatican has been hiding a secret jail right here under our noses, tucked away behind those doors on the fourteenth floor.”
“And that was probably why they were so sensitive to the fact that we were poking around down there!”
“Precisely. So let’s see what we have here … I stored a copy of the complete blueprints for this facility on my computer back at the office, but I squirreled away a copy on Mehmed’s computer as well …”
“Are you sure that’s wise? If you log on, won’t that trigger some kind of alert and send them down here poking around?”
“Right you are, Sam. But, as they trained us at Quantico, Field Agent Rule Number One for charging into a crowded and dangerous room is to always have a plan for getting back out alive. And, of course, the best plans usually involve some kind of back door … so … there we are! In like Flint, and nobody the wiser. I’ll just copy the whole folder over to the SD card from my cell phone …” He pulled a small memory card out of his phone and inserted it into a slot on the front of the computer. “And there we have it.” He eased the card back out of the computer and reinserted it into his phone, powering down the computer in the process. “No time to look at this right now. We can check it all out tonight when we get back to Ostia.”
“You really think it might be possible to spring Mehmed out of here? Just you and me, up against that whole squad of Swiss Guard goons?”
“No, Sam, you’re right. I’ve got to be back in Rabat first thing in the morning, so you’ll have to go it alone.” He laughed at the incredulous look she gave him. “Just kidding. I was actually thinking we might be able to call in a favor from Sanders one last time. Judging from the talent he’s already sent my way, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to scare up a few friendly agents willing to go toe-to-toe with those sissy boys in the cute clown outfits.”
“Not so sissy up close, Gavin. When they dress up like the Men in Black they can be quite convincing.”
“Okay, well, we’ll tackle that challenge later on. Right now, let’s get all this stuff loaded onto the train and get the heck out of Dodge. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds like a swell plan, Marshal Dillon. Let’s git’er locked and loaded.” Sam was already headed toward the front of the lab to shut off the switches to the battery backups, just in case anybody came looking. Even with all of the loot they had loaded up into the freight elevator, she doubted any of the Vatican goons would notice for a long time that they had completely raided the place over the span of just a few hours, then absconded with it all down the secret tunnel to Ostia.
With the lights off, she used her flashlight to find her way back to the freight elevator. Gavin gave her a nod and reached out to toggle the button outside the elevator that closed the wall, sealing them off from the lab, then turned a handle on an old-fashioned Otis elevator mechanism to send them up to the third floor. Somehow, miraculously, everything had gone off without a hitch. They had managed to sneak in, get everything loaded up, then sneak out without anyone being the wiser. A lucky outing, indeed. The kind of luck that comes with drawing up carefully over planned, anal retentive answers for almost every possible contingency, well in advance of ever needing them. And, of course, being a hoarder. Gavin’s now ex-wife had bitched at him for well over a year about that box of smart home doodads. Who’s laughing now? He smiled as the elevator started its slow climb up to the third floor.
※
To Sam’s and Gavin’s great relief, the back of the freight elevator did open up onto the train platform, saving them the trouble—and the risk—of moving everything one load at a time down the third-floor hallway and through the double doors to the train. Within thirty minutes they had everything tied down tight and the Vespas on board, as well, and they turned to
study the controls for the engine.
Gavin pointed to a cable stringing from the cab of the locomotive to an electrical box on the wall of the tunnel. “Hey, I think we’re in luck, Sam. Looks like at some point they converted this thing over to electrical power. So, assuming the batteries are still in good shape, this should be pretty easy to manage.”
“Then why do they still have the coal car filled to the brim right behind the cab?”
“Who knows? Maybe somebody just liked the way it looked. After all, there’s always a lot of pomp and circumstance going around anytime the pope’s involved. Or maybe it was just easier to leave it there than to figure out how to detach it from the train and get it out of here. But, give me a hand here, would ya? I need you to hold the flashlight on this while I look over all these switches.”
Sam stood back a bit to shine the beam of light as broadly as she could without casting Gavin’s shadow across the panel.
“Okay, it looks like this one is the master. Let’s give it a whirl.” Gavin flicked the switch up and the entire panel lit up instantly. “Well, that’s certainly a good sign. Looks like we have power. Although we’re still hooked up to the wall, so our next step is to check out the batteries.”
He leaned out the window of the cab and, pulling on the electrical cord, unplugged it from the socket on the side of the locomotive. As he did so, the lights on the panel dimmed a little, but stayed on.
Sam pointed to a small gauge set high up on the right side of the panel. “My guess is this is the battery charge meter, and it’s showing a half charge. Is that going to be enough?”
“It’ll have to be, I suppose. At any rate, it should be enough to get us a good ways down the track and far away from these parts, so even if we get stuck partway there, we can always figure out something later on to move our cargo the rest of the way to safety.”
“Well, okay then. You ready to hit the road, Jack?” She tapped a Vernier dial set in the very center of the panel. “Why don’t I give this baby a little nudge and see what happens?”
“Go for it, girlfriend. Now is as good a time as any to see if this old thing still has enough gumption left in her for one last trip.”
Sam leaned over and turned the dial up just a hair, and they could feel the electric motors come to life through the pads of their feet, but the train didn’t budge. Giving it a little more juice, the train groaned and finally started to roll forward.
“Crank her up, Sam,” Gavin suggested, watching the battery gauge closely as power drained toward the motors. By the time she had the power turned up to half way, the train lost all of its sluggishness and began to pick up steam. Soon she had to dial it back a little to slow down to what she felt was a safe speed, and they were hurtling down the tracks at what she guessed was close to thirty miles an hour. The headlights on the cab blazed far off down the tunnel into the distance while the walls flew by in a blur on either side.
Gavin nodded with satisfaction. “Looks like we’re going to be okay on the batteries, assuming they don’t suddenly slump off as they get closer to empty. But why don’t we kill the headlight for now, just to be safe? With the door wide open at the other end and the light streaming in from outside, we’ll get more than enough warning as we get closer to the station to slow this baby down in time.”
“Good idea.” Sam located the switch for the headlight and flicked it off, and suddenly they were racing through the tunnel in complete darkness, except for the faint glow from the panel. “Um, Gavin, the flashlight?”
“I’m on it.” Sam could hear Gavin fumbling around in the dark, and suddenly his light flickered on. He held it just outside the cab’s window, pointed directly down the tracks. “I know and you know there’s nothing out there on the tracks that we need to worry about, but somehow this makes everything a little less unsettling.”
“Yeah, for a second there it felt like we were stuck inside some kind of cheap horror movie,” Sam laughed. “And Freddy Krueger was going to jump through the door at any moment and kill us both.”
“With the way your luck has been going over the past year, I wouldn’t bet against it,” Gavin noted ruefully, thinking back on just how many times Samantha Tulley had narrowly escaped death in the short time he had known her.
With nothing left to do at the moment other than stare ahead down the tunnel, looking for the faint spot of light that would tell them they were nearing the end of their trip, Sam and Gavin took a moment to lean back against the cab and catch their breath.
After a while, Sam broke the silence. “Uh, Gavin, do you really think they might have Mehmed locked up down there on the bottom floor?”
“I’m pretty sure of it, Sam. After all, it is easily the most secure spot in the entire Vatican City complex, plus it’s well out of sight of any prying eyes. It’s almost certainly where I would put a dungeon if I needed one.”
“So … what do we do about it? They’ve had him down there for almost a day now. What do you think they’re doing to him?”
“Hmm. My guess is they’re still into the soft interrogation techniques. You know, beating the hell out of him, maybe waterboarding, trying to get him to talk. To tell them more about the master plan for the attack on the chapel. Problem is, he doesn’t know anything, and he’s too naive to figure out how to make something up. So I don’t think he’s got much longer before they really start getting rough.”
“Oh my God! Waterboarding? You call that the soft stuff?”
“Unfortunately, yes. This is, after all, the Vatican. The same guys that invented the Inquisition. And if they think Mehmed knows something about the attack, they won’t pull any punches to get the dirty details out of him on exactly who did it, and how and why. Out of his very flesh, if necessary. And that means we’re rapidly running out of time to save him. Which, of course, presents a real problem.”
“What do you mean?”
Gavin slumped back against the wall, thinking. His hand was still outside the window, holding his flashlight on the tracks in front of them. “An extraction operation is a very delicate and complex thing to pull off. You’ve got lots of moving parts, all of which have to be synchronized to the split second, or else people are going to get seriously hurt and the operation has an almost certain probability of failing. So, even with a well-trained team in place and plenty of time to plan everything out, it’s still a pretty dicey proposition.”
“And we have neither the team nor the time to do it. So Mehmed is screwed, is what you’re saying.”
“Not necessarily.” Gavin stood up straighter and clicked off the flashlight. “But probably.” He pointed toward the tracks in front of them. “But for now, we need to slow this puppy down. The station is coming up just ahead. Once we get this thing pulled to a complete stop, I’ll jump out and head for the door to the outside. Then maybe I can find some place that has a decent cell phone signal and place a call. It may be there’s nothing anyone can do at this point, but you know, it never hurts to ask.”
42
Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Rome
Orso waved the doctors away impatiently. “I do not have time for this. Where are my clothes? I must return to the Vatican immediately!”
One of the doctors stood his ground. “Yes, yes, we understand, Your Holiness. But—you have a visitor.”
“A visitor? Do you honestly think this is the time or the place for a visitor?” Orso swung his legs over the side of the bed and would have jumped down immediately if the lingering side effects from the pill hadn’t caused the room to spin around him alarmingly, reminding him of when he had taken Boucher’s pill in the chapel. He placed a hand on the bed on either side to steady himself. Taking a deep breath, he looked up. “Okay, okay, I’ll give you one visitor. Who is it?”
“I don’t know, Your Holiness,” the doctor answered, already withdrawing from the room with a slight bow. “But he insists you will recognize him immediately.”
Just outside the room, the visitor—dressed in a simple black ro
be, with a thick head of slowly graying black hair—detained the doctor for a brief moment, pressing one hand against the doctor’s chest.
“You have told him nothing yet? He does not know?”
“No. And we turned off the television and his telephone. He has been completely isolated, just as you asked.”
“Excellent.” The visitor pulled back his hand and slipped into the room quietly, closing the door behind him. The doctor for his part made his way quickly down the hall, eager to be far away from whatever discussion was about to transpire behind that door.
Orso was still sitting on the side of the bed, marshalling his strength, when the man walked in.
“Cardinal Orso, I believe you know who I am. And why I am here.”
Orso’s eyes widened. While he knew of this man by reputation, few had ever managed to have any kind of personal contact with him. And even fewer had survived it.
“What are you doing here? I need to return—”
“And you shall, in due time,” the man assured him in a calm but dangerous tone. “But first, we have some things we need to discuss. A lot has happened in the world since you collapsed.”
“I assure you, I am fine! The doctors say they have no idea why it happened. No stroke, no heart attack, no lingering disease. So I’m perfectly healthy now, perfectly ready to assume my office.”
“Yes. About that.” The man dragged up a chair and sat down, his every movement fluid and graceful. “What do you remember about the conclave just before you fell ill? Do you remember anything at all about the vote?”
“I am not allowed to—”
“Yes, I know all about that. But I think you’ll agree that silly rule does not apply to me. Now, again, what were your last memories before you fell ill?”
Orso stared at the barren wall opposite him, trying to organize his thoughts. He couldn’t afford any slipups right now, not at this particular moment. The man in the chair might as well be the Devil himself, and was rumored to be able to read the very thoughts of his victims. “We—we had a vote. The talley was complete, and it—it was obvious who had won …”