The Canary List: A Novel

by Sigmund Brouwer

  All roads lead to Rome, Crockett thought. More specifically, to Father O’Hare in Rome. More specifically, to the Vatican. “And his reason?”

  “Although a quarter-century had passed since my patient endured the Satanic ritual,” Mackenzie said, “she identified the man she remembered as a priest when she saw his photograph in the Los Angeles Times. He had become a cardinal. Of the archdiocese of Los Angeles.”

  “Cardinal.” Crockett felt stupid echoing the word but couldn’t help himself at the audacity of the accusation.

  “Cardinal,” she confirmed. “O’Hare believes that a true Satan worshipper, this cardinal, has managed to infiltrate the Vatican.”

  Sixty

  he car turned onto a narrow cobblestone street. Trees dominated one side, a high stone wall on the other. Crockett had no idea where they were; the drive through the countryside into the heart of the city had taken nearly an hour, long enough for dusk to become night. Long enough to totally disorient Crockett.

  “We can trust these guys, right?” Crockett whispered it to Mackenzie from the back of a massive black BMW. “These guys” referred to the driver and passenger in the front seat of the car.

  “Cardinal Ricci sent these Swiss Guards,” she said. “The equivalent of Vatican police. He described what they would look like and the car they’d be driving. If that isn’t enough, there’s the fact that no one else knows we’re here.”

  The driver parked along the stone wall. Above it was the outline of a tall square building.

  “Where are we?” Crockett asked Mackenzie.

  She half turned. “Not sure. But this is where we are meeting Jaimie.”

  “Mr. Swiss Army,” Crockett said. “Where are we?”

  “Swiss Guard,” Mackenzie corrected him.

  The driver turned. “Fourth century church. Domitilla.”

  Crockett nudged Mackenzie. “Good. A church. Now I feel much safer. Nothing bad has ever, ever happened in a church. Especially a Catholic church.”

  Jaimie sat in the back of a fancy black car while the driver wove in and out of traffic on crazy roads that left her totally lost. All she knew was that she was somewhere in Rome.

  Alone.

  This had not been part of anything promised to her by Father O’Hare or Dr. Mackenzie when she agreed to help them hunt Evil.

  She was trying to be brave, mainly because all her life she didn’t have a choice except to be brave. If she stopped trying, then she would be allowing herself to worry about all the things she was scared of. She really didn’t want to go there.

  More difficult, though, than the usual kind of brave was being brave in a city halfway across the world from home, in a car with a driver she didn’t know, taking her to a place that he wouldn’t tell her about.

  It was even more difficult to be brave after what had just happened. Evil was in Rome. She’d been warned that she would have to face it, but she’d been promised she wouldn’t be alone.

  Jaimie was tired of being alone.

  To comfort herself, Jaimie closed her eyes and remembered the night that she’d gone to Mr. G for help. She pictured herself in the kitchen with Nanna, with the mug of hot chocolate, and how safe she had felt with that nice woman treating her just like she belonged in that home.

  Not in the house.

  But in the home.

  As Jaimie swayed with the movement of the car, she held tight to the memory, telling herself she would visit Nanna again.

  Sixty-One

  ou’re the guard from the hotel room.” These were the first words spoken by Crockett Grey. “And chief exorcist.” Crockett’s memory went back to the article he had seen in the Fishloft.

  They were in a sunken church, stone walls silent testimony to its antiquity. O’Hare had been waiting at the church in a room with plain furniture but crowded with oil paintings centuries old. Exactly on time, as promised by Cardinal Ricci, Mackenzie had delivered the man.

  “Not much of a guard,” O’Hare said, allowing a rueful tone into his voice. “I have to admit, it was impressive how you bolted.”

  It was O’Hare’s first real chance to take the measure of Crockett Grey, awake. He liked what he saw. Quiet watchfulness. Surely the man had to be exhausted, but he wasn’t showing it. And most surely, the man had to be bewildered. A week ago, his life was that of a schoolteacher at the beginning of the summer break. Now he was in Rome, thrown into events far beyond his comprehension.

  Although Crockett didn’t know it, this would be an important meeting. O’Hare saw some use for the man, especially with the pope growing weaker and weaker in his coma. Soon, all would come to a head. O’Hare had been patiently manipulating people and events for months. At the pope’s death, it would all come together. Or all fall apart. Crockett, O’Hare had decided, might be the difference between success and failure.

  “Apparently you know a great deal about our search for Jaimie’s DNA and ancestry,” O’Hare began. “And, as Cardinal Ricci informed me after your discussion with him at the villa, you know something about Jaimie that we don’t. Who her true mother is.”

  “I’d like to know more,” Crockett said. He was wearing horn-rimmed glasses that must have been a little too heavy, because, for the second time since entering the room, he pushed the frames back up on his nose. “Where is Jaimie? I thought we were meeting her here.”

  “She’ll be joining us soon,” O’Hare said. “She came voluntarily. To help us.”

  “Why does the Vatican’s chief exorcist need her help to stop Satanism in Rome?”

  “You told him who I was?” O’Hare asked Mackenzie.

  She shook her head, negative.

  That Crockett knew who O’Hare was gave another indication of Crockett’s potential danger and corresponding potential usefulness.

  O’Hare smiled, trying to appear relaxed, but thinking he’d have to play this man carefully. Give him just enough to give him the illusion of seeing the whole picture, but never enough to know the truth.

  “It began about six months ago, with a phone call from Dr. Mackenzie here, arranged through a priest in Los Angeles whom she knew,” O’Hare said. “Because of my position and decades of experience, Dr. Mackenzie wanted to consult with me about Jaimie. Dr. Mackenzie told me that Jaimie described feelings of darkness she couldn’t articulate very well. Under hypnosis, she began to say things that suggested demonic influence. Yes, Dr. Mackenzie?”

  Mackenzie paced slowly. “I had a chance to spend many hours with Jaimie. It took awhile for her to open up, but after hearing what she said in sessions about feeling like evil was hunting her, I thought Father O’Hare was an expert I should consult. From the beginning, I had Jaimie’s full permission to learn what we could in regard to the demons. I informed her what the implications were if Father O’Hare was correct. It seemed to lift a tremendous burden off her shoulders.”

  “No offense,” Crockett said. “But that’s probably one of the upsides of demon possession. The burden is off your shoulders. You’ve got the best excuse in the world. You can blame the devil.”

  “You are absolutely correct,” O’Hare said. “Time and again, parishioners want and hope to be able to cast the blame elsewhere. Much better a demon than mental illness, from their point of view. That’s why we are so careful to use the help of psychiatry to conclude it’s a legitimate demonic possession before we begin an exorcism. Jaimie is unique. I wanted to confirm my suspicions through Dr. Mackenzie’s discreet research before bringing her to the attention of the Vatican.”

  “Suspicions. That she is demon possessed? You run DNA tests and genealogy reports on anyone you think is demon possessed?”

  “I understand your impatience,” O’Hare said, “but let me give you more background first.”

  “I doubt you understand at all,” Crockett said. “You might think we’re having a polite clinical conversation, but from my point of view, even if you think there’s a danger of Satanism in the Vatican, there’d better be a strong reason I was drugg
ed and thrown onto an airplane and taken halfway across the world. I’m a guy whose life has been turned upside down, and I’m in danger of losing contact with my son unless this gets cleared up. I didn’t ask to be involved.”

  “Of course there’s a strong reason,” O’Hare said. Although he felt in full control, he allowed a trace of impatience into his voice. “The election of the next pope depends on the girl. Do you want me to leave it at that?”

  Crockett gave him a level gaze for a few seconds, and then a faint smile. “Yes, although Dr. Mackenzie mentioned this, Father, you do know how to set a hook. Go ahead, reel me in.”

  O’Hare didn’t think of Crockett as a fish on a hook, but as someone snared in his web. Someone O’Hare needed to wrap completely at the end of a strand.

  “Six months ago,” O’Hare said, “our current pope was getting closer and closer to the end of his papacy. That made it all the more urgent to learn what we could about Jaimie. Yes, we needed DNA analysis and genealogy. Without that, I would have nothing to convince any, let alone many, of the cardinals that Jaimie was important to the Vatican. Demons, you see, are dismissed by a large, large percentage of the church, including bishops and cardinals.”

  “You needed her to prove that demons exist?”

  “More than that,” O’Hare said. “Much more than that.”

  Mackenzie spoke again. “Father, I believe the rest of this is much better coming from Jaimie than us. Crockett needs to know we’ve been completely open with her.”

  “Of course,” he answered. “Mr. Grey, I hope you’ll be content to wait just a few more minutes.”

  Crockett was still not content to sit back with his eyes closed.

  “Father O’Hare,” he said, “at least give me some background. I’m not Catholic.”

  Mackenzie kept pacing slowly.

  “Don’t think for a moment I’m suggesting that the true importance of the Roman Catholic Church is strictly in secular terms,” O’Hare said, “but one way of grasping its impact is to understand that it is the oldest organized institution in human history. Almost two thousand years now, and with a billion adherents. In power and influence, the church rivals nearly any nation. Its leader, the pope, carries the same political power, if not more, as does the president of the United States—with one profound difference. Our billion adherents are taught that the pope, as a direct representative of God, is infallible. When he speaks, it is God speaking.”

  “Put in those terms,” Crockett said, “he’s a dictator, and to question him puts you in danger of going to hell.”

  O’Hare chuckled. “I understand your cynicism. It’s shared by too much of the world. But you should understand that the pope simply cannot function as a dictator. Trust me, the machinery of the Vatican ensures that. Even the most revolutionary popes are incapable of imposing their will unless they are willing to work with the machine.”

  “Or willing to be killed,” Crockett said. “Remember John Paul I? Thirty-three days only as pope. Symbolic, perhaps?”

  O’Hare was liking this man more and more. Intelligent and capable. “There are those,” O’Hare said carefully, “who favor conspiracy theories and wonder if John Paul was stopped before he could upset the applecart, but that’s outside the scope of this discussion. Let’s just say that as an earthly institution, the church is very top-down driven. If a pope understands the politics of the Vatican, he wields as much power as any man on the globe. World leaders come to him and ask for help. He lifts a finger, it makes world news. A policy change or fresh thought on theology can be like an earthquake. Millions and millions are affected by any new decree. That’s why the Sacred College of Cardinals might wrestle for days to elect a new pope.”

  “Sacred College of Cardinals?”

  “There are one hundred twenty cardinals worldwide. The new pope will be one of those cardinals, elected by the members of the Sacred College themselves. But it’s never as democratic as it might sound. Out of those one hundred twenty, there are generally only a few seen as credible for the papacy. Right now, as you probably know from newspapers, there are three top contenders for the papacy. One is an American, Cardinal Saxon from the Los Angeles archdiocese. The other two have been political rivals for years here in Rome. You met His Eminence Eduardo Ricci, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, this afternoon at his villa. His rival, Eminence Leonardo Vivaldo, is the Cardinal Secretary of State. Permit me to explain what’s not so obvious in the headlines.”

  Crockett nodded.

  “First,” O’Hare said, “there’s never been a situation like this in church history, with the pope in an extended coma. During medieval times, medical technology didn’t exist to prolong a man’s life like this. Therefore, our church fathers didn’t need, nor could they foresee, provisions that would solve the dilemma.”

  “Dilemma?”

  “There is no special legislation to specify who rules this institution while the pope is comatose. You see, during the ten or so days between the death of a pope and the election of a new pope, the camerlengo is authorized to make any necessary decisions to run the daily affairs of the Holy See, but neither he nor the other cardinals are allowed to make appointments or innovations to the government of the church.”

  “Except this pope is not dead.” Crockett said.

  “Nor really alive,” O’Hare answered. “The seat of the Holy See is vacant, but not vacant.”

  “A power vacuum.”

  “Precisely. The explanation is dull but necessary for you to understand what’s at stake. It’s has led to a power struggle based on precedent applied elsewhere. In general, in any diocese, if a bishop is incapacitated, the auxiliary bishop will automatically run the affairs of the diocese. The pope is the bishop of Rome, and as his auxiliary bishop, Cardinal Vicario Eduardo Ricci argues that with the pope alive and incapacitated, it is his role to continue to run the Holy See. In direct opposition, Leonardo Vivaldo, the Cardinal Secretary of State, argues that as the Holy See’s de facto prime minister, he has the authority to preside over the Vatican. As I said, because the situation is unprecedented, so are both arguments. It does not help that both men have been notorious as political rivals for the previous three decades. Many cardinals believe it will be better to allow the third contender to be pope, instead of risking a pope with clearly defined enemies and allies.”

  “So the cardinal from Los Angeles benefits.”

  “Yes,” O’Hare said. “Such is politics. But there is yet another factor, one that must never reach the public eye. The Los Angeles cardinal is unsuitable to be pope, and it would damage the church for decades if he were to be elected. Jaimie is the only way to stop him because—”

  Before O’Hare could offer more, the door opened. Another ubiquitous man in a gray suit escorted Jaimie inside, then wordlessly shut the door.

  Sixty-Two

  aimie, in jeans and a sweatshirt, ran to Mackenzie, and threw herself into Mackenzie’s arms.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. G,” she said, looking at Crockett while still in Mackenzie’s embrace. “So sorry that you’re here. Dr. Mackenzie said it was the best thing for you. That taking you here to Italy would save your life. That’s why I did it, brought you into the room.”

  “If that’s why, I’m glad you did,” Crockett said.

  Mackenzie stroked Jaimie’s hair, her eyes closed. The woman really cared about Jaimie.

  O’Hare stood, so Crockett followed suit. O’Hare waited until the embrace ended.

  “Miss Piper,” O’Hare said. “Was not Cardinal Ricci supposed to be with you?”

  “We were in a creepy old building,” she said. “Before we could get to the pope, Cardinal Ricci spent a long time talking to some men. They spoke in Italian. I couldn’t understand, but they all seemed mad. Then he sent me here alone with the driver and said he would come back as fast as he could. Maybe it was because of that other meeting. Some other old guy. A friend of Cardinal Ricci’s. He smelled funny. Weird funny. Probably just the old person smell. I wasn’t
really afraid, at first, but then when the cardinal took my bracelet away …”

  Had Crockett heard correctly? Jaimie was supposed to have met the pope? The pope.

  It was insane. But here he was, in conversation with the chief exorcist of Rome, feeling like he still had not really learned much about why all this was happening.

  Jaimie wrapped her arms around herself. “Everything went dark. Dark, dark. Like I was in a black room, a million miles across. All alone, with cold wind blowing across me. I felt so tiny. And like hunters were coming for me in the darkness. I said what Father O’Hare taught me to say, and somehow it felt a little better, but I knew Ricci’s friend would have killed me if I was alone with him.”

  “We’re with you,” Mackenzie murmured to Jaimie. “Tell us what happened.”

  Jaimie shivered. “Cardinal Ricci asked this man if he would bless me. First Cardinal Ricci said he needed to take away my bracelet. I gave it to him, and then he stepped away. That’s when I felt Evil. Then the old man jumped on me and tried to kick me. Cardinal Ricci had to grab him and pull him away and take me out of there.”

  “Where?” O’Hare asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jaimie said. “Remember, I said a really old building? To get to it, we passed these guys in striped clown outfits. Like guarding it. Really … clown outfits. I wanted to laugh, but everyone looked so serious. Especially when another man—I think he was a cardinal too—stopped us on the way out and talked to Cardinal Ricci. I couldn’t tell what they were saying because it was Italian, but when they were finished, Cardinal Ricci said I would be safe if I went with the driver. You told me I could trust Cardinal Ricci, so I did, and the driver brought me here.”

  Mackenzie hugged her again.