Archangels: Rise of the Jesuits

by Tavakoli, Janet M.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. But only because it was good for the Society. He became the Jesuits’ most talented hedge fund manager. I recommended him, because he had the best qualifications. Investments were his passion. He had a gambler’s appetite for risk, and a mathematician’s talent for managing it. As a money manager, he knew how to get the optimum profit out of any market betting opportunity. He was also the most talented Jesuit in the memory arts.”

  Hedge fund manager, Michael thought. Money provided a powerful motive for murder. A hedge fund manager was not an ordinary money manager. Hedge funds were private and catered to wealthy individuals with a net worth of at least one million dollars or an annual income of more than two hundred thousand dollars. Some hedge funds had even higher requirements, demanding a minimum investment of ten million dollars or more. Some hedge funds only allowed banks, insurance companies or other financial institutions to invest with them. It was an elite and secretive community that skated back and forth across the line of insider trading. Mutual funds had to publicly report their performance figures, but hedge funds weren’t required to report their track record.

  Michael managed his personal wealth as if it were a hedge fund. Hedge funds used high-risk sophisticated financial techniques, such as borrowing money and borrowing and selling securities one didn’t own, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price and make extraordinary capital gains. That was the likely reason for Father de Aragon’s visit to the wealthy South Americans. They were investors. Michael would get back to that later, but for now he said, “So you remained friends with Father Pintozzi.”

  The priest nodded. “But not close friends. Matteo wanted a higher position in the Society. James did a psychological evaluation on him a few years ago, and found him unsuited for advancement. I think Matteo felt I blocked him.”

  Michael shook his head. “I can see there’s a lot I don’t know about the Jesuits.”

  “Especially about St. Ignatius,” Father de Aragon said with a slight smile.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You and I share a common ancestor.” Father de Aragon paused to let Michael absorb this. “Our ancestor aided St. Ignatius when he made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem.”

  Michael frowned. “None of my ancestors lived in Spain.”

  “This ancestor moved from Spain to Paliano after her marriage. In 1524, St. Ignatius passed through Paliano, where he received financial assistance from Giovanna de Aragon, the wife of Asconio Visconte. Giovanna was your great-grandmother several times removed and the sister of one of mine. That makes us distant cousins.”

  Michael knew his ancestors had moved from Paliano to Rome, but he had never heard of Giovanna de Aragon. He would check the old family Bibles when he had a chance. Even as he thought it, Michael knew it was unnecessary; everything the priest said would prove accurate.

  He turned the conversation back toward things he understood. “You said Father Pintozzi managed a hedge fund. How was he doing?”

  “We just did a thorough audit. His fund was up more than 24 percent, and the year is barely half over. For the past six years, his fund has been up more than 38 percent annually.”

  “Is that 38 percent after fees?”

  “Yes.”

  Michael was stunned. That kind of consistent performance was impossible without cheating. He was about to point that out, but thought better of it. “What are the fees?”

  Father de Aragon grinned. “We charge eight percent per year plus 30 percent of the upside.”

  The fees were the highest in the money management industry. “Citadel, one of the most successful hedge funds in the world, only charges about six percent per year,” Michael said.

  “Yes, but they don’t come close to matching our success, do they?”

  In fact, no one came close to matching those numbers. Not even Warren Buffett during the period of his original partnership, from 1956 to when he closed it down in 1969. He had achieved a compound annual growth rate of 31 percent, but his fees were negligible. Yet the Jesuits claimed their hedge fund returned 38 percent net of fees.

  Michael regarded Father de Aragon with skepticism. The priest wasn’t asking him to believe this was a freakish run of luck. To achieve those kinds of returns, the Jesuits either did something illegal or they were lying.

  Father de Aragon ignored Michael’s expression and continued. “Matteo was a financial genius, and he put his genius to work in the marketplace. He had an uncanny ability to see clean and elegant solutions to complex financial problems.”

  Michael shook his head. “It sounds like a Ponzi scheme.”

  Father de Aragon chuckled. “No, it’s not. We’ll explain more another time.”

  “Then, as one cousin to another, who killed Father Pintozzi and why?” Michael was confused. If the fund had performed poorly or if fraud was involved, there would be a motive, but who wanted to kill a golden goose?

  Father de Aragon hesitated, all trace of levity gone. “I can't be sure.”

  “How did Father Pintozzi invest the money?”

  James interrupted. “Come to the Jesuit quarters in the Vatican on Monday afternoon at three. We’ll introduce you to special members of the Society, and many of your questions will be answered then.”

  “Wait. Why are you coming to me now? And how does any of this tie in to what you said before, about a political earthquake at the Vatican?”

  Father de Aragon locked eyes with him. “We’re asking for your help, the way St. Ignatius asked Giovanna of Aragon so many centuries ago.”

  ***

  After Michael finally closed the door on the priests, he became aware of an urgent need to urinate, and he was ravenously hungry and thirsty. Now that he thought about it, the two Jesuits hadn’t asked for the use of Michael’s bathroom or for something to eat.

  The apartment was cold from the air-conditioning, as if it had blasted all day. Michael turned it off and put on a sweater. When he went back into the library to collect the coffee tray, he noticed that the room felt comfortable. So much so that he prepared some food for himself and ate there. A casual glance at his watch as he finished shocked him; it was 4 p.m. The Jesuit priests had arrived around 9 in the morning. The whole day had passed, yet Michael would have sworn they had talked for less than two hours.

  His feelings about that talk were mixed. He admired and respected the Jesuits, and he owed them a debt. Jesuit guidance had once helped him out of a suicidal depression. But scars of deep personal grief colored his view of the Church, and of the Jesuits as part of it.

  Half longing and half fearful, Michael gave himself up to memory. He’d graduated from college early. He was a gifted student on an accelerated program. At Fordham, Michael fell in love with a young Italian girl, Irena Scarpa. Her father made and repaired custom shoes, earning a meager but honest living. His parents initially resisted the match, but they relented when they realized that Michael was desperately in love. He even considered dropping out of Fordham after his freshman year so he could stay permanently in Rome and marry Irena.

  The summer of his sophomore year changed everything. When Michael returned to the United States for the fall term, Irena was pregnant and too ashamed to tell him. She was afraid he would think she was manipulating him into marriage, and that his wealthy and well-born parents would think so too. So she kept silent.

  Unable to get a legal abortion in Catholic Italy, she went to a back-alley quack. She got her abortion and along with it, a perforated uterus. Too frightened and ashamed to ask for help, Irena went home to her room. She lost quarts of blood before her mother found her and took her to the hospital. Thirty-six hours after her abortion, Irena died from shock and massive blood loss.

  Part of Michael died with her. He blamed Church influence for the Italian law that made it nearly impossible for Irena to buy birth control pills or him to buy condoms, and for the absence of decent abortion clinics.

  Most of all, he blamed himself for being careless enough to pu
t her in jeopardy, and for not bringing contraception from the United States. He also blamed himself for not trying to draw her out, for not making her tell him everything on her mind. For not marrying her when he had the chance.

  His faith provided no comfort. He had never felt so useless and alone. A suffocating darkness clouded his thoughts: the end of living and the beginning of mere survival. Only the counseling of a few concerned Jesuits pulled him out of a suicidal tailspin.

  After Irena’s death Michael threw himself into his studies. He worked out every day with a rigorous exercise program, the only affirmation of life he allowed himself. His good looks and courtly manner earned him friends and popularity, but he never felt close to anyone. Especially to any woman.

  He left Italy and went for his masters at Georgetown, then went on to the University of Rochester for his Ph.D. He knew he could drown another few years in study, completely occupying his mind so that painful thoughts could not find their way to the surface.

  When the Specialists recruited Michael, he saw it as a way to do something useful with his life. The Specialists promised to make positive changes in Italian society, and they needed bright, energetic men like him. For a few years it was perfect. The Specialists fulfilled their promise, and Michael felt he had a purpose again. He rose to the top of the ranks in Rome.

  Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Italy was plagued with terrorist bombings and kidnappings. After the Red Brigade assassinated former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, the Specialists were granted the authority they needed to turn the tide of the war against terrorism. By the late 1990s Italy’s streets, train stations, and airports were safe once more.

  When Michael met Helena, he was still hiding in his work. He had dated a lot of women after Irena, but he quickly grew tired of them, or they grew tired of his distance. Helena was different. Her lively, outgoing manner and her ability to see beauty everywhere attracted him. He enjoyed her company and missed her when they weren’t together.

  They dated for a few months, and to his surprise, Michael asked Helena to marry him. He told her about Irena and his difficulty feeling attachment to a woman. Headstrong and determined, Helena agreed to marry him, but made him promise to commit one hundred percent, and said she would hold him to it.

  She’d wanted a church ceremony, but Michael couldn’t face it, even when Father James offered to perform it. His loss of faith and his loss of love were inexplicably intertwined. They had a simple civil ceremony instead. Now his job was threatening the security of his family, something Michael had promised would never happen. He always held something back from Helena; he’d welshed on the deal, and despised himself for it.

  He sometimes wondered about the child he and Irena would have had when he looked at his sons, Luke and Anthony. He tried not to brood, but lately he found buried memories of Irena rising to the surface every day along with his feelings of longing and guilt. He pushed them back, but they always resurfaced. He didn’t know why, but during the past few weeks he couldn’t turn his thoughts away from Irena’s memory.

  Helena never complained, but he knew it lurked below the surface. Sooner or later, she would challenge him. She’d sworn to hold him to his commitment, and Helena always kept her promises.

  CHAPTER VII

  Ostia

  Monday, June 17

  The sound of shouts and running feet from the garden below brought Michael out of the bathroom, his shaving half-finished. Bright morning sunlight streamed into the room from the open French doors to the balcony overlooking the garden.

  His reflexes took over as he slipped into his pants and a pair of topsiders, then ran out of his room and down the stairs. The door to the garden was open, and there was no one in sight. He rushed onto the patio just in time to see his gardener, Lorenzo, chasing a dark-clad figure. Michael flung himself after them both, and quickly overtook the older man.

  “Go back and check on the family,” Michael shouted. Lorenzo hesitated, then turned back. He wasn’t fit enough to keep up the chase.

  In seconds, Michael was on the intruder’s heels. The dark-clad man whirled and landed a glancing blow with a hard object on the right side of Michael’s head, then turned and kept running. Dazed, Michael continued his pursuit, but his stride was less steady and the man easily gained several yards.

  The interloper reached the six-foot garden wall and lunged for the top. Michael grabbed him by his calves and pulled. The man kicked downward, hard and vicious. His shoe grazed Michael’s right temple. Michael flinched and ducked, slackening his grip. As the intruder pulled free, Michael spotted a holstered gun under his jacket.

  The man scrambled over the wall. Michael ran back toward the gate. It was open. As he rounded the gate posts, he heard tires crunching gravel. A car, presumably carrying the intruder, was speeding off down the road. It was too far away for Michael to see the license plate. Disappointed and angry, his head throbbing, Michael strode back to the house.

  Lorenzo ran from the patio to meet him. “You’re hurt!”

  Michael shrugged. “It’s nothing. Did you get a look at him?”

  “I’m sorry, Dottore.” Lorenzo always addressed him using the honorific for those with a Ph.D. “It all happened so fast.”

  “What happened?”

  Lorenzo looked unsure. “Signora Visconte was having breakfast on the terrace, and she saw a man on the other side of the garden taking photographs. He was partly behind the bushes. When I went after him, he ran.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Was he a paparazzo? Signora Visconte is a Barone, and people might be interested in reading about the Visconte family.”

  Michael’s mouth turned up slightly. “I wish it were only that. I’m afraid our little family is not of much interest to the press. Besides, a paparazzo wouldn’t carry a gun.”

  Lorenzo’s face registered his shock.

  They walked into the house, and Michael went to the bathroom. He examined the right side of his head. It was tender from his assailant’s kick and earlier blow, probably from the camera, but the man had been off balance and hadn’t given the blow much force. His heel had left an abrasion; Michael cleaned it and then splashed cold water on his face. The water made him feel better.

  He left the bathroom to find Lorenzo in the hall, hovering and anxious.

  “Where are the children?” Michael asked.

  "They were playing inside. Signora Visconte went to check on them," Lorenzo replied.

  Michael went to find Helena. She was in the playroom with the boys, who were oblivious to the commotion. Anthony and Luke had eaten earlier, and they were contentedly playing video games. If a bomb had gone off in the garden, they wouldn’t have noticed.

  Helena gave Michael a questioning look, but he shook his head. He kissed her and said good morning to the boys. Helena drew breath to speak, but Michael cut her off. “We’ll talk after I check the grounds,” he said.

  Helena nodded. She looked concerned, even angry, but not panicked. A brave woman, his wife. Suddenly he found himself grateful that she didn’t rattle easily.

  He headed upstairs to finish shaving. He knew Helena would ask him again to stop his investigations, and he dreaded the conversation.

  Shaved and ready to face the day, Michael patrolled the villa. The Visconte family had owned it for three centuries. The incident with the gun-toting photographer worried him; he would ask the local police about any reports of strangers loitering around the area, or delivery men stopping at neighboring houses.

  He saw nothing anywhere on the grounds that gave him cause for immediate alarm. But this was Italy. Car bombings, kidnappings and murders were embedded in her recent history. He’d call the office and arrange a security detail as soon as he got back to the villa.

  He thought about how lucky he had been so far in his career, and perhaps how foolish. He and Helena lived a relatively open lifestyle here in Ostia; they had no electrified fences, no heavy weapons at their home, no vicious guard dogs. He owned a
gun, but kept it locked away where the boys couldn’t get at it. Danger to his family caused by his job was an unpleasant fact Michael hadn’t wanted to face. He’d been kidding himself, he realized, thinking the villa’s relative isolation was enough to keep them safe. Helena hated the security precautions they did take, mostly in Rome, and wasn’t shy about telling him so. No wonder she wanted him to leave the Specialists. Today’s incident had pointed up the lack of safeguards at the villa, and would be more ammunition for Helena.

  He finished his patrol at the garden gate and looked down the winding gravel access road shaded by tall oak trees. Empty, not a car or living creature in sight. He shifted his attention to the gate, hand-wrought iron wedged into the braccio-thick stone of the massive garden walls. A braccio was a Renaissance unit of measurement meaning an arm, but it varied. Michael’s walls measured about 66 cm, or around 26 inches.

  Statues of putti, small Cupid-like angels, sat atop the gateposts. Michael looked up at them. “You aren’t doing a good job of keeping out intruders. You’re just sitting there.” He walked back toward the garden and locked the gate behind him, vowing to arrange more protection for his family within the hour.

  As he neared the house, Helena came running towards him. In her cotton summer dress, she looked like a carefree teenager. She held out his cell phone as she reached him. “It’s someone from the office for you.”

  Michael took the phone. “Hello?”

  A muffled voice answered in slow, measured tones. “If it was easy to get pictures of your family, Mr. Visconte, just think how easy it would be for us to kill them.”

  He felt dizzy for a moment as the call ended. Helena, still next to him, threw him an anxious glance. “What is it?”

  He managed to keep calm. “It’s not important. They’re just encouraging me to get back to work. I need to make another call. I’ll join you at the house when I’m finished checking out the grounds.”