Archangels: Rise of the Jesuits

by Tavakoli, Janet M.

  “No,” James said firmly. “I’ll refresh your memory. Father Gassner worked with Dr. Franz Mesmer and Father Hell, back in the late eighteenth century, and was credited as the true father of modern hypnotism. He was also a bit of a showman. He would enter a room holding a crucifix high in one hand and call out, ‘Sleep’ in a commanding voice, instantly creating a state of hypnosis in those present. He could have done it without the crucifix, but he couldn’t resist a good performance.”

  Michael raised an eyebrow. “That was for real?”

  “Yes. Hypnotism works very well on about eight percent of the population when performed properly. A much higher percentage of the population has somewhat lesser susceptibility. It’s sometimes used more effectively than anesthetic to relieve pain. I use it in my practice. Father Gassner was a master, and we study his techniques. In his famous Lazarus experiments, he suspended his subject’s heartbeat for several minutes, and then called the person back to life.”

  “So Jesus might have done the same thing…” Michael said slowly.

  “Possibly,” James agreed.

  “So you’re telling me that Father de Aragon’s ability to make a room feel warm and Father Herzog’s ability to get people to cooperate with him are merely magicians’ tricks?”

  James shook his head. “They’re much more than that. They are the result of years of study combined with highly trained minds and uncommonly strong wills.”

  Sudden disgust swept through Michael. “I’ve had about enough of this,” he said. “You seem to feel that you can manipulate people at will, without their consent.”

  James leaned toward him across their table. “We would never use this skill dishonorably.” A long moment passed, and then James sat back. From his face, he’d come to a decision. “I wonder what you think of us,” he said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do we appear to you? Are we a bizarre group of men, buried in their rarified Society, living in a world of the spirit and the mind with tenuous ties to the outside world?”

  “You’ve done all right in the outside world,” Michael said, easing back in his chair in turn. “Your psychiatric practice is very lucrative. Besides, why should you care what I think?”

  “Because you are the Church,” James said.

  Michael gave a mirthless laugh. “My income and education bounce me out of the Everyman category, even if I’m not in the same class as your Latin American billionaire supporters.”

  James toyed with his coffee cup. “True enough. Nevertheless, the struggling masses make up the bulk of the Church, the people we were meant to serve. Perhaps the Jesuits, by elevating themselves above the mundane concerns of life, are out of touch. We must reconnect with the masses, or the Church will die. The Society is even willing to make overtures to the women of the Church.”

  “The women?”

  “Yes. We don’t advertise it, but when the Jesuits were formed, St. Ignatius made a conscious decision to exclude women. It’s ironic, since he accepted financial support from many noblewomen.”

  Michael smiled at that. “Including Giovanna de Aragon, my ancestor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet he wouldn’t admit women into the Society.” Michael thought about that. The Church was about to be taken over by a group of Jesuits, whose founder had no use for women. He felt suddenly sad as he remembered Irena, recalling the horrible consequences of such attitudes throughout the Church.

  “He wasn’t a misogynist,” James said gently.

  “Mind reading again?”

  “I don’t have to be a mind reader to know what you’re thinking. St. Ignatius felt the Society could not deal with the special problems posed by women. But he didn’t hate them, or disdain them.”

  “My wife wouldn’t enjoy hearing that the Church thinks she poses special problems.” Michael paused. “Was St. Ignatius a homosexual?”

  “He was as far in the other direction as one can get,” James said. “Before he founded the Society, he was the quintessential seducer. He even killed a man in a duel over a woman.”

  “I vaguely remember that. But if he was so enamored with women, why did he become a priest?”

  “Father Meissner explained it in his book, Ignatius of Loyola, The Psychology of a Saint. It’s a psychobiography born of his work as a clinician and a prominent psychoanalytic theoretician.”

  “A psychobiography. It figures a Jesuit would make it into a cerebral exercise.”

  James laughed. “Well, it took a psychoanalyst to make sense of Ignatius’s motivation. He was born to a noble Spanish family and aspired to become the paragon of hidalgos: a soldier, courtier and seducer. He exhibited all of the symptoms of a phallic narcissist characterized by exhibitionism, self-aggrandizement, arrogance, unwillingness to accept defeat and a need for power and prestige. That was before his crippling injury.”

  “He limped, didn’t he?” Michael remembered that St. Ignatius had been maimed.

  James nodded. “Meissner held that if Ignatius’s leg hadn't been shattered by a cannon ball in battle, he would never have become a religious leader. At first he didn’t accept his condition. He had his leg broken and stretched more than once in an attempt to straighten it and restore his former physical form. But he remained disfigured with a pronounced limp for life. His days as a seducer were over, and he could no longer soldier for a career.”

  “But why as a priest? That seems a huge leap from life at court.”

  “Ignatius had to build a new life. His motivation to become a priest probably stemmed from his infirmity: spiritual ambition replaced his social ambition. He could no longer seduce women, so they had to play a new role in his life. He employed his old charm to a new end. He became close to Princess Juana of Spain, the daughter of the Emperor who became regent of Spain. Princess Juana pressured St. Ignatius into making her a temporary member of the Society. She was the only woman who even got that close again, only because Ignatius couldn't refuse her. He required her influence and financial support.”

  “So he still used women, but this time for their money,” Michael said.

  James sighed. “The Society will not change. Women do not have a role as priests, and that will not change either.”

  “So you’ll take on the Pope, but you won’t address the inequity toward women. I think that’s a mistake.”

  Rudolfo arrived with their desserts, along with exaggerated apologies for the delay. He had prepared two plates with chocolate truffle paté, raspberries soaked in brandy with crème Anglais on the side, a small piece of tiramisu and assorted biscotti. He set two more glasses of grappa next to the deserts. Michael sampled each dessert, but noticed that James touched none of the sweets or the alcohol. In fact, James had drunk only a couple of sips of wine all evening. Thinking back, Michael realized that James had barely touched his champagne or his wine the previous evening.

  “You’ve given up drinking,” Michael said in surprise.

  “Yes. The Society is very health-conscious these days. There are so few younger men. More than that, alcohol and other indulgences interfere with our mental processes, and we need clear heads. Especially now.”

  It dawned on Michael that the “special dessert” had been ordered in deference to his tastes. The entire dinner had been planned to make him feel more comfortable, more disposed to help the Rota. He wavered for a moment between renewed annoyance and sympathy. Were the Jesuits that uncertain of him, or that desperate?

  “You don’t have to entertain me, old friend,” he said. “I am committed to this investigation.” Helena would object if she knew, and he thought uneasily of her and the boys… but he was in it now, and he had to see it through.

  “It’s been a long time,” James answered. “I’ve changed; you’ve changed. The Society is changing. The Society needs friends like you, Michael. Resourceful people, committed people, intelligent people. We want to get closer to you. Perhaps when this is over, you will want to get closer to us, too.”


  Michael said nothing.

  James looked across the piazza and nodded toward the Baroque façade of the Church of Saint Agnese in Agone. “That’s where we’re going,” he said.

  The building was dark. “Father Graf is waiting for us in the church?”

  “No, in the building next to it. Look up and to your right.”

  Michael looked across the piazza. He saw a lighted window on an upper floor of the building next to the church. A rectory, perhaps.

  They paid the bill and Rudolfo hurried over. He clasped James’s hands, asked them both to come again soon, and fussed over them until they exited through the gate.

  ***

  Out of the warm yellow glow from the restaurant, the piazza seemed darker and more sinister. Michael saw it through a policeman’s eyes, a hotbed of petty theft and the commonplace rip-offs of Roman street life. In one corner of the piazza, a man sold marijuana. In another, an artist selling ink drawings reassured a German woman that his work was at rock bottom prices and also on display in a Toronto art museum. Her husband stood at her side, arms folded as if skeptical. He said nothing as his wife pulled out a wad of euros and paid three times what every other street vendor was charging.

  Well-dressed gigolos circled around lone females in the piazza like many sharks smelling blood in the water. The gigolos all spoke several languages with varying degrees of competence. Michael didn’t have to hear their conversations to know how this game went. A gigolo would flatter a woman, ask where she was staying, how long she would be in Rome and if she had friends or family in the city. When her departure date neared, he would ask her to dinner at a restaurant, where he knew the waiters and didn’t have to pay. Before his victim knew what was happening, he would be gone, along with her purse, her passport, her money and her credit cards. It worked because intelligent, educated, worldly women took risks on vacation they would never take at home. They all had the same surprised reaction: “But he seemed so well dressed, so educated, so nice.”

  On the far side of the piazza he saw a gang of local Italian boys shaking down a young Chinese woman selling cheap Asian jewelry. They wanted protection money for the right to sell her wares. They pushed her down and scattered her boxes of souvenirs on the ground. Michael tensed, then relaxed as a vigilo rushed to the scene. Minor skirmishes like that happened every day. The Chinese were becoming a larger minority in Italy. In a year or so, they would have their own little Mafia to add to the colorful street scene.

  Most of the tourists milling around the piazza were unaware of anything but the beautiful Roman night. But for Michael, the romance of the night had disappeared. Sometimes Rome was like a woman with beautiful hair, but when you ran your fingers through it, a wig came off in your hands, exposing her bald head.

  Helena had chased this feeling out of his life years ago. He’d thought it was behind him, but now he knew that it never would be as long as he stayed a cop. He felt suddenly empty and thought of Susan.

  ***

  At the rectory, James rang a bell recessed in the carved wooden door post. A buzzer sounded, and he pushed the door open.

  Ahead of them, soft yellow light illuminated wide stone stairs. Next to the stairs was an antiquated brass-gated elevator whose smooth gleam showed frequent polishing. They walked up three flights. As they reached the third floor landing, another large wooden door down the hall swung open and a manservant gestured for them to come in.

  Michael glanced into the dining room, where a table was set for two with fine bone china plates and handcrafted silver. Crystal goblets, a large one for water and two smaller ones for red and white wine, stood ready at each chair. A savory smell of garlic and tomatoes wafted through the air. He noticed a silver coffee service on an antique sideboard and a large Oriental rug patterned on a field of intense blue that provided the only splash of color in the room. The effect was one of elegance, refined taste and old money.

  Father Graf was obviously expecting someone, and Michael guessed that someone was female. This must be Father Graf's cozy little pièd-a-terre, his seduction chamber.

  The manservant showed them through the next door to the left, where Father Graf waited for them in a comfortable study. He wore an Armani suit that flattered his muscular frame. He stood to greet them, and Michael saw a wary look in his eyes.

  “Welcome to my little retreat,” Father Graf said. “I’ve had my man prepare coffee and cognac. If you like, I have cigars as well.”

  Michael shook his hand and thanked him. “I’ll accept the coffee, but pass on the cigars and cognac, if you don’t mind.”

  Father Graf had a strong grip; the bulge of his muscles as he pumped Michael’s arm suggested he worked with weights. He was the same age as James, but the two men couldn’t have been more different. “Rolf Graf,” he said, sounding terse. “It's good to see you again, Mr. Visconte." His frozen grin belied his words.

  Graf turned away from Michael, and his expression warmed. “James, you’re back! It’s been too long.” He spoke with genuine pleasure. “You’re looking very well.”

  James smiled back with equal warmth. “It’s good to see you too, Rolf.”

  Father Graf held a chair for James, and abruptly gestured for Michael to sit down as well. He exuded the brash assurance of a jet-setting tycoon who believes money can open almost any door and is willing to trample anyone in his path who doesn’t join him or get out of the way.

  The valet came in with the silver coffee service, set it down on a nearby table and then walked out, silently closing the door behind him.

  They sat, and James began speaking. “Father Graf performed the autopsy on Father Manion.”

  “Autopsy,” Michael said, surprised. “Where was it performed?”

  “In the Vatican. We have a small medical facility there,” Father Graf said as he poured himself coffee.

  “You had proof he was murdered, and you didn’t turn the body over to the Roman police?”

  James interrupted, with an intensity that startled Michael. “He was a Jesuit, and it happened in the Vatican. Father Manion was my friend. Someone outside the Society brutally murdered him. The Society was not about to abandon him, not even in death.”

  Father Graf looked upset by James’s outburst. Uncomfortable, almost ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael said. “I spoke out of turn, James, and I’m sorry for your loss.” He waited a moment before continuing. “What was the result of the autopsy, Father Graf?”

  “Father Manion died of an epidural hematoma,” Father Graf said softly.

  “Could you give me more details?”

  “Certainly. Father Manion suffered a skull fracture. A torn artery leaked blood inside the brain. The pressure of the blood on his brain killed him.”

  “Would he have died instantly?”

  “No. It takes time to build up pressure.”

  “Then there would have been symptoms.”

  “Yes,” Father Graf said. “Confusion, incoherence, drowsiness, possibly nausea.”

  That fit, Michael thought. The vigilo’s report described exactly those reactions. Father Manion had been hit over the head and probably lost consciousness. He must have woken and wandered off, surprising the hell out of his murderers.

  “Where is the body now?” Michael asked. “We need it as evidence.”

  “We buried it,” Graf said.

  “You buried it?”

  “Yes. We decided to handle the matter ourselves; Vatican security didn’t know about the murder. After the autopsy, I performed the last rites. Father Manion was an orphan, so there was no one to inform.”

  “What about Father Pintozzi? Did you perform an autopsy on him, too?”

  “Yes. His neck had been sliced through, probably with a sharp wire. He died of blood loss from a severed artery. It must have been quick.”

  James stirred in his chair. “Poor Matteo,” he said sadly.

  “Do you still have Father Pintozzi’s body?” Michael asked.

  Father Graf no
dded. “It’s in cold storage under Vatican guard. No one can get close to it without special permission from the Superior General.”

  Michael eyed Father Graf in silence. He was hiding something. Perhaps he was under orders from the Rota not to say more. Or perhaps it was more than that.

  “Well, thank you for your time,” Michael said finally. “I have no more questions.” Somehow, he didn’t want to linger for the promised coffee.

  As they left the study, Michael smelled a trace of familiar perfume and saw a light on under the closed right-hand door. Probably a bedroom. Father Graf’s next visitor had arrived.

  As if he had guessed Michael’s thoughts, Father Graf looked straight at him, prepared for anything he might say. Michael merely nodded good-night and opened the door to the hallway.

  Father Graf shrugged, like a schoolboy caught in a prank. “Please let me know if I can be of any more assistance in your investigation.”

  Neither Michael nor James spoke until they were out in the piazza.

  “You suspect him, don’t you?” Michael asked. Michael thought Graf was so arrogant that he didn’t care that his insincerity was transparent.

  “Yes. He has the right personality profile, the means and the opportunity. I wanted your impression, though, because some things just don’t add up.”

  “Such as?” Michael asked.

  “If he were our betrayer, he would have ordered Matteo’s murder. The Archangeli may have discovered Matteo was our spy, but I don’t see how. We allowed Matteo to cooperate and give them valuable information and passwords to earn their trust. Father Graf was having breakfast with me when Matteo was murdered. He was with me when he got the call from the guards, and he was genuinely upset. Shocked as well.”

  “It could have been an act.”

  “Maybe. But I know Rolf Graf well. He was definitely disturbed by the news.”

  Michael reflected on what James had said. He didn’t like Father Graf, but that didn’t make the man an embezzler and a killer. Father de Aragon had impressed Michael, despite his distaste for the man’s sexual preferences. But Michael’s admiring him didn’t make him innocent. Father Pleurre, the third of their potential suspects, was a difficult man to like. He was cold and a bit hostile, but his off-putting manner seemed to stem from his deep need to protect the Society. Still, Michael admitted, the man was difficult to read, and his seemingly fierce loyalty to the Society could be a performance.