by Tom Fox
“When the Church beckons,” Kopulov answered, his words syrupy with irony. He motioned toward a seat and indicated that Raber should take it. “Besides, it’s not every day I meet the man at the helm of an entire military.”
Kopulov said the last word with a full accompaniment of air quotes and a tone that suggested he viewed the Swiss Guard to be as much a military as a pre-school snowball brigade.
Raber sat, looked the Russian squarely in the eye, and decided to be blunt. “What were you doing at St. Peter’s two days ago?” He allowed his words to take the tone of an accusation, which was precisely what they were.
The suddenness of the challenge seemed to catch Kopulov off guard. A stencil-perfect pair of black eyebrows rose, compressing the broad wall of his forehead into rolling furrows. But the Russian’s composure was affected for only the most fleeting of instants. The twin brows fell back earthward, his features hard.
“Rather a direct line of approach, wouldn’t you say, Commandant Raber?”
“I would appreciate a direct answer.” Raber didn’t break the locked gaze.
“I can be wherever I want to be, do whatever I want to do, whenever I fucking feel like it!” Kopulov barked his words with sudden anger. “And I sure as hell don’t have to explain my choices to you.”
“You were in church. In my church—at a papal Mass. Am I meant to believe that the great atheist critic has found faith?” Raber asked, deflecting the Russian’s emotions dispassionately.
Kopulov eyed him, but Raber wasn’t finished.
“Your contempt for the Church is well established, Mr. Kopulov. You cannot have thought I wouldn’t notice you suddenly sitting in one of our pews, your hands folded and your lips muttering prayers.”
The Russian looked uncomfortable. “Know your enemy,” he muttered, though there was less bite to his words than a moment ago. His sneer, however, quickly returned. “You obviously do your due diligence in knowing yours.”
Raber allowed a few silent moments to pass. Kopulov clearly wasn’t going to open up and share the reasons for his sudden churchgoing impulse. It was time to press him with the other piece of information he had gained from his research during the night. His smoking gun.
“Fine,” he said. “If you don’t want to be forthright about your presence in St. Peter’s, why don’t you tell me instead about the twenty million euros that have suddenly appeared in your personal bank account.”
Gun, fired.
For the first time, the Russian man looked truly flustered. His face reddened, anger clearly a customary and automatic reaction. But Raber noticed, through the mounting look of aggression on Kopulov’s features, the glimmer of something else. Confusion.
“What the fuck are you doing looking into my personal accounts!” he finally boomed, wagging an enormous accusing finger at the head of the Swiss Guard.
“As you said, due diligence,” Raber answered calmly.
“Bullshit! This is spying. It’s entirely unjustified. You can bet I’ll be taking this up with the authorities.”
“Take it up with whomever you wish.” Raber waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll have to explain the same thing to them. Twenty million is a noteworthy sum, even for you.”
“I’m a wealthy man,” Kopulov answered, “and my personal finances are nobody’s business but my own.”
“That’s one approach you can take,” Raber said, “but I want you to consider how things look to me at this precise moment. Twenty million euros are wired into your account—I don’t yet know from whom, but you can be quite certain I’ll eventually find out. Twenty million, two days before a stranger invades a Vatican service. A service you, an avowed hater of the Church, spontaneously decide to attend. And then lo and behold, the whole world discovers that a flock of terminal cancer patients a few miles away have suddenly and mysteriously been healed.”
The Russian glared at him, his face deepening to the color of a ripe tomato.
“The world starts to cry out ‘Miracle!’” Raber continued. “But I just can’t get away from that twenty million, and your face on my CCTV feeds. A massive payment to a man whose company has made remarkable advancements in,” he leaned toward Kopulov, “the pursuit of pharmaceutical treatments for precisely the type of cancer in question.”
Raber’s pulse was thumping in his ribcage. Despite his rank and experience, directly challenging secular men of power was not a normal experience for the commandant of the Swiss Guard. But he kept his accusing gaze fixed on the Russian.
“Tell me, Kopulov,” he added forcefully, “how you think that ought to look to me.”
The Russian seemed wholly consumed by a rage that Raber knew, if allowed to emerge, would be explosive. His neck was bulging with such engorged fury that it threatened to burst the pearl button hovering above the loose knot of his tie.
But instead of exploding, the Russian took a long breath, leaned back in his chair and slowly raised a hand, pointing to the far side of the room.
“Get the fuck out of my office.”
Five minutes later, Christoph Raber was on the phone to his closest officer. As the connection passed through the requisite switchboards, he ruminated on the one fact he’d held back during his conversation with Arseniy Kopulov.
The fact that Raber knew precisely where the twenty million had originated.
He’d left it out because he still didn’t understand what it meant.
The source of the funds had been the Istituto per le Opere di Religione. The Vatican’s own bank. The Church had paid Kopulov, and that didn’t make any sense.
The line connected.
“Klefft, sir,” a regimented voice on the other end answered.
“I want you to tap all the finances of Arseniy Kopulov’s Alventix Ltd. Get me details on every transaction with outside corporations over the last six months.”
It was a tall order, but Raber knew his men could do it.
Whether or not they could do the next was a different question.
“And get me a full accounting of all the IOR’s external transactions as well. Without letting them know we’re looking.”
Kopulov sat in his office, his whole body churning with rage. The visit from the tall cop from the Vatican had insulted him in every way possible. He’d wanted to strike the man. Hell, he’d wanted to kill him, to rip the pretentious head from his twig of a neck and bowl it full force into the wall. Who the hell do these people think they are! Don’t they know who I am? Everything in him wanted to show those bastards who they were really up against.
Everything, except for one fact.
Arseniy had been at the Mass. He hadn’t known, and he still didn’t know, what had drawn him there. He hadn’t been to church since he was a schoolboy. But that morning he’d risen, certain somewhere in the depths of his core where he had to go. It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced since his youth, and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d even experienced it then. A draw, powerful and potent. He’d dressed in his finest. He’d walked to St. Peter’s, unsure even as he’d walked why he felt such a strange and unfamiliar urge to go there. He’d sat in a pew and, by God, he’d actually prayed. As if he were being drawn to the foreign act by a magnet. He’d closed his eyes, interlaced his fingers, and a dimension to his being he hadn’t thought he possessed had opened up. He’d felt, for the first time in his life, like he had a soul. That he wanted it purified. That he wanted redemption.
He’d left St. Peter’s almost at a run, sweating, terrified by the strange zeal that had possessed him. But it had been there. It had been real, and he had no idea how to explain it.
And now, to add mystery to mystery, he’d learned even more confounding news. He leaned forward and pressed a small buzzer on his phone. A few moments later his personal accountant entered the office—a lanky man who withered beneath the obvious fury of his boss.
“Get me a printout of all my personal accounts,” Kopulov demanded. “I want it on my desk in ten minutes.”
“I’ll
need some time to—”
“Get me my fucking accounts, durak!” Kopulov roared, slamming a massive fist down on his desk. “And then explain to me what the fuck twenty million euros is doing there—twenty million that I know nothing about!”
42
The Apostolic Palace: 11:49 a.m.
Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio emerged from the Pope’s private study feeling like a man transfigured. In all his life he had never felt like . . . like this.
The Holy Father had called the curia’s senior-most members into his study for the express purpose of finally meeting the man who’d been cloistered there since the previous day. Rinaldo had walked toward the great wooden doors of the room with intense trepidation. Whoever this man was, he was upsetting the normal order and drawing Pope Gregory into events that threatened the Holy Father’s very credibility. The closer Cardinal Rinaldo got to the study, the more forceful his emotions became. He was suspicious. He was angry. He was resentful that a perfect stranger should arrive in their midst and threaten so much damage to the Pope and the Church.
And then he had walked through the doors and everything had changed.
When he emerged ten minutes later, Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio’s world had been transformed. All his anger was gone. There was no more resentment, no more suspicion. No more fear. Rinaldo was a man at peace, filled with the most profound intensity of love. And the man he’d met had said almost nothing. It had been enough just to be with him, to sit with him. To sense that the world was right, that God was in his heaven and that the sorrows of the world would be overcome.
As he had departed the study at the end of the brief meeting, Pope Gregory had placed a hand on his old friend’s shoulder and peered into Rinaldo’s eyes. The long glance shared between the two friends said everything that needed to be said. There was no longer anything to be afraid of. Things were as they ought to be.
But then Rinaldo had left the study. The door had closed behind him, he’d walked away through the corridors of the Apostolic Palace, and his fear had begun to return.
What they had on their hands was real, of that he no longer had any doubt. That meant those who were their enemies in times of peace would be more strongly their enemies now. And with that fact in hand, only one thought filled his mind.
He had to warn his nephew.
Central Rome: 11:58 a.m.
Alexander guided Gabriella through the main doors of La Repubblica’s offices, back toward the busy Piazza dell’Indipendenza and their parked car. They had barely spoken a word since learning of the return to life of Gianni Zola’s daughter. That event had, over the past hour, migrated out of the realm of blogs and tweets and was now the stuff of special television bulletins and interruptions to radio broadcasts. Italy was spellbound at the news.
“It’s not clear there’s any connection between the girl’s return and the Pope’s words,” Gabriella finally blurted out as they walked along the pavement. This time it was she who was the voice of doubt. Healing the sick was one thing, something to be praised and thankful for. Raising the dead, however, was territory so miraculous she found it almost off-putting. It might have been beautiful in ancient Galilee, but it was too much for the modern world.
“Just because Gregory talks about the dead coming back to life in a press statement,” she continued, “it doesn’t mean that . . . in his words . . . he spoke as if it were a metaphor.” She was fumbling.
“There’s nothing metaphorical about a nineteen-year-old girl sitting up in her casket,” Alexander answered.
Gabriella let her breath hiss out between pursed lips. She was at once repulsed—death, corpses, coffins, resurrection. And yet there was also a powerful impulse toward hope. Could it be true? She was deeply devoted to a religion built around the life of a man who had risen from the dead and promised that he would raise others. Was it possible this promise was being fulfilled?
“But,” Alexander continued, shaking his head, “I still don’t like it. Let’s set aside for the moment that raising the dead is impossible. We can’t overlook the fact that the other miracles the world has witnessed since yesterday morning now look deeply suspicious.”
“Suspicion is a cagey thing,” Gabriella cut in. The roles of skeptic and believer alternated between them, reflecting the state of confusion of both. “The links we’ve drawn are tenuous.”
“But one thing isn’t. Everything began with the arrival of the stranger at St. Peter’s. He’s at the heart of all of this, Gabriella. And though the whole world seems eager to call him an angel, or Christ returned, you and I seem to be among the very few who know the truth.”
“Do we?” Gabriella queried, genuinely surprised. She stopped their progress. “Just what do we really know, Alex?”
“That he sure as hell isn’t divine, for a start. I may have left the Church, but I’m still fairly certain that angelic beings don’t have dead twins floating in Italian rivers.”
The twin. Gabriella still didn’t know what to make of the photo of the body in the Tiber.
“It can only mean,” Alexander continued, “that the stranger is part of something far more dangerous than just a manipulation of funds or religious convictions.” He turned to face her more directly. “Somehow this man has planted himself at the heart of the Church. He’s caught the ear of the Pope, and through him the world. He calls himself ‘the one’ and he has all the right features for the role: the flowing hair, the right posture, the charismatic eyes. But he can’t allow anyone to find out he’s actually just an ordinary man, with a brother who looks all but identical. And then we happen to find this brother—dead!”
Gabriella stuttered for a response. “Alex, he healed the Pope in front of the world. You saw the video. That wasn’t a parlor trick.”
“I saw the Pope stand upright, I don’t deny that. And no, I can’t explain it. But there are reasons it could have happened.”
“He’s been crippled all his life!”
“Maybe he’s been receiving treatment. Maybe this was simply the first occasion the results of his treatment have been manifest.”
“You think the Holy Father is lying?”
Alexander shook his head emphatically. “No, Gregory’s an honest man. But Gabriella, the power of suggestion can be strong. Think about it: he undergoes therapy, maybe just daily exercises for God knows how long. Then on this morning a man with extraordinary charismatic gifts stands before him and commands him to stand upright. The Pope is filled with religious fervor. He’s standing at the high altar, there’s angelic music. The man has captivated the crowd and walked right up to him, and Gregory’s caught in the inspired moment. For the first time he really tries to stand, believes he can—and all that therapy has its effect. He stands, but not because the man has healed him. He’s only drawn out a healing with a quite earthly explanation.”
Gabriella was silent, but slowly started walking again toward their car.
“You have to admit,” Alexander persisted, “it’s not outside the realm of possibility. It’s surely more likely than the idea that this man is Christ, walking around central Rome healing the sick.”
“But the sick are being healed, Alex. And what about the girl? That’s more than a healing.”
They arrived at the ugly Opel. Alexander walked to the passenger side and opened the door for Gabriella. It was unlocked, which surprised her. She couldn’t think of the last time she’d left a car without instinctively locking the doors behind her. The day’s events were obviously distracting her focus.
“I don’t have any idea how to explain this morning’s resurrection,” Alexander admitted. Exasperation sounded in his voice. “But at this stage, with everything else we know, I’m sure it’s as fraudulent as the other miracles.”
Gabriella harrumphed her way into her seat as Alexander made his way round to the other side of the car. An unfamiliar creak came from his door as it opened, as if it were sitting improperly on its hinges. Gabriella shook her head. She’d have to make a note for her au
nt. The old lady would want it fixed.
As for Alexander, he made a compelling case. But still, in the midst of it all, something hopeful lingered within her. She wanted to be suspicious, but she also wanted to believe. Not necessarily in the identity or powers of this man, but in the possibility that miracles did happen. That the sick were truly healed. That resurrection was more than just a dream.
Lord, I believe. Help my disbelief. The words of the gospel returned to her.
A telephone rang from the driver’s seat. Alexander reached into his pocket. The screen of his phone was lit up, his uncle’s number flashing on the display. He slid his finger across the screen eagerly.
“Alexander.” The cardinal spoke the instant the line connected. “We have to meet.”
43
Headquarters of Global Capital Italia: 12:04 p.m.
Very few things made Caterina Amato nervous. She was a woman far too accustomed to being in control to experience that emotion with any frequency. Yet this was almost too much. Too much going her way, being delivered into her hands. It was almost as if she were being offered her every need on a platter, and Caterina wasn’t used to being given anything. She was used to taking.
Abigaille Zola had come back from the dead in Piombino. She’d done it almost half a day after the public pronouncement of her death had sent a nation of fans into mourning. She’d done it in the presence of her father, who’d proclaimed it to the masses. And she’d done it, to all intents and purposes, simultaneously with the Pope announcing to the world that the miracles that had followed upon his visitation would pinnacle with resurrection.
Caterina could not have plotted a better course of events had she designed it herself and manipulated its every contour, as she’d done with the healings at the two medical centers. But it was precisely that which made her nervous: she hadn’t. Her hand hadn’t been involved in Piombino at all.
She took a deep breath, calming herself. D’Antonio was already en route. He would find out what was really at play there, and how they could use it to their advantage. Whatever its source, the situation would be put to good use.