Dominus

by Tom Fox

  “My name is Deputy Commissioner Enzo D’Antonio,” he said, taking a seat in the tan vinyl chair next to her bed. He’d received the doctor’s assurances that he could have up to fifteen minutes alone with the girl for the purposes of a preliminary police interview about her sudden restoration. That the force in Rome had no idea he was here was not something the doctors could possibly know, and his warrant card was enough to convince them his presence was legitimate.

  “The whole world is happy to have you back,” he said to the girl, forcing a smile. He wasn’t used to talking to teenagers, and wasn’t sure what tone to take.

  “I’m happy to be back,” she answered. Her face was warm and grateful, but there was a patina of confusion across her features. Her words came in hesitant clumps.

  D’Antonio waited a few seconds. “Have the doctors spoken to you about what happened?” I really need you to tell me just what the fuck happened.

  The girl considered her answer before she spoke. Her face was intense with concentration. “They said I was . . . dead. But that can’t be true, can it?”

  “The whole country heard about your death. You’d been in a coma for a week. Finally slipped away.”

  “I don’t remember anything.” She shook her head, her eyes glassy. “Anything at all.”

  This was the territory D’Antonio needed to explore. “What are the last memories you have, Abigaille?”

  “I was at the beach with my friends. We were surfing. It was a normal day.”

  “Do you remember what happened while you were surfing?”

  She tried to focus. “There was wind, lots of it. I wasn’t in control of my board anymore. The currents were shifting. Then . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Then?”

  “I don’t know. I woke up in what I thought was my bed, but my hands were folded across my chest and my legs were cramped. It was like I was trapped. I sat up as fast as I could. I had a terrible headache.” She took a deep breath. Her eyes were wet pools. “My father was standing next to me. I was in a . . .” She hesitated, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the word “coffin.” Her words returned to the memory of her father. “He looked terrible. And when he saw me, he looked so scared.”

  “You don’t remember anything between the beach and waking up? You were in a coma for seven days, but you make it sound like an instant. And you’d been pronounced dead ten hours before that moment with your father. Ten hours.”

  Abigaille shook her head. “Nothing. The only images in my mind are vague. Not really memories.”

  D’Antonio leaned in toward her. “What kind of images?”

  “Just . . . light. Tremendous light. Bright, white. Everywhere. I can’t describe it. A few sounds, maybe. Nothing distinct, nothing precise.” A tear formed in the corner of her left eye. D’Antonio briefly contemplated reaching out to wipe it away, but thought that would be too much.

  Inside he sighed, a tremendous relief.

  “That, my dear, is very interesting,” was all he said aloud.

  Enzo D’Antonio interviewed Abigaille Zola for another ten minutes before departing her room and the hospital. His face was beaming as he left. It had all gone perfectly.

  He was on the phone to Caterina Amato within minutes of being back in his car.

  “The girl remembers nothing,” he said as soon as the line connected.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing at all. No green pastures or white clouds. No walking in the presence of the saints. Just—nothing.” D’Antonio knew that had been Caterina’s biggest fear as soon as she’d heard of the girl’s return. If Abigaille came to saying she’d been in heaven, or that she’d walked through the pearly gates with that man, their plan would have been destroyed.

  “It gets better,” he added.

  “Better?”

  “She remembers only indistinct, shapeless light. And a few sounds she can’t identify. Background noise.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. But after a few seconds Caterina had pieced together the implication of the police commissioner’s report.

  “Sounds that . . . that might have come, for example, from medical equipment? Amorphous white light that could be, let’s say, the glow of fluorescent bulbs seen through closed eyes?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “But . . .”

  “But it could be.” D’Antonio was smiling into his phone. “It could very well fucking be.”

  “Then we don’t need to be worried about Abigaille Zola after all.” D’Antonio could hear the pleasure, even relief, in Caterina’s voice. “Let her speak about her experience all she wants. It will fit together nicely with everything else we’ve got in play.

  “We couldn’t have asked for a better recollection if we’d written her a script.”

  46

  Café Barberini: 12:46 p.m.

  Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio slid into the center of the bench opposite Alexander and Gabriella, gazing around him as if he were concerned with being followed. He looked nothing like a prince of the Church. In gray trousers and a blue-checked button-down shirt with a navy sleeveless sweater, he looked like a tourist’s lost grandfather. Inconspicuous, uninspiring, forgettable.

  “Uncle, it’s good to see you.” Alexander reached across the table. He grasped the man’s wrist and squeezed firmly. Warm smiles forced their way past both men’s nerves. Rinaldo’s features curved, but his eyes remained wary.

  “And you, Alex.” The cardinal looked toward Gabriella. “You must be Inspector Fierro. A pleasure to meet you. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

  Gabriella took note of the man’s behavior. This was the great Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio. She’d heard of him often as a bastion of confidence, but behind the forced smile he looked worried. No, it was something beyond worry. It was fear.

  He took up his small cup and downed the double espresso in a single swallow. The crema was still spotting his lips as he turned to his nephew.

  “I can only assume, knowing you as well as I do, Alex, that you’ve continued with your investigation despite my warnings.”

  Alexander tilted his brow in the affirmative. “We couldn’t stop, especially since what we were discovering was so monumental. Your warning was vague.”

  Cardinal Rinaldo nodded, affirming that this was the answer he’d expected despite it not being the one he wanted.

  “What have you discovered?”

  Alexander sat back in his seat, his torso pressed against the green leatherette padding. “I think it’s better that we take things in order. I still have questions for you. How did you know what I was doing? And what were you afraid was going to happen? Because I have to tell you, a hell of a lot has happened.”

  Offering answers, however, was not paramount in the cardinal’s mind. In an instant his gentle meekness was gone and his expression grew firm. “No, I don’t think it’s better that we start there. I’ll get to that in due time, Alex. Right now you need to trust me. Tell me, now, what you’ve discovered.”

  It was strange to see the cardinal, who had a kind of grandfatherly tenderness to his features—an unassertive inward-sloping chin, skin wrinkled to the texture of a well-tended leather glove—in this moment look so harsh. Gabriella could see the surprise cross Alexander’s features too, and stepped into their exchange.

  “Alex and I were dropped into our current project rather bluntly, Cardinal Trecchio. Two gunmen came to his apartment while I was there. We barely escaped alive.” She briefly recounted the story of their chase into the Roman night.

  Cardinal Rinaldo raised his brow, but Gabriella noticed that it wasn’t an expression of surprise. It was sad understanding. The cardinal was disappointed that this had happened to his nephew. The fact that he seemed quite unshocked by a story of executions and attempted murders struck a note of increased fear in Gabriella’s stomach.

  “And after you escaped?” Rinaldo asked, his voice steady.

  “We regrouped and tried to f
ind a connection between the two professors and the Vatican. As they’d both written stories on corruption at the Vatican Bank, that’s where we went next.”

  “You were there when I called you the first time? After your text?”

  “We’d just left the building,” Alexander answered.

  Rinaldo shook his head slowly. “Going there has put you in grave danger.”

  “The president of the IOR was very forthright,” Gabriella interjected, “even helpful.”

  “I’m sure he was. But he’s not the man in charge.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Alexander asked, but his uncle held up a palm to quiet the question. He turned back to Gabriella.

  “That’s the extent of your progress?”

  “Apart from almost being killed again on our way here to see you,” she answered, anger rising in her voice, “that’s it. The two men from last night came after us again. This time it was a bomb in our car. To be quite frank, Your Eminence, I think it’s pretty impressive we’ve got as much as we have.”

  Alexander reached a hand to her arm and tried to calm her, but Gabriella was on a roll. “Holtzmann gave us a listing of the bank’s partner agencies. From that we were able to make our first direct connection. Something we don’t yet fully understand.”

  “Money has been going out of the IOR to medical firms and corporations,” Alexander cut in, “and the major transfers of funds began to take place just as . . .” He hesitated. “Just as the miracles started to happen with the stranger you’ve got in the Apostolic Palace.”

  Cardinal Rinaldo looked confused for the first time in their conversation. His eyes were suddenly probing. “What’s the connection?”

  Gabriella took back the reins of the conversation and explained to him what they’d been able to piece together. Gradually, understanding started to dawn on the cardinal’s face.

  “You think—”

  “We don’t have enough concrete information to confirm anything at this stage,” Alexander interjected quickly, “but from the outside, it’s looking a lot like the Vatican, or someone within the Vatican, is staging a rather impressive show, designed to hurt the Pope. And it all centers somehow around this visitor.”

  Rinaldo shook his head. “The medical issues, these firms, I know nothing about any of that. But this man. Alex, I’ve been with him. He’s . . . he’s not what you assume. And I can assure you he’s not part of a Vatican plot.”

  “You’ve actually met him, face to face?” Gabriella queried, leaning in to the table. Her eyes were as wide as the cardinal’s had been a moment before. Tell me, they probed, tell me everything.

  “Only briefly,” Rinaldo answered. “He’s remained almost exclusively with Gregory since we were cloistered. But a few of us were brought into the Pope’s study to meet him for a few minutes, just before I called you to arrange this meeting.” He turned toward his nephew. “Alexander, you have to believe me, that meeting was something extraordinary. This is not an ordinary man.”

  Cardinal Rinaldo’s demeanor changed as the memory resurfaced. He drew in a long breath. His body seemed to gain an inch in new height. His eyes glistened, suddenly warm and wonderful. “To be in this man’s presence, how can I describe it? I’ve rarely felt such peace or calm. Such confidence in the goodness of life. You can fake a lot of things, Alex, but this is something else. This is something that can’t be concocted.”

  His eyes were filled with wonder and he let them linger on his nephew’s. Then he turned and drove his hopeful stare into Gabriella. I believe, they cried out, and I want you to believe.

  For a moment it seemed as if the sheer power of his conviction might win them over. But the moment passed. Alexander and Gabriella knew one fact about the man that the cardinal didn’t. Something that trumped feelings of peace and goodness and supernal calm.

  “Uncle,” Alexander began, “I’m afraid there’s something else. One other thing we discovered today. Something that is going to force you to reassess these . . . these things you’re feeling.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He extracted his phone from a pocket and called up the photo that he knew was going to shatter his uncle’s confidence.

  “There was a body found in the river today. Not long dead.”

  “Bodies are found in the Tiber all the time,” Rinaldo answered. He looked suspicious.

  Alexander shook his head, and even Gabriella’s eyes were filled with compassion. What was coming was not going to be easy on the cardinal.

  “Not like this,” Alexander said. “But it’s best I don’t explain. It’s something you need to see.”

  He passed the phone to his uncle. As the old man gazed at the small display, his face was suddenly transformed in disbelief. All the peace and tranquility were gone. There was only disbelief. And then, far worse for a man of faith, doubt.

  Rinaldo Trecchio didn’t look up. He slowly closed his eyes. His words came out as a pitiful whisper.

  “Oh my God.”

  47

  Vatican City: 12:56 p.m.

  Cardinal Viteri picked up his telephone and prepared to dial a number that very few people in the world knew he possessed. The Cardinal Secretary of State was an individual who maintained relationships with hundreds of men and women across the world: heads of state, ambassadors, nuncios, leaders of charity organizations and corporations. But Viteri had always assiduously avoided any public contact with Global Capital Italia and its CEO. Firstly because it was a financial conglomerate with an ethical record that would make even the most mercenary of Catholic insiders balk. And secondly—and far more importantly—because he could not allow any opportunity for his true connection to the firm to be discovered.

  The truth of that relationship was one that he and his compatriots in the Fraternity would never be able to justify were it to come into the open. They’d partnered with the devil, because the devil had dirt on them all. Their weaknesses had been discovered, documented, and used to chain them in servitude to this firm and its leadership. Because if that dirt were ever to become public . . .

  The mere thought raised a flutter of fear in Viteri’s throat. He swallowed it away like he always did, refusing to contemplate the scenario. Instead, he scrolled through the contacts listed on the tired LCD display of his blue plastic phone. Three screens down he clicked “CA,” and a few seconds later Caterina Amato answered the line.

  “I have bad news,” Viteri announced the instant they were connected. He’d always been pleased that Caterina abjured the use of names during phone calls. He was almost certain that the Swiss Guard didn’t have his private mobile tapped, but it was still a risk.

  “Bad news,” Amato answered, her voice cold and hard as usual. “I’m not surprised. This is the only kind you tend to have.” Her tone was almost flippant. There was no hint of anger or retribution, which Viteri took to mean that Caterina hadn’t already been informed of what he was about to tell her. That was unfortunate. He knew his next words would change her tone entirely, and he took a deep breath as he prepared himself for the rage that was undoubtedly to come.

  “One of the inner ranks has broken the cloister.” He dropped the words, shaded though they were, like a mortar shell, fully expecting them to do just as much damage. “He’s left the walls. We caught him making his way out, all done up in civilian clothes. We weren’t in time to stop him, but we had him followed.” Viteri hesitated. “He met with outsiders.”

  Christ, why do I have to be the one to tell her? She’s supposed to have people everywhere. She should already know.

  There was a long, tense pause. Viteri swallowed, a thin sheen of perspiration sticking to his brow.

  “This isn’t just bad news,” Amato finally answered. “This is a disaster.” He could hear the anger surging beneath her drawn-out vowels.

  Unfortunately Viteri wasn’t yet finished. “It gets worse.” Now the sweat was forming into droplets that cascaded down his nose and dripped on to the surface of his des
k.

  “Worse? How the hell could it get worse, Donato?”

  She’s using my name. She must be ready to kill. Viteri had never heard the CEO drop her own protocol before. She’d been a woman marked out by an absolute self-control as long as he’d known her.

  “The individual who broke the cordon,” he continued, blurting out the words, “is Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio.”

  Another pause. “That name doesn’t mean a great deal to me.”

  “Rinaldo Trecchio is the uncle of the man your assassins have not been able to eliminate. And he went to speak with his nephew.”

  Viteri could hear the in-draw of Caterina’s breath. When her words were delivered, they barely constrained her fury.

  “The reporter? The one working with the cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “His uncle’s a fucking cardinal? And you let this man talk to them? At this stage in our operation! What the hell’s wrong with your Fraternity? I thought you controlled the curia!”

  Cardinal Viteri forced himself not to react to the insult.

  “He left covertly. Even we can’t keep absolute tabs on everybody. At least we saw him on the way out and know where he went. I’ve just asked for a papal blessing to call an extraordinary meeting of the cardinals, ostensibly to discuss the particulars of church administration while we’re closed up here. We’ll send out a college-wide page, and assuming he doesn’t want us to know he’s broken out, he’ll return swiftly. We’ll keep tabs on him till then.”

  For the next tense moments Viteri simply listened to the angry breathing of the woman at the other end of the line.