Dominus

by Tom Fox

  Alexander pondered the question a few moments before answering. “If killing the Pope isn’t a realistic option, discrediting him is.”

  Gabriella sat silently, waiting for more.

  “Think about it,” Alexander continued. “Pope Gregory is generally regarded as a moral light for the Church. He’s universally respected. He’s admired and seen as a pillar of spiritual stability. More importantly, he’s used that foundation as a starting point for radical reforms of the curia. And he’s extended those reforms outward as well, beyond the borders of the Church. All of this would make the individuals in the fraternity nervous.”

  “As well as their partners outside,” Gabriella agreed.

  “So if you can’t simply get rid of him, what do you do? You take away that moral mandate. Eliminate his spiritual stature and the sense that he’s a capable leader.”

  Gabriella looked only partially convinced. “Fine, discredit the Pope to destroy his power. I still don’t see a connection to what happened in St. Peter’s. His being healed makes him seem more spiritual, not less.”

  “You have to look at it in the light of what else we’ve learned,” Alexander answered. A confident energy was creeping into his voice. “That one event looks good, yes. But it was only one. And significantly, it was the first. Say that word ‘first’ and it’s going to bring up connections to the second, to the third. And just how long has it taken us to find details putting miracles two and three in a questionable light?”

  “Not long, all things considered.”

  “That’s the plot, Gabriella. All that remains, once the deception of those later miracles is unearthed, is to connect them back to the first. Fraud there must mean fraud here.”

  Gabriella didn’t answer. Once again, Alexander’s logic was hard to refute.

  “And it gets worse for Gregory,” he continued. “He’s taken this stranger into the Vatican. He’s spoken to the masses about love and hope in terms that pretty much everyone has connected to his experience of this man’s presence.”

  Gabriella’s breathing started to grow shorter, gaining in speed. “His press statement. He didn’t mention the man by name, but it was essentially an endorsement.”

  “And not just of the man, but the miracles. He called them miracles. That makes his downfall a simple affair. All his enemies have to do is reveal the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That the stranger is a fake. You and I know it’s true, and that fact will be enough to topple Gregory. The Pope has been duped by a con man. He’s given official endorsement to criminal deception. He can’t tell medical science from an act of God. He’s been deceived at the most basic level of faith and belief.”

  Gabriella sat back, deflated. “His credibility would be destroyed.”

  “Pope Gregory would have all the spiritual authority of a schoolboy,” Alexander affirmed.

  That was it, they both now realized. That was how to eradicate a pope when you couldn’t kill him.

  “What do you suggest we do?” Gabriella finally asked.

  “There’s only one thing we can do,” Alexander answered. He set his palms flat on the table, his torso rigid.

  “We have to get inside. We have to get to the Holy Father.”

  51

  Central Rome: 2:01 p.m.

  Most people live their lives in complete ignorance of the ease with which their every motion can be tracked, their location pinpointed, their activities exactly known. Not just by governments or major corporations: this is a possibility for any individual with enough know-how, persistence and, from time to time, cash.

  It had taken Umberto fewer than thirteen minutes to pinpoint the location of Alexander Trecchio and Gabriella Fierro once he and Maso had left Caterina’s office. Both targets had abandoned their original phones, so that method of tracking was out until the brothers could learn their new numbers. But Trecchio still had his laptop in his pack, and that device had background Wi-Fi geolocation enabled. Even when the computer was asleep, it pinged nearby Wi-Fi routers for background updates and downloads—one of the features of the newest machines. And one that made them trackable.

  Umberto had traced the MAC address he’d obtained for Trecchio’s office-issued computer—a remarkably simple task that had taken nothing more than a phone call to La Repubblica’s technical support office, claiming to be Trecchio to a disinterested phone support technician who clearly hadn’t ever met the one amongst a thousand reporters, and asking for the number “so I can register my laptop on my network when I’m at home.” He’d had it seconds later. Then he’d located its latest stationary coordinates and simply fed them into Google Maps on his Android phone. There was no need for advanced tracking software or expensive mapping programs. Within seconds he had zoomed in to Street View and familiarized himself with the awning and front windows of the café where the pair were seated. The café’s own website provided a layout, and with just a little additional finessing and precision he was able to determine that they were in one of the establishment’s three booths, probably the second.

  It had been 1:14 p.m. when Caterina Amato charged him to find and definitively eliminate the two thorns in their collective sides. By 1:32 p.m. he’d known exactly where they were. Now, half an hour later, he and Maso were positioned outside the Café Barberini, awaiting their prey. First the two troublemakers, then on to the cardinal. As instructed.

  Maso was seated at a small round table just outside the café’s sole exit, sipping an espresso, with a leather hat partially obscuring his face. He held the morning’s paper in his hand, still a favorite resource for covert surveillance. Beneath it he artfully concealed a small directional microphone whose feed went straight to his and Umberto’s earpieces.

  Umberto himself was on a public bench on the opposite side of the street. In his fashionable attire he looked wholly ordinary in fashion-sensitive Rome, clutching a bundle of freshly cut flowers from a nearby kiosk, watching the traffic go by with a mild look of contentment on his features. An apparent lover, waiting for his beloved.

  He’d instructed Maso to pick up Alexander and Gabriella’s conversation as soon as they emerged. He wanted to know where they were going. While neither man was willing to fail in their mission, they both knew that gunning down two people in the middle of a busy coffee shop was out of the question. They would follow their targets at a distance and kill them in a location a little more discreet. And then finally they’d be done with them.

  They didn’t have long to wait for the operation to begin.

  Gabriella Fierro emerged first, Alexander Trecchio immediately behind her, their eyes squinting slightly in the bright sunlight. Their lips were moving.

  “Can you get them?” Umberto asked through his hidden mouthpiece.

  “One moment, boss.” Maso fiddled with his controls. At first the device yielded only silence, then static. Then, at last, voices.

  “Do you really think it’s possible?” Gabriella asked. Maso tightened the controls so that her voice came through more clearly, cutting through the background noise. “The whole place is locked down. No one’s being allowed in or out.”

  “That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways around those hurdles,” came the man’s voice.

  Umberto had no idea what they were talking about, a fact that annoyed him.

  “St. Peter’s Square is out of the question,” the woman continued. “I’ve seen the cordon of officers surrounding it. And there just aren’t that many other ways in. The main entrance is only for the curia and staff, and that’s fully guarded even in ordinary circumstances.”

  The subject matter began to dawn on Umberto. They’re speaking of Vatican City. But why?

  Trecchio’s voice clipped back into the field of range of Maso’s microphone. “You’re thinking like an outsider.”

  “I’ve lived here all my life, Alex, thank you very much.”

  “But you’ve never lived on the inside. I have.”

  Umberto tensed on his bench as h
e strove to remember the rushed details he’d pulled on Alexander Trecchio. Nephew of a cardinal who had spent a short time in the curia at Vatican City. The man had inside experience.

  “What I can tell you about living inside the Vatican,” Trecchio’s voice continued, “is that while you’re there, you learn a few secrets.”

  “Like?” Fierro asked.

  “Like how to get out without being seen.”

  “The way your uncle did today.”

  “And equally important, how to get back in.”

  Umberto nearly dropped his flowers. Trecchio and Fierro were planning to break into the Vatican. It was a spectacular act of bravado, whatever was motivating it. And Trecchio was right: if anyone had the knowledge to make a real go of it, it was probably him.

  Their motivation was irrelevant. To Umberto, this new piece of information meant only one thing: he could use them. He and Maso needed to get in to Vatican City to fulfill the second part of Amato’s orders: the killing of Cardinal Rinaldo. But they weren’t Vatican insiders, and short of a full-scale assault, he’d not yet figured out how he was going to get past the walls of the most heavily fortified state on earth.

  Now he knew.

  52

  2:18 p.m.

  “You realize that no matter how much of an insider you may have once been, no one will just let us walk into the Apostolic Palace,” Gabriella protested as she and Alexander made their away along the busy Roman street. Locals as well as tourists were out in their usual droves, the pavements little rivers of contrasting currents and constantly moving obstacles.

  “I know,” he answered, “but there are more ways in than just the one. It’s a huge place. More than a hundred acres, surrounded by a wall that has gates for staff access, emergencies, deliveries, connections to former buildings. It may look like a fortress, but its walls are full of holes.”

  “Still, I don’t think we’re going to be able to—”

  “Leave the getting inside to me.” Alex cut her off. His face was hard, determined. “What’s more important is figuring out our strategy for the other side.”

  “I doubt anyone’s going to be too keen to listen to us.”

  “Everything will depend on our preparation. All our theories will need to be spelled out with evidence, and we’ll have to enter with those materials in hand. Materials that leave no room for doubt.”

  “Just who will we be showing them to?”

  “If we can get as far as my uncle’s office, hopefully we can show them to him. He’s already got a basic idea, and he can get us to the Holy Father.”

  Gabriella swallowed hard. She’d never met the Pope. She’d seen his predecessor in person once, at a massive gathering in the Piazza San Pietro after a feast day. He’d been a little white dot in a window high above, visible across a sea of bodies. And here she was, pondering breaking into his house.

  “You think he’ll believe us?” she asked. “The Pope?”

  “He’ll believe what his eyes see,” Alexander answered. “Which is why it will be absolutely essential that we have every detail to hand. Specifics on the companies. The IOR. The medical research. And most importantly, the body.”

  “Right now, all we’ve got on the body is our photograph,” Gabriella answered. “I don’t think that will be enough.”

  Alexander agreed. “That will have to be down to you. Can you get in touch with the junior officer who sent us the file? He can probably help. And asking in person is probably better than by phone. We need everything he can give us: who this man is, where he comes from, how he died. And when.”

  Gabriella felt confident that she could manipulate the fawning attention of Assistente Tonti and get at least some of the materials Alexander had listed, despite her being blacklisted.

  “And we’ll need full details on all the medical firms for which we’ve found links. Who runs them, what research they’ve been up to,” Alexander continued. “I can work on that. I can’t go back to the office, but our English intern fancies himself as an investigative journalist. Maybe I can shake some work out of him the way you can out of Tonti.”

  They fell silent as they walked. A tall, slender tree was planted at the corner of the street ahead, a fashionable cluck of slender women smoking beneath it. Alexander craved a cigarette. He put a hand gently on Gabriella’s shoulder and drew her to a halt.

  “We need to split up. There’s too much work to do it together.”

  “Absolutely not.” Gabriella shook her head. “Not after what we’ve been through.” There was more than just practical concern in her eyes. There was emotion. Care.

  “We’ll both be on our guard,” Alexander insisted, keeping his hand on her shoulder, “and we’ll be apart for only a few hours. I’m fairly sure you can handle it.”

  Gabriella’s words weren’t boastful when she answered. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

  “I’ll stay low, I promise. As I told you, I do know a few back channels around Rome. All I really need is the ability to find somewhere secure where I can get online, on the phone and with access to a printer.”

  Gabriella was still shaking her head, but Alexander let a gentle squeeze on her shoulder emphasize what they both knew was true. “It’s the only way. Without these materials, all of this will be for nothing.”

  He looked long into her eyes, trying to broadcast comfort as well as necessity. “Can you do this? Can we do this?”

  She drew in a deep breath and answered with resolve. “I expect you to be at the end of your phone constantly. I want you to check in with me while we’re apart. Let me know you’re all right.”

  Alexander sighed his relief. He didn’t like this plan. He didn’t want to be away from her for an instant. But it was the only option they had.

  “We can meet up at five p.m.,” he said. “Will that give you enough time?”

  “Assuming I can get Tito to cooperate, just.”

  “Then we’ll meet outside the Taverna Due Alpini, just beyond the northwest wall of the Vatican.”

  Gabriella peered into his eyes. In that instant, both of their minds seemed to echo with memories of gunfire, car chases, bombs. Separating was a risk. The fact that they might never see each other again was hard to ignore, even if only forty-eight hours ago neither had ever thought they’d be a part of each other’s life again.

  “Assuming we can get inside, Alex,” Gabriella suddenly interjected, “do you think this is really our best option?” She hesitated, then asked the real question on her mind. “Are you sure you want to go through with it?”

  Alexander pondered the lifeless face of the stranger’s twin.

  “I don’t think we have any choice.”

  Across the street, Umberto called Maso to his side. They’d listened in on the whole conversation between Trecchio and Fierro and it only confirmed the wisdom of changing their plans.

  “Maso, you follow the woman,” he instructed. His brother looked momentarily disappointed but quickly washed his face of the emotion.

  “Make sure she gets everything she needs along the way. And watch out for her. She’s not to be harmed. We want them both back for their rendezvous so they can lead us into the Vatican.”

  Maso nodded, and without a word was off.

  Umberto had no worries about Trecchio. Whatever he found in his little quest online could only help them.

  Now all he needed was to clear his new plans with Amato, then make ready to follow their prey into the Apostolic Palace.

  53

  Headquarters of the Swiss Guard: 2:27 p.m.

  Oberst Raber called his four most senior officers into the semidarkness of his office. The mood was tense, electric, the moment they arrived.

  “What do any of you know of Global Capital Italia?” he asked directly. He allowed his hard eyes to pass from one to the next with deliberate slowness. No one spoke.

  “Global Capital Italia,” Raber continued, “is a capital investment firm centered here in Rome. They maintain financial partner
ships with banks, companies and organizations all over the world.” He paused, allowing the possibility of some recognition, but his men were hardly trained in the world of global finance.

  “I’ve never had occasion to explore the firm before today. But a link of financial irregularities emerging out of our current circumstances has brought them to my attention.”

  His men stood a little taller. So this had something to do with what was going on upstairs.

  “I’ll cut to the chase,” Raber said. “One of those financial partners is us. Our Vatican Bank has been involved in funding partnerships with medical research firms who specialize in the kind of conditions we’ve seen cured over the past twenty-four hours.” He watched his men’s eyes, which slowly began to dawn with recognition. “Not only do we have evidence of partnership with such companies, we have evidence of pay-offs made to doctors and researchers in those firms—large pay-offs, in the tens of thousands and more—in the days just before these miracles took place.”

  Raber’s officers were now rigid, the magnitude of what they were hearing lost on none of them.

  “And Global Capital Italia is somehow at the heart of this. We’ve spent the past hours hacking into their computers and found connections to these firms, as well as others, and monies going in and out of personal accounts with little explanation.” He paused, catching his breath and smoothing his uniform. “This is a conspiracy, gentlemen. The fact that it has involved the healing of our Holy Father and a stranger taking up residence in the palace means that men on the inside are part of it.” He paused. The existence of the Fraternitas Christi Salvatoris was a suspicion long harbored by the Guard, though they’d never suspected them of crossing into something this serious. “Global Capital Italia seems to be their connection to the outside, extending their reach into outer Rome, Pescara, even Piombino. Though I don’t know yet whether they are the initiators or merely the helpers.”

  Raber paused, but knew that he didn’t need to soften his words with these men. They were his best, and they needed to know his thoughts completely. “We have to assume that whatever is happening isn’t going to end simply with the staining of the Pope’s credibility.” He reached down and opened a folder on the middle of his desk.