Dominus

by Tom Fox

  Gabriella turned to face him. “Don’t tell me, Your Holiness, that you’re beginning to doubt?”

  “No.” He smiled back at her, but there was sorrow on his face. “It’s not doubt. Only fear. Fear that no matter what I say or do, the world outside will never accept any answer to the questions they have. Who am I to say who this man was? I can no more answer that than I can explain how he arrived, or what he did.”

  Gabriella now lifted her other hand and wrapped it around the Pope’s.

  “My dear father,” she said, “sometimes even the successor to St. Peter can’t provide all the answers.”

  “Then what am I to do? After all we’ve been through, I feel I ought to know.”

  The plastic beads of Gabriella’s rosary were interwoven between her fingers and those of the Supreme Pontiff.

  “I can’t say I know either,” she said, “but as I was recently taught, the answer sometimes has less to do with what we know than what we believe.”

  80

  Beyond the windows of Gemelli Hospital, out on the streets, Rome’s breath was tense. The city’s pulse did not beat with its normal rhythm. A crowd had gathered in the Piazza San Pietro, though the Pope was not there and no audience or service was scheduled for the day. Still they trickled in by twos and threes, till there were dozens, then hundreds. They crowded around the obelisk and stared up at the monumental Renaissance facade.

  Waiting.

  The wait wasn’t for news. That had been coming in droves since the assault on the Vatican. Caterina Amato’s company was now the source of investigation by every agency in government and every news crew in the country. Its manipulation of the past days’ events was being laid bare. The miracles that had captivated the nation at the medical clinics in Pescara and Rome were now known for what they truly were: the application of incredibly advanced medical research the company had held back from the public, funded by the same kinds of sums that had been planted to forge the impression of wrongdoing and concealment. They hadn’t been miracles, but they were still miraculous. The medical world was rejoicing, even as conspiracy theorists proclaimed victory. And the trail of the money was being followed.

  Still the public gathered in the square, waiting.

  Of the two other events that had shaken the world, what had been uncovered since only made them more mysterious than ever. Neither Amato’s company nor the secretive group within the Vatican had been involved in the Pope’s extraordinary recovery. While the former was now the source of rampant public scrutiny, the mysterious Fraternity seemed to have been swallowed whole by the Vatican machine. The Pope had revealed that there were those within the Church who had been involved in the week’s events, but no more than that had come from the curia. Whatever investigation was to follow on that front, the Swiss Guard had made it clear they would be handling it internally. The buzz in the ears of those with access was that the calm exterior the Church was maintaining concealed a flurry of activity within. The Guard was acting to break up the group that had wreaked such havoc, but as yet, there was no connection between what they’d discovered of that group and the recovery of the pontiff.

  The same was true of Abigaille Zola’s return to life. Doubters were sure it must be connected to the firm’s machinations, insiders wondered whether corrupt men in cassocks had had their hands here too; but the forensic investigation of files and records could not forge even the remotest connection. The event was simply unexplained.

  And the crowd in the piazza grew.

  The Pope had submitted to a thorough medical examination. The complete absence of any sign of spinal stenosis baffled every specialist who participated. As for the girl, there were cries of fraud and deception on all sides, but the staff of the Piombino hospital reaffirmed what they knew to be true, publishing charts and electronic monitor logs as proof. Abigaille had been dead. How she now lived, no one could explain.

  St. Peter’s Square began to resemble a sea of people.

  The man whose face had raised cries of deception when his body was found in the Tiber remained in the city morgue. His very existence had roused the nation to doubt. But fourteen hours ago, his twin brother had been found in a small village ninety kilometers north of Rome. Ottavio Dinapoli had been hiding in a run-down boathouse. When the police came to arrest him, he broke down within minutes and confessed to the murder of his brother, Benedetto, during a trip to the capital only days before. An ongoing family dispute gone horribly wrong. Ottavio had been drinking heavily when a meeting between the brothers had taken a predictable turn and transformed into a fight. What hadn’t been predictable was the force with which a direct chest blow had thrown Benedetto back against the guardrail of the ugly modern suspension bridge that crossed the Tiber north of the Roma Urbe airport. In that desolate setting, on an expanse of concrete and cable leading from a highway to a water treatment facility, Ottavio had ended his brother’s life. It had been an accident, but he’d known no one would believe that. Not with his past. So he’d wrapped his brother’s feet in chains from the back of his van and dropped him into the flowing waters below. Then, conforming to a habit he’d had for years, he’d fled.

  The great deception was deception no more. What remained was only a mystery. Whoever the stranger had been, at least in this regard he wasn’t the fraud the world had temporarily believed him to be.

  And so the square outside the great basilica where he’d appeared filled up. The city knew the funeral was to be private, that they wouldn’t be allowed into the Pope’s personal chapel. They knew they wouldn’t be able to see the body, perhaps even the grave. But still they came.

  For more than a few, the stranger’s death had come as a blow. But in the way of a people who’d had faith stirred into their blood for centuries, they had not failed to notice that this was the third day since he’d been killed.

  The third day.

  The day of resurrection.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank Luigi Bonomi for this book. Without him, I never would have written it, and for his prompting and persistence I’m tremendously grateful—not to mention the fact that he is a unique combination of a superlative agent, literary wizard and genuinely good person. To him and to all the people at LBA, I’m greatly indebted. Profoundest thanks, too, to the hardworking, supportive and energetic team at Headline, who have taken to my writing with such enthusiasm: first and foremost Emily Griffin, Commissioning Editor, who has a superb eye for the fast-paced and suspenseful and has been a tremendous help both here and with Genesis and Exodus, as well as Darcy Nicholson, Beth Eynon, Jane Selley and everyone else on the Headline team. The US ensemble at Quercus has been equally delightful and enthusiastic in bringing the book across the Pond: Jason Bartholomew, Nathaniel Maru, Anna Hezel, Elyse Gregov and Alex Knight. It's a real joy to be drawn into such a dynamic team.

  I put a raw and terribly rough version of this story into the hands of Kate Atherton and Miles Orchard some months ago, and their keen eyes and feedback helped make it better. Sincere thanks to you both—and Kate, I’m just delighted that I managed to make you cry. The Chianti reference is for you. I also can’t fail to mention Thomas Stofer, my initial editor for this book, about whose skills I can hardly say enough.

  Two priests were kind enough to assist me both in my research and in editing, and both have humbly asked to remain anonymous. So I offer my deep gratitude to the anonymously exceptional figures of Fr. A—and Fr. I—. Thank you so much for your kindness, insight and openness.

  Finally, thanks to the readers of Genesis who have found their way here to Dominus. There’s more on the horizon!

 

 

 
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