* * *
Standing in what was formerly a royal guest room of the Vatican Palace, Deborah thought it must have housed the most famous people in the world when they came to visit the Pope, seeking his blessings. Presidents, kings and queens, premiers, industrialists, musicians, intellectuals, sports heroes. Their names would be familiar to millions. It was quite an old building, dating back centuries, from appearances. She wished it had a visitor’s book that she could peruse.
Original oil paintings adorned the walls, depicting church officials of the past. She didn’t recognize their names. One of them was a scarlet-robed cardinal, tall and regal, with a wide nose and pale green, penetrating eyes. Another depicted the soft-featured Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici), who was Pope when Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation. Between the paintings a pair of alcoves had been notched into the walls, with a bronze Christian statuette inside each. The doors—one to the hallway and another to an adjacent room—were hand-painted, with miraculous religious scenes on them.
With a deep sigh, Deborah thought of her own impoverished beginnings in America, and how she had once been a housewife. In recent weeks, events had been moving so fast, at breathtaking speed. First the Holy Women’s Bible, then Dixie Lou’s first satellite broadcasts, then the takeover of the Vatican and the kidnapping of the Pope. All of them astounding, earth-shaking events.
Deborah pulled a chair out from a Louis XV writing desk and sat down. The desk, with an inlaid marble top, leaded glass cupboards, and rosewood carvings, stood on tapered, carved legs. She removed stationery and an ink pen from one of the shallow drawers. The heavy, textured paper was gold embossed, with a Christian cross at the top.
She began to write, but the pen, which seemed to have no ink, scraped on the paper. After examining the instrument’s tip, she noticed a small ink reservoir just above it. In one of the pigeonholes of the desk she located a crystal ink bottle, opened it. Dipping the pen inside and pumping ink into the reservoir, she found that it provided her with an adequate supply of smooth-flowing ink. In a short while she had written a brief letter:
Dear Lori Vale:
I am at great peril saying this, because Dixie Lou will surely kill me if she finds out. But I must do what is right, especially for the special children. I will do what I can to bring that madwoman to justice. I offer to help you, Lori Vale, in any way possible. The real Martha of Galilee is in the Vatican Palace, on the third floor, at the southwest corner. While I have been assigned to care for the Pope, another councilwoman—Dalal Karim—is in charge of Martha. My ability to help you is limited, but perhaps this bit of information will enable you to rescue her.
Do not trust Dixie Lou’s offer, but be careful how you respond. She may kill Martha of Galilee, Pope Rodrigo, and blow up the Vatican, in an attempt to have her demands met. So far, I have talked her out of such radical courses of action. Although it is hard to imagine anything more radical than her takeover of this sacred religious facility, it could be worse. If her wild rages take control of her, it will be worse.
I beg of you. Act prudently, and act quickly. This is a critical moment in history.
Deborah Marvel
For several moments Deborah stared at the letter, rereading it, whispering it aloud to see how it sounded, how it might be received and interpreted by the recipient. There were messages between the lines . . . fear, remorse, her desire for redemption and for the forgiveness of God.
Her note was strong enough, she decided, the precise tone she wanted to convey. She would leave it as is.
Just as she completed it, she heard a rap on her door, and went to answer.
With baited breath, she opened the door, half expecting to be arrested by Dixie Lou’s military police. Instead, Giancarlo Veron greeted her, holding the earlier letter she had written for Dixie Lou’s signature. With a smile and a sigh of relief, she motioned him inside.
Chapter 33
Women, who have been deceived, dominated, and excluded by men for centuries, suddenly find themselves at the crest of a holy tidal wave.
—EBC News account
Another day passed, and on the streets of Rome surrounding the Vatican, black-robed Catholic priests delivered simultaneous open air sermons to sectioned-off crowds of men, women, and children. The solemn onlookers wore their best clothes and held palm leaves, with some wearing broad green foliage in their hair and on their clothing. This was in honor of the upcoming Palm Sunday, a day long ago when Christ the King entered Jerusalem, and ancient spectators strewed palms in his path.
From her room, Deborah heard the metallic blare of loudspeakers, and with a sinking sensation understood their significance. Though she’d tried to embrace Catholicism in her youth, she had been stymied by an unsupportive family, and had never gotten as involved as she would have liked. Still, she felt the pain of the people outside, and wished Vatican City had never been contaminated by the fanatical Dixie Lou Jackson. So much harm had been done, not only to this sacred city, but to the credibility of the entire women’s movement.
Deborah wore a white bathrobe. Her blonde hair was still wet from the shower she had just taken—the second of the day, since the weather was so warm and sticky. On occasion, showers also helped her relieve stress, but this time she could not find a way to make herself feel better. As days passed, she found herself listening more and more to sounds outside, waiting for something even more terrible to happen. At any moment, NATO commandos could come roaring into the compound, with helicopter gunships firing bullets and rockets. In reaction, Dixie Lou would begin setting off the explosive charges she had ordered planted in all of the major structures. It would be a cataclysm, and Deborah hoped with all of her heart that it could be averted.
Having told Dixie Lou that she wasn’t feeling well—true to a degree—the despondent Deborah had avoided sitting with other so-called female cardinals at today’s television broadcast from Dixie Lou Jackson. The Grand Messenger liked to call them her “church-side chats,” and she was making one each day.
Grand Mess is more like it, Deborah thought.
Glancing at her watch, she wandered into the parlor, where the closed-circuit VR-TV had just gone on automatically. Large, three dimensional letters projected out into the room: STAND BY FOR A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE GRAND MESSENGER. The pompous coronet music of the Holy She sounded.
In a three-dimensional projection into the parlor, a half-size Dixie Lou Jackson seemed to float in the air in her regal robe, with the large golden sword-cross about her neck and a familiar copy of the Holy Women’s Bible in her hands. She stood in the Grand Messenger’s office, in front of the immense desk formerly used by the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The music subsided.
The Grand Messenger smiled in a benign way, and proclaimed, “Do you know what Vatican means? It is derived from ‘vatic,’ which pertains to prophecy. It stems from the Latin ‘vaticinator’ for a prophet, or ‘vaticinatrix’ for a prophetess. Hear this, and listen carefully. I am the prophetess of modern times, and millions flock to my word. I speak to you from Vatican City, now the She-God’s pulpit on earth.”
She paused, while from somewhere applause and theme music sounded. When the noise subsided, she continued. “After long consideration, I have decided not to change the name of the Vatican, or of any of the holy structures here. They will remain as links between past, present and future, to remind earth’s inhabitants of where we have been and where we are going. The Holy She does not seek to tear down the Christian Church; rather, we are building upon its foundation, adding new information that for centuries has been suppressed.”
Disgusted with the contrived public image Dixie Lou was portraying, Deborah paced the room, waiting for the unbearable speech to conclude—a public address that the television set would not allow her to turn off. She had tried. Even the volume setting could not be adjusted, and there was no way to disconnect it from the power source. Finally the broadcast concluded, and the quiet of the room was as welcome as a cool b
reeze on this sweltering day.
* * *
Afterward, Deborah changed into black sweat pants and a gray sweatshirt, with a small cross on the lapel and a photograph of Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” on the back. A couple of days ago, she had obtained the shirt at a gift shop on the grounds of the Vatican, surprising the clerk by actually paying for it, and full price.
“But why are you paying?’ the gnarled little man had asked. Only in his late twenties or early thirties, he appeared to have a birth defect that caused his back to hump outward. “Your comrades in arms always take whatever they want.”
“I’m not one of the soldiers,” Deborah replied, although she fell short of telling him that she had not even known in advance about the UWW attack on the Vatican.
“But even the other councilwomen such as yourself—” The man stopped, as if suddenly understanding. “You don’t approve of the takeover?”
“I didn’t say that, did I? We’re not councilwomen, either. Dixie Lou has changed us to cardinals.”
“You’ve all become Catholic?”
“Not exactly . . .”
As Deborah thought back on the gift-shop conversation now, while jogging across the huge central square, it almost seemed amusing to her, the way the poor man had looked so befuddled when she left him. She had said as much as she could say to him, had danced along the edge of loyalty as deftly as she could in an attempt to maintain her own sanity in an insane situation.
The afternoon sky glowed pale blue, with swollen clouds floating through the air, like immense cream pastries lifted by the wind. She saw construction crews at work in the papal offices, which Dixie Lou was having remodeled to suit her elaborate tastes and needs. The heavily guarded crews were operating around the clock, in no small part because Dixie Lou liked to brandish the Sword of She-God at them, constantly urging them to work faster.
Deborah felt better after the run, but only a little. She took her third shower of the day.
Chapter 34
No matter the exalted or favorable positions we attain, we are but transients passing through portals of life, constantly entering chambers and trying to stall our inevitable exits.
—Lori Vale, Reflections On A Life
In the Manzoni district of Rome . . .
After watching Dixie Lou Jackson’s broadcast, as she did each day, Lori suffered through a children’s program on another channel, this one also sponsored by the newly named Holy She organization. In cartoon form, the show described how young girls should grow up to serve She-God, for the betterment of womankind. Coronet music played in the background, which a chubby cartoon lioness explained was the new military anthem for the Holy She.
Sitting with her, Liz Torrence and Siana Harui expressed their own contempt for the daily Grand Messenger propaganda, and for the manipulation of young minds through cartoons. Since escaping with Alex, the two young women had been inseparable. Siana was by far the happier, since she was reunited with her mother, while the slender, pretty Liz continued to worry about her aunt, who (as far as she knew) was still under the control of Dixie Lou. Lori had a bad feeling about the fate of Bobbi Torrence, but didn’t want to say anything about it. A nagging sensation of unease. . . .
She wondered why NATO permitted Dixie Lou to make any broadcasts at all. It must be because they didn’t want to upset her, not until they exhausted their efforts to negotiate with her, and completed their backup preparations to attack.
The teenager did not feel at all inspired by Dixie Lou’s television programs. She loathed that woman and everything associated with her, wished more than ever that she and her mother had never gone to that ill-fated goddess circle near Seattle. It seemed like so long ago to Lori, and a universe away.
A window in her line of sight, just past the darkened VR-TV set, was being pelted by windblown rain, darkening her mood even more.
As Liz and Siana left, Alex entered the room, and exchanged only a few words with Lori when the videophone interrupted them with peculiar buzzing and hissing noises, as if it were an insect or a snake. Lori’s father had arranged for the special phone—a secure line—using his military contacts. Zack had also arranged for armed guards to discreetly protect the building.
She snapped her fingers, and the phone receiver floated in the air by her face, without activating the video feature. “Lori?” a male voice said. “You there?”
“I’m here—Zack.” She had considered calling him Dad, but didn’t feel comfortable being that familiar yet.
He paused, as if disappointed with her choice of words. “NATO was contacted by Dixie Lou Jackson today,” he said. “By one of her representatives, anyway, a Mr. Giancarlo Veron. He says he has a message for your eyes only.”
“Why is that?”
“He wouldn’t say. Anyway, NATO referred him to me because they know I’m your father. I’m very proud of that, Lori.”
She felt moved by his words, but remained silent.
“I’ll bring Veron to you,” he said, “but it will be my way, so that he never knows where you are.”
They set up a time, and made other security arrangements.
* * *
The “secret stairway” that the late Alberto Carducci discovered, and which Giancarlo Veron now negotiated, was really an ancient set of worn rock stairs that led from the Vatican into a narrow underground passageway, and ultimately to a doorway into a Rome subway station. He carried a thin valise.
In some places the way was so narrow that s muscular man such as Veron had difficulty getting through. Perhaps it was designed for small people in the old days, or to prevent military attacks via that route. Or perhaps earthquakes moved things around a bit. He noted that the rock and concrete walls were cracked and patched, and had a dark patina of age.
He exited the subway station onto street level and made his way down an alley to the meeting place. A short while later a dark sedan pulled up, and Veron climbed into the back seat, alongside a tall U.S. Army officer wearing aviator sunglasses. The car had tinted windows.
“We will take you to Lori Vale,” the officer said. He patted the man down for weapons, searched his valise, and then placed a blindfold over his eyes. The streets of Rome were clogged with traffic, and it took nearly forty minutes to reach their destination.
The officer removed Veron’s blindfold when they were inside an elevator. Glancing up as the doors opened, the black-haired curator saw that they were in a shadowy hallway on the seventh floor . . . information that was of little use to him, and only of slight interest; he had no intention of betraying Lori Vale. . . .
In her sitting room, with the curtains drawn for security, Lori greeted the messenger, while her father and Alex stood off to one side, looking on. This was only the second time that the two most important men in her life had met, and she’d been worrying about her father’s attitude toward Alex, because he had previously expressed reservations about him.
She saw no sign of acrimony between them now, which pleased her. She had assured her father that Alex had made it abundantly clear to her that his own intentions were honorable, and that he was too old for her. Though she didn’t know her father well yet, she had decided that he was not prejudiced against Alex because of skin color, and that his initial coldness toward the young man was only the natural tendency of a father to be suspicious of anyone who might potentially get involved with his daughter.
“Have a seat, please,” Lori said to Veron, motioning to an overstuffed chair.
“I’d rather stand,” he said, shifting the valise in his hands. “I have a chronic back problem that is acting up today, and when that happens it is difficult for me to sit. You should see my office, the custom furnishings, the way my desk is set up.” He looked at her nervously. “But that is not what we are here to discuss.”
“I imagine not,” she said, standing with him. She was a little taller.
“Please believe me when I say that Dixie Lou’s takeover of the Vatican is a dreadful sacrilege,” he
said, “a calamity of historic proportions. Horrible, horrible, just horrible.” He gestured excitedly with his hands as he spoke, and his olive skin reddened. “The good Pope Rodrigo does not deserve this. They call him ‘The People’s Pope,’ you know, because everyone likes him.”
“I know,” Lori said. “A lot of people agree with your feelings.”
Taking a deep breath, he told her about the murder of his aged friend Alberto Carducci at the hands of Dixie Lou Jackson, and how upset he was about that. He also described the secret stairway route he had taken, which Carducci had discovered at a very young age, while breaking through a subterranean wall with a Vatican construction crew.
“Interesting,” Zack said. He obtained details on where it ran, then asked, “Is that the route Jackson used when she attacked the Vatican?”
“I’m not sure. Could be. I only know what I heard, that somehow she used the underground tunnel system. The old-timers say there are lots of passageways down there, but I’m only familiar with the one I used today.”
“And the reason you came to see me?” Lori asked.
Veron removed a letter from his valise, and passed it to her. “The Grand Messenger forced me to deliver this message,” he said. “It’s absurd, really.”
“I know that woman, only too well.”
“There is another message as well,” he said, withdrawing a second letter from its hiding place in the lining of his case. “You cannot tell Dixie Lou that you know about this second one.” He paused. “I was not searched before leaving, so this was not discovered—but only because of the identity of the person who wrote it, and the arrangements she made for my safe passage.”
Her curiosity peaked, Lori accepted the second letter.
“If I may suggest,” he added, “read them in the order I gave them to you?”
Nervously, Lori slit sealing wax from the first letter, and began to read. On Vatican stationery, the handwritten letter from Dixie Lou Jackson said:
The Lost Apostles Page 26