A Pius Man_A Holy Thriller

by Declan Finn

  Abasi furrowed his brow. “Why is Commandatore Figlia’s office in the same structure as the Pope?”

  “The Pope takes a hand in almost everything around here, from the Communion wafers to the design of the postage stamps,” Father Frank answered, “and Commander Figlia’s job is no exception.”

  Abasi cocked his head. “Most odd. I know many of our Muslim clerics are not entirely otherworldly, especially the religious police, but to be that micromanaging?”

  “Entirely too much,” Wilhelmina Goldberg concluded for him with a bob of her blonde head.

  He nodded. “Just so.”

  She frowned, then looked at Abasi. “I didn’t know ‘micromanaging’ was a word being taught in ESL courses.”

  “I read Dilbert comic strips online. Amazing how much it reminds me of my job.”

  Goldberg laughed. “I hear you.”

  Abasi nodded solemnly. “Good, I would hate for you to be going deaf. You only just met me.”

  Special Agent Goldberg was about to correct herself, thinking that he had misunderstood, but she caught his broad grin. He just made a joke, okay.

  “In answer to your question,” Father Frank replied, “from what I know of the life of His Holiness, he believed, as the late John Paul II did, that ‘if you don’t go to bed tired, you didn’t do enough.’ As it is, no one is entirely certain that he indeed does sleep; he seems to work at an almost obsessive rate; he has personally taken it upon himself to coordinate the devil’s advocates for each canonization case, as well as the managing of most of the facilities. There are days in which I believe he may liquidate the Vatican museums.”

  “Why doesn’t he?” Goldberg asked. “I mean, the Church is supposed to be poor, isn’t it?”

  He grinned broadly. “Ah, you’re a fan of St. Dominic, are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A Pope showed Dominic around the Vatican treasury, and made the mistake of saying ‘The descendants of Peter can no longer say “of gold and silver, I have none.” ’ Dominic replied, ‘Neither can they say, “Arise and walk.’ ” Father Frank smiled.

  “In this case, I’m not sure the Italian government, or the people, would allow the treasures to be sold,” the silver-haired priest continued. “The Vatican museums bring in plenty of tourist business. Let’s not forget we have pilgrims come in weekly, housed by the Italian hotel industry, fed by the Italian food industry. For all of their surface anti-clerical stances, they like us. We’re the original Men in Black, if you don’t count the Dominicans.” He paused, and laughed after a moment’s thought. “Maybe that’s why we aren’t liked by the conspiracy-theory set in the U.S.—they think we’re agents of the government. That would be funny.”

  Father Frank shrugged it off. “In any event, our treasury is less a treasury and more a depository for objects, and many of our ‘worldly’ treasures are in either our archives or our museums.”

  “Scusami, padre,” a voice cried out from behind the priest. Father Frank turned. Between the columns came Giovanni Figlia, lightly jogging. The former athlete looked worried.

  Father Frank smiled, confused. “Tour over already, Commandatore?”

  Figlia was four columns away when he was blindsided by a pedestrian stepping out from between a set of columns. Figlia almost ran him over, just catching him as he was about to fall. The collision victim held onto Figlia’s wrists as he dropped, and they each managed to keep the other from falling.

  The other man breathed heavily, as though having an asthma attack. “Grazie.”

  “Prego.”

  He looked back at the ground where he could have fallen, straightened his black beret, and walked on. Giovanni Figlia promptly forgot it and moved on, continuing toward the trio.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he told them as he reached into his pocket, where he had tucked the information he received from Ronnie Fisher.

  Abasi arched his brows. “And what might that be?”

  Figlia frowned as he dug in his pockets. He looked back toward the colonnade, knowing it would be nearly impossible to find the pedestrian amidst the marble towers. “It’s about our second victim, the shooter; I guess I dropped the file… Doesn’t matter, I can get another.”

  Father Frank looked up at him. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Maybe in a few minutes, Father. If you could meet us in my office in fifteen minutes, there will be something I need to ask you about.”

  * * *

  Sean Ryan stood between two of the columns in the colonnade and watched the trio of Abasi, Figlia and Goldberg depart. His self-defense course for the theologically inclined had finally ended, and he had arrived just in time to see Giovanni Figlia nearly run over what looked like a tourist.

  Sean frowned thoughtfully. In his profession as a personal protector for the rich, famous, infamous, et al., he had tendencies which even he was forced to admit bordered on the paranoid. Some people thought he was hyper-aware of everything that went on around him. Instead, he considered himself to be always prepared because he could imagine innocent, everyday events in their darkest interpretation. So, when someone did something as innocuous as collide with a passerby, Sean was prepared for the worst.

  But in this case, what possible benefit could there be? His electric-blue eyes locked onto the passerby as the man walked into St. Peter’s Basilica. It was just someone in a hurry, that was all. Figlia had not been casually slashed, poisoned, or otherwise molested; there was no bomb in his pocket. All was at peace.

  And if something was wrong, Sean had the man’s entire features and profile memorized: blond-ish, blue-eyed, anemic.

  After a moment, he smiled. “Hello, Father Frank.”

  The priest glided to a stop just short of Sean’s side. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I’ve got better hearing than anyone else I know. I used to hear ultrasonic dog whistles.” Sean glanced over his shoulder. “How’s your practice coming?”

  Father Frank nodded. “Well.”

  “Still taking prisoners?”

  “I have little choice in that regard.”

  “Pity.”

  The former stuntman pivoted, directing a sharp roundhouse punch at the priest. Father Frank side-stepped, caught the wrist and pulled Sean forward, off his feet. Sean rolled off his shoulders and back onto his feet with ease.

  Sean smiled. “Real pity. You could’ve worked for me.”

  * * *

  Scott “Mossad” Murphy slipped the beret off his head and ducked into Saint Peter’s Basilica, where Manana Shushurin waited. She stood outside the confessional as though someone sat inside it. If anyone pointed out to her otherwise, she could always act like a dumb tourist who didn’t see the sign. He smiled. If this were America, being around the confessional would be the best place to keep out of sight, because American Catholics avoided the confessional like it was an anthrax-smallpox hybrid.

  Murphy slid into one door of the confessional, and Shushurin sighed softly, just loud enough to be heard in all the background noise of the tourist attraction, and slid into the other side. No one noticed, mainly because half the church was filled with people at prayer, and the rest were treating the place like a tourist trap.

  Scott Murphy sat in the wooden box of the confessional. He shoved aside the sliding panel and the metal screen, peering into her dark, glittering eyes.

  How does she manage to have her eyes catch the light like that, even when there isn’t any? “You’re right,” he began. “Figlia seems to be the guy to follow rather than Abasi. First, I checked the hotel, I expressed shock and outrage over the double homicide, and then I inquired after the corpse. His name was Gerrity, an American professor of some sort, doing research at — guess where? The Vatican Archives. Since Figlia is heading the investigation, and he was meeting Abasi, I managed to… run into him.”

  He unfolded the piece of paper he had picked from the pocket of Giovanni Figlia, and quickly scanned it. “This was the shooter. Take a
look.” He slid the sheet through the panel. “It’s the résumé of a Red Brigade terrorist. Granted, he was getting up there, but what the hell, a gunman’s a gunman. This man, Clementi, was a nasty bugger, but he’s been in retirement since the early nineties. Why he would have taken out Yousef is beyond me; but to have two people, working the same archive at the same time, both drop dead? It’s unlikely. But this shouldn’t be anywhere near his area of interest. He’d sooner want to take the Pope out than Mr. Yousef. And our boy Clementi isn’t a blaster. What do you think he was doing getting himself blown up?”

  “Well,” Shushurin said carefully, still memorizing the résumé. “It could be he was bad with the explosives he was using, or he was blown up by the people who sent him. The former would just make life too easy on us, so my money is on the latter. I just wish there were more forensic reports.”

  “It’s only been a few hours since this guy died, we’ll find something. So, am I crazy, or does this have something to do with our man Yousef?”

  She slipped him a small smile that warmed him. “I don’t know if you’re crazy, but either this has been an amazing coincidence, or something is up. It’s also possible that this isn’t the same killer both times, but who knows? The important thing is to find out who this… Clementi worked for.”

  “Which means we’ll have to stick close to the Italian, as well as Abasi.”

  “Not all that hard. We know where his office building is, and he can’t leave the city without going through St. Peter’s Square.”

  Murphy nodded. “True, but that still leaves me with that one, annoying question.”

  * * *

  “What the heck is an old leftist gunman doing knocking off some schlemiel going through the archives on Pius XII?” Wilhelmina Goldberg asked.

  She sat back along the wall of Figlia’s office, the Commander behind his desk, with Abasi leaning against the wall across from her, arms crossed over his broad chest.

  Giovanni Figlia shook his head. “First of all, Gerrity probably wasn’t killed for that. Most of the documents from during the war were released decades ago. I’m not sure Gerrity would have wasted his time, but if he’s like some, he would have sifted through everything on the presumption that there was a grand conspiracy going on.”

  “Or,” Hashim Abasi added, “he could just be looking for something that others missed. I used to be in the intelligence section of my police. Trust me, I would rather look at the raw data than what someone just handed to me, even if I know the person in question is honest.”

  Goldberg grumbled. “That still leaves the question — a terrorist who disappears for almost two decades reemerges to kill a history geek? Come on, this is as paranoid as Oliver the Stoned.”

  Abasi politely coughed. “What makes you so certain that this was the only killing this man — Clementi?—committed as part of his return? Have you checked to see if there have been any similar killings? Was this man, Dr. Gerrity, killed in any specific manner?”

  “A shot to the stomach and under the chin,” Figlia said, “both with a .22 caliber, both fired at an upward angle. Either or both were meant to be kill shots.”

  The Egyptian nodded. “Mossad assassination squads appreciate a good Beretta in that same caliber, as do your Mafia, if I recall. Was Clementi an employee of the hotel?”

  Figlia shook his head. “I have a few of my men flashing his photo around, but I doubt we’ll find anyone who knew him. According to his record, he’s been able to do infiltration jobs, and hotel security isn’t something to brag about.”

  Goldberg suddenly had to stifle a yawn. She blinked. “Sorry, I’m still trying to readjust to the post-jet-lag phase. It’s about…” she glanced at her watch, “4 a.m. where I’m from.”

  Figlia smiled. “Understood. How about we try to canvass the area, see if anyone might know where Clementi is from, or who’s seen him, then after three hours, we have… I believe you Americans would call it dinner.”

  Abasi glanced at the Italian. “We? As in the three of us?”

  “Certo. Quando non? We can all talk and walk at the same time. We spiral out from the blast site, and if we find nothing, we come back. You can tell me about places His Holiness should not go. I’ll tell you why he’ll go there anyway, and we can work it out from there.”

  Abasi held up his hands to stop Figlia from continuing. “It’s not that. You’re head of Vatican Security. You have men who can do this.”

  Goldberg nodded. “Yeah, the only higher-ups in Homicide that ever got involved were named Columbo and Kojak.”

  Figlia grinned. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Abasi barked a laugh. “You sound just like my wife.”

  The commander brightened even more. “Ah? And who might this sensible woman be?”

  Abasi’s face fell at that. “She was a Catholic charities worker stationed in Cairo.”

  For a very long moment, the comment that spoke of his wife in the past tense had even managed to make even the talkative Italian hush. Between the “Arab Spring” and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, both the Secret Service Agent and the man in charge of Vatican security could come up with a whole list of very bad things that could have happened to a Catholic woman in the midst of all that.

  Abasi was tempted to tell them what had actually happened, but they wouldn’t have wanted to hear that. It would have gotten awkward very quickly.

  “Um…” Figlia tried to begin. He paused, and combed his fingers through his black hair. “Besides, His Holiness is going to lock himself in his office for the rest of today, working on canonizations or canon law, whichever catches his attention today. The rest of the city is still a little traumatized, no Italian Popes for over thirty years, so he makes fewer public appearances than Giovanni Paolo in the hopes they’ll get used to him gradually. So my worries are a lot less… at least for now.”

  “Gianni,” a boisterous, heavily accented voice called out, “you’re still discounting that the Romans are having problems dealing with black people in Italy, much less one as Pope!”

  Goldberg jumped off her chair, and Abasi pushed off the wall, about to defend himself against an attack. In the doorway — the door to which had been closed a moment ago — stood a tall, powerfully built black man dressed in solid white robes and a white skullcap.

  He grinned, taking a moment to appreciate the shocked looks on their faces. “I’m only the Pope, no need to stand.” He laughed, a sound like the echo of thunder over a flat Nebraska plain. He glanced at both of Figlia’s guests. “Neither of you are Catholic, correct?”

  Goldberg only looked up at this imposing man and nodded. Abasi managed to do slightly better, but only because he had an inch on the newcomer.

  Pope Pius XIII grinned. “Thank the Lord.” He offered his hand to Special Agent Goldberg. “That means you won’t want to kiss the ring; so many people kiss it, I swear that’s how it remains shiny.”

  She shook his hand, and he replied with a firm grip. “Special Agent Villie Goldberg, Secret Service.”

  “Pleased to meet you. And please, call me Joshua, or Josh.” He waved at Figlia. “It’s not like I can get him to call me by my first name. He’ll use it when referring to me in the third person, but not directly. Neither does anyone else.” He shrugged and turned to the Muslim. “And you, sir, are?”

  “Hashim Abasi,” he took the offered hand.

  “From Egypt, yes? It’s good to see there are three of you to keep me safe. Having fun?”

  “We’re working on a homicide right now, Your Holiness,” Figlia told him, stepping around his desk.

  Pius XIII nodded thoughtfully, clasping his hands behind his back so Figlia couldn’t kiss the ring. “I see. Who died?”

  Figlia nodded slowly. “One is an American professor, and—”

  The Pope’s eyes went wide. “Not David Gerrity?”

  “Yes, how did you—?”

  “I invited him here to do research on the Pacelli canonization! You’re going to f
ind the ones behind this?”

  Figlia nodded. “Yes, we were about to—”

  “Get to it!” the Pope ordered. “Don’t let me stand in your way. Let me know when you get back, we’ll eat together, the four of us!” With a whirl of his white robes, he was gone, as suddenly and as quietly as he had entered.

  After a moment of stunned silence after the papal blitzkrieg, Goldberg cleared her throat and said, “Well, now we can’t go wrong, can we?”

  They laughed.

  Chapter VII: A Pius Interrogation

  Francis Williams watched the door open as the Pope left. He looked inside the office of Giovanni Figlia to see the three security specialists in place. He took the newcomers in at a glance.

  Wilhelmina Goldberg’s cheekbones didn’t seem all that delicate, but weren’t exactly hard, either — they were soft for Germanic features, and fit well on her face. Her nose had an almost imperceptible turn to it — he could see where the bridge of her nose stopped only because the cartilage wasn’t parallel, although most people would need a protractor to note the angle. She was well-endowed, at least for her size and build, and her shoulder muscles were definitely well-worked, probably with ten-pound weights.

  Abasi was very well-built, especially his muscle mass, and Father Frank concluded he worked out regularly and rigorously. He was well-spoken, and probably had a decent socioeconomic background. He spoke English with an English accent, so foreign educated. The tan suit fit him very well, and was probably tailored to his unique dimensions.

  Hashim Abasi caught him first and waved him in. “Come in, Father, you are on time.”

  The priest walked in and smiled shyly around the room. “What can I do to be of service?”

  “You know some of church history, si?” Figlia asked.

  Father Frank thought back to his conversation in the Vatican armory. “You could say that.”