A Pius Legacy

by Declan Finn

  “Unless,” Kovach added, “you’re here as Fr. Frank’s lawyer.”

  “No,” Frank answered softly, “I’m already a Jesuit.”

  With a smile, he turned back to the gray Jesuit. He stared at the older priest a moment. “From what I’ve gathered lately, I would expect one or two people from Vatican Intelligence to be in on this.”

  Inna Petraro leaned over to Ryan and, in a stage whisper, said, “I told you he was good.”

  The author let himself glance around the office of the Commander of Central Vigilance.

  There was one couch with a woman primly seated on it. About five-foot at most, Caucasian, hazel eyes. Black shirt, black pants, black every other article of clothing… petite… Secret Service agent?

  He smiled. “You must spend way too much time with your Secret Service colleagues.”

  She shrugged. “Wilhelmina Goldberg. Call me Villie.”

  Ryan and Petraro sat in two chairs next to the couch, closing in on the desk in the back of the room, both chairs pressed against a bookcase. And he had already met Giovanni Figlia, sitting behind his desk, wearing solid black clothing.

  He studied the man and the woman seated close to the door on the left hand side of the room. After a moment he spoke.

  “I would normally think that Mossad is here, but you, madam, are too lovely to be a spy, and you sir, well… you don’t—”

  Scott sighed. “I don’t look Jewish. I know.”

  Kovach blinked, taken aback by the vehemence of the reply. “Hmm…Goyim Brigade?”

  Murphy blinked. “You know about the Goyim Brigade?”

  Kovach smiled. “Long story. My uncle is in ‘international aid’—though my family swears he has ‘CIA’ typed on his forehead.” He blinked, and paused, turning to Xavier O’Brian. “You’re the boss of someone in Vatican Intelligence … or is the Goyim Brigade using a priest for their second?”

  Xavier O’Brian smiled. “Just lucky I guess. Come, sit, I’ll introduce the rest.”

  “Okay, I know some of what’s been going on lately.” He leaned back in the chair and sighed. “I had a chat with Ms. McGrail. I knew Dr. Gerrity, your dead Vatican Archivist.”

  “And,” Giovanni added, “he has also been investigating Pius XII, and has been shot at.”

  Goldberg leveled a stern glare at the both of them. “He took out one of these super-assassin pricks?”

  Kovach smiled. “People underestimate me. A lot. It’s like having someone come to kill Bruce Wayne only to run into Batman—and I look way more harmless.

  So, where does this start?”

  Manana smiled. “Well, how much do you know about the Soviet Union and terrorists?”

  The author simply smirked, one eyebrow arched. “Madam, I have a PhD in history—where would you like me to start? The PLO, PLFP, the Sandinistas, the old IRA, the VC, the NVA, the Cubans in Angola, Carlos the Jackal, the Red Army? I can go on forever.”

  Matthew stopped a moment, slapped himself in the face, and blinked. “Sorry, I tend to run at the mouth. When I started teaching to pay my way through my PhD, I picked up the habit of just talking without end in 60- to 90-minute increments. Why do you ask?”

  Manana Shushurin looked at him, her eyes twinkling, almost laughing, and she burst into actual laughter. “You’re going to enjoy this.”

  * * *

  3:00 PM

  Four hours and three recordings later, Matthew Kovach nodded slowly. “

  So Clementi was killed because he read…what was on Gerrity’s computer screen…it must have been one solid bit of evidence for him to be killed over something he only glanced at. Any idea what he saw?”

  The Bishop shrugged. “Could have been anything.”

  Kovach shook his head. “Not really. Clementi had just blown someone’s brains out. Unless Clementi was dirt-stupid, and hung around to scroll through each document, he would have only had a second to have something catch his eye.” He frowned. “Ah well. Did you record James Ryan’s testimony?”

  XO took out a tape recorder and put it on the table. “Right down to the bullets they fired.”

  Kovach arched a brow. “Tape? Was Betamax not available?”

  Wilhelmina Goldberg laughed. “I thought you might say that. Would you like to see a video edition?”

  Everyone look at her like she had grown fangs and a tail. “What?” Ryan asked, voice dripping with acid.

  “I have a recording.” She looked around at the others giving her looks and shrugged. “What? I used to work for the NSA. Surveillance is what I do. Shaddup. Let me plug it in for you on my laptop.” She tapped a few keys. “I’ll fast forward a bit. He was a WWII soldier who crashed behind enemy lines and made it to the Vatican. And the Pope asked for a favor.”

  James Sherman Ryan had a pleasant enough face, bright twinkling eyes and gray hair. Overall, he gave a solid impression of someone who was certain of where he was, and what he was doing, at all times.

  The video began, and Sean’s grandfather outlined a plan that used the Allied soldiers Pius XII sheltered as an assassination team to kill Adolf Hitler,

  Kovach looked to Sean Ryan. The only visible sign of his emotions was Ryan’s hand gripping Inna Petraro’s.

  “After that,” Ryan said, “one of them came in and shot my grandfather.”

  Kovach nodded absentmindedly, looking down at his written notes, then back to Ryan. “Two things I don’t get. Who’s this Hans Franke your grandfather mentioned? I got the impression he was a right-hand man to Himmler, but I’m friends with a military historian who can tell you everything from the size of a Cromwell tank versus a Tiger, and probably the size of Hitler’s underwear; I’ve never heard of Hans Franke. Second, how did these bastards hear about the assassination operation?”

  Manana cleared her throat. “Hans Franke was my grandfather, and the alias that my father had been using in Rome…” She blinked, thinking it over.

  “Your grandfather was a certified Nazi,” Sean Ryan finished. He glanced at Scott. “Better leave that off of any reports to Israel—telling your guys that your girlfriend in witness protection is a Nazi’s granddaughter will not go over well.”

  Scott frowned. “You think they’d hold a grudge?”

  “That depends,” Ryan asked, “will the Israeli Philharmonic play Wagner?”

  Matthew Kovach smiled, ignoring them. “That’s what Gerrity was looking at, and why Giacomo Clementi was killed. Clementi read the name ‘Hans Franke’ off the document and naturally assumed it had something to do with the man he worked for.” Kovach’s eyes lit up. “Gerrity found a document. Sean, your grandfather was wrong—there was a document on the mission, something that had to do with the Nazi Hans Franke. The old bastard did it! Gerrity found something!”

  Goldberg leaned forward. “But we didn’t see anything in the archives regarding Franke, and we all looked.”

  McGrail nodded. “Ditto. Even Fr. O’Brien ne’er heard of the bastard.”

  Manana frowned. “It’s possible one of the Soviet Markists found a document and hid it somewhere in the archives so it couldn’t be found again, except for future retrieval.”

  Kovach’s head snapped to the sexy spy. “The Markists?” He then stopped and smiled. “This should be fun.”

  Sean Ryan looked at his watch. “Will someone turn on C-Span or something? The UN should be meeting right now.”

  Chapter IX

  Reduction To Absurdity

  New York City, NY. The United Nations

  9:00 AM EST

  The Italian Ambassador to the United Nations straightened his silk Armani tie as he stood at the podium before the General Assembly. A pronounced frown marked his face, and his brow furrowed deeply as he looked around the assembly.

  He nodded to himself slowly as he took hold of the podium.

  With one final glare, he began to speak. “The administration of the new Pope, Pius XIII, has irritated the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Republic of North Korea, and the peopl
e of the Sudan, all of whom have lodged protests in this very assembly. When they could not win through words, they decided to win through assassination and subterfuge. The Pope has declared them violators of human rights. Through old Soviet connections, they hired a team of mercenaries to reactivate this plan.

  “Members of an old Soviet program had been tapped by elements that wanted the Pope dead. We have the confession of one of those involved in the plan, as well as the verification of representatives from four different countries. Of the people involved in this plan, there was the Sudanese, the organization al-Qaeda, the army of North Korea, and the Chinese People’s Army.

  “In support of this program, murder has already been committed. Dr. David Gerrity, an American researcher in Rome, was murdered. He was simply interested in the truth regarding the actions of Pius XII during World War II. Ashid Raqman Yousef, a member of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, also discovered it—but he was not accepted into this plan. Before he could make an announcement to al-Jazeera, he was also killed. He came to Rome believing the Papacy hated Jews as much as he did. He was wrong, and died.

  “Two more people were murdered. One was a Catholic Priest, Fr. Richard Harrington of County Kerry, Ireland, who had served in Rome during the Second World War, and witnessed firsthand the actions of the Pope’s valor. He was murdered in Dublin. The second man was James Sherman Ryan,” he said, his voice beginning to rise with each clause. “An American from that very same war, who, under the advice and counsel of Pope Pius XII, was sent to execute Adolph Hitler and his entire general staff!” He announced with a roar and a flourish.

  The Ambassador looked around the room, his voice beginning to boom over the chatter generated by the rest of the representatives, their response delayed by the translation.

  “After this,” he pushed on, “once every witness was murdered, the rest of the plan was simple. The next step was to crash a plane into the Papal offices during a speech.”

  He looked at the American Ambassador. “They were going to recreate the American incident from September 11, 2001. Once St. Peter’s Square was blocked by a plane filled with burning jet fuel, the gunmen were going to invade and ransack the city. They would destroy the museums, raid and pillage the treasures of the world, and our Pope would have been replaced with a pawn. The Pope would be killed in the first plane crash, and another would crash into the Papal Conclave!”

  He glared at the Assembly. “And now, I charge all of you, in this Assembly, to make this right. I demand sanctions upon the Sudan, North Korea, and the People’s Republic of China.”

  After the Italian ambassador went on for a little longer, the assembly adjourned for lunch.

  Chapter X

  Send Lawyers, Guns,

  and Money

  Vatican City

  Day 4 4:00 PM

  Matthew Kovach blinked as he looked over his notes. He looked up, only to see where the rest of the world had gone.

  “I don’t think they wanted to be interviewed,” came a woman’s voice, sounding of both whiskey and soprano. Fr. Williams had already left while Captain Wayne Williams bragged about his son. And now Kovach and Veronica Fisher were the last two people in Giovanni Figlia’s office.

  The writer smiled absently. “So, what about you?”

  Veronica Fisher shrugged. “What about me?”

  Kovach eyed her, standing in the doorway. She was properly dressed for the Vatican—to a point. She had arms and legs covered, via protocol, but she wore a white turtleneck and khakis. Her posture was proper, no slouching, but she was certainly relaxed. “Well, what’s it like being the wife of the head of Vatican Secret Service, as well as chief of forensics?”

  Veronica “Ronnie” Fisher smirked. “Quiet, and business is slow.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, until the last few days, that is. But I’m not exactly new to this.”

  Kovach nodded slowly. “I can imagine … New Yorker?

  “Yup. St. Luke’s University, BS in Path-A after trying to be a Physician’s Assistant.”

  Matt chuckled. “I can buy that. You don’t exactly seem like you’re shy and retiring.”

  They both laughed over that. Physician’s Assistants had developed over the course of the Vietnam War, and they had to be pushy, otherwise they were run over by nurses and doctors.

  Kovach smiled. “Nice. Sounds like you could’ve gone into anything in the medical services.”

  Veronica Fisher shrugged. “Close, but no cigar. I tried to be a PA, but switched to Pathology. After the OJ Simpson case, and the popularity of forensics, I thought it sounded like an interesting career move.”

  The author nodded. “You joined just in time. You met Giovanni in Vegas, if I heard right?”

  Ronnie nodded absently. “After my father died, I followed employment west.”

  “And while Giovanni worked with SWAT in LA, you met him and followed him back. Now he works for the Pope himself, in a job that is in some ways worse than being a policeman. This job is to jump in front of the bullet.”

  Ronnie didn’t reply. She didn’t even react for a long moment. Instead, she moved towards Giovanni’s desk, and then opened a window behind it. She peered out onto the street below. “That’s what I see.”

  Kovach blinked then joined her at the window. Figlia was below, with a ball, playing a pickup game of soccer with everyone who had been in the office only a half-hour before. I wondered where they all went.

  “You should see him with the priests,” Veronica Fisher continued. “He runs them ragged through the courtyards, the gardens, even the old helipad. There are even occasions when he forgets that head-butting a person isn’t the same as head-butting a soccer ball. He brings that dedication to his job. He tried to take on a hoard of Red Brigade armed with submachine guns when he only had a revolver. The Swiss Guards are all crack army veterans. He has his military contacts in the American military base down in Sicily, who give him intelligence updates.”

  “Impressive,” Matthew answered. “Any kids?”

  Ronnie beamed “Two. Joshua and Raphael.” She glanced at the Claddaugh ring on his left hand. “And you?”

  The author grinned, looking at his wedding ring. “Not yet. We’re working on it.” His grin expanded. “Boy, are we working on it.”

  Veronica chuckled. “I know how that feels.”

  Kovach spared her a glance, quickly assessing her body characteristics. “I should hope so. Otherwise, I’d worry about Giovanni. He doesn’t look like someone who lacks energy.”

  She grinned, a wistful look at her husband below. “What happens in Rome, stays in Rome.”

  “I should hope so,” came a deep, resounding voice, still heavily tinted with a central African accent. The two laypeople turned to see the massive, white clothed form of Pope Pius XIII.

  Kovach straightened to almost military attention, then delivered a sharp bow. “Hello, Your Holiness. I’m Matthew Kovach, writer.”

  The Pope studied him a moment, then grinned broadly. “Yes, I recall you as one of the researchers in our Pius XII archives. I must say, I don’t have many people use military formality around me.”

  He shrugged. “I have the best of both Irish cultures—the joy of the Irish heathen and the formality of the Irish monastic.”

  The Pope laughed. “An apt way of putting it. So it would do no good for me to ask that you call me Joshua?”

  “No, Your Holiness.”

  The Pope nodded and moved to sit down on the couch vacated by Goldberg. “And what exactly are you going to do as our … writer?”

  Kovach shrugged. “Whatever I have to. As I understand my job, I have a ‘name,’ as we say in the States, and I have facts. Which means I have a microphone and the words already laid out in documents.” He smiled slyly. “And I have an acid tongue on loan from a few conservative blondes.”

  The Pope cocked his head slightly. “And that is all?”

  “Of course.” Matthew’s gaze hardened. “Sir, if you’re worried that I’m going to be
one of those folks who will use a bodyguard of lies to keep the truth intact, you have the wrong man. If I thought for a moment that your Papal namesake was actually in league with the Nazis, I’d be his number one enemy. I don’t defend a damn thing I don’t believe in. Jesus said he was the way, the truth, and the light. I fight for the truth. And God better help the person who fights me, either way, because I will destroy them. Period.”

  * * *

  New York City.

  Manhattan’s Lower East Side

  11:00 AM, EST

  Ioseph Andrevich Mikhailov sat in his apartment across the street from the United Nations, sipping out of a large Starbucks mug of coffee. He’d heavily tempered it with Vodka, but his liver was so toughened by now, it bordered on being bulletproof.

  Mikhailov looked like what he was, which was a Russian Speztnaz special forces killer who had gone into private industry. His mustache was done in the handlebar style of Joseph Stalin, after whom he was named—the former Nazi who was Ioseph’s father, really knew how to suck up to the boss. He looked neat and clean and perfectly respectable, as long as you couldn’t see into his soul. In which case, you could see something that would make the picture of Dorian Gray look like a child’s finger painting.

  He smiled once more at the mug. It had one of his favorite quotes on the side: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” And he had been prepared for almost every eventuality. It wasn’t enough for him to have succeeded, at the end of the day, but he succeeded where it counted—he was alive.

  There was a reason he had checked for a back door when he first entered the hangar. He escaped through the back while his daughter and Sean Ryan fled out the front.

  Mikhailov felt a twinge of pain in his abdomen. Well, he hadn’t survive completely unscathed, but it was better than being dead.

  Mikhailov was even grateful to his daughter. If she had not kicked him off of Ryan, he would have possibly stayed on the man, trying to kill him. Ioseph knew he had only one option—to run.