Brotherhood of the Tomb

by Daniel Easterman

‘At that point, no. I was referring to our distant cousins, the RGB.’ He spoke of them as a priest might, after Vatican II, have spoken of ‘our separated brethren’ in the Protestant churches. That was the first intimation Patrick had of how close they stood to one another, the spy and the priest - hand in hand almost, fingertip to fingertip, bullet to book, initiates into the most ancient of mysteries.

  ‘But I now think the CIA is involved in some way.’ He exchanged glances with Ruth. ‘To make things entirely clear, my own role in all this is, as far as I know, entirely personal. But I did at one time serve as an agent with the CIA, and the possibility of that connection cannot entirely be disregarded.’

  He paused. Makonnen looked at him curiously, as though hearing his confession. Patrick felt uneasy, thinking back to the grille in his church at home, the priest’s voice prompting, seeking out sin like a scalpel probing for tumours.

  ‘Miss Ehlers is a sort of monitor,’ he went on. ‘She serves directly under the CIA chief of station at the embassy here. Her job is to monitor intelligence traffic into and out of the various embassies in Dublin. Most of that traffic is intercepted by the National Security Agency listening station at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire. They pass it on to the British through their liaison office at Benhall Park in Cheltenham.’

  Ruth broke in.

  ‘Patrick, I don’t think Father Makonnen needs ...’

  ‘Please, Ruth, I know what I’m doing.’ Patrick spread his hands in a placating gesture. ‘The Father is a diplomat. If you imagine that anything I’m telling him is not already intimately known to his superiors in the Vatican, you’re being very naive about the Catholic Church.’ He turned back to Makonnen.

  ‘Benhall Park puts this material together with what GCHQ gives them from their own monitoring stations at Hacklaw and Cheadle, as well as their telecommunications intercepts from Caroone House in London. It’s actually more complex than that, but the point I’m trying to make is that Ruth’s material is extremely comprehensive and extremely reliable.

  ‘Mostly she’s involved in assessing data for its relevance to the Irish situation. She checks through translated Arab material, for example, to see if it refers to possible links between, say, the Libyans or the PLO and the IRA. And you’re probably aware that your own transmissions are checked for much the same reason.’

  Patrick did not have to spell out his meaning. In the late seventies and eighties, the Vatican nuncio in Dublin, Archbishop Gaetane Alibrandi, had attracted notoriety for his repeated contacts with IRA members. Alibrandi’s motives had been noble enough -to understand and, perhaps, to intercede with men of violence. But the unfavourable attention the nunciature had then drawn had not diminished under his successors.

  ‘Then you knew Balzarin was up to something. You were trying to draw him out.’

  Patrick shook his head.

  ‘No. Until yesterday afternoon, I had no reason to suspect Balzarin of anything. He had some papers I wanted to see, that was all I knew. But when I spoke with him, he behaved like a man with something to hide. After I left the nunciature, I phoned Ruth and asked her to run a check on it. Phone calls, diplomatic telegrams, radio messages - everything. I think she’d better tell you what she found herself.’

  Ruth hesitated. For some reason the priest made her anxious. For all the range of her parents’ friends, she had had little contact with Catholics and almost none at all with priests. Like many women, she found their conscious option for celibacy a rejection of something essential to herself. She supposed men felt the same about nuns. For the first time in years, her social skills betrayed her. She was ill at ease and aware that she showed it. The fact that he was black made her feel even more awkward. Racial distinctions had never meant anything to her, but that very fact made her more conscious that her uneasiness might be misinterpreted.

  ‘Father Makonnen,’ she began, ‘you probably know that your people - I mean the Vatican State - and the CIA regularly exchange intelligence information. As Patrick ... Mr Canavan so kindly pointed out, you naturally understand that we also like to keep ourselves independently informed of any items of interest that may for any reason have been omitted from our regular briefings. And I’m sure your own intelligence people have their ways of informing themselves of some of our less well-kept secrets.’

  She hesitated. There was no telling how Makonnen might react to what she had to tell him. She took a deep breath and plunged on.

  “Yesterday,’ she said, ‘after Patrick phoned, I went across to the embassy and looked up some old computer files. Patrick has explained to you that we were looking for something with the word “Passover”. He didn’t mention that, on one occasion, we ran the word “Easter” through as well. “Pasqua” in Italian. Well, all we came up with were a few messages to and from the nunciature. Nobody even bothered to read them. After all, what could be more normal than the Vatican talking about a major Christian festival?’

  She paused and glanced out the window. A large bird circled the tower, its wings catching fire momentarily in the early afternoon light.

  ‘But someone had been careless. “Passover” isn’t the sort of word our translators usually have to handle. Anyway, it turns out that Pasqua isn’t just Italian for “Easter”. It’s also the word Italian Jews use to refer to “Passover” if they happen to be talking to Christians: Pasqua Ebraica - the Jewish Easter.

  ‘So I went back through the messages involving the nunciature. The first two could have referred to either Passover or Easter, it wasn’t clear. But the third was more puzzling. It was dated February third, it was in code, and it was signed, not with a proper name, but with a sort of pseudonym -Il Pescatore, the Fisherman.’ She paused. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’

  The priest thought for a moment. She saw the faint shadow that crossed his eyes, sensed his hesitation.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it means nothing to me.’

  But she knew what he was thinking, that Peter had been the first Fisherman of the Church. And the first Pope.

  ‘The message was addressed to Balzarin in person. It instructed him to have courage. All was going well. Plans had been completed. Pasqua would take place in exactly one month, on March the third.’ She paused. ‘Someone should have noticed that Easter this year isn’t until April nineteenth.’

  Makonnen listened with growing bewilderment. Where was this leading? He fumbled with the beads of his rosary, moving them nervously in a form of silent prayer. He felt compromised and abandoned, like a child on the verge of adulthood.

  ‘And the Jewish Passover starts on March the third?’ he asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. That’s what’s puzzling. Passover begins a few days before Easter. But in the message Pasqua definitely means “Passover”, not “Easter”. The writer speaks about “the day the children of Israel fled from captivity in Egypt”. And both De Faoite and Chekulayev spoke quite clearly of “Passover”.’

  Makonnen got out of his seat. He felt trapped, as though this Fisherman in the Vatican had him fast by a long line and a hook. He went across to the window and looked out, at the grey tower and the winter trees, at the dark water, the gathering clouds. Even in winter it was green here, green and wet beyond all his childhood imaginings. Why is the world so desolate, he thought, so empty even when it is full?

  Why are we talking about this here?’ he asked. Why are you telling me? You have a huge organization: men, computers, files. I’m just a priest, I can’t help you.’

  Ruth glanced at Patrick. Her expression was one of exhaustion, of despair almost.

  ‘We can’t do that, Father,’ Patrick said quietly.

  Makonnen turned and looked at him.

  ‘Why not?’

  In answer, Patrick picked up the file Makonnen had found on Balzarin’s desk. He opened it and took out a sheet of paper. Gently, he laid it on the table for the priest to read. It was a small sheet of headed notepaper. At the top was a round shield, underneath which was inscribed
a biblical quotation: ‘And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’.

  Makonnen came to the table and picked up the sheet.

  ‘My brother? the letter read, 7 have received your letter and that of the Pillars. May God bless you and all you seek to accomplish in His path. The hour of Passover will soon be upon us. Rest assured of my prayers and my assistance. If there is anything you or the brothers need that I can supply, do not hesitate to ask. All that is mine is yours: you know that. I have given the instructions you requested. You will not be interfered with. Give my greetings to Cardinal Fazzini. In His name, Miles Van Doren.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Makonnen, handing the letter back to Patrick. ‘What does this mean? What’s this shield at the top?’

  ‘The shield,’ Patrick said slowly, ‘is the official seal of the Central Intelligence Agency.’ Ruth was looking away, her eyes fixed on the distance. ‘The words are from the Bible: you can see them any day of the week if you walk into the entrance lobby of the Agency out at Langley.’

  ‘And this man, Miles Van Doren - who is he?’

  Ruth watched a cloud pass like a veil behind the tower. She had chosen this place for its silences. But the world had followed her and was filling her grey spaces with its own sounds.

  ‘Miles Van Doren,’ she said in a voice so quiet Makonnen had to strain to hear it, ‘Miles Van Doren is my father. He’s the President’s Advisor on Foreign Intelligence and a Deputy Director of the CIA. Those were his men who picked you up at the nunciature. Not ordinary agents. Special Operations men fresh from Honduras. He sent them into Ireland three weeks ago. The two who came for you weren’t the only ones. There are others.’ She looked up, the expression of pain in her eyes unbearable. ‘They’re looking for you again,’ she said. ‘Only this time my father’s with them.’

  TWENTY

  In spite of the fire it was growing chilly in the room. Ruth threw on another block of peat and poked the ashes, sending bright sparks up the chimney.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I’d like to take a walk about, see that everything’s all right out there. I might go on down to the lake.’

  She took a green Barbour jacket from a hook near the door and slipped it on.

  ‘Take care. Don’t walk too far. We’ll look after things in here.’ Patrick knew what Ruth meant when she said she would see that everything was all right. In this business, constant vigilance was the price, not so much of freedom as of life itself.

  The door closed gently behind her. Patrick indicated the easy chairs by the fireplace.

  ‘Let’s sit down over here.’

  For a while they sat, drinking coffee, watching the flames rise through the soft peat. The priest needed time to digest what he had just been told, to understand that his ordeal was not over, that it had only begun. When the coffee was finished, Patrick found some sherry in a cupboard, an old Manzanilla, very dry and very pale. It would have been better chilled, but he poured it anyway. They began to talk, returning before very long to the mystery that had brought them there.

  ‘Chekulayev was killed,’ Patrick explained, ‘by the same people who killed Eamonn De Faoite. Eamonn knew about Passover. The papers he sent to Balzarin must have contained details: names, places, dates -whatever he’d been able to dig up.’

  ‘Why would he send them to Balzarin?’

  Patrick shrugged.

  ‘My guess is that he knew something about Fazzini, maybe the Vatican connection in general. He must have thought he could trust Balzarin. Eamonn was a clever man, but in some ways very simple. He would have regarded the nuncio as the proper person to approach on a matter that concerned the Vatican.’

  ‘It wasn’t the correct procedure. His own bishop...’

  ‘Perhaps so. But Eamonn was never one for correct procedures. And if he thought there was no time to lose ... Anyway, we’ll never know now.’

  ‘What about these papers?’ Makonnen gestured towards the pile on the table. ‘The ones I found in the nunciature. What have you found in them? Apart from ...’

  Patrick sipped his sherry and put the glass down on the floor. He went to the table and brought some of the papers back to the chair.

  ‘Several letters,’ he said. ‘Some of them date back years and relate to different stages in Balzarin’s career. There are letters from various cardinals and bishops, by no means restricted to the Vatican or Italy; a number from Italian government officials or influential people in countries to which Balzarin had been posted; a few from bankers, industrialists, the heads of finance houses; two from military officers. The most recent ones are Irish: a senator, a judge, and a member of the board of the Bank of Ireland.’

  As he took the file of letters from Patrick, Makonnen commented in Italian.

  ‘Era piduist. He belonged to P2.’

  Patrick shook his head.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. There may be a connection, but I can’t see any evidence of that as yet.’

  Makonnen had been referring to P2 (pi-due), a secret and powerful Italian Masonic Lodge whose public exposure in 1981 had led to the collapse of Aldo Forlani’s coalition government. P2’s influence had reached as far as the Chigi Palace. Many feared that its power had not been wholly broken.

  As the priest looked through the letters, Patrick continued.

  ‘All of these letters refer in one way or another to an organization known as The Brotherhood or, more simply, the Brothers. There are several references to a tomb, which members seem to venerate. More than one correspondent mentions the Pillars.

  We also found a diary in Italian, written in what we think is Balzarin’s own handwriting. That will have to be translated in full, but even at a glance we can see there are going to be problems: people are referred to by initials or titles, places by abbreviations. Some of the entries have been heavily crossed out, as though the keeper of the diary had second thoughts about them. Which makes us think, of course, that what is left may not be as revealing as we would like.’

  He handed Makonnen a medium-sized volume bound in soft burgundy leather. A small label inside the front cover declared that it had been manufactured by Olbi’s in Venice, but it bore no other distinguishing feature.

  ‘Father,’ Patrick went on, ‘I’m going to be frank with you. We are all in terrible danger. Two days ago, Ruth and the team working with her at the embassy received strict instructions to drop the case. They were told it was being handled at a higher level. We no longer believe that to be true. With any luck we may be safe here for a day or so, but that’s the most we can hope for.

  ‘As I told you, we think you are personally at considerable risk. I don’t want to sound offensive,

  but you have to understand that here in Ireland you are conspicuous, even if dressed in a layman’s clothes. There are almost no black people in this country. For that reason, you can’t afford to move around freely.

  ‘Fortunately, Ruth has money and contacts. We intend to take you out of here tonight and find somewhere safe for you to stay until this is all over.

  ‘And how long will that be, Mr Canavan? A week? A month? A year? You say “until this is all over”. But how long has it been going on? Some of the engravings in that folder date back to the eighteenth century.’

  Patrick paused before answering. Even in the warm room, before the fire, he felt cold. The hallucination - if that was what it had been - of two days ago still troubled him. He wondered if he should see a doctor.

  Or a priest.

  ‘Father, I didn’t want to say this, but perhaps it’s better if I do. There’s every possibility that none of us may ever be safe again. I can give you protection for a while, but I can’t guarantee it for ever. Perhaps not even for a week. Our only hope is to find people we can trust, people powerful enough to take action against this group. I don’t have to spell out for you just how difficult that may prove to be.

  ‘But at least we can make a start. We can identify those whose names we know from letters,
and anyone you think you can recognize from his photograph.’

  He passed the first folder to Makonnen, the one containing engravings and photographs of clerics.

  Makonnen did his best. The better-known figures, even those from the past, were easy enough. Some he had seen in newspapers, others in textbooks on church history. One in particular he singled out.

  ‘This man,’ he said, pointing at the close-up of a severe face that bore the unmistakable stamp of a lifetime spent in positions of authority, of whole generations accustomed to obedience.

  ‘His name is Cardinal Giancarlo Migliau. His family came to Italy from Spain after Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews. That would have been about the end of the fifteenth century, I suppose. They would have come through Provence to Piedmont, where I think they settled round Turin. But one of his ancestors went on alone to Venice, where he converted to Christianity and made a fortune trading with Egypt and the Levant. He married a girl from a poor branch of a noble family, but for all that remained an outsider.

  ‘His sons and grandsons continued to trade with the Sultan, mainly in pepper. They bought land at Montebelluno and a villa by Palladio near Maser. By the seventeenth century, when the Great Council put noble status up for sale, they had enough money and enough influence to get their name entered in the Golden Book. They are one of the last noble families surviving in Venice.’

  Makonnen paused, his eyes fixed on the photograph.

  ‘Migliau was made Patriarch of Venice three years ago,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a popular appointment, but the Pope insisted. He may not be liked around St Mark’s, but he has considerable influence in the rest of Italy. In many quarters people are already speaking of him as papabile, a suitable candidate for the Papacy. If the present Pope were to die soon - which God forbid -there is no doubt that Migliau would be the favourite of the conservatives.’

  ‘I see.’ Patrick paused. ‘What about the men on this page, do you know any of them?’

  Makonnen looked carefully, but there was no one he recognized. By the time they reached the end, Patrick knew they would need the services of a good photo library.