The Cloning

  At dinner that night, the staff served their meal as usual, yet both Maria and Marc could feel a difference in the nuns. On the surface, they were unchanged, but underneath was a coldness, a brooding feeling of suspicion.

  Afterwards, Marc and Maria stayed up late to watch the satellite news from the States. It was not encouraging. In spite of Marc's statement, reactions ran strongly against him. In one poll, over ninety percent of those questioned felt that Marc had been dishonest. Another poll was even more damning to him as a scientist: when asked if they thought Doctor Solovino faked his famous experiment, ninety-five percent of those questioned said yes. The public didn't even believe he'd performed the first human cloning from reconstituted DNA!

  At Maria’s request, Marc spent the night on a sofa near her and Alpha. And outside in the darkness, the growl of the crowd continued.

  CHAPTER 17

  At sunrise the demonstration continued but with more participants and organization. Signs had been printed overnight in a variety of languages. Among those in English, Marc noted, “Hang the Heretic, Solovino,” “Destroy the Anti-Christ Baby, Omega!,” “Down with the Un-Holy Family.”

  Led by a cheerleader with a megaphone, one large group directed its chant toward the Pope’s corner bedroom on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace: “Don't protect the heretics! Don't protect the heretics! Don't protect the heretics!”

  Having spent a sleepless night, Maria’s eyes were red with fatigue, and she was even more shaken by the fresh assault. “Last week, they were worshipping us . . . now they want to kill us . . . even our helpless little baby. What's going to happen to us, Marc?” she asked. “The Pope won't listen to them, will he?”

  Before Marc could reply, there was a knock, and it was the Pope himself, come because he knew how terribly shaken they’d be.

  “I must take much of the blame for what is happening,” he told them.

  “I hope you believe what I said in my press release. It was entirely due to my carelessness . . . my own stupidity.” Marc implored.

  “Yes, I do believe you,” the Pope acknowledged sadly. “But, regrettably, that does not solve the problem.”

  “You have to protect us. Please.” Maria begged, making no attempt to hide her fear.

  “Of course, my child. But there's much dissension within the Church, and I must do everything in my power to heal the damage that’s been done. And I fear that would be impossible if you were to stay here indefinitely.”

  “We want to be together, whatever happens,” Marc interjected. “We love each other. We’re a family.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” the Pontiff nodded with a knowing smile, “and that is the most reassuring aspect of these events. I'm trying to arrange for you to leave and start new lives, but these arrangements are very complicated. I can only urge you to be prayerful.”

  Maria crossed herself, knelt before the Pope, and kissed his ring. Not fully understanding what propelled him, Marc knelt too and did likewise. Was he acting out of fear, hiding, as it were, behind the Pope’s skirts? Or was he experiencing some sort of religious feeling? No, it was more out of respect and gratitude, Marc thought. In any case, the Pope was as surprised as Marc himself . . . and pleased at the implication, but he made no comment on the turnabout. He simply gave them his benediction, then left.

  As soon as he was gone, Maria hurried to lock the door, then clung to Marc.

  “Hey, with the Pope on our side, we can't be in too much trouble,” he said with forced bravado.

  “What does he mean by 'start new lives'?”

  “I guess he means something like the FBI’s witness protection program, where people are given new names and new identities . . . then moved someplace where nobody knows them.”

  “Wouldn't that be great!” she exulted enthusiastically. “Do you think he can make that happen?”

  “You're the one who has all the faith,” Marc teased.

  “You must have some too. I noticed you knelt to the Pope.”

  “Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” he replied, still astonished at himself, wondering exactly what had impelled him. But in the rush of events he could hardly stop to truly explore his thoughts.

  There was another knock on the door, and Maria tensed. “Who is it?”

  “Father Reilly,” came Stephen's urgent voice from outside.

  Marc unlocked the door to his old friend and knew instantly from Stephen’s pale and haggard face that things were going from bad to worse. “I’m sorry to lay this on you . . . on top of everything else. But Dugan's gone round the bend,” Stephen explained. “I mean completely.”

  “Drunk again?” Marc asked.

  “No, it’s much worse than that. He's planning to take your baby away from you.”

  Maria was panic-stricken. “What do you mean?”

  “There's a group of priests—a large group—who still believe that Alpha is the reincarnation of Christ. They think that the Pope made a mistake listening to D'Annunzio's commission.”

  “What about my statement to the press?”

  “They think you’re in collusion. It’s senseless but very serious.”

  “Why do they want Alpha?” Marc asked.

  “They're off the wall, Marc. Certifiable. They want to start their own church . . . worshipping Alpha . . . to set him up as a living God. These guys aren't kidding . . . they're real zealots. They won't stop at anything.”

  “When are they planning this?”

  “Tonight. So you've gotta get out of here now. There’s no time to waste.”

  “I’ll get Alpha,” Maria declared, hurrying from the room without waiting for more details.

  Unseen, Sister Costanza had been listening to this exchange from the alcove of the dining room. She turned and quietly left.

  “Can you help us?” Marc asked Stephen urgently.

  “I can't handle it by myself, so I've taken Monsignor Lissaro into my confidence.”

  “He's a good man.”

  “The best,” Stephen confirmed. “He's been helping the Holy Father make plans for you, but now he's trying to speed things up. You may have to leave on a moment’s notice.”

  “It’s good that you’re here, Steve.”

  “I should have seen this coming,” Stephen chided himself. “The Cardinal’s been acting very strangely—real psychotic stuff—ever since D’Annunzio’s commission was formed, but I thought it was just the alcohol again.”

  There was yet another knock, and it was Lissaro. Marc admitted him, then re-locked the door.

  “Is the child all right?” the Monsignor asked immediately, obviously worried.

  “Maria is getting him ready to leave,” Marc assured him. “Thank you for helping us,” he added.

  “It is what the Holy Father wants,” Lissaro replied grimly. “Have you had any word from Cardinal Dugan?” he asked Stephen.

  “Nothing,” Stephen replied grimly. “He wasn’t in his room when I went there at dawn.”

  Maria returned, carrying Alpha and a small utility bag. “We're ready,” she announced. The Monsignor hurriedly explained that he'd arranged for them to leave the country within the hour.

  “Where are we going?” Maria asked.

  Lissaro hesitated only a moment, then explained, “It's better that you not know just yet. In case there's some problem, no one else would be implicated.” Before Maria could press with further questions, he laid out his plan for their escape. She was to go to the Vatican garden with Alpha at eight-thirty, pretending to take the morning air. “There's a small door in the west wall of the garden, near the Observatory,” he continued. “A delivery van will stop on the other side at exactly nine o'clock.” Lissaro then turned to Marc. “You must come into the garden a few minutes before nine and arrive at the door at precisely that moment also. The driver has a key to open the garden door from outside, and he will take the three of you to a boat.”

  Before Lissaro could finish, there was a loud banging on the door, followed by Cardinal Dugan's
voice bellowing outside, “Open up, Solovino! Don't try to get away. You're not going anywhere!”

  Maria instinctively held Alpha closer and turned to Marc. He put a protective arm around her, and they both looked to Lissaro for instructions. Keeping his voice low, he told them to follow him. They quickly left by the rear entrance while Dugan continued pounding on the front door, demanding that they open up. Lissaro led the little group down a back stairway that was normally used by the staff only.

  Meanwhile, Sister Costanza joined Cardinal Dugan in the hallway and, with her passkey, opened the door to Maria's suite. The Cardinal, accompanied by four bearded Capuchins in brown cassocks, rushed inside and searched the suite of rooms.

  “Solovino? Where are you?” Dugan called out.

  After making a quick inspection, the four monks informed him that the place was empty.

  “Where could they have gone?” he demanded of the nun.

  “The back stairway, no doubt,” she told him, pointing the way.

  “Hurry,” Dugan instructed his followers, “We must get the Holy Child at all costs.”

  *

  Lissaro, Marc, Maria, Alpha, and Stephen had meanwhile reached ground level. “We’ll go another way,” Lissaro informed them as he carefully opened a door leading outside to the Court of Saint Damaso. Seeing nothing amiss, he motioned the others to come with him. They emerged into the bright sunlight and followed the Monsignor casually, as if everything were normal, to Raphael’s stately loggias, passing through a corridor, then through the Sistine Chapel to an entrance that led into the Basilica. An old warder sat by the doorway, and Lissaro nodded pleasantly to him, then moved on with the others at his heels into the Church of Saint Peter.

  Sister Costanza, still in Maria’s quarters, had placed a call to the sacristy of Saint Peter’s, the chamber where clerical garments are kept for services there. Another brown-robed Capuchin, Brother Tucci, answered. She quickly informed him what had happened and suggested that Lissaro and his group might try escaping by way of the Basilica. “Do everything within your power to get the baby,” she urged him.

  “With God’s help, none of them will get away,” Tucci replied.

  As Lissaro and the others neared the sacristy, he halted and motioned them stay where they were. Then he approached a turn in the hallway and casually walked around the corner to a Swiss Guard.

  “Good day, Lucas,” Lissaro said pleasantly.

  “Monsignor.”

  “I was expecting to meet Cardinal Dugan from the United States here in a few minutes, along with some of his associates. When they come, will you tell him that I went back to my office? They can wait for me there instead.”

  “With pleasure,” the guard replied.

  Lissaro thanked him, then returned to the others and motioned them to follow him. They hurried quietly down the corridor, unseen by the Swiss Guard.

  The sacristy was a masterpiece of exquisitely carved wood, lined wall to wall with vestment closets. Lissaro pulled out three black cassocks, and handed one to each of them. “Put these on,” he instructed. “You’ll be less recognizable.” He pointed to an adjoining changing room where Maria could slip into her cassock privately.

  It took her only a few moments to don the garment, but she failed to notice a closet door silently opening behind her. Fra Tucci, a massive man, emerged stealthily and grabbed her around the waist while simultaneously covering her mouth so that she was unable scream.

  Meanwhile, as Lissaro held the baby, Marc finished buttoning his robe. “Where to now?” he asked.

  “There’s a subterranean route to your rendezvous.”

  “I’m ready,” Stephen said.

  Marc looked toward the changing room, wondering what was delaying Maria. He went to the door and knocked. “Let’s go, Maria.”

  “We must hurry,” Lissaro said, glancing at his watch.

  Since there was no reply, Marc knocked once more. Still there was no answer, so he opened the door and entered, followed by the others. Maria was nowhere in sight.

  “Is there another way out?” Marc demanded.

  Lissaro, still holding Alpha, shook his head silently and pointed to a closet door.

  Marc quietly approached, then yanked the door open. The closet was packed with clerical garments hanging from a rod . . . but there was no sign of Maria. Reflexively, Marc turned to Lissaro. The Monsignor pointed to another closet. Marc approached stealthily and again pulled the door open suddenly, but there was nothing to see except more long, hanging vestments. Just as he turned away, about to close the door, something caught his eye: two pairs of shoes barely visible under the hanging garments. Cautiously, he moved toward them, but suddenly, from out of the folds of garments, sprang Fra Tucci. In a tangle of vestments, he lunged at Marc, something glinting in his hand.

  The second Maria was released from Tucci’s grasp, she screamed, “He has a knife, Marc, look out!”

  Marc managed to jump out of the knife’s arc and grabbed Tucci’s wrist, but he lost his footing on the pile of robes, and the two of them fell wrestling to the floor as Marc tried to disarm the monk. With his decided weight advantage Tucci was on the verge of getting the best of Marc when Maria saw a brass candlestick nearby. Without a second’s hesitation, she grabbed it and hit the Capuchin over the head with a resounding thud. He fell limp immediately.

  Marc gave her a startled look.

  “We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?” she asked innocently.

  “You’d better believe it,” he agreed. “That’ll hold him for a while,” he added, dragging Tucci’s brown-robbed form back into the closet. After locking the door, Marc turned to Lissaro. “Let’s get moving,” he suggested. “Which way?”

  Lissaro, astonished by the alacrity of these events, returned Alpha to his mother’s arms, lead them to another door, opened it carefully for a cautionary look, and motioned them to follow.

  As there was no service in progress in Saint Peter’s, many tourists—guidebooks in hand—were moving about, including a few clerics from far-flung parts of the world, so Lissaro and his little group of “clerics” in black went unnoticed. Moving without undue haste, he led them past the Pietà, protected by bulletproof glass since an ax-wielding assailant broke the nose and hand of the Madonna some years ago. Maria wished that they could be similarly protected now. The group continued toward the main altar where the massive spiraling columns held the bronze canopy high overhead, under the cavernous vault of the cupola looming above. They proceeded around the altar where Marc’s eye caught a skeletal carving of Death with the proclamation, “Memento Mori”—”Don’t Forget Death”. He wished he hadn’t noticed it. At the statue of Saint Longinus, they arrived at the stairway to the grottoes.

  Down the elegant marble stairs they proceeded unobtrusively. Taking out a key and unlocking an elaborate brass door, Lissaro explained, “This is the crypt where the Popes are buried. It leads to the ancient catacombs.” The space was another masterpiece of magnificently carved marble, lined with tombs both ancient and modern, but there was no time to admire the beauty of this most exclusive of resting-places. “This way,” Lissaro told his coterie, and they proceeded quickly down a corridor, which led deeper into the earth.

  Moments later, Cardinal Dugan and his four Capuchins hurriedly arrived at the high alter, having been told by the old warder that Monsignor Lissaro and his friends had not returned his way. The Cardinal—his face much more flushed than usual and perspiring heavily—raced down the marble stairs to the grottoes and pushed the brass door, which swung open at his touch.

  “I thought so. Let’s go. Hurry!” he called out, directing the Capuchins into the crypt.

  Meanwhile, Lissaro had led the others through the so-called modern portion of the underground ossuary, and soon they approached a massive wooden door. Lissaro opened it quickly with another key. This led into the ancient subterranean necropolis which had been carved out of the earth centuries ago—long before the Basilica was constructed—to hold the rem
ains of many pagans, then early Christians. It had also been used by some early Popes as a means of escape when under siege. The rough stone flooring slowed their pace somewhat, causing Maria at one point to stumble and nearly drop Alpha. Marc managed to grab her and took the baby into his own arms, but they had to proceed more cautiously.

  “How much further?” Maria asked breathlessly.

  “Only a little more,” Lissaro assured her.

  But suddenly the sound of voices reverberated down the stone passages, and they all stopped simultaneously.

  “It’s Dugan,” Marc whispered.

  “Let’s hurry,” Lissaro said, and started moving again.

  By this time, Dugan and the Capuchins had reached the old wooden door leading into the catacombs. “Wait a moment,” one of the brothers said, “This should slow them down.” He opened an electrical control box and pulled the main switch. The catacombs were thrown into total darkness, but the monk, who had a flashlight, was able to lead Dugan and the others in pursuit. They were closing the gap.

  In the pitch-blackness, Lissaro and his group stood dead still. “I can’t see a thing,” Marc said.

  “I can’t either,” Maria agreed. “Is Alpha okay?”

  “I’ve got him, don’t worry,” Marc told her.

  “Take my hand,” Lissaro told Maria. “Make a chain,” he instructed the others who immediately did as told. Cautiously, he led them along the uneven floor, but it was slow going.

  Meanwhile, Dugan’s group was making much faster progress with the aid of their flashlight.

  After groping their way for another hundred feet or so, Lissaro turned a bend in the cavern. “I see the daylight ahead,” he said reassuringly. “We’ll make it.”

  With that glow of light as a point of reference, they were able to move faster, and in another two minutes they approached an iron grill gate. Sunlight streamed in from above. Even as Lissaro unlocked the gate, the voices of the Capuchins could be heard coming nearer and nearer. “Hurry, hurry,” Lissaro urged Marc, Maria, and Stephen who followed him, racing up the stairs.