Genesis

by Tom Fox

  But mostly, it was emptiness. Even the faux stained glass and relief statuary of the simplest parish churches used to inspire his heart. He could remember with crystal vividness those feelings of zeal. He could still sense the fire that used to rise within him, stirring him to motion and devotion. Yet it came now only as a memory, vivid precisely in its absence. The emotions themselves hadn’t coursed through him in a long time. Apart from the memories, Alexander stepped into a church these days and felt nothing more than he did when walking into any other space.

  And perhaps that was what he regretted most of all. He’d given up the life. He’d never intended to give up the emotion.

  But though a priest he once had been, Alexander Trecchio was a priest no more. He’d grown comfortable with that fact, or at least accustomed to it. There were reasons—good reasons. They would have to counterbalance the sense of loss that followed him around like a tired friend.

  And there was work, in turn, to offset the void of loss.

  He’d entered the present space some forty minutes earlier, and a good portion of the intervening time—for lack of anything better to fill it—had been spent trying to remember if he’d been here before. Alexander had been on a rotation of central Roman parishes shortly after his ordination to the priesthood, before taking up a more stable position in the Vatican curia, and there was every possibility that he’d visited San Sebastiano during those days. Perhaps even served here. But the unimpressive facade accurately portended an equally unspectacular interior, and that made it hard to tell. Of long rectangular rooms filled with pews and a white-clothed altar at the front, its modernist monstrance positioned centrally, Alexander had seen a great many. Enough that they tended to blur together in his memory.

  He’d been sent to the parish this morning by his new employer, La Repubblica, one of the main Roman newspapers and one known in particular for a none-too-gentle approach to its reporting on the Church. If it’s in the mud and you can rake it up, we’ll print it had been the offer he’d received from Niccolò Marre, the paper’s owner, when Alexander had first approached him about a job writing for the weekly “Church Life” column. It had been an enticing prospect for the paper. An ex-priest, recently departed the clerical life, with something of a chip on his shoulder about the great institution he’d once called home. He and La Repubblica had been a match made in—no, even he couldn’t say that. Mention of heaven was for those who still gave their hearts to such things. It had been a good fit, that was enough. Alexander had been with the paper ever since.

  And the whiff of financial scandal had sent him from his desk at the paper’s offices on the Piazza dell’Indipendenza to the residential neighborhood of San Sebastiano, with his editor’s singular hope that he uncover something suitably shaming and amply shocking that subscribers would be compelled to keep reading the paper on to page eleven.

  Fat chance.

  Alexander had phoned ahead. The parish rector, a certain Father Alberto Agostini, had agreed to see him. Not without a notable hint of suspicion and displeasure, which the priested gentleman of perhaps fifty or fifty-five years (it was always hard to tell age over the phone) had broadcast effectively down the line. But apparently the cleric had considered it better to work with the media rather than against them. “Come by this later this morning and I’ll help you however I can.” The fact that Alexander had already managed to obtain, by a little sleuthing and a little more smooth talking with the parish’s disgruntled—and now resigned—treasurer, copies of bank statements and financial records had undoubtedly prompted some of the priest’s willingness toward overt cooperation.

  So here Alexander was, printed files in hand, ready for the kind of hard-hitting scum-raking that would never earn him a literary prize, but which at least would keep his column coming. Father Agostini, however, was nowhere in sight. The church had been empty since Alexander’s arrival. Immediately he found his head filled with the refrain of a childish poem his uncle—himself a cardinal and a man whose faith, unlike Alexander’s, had never faltered—had instilled in him as a boy. Grace and calm in God’s great house, and all as quiet as a mouse …

  So it had been for over forty minutes. But now the quiet was broken.

  A sudden creak from the narthex behind him cut short Alexander’s memory. He sighed, relieved that this trip out of the city center wasn’t to be a complete dead end after all.

  He turned toward the foyer, ready to greet the priest.

  Instead, a woman Alexander had had no expectation of ever seeing again walked into the haven of spiritual rest, and immediately destroyed what remained of Alexander’s.

  Chapter 7

  Three days ago: 6:40 p.m.

  The elderly man was still bound to the wooden chair. The torture had been worse than he’d anticipated. His bare chest was now scored with the shallow bloody trails of the knife his interrogator had dragged across his flesh. Each marked an answer he’d given that had been deemed unsatisfactory.

  They were the only kind he’d been able to provide.

  Still, the majority of the torture had been psychological rather than physical. Despite his torment, that gave him some hope. His physical injuries were the results of acts that caused pain, but none that crippled. There were no broken bones or missing fingers, all of which he’d seen this group accomplish before. It was almost as if they were keeping his body whole.

  And that meant they might want him still to use it.

  “Don’t tell us Genesis isn’t in jeopardy,” the chief of his captors suddenly spoke. His voice was firm, icy, but not raised. “We know it’s been discovered, and we know you’re the reason for that.”

  “It was inadvertent! No one can connect the data to anything related to the curia. Or a future election.”

  “Inadvertent stupidity is no better than intentional stupidity. Not when it puts so much at risk. How can we be expected to change the world if the world knows what we’re doing?” The interrogator paused. “God spoke in silence, without interference, when he created the world. If we’re going to fix a part of it—the holiest part—we require the same.”

  “There’s still the chance to contain the damage,” the fearful man answered.

  His torturer brought the knife point back to his chest, driving the tip a quarter-inch into the skin above his solar plexus. The pain shot through him like electricity.

  “I can fix this!” he pleaded.

  The other man slowly withdrew the knife. “This cannot be fixed,” he answered. “But that does not mean there is nothing you can do.”

  He stooped down until he was eye to eye with his captive. “If we release you, we expect you to take … the actions this situation requires. In accordance with our expectations. Expectations I am certain you understand perfectly well after all these years.”

  In spite of his injuries, these words tortured the bound man more than anything else.

  He knew what these actions would have to be.

  And he knew they would destroy him.

  Chapter 8

  Two days ago: 11:41 a.m.

  “What are you doing here?” Gabriella Fierro asked as she took a step further into the church. Alexander Trecchio was the last person she’d expected to see. He was certainly the last sight she wanted.

  “I’m investigating,” he answered bluntly. The discomfort between them was as tangible as the fabricated sanctity of their surroundings. “The paper’s after a story.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gabriella avoided additional greetings or small talk. “This is a police investigation. I don’t want you interfering.”

  Fancy that, considering it an “investigation” now, she thought. Funny how trite becomes territorial the moment I see him again.

  Alexander hadn’t changed, even though it had been nearly two years since she’d last seen him. He still had the same light brown hair, cropped though slightly wavy; the same prominent cheekbones; and, most memorable of all, the same commanding green eyes. She avoided his eyes.

>   There was no longer a white collar around his neck, but she’d seen him without one before. He still appeared, even while seated, to have kept up the fit physique he’d maintained when she’d known him, though he’d always claimed this was more the result of genetics than of exercise. She’d never been sure she believed him. A good face, broad shoulders and a decent body—Alexander had never been a poor-looking man. That had never been his problem.

  He held up two open-palmed hands in mock surrender. “I’m not here to interfere with your police work. I’m just doing my job. If something’s amiss in this place, people have a right to know.”

  Gabriella guffawed. “A right to know. Fuck if that isn’t what gossipmongers always use as justification.” Her brows lifted, embarrassed, as the profanity escaped her lips, and her right hand immediately spun into the motions of the sign of the cross. She hated that she swore. She hated more that she seemed to do it so much.

  Alexander smiled. He seemed to remember her habit, and appeared to enjoy seeing the memory come to life again.

  “You’re still doing the cross thing.”

  “Yes, I’m still doing the cross thing,” she answered, stressing his phrase with distaste. “Something we Catholics are rather fond of. Or perhaps you’ve put that out of your mind, along with everything else that once mattered to you.”

  Alexander didn’t respond. Gabriella’s words were double-edged. She was obviously jabbing at his loss of faith—something that had always bothered her far more than his departure from the clergy. But she was also, none too subtly, reminding him of their past. Everything else that once mattered to you included her, and they both knew it.

  She allowed her words a moment to linger, then finally stared Alexander straight in the eyes.

  “I’m here to meet the priest. I don’t intend that interview to be participated in by a reporter.”

  Alexander kept their gaze locked a few long seconds. “I’ll let you make that decision. But I had an appointment with him as well. Perhaps he meant to speak to us together.” He paused, looking around them. “In any case, he’s not here.”

  “He’ll show. Standing up a reporter is one thing. Standing up the police is another.”

  “Well then, how about I offer you a little help while we’re waiting?”

  Gabriella wanted to scoff at the offer—shove his arrogance back at him. Yet Alexander’s face wasn’t conceited. There was the aura of sincerity to his demeanor, a character trait she’d generally tried to convince herself he no longer possessed. She softened despite herself.

  “What sort of help would that be?”

  Alexander reached down to a duffel at his side. A moment later, a thin stack of papers was in a hand extended toward her.

  “The financial records of the parish over the past six months, with account statements at the back.”

  Gabriella’s brows pinched in surprise. “How did you get this, Alex?”

  This time he smiled. “The gossipmonger has been … mongering.”

  For an instant, Gabriella felt a twist of shame. Name-calling should be beneath her. Even after the way she’d been treated.

  “And?” she asked, reaching out to take the papers without responding to the provocation.

  “And I’m no expert in financial records. I was planning to ask Father Agostini about them when he arrived. But maybe you’d like to take a look first. Because despite my inexperience, there’s something in there that’s caught my eye.”

  Gabriella stared down at the photocopies now in her hand. Damn it, he’s actually been useful.

  “All right, we have a few minutes.”

  Alexander smiled again, his green eyes radiant, and motioned to her left. “Then why don’t we take a pew. And perhaps you can tell me, as you sift through those records, if it’s entirely normal for biblical references to make their way into financial documentation.”

  11:55 a.m.

  Father Alberto Agostini sat in his car outside the entrance to his beloved little church of San Sebastiano. He was sweating far more than the weather should have provoked, and despite the fact that the air conditioning in his blue Peugeot 208 was set to its roaring full power. His black clerical shirt, its single collar spaced to allow the plastic white insert—the “dog collar,” as it was generally known—was already soaked through. He applied a drenched handkerchief to his forehead in a vain attempt to staunch the flow of perspiration trickling down his brow.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he muttered to himself. He’d watched the reporter enter, then the police officer. They were really here. Some naïve part of him had hoped their phone inquiries would end short of any further action. He’d allowed himself that much optimism. But no. They were here, in his church. And they were going to ask questions.

  And that was going to be very, very bad.

  Shit!

  He pounded a fist against the steering column, inadvertently pressing its central panel and delivering a short blast of the horn. The noise shocked him back to a sense of order.

  Perhaps they don’t really know anything. They’re just stabbing after a story. After anything.

  He dabbed the wet handkerchief against his brow again, nodding energetically at the thought.

  Yes, that’s it. They don’t know. They’re just, what’s the word … trolling.

  His pulsing heart slowed slightly at the thought, and he exhaled with satisfaction at having remembered the term. Trolling. Surely that was all they could be doing. Everything was too well concealed. He’d been assured of that. It was the only reason he’d agreed—because he’d been convinced, by men whose authority he could not possibly question, that what was being done would never be discovered.

  But what if it has?

  The briefest thought, but with it all his panic returned. What if he’d been set up? What if everything was about to come crashing down—and all on him?

  His hand now clenched so tightly around his handkerchief that drops of sweat dripped from his knuckles. They fell on to his knee, and he noticed the wet splotches appear on his cotton trousers.

  There was nothing to do but find out. He had to go inside.

  Chapter 9

  The present: the day of the confrontation: 8:15 p.m.

  In his small cubicle at La Repubblica’s headquarters, Alexander sat staring at his computer. Tendrils of smoke rose in random swirls from an ashtray to his left, but his eyes were fixed on the gently glowing screen. His attention was locked.

  He’d played the media file over and over again in the three minutes since it had been forwarded to his email. An MP3 file containing the recording of a voicemail message. It was only nineteen seconds long, but it changed everything.

  He hit the space bar and it began to play again.

  I’m sorry. I had no other choice. It had to be this way, to protect you. I … I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. Pray for my soul, especially after what I must do. And pray for hers. I love you.

  The recording ended with three seconds of silence—a hesitation, as if the male voice had contemplated whether to say more. Then the sound of a receiver slamming into a cradle preceded the abrupt end of the file.

  Alexander’s spine tingled. The yellowed fingers of his right hand, marked by years of heavy smoking, rattled nervously over his desktop as his left pressed the space bar once again. The file looped through another time, the recording broadcasting through the laptop’s tiny tinny speakers.

  His associate, a private investigator he’d often employed for side projects at the paper, had tracked down the recording only a few minutes ago. It had been located on a cassette in an ancient answering machine belonging to a middle-aged woman, who’d arrived home a few minutes before. Alexander’s investigator had been waiting at the house. Hearing the message once, he’d asked the woman to replay it while he held his phone next to the speaker, transferring the message to a digital file and forwarding it to Alexander.

  He hit play once more. I’m sorry. I had no other choice … Pray for my sou
l, especially after what I must do.

  But it was the final words that attacked him.

  And pray for hers.

  Suddenly Alexander knew one thing with absolute certainty. Gabriella’s life was in danger. The woman he’d loathed, the woman he’d loved, was about to die.

  Chapter 10

  Three days ago: 7:15 p.m.

  The meeting of the Fraternitas Christi Salvatoris took place by telephone. This arrangement was not ideal. Nor was it the norm. But how was it the old cliché went? It was exceptions that proved the rule. In any case, there was little that any of its members had to fear. The great benefit of being entirely unknown was that no one was seeking you out. No one was striving to catch a glimpse, and no ears were prying after your words.

  Yet despite the lack of need for concern, this was not the preferred form of communication for the group whose members prided themselves on being unknown, even amongst the unknown. It was special territory. The telephone, by contrast, was so … normal. Ordinary. It stank of the above-board and felt as standard as the bright light of day they strove so hard to avoid.

  The digital connection brought them into session with crisp, twenty-first-century clarity. A stern eloquence broke the moment.

  The Voice.

  “Have the preparations in the parish accounts been made?”

  The Voice was a man’s, aged but not elderly. It had the sobriety of authority and no hint of anything that could be called either gentle or friendly.

  “Everything is in order.” The voice that answered, also male, was no less grave. Yet somehow, intangibly, it was subservient to the first. “The funds are already moving.”

  “They’re untraceable?”

  “You know they are. The set-up is just as we discussed at our last meeting. The funnel is configured for a continuous flow of distinct transactions. Small sums. Only normal accounts will be used. All the transactions will be entirely legitimate.”