by Tom Fox
There was a pause, not long, but deliberate. “This is pleasing progress.”
Though they did not speak, three other men were on the conference call. It was not the full constituency of the group, but it was the heart of their senior membership. Their presence was made known only through the hisses of breathing that could be softly heard in the background—ghosts floating on the far ends of digital lines.
“So, we’re prepared to fund what’s coming,” the Voice continued.
“The amounts we’ll need will likely be a damned lot.” One of the hitherto silent voices spoke. “Plans like this always end up costing more than you anticipate.”
“Don’t act as if you’ve done this before,” another voice snapped. Snake-oiled, sibilant, it hissed viper-like down the line. “This is new territory for everyone.”
The subservient voice pushed through the two newcomers’ exchange. “We’ll be in a position to move as much as we need to, I assure you.” He let his implication linger. “However much that turns out to be.”
A ponderous, tense silence overtook the conversation. Finally, one of the voices spoke at barely more than a murmur.
“None of it will matter if our little … obstacle isn’t cleared away first.”
Everyone on the line knew what was being referred to. The Genesis they were planning wasn’t entirely unlike the one in the scriptures. There, certain words had been spoken and certain things had come about as a result. One clear voice, and the universe changed. Here, there were words they had devised, and plans to go along with them—but those plans could not come to fruition if someone intent on speaking other things was inserted into the mix. Not now, at the dawn of their new day. Not at the threshold of new life for the institution they loved.
Changing the future of the Church required a singularity of purpose—and a plan free of any roadblocks.
“The obstacle is being handled. Even as we speak.”
Another silence, longer and even more ponderous than the last. The Voice’s words echoed in the technological ether. It was happening. Dreadful but necessary. Their work would now move forward in earnest.
For that was how things happened. Life, new life, did not merely burst into being. It was created. Just as it had been, as the Good Book said, in the beginning …
Chapter 11
Two days ago: 12:10 p.m.
“What do you mean, biblical references?” Gabriella asked. She’d sidestepped her way into one of the pews lining the central aisle of San Sebastiano. Alexander had taken a seat in the pew in front of her and turned to look back. She’d been examining the printed financial reports for the past few minutes, but still hadn’t made sense of his last remark.
“You don’t see them?” he asked. A hand was extended toward the papers lying on her lap.
“What I see are bank accounts. Financial ledgers. Records of wire transfers.” She peered up at him. “Hardly sketchbooks of biblical allegory.”
He wagged his head. “I know I’m more prone to seeing religious meaning in the world around me than most, but not more than you.”
Gabriella looked into his eyes. They were haltingly sincere. Like it or not, she couldn’t avoid the past they shared, and what it meant that Alexander Trecchio knew of her character. He was more than casually aware of her pious upbringing. Of the fact that she’d even considered being a nun, back in her childhood. She’d gone so far as to spend a summer at the Convent of Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy, living the life of a postulant—the step just prior to being made a novice—seeking her calling. Ultimately, she’d not found that calling in the convent, but that had never dulled her deep piety or faith.
“Look closely,” Alexander pressed, motioning toward the files. “But stop looking at the transactions themselves.” He rightly guessed that her immediate focus was the same as his had been: the euro amounts and named transfer recipients. “Focus on the reference tags instead.”
Gabriella felt a brow rise involuntarily. This wasn’t where she would have started. Each transaction on the record sheets carried a long alpha-numerical reference indicator, used by banks to track individual transactions, as well as by customers to reference specific trades or transfers when the need arose. They appeared simply as long rows of characters on a line beneath the pertinent data for each transaction, and Gabriella had all but ignored them.
“I don’t know what good they’re going to do us.”
“Just look at them,” Alexander insisted. His tone bore the marks of an intrigue Gabriella couldn’t dismiss, so she heeded his advice and began to read through the reference markers. From the first, it was tedious, unrewarding going.
AJDHF7346GEN009283
11PPO560G3I9GN1100
3FN8JHT4GEN99SDFF3
Her head began to throb after only a few rows. Numbers had never been Gabriella’s strong suit, and random sequences such as these meant nothing to her. Moreover, she couldn’t imagine they meant anything to anyone—or were even supposed to. Such codes were almost certainly randomly generated sequences attached by computers to transactions in the automated processes of a massive, fast-flowing digital world.
“Alex,” she protested, looking up from the papers, “I’m not seeing anything.”
“That’s because you’re still looking at them wrong.”
Gabriella’s annoyance flared. She was suddenly reminded of all the hurt this man had caused her—all the emotion, the pain, the loss. He might know of her past and the piety of her childhood, but he also knew of her vulnerability, her willingness to love. Her frailties. All of which he’d taken advantage of. All of which he’d toyed with, then rejected. Why should she be listening to him now?
“Looking at them wrong? They’re numbers. Fuck it, they’re just numbers.” The cross came out again, Gabriella atoning for her profanity with the automatic gesture. It struck her, however briefly, that she found herself doing this far too often.
This time Alexander didn’t laugh. “No, they’re not just numbers,” he said. “Alpha-numeric sequences, as the name suggests, have letters. Concentrate on those.”
Gabriella, despite herself, turned her attention back to the financial reports. She passed her glance again over the three reference codes she’d looked at before. This time she concentrated on the letters.
AJDHF7346GEN009283
11PPO560G3I9GN1100
3FN8JHT4GEN99SDFF3
Once again she peered up at Alexander. Her face was blank.
“You still don’t see it?” he asked. “The biblical content?”
Gabriella peered down at the red hymnal tucked into a shelf on the back of the pew in front of her. It wasn’t thick enough to give Alexander the kind of thwack she really desired, but she figured she might still get a good bruise out of it.
Alexander appeared to sense her frustration and brought an arm over the pew. He set a finger down on the first reference code.
“Right there. Look closely.”
His finger rested on three letters at the heart of the sequence.
“Read that aloud,” he instructed.
Gabriella, despite herself, complied. “G-E-N.”
“And those letters mean?” Alexander asked. There was a real sense of urgency in his voice. As if they were discovering something significant.
“Gen? I don’t know. Genetics?”
Alexander shook his head. “I told you, think scriptural. Gen is the abbreviation for what?”
The link was suddenly obvious in Gabriella’s mind. There was only one text it could be. “Genesis.”
“Right!” Alexander’s voice conveyed his excitement, but Gabriella didn’t share it.
“Alex, that’s a stretch—”
“Before you continue,” he cut her off, “look at the next one.” He slid his finger down the page to the next reference number and positioned it intentionally.
“G-N,” Gabriella read.
“Also an abbreviation for the same book,” Alexander explained. “Less common, but still widely used, e
specially by scholars.”
“Alex—”
“Keep looking,” he interrupted again. His finger slid to the latter third of the next code.
“G-E-N,” Gabriella read aloud. Then added, less dismissively, “Again.”
“That’s right. Again. And if you look through these reference codes, you’ll find it again, and again, and again.” He made eye contact with Gabriella. “Lest you think I’ve become a flake since joining up with the press, I actually counted. There are two hundred and fourteen financial transactions listed on these records. Of those, a hundred and sixty-two have GEN or GN in their reference. That number rises to a hundred and eighty-eight if you count those that just have G, though I don’t know how significant a single letter can be.”
Gabriella sat quietly. Suddenly the train of thought behind Alexander’s observations seemed less absurd. There might be something here. Might.
“Now I ask you again,” he said finally, this time keeping his eyes bored into hers, “do you consider it normal for biblical references to find their way into financial documents? Because unless you do, then we’ve stumbled on something irregular here.” There was a glint in his eye. “And I don’t know about you, Gabby, but the reporter in me likes irregular.”
Chapter 12
Two days ago: 12:19 p.m.
No, Father Agostini would not go inside. He’d contemplated the possibility in his car for the past twenty minutes. Hell, he’d even prayed, and the Lord himself knew how very rarely he did that these days. But when he looked at the situation in its entirety, he knew he had no option.
He could not risk the cop and the reporter asking him questions he couldn’t answer. Because in the end, whether he answered them or not wouldn’t matter. If they became suspicious, or if—God forbid—they found out anything, his head would roll.
Not just a metaphor.
Alberto Agostini was not a perfect man, that he fully admitted. He knew he was supposed to be utterly selfless, unconcerned with his own welfare. But he’d not yet ascended those heights of spiritual glory. He was still attached to this world. At least enough to be quite certain he wasn’t ready to leave it.
He couldn’t go in. Let the pair sit and wonder at his absence. Let them both be damned. It didn’t matter. He had his own life to protect.
Twenty minutes after parking across the street from his own parish church, Father Agostini started the engine again, touched a finger to the small plastic statue of the Blessed Virgin that was permanently fastened to his dash, and drove away.
1:42 p.m.
The interrogation was swift and efficient. All the Fraternity wanted to know was whether their local contact in the parish had put them at risk.
If he hadn’t, he could be allowed to live.
“Tell me about the visitors,” the Voice asked him. Whereas the Fraternity, meeting amongst itself, avoided the telephone where possible, it was a necessity when dealing with individuals. Alberto Agostini was one of their tangential members, new to the brotherhood and not party to their innermost secrets. But he was involved deeply enough in their works to be held accountable for every action.
Father Agostini answered as succinctly as his nerves would allow. “They arrived earlier this afternoon. The reporter first, then the cop woman. They were in the church for at least the half-hour I was there.”
“You were inside? With them?”
“No, I observed from my car, across the street. I felt it best not to get involved.”
A pause on the line.
“So you don’t know what they discussed.”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so.” There were nerves in Agostini’s voice. “I don’t see how they could have. I’ve never met either of them face to face.”
“And there was nothing incriminating in the church they could have found in your absence?”
“Nothing! I swear it.” He hesitated. “But the reporter did have financial documents with him when he arrived. He mentioned them on the phone. Got them from the parish people.”
This time the pause was longer, more ominous.
“You allowed this to happen?”
“I had nothing to do with it!” Father Agostini protested. “Financial documents are handled by Father—”
“No names!” the Voice abruptly cut him off. “I’m well aware of who’s involved.”
“Then you know I was as surprised as anyone that he had them.”
“And now they both do. The ex-priest, and the police officer.” The Voice was displeased.
“But I had nothing to do with—”
“Silence. I’ve heard enough.”
Father Agostini swallowed hard.
“I want to see you in my office tomorrow morning.”
And with that, the priest felt like he could not swallow at all.
Chapter 13
One day ago: 8:30 a.m.
Gabriella’s first day of renewed encounter with Alexander Trecchio had been revelatory. Though her emotions would have preferred to dismiss it, she couldn’t ignore what he’d discovered. However innocent the presence of letters abbreviating the first book of the Bible might be in long alpha-numeric sequences, the sheer number of them—all focused on the one book in particular—couldn’t be entirely written off as coincidence. At least not until they’d been examined further. For random sequences to have generated such commonality was hard to imagine.
What was more interesting to Gabriella was what it meant for her previously uninteresting case. The quantity of funds noted in the original file was minuscule, amounting to only 1,880 euros (Alexander isn’t the only one who can be precise). But the 162 reference codes in the San Sebastiano paperwork changed the landscape dramatically. Gabriella had spent a good portion of the night poring over the documents, and if her sums were correct, the Genesis-related transactions amounted to more.
A lot more.
Each was, in itself, relatively small. Never more than a few thousand in any case—hardly numbers to raise suspicion. But add them all together, and even Gabriella’s hesitant relationship with math knew the sums were suddenly of an entirely different magnitude. And these were only the few pages of the church’s bank records that Alexander had been able to obtain. Who knew how many more there were?
One man might. Or if he didn’t, he would know how to find out.
As soon as the morning brought the usual staff cohort into the Monteverde XVI Station, Gabriella made a move toward his office. She’d arrived in the building more than an hour earlier, two cups of coffee already consumed and her thoughts brought into as much order as she could manage. Sleep had not been swift in coming nor long in staying during the night. Too many emotions were playing in her mind to give her anything but an early start.
At 8:30 a.m. precisely she knocked firmly on Agent Vito Negri’s door. It, like every other in the cheaply furnished complex, was a pale faux-wood, hollow and prone to rattling at the slightest touch. Gabriella’s energetic knocking set it to a satisfactorily shaking clamor.
“What, the … who is it?” she heard from the inside. Gabriella didn’t wait for a further invitation. She twisted the knob and entered the diminutive office.
“It’s Agent Fierro,” she announced, nodding as she entered. “Do you have a minute, Agent Negri?”
Vito, a young man of no more than twenty-six, was the local office’s FFI, or forensic financial investigator—which, as near as Gabriella understood it, meant he was a computer genius who could track down bank accounts and financial data from his laptop that most tellers within bank branches themselves couldn’t locate. More detail than that she didn’t know, and didn’t care to know. How he did his work didn’t matter. What Vito Negri was known for was his youthful ability to get results.
Gabriella had never met him before, not face to face. For an instant, the vision seemed entirely discordant with his effective reputation. He stared up at her from a thin neck sprout
ing out of a ridiculously loud red-striped shirt, sporting the fully gelled, spiked and scrambled “I just don’t give a damn” hairstyle that had recently invaded Italy from foreign fashion. A laissez-faire style that required twice as much preparation as almost any other on the street. The gel in the young man’s hair probably cost more than the whole of his teenage-reminiscent outfit.
“Who are you?” he asked abruptly. A half-eaten croissant dangled in his hand, its center oozing a brown substance that bore a chemically fabricated likeness to chocolate.
“I don’t come down to this part of the building much,” Gabriella answered. “I’m sorry we haven’t met before. But I have a project for you. One I think you’re going to enjoy.”
9:02 a.m.
Alexander had returned to his office at the paper and remained there late into the evening, and then, unexpectedly, through the night. He’d been expecting a swift return home and a solid night’s sleep. His hunches seemed to be coming together, and that was something that always provoked the comfort of a good rest. Knowing he was getting a good story in line—that he was doing something with his life, that it wasn’t just being wasted, lying fallow—generally calmed his heart and eased his troubled dreams. But not last night.
His encounter with Gabriella Fierro had taken him by surprise. He’d not been expecting to see her. He hadn’t been sure he ever would again—not after the way they’d left off. That part of his life was over. It was an assumed certainty.
How quickly assumptions could be proven wrong.
He’d acted like an ass two years ago; he wouldn’t pretend to deny that. He’d been walking out the metaphorical door of the Church, preparing to give up his life of clerical service, and she had been there. She’d not drawn him out—that had been coming for years, driven by his own fears, doubts and weaknesses. But she’d been there as he departed. As he laid down his collar. She’d been there to welcome him into the world as he found himself opened up to the first romantic relationship he could remember having.