by Tom Fox
Revelation 1:7
Lo, I come unexpected, like a thief. And blessed is he that keepeth watch …
Revelation 16:15
1
St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City: Sunday, 8:22 a.m.
He did not come with trumpets from heaven. Angels did not burst into song. There was no darkening of the sun, and the fabric of the ancient basilica remained unscathed.
He entered quietly, without fanfare, though with every footstep he took, the world began to change.
Not that his outward appearance gave any indication of what was to come. An unassuming man in worn jeans. A gray button-down shirt, slightly wrinkled. His shoes, mildly tattered. In every visible way he was unremarkable.
Later, no one was able to recollect seeing him enter St. Peter’s. Not one of the thousands gathered there observed him pass through the vast western doors or step into the great expanse of space designed to reflect the glorious meeting of heaven and earth. All they could remember was the way his silent walk through the interior had gradually drawn their attention once he was in their midst.
But of his demeanor, there in the centuries-old heart of Christendom, they remembered every detail. The way he’d moved calmly down the central aisle during the pontifical High Mass. The way men and women had unconsciously parted to create a path while their children had clambered toward him, inexplicably drawn. The way they’d all hushed as he drew near, and how their gazes had lingered on him as he’d moved by. They remembered that.
He had a posture that spoke of purpose, though he walked almost casually through the throngs. His hair, only a few inches in length, slightly wavy and with a gold-brown tone, seemed oddly bright in the orange light of the ancient church. As he strode toward Bernini’s great baldacchino, his eyes were ever forward. Gentle and serene, yet strong.
They all remembered his eyes.
At the far end of the 211-meter-long nave, the Mass’s chief celebrant stood albed in white, bent at the high altar. Though his bodily infirmity would have conveyed the message effectively on its own, the design of the massive bronzework above him reinforced the fact that, for all the pontiff’s worldly fame and power, he was yet a tiny figure before the majesty of God.
He was surrounded by two cardinal concelebrants, and between them and him were the customary assistants who went everywhere with the beleaguered Pope, holding his twisted form upright by the elbows for those parts of the service that required him to stand. He was far from an old man, but the specific type of spinal stenosis he had suffered from since childhood left him permanently disfigured and unable to stand under his own power. The lingering results of that infirmity, however, had never weakened his spirit. They had only strengthened it, and the man the media had cruelly termed “the crippled Pope” was loved all the more by his flock for the weak body that made his inner spiritual convictions so evident.
The Pope and his assistants were flanked by a suite of priests and a full cohort of servers decked out in their liturgical fineries. Behind them, on specially constructed risers, the red-robed choristers of the Sistine Chapel choir filled the space with the angelic Latin of the Sanctus. The angels themselves, one elderly woman would later recall, could have produced no more glorious a sound.
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth …
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Holy, Holy, Holy
Lord God of Sabaoth …
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
The stranger walked slowly forward.
The Pope glanced up from the instruments of the bloodless sacrifice—the chalice and paten of hammered gold—his face beaming the glory he felt at every celebration of the sacred service. It was clear, as he craned a pained neck and gazed out over the faithful, his hazel eyes reflecting the shimmer of the crimson wine in the chalice, that the inheritor of the office of the Apostle Peter was wholly enrapt in the sacrosanct liturgical rite.
It was as he looked over his flock that the pontiff caught his first sight of the stranger’s approach.
And it was then that the inexplicable began to take place.
At the front of the rows of chairs in the basilica’s central nave, just beyond the red ropes that kept the faithful at a respectful distance from the clerical centerpiece, the vivid blue, red and orange ceremonial uniforms of the Swiss Guard formed a crescent before the high altar. The men within the costumes, who looked like something out of a Renaissance carnival, were among the most highly trained and devoted military protective details in the world.
As the stranger approached the periphery, the guardsmen were the last bodies before the baldacchino and the clerics beneath it. By tradition and honor, as well as by the oath each had sworn when they were commissioned in the Cortile di San Domaso, theirs was a line they would allow no man to pass. Holiness incited hatred as well as reverence, and for centuries the Swiss Guard’s ranks had ensured that, at least in practical terms, hate did not win out over love.
But as the stranger continued to approach, it was clear that the path he intended to follow did not end at their cordon. The two guards closest to the central aisle stiffened, their position blocking his route, hands clutched tightly at their ceremonial halberds. Behind the approaching man it was as if the whole basilica had gone silent and stiff. The space was electric with focus. The thousands were staring at this man, totally enthralled.
The stranger slowed, his blue-jeaned appearance all the more out of place as he came before the ancient uniforms erroneously attributed to a design by Michelangelo. He drew to a stop only a few feet from the guards. He said nothing. He kept his eyes only on the Pope, beyond and elevated several steps above.
The stalwart guards tensed, devotion and tireless training calling them toward their sacred duty.
And then, as the stranger stood before them, they knelt.
The whole troop of elite soldiers, the de facto standing military of the Vatican, fell to their knees in almost perfect unison. The two closest to the stranger skirted aside, obeisantly poised, allowing him an unobstructed path.
Muffled gasps from the crowd were audible as the stranger resumed his progress, stepping softly around the entrance to the crypt of St. Peter. A few paces later, he began his ascent to the high altar.
The corpulent red-robed director of the choir glanced over his shoulder, shocked, then spun away from his choristers. His fat arms were still suspended in a conductor’s pose as behind him the choir faltered, then went silent.
The sudden absence of sound in the basilica was overwhelming. The man’s footsteps could now be clearly heard, echoing through the mesmerized space as he mounted the final steps.
At last he stood face to face with the Holy Father across the laden altar. The Pope’s body was bent sharply to his right, his assistants firmly gripping his upper arms in support. He stood frozen in place, his fingertips still touching the shimmering chalice, and locked eyes with the stranger.
“Who are you?” His familiar, sonorous voice trembled.
The man gazed peacefully into the pontiff’s eyes. While the people would remember the mysteriousness of the silence that filled the vast space during their long, interlocked glance, the Pope would recollect that it had been as if he was staring into eternity, his heart filled with the same sense of wonder and majesty that it formerly had equated only with gazing out over the undulating waves of the sea and contemplating the vastness of God’s glory.
Then, in a gentle voice, holding out two upturned hands, the stranger finally spoke.
“Do you not know me, Peter?”
Gasps filled the basilica. Stillness gave way to a wave of sibilant tension as the man’s answer was whispered through the rows of faithful. The casual visitors in the throng struggled to comprehend what it meant, but the meaning of the words was apparent to men and women of faith. Apparent, and explosive. Peter was the name of the first holder of the papal office—the man who had denied Christ three times.
These were words the Savior would speak to his own.
Camera flashes began to ignite the space in their hundreds. But the Pope only stared at the stranger’s extended hands. The pontifical eyes welled with unexpected tears.
“My faithful servant,” the stranger said a moment later, his voice rich and oddly soothing. He placed one of his hands upon the trembling pontiff’s shoulder. The assistant holding the Pope’s right arm reinforced his grip, but the stranger kept his gentle gaze on the Holy Father, absent of any menace.
“Do not be afraid. It is I.”
The Pope’s eyes were like glass, his breath weak. In the distance, the stranger’s latest words had been heard and their even more direct contents ignited the faithful, who snapped images with their cameras, filming the scene with their phones, dozens dropping to their knees in prayer. The dozens became a hundred, and a hundred became two. But the pontiff gazed straight into the man’s face. His whole body trembled.
And then the miracle happened.
“You are a man of faith,” the stranger said softly to the Pope, “and your faith has made you whole.” He reached out his other arm, grabbed the hands of both the assistants from the shoulders of the pontiff and pulled them gently aside. They resisted only a moment, then silently let the man draw their hands away from their charge.
The Pope stood, unsupported and bent, wavering.
“Stand, Peter,” the stranger said. “That which was crooked has been made straight.”
The Pope stared at him, his eyes wide. He took a breath. Swallowed.
And then the Holy Father stood upright for the first time in his life.
Neither man seemed to notice the cries of wonder from the cardinals and clerics surrounding them, or from the awe-struck masses behind as the crowd beheld the healing of their spiritual leader.
The Pope’s own eyes were glazed with a film of wonder and gratitude.
With his right hand, the stranger lifted the golden chalice and placed it back into the Pope’s grasp, ensuring that the pontiff’s grip was tight.
“Now, Your Holiness, finish what you came here to do.”
Without saying another word, he walked around the altar table to the pontiff’s left and took one of the clerical seats behind him.
And then, closing his eyes and folding his hands calmly on his jeans, the stranger began to pray.
Fidene Municipal District, Rome: 8:36 a.m.
Six kilometers to the north, at a sharp isolated bend in the Tiber river, a body floated face down in the cold water. The golden hair on its head swirled almost beautifully in the gentle current. At this early hour, no one lamented his absence. No one was out searching. No one even knew he was gone.
In fewer than forty-eight hours, the whole nation would know this dead man’s face. It would spark controversy. It would incite anger and mistrust and prompt cries of deception. It would shatter faith on an unthinkable scale.
But at this moment the corpse bobbed in the river in solitude, its face concealed in the cloudy waters. The murder that had taken the man’s life was a thing of the past, the chains at his ankles insufficient to submerge the body as his killer had hoped. And so his corpse floated steadily toward the center of the city. As if it knew that more was to come.
2
Headquarters of La Repubblica newspaper, Rome: 9:28 a.m.
Silver smoke curled upward, its tendrils bending back on themselves in plumes that dissipated slowly in the stagnant air. Those that fell downward reached fingernail and skin and joint, caressing flesh and leaving their unmistakable mark: yellow and faint, the hint of congealed tar and breath.
The problem with chain smoking was the damned yellow fingers.
Over the years, Alexander Trecchio had tried a thousand different postures for propping his favored MS Filtro in his hands to avoid the smoky recoil and the sticky yellow build-up that invariably formed around his knuckles, but nothing worked. His doctor had told him even more times than this that yellowed skin was the least of his worries. But Trecchio was a man who based his actions, and especially his habits, on concrete facts. The possibilities of emphysema or a shortened lifespan were frightening, but dismissably hypothetical. The fact that his fingers were yellow, by contrast, was inescapable.
He drew a long, constrained breath through the thin paper and tightly packed tobacco, his eyes closed. He visualized the red coal singeing its burrow deeper into the shredded fragments of dried, cured leaf and the smoke wending its way through its tiny conduit, racing to meet him. As the familiar richness rolled over the buds of his tongue and into his lungs, Alexander realized that at the end of the day he didn’t really care about any of the inconveniences, even the fingers. His bad habit was one little thing that brought comfort and calm when so little else did. He’d take it.
“You were late last week.”
Speaking of things that bring little comfort or calm.
The annoying, chihuahua-like voice of Alexander’s line editor broke through the serenity of the moment. He held the smoke in his lungs longer than usual, hoping that when he finally exhaled, the man would evaporate with it. But that kind of luck was not with Alexander Trecchio this morning. Sundays brought blessings and peace to many, but rarely to the staff of a newspaper that printed a Monday-morning edition.
“You know the filing deadlines. You sit ten meters from my office,” Antonio Laterza continued like a barking rat. Alexander opened his eyes and stared up at the other man.
Laterza was medium height, with a fair build, fair face and all the signs of being completely obsessed with his physical appearance. His chestnut hair flowed neatly toward his neck, its swirls fixed with spray and ends lightened to ensure that the highlights and shades of sunshine were as vividly contrasting indoors as they were out. The suit draped over him compensated for an average body build with more than average style: an immaculate monument to fine tailoring, washed in light brown silk, accentuated with a belt and matching shoes—overpriced memorials to the alligator they had formerly been.
Twenty-seven-year-olds with money, ambition and subscriptions to GQ : if they came shrink-wrapped and prefabricated, they would look like Antonio Laterza.
“You have no excuse, Alexander,” the polished man continued. His expression and tone were disapproving, like a scolding parent. Never mind the fact that he was more than a decade and a half Trecchio’s junior.
“I needed to check a few facts.”
“That’s why we give you seven days. You’re not writing a daily column, coglione. What the hell were you doing all week?”
Alexander took another drag from his wilting cigarette and blew the smoke demonstratively in Laterza’s direction, ignoring the overused Italian insult. He’d been called worse things than a set of bull’s testicles. The truth was, Alexander had no idea what he’d been doing all week. Talking to a priest on the phone? Looking into the finances of some-or-other local parish? Sifting like an obsessed stalker through an inconsequential youth worker’s Facebook timeline? Maybe one of those. Maybe all of them. It was all the same, and it was all so boring.
“I had some sources I had to confirm,” he finally muttered, plucking out a probable-sounding excuse. He was good at that, the result of years of practice. And there were always plenty to choose from. “You’re aware of the occasional necessity.”
“Bullshit.” Laterza glowered down at him. Alexander had known he wouldn’t buy the explanation, but he also knew the overly ambitious and vastly over cologned editor couldn’t fire him. Local religious affairs was not a section of the paper for which reporters climbed over each other to gain the few column inches on page eleven that came with the job. And Alexander had two distinct advantages: he’d had one big story a few years back that had proved he wasn’t completely worthless, and he was old friends with La Repubblica’s owner, Niccolò Marre. His job was about as secure as they came in the business.
“You’re getting lazy,” Laterza continued. He had something close to post-teenage spite on his face,
and Alexander wondered now, as he had done more regularly lately, whether twenty-somethings were getting younger or he was just getting stodgier. Forty-four wasn’t that old, but next to Laterza, Alexander felt prehistoric.
“You have no ambition, and your work is tired,” Laterza snorted.
“Yet you publish it every week. Rome isn’t Rome without the Church, and a Roman paper isn’t worth its salt without a few column inches of Vatican scandal-reporting. Especially La Repubblica.”
That felt good. A little snapping back at the diminutive shit, especially if he could make the man look like he didn’t know his own turf. Ever since Eugenio Scalfari had founded it in 1976, La Repubblica had held a reputation for being a harsh critic of the Catholic Church. It wasn’t a paper that was going to give up religious reporting, however tired it became.
“That story you kept us waiting for last week,” Laterza sneered back. “It was about two parishes going over budget on their renovation costs. Over budget. You think this counts as Vatican scandal? You think our readers give two shits about such nonsense?”
He gesticulated broadly as he spoke, raising his voice to a well-practiced almost-yell. It was clear he wanted the scolding to be noticed by the bullpen, though few beyond the cubicle partition seemed to be paying any attention to the exchange.
Alexander sighed, slumped back into his chair and drew his cigarette close. He’d be so much more eager to fight, to kick up an energetic response and retaliation, if at his core he didn’t agree with the kid’s points. No one cared about these stories, least of all him. Alexander had wound his way into the paper not out of zeal but availability. A man entering his forties and lumbering toward middle age with two degrees in theology and a short career as a parish priest in his pocket wasn’t exactly vocationally primed for the twenty-first century. When he had finally tossed his dog collar aside and left the life he’d prepared for since his childhood—disillusioned at the irreconcilable conflict between an institution that was meant to be holy and the men who ran it, who so often were anything but—he’d discovered a limited set of options. He wasn’t a programmer leaving Apple for Google. He was a priest leaving the church for a world that, with every passing year, was less and less sure just what the Church was, and increasingly convinced that it was out of date, out of touch, and didn’t matter.