by Sean Heary
The
Concordat
Sean Heary
Copyright © 2018 Sean Heary
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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For Oksana, William and Tess
Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
Epilogue
Prologue
Late evening on the Hellersdorf housing estate in Berlin. A hollow-faced old man shuffled through the slush towards his Soviet-era apartment. He took a swig from his flask, then steadied himself as he stepped onto the quiet cul-de-sac. Through the gusting sleet he discerned the dim distant lights of an approaching vehicle. The saloon was upon him sooner than he thought. But he showed no urgency as the road was wide and well lit.
“What the hell?” he murmured to himself.
No blast on the horn, no screech of tyres. Only the sickening thud of the saloon striking his frail body. The driver studied his victim in the rear-view mirror. Certain he was dead, he slammed his foot on the accelerator and sped off.
Out of the shadows came a tall, lean man wearing a black overcoat. He pulled his green flat cap down low over his eyes as he moved cat-like towards the victim. Hunched over the body, he checked the carotid artery for a pulse. There was none.
“What happened?” bellowed a bearded man, jogging up from behind.
The capped stranger didn’t react. Nervelessly he ran his searching fingers over the victim’s body.
“That looks painful,” a youth called out, joining in from the side.
As the two men drew nearer their gaze locked on to the smashed face of the toothless man. The distraction provided the capped stranger the few seconds he needed to deftly slide his hand into the victim’s trouser pocket and remove something unnoticed.
“He’s dead,” the stranger proclaimed, rising to his feet. As the crowd swelled around their reclusive neighbour, the man in the green flat cap slipped away and faded into the darkness.
From the apartment block opposite a hastily dressed, rotund woman waddled onto the street. “I’ve phoned the police,” she announced with verve.
“No surprise there,” mocked a voice from the pack.
Sirens echoed off the estate’s prefabricated concrete towers. Then all heads swung south as flashing blue lights appeared between buildings on the ring road encircling the estate.
The crowd had grown to over thirty. Two teenage boys laughed as they dreamt up captions to accompany selfies with the old man’s contorted body as the backdrop.
“Damn it! I said beam me down. Not drop me on my head,” one of the youths howled, thumbing the text into his post.
Sarcastic applause and cheers greeted the orange-red ambulance as it turned cautiously into the icy cul-de-sac.
“Full house,” the driver said.
The paramedic nodded. “You sure we’ve got the right address? Looks more like a street party.”
But it wasn’t. Instead of warming themselves round a blazing bonfire, the neighbours stood shuffling their feet, gazing down at a mangled corpse.
“Bet you a tenner it’s a transport only,” the driver said, glimpsing the victim as he pulled the ambulance to a stop short of the mob.
Undeterred, the paramedic grabbed his bag and hurried towards the old man.
“Move back,” came an amplified voice from a police car that had just drawn up.
“He got what he deserved,” one onlooker called out as two officers climbed from the vehicle. “We should’ve strung him up years ago,” came another. “Leave him for the dogs,” said a third.
“Show some respect,” Senior Constable Hoffman said, frowning.
Nothing more was said as the two policemen elbowed their way to centre stage.
“What we got, Hans?” Hoffman enquired.
The paramedic glanced up from next to the body. “Massive head trauma incompatible with life. Hit-and-run.”
“An unlikely place,” Hoffman said, scratching the back of his fat neck as he glanced up and down the street.
1
The Vatican was an extraordinary city. Her secrets cloaked in mystery, her residents quaint and queer. Enemies eternally at the gate. And sometimes within her walls. Sitting naked on the edge of his empty bathtub, Inspector General Lorenzo Rossi took a long sip of his Scotch. Through a partly open window he gazed vacantly at the lonely soldier of the Swiss Guard protecting the Porta Sant’Anna border entrance. It was Thursday night, eight o’clock. Barring incident, Rossi had finished for the day. He closed the toilet lid and set his glass on top.
“Not now,” Rossi murmured, picking up his phone. “Mama, can I call you back? I’m shaving my legs.”
“Enzo,” she said with a tut. “Why do you tell me such things?”
“It’s for cycling, Mama,” Rossi said, ending the call.
Rossi smiled wistfully as he applied shaving gel to his right leg. His mother’s call had reminded him of why he was here.
Rossi joined the Vatican Gendarmerie on his twenty-third birthday, nineteen years ago, as a co
mpromise to his parents. The youngest of six brothers he grew up in a sprawling farmhouse nestled amongst vineyards and olive groves in Siena, Tuscany. His father, determined that one of his sons would join the priesthood, had nurtured young Lorenzo with the Church in mind. His mother was having none of it. She insisted he was far too popular with the village girls to consider such mad folly. Besides, little Enzo was her favourite. Grandchildren were what she expected. To further complicate matters, Rossi from an early age had dreamt of becoming a soldier. To resolve the three-way tug-of-war, Rossi joined the Vatican Corpo della Gendarmeria – an accommodation he never regretted.
“What the hell?” Rossi said, dropping his shaver. He sprang to his feet and dashed out of the bathroom, only to return seconds later with a pair of binoculars.
He flung open the window and focused on the small secluded churchyard to the right of the border crossing. Nothing. He watched for a few minutes more, but whatever he had seen was gone.
Rossi draped a towel round his shoulders and sat back down, his gaze constantly drawn to the open window as he lathered his other leg.
“Gotcha,” he said, knocking over his empty glass as he grabbed for the binoculars.
Despite the unsavoury sight of a nun bent over a tombstone with her lily-white arse in the air, and a trouserless priest readying himself nearby, Rossi didn’t overreact. Inside the Vatican he had seen it all. The Church was a magnet for those lacking a normal moral compass. He reached for his phone.
“You guys asleep?… Someone’s shooting a porno film in the garden of Sant’Anna,” Rossi said in a gruff tone.
He leant out of the window for a better view. Instantly he realised he should have been more instructive. “Discretion,” he bellowed down, but it was too late. He bit his lip as he watched the naked nun and the well-hung priest escape back into Rome. The tourists on Via di Porta Angelica hooted in delight. The film cameraman was not so lucky. He had been taken into custody by two red-faced gendarmes who refused to look up.
“Just perfect,” Rossi yelled out to no one in particular.
The phone rang. Rossi glanced at the screen. Bad news travels fast. “Good evening, Monsignor.”
“Inspector General, sorry to interrupt your evening but Cardinal Capelli requires your immediate presence.”
Rossi looked down at his one shaved leg and rolled his sea-green eyes. “I’m on my way.”
2
Rossi hated surprises. Top of the list were unscheduled meetings with Cardinal Santo Capelli, the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals. To be called urgently to the cardinal’s office so late in the evening was highly unusual. Something’s gone wrong, he thought, bustling down the stone-floored corridor that led to the prelate’s office.
Rossi skidded to a halt in front of a partly opened door. Inside he saw Cardinal Capelli’s executive assistant, Monsignor Polak, working at his desk. The cardinal’s apricot-coloured pug lay asleep at his feet. Rossi ran his fingers through his thick black hair and straightened his jacket, then entered.
“I trust it’s nothing serious?” Rossi enquired in a respectful tone.
“His Eminence is expecting you,” Monsignor Polak said. Exactly the response Rossi foresaw.
Monsignor Polak moved past Rossi and knocked sharply. He turned the handle and the tall wooden door opened silently. Rossi waited in the doorway as the short, fat monsignor announced his arrival.
“Come in, Inspector General,” the elderly cardinal said, looking up from behind his large mahogany desk.
“I came the moment I received your message,” Rossi said, sensing tension in the room. “There was a disturbance on Piazza San Pietro. A young Dutchman decided to climb the Egyptian Obelisk…”
“I have invited Commandant Waldmann to join us.”
Christian Waldmann, the Commandant of the Corps of the Pontifical Swiss Guard, rose and greeted Rossi warmly. Waldmann, a willowy man with slicked-back blond hair, had only been in the job for three weeks. Recruited from outside the force, Rossi had been assigned to mentor him on Vatican politics and protocol.
“I have another engagement in thirty minutes,” the cardinal said in a soft, but urgent voice. “So let us begin.”
As they took their seats in front of the desk, the cardinal handed them a copy of an agreement between Pope Pius XII and Hitler.
A chill ran through Rossi’s bones as he read the date. “1 June 1939.”
“Three months before the Nazis invaded Poland,” Waldmann added, “marking the beginning of World War II in Europe.”
The bespectacled cardinal tapped his pen on the burgundy leather inlay of his desk as he waited for them to finish reading.
“What is the concern?” Waldmann said, his hooded blue eyes darting between Rossi and the cardinal as he spoke. “It’s a forgery.”
The cardinal blew out a long breath and raised his overgrown eyebrows to the heavens.
“To the Church’s enemies it’s irrelevant,” Rossi said, still studying the document.
“But what’s written isn’t remotely credible,” Waldmann protested, pointing to the preamble. “The notion that Pope Pius would partner with Hitler is farcical.”
“Where’d it come from?” Rossi asked.
The white-haired prelate reached for his notes. “Maximilian Wolf, a history teacher from Bonn, Germany. Not one of us, unfortunately.”
“A Protestant?” Rossi said.
“Worse – an agnostic.”
Waldmann sneered. “A fence-sitter.”
“He claims to have found it while cleaning out his late father’s apartment in Berlin.”
Rossi put the document aside. “What does he want?”
“That’s what I need you to find out,” the cardinal said, looking at Rossi. “Bishop Muellenbach, the Church’s leading scholar on World War II documents, will meet Wolf tomorrow evening at the Münster Basilica in Bonn. I would like you to join him.”
“With pleasure,” Rossi said in a low, vengeful tone.
“Inspector General, this is an extremely sensitive matter. You are to go gently. We want none of this getting out.”
Rossi nodded. Having worked at the Vatican for all his adult life, he didn’t have to ask why.
“But, Your Eminence,” Waldmann said, looking at Rossi. “The Church collaborating with Hitler? Who in their right mind would believe such a thing?”
Cardinal Capelli glanced at his watch. “For those who despise the Church, the truth is of little consequence.”
“You’re right, of course, Your Eminence,” Rossi said, turning his gaze towards Waldmann.
The cardinal leant forward, resting his forearms on the table. “It’s obvious the Concordat was created to coincide with a very dark and uncertain period of European history. And its similarity to the 1933 Nazi Reichskonkordat is uncanny. God help us.”
Rossi understood the cardinal’s apprehension. There was no shortage of historical context for such a document. The Vatican had signed numerous treaties over the years with the aim of safeguarding the Church’s interest.
With Germany, Rossi could recall close to fifteen. All relatively harmless, notwithstanding the fact that some now may fall short of today’s secular values. But not the 1933 Reichskonkordat, it was different.
Rossi was well acquainted with its text. Two years ago he had participated in a Vatican workshop on ‘developing strategies for communicating the benefits of concordats in the twenty-first century’, or some long, convoluted title like that.
The working group consisted of a cross section of the Church’s elite. To be invited to such a prestigious event was a privilege and an honour. But there was a downside. Rossi found himself on the wrong side of the debate; playing devil’s advocate against his omnipotent employer.
The first morning passed without drama, best remembered for a long, lifeless speech by a tired-looking Cardinal Cape
lli. But proceedings abruptly changed pace after lunch, when Michael Dempsey, the Professor of Moral Theology and Ethics from Notre Dame University, spoke.
The professor’s unkempt, long brown hair and scruffy beard gave Rossi the impression he had just woken up. But if he had, it was on the wrong side of the bed. No hint of apology, the professor bravely berated the Church for executing concordats with Hitler, Franco, Salazar and Mussolini.
“The moral recognition given to these dictators by the Church, through the execution of such treaties, was undeniable,” the professor proclaimed.
“Undeniable?” Cardinal Capelli huffed. “How did you arrive at such an erroneous conclusion?”
To make his point, the professor suggested they discuss one of the more problematic of the Church’s twentieth-century treaties – the so-called 1933 Nazi Reichskonkordat.
Surprised by the confident American’s persistence, Cardinal Capelli mumbled something that the professor liberally interpreted as “proceed”.
Rossi stared, as the sixty-something professor rose from his chair and moved slowly around the large oval conference table leaning heavily on his walking stick. He fought back a smile as Professor Dempsey paused deliberately behind each of the prelates while chastising the Church’s leadership for executing such an ill-conceived document.
“It is my view, and that of many distinguished historians,” the professor said in an oratorical tone, “that the 1933 Reichskonkordat helped legitimise Hitler. And in doing so helped the Nazis consolidate their position in Germany.”
At that moment, the sun appeared between the buildings. Golden rays poured in through a small high window onto the professor’s face, temporarily blinding him. A lightning bolt to follow, Rossi remembered thinking.
Cardinal Capelli refused to be provoked. He calmly stood, to present the Church’s position. “Distinguished Professor, like my Church’s enemies, you have forgotten half the story.”
The professor smirked and raised his shoulders.
The cardinal explained that the Church had pursued the Reichskonkordat to redress the discriminatory Kulturkampf policies of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, policies which focused on bringing the Roman Catholic Church under state control.