The First American Pope
Page 22
CHAPTER 22
VATICAN CONSPIRATORS
The “gang of 5” Cardinals’ Thrombus, Rossini, Pompus, Kroni, and Bambu, are meeting at an undisclosed location away from St Peters in order to plan for their latest attempt at killing the Pope. They are now getting desperate after all the failed attempts to stop the Pope from embarking on worldwide reconciliation with religious leaders to formalize a Universal Catholic Church. Various ethnic groups, who oppose these efforts from Rome, have been trying to derail talks with protest demonstrations and every conceivable obstructive ploy to prevent unification. But somehow the talks are continuing, and seem to be unstoppable.
“Cardinal Rossini, when are we going to start getting results from these attempts, it is getting more difficult to meet and plan?” “Dear Cardinal Pompus, I wholly understand your frustrations, as we all are, but this time we are taking the gloves off to make sure it gets done once and for all. I have asked Giovanni Jesuppi from the Sicilian mob to plan an extreme terrorist type of attack on the Pope. We have no choice now, since every inconspicuous attempt has failed so far.”
“Giovanni wants a $5 million dollars upfront payment before he proceeds with this plan.” ‘That’s a lot of money Cardinal Rossini,’ pipes up Cardinal Bambu. ‘How can we be sure that it’s going to work this time?’ “Well he has briefly laid out the plan, which requires a lot of surveillance on our part since we are the only ones who can get close to the Pope without raising suspicion. We need to get specific timing and schedules of the Pope’s upcoming appointments and daily routines, so that we can be as precise as to his whereabouts at all times within his apartment, and offices.” ‘You mean Cardinal Rossini that they will strike inside of St. Peters?’ said Cardinal Kroni. “Yes, if we are to succeed and derail the Pope’s efforts at unification, we must have a catastrophic event that will scare everyone from wanting to join in this effort. It will produce fear and destabilize the current undertakings by the Church. It will mean a great deal of casualties, but that is the price of war.” ‘But what about us?’ ask Cardinal Thrombus. “We will be told of the timing so that we can be away at the time of the attack. I assure you.” says Cardinal Rossini.
“So the first order of business is I need a million dollars in cash from each of you by tomorrow noon. Then I’ll bring the money to Giovanni to put the plan in motion. The next thing I’ll need from you is to notate every minute of the Pope’s routine schedule for the next two weeks. I can get the Pope’s schedule for the next month from his secretary, and I’ll coordinate all that data for Giovanni so they can plan out an attack. Remember to keep secret your activities so no one suspects your purpose. Straddle your timing of the Pope’s surveillance, as well as the containers of cash that you bring to me, to make sure you are not seen.”
Cardinal Rossini travels by car the next evening for a planned rendezvous with Giovanni. In a parking garage, their cars are parked alongside next to each other, driver to driver. Their windows slowly open, and Cardinal Rossini starts passing the bags of money, and a schematic of the architectural details of the papal apartment and offices, to Giovanni. “I assume Cardinal Rossini; I don’t need to count the money since you are a priest.” ‘Yes, yes be assured Giovanni. You can start preparations and in two weeks I’ll have the Pope’s schedule for you as you have asked. I’ll give you a call when to meet.’ Slowly the cars pull out of their parking spaces, and disappear into the darkness without their lights on, using night goggle vision gear.
Two weeks later the same scenario occurs at the garage with the passing of the Pope’s itinerary followed by the cars disappearing in the night.
A month later, Cardinal Rossini gets a cell call. Just the words “June 5, 2:10 p.m.”, and a hang up. Quickly Cardinal Rossini sends a text message to the other Cardinals. In his mind, he notes to himself. It is set.
On a sunny afternoon, traffic is moving along Rome’s streets and the plaza’s leading to St. Peter’s Square. Noticeable diagonally on the left side across the plaza from the Pope’s apartment, construction vehicles are parked. Workmen with tools are milling about setting up cautionary signs for people to avoid the area. At precisely 2:09 p.m., side doors on the van open quickly, a major flash appears from the doors, and a surface to air missile is seen to head straight toward the Pope’s apartment. And just as quickly, a huge cylindrical radiant bright yellow shield appears just in front of the Pope’s apartment. The surface to air missile hits the shield and mysteriously disappears. One of the assailant, cries out “Mama Mia, this Pope truly is protected, let’s get out of here!” Hurriedly the assailant’s vehicle screeches out of the plaza, leaving behind everything they had set up to distract the crowds. Sirens start to blare as the crowds quickly seek shelter in the buildings around the plaza.
The Vatican guards are rushing to the scene as well as the police from the city. Hundreds of cars, fire trucks, rescue vehicles and a swat team pour into the plaza. Everyone from those vehicles, have guns drawn and searching around the plaza. The head of the swat team blares out commands for the various groups to mobilize for finding any evidence left behind by the terrorists and to interrogate any witnesses. He calls on the Vatican guards to quickly have their security camera feeds transmitted to the swat command vehicle immediately.
Reporters and their staff are also pouring around the square, which has been cordoned off by the police to keep spectators from compromising the crime scene. TV and radio satellites are everywhere in the distance. Reporters are pressing the police to give them any bits of information so they can run a story. But as the scramble is on, various conspiracies are being speculated as to what type of terrorist attack occurred on the Pope’s life are now being transmitted all over the world on radios and TV news reports, in an attempt to be first to put out a story.
In the Papal apartment, Vatican guards and security forces have invaded the Pope’s chambers. But the Pope remains calm throughout the events and asks the head of security to please ask his men to pull back from the apartment and his offices, so that he can resume his schedule. The Pope says, “As you can see I am perfectly fine, and as I was told by our Lord, that no harm would come to me, so you can be assured that I’m in good hands.” The head of security than ask his staff to return to their post. Pope John XXIV then turns and heads into his private chapel for a prayer of thanksgiving.
In their haste to leave, the assailants left all kinds of evidence at their assault location, in particular when they screeched out with their van doors still open, materials fell out from the van. The swat team called in a mobile forensic lab to start examining every shred of evidence they have uncovered. It will be hours if not days before they determine who was behind the attack, especially since no group has come forward to claim responsibility for the failed attack.
The “gang of five”, are now communicating what they are hearing of the failed attack through the various news stories. Some are getting very nervous that they could be implicated, and are now talking about resigning and disappearing for a while. The miracle story of the huge disk appearing that swallowed up the missile has truly frazzled them. Knowing that the Pope is truly being protected, they therefore conclude that there is no way any attempts on the Pope’s life can be successful. They all decide it is now time to leave, but to make sure they give various reasons for resigning, so not to give reason to speculate about their sinister involvement.