by Gary McAvoy
“Are you alright, Carlo?”
“Ye… yes. I’m… I’m fine,” he stammered, clearly struggling. “You know the standard Mass already, but because it’s Lent, have the choir sing Gloria in excelsis Deo. You know, from Vivaldi’s RF-590 setting.” He emphasized ‘R-F’ as he spoke each letter.
Dominic’s breath caught as he grasped the undercurrent of fear hidden in his friend’s words. Carefully, he measured his response. “Of course, Carlo, I’ll be happy to take your place at Mass. Will we see you afterward, as planned?” He tried hard to listen to any other sounds on Carlo’s end, but those around him in line were talking too loud.
“I have to go now, Michael. Take c—”
The connection went dead.
Dominic looked at his phone, overcome with a sense of doom. He leaned over to Hana and anxiously whispered in her ear.
“Carlo is in trouble, I’m certain of it.”
“What makes you think so?”
He explained the brief conversation.
“Maybe he’s just ill from something he ate,” she offered.
“Hana, we do not sing Gloria during Lent! It would be inappropriate, in fact. It’s mainly sung at Christmas, and Carlo knows that.” Michael’s mind spun as he sorted the facts that made no sense. “And his mention of Vivaldi’s 590 setting was wrong for two reasons: first, it’s titled RV-590, not RF-590. Second, the RV-590 is presumed lost! Nobody knows the music, since mention of it only exists in a brief entry in the old Kreuzherren catalogue.
“And he emphasized the letters R-F, not R-V. Why would he change those? The identifier comes from a standard catalog for Vivaldi’s music, called the Ryom-Verzeichnis. Hence, RV.”
“Sounds to me like he was passing on some kind of code, then,” Hana reasoned, ever the puzzler. “But what does RF represent? Are you sure you heard it right? And why mention music at all if he’s in danger?”
At that moment, they were next to board a waiting water taxi. Dominic helped Hana and Livia on board, then Lukas, Karl, and Marco jumped on after them. They all gathered inside the covered cabin, out of earshot of the driver, as the craft headed toward the Ca’ Sagredo hotel. Dominic filled the others in on what was happening.
“As I was just about to tell Hana before we boarded, Carlo’s focus on the Gloria music reference was the only logical way for him to tell us something else—that whatever is happening to him now is seriously wrong! I fear he’s in grave danger. The Camorra must have found out about Don Gambarini’s confession.”
“We have to assume that they might believe we know,” Marco said. “Our security protocols have just escalated.”
Chapter 17
Sunday morning offered a brilliant sunrise as Dominic pulled himself out of bed and flung open the drapes of the huge arched window in his room.
He hadn’t slept well, fearing for Carlo’s well-being. After showering and dressing, he called Hana’s room.
“Up for some coffee?”
“I am, yes. Meet downstairs in ten minutes?”
“Sure, see you then.” He hung up the phone.
Leaving the room and making his way down the old elegant elevator, Dominic again tried calling Carlo’s cell phone. Each time, the call went straight to voicemail. Each time, he grew more worried.
Entering the princely frescoed ballroom where breakfast was served, Dominic took a seat by the window, watching the activity on the Canal while he waited for Hana. A server brought him a thermal carafe of Italian Roast coffee, pouring a cup for Dominic. Looking up, he saw Hana approaching.
“Any word yet from Carlo?” Hana asked as she took her seat.
“Nothing. Not a word. I also called the church and nobody there has heard from him either. I’m worried sick about this, Hana. I hate not having control of situations I’m involved in. Somehow this feels as if it’s all my fault.”
“You can’t take this on your shoulders, Michael. Father Rinaldo is the one who heard that Camorra Don’s confession, not you. Perhaps he shouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone else.”
“Yes, well, he mentioned it to me. And I confess a certain guilt about having told others, given the seal of confession. I understand these are unusual circumstances, but still, I have certain responsibilities…”
“Is it possible someone may have overheard the confession?”
“I wasn’t there, of course, but I suppose anything is possible where corrupt gangsters are concerned. Maybe they bugged the boss’s bedroom, who knows? And besides, the Don asked Carlo to bring the practice to a halt. It was his dying wish, to absolve his soul from a life of dirty deeds. The man was terrified of the spiritual consequences.”
“Well, despite being raised Catholic, you know how I feel about heaven and hell…” said the agnatheistic journalist.
Dominic smiled at her while taking a sip of coffee. “Don’t get too cozy there. We’ll bring you into the light soon enough….”
Looking up, they saw Karl and Lukas approaching.
“Good morning, boys,” Hana said breezily. “Sleep well?”
The Guards looked at each other and just smiled. “We need coffee.” They took a table next to their friends, waving for the server to come over.
“Have you seen Marco this morning?” Hana asked.
“He left the hotel earlier, saying he had a few things to check on,” Karl said. “That guy’s pretty impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already cleared up Father Rinaldo’s disappearance and that whole art heist scheme thing. Has Carlo still not checked in, Michael?”
“No. Not as yet.” The look on Dominic’s face told Karl all he needed to know.
“So, what time is Mass?” Lukas asked.
“Eleven,” Dominic replied, deep in thought. “I’m still trying to figure out what ‘RF’ means. I’m sure he intended for me to grasp its meaning. Might be something unique to the church. I’ll ask someone when I get there, maybe they’ll know.”
As two young altar boys helped Father Dominic don his vestments in the Sacristy, the sacristan prepared the red wine and water in separate crystal cruets, ensuring the chalice, ciborium, paten, and other sacred utensils were clean and ready for the Liturgy.
At the appointed time, Dominic and his two altar servers began the procession out into the basilica and up the chancel to the altar. As the choir sang Attende Domine in glorious plainchant, Mass began.
Dominic loved the ancient rituals of the Mass, and he usually performed them in a state of near transcendence. But even though he had been handed the great privilege of celebrating the Liturgy in the fabled ancient Basilica of St. Mark, his mind was elsewhere.
Though he respectfully observed the rote ceremonies, he did so this day without the usual joyfulness that accompanied his celebration of the Blessed Sacrament, for the fate of Carlo Rinaldo was foremost in his thoughts.
After the Rite of Consecration, Dominic invited the assembly to partake in Holy Communion. People stood from their seats and, walking forward, began kneeling at the Communion rail while others waited their turn in line.
As the choir began singing another hymn, Dominic and his altar servers slowly walked up the line presenting each communicant with the sacred Eucharist, as he uttered ‘Il Corpo di Cristo’—‘the Body of Christ’—to each one, many of whom he recalled seeing at the contessa’s party the night before.
The next person kneeling before him he recognized as that thickset art dealer who had rushed out of the library… what was his name? Ah, yes. Renzo Farelli.
As if electrified, the wafer fell out of Dominic’s hand with a jolt, then dropped onto the golden paten held by the altar boy, who looked up at the priest questioningly.
Renzo Farelli.
R.F.
Regaining his composure, Dominic softly apologized, then picked out a fresh host from the ciborium and placed it on Farelli’s tongue, his hand shaking.
That’s got to be it. Carlo was telling him Renzo Farelli is involved in his disappearance!
Farelli’s
coldly assessing eyes held Dominic’s own as his tongue—nearly black from poor hygiene and years of smoking cigars—accepted the pure white Host. The eyes relayed an unambiguous message: Stay away.
Dominic almost wanted to call him out, right then and there, and have him account for Carlo’s disappearance. But he had sacred obligations remaining. Without thinking, he sped up serving Communion, wanting nothing more than the Mass to be over so he could take up this fresh development with the others.
There was work to be done.
Chapter 18
Back in Rome, Marcello Sabatini had just left Mass at St. Peter’s himself, then headed to his lab next to the Vatican Museum’s administrative offices.
It being a Sunday, few others were in the building, giving him open access to all the equipment he would need to analyze the tiny green speck he’d taken from the contessa’s Giulia Lama painting.
He took a chair at the table where the lab’s optical microscope sat, then retrieved the handkerchief containing the sample from his pocket. Using tweezers to place the speck on a glass slide, he inserted it into the microscope, then peered through the lens. After a few moments, he removed the slide, surprised with the results and festering a growing concern.
Next, he inserted the sample into the lab’s X-ray Fluorescence analyzer to check for lead, a common element used by early painters until the risks of using it were later discovered in modern times. If lead was missing from a painting of this age, it would certainly raise questions about the work’s authenticity.
The XRF analyzer completed its testing—revealing the presence of lead.
No… This can’t be!
Sabatini anxiously got up and went into the art repository beneath the Belvedere Courtyard. Returning to the location where Crucifixion with Apostles hung, he pulled out the steel wall rack, took out a small LED flashlight and his tweezers from his pockets, then inspected a similar part of the painting where he had extracted the speck from the contessa’s painting. Carefully positioning the tweezers, he scraped off an infinitesimal sliver of paint, dropping it inside a small circular glass vial.
Returning to the lab, he put this sample through the same processes.
This time the XRF revealed no presence of lead. Sweat began forming on Sabatini’s forehead.
He needed one more test for a more definitive analysis. Moving over to the Raman spectrometer, he inserted the sample into the unit’s analysis chamber to measure spectroscopic reflectance in the ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared ranges. A few minutes later, the analysis discovered the presence of Phthalocyanine Green G, a synthetic green pigment from the group of phthalocyanine dyes which, as Sabatini well knew, were not available to Renaissance painters, being a modern discovery.
Sabatini sat there, devastated, his hands shaking.
The Vatican’s painting was a forgery. Contessa Vivaldi had the original.
His back set against a stucco wall, his feet planted firmly on the cobblestones, Marco Picard held the thug’s neck in a firm chokehold, waiting for him to tap out and give the former Green Beret the answer he’d demanded.
The victim’s body flopped around, trying to free himself from the stronger man’s ironclad grip, to no avail. Wrestling in a fetid back alley on Venice’s more industrial Giudecca island, there was little chance of anyone happening upon them.
Finally, the squat but burly man repeatedly slapped Marco’s arm, struggling for breath as Marco let him fall to the ground.
“One last time, Enzo,” Marco threatened, pulling on the man’s hair as he shook his head around. “Where is Father Rinaldo?”
“Don Gallucci will have me killed if I say anything!”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t,” Marco snapped, grabbing and pulling the man’s arm hard as the soldier’s foot pressed against his neck.
“Okay! Okay!” the man gasped, wincing in pain. “We dropped the padre off at a small warehouse on the Rio del Vin canal, just east of St. Mark’s. Two other guys came out to take him inside; I do not know who else was in the building. After dropping him off, our job was done.”
“And who is this Don Gallucci?”
Enzo looked at Marco in abject fear. “I… I should not have even m… mentioned his name,” he sputtered, glancing around nervously to see if anyone else had heard.
“Who… is… Gallucci!” Marco forcefully growled as his leg pushed harder on Enzo’s neck.
Enzo screamed in pain as his arm nearly popped out of its shoulder.
“Don Gallucci is head of the Camorra! That is all I know. I swear to you!”
“It’s not polite to swear,” Marco said, releasing the arm and kicking the man viciously as he lay on the cobblestone alley. “Now get out of here. If any harm comes to my other friends, I’ll be looking for just one man to get answers from. And you won’t like the questions.”
Enzo got up unsteadily, then did his best to hobble off as far from his attacker as possible, nursing the injured arm.
Straightening his light jacket and brushing his long hair back with his hands, Marco headed for the mahogany motorboat he had rented and parked on a nearby canal dock. Starting the ignition, he aimed the boat for the Grand Canal, then sped across the lagoon heading for the Ca’ Sagredo hotel.
As he approached the entrance to the Grand Canal, he saw several police boats grouped east of St. Mark’s Square, their blue-lighted masts flashing. Taking out a map of Venice from his pocket, he confirmed they were clustered at the opening to Rio del Vin canal.
He had a bad feeling about this.
Steering his craft in that direction, he also noticed the Medico Legale’s boat pull up—the coroner had arrived. Slowly motoring to the scene to monitor events, as other rubberneckers around him were, Marco put the engine in idle as he watched a man’s dead body being fished out of the water and placed on a low gurney on the coroner’s vessel. He was wearing black clothing, with a white collar encircling his neck clearly visible in the bright lights of the Carabinieri’s boats shining on the water.
Father Carlo Rinaldo.
Marco took out his phone and snapped a photo of the scene. Turning the boat around, he headed up the Grand Canal and back to the hotel.
Chapter 19
The six Camorra capos, one from each of their designated sestieri in Venice proper—San Marco, Cannaregio, San Polo, Dorsoduro, Santa Croce, and Castello—had gathered in Palazzo Feudatario at the request of Don Angelo Gallucci along with another guest.
“My friends,” he said in a low brooding voice, “we have dealt with the meddlesome priest who heard Don Gambarini’s confession, which broke our sacred seal of omertà. Unfortunately, this cannot be undone.
“I speak of the confession, of course.” The six men laughed quietly, uncomfortably, as the Don looked around the table with a steely gaze.
One of the capos spoke up. “My men are the ones who took Rinaldo from the contessa’s party, but they were reluctant to take the life of a priest. They said he told them he would confess everything he knew if he were allowed one call, which they gave him. He then called the priest named Dominic, asking him to take his place at Mass the next day. But he was of no use to them after that, so he was expendable.”
“We do not know if Rinaldo spoke to anyone else about these things,” Gallucci continued, “but I did meet, more or less, two of his associates at the contessa’s party. Two women—one quite rude, as women can be—but there are others, I am told.”
“Yes,” said Renzo Farelli, “one of them is a fumbling priest who couldn’t manage holding a Communion wafer if his life depended on it.”
Another round of subdued laughter.
“Salvatore,” Gallucci asked, turning to a large man in a black cassock with red piping and a scarlet cap, “what do you know of this priest?”
Cardinal Salvatore Abruzzo, the Patriarch of Venice, took his time responding. He took a deep sigh before speaking.
“Father Michael Dominic is the Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Archive—which you
may know as the Secret Archives—and is here on a brief vacation, I am informed. He is a harmless sort, very bookish, but he has significant connections in the Church. His godfather is Cardinal Petrini, the Vatican Secretary of State, and the two men are very close. I would exercise caution in dealing with him.
“He is also here with a companion, apparently an old friend who is a reporter for the French newspaper Le Monde. And I noticed at the contessa’s party that he has two Swiss Guards with him, whose presence here is very unusual, but which could only have been approved by Petrini. Their purpose here is unknown.”
Gallucci thought for a few moments.
“I don’t like it. But, until they do something that warrants our attention, leave them be for now. Keep a watch on them, though.” He glanced around the table to make sure everyone understood his meaning.
“Now, as for our next shipment from Rome. Salvatore, are your men bringing us the Raphael on Monday?”
“Yes, Angelo, all is in order for the shipment. Our man in the Vatican Pinacoteca has made the arrangements, as usual. We do not expect any problems.”
“Good. That is what I like to hear. We prepared our artists and restorers upstairs with the materials they need for it, and they are eager to work on their next masterpiece.”
“Which they shall have tomorrow,” the cardinal confirmed.
After berthing his boat, Marco made his way up the dock to the entrance of the Ca’ Sagredo. As he was entering the foyer, he ran into Karl, who was heading out for a quick run.
“Hold up, Karl,” he said, raising a hand. “We all need to meet. Now. Are Michael and Hana here?”
“Yeah, they’re having lunch with Lukas upstairs on the Terrace. We can take the elevator.” Karl saw the hard set of Marco’s eyes, the tight bands in his neck; the news was serious.
After the slow lift to the Terrace restaurant, the two men exited the car and made their way to their friends’ table.