traffic, he saw it again, looming up ahead, its colossal dome soaring gloriously out of the haze and chaos of the congested city. Although the sight of such a prodigious edifice inevitably inspired feelings of awe in even the most hardened of disbelievers, Reilly felt only betrayal and anger. He didn't know much about the world's greatest church, beyond that it housed the Sistine Chapel and that it was built over the resting spot of the bones of Saint Peter, the Church's first pope, who had died there after being crucified, upside down, for his faith. As he looked at it, he thought of all the sublime works of art and architecture the same faith had inspired, the paintings, statues, and places of worship that had been created around the world by the followers of Christ. He thought of the countless children who said their bedtime prayers every night, the millions of worshippers who attended church services every Sunday, the sick who prayed for healing, and the bereaved who prayed for the souls of the departed. Had they all been deceived too? Was it all a lie? And, even worse—had the Vatican known all along?
The Lexus made its way down the Via de Porta Angelica to the Saint Anne gate, where a large, cast-iron portal was opened by colorfully outfitted Swiss Guards just as the car reached it. With a quick nod from the monsignor, the Lexus was waved in, entering the smallest country on the planet and ushering Reilly into the center of his troubled spiritual world.
The car stopped outside a porticoed stone building, and De Angelis promptly got out. Reilly followed him up the short steps and into the solemn hush of a double-volume vestibule. They walked briskly along stone-flagged corridors, through dim, high-ceilinged rooms, and up wide marble staircases, finally reaching an intricately carved wooden door. The monsignor put away his aviator shades and replaced them with his old tinted glasses. Reilly looked on as, with the ease of a great actor about to go onstage, De Angelis's expression morphed from that of a merciless covert operative into the gentle priest who had materialized that day in New York. To Reilly's added surprise, he took a deep breath before he rapped his knuckles firmly on the door.
The answer came back quickly in a soft-spoken tone.
'Avanti'
De Angelis opened the door and led the way inside.
The walls of the cavernous room were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling and overflowed with books. The herringboned, oak floor had no rugs. In one corner, by a stone fireplace, a large chenille sofa sat between two matching armchairs. Backing up to a towering pair of French windows was a desk, which had a heavily padded chair behind it and three wingback chairs facing it. The room's only occupant, a burly and commanding figure with grizzled gray hair, stepped around the desk to greet De Angelis and his guest. A somber severity was etched on his face.
De Angelis introduced Cardinal Brugnone to Reilly, and the men shook hands. The cardinal's grip was unexpectedly firm, and Reilly felt he was being studied with an unsettling perspicacity as the old man's eyes moved over him silently. Without taking his eyes off his guest, Brugnone exchanged a few words in Italian with the monsignor, which Reilly couldn't make out.
'Please sit down, Agent Reilly,' he finally said to him, motioning toward the sofa. 'I hope you will accept my gratitude for all that you have done and continue to do in this unfortunate matter. And also for agreeing to come here today.'
As soon as Reilly had taken a seat, and with De Angelis settling into another chair, Brugnone made it clear he was in no mood for idle chatter by coming quickly to the point. 'I've been given some background information on you.' Reilly glanced at De Angelis, who did not meet his gaze. 'I'm told you are a man who can be trusted and who does not compromise his integrity.' The big man paused, his intense, brown eyes bearing down on Reilly.
Reilly was more than happy to dive straight in. 'I just want the truth.'
Brugnone leaned forward, his large square hands pressed flat against each other. 'I'm afraid the truth is as you fear it.' After a quiet moment, he pushed himself out of his chair and took a few heavy paces to the French windows. He stared out, squinting against the harsh midday glare. 'Nine men . . . nine devils. They showed up in Jerusalem, and Baldwin gave them everything they wanted, thinking they were on our side, thinking they were there to help us spread our message.' He chortled, a sound that in other circumstances might have been mistaken for a laugh, but which Reilly knew was an outward expression of a very painful thought. His voice lowered to a guttural grumble. 'He was a fool to believe them.'
'What did they find?'
Brugnone took a breath, a kind of inward sigh, and turned to face Reilly. 'A journal. A very detailed and personal journal, a gospel of sorts. The writings of a carpenter named Jeshua of Nazareth.' He paused, fixing Reilly with a piercing gaze before adding, 'the writings . . . of et man.''
Reilly felt the air leave his lungs. 'Just a man?'
Brugnone nodded his head somberly, his big shoulders suddenly sagging as though an impossible weight was upon them. 'According to his own gospel, Jeshua of Nazareth—Jesus—was not the Son of God.'
The words ricocheted around Reilly's mind for what seemed like an eternity before plummeting to the pit of his stomach like a ton of bricks. He lifted his hands, making a vaguely all-encompassing gesture. 'And all this . . . ?'
'All this,' Brugnone exclaimed, 'is the best that man, that mere, mortal, frightened man, could come up with. It was all created with the most noble of intentions. This you must believe. What would you have done? What would you have us do now? For almost two thousand years, we've been entrusted with these beliefs that were so important to the men who began the Church, and which we continue to believe in. Anything that could have undermined these beliefs had to be suppressed. There was no other choice, because we could not abandon our people, not before and certainly not now. Today, it would be even more catastrophic to say to them that it is all . . . ' He struggled with the words, unable to complete the sentence.
'A massive deception?' Reilly concluded tersely.
'But is it really? What is faith, after all, but a belief in something for which there doesn't need to be any proof, a belief in an ideal. And it's been a very worthy ideal for people to believe in. We need to believe in something. We all need faith.'
Faith.
Reilly struggled to grasp the ramifications of what Cardinal Brugnone was saying. In his case, it was faith that had helped him, at a very young age, to deal witJi the devastating loss of his father. It was faith that had guided him throughout his adult life. And now, of all places, here at the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church, he was being told that it was all one big sham.
'We also need honesty,' Reilly countered angrily. 'We need truth.'
'But above all, man needs his faith, now more than ever,' Brugnone insisted forcefully, 'and what we have is far better than having no faith at all.'
'Faith in a resurrection that never happened?' Reilly fired back. 'Faith in a heaven that doesn't exist?'
'Believe me, Agent Reilly, many decent men have struggled with this over the years, and all come to the same conclusion: that it must be preserved. The alternative is too horrific to contemplate.'
'But we're not talking about His words and His teachings. We're just talking about His miracles and His resurrection.'
Brugnone's tone was unflinching. 'Christianity wasn't built on the notion of a wise man's preachings. It was built on something far more resonant—the words of the Son of God. The Resurrection isn't just a miracle—it's the very foundation of the Church. Take that away and it all collapses. Think of the words of Saint Paul in First Corinthians: 'And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain.' '
'The founders of the Church—they chose those words,' Reilly fumed. 'The whole point about religion is to help us try and understand what we're doing here, isn't it? How can we even begin to understand that if we start with a false premise? This lie has warped every single aspect of our lives.'
Brugnone exhaled deeply and nodded in quiet agreement. 'Maybe it has. Maybe, if it had all started now and not two thousand years ago, things could have been handled differently. But it isn't starting now. It already exists, it's been handed down to us and we must preserve it; to do otherwise would destroy us—and, I fear, deal a devastating blow to our fragile world.' His eyes were no longer focused on Reilly, but on something far away, something that seemed almost physically painful to him. 'We've been on the defensive ever since we started. I suppose it's natural, given our position, but it's becoming more and more difficult . . . modern science and philosophy don't exactly encourage faith. And we're partly to blame. Ever since the early Church was effectively hijacked by Constantine and his political acumen, there have been far too many schisms and disputes. Too much doctrinal nitpicking, too many fraudsters and degenerates running around, too much greed. Jesus's original message
