At the entrance to St. Peter's Square, Eric Lange climbed off the motorbike. Katrine slid forward, taking hold of the handlebars. Lange turned and started walking.
The square was filled with pilgrims and tourists. Carabinieri paced the edge of the colonnade. Lange headed toward the Apostolic Palace, his walk crisp and purposeful, his pace quick but controlled. Passing the towering Egyptian obelisk, he drew several long breaths to slow his heart rate.
A few paces from the palace, a carabiniere stepped in his path.
'Where do you think you're going?' he asked Lange in Italian, staring at him with a pair of stubborn brown eyes.
'Portone di Bronzo,' Lange replied.
'You have an appointment inside?'
Lange removed his wallet and flashed the identification badge. The carabiniere took a step backward. 'I'm sorry, Father Beck. I didn't realize.'
Lange put the wallet away. 'Tell me your name, young man.'
'It's Mateo Galeazzi.'
Lange looked directly into the policeman's eyes. 'I'll be sure to put in a good word for you inside. I know General Casagrande will be pleased to know that the carabinieri are maintaining good order out here in the square.'
'Thank you, Father.'
The carabiniere actually dipped his head and held out his hand for Father Beck to proceed. Lange almost felt sorry for the boy. In a few minutes, he would be on his knees, begging forgiveness for allowing an assassin to enter the palace.
At the Bronze Doors, Lange was stopped again, this time by a Swiss Guard in full Renaissance regalia, a dark-blue cloak draped over his shoulders. Once again, Lange produced the ID badge. The Swiss Guard ordered Lange to register with the officer at the permission desk, just inside the door to the right. There, Lange presented his identification to another Swiss Guard.
'Who are you here to see?'
'That's none of your business,' Lange said coldly. 'This is a
security review. If you feel it's necessary, you may tell Casagrande that I have entered the palace. If you tell anyone else--such as your friends who are standing watch at the moment--I'll deal with you
personally.'
The Swiss Guard swallowed hard and nodded. Lange turned around. The Scala Regia rose grandly before him, lit by vast iron lamps. Lange climbed the stairs slowly, like a man performing a job he secretly loathed. He paused once to look down at the permission desk, where the Swiss Guard was eyeing him intently. At the top of the stairs, he came to a set of glass doors and was challenged again. Before the Swiss Guard could say a word, Lange had his badge out. The guard took one look at it and nearly tripped over himself to get out of the way.
Amazing, Lange thought. Casagrande's scheme was working better than he imagined possible.
Next he found himself in a gloomy interior courtyard known as the Cortile di San Damaso. Above him soared the loggias of the Apostolic Palace itself. He passed beneath a stone archway, came to a staircase, and climbed quickly upward, footsteps echoing on the marble. Along the way, he passed three more Swiss Guards, but there were no more challenges. This deep inside the palace, Lange's clerical suit and Roman collar were identification enough.
On the top floor, he came to the entrance of the papal apartments. A Swiss Guard stood there, halberd in hand, blocking Lange's path. Lange held the ID badge in front of his face.
'I need to see Father Donati.'
'He's not here at the moment.'
'Where is he?'
'He's with the Holy Father.' He hesitated, then added: 'At the synagogue.'
'Ah, yes, of course. I'm sure Father Donati would appreciate knowing that you told a complete stranger his whereabouts.'
'I'm sorry, Father, but you--'
Lange cut him off. 'I need to leave something for Father Donati. Can you take me to his office?'
'As you know, Father Beck, I'm not allowed to leave this post under any circumstances.'
'Very good,' Lange said with a conciliatory smile. 'At least you got. something right. Please point me in the direction of the good father's office.'
The Swiss Guard hesitated for a moment, unsure of himself, then told Lange the way. The papal apartments were deserted but for a single nun in gray habit, busy with a feather duster. She smiled at Lange as he walked past the entrance to Father Donati's office and entered the next room.
He closed the door behind him and stood for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The heavy curtains were drawn, obscuring the view of St. Peter's Square, and the room was in deep shadow. Lange moved forward, across the simple Oriental carpet, toward the wooden desk. He stood next to the high-backed chair and ran his palm over the pale plush covering while he surveyed the desk. It was too simple for so powerful a man. Too severe. A blotter, a cylindrical container for his pens, a pad of lined paper for jotting down his thoughts. A white telephone with an old-fashioned rotary dial. Looking up, he noticed a painting of the Madonna. She seemed to be peering at Lange through the shadows.
He reached into the breast pocket of his clerical suit, removed an envelope, and dropped it on the blotter. It landed with a muffled metallic thump. He took one last look around the study, turned, and walked quickly out.
At the entrance of the appartamento, he paused to glare sternly at the Swiss Guard. 'You'll be hearing from me,' Lange snapped, then he turned and disappeared down the corridor.
The desk in the office of Secretary of State Marco Brindisi was quite different from the austere one in the papal study. It was a large Renaissance affair with carved legs and gold inlay. Those who stood before it tended to be uncomfortable, which suited Brindisi's purposes nicely.
At the moment, he sat alone, fingers formed into a bridge, eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance. A few minutes earlier, from his window overlooking St. Peter's Square, he had seen the Pope's motorcade speeding toward the river along the Via della Conciliazione. By now he was probably inside the synagogue.
The cardinal's gaze settled on the bank of television screens on the wall opposite his desk. His goal was to restore the Church to the power it had enjoyed during the Middle Ages, but Marco Brindisi was very much a man of the modern age. Gone were the days when Vatican bureaucrats wrote their memoranda on parchment with quill and ink. Brindisi had spent untold millions upgrading the machinery of the Vatican Secretariat of State in order to make the bureaucracy of the Church run more like the nerve center of a modern nation. He tuned the television to BBC International. A flood in Bangladesh, thousands killed, hundreds of thousands homeless. He jotted a minute to himself to make a suitable donation through Vatican charitable organizations to ease the suffering in any way possible. He switched on a second television and tuned it to RAI, the main Italian network. The third television he set to CNN International.
He had made good on his threat not to accompany the Pope on this disgraceful journey. As a result he was now supposed to be working on a benign-sounding letter of resignation, one that would cause the Holy See no embarrassment and raise no uncomfortable questions for the rabble in the Vatican press corps to ponder in their infantile columns. Had he any intention of resigning, his letter would have stressed a deep desire to return to pastoral duties, to tend to a flock, to baptize the young and anoint the sick. Any Vaticamsti with a bit of intelligence would recognize such a letter as deception on a grand scale. Marco Brindisi had been raised, educated, and nurtured to wield bureaucratic power within the Curia. The notion that he would willingly yield his authority was patently absurd. No one would believe such a letter, and the cardinal had no intention of writing it. Besides, he thought, the man who had ordered him to write it did not have long to live.
Had he started a letter of resignation, it would have raised uncomfortable questions in the days after the Pope's assassination. Had the two most powerful men in the Church experienced a falling out in recent weeks? Did the Cardinal Secretary of State have something to gain by the Pope's death? No letter of resignation, no questions. Indeed, thanks to a series of well-placed leaks, Cardinal Brindisi would be portrayed as the Pope's closest friend and confidant in the Curia, a man who admired the Pope immensely and was much beloved in return. These press clippings would capture the attention of the cardinals when they gathered for the next conclave. So would Marco Brindisi's smooth and adept handling of Church affairs in the traumatic days after the Pope's assassination. At such
