“Unfortunately, it does. Not a good kind of sense, but sense.”
“You have to get me inside that place.”
“I can’t. No one goes in or out during conclave.”
“I don’t give a crap about the rules, Neri. All I want to do is save lives. They can slap my hands about breaking the rules when they’re all safe. Okay, I don’t know the process. Tell me what’s happening in there right now. Talk me through it. I need to get a handle on how Abandonato’s going to do it.”
Neri took his cigarette tin from his pocket and took his time fixing a smoke. He lit it and breathed deeply before he answered. “The College of the Cardinals is meeting inside the Sistine Chapel. It is one of the most isolated parts of the entire Vatican, one of the hardest to get to. And you can’t get to it from the outside. You have to be inside the Holy See. Like I said, it is a fortress. The Cardinals will choose one of their number best suited to lead the Church into the future, and until they make their decision, the doors will stay locked.”
“Right, that’s pretty much what I thought,” Noah said, following the thought to its natural conclusion. “So every Cardinal in the world is in that one room, yes? The holiest of the holy men all in the same place?”
The Roman sucked on his thin cigarette. “Not quite. The eldest, the cardinals over 80, lose their right to participate in conclave. Around 120 of the 186 Cardinals will be inside the chapel.”
“Okay, so let’s rephrase it, assuming the worst: the only ones left will either have Alzheimer's or one foot and a couple of toes in the grave. That’s just about as bad.”
“I don’t like the way your mind works.”
“Try living with it every day,” Noah said. “You have to get me in there. You have to. Whatever it takes. If you have to beg your man, beg.”
“He isn’t my man, as you put it. There’s no love between the Corpo della Gendarmeria and the Carabinieri. It’s jurisdictional. It’s like cats pissing on their territory. They don’t want us in there. We’ve got no right to be there. And liaising to make it happen? It’s a nightmare.”
“You’ve got a badge, you’ve got a gun, get me in there.”
“It really isn’t that simple. This is Rome, my friend, home of bureaucracy. Take your worst nightmare, multiply it a thousandfold and you’ve got a jurisdictional fiasco. Throw in God’s faithful not wanting to admit crimes could actually happen on their patch and you’ve got the definition of a Vatican jurisdictional fiasco. It’s always that one step beyond the usual pain in the ass. What can I say? Once you walk across that line into Vatican City, all logic goes out the window.”
“I hear that’s what happens when God gets involved,” Noah said. “But there’s a time for paperwork, Neri, and there’s a time for a swift kick in the ass. We’re well past filling in requisitions. I’ll let you in on a little secret: sometimes it is a lot easier to beg forgiveness that it was to ask permission to do it in the first place.”
Neri looked at him with that world-weary face that seemed to say, Are you serious? And when he realized he was, he went very quiet.
Noah could almost read his mind: You get to go home tomorrow, I don’t. All the crap we cause today is mine to swim in for the rest of my natural life. That’s what Noah would have been thinking if he was in his place.
Gianni Abandonato was desperate. He almost ran every third step he was hurrying so quickly. Traffic was not in his favor. There wasn’t a cab to be found on the streets. He ended up running the entire length of Via Del Circo Massimo with his cassock lifted to his knees. There was nothing gracious or glorious about his race. He stared straight ahead, sweat streaming down his face as he ran. His breathing was out of control. He wasn’t a fit man. He lived in the stacks. His exercise was lifting a book down, turning a page. By the time he hit the Ponte Palatino he was on his knees, gasping and panting and struggling to push himself back to his feet and keep running.
Fear drove him.
He could have phoned the Corpo della Gendarmeria offices, but what was he going to say? I have poisoned the entire College of Cardinals? You have to stop the conclave? You have to get them out of the chapel? They wouldn’t believe him, and he wouldn’t have been able to convince them over the phone. He needed to be there. He needed them to see his face. Then they would unerstand.
But they still wouldn’t interrupt the conclave.
He was on a fool’s mission.
He knew that, but knowing it didn’t stop him from trying.
He had to. If not to save them, to save himself.
“Confiteor Deo omnipotenti et vobis,” he mumbled, the prayer comfortable on his lips. “Fratres, quia peccavi nimis, cogitatione, verbo, opere, et omissione: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, omnes Angelos et Sanctos, et vos, fratres, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.”I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do; and ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.
No confession would ever be enough if he couldn’t stop them lighting the fire.
He couldn’t think. Keeping his legs moving, staying on his feet, took all of his strength. By the time he reached Della Farnesina he was spent. Every new step came on trembling legs. His muscles burned. His lungs were on fire. He reached out to steady himself, stumbling against the walls of the houses set back off the street, and pushed himself on. And he was still so far from Bernini’s piazza. He regretted running, but he couldn’t stop. He knew what he must have looked like to passersby. He wasn’t a hero running to save the day.
He stumbled on.
Dominico Neri walked up to the Swiss Guard’s station and held out the badge that identified his as Carabinieri as though it would mysteriously lift the barrier for him. It didn’t. The guard barely looked at it and shrugged as though to say, So what? That doesn’t impress me.
There were four guards at the tation.
None of them seemed particularly enamored with the combination of hot weather and their heavy uniforms.
It wasn’t one of the main entrances. There was no point trying to get anywhere near the front of St. Peter’s with the crowd. It would be a fight they wouldn’t win. Neri wasn’t big on fights he couldn’t win. He led Noah to a side entrance. There was a sentry box, stern-faced boy-guards and a road beyond the barrier that opened up into a forecourt and beyond that splintered into a dozen paths between the cramped buildings.
“Get me the Inspector General,” Neri demanded, staring straight at the youngest guard. It was simple bully- boy tactics and he knew it. But Noah was right; there was plenty of time to apologize later. Right now it was enough that the young guard snapped to attention.
“Your identification,” one of the guards beside him demanded, a little older, a little less willing to be intimidated. He didn’t just want a little flash of the badge, he held out his hand. Neri handed over his ID. The guard looked pointedly at Noah.
“I don’t have any,” he said. “I’m still going inside though, so why don’t you just open up the barrier and save us all a lot of wasted time and energy.”
His almost flippant attitude didn’t amuse the soldier.
The guard who had taken Neri’s ID disappeared into the guardhouse. No doubt he was going to call the Carabinieri offices to confirm he was who he said he was, then call his superiors and ask for a reason to turn them away. A few minutes later he emerged with a wireless phone in his hand and an expression on his face that said, You lose. He handed the phone across to Neri and moved to block his way.
They weren’t getting in, Neri knew, even as he raised the phone to his ear.
Before he could begin to argue their case with the policeman on the other end of the line, Noah ducked under the barrier and sprinted off across the forecourt.
One of the guards drew his pistol and started to aim it at Noah’s back as though he intended to shoot him dead in his tracks.
“Don’t you dare, soldier!” Neri barked, slapping the man’s arm aside. “That man’s with the British Secret Service!” He had no idea what effect his words would have.
What he didn’t expect was for the youngest soldier to look at him and say, “Like James Bond 007 Licensed to Kill?” all in one rushed breath, as he took off after Noah Larkin as though someone had just lit a fire under his ass.
