The First Apostle

inquiry originated here in Italy, at an address only a few miles outside Rome.”

“Why would they choose an American site?”

Gregori Mandino shrugged. “On the Internet, geographical locations are irrelevant.

People pick whatever site they find the easiest to use or the fastest or most comprehensive.”

“And the translation? Is this what the program provided?”

“No, though it’s fairly close. The American site suggested ‘In this place or location the liars are concealed, ’ which is clumsy at best. My language specialist’s interpretation is much more elegant: ‘Here lie the liars.’ ”

“The Latin is clear enough,” Vertutti murmured. “ ‘Hic’ is obviously ‘here,’ and I would perhaps have expected ‘vatis mendacis’—‘false prophets’—rather than

‘vanidici,’ but why ‘latitant’? Surely ‘occubant’ would have been more literal?”

Mandino smiled slightly and extracted two photographs. “We anticipated that question, Eminence, and you would have been right if this inscription had been found at a grave site. ‘Occubant’ —‘buried’ or ‘resting in the grave’—would have been far more likely. But this inscription isn’t on a tombstone. It’s carved on a small oblong stone that’s part of the wall above a fireplace in a six-hundred-year-old converted farmhouse in the Monti Sabini region.”

“What?” For the first time, Vertutti was shocked. “Let me see those pictures,” he instructed.

Mandino passed them over and Vertutti studied them for a few moments. One was a close-up view of the inscription, and the other several stones over a large fireplace.

“Then why,” he asked, “are you so certain this has anything at all to do with the Codex?”

“I wasn’t at first, and that’s why I decided to investigate further. And that, I’m afraid, is when things went wrong.”

“You’d better explain.”

“The person who made this inquiry left their e-mail address—it’s one of the conditions of using this particular site—and that made tracing them a lot easier. We identified the house from which the request for the translation was made. It’s located a short distance off the road between Ponticelli and Scandriglia, and was bought last year by an English couple named Hampton.”

“And then what did you do?” Vertutti demanded, fearing the worst.

“I instructed my deputy to send two men to the house when we believed the owners would be away in Britain, but what we didn’t know was that Signora Hampton was still on the property. For some reason she hadn’t accompanied her husband. The men broke in and began searching for the source of the Latin phrase, and quickly located it carved into the stone above the fireplace. It had been covered in plaster that a team of builders are replacing and only part of the stone had been exposed.

That section contained the inscription.

“They’d been ordered to find the Latin phrase and anything else that might be relevant, and their first task was to check the entire stone for any other inscriptions.

The men began chipping away the plaster but Signora Hampton heard them, and came down to investigate. When she saw what was happening she ran away. One of the men chased her, and in a scuffle on the stairs she fell against the banister rail and broke her neck. It was a simple accident.”

This was even worse than Vertutti had expected. An innocent woman dead. “A simple accident?” he echoed. “Do you really expect me to believe that? I know the way your organization works. Are you sure she wasn’t pushed? Or even beaten to death?”

Mandino smiled coldly. “I can only repeat what I’ve been told. We’ll never know what really happened in that house, but the woman would have had to die eventually. I understand that the provisions of the Sanction are unambiguous.”

In the middle of the seventh century, Pope Vitalian had written the Codex by hand, not wishing to entrust his recommendations to even the most devoted of scribes.

Down the centuries, the contents of the Codex had been known to only a handful of the most senior and trusted men in the Vatican, including the reigning pope. None had recorded any reservations about the steps Vitalian had suggested—known as the Vitalian Sanction—should any of the forbidden relics surface, but that was hardly surprising.

“Don’t you dare presume to lecture me about the Sanction. How do you even know about it?” Vertutti demanded, his eyes flashing with annoyance.

Mandino shrugged. “Again, from your predecessor. He told me that anyone who finds this document or has knowledge of its contents would be considered so dangerous to the Church that his or her life would be forfeit. For the good of the Church, obviously.”

“The cardinal exaggerated.” Vertutti leaned forward to emphasize the point. “This document must be recovered, and under no circumstances must it be allowed to enter the public domain. That much is true. The provisions of the Sanction are secret, but I can tell you that assassination is not one of the options suggested.”

“Really, Eminence? The Church has openly sanctioned assassinations in the past. In fact, it’s even condoned them inside the Vatican, and you know that as well as I do.”

“Rubbish. Name one single incident.”

“That’s easy. Pope Pius XI was almost certainly assassinated in 1939 to prevent him making a crucial speech condemning Fascism at a time when the papacy had decided to embrace it. It was no surprise when his successor, Pius XII, openly supported the Third Reich.”

“That’s a frivolous allegation that has never been proven.”

Mandino spat back, equally angry, “Of course it hasn’t. But that’s because the Vatican has refused to allow independent investigations into events that occur inside the Holy See. But just because the Vatican refuses to acknowledge something, that does not mean it hasn’t happened or doesn’t exist.”

“Some people will try anything to besmirch the good name of the Church.” Vertutti sat back, convinced he’d scored a point. “And your hypocrisy astounds me. You trying to lecture me about morality and murder.”

“It’s not hypocritical at all, Eminence.” Again, Mandino sneered the word. “At least the Cosa Nostra doesn’t hide behind the trappings of religion. Just like us, the hands of the Catholic Church have been stained red with blood throughout the centuries, and still are today.”

For a few moments both men remained silent, glaring at each other across the table, then Vertutti dropped his gaze.

“This is getting us nowhere, and obviously we’ll have to work together.” He took another sip of his coffee to emphasize the change of mood. “Now, was the search by these men successful? What else did they find?”

“Nothing much,” Mandino replied calmly, as if they hadn’t, a few seconds ago, exchanged harsh words. “The same Latin text that the Hamptons found. My two men cleared all the plaster off the stone and photographed it, and made a written copy as well, but they found no other words on it.”

Vertutti shook his head. Not just a death, but a completely pointless one. “So you’re saying that the woman died for nothing.”

Mandino gave a tight smile. “Not entirely. We did find something that the Hamptons probably dismissed as unimportant. Look closely at this photograph and you’ll see it.”

Vertutti took the picture from Mandino—it was the close-up of the inscription—and stared at it for a few seconds. “I can’t see anything else,” he said.

“It isn’t another word, just eight letters: one group of two and another of three, close together, and a further group of three letters. They’re at the bottom of the inscription, and very much smaller, almost like a signature.” Mandino paused, savoring the moment. “The first two groups of letters spell ‘PO’ and ‘LDA,’ and I think we can both work out what they mean. The final three are ‘MAM,’ and we believe they stand for ‘Marcus Asinius Marcellus.’ And that, I think, is all the proof we need.”

II

They knew the house should be deserted, but even so Rogan and Alberti waited until just after ten thirty in the evening before they approached the building: it was just possible that the police might have left an officer there. Rogan walked around to the back, checking for any telltale lights shining or cars parked outside, but saw nothing. Satisfied, he and Alberti walked to the back door.