God's Spy (18 page)

Thursday, 7 April 2005, 4.14 p.m.

Paola stood at the entrance to the building with a look of surprise on her face. On the far side of the piazza a long queue of cars waited at a petrol station. Dante explained to her that, since the Vatican didn’t charge taxes, prices were thirty per cent lower than in Italy. You had to have a special permit to fill your tank at one of the city’s seven stations, but even so the queues were never-ending.

Paola, Dante and Fowler were waiting outside while the Swiss Guards who watched over the front door of the Domus Sanctae Marthae informed someone inside of their presence. Paola had a few moments to chew over everything that had happened that morning. Two hours earlier, at the UACV headquarters, she had pulled Dante aside the moment they had escaped from Troi.

‘I’d like a word with you.’
Dante avoided Paola’s eyes but followed her to her office. ‘I know what you are going to say to me, Dicanti – that we’re all

together in this. Right?’
‘That I already know. And I’ve also noticed that, like Troi, you call
me inspector and not doctor. Because it’s a lower rank than your
own. I don’t mind your inferiority complex as long as it doesn’t
interfere with me doing my job. Like your little performance earlier
this morning with the photographs.’
Dante turned red. ‘I just wanted to let you know. It’s nothing
personal.’
‘You wanted to warn me about Fowler? Well you’ve done that. Is
my position clear, or must I be even more concrete?’
‘I’ve had enough of your clarity already, ispettore.’ Dante dragged
out the word, sounding almost like a guilty child and rubbing his
cheek. ‘You knocked my fucking fillings out. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t break a bone in your hand.’
‘Nor I, because you have a very hard face.’
‘I’m a hard man in more ways than one.’
‘I don’t have the slightest interest. And don’t forget that.’ ‘Is that a woman’s no, ispettore?’
He was making Paola angry again. ‘What exactly is a woman’s
no?’
‘The kind that’s spelt Y-E-S.’
‘It’s a no that’s spelt N-O, you chauvinist bastard.’
‘Calm down. No need to get excited, hot pants.’
Dicanti silently cursed him. She was falling into Dante’s trap, letting him play with her emotions. But everything was OK. She would
adopt a more formal tone, make her disdain for him impossible to
miss. She decided to imitate Troi, since he always came out of this
type of confrontation smelling like roses.
‘OK, now that we’ve clarified that, I have to tell you that I’ve
spoken with our American counterpart. I have expressed my fears
concerning his past. Fowler gave me a very convincing explanation,
which, in my judgement, is sufficient for me to trust him. I want to
thank you for the trouble you took to dig up the information on
Fowler. It’s a point in your favour.’
Dante was surprised by Paola’s icy tone. He had lost the match
and he knew it.
‘As the person in charge of the investigation, I have to formally
ask you if you are ready to give your full support in capturing Victor
Karosky.’
‘Of course,ispettore.’ Dante spat the words out like red-hot nails. ‘All that’s left is to ask you why you came back so quickly.’ ‘I called my superiors to complain, but they were no help. They
ordered me to rise above personal animosity.’
Paola’s ear pricked up at that last phrase. Fowler denied that
Dante had anything personal against him, but the superintendent’s
words seemed to indicate otherwise. Dicanti had already sensed
once before that the two of them knew each other from some earlier
time, in spite of the way they acted to the contrary. She decided she
would ask Dante directly.
‘Had you met Anthony Fowler before?’
‘No, ispettore,’ Dante said. His voice was firm, unhesitating. ‘His case file showed up very quickly.’
‘The Corpi di Vigilanza is very well organised.’
Paola decided to drop it.
As she was ready to leave, Dante said something that pleased her
immensely. ‘Just one thing: if you ever feel the need to call me to
order again, I prefer the slapping method. I really don’t care for
formality.’

Paola asked Dante to show them round the building where the cardinals were going to reside. And there they were: the Domus Sanctae Marthae, Saint Martha’s House. Located to the west of the basilica, inside the walls of the Vatican.

From outside its appearance was austere. Straight, elegant lines, without mouldings, adornment or statues. Compared to the marvels that surrounded it, the Domus was as unobtrusive as a golf ball in a barrel of snow. It would have been difficult for the occasional tourist – who wasn’t allowed into that restricted area of the Vatican in any case – to give the building any more than a cursory glance.

But when the authorisation arrived and the Swiss Guards let them pass through the entrance, Paola discovered that the inside was completely different from the exterior. Here was what looked like a fashionable hotel, complete with marble floors and tropical hardwood furniture. Traces of lavender wafted through the air. While they were waiting in the vestibule, Dicanti looked around. There were paintings on every wall, and Paola recognised the style of the great Dutch and Italian masters of the sixteenth century; and not one of them appeared to be a reproduction.

‘Holy shit.’ Paola was trying to limit her outbursts, but she was astounded.
‘I know what you mean,’ Fowler said.
Dicanti recalled that Fowler’s personal circumstances had hardly been pleasant during his stay at the Domus.
‘It’s a complete contrast with the rest of the buildings in the Vatican – at least, the ones I’m familiar with. The new and the old.’
‘Do you know anything about the history of this place? You’ll probably remember that in 978 there were two conclaves, one right after the other, only two months apart.’
‘I was a little girl, but I still have a few pictures in my mind of those days.’ For a short while Paola let herself sink into the past.
Ice cream in Saint Peter’s Square. Mamma and Papa have lemon flavour, I have chocolate-and-strawberry. The pilgrims are singing; there is happiness in the air. Daddy’s hand, strong, with deep grooves in his palm. I love to hold on to his fingers and stroll around while morning turns into afternoon. We look up towards the chimney and we see the white smoke. Papa lifts me on to his shoulders. His smile is the best thing in the world. I drop my ice cream and I cry, but Papa just laughs again and promises me that he’ll buy me another one. ‘We’ll eat to the health of the Bishop of Rome,’ he says.
‘Two Popes were elected within a short space of time, since the successor to Paul IV, John Paul I, died suddenly only thirty-three days after he came to power. There was a second conclave in which John Paul II was chosen. In those days the cardinals resided in tiny cells near the Sistine Chapel. With no home comforts and no airconditioning, and with the heat of the Roman summer as heavy as lead, a few of the oldest cardinals went through a real Calvary. More than one had to seek emergency treatment. Once he had put on the fisherman’s sandals, Wojtyla personally decided that he would do the groundwork so that, when he died, none of this would happen again. The result is this building. Dicanti, are you listening to me?’
Paola emerged from her daydream with a guilty look. ‘Sorry, I was lost in thought. Won’t happen again.’
At that moment Dante came back. He had gone ahead in order to talk to the person responsible for security at the Domus. Paola noticed that he was avoiding the American priest, possibly just to avoid a confrontation. Both of them were forcing themselves to speak normally, but Paola doubted that Fowler had been entirely honest with her when he had suggested their rivalry could be ascribed to Dante’s jealousy. For now, even though the team was fastened together with safety pins, the best she could do was to maintain the farce and ignore the problem – something that Paola had never been very good at.
Dante returned in the company of a tiny nun, who was laughing and sweating inside her black habit. Introduced as Sister Helena Tobina, from Poland, she was Saint Martha’s director. She proceeded to give them a thorough report on all the improvements that had been made in the building. The works had been carried out in several stages, the last in 00. The group walked up a wide staircase, every step of which was polished to a sheen. The building consisted of several floors with large hallways, thick carpets, and doors to the individual rooms on either side.
‘There are one hundred and six suites, and twenty-two individual rooms. All of the furniture dates back several centuries and consists of valuable pieces donated by German and Italian families.’
The nun opened the door to one of them. It was a large room, some two hundred feet square, with parquet floors and a beautiful rug. The bed frame was made of wood, with an exquisite carved headboard. A built-in wardrobe, a desk and a bathroom made up the rest of the room.
‘This room belongs to one of the six cardinals who has yet to arrive. The other hundred and nine have already taken theirs.’
Dicanti mused that at least two of those who were absent weren’t ever going to show up.
‘Are the cardinals safe here, Sister Helena?’ Paola asked cautiously. She wasn’t sure to what extent the nun knew about the current threat to the men in red robes.
‘Very safe, my child, very safe. The building has only one entrance, with Swiss Guards on duty twenty-four hours a day. All the telephones have been taken out of the rooms, and the televisions, too.’
Paola found the precautions strange.
‘The cardinals must remani incommunicado during the Conclave. No telephones, no mobile phones, no radios, no televisions, no magazines, no Internet. No contact whatsoever with the outside world under pain of being excommunicated.’ Fowler cleared things up for Paola. ‘Orders of John Paul II, just before he died.’
‘But it can’t be easy to isolate them completely. What do you think, Dante?’
The superintendent stuck out his chest. It gave him great pleasure to enumerate his organisation’s heroic undertakings, as if he were carrying them out personally.
‘You’ll be happy to know,ispettore, that we are using the most up-to-date technology in signal inhibitors.’
‘I’m not really familiar with spy jargon. Mind explaining?’ ‘We have at our disposal electronic equipment that has created two electromagnetic fields. One here and the other in the Sistine Chapel. In practice, they operate like two invisible umbrellas. Underneath them no appliance that requires contact with the outside world can function – neither a directional microphone nor any kind of spyware. Give your cellphone a try.’
Paola picked it up and saw that it had no coverage. They went outside to the hallway. No signal at all.
‘And what about the food?’
‘It is prepared here, in our kitchens,’ Sister Helena said proudly. ‘The kitchen staff is composed of ten nuns, who perform the different services provided here at Saint Martha’s throughout the day. At night, the only staff present are the people at the front desk, just in case some emergency should take place. No one else is authorised to set foot inside the Domus, except for the cardinals.’
Paola opened her mouth to ask a question, but it stuck in her throat because just as she was about to speak, a terrible scream reached them from the floor above.

Thursday, 7 April, 4.31 p.m.

Gaining the man’s confidence to get into his room had been easy. The cardinal now had plenty of time to regret his mistake. His error was slowly being spelled out in painful letters as Karosky made each new cut into the cardinal’s exposed chest.

‘Calm down, Your Eminence. It’s not much longer now.’

The victim fought back but his strength was waning. The blood, which had soaked the bedspread and was falling in thick drops on to the Persian rug, carried his strength away with it. Yet he didn’t lose consciousness for a second. He felt every blow Karosky dealt him, every cut of the blade.

Karosky finished his handiwork on the cardinal’s chest and proudly contemplated what he had written. He held the camera with a firm grip and captured the moment: after all, he couldn’t leave without a memento. Sadly, he couldn’t use a digital video camera here, but this disposable camera served his purpose admirably. He mocked Cardinal Cardoso as he wound the film on with his thumb.

‘Say hello to the camera, Your Eminence. Oh, but of course you can’t, because I’m just about to remove your tongue. I need your gift for languages.’

Karosky was the only one laughing at his macabre joke. He put the camera down and brought the knife right up to the cardinal’s face, sticking his own tongue out in a mocking gesture. And then he made his first mistake. He started to untie the gag. The man lying on the bed was terrified, but he wasn’t as far gone as the other victims had been. He pulled together the little strength he had left and let out a loud scream that resounded through the hallways of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

60

Thursday, 7 April 2005, 4.31 p.m.

Paola reacted immediately when she heard the scream. She gestured to the nun to stay right where she was and then took the stairs three at a time, her pistol drawn. Fowler and Dante followed, one step behind. Their thighs nearly cramped with the exertion of racing up the steps at such speed. Arriving on the floor above they came to a stop, disoriented. They stood in the middle of a long hallway full of doors.

‘Where did it come from?’ said Fowler.

‘I wish I knew,’ said Paola. ‘Let’s stay together. It could be him, and he’s a dangerous son of a bitch.’
Paola chose to begin with the left side, across from the lift. She thought she heard a noise in Room 6. Her ear was pressed against the wooden door when Dante motioned to her to move away. The stocky Vatican officer gestured to Fowler; the two of them smashed against the door, and it gave way easily. Both of them went in, Dante going ahead and Paola covering the sides. Fowler stayed in the doorway, his hands at chest level.
Lying on the bed was a cardinal. He was very pale and scared to death but he was in one piece. He eyed the two policemen fearfully, and raised his hands.
‘Don’t hurt me, please.’
Dante looked around the room and lowered his gun.
‘Where did the noise come from?’
‘The next room over, I think,’ the man said, pointing with a finger, his hands still aloft.
They ran back out to the hallway. Paola stood to one side of Room 7 while Dante and Fowler served as a human battering ram a second time. Their shoulders hit the door hard but at first it didn’t budge. The second time, it gave way with a tremendous crash.
A cardinal was lying on the bed. He was very pale and very dead but otherwise the room was empty. Dante crossed the space in two quick strides and looked into the bathroom. He shook his head. And then there was another shout.
‘Help me! Help me, please!’
All three ran out of the room. At the end of the hallway, next to the lift, a man lay on the ground, his red robes spread in an oval shape around him. Paola got there first and knelt at his side, but the cardinal was already getting up.
‘Cardinal Casey!’ Fowler exclaimed, recognising his compatriot.
‘I’m OK, I’m OK. He only pushed past me. He ran that way,’ the cardinal said, pointing at a metal door that was distinct from the wooden ones to the rooms.
‘Stay here with him, padre.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m OK. Just catch that man,’ said the cardinal.
‘Go back to your room and close the door,’ Fowler told him.
The three rushed through the door at the end of the hallway and down the service stairs. The cramped space reeked of damp and a smell of rot seemed to seep from beneath the paint on the walls. The passageway was also badly lit.
Perfect for an ambush, Paola thought. Karosky already has Pontiero’s gun. He could be waiting for us at any turn in the stairs, ready to blow off our heads before we even know about it.
In spite of this, they flew down the steps as quickly as they could, tripping up more than once. They followed the stairs to the basement, one level below the street. The door there was closed with a heavy lock.
‘He couldn’t have got out this way.’
They started back up again. Noises were coming from the first floor. They opened the door and walked directly into the kitchen. Dante walked ahead of Paola, his finger on the trigger, the barrel of his gun pointing straight ahead. Three nuns were rummaging about among the frying pans. They froze in their tracks, staring at the police officers, their eyes like saucers.
‘Did anyone come through here?’ Paola shouted at them.
The nuns didn’t answer. They simply stared with a bovine look on their faces. One of them ignored Paola completely and began slicing green beans and tossing them into a cooking pot.
‘Did anyone come through here? A friar!’ Paola repeated.
The nuns shrugged their shoulders.
Fowler put his hand on Paola’s arm. ‘Let them be. They don’t speak Italian.’
Dante walked all the way through the kitchen until he came upon a very solid looking metal door six feet across. He tried to open it, but with no success. He looked at one of the nuns and gestured to the door, holding up his Vatican ID. She came over and slipped a key into a concealed lock. The door made a buzzing noise as it opened on to a side street off the Piazza Santa Marta. The Palace of Saint Charles was directly in front of them.
‘Shit! Didn’t the nun say there was only one exit in and out of the Domus?’
‘Well, see for yourself. There are two,’ said Dante.
‘Let’s retrace our steps.’
They ran back up the emergency stairs, from the vestibule to the top floor. There they found that the stairway led to the roof. But at the top, the door was bolted and barred.
‘No one escaped through here.’
Out of breath, they sat down in the dirt and dust of the narrow passageway, their lungs pumping like bellows.
‘Do you think he’s hiding in one of the rooms?’ Fowler asked.
‘I don’t think so. I’m fairly sure he slipped away,’ said Dante.
‘But how?’
‘Probably through the kitchen, when the nuns weren’t looking. There’s no other explanation. The other doors have locks or they’re guarded like the front entrance. Impossible to exit by the windows: it would be too risky. Agents of the Vigilanza make their rounds every few minutes. And it’s the middle of the day, for crying out loud.’
Paola was furious. If she hadn’t been so out of breath after running up and down the flights of stairs, she would have been banging the wall with her fists.
‘I need your help, Dante. Get them to cordon off the piazza.’
Dante shook his head emphatically. His forehead was soaked with dark beads of sweat that rained down on to his leather jacket, and his hair, usually so well combed, was a mess.
‘How do you want me to call them, my dearest? Nothing works in this fucking building. There are no cameras in the hallways, and telephones, mobiles, walkie-talkies – nothing works here. Nothing more complex than a light bulb, nothing that requires waves or zeros and ones in order to function. Let’s hire a carrier pigeon – how about that?’
‘And by the time it gets there, he’ll be far away. No one is going to notice one more friar in the Vatican, Dicanti,’ said Fowler.
‘Can someone please explain to me how that fucker got out of this building then? It has three floors, the windows are locked and we had to break down the damn door. All the entrances to the building are guarded or locked,’ Dicanti said, banging on the door to the roof again and again. It answered her with a loud echo and a cloud of dust.
‘We were so close,’ said Dante.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, and fuck. We had him!’
It was Fowler who stated the terrible truth, and his words reverberated in Paola’s ears like a shovel scraping against stone: ‘What we have now, Dicanti, is another dead body.’