God's Spy (30 page)

Dicanti and Fowler had reconnoitred the entrances to the Vatican from a discreet distance, always staying separate so as not to attract attention. In fifty minutes or less the novendial mass in Saint Peter’s would get under way.

A mere thirty minutes before, the revelation of Francis Casey’s name on the devotional card of the Virgin del Carmen had led to a frantic search on the Internet. From the press-agency postings, Dicanti and Fowler were able to glean the time and the place where Casey would next appear, in full view of anyone who wanted to read it.

And there they were, in Saint Peter’s Square.
‘We’ll have to go in by the main door.’
‘Won’t happen. It’s a classic funnel trap. Security has been tightened everywhere except for the main door, which is open to the public, so that’s exactly where they’ll be waiting for us. And even if we did manage to get in, we’d never get close to the altar. Casey and whoever is celebrating the mass with him will enter from the Saint Peter’s Sacristy. It’s easy to get to the basilica from there. And they won’t use the main altar, as its reserved for the Pope alone. They’ll use one of the secondary altars, and even so, there will be at least eight hundred people attending the ceremony.’

‘Do you think Karosky would really dare to act in front of so many people?’ Paola asked.

‘Our problem is that we don’t know who’s playing which role in this drama. If the Holy Alliance wants to see Casey dead, they won’t let us stop him celebrating the mass. And if they’re intent on catching Karosky, they won’t let us warn the cardinal either. He’s their bait. I’m convinced that, come what may, we’re nearing the end of this particular play.’

‘Well, by this stage there’s no longer any role for us. It’s already a quarter past eleven.’
‘Not true. We can still find a way into the basilica, dodge Cirin’s agents and slip into the sacristy. We have to stop Casey from celebrating his mass.’
‘And how are we going to do that, padre?’
‘We’ll take a route that Cirin could never have imagined.’

Four minutes later they stood at the front door of a sober five-storey building. Paola knew Fowler was right. Never in a million years would Cirin have imagined Fowler knocking, of his own free will, on the front door of the Palace of the Holy Office – the Sant’Uffizio.

One of the entrances to Saint Peter’s is located between the building that houses the Sant’Uffizio and Bernini’s colonnade. It consists of a roadblock and a guard station and there are usually only two Swiss Guards on duty. On this particular Sunday there were five, joined by a single Vatican police officer. He was carrying a file in his hand, inside which were Fowler’s and Dicanti’s photos, a fact of which both were ignorant. The officer, a member of the Vigilanza, watched as a couple who seemed to match their descriptions crossed the open space in front of him. He saw them only for an instant before they disappeared, and he wasn’t absolutely sure it was them. He wasn’t authorised to leave his post, so he didn’t set off in pursuit. His orders were to report back if the individuals concerned tried to enter the Vatican and to detain them, by force if necessary. It was clear to him that these two were important, so he pushed the button on his walkie-talkie and gave a description of what he had seen.

Just short of the corner with Porta Cavalleggerri, and a mere sixty feet from the guard station where the officer was taking orders via his walkie-talkie, stood the entrance to the Palace of the Sant’Uffizio. The door was locked, but there was a bell. Fowler kept his finger glued to the buzzer until he heard the sound of locks being opened on the other side. The face of an aged priest squinted through a crack in the doorway.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, his tone unpleasant.
‘We’re here to see Bishop Hanër.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Father Fowler.’
‘I’m not familiar with the name.’
‘I’m an old friend.’
‘Bishop Hanër is resting. Today is Sunday and the palazzo is

closed. Good day,’ he said, brushing them away as if he were swatting at flies.

‘Would you please tell me which hospital or cemetery I can find the bishop in then?’
The old priest was taken aback.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Bishop Hanër told me he wouldn’t rest until he’d made me pay for my sins, so he must be either sick or dead. There’s no other explanation.’
The look on the priest’s face changed a little, from hostile disinterest to slight irritation.
‘It appears you do know Bishop Hanër. Please wait outside.’ The priest shut the door in their faces.
‘How did you know that this Hanër would be there?’
‘Bishop Hanër hasn’t taken a single Sunday off in his entire life. It would have been a sad coincidence if he’d done so today.’
‘He’s a friend of yours?’
Fowler cleared his throat. ‘Actually, he hates me more than anyone in the world. Gonthas Hanër oversees the day-to-day working of the clergy. He’s an old German Jesuit who reins in the Holy Alliance when its overseas missions get out of hand – an ecclesiastical version of Internal Affairs. He’s the one who put me on trial. He has a real aversion to me because I wouldn’t say a single word about the missions they sent me on.’
‘But you were absolved?’
‘Barely. He told me that he had an anathema with my name on it, and sooner or later the Pope would sign it.’
‘An anathema?’
‘A decree of final excommunication. Hanër knows it’s the one thing I really fear in this world: that the Church I’ve given my life to will prevent me from entering Heaven when I die.’
Dicanti gave him a troubled look. ‘And so, padre, why exactly are we here?’
‘I’ve come to make a full confession.’

Sunday, 10 April 2005, 11.31 a.m.

The Swiss Guard tumbled to the floor as gracelessly as a drunk on the street; the only sound was that of his ornate pike clattering on to the marble floor. His throat was slit from one side to the other, completely severing his trachea.

One of the nuns came out of the sacristy when she heard the noise. She didn’t even get the chance to scream. Karosky struck her on the face as hard as he could. The nun fell to the floor face down. She was out cold. The killer took his time, searching around for the right spot beneath her black garments with his right foot. He was looking for her neck. He chose the spot he wanted and put all of his weight on the ball of his foot. Her neck made a dry cracking sound.

A second nun stuck her head out from the sacristy. She didn’t sense any danger. She just needed some help from her sister.
Karosky sank his knife deep into her right eye. He threw her to the floor and, as he dragged her over to the short hallway leading to the sacristy, he was already dragging a corpse.
He surveyed the three bodies, and then glanced at the door to the sacristy. He checked his watch.
He still had five minutes left to put the finishing touches to his work.

Sunday, 10 April 2005, 11.31 a.m.

What Fowler had said made Paola’s jaw drop, but before she could get a word out, the front door of the Sant’Uffizio swung open with a great flourish. Instead of the elderly priest who’d greeted them earlier, a bishop now stood before them. Slender in build, with immaculate blond beard and hair, he looked to be about 0 years old. His heavy German accent dripped with disdain as he spoke to Fowler.

‘Well, well. Look who’s turned up on my doorstep after all these years. To what do I owe this unexpected honour?’
‘Bishop Hanër, I need to ask a favour of you.’
‘I’m afraid, Father Fowler, that you aren’t in a position to ask me for anything. Some twelve years ago I made a request to you, and you didn’t say a single word for days. Days! The commission may have found you innocent, but I did not. Please be on your way.’
His index finger pointed in the direction of the Porta Cavalleggeri. To Paola, his finger seemed so straight and inflexible, she could imagine Fowler hanging from it. Instead Fowler offered up his own noose.
‘You haven’t heard what I have to offer you in exchange.’
The bishop crossed his arms. ‘Go on, Fowler.’
‘There’s a strong possibility that there will be a murder inside the basilica in the next half-hour. Ispector Dicanti and I are trying to stop it, but, sadly, we can’t get in. Camilo Cirin has denied us access. I ask your permission to pass through the palazzo as far as the car park so that we can enter the basilica without being seen.’ ‘And in exchange . . .?’
‘I will answer all of your questions about El Aguacate. Tomorrow.’
Hanër turned to Paola. ‘Show me some identification.’
Paola couldn’t take out her police badge as Troi had made her surrender it, but luckily she still had the ID card that enabled her to pass in and out of UACV headquarters. She held it authoritatively in the bishop’s face, praying that it would pass muster.
Hanër took the card from Dicanti’s hand. He studied her face and the photograph on the card, the UACV emblem and even the magnetic band.
‘So, you are telling the truth – though I’m inclined to believe, Fowler, that you’ve added concupiscence to your other sins.’
Paola turned away so that Hanër wouldn’t see the smile that was spreading across her face. She was relieved that Fowler managed to hold the bishop’s gaze with the same serious expression. Hanër cleared his throat, making no attempt to mask his contempt.
‘Fowler, where you’re going is surrounded by blood and death. My feelings towards you haven’t changed in the slightest. I have no desire to let you in.’
The priest was about to respond, but the bishop cut him off. ‘Even so, I know that you’re a man of your word so I will accept your petition. Today I will let both of you enter the basilica, but tomorrow, Fowler, you must come and meet me, and you will tell me the truth.’
With these words the bishop stepped aside. Fowler and Dicanti entered the building. The cream-coloured entrance hall was elegant but bare of mouldings or adornment of any kind. The whole building was filled with a Sunday silence, and Paola suspected that the only person who remained there was the tense and wiry man beside them. The bishop seemed to regard himself as the direct agent of God’s justice. She shivered just thinking about what such an obsessed mind might have done had he lived four hundred years earlier.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Padre Fowler. And I’ll have the pleasure of showing you a document I’ve been keeping for you.’
The priest led Paola down a hallway on the ground floor without looking back. He was perhaps afraid that he’d find Hanër still standing next to the door, waiting for him to come back the following morning.
‘Very unusual, padre. People normally leave the Church via the Sant’Uffizio rather than enter it,’ Paola said.
Fowler’s expression showed a combination of irony and sadness. ‘I hope that, in capturing Karosky, we aren’t saving the life of someone who will eventually reward me with excommunication.’
They came to the emergency exit. A nearby window looked out into the car park. Fowler pressed the bar in the middle of the door and stuck his head out. One hundred feet away the Swiss Guards were watching the street. He closed the door.
‘We’ll have to make it quick. We’ve got to get to Casey and explain the situation to him before Karosky finishes him off.’
‘How are we going to get there?’
‘We’ll go out into the car park and continue walking in single file, staying as close to the wall of the building as possible. We’ll arrive almost immediately at the building where the Pope holds his public audiences. We’ll keep going, hugging the wall, until we get to the corner. Then we’ll have to cross on the diagonal as quickly as we can. Keep your face turned to the right, because we don’t know if anyone will be looking out for us there. I’ll go first, agreed?’
Paola nodded her head and they set off, walking quickly. They made it to the sacristy without any problems. It was an imposing edifice, attached to the side of the basilica. The latter was open all year round to tourists and pilgrims and its public spaces functioned as a museum containing some of Christianity’s most beautiful treasures.
Fowler reached out to the door.
It was already half-open.

Sunday, 10 April 2005, 11.42 a.m.
‘A bad sign,’ Fowler said as quietly as he could.

Dicanti’s hand moved towards her waist, and she pulled out her revolver, a thirty-eight.
‘Let’s go in,’ she said.
‘I thought Troi had taken your pistol.’
‘He made me give up my automatic; it’s standard issue for every officer. This little toy is only for emergencies.’
They crossed the threshold. The museum was deserted, the lights in the display cases turned off. The marble lining the walls and the floors reflected the minuscule amount of sunlight that filtered through a handful of windows; although it was midday, the galleries were practically in darkness. Fowler led the way without a word, silently cursing the noise his shoes made on the floor. They passed straight through four of the museum’s galleries without looking to either side. But in the sixth gallery Fowler stopped in mid-step. On the ground a mere twenty inches in front of him, partially hidden in the shadows of the corridor he was about to enter, was an extraordinary sight: a white-gloved hand and an arm arrayed in vivid yellows, blues and reds.
Rounding the corner, they discovered that the arm was connected to a Swiss Guard. He still clutched his staff with his left hand, but what had been eyes were now just two empty sockets drained of blood. A little further along the corridor Paola found two nuns in black habits and wimples, united in a last embrace.
Their eyes were missing too.
Paola cocked her gun. She and Fowler looked at each other. ‘He’s here.’
They stood in the short hallway that led to the Vatican’s central sacristy, which was usually roped off, its double doors left open so that the public could satisfy its curiosity by staring into the room where the Holy Father put on his robes before celebrating mass.
The doors were closed.
‘I hope for God’s sake that we’re not too late,’ Paola said, her eyes staring at the bodies on the floor.
The Swiss Guards and the two nuns brought the total of Karosky’s victims to at least eight. Paola swore to herself that these would be the last. She didn’t need to think twice. She ran along the corridor to the door, stepping around the bodies. She threw open one side of the door with her left hand, her pistol raised and ready in the right. She crossed the threshold.
Inside was an octagonal room with ceilings some thirty-six feet high, suffused with a golden light. Directly in front of her was an altar standing between columns, with an oil painting hanging above it: the descent from the cross. Standing against the sublime, highly polished marble walls were ten armoires fashioned out of teak and myrtle, inside which hung the sacred vestments. If Paola had glanced up to the ceiling she would have seen a cupola adorned with beautiful frescos, through whose windows streamed the light that flooded the space. But Paola’s eyes were fixed on the two men standing on the other side of the room.
She recognised Cardinal Casey first. The second was also a cardinal and he looked vaguely familiar. At last she recognised him: Cardinal Pauljic.
The men were standing together at the altar. Pauljic, behind Casey, was making a few final adjustments to Casey’s robes when Dicanti barged in, her pistol pointed directly at them.
‘Where is he?’ she shouted, her voice echoing in circles around the cupola. ‘Have you seen him?’
His eyes riveted on Dicanti’s pistol, the American cardinal spoke very slowly. ‘Where is who, miss?’
‘Karosky – the man who slaughtered the Swiss Guard and the two nuns.’
She hadn’t finished speaking when Fowler entered the sacristy. He stood next to Paola. He looked at Casey, and then, for the first time, he and Pauljic exchanged glances.
There was fire, and recognition too, in those eyes.
‘Hello, Victor,’ said the priest, his voice deep and hoarse.
Cardinal Pauljic, better known at Victor Karosky, put his left arm around Cardinal Casey’s neck. With his right hand he took out Maurizio Pontiero’s pistol and placed it against the cardinal’s temple.
‘Don’t move!’ Dicanti shouted, her voice reverberating around the room.
‘Don’t you move a muscle, Miss Dicanti, or we’ll get a good look at the inside of the cardinal’s head.’
The killer’s voice hit Paola with the force of all the anger, fear and adrenaline that pulsed through her veins. She remembered how angry she had been when the monster had called her on the phone, right after she’d seen Pontiero’s body.
She took aim carefully.
Karosky was more than thirty feet away and only part of his head and his forearms were visible as he stood behind Cardinal Casey, his human shield.
Even with her skill and a revolver, it was an impossible shot.
‘Put the gun down on the floor, or I’ll kill him right here.’
Paola bit her lower lip to keep herself from screaming. She had the killer right in front of her, yet she couldn’t do a thing.
‘Don’t do it, dottoressa. He’d never hurt the cardinal. Isn’t that right, Victor?’
Karosky tightened his grip around Casey’s neck. ‘Of course I would. Put the gun on the ground, Dicanti. Put it down!’
‘Please, do as he asks,’ Casey groaned in a quavering voice.
‘Excellent acting, Victor.’ Fowler’s voice was shaking with rage. ‘Remember how we thought it was impossible that the killer could have got out of Cardoso’s room, because it was locked up tight? Damn, that part was easy. He never left.’
‘What?’ Paola didn’t know what to make of Fowler’s words.
‘We broke down the door. We didn’t see anyone. And then there was a very opportune cry for help about some mad attack taking place by the service lift? Victor was in the room, there’s no doubt about it. Were you under the bed? Hiding in the closet?’ ‘Very astute, padre. Now put the gun down,ispettore.‘
‘But this cry for help and the description of what the attacker looked like came from a trustworthy source, a man of faith. A cardinal. The killer’s accomplice.’
‘Shut up, Fowler!’
‘What did he promise you if you’d take his competitors out of the picture, Victor? – if you helped him in his quest for a glory he stopped deserving a very long time ago.’
‘That’s enough!’ Karosky looked like a madman with his face drenched in sweat and one of the fake eyebrows he’d glued in place dangling precariously over one eye.
‘Did he come to see you at the institute, Victor? He’s the one who sent you there – isn’t that so?’
‘Enough of these absurd allegations, Fowler. Tell the woman to put the gun down, or this madman is going to kill me,’ Casey commanded. He was clearly desperate.
‘Tell us His Eminence’s plan, Victor,’ Fowler said, ignoring Casey. ‘You had to pretend to attack him right in the middle of Saint Peter’s? And he would dissuade you from carrying out the attack, right in front of all of God’s people and the television cameras?’
‘You keep talking, and I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!’
‘You would have been the one who ended up dead. And he’d be the hero. What did he promise you in exchange for the keys to the kingdom, Victor?’
‘Heaven, you fucking son of a bitch! Eternal life!’
Karosky lifted the gun from Casey’s temple, aimed it at Dicanti and fired.
Fowler shoved Paola forward and the pistol slipped out of her hand. Karosky’s shot just missed Dicanti’s head and destroyed Fowler’s left shoulder.
Karosky let Casey go and the cardinal scurried off to hide between two of the armoires. Paola, with no time to look for her gun, threw herself headlong at Karosky, her hands balled into fists. Her right shoulder smashed into his stomach, knocking him against the wall, but she didn’t manage to wind him, as he was protected by the extra padding he wore beneath his flowing robes in order to look fatter. Even so, Pontiero’s pistol clattered to the ground with a hollow metallic echo.
Karosky beat Dicanti on the back and she howled in pain but managed to get to her feet and smashed Karosky in the face. He looked dazed and almost lost his balance.
Then Paola made her only mistake. She looked around for the pistol. Karosky seized the moment to hit her in the face, the stomach, the kidneys. He grabbed her round the neck, just as he had done with Casey. But this time he was holding a short object with which he caressed Paola’s face: a common fish knife, but a very sharp one.
‘Ah, Paola, you have no idea how much I’m going to enjoy this,’ he whispered into her ear.
‘Victor!’
Karosky turned around. Fowler was sitting up, one knee positioned on the marble floor, his left shoulder shattered, his bloodsoaked arm dangling inertly towards the floor. His right hand held Paola’s revolver and he aimed directly at Karosky’s forehead.
‘You won’t shoot, Fowler.’ Karosky was breathing heavily. ‘We’re not so very different. The two of us have shared the very same hell. And you swore in your vows that you would never again take a life.’
Making a tremendous effort, his face flushed with pain, Fowler managed to lift his left hand to his priest’s collar. With a single gesture, he tore it off and threw it into the air between Karosky and himself. It spun in circles, the starched cloth an immaculate white save for one red stain, where Fowler had pressed his thumb and torn it loose. Karosky watched it, hypnotised, but he didn’t see it hit the ground.
Fowler fired once – a single, deadly accurate shot that hit Karosky straight between the eyes.
The killer fell to the ground. From far away he heard the voices of his parents calling out to him. And he went to join them.