The Assassini (81 page)

“It had begun not long after Callistus became ill. The more I looked at it the more I came to believe there was cause and effect. Sister Elizabeth put this to me, I ridiculed her … she knows she has my apologies, but Val had been killed and above all I didn’t want Elizabeth to suffer the same fate. I decided that the choosing of the next pope was also deeply intertwined in all of this—but how? What held the murder victims in the pattern? The fact that they had all been in Paris during the Nazi Occupation. They were all men who knew certain things, or could have known … and they were all being killed. And, as Father Dunn said to me in his familiar puckish way, I was the obvious killer. I was inevitably a possible pope and I was cleaning up my checkered past—because, after all, I knew what had gone on and I hadn’t been killed! An excellent, logical theory—but, of course, I wasn’t killing anyone.

“Then came the murder of Sister Valentine and Father Dunn’s report that it was a silver-haired priest, a description, and I suddenly realized that it must be my old comrade, August Horstmann, whom I hadn’t laid eyes on since the end of the war. Where had he come from? I knew that at one time he’d gone to live in a monastery in his native Holland. But who else had
known? And how had August—a peaceful soul—been turned back into a killer?

“There was only one answer to that last question—he would take his orders from only one man. Only one
 … Simon
. But I knew I wasn’t ordering the killings. Someone had ordered the killing of Sister Valentine, whom I had known from her childhood, the daughter of my old friend Hugh Driskill.… Who could have done such a thing? Who knew about Simon’s past?

“Monsignor Sandanato knew much of my past, that’s true. But someone else knew it all … someone who, in the time since Callistus had become ill, had taken my faithful, zealous Sandanato away from my side—no, Pietro, no protestations, it doesn’t matter—”

Sandanato was suddenly on his feet, swaying, pointing a shaking finger at D’Ambrizzi. “You are the one! You are the destroyer of the Church! You, you and your Curtis Lockhardt, who whored with his nun, your precious Sister Valentine, your darling Sister Val, who ignored and despised everything on which the Church was built and which it taught … she had to die, you must see that, you must see that she was bringing ruin to the Church, standing everything on its head! She supported communist priests, she defied the teachings on birth control, she ranted against all that is sacred, she was a heroine in the eyes of the weak and the disobedient who would undermine and tear down the Church! She and her kind would destroy the Church! And, so help me God,
the Church must be saved
!”

Elizabeth felt Driskill’s muscles flexing, straining, as if he might explode across the table. She held him back. “Wait, Ben, wait …”

A deathly quiet had dropped across the table. Sandanato stood staring at D’Ambrizzi, but his eyes might have been sightless. Tremors raced through his body like electrical charges shaking him, shorting out. He spoke again, as if he were alone, muttering to himself. “She was going to write a book about the Nazis and the Church—she would have destroyed you, Eminence! She would have brought it all down on us, a rain of fire and desolation!
She had to be stopped, order had to be restored, I realized who the Church must turn to—”

“Pietro,” D’Ambrizzi said quietly, “sit down now, my son.” He waited while Sandanato sank into his chair. The tortured, sensitive face was working, tears streaming: he knew the truth, knew he was broken on the wheel of things so much larger than himself.

He hadn’t understood. He had been used.

D’Ambrizzi looked away from Sandanato, as if he were sorrowfully casting him into darkness. “Who could have led my poor young friend astray? Only someone who knew as much of the past as I did. The man sent to Paris by the pope, the man who came to be known as the Collector. Indelicato. He was the man who had raked through the rubble of World War Two to uncover everything that he could of the
assassini
. He dogged my tracks, he interrogated me, he threatened me, but always only up to a point … because he knew I had an insurance policy. I knew what he and Pius had done and ordered done, just as they knew what I had done … what some of you have heard referred to as the Pius Plot.

“Indelicato wants to become pope. He perceived me as his greatest challenge.
He
needed to wipe out the past, the witnesses from the war, and his was an elegant, mathematical solution. He would remove the men who knew too much. But why not simply remove me? So much easier—an accident, a heart attack—so much easier except for one thing. The weapon he planned to use for the killing would be the man who had long ago killed
for me
. Horstmann. And Horstmann would never turn on me. But Indelicato was right—Horstmann would still kill
for Simon … for me
. Indelicato’s task was then to find Horstmann, not a great difficulty for Indelicato since he had tracked down all the living survivors of the
assassini
after the war was over. But Indelicato not only had to find Horstmann—he had to convince Horstmann that it was Simon calling him back to do battle for the Church.

“So Indelicato had no choice—he had to seduce Sandanato. An intellectual seduction crafted to appeal to Pietro’s zealot’s soul. It was the one spot where Pietro was vulnerable. Pietro loved me, admired my capabilities,
the riches and power I helped bring to the Church … but I am not a pious man, I have blasphemed in word and deed and Pietro has often prayed for my soul. Indelicato recruited him in the early days, once we knew the truth of Callistus’s health, once we knew there would be a new pope in the foreseeable future. And so poor Pietro became a spy, an accomplice in bloody, bloody murder. Pietro became the voice of Simon for August Horstmann. Everyone knew Pietro was my ‘shadow’ and everyone knew that Pietro was the keeper of the keys to me. So Pietro could explain everything to Horstmann and Horstmann would believe. It was done by remote control. When Sandanato told me that Horstmann had nearly succeeded in killing Driskill in Princeton I was already almost certain that, yes, Sandanato was in the quicksand with Indelicato … and the other one—”

Driskill’s eyes were burning into Sandanato, who sat slumped in his chair, as if his life were draining away. He hadn’t moved since his outburst. And Ben Driskill seemed to be in a kind of trance.

Sister Elizabeth said, “Does Horstmann corroborate all this? Or is it simply speculation on your part?”

“You may be sure, Sister, I have spoken at length with August over the last two days. He told me the story … he told me everything he knew … including how he found the man who paid the late-night call on you, Sister, the poor creature who was intended to frighten you off and who went off your balcony instead. He was a simple man, he’d been a good man once who had saved my life long ago, a man who underwent the attentions of the Gestapo, a man who had found a home and who should have been left to live out his days in his backwater. Yes, Sister, that’s why I was able to assure you that the killing would be over tonight—”

A terrible animal howl, a shriek of agony and despair, escaped Sandanato’s lips, the cry of a man who has stared too long into the fiery pit, a man who had felt the stakes driven into his palms and was dying for a false god. He leapt to his feet, knocking his chair over, making a sound that was no known word, and staggered backward. His hand was at the door.

Driskill was on his feet, his face white with rage.

“Stay!” Driskill’s voice filled the room. The others at the table sat frozen in place.

D’Ambrizzi waved his hand as Sandanato stopped, lurching. Spittle flecked his chiseled chin. His eyes seemed to roll, confused. All this was true, yet he was still Sandanato and his gaze settled on Elizabeth. She shrank inwardly but stared back, unblinking.

“You,” Sandanato whispered, “you understand me … we have spoken, Sister … we were of one mind, the Church needed cleansing … evil in the service of good—we spoke, Sister … can’t you make them see what had to be done …” His voice cracked. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His face glistened with sweat. “Tell them … for God’s sake!”

“We never … not what you’ve done …” She shook her head, looked away. “No, this is your madness.”

“Go, Pietro,” D’Ambrizzi said.

The door closed softly. He was gone.

“So, Eminence,” Drew Summerhays said, his voice papery, dry. “What would you have us do? What about Indelicato? He has set this bloody engine in motion.… Now he’s with the Holy Father. Give us some guidance.”

“All this speculation about the next pope is premature. The will of God and man will be revealed in time.” D’Ambrizzi was suddenly bland, undisturbed.

“The hell with the will of God! Spare me all your sanctimonious garbage!” Driskill’s voice cut through the obfuscation like a blowtorch. “God didn’t put the gun to my sister’s head. God didn’t cut Brother Leo’s throat. God is not taking the fall on this one. Man is answerable! The nutcase who just walked out of here free as the breeze and the psychopathic killer who pulled the trigger and drew the blade and this fucking megalomaniac chatting with the pope as we sit here—what the bloody hell do we do about them?”

“What do you suggest, Mr. Driskill?”

“Where is Horstmann? You spoke with him—”

D’Ambrizzi shook his huge head. “He is gone. I have sent him back to his anonymous life. I have absolved him as best I could, I have heard his confession. He was
betrayed, he did what he had been trained to do. His torment and guilt are punishment enough.”

“Maybe for you they are. But you don’t speak for me. Nobody speaks for me but me … and you haven’t told us about Archduke. What’s the big secret about Archduke? Don’t you have a tidy conclusion for Archduke? He betrayed you.… Like you and Indelicato, Archduke knew everything … and he betrayed you to Indelicato. Where does he fit in now? He wasn’t one of the lads in the photograph and he wasn’t killed—so Indelicato wasn’t using Horstmann to kill him. You know what I think? I think Archduke is part of Indelicato’s plan … I think Archduke has been an ally of Indelicato’s and an enemy of yours ever since he discovered the Pius Plot. I think Archduke and Indelicato decided to band together to keep you from becoming pope because they don’t like the way the Church is moving … they see you and my sister on the same side and they’ve had enough. A few lives is a small price to pay for scaring hell out of the curia and the Vatican and stampeding the cardinals in Indelicato’s direction … so why are you so strangely silent on the subject of Archduke?”

Driskill finished out of breath, staring at D’Ambrizzi.

“I have nothing to say about Archduke,” the cardinal said at last. “This is over. Let go, forget.” He looked at his guests. “I have no more to say. You, all of you, I trust to remain discreet. This spasm in the history of our Church is over. Time will have its way with Callistus; the next pontiff will emerge. Life and the Church will go on and very soon, we and all this will be forgotten.”

The end of D’Ambrizzi’s supper party was subdued. There was nothing to add. No one seemed to know quite what to do. Did the cardinal expect them all to go off to bed and a sound night’s sleep? He stood at the door, offering each of them a word, a handshake, men he had known for so long a time, through good times and bad. He was informal with them, as he always was.

Sister Elizabeth stood with Ben, who seemed lost in thought, his face an indecipherable mask. Father Dunn joined them. “You don’t look happy,” he said.

“Does that surprise you?” Driskill said.

“Of course not. But you may have to settle for this. You may have gotten just about all you’re going to get. You
have
been brought deep inside, you know.”

“Well, I don’t much like what I’ve found.”

“Did you really think that you would? I’d have thought your worst suspicions had been confirmed. Isn’t that fairly satisfying?”

Driskill stared at him.

Dunn said, “Did you expect them to set up Horstmann and the others in a shooting gallery for you? Come on, my friend, get real—”

“Artie?”

“Yes, my son?”

“Shut up.”

“Ah,” Dunn said. “The reasoned approach at work.”

“What about Sandanato?” Sister Elizabeth tried not to look overly concerned in light of what they had just learned about him. “I don’t like the idea of his wandering around Rome in that condition.”

“You’re right,” Driskill said, a muscle jumping along his jaw. “Maybe I should go find him.”

“Forget him,” Father Dunn said.

“He might do himself harm,” Elizabeth said.

“He’s a priest,” Dunn said.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Driskill said. “He’s a murderer. Hasn’t that dawned on you yet?”

“He’s not exactly a murderer,” Dunn said.

“You’re splitting hairs, Artie. He’s an accomplice to murder. He obviously set me up that night on the ice. What was I thinking? He asked me to go skating … said it would be good for me! Honest to God.”

“I think he’s quite mad,” Sister Elizabeth said. “I look back on things he said … I think he was trying to make me see … but it all sounded so theoretical.” She saw D’Ambrizzi coming toward them. She was exhausted. She said, “I’m staying at the Order tonight.
His
request.” She nodded at the cardinal.

“Thank you so much,” D’Ambrizzi said, “for sitting through another of my long … confessions. I wanted the air cleared.”

“So now you just forget Indelicato.”

“Not exactly, Benjamin. Sister, I need a word with these two. I’ve asked Drew Summerhays and his keeper”—he allowed himself a small smite—“to escort you.” He took her hand and led her to the door. “Sleep well, my dear. I will speak with you tomorrow.”

When she was safely with Summerhays, D’Ambrizzi turned back to Driskill and Dunn.

“I want you to come with me.”

Dunn said, “All right.”

Driskill said, “Why? Where?”

D’Ambrizzi sighed, looked at his watch. It was past two in the morning.

“The Vatican. We’re going to see the Holy Father.”

Monsignor Sandanato went blindly into the night. It had begun to rain softly but he didn’t notice. His eyes were on fire. His ears were buzzing, blood pounding as if his heart were about to burst. He wasn’t able to create a thought. His brain was nearly gone with fever.