The Celtic Conspiracy (43 page)

“Well, I don’t think I owe this world anything else. And you’re making all the early retirees look bad,” Ronald joked.

Ruth took a moment to comprehend this. “Where is Adam?”

“Well, that’s a bit difficult to explain. He’s...”

“He’s in the lion’s den,” Jennifer said with a wink. “But don’t worry, Ruth. I believe our Druid in training will be here soon, hale and hearty.”

“I cannot promise you that you will find the remnants of your culture inside of our walls, but I can promise you that this church and this faith will prove their worth,” the pope said, to Shane’s surprise.

“What do you mean by that? How can you still prove yourself? Each individual has the right to his own reality. That is the root of awareness. Tolerance results in the possibility of diversity, which we could have looked forward to. Don’t you see that even the claim to the possession of the sole truth perverts faith?”

The pope got several documents out of his desk and put them in a leather briefcase.

At this moment, the door flew open and a man stormed into the room. Shane saw the weapon in the intruder’s hand, and panic flooded over him. The pope had been standing with his back to the door. Now he turned around, more surprised than shocked. Without giving it another moment’s thought, Shane threw himself on the unknown man.

“No!”

He desperately grabbed the man’s arm holding the weapon and pulled it up and back with all his strength. The shot narrowly missed the pope and shattered one of the vases on the desk. Shane jabbed his elbow as hard as he could against the assassin’s temples, and the man fell to the floor unconscious. A completely bewildered guard ran into the room and took the weapon out of his hands. “We wouldn’t have let him in, Holy Father, if we had had the slightest idea. But the camerlengo, of all people...”

Another guard helped Shane up. “Thank you, thank you. You have saved the life of the Holy Father.”

The pope was looking at the camerlengo lying on the floor in complete shock. Things had come this far then. They were ready to kill him for fear of losing their power. Shane breathed heavily. He looked at the pope in despair. “Do you see what I mean now? Everything here revolves around power and greed. Do you want to experience a miracle? Then be one yourself and act, Holy Father.”

“You don’t believe in God and you despise the Church that I head. Why in the world do you call me ‘Holy Father’?”

“Because you still have the chance to do something truly holy, something healing,” Shane said, his whole body still trembling. He had never experienced as much violence as he had in the past few weeks. “Tell the world the true message of all religions. Free us, and recognize the Celts and Druids as that which they were. I am asking
you for this after all the suffering that has befallen us and all of humanity over the course of a hundred generations.”

That was the first time that Shane had labeled himself a Celt and really felt like one. He felt pride and dignity at the accomplishments this culture had left behind for the world.

“You have to understand that I do not face history without a conscience.” The pope sat down again, spent, and watched as the guard carried the camerlengo out of the room. “I’m only afraid that this world would come apart at the seams if the Church opened the door to doubt.”

He really believes this
, Shane thought. “The message of love knows many forms. Let the people free. Look at the world with the eyes of all religious traditions. They all refer to the beginnings of the world, the gods, and to the moment when a chosen being began to announce a joyful message, and to the hope that this being would one day return.”

The pope closed his eyes.

“Perhaps it was always just a single message, that a new consciousness would be created. In each of us, alive and not dogmatic. Don’t you see how absurd the fight about the true revelation is? Most of the Druids and the ancient philosophers recognized that they themselves were the Messiah and that the liberation from suffering would be fueled by a new consciousness. In the end, we are responsible for our own fate.”

“So what do you think I should do now? My fate lies in the hand of God, my son, even if you are unwilling or unable to believe it.”

“You still have the opportunity for independent action.”

The pope paused for several seconds before speaking again. “I have learned from these dramatic days as well, Mr. Shane, and I will act. But you must go now, as you can help me with one last service.”

The pope gestured to a guard to come in.

“Please accompany Mr. Shane safely out of the Vatican and to the US embassy. Mr. Shane, our ambassador to the United Nations will be waiting there for you. The camerlengo, whom I trusted, can no longer assume this duty. Bring this briefcase to the ambassador. He should make its contents public immediately, and then you will see what I am prepared to do.”

Shane nodded and reached out his hand. He didn’t understand what this man had up his sleeve, but he decided at that moment to trust him.

“Mr. Shane, I respect you more than you think. You have a good heart, and I hope I will be able to see you again under other circumstances.”

What was this man planning? Shane had to work hard to control his nerves, and before he left the room, he did something that surprised everyone in the room, most of all the pope. He embraced him.

“Thank you, Holy Father.”

“Go now. You don’t have much time.”

Two men from the Vatican police came up and signaled that everything was ready.

“Lock my rooms,” ordered the pope, “and let no one else in under any circumstances! Mr. Shane, take this.”

The pope stood in front of Shane so that no one could see what he was placing in his hand.

“But—”

“Take this, and take care of it.”

As Shane looked at the item in his hand, he had to keep himself from crying out. He looked at the pope in disbelief, turned around quickly, and went out with the armed policemen.

* * *

The two guards walked on either side of Shane, escorting him through the rooms and down the stairs. He saw several cardinals and priests who recognized him, giving him a look that was a cross between hatred and despair. They cursed the Swiss guards as traitors and threatened them with eternal damnation.

When they came out on St. Peter’s Square, Shane could sense that there was no turning back now. It was only with great effort that he restrained himself from looking inside the briefcase to see what was in there. What had the pope given him?

“Come, Mr. Shane, we need to hurry. You must leave the Vatican territory as quickly as possible. Didn’t you notice the men behind us? And please be so good as to turn the briefcase around. That papal seal makes you an easy target.”

A few men in priest’s robes were following them. At least one of them was obviously armed.

“How are we going to get through the city safely?” Shane asked the guard as he started to move as quickly as he could through the throngs of people. “Why didn’t we go out a back entrance?”

“We will get into a car at the Via della Conciliazione. It’s only another few yards. Any other route would have been too dangerous.”

“To be honest, I find this quite dangerous enough,” Shane said as he looked over his shoulder to see that the men following them had fallen back a bit. It was difficult for anyone to make their way through the crowd. There was a ghostly atmosphere hanging over the entire square, a mixture of fear and anticipation that felt as if it could explode at any moment. Or did it just seem that way to him?

The Via della Conciliazione was packed with more than ten thousand people.

“A car, you said? Well, that could take a while,” Shane joked out of nervousness and helplessness. Their black-clad pursuers were catching up with them.

“It looks like we don’t have any choice but to go to the Castel Sant’Angelo where the next car is waiting,” one of the men said. “Go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”

“What? What are you going to do?”

The man had already disappeared into the crowd. Shane turned around, but the second guard pulled him along. Shane ripped his arm away and stood still.

“Mr. Shane, please, come, we have to get out of here.”

Just then one of the pursuers fell silently to the ground.

Shane clapped his hands to his mouth. “My God, why?” he asked the guard in despair, but the man just kept pulling him on.

“Don’t ask. Just come with me now. We have to keep moving.”

“What is in this briefcase that someone would be willing to murder for it?”

In response, the policeman pulled out a weapon.

“If the Holy Father wants this message to reach the world, then I will make sure that it does. If you don’t cooperate, it will happen without you. I am not joking, Mr. Shane. This is neither the time nor the place for that. They’ve found what they were looking for. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“Very well, I’m coming,” Shane said. His decision was made easier by the fact that he could see other people pursuing them now. Without this man’s protection, he would have been completely helpless against them. “How far is it to the embassy?”

“At least a mile and a half. Come, follow me.”

“Do you have another weapon?”

“What?”

“I’m starting to get a bit tired of being unable to defend myself.”

One of the men pursuing them was shoving people out of the way. By that point, the second guard had made his way back to them, and he’d heard Shane’s request.

“Here, take this one.”

Shane almost had to laugh out loud. The man had a weapon secured under his pant leg, like in a bad spy movie.

* * *

While the cardinals were waiting for the pope in the Basilica, the pope opened the windows of his rooms and turned on the loudspeaker.

“My brothers and sisters, the Church has suffered much harm in recent days. The original Christians proclaimed the unadulterated peaceful and charitable message of our Lord Jesus Christ almost three hundred years after his death. They knew that Christianity is based on the commandment to love our brothers, to love our enemies, on the commandment not to steal and not to kill, and yet we must now realize with horror that the people who work within the Church have often disgracefully betrayed these commandments. Yes, they have even taken up arms.”

The crowd on St. Peter’s Square was deathly silent. In the Basilica, there was at first a wave of murmuring, and then agitated calls to listen. Some of the irate cardinals were headed toward the pope’s rooms, taking those armed guards along who remained loyal to them. However, the anteroom had already been barricaded by the other guards. They stood at the ready, their weapons drawn, determined to follow the pope to their death if necessary.
Two warning shots were fired, and then a tense silence could be felt among the intruders.

The pope had stopped for a minute as the tumult in front of his door had gotten louder. Now he continued. “I must recognize that the belief in our dear Lord Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount and his true message are no longer emanating from this Church, if they ever did. I beg the people of this earth for forgiveness for that which has been so despicably perpetrated by this Church in the name of God.”

In the anteroom, the intruders were desperately trying to overwhelm the guards again and to silence the pope. One of the cardinals screamed hysterically: “He’s been possessed by the devil! He’s destroying God’s work on earth. This is the coming of the Antichrist! The revelation of Johannes is coming true! The end is near!”

* * *

Shane and the two guards had fought their way through the crowds to the Castel Sant’Angelo on foot.

Finally they saw a police car in front of them. One of the guards gesticulated wildly toward it and already had the key in his hand as Shane felt a burning pain in his right hand. Stunned, he looked at the back of his hand, where a bullet had been shot clean through. Pain and shock brought him to his knees. The guard closest to him had targeted the shooter and shot him directly in the middle of his forehead. Passersby were screaming and dispersing in panic in every direction.

“You have to get up, Mr. Shane!”

“Damn it! It hurts like crazy!”

“Show me.”

Somewhat roughly, the guard turned Shane’s hand over, making him yell again. Then the man pulled his white shirt out of his pants and ripped a strip of cloth off for a makeshift bandage.

Shane could see more men in the distance. Their pursuers were no longer making any attempt to conceal their weapons.

“Come on, get in!”

His face drawn with pain, Shane sat down in the passenger seat while the guard backed up at full speed, bearing down on their pursuers, who had to dive headlong in the street to avoid being hit. They still managed to fire several shots at the car, spraying shards from the windows everywhere.

“Damn it, who are these people?” Shane shouted.

“The guards of the honorable Cardinal State Secretary Lambert, Mr. Shane. Who did you think?”

The guard raced like a madman first over the Via Tomacelli and then through the narrow streets to the Via Veneto. They stopped directly in front of the US embassy, where they were received by armed CIA officers and brought rapidly into the building.