The Templar Concordat (10 page)

“Hey, what can I say?” said Paulo. “I’m doing my job as usual, in my normal exemplary manner, and this little guy in a chair barfs all over me. Look at these pants. They’re ruined. And you better believe I’m putting in for the cost. These pants aren’t cheap. And the shoes?” He lifted one foot up and slightly tilted the shoe. “How can I ever wear them again?”

Mancini joined the guards in their laughter. “Ah, you obviously are especially gifted in dealing with the public,” he responded.

“I thought I knew this guy,” Paulo said.  “He always seemed harmless. What I didn’t know is that he eats barf beans for breakfast. God, I stink.”

 “Get out of here.” Mancini waved a hand in front of his nose. “And go back to the locker room. Change your clothes. Take a shower. If the captain says anything, tell him I ordered you. You’re scaring away the faithful. Go.”

“Thanks. I won’t be gone long.” Paulo gathered up his things and started toward the barracks.

“Wait a minute.” Callahan looked around and motioned Paulo to him. This time he didn’t flinch when the guard approached. “This guy who did this? You knew him?”

“Yes, Sir,” said Paulo. “He came through here just about every morning I was on duty for the last year or so.”

“Did he ever have this kind of problem before?” Callahan asked.

“No. He was all messed up. You know? All bent and crippled. But he never went on a puking rampage before.”

 “Italian?”

Paulo paused. “No, I don’t think so. But his voice is all messed up and he uses one of those gizmos you hold up to your throat.”

“Hair color?”

“Black.”

“Complexion?”

“Caucasian, but on the darker side. Like maybe Greece, Sicily, or… maybe an Arab?”

“Did you give the guy the full treatment today? Did you check him out?” Callahan waited while Paulo looked around nervously.

“Well, I started to check him then he let loose on me. I mean, look at me. The nurse sort of cleaned him. I guess. Then he sort of…” Paulo stammered.

“Did you check him or not?” Callahan demanded, remembering what the Hashashin in Costa Rica told them. Then he turned his scowl on the other guards, who had suddenly become serious. “Did anyone check this guy?”

Their faces gave him the answer.

Mancini was already running and trying to give orders into his lapel mic at the same time. Callahan easily passed him.

Mancini shouted into his microphone, running between the south Piazza fountain and knots of slow moving tourists. “Code RED RED RED. Mancini. Handicapped section Basilica. Wheelchair suspect. Older male. Surround and immobilize. Bomb threat.” The central radio dispatcher picked up the emergency call, punched a programmed button alerting all units, and immediately passed the details to the Pope’s personal protection detail. But by then they were acting.

The Vatican Security Chief grabbed a blast blanket hidden under an ornate bench and sprinted toward the Pope, thirty feet away. At the same time, other units started well-rehearsed emergency procedures. Rooftop snipers scanned sectors, gates to St. Peter’s Piazza rolled shut, and rough men staged in buildings grabbed weapons and headed for doors.

Callahan had his gun drawn, cleared the top of the first set of steps leading into the portico of the great church, and motioned for the plainclothes guards at the entrance to follow. Mancini was one flight of steps below him, with nearly fifty armed guards sprinting behind him.

*     *     *

The Pope solemnly moved to the center of the altar to begin the consecration phase of the mass. Ibrahim knew what was coming and his joy was unbounded. Feeling nearer to God than he had ever been, he began to loudly cough, rasp, and strangle in huge gasps of air. Bloody flecks dotted the clean towel the nurse had given him and a stream of saliva ran from a corner of his mouth.  People around him leaned away, but since they too were confined to wheelchairs, there wasn’t much they could do.

Ibrahim turned his chair toward the aisle and became entangled with the velvet rope that set off the wheelchair section. An usher came down the aisle and asked if he could help. Ibrahim held the voice amplifier to his throat, coughed, nodded, and pointed down the aisle to the doors at the front of the Basilica.  The usher unclipped the velvet rope and moved it out of Ibrahim’s path. He moved his chair into the aisle. The front door lay to his left, and the altar to his right. The Pope had begun the consecration.

Ibrahim held up a hand to the usher and pushed the joystick to rotate the chair toward the Pope. The usher understood. Even though the poor man was in distress, he did not want to miss the consecration and elevation of the body of Christ. It was a papal mass after all, and Easter too.  The usher went down on one knee as the Pope bent over the sacred bread and said the words of consecration that would transform the bread into the body of Christ.

Ibrahim’s coughs and gasps were now silent. With a cardinal assisting on each side, the Pope elevated the round white wafer of unleavened bread, the body of Christ, above his head. And Ibrahim felt God flow through his body as he too elevated his arms. But he held not a sliver of bread, not the body of Christ, but his two oxygen tanks.

The guards needed no radio alert. They moved as a single, well-trained unit.

Ibrahim saw four large guards rushing toward him, and felt more behind him crashing through the crowd. A man with a heavy blanket fixed his eyes on the Pope and smashed through Cardinals and archbishops clustered tightly on the altar. It was only seconds since Mancini had sounded the alarm, seconds to reach the Pope, seconds to reach Ibrahim, seconds to live, and seconds too late. He saw a gun swinging toward him. Then another. Everything moved in slow motion. But it, too, was too late.

God transfused him. He had God’s strength. His broken body was God’s body. He was whole again. He could feel it. He heard a familiar voice crying out clearly for the first time in years, his voice. His voice speaking for God. His voice filling the entire giant Basilica. His voice rebuking the unbelievers, infidels, and enemies of God.

“Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! God is Great!”

He pressed the small button under his thumb and detonated the twenty-four pounds of C-9 elevated over his head.

Ibrahim saw God.

*     *     *

 “What’s that?” shouted Santini.

Hammid ignored him, went to the door, and scanned the area while keeping his captives in sight.

“It’s our cue. Don’t worry. It’s simply the electrical substation serving the Vatican. A small explosion. The Pope will have to use a flashlight for a while.” He threw the handcuff key to Santini. “Now, unlock yourself and Sister Jeanette. You will go first, followed by me and Sister Jeanette.”

Santini unlocked them and guided Sister Jeanette by the elbow. “Have faith, my child. God is with us.”

Hammid stood at the door with his hand out. Santini gave him the handcuff key. “The guards at the library have redeployed to defensive positions,” Hammid said.  “That means we will have the library to ourselves. What a pleasant surprise. Bishop, are you ready? Shall we go? Sister, please?”

 Redeployed? What does that mean? Now what, thought Santini. Just cooperate. Pray for the strength to keep Sister Jeanette and the library safe.

*     *     *

The staff entrance to the library was just a short walk from the shed. They heard sirens in the distance, and security people raced past them as they made their way along the walkway.

Nobody paid any attention to them when Santini used his blue card key and the lock hissed open onto a small lobby. Nobody was there to pay attention. The guard station was abandoned. Santini had never been told about redeployment if the Vatican came under serious attack. Since the library was closed for Easter, the building was now deserted.

 “Don’t turn around, Bishop. Eyes straight ahead.”

A few seconds later, Hammid said, “Ok, look at me and pay attention.”

When he turned back, he saw Hammid wearing a soft-brimmed hat with netting hanging all around the face and neck. But Sister Jeanette had a cloth bag over her head and Hammid was tying the drawstring and a long leash snuggly around her neck.

 “I think this will defeat any high-tech cameras while we do our work. And bagging Sister Jeanette will keep her from wandering off. And your cooperation will keep Sister Jeanette’s blood off the polished floor. Do you understand?”

Santini kept his eyes straight ahead. “I understand. What do you want?”

“Take us to room H21.”

Room H21? Santini raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. H21 held Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Papal manuscripts being reexamined and cataloged. Over the years the library had used too many different indexing systems, and now he was supervising a massive effort to install a single computer system that not only categorized an item with a permanent collection number, but also held its location. Room H21 held manuscripts that had previously been properly cataloged, plus others that had been discovered incorrectly stored in other collections.

 Santini led them through the echoing reading room that would be filled with scholars on any other day, and up two flights of stairs. Now there was nothing to do but follow instructions. No guards, no protocols, no prearranged signals, and no help.

He stopped before a plain door, slipped his card in the slot and pushed the door open. “Room H21,” he said. What could he want in there?

“Now block the door open with that chair.”

Santini moved the chair and let the door close on it.

“Now back to the main reading room. You too, Sister.” He waved the gun at Santini.

Hammid tossed him the handcuffs when they reached the reading room. “Get under the table, and lean back against the table leg. Put your arms though that support and lock up.”

When Santini had securely handcuffed himself to a sturdy table leg in the main reading room, Hammid stuck him with a small syringe.  Santini resisted, then relaxed, then wondered why Sister Jeanette had a frog tattoo on her ankle. A frog?

Five minutes later, Hammid untied the sack on Sister Jeanette’s head. She put on a bee-keeper hat like Hammid wore, then pulled the sack off her head and under the beekeeper veil so no camera could catch her face. She shook her hair out, reached under the veil and carefully removed the duct tape from her mouth and eyes.

“Well, that worked out pretty well,” Jean said. “The guy was gentle as a lamb when he thought the good nun was going to get her throat cut.” She looked sideways at Hammid. “In fact, I was worried for a while.”

“Had to be convincing. It did work out. You never can tell what people will do when only their own life is at stake. That guy might have gone to his grave rather than let us into his precious library.” He nudged Santini with his foot, but got no reaction. “Couldn’t risk that, could we?”

“Let’s get moving here,” she said. “I don’t want to get caught when those guards get back. How long can it take to get a substation back on line?”

“Oh, I think we have time,” replied Hammid.

They returned to room H21 and Jean started looking through the stacks and folders. The room wasn’t cluttered, but it was a temporary sorting and cataloging room. When the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Papal collection was finished, it would be moved to its new home, and the room would be temporary host to another collection being cataloged.

Hammid stood before a work table and looked at a few brown pages with their cramped Latin script. “Can you really read this old stuff? I mean, does any of this make sense to you?”

“Hammid, now’s not the time to be checking my credentials and qualifications. Just leave me alone and I’ll get what we came for.”

“Ok. I’m going to take a look outside. If you need me, call me on the cell phone.”

“Ok. I think I understand how things are arranged here. It shouldn’t be long.”

When Hammid left, Jean consulted a listing that hung on a clipboard on the wall and pulled out several long, flat document drawers before she found the one she wanted. She wore cotton gloves over the latex gloves both she and Hammid had worn so she didn’t damage anything in the collection. She had no patience for unwitting vandalism.

She pulled the drawer out, laid it on the work table, and lifted the lid off the drawer. She dug through a pile of ancient manuscripts, most in Latin, until she found what she wanted. So, this was the Treaty of Tuscany. Her research showed no mention of it in any history book, no references in any libraries, no articles about it, and nobody looking for it. It had been forgotten. As far as the world was concerned, this treaty had never existed. Yet here it was in front of her.

The data slip with it said it had been found between the pages of a Sixteenth Century collection of biblical commentary, and was awaiting examination by a curator.  That meant the Vatican Library really didn’t know what it was. That happened. Things were “discovered” in old collections all the time. It was in surprisingly good shape for a manuscript drawn up in 1189. The parchment was brown with age and the ink had faded, so she took a magnifying glass from a work table and bent over the treaty.

The center of the treaty was too dark to read, but she knew from experience that it would be readable under the proper filtering light.