GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (17 page)

Cardinal Giovanni
Dalla Gassa waited a moment as
a
shiver ran through his body
;
a cold spirit seemed to hover around
his
words
, which had become frozen in the air
.
Shifting
his shoulders to ease them a little
,
he stood from his chair and wondered where the cold draft had come from.
Feeling uncomfortable and tired
,
he scrolled his scriptures together and
retired to the adjacent study
,
leaving the chamber to
be guarded by
the watchful and sad eyes of
Alberto Luciani.

T
he study was a much smaller room
and a good deal more
priva
te.
It was an easier place in which
to focus one
’
s attention
; a
few portraits hung inside on the stone walls
, the ceiling was lower than the vault of the office, and t
he dim lighting came from a
n elegant but unimposing
golden chandelier above
the
desk
.
S
hutting the door behind him
, the cardinal
walked towards th
e
less noble wooden desk.

Sitting down
,
he switched on his laptop and
,
a minute later
,
typed in his login name
(ggassa)
and his password
(
cometh
)
.
This
combination
always amused him
,
a
nd
his mouth curved
into a wry smile
.
There was a pause while his computer appeared to think
.
T
hen a message appeared on the display and his smile became a frown
.

God is at work against me again! Why now, damn it
?

‘Just when I wanted to get on!’
he exclaimed out
loud
, picking up the phone nearby with a hidden vengeance.

This is nothing like the ECB system I used earlier this morning!
he grumped.
What’s my
s
ecretar
y’
s number again? There is going to be hell to pay and someone is going to be sorry they came into work today!

The
cardinal swore loudly as the phone rang and rang without answer,
h
is eyes bulging in wrath when he read the next message
.

Sorry
,
System Unavailable

Please Contact Your System Administrator
.

CHAPTER III

PALAZZO DEL GOVERNMANTORATO

It was a normal working day in the
Palazzo del Governmantorato
, which was
located not far away from the magnificent St Peter’s Basilica.
Francesca DeRose was running fast and running late
—
anxiously she ascended the large granite steps towards the building entrance.
All
I
nformation
T
echnology services had since
been
moved to the refurbished administrative offices and were all now housed in the same
secured
building
as
the Papal Civil Service, Press Office, Prefecture for Economic Affairs
, the Secretariat
and other top Vatican Executives.

The Palazzo del Governmantorato
was a
considerable building of outstanding architecture in its own right
,
with sandy salmon
-
pink granite stonework constructed into two
, four-level
wings of similar height
that
flank
ed
the
main central structure.
The central
,
front
-
facing elevation
was
inset back from the two
protruding outer wings
, but was
built
two levels
taller than the wings.

The Holy See administration and bureaucratic machine was located in the right wing
,
and
continued to keep the Catholic Church at the forefront of the civilised religious world
by
provisioning copious productions of religious papers, activities and doctrines in all languages. The left wing housed the IT core services and other administrati
ve
sections.
Inside the central construct was the finance department, the
c
ardinals and other high executives
.
Mission
-
c
ritical
data transmission links
were
maintained internally for the Istituto per le Opere di Religione
(IOR) services
,
also known
as
the Vatican Bank
,
securing much more than the
numbers
that were published in the public domain.

It was 9:20 on a
Monday morning
in the
last week
of
October
,
and the trains had
been running slow.
‘Points failure-technical difficulties’
is what the engineers had claimed
this morning
, but
that was always what they
said
.
In the past, t
he Italian rail network had been very efficient and
timely
.
However, a
year
ago
a new company
began
provi
ding
train
service
, and nothing had been the same since.

Wearing a pair of tight
-
fitting dark blue jeans and silk
, navy-coloured blouse
beneath
her expensive brown leather bomber jacket
, Francesca took the final staircase two steps at a time.
A small golden crucifix with red rubies
at
top and bottom,
and
diamonds
at
left and right
,
glint
ed in
the morning sunshine
that beamed
through the tall office windows; the cross hung around
Francesca’s
slender neck
.

Francesca was about five f
ee
t eight
inches tall,
a
nd
her long legs and womanly curves always raised an eyebrow as she
navigated the office
.
The young lady wished she had taken her
vintage
automobile into work this morning
,
but
was trying
to keep it in
the best condition
possible
—which meant no city driving
.

She was aware of being watched
as she
strode
down the
a
isle to the far end of the office.
Used to these backward primordial glances
,
she smiled confidently, continuing to walk just out of their virtual reach.
Si,
it was
a normal day
,
except
...
Michaelangelo was not at his desk
.
The phones were ringing!

Eager eyes watched her
,
moving in time with her body
.
Yet although
the IT
c
ontractors looked more than lustfully at the girl, they also hop
ed that
she would quickly sit down and sort out their immediate problems.
Such a b
oring
bunch
,
she thought
,
passing them
to assume her rightful seat.

Looking ahead towards
her division,
which supported most of the
Vatican Banking System
, she tapped her login details into her computer with one hand while tying back her springy auburn hair with the other.

Only Gabriella
?
Where is Michaelangelo?
Her co-worker was usually on duty well before she arrived.

Francesca finally swooped down to pick up the
phone
and end its
constant
synthetic jingle.
“Hello?” She tried to sound pleasant.
It was
the database administrator
, the Englishman
. Jonathan.

‘Hey! Francesca!’
his
loud and irritating English voice
seemed
condescending
to her
. The man spoke with
a
quick
-
firing rat-a-tat-tat set of questions
.

‘What going on?
You’ve got a network problem
!
I can’t login
.
It is poorly designed and a crap network, we all know it
—it’s been
slow
for years
and now
it’s
dead.
Where have you been?
’ he baited
her.
‘What about
Michaelangelo
—w
here is he? You are going to be in
deep
...
if you don’t sort things out fast.’

The man knew also that
time was passing as
he spoke,
exacerbat
ing
the problem
. She flushed with
infuriati
o
n
and hung up the phone without a word
.

Leering at her with
a
warped and delighted smile from the other side of the room,
Jonathan
observ
ed
her suppressed discomfort
.
I
’
ll get her to blow her top yet!
he thought.
Her face blushed even more
deeply as she scanned the messages in her e-mail
...
.

The Englishman loved it when the network was not working
.
His team
was
fine
—being paid
by the hour
to
sit at their desks
and
wait for the system to become available again
was right up their alley.
Most of them were
having coffee as the network team of T&O sweated desperately to fix the immediate problems of the day.
A perfect start to a
M
onday!
he smirked.