Map of Bones (6 page)

Rachel had never understood the Church’s obsession with relics. It simply gave her the creeps. But Rome was chock-full of them. Some of the most spectacular and unusual were found here: Mary Magdalene’s foot, the vocal cords of Saint Anthony, the tongue of Saint John Nepomucene, the gallstones of Saint Clare. Even the entire body of Pope Saint Pius X lay up in St. Peter’s, encased in bronze. The most disturbing, though, was a relic preserved in a shrine in Calcata: the supposed foreskin of Jesus Christ.

She found her voice. “Was…was something stolen here?”

Uncle Vigor lifted an arm to his student. “Jacob, perhaps you could fetch us some cappuccinos.”

“Certainly, Monsignor.”

Uncle Vigor waited until Jacob left, closing the door. His eyes then settled to Rachel. “Have you heard of the massacre in Cologne?”

Rachel was taken off guard by his question. She had been running all day long and had had little chance to watch the news, but there had been no way to avoid hearing about the midnight murders up in Germany last night. The details remained sketchy.

“Only what’s been reported on the radio,” she answered.

He nodded. “The Curia here has been receiving intelligence in advance of what’s being broadcasted. Eighty-four people were killed, including the Archbishop of Cologne. But it is the manner of their deaths that is being kept from the public for the moment.”

“What do you mean?”

“A handful were shot, but the greater majority seemed to have been electrocuted.”

“Electrocuted?”

“That is the tentative analysis. Autopsy reports are still pending. Some of the bodies were still smoking when authorities arrived.”

“Dear God. How…?”

“That answer may have to wait. The cathedral is swarming with investigators of every ilk: criminologists, detectives, forensic scientists, even electricians. There are teams with the German BKA, terrorist experts from Interpol, and agents with Europol. But as the crime took place in a Roman Catholic cathedral, sanctified territory, the Vatican has invoked its Omerta.”

“Its Code of Silence.”

He grunted the affirmative. “The Church is cooperating with German authorities, but it is also limiting access, trying to keep the scene from becoming a circus.”

Rachel shook her head. “But what does all this have to do with you calling me here?”

“From the initial investigation, there seems to be only one motive. The golden reliquary at the cathedral was broken into.”

“They stole the reliquary.”

“No, that’s just it. They left behind the solid gold box. A priceless artifact. They only stole its contents. Its relics.”

Father Torres interjected, “And not just
any
relics, but the bones of the biblical Magi.”

“Magi…as in the Three Wise Men from the Bible?” Rachel couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “They steal the bones, but leave the gold box. Surely the reliquary would fetch a better price on the black market than the bones.”

Uncle Vigor sighed. “At the secretary of state’s request, I came down here to evaluate the provenance of those relics. They have an illustrious past. The bones came to Europe through the relic-collecting verve of Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. As the first Christian emperor, Constantine had sent his mother on pilgrimages to collect holy relics. The most famous being, of course, the True Cross of Christ.”

Rachel had visited the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, out on Lateran Hill. In a back room, behind glass, were the most famous relics collected by Saint Helena: a beam of the True Cross, a nail used to crucify Christ, and two thorns from his painful crown. There persisted much controversy as to the authenticity of these relics. Most believed Saint Helena had been duped.

Her uncle continued, “But it is not as well known that Queen Helena traveled further than Jerusalem, returning under mysterious circumstances with a large stone sarcophagus, claiming to have recovered the bodies of the Three Kings. The relics were kept in a church in Constantinople, but following the death of Constantine, they were transferred to Milan and interred in a basilica.”

“But I thought you said Germany—”

Uncle Vigor held up a hand. “In the twelfth century, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany plundered Milan and stole the relics. The circumstances surrounding this are clouded with a mix of rumors. But all stories end with the relics in Cologne.”

“Until last night,” Rachel added.

Uncle Vigor nodded.

Rachel closed her eyes. No one spoke, leaving her to think. She heard the door open to the depository. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to lose her train of thought.

“And the murders?” she said. “Why not steal the bones when the church was empty? The act must have been meant also as a direct attack upon the Church. The violence against the congregation suggests a secondary motive of revenge—not just thievery.”

“Very good.” A new voice spoke from the doorway.

Startled, Rachel opened her eyes. She immediately recognized the robes worn by the newcomer: the black cassock with shoulder cape, the wide sash worn high around the hips, scarlet to match the skullcap. She also recognized the man inside the clothes. “Cardinal Spera,” she said, offering a bow of her head.

He waved her up, his gold ring flashing. The ring marked him as a cardinal, but he also wore a second ring, a twin of the first, on his other hand, representative of his station as the Vatican’s secretary of state. He was Sicilian, dark haired and complexioned. He was also young for such an esteemed position, not yet fifty years old.

He offered a warm smile. “I see, Monsignor Verona, that you were not wrong about your niece.”

“It would’ve been improper of me to lie to a cardinal, especially one who happens to be the pope’s right-hand man.” Her uncle crossed over, and rather than chastely kissing either of the man’s two rings, he gave him a firm hug. “How is His Holiness handling the news?”

The cardinal’s face tightened with a shake of his head. “After we met this morning, I contacted His Eminence in St. Petersburg. He will be flying back tomorrow morning.”

After we met
…Rachel now understood her uncle’s formal attire. He had been in consultation with the secretary of state.

Cardinal Spera continued, “I’ll be arranging for his official papal response with the Synod of Bishops and the College of Cardinals. Then I have to prepare for tomorrow’s memorial service. It’s to be held at sundown.”

Rachel felt overwhelmed. While the pope was the head of the Vatican, its absolute monarch, the true power of the state rested with this one man, its official prime minister. She noted the weary glaze to his eyes, the way he held his shoulders too tightly. He was plainly exhausted.

“And has your research turned up anything here?” the cardinal asked.

“It has,” Uncle Vigor said dourly. “The thieves don’t possess all the bones.”

Rachel stirred. “There are more?”

Her uncle turned to her. “That’s what we came down here to ascertain. It seems the city of Milan, after the bones were plundered by Barbarossa, spent the past centuries clamoring for their return. To finally settle the matter, a few of the Magi bones were sent back to Milan in 1906, back to the Basilica of Saint Eustorgio.”

“Thank the Lord,” Cardinal Spera said. “So they aren’t entirely lost.”

Father Torres spoke up. “We should arrange for them to be sent here immediately. Safeguarded at the depository.”

“Until that can be arranged, I’ll have security tightened at the basilica,” the cardinal said. He motioned to Uncle Vigor. “On your return trip from Cologne, I’ll have you stop off and collect the bones in Milan.”

Uncle Vigor nodded.

“Oh, I was also able to arrange an earlier flight,” the cardinal continued. “The helicopter will take you both to the airfield in three hours.”

Both?

“All the better.” Uncle Vigor turned to Rachel. “It looks like we must disappoint your mother once again. No family dinner, it seems.”

“I’m…we’re going to Cologne?”

“As Vatican nuncios,” her uncle said.

Rachel tried to keep pace in her head. Nuncios were the Vatican’s ambassadors abroad.

“Emergency nuncios,” Cardinal Spera corrected. “Temporary, covering this particular tragedy. You are being presented as passive observers, to represent Vatican interests and report back. I need keen eyes out there. Someone familiar with thefts of antiquities.” A nod to Rachel. “And someone with a vast knowledge of those antiquities.”

“That is our cover, anyway,” Uncle Vigor said.

“Cover?”

Cardinal Spera frowned, a warning tone entering his voice. “Vigor…”

Her uncle turned to the secretary of state. “She has a right to know. I thought that had already been decided.”

“
You
decided.”

The two men stared each other down. Finally, Cardinal Spera sighed with a wave of an arm, relenting.

Uncle Vigor turned back to Rachel. “The nuncio assignation is just a smoke screen.”

“Then what are we—?”

He told her.

3:35
P
.
M
.

S
TILL STUNNED,
Rachel waited for her uncle to finish a few private words with Cardinal Spera outside the doorway. Off to the side, Father Torres busied himself with shelving various volumes that had been piled on his desk.

Finally, her uncle returned. “I had hoped to grab a brioche with you, but with the timetable accelerated, we must both get ready. You should grab an overnight bag, your passport, and whatever else you might need for a day or two abroad.”

Rachel stood her ground. “Vatican spies? We’re going in as Vatican
spies
?”

Uncle Vigor lifted his brows. “Are you really that surprised? The Vatican, a sovereign country, has always had an intelligence service, with full-time employees and operatives. They’ve been used to infiltrate hate groups, secret societies, hostile countries, wherever the concerns of the Vatican are threatened. Walter Ciszek, a priest operating under the alias Vladimir Lipinski, played a cat-and-mouse game with the KGB for years, before being captured and spending over two decades in a Soviet prison.”

“And we’ve just been recruited into this service?”

“
You’ve
been recruited. I’ve worked with the intelligence service for over fifteen years.”

“What?” Rachel almost choked on the word.

“What better cover for an operative than as a well-respected and knowledgeable archaeologist in humble service to the Vatican?” Her uncle waved her out the door. “Come. Let’s see about getting everything in order.”

Rachel stumbled after her uncle, trying to see him with new eyes.

“We’ll be meeting up with a party of American scientists. Like us, they’ll be investigating the attack in secret, concentrating more on the deaths, leaving us to handle the theft of the relics.”

“I don’t understand.” That was a vast understatement. “Why all this subterfuge?”

Her uncle stopped and pulled her into a small side chapel. It was no larger than a closet, the air stagnant with old incense.

“Only a handful of people know this,” he said. “But there was a survivor to the attack. A boy. He is still in shock, but slowly recovering. He is at a hospital in Cologne, under guard.”

“He witnessed the attack?”

A nod answered her. “What he described sounded like madness, but it could not be ignored. All the deaths—or rather those that succumbed to the electrocution—occurred in a single moment. The dying collapsed where they sat or knelt. The boy had no explanation for
how
it occurred, but he was adamant about the
who
.”

“Who killed the parishioners?”

“No, who succumbed, which members of the congregation died so horribly.”

Rachel waited for an answer.

“The ones who were electrocuted, for lack of a better word, were only those who took the Holy Eucharist during the Communion service.”

“What?”

“It was the Communion host that killed them.”

A chill passed through her. If word spread that the Communion wafers were somehow to blame, it could have repercussions around the world. The entire holy sacrament could be in jeopardy. “Were the wafers poisoned, tainted somehow?”

“That’s still unknown. But the Vatican wants answers immediately. And the Holy See wants them first. And without the resources necessary for this level of clandestine investigation, especially on foreign soil, I’ve called in a chit owed to me by a friend deep within U.S. military intelligence, someone I trust fully. He will have a team on site by tonight.”

Rachel could only nod, struck dumb by the last hour’s revelations.

“I think you were right, Rachel,” Uncle Vigor said. “The murders in Cologne were a direct attack against the Church. But I believe this is just an opening gambit in a much larger game. But what game is being played?”

Rachel nodded. “And what do the bones of the Magi have to do with any of this?”

“Exactly. While you collect your things, I’m going off to the libraries and archives. I already have a team of scholars sifting through all references to the Three Kings. By the time the helicopter lifts off, I’ll have a full dossier on the Magi.” Uncle Vigor reached to her, hugged her tight, and whispered in her ear. “You can still refuse. I would think no less of you.”

Rachel shook her head, pulling back. “As the saying goes,
fortes fortuna adiuvat
.”

“Fortune does indeed favor the brave.” He kissed her gently on her cheek. “If I had a daughter like you—”

“You’d be excommunicated.” She kissed his other cheek. “Now let’s go.”

Her uncle led her out of the Apostolic Palace, then they parted ways, he toward the Libraries, she toward St. Anne’s Gate.

Before long and with barely any note of the passage of time, Rachel reached her parked car and climbed into the Mini Cooper. She sped out of the underground car park and squealed around a tight corner into traffic. She ticked off all she would need, while trying to keep any speculation to a minimum.

She raced over the Tiber River and headed toward the center of town. With her mind on autopilot, she failed to note when she had regained her tail. Only that it was back there again.