The Templar Concordat (9 page)

“Excellency, some of the rooms… you know? They have fancy new locks. You have those keys?”

“Yes, you moron.” Santini looked back.  “I have every key for the library and those new security locks.”

“Excellency, wait. Wait.” The man gestured with both hands. “Come this way. I have a maintenance cart out back. Come. It will be quicker than fighting our way through all those Easter people. They’re everywhere.”

The maintenance cart was a small, three-wheeled van with a single seat for the driver. Santini stopped and looked at the fat man. “And how do we both fit in there? You can hardly fit yourself.”

“Excellency. In the back. There is room in the back. We do it all the time.  Hurry. We can be there in no time. Yes? Don’t sit on my lunch. Please.” The man huffed heavily, held open the back door, and gestured for Santini to enter.

Santini heaved himself into the back, muttering all the way, “I’ll have your job for this. Somebody will pay. Do you know what is in the Vatican Library collection?”

“Yes, Excellency. Books. But hurry. We will be there in no time.” The man shut the door on the bishop, glanced around, slipped a padlock through the hasp, and clicked the lock shut.

*     *     *

St. Peter’s Piazza is an ellipse stretching for 196 meters on the long axis, and 148 meters on the short axis. Each time Ibrahim crossed it on his way to St. Peter’s he marveled at its openness and beauty. Unity, harmony, variety, and balance. It was built by masters. Crossing the short axis of the square, he skirted to the left of Caligula’s huge obelisk. Built for the Pharaohs, then it was Caligula’s, and now it was the Pope’s, he thought. Who gets it next? Then the imposing dome of the Basilica disappeared behind the immense façade as he closed on the church.  A stairway stretching the full width of the church gently led worshippers through the portico to the main front doors. He always approached the church straight on, as if he still had a fully functioning body and could proudly walk up those stairs with the body God gave him. But, as he always did, he turned left when he reached the first stair, and guided his chair toward a ramp that gave access to strollers and wheelchairs.

When he reached the portico, he turned his chair to watch the thousands of people around him. How many were in his position? He watched the men, women, old, young, all colors and nationalities. Most were white, but the mix of nonwhites demonstrated the reach and power of this Church. He knew he would soon see God. But how many of these others were in a similar situation? How many would welcome it? How many would run from it? Ah, can’t outrun the hand of God.

He passed through the portico, and just inside the Door of Good and Evil, he gave his ticket to a guard who gingerly held it by the edges while he looked it over.  “This way, Sir,” said the guard who led Ibrahim up the nave, the main aisle of the church. St. Peter’s didn’t actually have aisles since its huge interior had neither pews nor permanent seating. But ropes and barricades divided the floor space into different areas so the crowds of worshippers could be accommodated in an orderly manner.

Ibrahim edged into a state of religious excitement he had never experienced. He could hear his heartbeat, feel his body merging with the mystical.  The position and privilege his location in the church gave him was unbelievable. He was directly behind the VIP section and no more than forty feet from the papal altar under its huge canopy where the mass would be celebrated. The Pope had ordered this special section for the handicapped since they were God’s most beloved.

He calmed himself by repeating a series of prayers he had known since childhood. Over and over he prayed until he had some control over his physical and mental processes.

Now there were other wheelchairs in the special section and the rest of the church had filled to capacity. Sixty-thousand people were waiting for the procession that would bring the Pope and the most important cardinals of the Roman church. This was Easter, and Easter was their day. The day Christ rose from the dead was the day their church was born. The risen Christ. The risen Church. Without Easter, it was all nothing. What good was a dead God?

A trumpet fanfare and the bellowing organ pipes announced the start of the procession. The choir joined in, the music rose, and all heads turned back to glimpse the beginning of the procession.  Ibrahim was next to the rope that separated his section from the aisle down which the princes of the Holy Roman Catholic Church would come. Since his neck no longer turned, he moved his joystick to spin his chair in place.

A large, frowning cardinal in red robes led the group into the church. A very well fed cardinal, thought Ibrahim. He was surprised the man could actually clasp his hands in front of his stomach. Behind him, fourteen young men in black cassocks, white surplices, and gold collars carried candles mounted in gold stands. Another eight red cardinals followed, then six priests carrying incense burners on long chains.

The Pope’s palanquin followed behind them, surrounded by identically dressed security men whose jackets were cut to conceal anything from an Uzi to a broadsword. Ibrahim figured there must be at least thirty of them. And the bearers of the palanquin itself were giants. Each man looked like he could carry the whole thing alone. They have learned to take the threats seriously, he thought, but how seriously? Ibrahim knew God protected his servants. He said so.

When the Pope passed by Ibrahim, he could have easily reached out and touched the giant bearers.  He could barely glimpse the Pope by bending himself to the side so his eyes might look where his bent neck couldn’t point his head. He locked eyes with the Pope for a moment and saw the Pope quickly move his hand in a cross directed at Ibrahim. He had received a papal blessing. Ibrahim bowed his head.

For the next hour Ibrahim was locked inside himself in solitary prayer, noticing little around him, and ignoring the music and pageantry cascading through the church. He failed to notice the cardinals and bishops who helped the little Pope celebrate the mass. He ignored the Pope’s sermon on peace among all nations and religions, redistribution of wealth, global warming, and an end to all immigration barriers. He paid no attention to the arcane pecking order around the altar. And he dismissed the thirty gray-clad security men who surrounded the altar.  He figured there were probably a couple hundred mixed in with the crowd, so why fixate on the obvious ones?

In the middle of sixty-thousand people, Ibrahim was alone with God. God spoke to him.

*     *     *

When Bishop Santini felt the cart stop, he twisted the handle and pushed on the door. It shook, but wouldn’t open. He kicked it. Nothing.  Santini mashed his head sideways against the truck’s small window and saw they were in a maintenance garage beneath one of the buildings. He watched the man peel off his coveralls and stuff them in a suitcase on the floor. Now he was dressed in the clerical garb of a Roman Catholic priest, black suit, black shirt, Roman collar, and black shoes.  He pulled a gold Rolex from his pocket and slipped it on. For such a large man, the suit was well tailored and fit surprisingly well.

The man shut the overhead garage door, then opened the back door of the van.

“Get out and shut up,” said the man. “Now, listen carefully. My name is Hammid. Let’s try to be civilized. I tell you what to do, and you do it. It’s that simple.” He opened the van door and stood back, pointing a long-barreled pistol at the bishop. “What we have to do will be done. We can do it the hard way, or we can do it the easy way. The choice is yours. Now, think before you start talking.” His speech was no longer broken Italian and English. The English was fluent and British, but there was something else there.

A third person sat whimpering on a small bench, blind-folded and gagged, her wrists and ankles tied with duct tape. He couldn’t make out her face. She wore the modified habit of Catholic nuns, a simple blue dress, white head scarf, and a silver cross around her neck.

“Please put this on one wrist.” He tossed Santini a pair of handcuffs. “And then secure the other around that pole with Sister Jeanette.”

Nobody ever talked to him like that, but he was sure he was the intellectual superior, so he had to remain calm. Santini silently fumed, but cuffed himself to the pole, laid a hand on Sister Jeanette’s shoulder, and whispered, “It will all be alright, Sister. Let’s be calm. The Lord is with us.” 

Then he faced Hammid and drew himself to his full height, in spite of the shooting pain in his back. “And you have trapped me here for some purpose, I presume?”  He looked around and saw the normal clutter of a maintenance shed. Tool boxes, pipes, lumber, electrical wiring, and a riding lawn mower sat around in no particular order. Light came from two bare bulbs dangling from ceiling cords. The place smelled like fertilizer, and the floor was covered with small wood chips.

Hammid laid the gun on a workbench and leaned back against it. He said nothing, sure Santini would speak first. The pompous fool thought he was in charge.

“You have kidnapped me.” Santini broke first. “You should know I am to celebrate Easter Mass with the Holy Father today. People will be looking for me.” The instant he said that, he felt like a fool.

And Hammid regarded him as a fool. “Shut up, bishop,” snapped Hammid. “Sister Jeanette is under death sentence, and she will die. She has one chance.” He pointed at Santini. “You.”

“Me?” said Santini. “What are you talking about?”

Hammid took a large folding knife from a front pocket and flicked it open with his thumb. “But, her death will be quite a show, bishop, and you will watch, piece by piece…” He stuck the knife in the bench just out of Santini’s reach.

“She’s really a well put-together woman, wouldn’t you say?” He leered at Santini. “Why don’t you just slide a hand up under her skirt, bishop? Nobody’s here but us. Maybe it would pass the time?” Sister Jeanette’s whimpers rose in pitch. “Never felt the gentle caress of a bishop, Sister?”

Santini recoiled. “No. No. I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Excellent, bishop. It’s really very simple. The three of us will go to the Vatican Library. You will let us in. You will take me where I want to go. I will take what I choose. Then I will leave you and Sister Jeanette alive and in the library while I leave.”

The man was mad, thought Santini. He couldn’t possibly get away with this. Santini reviewed the procedures the security experts had set up for just this situation. His job was to cooperate, use the proper code words with the guards, let the thief take whatever he wanted, let him leave, and allow security to handle him. Don’t antagonize him. Cooperate. Stay calm.

“Do you understand the situation, Bishop Santini?”

Santini slid the handcuff down on the pole and sat on the bench next to Sister Jeanette. “Yes. I understand. You’re in charge, you have the gun, you have us at your mercy.”

“Correct. I agree. In that case, can we just sit quietly until it’s time to go?”

*     *     *

Ibrahim roused himself from his prayers and panicked, afraid that he had missed the most important part of the mass, the consecration, when the Pope would transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.  No, he relaxed a bit. God was with him. He hadn’t missed it, but it was coming soon.

*     *     *

Mancini’s voice crackled in Callahan’s ear. “Callahan, meet me by the handicapped security check. On the far south side. No rush. Take a walk by all the checkpoints on the way.”

“See you there.”

 He left his stone companions, descended from his perch on the colonnade, and ambled slowly through the Easter crowd. He heard agents barking at each other through the tiny earpiece he wore. It was so hi-tech, it didn’t even have a cord dangling from his ear into his jacket. He controlled channels with a tiny remote device in his hand, and spoke into a microphone concealed under his collar.  With his sport shirt, baseball cap, baggy pants, and lightweight coat covering a nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson, he looked like a thousand other guys.

He made his way to the end of the line of security stations and walked from one station to another. Most people just walked through, unaware of the high-tech scanning aimed at them. But each was x-rayed, bomb sniffed, heat-scanned, and photographed coming through the gates. The pictures were instantly digitized and matched against a database of known terrorists, criminals, and anyone who might have a grudge against the church. Some were asked to leave, however, they had never caught a known terrorist this way.

Callahan just watched. If there was an improvement to be made, he noted it, and would take it up later with Mancini. Nothing was to be gained by tinkering in the middle of a major operation.

Mancini was already waiting when Callahan arrived at the handicapped station, and the guards were laughing and motioning for Paulo, one of the Vatican guards, to keep his distance.

“Looks like your men have a problem with personal hygiene,” said Callahan, jerking his head toward Paulo.

Paulo shrugged and gave a somewhat helpless look.  Mancini walked over to Paulo and started to ask what he had done to deserve such treatment. But he didn’t have to ask. It was obvious.

“My God, Paulo, you sleep in a dumpster? You smell like crap.”

Mancini backed up and motioned for Paulo to keep his distance. The other guards laughed even more.