The Central Command Center of Vatican Intelligence
The Vatican, Vatican City
Deep within the Central Command Center of Vatican Intelligence, Brother Matteo sat before the main console, his fingers poised over the array of buttons and screens that adorned it. His eyes, sharp and focused, scanned the endless streams of data cascading across the monitors, each one a window into the world of clandestine operations and covert intelligence.
As he monitored the feeds with unwavering diligence, his attention was suddenly drawn to a blip on the radar—an anomalous signal pulsating at the coordinates of Jonah's presumed stronghold in Romania. Zooming in on the location, the flickering light of the screens cast shadows across his features.
Brother Matteo then keyed in a series of commands, initiating a deep dive into the encrypted transmissions emanating from the source. With each byte decrypted, the information unfolded before him.
Realizing the significance of the data, Brother Matteo reached for the communications device at his side and issued a call to Fathers Essex and Auciello, requesting their presence.
* * *
In the dimly lit upper level of the Central Command Center of Vatican Intelligence, Fathers Essex and Auciello stood side by side, their eyes fixed on the multitude of screens that adorned the walls before them. Live feeds from neighboring countries flickered across the monitors, each one a grim display of chaos and violence.
As they watched, scenes unfolded before their eyes. In Spain, picketers clashed with law enforcement, hurling Molotov cocktails amidst the backdrop of burning cars and billowing smoke. France and Italy fared no better, their streets engulfed in similar scenes of unrest and discord. In other countries, dummies, all symbolic representations of political incumbents, were burned in effigy.
Fathers Essex and Auciello knew that behind the facade of these riots lay a more insidious truth. The influence of AI-driven disinformation and misinformation was spreading like wildfire across social platforms, fanning the embers of hatred and division, whereas candidates with intemperate viewpoints in the upcoming elections promised to curb the violence with reforms. The officeholders, however, were decrying the notion that the information saturating the platforms was untrue. Yet, their measures of working damage control had been falling short.
As they watched the violence escalate, the chaos seemed unstoppable. Law enforcement officials deployed smoke grenades and water cannons in a desperate bid to quell the unrest, but their efforts seemed futile against the tide of anger and frustration sweeping through the streets.
“The power of the Internet,” Father Essex commented softly. ******
Then the small light globe to a nearby phone lit up, the phone itself chiming a weird ring.
Father Auciello hit the speaker button. “Yes, Brother Matteo?”
“There’s something on my monitor you need to see.”
“What?”
“I picked up an anomalous signal that might interest you.”
“We’re on our way.”
Leaving the windowed office on the upper tier that overlooked the entire command center, Fathers Essex and Auciello made their way to Brother Matteo’s console.
“Brother Matteo,” was all Father Essex said.
The light from the computer monitor cast a sterile glow on Brother Matteo's face as he leaned closer to the display on his console. His fingers danced across the keyboard, a symphony of rapid clicks and taps.
"Fathers, I have something here you might be interested in. An anomaly. A ping off one of our geostationary satellites used by Vatican Intelligence. It appears a signal from a satellite phone bounced off the satellite, potentially reflecting back down to a specific location. I’m talking about a signal transmitted from here . . . to Transylvania.”
The theory had been simmering for days - a gamble that someone within the Vatican could be using strategically placed reflectors to bounce encrypted messages from a mundane satellite phone, bypassing conventional interception.
"And the sending location?" Father Essex asked.
Matteo tapped the keyboard rapidly, lines of code scrolling across the screen. "I was able to triangulate the sending phone's position based on the bounce. It's within Vatican City. The closest location, though the coordinates are not precise, came from the vicinity of the Cardinalatial Apartments."
Father Essex did not appear to be stunned by this. “The Cardinalatial Apartments,” he stated simply.
“How many cardinals reside there?” asked Father Auciello.
Brother Matteo typed in the commands to bring up the resident manifest. After the list appeared on the screen, he said, “Thirty-two.”
After reading over the list, Father Auciello pointed to one name in particular. “Right there,” he said.
Father Essex nodded. "This confirms it," he said. "The Black Monk has an associate within the Vatican. Moreso . . . he is part of the company the pontiff keeps.”
Then from Father Auciello. “And the final point of the sent signal, did it happen to end up at the AI’s origin point in Transylvania?”
Brother Matteo typed, and new data surfaced. On the screen, a circular dot glowed, marking the coordinates of the Black Monk’s stronghold with pinpoint accuracy: 46.372222°, 24.822500°. These were the coordinates within the Făgăraș Mountains, a subrange of the Transylvanian Alps in Romania.
“Are you sure, Brother Matteo?” asked Father Essex.
“This is where the signal ended. So yes, I’m more than just sure. I’m positive.”
Father Essex patted Brother Matteo’s shoulder—a job well done.
“Now,” Father Auciello began, “bring up a satellite image of the set coordinates.”
Brother Matteo’s fingers moved across the keys. With a sense of purpose, he typed in the specific set of coordinates, commanding the overhead satellite to bring up images of the Făgăraș Mountains in Romania.
As the satellite responded to his command, Brother Matteo leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the screen, as the satellite lens zoomed in. Instead of the rugged terrain of the mountains, all he saw was a thick canopy of trees, stretching endlessly across the landscape like a sea of green.
He then tried adjusting the settings, hoping to uncover any hidden details obscured by the dense foliage. Yet, no matter how much he manipulated the controls, the result remained the same—the screen displayed nothing but the impenetrable forest. “Nothing but timberland,” he uttered. “But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything underneath. The canopy’s too thick to see through.” Top of Form
“Have you conducted a record search from the Oficiul Național al Registrului Comerțului?” Father Essex asked him.
Brother Matteo nodded. “There are no known structures in the area that’s chronicled. So, I checked the defense sector and the Romanian Ministry of National Defense. Though I couldn’t find any records of a structure, that doesn’t mean that the departments or directorates within the ministry for Defense Policy or Military Intelligence don’t have their own internal systems for managing documentation related to military facilities. They probably do, so I need to dig deeper into their files because I believe something’s down there.” Brother Matteo typed in coordinates east of the alleged site to a road that wound upward along a mountainside until it disappeared under the treetops. “I discovered this earlier . . . I figure that road has to go somewhere, right?”
“No doubt,” said Father Auciello. The lane, which was only wide enough for a vehicle, was a barren stretch with no place to take cover in case of a firefight. “The road’s too exposed, which is not a practical means to conduct a military strike. It might be prudent that the Vatican Knights parachute in from a different point.” Then he asked, “Is there a nearby site that’s open, a place they can either parachute or rappel into safely?”
More taps on the keyboard from Brother Matteo, zooming away from the key coordinates. With an expanded view, they saw multiple clearings, but the safest was seven clicks away, which was approximately four and a half miles from the stronghold, though the terrain was extremely rugged between the two points.
“We’ll get a message to the Vatican Knights,” Father Auciello said. “In the meantime,” he pointed to a particular name on the resident manifest, “I need to inform the pontiff of our findings. He needs to know that one who sits upon the council of the Society of Seven may be working in collusion with the man who’s trying to undermine his authority.”
Placing and clasping his hands behind the small of his back, Father Auciello began to climb the stairs to the top tier of the facility, to where his office was located, to make a personal call to the pontiff asking for a closed council meeting along with Father Essex.