A rainstorm drifted in overnight from the Gulf and blanketed the city like a bad mood, dispensing a weak but steady cold drizzle. It had been going on since before dawn, and would probably last all day.
The Maybach limousine was parked inside Gulf Air’s spacious new hangar at Louis Armstrong International. The hangar doors were rolled back in anticipation of the arrival from Rome. Bishop Nano slouched in the back seat of his limo and gazed out the rain-streaked windows, nervously waiting for the Vatican jet to land. Mr. Gibbs, his chauffeur, was sitting upright behind the wheel, doing the same. As usual, the visitor from Rome was late.
Nano didn’t have his own jet, he groused to himself, even though he was the head of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. When he flew he had to charter something, and his secretary Father Francis usually reserved him something with Gulf Air. At least they were good Catholics, and gave him their business at cost. They also let him use their private hangar for receiving visitors, which was a nice gesture. Being God’s emissary in New Orleans did have its privileges, such as they were.
Nano loathed humid weather, and New Orleans was a perpetual steam bath. To make matters worse, they built most of the damn city below sea level, which he thought was a stunningly stupid idea. The entire place should have been reclaimed by the bayou ages ago. He privately looked upon Katrina as a blessing. A bit of the Old Testament God was a good thing every now and then. It kept the rabble contrite and on their knees. And swimming was great exercise.
The Gulfstream touched down with a fine spray of wheel mist and taxied toward the Gulf Air hangar. By the time the jet nosed inside, the engines were already whispering to a halt.
Mr. Gibbs got out of the limo and approached the plane as the side door folded down and locked in place, inches above the polished concrete floor. A moment later, Father Benjamin Simone descended the integral stairs, carrying a briefcase.
He was in his late fifties now. He shaved his Orthodox peyot side curls off on New Year’s Day of 1977, and he hadn’t worn a skullcap since. Father Simone hadn’t gained more than ten pounds since he began his career as a Catholic more than thirty years ago, in the orphanage down the road from the Bayou Memorial Clinic. Fifteen years later, when his fellow convert Father Jacob Molinari was transferred to Rome, Simone went with him, having become indispensable as Molinari’s personal secretary. The two former Jews worked together at the Vatican from that day forward.
Mr. Gibbs shook Simone’s hand. “Good to see you, Father Simone.”
“Always a pleasure, Mr. Gibbs.”
Simone had been visiting Nano intermittently since his transfer to Rome, and knew Nano’s chauffeur for several years prior to that. Gibbs gestured toward the limo, and stepped ahead to get the back door.
Simone had always admired Nano’s choice of vehicles, but this was a particularly fine specimen. He noted in passing the Vatican City Consul plate, especially its number – 2315. Matthew 23:15, Simone thought wryly.
“And how troubled it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, for you cross land and sea to make one convert, and turn him into twice the child of Hell as you yourselves are.”
Mr. Gibbs opened the door and came to attention as Simone took a step inside. He paused as Bishop Nano propped up a smile and extended his plump, manicured hand. Simone took the bishop’s hand and dropped to one knee on the lambswool carpeting. He reverently kissed Nano’s ring, and the bishop beckoned for him to be seated. Simone complied, and Mr. Gibbs quietly shut the door behind him.
Nano watched the younger man settle with a thankful sigh into the butter-soft red leather seat beside him. He had just come halfway around the world riding in one lap of luxury and now he was settling into another one, but he still betrayed a slight grimace when he sat down. Nano’s own arthritis was acting up; perhaps the chilly blast of humidity between the jet and the limo had affected Simone as well.
On the other side of the soundproof glass, Mr. Gibbs piloted the stretch Maybach out of the hangar and into the relentless drizzle. Nano affected a jolly little smirk, looking over Cardinal Molinari’s globetrotting envoy.
“You poor boy, shuttling back and forth from Rome all these years. I’m surprised you’re still so healthy.”
Simone grinned, and gave him a polite nod of thanks for the compliment. “The gym at the Vatican is world-class, your Excellency.”
Nano glanced out the window as the limo skirted the perimeter of the airport, approaching the commercial aviation gate. “As is everything at the Vatican,” he remarked. “We have to make do with what we can, out here in the swamp.”
They were passing a hedgerow of untrimmed weeds entwined in the rusting chain-link fence. There were weeds everywhere in New Orleans. The bayou had to be constantly beaten back, or it would creep into the city and eat it alive. There were times that Nano wished it would, and this was one of those times.
He finally looked back to the envoy. “Simone, Simone... Almost thirty-three years, and you’re still just an errand boy,” Nano said, not unkindly, and then he cracked a teasing grin. “Still happy you converted?”
Simone responded with a humorless smirk and looked out the window. But Nano knew that he had made his point.
The small talk sure died a quick death, didn’t it? Simone thought to himself. He could well imagine why. Nano was clearly troubled by the recent turn of events, and besides, the old man’s patience had been wearing thin over the years. Things were not going well, and they both knew it. So did Cardinal Molinari.
Nano decided to dispense with the social niceties during this visit from Simone. It was high time that he bluntly stated his concerns. At this stage of the game, he had nothing to lose. He was a deeply worried man, nearing the end of his productive years with little hope of salvation, or even a gentle death, if he couldn’t turn things around. The master he served didn’t let a person rest in peace if they failed him, whatever the reason might be.
“Time is not on our side, Simone. We have until Easter or the wager is lost. One wrong name after another...!”
Simone glanced at him and nodded, understanding the implications. Things were not going well indeed, and if Molinari had any say in the matter, things wouldn’t be improving any time soon. Simone was simply a functionary. His job was to play along, and to take the heat from the Bishop. And things were heating up.
“You would think that after all these centuries, the Mother Church would have learned not to trifle with the Devil!”
Simone absorbed Nano’s anger, but was inwardly troubled that the bishop was speaking in such blunt terms. In all the years that Simone had acted as Molinari’s go-between, Nano always kept his comments oblique, dancing around the subject as if he were talking on a wiretapped phone. Now he was jumping right in with both feet, like a juvenile delinquent splashing in a puddle.
“How many children were born at the clinic that night?” Nano demanded to know, a ruddy frown puckering his plump face.
“Twelve,” Simone told him.
“And how does Molinari know that! All the records were lost in the tornado.”
“Yes, your Excellency, which is why it’s taken years to track them all down,” Simone patiently re-explained. “They didn’t use computers back then,” he reminded the bishop. “The files were blown away. An act of God.”
Nano sneered at him for an uncomfortably long time, until Simone shifted in his seat.
“Indeed.” Nano sniffed. “An act of God. How convenient. Twelve, huh? Just twelve?”
Simone nodded. Nano nodded back, and cracked a humorless grin. “I should have known,” he said dryly. “That number keeps coming up in our line of work.”
Simone offered a thin smile, but Nano didn’t intend his remark to be amusing. Simone’s smile quickly evaporated.
Nano grumbled, watching the rivulets of rain streaking across the side windows as they approached the freeway on-ramp. He looked back to Simone. “This has to end! Just find Him!”
Simone had never seen Nano so stressed. Then again, Nano had been secretly grappling with this for over thirty years; the pressure would have crippled a lesser man. Simone was actually surprised that he hadn’t collapsed long ago. Nano’s predecessor never got past the first round.
Simone bowed his head, and in a quiet voice he revealed what he was sent to tell Nano. “We have, your Excellency.”
Nano stared at him, catching his breath. Father Simone had the man’s undivided attention now. He opened the briefcase resting on his lap and handed Nano a heavy stainless steel case with rounded corners. It was a little more than a foot long, perhaps six inches wide, and about two inches thick. It had no latch or visible hinges, just a numerical touchpad.
Nano was puzzled, and looked at Simone. The priest handed him a small parchment envelope, secured with a dollop of red sealing wax. Nano squinted at the impression – it was from Cardinal Molinari’s signet ring.
Nano grunted, and broke the seal, opening the envelope. Parchment was a lovely paper, he thought, elegant and ageless. He had to hand it to Molinari. The man had class.
He withdrew a single sheet of parchment from the envelope. On it was the number 186, written with a quill pen.
Nano’s spine tingled, staring at the paper. He knew his Bible codes, and memorized what most of them meant. He certainly knew this one. Sir Isaac Newton, the heretical genius, spent half his life puzzling over Bible codes, in addition to his work on alchemy. After his death, the Vatican’s own alchemists and numerologists finished the man’s work in secret. Their exhaustive treatise on Newton’s metaphysics – his “quiet work” – was locked away in the sub-basement of the Vatican Secret Archives. Nano, Molinari, and the secret Cabal of Cardinals to which they were loyal were the only ones with access to the masterwork. Not even the Pope could say the same; he didn’t even know it existed.
186. “It is finished.”
Nano glanced at Simone, who nodded at the portable vault resting on the archbishop’s lap, encouraging him to try the combination. Nano pressed 1,8,6, and then pressed Enter. The lid unsealed with a whisper of air. The crucifix dagger was inside, nestled in a custom-cut bed of gray foam. “Oh, my God...” Nano whispered.
His mind raced back to some thirty-odd years before, to the night he delivered the same weapon, on the same journey from Rome to New Orleans.