About the same hour on the same morning, Monsignor Matt Neylan finally made telephone contact with Lorenzo de Rosa, one-time priest of the Roman diocese, excommunicated, newly widowed, the father of two small children. Neylan explained himself curtly.
‘There’s a terrorist threat to the Pontiff, who is at this moment a patient in the International Clinic. You’re a suspect, because you sounded off yesterday to Malachy O’Rahilly. So you’re bound to get a visit from the anti-terrorist squad. My suggestion would be to get out of town as quickly as you can.’
‘And why should you care?’
‘God knows. Maybe a visit from the Squadristi sounds like one grief too many.’
‘There’s nothing they can do to us now. But thank you for calling. Goodbye.’
Matt Neylan stood like a ninny with the dead receiver in his hand. Then a dark thought took hold of him and sent him racing for his car and careering like a madman through the morning traffic towards EUR.
De Rosa’s house was a modest but well-kept villa in a cul-de-sac near the Via del Giorgione. There was a car in the driveway and the garden gate was unlocked. The front door was open, too. Neylan called a greeting, but there was no answer. He went inside. The ground floor was deserted. Upstairs in the nursery, two little girls lay still and waxen-faced in their beds. Neylan called to them softly. They did not answer. He touched their cheeks. They were cold and lifeless. Across the hall, in the big matrimonial bed, Lorenzo de Rosa lay beside the body of his wife, who was dressed as if for a bridal night. De Rosa’s face was distorted in the last rictus of dying. There was a small cake of foam about his lips.
Matt Neylan, new to unbelief, found himself murmuring a prayer for all their sad souls. Then the prayer exploded into a blasphemy against all the hypocrisy and folly that lay at the root of the tragedy. He debated, for the briefest moment, about calling the police; decided against it, then walked out of the house into the deserted street. The only witness to his departure was a stray cat. The only person to hear of his encounter was the Cardinal Secretary of State, to whom he exposed, in the same speech, his discovery of the tragedy and his decision to leave the Church.
Agostini, the lifetime diplomat, took the news calmly. With Neylan, there was no ground of argument. As an unbeliever he belonged henceforth to another order of being. The situation with the police was even easier to arrange. Both parties had a common interest. His Eminence explained it simply.
‘You were wise to leave the scene. Otherwise everybody would have been swamped with depositions and interrogations. We have advised the police of your presence in the house and your discovery of the bodies. They will accept your visit as a pastoral call, subject to confessional secrecy. They will not involve you in any further questioning.’
‘Which, of course, leaves everything very tidy.’
‘Spare me the ironies, Monsignore!’ His Eminence was suddenly angry. ‘I am just as unhappy about this sad affair as you are. The whole thing was bungled from the start. I have no taste for zealots and bigots, no matter how high they sit in the Sacred College; but I have to work with them, with as much tolerance and charity as I can muster. You can afford your anger. You have chosen to withdraw from the community of the faithful and dispense yourself from its obligations. I don’t blame you. I understand what has brought you to this decision.’
‘It’s hardly a decision, Eminence. It’s a new state of being. I am no longer a believer. My identity has changed. I have no place in any Christian assembly. So I’m separating myself as discreetly as possible. I’ll move out of my office today. My apartment is on a private lease, not a Vatican one, so that’s no problem. I have an Irish passport, so I’ll hand you back my Vatican documents. That should leave everything tidy.’
‘For our purposes,’ – Agostini was studiously good-humoured – ‘we’ll formally suspend you from the exercise of priestly functions and proceed immediately to have you laicised.’
‘With respect, Eminence, these procedures are a matter of indifference to me.’
‘But I, my friend, am not indifferent to you. I have seen this coming for along time. It was like watching a classic rose mutate slowly into hedgerow stock. The beautiful bloom is gone, but the plant is still vigorously alive. I reproved you last night; but I understood your anger and admired your courage. I must say that in that moment you looked very like a Christian to me!’
‘I’m curious,’ said Matt Neylan.
‘About what?’
‘We both know the Holy Father has asked for a special report on the de Rosa affair.’
‘So?’
‘My question: how will he react to the news of their deaths – by murder and suicide?’
‘We have no intention of telling him the news – until he is strong enough to receive it.’
‘And then what? How will he react? Will he repent his original harshness? How will he judge de Rosa – and himself? Will he amend the legislation in the canons, or mitigate its penalties?’
‘What you’re really asking,’ – Agostini permitted himself a small, wintry smile – ‘is a perennial question. Does the Church change when a pope changes his mind or his heart? In my experience, it doesn’t. The inertia is too great. The whole system is geared against swift movement. Besides – and this is the nub of the matter – the Church is so centralised now that every tremor is magnified to earthquake scale. The simplest act of official tolerance can be turned into a scandal. The most innocent speculation by the most orthodox theologian on the mysteries of the Faith sets off a heresy hunt.’ Agostini’s humour turned suddenly rueful. ‘Living at this altitude in this place is like being perched on the edge of the San Andreas fault. So the answer to your question: every public utterance of the Pontiff is ritually controlled. In his private life he may dress in sackcloth, powder himself with ashes, mourn like Job on his dunghill; but who will know about it? The Church has its own omertà, its rule of silence, every whit as binding as that of the Mafia.’
‘And what would happen …’ Matt Neylan laughed as he put the question. ‘What would happen if I decided to breach the wall of silence?’
‘Nothing.’ Agostini dismissed the thought with a gesture. ‘Nothing at all! What authority could you invoke? You’d be called an apostate, a renegade priest. In the Church you’d be prayed for and ignored. Outside it you’d carry another stigma: a fool who let himself be gulled for half a lifetime before he quit.’
‘A warning, Eminence?’
‘A counsel only. I am told you are seeking to make a new career as an author. You will not, I am sure, damage it by peddling scandals, or betraying professional secrets.’
‘I am flattered by your confidence,’ said Matt Neylan.
We shall all remember you as a discreet and loyal colleague. We shall pray for your well-being.’
‘Thank you – and goodbye, Eminence.’
So, simply and curtly, a lifetime was ended, a whole identity shucked off like a reptile’s skin. He passed by the Apostolic Palace to say goodbye to Malachy O’Rahilly, but was told he was waiting at the clinic until the result of the Pontiff’s surgery was known.
So, because he needed at least one stepping stone between his old life and a new one, because he needed at least one weapon against the pitiless rectitude of Vatican bureaucracy, he telephoned Nicol Peters and begged to be offered a cup of coffee.
‘It’s my lucky day.’ Nicol Peters slipped a new cassette into the tape-recorder. ‘Two big stories and you’ve given me the inside running on both of them. I’m in your debt, Matt.’
‘You owe me nothing.’ Neylan was emphatic. ‘I believe the de Rosa business is a scandal that should be aired … you can do that. I can’t – at least not until I’ve established a new identity and authority. Which, by the way, is a problem you have to face. If I’m revealed as your informant, your story will be discredited. Drop-outs like me can be an embarrassment.’
Nicol Peters shrugged off the warning.
We agreed the ground rules. Trust me to play by them.’
‘I do.’
‘So let’s go back. The assassination threat is the number one story, though I’m not sure how I can use it if it jeopardises the life of an undercover agent. Anyway, that’s my problem, not yours. Let’s look at the sequence of events. Mossad gets the news from an agent in place. The Israelis pass the news to the Vatican and to the Italian authorities. Those two set up a joint security operation inside and outside Salviati’s clinic. The Israeli’s can’t participate openly; but obviously they’re in it up to their necks.’
‘Obviously.’
‘So far the Pontiff knows nothing of all this?’
‘Nothing. The news came in early yesterday evening. The meeting which I attended did not take place until very late. The countdown to the Pontiffs surgery had already begun. There was no point in disturbing him with the news.’
‘I accept that. Now let’s speculate a little further. An assassin is identified before an attempt is made on the Pope’s life. Who deals with him – or perhaps with her, as the case may be?’
Matt Neylan poured himself more coffee and gave a slightly parodied exposition of the argument.
‘The Vatican position would be defined very simply. I’ve written enough position papers to give it to you verbatim. Their sole concern is the safety of the Sacred Person of His Holiness. They leave the criminal to be dealt with by the Republic. Simple! Clean hands! No imbroglios with the Muslim world. The position of the Republic of Italy is somewhat different. They have the right, the power, the sovereign authority to deal with criminals and terrorists. Do they want to? Hell no! That means more terror – hijacks, hostages, kidnappings to bring the criminals out of custody. Conclusion: though they’d never admit it, they’d love Mossad to handle the business quickly and neatly and have the body buried by sunrise. You want me to prove it? No way. You want me to swear that’s what I heard in the Apostolic Palace – no way either! It wasn’t said. It would never be said!’
‘Me thinks,’ said Nicol Peters amiably, ‘me thinks the lady hath protested enough! I’ve got enough to frame the story and prise the rest of it out of other sources. Now let’s talk about de Rosa. Here again, the sequence is clear. De Rosa quits the priesthood, beds down with a girl without benefit of clergy, has two children by her. They are happy. They want to regularise their union – a situation not without precedent, not at all impossible under the canons …”
‘But quite contrary to present policy, which is to make things as tough as possible for offenders and damp down hopes of lenient solutions.’
‘Check. Now tragedy strikes. The woman dies, still unreconciled, in spite of her wish to be so. The despairing husband stages a macabre family reunion, kills his children with an overdose of sleeping pills and himself with cyanide – all this while under suspicion as a possible assassin of the same Pope who had denied him canonical relief.’
‘A caveat here! Until I called de Rosa in the small hours of this morning he didn’t know he was a suspect. He couldn’t have.’
‘Could your news have precipitated his decision to kill his children and himself?’
‘It could have. I doubt it did. The fact that he had brought his wife’s body back to the house seems to indicate that he had already decided on some kind of ceremonial exit … But what do I know? The whole thing is a madness – all because a bunch of clerical bureaucrats refused legitimate relief in a human situation. Let me tell you something, Nico! This is one story I want His Holiness to read, no matter what it does to his sacred blood pressure!’
‘Do you really think it will matter a damn what he thinks or says about it?’
‘It could. He could change a lot of lives overnight if he had the will and the courage. He could bring back compassion and clemency into what, believe me, has become a rigorist institution.’
‘Do you really believe that, Matt? I’ve lived in this town longer than you have and I don’t believe it for a minute. In the Roman Catholic Church, the whole system – the hierarchy, the education of the clergy, the Curial administration, the Electoral College – is designed to perpetuate the status quo and eliminate along the way any and every aberrant element. The man you get at the top is the nearest you can come to the Manchurian Candidate, the perfectly conditioned representative of the majority interest of the Electoral College itself.’
‘It’s a good argument,’ said Matt Neylan with a grin. ‘I’m a conditioned man myself. I know how deeply the imprint goes, how potent the trigger-words become. But, by the same token, Nico, I’m the flaw in the argument too. I’ve lost all the conditioning. I’ve become another person. I know that change is possible for good or ill – and the two most potent instruments of change are power and pain.’
Nicol Peters gave him a long, searching look and then said gently: ‘It seems I’ve missed something, my friend. Would you be patient enough to tell me what it is?’
‘It’s nothing much, Nico. And yet, in a way, it’s everything. It’s why I feel so angry about what happened to de Rosa. Agostini put it very bluntly this morning. I’m labelled now – I’m an apostate, a renegade, a defector, a fool. But that isn’t the nature of my experience at all. I’ve lost something, a capacity, a faculty – as one can lose sexual potency or the gift of sight. I am changed, irrevocably. I am back at the first day of creation, when earth was still an empty waste and darkness hung over the deep … Who knows? There may be wonders still to come but I do not expect them. I live in the here and now. What I see is what is. What I know is what I have experienced and – most terrifying of all, Nico! – what will be is a totally random matter. That makes the world a very bleak place, Nico. So bleak that even fear can hardly survive in it.’
Nicol Peters waited a long moment before he offered a dry comment.
‘At least you’re at the beginning of a new world, not at the end of it. And it’s not all that new either. It’s the same place lots of us inhabit who have never been conditioned or gifted with the massive certainties of Christianity. We have to make do with what we get – the fleeting light, the passing storm, enough love to temper the tears of things, the rare glimpse of reason in a mad world. So don’t be too dismayed, matey! It’s a big club you’ve joined – and even Christians believe that God was a founding member!’
While the Pontiff, cold and cyanosed, festooned with tubes and electrodes, was being settled in the Intensive Care Unit, Sergio Salviati took coffee with James Morrison and wrote his first communiqué to the Vatican.
‘His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV, today underwent elective bypass surgery, following a short history of angina pectoris. The operation, in which three saphenous vein grafts were inserted into the coronary circulation, was performed at the International Clinic under the direction of Professor Sergio Salviati, assisted by Mr James Morrison of the London College of Surgeons, with the Papal Physician, Professor Carlo Massenzio, in attendance. The procedures were successfully completed in two hours and fifty minutes. His Holiness is now in the Intensive Care Unit, in a stable and satisfactory condition. Professor Salviati and the attending physician anticipate an uncomplicated convalescence and are optimistic about the long-term prognosis.’
He signed the document with a flourish and handed it to his secretary.
‘Please send two facsimile copies to the Vatican, the first to the Secretary of State personally, the second to the Sala Stampa. Then type the following text which our switchboard operators will use verbatim to respond to all inquiries about the Pontiff. Text begins: “The operation on His Holiness has been successfully completed. His Holiness is still in Intensive Care. For further details, apply to the Sala Stampa, Vatican City, which will issue all future bulletins.”’
‘Anything else, Professor?’
‘Yes. Please ask the Chief of Hospital Staff and the two senior security officers to meet me here in thirty minutes. That’s all for the moment.’
When the secretary had left, James Morrison offered enthusiastic praise.
‘Full marks, Sergio! You’ve built a great team. I’ve never worked with a better one.’
‘My thanks to you, James. I was grateful to have you with me. This was a rough one for me.’
‘The old buzzard should be grateful he fell into your hands!’
Salviati threw back his head and laughed.
‘He is an old buzzard, isn’t he? That great beak, those hooded, hostile eyes. But he’s a tough bird. There’s probably another decade in him after this.’
‘It’s a moot point, of course, whether the world or the Church will thank you for that.’
‘True, James! Very true! But at least we’ve honoured the Hippocratic oath.’
‘I wonder if he’ll offer you a Vatican decoration.’
‘To a Jew? I very much doubt it. I wouldn’t accept it. I couldn’t. Anyway, it’s much too early to talk about success, let alone rewards. We still have to keep him alive until the end of his convalescence.’
‘Are you that worried about the assassination threat?’
‘You’re damn right I’m worried! No one goes in or out of the Intensive Care Unit without an identity check. No drugs are dispensed to this patient except from sealed bottles by nominated personnel. Even the goddamned scrub women are searched, and the garbage collectors!’
‘But I notice you and Tove still drive back and forth to the clinic without a bodyguard. Is that wise?’
‘We’re not the target.’
‘You could be a secondary one.’
‘James, if I thought about all the dangers of this job, I’d lock myself in a padded cell … To change the subject, what are your plans now?’
‘I’ll take a leisurely run up north to see my Italian relatives, then I’ll head back to London.’
‘How do you want to be paid?’
‘Swiss francs in Zurich, if that’s possible.’
‘Since the money will come from the Vatican, everything is possible. When will you leave?’
‘Two days, three maybe. The British Ambassador has bidden me to dinner. He’d like to make some capital out of my presence – for which I don’t blame him, because I’ll be eating my own tax money. But before I leave I’d like to entertain you and Tove. You pick the place. I’ll pick up the bill.’
‘It’s a date. Do you want to stroll along with me and take a quick look at our patient? He should be settled by now. And that Irish monsignor, his secretary, insists on a personal word …’
Monsignor Malachy O’Rahilly was tired and low-spirited. The fine glow of liquor and righteousness which had sustained him at the Secretariat meeting had subsided into the grey ashes of remorse. He had driven to the clinic just as the Pontiff was being wheeled in for surgery and he had spent three long hours wandering the grounds under the vigilant eyes of armed men.
Even before Salviati’s communiqué had been issued, he had telephoned the Secretary of State to tell him that the operation had been successful. His Eminence had returned the compliment with a brief summary of the de Rosa affair and an admonition that none of the newspaper reports – which were bound to be lurid – should be communicated to His Holiness until he was well on the road to recovery. O’Rahilly read the order as a reproof for his indiscretions, and wished there were someone like Matt Neylan to whom he could make a fraternal confession.
So, when he stood by the Pontiff’s bedside with Salviati and Morrison, he felt flustered and uncomfortable. His first remark was a banality.
‘The poor man looks so … so vulnerable.’
Morrison reassured him cheerfully.
‘He’s in great shape. The whole procedure was a copybook exercise. There’s nothing to be done now except monitor the screen and change his drips. He won’t be halfway lucid for another day and a half. If I were you, I’d go home and let Professor Salviati’s people look after him.’
‘You’re right, of course.’ O’Rahilly still felt the need to patch up his dignity. ‘I wondered if I should walk through the security arrangements with you, Professor Salviati; just so I can reassure the Secretary of State and the Curia.’
‘Not possible, Monsignore!’ Salviati was curt. ‘Security is not your business, or mine. We should leave it to the professionals!’
‘I thought only that …’
‘Enough, please! We are all tired. I don’t tell you how to write the Pope’s letters. Don’t tell me how to run my clinic. Please, Monsignore! Please!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Malachy O’Rahilly was chastened but not silenced. ‘I had a bad night, too. I’m sure the security is first class. I couldn’t move twenty yards in the garden without looking down a gun-barrel. When may His Holiness have visitors?’
‘Any time. But he won’t begin to make sense for at least thirty-six hours. Even then, his attention span will be limited and his emotions barely under control. Just warn your people not to expect too much and to keep their visits short.’
‘Be sure I’ll do that. There’s just one thing you should know …’
And that was all the prompting Malachy O’Rahilly needed to blurt out the story of de Rosa’s suicide, the murder of his children and the macabre obsequies he had prepared in his house.
Morrison and Salviati heard him out in silence; then Salviati led the way out of the Intensive Care Unit and into the corridor. He was deeply shocked, but his comment was studiously restrained.
‘What can I say? It’s a tragic mess and a sad waste of human lives.’
‘We are anxious,’ – Malachy O’Rahilly was happy to have the spotlight again – ‘we are most anxious that His Holiness should be spared this news, at least until he is strong enough to cope with it.’
Salviati dismissed the notion with a shrug.
‘I’m sure he won’t hear it from our staff, Monsignore.’
To which James Morrison added a tart reminder.
‘And he’s not going to be able to hold, let alone focus on, a newspaper for days yet.’
‘So you should look to your own gossips, Monsignore.’ Salviati was already on the move towards the elevators. ‘You must excuse us now. We’ve had a busy morning; and it isn’t over yet.’
Anton Drexel, too, was having a busy morning; but a much more relaxing one. He had risen early, made his morning meditation, said Mass in the tiny villa chapel with his cellar master for acolyte and those of his household and the colonia who wished to attend. He had breakfasted on coffee and home-baked rolls and honey from his own hives. Now, dressed in workman’s clothes, with a big straw hat on his white head and a basket on his arm, he was making the rounds of the garden plots, cutting fresh artichokes, pulling lettuce and radishes, picking red tomatoes and white peaches and the big yellow persimmons that the local folk called ‘kaki’.
His companion was a skinny, shambling boy with a hydrocephalic skull, who knelt among the bean rows, clutching a tape-recorder into which from time to time he murmured some runic words of his own. Later, Drexel knew, the sounds would be transcribed into the written record of a Mendelian experiment on the hybridisation of fave, the broad beans which flourished in the friable soil of the foothills. The boy, Tonino, was only in his fifteenth year, but already, under the tutelage of a botanist from the University of Rome, he was deep into the principles of plant genetics.
Verbal communication with Tonino was difficult, as it was with many of the children in the colonia, but Drexel had developed a technique of patient listening and a language of smiles and gestures and approving caresses, which somehow seemed to suffice these small, maimed geniuses whose intellectual reach, he knew, was light years further than his own.
As he went about the simple, satisfying landsman’s tasks, Drexel pondered the paradoxes, human and divine, which presented themselves to him every precious day of his Indian summer. He saw himself very clearly as a hinge-man of a Church in crisis, a man whose time was running out, who must soon stand for judgement on what he had done and left undone.
His prime talent had always been that of a navigator. He knew that you couldn’t sail into the eye of the wind or buck the seas head-on. You had to haul off and tack, take the big waves on the shoulder, run for shelter sometimes and always be content to arrive in God’s time.
He had always refused to involve himself in the battles of the theologians, being content to accept life as a mystery, and Revelation as a torch-light by which to explore it. For him, faith was the gift that made mystery acceptable, while hope made it endurable and love brought joy even in the cloud of unknowing. He had no belief at all in the efficacy of Romanità, the ancient Roman habit of prescribing a juridical solution to every human dilemma, and then stamping every solution with a sacred character under the seal of the magisterium.
His method of dealing with Romanità – and of salving his own conscience – had always been the same. He made his protest, plainly but in strictest protocol, he pleaded his cause without passion, then submitted in silence to the verdict of the Pontiff or the curial majority. Had he been challenged to justify such conformity – and not even the Pontiff wanted a head-on collision with Anton Drexel! – he would have answered with reasonable truth that open conflict would avail nothing for him or for the Church, and that while he was happy to resign and become a country curate, he saw no virtue in abdication, and even less in rebellion. In his official life he followed the motto of Gregory the Great: ‘Omnia videre, multa dissumulare, pauca corrigere.’ See all, keep a lot to yourself and correct a few things!
But in his private, intimate life at the villa, with the children, their parents and teachers, he no longer had the luxury or the protection of protocol and obedience. In a very special sense, he was the patriarch of the family, the shepherd of the tiny flock, to whom everyone looked for guidance and decision. He could no longer gloss over the patent facts of a tooth and claw creation, and the random nature of human tragedy. He could no longer signify personal assent to the prohibition of artificial birth control, or affirm that every marriage formally contracted in the Church was, of its nature, Christian, made in heaven, and therefore indissoluble. He was no longer prepared to pronounce a final ethical judgement on the duty of a surgeon faced with a monster birth, or the conscience of a woman desperate to terminate a pregnancy in order to prevent one. He was angered when theologians and philosophers were silenced or censured for their attempts to enlarge the understanding of the Church. He fought a long war of attrition against the secrecies and injustices of the inquisitorial system, which still survived in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He found himself insisting more and more upon the liberty of enlightened conscience and the constant need of every human creature for compassion, charity and forgiveness.
It was to this that he sought to persuade his friends in the senior hierarchy and ultimately the Pontiff, if and when he came to spend time with the children in the colonia. It was for this that he offered his daily Mass and his nightly prayers. It was for this that he sought to prepare mind and spirit by his musings in the summer garden. Even his harvest of the summer fruits made a text for his discourse to the children and their teachers, gathered on the lawn for morning coffee.
‘You see, there is an order even in what presents itself to us as cataclysm. Lake Nemi up there was once an active volcano. This land was once covered with ash and pumice and black lava. Now it is sweet and fertile. We did not see the change happen. If we had seen it, we would not have understood what was happening. We would have tried to explain the phenomenon by myths and symbols … Even now, with all our knowledge of the past, we still find it hard to disentangle the historical facts from the myths, because the myths themselves are a part of history … This is why we must never be afraid to speculate – and never, never be afraid of those who urge us to contemplate the seemingly impossible, to examine ancient formulae for new meanings. Believe me, we are more readily betrayed by our certainties than by our doubts and curiosities. I believe that half the heresies and schisms would never have happened if Christians had been willing to listen to each other in patience and charity, and not tried to turn the Divine mysteries into geometric theorems which could be taught with compass and set-squares … Listen now, my friends, to what the Fathers of Vatican Council II have said about our dangerous certainties: “If the influence of events or of the times has led to deficiencies in conduct, in Church discipline, or even in the formulation of doctrine (which must be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself) these should be appropriately rectified at the proper moment.” But what am I truly trying to say with all these words? I am an old man. I hold to the old Apostolic faith. Jesus is the Lord, the Son of the Living God. He took flesh. He suffered and died for our salvation and on the third day God raised him up again. Everything I see in this garden is a symbol of that birth and death and resurrection … Every truth that has ever been taught within the Church flows from it. Every evil that has ever been done in the Church has been a contradiction of that saving event … So do not ask me to judge you, my children, my family. Just permit me to love you, as God loves us all …’
The talk ended as informally as it had begun. Drexel moved over to the big trestle table, where one of the women offered him coffee and a sweet biscuit. It was then that he became aware of Tove Lundberg standing a few paces away with James Morrison in attendance. Tove Lundberg presented him to Drexel. Morrison paid him a sober compliment.
‘I’ve been deaf to sermons for a good many years, Eminence. That one moved me deeply.’
Tove Lundberg explained their presence.
‘Sergio wanted you to know personally that the surgery was successful … And I thought James should see what you are doing here for Britte and the others.’
‘That was kind.’ Drexel felt as if a great load had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘I presume, Mr Morrison, that means there were no unforeseen consequences – stroke, brain damage, that sort of thing?’
‘None that we can see or foresee at this moment.’
‘Thank God! And you clever gentlemen, too!’
We did, however, get some sad news.’ Tove Lundberg told him of the de Rosa affair as reported by Monsignor O’Rahilly. Drexel was suddenly grim.
‘Shocking! Absolutely disgraceful that a tragedy like this could be permitted to happen! I shall take it up with the dicasteries concerned and with the Holy Father when he is sufficiently recovered.’ He turned to James Morrison. ‘Bureaucrats are the accursed of God, Mr Morrison. They record everything and understand nothing. They invent a spurious mathematic by which every human factor is reduced to zero …’ To Tove Lundberg he said more calmly: ‘I imagine Professor Salviati was very upset.’
‘More than he would confess, even to me. He hates the waste of human beings. Besides, the clinic is like an armed camp just now and that’s a reminder of another kind of waste.’
‘Come!’ said Anton Drexel abruptly. ‘Let’s be grateful for a while. I ‘II walk you round the villa and the vineyards – and after that, Mr Morrison, you shall taste some of the best wine that’s been grown in these parts for a long time. I call it Fontamore, and it drinks better than Frascati. I’m very proud of it …’
Sergio Salviati’s conference with the security men lasted nearly an hour. It dealt, for the most part, with the details of personnel control: a roll-call of each oncoming shift, a check of hospital identity cards against personal documents like passports and drivers’ licences, access to drug cabinets and surgical instruments, routes and times by which certain key people might enter sensitive areas, the mobile surveillance of strategic points inside and outside the building. So far, it was agreed, all staff within the compound had been accounted for and were about their normal business. Visitors could be dealt with without too much fuss. Tradesmen would be met by armed guards and the goods they delivered screened and hand searched before they passed into the storerooms. So far, so good. The security men assured the Professor that he could sleep as soundly and as safely as if he were in the crypt of St Peter’s itself.
His next caller was less comforting: a lean, sallow, cold-eyed fellow in the white jacket of a male nurse. He was one of the Mossad men in permanent residence at the clinic, an elusive figure whom everybody recognised, who was on hand for every emergency, yet whose name never appeared on any regular roster. His first words were cryptic:
‘Grants and scholarships.’
‘What about them?’
‘You give a certain number to non-Italians. How are they allotted?’
‘On the basis of merit and recommendation. We accept only candidates with full nursing certificates from their countries of origin and references from their consulates or embassies in Rome. We offer them two years of specialised training in cardiac theatre and post-operative practice. The scholarships are advertised in the consulates and in professional journals in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Trucial Oman, Israel, Kenya and Malta. We supply board, lodging, uniforms, training and health care. The candidates or the country which sponsors them must come up with the rest. It works pretty well. We get staff eager to learn, the sponsoring countries get trained personnel capable of passing on their education. End of story …’
‘Are any security checks made on applicants?’
‘You know there are. They have to apply for visas and student sojourn permits. The Italians run their own vetting system. Your people do any unofficial check for me. So there shouldn’t be any surprises.’
‘There shouldn’t be; but this time we’ve got a nasty one. Recognise her?’
He tossed on the desk a small, passport-size photograph of a young woman. Salviati knew her instantly.
‘Miriam Latif. She’s been here a year now. She comes from Lebanon. She’s working in the haematology unit. And she’s damned good. What the hell could you possibly have on her?’
‘She has a boyfriend.’
‘Most girls do – and Miriam’s a very pretty one.’
‘The boyfriend is one Omar Asnan, designated a merchant from Tehran. He trades in tobacco, hides, spot oil and pharmaceutical opium. He also disposes of large quantities of ready cash and has a string of girlfriends, some of them even prettier than Miriam Latif. He is also a known paymaster of the Sword of Islam group.’
‘So?’
‘So the least we can say is that he has a friend, an ally, a possible assassin, in place in the clinic … And if you think of it, the haematology unit is a very useful place to have her.’
Sergio Salviati shook his head.
‘I don’t buy it. The girl’s been here for twelve months. The Pontiff’s operation was decided only a few days ago. The assassination threat is a matter that arose in response to the opportunity.’
‘And why,’ asked the Mossad man patiently, ‘why else do you have people in place, under deep cover, as sleepers – except to take advantage of unforeseen opportunities? Why the hell do you think I’m here? Think of all the famous or politically important people who pass through the clinic. This is a stage simply waiting for a drama to happen … And Miriam Latif could be the leading lady in a tragedy.’
‘So what are you going to do about her?’
‘Watch her. Put one of our magic rings around her, so that she can’t even go to the toilet unless we know about it. There’s not much time. How long before your patient is discharged?’
‘Barring complications, ten days, fourteen at the outside.’
‘So, don’t you see, they have to move fast. But now that we’re alerted, we can move faster.’ ‘Do the Italians know this?’
‘No. And we don’t intend to tell ’em. We’ll do whatever is necessary. One thing you have to remember. If the girl fails to show up for work, I want you to make a big song and dance about it – question the staff, inform the police, call her embassy, all that!’
‘And I don’t ask why you want it done like that?’
‘Exactly,’ said the Mossad man. ‘You are a very wise monkey, who hears no evil, sees no evil, speaks no evil.’
‘But you could be wrong about Miriam Latif.’
‘We hope we are, Professor. None of us wants to have blood on the sidewalk! None of us wants reprisal for a lost agent.’
Sergio Salviati felt himself suddenly drowning in the black waters of fear and self-loathing. Here he was, a healer, netted like a tunny in a labyrinthine trap, waiting helplessly for murder to happen. The message he had been given was clear as daylight. In the game of terror, the slaughter was serial; you kill mine, I kill yours. Now there was a new twist to the sport – make the killing but put the blame on someone else: a hit-and-run motorist, a vengeful lover, an addict in search of a fix. And so long as the blood didn’t splash on his own doorstep, Sergio Salviati would be silent lest even worse things should befall.
Then, because it was nearly midday, he walked to the Intensive Care Unit to take a look at the cause of all his problems, Leo XIV, Pontifex Maximus. All the signs said that he was doing well; his breathing was regular, the atrial fibrillations were within normal limits, his kidneys were functioning and his body temperature was rising slowly. Salviati smiled sourly and made a silent apostrophe to his patient: ‘You are a terrible old man! I give you life and what do you give to me? Nothing but grief and death … Morrison was right. You’re a bird of ill-omen … Yet – God help me! – I’m still committed to keeping you alive!’