The circular piazza of St Peter was, for the second time in as many days, closed. The vast public space Bernini had designed to represent the two arms of Mother Church reaching out to embrace all who would draw near, was broadcasting a different message in these hours before dawn broke. Stay away.
The whole square had been cordoned off by the Swiss Guard after Major Hans Heinrich had spent most of the night with Angelina, Ben and their companion, discussing all they had to offer on the situation facing them. Far more unanswered questions remained than Heinrich could ever feel comfortable with, but he was suitably convinced that the piazza was to be the locus of whatever the fifth plague turned out to be. He’d ordered the whole space to be made inaccessible, reallocating the Guard’s operational teams to vastly increase their presence on the square, and employing movable metal fencing to block off the interconnecting open spaces that normally made St Peter’s so freely accessible to all who wished to enter.
Beyond the barricades and posted Guardsmen, however, a crowd was already growing. Throngs of people, in a city with more than an average sprinkling of religious consciousness, had also interpreted ‘the resting place of the Rock’ as meaning the resting place of St Peter – the apostle whom Jesus Christ had called ‘the rock on which I will build my church’, just as Ben Verdyx had reminded Heinrich during their discussions. These throngs were drawn, even in the pre-morning darkness and despite the terror that had now well and truly seized the city, towards the massive structure built atop Peter’s tomb. The Guard stood firm, holding them at bay, but the size of the crowd was swelling. They breathed out anxiety to see what was next in store for their city, for them, and for those who were religious, perhaps for their faith.
What was next in store . . .
That was the question Heinrich still couldn’t answer. As far as he could see it, there were two realistic possibilities. Either the next ‘plague’ was going to bring danger, or desecration. The pattern thus far had followed those patterns. The river had been a desecration of the memory of Old Testament history, which billions held as sacred. The darkness had followed the same course. But with the fog that had emerged from the manipulated sewer system, the pattern had shifted from desecration to danger. There was no history of fog as a miracle or plague that Heinrich could think of. It appeared to have been designed to cause disarray and fear, which it had successfully done. And then the burning of the four structures – that act had endangered many. Destruction, fully embraced.
As for what was to come here at St Peter’s, Heinrich could only assume it would be worse.
The thought was sufficient to cause a shudder even in the Major’s sturdy frame. St John Lateran and the other buildings that had gone up in flames at sundown were treasures, and contained further treasures within, but nothing compared to the wealth of history and sanctity nestled within a half-kilometre radius of the obelisk at the centre of St Peter’s Square. There was the basilica itself, one of the greatest architectural works of all time, filled with relics of the saints and the capital monument of a faith that had spanned the globe for the whole of modern history. The Sistine Chapel was mere metres away, containing some of the most recognisable art in the world. Then there were the cavernous museums with their manuscripts, sculptures and treasures that amounted to one of the most important collections on earth, alongside libraries, archives, and . . .
The list was too long, and the thought of an act of destruction here almost incomprehensible. It could not be allowed.
And all that, without even mentioning that Vatican City was home to the Supreme Pontiff himself. Of course, Heinrich had already liaised with the Pope’s personal detail, and the Pontiff himself had been secreted away from Vatican City hours ago, placed in a helicopter and flown to Castel Gandolfo – a more isolated site, where security had nevertheless been doubled.
Now, Heinrich was left in a position to do what he loathed more than almost anything else: wait. He did not know what to expect. Only that it was coming, soon, and that his men needed to be at the ready for anything.