Headquarters of Global Capital Italia: 12:04 p.m.
Very few things made Caterina Amato nervous. She was a woman far too accustomed to being in control to experience that emotion with any frequency. Yet this was almost too much. Too much going her way, being delivered into her hands. It was almost as if she were being offered her every need on a platter, and Caterina wasn’t used to being given anything. She was used to taking.
Abigaille Zola had come back from the dead in Piombino. She’d done it almost half a day after the public pronouncement of her death had sent a nation of fans into mourning. She’d done it in the presence of her father, who’d proclaimed it to the masses. And she’d done it, to all intents and purposes, simultaneously with the Pope announcing to the world that the miracles that had followed upon his visitation would pinnacle with resurrection.
Caterina could not have plotted a better course of events had she designed it herself and manipulated its every contour, as she’d done with the healings at the two medical centers. But it was precisely that which made her nervous: she hadn’t. Her hand hadn’t been involved in Piombino at all.
She took a deep breath, calming herself. D’Antonio was already en route. He would find out what was really at play there, and how they could use it to their advantage. Whatever its source, the situation would be put to good use.
But then . . . then there was the discovery that was the greatest gift of all. A body, found in the Tiber. One that looked identical to the stranger who’d appeared in St. Peter’s. D’Antonio had emailed her a photo the moment it had been discovered. Then he had ensured that the police investigation into the apparent homicide remained entirely under his control. That in turn had ensured that details of the corpse’s discovery had not been released.
Who was this man? Caterina had no more idea how to answer that question than she did of the identity of the man in the Vatican. It seemed clear the two must be related. In fact, it appeared that the man in St. Peter’s was likely the twin of the deceased, and that meant that he was a manipulator all his own. A like-minded soul, a vicious soul, though with motives she couldn’t yet fathom.
But it didn’t matter. She would be able to link them together by visual appearance. Discrediting the visitor was going to be far easier than she’d anticipated. Flash this image on a television screen and the whole facade would come tumbling down. If she didn’t believe they were solely the inventions of idiots and the gullible, she would say it was a gift from the gods—because whoever the man in the Vatican was, whoever the man in the river was, she now had everything she needed. On a platter.
Yet Caterina swallowed, a strange tightness in her chest. Nerves tingled her skin. Few could hate the Church more than she. Still, she’d been at Catholic boarding school long enough as a girl to remember that the last man who’d been given everything he asked for on a platter had found that it tore his world apart.