Chapter IV

It was warm to the point of being uncomfortable in the security office.

“YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING me,” Ritti said as he listened to Gregg explain what was going on in the Safe Chamber. He dropped his head and laughed to himself. “Gregg, please convey the message that I am preparing everything. And see if you can get them to calm down for a few minutes.” And with that Ritti’s cheeks puffed out as he slowly exhaled. He noticed Abbot and a few of the technicians pointing to different video screens. The crafty American had never said that he spoke Italian. He would have to keep a close eye on him. Well, that is if he wasn’t too busy with insane clergy, bullheaded diplomats, and calculating conspirators. Problem was . . . he didn’t know who was who.

“Mr. Abbot,” Ritti said, motioning with his hand. “I think we have an even greater emergency.”

Abbot narrowed his eyes trying to imagine what that could possibly be.

As he approached he said, “You got hacked from inside, and I’d put my money on the guy who took his own life.”

“Pablo?”

Abbot nodded, “Yeah, that’s the one. The Security Chief told me that he’d been watching over your escapee for several years. He’d be the guy to know the tunnels wall enough, and the cameras’ coverage, to be able to fabricate the glitch.”

Ritti got close to Abbot so that he could speak in a low tone, “Right now we have bigger problems. I’m kind of stuck in a bit of a jam.”

“What?”

“His Holiness, Pasquale, and Cardinal Delatorre are having some kind of a shouting match in the Safe Chamber.”

Abbot shrugged, “They’re old and probably a bit scared. That’s a pretty natural reaction, I’d suppose.”

“I wish it were so simple. No, there are other things going on here, in the Vatican. Things that I can’t talk about.”

“I figured there was much more to the killings then coincidence,” Abbot said cautiously, not wanting to put Ritti into a corner. “There are whispers about some smuggled documents.” Ritti’s eyes grew about 3 times larger.

Abbot assured him, “None of that matters to us, Colonel Ritti. My only interest is to stop a killer, and help you get your kingdom back in order. We never even finished our tour.” Abbot smiled.

Ritti had a tired grin on his face, “It all happens at once, you know. First couple of years on the job it’s all cake and ice cream. Then all of the sudden all hell breaks loose and you can’t stop the bleeding. This could spiral out of control if I’m not real careful.”

He studied the American’s reaction, trying to figure out if he could trust him. At this point he had already let him in on so much that it didn’t make a difference. There’s not much difference between lots of secrets, and a whole bunch of secrets. Once you start hiding things you have to hide them all; and once you start revealing them . . . you can’t stop.

Abbot seemed to sense his reluctance, “Look, Giovanni, it’s all just a bunch of religious mumbo-jumbo, anyway. So a couple of entrepreneurs decided to make some bucks off of some old scrolls. So what? Greed is as much a part of life as is love and hate. Maybe the greed leads us a killer or two, so be it. I’ll help you any way I can.”

“Thank you, Mr. Abbot, but now that the old men are involved it will get sticky.”

“How so? They’re just men.” Abbot asked as he glanced around the room. All of the screens were now covered with static. Not one camera in the Vatican was sending a signal.

Ritti clapped his hands together a couple of times. “Should have expected that, no?” He spoke some rapid-fire Italian to the Security Chief who was cussing more than a drunken sailor as he typed on the keyboard.

He turned back to Abbot, “The old men want to visit one of our Vaults. We keep religious documents there to protect them from the elements. You know: deterioration, discoloration, thieves, and as you say entrepreneurs. The Vault is climate controlled and quite secure. And access is completely limited to three people. The Pope, of course; the Papal Nuncio; and Cardinal Delatorre, who you haven’t really met.”

“Seemed a little uptight, to me,” Abbot offered, “But then that was just my first impression. Maybe if I got to know him—”

“No, he’s kind of an asshole even when you get to know him. But he’s very well connected. He will be the next Pope, if anything were to happen to John Paul. But anyway, they want to go to the Vault. Now.”

Abbot didn’t see the problem, “I don’t get it. So they want to go to the Vault? Let them go. What’s the difference?”

“In the Safe Chamber I can keep them ••• you know, safe. Once they get out and about, anything could happen to them in the tunnels.”

“How many guards can you muster?” Abbot asked.

Ritti answered instantly, “I can have seventy men in three minutes, and that doesn’t count the men already posted to secure points around the Vatican.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get your army together, grab the old guys and head to the Vault.”

“This thing is off the tracks, Mr. Abbot,” Ritti said as he walked towards the door. “Fine, then. Let’s go. Maybe one of them will slip up.”

Abbot didn’t answer him, because he didn’t need to. They both knew that one of the three men that ran the Vatican were a part of this whole mess. They both assumed that they would be able to ferret out the bad guy. They both hoped that there would be no more unexpected violence. The thing about violence is that it is usually unexpected.

Ritti was back on his radio, ordering up his army of Swiss Guards. He informed Gregg that they would be on their way, ‘directly.’ And he informed Abbot that he was about to go somewhere that even he had never gone before.

“I don’t know what to say, Giovanni,” Abbot joked, “but this is just the best Vatican Tour ever.”

“I can’t even imagine what the ticket price would be,” Ritti said as they left the room.

“I can’t sleep,” Thomas said as he leaned forward in the Audi.

Diego blinked his eyes a couple of times, joining the world of the conscious.

“Thomas, are you hungry?”

Thomas nodded, and Diego handed him a granola bar from a small bag on the floor. “Thank you, Mr. Diego.” The big man smiled. Thomas then carefully unwrapped the granola bar and licked it as though it might be dipped in poison.

Pena, watching from the front seat said, “You don’t think that we’d rescue you only just to kill you, do you?”

“Not you, Antonio, no. I’m allergic to many things, so I have to be careful.

I might go into anaphylactic shock all of the sudden, thereby negating the effects of your rescue.”

Pena smiled, “Well, by all means, lick away.” They drove on for a few minutes before Thomas spoke again. Pena wasn’t sure what to make of the guy.

He found himself thinking about Ricky. He wondered if he was still clinging to life, barely holding on to his existence, being helped by all kinds of spectacular technology that he would never understand. He remembered the first time he met Ricky, the young hot-shot detective strutting across the office to introduce himself. He couldn’t help but to like the guy, arrogant though he was. Ricky just had a way of infecting you.

Thomas broke the silence, “I figured them out when I was dying.”

Pena glanced in the mirror, “What was that?”

Marco awoke, turning Thomas.

Thomas smiled proudly, “I figured out the last three symbols of the Prophecies of Jesus Christ. I guess that it was the lack of oxygen in my brain or something like that. Perhaps my cerebral cortex was more efficient, or maybe there was some enhanced frontal lobe activity while my anterior cingulate gyrus wasn’t properly buffing—”

“Thomas,” Pena interrupted. “I am a police detective. I don’t have any idea what you are talking about. My nephew tries to get me to play X-Box and I’m terrible. Make it simple, please, for my sake,” He looked over at Marco, who looked to be on the point of salivating. In the back, Diego was equally enamored.

Thomas nodded, “Alright, look, I had been having problems with a certain few symbols during my translations.

That’s what I did at the Vatican for the last twenty or so years, after I was formally trained and schooled.”

“You’ve been stuck in there translating scripture for twenty years!” Pena said. “I’d want to swim my way out, too.”

Thomas laughed. “I loved my work, Antonio. I got to be in on the biggest secret of all time. And I was the only one who could figure out these particular scrolls.”

“The Prophecies,” Marco replied with a sense of awe.

“The Prophecies of Jesus Christ. The only religious documents that we have that were actually written by Jesus. They tell of the things which are to come to pass leading up to the End of Days. And their accuracy is astonishing.”

Pena didn’t roll his eyes, but he certainly wasn’t buying it either. “Can it tell me if Real Madrid will win La League this year. Can we beat Barcelona?”

“You don’t need to ask Jesus that one. Their morale is low after dropping that season opener,” Thomas said with a self-important grin.

Pena laughed, “I thought that you lived in a dungeon. What do you know about football?”

“Jesus would have like the beautiful game.” Thomas quipped.

“You’re alright, Thomas,” Pena said with a nod. Diego and Marco laughed.

Thomas continued to eat the granola bar. “Anyway,” Marco pressed. “You said that you made a discovery?”

Thomas opened his mouth to talk and almost spit out a chunk of granola, “Oh, excuse me.” He swallowed. “Yes, well. .• for whatever reason, this whole event ha~ given me such clarity. The three symbols that I had been struggling with for the last couple of years, well, I got them.” He snapped his fingers together. “They just came to me like a light being turned on. It was really king of romantic if you think about it.” He scratched the side of his head.

“There’s nothing romantic about drowning, Thomas,” Pena said. “I almost drown once, myself. When I was a little boy.”

“I know, Antonio,” Thomas said with a knowing glare.

“And how would you know that, Thomas?” Pena asked skeptically.

“I dreamt of it.” The look on Thomas’s face said he wasn’t joking.

Nobody in the car said a word. They drove on in silence for a few minutes.

Pena didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know whether or not he believed Thomas, or for that matter if he believed Marco or Diego. He hadn’t slept in a while, and most likely his mind was not clear. After a couple more minutes Pena was curious. “Thomas.”

“Yes, Antonio.”

“What makes these ‘Prophecies of Jesus Christ’ so damn important? I mean, really, is there anything that non-religious people can get out of it, or is this just more propaganda for Catholics and Christians?”

“You know that I didn’t believe in God when I first started translating,” Thomas explained. “I was so driven by science and mathematics . . . and music. There just didn’t seem to be room for God. There wasn’t space for God in algebraic equations, or quantum numbers, or physics.”

Thomas shook his head, “I mean, I always like the idea of a God, but that was probably because I never had a family, and I was looking for some kind of existential family model. But, ah, for me . . . there just wasn’t a need for a higher power. For so many people I think that faith is a kind of crutch they use because they are scared of science and evolution. The fear of death and the darkness is what pushes us to look for answers. Some find God, other’s don’t.”

He noticed that Marco was preparing to argue, and he lifted an open palm to him. “But . . . when I began translating the Prophecies something changed in me. Something . . . ah . . . kind of jolted me. You might say that though I was not completely a believer in God, I was scared of him.”

“His word finds a way into all of our hearts at some point,” Marco added.

“So what was it that scared you, Thomas?” Pena questioned slowly. “What changed your mind?”

“You might not like what you hear.” “Try me,” Pena answered.

“I need to tell you about the music,” Thomas started. “You see, I don’t read things and store them into my memory in the same way that you do. For me it is all a kind of musical symphony. I was translating the symphony of Jesus Christ. And he is the greatest of all composers. Words become musical notes, melodies, really. My brain plays the music back and forth, flipping it and cutting it over and over until I can make sense of it. Well, about three years ago something very shocking happened.”