Chapter IV

The climate controlled hallways and corridors were dim-lit and shadowed. It was some time after one in the afternoon, in Rome.

THE SILENCE OF THE SOLEMN HALLWAYS was disturbed by the clack of rubber-soled boots scurrying. Donnie, one of the Swiss Guard Investigators was making his way across St. Peter’s dome. Above him were some of the most remarkable works of art the world have ever seen. Angels, God and man, swirling among unsettled thoughts and skies. But none of that mattered to Donnie.

What did matter was the disk, which he had in the breast pocket of his dark blue suit. It was a small thumb drive that had recently been given to him by an unnamed source. He didn’t know who the anonymous person was, who had chosen to leave him the ’gift,′ nor why. But soon he and Peter would find out. They had been making sound progress on their investigation, though there was resistance at every turn. They needed to be able to give Colonel Ritti a direction to shine his flashlight.

So far, they had been handling the investigation un-officially. While that sometimes meant they couldn’t pursue certain avenues, it kept the heat off of them, as well as their boss. With Ritti back in the Vatican, they would be able to break out the torches and advance a full-scale witch-hunt. The real question was:

Which witch?

The office that they had been using for the past several days had, at one time, been an accounting office. It had then graduated on to become a mop storage with closet that also served as an old furniture storage room. Now, they had pushed the mops aside and set-up an observation post.

Few people knew that there were miles and miles of tunnels that stretch out like a spider’s web, underneath the Vatican. Try to imagine a series of ascending circumference circles, with strait line connecting passages. Everything from books to paintings and other, more nefarious things were stored below. There was a very complex system of cataloging everything, but it was well hidden from all but a choice few.

Donnie and Peter were not a part of that choice few, however they could descend down into those passages and tunnels if they so desired. Their makeshift office was less than twenty meters from the false wall that led to the stairway, down into the darkness and history.

He lightly rapped his knuckles against the oak door.

“Si?”

“It’s me,” Donnie said at low volume.

Click-click.

The door opened as Peter unhooked the bolt locks. He smiled at Donnie. “I don’t care to buy any cookies today, thanks.”

“You’re going to want to buy the cookies I brought for you,” Donnie returned as he slid into the small room—no bigger than ten-by-ten feet.

“Let’s see it.”

“We’ll need to play it through your PowerBook Donnie said as he presented disk to Peter. “I can’t get my laptop to play it correctly.”

“Too much internet porn,” Peter joked as he crossed the office in one stride, approaching his computer. It was set up on a small, desk that was fixed to the far wall.

“Probably right,” Donnie shrugged. “I should quit looking at fat women, they take up too much hard drive space.”

Peter chuckled as he slid the disk into the tray. Four clicks, two mouse adjustments, and they were watching black and white images on the screen.

“Ok,” Peter said as he moved to the side to give Donnie some room. He studied the pictures. “Looks like a video feed . . . closed-circuit television.”

“Security feed perhaps,” Donnie ventured.

What they were looking at was something that their boss—Ritti—had seen many times before. In front of their eyes was a room with several bookshelves, a large desk, and all sorts of books on the desk. There was only one chair in the room.

“It’s an office, maybe.” Peter noticed that there were some small numbers on the far left, bottom corner of the screen. The first set of numbers displayed the date. “Hey,” he announced to Donnie, “this is from three days ago.”

Donnie ran his fingers through his hair. “No audio, or do you have it turned down.”

“Well, it’s buzzing.” Peter checked to make sure the volume was turned up on his computer. It was. He shrugged. “Might not be an audio portion of the—”

And then they both heard the click of a door or something on the tape.

A figure walked in, but from this angle—shooting downward from the door to the desk—they could only see the back of the person. “Check out the paper allover the wall. What’s that . . .”

“Translators,” Peter said.

“No way,” Donnie returned. “Nobody’s going to give us a tape of anything that has—”and then they watched the figure turn. “Holy—”

“Shit!” Peter finished.

“Let it keep playing, then well go back and slow it down.” They watched the man look around the room, and then leave the room as he had left it. “If this is what we think it might be, and . . . if he is who it looks to be,” Peter said in a warning tone. He took a deep breath.

“Look, we don’t know what room we’re looking at,” Donnie said, trying to put everything into perspective. “We can’t verify the time this was taken. Or even where this room is. This could be an elaborate hoax.” He looked over at Peter, who didn’t seem quite so comfortable with Donnie’s skepticism.

He nodded slightly.

“And if it is who we think it is?”

“Than we’re going to have some questions that need to be answered.”

They played the clip, no more than five minutes in length, several times over. As they did they tried to put the pieces together.

“Ok, we got large bank drafts coming in and we don’t know who is sending them . . . only that the banks are American and Argentinian.”

“Right,” Peter said. “And we have a new dead priest in Brazil.”

“Catholic Enclave guy, ah . . . Silva.”

“So,” Peter surmised, “assuming they’re all connected, how does this factor in? Does it even?”

Donnie lifted his eyebrows and scratched his cheek. “When’s Ritti getting back?”

“Tonight, maybe.” Peter stepped back and sat on a flipped over plastic pail that used to hold bleach.

“I’ve got an idea,” Donnie said with a squint.

“Shoot.”

“Let’s compare this video with some of the tapes from the CenSec.” He was referring to the Center of Security, the Vatican’s monitoring post that has records video from nearly 120 different remote cameras in the Vatican. It was monitored by a private group in the Swiss Guard. But, both Donnie and Peter could get access, if they absolutely had to.

“So, maybe we see our friend making his way down some adjacent hallways and from that . . .”

“We know the location of our secret room. Or at least, the general area.

We can back engineer it from there. Who knows, maybe we get lucky,” Donnie proffered.

“Alright.” Peter stood up. “And about this video?”

“Seems that someone wants us to follow up on this.” Donnie ran his fingers through his hair again. “So, we assume that there are some kind of connections between our investigation, the murders, and the smuggling . . . of something.”

“I’d pay a hundred euros to know what that something was.” Even though neither of them said it . . . they both knew what that something probably was.