Chapter Three

 

Vatican - Easter Sunday, March 22

Seconds after the blast, the inside of the Basilica was stone silent. No moans. No calls. No falling statuary. No breaking glass. Aside from some surface blemishes, the enormous interior of the Basilica had absorbed the blast, ignored it, and proudly stood as it had for four hundred years. Windows blew out, venting some of the force, and bright shafts of sunlight shot through the sparkling dust hanging above the carnage.

The structure shrugged off the explosion, but the people inside didn’t have that choice. Then the screaming began.

Anyone within one hundred feet of the bomb died instantly. Within two hundred feet, the effect varied. Some died, others were mangled, maimed, blinded, or completely unhurt. Naked and shocked survivors whose clothes had been completely blasted off slipped and fell in the gore. The explosive cared nothing for rank or privilege. Cardinals, visiting dignitaries, guards, pages, babies, and eleven-year-old candle bearers all lay in the same wet, pulpy mess. The Pope was gone, shredded by the blast at the very instant he held Catholicism’s most sacred symbol above his head. The Vatican Security Chief who tried to throw a blast blanket over the Pope was too late, and lay unconscious and bleeding behind the marble altar, saved by that same blanket.

Callahan had just entered the doors of the Basilica when the explosion exited at an expansion rate of 26,500 feet per second. The blast picked him up and hurled him through the portico and down five steps until his face painfully crunched against something hard. Ibrahim’s oxygen bottles had burst into thousands of tiny shrapnels, and jagged metal shards mixed with the explosive ripped along the blast path. One small piece grazed his head.

Mancini and the guards behind Callahan were below the level of the top step and were sheltered from the blast. They drew their weapons, ran in the front doors, and aimed pistols inside the church, scanning for secondary attackers following the bomb with bullets. Nothing. They were ready to engage the enemy, ready to protect the people in the Basilica, but the enemy had left the building. With no targets in sight, they holstered their guns and moved into the destruction.

 

*     *     *

Callahan tried to stand after the blast, but the ground kept moving. Each time he tried to stand, the ground moved again and he’d fall back. Why are those people running? Is mass over? Is the Pope finished? What about that bomb guy in the wheelchair? They shouldn’t run like that. Someone might get hurt. He tried to stand again and pushed up on both feet. Where did my gun go? Did the Hashashin take my radio? I’m supposed to protect these people. Is that smoke coming out of the church doors? I should call the fire department. They’ll know what to do.

His head felt very large, and everything sounded very far away. The ground moved again and he fell forward. Maybe if I just lay here for a few minutes to clear …

 

*     *     *

 “Bishop? Bishop? Bishop Santini, can you hear me?”

Santini was dreaming of paper. All the pages of the books were blank. Blank? Where were the words? A library with blank pages?

“Bishop, can you sit up?”

The paramedic from the Carabinieri helped him sit. Then it all snapped back into focus. The fat man, Hammid, the gun, and the nun all rushed back. The medic helped him to a comfortable reading chair in the great hall.

“Can you remember what happened, Bishop? Our strike team found you unconscious and handcuffed to that table.”

Strike team? Why was a strike team in the library? “Why, we were robbed. A man with a gun, and he had a nun hostage, a nun with a tattoo of a frog on her ankle. Have you found her? I was handcuffed to the table and then they stuck me with a needle. Did you catch him?”

“Bishop, you are the only one we have found here.” He shook his head. “No nun. No tattooed frog. You should rest.”

The paramedic was stuffing his kit back together.

“Pardon my haste, Bishop. Please consult your personal physician as soon as possible. But I think you can understand I have to get back out there. The strike teams aren’t finding any injured inside the buildings, and I can be more useful out there.”

The strike team returned to the room, and the commander told him the library was safe and clear. He said they didn’t have time to look into the theft, but he would personally report it to his superiors. They couldn’t stay with all the problems outside.

Santini was puzzled. “What are you all talking about?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t know. Of course, you’ve been in here.”

When the paramedic told him what had happened at St. Peter’s, at the mass where he should have concelebrated with the Pope, where everyone on the altar had died, where he would have died, he felt immediate relief, guilt at feeling relieved, then nausea at the guilt. Was he lucky, or was he damned?

That meant he was responsible for the Vatican Library. Nobody else was going to step up. The Cardinal Librarian was probably dead or severely injured. He could mourn the dead later, but there was urgent work do right now. There had been a theft, but he didn’t know what was taken. That’s where his duty was right now, to the library.

Santini ran up the steps to room H21, surprised his back didn’t scream in pain. The door was still wedged open with the chair he had placed there earlier. He scanned the room and saw the document drawer open on the work table. He checked the drawer number against the computerized catalog and saw ten documents listed for that drawer.

He lifted each document from the drawer and laid it on the table. He counted nine, not ten, as the computer said. He checked the data slip with each document. All were there except something called the Treaty of Tuscany. Interesting. What was that? He never heard of it. The entry in the computer said it had been found two months ago between the pages of a Sixteenth Century volume of biblical criticism in another collection. That’s precisely why this recataloging was so important. They had things they didn’t even know about.

So, the treaty had come in here, and the technicians had routinely scanned it into the computer, but the entry showed it had not yet been examined by the curators. That was normal. Work on this section was about fifty percent complete. Technicians would enter unknown manuscripts into the computer, then curators would examine them.

He drilled deeper into the computer. Let’s see what the scan of this manuscript shows. The scan would have a very detailed picture of the document under both normal and infrared light. Once scanned, the software allowed the curators to bring out features that were invisible in normal light. What exactly do we have here?

A large, flat-panel screen showed the document at normal size, and he adjusted a few filters and enlarged it to take up the full screen. He read the old Latin, read it again, looked at the seals of the Popes, and felt sick again. Is this what was stolen? Could his Church have done this? His Church? How could it ever create something like this?

Even worse, had this document been in the Vatican Library all these years? And was his recataloging program responsible for loosing this horrid Treaty of Tuscany into the world? Was he responsible?

This couldn’t be passed off to anyone else. He was stuck with the problem, and the clock was ticking. The strike team officer had promised to alert the proper authorities. Would he? When would they come? What if they found the treaty? That wasn’t an option.

He checked to make sure the computer logging system was turned off, and entered new computer index numbers for the treaty, removing it entirely from the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Papal collection, and putting it into his own personal section. It was much like physically taking a book off the shelf on the fourth floor, sliding the other books together so no space was left, and putting it in his secret bookcase in the basement. There would be no trace left on the fourth floor. This was the same, just done with computer files.

He gathered up the data slips that had been attached to the treaty, carefully removed its title from the folder that had held it in the drawer, and slid the folder into the middle of a stack of empties. He surveyed the room. It looked just like any normal sorting room half-way through a recataloging. Good. 

But that was only half the job. Now he had to “steal” something, so the authorities could find evidence of a theft. He went back to the main reading room. Still empty. He called out asking if anyone was there. Quiet.

An archway led off the main reading room into a display area currently occupied with several glass cases exhibiting royal seals from medieval European royalty. Every king had one, and in an era where illiteracy was the rule rather than the exception, the kings made documents official with their royal seals. These were round, gold, between two and three inches in diameter, and usually depicted the king’s likeness on one side and some important event from his reign on the other.

Santini felt sick again at what he had to do, but it had to be done. You’re protecting the Church, he told himself. Just do it and get it done with. He covered his hands with his sleeves to avoid fingerprints, lifted a floor vase and slammed it down in the middle of each glass case. The racket was huge, and glass flew everywhere. But he wasn’t cut, and the vase held together.

Would a thief have replaced the vase where it had been? No. He threw the vase aside and let it roll over to a wall. Now he took off his cassock and spread it on the floor. He grabbed as many of the royal seals as he thought a thief could carry and dumped them on top of the cassock. Gathering up the sides of the cassock, he hurried to his office with the loot.

When the one hundred and three seals were safely stashed in his safe, he put the cassock on and comforted himself with the thought that someday the seals could be returned to the collection. And now, his duty lay outside helping with the injured. He had done his best to protect his Church.

 

Vatican - Easter Sunday, March 22

Jean sat at the foot of the hotel bed with her arms wrapped around her legs, her knees pulled up under her chin, and couldn’t take her eyes off the TV set on the dresser. The nun’s habit she had worn to the library was thrown on the bed along with the two other outfits she had worn at the Vatican, and she had switched into jeans and an Oxford sweatshirt. She crushed wads of Kleenex in both fists and rocked slightly as the CNN anchor told the world over and over that the Pope, most of the high-ranking members of the Curia, and hundreds of ordinary faithful had been killed by a suicide bomber while attending Easter Mass at St. Peters Basilica in Vatican City. She watched the TV reporter repeat the same thing again.

 

Yes, Tom, the casualty figures continue to mount here in Vatican City in the aftermath of a huge explosion that shook this ancient edifice… you can see St. Peter’s here behind me… this morning as the Holy Father… Pope Pious XIII celebrated Easter mass. We understand the mass was a con-celebration of sorts with about twenty high-ranking cardinals and archbishops assisting… all assisting the Pope in the same mass… so all of them were gathered together at the huge, canopied altar in the center of the Basilica.  Sources tell us over one thousand people have been taken to hospitals around Rome and in the surrounding suburbs, and the death toll is approaching five hundred. That’s five hundred dead as of this counting… and nobody really has a good handle on it since the situation inside the huge Basilica is still being resolved. And the injured… we don’t have any figures… but as you can see, this entire plaza here… the Plaza of St. Peter’s… the field hospital and triage center… the body bags continue to leave here.

One of the problems we are encountering in bringing you this breaking story is that most… or almost all… not all, but almost all… of the Vatican officials who usually deal with such things have been either killed or seriously injured.

 

One of her throwaway cell phones rang. She had several of these, purchased off the shelf with a fixed number of included minutes. Use it a few times, throw it away, and start with another.

“I have to see you. Can I come up?” It was Hammid, who she had last seen when they triumphantly left the Vatican Library with the treaty. That was before she knew what had really happened, saw the ambulances and emergency medical people in St. Peter’s Square, saw the bloody people wandering in confusion, and saw the black body bags being laid out in rows in the square. They had quickly split up and Hammid said he would contact her at the hotel. He gave the treaty to her in case either of them was stopped, since a medieval historian would have a natural reason for having such a document. She took the document, put on her floppy hat and large sunglasses, blocked out everything around her, and nearly ran back to the hotel.

“Yes, you can come up. Get your dead ass up here! Do you know what you have done?”

“Not on this phone, my dear. Let’s not be hasty.”

When she opened the door, he looked like the typical well-heeled tourist from London. Blue blazer, gray slacks, tasseled loafers, and a silk shirt open at the collar. A stupid gold chain hung around his neck.

“Have you had an opportunity to look at the document again?” he asked.

“The document? The opportunity? Are you out of your mind? Have you seen the TV? Did you know about this? Hundreds of people, a thousand, a flock of bishops, and the Pope! They blew up the Pope! What the hell have you gotten me into? Where are your brains? You said they were going to blow up a substation and make a lot of smoke and noise. You didn’t say you were going to blow up the Pope and a thousand other people.”

He eased down into the room’s only chair and steepled his fingers. “I’m sorry about that substation story, but I had to get you to go along. I doubted you would agree, even for the million Euros you are getting for this.” He flipped his hands up. “But the more serious matter? Did I know about it? Could I have stopped it? Or was I involved in it?”

“Don’t give me that stupid crap with your phony Oxford accent! You sound like somebody’s butler.” She pointed at the TV. “Is this stupid crap the work of you and your stupid assed Arab Jihadis?”

“That’s harsh, Jean. I expected better from you.” He waved a hand at the TV on the dresser. “That is indeed stupid crap, as you put it, and it’s a cowardly waste of innocent lives.” He took a deep breath and continued. “It shames my people, and it shames me. It shames all of us. We are better than that.” Tell her whatever she needed to hear, he thought. Tell her anything to keep her working.

“Better? Better than what? Tell that to those little kids in the body bags.” She folded her arms, turned and stared out the window. “You haven’t answered me,” she said very quietly. “Are you part of this?”

She turned back to him and sat up on the window ledge. “Did you kill all those people to get a treaty? A stupid treaty?”

He shot up from the chair. “I had nothing to do with that. Nothing. Did I know about it? Yes, I knew. But could I do anything about it? No. Nothing. I didn’t plan it, and I didn’t have anything to do with carrying it out. That stuff is stupid and accomplishes nothing.”

“You knew, but you couldn’t pick up the phone?”

Hammid shifted around and rubbed a handkerchief over his sweating head. “That’s different. I found out about it. Then stayed away. That’s all.”

“That’s all? And it’s just coincidence you planned to rob the Vatican Library on the very day, and at the very time, when a thousand people were getting blown to bits?”

She went to the small refrigerator and took out two beers. “Want one?”

“Please.” He took the green bottle and twisted it open using the bedspread to protect his hand. Jean gritted her teeth and determined to twist hers off with her bare hands, no matter what it took.

“Look.” He leaned his elbows on his knees. “I found out about this, and at the same time I found out about that treaty. In war sometimes things just come together and you have to take advantage of them.”

“War, my ass.”

“It’s been war for over a thousand years. You of all people know that.”

“Well, you’ve done it now. We have every hunter killer team on three continents after us now. They’ll go to the ends of the Earth looking for us. The CIA, KGB, MI6… hell, even the Israelis will join in for the fun of it.”

She boosted herself back up so she was sitting on the windowsill and said very softly, “Do you think those guys will give a damn it’s war when they have you hung upside down over a slow fire? You’ll be sizzling and popping like a Christmas goose and spill everything you know.  You think these people will read you your rights? There are no more rights, no lawyers, no courts, no legal mumbo jumbo, and you’ll take a long, very long time to cook. These are the people who are really out there while everyone else is distracted arguing about prisoners’ rights and how the guards have to carry the Quran.”

“We know who we are up against.”

“We? Who’s we?”

He took a long swallow of the Heineken. “That’s Al Qaeda,” he said, pointing at the TV. “They think the West will crumble if they plant bombs in pizza parlors, girls’ schools, and churches. At the most, they are a distraction. They can’t win. Look what happened to them in Iraq. The Americans just set up machine guns on one side of a bridge and these brave warriors charge the guns from the other side and get cut to ribbons. Then the Americans reload and wait for the next bunch.”

Now he got up and wandered around the room. “But we are older and wiser. Much older and much wiser. This is a long struggle, and won’t be settled in our lives. Let’s say we take a different perspective, a very long perspective. And that’s why we want this treaty.”

“Well, I don’t give a damn. I take a short-term perspective, and I want out of here and away from this.”

“Jean, you are in this up to your eyeballs. Finish what you agreed to do, which is only the work of a scholar, and you can go on your merry way. What are you going to do? Walk into a London police station and say you’re the one who blew up the Pope? I doubt it.”

Time to take the quickest way out of all this, she thought, and that was to finish her work on the treaty. It was time to save her own ass.

“Ok,” she said, “I had a quick look at the treaty in the library, but couldn’t authenticate it there. It matched the catalog numbers you gave me, and the title is the same. I presume it’s real, but it’ll take some time to really look at it. It’s readable with the filters and lights I have in my kit, but it’s faded and takes time. I can tell you it’s in Secular Latin, not Church Latin, and appears to be a treaty between the Vatican and the major European powers in the year 1189. I never heard of it. It’s called the Treaty of Tuscany.” She shrugged. “Never heard of it. Nor has any other scholar. ”

“Let’s not worry about the scholars. How long will it take to determine if it is real, and not some hoax done two hundred years ago that has just been sitting there waiting for daylight?”

She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and looked up at the ceiling. “Translating it is no big deal. I can read it just as it is. And I can give you a quick summary, then do a detailed translation into English later. The technical verification of the age will take a bit more time. The parchment and ink has to be tested, then the style, calligraphy, format and scrollwork around the margins. It’s like a document from any time. You look at how people wrote stuff at the time, then see if there is a match. Word usage, phrasing. Does it fit history? Like I told you, the ultimate tech test is laser testing at a major center. Can’t do that here.”

“How long?”

“Doing it right would probably take a team a few weeks in a modern lab. That would give about 99.9% probability it was real. Working myself? I would have a very good idea in about a day, say 95% probability. But it’s that last 5% that is the tough part. A good forger can hit 95%.”

Hammid looked up at the TV images of ambulances moving out of the Vatican in an unbroken line.  He smiled for the first time and looked at her. “Ninety-five percent is good. Very good. Give me 95% and I’ll take the bet any day. And you are the best there is. That’s why we hired you.”

 

She was one of the best, she thought, and here she was hiding in a hotel room rather than sitting in faculty lounge in London. A dozen Classics departments had recruited her, offered tenure, her own lab, graduate assistants, prestige, and unlimited access to any collection in the world. But professors didn’t make much, and not nearly enough to match what she spent. And not even close to what she wanted to spend. London was a great city, but it was an expensive city.

It also cost money to travel to Paris for weekends, go the Spanish Costa Brava for longer weekends, and come back with the latest continental fashions. None of that came with a professor’s salary. Prestige didn’t buy squat.

At first she had stayed within her means, taught classes, did her research, wrote papers that were well-received by the academic community, bedded ambitious graduate students, and socialized within the university community. But when her horizons expanded a bit, she always found what she wanted was just out of reach. She could have married money. She certainly had the looks and the brains. But that would have tied her down too much. She had other ways she could take care of herself.

And she did. She had augmented her income by writing a letter and consigning it to a rare books dealer. The letter sold for fifty thousand pounds. That bought the BMW. It wasn’t so much that it would cause many to notice, but it did fulfill her need for speed. And it was so easy. The difficulty was the letter was from Christopher Marlow writing from Newgate Prison in 1589. Jean reasoned that Marlow might not have actually written the letter, but it did accurately reflect his fertile mind. It’s something he would have said if he had thought about it.

That letter led to a second in Latin signed by Johannes Kepler, who died in 1630. She didn’t know much about astronomy, so she kept it to commentary on his ideas of the proper pursuit of knowledge. Again, it was a hit on the market, and the proceeds, disguised as a small inheritance, made a substantial down-payment on a modest, but fashionable, flat in London.

Whenever she produced a letter or document, it went through her solicitor, who represented her to the dealers. She never dealt with them directly, but she did visit them often in a professional capacity to examine what was coming onto the market. The solicitor asked few questions and told the dealers the letters were from a collection inherited by a cultural boor who cared only for the good life. Unfortunately, he had to sell things occasionally to finance his lifestyle. And the dealers asked even fewer questions, especially if they knew of a likely buyer who could afford to keep the letter buried in his collection for the next forty years. Both solicitor and dealer happily took their cut.

All she needed was one letter each year, or maybe two depending on her impulse control, and she could have a very good life teaching, studying, and researching in her field, while pulling more fun out of life than the average academic. She really did love the scholar’s life, but that wasn’t all she loved.

And now she was cowering in a hotel room in Rome, wanted for mass murder and killing the Pope.

 

Hammid pointed to the document case on the bed. “Let’s take a look at that treaty.” He moved over to the other side of the room and picked up the document case.

“Have a look if you want, but be prepared for the thing to fall apart. It’s eight hundred years old and you don’t have a clue what you are doing. It’s not like the morning newspaper. Go ahead. Trash it. You’re the real smart guy who takes the long view of history.”

“Ah, yes. Best left to the experts.” He gently laid the case on the bed. “Could we just have a peek?”

Jean shrugged. “Sure, why not. One last wish for the condemned.”

She carefully opened the case and slid out a flat plastic container. It was clear, and about one-half inch thick with a rubber seal around the edges. Inside, Hammid could see a piece of parchment with brown lettering, what looked like a fancy letterhead at the top, flowery scrollwork along the edges, and ornate signatures and seals at the bottom. The page was about ten inches long and ten inches wide, darker at the center, and lighter at the edges.

“This is sealed to keep the air and elements out,” said Jean, “and I’d prefer if you didn’t touch anything. This thing was in a climate-controlled environment in the library, a special room. Those same conditions are inside the seal here. I’m not going to break the seal in a hotel room. There’s no point now.”

She took a magnifying glass from her suitcase and bent over the bed.

“That’s the seal of the Vatican on top. Means it’s from the Pope. It’s on parchment, actually fine vellum. It’s written in Diploma Hand. Papal Minuscule. That was common for Roman Church stuff in the Twelfth Century. It’s addressed to all Christendom. That was supposed to mean all the Christians, but it usually meant just European types. The darker variety in the Middle East and Africa weren’t part of the in-crowd.”

She moved down the page with the glass, slowly tracing along the lines with her finger. She said nothing until she reached the bottom. Then she read it again.

“Why is it all brown in the center?” he asked. “How can you read that?”

“Age. Discolors over time. And right now, I can’t read it all. It needs special filters, but I looked at it earlier with the right light and it all comes out.”

She tapped her finger on the plastic case.

“It’s signed by the Pope and the three monarchs of the major European powers. Each one also fixed his official seal. If this thing is real? I don’t know. I just can’t see how it stayed secret for so many years. A few years after this, the Popes started keeping registers of everything they wrote, very complete, but that was later.”

She pointed to the signatures and seals. “Look. It’s signed by all the heavy hitters of the day. Henry II of England. He’s the father of Richard the Lion Heart. Frederick Barbarossa from the Holy Roman Empire, and Philip of France. And look. Two Popes signed. Gregory was the guy who pushed the Third Crusade, and it looks like he signed before the rest. But he died in 1187 and we see Clement signing after all the others. The Popes bracketed the national leaders.”

 “What else?”

“Well, it’s dated 1189. It doesn’t say 1189. Gregorian and Julian calendars mess things up, but just trust me on that. For one thing, Gregory only reigned as Pope for two months at the end of 1187.” She twirled the magnifying glass in her fingers. “That’s just a year before the Third Crusade started. And it’s just a year after Saladin captured Jerusalem. The First Crusade started a hundred years earlier, and the second started in 1147. Forty years after that, the timing is right for the boys to get together and document an agreement.” She pointed to the bottom of the treaty. “See the dates by each of the signatures? They span the year. It looks like some flunkey, probably a high-ranking Cardinal, ran this around Europe collecting signatures. By the time he got back to Rome, Pope Gregory had died, so Clement signs it, too, you know, to show consistency and support.”

He ran his finger around the edge of the plastic case. “Eight hundred years old, and here it is in front of us.”

“You haven’t asked me what it says,” said Jean. “Aren’t you interested?”

“What it says? Why, I know what it says, and I’m sure when you type up an English translation we’ll both know what it says.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get what you’re paying for. I can give you a summary now.”

“No. Do a full translation into English. I can wait until you have finished your full analysis. And be sure to do an exact transcription of the Latin. Word for word. Exact. That’s vital.”

“Ok. Don’t forget,” she said, “no matter what I come up with here, nothing I can do is anywhere as good as the laser analysis. That’s the gold standard. And for that, a sample probably has to go to London.”

London, thought Hammid. Not Cairo, Damascus, Riyadh, or Baghdad. Not any Arab university because the Arabs didn’t have any laser dating equipment.

Jean fluffed a pillow and sat back against the headboard of the bed. “But forget this stuff for a minute. What’s going to keep them from bursting into the room at any moment? I mean… they are going to seriously come after anyone even remotely connected with this.”

“Think about it, Jean. There were a zillion people there today. They have pictures of a priest wearing a bee-keeper bonnet and a nun with a bag on her head. And that bishop? He saw me with a bushy head of hair.”

Hammid rubbed a palm over his bald head. “You wore three wigs and three outfits, and we always wore big hats and sunglasses. They can look at all the security pictures they want. And latex gloves leave no fingerprints. Don’t be so negative.”

 “I don’t know. Ok. Now, my money. When do I get it?”

“Always money, isn’t it? The Western mind and money.”

“Western mind? You guys are so full of crap. I haven’t noticed the Saudis dumping their PlayStation machines, yachts, servants, and Gulf Stream jets to rush back to their noble Bedouin roots.”

“True, true, but the money will be paid when my colleague reviews the treaty and your Latin transcription. I can’t stress enough, Jean, how important it is to translate and transcribe every word exactly as it is written. Make sure you make an exact transcription of the original Latin.”

“And where is this colleague you never mentioned before? You said I got the rest of my money when I verified the document.”

“Exactly. Verification. We’ll meet him here in Rome, he will satisfy himself you have delivered in good faith, then he’ll transmit the codes to Switzerland to move the money. You’ll be able to see it in your account immediately.”

Hammid lifted a palm. “You already have half the million Euros. We’re honorable people. You’ll have the other half as agreed.”

She looked up at him and grinned wickedly. “You know, it really was a great heist. If those idiots had only blown up a substation instead of the Pope, it would be one for the books. You looked kind of nice all dressed up as a priest.”

“You never cease to amaze, my dear.”

 

Zurich - Monday, March 23

“They bombed St. Peters, and we knew they were going to bomb it,” said the Templar Master. “And I suppose we could say Mancini failed because the bomber got through.” His arm dangled over the arm of the chair and he let the metal tip of his black oak cane bounce on the stone floor of the Knight’s Room in the drafty old Templar estate in the mountains.

“But we have to face it. We tied his hands. We knew St. Peters was the target, we knew it was going to get hit, we knew when it was going to get hit, and we didn’t tell him. We. Did. Not. Tell. Him. We didn’t tell the Pope. We didn’t tell the Italians. We didn’t tell Mancini. We didn’t tell Callahan. We did let Mancini and Callahan know there was an attack planned, but we just didn’t let them know what, where, and when. The target we knew. The time we knew. We made it a guessing game, and a thousand people lost that game.”

The Marshall grunted and shifted around in the armchair. “We made a decision, and we made it according to the Concordat. We’re bound by the Concordat just like all the Templars before us. That old Pope refused the Templars, refused cooperation, and we acted under the Concordat. Listen, we had no alliance with that Pope. We were bound to keep silent. And that’s what we did, just like those before us have done. And just like those who come after us will do. That’s what we live with. That’s part of what we swear to uphold when we become Templars. You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.”

The Master snatched his cane up in midair and stood. “So, where is the point when we stand up as decent men and say enough? When do we let simple human decency and a concern for preventing mass murder trump a six hundred-year-old agreement drawn up by medieval bigots? The crap we talk about? Honor, courage, selflessness, protecting the weak, civilization, Western values? It’s all crap when we let a thousand innocent people die.”

He turned and smashed the cane through a delicate porcelain vase on an end table. “You know both of us, and that means you and me, and all the Council, decided to keep a lid on the information. It was unanimous. Unanimous. Seven to zero. You and I both voted to sit on the sidelines.” He pointed the cane at the old warrior.

“Right, we did,” the Marshall shouted back. “It’s easy to blame the Concordat, the dead Pope, Crusaders, blood oaths, our Templar tradition, and medieval nonsense.” He stood and placed both hands on the thick, smoke-blackened mantle above the fireplace and looked down into the fire. “But you’re right. You’re right. We did it. The blood of all those people is on our hands. We could have acted and we didn’t. All we had to do was make a phone call and we didn’t. What we did was maintain our tradition.”

The Master limped around the room and the Marshall turned to face him. “But remember one thing. Templars and Vatican have both lived by that Concordat, and we’re both still here. Who else has survived that time? Maybe we’re just not smart enough to know what tradition does for us.”

 “Well, I’d say we screwed up big time.” The Master pointed a finger at the Marshall and his thumb at himself.  “That was a direct strike against the West. It just happened in the Vatican. If it had been planned for London, Paris, Madrid, Sydney, Rio, New York? We would have let the word out in a heartbeat. Then we would have gone in for the kill.” He looked at an ancient two-handed Templar sword hanging on the wall. “For God’s sake, we’re the ones who are supposed to keep the Hashashin in check. And what do we do? We let them blow up St. Peter’s!”

The Marshall threw up his big hands. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we don’t have Concordats with New York, London, and Madrid. But listen, we can debate the merits of the Concordat all day long, but at the end of the day it’s still with us. What’s done is done, and now we live with it, just like previous generations of Templars have. We’re not smart enough to analyze everything and say how it works. Some things just do. And you remember, it was the Pope’s decision under the Concordat to reject an alliance with us and insist we have absolutely nothing to do with the Vatican.”

The Master paced in silence for a few moments. “What’s the story with Mancini and Callahan? Are they Ok?”

“Mancini’s Ok. His boss got hurt, so he’s running Vatican Security now. How’s that? A Templar in charge down there. Ha!”

“And Callahan?”

“Our people here located him in a hospital. Concussion, cuts, scrapes. Nothing serious.”

“Always was lucky,” snorted the Master.

They both sat in silence for a few more moments.

The Master walked over to the huge fireplace and stabbed at the logs a few times to encourage them along. “Did you know,” he continued looking over at the Marshall, “that I was the initial Templar contact after Pius was elected Pope twenty years ago? The old Master said it would be good experience.”

“You did that? Hmmph. Sounds more like you drew the short straw. Great work. Must have been your winning personality that generated so much love. Twenty years back? Let’s see. I’m dodging bullets running blood diamonds in the Congo for our cartel breakers, and you’re living high in Rome. Figures.”

“He called us apostates, heretics, worshippers of Baphomet, and blasphemers. Then he told me I was under his orders and must immediately reveal the name and location of the old Master before secluding myself for prayer, penance, and self-mortification. And all this at the risk of my immortal soul. Blah, blah, blah.”

The Master sat back down and sighted at the fire through his glass of wine. “The guy really didn’t know anything about us. That Agretti guy?  Been Secretary of State forever, and was too much of a coward to show Pius the old Concordat and explain how the real world worked. The guy turns purple at the mention of the word ‘Templar.’ Not sure where that comes from.

“Anyway, when I showed up, he had no choice. We got through all the history and explanations, and he still demanded we bend our knee to him. So, I told him we would honor the old Concordat and keep out of Church business while he was Pope, and we expected him to also honor it, and stay out of our business. The Templars would leave the Vatican alone, and the Vatican would leave the Templars alone. Mutual hands-off. He didn’t like that, even though that’s what the Concordat said. Off he goes, ranting on about being God’s sole representative on Earth, like he had an exclusive McDonald’s franchise, and how we had to bow to him. We couldn’t be allowed to continue to pollute both the world and Holy Mother Church.”

“Ha, you should have punched the old fool out then and there,” said the Marshall. “Might have saved a lot of lives if we could have lent a hand over the last twenty years.”

“Well, that sure sounded like a threat against the Templars to me. The old Master had given me three lists of names to use if I needed them. The old conniver didn’t tell me what they were, just said to show the first list to the Pope if he gave me a hard time, and hold back the other two.”

“What were they?” asked the Marshall.

“I didn’t know.” He raised a hand and dropped it onto the arm of the chair. “Still don’t know. What I do know is when he saw the list he turned about five shades of green. Then he turns all purple, starts shaking so hard he could barely talk, pulls the list right in two, crumbles up both pieces, and pounds on the desk with both little fists. He points at the other two pages I held, and yells ‘Give me that.’ I didn’t give them to him, just read him the first name on the list. A woman. Italian name. Now his eyes get as big as pie plates and he shuts up. He just sits there for about a minute with his face all twisted up like some little gargoyle. Then he points to the door, clenches his jaw, bares his teeth, and says, ‘Get out.’”

The Marshall laughed and slapped his knee. “Now that would be a sight to see.”

“Well, on behalf of the Templars, I wished him the best for his pontificate, and headed for the door. I got about halfway when he charges around the desk after me. He’s wearing those silly little cloth slippers. Looked like an elf. He starts screaming, ‘Anathema! Anathema! Out! Out! Out! Be gone!’”

“Oh, God!” laughed the Marshall. “I have a vision of you standing there with your long, skinny arm out and your hand on his head while he windmills his little fists at you. Who else was there?”

“Just Agretti. Don’t worry. I escaped unscathed.”

“Probably a list of bank managers or little boys,” said the Marshall.

“Don’t know. Could have been. I never asked the old Master, and he never told me. I suspect the Pope ate the list when I left. The Archivist probably knows, but God only knows what I’d have to trade to get him to tell.”

“Yeah,” the Marshall said, “so we kept a very low profile with the Church for twenty years. But I bet ‘times will be a-changin.’ Bombs do that. So do dead Popes.”

The Master cocked an eyebrow when the Marshall clasped both hands together. Time to get back to work.

“Back to business.” The Marshall was the general again. “Until someone new gets elected Pope, the Concordat is in a gray area. That’s our opportunity for revenge. I think we can manage to do a pretty good job on the Hashashin.  Our Watchers have been reporting on them in Rome for some time, and we have enough information on them to make a move on them all at once. They’ve had it pretty easy. We’re not exactly sure who is Hashashin and who is just a run of the mill Al Qaeda terrorist flunky, but…”

“How many?” asked the Master.

“It looks like there are three hard-core Hashashin, and about ten others who seem very close to them. I doubt they are members, but… Well, you know how it goes with these folks. We don’t know exactly who did what, or what else they have planned.  Remember, there’s a Conclave to elect a new Pope coming up pretty soon. All those cardinals will be there, and the Piazza will be filled with people waiting. Great opportunity for them. They all have to go. Even if we don’t know their plans, they can’t do much dead.”

The Master nodded and stared at the fire. “Well, we can be sure they were behind the bombings. The Israelis say the bomber was one of the Hashashin disabled veterans.” He paused and looked up. “And from a purely professional perspective, it was a masterful job. I can’t deny a certain admiration for a job well done.”

“You’re a cold, old bastard.”

“Goes with the job. Me and all those cold bastards who went before me. Nine hundred years of cold bastards. That’s why we’re still here.”

“Never underestimate the enemy, especially the Hashashin.”

“True. True. Have the Watchers found anyone special among the three Hashashin?”

“One guy who is probably being groomed for higher things. Ahmed Al Mishari. Saudi. We think he might be some relation to the Old Man back in Bekka. Might be worth some special handling.”

“Hmph. And you think you can take out thirteen at one time? The Hashashin won’t be easy. Three Hashashin and their ten wanna-bes?”

“For God’s sake, you think we’re going to challenge them to a fair fight at dawn? Pistols at ten paces?” The Marshall made a pistol with his fingers and fired at the fire. “The Watchers have been on these guys for months. We know where they eat, sleep, screw, and drink. We know their favorite restaurants, bars, women, men, cars, and motor scooters. We know where they live, where they park their cars, and what time their landladies go to bed at night. We even know what landladies sneak into their beds after lights out.” He laughed. “We own one of them. We have them cold. The Watchers tell us where and when to get them, and we send in our guys to do the job and get out. Standard stuff. Just more than usual.”

“If we get that many in Rome,” the Master added, “the Hashashin we have been watching in other cities will surely scatter.”

The Marshall ran his fingers through his white hair. “Sure they will. That’s why we should take as many of them as possible. Wherever our Watchers have located Hashashin, we should act. Good God. They just bombed St. Peter’s, and they want to kill thousands more.  I don’t want to get reckless, but the Watchers have enough info to get a lot of them. I don’t care that much about the clowns hanging on to them. I want the Hashashin. That’s the brains of all this.”

 “Yeah, and you call me a cold bastard.” He slapped the cane into his other hand. “Alright, when we see the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel, there’s a new Pope, and we will depart the Vatican under the Concordat. But before we go, we will dispatch a few of our Hashashin friends so they can’t do any more damage. Wouldn’t you say that was a pretty good gesture of goodwill toward the new Pope?”

“I would, unless the new Pope is Agretti. Then we’re just apostates and heretics again. And he’s the favorite.”

“True, true,” the Master nodded. “We’re going to have to pour a lot of our people in there until there’s a new Pope. I want all vested Templars going after the Hashashin and the other ten jerks. Just our people. Vested Templars only. No contract help.”

“A lot of our people are in place in Rome. I started moving them down there right after the bomb went off yesterday. Has to be done, so let’s do it.”

“And I want you down there to run the show.”

“Yeah, I was planning on that. They have contingency plans for all these guys, so we just execute what has been drawn up already.”

“And let’s have Mancini hang on at the Vatican until we can make the approach to the new Pope. Let’s not run at the first whiff of white smoke. No point in unwinding things if we don’t have to. I’ll get a Council vote by phone on hitting all the Hashashin and all the Al Qaeda we can get. I don’t think anyone will object.”

The Marshall stood up and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You know, we still don’t know what’s going on with that Treaty of Tuscany. Remember that bit about exploiting it?”

“Yes. I’ve been wondering about that. I hope it’s not something sitting right under our noses. I don’t like that word ‘exploit.’ I don’t know. All we can do is keep our eyes open.”

“Ok. I’m moving on those jerks in Rome. Consider the operation in progress.” The Marshall stopped just short of the door and made a gun with his finger. “Death in Battle.” He went laughing down the corridor.