Echoes Through the Vatican: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 2) (12 page)

A tall, kind and jovial looking man with wispy white hair, a kind face and, what Julian sensed as a shrewd, but generous spirit entered. He inspected the garden, closed his eyes for a moment and enjoyed the respite from a worrying world. This man wore a white cassock and a white zucchetto, a skullcap, and a simple gold pectoral cross on a simple gold chain around his neck.

This man was the Pope.

He glanced in Julian’s direction. The cardinal placed his hand on his own pectoral cross and bowed from the waste. Julian inclined his head slightly, but never took his eyes off the leader of over one billion Catholics.

Julian picked the place, but Luciano had picked the time. The cardinal had known the Pope would appear and when. His Eminence was half a step ahead of Julian in this race.

The cardinal took Julian’s arm. “A few more moments of your time, Mr. Blessing. I understand you have been to see a Russian gentleman of, shall we say, questionable character. A man named Sokolov, I believe. I must caution you. He is a dangerous man to know.”

“Eminence, there appear to be many men in Rome who are dangerous to know. In the case of Mr. Sokolov, he also has been kind enough to offer his assistance in finding the doctor.”

Cardinal Luciano ignored the jab. “Hmmm, I will have to trust you know what you are doing and what risks you are taking.

“Remember, men like him do not give of themselves freely. He will exact a price should he find that for which you are looking,” the cardinal said, his face strained to look serious and thoughtful.

Julian nodded his understanding. “And that would make him different from you, sorry, your group, how exactly?”

Again the cardinal sidestepped the insult. “Doubtless, Mr. Sokolov has heard of your talents and will demand their use if he finds the doctor. It well could be he took her to begin with,” the cardinal said.

“I offer this only as a word to the wise. We are alike in our calling and so I owe it to you to give the best counsel I can,” the cardinal smiled and continued.

“The Sokolovs of this world would use you for selfish and malicious ends. My friends and I will, in time, find your doctor, but the request we would make of your services is nothing but altruistic. We seek only the betterment of mankind, while Sokolov wants only to enrich himself at mankind’s expense. You see the difference, of course.”

Julian saw the difference, but it was a difference without much of a distinction.

“I have thought over your initial offer and will think over what you have said today. I do not feel now is the time to make such a decision, at least until the doctor is found and returned safely,” Julian said.

The cardinal laughed. “Mr. Blessing, I wish I could play your words back so you could hear them from my point of view. I must tell you, yours is prevarication on a Vatican level. Had you become a priest in your youth, you would surely be a prince of the Church by now. What they say is true, you learn quickly.

“If I could make a suggestion – do try to look a little earnest when you say such things. People might question your sincerity otherwise.” Again, the cardinal smiled without meaning.

“If there is nothing else, Eminence,” Julian said.

“For now, nothing,” the cardinal said with a sneer. “Think well and quickly. I wait to hear from you, then we will talk further. For now, go with God, Mr. Blessing.”

Julian nodded, turned and traced his steps back along the pea gravel path. The cardinal sat on the edge of the small fountain and watched him walk away. He watched and he wondered and he weighed the life of Julian Blessing. For now he was worth more alive than dead.

***

“Signore Marino, you saw and you heard?” Julian reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the listening device the sergeant had placed there. “He wants to take out the Pope! You have proof. Will you arrest him or will the…”

Marino, shook his head, no. The sergeant was situated on the roof of the Vatican Radio transmission center. He placed the listening device and binoculars in a small briefcase and looked at Julian.

He had secured the services of the sergeant. Marino brought with him ungodly swift and deadly physical responses to all occasions. The sergeant had no discernable signature. Marino’s listening in would not have saved Julian from being obliterated, but he may have had proof of Luciano’s complicity. At least that was what Julian thought.

The sergeant looked at Julian and shook his head again. “Arrest him for what? You are the one who suggested killing the Pope. The cardinal suggested you reason with His Holiness.”

Julian ran over the conversation in his mind. He acknowledged what the sergeant said.

“Sergeant, may I ask you a question?” Again, Marino nodded once.

“Didn’t Vatican Security object to you being on one of their roofs?” Julian asked.

“Bella told them I was here to protect the cardinal from you. The Vatican authorities trust no one. They have a sniper trained on me and another on you. Right now.”

“Me? Hey, that’s a good one.” Julian chuckled. His was the only chuckle as he scanned the rooftops and windows, easily feeling the presence of, not two, but three counter snipers.

“Yeah, well, do you mind another question?” Julian said with a concerned look on his face as he scanned the rooftops of the Vatican. Marino nodded only slightly.

“I know this may sound pretty macabre, but you think those guys would, you know?”

The policeman looked at Julian several moments longer than Julian found comfortable before saying, “There are too many wizards in Rome, so yes.”

A dazed Julian said, “That isn’t exactly what I meant, but, okay, well, oh, look at the time. Nice chatting with you, Sergeant. Thanks for, ah, being here. It made me feel a lot better. Arrivederci, no?” Julian’s smile was weak tending toward pathetic.

Enrico Marino’s face was as expressionless as usual. When a shaken Julian was off the roof, the policeman smiled. Slightly.

***

“Marek, bilocation? Really? What is it about Jesuits that you can’t just say ‘two places at once?” Julian asked.

“Because,” Fr. Soski answered, “bilocation is far more accurate, more scientific. In this case, at least.” The priest was clarifying things metaphysical for Julian and warning him of the dangers likely to assail him.

“Let us take Cardinal Luciano. It is both physically and metaphysically impossible for him to be in two places at once. He can, however, project a likeness of himself. You could, one day, be facing several cardinals each looking like Luciano. Thus, bilocation.” Julian’s friend smiled.

“Like a hall of mirrors.” Julian looked pleased. The priest did not.

“Julian, what is it that causes you to reduce things to their simplest form?” the priest asked, not unkindly.

Julian looked sheepish and the priest laughed. “My friend, let us stay with bilocation, if you wouldn’t mind. We’ll leave the hall of mirrors simile for another time.” Fr. Soski paused, looked expectant and continued.

“Regardless of our talents, all of us have one thing in common. The ability to focus binds us all together. That focus allows us to do what we do,” the priest said.

“Bilocation is a serious threat. If you are focusing on a person, then suddenly you are confronted with two, three or four of that person, you have no choice but to shift your focus. If given enough time, you will sort out the real from the illusionary, but it may be too late by then.”

The two friends sat in the priest’s darkened office. Julian broke the silence.

“Marek, every time I speak of general principals, you bring us back to the hostile applications of those.” Julian’s statement was delivered as a simple observation. Fr. Marek steepled his fingers as if in prayer.

“Julian, as I have said before, I have watched you with some care. I continue to talk with others about you. You are the subject of much research and conjecture, a real celebrity, but I won’t ask for an autograph quite yet.” The priest smiled.

“The usual course is we learn to wield the talents we were born with. Through study and application over a lifetime, we gain a certain mastery of ourselves and our abilities. You, however, continue to learn and grow and you are doing it with shocking speed. I suspect this is because you don’t know what you can’t do.” Fr. Marek’s chuckle turned to a racking cough. Julian grimaced.

Fr. Marek caught his breath, apologized and continued. “You, Julian, have an unimaginable set of gifts. It is necessary that you know, yours is a brilliant light. You must also understand, there are those who would extinguish it. With the light comes the mist, the shadows and the darkness, my friend.”

“Marek?” Julian asked. The priest wiped his mouth on a handkerchief and it came away speckled with blood. “Luciano, he wants me to murder the pope.”

“Well then,” the priest said, “we will have to make sure you don’t do that.”

“Eminence,” Fr. Dominic said. Cardinal Luciano looked up from his book. His eyes narrowed, but did not respond. “Eminence, another test was run.” The priest hesitated as the cardinal’s look turned dark. “It was not successful.”

The cardinal set his book aside, crossed his legs, but said nothing.

“It would seem the Vatican Bank has tightened its computer systems security and changed its protocols and procedures. What would make this worrying is these changes were made the moment our test entered the system,” the priest concluded.

The cardinal considered a moment and then thought,
“Dominic, you said, ‘would make this worrying,’ as though I should or would be worried. There is nothing about which I need to worry. As the individual responsible for all things financial here, it is for you to worry.”

When the thought struck, Fr. Dominic shuddered and his eyesight blurred. When the cardinal addressed him telepathically, it left him feeling ill and with a migraine for days afterward.

“Eminence, I meant I would be worried only all traces of the transaction, on this side, disappeared the instant the changes were detected by the bank. There is no trail leading back.”

“Well then, you should hope these changes disappeared quickly enough, no?” The cardinal picked up his book again and began to read.

Fr. Dominic bowed, turned and left. It wasn’t until he was a fair distance from the cardinal’s study that the young priest puffed out his cheeks and let out a breath.

Antonio, Cardinal Archbishop Luciano, looked up from his book and suppressed a contented smile. It was, he had always thought, easy to smile at the expense of others.

***

“Gentlemen, come in. Please take a seat.” Cardinal Manning stood up from his desk as Julian and Fr. Soski entered.

The priest bowed his head in deference to rank. Without preamble, Julian said, “Eminence, your message sounded urgent.”

“Urgent is it? Although, the Holy Father sees this as an urgent matter to be addressed quickly, I see it as nothing short of a catastrophe that will cause the bank to collapse if not repaired now. I am asking, begging for your assistance.” The cardinal’s features were distorted by nervous tension and nearly palpable anxiety.

Manning pressed the intercom and said, “Send him in.”

A perfectly nondescript young priest entered the office and the cardinal motioned for him to approach.

Look out any window, at any time in Vatican City and you could find scores of priests who looked just like this one. Slender, tall, young, wearing a black cassock. A minute out of his presence and that would be the only description possible.

Julian examined the newcomer with care. There was something about this one. The way he stood, the way he walked – there was something ultimately ordinary, while being out of the ordinary, about this priest.

Soski glanced up at the young priest, then looked away without another thought.

“Edward, my boy, tell these gentlemen everything that is known about our difficulty,” the cardinal said as he sat.

Soski looked at Cardinal Manning, while Julian looked at the floor, closing his eyes.

Fr. Edward Millburn drew a deep breath, adopted a pleasant expression, and began.

For just short of an hour, the priest recited a litany of loss and the methods employed to cause it. At the conclusion of his narration, he nodded to the cardinal and stood in a respectful silence.

“Thank you Edward,” the cardinal said. The young priest bowed his head slightly and left three men sitting in silence, alone with their own thoughts.

“You see the problem, gentlemen. We have a mole, a leak, a quisling and I need that man found and quickly,” the cardinal said, his voice low and his intensity palpable.

“I’ve heard enough. Shall, we?”
Fr. Soski thought.

Julian nodded his head in agreement, then addressed the cardinal. “Eminence, we will need access to every inch of the bank at all times of the day and night and we will need to interview every person working here.”

“You have whatever you need. Present yourselves to the guard at the door. From there the bank is yours. God speed your efforts. I need not tell you I need this handled quickly and quietly.

“Julian,” the cardinal continued, “I’ve not forgotten about the doctor. I’ve leaned on everyone in the police and have engaged the Vatican’s gendarmerie to make discreet inquiries. Neither you, or the doctor, is ever far from my thoughts or prayers.”

The cardinal’s guests stood, said their goodbyes and left the cardinal and the Vatican bank.

“Fr. Edward is the leak, of course,”
Julian thought,
“and the cardinal knows it, at least suspects it.”

“Yes, but the priest isn’t alone. That presentation was memorized from first to last so the youngster wouldn’t give anything away. He was on autopilot with almost no thoughts of his own. Someone knew we would be present today
,” Fr. Soski thought
.

“Sadly, that’s what I think too,”
Julian replied.
“I suppose we should start interviewing people.”

“There won’t be much of an interview needed. A handshake and a brief word will eliminate nearly everyone and highlight anyone we need to have a serious talk with,”
Fr. Soski thought
.

“Marek, a question if you don’t mind.”

Soski raised his eyebrows.

“Why are we both here? You could do what he needs or I could. Both of us will only speed the process marginally.”

His face set in concentration, Soski thought, “That, my friend, is the real question. We are both here to witness something together or to keep one of us from being elsewhere.”

***

“Come in, Dominic,” Cardinal Luciano said and continued to look into the fire crackling in his office fireplace.

The priest rushed in. “Eminence, our source has just advised that the Russian, Sokolov, is soliciting at the bank. He is looking for an accomplice within the bank. When I say soliciting, I mean he is trying to blackmail or otherwise force,” Fr. Dominic started.

“The man is unreasonably transparent. I suppose if he presented himself at the door of the Vatican Bank with a brass band, it would be somewhat less subtle than what he is doing now. He is starting to wear on me. Anything else, Dominic?”

“No, Eminence.”

“Then you may go. I will not have need of you until tomorrow morning.” Cardinal Luciano concluded the interview.

Fr. Dominic bowed and left the office never having dreaded a night off more. “What happens tomorrow morning?” He would ruminate on that for the remainder of the evening. By the morning thoughts would have turned to anxiety would have developed into full-blown dread. Terror wouldn’t be far behind.

***

“Good morning, Marek ,” Julian said as he entered the priest’s office. In profile, Fr. Soski looked drawn and even more pale and his eyes looked distressingly weary. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Deep lines on his forehead telegraphed Julian’s concern.

Fr. Soski swiveled his desk chair around slowly. He said nothing at first. Julian could feel it, nearly see it.

“Do I need to say the words, Julian?”

“Yes, Marek . I want to hear what happened. I don’t want to feel your words, I want to hear them.”

“Fr. Edward Millburn, our presenter at the Vatican Bank, is dead. It is believed he died of a cerebral hemorrhage while at the opera last night.” With his mind, the priest pushed a copy of
la Repubblica
across his desk to Julian. The newspaper was turned to page twenty, below the fold and following a restaurant review. Scant tribute for a member of the clergy.

Julian slowly, painfully teased the meaning out of the Italian language paper.

He took a deep breath, and then another, as Fr. Soski watched the emotions move across his friend’s face.

“Luciano was present.” Julian’s statement was flat.

“I’m sure he was. Opening night of La Bohème? He wouldn’t miss it. Odd though that a simple priest would have tickets to a sold out opening night performance, no?” Marek asked.

Julian nodded his head.

“The cardinal wants to get your attention,” the priest said without emotion. “And possibly to send a message to others.” Fr. Soski said and paused before continuing.

“Don’t do it, my friend. It will only bring you pain. Don’t look back.” The priest could see it was too late.

Julian’s eyes were heavy and his face twisted in sympathetic agony as he watched Fr. Edward place his hands to his head, stand up in a crowed opera house and die. He watched it twice in his mind, before the images faded.

“The cardinal has my attention,” Julian said.

***

“Eminence, Fr. Edward Millburn? He’s dead? I saw him just last night,” Fr. Dominic said.

“So I understand, Dominic,” Cardinal Luciano replied with a pleasant look on his face.

“But Eminence, I don’t understand.” Fr. Dominic’s face reflected his inability to process his shock and his sinking despair. “Eminence, Edward and I were at seminary together. I recruited him for you. He was ecstatic about going to see La Bohème last night. He couldn’t believe his luck in getting tickets. He can’t be dead.”

Luciano looked quizzical. “Recruited him for me, Dominic? Whatever for? As for La Bohème, it was inspired. I saw Fr. Millburn and thought of inviting him to my box. He seemed in some distress, so I thought better of it. As for your understanding, he was alive and now he is not.”

“But,” the priest was panicked, stunned, his thoughts tossed on a dark and violent sea. “Eminence, did you…”

“Did I what, Dominic?” The cardinal’s voice held an edge that begged to cut. “I’ve done you the courtesy of telling you myself.”

With his chin on his chest, Fr. Dominic attempted to collect himself. As tears brimmed his eyes, he stood erect, squared his shoulders, inclined his head to his employer and said, “It is very kind of you to tell me, Eminence. Will that be all?” He tried to smile, but the sadness in his eyes killed that in its infancy.

“It is all for now, Dominic,” the cardinal said eying his assistant, looking inside the man, judging his capacity for betrayal.

The priest again bowed slightly and turned to leave. The door opened as he approached and he stopped when he felt the cardinal’s words.

“Dominic, do not tempt me again,”
the cardinal thought.

The priest drew a deep breath and left the office. Sometimes, self-preservation is its own reward.

The cardinal waved his hand slowly and the large office door closed silently. Luciano shrugged with a smirk and calculated the number of days Fr. Dominic Giglio had left to live.

***

The guard at the front door of the Vatican Bank said, “Cardinal Manning asked that I send you both to him when you arrived.”

“Well, we have certainly arrived,” Julian said.

A priest hurried to the security station. “This way, gentlemen,” and the trek to the cardinal’s office began. As they passed the teller’s windows, each employee looked at the two visitors, then looked away quickly.

“I suppose everyone knows who we are and why we are here,”
Julian thought.

“Who we are, no. They don’t want to think about such things lest they call down the evil eye. Why we are here, most assuredly,”
Fr. Soski answered.

Their escort knocked lightly, the cardinal called out, and the doors were opened. Again, Cardinal Manning was ensconced behind his desk. There was no welcoming smile. He indicated chairs for his guests.

“The news about Fr. Edward is tragic. Tragic. I’ve been up much of the night, but I have come to no conclusions. Have you?” the cardinal asked.

Julian looked to his companion. Fr. Soski inclined his head and Julian began, “Eminence, a tragedy, yes. We should have anticipated it or something like it. That the priest was murdered, there is little doubt. In less doubt is Cardinal Luciano’s involvement. Having served his purpose, Fr. Edward was discarded.”

“It is the cardinal’s usual practice and method, Eminence,” Soski added.

“You have proof?” the cardinal asked.

Soski began, “There is no proof to be had, Eminence. This is a crime for which no fingerprints will be found. There will be no smoking gun, as they say. He had the motive and opportunity, but only we will ever know he had the means and that he exercised it.”

“You believe Fr. Edward was complicit then? He is, or rather was, our traitor?” the cardinal asked. “Then we are done and I can report it as such.”

“In a qualified way, we agree,” Julian said. “We believe he was involved up to his neck. We believe he was working from the inside, obscuring the embezzlement. However, he was not alone and we are far from done,” Julian said.

The cardinal let out a noisy breath and let his chin fall to his chest. He drummed his fingers on the desk in his anxiety and frustration.”

“Eminence,” Fr. Soski began. “I can only imagine the pressure you are under. With respect, Eminence, although concluding this matter quickly by settling blame on Fr. Edward, we would not be concluding it well. Should the bank name the culprit and continue to incur losses…” He left the sentence in midair.

Without looking up, the cardinal nodded and said, “I understand perfectly. Gentlemen, please continue with your task and I will continue with mine and may God have mercy on us all.”

Julian and his friend walked down the marble corridor toward the bank lobby.

“Can you answer a question for me, Julian?”
Fr. Soski thought. Julian shot his companion a sidelong glance and shook his head.

“What is wrong with all of this? I realize the cardinal is under pressure, but there is something amiss here. His reactions, his thoughts, his emotions are not wrong, they are just not right.

“I have had the same feeling. He is easy to read and doesn’t appear to be protecting his thoughts in the least. I am getting a signature and it is the same each time I meet with him. Still, I agree with you. I don’t know how to put it into words,” Julian concluded. Deep lines creased his forehead and his eyes were fixed in concentration.