GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (22 page)

Mario was a retired policeman and now
a
commissionaire
at the entrance to the
p
alace.
Standing behind his desk
in pressed
uniform and skipped
c
ommissioner hat
each day,
h
e was a little bit stout and always had a wide
,
friendly smile extended
beneath
his upward
-curving
moustache.

‘
Ciao
,
ladies, looking fantastic a
s
usual
,
’
he greeted them,
smiling at their catwalk.
Paulina wore a set of silver
-
rimmed
eye
glasses
that
suited her petite features and
a pin-striped black trouser suit that showed her figure to her best advantage. She
had left her
short
,
wavy blonde hair
flowing loosely
.
She glanced
to her left
,
through the glass door towards the guards.

‘Hi Mario, still here?’ asked Paulina in jest
.
‘Working too hard
,
eh?’
Mario chuckled a little
,
his stomach wobbl
ing
slightly.

‘Still here and at your service
,
Paulina, as always.’
He
tapp
ed
the skip of his hat in salute. ‘Have you been upstairs to heaven
’
s gate
,
then?’

Paulina
answered with a nod.
‘Just collecting your marching papers
,
Mario.’
S
he laughed.

The girls walked past the friendly
c
ommissioner
and
head
ed
towards their office.
The integral crystal fountain
of the foyer
sprayed
a geyser
twenty
feet tall
towards the high ceiling
; it
f
e
ll downwards noisily
,
like heavy rain
,
into the large circular
,
glass pool below.

Coins had been tossed in
to the fountain
at different times
,
and
would
be
routinely and unknowingly collected
and
then added to the Papal funds to keep the waters clean.
The sound of the waterfall
was deafening
when the girls came
close to it
—the noise
echo
ed
off the granite floor and walls
, which
were made of solid and ancient marble stone.
There was a natural sparkle, a speckled crystal within the walls
that
glitter
ed
in the light
, contributing to the sparkle of the water
.

The network team swished their
ID
cards at the entrance to the office
and
t
he thick glass
door clicked each time
; Gabriella opened the door and
the girls stepped
into the action.

The
clacking
of tapping fingers
sounded like machine-gun fire in the closed room
.
A few people raised
their
voices
above
the sound, competing
with the
words of the h
elpdesk team
, who was still
fielding calls from the Vatican.

All helpdesk team members were now in full flow since August, covering not only the local
,
Godley calls but also the new link to the
European
Central Bank, the ECB building in Frankfurt
and
the Vatican
’s
banking service.
This part of the business was not going so
well,
and
had become
an 18 hour operation with only one person on call
at any given time
. It all boiled down to what the priorities were in the Vatican
,
and IT support
was
always last on
its
Christmas list
.

A few loud laughs could be heard as the girls walked back to their desks; Paulina heard a few derisory comments
at their expense
.
This
behaviour
was the norm
coming
from
the
contractors
, who
believ
ed
themselves to be better than
anyone else
.
Not all c
ontractors
are
like that
,
Paulina reminded herself.
S
ome
even took
up permanent employment at the Vatican.

*********

Tuesday was uneventful
, and consisted of
the normal routine checks and admin duties
of the
T&O section.
The database guys were busy
,
too
,
with another system upgrade
that
involved “change control”.

Nothing else occurred with regard to the mysterious Apostol login
, which was
being monitored by Francesca.
Meanwhile
,
the girl had tried to piece together
everything that had happened, but could not make sense of
Michaelangelo
’s
disappearance
.
She
could
n’
t help
but
think that he was in some kind of trouble
....

Francesca phoned him at home
, to make sure he was ok,
and
received
no answer
but a continuous
ringing
;
his mobile went
straight
to voice mail
after only one ring
.
The man lived in Albano Laziale
,
so going
to visit
was not
an
easy
proposition,
but she
decided to
drive to his flat t
hat evening, anyway
.
In the meantime
,
Francesca look
ed through the
computer logs to
find a
clue
,
but unfortunately
she found
nothing.

Fran
cesca
was
puzzled
by the whole thing, although she
knew that there is
no such thing as a completely secure
system.
Protecting the systems was
a bit like sealing up as many holes as possible, making
the proposition of attack
less attractive to potential hackers.
Security was tight physically and at the
s
erver and network levels
, of course
.
Frequent
security checks
were
made
with various “penetration testing” provided by the
VIA
—Vatican
Internal Auditors.

The money
was no compensation
for th
e
kind of pressure
placed upon Francesca,
but the work
excited her
and the Apostol incident
was an intriguing puzzle.
S
he was like a bear
drawn
to a honey pot
.
...

Mysteries
a
re fun
,
Francesca
thought, and
smiled.

**********

That evening
,
Francesca drove to the town of Albano
Laziale
in
search
of
answers.
Albano
Laziale
sits within the Rome province,
about twenty-five
km
from Rome.
‘
All roads
lead to Rome
’
thought
Francesca as she
glimpsed
one of the old Roman roads
running
not far away
. It was
the Appian Way
—
its cracked and paved engineering surrounded
on
either side with tall
c
ypress trees guarding the ancient ghosts that still
trekked on
to the Eternal City.