Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (35 page)

Patience!

After all, they’d have to feed her.

“Look at me, damn you!” Peter yelled.

He and Meaghan were standing on the train platform, both urging Cody to step out from the shadows of the train itself. Will had stood aside as the other passengers had filed past him, and Meaghan had run to buy both men hats and sunglasses in the station. She was gone only minutes, and Cody had made a little joke about the hat. A man used to sombreros and cowboy hats, his dislike of its narrow-brimmed style was plain.

“It’ll keep the sun off your face,” Peter had said. “That’s all you need to worry about for now.”

But now he wasn’t being quite so kind as the train conductor walked toward them, clearly curious as to why their fellow passenger refused to step down from the train.

“Look at me, Will!”

“I’m looking,” Cody replied, exasperated. “Doesn’t it hurl, at least?”

“Yes, it fucking hurts! It really hurts at first, like every inch of uncovered skin getting stung by bees all at once. But it doesn’t last, understand. It wears off until it’s just an uncomfortable ache, like a light sunburn. Surely you remember sunburns?”

“I hated them then, when they weren’t likely to kill me, and I surely hate them now,” Cody snapped.

There was a long pause, and the conductor was almost upon them. Meaghan knew he would tell them to shove off, and she didn’t want to get into an argument. She turned to Cody.

“You damn coward!” she growled.

He looked like he’d been slapped, then began to stutter some kind of reply, but she was having none of it.

“Some hero you are! The noblest whiteskin, the great scout, the world’s greatest showman. Sounds like a bunch of buffalo shit to me! You’re supposed to be
the
man’s man—gambler, lover, hunter, horseman, the best at everything, the symbol of the Wild West. But that’s all crap, isn’t it, because William Frederick Cody, the hero of children around the world, Buffalo Bill, is afraid of getting a sunburn!”

While Peter looked stunned, Cody’s face went from shocked to embarrassed to angry, and the train conductor, who’d finally reached them, tapped his foot patiently and waited for her to finish, obviously recognizing Meaghan as a force to be reckoned with, and not to be interrupted. When she did finish, all three men fumbled for something to say.

Meaghan didn’t afford them the luxury.

“Come on, Peter,” she said, turning on her heel without so much as a look back, “let mama’s boy ride the train back and forth until nightfall. It’ll probably all be over by then anyway.”

Peter looked after her, eyebrows raised. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out and she kept right on walking. He turned to Cody and shrugged, a guilty, silly grin fighting to break out on his face. Finally he shook his head and laughed, then followed after her, catching up easily. The conductor watched them for a moment, then turned to their reluctant companion.

Red-faced with fury and humiliation, not daring to give it another thought, Cody was out in the sunshine and hurrying after them before the first word was out of the conductor’s mouth. He didn’t understand Italian anyway.

“I know what you tried to do,” he said to Meaghan as he caught up to them, “and it didn’t work. I’m out here because I want to be, not because of your petty childish antics. Lord, woman, but you are a pain in the ass! And you,” he said, turning on Peter now, “you’d better be right, ’cause right now I’m hurting like hell.”

And indeed, his flesh felt like it was on fire. But, he consoled himself, at least it only felt like it.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little face, Will.” Peter laughed. “We’ve got more than enough worrying to do to keep your mind off of dying.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, no more delays.”

“Okay, look,” Peter said, their conversation taking a sober turn. “The sun is our advantage—it’ll keep us from being attacked by some of our friends who hold a grudge, at least until we can talk to them about what’s going on.”

“Fine,” Meaghan said. “Now, where do we start?”

“I think I know just the place,” Peter said.

It was just past eleven in the morning when Giancarlo Garbarino arrived for his appointment with His Holiness the Pope. As usual, the pontiff was late, and Garbarino sat in his parlor awaiting his return from Mass. A papal attendant brought him herbal tea, though what he would really have liked was some of that Viennese chocolate coffee. Unfortunately, with the pope’s poor health, such things were too rich for him.

When finally he did show up, the pope seemed perturbed, barely acknowledging the clumsy bow and perfunctory kiss of the ring he received from Garbarino, disrespectful attempts at tradition that would have insulted a more prideful, less pious pontiff. He stepped into his internal chambers with Garbarino on his heels, then turned and stepped into the small library that served as his private office. This space was reserved for those around whom he felt comfortable. Garbarino knew the Holy Father didn’t like him, but he also knew that the man respected him and his academic efforts.

The attendant who had served Giancarlo his tea—Paulo, he thought the man’s name was—appeared immediately just as the pope was about to summon him.

“Tea, Your Holiness?” Paulo asked.

“No, thank you,” the pope replied.

“Cardinal?”

“Yes, please, Paulo. And from the looks of it, though he said no, His Holiness will probably change his mind about the tea, so bring him a cup as well.” He smiled at the young man.

The pope looked at Garbarino, ready to argue about the tea, but then changed his mind and settled back in his comfortable burgundy leather chair. “Paulo,” he said, “please bring the tea and then do not disturb us. I am in ill humor today, and the cardinal better be here to cheer me up.”

He smiled at Garbarino, then, but it had no effect.

Your humor is not what ails you, the cardinal thought.

“And why so cranky today?” Garbarino asked, as usual abandoning all pretense of propriety in addressing the pontiff.

“My back is acting up,” the pope replied, “but more than that, attendance at this morning’s Mass was frightfully low, and you know how that bothers me.”

“Ah, well, don’t fret. I know a lot of my people were going out today on the newest research venture, and that flu that’s going around . . .”

“Yes, I’m coming down with it myself, I fear.”

Paulo reentered then, setting his platter down silently in front of Garbarino, who shushed him away when he reached for the pot. He left the room, shutting the door behind him, letting Garbarino pour the water for tea.

As he placed tea bags in the cups a small capsule dropped from his palm into the pope’s tea, its membrane dissolving immediately and releasing a clear, tasteless liquid that would mix with the tea within minutes. He had done away with John Paul I in the very same fashion.

He served the pontiff first, then himself, watching as His Holiness began to sip at the steaming cup. Garbarino began to smile and sip his own tea. With John Paul it had been important that he not be discovered. This time, however, nothing mattered. If they knew the pope had been murdered, if they knew he was the killer, such knowledge would be useless, for he’d be long gone, never to return.

Ah, but such a service he was performing for the glory of the true God, whose nature Roman Catholicism had only begun to grasp. It was control that mattered, mastery of all things, all creatures, natural and unnatural. This was what God had intended for man, and for His church.

He chided himself, as the pope sipped, not to become overwrought. After all, he was a soldier in God’s army, a pious man, not a self-righteous, self-serving lunatic like Liam Mulkerrin. No, of the many things that caused Giancarlo Garbarino to commit the sin of pride, the foremost was this—he considered himself completely sane, something he couldn’t say about many others.

“You know, Giancarlo,” the pope said, putting down his cup after only a couple of sips, enough to make him ill surely, but probably not enough to kill him. “I’ve been wondering for some time about Cardinal Guiscard.”

Now Garbarino perked up. Where was this coming from?

“Henri Guiscard was quite a scholar—is quite a scholar still, I should think. I never understood why you didn’t want him on your Vatican Historical Council, unless it was simply that you didn’t want to compete with another cardinal. Regardless, his disappearance concerns me, as does the disappearance of that hellish book.”

“The book, Your Holiness?” Ah, all propriety now, aren’t we, he thought.

“Well, I never got through the whole thing, only bits and pieces here and there, and of course the reports you wrote about it. But, well, we agreed that it was yet another example of misguided zeal along the lines of the Inquisition. I mean, vampires? Weren’t witches and exorcists bad enough?”

“Quite true,” Garbarino agreed, though in actuality the only portions of the book the pope had ever read were those Garbarino included in his reports on the subject.

“While many suffered and died for those false impressions, the church doesn’t need any more bad press. We still haven’t gotten out from under that Father Porter fiasco,” the cardinal said.

The pope visibly shivered, whether from the poison or disgust, Garbarino couldn’t tell.

“But why Guiscard?” the pontiff continued. “Not that I knew him well, but he seemed genuine enough. And more intelligent than most of us, for certain. Why take that book? If he had wanted to hurt us with it, which doesn’t make sense in the first place, why hasn’t he done something with it?”

“I can’t honestly say, Your Holiness,”
but it seems you might have become a liability even if you weren’t needed as a diversion.

The pope sighed then. “Well, I can’t help but hold you partially to blame,” he said.

“Me?”

“Well, if it weren’t for your recommendations, I would have had the thing destroyed and we wouldn’t have this problem, would we? I can’t even brief the PR people unless the thing comes out, because if it doesn’t, I’ll have told them about it for nothing, and then it probably
will
get out. It’s so frustrating.”

“I’m certain it must be,” Garbarino said, “and I’m sorry for whatever role I played in these events.”

“Ah well,” the pope said, “nothing to be done about it now.”

He paused, his head bobbing for a moment. “And suddenly I’m feeling even worse. It appears the flu has caught up with me, after all.”

“Drink your tea,” Garbarino said. “You’ll feel much better.”

“No, thank you, though, Giancarlo, but I didn’t really want it in the first place. That herbal flavor is simply awful, but I dare not tell that to Paulo, who has somehow been told it’s my favorite. I’ll just ring him now, to pick up the tray. If you’re done with yours, that is.”

The Pope reached for his intercom, but Giancarlo’s hand stopped his before he could reach the button.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

In two and threes they left, from all exits, and singly as well. Fathers and brothers and sisters, drifting out of the Vatican with no hint of shared purpose, no recognition of one another. Vatican police surely noticed a larger volume of clergy on their way to museums, to the airport, to shop, visit hospitals and churches, or merely to walk. The clergy who were not leaving, who were not aware of the sinister purpose behind this exodus, also noticed a larger volume of departures than usual in those morning hours.

Those taking their leave set off in many different directions, at different times, and purportedly for different reasons . . . while many may have thought the volume peculiar, none thought to remark upon it.

As they made their way toward the appointed meeting place, two and one half miles from the train station in Rome—some taking far more circuitous routes than others—they were joined by several dozen additional clergy members from the Roman community. Sister Mary and the Montesis had organized this exodus so well that it indeed appeared to be nothing more than coincidence.

Unless, of course, you happened to be standing near the train yard as Roman clergy filtered in, in threes and fours, and boarded the train. If you watched while some emerged in a new uniform of all black, male and female alike, without collar or habit, you would most certainly have been curious. If you had seen many of these people take gleaming silver daggers from the assorted bags and totes and briefcases that they carried and hide them in the folds of these new uniforms, or in the boots they wore, unlike anything you could have seen clergy wearing before, well, then you certainly would have remarked upon it to the first person who would listen.

And Vincenzo Pustizzi had every intention of doing just that, of stumbling from the train yard where he often slept and telling the first policeman he came into contact with. He would have done exactly that if Robert Montesi hadn’t seen him first. If the youngest Montesi brother hadn’t called upon something invisible, something awful, to crawl inside him and cat his heart, he would have blown the whistle for sure. Nobody in Rome would have believed Vincenzo Pustizzi, but he would have told them all right.

By noon, when Giancarlo Garbarino and Liam Mulkerrin left together, Sister Mary Magdalene and Robert Montesi were just getting the last stragglers aboard the train. Isaac and Thomas, meanwhile, were making final arrangements with their Venetian unit by cellular phone. They were aware, of course, that these phone lines were never secure, but it was taken for granted that their enemies were far too arrogant to believe they were in any danger. Certainly espionage was not within their range of skills.