The Martian Pendant (21 page)

“This is priceless,” he mumbled. When he saw she had regained consciousness, he put his P-38 in his belt, and grasped her arm.

“Not a sound, hear?” Through clenched teeth, he muttered, “Now I have two prizes.” With that, he began to drag her down the companionway to the port entry, with the precious book in his other hand.

As he came to the opening, walking backwards as he pulled her along, she watched in horror as, with a roar, a gray flash of jaw and teeth took him by the shoulder, forcibly yanking him, screaming, out the door and down into the water-filled cavern below. The force of the attack caused him to drop both the book and her arm simultaneously. The last she heard was a huge splash, his final gurgling scream quickly stifled by the soft bubbling of the running stream.

She was so intent on recovering the book, which had fallen outside onto a ledge at the water’s edge, that she forgot her fear. As she climbed hastily down to retrieve the prize, the waters began to take on a reddish cast. Only then did she feel alarm and scrambled back into the hulk. Hearing the screams, the dig crew came running, finding her shaken but relieved, standing in the entry and holding the book tightly against her breast.

“Start the pumps! We’ll just have to run them continuously to keep that water level down,” she said groggily, “We can’t give that monster another opportunity such as it just enjoyed.”

That evening after supper, no one, not even Adina, mourned the fate of the luckless agent, AKA Krueger, although Max had to report his death to the Minister’s office. Diana was appalled by the gruesome event, and reflected on what might have become of her had her attackerilived. After concluding that the crocodile saved her life, she was able to take time to write to her parents and her son details of the day’s adventures. She then turned her attention to the book, spending a couple of hours examining it.
A virtual Rosetta Stone,
she thought.
I feel like that Frenchman must have before he figured it out. What was his name anyway? Of course! Champollion. But he had the advantage of knowing the third language, Greek, which had led him to the solution. This book has only two languages.

She finally slept despite her headache and swollen jaw, but only after she realized that the alphabet-like script was matched in the book by symbols, as arcane as Egyptian hieroglyphs. But she had seen many of those same characters uncovered by freeing the ship’s interior surfaces of the calcium salts. The labeling on consoles, switches, objects and items of equipment, plus posted directions, would be the key to getting started, she knew, as she drifted off.

With the death of Dragunov, Kindred was promoted to the vacant post. It was soon thereafter that he received confirmation from British intelligence that “Krueger” had been a Soviet agent after all.

“By Jove,” he remarked to his secretary, “I indeed owe that lass an apology. She was right all along. The fact that the Italians won the race to secure the mineral rights to the surrounding land smacks of skulduggery, in view of her plane having been sabotaged. That dig seems rather more important than a mere mineral or archeological exploration. The whole thing seems to be an earthshaking discovery.”

It was in that frame of mind that, within a month, he was approached by the Chinese delegation that was in the process of surveying the coast south of Dar-es-Salaam for their proposed railroad. The project was vociferously supported by the revolutionary, Julius Nyrere, the leader of the opposition in the British Colonial administration. Foremost among his socialist plans was the modernization of the country he was likely to head.

The British resented TANU’s anti-government stance. Had they not been enlightened rulers? And they did have plans to turn the government over when the Africans were ready. Why did they have to court the Chinese Communists? He knew the answer. The native leaders were weary of the white man’s influence. The Chinese promised them generous financial support, as well as technical input for building Tanganyika’s infrastructure and tapping its mineral wealth.

But there were strings attached. With their burgeoning population, and the anticipated need for the oil and minerals of Africa, they would stop at nothing to gain their ends. While the British Government was trying to deal with the Chinese through diplomatic channels, it faced a dilemma. Thwarting their designs on Tanganyika, while achieving détente with them regarding Hong Kong, would be difficult if not impossible. British rule of that Crown Colony would end when the treaty expired near the end of the century, but militant Reds could take it by force any time. Communist efforts in Africa met with little official resistance as a consequence, but he knew he had to regard every Chinese businessman as a possible enemy agent. 

*    *    *

As the exploration of the Martian ship neared its end, Celestre, the Mafia priest and spy, received an encrypted radio message from the Vatican. He was to proceed to Rome in all possible haste. Extremely important decisions were pending, the message said, involving the highest leadership regarding the Martians and religion. He wondered where he would fit in, but decided that they needed first-hand input. He didn’t realize that their greatest fears concerned the advanced technology, especially its war-making potential. Hastily, he made preparations for the trip. He’d have to stop off in Dar-es-Salaam to consult with Manzone, his Mafia contact there. To bypass him would be his death warrant, he knew.

Once again they met in a dark corner of that Arab café, where he found the
Mafioso
, fingers drumming on the little table impatiently. It was bare except for a coffee pot and a single cup.

“You’re late!” Manzone snarled, “Not that tardiness in itself is so bad. However, in your case, I’m convinced it was fear that caused it today. You realize, don’t you,
that fear is the death of spies? When one is unable to think straight, mistakes that cost the organization are more likely. You know the penalty for that.”

“Of course I do,” Celestre responded defensively. “But have you considered how long it takes to fix a flat tire? That can happen even to a
Consigliere
.”

“All right,” snapped his superior. “We intercepted and decoded the Vatican transmission. We think they have something in mind besides religion. As soon as you get there, you’re to dig deeper. We can’t let our biggest prize get away from us the way that initial shipment did.”

“But that was entirely different. The whole fiasco was due to the clumsy way your agents handled it, hijacking the goods and then loading them onto a different freighter. If they had instead boarded the intended cargo ship in the Mediterranean and diverted it to our facilities in Messina, the British Navy wouldn’t have been given an early enough warning for the interception.”

“Enough of that! You have your orders. Carry them out well, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

With that, Manzone, pouring coffee from the pot, signaled that the meeting was over with a dismissive motion of his arm. Celestre rose, trying to stifle a sigh of relief. He couldn’t get out of there soon enough.

The Alitalia DC-6 that took him to Rome seemed overage, and the vibration generated by its four engines was not a comfort. In first class,
he was coddled by the stewardesses, despite his grotesque appearance. After all, the Vatican had paid for his passage, and that was enough for them. Ordinarily, as a cleric, he would have flown in tourist class, but he wasn’t about to complain. He even accepted a glass of wine from the blue-eyed Italian stewardess who handed it to him with a sparkling smile and the lilt of Lombardy in her voice.
When all this is over,
he mused as he sipped the wine,
all this luxury, including such women, will be mine.
He was painfully aware of his physical repulsiveness, but money could blind anyone, even beautiful women.

He was met at the airport by an officer from Papal Security, and after an expedited passage through
Customs, he was whisked away by limousine to the Pope’s summer palace, Castel Gandolfo. His escort, introducing himself as Lieutenant Paolo Pedrone, filled him in on the schedule. He was to meet with the Captain of Security, and then, after supper, have a private audience with the Pope himself.

Oh God
, Celestre thought,
not kissing his ring again!
But why the Pope? He was known to be in failing health. Was he still in charge? In any event, he didn’t need the blessing of a lowly priest, with all the sycophants surrounding him.
Of course, he knew it obviously had to do with his knowledge of the dig, and its fantastic findings. Not for centuries had the Catholic Church been involved in such things. And then it was in suppressing discoveries that countered established religious teachings.

After his meeting with the Captain, which turned out to be a screening of C
elestre in preparation for his Papal interview, he was shown to an anteroom. He sat there twiddling his thumbs impatiently thinking.
Didn’t the Pope have underlings to gather information from such individuals as he, so far down in the hierarchy
? It didn’t occur to him that there was a problem the Pontiff didn’t want to share.

It was over an hour before the imperio
us Mother Pasqualina, the Pope's long-time housekeeper, led Celestre into the bedroom of Pius the 12
th
. The ramrod-straight, saintly-appearing figure he had seen before had changed. His illness had reduced him to a fragile old man, without the vitality shown in their previous meetings. As he sat at the bedside, his skin was sallow, and only his sparkling brown eyes suggested he still harbored an active mind.

I
n a quavering voice he said, “Welcome, my son. I find it appropriate that your name means
heavenly
.” Then, motioning to a chair, he added, “Sit here next to me. You are no doubt wondering why we’ve summoned you here. As a dying man, before God takes us, we have much to do, most of which must remain just between the two of us. Do we have your pledge, as a priest in Christ, that none of this will escape this office?”

The Mafia Jesuit knew where his loyalties must lie, but he nodded solemnly to the Pope, agreeing, “Yes, Your Holiness.”

“Good. Then we can proceed. It is possible that you know we were the one who arranged the
Reich Concordat,
the treaty that facilitated Hitler’s rise in Germany. We have since regretted that, because of the horrible toll of human life during the war that followed. By the time certain members of the
Wermacht
Officers Corps began to plot against the
Reichfuhrer’s
life, we indicated through channels that we wanted to join in their effort. The response was one of incredulity that the Holy See should meddle in such a way. Thus our help was not sought. As you know, the assassination attempt failed, and in that failure, the Nazis fought fruitlessly on, allowing much of their previous conquests to be taken over by the godless Soviets, giving us the Communist Eastern Europe of today. Two hundred million Catholics were lost to our Roman Church.

“You may not be aware of the full extent of
our stand against the Soviet Union, and what actions we have been taking to undermine their rule over our souls in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. That is an ongoing effort, and, we hope, one that will continue after we join our heavenly father.

“There remains to
us a final mission, and that is where you come in, Celestre. We did adopt the name ‘Pius,’ meaning ‘Religious’ in Latin, because we do believe in the peace that was taught by our Savior, Jesus Christ, and his apostle Peter, our first Pope. In your reports from Africa, we’ve come to see the discoveries in Tanganyika as a terrible threat to the peace of the world. Now, the Pentagon in America has begun to understand the importance of this alien technology, as have the Chinese Communists. The Soviets, early in on the secret, will be strengthening their presence there soon. Initially intent on the industrial impact of the Martian secrets, all now covet the war-making potential of the thermonuclear power, and the virtually impervious material.

“We have decided on a radical plan. Those secrets must not fall into the wrong hands. Just between the two of us, this includes not only the Eastern Bloc, including the Soviets and China, but also the U
.S. While America, as a mostly Christian nation, is the best of the three, the warlike stance assumed by their leaders is great cause for concern.”     Warming to the presence of his guest, and leaning forward, the Pope whispered to the questioning priest. “What would you do, Father, in our place?”

“Your Holiness,” he replied, “I’m just a simple Jesuit. How can I know of any solution?”

“Don’t toy with us. We have our agents everywhere, not only here in Rome, but also in East Africa. Do you think that all our ecclesiastics there are simple missionaries? We know of your Mafia connections, Celestre, and if you think that your punishment for deserting their cause would be worse than ours, think again.”

That threat, coming from the top of the Catholic hierarchy, had a chilling effect on the double agent.
He wasn’t worried about excommunication, but he knew he would never taste the luxury of the good life he envisioned for himself if he betrayed either of his masters.

Pius XII continued, after observing the dismay on his minion’s face. “We think that the best r
ecipient of the Martian technology would be Japan. They have adapted a pacifist stance since their disaster in the Pacific war, and their new constitution forbids any nuclear armament.”