But one section was truly forbidden territory to all but a few.
The Apostolic Palace, the home of the pope.
Her destination.
Rachel marched between the yellow-brick barracks of the Swiss Guard and the gray cliffs of St. Anne Church. Here was none of the majesty of the holiest of the holy states, just a crowded sidewalk and a congested line of cars, a gridlock inside Vatican City. Passing the papal printing office and post office, she crossed toward the entrance to the Apostolic Palace.
As she approached, she studied the gray-brick structure. It appeared more a utilitarian government building than the seat of the Holy See. But its looks were deceptive. Even the roof. It appeared drab and flat, unremarkable. But she knew atop the Apostolic Palace lay a hidden garden, with fountains, trellis-lined paths, and neatly manicured shrubs. All was masked behind a false roof, sheltering His Holiness from the casual eye below and from any assassin’s high-powered scope out in the city.
To her, it represented the Vatican at large: mysterious, secret, even slightly paranoid, but at its heart, a place of simple beauty and piety.
And perhaps the same could be said of her. While she was mostly a lapsed Catholic, only attending mass on holidays, she still had a core of faith that remained true.
Reaching the security station before the palace, Rachel showed her pass three more times to the Swiss Guards. As she did, she wondered if this was some nod back to Peter’s thrice denial of Christ before the cock crowed.
At last, she gained admission to the palace proper. A guide awaited her, an American seminary student named Jacob. He was a wiry man in his mid-twenties, his blond hair already balding, dressed in black linen slacks and a white shirt, buttoned to the top.
“If you’ll follow me, I’ve been directed to take you to Monsignor Verona.” He did a comical double take at her visitor’s pass and stuttered with surprise. “Lieutenant Verona? Are…are you related to the monsignor?”
“He’s my uncle.”
A rapid nod as he collected himself. “I’m sorry. I was only told to expect a Carabinieri officer.” He waved her to follow him. “I am a student and aide for Monsignor Verona at the Greg.”
She nodded. Most of her uncle’s students revered the man. He was deeply devoted to the Church but still maintained a strong scientific outlook. He even had a placard on the door to his university office, bearing the same inscription that once graced Plato’s door: Let no one enter who does not know geometry.
Rachel was led through the entrance to the palace. She quickly lost her way. She had only been here once before, when her uncle was being promoted to the head of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology. She had attended the private papal audience. But the place was gigantic, with fifteen hundred rooms, a thousand staircases, and twenty courtyards. Even now, rather than heading up toward the pope’s residence on the top floor, they were headed down.
She did not understand why her uncle asked her to meet him here, rather than at his university office. Had there been a theft? If so, why not tell her on the phone? Then again, she was well aware of the Vatican’s strict Code of Silence. It was written into canon law. The Holy See knew how to keep its secrets.
At last they reached a small, nondescript door.
Jacob opened it for her.
Rachel stepped through into an odd Kafkaesque chamber. Sterilely lit, the chamber was long and narrow, but its ceilings were high. Against the walls, gray steel filing cabinets and drawers climbed from floor to ceiling. A tall library ladder leaned against one wall, necessary to reach the highest drawers. Though spotlessly clean, the space smelled dusty and old.
“Rachel!” her uncle called from a corner. He stood with a priest at a desk in a corner. She was waved over. “You made good time, my dear. Then again, I’ve driven with you before. Any casualties?”
She smiled at him and crossed to the desk. She noted that her uncle was not wearing his usual outfit of jeans, T-shirt, and cardigan, but was dressed more formally, suiting his station, in a black cassock with purple piping and buttons. He’d even oiled the curls of his salt-and-pepper hair and trimmed his goatee tight to his face.
“This is Father Torres,” her uncle introduced. “Official keeper of the bones.”
The elderly man stood. He was short and stocky, dressed all in black with a Roman collar. A hint of smile ghosted his face. “I prefer the title ‘rector of the reliquiae.’”
Rachel studied the towering wall of file cabinets. She had heard of this place, the Vatican’s relic depository, but she had never been here before. She fought back a chill of revulsion. Catalogued and stored in all the drawers and shelves were bits and pieces of saints and martyrs: finger bones, snips of hair, vials of ash, scraps of garments, mummified skin, nail clippings, blood. Few people know that, by canon law, each and every Catholic altar must contain a holy relic. And with new churches or chapels being erected worldwide regularly, this priest’s job was to box and FedEx bits of bone or other earthly remains of various saints.
Rachel had never understood the Church’s obsession with relics. It simply gave her the creeps. But Rome was chock-full of them. Some of the most spectacular and unusual were found here: Mary Magdalene’s foot, the vocal cords of Saint Anthony, the tongue of Saint John Nepomucene, the gallstones of Saint Clare. Even the entire body of Pope Saint Pius X lay up in St. Peter’s, encased in bronze. The most disturbing, though, was a relic preserved in a shrine in Calcata: the supposed foreskin of Jesus Christ.
She found her voice. “Was…was something stolen here?”
Uncle Vigor lifted an arm to his student. “Jacob, perhaps you could fetch us some cappuccinos.”
“Certainly, Monsignor.”
Uncle Vigor waited until Jacob left, closing the door. His eyes then settled to Rachel. “Have you heard of the massacre in Cologne?”
Rachel was taken off guard by his question. She had been running all day long and had had little chance to watch the news, but there had been no way to avoid hearing about the midnight murders up in Germany last night. The details remained sketchy.
“Only what’s been reported on the radio,” she answered.
He nodded. “The Curia here has been receiving intelligence in advance of what’s being broadcasted. Eighty-four people were killed, including the Archbishop of Cologne. But it is the manner of their deaths that is being kept from the public for the moment.”
“What do you mean?”
“A handful were shot, but the greater majority seemed to have been electrocuted.”
“Electrocuted?”
“That is the tentative analysis. Autopsy reports are still pending. Some of the bodies were still smoking when authorities arrived.”
“Dear God. How…?”
“That answer may have to wait. The cathedral is swarming with investigators of every ilk: criminologists, detectives, forensic scientists, even electricians. There are teams with the German BKA, terrorist experts from Interpol, and agents with Europol. But as the crime took place in a Roman Catholic cathedral, sanctified territory, the Vatican has invoked its Omerta.”
“Its Code of Silence.”
He grunted the affirmative. “The Church is cooperating with German authorities, but it is also limiting access, trying to keep the scene from becoming a circus.”
Rachel shook her head. “But what does all this have to do with you calling me here?”
“From the initial investigation, there seems to be only one motive. The golden reliquary at the cathedral was broken into.”
“They stole the reliquary.”
“No, that’s just it. They left behind the solid gold box. A priceless artifact. They only stole its contents. Its relics.”
Father Torres interjected, “And not just any relics, but the bones of the biblical Magi.”
“Magi…as in the Three Wise Men from the Bible?” Rachel couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “They steal the bones, but leave the gold box. Surely the reliquary would fet
ch a better price on the black market than the bones.”
Uncle Vigor sighed. “At the secretary of state’s request, I came down here to evaluate the provenance of those relics. They have an illustrious past. The bones came to Europe through the relic-collecting verve of Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. As the first Christian emperor, Constantine had sent his mother on pilgrimages to collect holy relics. The most famous being, of course, the True Cross of Christ.”
Rachel had visited the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, out on Lateran Hill. In a back room, behind glass, were the most famous relics collected by Saint Helena: a beam of the True Cross, a nail used to crucify Christ, and two thorns from his painful crown. There persisted much controversy as to the authenticity of these relics. Most believed Saint Helena had been duped.
Her uncle continued, “But it is not as well known that Queen Helena traveled further than Jerusalem, returning under mysterious circumstances with a large stone sarcophagus, claiming to have recovered the bodies of the Three Kings. The relics were kept in a church in Constantinople, but following the death of Constantine, they were transferred to Milan and interred in a basilica.”
“But I thought you said Germany—”
Uncle Vigor held up a hand. “In the twelfth century, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany plundered Milan and stole the relics. The circumstances surrounding this are clouded with a mix of rumors. But all stories end with the relics in Cologne.”
“Until last night,” Rachel added.
Uncle Vigor nodded.
Rachel closed her eyes. No one spoke, leaving her to think. She heard the door open to the depository. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to lose her train of thought.
“And the murders?” she said. “Why not steal the bones when the church was empty? The act must have been meant also as a direct attack upon the Church. The violence against the congregation suggests a secondary motive of revenge—not just thievery.”
“Very good.” A new voice spoke from the doorway.
Startled, Rachel opened her eyes. She immediately recognized the robes worn by the newcomer: the black cassock with shoulder cape, the wide sash worn high around the hips, scarlet to match the skullcap. She also recognized the man inside the clothes. “Cardinal Spera,” she said, offering a bow of her head.
He waved her up, his gold ring flashing. The ring marked him as a cardinal, but he also wore a second ring, a twin of the first, on his other hand, representative of his station as the Vatican’s secretary of state. He was Sicilian, dark haired and complexioned. He was also young for such an esteemed position, not yet fifty years old.
He offered a warm smile. “I see, Monsignor Verona, that you were not wrong about your niece.”
“It would’ve been improper of me to lie to a cardinal, especially one who happens to be the pope’s right-hand man.” Her uncle crossed over, and rather than chastely kissing either of the man’s two rings, he gave him a firm hug. “How is His Holiness handling the news?”
The cardinal’s face tightened with a shake of his head. “After we met this morning, I contacted His Eminence in St. Petersburg. He will be flying back tomorrow morning.”
After we met…Rachel now understood her uncle’s formal attire. Hehad been in consultation with the secretary of state.
Cardinal Spera continued, “I’ll be arranging for his official papal response with the Synod of Bishops and the College of Cardinals. Then I have to prepare for tomorrow’s memorial service. It’s to be held at sundown.”
Rachel felt overwhelmed. While the pope was the head of the Vatican, its absolute monarch, the true power of the state rested with this one man, its official prime minister. She noted the weary glaze to his eyes, the way he held his shoulders too tightly. He was plainly exhausted.
“And has your research turned up anything here?” the cardinal asked.
“It has,” Uncle Vigor said dourly. “The thieves don’t possess all the bones.”
Rachel stirred. “There are more?”
Her uncle turned to her. “That’s what we came down here to ascertain. It seems the city of Milan, after the bones were plundered by Barbarossa, spent the past centuries clamoring for their return. To finally settle the matter, a few of the Magi bones were sent back to Milan in 1906, back to the Basilica of Saint Eustorgio.”
“Thank the Lord,” Cardinal Spera said. “So they aren’t entirely lost.”
Father Torres spoke up. “We should arrange for them to be sent here immediately. Safeguarded at the depository.”
“Until that can be arranged, I’ll have security tightened at the basilica,” the cardinal said. He motioned to Uncle Vigor. “On your return trip from Cologne, I’ll have you stop off and collect the bones in Milan.”
Uncle Vigor nodded.
“Oh, I was also able to arrange an earlier flight,” the cardinal continued. “The helicopter will take you both to the airfield in three hours.”
Both?
“All the better.” Uncle Vigor turned to Rachel. “It looks like we must disappoint your mother once again. No family dinner, it seems.”
“I’m…we’re going to Cologne?”
“As Vatican nuncios,” her uncle said.
Rachel tried to keep pace in her head. Nuncios were the Vatican’s ambassadors abroad.
“Emergency nuncios,” Cardinal Spera corrected. “Temporary, covering this particular tragedy. You are being presented as passive observers, to represent Vatican interests and report back. I need keen eyes out there. Someone familiar with thefts of antiquities.” A nod to Rachel. “And someone with a vast knowledge of those antiquities.”
“That is our cover, anyway,” Uncle Vigor said.
“Cover?”
Cardinal Spera frowned, a warning tone entering his voice. “Vigor…”
Her uncle turned to the secretary of state. “She has a right to know. I thought that had already been decided.”
“You decided.”
The two men stared each other down. Finally, Cardinal Spera sighed with a wave of an arm, relenting.
Uncle Vigor turned back to Rachel. “The nuncio assignation is just a smoke screen.”
“Then what are we—?”
He told her.
3:35 P.M.
STILL STUNNED, Rachel waited for her uncle to finish a few private words with Cardinal Spera outside the doorway. Off to the side, Father Torres busied himself with shelving various volumes that had been piled on his desk.
Finally, her uncle returned. “I had hoped to grab a brioche with you, but with the timetable accelerated, we must both get ready. You should grab an overnight bag, your passport, and whatever else you might need for a day or two abroad.”
Rachel stood her ground. “Vatican spies? We’re going in as Vatican spies?”
Uncle Vigor lifted his brows. “Are you really that surprised? The Vatican, a sovereign country, has always had an intelligence service, with full-time employees and operatives. They’ve been used to infiltrate hate groups, secret societies, hostile countries, wherever the concerns of the Vatican are threatened. Walter Ciszek, a priest operating under the alias Vladimir Lipinski, played a cat-and-mouse game with the KGB for years, before being captured and spending over two decades in a Soviet prison.”
“And we’ve just been recruited into this service?”
“You’ve been recruited. I’ve worked with the intelligence service for over fifteen years.”
“What?” Rachel almost choked on the word.
“What better cover for an operative than as a well-respected and knowledgeable archaeologist in humble service to the Vatican?” Her uncle waved her out the door. “Come. Let’s see about getting everything in order.”
Rachel stumbled after her uncle, trying to see him with new eyes.
“We’ll be meeting up with a party of American scientists. Like us, they’ll be investigating the attack in secret, concentrating more on the deaths, leaving us to handle the theft of the relics.”
>
“I don’t understand.” That was a vast understatement. “Why all this subterfuge?”
Her uncle stopped and pulled her into a small side chapel. It was no larger than a closet, the air stagnant with old incense.
“Only a handful of people know this,” he said. “But there was a survivor to the attack. A boy. He is still in shock, but slowly recovering. He is at a hospital in Cologne, under guard.”
“He witnessed the attack?”
A nod answered her. “What he described sounded like madness, but it could not be ignored. All the deaths—or rather those that succumbed to the electrocution—occurred in a single moment. The dying collapsed where they sat or knelt. The boy had no explanation for how it occurred, but he was adamant about the who.”
“Who killed the parishioners?”
“No, who succumbed, which members of the congregation died so horribly.”
Rachel waited for an answer.
“The ones who were electrocuted, for lack of a better word, were only those who took the Holy Eucharist during the Communion service.”
“What?”
“It was the Communion host that killed them.”
A chill passed through her. If word spread that the Communion wafers were somehow to blame, it could have repercussions around the world. The entire holy sacrament could be in jeopardy. “Were the wafers poisoned, tainted somehow?”
“That’s still unknown. But the Vatican wants answers immediately. And the Holy See wants them first. And without the resources necessary for this level of clandestine investigation, especially on foreign soil, I’ve called in a chit owed to me by a friend deep within U.S. military intelligence, someone I trust fully. He will have a team on site by tonight.”
Rachel could only nod, struck dumb by the last hour’s revelations.
“I think you were right, Rachel,” Uncle Vigor said. “The murders in Cologne were a direct attack against the Church. But I believe this is just an opening gambit in a much larger game. But what game is being played?”
Rachel nodded. “And what do the bones of the Magi have to do with any of this?”