The Templar Concordat (42 page)

The Pope asked him for a favor, asked him to trust him, and asked that he never mention it to a soul. And he said he would be sure to remember the favor. Remember? Favor? Hmm. Archbishop Reyes? Cardinal Ryes? He liked the sound of that.

But Reyes did control the priests who slipped into Saudi Arabia with the hundreds of thousands Filipino construction, technical, and professional workers who kept the Kingdom running. He sent electricians, engineers, carpenters, drivers, and heavy equipment workers to the labor contractors who supplied the Saudis with workers. They were all good workers, but were also priests, and their primary mission was ministering to the Filipino workers in the Kingdom. And these priests knew everything that went on in the Filipino community in Saudi Arabia.

“Where’s Father Berrera?” he asked his assistant. “He was in here this morning. When does he return to Saudi?”

“Tomorrow,” said his assistant.  “He’s running around doing visas, tickets, family, cars, banks, clothes, doctor. All that good stuff.”

“Well, find him. That’s your number one priority. Call him, hunt him down if you have to, get everyone here after him, call out the dogs, call the police, do whatever you have to, but get him in here. I don’t care what time of the day or night. Get him in here. Go.”

Vatican - Thursday, April 30

 “I want the best.” Agretti cringed as the predator came out in the pacing Pope again. “If we pick three experts for the panel, then we pick the best, the very best. I don’t care if they are Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Atheists, or rodeo clowns.  I don’t care where they come from, as long as they are the best.”

The president of the Vatican Pontifical College frowned. ”Holiness, we have an excellent group of scholars here, in the College and library.”

The Pope glared at him. “I know that. Did you hear what I said? I said I want the best. Are they better than anyone else in the world?”

“Holiness,” said Agretti, “have you decided to send three experts to Al Dossary’s treaty circus? Is it really dignified for you to nominate a panel of experts to sit with Muslims and secularists?”

The Pope stopped pacing and leaned on the table facing Agretti. This was the worm who had betrayed him, but there was no reason to let him know he had been caught. Better to pretend he was still ignorant of the treaty. “No, I haven’t decided. And no, there is no loss of dignity involved in speaking either to Muslims or secularists. But if I do decide to nominate them, I want them ready. I want to know who they are.”

He looked at the five faces in the room. “I don’t want the three best Catholic experts in the world. I don’t want the three best Christian experts in the world. I want the three best experts. Period. Is that too hard to understand?”

“I think we understand, Holiness,” said Bishop Gustuv. “You have a gift for direct communication that is refreshing around here.” He gave a sideways glance at Agretti. “I suggest we poll the history departments at major European and American universities. Ask each for three nominations from outside their own institutions, and see if there is an emerging consensus on a few.”

“Of course,” said Agretti, “some people might not want to serve on such a panel.”

“I don’t give a damn!” The Pope turned on Agretti. “Get the best.”

 “We understand, Holiness,” said Gustuv. “If that’s all, we should get to work. I would estimate we can have a list of nominations in two days.” He looked at the others. “That sound reasonable?”

They all nodded.

“Good. So, let’s get it done,” said the Pope.

After they left, Carlos said, “You think you’re really going to do it?”

The Pope grabbed a Coke from a cooler he had installed in a cherry wood cabinet. “If I had to bet my own money, I’d say yes. I’m not sure we have an alternative. We challenge him and he accepts. We can’t scurry off now and concede to Al Dossary.”

“And what happens when you get these three best experts and then all nine say the treaty is real? You know that’s going to happen.”

The Pope popped the top of the Coke and held it aside as it overflowed on the magnificent carpet. He jumped up and grabbed a towel from the adjacent bathroom. “I’ll probably get billed for this rug if I ruin it.” He dropped to his knees and started sopping up the Coke.

“I’ve thought a lot about your question, Carlos.” He looked up from the floor.  “If everyone says the thing is real, then we stand up and face the music. We denounce the treaty, denounce the two Popes who made it, denounce the kings who signed it, and denounce the doctrine of papal infallibility. We stand and refuse to be dominated by ancient hatreds, superstition, and stubborn pride.”

Carlos brought another towel and took the wet one away. “I’m not sure they can dock your pay. I don’t even know if you get paid.”

“I don’t know. Haven’t got a check yet.”

“You know,” said Carlos, “dumping infallibility will probably cause a split in the Church. The modernists will all line up with you, and the traditionalists and conservatives will be on the other side.”

The Pope got up and threw the towel through the bathroom door. “Yeah, I know. Maybe they’ll elect Agretti for their Pope.  Won’t be the first time there have been two. Anyway, there are only two other alternatives. One, I stand up in the face of all modern science and scholarship, hold my breath until I turn blue, and insists the treaty is a hoax because I say so and I can’t be wrong. That will destroy what little credibility we have. The other alternative is to say those two idiot Popes were right and God wants Muslims wiped out. And that’s just plain stupid.  And either of those alternatives will drive away anyone with half a brain.”

“I wonder if the building holding the treaty might have an unfortunate fire. Someone smoking in bed? Gas leak? Earthquake? Asteroid?”

“Good idea. But then the world would pin it on us in a heartbeat.”

“Boss, if we can’t win playing by the rules, then we just have to change the rules. You taught me that.”

The Pope laughed for the first time that day. “I sure can’t argue with that.” And if the Templars’ harebrained scheme works, we just might. But you don’t need to know that, Carlos. Nobody does.

“I think,” said Carlos, “that’s what the Americans call Hobson’s Choice. All your choices suck, and you have to pick one.”

*     *     *

CNN has learned the Vatican has accepted Hammid Al Dossary’s offer to select three experts to examine the Treaty of Tuscany. Today Vatican spokesman Father Luc Girard announced three scholars had been selected. They are Harvard Professor John Granville, Cambridge Professor Henry Greene, and Dr. Patrick Mulroony of the Kruger Institute in Zurich.

Sources tell CNN all three men are preeminent historians and recognized experts in paleography, which is the study of historical documents and manuscripts.

These three will join three selected by Al Dossary, and then those six will select three more, for a total of nine. Al Dossary has selected Cairo University Professor Ahmed Al Qatani, Cambridge Professor Abdul Zawari, and University of Karachi Professor Mohamed Harketi.

Dhahran - Friday, May 1

“I never do get used to it. It’s welcome back to the Tenth Century.” Callahan watched the flat waters of the Arabian Gulf under the twenty mile causeway connecting the small island of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia.

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Claude DuBois, the Triad International manager for the Aramco contract in Saudi Arabia. “Like we are falling down a time tunnel, and keep falling.” DuBois had met Callahan’s flight from Paris at the Manama airport.

“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.” They had passed through the three Bahraini border checks, and now faced the seven Saudi checks on the causeway.

 “Your multiple reentry visa for Saudi is Ok?” asked Dubois.

“It’s good.  Paris insists I keep it up to date so I can get in here whenever they need me to.” Only workers and their dependents were allowed into the country. No tourists.

“Well, on that subject,” said DuBois, “can you tell me why Paris ordered me to sabotage our own Triad software so you can fix it? Everything was working perfectly.”

Callahan laughed. “Let’s say it’s their new business development program. It’s kind of strange, really.” DuBois stopped for the first Saudi check where he handed both passports to the guard at the window.

When they proceeded on, Callahan continued. “They want to land a contract with ALK, the big Saudi construction outfit. They’re doing a lot of the stuff in Dubai.”

“So they think breaking our software in Aramco will help that? Screw up the biggest contract in the country to get a new one?”

“No, they just wanted an excuse to get me in here quickly. I know the owner’s son from London, a guy named Saad Al Gamdi.  They think I can get to him in their Dammam headquarters, and push the contract toward us and screw the Americans.”

Dubois swore in French. “It was your idea to break the system?”

“My idea? Hell, no. They just told me they screwed the system so I could bring the ‘updated software’ down here and fix it. Then I hang around and pretend I’m babysitting it while I work on the ALK contract.” He snorted. “If you have a problem with Paris, take it up with Paris. I’m not even French. I don’t think that way.”

Dubois shook his head. “Idiots. What software did you bring? There is no update.”

“I know. It’s the same stuff you already have. We just load it up, look concerned, and watch it perform perfectly, just like it used to.”

Callahan liked DuBois and didn’t like lying to him, but DuBois wasn’t a Templar. He was a highly skilled systems engineer and manager in Triad’s legitimate software business, and Callahan understood he didn’t like people messing with his contract. Callahan sure didn’t want anyone messing with his legitimate software jobs.

He also neglected to tell DuBois about the forged treaty sandwiched between sample pages of different colored fonts in one of his software documentation notebooks.

“Ok.” DuBois sighed. “What do I know?”

“Where are you putting me this time, Claude? Hotel in Khobar?”

“No. No. We’ve moved up. There’s empty space on the Dhahran Aramco camp and you’re in bachelor quarters. I told them we needed you near the computers. They don’t care. With so many Americans gone, there’s lots of space on camp.” Now they had progressed to the fourth Saudi checkpoint on the causeway where a van was being taken apart by Indian mechanics because a guard thought it might be hiding drugs.

“I don’t know if you remember,” Claude continued, “but there’s a four story apartment building right across from the baseball field. Inside the camp. You can walk to the office. The rest of us are a few blocks away.”

That should work just fine, Callahan thought. The sprawling Aramco compound was headquarters for the biggest oil company in the world, and once housed ten thousand expatriate workers and their families. The Americans had built it before the Saudis bought the company from them in 1987. It actually looked like a transplanted Southern California housing development. It had single-family houses, schools, golf course, movie theater, grocery store, flower shop, snack bars, bowling alley, and post office. It was a sanctuary where the Westerners could live their own lifestyle without colliding with the far stricter Wahabbi Muslim customs in the rest of the country.

Almost all expatriates lived in one or another compound. Dhahran Aramco was the largest, but the country was dotted with many smaller walled compounds where the Westerners lived. The Saudis were happy since they didn’t have to deal with the cultural pollution of the West, and the Westerners were happy because the last thing they cared about was Muslim mores and dress codes.

But, more important, it meant Callahan could come and go as he pleased and wouldn’t be subjected to the security scrutiny at all the hotels. The Saudis didn’t care what happened inside the compounds.

“Now that should work out just fine,” said Callahan. “Can you get me a car with a sticker for the camp?”

“No problem. You can use a new Chevy Impala we have. Good car. It has all the Aramco stickers, so you just drive through the guard stations.”

When they cleared the last of the Saudi causeway border checks, they were in Khobar, a town of about fifty thousand that shared the Dhahran Plateau with Aramco, the Dhahran Air Base, the US Consulate, and the King Fahd University of Mining and Petroleum.

“Feel like home?” DuBois grinned.

“Don’t even joke,” said Callahan.

Dhahran - Friday, May 1

Father Geraldo Berrera hurried down King Abdul Aziz Street in Khobar and turned up Fourth Street to the Taj Mahal restaurant. Indians and Filipinos dominated the area, and few Saudis dared to come there after dark. The last several days were the strangest of his life. How much stranger can it get?

He had been an underground Catholic priest in Saudi for the past five years, working as a contract electrician for Aramco. The Saudis just saw another craftsman, and as long as he did his job well, he had a secure position.

But his real job, his calling, was ministering to the largely Catholic Filipino population, and in Saudi Arabia that often went far beyond spiritual welfare. He joked the Church followed them everywhere, since God didn’t really care about borders, police, or visas.