The Thirteenth Apostle (38 page)

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm already dead, Nil – they can't hurt me any more. Don't worry: you've got a few minutes to leave San Girolamo without being spotted. See you soon, my friend: truth has made free men of us – you were right.”

Father John was surprised at the sudden interest Rembert Leeland seemed to have developed in the library, which was generally considered to be a jumble. While the American asked him questions that proved how totally incompetent he was when it came to historical scholarship, Nil, his suitcase in his right hand, slipped aboard the bus that passes down the Via Salaria and serves Rome's main railway station.

In his left hand, he clutched a bag that seemed to be his most precious treasure.

84

Antonio walked along with a spring in his step. Nestled in a bend of the Tiber, the Castel Sant'Angelo reflected the setting sun from its tawny bricks. Here, papal justice had once been dispensed: it was divine justice that he was going to enforce this evening. A man was preparing to oppose the government of the Church for a cause that he thought was right – but there is no right cause outside the hierarchy. And the man in question was depraved, a Satanic pervert. The Spaniard leant against the guardrail of the Victor Emmanuel II Bridge. Before he took action, he wished to remember the words the Cardinal had uttered the evening before and rekindle his burning sense of indignation: then his hand would not tremble.

* * *

“You say he is going to use the epistle to put pressure on us?”

“He's stated as much on several occasions, Your Eminence, and the Twelve agree. The letter of the thirteenth apostle will give considerable power to anyone who possesses it: making it public would cause such an uproar that our Church – and even certain Western heads of state – will be ready to pay a considerable amount of money for the Society to keep it secret. The Templars did not hesitate to use this means.”

“Jesus's tomb… Incredible!” – The Cardinal wiped his brow. “I thought the epistle contented itself with denying Jesus's divinity. It wouldn't have been the first time – the Church has always been able to overcome that particular danger and throttle heresy. But discovering the real tomb containing Jesus's bones! Not just one more theological quarrel, but tangible, undeniable
proof
! It's unthinkable! It's the end of the world!”

Antonio smiled.

“That's just what Mgr Calfo thinks, but he has his own ideas. He thinks the Church is too timorous in the face of a rotten world that's going its own way without us, or against us. He wants money, a lot of money, so that he can influence world opinion.”

“
Bastardo!”

The Prelate quickly got a grip on himself and continued:

“Antonio, when I knew you in Vienna, you were a fugitive from Opus Dei – but you had sworn to serve the Pope and, if his health were to fail, to serve the Papacy, the backbone of the West. Our venerable Holy Father is ill – or at all events he devotes his strength and his attention to the crowds that acclaim him everywhere he goes on his travels. For twenty years, the real governance of the Church has rested on shoulders such as mine, and sometimes the Pope has not even been informed
of the dangers we have been forced to face. I have often had to act in his name; I'll do the same again here. Can I count on your help? We need to… neutralize Calfo, and take over control of the Society of St Pius V. Without delay.”

“Your Eminence…”

The Cardinal pinched his lips, sucked in his cheeks, and his tone of voice became harsh.

“Remember, my child: when you arrived in Vienna, you were being followed. Nobody leaves Opus Dei, especially not after criticizing it the way you did. You were young, idealistic, unaware! I gave you shelter, protection, and then my trust. It was I who made you a member of the Society of St Pius V, I who paid up so that the Catalans of Escrivá de Balaguer, those fanatics, would keep quiet when Calfo made his inquiries about you. I've come to collect my dividends, Antonio!”

The young man lowered his head. Catzinger realized that, for what he was demanding, a simple command would not be enough: he would need to arouse his indignation, awaken the Andalusian's volcanic temperament. Touch him at his sensitive point: his rigid, intransigent character, his rejection of the body, kept in force by so many years of sexual frustration at the school of Opus Dei. He puckered his lips, and they distilled honey.

“Do you know who your Rector is? Do you know what kind of a man he is, one you respect in spite of his lack of discipline? Do you know what horrors the first of the Twelve is capable of imagining, a hundred feet away from this Holy City and Peter's tomb? A few days ago I heard, in confidence, the story of one of his victims, a young woman as beautiful and pure as a Madonna, whose very soul he humiliates – the soul of a believer – even as he enjoys her body. And she is not the first to have been sullied by him. You don't know? Well, I'm going to tell you what he has done, and what he is planning to do tomorrow.”

He whispered for a few moments, as if he wanted to stop the crucifix hanging on the wall behind him hearing what he said.

When he had finished, Antonio looked up: his black eyes were glinting with a harsh, inflexible light. He left the Cardinal's office without uttering a word.

With a sigh, the Andalusian pulled himself away from the parapet of the bridge: it had been a good idea to relive that scene before he started to act. The Church ceaselessly needs to be purified, even by steel. The Cardinal's commands exonerated him from all responsibility: this too had always been the Church's strength. A difficult decision, a moral violence, a gangrenous limb to tear off… The man who wielded the knife, who plunged it deep into living flesh, did not view himself as responsible for the blood shed or the lives destroyed. The responsibility lay with the Church.

85

Alessandro Calfo took a step back, looking satisfied: it was perfect. On the parquet floor of his bedroom, a big cross was laid out, two broad beams of wood that would allow a body to lie at ease. Sonia would be fine there. He would tie her hands with the two soft silk cords he had prepared; her legs must remain free. As he imagined the scene, the blood rushed to his temples and his lower belly: to unite carnally with the young woman lying in the place of the divine crucified one was the most sublime act he would ever accomplish. Divinity finally merged with humanity, the least of his cells experiencing ecstasy in union with Christ's redemptive sacrifice in its most
perfect form. No violence: Sonia would be consenting, he knew it, he sensed it. Her horrified reaction the other day was merely the effect of her surprise. She would obey as she always did.

He checked that the Byzantine icon was directly above the cross: in this way, while he was celebrating the cult, she would be able to contemplate, merely by lifting her eyes, this image that would appease her Orthodox soul. He had thought of everything, since everything needed to be exemplary. And tomorrow evening he would place the cursed epistle on the empty shelf which had been awaiting it for so long.

He gave a start when he heard the doorbell ring. Already? Usually, always discreet, she came only after nightfall. Perhaps, today, she was impatient? His smile broadened. He went to open the door.

It was not Sonia.

“An… Antonio! But what are you doing here today? I asked you to call round for tomorrow morning; Nil first needed to see the Pole this afternoon… What is the meaning of this?”

Antonio advanced towards him, forcing him to retreat down the entrance corridor.

“The meaning of this, Brother Rector, is that we need to talk, you and I.”

“To talk? But
I
talk to
you,
at times of my choosing! You are the last of the Twelve, in any case…”

Antonio was still advancing, his eyes focused on the face of the Neapolitan, who retreated before him, bumping into the walls as he did so.

“No longer at times of your choosing, but when the God whom you claim to serve chooses.”

“Whom I… claim to serve? And who has given you permission to speak to me in that tone of voice?”

The one man pushed the other before him until they reached the bedroom door, which Calfo had left open.

“Who has given me permission? And who has given you permission, you wretch, to betray your vow of chastity? Who has given you permission to humiliate one of God's creatures, hidden behind your episcopal ordination?”

With a jerk of his hips, he forced the pudgy little man to back into the room. Calfo stumbled over the foot of the cross. Antonio looked round at the carefully elaborated setting: the Cardinal had not lied to him.

“And what about this? What you were planning on doing is an abominable blasphemy. You are not worthy to possess the letter of the thirteenth apostle, the Master cannot be protected by a man like you. Only someone pure can keep at bay the filth that is menacing Our Lord.”

“But… but…”

Calfo again tripped over the upright of the cross, slipped over and fell on his knees in front of the Andalusian, who stared at him with contempt, his lips pursed with disgust. This was no longer his Rector, the first of the Twelve. It was a human wreck, trembling, drenched in foul sweat. His eyes suddenly dulled over.

“You wanted to stretch out on the cross, didn't you? You wanted to unite your body, transfigured by ecstasy, with the Master transfigured by his love for each one of us? Very well, so you shall. You will never suffer as much as He who died for you.”

A quarter of an hour later, Antonio gently closed the apartment door behind him and wiped his hands with a paper handkerchief. It hadn't been difficult. It's never difficult when you obey.

86

Leeland walked like a jerky automaton down the uneven cobbles of the Via Salaria Antica. “Nil loved to take this route when he came to see me… Already I'm thinking of him in the past!”

He had succeeded in keeping Father John busy in the library for a long while, but had declined his invitation to share in the community's lunch.

“Father Nil and I are meeting in the Vatican at the start of the afternoon. He's probably already left without telling me. He'll be coming back… late this evening.”

Nil would not be coming back: at this very moment he would be on the platform of the Stazione Termini, ready to get into a train for Arezzo. Or was already gone.

Overwhelmed by anguish, Leeland felt as light as a feather: in fact he was emptied, down to the smallest fibre of his muscles, down to his fingertips. “Life is over.” What he had been refusing to accept ever since he had been exiled to the Vatican, the truth that he had been hiding from himself, had just been made absolutely clear to him by Nil's short stay in Rome: his life no longer had any meaning, all zest for living had left him.

He found himself, without knowing how, outside the door of his studio. He pushed open the door with a trembling hand, shut it behind him and sat down with an effort at the piano. Would he still be able to play music? But… for whom?

On the floor below, Mukhtar had again taken up his listening post and set the tape recorders going. Today the American had come home later than usual, and he was alone: so he had left Nil in the Vatican – the Frenchman must be talking to Breczinsky. He settled down comfortably, headphones on. Nil would be coming back at the end of the afternoon and would talk to Leeland. At nightfall he would head back to San Girolamo, as usual. On foot, through dark and deserted streets. His friend would go part of the way with him.

The American first. Then the other one.

But Nil did not return. Still sitting at the piano, Leeland watched as the shadows filled his studio. He didn't switch the light on: he was trying to struggle against his fear with all the strength at his disposal – struggling against himself. There was only one thing left for him to do. Lev had provided him, unwittingly, with the solution. But would he have the resolve and the courage to go out?

An hour later, night had fallen on Rome. The tapes were turning round and round in silence – what could the Frenchman be up to? Suddenly, Mukhtar heard muffled noises from upstairs, and the studio door opening and shutting. He took off his headphones and went to the window: Leeland, alone, had left the building and was crossing the street. So had they agreed to meet on the way to San Girolamo? In that case it would be even easier.

Mukhtar slipped out. He was armed with a dagger and a steel coil. He had always preferred weapons with blades, or strangulation. Physical contact with the infidel gives death its proper value. Mossad preferred to use its crack sharpshooters, but the God of the Jews is merely a distant abstraction: for a Muslim, God is reached in the reality of direct physical combat. The Prophet had never used arrows, but always his sabre. If possible, he would strangle the American. He would feel his heart stop beating under the pressure of his hands – that heart ready to provide those of his nation with a decisive weapon against Muslims.

He followed Leeland, who walked round St Peter's Square without passing under the colonnade, and turned into Borgo Santo Spirito. He was heading for the Castel Sant'Angelo. It was a chilly night and the Romans were all snug at home. If those two had arranged to meet up at the foot of the castle, it was because they knew there wouldn't be a soul there. All the better.

Now Leeland was walking along slowly, and he felt at peace. In the twilight of the studio he had come to his decision, repeating to himself the words that Lev had used: “A killer, a professional. Leave, go and hide away in a monastery…” He would not leave, he would not hide away. On the contrary, he would march towards his destiny, as he was now doing, in full visibility. Suicide is forbidden to Christians, and he would never by himself put an end to this lifeless life that was henceforth the only life he would have. But if someone else assumed responsibility, that was fine. He came out on the left bank of the Tiber, passed in front of the Castel Sant'Angelo, and turned onto the Lungotevere. Cars – few and far between – came down this road overlooking the Tiber, then turned left to the Piazza Cavour. There was nobody about; the damp was rising from the river and it was biting cold.