The knights never understood how to rule a place so small as Malta. People living so close to one another for so long had learned to appreciate the needs and desires of their neighbors. It was a kind, cooperative society, which the knights governed with heartless tyranny. By 1798 the Maltese were fed up and the French had been welcomed as liberators, with Napoleon lauded as their champion. Few on Malta had been sad to see the knights tossed out. But that joy had quickly been replaced with loathing, and the same mistake was not made twice. The French were vanquished within two years. Eventually, with the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the British gained the island and maintained control until 1964.
September 21.
Independence Day.
That old nun from the orphanage had been wrong about the festival of Our Lady of the Lily and the three stolen pasti. All that had happened at an Independence Day celebration. He’d not corrected Spagna, but he remembered every detail. What had she called him?
Halliel ftit. Little thief?
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He removed the unit, noted the caller, and answered.
About time.
“I have good news,” the voice said in his ear. “I now know where Mussolini hid what he found.”
He closed his eyes in relief. “Tell me.”
“The British have had the information all along. I was able to use the Churchill letters to obtain what we need from James Grant.”
“Where is it hidden?”
“I can’t say on an open cell line.”
“Can you get it?”
“It might be a challenge, but it’s obtainable.”
“And the man you just mentioned?”
“No longer a factor.”
He, too, was being careful with his words, but he was able to say, “I’m with a man named Chatterjee. He works with a friend from Rome. We have a problem. There’s an American and a Maltese agent watching me.”
“Has the friend you mentioned made contact with you?”
“A bit of a surprise. But yes. You could have warned me.”
“It’s better this way. He’s the best in the world, and now he’s on your side.”
“Which came as news to me.”
“But welcomed, I’m sure. I arranged it, so please take advantage of the situation. Only a few more hours remain. Stay anonymous and above the fray. Let your new friend handle the dirty work.”
He did not need to be reminded. He’d begged for a fight with the last pope and had been given one. Unfortunately—though he foolishly thought otherwise at the time—that war had been over before it even started.
This one would be fought far differently.
He felt safe to say, “I’ve been supplied with some new information, the kind that will be powerful and persuasive. It involves a great deal of personal scandal. More than enough to get what we want.”
“I’ll be anxious to hear more about that.”
“Is there a reason you withheld the identity of our new friend? He was never mentioned when you told me to come here.”
“I apologize. It was a condition of his involvement. But take heart. In just a few days you will be his superior.”
He loved the sound of that.
“Find whatever there is to be found,” he said into the phone. “And quickly.”
“I intend to do just that. One thing. Where is this new powerful and persuasive information you just mentioned?”
He glanced across the car. “Chatterjee has it.”
A pause, then the voice said, “Take care.”
He ended the call.
They motored out of Marsaskala and headed toward St. Thomas Bay, the snug anchorage protected by steep cliffs on three sides. A jumble of lit buildings lined the narrow lane on both sides.
“Where are we going?” he asked, glad that Chatterjee knew better than to inquire about the phone conversation.
“To speak with someone who knows things.”
He was annoyed by the secretive reply. He should be in Rome. Cardinals were surely arriving by the hour, being assigned their rooms in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, readying themselves to be sealed away in conclave.
Yet he was here, in the rain.
“When do I get that flash drive in your pocket?”
Chatterjee chuckled. “The archbishop wants this hunt to play itself out first.”
He was finding it hard to disguise his mounting frustrations. “Is finding the Nostra Trinità a condition for that to happen?”
“Not at all. If this effort fails, then it fails. But the archbishop doesn’t see the need, at the moment, to hand over the details of the curia’s corruption. You’ll have the flash drive before you enter the conclave.”
Then he saw the point, his thoughts borne along on a surge of revelation. “He thinks I’ll use it beforehand. He wants all of the blackmail to happen inside the conclave, where no one can speak of it once things are over.”
“A wise precaution, don’t you think. Though he has full confidence in your ability to persuade the right cardinals to support your candidacy, if something goes wrong at least it will remain a private matter, the cardinals bound by their oath to secrecy.”
“And I take all the blame.”
“There’s an element of risk in everything we do.”
“Except for your boss.”
“Quite the contrary. The archbishop has taken a huge risk backing you.”
But he wondered about that observation. Spagna had not survived for as long as he had by taking huge risks.
He resented Spagna’s invasion into his life. Sometimes, in the morning, while shaving, he caught the mirrored reflection of a man he might not ever have recognized but for the fact he’d created him. Crafted as carefully as a sculptor working a slab of stone. As with everyone, though, scars existed, the stigmata of a troubled past, and even he’d thought himself finished, his mistakes leading toward a lonely failure. But now it seemed he might have a second chance.
“Might I ask a question?” Chatterjee said.
Why not? “Go ahead.”
“What name do you plan to take as pope?”
An odd question, but one he had definitely considered.
He actually admired the full title. His Holiness, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Vatican City State, Servant of the servants of God.
But that was a bit much, even to him.
The early bishops of Rome had all used their baptismal names after election. Then, in the mid-6th century, Mercurius wisely decided that a pope should not bear the name of a pagan Roman god. Mercury. So he adopted the label John II in honor of his predecessor who had been venerated as a martyr. Later on, when clerics from the north, beyond the Alps, rose to the papacy, they replaced their foreign names with more traditional ones. The last pope to use his baptismal name was Marcellus II in 1555.
Which he would emulate.
“I’ll be Kastor I.”
Chatterjee chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Spagna knows you all too well. The password for the flash drive is KASTOR I.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cotton stared at the man who called himself Pollux Gallo. “The guy who just tried to kill me used that name, too.”