“Who would have thought?” Cotton said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“It’s not. Early Christians shared the five-worded palindrome as a way to identify themselves with one another. Constantine himself sanctioned its use. The Secreti eventually adopted it as their symbol.”
“What does any of this have to do with the coming conclave?” Stephanie asked.
Cotton was wondering the same thing.
“Perhaps everything,” Gallo said. “There’s a relevance today to Constantine’s Gift that my brother has somehow garnered. With Archbishop Spagna’s help, I’m sure. As I’ve already told Ms. Nelle, Kastor wants to be pope.”
That was new to the mix, and he filed further inquiry away for later. Right now he wanted more information about the third part of that trinity.
“Here’s what I do know,” Gallo said. “Constantine sanctioned Christianity over paganism. By then, it was no longer some small regional movement. A sizable percentage of the entire population was Christian. So he made it the official state religion, with himself in charge. The Constitutum Constantini has something to do with that move. What? I truly don’t know.”
“No one in the organization has a clue what the document says?” Stephanie asked.
Gallo shook his head. “My brother discovered in the Vatican archives that it has something to do with the early church. Its structure and organization. What that might be? I don’t know. What I do know is that popes have long feared its surfacing, preferring that the document stay hidden. The Hospitallers accommodated that request and kept it hidden.”
“Using that to their advantage,” Cotton added.
“That’s true. It’s why we survived and the other orders perished.”
He could tell Gallo was hedging. So he said, “Now’s not the time to be coy.”
The admonishment brought a curious stare, then a nod.
“You’re correct. This is not the time. We did use what we knew to our advantage.” Gallo paused. “Within five hundred years of Constantine’s death, the church became the most powerful political force in Europe. Not until the 16th century and Martin Luther did anyone successfully challenge its authority. Then along came Napoleon. In his world there was room for only one omnipotent ruler with the ear of God. Himself. He wanted the church gone. He wanted his own new docile religion, to use his words. So he abolished both the Inquisition and the Index of Prohibited Books and established a new Catholic creed, even a new Christian calendar. Year One started in 1792, and he identified Paris as the holy city, with Rome as its subsidiary. He wanted a new world religion, like Constantine wanted with Christianity, and, like Constantine, he wanted himself as head. But first he had to destroy the Roman Catholic Church.”
Cotton was familiar with some of what he was hearing, particularly the use of religion as a political tool. But other parts were new to him.
So he kept listening.
“Napoleon invaded Italy and defeated the papal army,” Gallo said. “He then marched on Rome and entered unopposed, plundering the Vatican. In 1798 he proclaimed Rome a republic and demanded the pope renounce his temporal authority. Pius VI refused, so he took the pope prisoner, where he died in captivity seven months later. A new pope tried to make peace, but failed, and Napoleon invaded Italy again and took that pope prisoner, too. He was only released when the British ended Napoleon’s rule in 1814. Then something extraordinary happened. After Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena, the pope wrote letters urging leniency. Can you imagine? After all Napoleon had done—held him prisoner, stripped him of everything—he still wanted mercy extended.”
“Could simply have been the Christian thing to do,” Cotton noted.
“Perhaps. But we’ll never know. Napoleon died in 1821, still a prisoner. The pope in 1823. It has always been our belief that the Holy See thought Napoleon possessed Constantine’s Gift and, for whatever reason, it was dangerous enough for them to placate him.”
“Did Napoleon have it?” Stephanie asked.
Gallo shook his head. “But he ran a good bluff, using the two opportunities when he’d plundered the Vatican to his advantage. He likewise looted Malta.”
Cotton was curious. “Did the church know that the Trinity had been lost when Napoleon invaded Malta?”
Gallo nodded. “Absolutely. But no one at the time had any idea where it had been hidden. We know now that the man who hid it away was executed, never revealing what he knew.”
“And now your brother is after it,” Stephanie asked. “Spagna too?”
“That’s my assessment.”
“You still have not explained why the Secreti just tried to kill me.”
“That’s simple,” Gallo said. “The British asked for that to happen.”
Stephanie nodded. “He’s right. James Grant is running rogue.”
No real surprise.
“And Mussolini?” he said. “How does he figure into all this?”
Gallo faced him. “That’s precisely why my brother and Archbishop Spagna have teamed together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Luke reflected on how fast things changed.
He’d gone from hanging in the air to drenched in the Mediterranean, then thrown into a dungeon, attacked by the police, and now he was inside an apartment located in the heart of Valletta, led there by the head of Vatican intelligence and accompanied by an agent for Maltese security. He wasn’t sure who, if anyone, he should listen to, much less trust. Laura Price had gone from telling him to get as far away as he could to seemingly now working with the enemy.
“We’re near the old Inquisitor’s Palace,” Spagna said. “What a job that must have been. Appointed by the pope, sent here to eliminate heresy and all things contrary to the Catholic faith. His word was absolute. That’s a position I would have relished.”
Luke surveyed the tiny apartment. Only three rooms, brightened by cheerful curtains, the furniture all a bit too large. No photos, candy dishes, or knickknacks. Nothing personal. No one lived here, at least not on a long-term basis. He’d been in enough safe houses so far during his time with the Magellan Billet to know the look.
“This place one of yours?”
Spagna nodded. “Our people use it.”
When they’d arrived he’d noticed an oddity out front, engraved into the eroding stone lintel above a set of shuttered windows. An eye sandwiched between two axes. Spagna had explained that it noted who’d lived in the building long ago.
The executioner.
No coincidence that the holder of that unenviable office lived near the Inquisitor’s Palace.
Luke heard a vibration and watched as Spagna found a phone in his pocket, stepping outside to take the call.
“You want to tell me what’s happening here,” he asked Laura.
“Spagna told me that he was aware of Cardinal Gallo’s presence on the island and that he had the situation under control.”
“And you bought that?”
“He called my boss once we were in the car and I was ordered to cooperate. I’m betting your boss is going to tell you the same thing.”
Except that his phone had been conveniently destroyed, making that difficult to determine. “You still have your phone?”