“Is this the only copy?” Stephanie asked.
“As far as we know. The Hospitallers obtained possession of it starting in the mid-13th century. Popes were terrified that it would be revealed, so they left the Hospitallers alone and the knights kept the secret.”
“Is it authentic?” Stephanie asked.
“With only a preliminary look, my experts tell me the script is Constantine’s. They compared it with verified originals we have in our archives. It’s in the original Latin, which is rare for one of his surviving manuscripts. We can test the parchment by carbon dating, but I’m sure it will date to the 4th century. I’m also told the ink is consistent for that time. It appears to be absolutely authentic.”
Cotton had no doubt.
“Napoleon tried to find it. Mussolini tried, too, and came the closest,” Stamm said. “But it stayed with the knights until 1798, when it was hastily hidden away amid the French invasion of Malta.”
“What do you think kings and emperors would have done after reading it?” Gallo asked, disgust in his voice. “Realizing that divine law was not God’s law. It was all man-made for their own selfish purposes.”
Stamm’s face never flinched. Not a muscle quivered to reveal what he might be thinking.
“What would the faithful think of the church’s original sin,” Gallo said. “The price we all supposedly pay for the fall of Adam and Eve. The sin of disobedience for consuming the forbidden fruit. It had nothing to do with any of that. It was just a way to create recruits straight from the womb. No need to actually convince anyone to join your church. Just decree that you’re born tainted, and forgiveness comes only from baptism, administered only by the church. Of course, if anyone declines that forgiveness they rot in hell, with the devil, for all eternity. But both of those were more of Constantine’s creations. None of it’s real. It’s all there to create fear and ensure obedience. And what better way to control people than through irrational, unprovable fear.”
Stamm stood quiet and still. Finally, the cardinal said, “My guess is that there would have been no church. Christians would have continued to fight among themselves, breaking into factions, accomplishing little to nothing. If left alone they never would have collated into anything meaningful. It all would have faded away, and kings and queens and emperors would have fought each other without reservation. Civilization, as we know it, would have been vastly different. The church, for all its failings, provided a measure of stability that kept the world from spiraling out of control. Without it, who knows how humanity would have fared.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Gallo muttered.
“But the world is no longer composed of illiterates,” Stamm said. “People now think of religion far more skeptically than did those of the 13th century. This revelation, made today, would have a huge impact.”
“Which was precisely what my brother was counting on. Your fear allowing him to get what he wanted.” Gallo glared at Cotton. “That parchment is eye opening. Don’t let them suppress it.”
Stamm reached into his cassock and withdrew something that he displayed. “Along with this?”
The flash drive.
“Archbishop Spagna was quite thorough,” Stamm said. “He found the many failings that have long existed within these walls and identified the offenders. His problem was his own ego. And the underestimation of his supposed allies.”
“Spagna was a fool,” Gallo said.
“Perhaps,” Stamm answered. “But he was my fool.”
“What are you going to do with that flash drive?” Stephanie asked.
“All of the offenders will be dealt with. Contrary to what would have happened if Spagna, or our imposter here, had succeeded with their plans.”
The iron door behind them clanged opened.
Luke entered with another man in tow. Fresh off a plane from Malta.
“Head of Maltese security,” Stephanie whispered to him. “His name is Kevin Hahn.”
Stamm led the newcomer to a cell and locked Hahn inside. Cotton took the opportunity to shake Luke’s hand.
“The gang’s all here. Good job,” he told him. He noticed the same shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes from Malta. “Casual Fridays?”
“It’s been a long day.” Luke grinned. “I hear you’re riding trains now like in some Die Hard movie. It’s good to know that Pappy still has some life left in him.”
“Thankfully, it wasn’t moving all that fast.”
Luke noticed Gallo in the cell. “Damn. He looks just like the cardinal. Nobody would have ever known.”
“What are you going to do with the Nostra Trinità?” Gallo asked Stamm.
“The two parchments inside the reliquary will be returned to the knights as their property. But the Constitutum Constantini is church property.”
“So it goes into the Vatican archives?” Stephanie asked.
Stamm stepped to the table and lifted the rolled parchment. His right hand slipped into his cassock and came out without the flash drive. Instead he held a lighter. He flicked the flame to life, then set it to the brittle scroll.
Which ignited.
Stamm dropped the burning scroll to the floor, which turned to charcoal in a matter seconds.
“The matter is now closed,” Stamm said.
“We’re still here,” Gallo called out from his cell. “We know everything. This isn’t over.”
Charles Cardinal Stamm stood stoic as a statue. Burning the scroll was the most animation Cotton had seen from the man. But he also detected something else in the eyes as they’d watched the parchment destroy itself.
Relief.
“Archbishop Spagna, for all of his failings, always defended the church,” Stamm said. “As do I.”
Cotton imagined that men like Stamm had been making hard decisions for centuries. Each one thinking he was doing the right thing. Each one wrong. A piece of history had just been destroyed. A piece that could have shed a different light on things.
“What about the flash drive?” Stephanie asked.
“I’ll deal with those offenders. In my own way.”
He could only imagine what that would entail. Most likely lots of private meetings, then hasty resignations.
“I’ll tell the world the truth,” Gallo said. “You can’t burn that away. This is not over, Cardinal. There’ll be a trial. I’ll see you, and all of the other hypocrites in scarlet, exposed for what you are. I’ll make sure the world knows what was on that parchment.”
Stamm said nothing.
But Cotton realized that without the document all Gallo had was talk.
Stamm stepped close to the bars. “You underestimate me. Defending the faith with the spilling of blood is a duty we must never abandon.”
He could see that Gallo caught the significance of the words.
“That’s what Constantine wrote,” Stamm said. “All part of his gift. The freedom to kill while defending the faith. The church truly took that one to heart. We’ve killed millions.”
Gallo said nothing.
“What are you saying?” Hahn said from the other cell.
Stamm stepped back so both prisoners could see him. “Neither one of you will leave here alive. There will be atonement for your heinous crimes. Two more will die in defense of the faith.”