The Parchment Read online

  The McNabb affair had sent tremors through the library world. A frequent researcher at the Vatican Library, retired Iowa State University Professor Robert McNabb had removed illuminated pages from the Vatican Library's fourteenth-century manuscript collection and offered them for sale to wealthy collectors.

  Bielgard thought for a moment as he absentmindedly fingered his cane. “We're in a different position from McNabb. We don't have to approach collectors. The Catholic Church will pay a fortune to get this back.”

  Michellini frowned at Bielgard as her mind raced through the implications of his words. “Are you suggesting we blackmail the Vatican?”

  “It's a possibility.”

  “Well, count me out. I went along with your scheme on the Eleanor biography. I barely got out of that with my reputation.”

  A bell sounded, and the public address system announced that the library would close in ten minutes.

  “Jane, we can talk about this later. Please do me a favor and renew my library clearances. I'm covered with dust from handling these manuscripts. I've got to wash up. I'll meet you at the exit.”

  “Okay.”

  Michellini returned to the reading room, picked up her laptop, and walked toward the down staircase. At the director's office on the ground floor, she filled out the necessary paperwork to renew library clearances for herself and Bielgard. As she was paying the renewal fees, she saw Bielgard hurrying down the library staircase, waving his cane. Without warning, he slipped on the bottom step and fell on the ground. Several security officers ran over to help him up.

  “Grazie. It was this damned walking stick. I tripped over it.”

  Michellini took Bielgard's arm as they left the library.

  “Jim, I'll treat you to a cab back to the hotel. You really took a spill in there.”

  At nine o'clock in the morning, a panel truck drove up to the entrance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Archbishop Michael Finnergan, the papal nuncio to Israel, climbed out of the truck and, along with three priests, carried food and medical supplies into the church. A camera crew from the Al-Jazeera news agency accompanied them.

  “Who's in charge here?”

  “I am.” Yassir lifted his machine gun menacingly and walked up to Finnergan.

  “I would like to talk to the hostages and hear their confessions. You've endangered their lives.”

  “No tricks!”

  “I give you my word as a priest.”

  Yassir pointed with his gun. “Go ahead. Make it fast.”

  Finnergan took a white stole out of his pocket and walked over to a group of hostages. Brandishing his automatic rifle, a gunman stepped in front of him.

  “I'm a Palestinian Christian, Monsignor. Hear my confession first.” Finnergan knew that the Palestinian was baiting him for the sake of the Al-Jazeera cameramen.

  “I will not administer the sacrament to someone who threatens the lives of defenseless people. Find forgiveness somewhere else.”

  The Palestinian pushed Finnergan back with the butt of his rifle. For a long moment, Finnergan stood stock-still. Then his Irish temper exploded. He clenched his right fist and hit the Palestinian hard in the stomach. The gunman doubled over, his rifle falling to the floor.

  “You son of a bitch.” The Palestinian picked up the rifle and raised it to shoot.

  A special BBC report from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre flashed on the television screen in Cardinal Barbo's office. Barbo slammed his fist on the desk as he watched the live Al-Jazeera footage of Finnergan's encounter with the Hamas gunman. Barbo was furious with himself. He should have objected more strenuously to Pope Benedict's decision to send Finnergan into the Sepulchre. Finnergan had problems keeping his temper in check. Still a part of Barbo had to admire the Irish archbishop; it took guts to confront an armed terrorist with only his bare hands.

  Barbo turned the television off and buzzed for his chief of staff, Father Alessandri.

  “Enrico, I want Finnergan on a plane for Rome immediately. It's an order. Tell him to lease a private jet if he has to. Get the rest of our Middle Eastern nuncios back here as well — Kennedy, Viret, all of them. I want them sitting in my conference room at eight o'clock tonight.”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  Barbo checked his watch. If they stuck to their deadline, the Hamas gunmen would begin executing their prisoners in approximately twenty-seven hours.

  When the two professors returned to their hotel, Bielgard invited Michellini to his room for a drink.

  Michellini sat down on the couch and kicked off her shoes. “You're certainly in a good mood, considering your fall.”

  “I was lucky.” Bielgard opened the minibar and poured two scotches. He handed one to Michellini. “I want to talk to you about the parchment we found. It'll make us rich.”

  Michellini took a few sips of scotch but said nothing. The wail of a police siren passed under the hotel window. Michellini got up from the couch to see what had happened. When the sound of the siren had trailed off into the night, she picked up her belongings and walked to the door of Bielgard's room.

  “Thanks for the drink, Jim, but I'm tired.”

  “Jane, won't you at least hear me out on this?”

  “You play things too close to the line, Jim. I'm showing the manuscript to the director tomorrow. We'll get credit in the academic world for discovering it. I could end up at Harvard before this is all over.”

  “Jane, just give me another minute, that's all — please.”

  “If it's so important to you, Jim, I'll give you your damned minute but nothing more.” Michellini reluctantly sat back down on the couch. “The clock's ticking.”

  Bielgard gulped down his scotch and poured himself another. “Think practically, Jane. You have young children. The money you could get from the Vatican would let your kids go to the best schools — get a real start in life.”

  “I'm an academic, Jim, not an extortionist. I wouldn't know how to bribe the Vatican even if I wanted to.”

  Bielgard rubbed the silver handle of his cane as if he were polishing it. “It's simple.”

  Michellini laughed aloud. “As simple as your plagiarism scheme with the Eleanor of Aquitaine biography! You were so sure that a general footnote would let us use those verbatim quotes.”

  “I promise you, we won't get close to this one. We'll hire someone to approach the Vatican for us. There's no way they won't buy it. There's too much at stake.”

  Michellini rolled her eyes in exasperation. “For starters, how are you going to get the parchment out of the library? Since McNabb walked out with those texts, they've tightened security. You'd get caught.”

  “If they've tightened security, it's not obvious to me. You can still smuggle almost anything out of there if you set your mind to it.” Michellini frowned. “How can you say that? They only let you take a notebook or a laptop into the reading rooms.”

  “And a cane.” Bielgard unscrewed the silver handle of his walking stick and removed the parchment scroll.

  “How in the world...?”

  Bielgard smiled. “It was easy. While I was in the washroom, I took the scroll, rolled it up, and slid it inside the cane.”

  Michellini jumped up and slapped Bielgard hard across the face. “You son of a bitch. Your fall was staged.”

  “Yes.” Bielgard grinned. “The security guards were so concerned that I might have been injured that they forgot to check the cane.”

  Michellini sat down again and considered this turn of affairs. She leaned forward and looked squarely at Bielgard. “You really think we can blackmail the Vatican and get away with it?”

  “Yes, I do. It simply means finding the right person — someone who knows what really goes on in that sanctum sanctorum.”

  “And, of course, you know that person?”

  Bielgard looked at Michellini impishly. “As a matter of fact I do. Last year, a publishing friend got into trouble with the Italian tax authorities. He was advised to hire a well-connected
lawyer here in Rome named Pietro Visconti. The lawyer made a few phone calls, and that was that. How about the three of us having dinner at Tre Amici in Piazza Margana?”

  Michellini hesitated. “I don't know, Jim. I....”

  “If you're still uncomfortable after we talk with Visconti, I promise I'll drop the whole idea.”

  Michellini shrugged. “I guess a dinner can't hurt.”

  Bielgard poured Michellini another scotch. “Good, Visconti has already phoned for reservations this evening.”

  After Alessandri had left to summon the nuncios to Rome, a phone call came in on Barbo's private line. The cardinal recognized a familiar voice.

  “John, we should meet face to face....Yes, I know the place. I can be there in an hour.”

  Cardinal Barbo walked quickly along Via Rafaello. Shopkeepers were hosing down the street before the start of business. The smell of the water washing the dust from the street reminded Barbo of his childhood in Milan. Every morning except Sunday, his father would rise early and wash the street in front of the family bookstore. He would always say: “The entrance to a bookstore is the door to learning. It must be kept spotless.”

  A dark green Mercedes Benz was parked in front of a neighborhood trattoria. The secretary of state opened the car door and slipped into the passenger seat. A man about sixty years of age with thick curly hair and wire-rimmed glasses sat across from Barbo in the driver's seat. There was a tremor in the man's left hand from the early onset of Parkinson's disease.

  “You have some explaining to do, John.” Barbo looked impatiently at the man sitting next to him.

  “About the sniper?”

  “Yes. How could Washington let Israel do that?”

  “Francesco, it's not like turning a spigot on and off. We don't control the Israelis that way.”

  Barbo had met John Vincent thirty years before when Barbo was a young monsignor in the Vatican Secretariat of State, and Vincent, the deputy section chief of the CIA in Rome. They had become close friends during the years when President Reagan and Pope John Paul II had worked together to topple the Communist regime in Poland.

  “The president has squeezed the Israelis as much as he can over the gunmen in the church. The Israelis want five of them but they'll let the rest go free — on condition that they leave the Middle East. Can the Vatican arrange safe havens for them?” From years of habit, Vincent looked reflexively in the rear view mirror.

  “I'm sure we can. But I'm afraid Hamas won't accept the offer. They'll never agree to turn over five of their men to the Israelis. The president is going to have to call the prime minister again.”

  Vincent pounded his fists on the steering wheel. “Look, Francesco, I told you the president pushed the Israelis as far as he could. He can't perform miracles like your boss.”

  Barbo smiled. “It's not a miracle we need, John. It's some bare-knuckled politics — the kind Reagan knew how to play. The Israelis must need something from the Americans.”

  Vincent glared at his old friend. “I'll go back to the White House again, but the president won't be pleased. Can I tell them that the Vatican secretary of state says it's okay to bribe the Israelis?”

  Barbo grinned. “If it means saving lives, yes, by all means.”

  Vincent sat quietly for a moment. “Despite all this, Francesco, the president wants you to know how much he appreciates the Vatican's help trying to resolve this crisis.”

  Barbo was puzzled at the president's comment. “What did Washington expect, John? The hostages are fellow Christians. The Holy See will do whatever it can to get them out of there safely. Think of the consequences if Israel storms the most sacred church in all of Christendom.”

  “Don't take me there, Francesco. By the way, it wasn't just the Israeli sniper who almost derailed negotiations. What about your papal nuncio Finnergan? Have you seen the Al-Jazeera broadcast?”

  Barbo tensed. “You won't hear from Archbishop Finnergan again.” The cardinal checked his watch. “Twenty-six hours to go.”

  The two men shook hands. As Barbo opened the front door to get out of the car, Vincent handed him a piece of paper. “Francesco, here's the cell phone number of the Hamas commander in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Maybe the Vatican can get him to extend the thirty-hour ultimatum.”

  CHAPTER III

  A MEETING F NUNCIS

  LIGHTNING FLARED IN the evening sky behind St. Peter's Basilica. The silhouette of the cupola appeared and disappeared with each flash. As he walked across St. Peter's Square, the secretary of state saw none of this. His mind was focused on the Hamas ultimatum in Jerusalem and his upcoming meeting with Finnergan and the other papal nuncios.

  As cardinal secretary of state, Barbo oversaw a far-flung network of diplomatic missions. The Vatican posted a nuncio or ambassador to each nation that recognized the sovereignty of the Holy See. Although Vatican nuncios received high marks for their professionalism, Barbo had become increasingly upset with their handling of the crisis in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. What infuriated him most was the nuncios' failure to coordinate their press releases and statements with his office in Rome. On top of that, of course, was Archbishop Finnergan's conduct inside the church. His drubbing of the Palestinian gunman was being played and replayed on news channels worldwide. Fox News called the archbishop “courageous” and compared his striking the terrorist to Christ's driving the moneylenders out of the Temple. CNN and most European news media, however, reported the incident as a confirmation of the Vatican's tilt toward Israel in the crisis.

  As he neared the entrance to the Apostolic Palace, the cardinal's cell phone rang.

  It was Sister Consuela, the pope's housekeeper. “Consuela, how is the Holy Father doing?... Of course I can. I'll be there in five minutes.”

  As the secretary of state entered the vestibule of the Apostolic Palace, a Swiss Guard snapped to attention. Barbo had never completely rid himself of the notion that, with their striped uniforms and plumed helmets, the Swiss Guards were tourist attractions — there to provide a colorful addition to innumerable snapshots. He knew better, of course. Each of the guards had been trained in the most sophisticated antiterrorist and crowd-control techniques.

  Once inside, Barbo passed through the metal detector and hurried to the palace stairway. The cardinal's ring and pectoral cross set off the alarm. A Swiss Guard raced over and disabled the machine.

  “Eminence, I'm sorry. I didn't see who it was.”

  Climbing the stairs, the cardinal noticed a painting hanging in the stairwell. Although he had passed it a thousand times, Barbo had never given it much thought. The painting showed Mary at the foot of the Cross holding the body of her crucified son. This was not a humble, idealized Mary staring up resignedly to heaven. This was a human Mary—a mother angry with God for requiring the death of her only child—a defiant Mary who could no longer utter the words, “Thy will be done.” The people of Rome say that the death of a child orphans a mother. The cardinal could see the look of emptiness in Mary's face. Without her son, she would walk the roads of Palestine alone.

  When he reached the landing on the third floor, Barbo knocked at Pope Benedict's private apartment. Sister Consuela came to the door.

  “Ah, Your Eminence, the Holy Father must have asked for you ten times in the last hour. He has been pacing up and down and refuses to take his pills.”

  The pope sat on the side of his bed in bathrobe and slippers. Sister Consuela had already turned down the sheets for the night and adjusted the air-conditioning. Three white pills and a glass of water stood on the pope's night table.

  Cardinal Barbo walked over to the pope and kissed his ring.

  When Benedict recognized who it was, he jumped up from the bed.

  “Francesco, how are the hostages doing?”

  “Conditions inside the church are deteriorating rapidly, Holy Father. In sixteen hours, Hamas will start executing hostages.”

  The pope began to pace up and down the room.

  �
��Your Holiness, take your medicine.”

  “No. The pills make me groggy. What about the nuncios, are they here?”

  “Yes, I'm on my way to the meeting.”

  The pope looked at his Secretary of State. “Finnergan behaved disgracefully at the Sepulchre. And the rest of them — don't they understand that at times like this, you keep quiet. The last thing you do is issue a press release.”

  “Holy Father, don't upset yourself. The negotiations are still proceeding. Washington has pressured Israel to agree to arrest only five of the gunmen. The Americans have asked us to use our good offices to find safe havens for the remaining twelve. I have called several prime ministers myself.”

  “Why didn't you use the nuncios?”

  “You once told me, Your Holiness, if you need a coordinated plan, do it yourself. Our nuncios are fond of telling me they play as a team. If they are a team, then they play by a strange set of rules. They tackle their captain instead of their opponents.”

  The pope smiled at his secretary of state. “You were always a good student, Francesco. How many nations have agreed to take some of the gunmen?”

  “Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have each agreed to take three. Portugal is still considering the request.”

  “The Netherlands should take more.” The pope looked angry. “After all, it's their countrymen whose lives are at stake.”

  “The Dutch prime minister assured me privately he would take more if it meant ending the crisis. He knows two of the hostages personally.”

  The Dutch prime minister's private assurance seemed to calm the pontiff. “So if Washington can persuade the Israelis to free the last five gunmen, the siege is over.”

  “Yes, if Washington can persuade the Israelis. But no matter what happens, Holy Father, the president is grateful for what the Holy See is doing to help. It's the right time to approach him on your initiative.”

  “You were going to give me a short list of possible envoys to present my initiative to the president.”

  “It should be on your desk, Holy Father.” Barbo found the list under a pile of unread documents.