The Parchment Read online

  “The Secretariat has vetted three names. I ruled out two—Abbot Maloof and Cardinal Verebrand. Even though he's an Arab, Maloof doesn't have a red hat. You know how important titles are to the Palestinians. Verebrand, on the other hand, has the title but I'm afraid the Israelis will veto him because his uncle was an officer in the SS.”

  “’That is true. Who else do you have?”

  “Cardinal Jean Calvaux. He's lived in the Middle East, speaks Arabic, and comes from an old French aristocratic background.”

  “He's a Montelambert. I forgot that.”

  “He comes without any obvious baggage. What's more he's a new face. He may add some excitement to the process.”

  “Calvaux is a good choice. I will speak to him myself.”

  “But your health, Holy Father. Are you well enough to meet with him?”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Are you taking your medicine?”

  “Only when Sister Consuela forces me to.”

  “You must take it, Your Holiness.”

  Barbo picked up the three pills on the night table and handed them to the pontiff. Begrudgingly the pope took a drink of water and swallowed them.

  “Francesco, I know what's coming. This morning I forgot where I left my breviary. Sister Consuela told me where it was but within a couple of minutes, I'd forgotten what she told me. It will be more and more like this.”

  “Holy Father, God has taken your health for some purpose.”

  Pope Benedict paused for a moment as if he were looking at the dark road that lay ahead of him.

  “How long have we been friends, Francesco?”

  Barbo looked affectionately at the Holy Father. “You taught me theology at the seminary.”

  “Then I must have told you the story about Thomas Aquinas's last words.”

  “If you did, I don't remember it.” Barbo lied. He had heard the story many times before but he could not deprive the pope of his obvious pleasure in retelling it.

  “It's rather amazing. One day, as the great theologian took communion, he fell to the ground. When he got up, he said ‘All I have written is straw.’ He rarely spoke after that.”

  “Did Aquinas suffer from Alzheimer's, Holy Father?”

  “I prefer to think it was something else. After pushing reason to its limits, Aquinas had a direct experience of God — like Moses in the Sinai or Ezekiel.”

  “And that beggared all he had written.”

  “Yes. Perhaps Jesus is giving me the same chance — to experience him in a place beyond human understanding.”

  Barbo touched the pope gently on the arm. “But your work for peace in the Holy Land will never be considered straw.”

  Pope Benedict smiled. “Straw can make bricks and bricks can build bridges. Maybe my initiative will help rebuild trust in the region. You have been my strong right arm on so many things. Help me this one last time.”

  Barbo's eyes filled with emotion. “You need not ask me that.”

  The cardinal walked over to a phone on the pope's bedstead and dialed the Vatican switchboard operator.

  “This is the Secretary of State. Please get me Cardinal Calvaux in Marseilles.” Barbo looked at the Holy Father. The two friends knew the significance of the call.

  “This is Cardinal Francesco Barbo calling from Rome. The Holy Father wishes to speak with Cardinal Calvaux.”

  Barbo could hear frantic whispers at the other end of the phone. Finally a man's voice came on the line.

  “This is Monsignor Rosuet, the vicar general of the diocese. Cardinal Calvaux is at City Hall. The Mayor is hosting a trade delegation from Sicily. I will try to patch him in on his cell phone?”

  Several minutes later Cardinal Calvaux came on the line. Barbo handed the receiver to Pope Benedict.

  “Jean?”

  “Holy Father, it's good to hear your voice.”

  “Thank you. I feel remiss. Marseilles is so close but I have never come to pray in your cathedral.”

  “We will be blessed if you would come.”

  “Perhaps some day soon. But right now, Jean, I must ask you to travel to Rome. There's a matter that I would like to discuss with you. It's urgent.”

  “I can be there tomorrow.”

  “Good! Cardinal Barbo will join us for our meeting. In the meantime, watch out for your Sicilian guests. They know how to tempt even a Prince of the Church.”

  Cardinal Calvaux laughed. “Yes, they do appreciate how expensive it is to run a diocese. They have even offered to build the archdiocese a new cathedral.”

  The pope put down the receiver.

  “Francesco, Calvaux will be here tomorrow. The peace initiative has begun.”

  Barbo kissed the pope's ring and turned to leave. “The nuncios are waiting in my conference room.”

  “One thing more, Francesco.” The pontiff hesitated as if debating whether to raise the issue. “Will Finnergan be at the nuncios' meeting?”

  “Yes, he will.”

  “Remember he was my choice to send into the church. Don't be too hard on him. God can sometimes work in strange ways.”

  Cardinal Barbo walked down the stairs to the conference room adjacent to his office. When he opened the door, the group rose from their seats. As secretary of state, the cardinal was head of the Vatican government and second to the pope in the Church's hierarchy.

  “Please, keep your seats. Thank you all for flying in on such short notice.”

  The door to the conference room suddenly flew open and a perspiring archbishop Paul Kennedy, papal nuncio in Amman, Jordan, entered. A chain-smoker, Kennedy was out of breath from climbing the stairs to the second-floor landing.

  “I'm sorry, Your Eminence, I missed my connection in Tel Aviv.”

  “Take a seat, Paul.” There was an edge to Barbo's voice.

  A place had been kept open for Kennedy between Archbishop Finnergan and the Vatican nuncio to Egypt, Archbishop Eugenio Rontalvi. Although Church protocol did not require it, seating at nuncios' meetings went according to strict hierarchical rank, with archbishops at the head of the table, followed by bishops, and finally by monsignori. Seeking to emphasize equality among nuncios, Barbo had discouraged the practice. He soon realized, however, that this was a battle he would not win.

  “Your Eminence, before we begin, could I ask a rather undiplomatic question?” With his expressionless face and coal black eyes, there was a hint of the Inquisition about Archbishop Eugenio Rontalvi.

  “Of course, Eugenio.”

  “How is the Holy Father's health? He hasn't said Sunday Mass in St. Peter's for two weeks.”

  Barbo sensed that the question came from the group.

  “The pope is preoccupied with the crisis in the Middle East, Eugenio. You know how hard he has worked to bring peace to the Holy Land.”

  “Your Eminence,” Archbishop Paul Kennedy spoke, “please tell the Holy Father to slow down a little. We don't want a conclave in the near future.”

  “Paul, you go and tell the pope to work less. He will smile and thank you for your concern and....”

  Kennedy smiled. “And keep on working.”

  “Exactly. Now, gentlemen, to the matter at hand.” Barbo's tone of voice made it clear that there would be no more discussion of the pope's health.

  Several nuncios glanced at one another. Barbo had nimbly evaded the question.

  “If I may be blunt, gentlemen, our diplomatic efforts in the Hamas crisis have made us look foolish.” There was steel in Barbo's voice.

  Barbo stared at Finnergan. The Irish archbishop sat stone-faced, his eyes fixed on a crucifix that hung over the entrance door. Perspiration glistened on his brow.

  “I will speak with Archbishop Finnergan privately about the incident in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Let us focus now on the immediate concern. Over one hundred hostages are still in the church. Hamas has threatened to start executing them at noon tomorrow.”

  “Your Eminence, let me open the discussion.” The speaker was Monsignor
Albert Goethals, the apostolic delegate to the Palestinian Authority. Goethals' mellifluous voice annoyed Barbo — it made him appear more intelligent than he really was. “In my view, the Israelis will reopen the Al-Aqsa Mosque and let the suspected Hamas militants go free. The stumbling block will be the gunmen in the church. The Israelis have evidence that this group was involved in the bombing at the Wailing Wall. The incident shocked the country to the core. It limits the Israeli government's latitude for negotiating.”

  Finnergan nodded in agreement. “Monsignor Goethals is right. Israel won't let the terrorists in the church be flown to safety. When the opportunity presents itself, they'll go in and get them.”

  Barbo interrupted. “According to American sources, the Israelis have agreed to free twelve of the seventeen terrorists. But I'm afraid there won't be a deal unless all of them are freed.”

  Bishop Jacques Viret, the nuncio to Iraq, nodded his head in agreement. “His Eminence is right. Hamas loves death more than the Israelis love life. The terrorists will die rather than surrender even one of their men to the Israelis.”

  “That's a pretty grim assessment, Jacques.” Finnergan spoke gruffly to his fellow nuncio.

  “But a realistic one,” Viret replied.

  Goethals broke into the conversation. “Of course, we wouldn't be in this crisis if Israel had agreed to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank and close their settlements there.”

  Finnergan pounded his fist on the table. “You can't just close the settlements, Goethals. People live there.”

  The secretary of state pushed his seat back from the conference table and stood up impatiently.

  “Gentlemen, lives hang in the balance in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We are here to get the hostages out alive — not to debate what might have been done to avert the crisis.”

  Cardinal Barbo's cell phone rang. As he listened, blood drained from his face.

  “Yes, Holy Father. I will tell them.”

  Barbo clicked off the phone and reached for a glass of water. Viret noticed that the cardinal's hands were shaking.

  “Gentlemen, the Holy Father has been informed there's been a sarin gas attack in Eilat—over a hundred Israelis have been admitted to hospitals — including many children.”

  Bishop Viret finally broke the silence. “Chemical weapons— God help us!”

  Stunned by the news, Barbo walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER IV

  PIETR VISCNTI

  BIELGARD AND MICHELLINI motioned the cab driver to stop at the bottom of the Capitoline steps. They crossed the busy Via di San Marco and walked down Via Piacenza to the Piazza Mar-gana. When they reached the Piazza, Bielgard saw Pietro Visconti sitting at a table outside Tre Amici Restaurant. Next to him sat a diminutive man.

  “Visconti is here already.”

  “I'm nervous, Jim.” Michellini clutched a large briefcase tightly in her hand.

  “It's only a dinner.”

  “There is no such a thing as ‘only a dinner.’ Once you start a process, events sometimes have a way of getting away from you.”

  “Ah! Professor Bielgard.” Visconti hurried over to greet his guests. “Your phone call intrigued me. I took the liberty of inviting Professor Baldini from the University of Rome to join us. He is an expert on the dating of Hebrew manuscripts.”

  Baldini got up from the table and bowed stiffly to Bielgard and Michellini.

  “Jim, you warned me that your colleague Professor Michellini was a formidable scholar but you never told me that she was so beautiful.” Always a master of the courtly gesture, Visconti took Michellini's hand and kissed it. “But come; why are we all standing?” Visconti's face was framed with smiles. “I've ordered some antipasti and a bottle of Tre Amici's best Tignanello.”

  Carlo Visconti had the dark good looks of an Italian movie idol. Born into a poor Roman family, he had learned the rules of survival on the streets of Rome. Visconti studied law at the City University and quickly gained notoriety as a shrewd and tough-minded negotiator. He had a reputation not only for brokering deals which others thought impossible, but also for his discretion. If a deal unraveled, one thing was certain — nothing would ever be traced back to Visconti or to one of his clients. Through his wife's family, Visconti was also reputed to have strong ties to the Mafia. There was sentiment among some that Visconti's father-in-law was the capo regime in Rome. Whether true or not, one thing was undeniable. Visconti had friends at all levels of Italian society. He was the consummate fixer — the person to hire for very private matters where there could be no scandal and, of course, no press coverage.

  “I'm fascinated by this census record you discovered in the Vatican Library. Show it to Professor Baldini.”

  Professor Michellini opened her briefcase and carefully unrolled an ancient piece of parchment and laid it flat on the table.

  Baldini put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and bent over the document. After he studied it for several minutes, he looked up from the text.

  “Remarkable — truly remarkable.” Baldini sat silent for a moment as if savoring the suspense of what he was about to say. “This census record notes that Yeshua of Nazareth and Mary from the village of Magdala were married in the Hebrew year 3791. A son named David was born to them during the following year and a daughter named Tamar the year after that.”

  “Is the census record authentic?” Visconti was impatient for the answer.

  “It has very distinctive writing. There's a superscript on one of the prongs of the letter shin. I have never seen a superscript like this except in first-century Hebrew manuscripts. A forger would have to be pretty sophisticated to get the shin right.”

  “So it's real?” Bielgard almost bolted out of his seat.

  “You are a historian, Professor Bielgard.” There was a scolding tone to Baldini's voice. “I would have to take it for carbon dating to be sure.”

  Visconti interrupted. “How long would carbon dating take?”

  “Normally three weeks, but if I pay our lab technicians to work through the night, I could have preliminary results by early afternoon tomorrow.”

  “Pay what you have to, Baldini. Do the test as quickly as possible. Even preliminary results would be helpful.”

  “Just wait a moment!” Michellini scowled. “I signed on for a dinner. Now we re talking carbon testing.”

  Bielgard patted Michellini on the arm. “Jane has some misgivings about this, Pietro. But I'm sure she'll trust her old mentor a little while longer.”

  Professor Baldini carefully scrutinized the parchment. “I must take a small piece for testing. Perhaps from here where there's no lettering?”

  Bielgard looked at Michellini. “What do you say, Jane?”

  Michellini stood up from the table and gathered her belongings. “Let him take what he needs. It's only carbon dating—right Jim?”

  Cardinal Barbo had hardly fallen to sleep after the nuncios' meeting when the phone rang in his apartment. The alarm clock said it was 3 A.M. The secretary of state was accustomed to late-night phone calls from around the world, but he sensed that this call was different.

  “Your Eminence, come quickly!” The voice was Sister Consuela's. “The pope is not well.”

  Cardinal Barbo hurried to the Holy Father's apartment. Sister Consuela led him into the bedroom. Barbo's heart fell when he saw Benedict. His hair disheveled, the pope sat in a chair staring vacantly out a casement window. His breviary lay open on his lap but it was upside down.

  “The Swiss Guard found him wandering in the corridor. He kept asking the guard how many hours until the hostages would be shot.” Sister Consuela brushed a tear from her eye. “When I put the Holy Father back in bed, he immediately jumped up again and opened his birdcage. You know how he adores those two finches. Well, he ran around the bedroom chasing after them. He knocked over a vase and a lamp. When he couldn't catch them, he looked bewildered and sat down on the bed. I gave him his breviary. It calmed him until I could get the birds ba
ck in the cage.”

  The cardinal walked over to the Holy Father and spoke quietly. “Benedict, do you hear me? It's Francesco.”

  The pope turned his eyes in the direction of Barbo's voice but seemed not to recognize who was talking to him.

  There was a knock on the door. Doctor Roger Hendricks, a specialist in neurological disorders at the Mayo Clinic, hurried into the room. During the past several months, Hendricks had commuted to Rome regularly to monitor the pope's condition. Hendricks sat on the bed next to the pope and directed a small light into his eyes. Putting down the light, Hendricks examined the pope's arm and leg flexibility.

  Hendricks asked Sister Consuela to stand in front of the pope.

  “Who is this, Holy Father?”

  The pope looked at his housekeeper without any sign of recognition.

  “Francesco, you asked me to tell you when it was time to have the conversation. I'm afraid now is the time.”

  The cardinal and doctor walked to the corner of the pope's bedroom, leaving Sister Consuela to minister to Benedict's needs.

  Hendricks poured himself a glass of water. “Your Eminence, these bouts of memory loss are becoming more frequent. The pope's Alzheimer's is not going to get any better.”

  Barbo stared hard at Hendricks. “Weren't the drugs you prescribed slowing the progression of the disease?”

  “Yes, but they've stopped working.”

  “Sometimes, Benedict refuses to take the medicine you prescribed.”

  “Francesco, I wish it were just a question of a stubborn patient. The pills are no longer effective. There's nothing else to try.”

  Barbo fingered his pectoral cross. “You know where all this leads?”

  Hendricks nodded. “Yes, I do. But that's the Church's decision, not mine.”

  “I must be sure, Roger.”

  “I'll have the pope's medical records faxed anonymously from the Mayo Clinic to two colleagues — Doctor Johan Bentzel at the Royal Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Doctor Henri Sou-venne in Montreal. Maybe they'll have some additional thoughts, but I'm not hopeful.”