A Sacred Storm (24 page)

“I think you are quite ready for a journey Christiano. If you were not I would not ask you to go. I think the problem lies in the fact that you have never really been away from Rome. Perhaps you are worried about becoming homesick? It would be only natural. I cannot see why you would need to build up any more confidence – think of all the people you have already cured.”

Christiano nodded. “Yes, you are right. And perhaps I am slightly scared of travelling. I have never left Italy before.”

“Think of it as an adventure. You will see so much more of the world.”

“Yes, of course,” said Christiano. “But do you think I could perhaps take someone with me?”

“Who?” asked Vittori. “Your mother?”

“Er, no,” mumbled Christiano. “It is a friend of mine.”

Vittori sensed a hidden agenda. “What sort of friend?”

“I thought perhaps Sophia could join us, Your Eminence. You know – Sophia Zola?”

Vittori sighed. “Yes, I know Sophia Zola. I had no idea you two were friends though. You only met her a few days ago.”

“Yes, but we have been communicating online, and she has come to see me a couple of times.”

Vittori clenched his fists under the desk. He had given Christiano far too much leeway. He should have been locked away and guarded 24/7. But he had trusted the boy, and had not thought to question all his movements. “I didn't realize you had been socializing when you should have been resting,” he said. “I allowed you that computer because I thought you were using it to relax in between studying.”

“I was,” said Christiano. “Chatting to Sophia relaxes me.”

“Maybe,” said Vittori. “But I did not give you permission to have guests in your room.”

“You didn't say I couldn't.”

Vittori made an effort to calm down. “No, Christiano, I did not say you could not have guests. But I thought that you would have had enough sense to know that your position is not conducive to fraternizing with the general public. You are supposed to be the Messiah.”

“Even Jesus was allowed friends. And besides, what's wrong with Sophia – I thought you were a family friend.”

“I am, and there is nothing wrong with Sophia. She is a charming young lady who has been through a lot. I am just uncomfortable with your interest in her. She is a distraction that you could do without. I do not want your mind straying from the job in hand. And remember, you are supposed to be pure – we do not want the media speculating on whether or not you are romantically linked with somebody. That will not do at all.”

Christiano crossed his arms sulkily. “Look,” he said. “We are just friends. I don't see why she can't come with us as part of the entourage. Nobody's going to say anything if she's hidden amongst another hundred or so people. I'm not sure I want to go anywhere without her.”

Vittori boiled inside. The boy was getting way above his station. The problem was he needed him, and Christiano knew it. One of the reasons Vittori had been happy to choose Christiano for the role of Messiah was his lack of female attachment. He was the perfect option: a devout young man who lived with his mother. But now Sophia Zola had appeared on the scene things were different. She was an unforeseen complication that needed dealing with immediately.

“Listen, Christiano,” Vittori said kindly. “I appreciate that you have obviously struck up a rapport with Sophia, but for the time being I really need you to concentrate on what you are doing. There will be plenty of time to see her once we come back to Rome. And you can still contact her via email while you are away. I am sure she will understand the situation.”

“Will she?”

“Yes, of course she will. Please, Christiano, it is important that you listen to me on this matter.” He looked his young charge in the eye. “What would your grandmother have said?” Vittori knew it was a low blow, but he was at his wit's end and needed some leverage.

At the mention of his grandmother Christiano flinched. He saw the stern look in Vittori's eye and decided that he may have taken his plight too far. “I am sorry, Your Eminence,” he said lowering his gaze. “Perhaps I am tired after all.”

“Yes, I think you are,” said Vittori. “And so am I. It is not a good time to discuss such things. We will talk again tomorrow when we are both more refreshed.”

Christiano yawned and stretched his arms. “I think I shall go to bed now. But perhaps I should go out and make another appearance first. Maybe just for a couple of minutes.”

Vittori slammed his palm on the desk causing Christiano to shrink in his chair. “No!” he commanded. “I told you – they can wait until morning.” He softened his tone. “Look, Christiano, I know your intentions are good, but you must let me make the decisions. If you keep going out there then your appearances will lose their effect. The less they see you, the more they will want to see you. I have arranged a schedule and I expect you to stick to it. Now, do you think you can accept that?”

Christiano felt suddenly worn and deflated. “Yes, Your Eminence.”

He said goodnight and left for his quarters.

Stratton watched the crowd keeping vigil with their candles and shook his head. Already he felt the world slipping away into a terminal coma. Before long there would be no turning back. But what were people supposed to think? As far as they knew Christiano was the real deal. He could heal all their ailments, and he spoke eloquently with reason and compassion. His speeches may have been written for him, but he certainly knew how to work an audience.

Stratton rubbed his eyes and turned away from the window. He slipped his fingers under the dog collar and tried to loosen it. The disguise was uncomfortable both physically and mentally, but it was necessary to keep him from standing out.

Cronin and Desayer were sitting at opposite sides of the desk deep in thought. The three of them had been discussing their options for the last two days, but as yet had come up with nothing. However they looked at it there didn't seem to be any feasible way of stemming the tide.

“Any sign of the Messiah?” asked Cronin.

“No,” said Stratton. “I think he's probably called it a night.”

“Yes,” said Desayer. “I think you are right. Vittori told me earlier today that he was worried about overexposure. I expect he has sent Christiano to bed.”

Stratton sat down next to Cronin and poured himself a glass of water. His head hurt with thinking. His body, though, was still charged with energy. Whatever his opinion about the aims of the Church, there was an awful lot of good feeling circulating the globe. But he was only too aware that this was a honeymoon period.

“Perhaps it's time that we retired as well,” suggested Cronin. “There doesn't seem to be a lot happening at the moment.”

“You're probably right,” agreed Stratton. “I reckon everything's about done for the evening. There's no point staying up all night if we don't have to.”

They said their goodnights to Desayer and left for Cronin's quarters. The corridor's were unusually busy for the late hour and Stratton felt uneasy with the amount of traffic. He moved along with his head down, letting Cronin guide the way.

“You're a bit paranoid aren't you?” said Cronin. “I don't think anybody's going to recognize you here.”

“Maybe not, but I don't want to take the risk. If I'm seen then that's your cover blown, and Desayer's.”

“You're hardly an international figure.”

“No,” said Stratton, “I'm not. But think about it – if Vittori had people doing research on the box, my name could have come up at any time. And it's not difficult to find pictures of people in this day and age, is it?”

“Point taken,” said Cronin. “I must be getting a bit lax.”

They rounded a corner. Stratton looked up and then straight back down again. He inched closer to the priest.

“What's up?” whispered Cronin.

“Just keep moving.”

Cronin nodded politely to the men who walked past them.

“What was all that about?” he asked, opening the door to his room.

Stratton walked in and pulled off his collar. “Don't you know who that was?”

“Sure, that was Jonathan Ayres, the British Prime Minister. What's the problem? Is he a friend of yours?”

“No, I've never met him in my life. But I'll bet he's seen a photo of me.”

“Why's that?”

“Because it will have been in the report on the murder of his best friend, Henry Mulholland. I was heavily involved in the whole case, remember?”

“I'd forgotten about that. But you would just have been a face in a file. I doubt whether he'd have given you more than a second's thought. He would have been happy that the killer had been found and would have got on with more important things – like running the country.”

Stratton sat down on the spare bed. “What's he doing here anyway?”

“He's been in Rome for the last week. Came over for a conference with the Italian Prime Minister. He's often at the Vatican visiting the Pope. He's a devout Catholic – I thought you'd know that.”

“Well yeah, I knew, but I didn't realize he was over here so often. Does he know Cardinal Vittori?”

“He might do, I don't really know.”

“I thought you'd been keeping an eye on things over here, and investigating all the cardinals and their associates.”

“As far as I could,” said Cronin defensively. “You can't keep tabs on everybody all of the time. And besides, our prime concern was not to be found out ourselves. It's difficult watching out for people when you're under the microscope yourself.”

Realizing he'd caused offence Stratton backtracked. “Sorry Pat, I didn't mean to question your capabilities. I'm just finding his presence here uncomfortable. I'm not sure why. He gives me the creeps.”

“Do you think he's in on the whole thing?” asked Cronin.

“I'm not sure,” said Stratton. “But the more I think about it the more suspicious I'm getting. Firstly he was Henry Mulholland's best friend, which should put him out of the frame of course, but he's a politician and let's face it – they don't have real friends. To me it means that he was close enough to know about Henry's family history. And secondly there was all this business with Jennings. He seems to think there was some internal plot to kill the Prime Minister, but if there was surely they would have succeeded by now? I'm more inclined to think that it was all a smokescreen for some other plan they had going. Bottom line is – I don't trust the guy.”

Cronin poured himself a whiskey and sat down at his small writing desk. “You could be right,” he said. “It might all be coincidence of course, but I'm with you in the fact that I don't trust him. Then again I don't trust any politicians.”

Stratton laughed. “You and the rest of the world,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Cronin, sipping thoughtfully at his whiskey. His eyes lit up in sudden revelation. “But what if you were a politician with the backing of the Messiah – the Son of God? What then?”

“Exactly,” said Stratton. “I can hear his brain working now: Jonathan Ayres – divinely approved leader of the free world. God's politician. He's certainly got in here a lot quicker than the American President.”

“Like a rat up a drainpipe.”

Stratton lay down on the bed and closed his eyes in meditation.

Cronin swirled the remainder of his drink round the tumbler. “What did you want to do with your life before all this?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, before you discovered the symbols, before you discovered Reiki. Maybe when you were a kid. What was your ambition? What was your dream? What did you want to be when you grew up?”

Stratton broke into a smile. “Wow! That's a question. I'd almost forgotten I was a child.” He paused. “I wanted to be a lot of things I guess. I suppose it depended on what I was into at the time. I remember at one point desperately wanting to be a snooker player, then later on in my teens I really wanted to compete at the Olympics. That all went to pot when I discovered drinking though, that's when I lost all of my goals. What about you? What did you want to be?”

“When I was a kid I always wanted to be a rugby player,” said Cronin. “I wanted to play for Ireland at the World Cup and in the Six Nations. I used to dream of winning the Grand Slam as captain.”

“What happened?”

“I don't know. I think I fell out of love with the game in my teens. I started getting more into books and poetry. I wanted to become the next James Joyce, although I think that might have been overestimating my ability. I would have been happy to be popular like Roddy Doyle.”

“Give me
The Commitments
over
Ulysses
any day,” said Stratton. “What happened to the writing then?”

“Life happened,” said Cronin. “I left home and joined the army and that was that. I didn't look back. I've started putting pen to paper again recently, but nothing solid, just a few bits and pieces.”

“Dreams fallen by the wayside,” Stratton mused. “The world's just full of them. I guess we all wish we could go back and start afresh, and hold on to them longer.”

“Don't we just,” agreed Cronin. “I think if I had my chance again I'd take rugby a bit more seriously.”

“What about the writing?”

“There's too much thought involved. It's thinking that stops people doing what they want to do. Thinking about consequences, thinking about not fitting in. There was something joyous and carefree about my love of rugby. I looked at it with a child's wonder. I'd love to go back and look at things again through those eyes. Without the misery, without the knowledge. I think I've come to know too much. Don't you ever want to forget what you know? Don't you ever long for the day when the world was just the world, as plain and simple as you saw it – a miracle in itself without all these unseen powers? Sometimes I feel that as a race we've become so self-aware that it cripples us.”