God's Lions - House of Acerbi (10 page)

“Naturally,” the pope continued, “I realize that a Jesuit’s first impulse is to stay and meet any threat to the Church head-on, and as much as I would like to have all of you here in Rome with me at a time like this, you are needed elsewhere. You must find whoever or whatever is causing this plague against humanity and bring an end to it with swift retribution. You are all sanctified combatants, and the time for battle is at hand.”

The men were spellbound by the tone of the Holy Father’s words.

“We understand, Your Holiness,” Leo said, straightening to his full height of six-feet-three inches. “We’ll begin making preparations to move out of the city right away.”

“What about the jet I flew in on this morning?” Lev asked.

“We already thought of that,” Morelli said. “Enzo called the airport and talked to the pilot. The crew is sick ... it started an hour ago, shortly after they had lunch at the airport. If there is truly some kind of unknown pathogen circulating somewhere out there right now, then nowhere is safe. Any kind of public transportation could be a death trap, especially planes and trains.”

Pope Michael settled himself into a comfortable position on an oversized sofa and sipped his wine. His coolness seemed almost arrogant, but to those who knew him well, this seeming aloofness was a way for him to step back from an emotional situation so that he could think more clearly. An expression of total comprehension crossed his face, but behind the look of understanding there was also a secret, a secret that he was forbidden from sharing with anyone else, even his closest friends. Slowly, his aloofness seemed to fade as he sat forward and faced the others. “I’ve already made arrangements for you to travel overland. You’ll be taking one of the Vatican’s armored SUVs for your journey. Francoise is waiting for you downstairs.”

The emotional energy in the room was electric as the three men exchanged looks and set their glasses firmly on the table in a gesture of finality. They had been hand-picked by the pope himself and dispatched to an unknown location with orders to unravel an enigma—a mystery wrapped in a riddle, one they had very little time to solve.
It was an impossible task.

Rising from the couch, the pope seemed to tower over everyone else. “Stay in touch, Gentlemen. I have no doubt that we will see each other again soon, whether it be in this life or the next. Now please, you must go. Time is growing short, and I fear that things will start to go very badly very soon.”

Reluctantly, the three men filed silently from the room without looking back. When they had gone, the pope’s secretary joined him in his study.

“Do you think they’ll be successful, Marcus?”

“Only time will tell, Enzo my old friend ... only time will tell.”

The weather had turned unseasonably cool as the three men exited the Apostolic Palace to find a blue-suited man with a short-cropped, military style haircut waiting for them by the entrance. All three were relieved to see Francois Leander, the legendary head of the Swiss Guard.

“Good morning, Gentleman. Father Enzo just called. I have a vehicle waiting for you.” Francois led the men through a darkened medieval passageway into a second courtyard that fronted the Swiss Guard’s barracks. “I’ve just placed my men on high alert. They haven’t been formally advised of the biological threat yet, but everyone knows what happened in America, so they put two and two together. They’re good men and they’ll follow orders, but I’ve never seen them so frightened.”

“Can’t say I blame them,” Lev said, brushing the sleeve of his coat, as though he were trying to brush away an invisible alien invader that had just landed and was burrowing into the fibers of his jacket. “Soldiers would much rather face an enemy they can see.”

“From a security standpoint, a biological attack has always been one of our worst fears,” Francois said. “Men, women ... even children. This invisible thing from hell doesn’t care what it kills!”

Walking next to the Swiss Guard chief, Leo was watching a line of dark clouds flowing in over the Eternal City. “Unfortunately, Francois, a virus has no soul, and thus no conscience. In fact, a virus is barely considered a life form.”

“Good. Then we shall have no guilt when we kill it, Cardinal.”

Walking into the center of the courtyard, they spotted an ominous-looking, black Chevy SUV with a small forest of antennas sprouting from its roof.

“I’ll be driving and monitoring the radios,” Francois continued. “We’ll be in constant contact with the Swiss Guard units that have been moved into position along our route. They’ll be able to get to us relatively quickly should the need arise. I also stocked a few supplies in the back.”

“It seems like you’ve thought of everything ... as usual,” Leo said.

Francois forced a tight smile as Morelli jumped into the front passenger seat and Leo and Lev slid into the back. Gunning the engine, he threw a departing wave to a group of uniformed Swiss Guards standing in front of their barracks before speeding through the tightly guarded
Porta Sant’ Anna
and squealing out onto a narrow street known as the
Via Di Porta Angelica—
the street of angels.

Behind them, Vatican City was still filling with people, leaving the medieval hodgepodge of alley-like streets in this section of Rome practically empty. The absence of people in the usually teaming streets was eerie as the SUV crossed the river Tiber and continued up the
Via Pinciana,
a wide boulevard that ran along the eastern border of a huge park that surrounded the famous
Villa Borghese
.

The Villa and the grounds around it were constructed in 1613 for the hedonistic Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V. It had been the first park of its kind in Rome, containing foreign academies and a school of archaeology, plus museums, art galleries, fountains, and even a zoo. Usually filled with gelato-slurping tourists, on this day the park stood virtually empty. Looking out over the beautiful grounds, Leo was once again struck by the duality between those who dedicated themselves to creating objects of beauty and those who seemed equally dedicated to depraved acts of cruelty.

Scipione’s villa was now known as the
Galleria Borghese,
a world-class art gallery filled with sculpture, including an especially beautiful marble version of a recumbent and semi-nude Venus. It was said that the model for the sculpture was none other than Pauline Borghese, Napoleon’s sister, but as soon as the brilliant work of art had been completed, her jealous husband locked it away. Even its famous sculptor, Canova, was never permitted to lay eyes on it again, and so it remained in darkness until long after Pauline Borghese and her husband had died.

As the tree-lined grounds of the magnificent park flashed by the left side of the SUV, Leo leaned over the front seat and peered through the front windshield. “Now that we’re away from the Vatican, does anyone care to share with me where we’re headed?”

“Spain,” Morelli replied.

“Spain! Why Spain?”

“A private jet on a mission for the Vatican crashed there yesterday.”

Leo and Lev traded looks.

“Could you elaborate on that, Anthony?”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news, Leo. Cardinal Orsini was onboard.”

“Orsini? The Vatican’s Secretary of State?” Leo paused as the news sank in. “Were there any survivors?”

“Sadly, no ... the cardinal is dead, Leo.”

Leo pulled a small, wooden rosary from his pocket and ran his fingers over the beads. “Orsini was one of the brightest, most insightful men I’ve ever known. Why wasn’t I informed of this earlier?”

“His Holiness didn’t want the news of his death to be made public yet. With everything else that’s happening, I couldn’t seem to find the right time to tell you. For now, that’s all the information we have. The Spanish authorities have cordoned off the area as a precaution.”

Francois turned the speeding SUV onto the
Via Salaria
and continued on through the seemingly deserted city until they passed under Rome’s ring freeway and headed north on the A-1 highway. Sitting back in his seat, Leo stared out through his window at the ruins of an ancient aqueduct in the distance. The rapidly vanishing
campagna
, the countryside around Rome, was filled with reminders of a glorious past, but as the city continued to grow, it was becoming obvious that the encroaching urban landscape would soon envelope them and dilute their solitary glory.
At least they would still be there
, Leo thought. Man needed his monuments to remind him of what had been before. Orsini’s final monument would surely be less grand, but he would be remembered just the same.

“A precaution against what?” Leo asked, shaking off his thoughts about distant ruins and monuments to men long gone.

“I beg your pardon?” Morelli said.

“You said the Spanish authorities had cordoned off the crash site as a precaution ... a precaution against what?”

“Probably against whatever killed all those people in America. Did I mention the plane was returning from New York? Undoubtedly there’s some concern from the Spanish authorities that the people onboard could have been infected.”

“That’s a good point, which makes me wonder why the pope is sending us there. We could be headed right into a biological hot zone.”

“We thought of that, so we called some experts at the CDC in Atlanta this morning. They believe the Spanish authorities are being overly cautious. They informed us that, if there was a danger from an unknown pathogen at the site of the crash, it has long since passed. Whatever killed all of those people in America quickly flamed out and hasn’t reappeared. Also, the wreckage of the aircraft was apparently consumed by a very hot fireball that would have virtually sterilized the wreckage.”

“That still doesn’t answer the question of why the Holy Father is sending us to a crash site, a site where, in most likelihood, nothing recognizable remains.”

Morelli breathed in deeply before reaching into his cassock. He removed a folded sheet of paper and handed it over his shoulder into the back seat. “Here, Leo ... this might help clear things up for you.”

Leo’s eyes narrowed at the back of Morelli’s head as he reached for the paper.
For some reason, Morelli was holding back.
He wasn’t sharing everything he knew, and as a ranking cardinal, especially one who was in line to replace Orsini, Leo should have been informed of Orsini’s death right away.

Without warning, Francois braked and swerved the SUV to avoid hitting a wild-eyed man who had just run out onto the highway in front of the vehicle. Looking outside, Leo and the others could see other wild-eyed people running out onto the road from a nearby field. In a matter of seconds, a large mob had surrounded the SUV after Francois had been forced to stop to avoid running them over.

The people around the vehicle were screaming something at the men inside, but their speech was garbled and unintelligible. Shockingly, their hands appeared to be covered in blood, and as they reached out to touch the windows, they left behind wide swaths of brownish-red streaks.

Shrieking and groaning in a primitive litany of pain and hopelessness, the mob began to rock the vehicle back and forth, almost tipping it on its side. The men inside braced themselves, their hearts racing as they peered from behind their windows at even more panicked-looking people streaming toward them from the fields.

Their way forward was now blocked, as was the road behind them. The occupants of the SUV were totally surrounded by a growing mob that had been driven stark-raving mad by something, and they seemed intent on getting at the men inside the big Chevy.

Francois frantically motioned to the crowd and laid on the horn as he tried to inch the vehicle forward, but the crowd refused to move. Some began beating on the vehicle, while others began pushing against it, lifting it up on two wheels. With more and more crazed people flooding onto the highway, Francois realized that, within seconds, the SUV would be on its side, its occupants doomed.

The Swiss Guard chief had been tagged as their driver for a reason. He was intimately familiar with the defensive capabilities of this very special SUV. Reaching under the dash, he pulled a lever, releasing a cloud of tear gas that spurted from hidden vents running under both sides and at the rear of the vehicle.

The people pushing on the sides immediately fell back. Reaching up, they covered their burning eyes with their bloody hands just as a whitish foam spewed from their mouths and their bodies began to shake with fits of coughing. Only those in the front of the vehicle had not felt the effects of the teargas, and after a brief retreat, they returned and began jumping on the bumper and crawling up on the hood. Francois quickly reached under the dash and pulled a second lever. Immediately, an invisible wall of focused sound hit the people in front, causing them to grab their ears and back away to escape the ear-shattering sound that seemed to pierce their bodies.

Without waiting, Francois stepped on the gas and smoked the tires. The crowd in front of the vehicle screamed and cursed as the SUV shot forward, narrowly missing some who were still trying to block their way forward. From out of nowhere, a rock smashed against a side window just as a man jumped on the hood and pressed his twisted face against the windshield. For a brief moment, the crazed man’s eyes locked with those of the occupants inside as he clawed at the glass. Francois made the sign of the cross and pushed the accelerator all the way down. He swerved the vehicle from side-to-side as their speed increased, until finally, the man on the hood lost his grip and slipped over the side, crashing against the pavement with a thud.

Peering into the vehicle’s side mirrors and back through the blood-streaked rear window, the stunned men inside the SUV shuddered at the sight behind them as the mob began to turn on itself. In a bizarre scene that could have been taken from the pages of
Dante’s Inferno
, the crazed and shrieking victims were now tearing at one another in a horrific and mindless tableau of bloodthirsty mayhem.