The Julian Secret (Lang Reilly Thrillers) (35 page)

“I only know what I saw in the paper this morning, but he was in a place up north . . .” Pause as she reached for the newspaper. “Red Cloud Lake, Minnesota. Says he was there on business, killed by a hit-and-run eighteen-wheeler. Lang, he was such a nice man . . .”

He wasn’t, but Lang murmured the usual meaningless words of comfort before hanging up.

One final time, it seemed Charlie had found what he was looking for. Unfortunately, Lang had only the vaguest idea what.

Rome
St. Peter’s Square
Twenty minutes later

This time Lang merged with an Italian boys choir he gathered were to perform at evensong at one of the Vatican’s numerous chapels, perhaps for the Holy Father himself. Shepherded by two dour nuns and several priests, the noisy group passed by the Swiss Guard with little more than a cheery
buona sera
and a wave of credentials. Once again, Lang’s Georgia driver’s license passed muster. The shadows that were devouring the square by now provided ample cover for Lang to fall to the rear of the boisterous procession and, finally, drop off just before the door guarded by the television camera.

For a full five minutes he observed, making certain nothing had been altered. A change in timing of the camera, of the combination lock, anything, could mean his previous visit had been discovered and additional
security measures taken, precautions of which he would be unaware.

Cars whizzed by, the sensation of speed increased by the narrow confines of the road between basilica and the colonnades, but fast enough to be dangerous to the unwary crossing the road. He stepped deeper into the shadows to avoid headlights. The timing of the surveillance cameras was identical. Minimizing exposure to both the light provided by streetlights and by passing motorists, he stepped in front of the door, risking playing the beam of his flashlight over the locking mechanism. It seemed the same. The doorframe bore no indications of the work necessary to install alarms.

He took a deep breath, as though about to dive into bottomless water, and punched in the series of numbers.

Rome
St. Peter’s Square
April 30, 1944

Sturmbahnführer
Otto Skorzeny crossed St. Peter’s Square with purposeful strides. Behind him eight SS troops, Schmiesser machine guns slung across their chests, marched as though on parade. At the rear of the small procession, two
Wehrmacht
privates carried a wooden box larger than even a coffin. Skorzeny watched the Swiss Guard as they watched him. Hopefully, the young men in medieval costume would not be foolhardy. The SS man had seen more than enough slaughter of young men.

As the black-clad detachment reached the point where the colonnade joined the basilica, two Swiss Guards crossed halberds, barring the path.

Thankful most Swiss spoke at least a form of German, Skorzeny snapped to attention and saluted.
“Am
Morgen, meinen Herren! We have business inside. Please be good fellows and let us pass without trouble.”

One of the young men—Skorzeny would have bet he was under twenty—spoke. “You have the proper authorization?”

The German officer sighed. “My authorization, lad, is in those machine guns you see. Now, please let us pass.”

There was no fear, no indecision in the boy’s eyes, only hatred. It was the same look Skorzeny had seen in Russian partisans as they stood in front of open graves waiting to be shot.

Skorzeny sighed and gave the order. As one, eight machine guns were unslung. With a single click, eight bolts were cocked. He both admired and was saddened by the complete lack of reaction by the Swiss Guards. Bravery transcends nationality. It is a commodity to be treasured, not wasted.

An older Swiss Guard, perhaps twenty-five, stepped out of the shadows and conducted a conversation in Swisse Deutsch, the dialect of the German-speaking Swiss cantons. Skorzeny only got about half of it. The two younger guards lowered their weapons and took two steps backward, resentment twisting the corners of their mouths.

“That’s good fellows,” Skorzeny said, motioning to two of his men. “Now, if you’ll just stack those axes and come along, all will be fine.”

Leaving a single man to watch over the disarmed and unhappy Swiss Guards, the Germans entered through an unmarked side door of the basilica. Skorzeny produced a flashlight from his uniform, as did each of the SS men.

Now came the tricky part, the SS commander thought. He had to remember exactly the tour the priest Kaas had
given him yesterday. Opening an unmarked door, Skorzeny was greeted by darkness, an absence of light so complete as to suggest light did not exist. A breeze of cool air drifted over the men, bringing the dusty smell of crushed rock and damp earth.

Ignoring the reluctance he sensed in the men, Skorzeny stepped into the night.

At first, the beam of his flashlight revealed little but clouds of dust motes, swirling like miniature cosmos in some dark universe of their own. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom even his light could not entirely dispel, he saw what resembled a narrow street edged with the dim forms of houses. The way sloped gently upward.

“Careful,” he warned his men. “The way is littered with rubble, so step carefully.”

For a few minutes the small troupe walked up the slight incline, edging around mounds of clay, rock, and soil. Out of the gloom appeared empty doors and windows, some with just the hint of inscriptions. Others showed dirt-clouded paintings of animals and humans. Between many of the structures were mounds of unexcavated earth. At last they stopped in front of a large circular area ringed with mounds of loose dirt. Picks and shovels were neatly stacked. A rope with buckets attached stretched off into the darkness, a means of removing rubble. They had reached the site of present excavations.

Skorzeny directed the beam of his flashlight upward to a point where it reflected from dull stone overhead, the floor of the Vatican’s basement or grotto. Part of the hill they had been climbing actually touched the stone overhead. A small hole had been dug into otherwise undisturbed earth.

That was the place the priest had pointed out to him yesterday. Motioning to the two men carrying the box to
follow, he started up the side of the hill, surprised at how firm the surface was. But then, why shouldn’t it be? This part of the hill hadn’t been touched since the present papal palace was completed over three hundred years ago.

He turned to make sure the men with the box were close at hand before he turned the light into the shallow hole in front of him. At first, all he saw was stone, part of the foundation of the massive building overhead. He played the light back and forth, discerning regularly placed vertical stone piers, each about four feet wide and caked with the soil in which they had been embedded. Closer inspection revealed a slight discoloration at the base of one. Skorzeny stooped to bring the full power of his light to bear. Sure enough, the part of this one column was a slightly different color than the rest of the pillar.

Reaching into a pocket, he produced a whisk brush and began to remove the obscuring dirt. Within minutes, he could see an almost invisible line forming a rectangle where a section of the base of the support had been replaced. There were traces of lettering on the new part, letters that had been chiseled away.

He had no real interest in the characters. He had seen enough at Montsegur to have a good idea what they said.

Using his light to motion to the two
Wehrmacht
soldiers, he ordered them to open the box and bring him the tools in it. In moments, he was supervising two men rocking crowbars back and forth in an effort to wedge them between the original and newer stone. He noticed several of his SS detachment nervously glancing at the floor above, as if anticipating the collapse of the entire Vatican upon their heads. That might have been a problem with the old basilica. Although Pope Julius II had planned to preserve Constantine’s papal palace when he began
rebuilding the Vatican in 1506, he and more than a century of successors had been forced to abandon the idea. The only part of the original St. Peter’s was down here, support columns that no longer were weight-bearing.

In ten minutes, both bars were firmly inserted into the tight space between old and replacement stone. Another few minutes of heaving and prying were rewarded by the sound of stone grinding upon stone.

Squatting, Skorzeny futilely tugged at the smooth surface as if his hands alone could move it. Finally, there was enough space for him to insert the hand with the flashlight and squint down its beam in much the same manner he would have sighted along the sights of a rifle.

At first, he thought he was looking at some sort of wall made of clay. Then he noted the reddish material was round. He pulled back, allowing himself a more comprehensive view. He was almost touching a large vessel of some sort, a jug or vase.

Stepping farther back, he stood. “I want that rock pried fully open,” he commanded. “The sooner we can get to whatever is in there, the sooner we can get out of here.”

The encouragement may have been the reason that, five minutes later, two men were removing a large, vaselike object. Skorzeny recognized it as an amphora, a large container, usually of Greek origin, with two handles, one on either side of its slender neck. This one was the size of a man, at least of a man in Julian’s time.

Skorzeny waited until the two men had removed as much dust and grime as possible before he inspected their find. A seal was still in place, and he thought he could make out an inscription in the centuries-hardened wax. Walking slowly around the huge vessel, hands behind his back, he tried to make a decision. Should he open it here and now?

Probably not, he concluded. There was some small chance the thing was filled only with its normal contents, olive oil or wine, but he considered that unlikely. There would be little point in storing the mundane in this very special place. More likely, the jug held something else, something that needed to be sealed off from air and light. Like some sort of documents. And it was, of course, documents that the Montsegur inscription had seemed to indicate had been removed to the . . . What was the wording the Latin professor had used? Palace of the One God?

Whatever the contents, there was no point in risking them here. Let the container be opened in a place where others would take the blame if damage was done.
Der Führer
would be delighted if Skorzeny’s assumption were correct, if . . .

“Herr
Sturmbahnführer?”
One of the men was bending over, peering into the space from which the amphora had been removed. “There appears to be another.”

On hands and knees, Skorzeny scrambled to the opening, taking in the remaining contents. Sure enough, a second container, identical to the first, was clearly visible now that the other one had been removed.

This presented a problem: The box the two regular army men had carried in was barely large enough to hold the first. Orders mandated discretion, and carrying a man-sized, ancient Greek amphora out of the Vatican was not going to be accomplished without notice. He might as well leave with the drum and bugle corps so beloved by the party playing “The Horst Wessel Song.”

Machts nichts;
didn’t really matter. In a day or so, a week at most, Pius XII would be in German custody as hostage for
all
Vatican treasure, including the remaining clay jar.

Vatican City
Below St. Peter’s Basilica
The present

This time, Lang had known what to expect. He spread a plastic sheet on the dirt before kneeling in front of the altered column. He switched on the fluoroscope and, once again, was astounded by how quickly the purple light made obliterated letters jump into view.

“Accusatio . . . rebellis . . .”
Pretty much the same diatribe as he had seen at Montsegur, except . . . He moved the light slightly. Except supposedly the very indictment itself was contained inside.

What did that have to do with whatever Skorzeny had wanted?

He was about to find out. Standing, he took two steps back, playing the flashlight over the column. He could see now that the spot he had noted earlier was only the bottom part of a larger segment. A section almost five by
three feet had been cut out of the pillar and replaced, presumably to hide something inside. Taking the short crowbar from underneath his cassock, he was surprised at how easily it fitted between the new and old stone. Almost as if someone had pried it open since Julian had sealed it sixteen centuries ago. Maybe someone had, someone like Skorzeny.

On second thought, there wasn’t a lot of “maybe” to it. The picture on Don Huff’s CD showed the German in front of the Vatican. Unlikely he had come here as a mere tourist.

What if there was nothing here, what if whatever clue he was seeking was gone? What if . . . ?

The last question went unfinished as he put the iron bar down, turned off his flashlight, and listened. He was greeted by overpowering silence, an absence of sound that is a sound within itself, just as white, an absence of color, is itself a color.

What had he heard? He was unsure. Another rat, scurrying about what had been his ancestors’ exclusive domain? No, something more substantial than that.

But what?

He counted off a full minute, then another and another. Could he have simply overheard part of a tour of the necropolis on the other side of the plexiglass? Possible, but he thought he remembered a sign announcing that the office through which those excursions began closed for the day at six.

He recalled the old Gypsy woman he had almost struck in the darkness of an alley, the one who had sought no more than a few euros. The paranoia that became the constant companion of all Agency personnel had almost cost that crone dearly. Could the same thing be happening again?

He looked around the inky darkness. Alone, in the
permanent midnight of an ancient burial ground, by stealth rather than by right. Anxiety could not find a more fertile breeding ground.