To Kill the Pope (14 page)

Given their professional pursuits and travel around the rim of the Mediterranean, Tim found many of them to be excellent sources of information. Conversely, diplomats and journalists sought
him
out, not only because he was good company, but because his work at the Vatican made him a valuable contact. In the Roman environment, information was the most precious commodity.

The Roman years were Tim's best. At forty-four, he had finally succeeded in exorcising the demons of his former life, or so he believed, and, in finding the fulfillment and serenity that had so long eluded him. Feeling relaxed, he took frequent, long, and enjoyable walks around Rome—often strolling from Villa Malta to Via dell'Erba and his office, and back home. He went to the Tuscan countryside and its hospitable little towns and took up mountain climbing, driving to the Dolomites during summer vacations, and
enjoying long weekends in the company of a French Jesuit who had once been a guide in the high Alps. There Tim discovered the exhilaration of conquering the sheer face of a mighty granite peak. His sense of humor had fully returned and, most delightful, he was truly enjoying life.

*  *  *

At his small office, Tim shut the door tight and, following Monsignor Sainte-Ange's orders to embark immediately on the investigation, began to shape his plans. But, first, he had to reshape his life in Rome.

He telephoned the secretary of the Commission for Muslim Relations, an easygoing Belgian who had become a good friend, to ask to be received later in the day. Then Tim placed a similar call to the offices of the cardinal presiding over the Inter-Religious Dialogue Council. He could not simply vanish from work one day without some explanation to his superiors. Once again he needed a cover story, Tim thought with a touch of amusement. The Jesuit General Superior, of course, needed no contrived explanations: he most likely knew the
real
story.

Already evident to Tim from his morning conversation with Sainte-Ange was the fact that his investigation would be lengthy—it could run to many months, if not years—because, quite clearly, seemingly insurmountable obstacles had been erected by someone or some organization to keep the truth inaccessible. Tim planned to go first through all the available official documentation and, perhaps, he might be shown or told more at the Vatican. But this would not even begin, he realized, to point the way. In any case, he would have to be away for a long time from his regular job concerns with Islam—and concentrate on others. The only known fact was that Circlic, the shooter, was a Muslim Turk. What Tim faced was a vast puzzle with no clues, a classic situation in the craft of intelligence.

His Belgian friend accepted without question Tim's request for a leave of absence, which, he had warned him, could be a “rather long one.” The excuse he presented was that his physician had ordered him to spend “some time” at a high mountain resort and to rest at Villa Malta because of signs that tuberculosis Tim had supposedly acquired in Vietnam had not been entirely cured.
That was the first idea that had occurred to him for his cover story, and at the Vatican, where questions were seldom asked, it did not really matter whether it was credible.

The secretary of the Commission refrained from commenting on Tim's splendid physical appearance, “tuberculosis” notwithstanding. He just nodded sagely, saying, “Yes, of course, Tim. Take the time you need . . . Ah, I'll work myself on that Iranian analysis project . . . Do not worry . . .” The Belgian knew him well enough to believe that there must be an excellent reason for Tim's leave of absence. His shop was often involved in what amounted to confidential intelligence work.

Tim found the same immediate assent from the elderly Nigerian cardinal who chaired the Council. He, too, was an expert on the world of Islam. Born in the Muslim region of Nigeria, he had served for years as parish priest in Catholic villages there before being named bishop, archbishop, and cardinal by Pope Paul VI. Before the conclave that had elected Gregory XVII eight years earlier, the Nigerian was himself considered a long shot to become the first African pope since Vittore I in 189 A.D. Now he was utilized as one of the Church's principal advisers on the Third World. Tim made a mental note that, as his investigation advanced, it might be worthwhile to consult the cardinal.

As a matter of courtesy and respect, Tim next visited the Jesuit General Superior at the impressive gray edifice on Borgo Santo Spirito, a quiet street two blocks from St. Peter's Square. He was greeted warmly by the scholarly Spaniard, who had been stationed for many years in Egypt and was a highly regarded specialist on Islam, with amazing contacts among Muslim theologians. Tim began to report on his meeting with Sainte-Ange, however, the General gently waved him off. “But I wish you all the luck in the world, my son,” he said, blessing Tim.

What Tim had no way of knowing was that the General himself had recommended his appointment to the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims after observing his work on Islam at the Gregorian. Similarly, Tim did not know that Sainte-Ange had consulted the General as well as the Nigerian cardinal about the best candidate for a vital secret but unspecified mission for the pope that required familiarity with Islam and the Middle East. The
General had told the papal private secretary, “I can think of nobody who would be better than Father Savage,” adding some comments about Tim's past links with the institution in Langley, Virginia. The Nigerian cardinal had made a few private inquiries with a trusted bishop in Washington and the Pronuncio who headed the Apostolic Nunciature there; both had solid connections with the U.S. government. Sainte-Ange had not explained why he was making these inquiries, but it was rapidly reported back to him that, indeed, Father Savage had a most interesting background and experience.

*  *  *

Tim had decided from the outset that his Villa Malta room would be the best center for his investigations. The Jesuits running the residence did not need to be informed about his health “relapse” and “rest” plans. If Father Savage preferred to work in his room instead of his office and if he traveled a lot, it was his business alone. Villa Malta, where several other Jesuits in important Vatican positions also lived and worked, was a supremely discreet hideaway.

Starting on his inquiry, Tim devoted long weeks to educating himself about every conceivable aspect of his assignment. He read everything available about the Turkish assassin, his identity and past, about all the official and unofficial investigations conducted over the past years, and about the shooter's trial. At his request over the telephone—he did not think it wise to visit her office, much as he would like to see her again—Sister Angela provided him with masses of material. She sent him Italian police reports, newspaper clippings, the Turk's trial transcripts, and even U.S. Senate hearings concerning the CIA's knowledge of the attack on Gregory XVII. It was naturally necessary for Tim to absorb all this information, but it did nothing to tell him how to orient his investigatory work. On the other hand, it provided him with the justification for calling Angela fairly often to request still another document and to ask what other materials might exist—more and more he invented impossibly difficult requests. Their conversations became longer and longer. Tim loved the sound of her voice. Angela sounded most pleasantly polite, but Tim thought he detected a touch more than mere politeness.

Awaiting, though without much hope, a breakthrough bit of information, no matter how small, Tim resolved to learn more about papal history. He had been taught both at Georgetown and at the CIA, that one, especially a scholar or intelligence officer, could not deal with the present without a knowledge of the past. He already knew enough to be convinced that the Vatican probably had no equal—ever—when it came to the great tradition of intrigues, plots, and conspiracies over scores of centuries. And, as Tim was discovering with amazement and fascination, the attempt on the life of Gregory XVII had ample precedents, to say the least. Murders of popes, often in sinister and repelling circumstances, were nothing new.

The incredibly horrifying track record of the papacy had started with the first pope officially recognized as such by the Church: Peter the Apostle, the poor fisherman from Galilee, named Simon Bar Jonah at birth, who with Paul the Apostle founded the Catholic institution in Rome after they fled Roman persecution in Palestine; there already were Christian churches in Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, and Ephesus. But the primacy of the Church of Rome became legitimized by Christ's words to Peter in the Gospel according to Matthew: “Thou are Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church and I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” These words appear in Latin, though they were originally pronounced in Aramaic and Hebrew, in tall letters on the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, and Tim Savage knew them by heart.

Peter had run into anti-Christian persecution in Rome as well and fled from it, too. He returned after having had a vision of Christ and was imprisoned on the orders of Emperor Nero, who did not take kindly to any form of dissent. He was crucified upside down on the Vatican Hill, probably in 64 A.D. The next pope to be killed was Clement I, the third pontiff after Peter, who was exiled to Crimea by the Romans in 97 A.D., tied to an anchor, and thrown into the Black Sea. Callistus I was lynched by a mob in the Trastevere suburb of Rome in 222. Fabian was brutally murdered in prison in 250, after fourteen years as pope. Sixtus II, a Greek, was beheaded by his deacons in 258. Persecution against Christians was so severe well into the fourth century that the Church subsequently declared all the thirty-two pontiffs, starting
with Peter, who had served prior to 335 to be martyrs. The last one in that group was Silvestro I, overthrown and killed by political enemies after twenty-four years on St. Peter's throne. Murder, however, was not a prerequisite for martyrdom status. Official persecution of Christianity finally ended with Emperor Constantine's conversion in 337, just before his death.

But, as Tim kept learning with mounting horror, this was far from the end of papal assassinations and other forms of disgrace and indignity. Thus the next papal victim of Holy See intrigues was St. Silverio, arrested and exiled to Anatolia and demoted to the rank of monk in 537. He was the son of Pope Ormisda, who had lived out his reign in peaceful and saintly fashion; there had been five other popes between father and son. Silverio had been framed by Vigilius, the aristocratic papal ambassador to Constantinople, the seat of the Byzantine Empire, who had powerful ambitions to become pope himself, and Antonina, the wife of the Roman general Belisarius. The general had accused Pope Silverio of plotting to open Rome's gates to approaching Goth armies. Vigilius was elected to the papacy, but this was not the end of the story. Though Emperor Justinian secured a new trial for Silverio, brought back to Rome from Anatolia with the understanding that he would be restored to the pontificate if found to be innocent, Vigilius succeeded in having him arrested again and deported to the island of Palmaria, where he soon died of malnutrition. Not surprisingly, the Church declared him a martyr.

However, even intrigue-ridden Rome could occasionally produce poetic justice. Justinian had Vigilius arrested twice over complex theological disputes that triggered major political crises in the Roman Empire lasting ten years, until Vigilius died from gallstones as he traveled from Constantinople to Rome in 555.

Being pope continued to be an exceedingly unsafe occupation with no guaranteed job security. Pope Martin I was arrested on Emperor Constans II's orders in 653 in still another imperial-theological power quarrel over theology and politics. After brutal maltreatment in a Roman prison, he was deported to Constantinople, found guilty of treason at a hasty trial, dragged in shackles through the streets, and flogged in public. He died two years later in exile in Crimea.

Pope Leo III was attacked in 799 by a Roman crowd that attempted to rip out his tongue and blind him. The mob was led by Paschalis, the nephew of Pope Leo's predecessor Hadrian I; Leo recovered from his injuries, keeping both his speech and sight. In 864, Frankish Emperor Louis II had planned to have Pope Nicholas I assassinated for excommunicating his brother, King Lothair of Lorraine, on grounds of bigamy, but cooler heads prevailed and papal authority was respected. Pope John VIII was clubbed to death in 882 by former friends and acolytes.

Stephen VI fared even worse after presiding over one of the most revolting spectacles in Church history. In January 897, Stephen VI had ordered the trial of the desiccated corpse of Formosus, a cordially hated pope—though a remarkable diplomat—who had died in April of the previous year. Formosus was followed as pope by Boniface VI, who expired two weeks after his election for unrecorded reasons. It is a mystery why Pope Stephen had staged Formosus' “Cadaver Synod”; attired in papal garb and poised atop a throne, the body was declared guilty of multiple crimes, its fingers were cut off, and it was cast into the Tiber. So horrified were Romans by this sinister farce that Stephen was ousted by enraged mobs, then strangled in prison. He had been pontiff for a year and three months.

Reading a recently published history of the papacy, Tim was astonished to learn that “a third of the popes elected between 872 and 1012 died in suspicious circumstances.” It was not very encouraging in terms of his own investigatory endeavor, he thought. But Tim plowed ahead with his macabre research. Leo V, it turned out, was murdered in 903 by a Roman bishop who succeeded him as Sergius III. The first millennium of the Christian era ended with the suffocation of John X in 928 and Stephen VIII's terrible death from mutilation in 931 after less than three years as pope.

In terms of violent or mysterious papal deaths or murder attempts, the second millennium opened with the unexplained demise of Sergius IV in 1012, although things were calming down around the Vatican. Benedict IX, young and given to debauchery, was deposed in 1044, but allowed to live, even staging a brief comeback. Gregory VI was removed peacefully in 1046, after a
year and a half on the throne. Gregory VII, one of the great popes, died in exile in Salerno in 1085, victim of savage European politics and wars of his time. But mayhem returned to the papacy when Lucius II was killed in 1145, his second year in office, in a battle for the control of Rome. In 1452, Nicholas V, a venerated humanist, patron of the arts, and founder of the Vatican Library, survived a powerful conspiracy by Roman aristocrats led by Stefano Porcaro to overthrow him.