Papal decree

64

Tarcisio couldn’t believe what his eyes had seen. He would have preferred a knife to the heart, bleeding away the life God gave him. No one should have to suffer such an enormous betrayal.

A man had appeared in the middle of the street, pointing a gun at them. The driver’s first action was to accelerate; since he was shielded, a pointed gun didn’t pose any threat, but then something seemingly impossible happened. Schmidt and the guard next to the driver stuck guns into the driver’s head.

‘Stop the car immediately,’ Schmidt ordered.

‘Wha… what are you doing, Hans?’ Tarcisio asked uneasily.

‘Shut up,’ Schmidt said coldly. His look was glacial, cavernous. Tarcisio had never seen it before, and he shivered.

William was likewise stupefied.

‘Drop the gun, Hugo,’ Tarcisio ordered the agent who was pointing his gun at his colleague.

Schmidt slapped him in the face. ‘I told you not to talk unless spoken to.’

They could hear Daniel’s voice on the radio. Attention, Adrian. Pull over and wait for us. We’re stuck behind the bus.

Schmidt pressed the gun tighter into the back of the driver’s neck. ‘Got it? Even your boss is ordering you to stop. You don’t want the secretary to see your brains splattered all over the windshield, do you?’

The driver didn’t give in. He was trained to die for the pope or in his name. That was God’s will.

‘Stop the car, my son,’ Tarcisio ordered. ‘It’s not worth risking your life for me.’

Adrian obeyed the cardinal’s order and put on the brakes. He was shocked to see his colleague pointing a gun at him, but said nothing. No one truly knows anyone.

‘Good boy,’ Schmidt said scornfully.

The man outside the car came up beside the driver, opened the door, and plunged a syringe into his neck. It took the driver about five seconds to lose consciousness, and then he was thrown in the trunk of the Mercedes, and the stranger took over the driving.

‘It’s good to see you, Nicolas,’ Schmidt greeted him.

‘Good evening, Professor Aloysius,’ Nicolas welcomed him and hit the accelerator.

Aloysius? He calls himself Aloysius? Was it he who had misled him to negotiate with Adolph? Tarcisio asked himself. He was, in fact, a complete unknown, this Schmidt who turned a gun on the two prelates with a forced smile.

‘They’re everywhere,’ Tarcisio whispered hesitantly to William, who continued watching all this without a word or a reaction.

Schmidt had a cynical smile on his face. ‘Did you think you could deceive the society?’

‘How can you do something like this?’ Tarcisio asked in consternation. He remembered Ursino and… Trevor. God, he’d been so blind. ‘Were you the one who killed Ursino and Trevor?’ His cracking voice indicated defeat.

‘I’m responsible for Trevor. Ursino liked younger men, like Nicolas.’ Schmidt was enjoying himself. ‘Isn’t that so, Jonas?’ he joked with the driver.

‘How could you? After all you defend…’ Tarcisio interrupted.

‘Explanations, explanations. Let’s not talk about the past. It’s useless. It can’t be changed. You know I’m a man of the present, and presently you have the parchments that we want.’

‘And you think that kidnapping the secretary of state and the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is going to get them for you?’ William interrupted, recovering his self-control.

‘We do.’

At that moment Daniel’s voice was heard over the radio again. Attention. No order was given to proceed, Adrian. Attention, Adrian. Report your position.

‘Turn off that shit,’ Schmidt, also known as Aloysius, ordered.

‘Even if you kidnap His Holiness, you won’t get them,’ William argued, enervated.

‘I doubt that.’

The Mercedes squealed to a stop so hard that William and Tarcisio were almost thrown into the front.

‘We’re here,’ Nicolas said.

Tarcisio tried to see where ‘here’ was, but the street seemed the same as so many others.

They opened the car doors and pushed the elderly prelates inside a closed van that had stopped next to them.

‘Get in,’ Schmidt ordered. ‘Get inside.’

They continued on their way without rush. A few hundred feet further they saw one of the Volvos from the Holy See burst into the Piazza dell’Esquilino, almost colliding with a bus coming from Termini, and head for the Mercedes at full speed.

Nicolas and Schmidt smiled. ‘They’re stupid,’ Schmidt gloated.

‘Where are we going? Where are you taking us?’ Tarcisio asked uncomfortably, seated on the floor in the back of the van.

Schmidt showed the same cynical smile with which he had mocked them at the beginning of the trip. ‘We’re going to take a walk, boys. Behave yourselves.’ He turned to look at Nicolas and assumed a strict expression. ‘It’s time to ask for the ransom.’