The Last Templar

Chapter 71

V atican or CIA, whoever made the travel arrangements had done a pretty good job. The helicopter had flown to a military air base near Karacasu, not far north from where Reilly had been picked up. Once there, he and De Angelis boarded a waiting G-IV, which had flown up from Dalaman to pick them up, and made the fast journey west to Italy. Immigration and Customs were swiftly bypassed in Rome, and, less than three hours after the monsignor had materialized out of a dust cloud in the Turkish mountains, they were speeding through the Eternal City in the cosseted comfort of an air-conditioned, black-windowed Lexus.

Reilly needed a shower and clean clothes, but, as De Angelis was in a hurry, he'd had to settle for washing on board the jet and replacing his wetsuit with BDU pants and a gray T-shirt hastily obtained from the Turkish air force base's supply center. He didn't complain. After the wet-suit, the battle dress uniform was a welcome relief, and, more to the point, he was in a hurry too. He was feeling increasingly uneasy about Tess. He wanted to find her, although he tried not to delve too deeply into his motives. He was also having second thoughts about having agreed to the monsignor's invitation; he wasn't sure what awaited him at their final destination, and the sooner he was out of there and back on the ground in Turkey, he thought, the better. But it was too late to pull out. He had clearly sensed from De Angelis's quiet insistence that this visit wasn't just an idle whim.

He had spotted Saint Peter's Basilica from the aircraft, and now, as the Lexus cut its way through the midday traffic, he saw it again, looming up ahead, its colossal dome soaring gloriously out of the haze and chaos of the congested city. Although the sight of such a prodigious edifice inevitably inspired feelings of awe in even the most hardened of disbelievers, Reilly felt only betrayal and anger. He didn't know much about the world's greatest church, beyond that it housed the Sistine Chapel and that it was built over the resting spot of the bones of Saint Peter, the Church's first pope, who had died there after being crucified, upside down, for his faith. As he looked at it, he thought of all the sublime works of art and architecture the same faith had inspired, the paintings, statues, and places of worship that had been created around the world by the followers of Christ. He thought of the countless children who said their bedtime prayers every night, the millions of worshippers who attended church services every Sunday, the sick who prayed for healing, and the bereaved who prayed for the souls of the departed. Had they all been deceived too? Was it all a lie? And, even worse—had the Vatican known all along?

The Lexus made its way down the Via de Porta Angelica to the Saint Anne gate, where a large, cast-iron portal was opened by colorfully outfitted Swiss Guards just as the car reached it. With a quick nod from the monsignor, the Lexus was waved in, entering the smallest country on the planet and ushering Reilly into the center of his troubled spiritual world.

The car stopped outside a porticoed stone building, and De Angelis promptly got out. Reilly followed him up the short steps and into the solemn hush of a double-volume vestibule. They walked briskly along stone-flagged corridors, through dim, high-ceilinged rooms, and up wide marble staircases, finally reaching an intricately carved wooden door. The monsignor put away his aviator shades and replaced them with his old tinted glasses. Reilly looked on as, with the ease of a great actor about to go onstage, De Angelis's expression morphed from that of a merciless covert operative into the gentle priest who had materialized that day in New York. To Reilly's added surprise, he took a deep breath before he rapped his knuckles firmly on the door.

The answer came back quickly in a soft-spoken tone.

"Avanti"

De Angelis opened the door and led the way inside.

The walls of the cavernous room were lined with shelves from floor to ceiling and overflowed with books. The herringboned, oak floor had no rugs. In one corner, by a stone fireplace, a large chenille sofa sat between two matching armchairs. Backing up to a towering pair of French windows was a desk, which had a heavily padded chair behind it and three wingback chairs facing it. The room's only occupant, a burly and commanding figure with grizzled gray hair, stepped around the desk to greet De Angelis and his guest. A somber severity was etched on his face.

De Angelis introduced Cardinal Brugnone to Reilly, and the men shook hands. The cardinal's grip was unexpectedly firm, and Reilly felt he was being studied with an unsettling perspicacity as the old man's eyes moved over him silently. Without taking his eyes off his guest, Brugnone exchanged a few words in Italian with the monsignor, which Reilly couldn't make out.

"Please sit down, Agent Reilly," he finally said to him, motioning toward the sofa. "I hope you will accept my gratitude for all that you have done and continue to do in this unfortunate matter. And also for agreeing to come here today."

As soon as Reilly had taken a seat, and with De Angelis settling into another chair, Brugnone made it clear he was in no mood for idle chatter by coming quickly to the point. "I've been given some background information on you." Reilly glanced at De Angelis, who did not meet his gaze. "I'm told you are a man who can be trusted and who does not compromise his integrity." The big man paused, his intense, brown eyes bearing down on Reilly.

Reilly was more than happy to dive straight in. "I just want the truth."

Brugnone leaned forward, his large square hands pressed flat against each other. "I'm afraid the truth is as you fear it." After a quiet moment, he pushed himself out of his chair and took a few heavy paces to the French windows. He stared out, squinting against the harsh midday glare. "Nine men . . . nine devils. They showed up in Jerusalem, and Baldwin gave them everything they wanted, thinking they were on our side, thinking they were there to help us spread our message." He chortled, a sound that in other circumstances might have been mistaken for a laugh, but which Reilly knew was an outward expression of a very painful thought. His voice lowered to a guttural grumble. "He was a fool to believe them."

"What did they find?"

Brugnone took a breath, a kind of inward sigh, and turned to face Reilly. "A journal. A very detailed and personal journal, a gospel of sorts. The writings of a carpenter named Jeshua of Nazareth." He paused, fixing Reilly with a piercing gaze before adding, "the writings . . . of et man.'"

Reilly felt the air leave his lungs. "Just a man?"

Brugnone nodded his head somberly, his big shoulders suddenly sagging as though an impossible weight was upon them. "According to his own gospel, Jeshua of Nazareth—Jesus—was not the Son of God."

The words ricocheted around Reilly's mind for what seemed like an eternity before plummeting to the pit of his stomach like a ton of bricks. He lifted his hands, making a vaguely all-encompassing gesture. "And all this . . . ?"

"All this," Brugnone exclaimed, "is the best that man, that mere, mortal, frightened man, could come up with. It was all created with the most noble of intentions. This you must believe. What would you have done? What would you have us do now? For almost two thousand years, we've been entrusted with these beliefs that were so important to the men who began the Church, and which we continue to believe in. Anything that could have undermined these beliefs had to be suppressed. There was no other choice, because we could not abandon our people, not before and certainly not now. Today, it would be even more catastrophic to say to them that it is all . . . " He struggled with the words, unable to complete the sentence.

"A massive deception?" Reilly concluded tersely.

"But is it really? What is faith, after all, but a belief in something for which there doesn't need to be any proof, a belief in an ideal. And it's been a very worthy ideal for people to believe in. We need to believe in something. We all need faith."

Faith.

Reilly struggled to grasp the ramifications of what Cardinal Brugnone was saying. In his case, it was faith that had helped him, at a very young age, to deal witJi the devastating loss of his father. It was faith that had guided him throughout his adult life. And now, of all places, here at the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church, he was being told that it was all one big sham.

"We also need honesty," Reilly countered angrily. "We need truth."

"But above all, man needs his faith, now more than ever," Brugnone insisted forcefully, "and what we have is far better than having no faith at all."

"Faith in a resurrection that never happened?" Reilly fired back. "Faith in a heaven that doesn't exist?"

"Believe me, Agent Reilly, many decent men have struggled with this over the years, and all come to the same conclusion: that it must be preserved. The alternative is too horrific to contemplate."

"But we're not talking about His words and His teachings. We're just talking about His miracles and His resurrection."

Brugnone's tone was unflinching. "Christianity wasn't built on the notion of a wise man's preachings. It was built on something far more resonant—the words of the Son of God. The Resurrection isn't just a miracle—it's the very foundation of the Church. Take that away and it all collapses. Think of the words of Saint Paul in First Corinthians: 'And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain.' "

"The founders of the Church—they chose those words," Reilly fumed. "The whole point about religion is to help us try and understand what we're doing here, isn't it? How can we even begin to understand that if we start with a false premise? This lie has warped every single aspect of our lives."

Brugnone exhaled deeply and nodded in quiet agreement. "Maybe it has. Maybe, if it had all started now and not two thousand years ago, things could have been handled differently. But it isn't starting now. It already exists, it's been handed down to us and we must preserve it; to do otherwise would destroy us—and, I fear, deal a devastating blow to our fragile world." His eyes were no longer focused on Reilly, but on something far away, something that seemed almost physically painful to him. "We've been on the defensive ever since we started. I suppose it's natural, given our position, but it's becoming more and more difficult . . . modern science and philosophy don't exactly encourage faith. And we're partly to blame. Ever since the early Church was effectively hijacked by Constantine and his political acumen, there have been far too many schisms and disputes. Too much doctrinal nitpicking, too many fraudsters and degenerates running around, too much greed. Jesus's original message has been perverted by egotists and bigots, it's been undermined by petty internal rivalries and intransigent fundamentalists. And we're still making mistakes that aren't helping our cause. Avoiding the real issues facing the people out there. Tolerating shameful abuses, horrible acts against the most innocent, even conspiring to cover them up. We've been very slow at coming to terms with our rapidly changing world, and now, at a time when we're particularly vulnerable, it's all threatened again, just as it was nine hundred years ago. Only now, this edifice that we've built is greater than anyone dreamed it would become, and its fall would be simply catastrophic.

"Maybe if we were starting the Church today, with the true story of Jeshua of Nazareth," Brugnone added, "maybe we could do it differently. Maybe we could avoid all the confusing dogma and just do it simply. Look at Islam. They got away with it, barely seven hundred years after the crucifixion.

A man came along and said, 'There is no god but God, and I am his prophet.' Not the Messiah, not the Son of God; no Father or Holy Spirit, no confusing Trinity—just a messenger of God. That was it. And it was enough. The simplicity of his message caught on like wildfire. His followers almost took over the world in less than a hundred years, and it pains me to think that right now, in this day and age, it's the world's fastest-growing religion . . . although they've been even slower than us at coming to terms with the realities and the needs of our modern times, and that will inevitably cause them problems down the road as well. But we have been very slow, slow and arrogant. . . and now we're paying for it, just when our people need us the most.

"Because they do," he continued. "They need us, they need something. Look at the anxiety around you, the anger, the greed, the corruption infecting the world from the very top down. Look at the moral vacuum, the spiritual hunger, the lack of values. The world grows more fatalistic, cynical, more disillusioned every day. Man has become more apathetic, uncaring, and selfish than ever. We steal and kill on an unprecedented scale. Corporate scandals run into billions of dollars. Wars are waged for no reason, millions are killed in genocides. Science may have allowed us to get rid of diseases like smallpox, but it has more than made up for it by devastating our planet and turning us into impatient, isolated, violent creatures. The lucky ones among us may live longer, but are our lives any more fulfilled or peaceful? Is the world really any more civilized than it was two thousand years ago?

"Hundreds of years ago, we didn't know better. People could barely read and write. Today, in our so-called enlightened age, what excuse do we have for such abysmal behavior? Man's mind, his intellect, may have progressed, but I fear his soul has been left behind—and, I would even argue, regressed. Man has demonstrated time and again that he is a savage beast at heart, and, even with the Church telling us we're accountable to a greater power, we still manage to behave atrociously.

Imagine what it would be like without the Church. But it's obvious that we're losing our ability to inspire. We're not there for the people, the Church is just not there for them anymore. Even worse, we're being used as an excuse for wars and bloodshed. We're spiraling toward a terrifying spiritual crisis, Agent Reilly. This discovery could not be happening at a worse time."

Brugnone fell silent and looked across the room at Reilly.

"Maybe it's inevitable, then," Reilly offered in a resigned, subdued voice. "Maybe it's a story that's run its course."

"Perhaps the Church is dying a slow death," Brugnone agreed. "After all, all religions wither away and die at some point, and ours has lasted longer than most. But a sudden revelation like this . . .

Despite its failings, the Church is still a huge part of people's lives. Millions out there rely on their faith to get them through their daily existence. It still manages to provide solace, even to its lapsed members in their times of need. And ultimately, faith provides us all with something that's crucial to our very existence: it helps us overcome our primal fear of death and the dread of what may lie beyond the grave. Without their faith in a risen Christ, millions of souls would simply be cast adrift.

Make no mistake, Agent Reilly, allowing this to come out would plunge the world into a state of despair and disillusion unlike anything we've ever seen."

An oppressive silence descended on the room, pressing down heavily on Reilly. There was no escape from the unsettling thoughts that were blockading his mind. He thought back to where this journey had all begun for him, standing on the steps of the Met with Aparo on the night of the horsemen's rampage, and wondered how he had managed to end Brugnone met Reilly's consternation with a beaming, comforting expression. "There are those who believe the story was only ever meant to be taken metaphorically; that to truly understand Christianity is to understand the essence of the message at its heart. However, most believers take every word in the Bible as being, for want of a better term, the gospel truth. I suppose I fall somewhere in the middle. Perhaps we all walk a fine line between freeing our imaginations to the wonders of the story and allowing our rational minds to doubt its veracity. If what the Templars found was in fact a forgery, it would certainly help make us more comfortable with spending more time on the more inspirational side of that line, but until we find what they were carrying on that ship ..." He framed Reilly with an ardent stare. "Will you help us?"

For a moment Reilly did not answer. He studied the deeply lined face of the man before him.

Although he felt that the cardinal harbored a deep-seated core of honesty, he had no illusions about the motives of De Angelis, and he knew that helping them would inevitably mean working with the monsignor, a prospect that held little appeal to him. He glanced over at De Angelis. Nothing he had heard did anything to alleviate his mistrust of the duplicitous priest, nor dampen his contempt for the man's methods. He knew he would have to figure out how to deal with him at some point in the future. But there were more pressing matters at hand. Tess was somewhere out there, alone with Vance, and there was a potentially devastating discovery looming over millions of unsuspecting souls.

He turned his gaze to Brugnone. "Yes," was his simple reply.

up here, at the very epicenter of his faith, engaged in a deeply disturbing conversation he would have much rather never had.

"How long have you known?" he finally asked the cardinal.

"Me, personally?"

"Yes."

"Since I took my present post. Thirty years."

Reilly nodded to himself. It seemed an awfully long time to have to labor under doubts like those that were now battering him. "But you've come to terms with it."

"Come to terms?"

"You accept it," Reilly clarified.

Brugnone mulled it over for a moment, his eyes darkly troubled. "I will never come to terms with it, in the sense that I believe you mean. But I have learned to accommodate it. That's the best that I've been able to do."

"Who else knows?" Reilly could hear the condemnation in his own voice, and he knew that Brugnone heard it too.

"A handful of us."

Reilly wondered about what that meant. What about the pope? Does he know? He felt he really wanted to know—he couldn't imagine the pope not knowing—but he held back from asking the question. Only so many blows at a time. Instead, another idea was vying for his attention. His investigative instincts were stirring, clawing their way out of the mire of his besieged mind.

"How do you know it's real?"

Brugnone's eyes brightened, and the edge of his mouth broke into a faint smile. He seemed heartened by Reilly's hopeful defense, but his dire tone quickly smothered any such hope. "The pope sent his most eminent experts to Jerusalem when the Templars first discovered it. They confirmed it to be genuine."

"But that was almost a thousand years ago," Reilly argued. "They could have easily been fooled.

What if it were a forgery? From what I've heard, it wasn't beyond the Templars' capabilities to pull off something like this. And yet you're ready to accept it as fact without even seeing it . . . ?" The implication hit Reilly just as the words tumbled out of his mouth. "Which can only mean you've always doubted the story in the gospels . . . ?"