“Why didn’t you write what they wanted?” I asked as we moved along the tunnel.
Faduma’s nose crinkled as she thought about this.
“The Vatican is where the temporal is supposed to touch the divine. The Holy Father is God’s appointed representative on earth, but he is still bound to the same soil as the rest of us. All clergy are, and if we are fallible so are they. Crimes are to be expected in any human population,” she said. “Where the Church went wrong was in failing to honor the victims and give them the justice that is at the heart of Christianity. Instead, some members of the clergy at the highest level tried to cover up the abuse and sweep the victims under the rug.”
I nodded. Humans are fallible and some are evil, but the Church is meant to embody all that is best in us and protect thosetoo weak to protect themselves. In that respect it had been a major disappointment to me.
We walked along the tunnel and climbed three flights of steps that tracked the slope of the hill beneath Vatican City. The stairs were steep and long, the ceiling low, so that we almost felt the weight of the city pressing down on us.
Finally, we reached a dogleg in the tunnel, which was now blocked by an ancient metal grille.
“This brings us out near the Gallery of the Candelabra, not far from the bank,” Faduma said, running her fingers along the wall until she found a particular stone, which she pressed to unlock the barrier.
She swung it open and we stepped out into a narrow alleyway between two red-brick walls. I followed her along this until we reached the end and emerged from the narrow alleyway to see the Gallery of the Candelabra, a long gray building famed for the paintings it housed. We saw a couple priests walking together, chatting, and when they had moved out of sight, we took the deserted lane that would lead us to the headquarters of the Vatican Bank.
We passed under an archway that led us into one of the Vatican’s car parks and joined Via Sant’Anna near the bank. We walked around the semi-circular building and found a stairwell in the adjacent block leading to a basement. Here we stood a few steps down, so we could watch the bank entrance without being seen ourselves.
We waited there for an hour, hardly talking, to minimize the risk of giving away our location. The Swiss Guard and Vaticanpolice each conducted one routine sweep of the courtyard ahead of us and the streets nearby, but we ducked into the stairwell on both occasions and remained undisturbed in our hiding place until 8:15 a.m. when Christian Altmer walked through the courtyard in front of us on his way to the bank.
I left our hiding place immediately and headed straight for him. He turned when I was almost within touching distance, face contorting in shock as he registered me and then Faduma, a few paces behind.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you crazy?”
“I want the truth,” I said. “I know you’re working with the Dark Fates. Are you a member of Propaganda Tre?”
“I can’t talk about these things. Not here,” Altmer protested. “You have to leave.”
“Not until you tell us the truth,” I responded.
“Hey!” a man yelled, and I turned to see the Vatican police officers who’d swept the courtyard, approaching from Via Sant’Anna.
“You have to go. For your own safety,” Altmer said, as the men started running toward us. “I’ll meet you at the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano tonight at ten. Now go!”
I hesitated.
“Run!”
“Listen to him, Jack,” Faduma implored. “Go! I’ll try and slow them down. Just go!”
I took her advice and started running.
CHAPTER75
I SPRINTED SOUTH, across the courtyard, away from the police officers and through a small parking lot toward a high wall and the San Pellegrino Gate, which opened onto the North Colonnade and St. Peter’s Square. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Faduma intercepting the two Vatican police officers, hands raised, arms outstretched, yelling in Italian. Christian Altmer retreated inside the Vatican Bank Headquarters.
The border officers at the San Pellegrino Gate noticed me, and their colleagues pushed past Faduma and yelled at them in Italian. The gate officers started moving toward me as their colleagues resumed pursuit, so I veered east toward the wall. I jumped onto the hood of a delivery wagon, stepped onto its roof and leapt up to grab the lip of the high wall that marked the perimeter of St. Peter’s Square.
I ran along the top, ignoring the shouts of my pursuers, andclambered onto a battlement, before jumping down into a concrete yard on the other side.
My path was blocked by high walls that ran around three sides of the 20-by-60-foot paved yard. The fourth side was occupied by a building. It looked like some kind of residence. I saw what had to be the back entrance a few yards away from me. I ran over to it and peered through the partly glazed door to see a corridor that connected the rear entrance to the front of the house. On the other side of the far door was Via Sant’Anna.
I tried the black iron handle and was surprised when it gave under my touch. Inside four interior doors led off the central corridor: a well-equipped kitchen, dining room with twelve tables, sitting room with lots of couches, and a library well stocked with books. To my left the staircase wall was lined with photographs of former pontiffs.
I was almost at the front door when I glanced over my shoulder and saw three Vatican police officers sprint into view in the yard. Their leader was a forty-something man with gray hair and hungry eyes. He caught sight of me through the door.
He yelled a command.
I swerved left and sprinted upstairs as the cops ran into the corridor behind me. More shouts, which I ignored.
