If Tucci wondered how she got as far as she had within the Church, the feeling was mutual. He was boyish by Vatican standards and yet mature enough to sport the smile of a man who experienced enough of life to find it a bad joke. Even his name was ironic, implying he was some indigenous Italian bureaucrat when, in fact, his mother's side of the family came to America on the Mayflower and was Yankee through and through. He came to the Vatican by way of Boston, where he was known as a raucous but brilliant student at Harvard and an even more brilliant priest and professor of American history at Boston College. He had risen very far in Rome, very fast.
Even now, as she awaited a response, Serena couldn't help noticing, with some envy, the medallion that Tucci wore around his neck. In its center was an ancient Roman coin, a silver denarius with the image of the emperor Tiberius. Legend had it that this coin was the very "Tribute Penny" Jesus held up when he told his followers that they should "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." It had been passed down through the ages, from one leader of the Dei to the next. Some argued it represented power greater than the papacy.
"The L'Enfant Confession?" Tucci repeated, as if he had never heard of it.
Serena said, "The deathbed confession of Pierre L'Enfant, the original architect of Washington, D.C., to John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop of North America."
Tucci looked mystified. "What exactly did Pierre L'Enfant confess?"
"Something to the effect that the major terrestrial monuments of America's capital city are aligned like a map to the stars, as are Egypt's pyramids and South America's Way of the Dead," she said.
"What do you mean the monuments are aligned like a map?"
She showed him a digital photo of General Yeats's tombstone at Arlington, of the side with the four astrological symbols. "These are the zodiac signs for the sun and the constellations Bootes, Virgo, and Leo. Each celestial coordinate has a terrestrial counterpart in the city of Washington, D.C."
"And you're telling me that George Washington had L'Enfant use these constellations to anchor America's capital city?" He inflected his voice in a tone to hint at just how ridiculous and a waste of time the idea was. He glanced at the antique clock on the wall to underscore his displeasure.
"Yes," she said without flinching. "And we can follow those monuments that correspond to the stars like a treasure map."
"And where does this heavenly treasure trail lead?"
"To a specific place beneath the National Mall, or perhaps even a specific date in America's future," she said. "I was hoping you could tell me."
"My forte is American history and cartography, Sister Serghetti, not eschatology," Tucci said, amused. "But, as a historian, I know that Pierre L'Enfant was a Freemason. And I don't have to refer to my Freemasons for Dummies book to tell you that his secret society-like all those who seek the light of God outside of the Holy Church-has had a long and tortured history with us. So you'll have to forgive my skepticism when I ask you why on earth would L'Enfant confess anything to a Catholic priest, let alone Archbishop John Carroll, about this alleged secret geography of the American capital?"
"You mean why under the earth," Serena said, confident that Tucci knew full well what she was about to say. That's why she had come to him in the first place. "It was Daniel Carroll, the Archbishop's brother, who owned Capitol Hill and sold it to Washington. All that land, by the way, once belonged to a Catholic named Francis Pope who called it Rome."
Tucci tapped two fingers to his lips as he looked at her thoughtfully. Finally, he cleared his throat and sat back in his chair.
"There is no L'Enfant Confession, Sister Serghetti," he said. "Never was."
"Like the Alignment?" she asked.
Tucci frowned, aware that she had him there. After all, the sole reason his own group Dominus Dei still existed was allegedly to fight the Alignment threat to the Church. Without the Alignment-fact or fiction-there could be no funding, no foot soldiers for Tucci's order coming from the pope.
"The Alignment is simply an umbrella term for all secret societies aligned against the Church and operating in the shadows of power around the world," Tucci said. "Don't tell me you sincerely believe it's an actual group of warriors who trace their ancient knowledge to the survivors of Atlantis and use the stars to control world events to their own ultimate agenda? Please."
"I didn't until now," she said. "But George Washington was a Mason. As was his chief architect, Pierre L'Enfant. As were fifty of the fifty-six signers of the American Declaration of Independence. Perhaps you could humor me and tell me what link the Masons have to the Alignment-if the Alignment were, in fact, an actual group."
"Why, the Knights Templar, of course," Tucci said, obliging her with a conspiratorial smile.
Tucci was referring to a tiny band of nine French Crusaders at the end of the first millennium who for nine years protected pilgrims visiting Jerusalem. Legend, Serena knew, suggested they were really searching for some priceless relic like the Holy Grail or a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Whatever it was, they apparently found it, because the Knights Templar over the next two centuries exploded in membership and money among Europe's nobility. The Church, threatened by the power and influence of its holy defenders, suddenly and expediently decided that the Knights Templar were conspiring to destroy it, and in 1307 launched a seven-year war that ended with the Grand Master of the Knights Templar being burned at the stake.
It was only last year, seven hundred years too late, that the Vatican issued a formal apology for its persecution, and Serena knew that Tucci was that apology's key architect.
Serena said, "I thought the Church, through Dominus Dei, took care of the Knights Templar centuries ago."
"Not quite," said Tucci. "A few Knights escaped to Britain and formed a new network called Freemasonry, once again hijacking another society, this one formed of the builders and bricklayers of the great cathedrals and palaces of Europe. It was only a matter of time before the Masons came to America, penetrated its elites like George Washington, and used their influence to establish a new country and, they hoped, a new world order."
"So do you still consider the Masons to be a threat to the Church?"
"Hardly," Tucci said. "The Alignment long ago left the Masons, having moved on to controlling U.S. policy through the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and your friends at the United Nations."
There was a twinkle in Tucci's eyes, a glimmer of triumph that he had succeeded in utterly humiliating her for her gullibility and in drawing their little meeting to a resounding close.
"We could go on all day about this, Sister Serghetti," Tucci said. "But like I told you, there is no such thing as the L'Enfant Confession. It's a myth."
"So is this," she said and produced the map Conrad gave her.
Tucci bolted upright as she unfolded it on his desk. "Where did you get this?"
"From Stargazer," she said, and watched a flicker of recognition at the code name registered in Tucci's horrified eyes.
"Conrad Yeats," he muttered, putting his knowledge of her long-standing and controversial relationship with Conrad together with his knowledge of the Yeats family's long-standing history in American politics and the Masons. "Yeats is Stargazer. But, of course. I should have known."
"What matters is that it's the genuine article," Serena said, sensing she was on the verge of getting more out of this meeting with Tucci than she ever imagined.
Tucci grabbed a magnifier and leaned over the map. The upper left corner had the word WASHINGTONOPLE, the original name for George Washington's namesake city.
"Mother of God!" Tucci exclaimed, truly awed.
He then passed the magnifier over the city radiants. The ornate, crown-like seal with the initials TB must have jumped into view, because he snapped his head back in wonder.