Zazo looked at Diaz and placed the tip of the gun under his own chin. He curled his thumb around the trigger. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t leave. This nun, she’s my sister, and I believe in what she says with all my heart. If I can’t save you, I’ll die trying.’
Hackel sat in his favorite chair. The vantage point gave him a simultaneous view of the television and, through his window, the Dome of St Peter’s. That way he’d see the flash twice. He’d hear the explosion twice. He’d feel the percussion ripple through his body once.
The night of the Pope’s death, in the basement of the Sistine Chapel, he had placed his utility bag on one of the simple wooden tables, unzipped it and removed a continuous roll of rubberized sheeting which resembled some kind of building material. Primasheet 2000. An RDX-based plastic explosive, two millimeters thick and with a sticky backing. Military-grade and lethal, particularly within a vaulted space.
The width of the Primasheet had been perfect but it had needed to be cut to the right length and then stuck to the underside of the table. Hackel had plucked a component from a plastic bag and firmly pressed a thumbnail-sized RF microchip into the sheet, firmly anchoring it. He had turned the table back on its feet and inspected the job.
Each of the chips was set to discharge at the same frequency. One switch on a remote detonator would do the job. Over the next hour he had repeated the process 108 times, one for each Cardinal Elector in the Papal Conclave.
They had a man inside the security-contractor company. The Alsatian dog he used for the explosive sweeps wouldn’t have detected Primasheet if it had been crammed up its rear.
Hackel extended the antenna on the Combifire detonator to its full extent.
This is what we do, he thought. This is who we are.
He flipped the on switch and pushed the red detonate button.
The high windows of the Sistine Chapel were the first to go.
They blew out in an orange flash, the old glass fragmenting into millions of shards.
Then the shock wave took the ceiling.
The brightly painted frescoes which had taken Michelangelo four years to paint, vaporized in an instant into a fine, colorful mist.
The vault of the Chapel came down in great chunks, burying everything beneath under tons of ugly grey rubble. A vast cloud of smoke rose over St Peter’s Square, blotting out what was left of the sun and turning day into night.
THIRTY-TWO
THE BLAST CAUGHT Zazo like a train hurtling through the Sala Regia, pushing him through the Pauline Door well into the Palace. Because he was the last one out he took the hardest hit but some of the cardinals closest to the explosion were toppled like bowling pins.
Concussed and unconscious, he missed the immediate aftermath of ambulances and first responders. Loreti and Sonnenberg immediately activated a disaster plan called Code Citadel which summoned the full resources of the Italian state. The Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza, the SWAT Team of the Polizia di Stato, and the Carabinieri swarmed through Vatican City and with the assistance of the Vatican Gendarmerie evacuated the traumatized crowds in St Peter’s Square.
Though there were injuries from flying glass and chunks of masonry, most of the casualties came from the subsequent stampede, though, miraculously, at the end of the day there was not a single fatality. Zazo was among those more seriously hurt. A broken rib lacerated his liver and within an hour he was in an operating theater undergoing abdominal surgery. In an adjoining suite, Glauser was getting his knee reconstructed.
The Swiss Guards closed ranks around the cardinals and those who didn’t require medical triage and hospitalization were bundled onto coaches and brought back to the Domus Sanctae Marthae, which was cordoned off by a ring of armed men. A Polizia di Stato helicopter hovered overhead.
Lorenzo, soot-streaked and shaken, found Loreti and Sonnenberg outside the Domus.
Loreti asked him, ‘You were there. What the hell happened?’
Lorenzo spoke too loudly, a victim of blast-induced hearing loss. ‘Five minutes before the explosion Major Celestino entered the Sala Regia.’
‘He did this?’ Sonnenberg roared. ‘One of your men did this, Loreti?’
‘No, Oberst Sonnenberg,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Major Celestino saved them. He found out about the bomb and forced the cardinals out of the Chapel. They would all have died.’
Major Capozzoli came rushing over and joined them.
‘Where did he get his information?’ Loreti asked. ‘Why didn’t he inform anyone else?’
‘His sister told him.’
‘Who in God’s name is his sister?’ Sonnenberg demanded.
‘She’s a nun.’
Both men stared at him.
‘Look, I don’t know the details,’ Lorenzo said, ‘but she was right. Zazo told me that Matthias Hackel was involved.’
‘Hackel!’ Sonnenberg cried. ‘You’re insane.’
‘Where is Hackel?’ Loreti asked.
Sonnenberg tried hailing Hackel on his radio but got no reply.
‘The last time I saw him he was here at the Domus,’ Capozzoli said. ‘It was about forty minutes before the blast.’
‘Why was he here?’ Loreti asked.
‘He said he wanted to check on Cardinal Giaccone.’
‘Christ!’ Loreti said. ‘Let’s get up there. Cappy, come with me. Lorenzo, take some men and look for Hackel. Check everywhere. Check his residence.’
Loreti, Capozzoli and Sonnenberg stood outside Room 202.
Loreti knocked.
There was no answer.
‘Cardinal Giaccone?’ he yelled. ‘Open it,’ he said to Capozzoli.
Capozzoli had a pass key. The small room was empty, the bed made. Giaccone’s robes were neatly laid out on the bedspread.
The bathroom door was closed and they heard a shower running.
‘Hello?’ Sonnenberg called out.
There was nothing but the sound of water.
Sonnenberg tried again, louder. ‘Hello?’
The water stopped and a moment later the doorknob turned. ‘Hackel? Is that you?’
Giaccone opened the bathroom door, fat, naked and dripping wet.
At the sight of the three men in his room he tried to shut the door again but Capozzoli stuck his foot against the jamb, then threw the door open.
‘You were expecting Oberstleutnant Hackel?’ Loreti asked. ‘Why? Come out and speak with us. Do you know what has happened?’
Giaccone said nothing.
He rushed forward like a small pink bull, tripping up Sonnenberg who fell unceremoniously on his backside.
Giaccone reached for something on the desk, under his red hat. When he turned they saw it.
He had a dangling pink tail.
They hardly noticed the small silver pistol in his hand.
But he pressed it to his temple, shouted, ‘I am Petrus Romanus!’ and pulled the trigger.
Lorenzo forced the lock of Hackel’s flat and burst inside.
The men swept through. It was empty.
‘Search the place,’ Lorenzo ordered. ‘Put on your gloves. Treat it as a crime scene.’
It was a small flat and meticulously tidy, which made it easy to sort through Hackel’s possessions and papers.
Among his household bills was a very non-domestic account that stood out: an invoice to a Geneva-based mining corporation, which would prove to be a shell outfit with a fake import license. It was from a US company, EBA&D, for a roll of flexible RDX explosive, Primasheet 2000.
They had their man.
Now they needed a motive.
Cardinals Diaz, Aspromonte and Franconi huddled together in a corner of the chapel on the ground floor of the Domus. Their cassocks were soiled and their faces were still grimy but they were unhurt.
‘Did you see his body?’ Franconi asked.