The room was large, the tall French doors that looked out onto the Vatican Gardens covered by tasseled silk drapes in dark blue. The furniture consisted of a tall, freestanding armoire for clothing, a desk, a small table and several chairs. The bed was a four-poster fifteenth-century oak monstrosity carved and worked as ornately as a Botticelli masterpiece in gold. The walls were bare white plaster, the ceiling high and crisscrossed with heavy wooden beams as old as the bed.
Except for a simple wooden crucifix on the wall behind him, the only decoration in the room was a large painting by the Renaissance artist Benozzo Gozzoli. The name of the painting was Casting Devils out of Arezzo, which depicted Saint Francis doing an exorcism outside the walls of an Italian city—fitting under the present circumstances, although in this case the city was Havana and the exorcist was certainly no saint.
Spada sighed. A man of his years should be dozing in his country garden listening to the bees hard at work and smelling the ripening grapes on his vines, not contemplating his own descent into Hades for planning the assassination of a foreign head of state while trying to digest his mean and simple breakfast. He rang the small silver bell on his lap table and waited.
A few seconds later his steward, Mario, appeared, a dour-looking man in his sixties wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and a dark tie. The steward approached Spada, nodded briefly and removed the table from Spada’s lap. Spada pulled the lapels of his jade green silk dressing gown a little more tightly across his chest and pulled the light duvet a little higher above his waist. Mario waited patiently while the cardinal adjusted his bedclothes.
“Send him in,” said Spada. Mario nodded and turned away. Like most of the Holy Father’s servants, Mario was a member of Memores Domini, a lay brotherhood dedicated to a life of obedience, celibacy, silence and contemplative prayer. It wasn’t common knowledge but members of Memores Domini who served in the Vatican were chosen for their below-average IQs, their illiteracy and their unwavering loyalty. It was the same qualities that convents looked for in their acolytes. You didn’t want nuns who gossiped and thought for themselves; you wanted nuns who would work and do what they were told.
Brennan entered the room. “Your Eminence,” he said, after closing the heavy door behind him.
“Sit,” said the cardinal.
Brennan pulled a chair away from the desk and brought it closer to the bed. He sat. Spada smiled. Brennan was a boor but he wasn’t a complete idiot; he knew better than to light one of his foul-smelling cigarettes in Spada’s private apartments.
“You wish to make a report at this abominably early hour?” Spada asked.
“It’s your friend Musaro,” said the priest.
Spada groaned inwardly; he’d known Musaro since the little upstart from nowhere had been ordained at the cathedral in Otranto and had kept his eyes on the man ever since. Even then he knew that Musaro was dangerous and he’d done what he could over the years to keep the man out of any key positions in the Holy See.
Somehow Musaro had managed to turn what amounted to exile from the halls of power into a career, becoming nuncio, or ambassador, to any number of countries experiencing problems within the Church. Long before anyone else had seen it, Musaro had recognized that Italy wouldn’t rule the Vatican forever and had gathered favors from outside the Vatican for years. Eventually, as both the Polish pope and Ratzinger had proven, the young priest from nowhere was proved to be correct in his judgment.
“Tell me,” said Spada.
“There’s been a lot of back chatter about him in the halls these days. It’s getting louder by the day.”
“Back chatter?”
“Spy talk for gossip, Your Eminence. Cries and whispers, you might say.”
“What kind of gossip?”
“Nothing specific at this point. It’s merely that he’s the subject of a lot of conversations. I’ve had this from a number of sources. He’s like a squirrel gathering nuts for the winter. Calling in favors. In politics it would be called maneuvering for position. In military terms he’s enlisted his forces.”
“Against who?”
“Not quite sure,” mused Brennan. “But a lot of the talk appears to be originating in the college. Your colleagues.”
Spada nodded to himself. It made sense. There was no doubt that the most powerful man in the Vatican after the Holy Father was the secretary of state, but the position of dean of the College of Cardinals was a very close third. It was the dean, after all, who presided over the conclave to elect a new pope, and on a number of occasions—most recently Pope Benedict—the dean was elected to the position himself.
“He wouldn’t be campaigning on his own behalf,” said Spada thoughtfully.
Brennan nodded his agreement. “Not Musaro’s style. He much prefers to be the power behind the throne, not the power sitting on it.”
“Quite so,” said Spada. “Is there any idea who is most favored?”
“Not yet,” said Brennan. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Ortega.”
Spada stared at the rumpled Irish priest seated beside the bed. He felt a chill run down his spine. “That would be insane! There’s far too much scandal attached to him, not to mention our present situation. The Church has enough troubles without a…”
“A poof electing the Holy Father?” Brennan smiled.
“Indeed,” replied Spada, gathering his dressing gown even more tightly around his sunken chest, suddenly embarrassed. The Cuban cardinal archbishop wore jeweled slippers in Havana Cathedral, used perfume, had no one over the age of twenty-five in his household or office and had posed for photo opportunities with Castro wearing a red velvet beret with a gold communist star on the front. Red velvet!
Personally Spada had nothing against gays, but to have such an openly and flamboyantly effeminate man as Ortega in a position of power could be terribly damaging to the Church’s already tattered and battered image.
“On the surface it looks mad, of course,” said Brennan. “But for Musaro it might be an excellent choice. Knowing what he knows would be enough to keep Ortega in line, and with Ortega as dean of the college it might provide Musaro with a way into the Vatican and into another seat of power for himself.”
“Mine,” said Spada, his voice flat. That did make sense. The Holy Father was the voice of God on Earth, but the secretary of state was the stick in His hand. “Are you sure about this information?”
“As I said, it’s only been gossip up to now, but if I was putting money on a pony to come in first at the sweepstakes, that’d be the one I’d choose.”
“If this is what Musaro’s up to, it must be stopped.”
Brennan stood up and Spada smiled briefly; the poor man’s desperate need for nicotine was almost palpable. “If you want it stopped, it only leaves you with one choice, I’m afraid,” said the Irish priest.
“And what choice is that?”
“The choice of which piece you want to have removed from the board: the bishop or the queen.” Brennan smiled at his pun.
“Do you have someone who could complete the task on short notice?”
“Certainly,” said Brennan. A small but vital group within the Vatican intelligence apparatus had been in existence since the middle of the thirteenth century when a French Templar grand master named Guillaume de Sonnac had organized the first secret society of Vatican assassini.
“Let me think about this,” said Spada. “We don’t want to act precipitously.”
“Don’t think too long,” warned Brennan, and with that he nodded, turned on his heel and left the cardinal’s bedroom.