The camerlegno saw the horror in Mortati's eyes and again felt confused. Was it the morphine? Mortati was looking at him as if the camerlegno himself had killed these men with his bare hands. I would do even that for God, the camerlegno thought, and yet he had not. The deeds had been carried out by the Hassassin - a heathen soul tricked into thinking he was doing the work of the Illuminati. I am Janus, the camerlegno had told him. I will prove my power. And he had. The Hassassin's hatred had made him God's pawn.
"Listen to the singing," the camerlegno said, smiling, his own heart rejoicing. "Nothing unites hearts like the presence of evil. Burn a church and the community rises up, holding hands, singing hymns of defiance as they rebuild. Look how they flock tonight. Fear has brought them home. Forge modern demons for modern man. Apathy is dead. Show them the face of evil - Satanists lurking among us - running our governments, our banks, our schools, threatening to obliterate the very House of God with their misguided science. Depravity runs deep. Man must be vigilant. Seek the goodness. Become the goodness!"
In the silence, the camerlegno hoped they now understood. The Illuminati had not resurfaced. The Illuminati were long deceased. Only their myth was alive. The camerlegno had resurrected the Illuminati as a reminder. Those who knew the Illuminati history relived their evil. Those who did not, had learned of it and were amazed how blind they had been. The ancient demons had been resurrected to awaken an indifferent world.
"But... the brands?" Mortati's voice was stiff with outrage.
The camerlegno did not answer. Mortati had no way of knowing, but the brands had been confiscated by the Vatican over a century ago. They had been locked away, forgotten and dust covered, in the Papal Vault - the Pope's private reliquary, deep within his Borgia apartments. The Papal Vault contained those items the church deemed too dangerous for anyone's eyes except the Pope's.
Why did they hide that which inspired fear? Fear brought people to God!
The vault's key was passed down from Pope to Pope. Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca had purloined the key and ventured inside; the myth of what the vault contained was bewitching - the original manuscript for the fourteen unpublished books of the Bible known as the Apocrypha, the third prophecy of Fatima, the first two having come true and the third so terrifying the church would never reveal it. In addition to these, the camerlegno had found the Illuminati Collection - all the secrets the church had uncovered after banishing the group from Rome... their contemptible Path of Illumination... the cunning deceit of the Vatican's head artist, Bernini... Europe's top scientists mocking religion as they secretly assembled in the Vatican's own Castle St. Angelo. The collection included a pentagon box containing iron brands, one of them the mythical Illuminati Diamond. This was a part of Vatican history the ancients thought best forgotten. The camerlegno, however, had disagreed.
"But the antimatter..." Vittoria demanded. "You risked destroying the Vatican!"
"There is no risk when God is at your side," the camerlegno said. "This cause was His."
"You're insane!" she seethed.
"Millions were saved."
"People were killed!"
"Souls were saved."
"Tell that to my father and Max Kohler!"
"CERN's arrogance needed to be revealed. A droplet of liquid that can vaporize a half mile? And you call me mad?" The camerlegno felt a rage rising in him. Did they think his was a simple charge? "Those who believe undergo great tests for God! God asked Abraham to sacrifice his child! God commanded Jesus to endure crucifixion! And so we hang the symbol of the crucifix before our eyes - bloody, painful, agonizing - to remind us of evil's power! To keep our hearts vigilant! The scars on Jesus' body are a living reminder of the powers of darkness! My scars are a living reminder! Evil lives, but the power of God will overcome!"
His shouts echoed off the back wall of the Sistine Chapel and then a profound silence fell. Time seemed to stop. Michelangelo's Last Judgment rose ominously behind him... Jesus casting sinners into hell. Tears brimmed in Mortati's eyes.
"What have you done, Carlo?" Mortati asked in a whisper. He closed his eyes, and a tear rolled. "His Holiness?"
A collective sigh of pain went up, as if everyone in the room had forgotten until that very moment. The Pope. Poisoned.
"A vile liar," the camerlegno said.
Mortati looked shattered. "What do you mean? He was honest! He... loved you."
"And I him." Oh, how I loved him! But the deceit! The broken vows to God!
The camerlegno knew they did not understand right now, but they would. When he told them, they would see! His Holiness was the most nefarious deceiver the church had ever seen. The camerlegno still remembered that terrible night. He had returned from his trip to CERN with news of Vetra's Genesis and of antimatter's horrific power. The camerlegno was certain the Pope would see the perils, but the Holy Father saw only hope in Vetra's breakthrough. He even suggested the Vatican fund Vetra's work as a gesture of goodwill toward spiritually based scientific research.
Madness! The church investing in research that threatened to make the church obsolete? Work that spawned weapons of mass destruction? The bomb that had killed his mother...
"But... you can't!" the camerlegno had exclaimed.
"I owe a deep debt to science," the Pope had replied. "Something I have hidden my entire life. Science gave me a gift when I was a young man. A gift I have never forgotten."
"I don't understand. What does science have to offer a man of God?"
"It is complicated," the Pope had said. "I will need time to make you understand. But first, there is a simple fact about me that you must know. I have kept it hidden all these years. I believe it is time I told you."
Then the Pope had told him the astonishing truth.
132
The camerlegno lay curled in a ball on the dirt floor in front of St. Peter's tomb. The Necropolis was cold, but it helped clot the blood flowing from the wounds he had torn at his own flesh. His Holiness would not find him here. Nobody would find him here...
"It is complicated," the Pope's voice echoed in his mind. "I will need time to make you understand..."
But the camerlegno knew no amount of time could make him understand.
Liar! I believed in you! GOD believed in you!
With a single sentence, the Pope had brought the camerlegno's world crashing down around him. Everything the camerlegno had ever believed about his mentor was shattered before his eyes. The truth drilled into the camerlegno's heart with such force that he staggered backward out of the Pope's office and vomited in the hallway.
"Wait!" the Pope had cried, chasing after him. "Please let me explain!"
But the camerlegno ran off. How could His Holiness expect him to endure any more? Oh, the wretched depravity of it! What if someone else found out? Imagine the desecration to the church! Did the Pope's holy vows mean nothing?
The madness came quickly, screaming in his ears, until he awoke before St. Peter's tomb. It was then that God came to him with an awesome fierceness.
Yours is a Vengeful God!
Together, they made their plans. Together they would protect the church. Together they would restore faith to this faithless world. Evil was everywhere. And yet the world had become immune! Together they would unveil the darkness for the world to see... and God would overcome! Horror and Hope. Then the world would believe!
God's first test had been less horrible than the camerlegno imagined. Sneaking into the Papal bed chambers... filling his syringe... covering the deceiver's mouth as his body spasmed into death. In the moonlight, the camerlegno could see in the Pope's wild eyes there was something he wanted to say.