The pilot argued, ‘Well, I have a job, too. And it’s impossible to do it in these conditions. I’m setting her down now!’
‘If you do, I swear to God I’ll have your ass.’ The intensity of his glare proved that he was serious. He was willing to do anything to complete his mission. Anything. There was simply too much at stake. ‘Give me five more minutes, and this will all be over.’
11
Piazza Risorgimento,
Rome, Italy
(fifty meters from Vatican City)
Buses filled with foreigners rumbled past him on their way to the main gate of the Holy City. People with cameras and unruly children strolled by his bench completely ignorant of who he was or why he was there. Their sole focus was on Saint Peter’s Square and the Sistine Chapel and all the glorious artifacts in the Vatican museum, not the old man in the expensive suit or the two bodyguards who stood behind him.
Of course that was the reason that he liked to come here, the perverse amusement he got from watching so many people shell out their hard-earned cash for guidebooks and private tours. Meanwhile he sat on his bench knowing the vast majority of the Vatican’s treasure lay hidden underneath the streets that they were walking on, everything protected in hermetic vaults that made Fort Knox look like a piggy bank. He smiled, realizing that none of them, no matter who they were or how much money they had, would ever see the treasures that he saw every day.
The contents of Archivio Segreto Vaticano. The Vatican Secret Archives.
Benito Pelati’s official title was the minister of antiquities, a job he’d held for over three decades. Unofficially he was known throughout Italy as the godfather of archaeology, for he vowed to protect every relic found on Italian soil, even if that meant breaking a few laws in the process. Some critics looked down on him for his questionable methods, especially in the early years when he just started building his violent reputation. But the Vatican never did. They knew a man with his talents would be invaluable. Not only his academic knowledge but his willingness to do whatever he needed to get results.
Every organization, even one as sanctimonious as the Church, can use men like that.
Still, in the beginning it was Benito’s expertise in the world of art, not his brutality, that got him noticed. Cardinal Pietro Bandolfo, the former chair of the Vatican’s Supreme Council, was a childhood friend of Benito’s and his biggest ally. Bandolfo understood politics better than his fellow cardinals and assured the Vatican the only way to protect its place in the modern world was to join hands with Benito, someone trained outside of the Church. Someone who could update their antiquated system. Someone who wasn’t encumbered by papal law. Eventually, the Vatican agreed, and Benito was hired to update their way of doing things.
And his first project was organizing their most valuable asset: the Secret Archives.
Benito ran his fingers through his slicked-back gray hair and remembered the first day he was taken through the vaults. What an honor it was. Less than thirty men were privy to the contents of the Vatican’s collections: the facility’s curators, senior members of the Sacred Congregation of Cardinals, and the Curia. All of them devout Catholics who had dedicated their lives to God and were an established part of the Church. But not Benito. He was the first outsider to be given unlimited access to the vaults. Ever. And the experience made him tremble. Never before had he seen so many beautiful things in one place. Paintings, statues, and treasures filled room after room. Plus more than forty miles of shelves that held nothing but written documents: scrolls, parchments, and stone tablets for as far as the eye could see.
Unfortunately, once he got past all the beauty and started thinking about his job, he realized the Archives’ filing system was a mess. Computers were still on the distant horizon, so everything in the vaults had been logged into card catalogs similar to those in a public library. Cards that could be moved, lost, or stolen. Adding to Benito’s confusion were the curators themselves. Over the centuries the men in charge of the Archives had different preferences for recording their data. Some logged artifacts by year, others by country, others by theme. And one curator used a system Benito couldn’t even interpret. To him it was amazing. He was staring at the most valuable collection in the world, yet one that was in complete disarray.
However, he was thrilled by the chaos. Not only because he had the honor of placing everything where he thought it belonged, but because he realized if the curators themselves didn’t know what they had in the vaults, then neither did the Vatican. And if that was the case, there was no telling what he might find as he dug deeper into the bowels of the Church.