“Just come on.”
We cross half the country until we’re nearly at Saint Anne’s Gate, the border entry from Rome that employees and residents use. Here the papal palace reaches its eastern terminus in the hulking tower of the Vatican Bank, which casts a long shadow at this hour. Just before reaching it, we stop.
Here in the immense defensive wall is one of the strangest spots in our country. Just across the wall is a part of the palace so private that even villagers never see it. Up there, in a private wing, lives John Paul. Any vehicle trying to reach his apartments must enter a guarded gate one-eighth of a mile west of here, pass through tunnels and checkpoints, cross the patrolled cortile of the Secretariat, and enter a private courtyard across from where Leo and I now stand, which is kept behind locked wooden doors. From there, I don’t know the rest of the procedure, since I’ve never even seen the inside of that courtyard. And yet one hundred years ago, part of the Vatican near the palace exit was occupied by enemy soldiers, so Pope Pius X cut a hole right through that courtyard wall, straight down to where Leo and I now stand. Whether he did it to give his palace employees a route home to the village or to give himself a back door into his gardens, I’ve never known, but today that hole is the biggest weakness in the pope’s security bubble. An iron gate has been built inside the tunnel, and pickets of Swiss Guards keep watch there around the clock. It must be one of those guards we’ve come to see.
“This way,” Leo says, waving me up into the tunnel.
It’s dark and cool inside. I peer up the staircase. Silhouettes of four men impress themselves against the grid of the iron gate. Leo reaches out his hand to stop me from taking another step. We wait in the darkness.
Above us, the two pairs of guards are switching places. Second shift is beginning. As the replaced men descend, Leo says, “A word, Corporal Egger?”
Both silhouettes stop. “About what?” says the first sharply.
“This is Father Andreou,” Leo tells him.
A flashlight clicks on. Its beam plays over my face. The silhouette I take to be Corporal Egger turns to Leo and says, “No it’s not.”
In the reflection of the flashlight, I briefly see his face. Now the name registers with me. I realize why Leo has brought me along.
“You’re thinking of my brother,” I say. “Simon. I’m Alex Andreou.”
There’s a long hesitation. “Simon’s your brother?”
Six years ago, when a guard committed suicide in the barracks with his service weapon, Simon volunteered to counsel any other men considered at risk. Egger’s CO identified him. My brother worked with him for more than a year, and according to Leo, Simon is now the only man in this country other than John Paul whom Egger would lift a finger to defend.
“Okay,” Egger says.
His voice is deadpan. The other guards have a clipped, military way of speaking. Egger just sounds vacant.
“Last night,” Leo begins, “a gendarme at the railway service post saw Father Andreou enter a car outside the Governor’s Palace. He says the car drove down toward the basilica. It didn’t turn right toward the gate, so he thinks it went left toward Piazza del Forno.”
This must be the car that drove Simon to house arrest. Leo has been tracking where it took him.
“Captain Lustenberger tells me,” Leo continues, “that you were stationed at first gate last night. Is that right?”
Egger scratches a lump at the corner of his lip and nods.
Leo clears his throat. “So if the car came through Piazza del Forno, and you were at first gate, then it would’ve driven right in front of you.”