What caliber was the round?
Forehead or temple?
One shot had enough stopping power?
But when Leo explains who the guests are, everything changes.
“You’re the one whose apartment got robbed?” one of the men says to me excitedly.
I begin to see how these stories will spread through the Vatican village. My first instinct is that this is dangerous for Simon. Secretariat men must avoid scandal.
“Have the gendarmes caught anyone?” I ask.
There’s confusion about which event I am referring to, until Leo says, “Not for either one.”
“Did any of my neighbors see anything?”
Leo shakes his head.
Ugo’s murder, however, is what captivates these boys.
“I heard they wouldn’t let anyone see the body,” one cadet says.
Another man adds, “I heard there was something wrong with it. Something about his hands or feet.”
They’re mistaken. I saw Ugo’s body with my own eyes. Yet before I can speak, other men make callous jokes about stigmata. Simon thumps a fist on the table and growls, “Enough!”
The silence is instant. He is the sum of authority in their world—tall, commanding, priestly. At thirty-three years old, I realize, he may also seem old.
“Do they know how someone could’ve gotten into the gardens?” I ask.
The men twitter like birds on a wire. The consensus: no.
“So nobody saw anything?” I press.
At last it’s Leo who speaks up. “I saw something.”
The table grows hushed.
“Last week,” he says, “when I was running third shift at Saint Anne’s, a vehicle pulled up to request entry.”
Saint Anne’s is the gate beside this barracks. Swiss Guards are posted there at all hours to check incoming vehicles from Rome. During third shift, though, the border gates are closed. No one is allowed into our country at night.
“It’s oh-three-hundred,” Leo continues, “and a cargo truck starts flashing its lights at me. I wave it off, but the driver steps out.”
The men grimace. This isn’t the protocol. Drivers must lower their windows and display their IDs.
“I approach,” Leo goes on, “with Vice Corporal Frei in a supporting position. The driver has an Italian license. Lo and behold, he also has a permission of entry. Guess whose signature is on this permission.”
He waits. These men are still young enough to be thrilled by the possibilities.
“It was signed,” Leo says, “by Archbishop Nowak.”
There are whistles. Antoni Nowak is the highest-ranking priest-secretary in the world. The right-hand man of Pope John Paul.
“I tell Vice Corporal Frei to call upstairs,” Leo continues, “to confirm the signature. Meanwhile, I have a look in the truck bed.” He leans forward. “And there’s a coffin back there. With a sheet covering it, and Latin words written on top. Don’t ask me what they say. But under the sheet is a big metal casket. And I mean big.”
All around the table, the halberdiers cross themselves. Every man in this barracks, hearing of a metal casket, shares the same thought. When a pope dies, he’s buried in a triple coffin. The first is cypress, the last is oak. But the middle one is made of lead.