Mario allowed himself to be led, his legs feeling like jelly beneath him. He collapsed onto the plush couch, his body wracked with sobs. “No, no, no, no, no,” he repeated, his voice a broken whisper. His hands cradled his head as he shook, tears splattering onto the expensive rug beneath him. The reality of his loss was a crushing weight suffocating him.
“Was he your brother?” The fireman’s voice was gentle, his eyes filled with understanding.
Mario could only nod, his throat too tight to form words.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Father,” the fireman said, his voice filled with the practiced sympathy of someone who had delivered this sort of news far too many times.
“Why?” Mario managed to choke out, sitting up and wiping at his tear-streaked face.
“We suspect he died of an overdose. The lab will need to confirm, but he shows all the signs. I’m sorry. These things happen.”
“Wait, but . . . he doesn’t do drugs.” Mario’s tears had stopped, replaced by a chilling resolve. His headache was receding, his mind clearing. He stood, moving past the fireman into Roberto’s office. His eyes scanned the room, looking for anything out of place.
His laptop was open on Roberto’s desk, but the microSD card was missing. A quick search of the desk revealed nothing. Booting up the laptop, Mario was met with a blank screen—all his files had been erased. Roberto’s computer had suffered the same fate. The Vatican had discovered his transgression and were meticulously erasing the evidence he’d collected. His hand instinctively grazed his right thigh, feeling the stitches and the concealed microSD chip within.
They hadn’t found this copy. But if they’d silenced Roberto for knowing too much, then Mario was undoubtedly next on their hit list.
With a newfound sense of urgency pulsing through his veins, he exited the office and strode out the front door to his waiting cab.
“Do you know where the red-light district is?”
“Sì, padre.” The cab executed a swift U-turn in Roberto’s driveway, setting course for the infamous locale. Twenty minutes later, Mario found himself deposited in the heart of Rome’s seedy underbelly.
“I’m sorry about your brother, padre.”
“Thank you. God bless you.”
Even in this part of town, a row of newspaper vending machines lined the sidewalk, offering up Rome’s newspapers, real estate papers, rental guides, and tourist guides. Mario wasn’t one for headlines, but the bold print and catchy phrases designed to lure in passersby managed to catch his attention. Among them was the L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican City’s daily newspaper that reported on the Holy See’s activities as well as international events impacting the Church worldwide.
Mario’s heart skipped a beat as he saw his own face plastered on the front page.
A local priest, recently elevated to a prestigious position within the Vatican, was found in bed with a prostitute . . .
Father Mario Marino has served in the Vatican Secret Archives since February. It is a heartbreaking sight to witness such a revered clergyman’s rapid fall from grace . . .
The image was damning—a snapshot of him naked in bed, his modesty obscured by a blur. The woman from the previous day—the one who had claimed a need to confess her sins—was nestled beside him, her arm draped over his chest, her lips pressed to his skin. This scandalous image would be impossible to justify to Mario’s superiors. A picture spoke a thousand words, regardless of the fact that he’d clearly been unconscious when it was taken.
“How did this happen?” Mario muttered to the newspaper stand. He fed coins into the slot, pulled open the door, and snatched a copy. Unfolding it, he began to read.
“Father? Is that you?” A female passerby who had paused to buy a copy of the same newspaper was glancing from its cover to Mario and noting the striking similarity.
“No, no,” Mario stammered, his words tumbling over each other as he turned tail and hurried away.
The woman watched as he disappeared down the street towards the red-light district. “Such a shame,” she murmured, shaking her head at the sight of the fallen priest.
Mario rounded the corner then paused to read more of the article. A shiver ran down his spine as he absorbed the damning evidence laid out before him. Whatever drug they had administered had completely incapacitated him. He had no memory of the previous day’s events. With his photo splashed across the front page of every Vatican newspaper, there would be no explaining his side of the story to the cardinal—how could he explain something he couldn’t even remember? His body may have been present, as the photos clearly showed, but his mind had been absent. He was at a loss to explain what had happened, or how his image had ended up on the cover of the Vatican newspaper so swiftly.
Despite the historical tales he’d read about Pope Pius XII and World War II, Mario had never imagined the Vatican could operate with such corrupt ruthlessness in the modern era. Yet, who else could have orchestrated the rapid dissemination of such a damning image using the Vatican’s own newspaper as the vehicle?
As he pondered the murder of his best friend, it dawned on him that the Vatican was rapidly tying up loose ends. He was next. His only hope was to find the woman in the scandalous photograph. She was the only potential eyewitness who could explain what had really happened.
He navigated the streets, a shadowy jungle even in the morning that pulsated with the undercurrents of the previous night’s illicit activities, its stench thick with a mix of cheap perfume and lingering desperation. Mario spotted two women, their attire revealing their profession. Approaching them, he interrupted their hushed conversation. “Pardon me, ladies,” he began, holding up the newspaper while strategically concealing his own image. “Do you recognize this woman?”
One of them gasped, her eyes welling up with tears. “Oh my God!”
“What did I say?” Mario asked, taken aback.
“The paramedics . . . they just took her away,” the other woman managed to say, her arms wrapped protectively around her sobbing friend. “They said she OD’d, but we know she’s been clean. Gina was seven-months sober.”
Mario shuddered. The news of another death just hours after his friend’s sent a wave of terror through him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, Father,” the woman replied, her friend still weeping in her arms.
“Could you direct me to Gina’s apartment?” he asked, hoping to find any clues that might help explain this tragedy.
“It’s a few blocks down this street, on the left. Ask around when you get close. Someone will guide you.”
“Thank you. And again, I’m truly sorry for your loss,” Mario said, offering a comforting touch on the woman’s shoulder before he ventured down the street in the direction she’d indicated.
As he walked, a figure in black caught his eye. A man, dressed head to toe in black, was walking away from the direction of Gina’s apartment. Mario’s blood ran cold. He recognized the all-black uniform of the Vatican’s assassins. The cleanup crew was already here.
Mario whirled around, his heart pounding like a drum as he sprinted back the way he’d come.
“Call 1-1-2!” he bellowed at the two women as he dashed past them. One of them fumbled for her phone, her fingers trembling as she dialed the emergency number. The assassin, hearing the command, drew his silenced handgun, his aim deadly accurate. With a single muted shot, he pierced both phone and skull—the hollow point bullet exploded out the other side of the woman’s head in a gruesome spray of blood. Her crying companion screamed, her voice echoing off the buildings before she too fell victim to the assassin’s lethal precision. Their bodies crumpled to the ground, blood pooling around them.
The assassin’s gaze never left the priest, watching as he darted into a dead-end alley. He slowed his pace, a predatory grin spreading across his face. He knew the priest was trapped in there with nowhere to go. The assassin stopped about fifty feet from the entrance to the alley and waited for the inevitable moment when the man’s panic became too much—he’d run for it, try to escape. That was the moment he would end the traitorous priest’s life.
