Michael Dibdin - Cabal

The sun was hidden behind a skin of cloud which diffused its light evenly across the flat roof. The Ministry’s complex system of transmitting and receiving aerials, towering above like ship’s rigging, increased Zen’s sense of detachment from the mundane realities of life in the invisible streets far below. The train which had carried him back to Italy that morning consisted of four empty wagons which had discharged their duty-free imports and one flat-bed laden with the mosaics which were the Vatican’s only material export. Zen had looked back from the cab of the superannuated green-and-brown diesel locomotive at the massive iron gates closing behind the train, just as all the Vatican gates still did at midnight, sealing off the one-hundred-acre City State from its encircling secular neighbour. The complexities of the relationship between the two were something that Zen was only beginning to appreciate now that he found himself trapped between them like a speck of grit caught in the bearings of power.

Despite his promise to Sanchez-Valdes, he had every intention of filing a full report on the Ruspanti affair. The first rule of survival in any organization is ‘Cover thyself.’ No matter that Moscati had told Zen that he was on his own, that it was between him and the Vatican, that the Ministry didn’t want to know. None of that would save Zen if — or, as now seemed almost inevitable, when — the tortuous and murky ramifications of the Ruspanti affair turned into a major political scandal. If Zen failed to keep the Ministry fully briefed, this would either be ascribed to devious personal motives or to twitchings on the strings by which one of the interested parties controlled him. Either way, his position would be untenable. A man as sophisticated as Sanchez-Valdes must have known this, so Zen assumed that the real purpose of that ‘walk in the woods’ had been to pass on information which the Curia could not release officially, to smuggle a message out of the Vatican in much the same way as Zen himself. It was now up to Zen to make sure that the message got through.

Under normal circumstances, his section chief would have been the person to go to, but after hearing Tania recount Moscati’s gloating remarks about their relationship Zen didn’t trust himself to handle the conversation with the necessary professional reserve. Then he recalled something that Moscati had said when they had spoken on the phone the previous morning. ‘Result, the Minister finds himself in the hot seat just as the entire government is about to go into the blender and he had his eye on some nice fat portfolio like Finance.’ So the Minister was not only aware of Zen’s gaffe, but had been politically embarrassed by criticism from the ‘blue-bloods at the Farnesina’, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who would have sustained the full wrath of the Apostolic Nuncio. By the time the Vatican goods train drew into the station of San Pietro F.S., Zen had decided that this was a case for going straight to the top. That way, when the lies and obfuscations started, he would at least know their source. He would speak to the Minister personally, tell him what had happened and what Archbishop Sanchez-Valdes had said. Then, later, he would write up a full report of the incident (with an editorial slant favourable to him, naturally) to be filed in the Ministerial database as permanent proof, dated and signed, that he had fulfilled his duties.

Until recently, San Pietro had been a little-used suburban halt on an antediluvian branch line to Viterbo. All that had changed with the decision to upgrade part of the route as a link between Stazione Termini and the new high speed direttissima line to Florence. As a result, the tunnel under the Gianicolo hill had been reconstructed and the station remodelled in the latest colour-coordinated Eurostyle. The local services hadn’t improved, however, so Zen walked out of the station and took the 62 bus across town, slipping into the Ministry through a side entrance to elude any reporters who might be around. Now, watching the tennis players swooping and reaching in the mild sunlight, that interlude seemed to him like a brief dip into the polluted and treacherous waters separating the verdant isle of the Vatican City State from this stately cruise liner where the Minister and his opponent were disporting themselves. Gino was an under-secretary in the Ministry of Health, which occupied the other half of the huge building on the Viminal hill. To satisfy the elaborate formulas of the manuale Cencelli, by which positions of power are distributed amongst the various political parties, this post had been allocated to a member of the moribund Liberal Party, while Rodolfo was a well-known figure on the Andreotti wing of the Christian Democrats. But although they were nominally political rivals, the contest that the two men were currently engaged in was infinitely more keenly fought than any which was ever allowed to disrupt the stifling calm in which the country’s nomenclatura basked and grew fat.

‘Game, set and match!’ called the Minister as the ball scudded off the asphalt out of reach of Gino’s racket.

‘Lucky bounce, Rodolfo.’

‘ Balle, my friend. You have just been outplayed physically and intellectually. My own surprise is that you still haven’t learned to lose with grace. After all, it’s all your party has been able to do for the last thirty years.’

He strode over to Zen, his skin gleaming with perspiration and flushed with victory. The Minister’s even, rounded features expressed an image of sensitivity and culture that was fatally undermined by the mouth, a cramped slot which might have been the result of plastic surgery.

‘You wanted to see me?’

Zen assumed his most respectful demeanour.

‘Yes, sir. I have a message for you.’

The Minister laughed shortly.

‘The problem of overmanning must be even more dire than I’d imagined if we’re using senior Criminalpol officials as messengers.’

He turned back to his opponent.

‘Consolation prize, Gino! You get to have first go in the shower while I see what this fellow wants.’

Rubbing his head vigorously with a towel, the Minister led the way down a short flight of stairs into his suite on the top floor of the building and threw himself down on a black leather sofa. Zen remained standing.

‘It’s about the Ruspanti case,’ he said hesitantly.

He expected some furious response, threats or insults, demands for apologies and explanations. The Minister merely stared up at him slightly more intently.

‘I’m sorry if… I mean, I understand that there were some… That’s to say…’

Zen broke off, disconcerted. He belatedly realized that he had allowed himself to be tricked into the elementary blunder of implying that what underlings like him did or failed to do could seriously affect anyone other than themselves. Moscati’s phrase about the Minister finding himself ‘in the hot seat’ as a result of Zen’s mishandling of the Ruspanti affair was pure hyperbole. Politicians could no more be brought down by such things than a ship could be capsized by the actions of fish on the ocean bed. It was the weather on the surface, in the political world itself, that would determine the Minister’s career prospects. Judging by his manner, the forecast was good.

‘I don’t want to rush you, er… what did you say your name was?’ he grunted, getting to his feet, ‘but if you have a message for me, perhaps you could deliver it without too much further delay. I have to see the Prefect of Bari in twenty minutes to discuss the Albanian refugee problem.’

He stretched out full length on the floor and started doing push-ups. Zen took a deep breath.

‘Yes, sir. The fact is, I’ve just returned from the Vatican, where I had an audience of His Excellency Juan Ramon Sanchez-Valdes, First Deputy to the Cardinal Secretary of State. His Excellency gave me to understand that he was entirely satisfied with my, quote, discreet and invaluable intervention, unquote. An official communique to this effect will be forwarded by the Papal Nuncio in due course.’