Adrian D'Hage - The Omega scroll

Roma

T he Cardinal Secretary of State to the Vatican stood at his second-floor window in the Apostolic Palace and stared out over the Piazza San Pietro. Cardinal Lorenzo Petroni had two things on his mind. Of the two, the Pope’s failing health was perhaps the more urgent but the woman was now by far the more dangerous.

The most powerful cardinal in the Catholic Church was tall and thin and cut an elegant but formidable figure. His soutane, edged in scarlet, was immaculate. A pale angular face with features at once delicate and steely; eyes blue and piercing. His fine black hair streaked with distinguished grey.

Below him the early dusk of winter had already enveloped the great square of St Peter’s, and although the rain had stopped the cobblestones were still wet, glistening in the soft reflected light from the Vatican buildings. A lone scrap of paper bowled across the now deserted piazza, disappearing into the surrounds of Bernini’s Colonnade, the wind growling around the columns as it had for over three hundred years.

Slowly and deliberately, Lorenzo Petroni paced the spacious office afforded the Secretary of State, the deep pile of the royal blue carpet soft under the Italian leather of his shoes. At one end of the room were three crimson couches; at the opposite end, two large French-polished desks. One was almost obscured by piles of dispatches. The other, his working desk, was clear save for a black marble cross. On the wall behind, Perugino’s Saint Benedict kept watch. As he often did, Petroni reflected on how close he was to absolute power, yet that power had become frustratingly elusive. Next month would mark his fifteenth year as Cardinal Secretary of State, a position which was second only to the Pope. Petroni had regained control of the Vatican Bank and the Church’s vast international financial holdings, but for a long time the Keys to Peter had seemed unattainable. The Pope’s reign seemed endless. Now the Pope’s ill health provided a rare opening. A quiet, persistent buzzing on his private line interrupted the Cardinal’s thoughts.

‘Petroni.’

‘One moment, Eminence, Father Jean-Pierre La Franci is calling.’ Petroni’s lips tightened. The Director of L’Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem had been instructed never to contact him at the Vatican unless it was a matter of the utmost urgency. The phone crackled and the Director came on the line.

‘ Buonasera, Eminence.’

‘ Buonasera, Jean-Pierre. How can I help?’ Long years of diplomatic training kept Petroni’s irritation in check.

‘I am sorry to trouble you, Eminence, but there has been a development that I think you should be aware of.’

‘And that is?’

‘The information has not been confirmed, but I have a contact in one of the Hebrew University laboratories here and we suspect that a substantial number of Dead Sea Scroll fragments have been subjected to DNA and carbon dating analysis.’

‘Where did these fragments come from?’ Petroni’s voice was suddenly sharp.

‘That’s the puzzling part, Eminence. None of our fragments are missing. It is presumably a new find, but my sources are very good.’

‘And?’ Petroni demanded.

‘We suspect that the DNA analysis may enable the fragments to be separated and pieced together into separate scrolls. One of them may be either the original or another copy of the Omega Scroll.’

Petroni felt the blood drain from his face.

The Omega Scroll. Petroni knew only too well that there were just three in existence; the original and two copies. In 1978 one of the copies had surfaced on the black market and for the exorbitant sum of US ten million dollars, Lorenzo Petroni, then a powerful Archbishop in the Vatican in control of the Vatican Bank, had arranged for its purchase. Pope John Paul I had seen a report on it, but he was now dead and that copy of the Omega Scroll was buried deep within the Vatican’s Secret Archives.

This had to be the original, Petroni thought. The second copy had come to light only a few months ago when a Turkish dealer on the black market had offered it to Monsignor Lonergan, Petroni’s man in Jerusalem. Petroni had made sure of its purchase, this time for fifty million dollars. It was also safe and secure in the Secret Archives.

‘Do we know who commissioned this analysis?’ Petroni already had strong suspicions but he needed positive verification.

‘Dr Allegra Bassetti, Eminence.’

At the confirmation of the woman’s name Lorenzo Petroni’s anger was palpable and his grip tightened on the receiver.

‘I want a full report in the black bag tomorrow.’

‘Yes, of course, Eminence.’ Father La Franci was wasting his breath. The line was dead.

The Cardinal Secretary of State stared out over the Piazza San Pietro for a long time. The Keys to Peter were dangling tantalisingly within his grasp and Petroni needed to maintain his control. Desperation was never far from the surface of his calm and powerful demeanour. At the moment two other issues were swirling around him and either one could bring him down. Cardinal Giovanni Donelli, the Patriarch of Venice, had started an investigation into the activities of the Vatican Bank in his diocese of the Veneto. Petroni knew that any investigation into the Vatican Bank would finish him and although he had been told it would be difficult, the ‘Italian Solution’ had been arranged. Cardinal Donelli would be meeting with an unfortunate accident. Petroni had also discovered that a journalist from CCN, Tom Schweiker, was investigating his past. If he got too close to the truth Schweiker would also be dealt with. Now there was an even more threatening issue: the woman and the Omega Scroll.

The Omega Scroll contained three coded messages that had the power to change the world. Petroni allowed himself a rare feeling of satisfaction. An American scholar had unravelled the first of them and although the coded numbers posed a critical threat to the Vatican, so far no one had taken much notice.

The second message had almost surfaced by accident. In 1973, Francis Crick, the discoverer of the molecular structure of DNA, published his extraordinary findings on where DNA had originated. In doing so, the Nobel Laureate had come perilously close to revealing the second of the crucial secrets of the scroll. It hadn’t been easy to dismiss the brilliant biologist as a fruitcake, but Petroni had personally directed the campaign to discredit him and a sceptical media had done the rest. In the 1980s the threat had reappeared. Professor Antonio Rosselli at Milano’s Ca’ Granda University had revitalised the investigation into Crick’s theory surrounding the source of DNA. Petroni had placed the Professor under surveillance.

The final message, and Petroni believed he alone knew the exact contents of the scroll, contained a crucial warning of an apocalyptic disaster that was about to befall mankind. Petroni knew that the pointers in the Middle East were already in place, but for Cardinal Petroni, the countdown to the annihilation of civilisation was secondary. He was far more concerned with the Omega Scroll’s first two messages. Messages that directly threatened his own power and that of the Holy Church. Petroni had been startled when an Israeli mathematician, Professor Yossi Kaufmann, revealed that he had discovered hidden codes in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As he had done with Professor Rosselli, Petroni had immediately placed Professor Kaufmann under surveillance. Like the ill-fated discoveries of the pyramids, it seemed that the ancient scroll was cursed. Everyone who came in contact with it was in danger.

Events in the Middle East were coming together. Should the Omega Scroll ever become public there would be no doubting its authenticity and the consequences were unthinkable, but a simple purchase of the final, original, copy of the Omega Scroll might no longer be an option. Cardinal Petroni knew that Allegra Bassetti could not be bought. His mind went back to the night in Milano when she had been impertinent enough to raise her interest in the Omega Scroll over dinner. When she had gone to the Middle East, Petroni had her placed under surveillance, just in case. Now Allegra Bassetti would have to be eliminated and the Dead Sea Scroll recovered. Time was running out. The countdown had begun.