Jonathan Rabb - The Book of Q

His devastation at hearing of his son had nothing to do with the profligacy of a priest, the corruption of canon law, the depravity of mortal sin. It had to do with a boy, a woman, and a man. And the realization of a life lived in flight.

“You’re not here because you came to help the refugees,” said Mendravic, as if having read his mind.

Pearse slowly turned to him. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you don’t really belong here, do you? The ICMC had no record of you. And the Vatican thought you were in Rome. It looks as if you simply appeared out of nowhere.”

“You contacted Rome?”

“I had to make sure I had the right priest, didn’t I? I wasn’t going to trek halfway across Kosovo for the wrong one.”

It took Pearse several moments to answer. Somehow, the mention of Rome brought him out of himself. He looked at Mendravic. “I have to get to Visegrad.”

The sudden shift caught Mendravic off guard. “What?”

“And then you have to take me to Petra.”

Before Mendravic could answer, Pearse was on his feet. “You’re right. I didn’t come here for the refugees. And I let myself forget that.”

Without waiting, he started down the mountain.

Via Condotti on a summer afternoon is, more often than not, a swirl of wall-to-wall people. The spill of tourists from the Spanish Steps combined with the surge of shoppers on the Corso take it to critical mass at around 4:00 P.M., not the moment to be fighting one’s way toward a building nestled at its midpoint. Poor timing, to be sure, for Arturo Ludovisi, whose plane from Frankfurt had been delayed just long enough so that he now had the pleasure of experiencing Via Condotti at its most lunatic. Still, given the ledgers he had taken with him, he knew it was best to deposit them back in the safe as quickly as possible.

Pressing his way through the crowd, he arrived at the stoop of number 201, a building remarkable for its ordinariness, four floors of gray-black brick squeezed in between two elegant boutiques, men’s apparel draped over faceless mannequins. The shops’ interiors mirrored that austerity, stark walls, hardly any clothing in sight. Ludovisi had never understood the point.

As he fished through his pocket for the key, he carefully glanced around to make sure that no one was taking any special interest in him. Satisfied, he turned the handle and stepped inside.

The smell of damp wool wafted up to greet him as he shut the door. He turned on the overhead light, the dilapidation of the place brought into clear focus. Beyond the tiny foyer, a narrow staircase labored up to the second floor, a pronounced sag matched by an equally crumbly banister. Matted brown carpet, worn and stained, stretched taut along each step, enough of a cushioning, though, to mute the creaks and squeals from the wood below. Along the walls, strips of blue-and-white wallpaper-flowers and vases, as far as he could tell-vainly tried to brighten the hall. Years of cigarette smoke had smeared the pattern with a yellowish brown film, relieving it of all such responsibility. All in all, a grotty little cave, four floors high.

And yet, if just for a moment, the place managed to transport Ludovisi to another seedy little hallway, another building now long torn down, the sounds of screeching violins and crackling trumpets filling the air. The tiny conservatorio in Ravenna of il Dottore Masaccio, the man’s enormous foot pounding out the meter, thick fingers stabbing at the notes on the page, an ominous stare as the young Ludovisi tried again and again to master the dreaded triplet, always to no avail. He always seemed better in two-two time. Room after room of young virtuosi, all but a select few with the talent only to frustrate the great maestro.

Ludovisi hadn’t picked up a clarinet in over forty years; 201 Via Condotti hadn’t inspired him to reconsider.

No doubt because the old place conjured a far more powerful association than the strains of Mozart and Vivaldi. Strange as it seemed, 201 had once been the breeding ground for the most debilitating financial scandal in the history of the Vatican. The story’s most poignant memento? The image of Roberto Calvi dangling at the end of a rope under London’s Blackfriars Bridge-June of 1982-the end to a rather undistinguished career, an unwitting dupe brilliantly placed at the center of the entire mess by von Neurath. That the press, along with countless “conspiracy theorists,” had managed to mangle the facts surrounding Calvi’s death had only made the cardinal’s scheme all the more ingenious. A tale so intriguing that none other than Mario Puzo had found a place for it in his Godfather trilogy. Freemasonry, Mafia money laundering, the death of John Paul I. All somehow linked together. It still made Ludovisi smile to think of it.

In all honesty, von Neurath had never meant to undermine the prestige of the Institute of Religious Works (the IOR)-known to the outside world as the Vatican Bank. At least not at the start. His target had been far less lofty: one Licio Gelli, an erstwhile rival for the position of summus princeps , the highest office within the Brotherhood.

Born in 1919, Gelli had chosen the political, rather than the religious, path within Manichaeanism, infiltrating the Blackshirt battalions in Spain in the 1930s, later the SS Hermann Goring Division during the war. In the 1950s, he’d established himself as a leading player in the Italian secret service, instrumental in operations Gladio and Stay Behind-the West’s efforts to station anti-Communist guerillas behind the lines in the event of a Soviet offensive. But while seemingly ideal to spearhead the “great awakening,” Gelli had become too visible. When, in 1960, he was passed over in favor of the much younger von Neurath, he’d decided his link to Manichaeanism had outlived its usefulness. Simple fascism would be more than acceptable.

With access to the most sensitive intelligence files in Europe-blackmail the surest way to fill his coffers-and with fifteen thousand operatives at his disposal, Gelli created Propaganda Due, a private shadow army with tentacles into every aspect of Italian life. At his trial in 1983, one prosecutor claimed that, by the late 1960s, P2 included “three members of the Cabinet, several former prime ministers, forty-three members of Parliament, fifty-four top civil servants, one hundred and eighty-three army, navy, and air force officers (including thirty generals and eight admirals), judges, leading bankers, the editor of the country’s top newspaper (Corriere della Sera) , university professors, and the heads of the three main intelligence services.” Though limited in scope to Italian politics, P2 looked as though it might pose some serious problems, especially given Gelli’s intimate knowledge of the Manichaean cell structure.

At first, von Neurath responded subtly. He would control Gelli, rather than destroy him. Realizing that Propaganda Due was the perfect distraction for anyone looking to expose a group like the Manichaeans-conspiracies all the rage, given the Kennedy shooting-the cardinal created the myth of the Lodge. Von Neurath let slip that P2 was actually the most recent successor in a long line of secret societies connected to the Knights Templar-Freemasonry, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Carbonari. An organization not to be trifled with. Just for fun, he hinted that the Vatican had taken a hand in funding operations, all in the name of the great fight against the godless Left. (After all, the IOR had fostered some rather dubious affiliations over the years-Spider and ODESSA, the ratlines that had ferreted former Nazis out of Europe. Why not P2?) A few well-placed minions in the right offices were enough to substantiate the ruse. And while Gelli was certainly carrying on his own dirty war-albeit on a very rudimentary level-it was von Neurath who saw to it that P2 was linked to any number of terrorist activities throughout Europe and the Middle East, from arms sales to purchases of crude oil. A wonderful opportunity to test just how much influence a Manichaean could wield. In fact, for a period in the late 1970s, it was virtually impossible to unearth anything to do with “black ops” and not hear the name Propaganda Due. To those in the world of intelligence, Gelli’s influence extended to South America (Juan Peron), and even to the United States (Alexander Haig and the Nixon administration). That P2 was actually involved with less than 10 percent of those activities mattered very little. Gelli-quickly dubbed “the Puppet Master”-was being held responsible for it all. Those looking for conspiracies had found their demon.