The Italian Mission

  The Italian Mission

  Alan Champorcher

  The Italian Mission

  Copyright ©2013 Alan Ciamporcero

  All Rights Reserved

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  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 /12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33 / 34 / 35 / 36 / 37 / 38 / 39 / 40 / 41 / 42 / 43 / 44 / 45 / 46 / 47 / 48 / 49 / 50 / 51 / 52 / 53 / 54 / 55 / 56 / 57 / Epilogue / Acknowledgments

  If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

  Gautama Buddha

  1.

  American Embassy to the Holy See, Rome, Friday evening, August 15

  “Planning to join the party? The Ambassador is asking for you, and she looks angry.”

  John Adams Conti gazed over the black wrought-iron fence down at the Circus Maximus, the ancient Roman arena where chariot races were once held. He’d been trying to imagine what the scene was like at the height of the Roman Empire. All that came to mind was Charlton Heston cracking a whip over four galloping white horses.

  Turning his tall, lanky body, he focused a hawk-like stare on the young woman. She looked like a college kid. But she was a full-fledged diplomat, while he was only a candidate to become one, after twenty years as a CIA case officer. Even though it had been his choice to change horses in mid-stream, it grated. He ran his hand over his thinning hair. Maybe he was too old for this.

  His stare dissolved into a kindly smile. “Be there in a minute. Just appreciating the view. A whole lot nicer than where I was this time last year.”

  The woman smiled. “I guess so. Not many soirees this fancy in Kabul, huh?”

  “Not many soirees of any kind.”

  Conti and the young woman walked slowly back toward the twinkling lights and paper lanterns decorating the Embassy lawn. He bent slightly, the better to hear his diminutive companion over the opening bars of the string quartet’s “Polonaise.”

  “It’s a beautiful spot,” she said. “See the old buildings on the Palatine Hill above the Circus? Government offices two thousand years ago, but enough time makes almost anything romantic, I guess. My classmates at Foggy Bottom couldn’t believe my first posting was the Embassy to the Holy See. They think this is pretty much a Catholic country club.”

  “Not too far from the truth, I guess?”

  “Depends. If you’re Jewish and put in seventy hours a week in a windowless office, it’s not so glamorous. But, I’ll admit, the parties are great. Anyway, we’d better get back. The Ambassador wants everyone in the receiving line. She’s very Junior League, you know.”

  “I heard. Old Virginia, right? Lees, Custises, and Randolphs in her background, no doubt.”

  The young woman smiled. “You can’t very well complain about someone else’s aristocratic roots, can you? Not too many people in the State Department have a founding father in their woodpile.”

  “Yeah, but my ancient relative was a revolutionary. Her people were probably Tories.”

  The two walked toward the front of the Embassy, half Frank Lloyd Wright knock-off and half fortified bunker. Communications towers and satellite dishes spoiled the line of the flat roof. On the tree-lined suburban street, the guests’ limousines lined up five deep. Cardinals in rich velvet crimson and purple livery stepped out of black limousines. Younger men in the somber habits of workaday priests clucked around these princes of the church.

  As Conti joined the end of the receiving line of Embassy officials, a scowl sent a spider web of tiny cracks through the Ambassador’s heavy make-up. He’d gotten off on the wrong foot with her, but couldn’t bring himself to care much. Too many years crawling in the dust of the world’s hellholes had left him a bit blasé about a socialite ambassador’s opinion. Still, he gave it the old college try, bantering with each of the Cardinals in pitch-perfect Italian.

  At the end of the line, linen-covered tables awaited the guests, laden with salvers of wild boar salami and foie gras, while tuxedoed waiters circulated with trays of Bellinis in chilled martini glasses. The Ambassador made a short welcoming speech in a rough approximation of Italian. Everyone applauded politely, whether or not they understood what she said.

  As twilight faded, the Chinese lanterns seemed to glow more brightly. Conti found himself in a small group listening to the Archbishop of Mexico City drone on about his diocese’s anti-abortion campaign. He snuck a look at his watch. Still at least an hour of this to endure. Suddenly, a hand tapped him urgently on the shoulder. He wheeled to find a short, wizened Asian man wearing a large topcoat over saffron monks’ robes.

  “Mr. Conti, a word please.”

  He turned back to the Mexican cleric and the Ambassador and excused himself. Taking the monk by the arm, he walked a few paces to a relatively quiet corner of the lawn.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “There is a young man, a Tibetan, in Rome who needs your help. He is in great danger. We know that your father was a friend of Tibet, and we hope you share his sympathies.”

  Conti’s father had died almost forty years earlier, lost somewhere on the Chinese-Tibet border.

  At that moment, the Ambassador strode up with a portly cleric on her arm and interrupted. “John, I’d like you to meet Cardinal Wozynski, one of the most important people in the Curia. He’s responsible for the entire Middle East. Cardinal, this is John Conti. New to the Embassy. Bit of a mystery man. Recently involved in intelligence work somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan, I’m not exactly sure which. You two should have a lot to talk about.”

  Conti made a Herculean effort not to reach out and choke her. Could anyone in the Foreign Service be that oblivious? People died as a result of less flagrant breaches of security. He painted an approximation of a smile over his fury. The Ambassador scuttled away, dragging the old monk with her.

  Conti took a deep breath, and then turned his attention to the Polish Cardinal. They’d just begun to discuss oil economics — perhaps he could cover the Ambassador’s breach by posing as a commercial attaché — when he heard a scuffle near the front gate. He swiveled in time to see the small monk being ushered unceremoniously into the street by two large Marines. He excused himself and walked quickly over to the guards.

  �
��Who was that gentleman?”

  “Crasher, sir. Apparently snuck in with the party from the Philippine Embassy. Ambassador was pissed. Happens sometimes. Was he bothering you?”

  “No, no. Just curious.” Conti returned to the party. A few minutes later, he walked to the bluff behind the Embassy again to see if the old monk had lingered outside the fence. Nothing but the heavy evening traffic coursing through the piazza as Romans returned home from the city center. Beyond that lay the dark valley of the Circus and the ancient ruins looming above. About to return to the party, he noticed movement on the nearer slope. A dark shape hurried down the grassy hill, followed some twenty yards behind by two larger figures. The shadows swallowed them up at the bottom of the Circus, the long flat area where the chariot racetrack had once been. He wanted to follow, but it would have to wait.

  An hour later, after easing the last tipsy prelate into the back seat of his Mercedes, Conti slipped out of the Embassy gates, picked his way through the diminishing traffic, and stood at the top of the dark hill where he’d seen the men disappear. He made his way slowly down the grassy slope, following the path they’d taken. Whoever they were, they were large, and by the looks of the disturbed turf, desperate.

  At the bottom of the hill, he found the monk’s black overcoat, torn and lying in a heap. Some yards away, a much bigger surprise. A pistol half-buried in the sandy dirt. He picked it up with a handkerchief. Chinese — People’s Liberation Army standard issue — handle covered in blood. He wrapped it up and slid it carefully into his pocket, then went back to the overcoat. Rifling through the pockets, he thought at first they were empty, then felt something round and sharp. In the faint light of the waning moon, it proved to be a seashell of some sort — a scallop, he thought — with two holes punched in its hinge.

  2.

  Rome, Saturday Afternoon

  Conti muscled his yellow 1965 Lamborghini coupe through the heavy weekend traffic around the “wedding cake,” Mussolini’s ponderous white memorial to Italian unification. The car, a prized possession of his youth, had slumbered in storage for years and badly needed a complete restoration. But it could still haul ass when necessary. Jabbing the accelerator, he shot past the Fiats and Vespas and turned west, crossing the Tiber to Vatican City. He parked and covered the half-mile to the Vatican Library as quickly as the milling crowds allowed, flashed his Embassy I.D. to the guard, then headed for a desk in a remote corner of the reading room where he knew he’d find Amos Cadiz.

  He’d known the Rabbi for twenty years, since his orientation classes at the CIA. Cadiz, a professor of religious history at Georgetown, had also lectured at Langley. They’d been friends ever since, Conti turning up periodically at the University of Rome, where Cadiz now taught. He used the Rabbi as an unofficial sounding board both for his strategic assessments and his complaints about the Agency. Right up to the point where he decided he had to get out.

  “Look who’s here,” the Rabbi said, although Conti could see no evidence that his mouth had moved beneath his full white beard. “How is the diplomatic life, my boy? Salmon puffs and white wine? A big improvement over Al Qaeda bullets, no doubt.”

  Conti smiled. “In some ways. I may have underestimated how much I’d miss the action. Now I spend a lot of time polishing my shoes and making sure my suit pants have a sharp crease. They don’t trust me with anything important yet. But I’ll get used to it. I’ve taken up golf and marathon running.”

  “Sounds awful.”

  “At least I haven’t been ordered to shoot any civilians lately.”

  “Have you ever been?”

  “Can’t say. I’ve already told you too many secrets over the years.”

  The Rabbi chuckled. “You never told me anything I didn’t already know. How is your mother?”

  “Fine. Managing the family estate in Milan takes up all of her time. She went from being the princess to the queen when my grandfather died. Busy organizing charity events and ordering the staff around. She’s happy now that I’m stationed in Rome.”

  Conti used his mother’s surname. He didn’t think it healthy for an undercover intelligence agent to advertise his descent from two American presidents — even if they’d died more two hundred years ago. His superiors agreed.

  “And you’re in good health?” the Rabbi asked. “Last time I saw you, you looked terrible. When was that — over a year ago? Now you could be an underwear model.”

  “I’ll try that next if this State Department gig doesn’t work out. It’s not off to a great start. I have to bite my tongue to avoid telling the Ambassador she’s a political hack.”

  “That bad?”

  “Worse. She thinks the Vatican is on the level.”

  “Aha. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? You’re keeping me from very important work. I’m thinking of writing a book about Rome’s kosher pizzerias.”

  “Are there any?”

  “I’m looking.”

  Conti reached into his pocket and pulled out the scallop shell. He set it on the desk beside a stack of what looked like ancient Hebrew texts — clearly not about pizza, kosher or otherwise. “Do you know what this is?”

  The Rabbi picked it up and turned it over in his hand.

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, or I wouldn’t ask.”

  “Your education in religious history has been sadly inadequate.”

  “Very likely. I was a political science major.”

  “The shell is a symbol of the Christian Saint James — or Sant Iago — one of the twelve apostles. He was martyred in Jerusalem. The body, they say, was transported to Spain by boat. The devout believe that his ship sank and the corpse floated miraculously to shore, covered in scallop shells. The shell became the badge of the medieval pilgrims who visited the church of Santiago de Compostela where the body was supposed to have been buried. It’s still worn by pilgrims who make the trip from Spain to Rome on foot, or visa versa. You see these two holes?” The Rabbi pointed to the two small punches in the hinge of the shell.

  “Yes.”

  “To tie a string through and hang around your neck.”

  “People still do this?”

  “There is a marked path the length of Italy, then on through France — the Via Francigena. One branch goes to Canterbury in England and the other to Spain. You know, I really would have expected you of all people to know about this.”

  “Why me of all people?”

  “Your illustrious relative, John Adams. He walked a good portion of the trail after his ship to Paris sprang a leak and had to dock in Spain. Wrote about it in his diary. You come from adventurous stock.”

  “There are a lot of things I don’t know about the American side of the family. I was raised in Italy after my father died.”

  “I suppose you can be forgiven. But why are you so interested in this shell?”

  Conti related the story of the ancient monk who’d approached him at the Embassy party, the nighttime chase, and finding the Chinese pistol.

  “The old man told you he was seeking help for another Tibetan monk?”

  “Yes, a young Tibetan, but he didn’t say he was a monk.”

  “I’ll wager he is. And the Chinese apparently want him back. Must be important. Did you call your old friends at the Agency?”

  “Not yet. Some people there would think I’m just looking to get involved again — to fight old battles.”

  Conti’s phone vibrated. He pulled it out of the pocket of his blazer and checked the number. “Speak of the devil. Excuse me Rabbi, got to take this.”

  He walked farther back into the stacks, stopped at a window, and sat on the cool granite sill.

  “Hi. This is an unexpected pleasure. Couldn’t get along without me, huh?”

  “Right. The entire free world is heading for disaster and you’re the only one who can save us, Superman.” A moment’s hesitation, then, “How are you, John?”

  “Fine. Learning the nuanced arts of diplomacy — starting with
the file room.”

  “Seeing any of your old contacts?”

  “Of course not. You know I’m retired. I don’t do that sort of thing any more. Why would you ask?”

  “A Chinese agent was killed in Rome last night. The Italians called to tell us.”

  “And?”

  “He had a picture on him, apparently taken with a telephoto lens. It shows you at an Embassy party talking with an old man who looks like a Japanese monk.”

  “Tibetan, actually.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Don’t know. Said he knew my father back in the day. Probably part of our Tibet liberation army.” The last three words were loaded with sarcasm. “Where’d they find the agent?”

  “An empty field not far from the Embassy. Must have been not long after he took the picture. Killed by a blow to the throat, delivered by someone who knew what he was doing. What’d the monk want?”

  Conti hesitated. The body must have been near where he’d found the shell last night. He hadn’t looked hard enough. “Didn’t tell me much. We were interrupted.”

  “But he told you something?”

  “Only that a young man, also Tibetan, was in Rome and needed my help.”

  “And when were you going to tell us?”

  There was a silence on the line as Conti took out a cigarette, thought better of it and put it away.

  “For all I knew, it was nothing. Some old friend of my dad’s asking a favor. Maybe he wanted me to help get the kid into the university or something.”

  “Snuck into an Embassy party to ask for a college recommendation. Makes a lot of sense.”

  “How did you know he snuck in?”

  “Good guess.” Her tone had become harsher. “Look John, you’re too good an agent to act like this. You know damn well this could be important. And you know that I’ve got to know. Just because you aren’t on the payroll anymore, and just because you dislike the leadership around here …”