The Malta Exchange (Cotton Malone 14)

That was new to the mix, and he filed further inquiry away for later. Right now he wanted more information about the third part of that trinity.

“Here’s what I do know,” Gallo said. “Constantine sanctioned Christianity over paganism. By then, it was no longer some small regional movement. A sizable percentage of the entire population was Christian. So he made it the official state religion, with himself in charge. The Constitutum Constantini has something to do with that move. What? I truly don’t know.”

“No one in the organization has a clue what the document says?” Stephanie asked.

Gallo shook his head. “My brother discovered in the Vatican archives that it has something to do with the early church. Its structure and organization. What that might be? I don’t know. What I do know is that popes have long feared its surfacing, preferring that the document stay hidden. The Hospitallers accommodated that request and kept it hidden.”

“Using that to their advantage,” Cotton added.

“That’s true. It’s why we survived and the other orders perished.”

He could tell Gallo was hedging. So he said, “Now’s not the time to be coy.”

The admonishment brought a curious stare, then a nod.

“You’re correct. This is not the time. We did use what we knew to our advantage.” Gallo paused. “Within five hundred years of Constantine’s death, the church became the most powerful political force in Europe. Not until the 16th century and Martin Luther did anyone successfully challenge its authority. Then along came Napoleon. In his world there was room for only one omnipotent ruler with the ear of God. Himself. He wanted the church gone. He wanted his own new docile religion, to use his words. So he abolished both the Inquisition and the Index of Prohibited Books and established a new Catholic creed, even a new Christian calendar. Year One started in 1792, and he identified Paris as the holy city, with Rome as its subsidiary. He wanted a new world religion, like Constantine wanted with Christianity, and, like Constantine, he wanted himself as head. But first he had to destroy the Roman Catholic Church.”

Cotton was familiar with some of what he was hearing, particularly the use of religion as a political tool. But other parts were new to him.

So he kept listening.

“Napoleon invaded Italy and defeated the papal army,” Gallo said. “He then marched on Rome and entered unopposed, plundering the Vatican. In 1798 he proclaimed Rome a republic and demanded the pope renounce his temporal authority. Pius VI refused, so he took the pope prisoner, where he died in captivity seven months later. A new pope tried to make peace, but failed, and Napoleon invaded Italy again and took that pope prisoner, too. He was only released when the British ended Napoleon’s rule in 1814. Then something extraordinary happened. After Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena, the pope wrote letters urging leniency. Can you imagine? After all Napoleon had done—held him prisoner, stripped him of everything—he still wanted mercy extended.”

“Could simply have been the Christian thing to do,” Cotton noted.

“Perhaps. But we’ll never know. Napoleon died in 1821, still a prisoner. The pope in 1823. It has always been our belief that the Holy See thought Napoleon possessed Constantine’s Gift and, for whatever reason, it was dangerous enough for them to placate him.”

“Did Napoleon have it?” Stephanie asked.

Gallo shook his head. “But he ran a good bluff, using the two opportunities when he’d plundered the Vatican to his advantage. He likewise looted Malta.”

Cotton was curious. “Did the church know that the Trinity had been lost when Napoleon invaded Malta?”

Gallo nodded. “Absolutely. But no one at the time had any idea where it had been hidden. We know now that the man who hid it away was executed, never revealing what he knew.”

“And now your brother is after it,” Stephanie asked. “Spagna too?”

“That’s my assessment.”

“You still have not explained why the Secreti just tried to kill me.”

“That’s simple,” Gallo said. “The British asked for that to happen.”

Stephanie nodded. “He’s right. James Grant is running rogue.”

No real surprise.

“And Mussolini?” he said. “How does he figure into all this?”

Gallo faced him. “That’s precisely why my brother and Archbishop Spagna have teamed together.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Luke reflected on how fast things changed.

He’d gone from hanging in the air to drenched in the Mediterranean, then thrown into a dungeon, attacked by the police, and now he was inside an apartment located in the heart of Valletta, led there by the head of Vatican intelligence and accompanied by an agent for Maltese security. He wasn’t sure who, if anyone, he should listen to, much less trust. Laura Price had gone from telling him to get as far away as he could to seemingly now working with the enemy.

“We’re near the old Inquisitor’s Palace,” Spagna said. “What a job that must have been. Appointed by the pope, sent here to eliminate heresy and all things contrary to the Catholic faith. His word was absolute. That’s a position I would have relished.”

Luke surveyed the tiny apartment. Only three rooms, brightened by cheerful curtains, the furniture all a bit too large. No photos, candy dishes, or knickknacks. Nothing personal. No one lived here, at least not on a long-term basis. He’d been in enough safe houses so far during his time with the Magellan Billet to know the look.

“This place one of yours?”

Spagna nodded. “Our people use it.”

When they’d arrived he’d noticed an oddity out front, engraved into the eroding stone lintel above a set of shuttered windows. An eye sandwiched between two axes. Spagna had explained that it noted who’d lived in the building long ago.

The executioner.

No coincidence that the holder of that unenviable office lived near the Inquisitor’s Palace.

Luke heard a vibration and watched as Spagna found a phone in his pocket, stepping outside to take the call.

“You want to tell me what’s happening here,” he asked Laura.

“Spagna told me that he was aware of Cardinal Gallo’s presence on the island and that he had the situation under control.”

“And you bought that?”

“He called my boss once we were in the car and I was ordered to cooperate. I’m betting your boss is going to tell you the same thing.”

Except that his phone had been conveniently destroyed, making that difficult to determine. “You still have your phone?”

She shook her head. “Spagna took it.”

No surprise.

“So we’re isolated, with the pope’s spy out there controlling the information flow. This is not good. On many levels.”

He stepped over to the windows, parted the curtains, and glanced down at the deserted street two floors below.

Spagna returned and closed the door behind him. “First, let’s be clear. Either of you can leave anytime you want.”

“Then why corral us?” Luke asked.

“As you saw, the locals have a different opinion of you.”

“Thanks to you.”

Spagna nodded. “Sadly for you, that’s true. I would prefer not to involve any of my assets. I have a chaotic situation at the moment that is extremely time-sensitive, and most of my people are readying the Vatican for a conclave.”

Luke asked, “What’s happening with Cotton Malone?”

“That was the subject of the call I just received. It seems Mr. Malone has extricated himself from danger. Your Ms. Nelle is with him now, as is the temporary head of the Hospitallers.”

He was definitely being sucked into something bigger. That was obvious. And he had to keep going, no matter the risks. Some would call that foolish. He called it doing his job.

“My man Chatterjee has been with Cardinal Gallo for the past two hours,” Spagna said. “I wanted the cardinal contained to give us time to deal with a more pressing probl

em.”

Luke could hardly wait to hear.

“Listen up, this is your intel briefing. Books and movies love to show Christians being fed to lions. A little ridiculous, if you ask me. Yes, persecutions happened. No question. But seventeen hundred years ago Christians were finally in the right place, at the right time. Still, they had a problem. Their new religion had fractured into a hundred pieces, so many versions of Christianity, each fighting with the other. Constantine the Great saw the political potential of that new religion, but only if those factions could be united. So he called the Council of Nicaea and summoned bishops from all over the empire.”

Luke had heard those words—Council of Nicaea—before, but knew little to nothing about their importance.

“The bishops came to Asia Minor,” Spagna said. “Nobody really knows how many. Maybe three hundred. Some say more. It was the first great Christian council and they were deeply divided over Christ’s divinity. One group said the Son had been begotten from the Father with no separate beginning. The other argued the Son had been created from nothing with his own beginning. Sounds silly to us. Who cares? He was Christ, for Christ’s sake. But it was a big deal to them. And during the summer of 325, those bishops debated that point into the ground. Constantine himself presided over the sessions. In the end they came to a consensus, with the emperor’s approval, that the Son came from the Father, equal to the Father. They created a creed that said that, and all but two bishops agreed. Those two were excommunicated and banished. They then decided the rest of what true Christians should believe. Things like when Easter would be celebrated, how priests would act, how the church would be organized. Everything contrary to that was deemed heretical, unworthy of belief. And so began the Catholic Church, as we know it today.”

“And this has what to do with what’s happening now?” Laura asked.