The Malta Exchange (Cotton Malone 14)

Luke was beginning to like her directness.

“It has everything to do with now,” Spagna said. “Once the council ended, Constantine invited all of the bishops to his palace for a grand banquet. Officially, the dinner was to celebrate his twentieth anniversary as emperor. But it became much more. From the precious few accounts that have survived, we know the bishops left that night with gifts for themselves and money for their churches. But they also executed a document. Signed by all, including the emperor himself. That document has a name. The Constitutum Constantini. Constantine’s Gift. It stayed with the emperor until his death in 337. Eventually it came into the pope’s possession, but he lost it. Then during the Middle Ages the Knights of Rhodes, who eventually became the Knights of Malta, obtained it. It became one of three documents they venerated and protected. Their Nostra Trinità. Our Trinity. Napoleon invaded Malta looking for it, but never found a thing. It all seemed forgotten, until the 1930s, when Mussolini searched again.”

“Why would any of that matter now?” Luke asked. “It’s so old.”

“I assure you, the Constitutum Constantini still matters. Perhaps today more than ever. Cardinal Gallo understands its significance. I understand its significance. That’s why we have to find it first.”

“We?” Laura asked.

“I have assurances from both of your superiors that you’re mine for the next few days.”

“I think I’ll wait on that one until I hear it from my boss,” Luke said.

Spagna frowned. “Are you always so difficult?”

“Just to people I don’t like.”

“We just met, Mr. Daniels. How could you possibly know if you like me or not?”

“My mama used to say that she didn’t need to wallow with the pigs to know it stunk in the pen.”

Spagna smiled. “Sounds like an intelligent woman.”

“The smartest I’ve ever known. I’d say it stinks here, too.”

“Regardless of your personal feelings,” Spagna said, “we have a job to do. But first, some things have to play out in Italy.”

Luke shook his head. More gobbledygook. “I’m assuming you don’t plan to explain yourself.”

Spagna smiled, pointed a finger, and said, “That’s where you’re wrong.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Cotton waited for an answer to his question of how Mussolini factored into the situation.

“You must understand,” Gallo said, “that my brother and I, though identical twins, are vastly different people. I chose a military career, then one of charitable service with the knights. He chose a purely religious path. And where ambition is not out of the question in my world, it can be fatal in his. I have no interest in the conclave, no interest in who is pope. But there are others who do. My brother sits at the top of that list, followed closely by Archbishop Spagna.”

“The Entity is trying to influence the conclave?” Stephanie asked.

“They have on many occasions before. Why would this time be different?”

“Answer my question,” Cotton said. “All this information here on Mussolini. Why do you have it? It can’t just be historic curiosity.”

“Far from that.” Gallo motioned to the room. “This collection is a vast research project that has taken us decades. Let me tell you something only those within the ranks of the professed knights know. The order owns two properties inside Rome. The Palazzo di Malta, from where you departed, and the Villa del Priorato di Malta. There’s a story about when Mussolini visited the Priorato.”

* * *

Il Duce admired the grand priory, lit to the night in all its glory. The building sat on Aventine Hill, one of Rome’s famous seven, overlooking the Tiber—once a Benedictine monastery, then a Templar stronghold, now belonging to the Hospitallers. Their jurisdictional claim was marked by a red flag with a white, eight-pointed cross bristling in the warm night air.

The day had been glorious. He’d just returned from an operatic spectacle staged in honor of a state visit by the German chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Held at the Foro Mussolini, literally his forum, inside the Stadio del Cipressi, where tens of thousands had heeded the call to attend. Everything had been carefully rehearsed, including the triumphant conclusion of the program where hundreds of torch-bearing youths had formed a huge swastika, yelling Heil Hitler in the flickering flames. Hitler had been impressed. So much that the chancellor had proclaimed the Roman state resurrected, from remote tradition, to new life.

High praise.

With Hitler down for the night, he’d decided to head back into Rome and handle another matter that required his personal attention. So he’d appeared unannounced at the Villa del Priorato di Malta.

The grand master stood beside him.

Ludovico Chigi della Rovere-Albani.

The seventy-sixth man to hold the position. An Italian at least. Born to a noble family with a lineage back to the 15th century. He’d been elected head of the Knights of Malta in 1931 and, for the past seven years, he’d kept a low profile.

But not quite low enough.

“I’m aware that you’ve been thwarting my efforts with the pope,” he told Chigi. “Going behind me, undermining negotiations.”

“I only do as the Holy Father asks of me.”

“Really? Would you kill, if the Holy Father asked that of you?”

“That would never happen.”

“Don’t be so sure. Your illustrious order slaughtered thousands of people for centuries. All for popes. What makes you so different now?”

“Both we and the world have changed.”

“And the Secreti? Have they changed?”

The older man’s face remained stoic. He’d hoped to catch this man off guard, but the ruse had not worked. They stood in the parterre garden among sculpted shrubbery and tall cypress trees.

“I have the Nostra Trinità,” he proclaimed.

“You have nothing.”

“Don’t be so sure. Your knights did not remain silent.”

“Yet you killed them anyway.”

“I killed no one.”

“Which you say as though you truly believe.”

> He pointed beyond the garden, to the main gate. “Is it true what they say?”

“Have a look for yourself.”

He paraded toward the tall stone screen. Beneath an arch-headed central portone two iron doors stood closed. In one was the Il Buco Della Serratura. Such a long name for something so simple.

The keyhole.

His spies had reported what could be seen through the opening. He approached the door, bent down, and peered through. In the distance, at the end of a garden allée, framed in clipped cypresses, he saw the lit copper-green dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. He smiled at the intriguing symbolism and faced the grand master. “Is it an accident or by design that the Hospitallers have the center of Roman Catholicism directly in their keyhole?”

“That’s not for me to say. But we have guarded the church for a long time.”

“Extracting much in return for the service.”

“We are good, loyal, and faithful. Unlike you.”

“I am your leader.”

“That’s not true. Where we stand does not belong to Italy. This is a separate nation. I am leader here.”

“It would take my Black Shirts only a few minutes to subdue all of you. Then I could burn this separate nation to the ground. I could then take the Palazzo di Malta and do the same. Don’t tempt me.”

Chigi shrugged, as if unconcerned. “Do what you must. We’ve been homeless before and survived.”

Time to get to the point of the visit. “Tell Pius to leave me alone. Do that, and the Constitutum Constantini stays with me. I’ve even done him a favor and sealed it away where no one can get to it. His precious faith will not be threatened. You see, O exalted one, king of your own country, I am now guardian of the church. Not you. Me. And the church will do as I say.”

“That encounter happened in May 1938, and the keyhole is still there,” Gallo said. “People line up every day to peek through it at the dome of St. Peter’s, over two miles away.”