The Malta Exchange (Cotton Malone 14)

Smart.

Pollux knew his church history.

Constantine elevated the clergy. He granted them a fixed annual salary and exempted them from taxation. They were not required to serve in the army or perform any mandatory civil service. They truly became a special class, not subject to secular law or imperial courts. They dressed differently and groomed differently. They became the supposed guardians of orthodoxy, more powerful than local governors. A spiritual elite of holy men, supposedly vested with gifts and graces others did not possess. No surprise that so many men experienced a sudden call to the ministry.

Yet despite all of those privileges, the church languished for nearly five hundred years. After Constantine died his heirs made a mess of the empire. It split, the eastern portion becoming Byzantine, the western remaining Roman. Christianity likewise split. And though bishops were scattered across Europe, Africa, and Asia, the one in Rome began to assert himself over the western portion, rising above the others, claiming a lineage back to St. Peter and taking a pagan title. Pontifex maximus. Supreme pontiff.

By Christmas Day A.D. 800 the church was ready to expand.

It happened in Rome while the Emperor Charlemagne knelt in prayer. Pope Leo III placed the imperial crown on the king’s head, then anointed the feet of the new emperor. History liked to say that the entire event had been spontaneous. Not in the slightest. It had all been planned. A Christian ruler could not be a god. That smacked of paganism. But he could be chosen by God, becoming the nexus from heaven to earth. In one masterful stroke, the king of the Franks became the first Holy Roman Emperor and the church became the means through which any claim to that throne acquired legitimacy.

A classic win–win.

Which changed the world.

All but a tiny portion of Europe eventually came under Rome’s thumb. The Catholic Church became the dominant force in the world for the next eight hundred years. It systematically erased and replaced all competing spiritual beliefs, destroying every competing religion. It deadened the search for knowledge, persecuting mystics and heretics, and forced the mass conversion of anyone and everyone. At the same time it deprived its members of beliefs in prophecy, dreams, apparitions, visions, reincarnation, meditation, and healing. It assumed control of everyday life by claiming a divine authority to rule, then dominated every moment of the faithful’s life.

A virtual stranglehold.

To keep its army of clerics special the church conceived the sacrament of ordination, modeled after the Roman custom of appointing men to high civil office. No one ever questioned that the New Testament made no mention of selective preaching and that baptizing new souls was to be limited only to the ordained. The Bible’s personal access to God was replaced with the church’s rigid rules.

And now Pollux knew where it all started.

Constantine’s Gift.

No wonder the church never wanted the document public. What faster way to lose control than by exposing it all as an illusion. For the masses to learn that none of the so-called church doctrine was divine, that all of it instead had been created by man for the benefit of man, would have been a public relations disaster. All fear would have dissipated. All wonder quelled. Irrationality would have been replaced with reason.

He stared at the two parchments.

The past had come back to the present.

What would the modern world think of Constantine’s Gift?

An excellent question.

In ancient times the church relied on ignorance and fear. Modernity demanded much more. Education was no longer a rarity. Television, radio, and the internet all captured people’s thoughts. What would the modern world think once it knew that a Roman emperor, from seventeen hundred years ago, laid out a framework for a new religion that ultimately prelates in the Middle Ages implemented to ensure obedience of the faithful and promulgate its own importance. No divine intervention. No heavenly influences. No conduit to God. Just a bunch of men who liked living high and wielding power.

He imagined that revelation would not be welcomed.

But was it fatal?

Hard to say.

No doubt, in a world where religion was waning and faith in authority disappearing, where people were leaving the church far faster than coming toward it, proof that the whole thing had been concocted would not be good. Kastor had thought it enough to pressure key cardinals into supporting his candidacy. The threat worked in the Middle Ages with many different popes, most of them immoral and corrupt. It worked in the 1930s with two more named Pius, who faced an uncertain world that ultimately went to war. Would it work again today? Maybe. Maybe not.

It certainly would not help things.

Thank goodness he now had Spagna’s flash drive loaded with incriminating information on important cardinals.

That would definitely work.

The jet began its descent.

He leaned back in the leather seat, made a steeple out of his fingers, and rested his chin on the point, trying to check the anxiety that threatened to swallow him. His eyes burned. His nerves screamed. There was always a possibility of failure. That element of chance. The threat of error. Which would be catastrophic considering the sins he’d committed. Thankfully, he was a man of precautions.

Always had been.

Outside, the sun had crested on the eastern horizon.

Daylight had arrived.

If all went according to plan—

By tomorrow evening, or the next day at the latest, he should be pope.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Cotton stared up at Luke Daniels.

Who smiled.

Which he knew was coming.

“Got yourself into a bit of a pickle?” Luke asked.

“You could say that. Self-inflicted, but a wound nonetheless.”

He’d already surveyed the pit’s bottom, using his cell phone for light. There was zero signal out. No surprise considering the amount of rock around him. The two corpses lay across each other, the shovel off to one side. As he’d suspected, an area of the floor had recently been disturbed, its color and texture different. But he’d yet to investigate further.

“How did you know I’d come?” Luke asked from above.

“I didn’t. But I assumed at some point you’d talk with either Stephanie or the cathedral curator, and one or the other would tell you where I went. Stephanie told me about Laura Price and what you did.”

“The Entity wanted Pollux Gallo dead. Any idea why?”

“Actually, I do have a few thoughts on that matter. Did you see anyone leave here?”

“One man,” Luke said. “Carrying a bag and a folding chair. But I was too far away to see who.”

“I imagine he’s headed to the airport, then on to Rome.”

“The cardinal, then?”

He stared around at the macabre scene before him, masked by the darkness. Then he reached for the shovel.

“There should be a rope up there,” he said. “Use it to climb down.”

* * *

Luke did as Malone asked and allowed the rope to snake a path over the edge and down into the pit’s blackness. He wasn’t particularly anxious to be back in another hole in the ground, but figured Malone had his reasons. So he climbed down.

“A little crowded, wouldn’t you say,” he said at the bottom, seeing the two corpses.

“Let’s move them to the side. We need to get beneath them.”

They heaved the bodies to one side.

Malone found his cell phone and activated the flashlight. Luke could see that the ground had been disturbed recently.

“Somebody’s been diggin’?” he asked.

“It seems that way.”

Malone knelt down and worked the soil with the shovel.

“What do you think is there?”

“Not what. Who.”

“What’s going on, Pappy?”

Malone kept digging. “When I was a kid, one night a bunch of us camped out in the woods. I was the yo

ungest, about nine or ten, it was actually my first time sleeping under the stars. After we set up camp and ate dinner, the others took me out to a dark field and gave me a pillowcase. They told me there were snipes out in the field. Dark, furry creatures who prowl around at night looking for food. They made a great meal, like chicken or turkey. They wanted to catch one and roast it, so they taught me the animal’s call. A ridiculous sound. They told me to keep a lookout and make the call over and over. When a snipe came running, I was to nab it with the pillowcase. Then they left me alone, in the dark, saying they were going to drive the snipes my way to make it easier. I believed every word, so I stood there, making those ridiculous sounds, waiting for a snipe, while they all laughed their asses off watching me from the trees.”

He chuckled. “Sounds like somethin’ I’d get myself into. How many did you catch?”

“You know the answer. It was a fool’s errand. That’s what I’ve been on. A damn snipe hunt.”

Malone stopped digging. “I hit something.”