The Malta Exchange (Cotton Malone 14)

“I’ve already told him the same thing,” Stephanie added. “Luke is on his way here with a prisoner. They landed a couple of hours ago.”

He was perplexed. “Why here?”

“It was at my request,” Stamm said.

Cotton realized the implications. He was sitting on sovereign soil. Stamm intended on treating both Gallo and Hahn as Vatican prisoners and dealing with them per canon law.

“For obvious reasons, we cannot allow the Italian, Maltese, British, or … Americans to deal with these crimes.” Stamm stood. “Would you come with me?”

They left the office and walked to the elevator. Once inside the car, Stamm inserted a key into the control panel then pushed an unmarked button. The building had four floors and a basement. The button that lit up was below the one for the basement.

“This is an old building,” Stamm said. “Built in the 1970s over a part of the grottoes.”

They descended and came to a stop. The elevator doors opened. They were underground, a tall, well-lit corridor stretching ahead. All painted concrete with a tile floor.

“These subterranean chambers have proven useful,” Stamm said.

The cardinal led the way and they followed him toward an iron door. Stamm approached and rapped twice. A lock was released from the other side and the panel swung inward. They stepped into a long room, one side lined with bars separated by stone pillars.

Cells.

Stamm dismissed the man who’d been stationed inside.

A table stood before one of the cells. The reliquary from the Church of St. Magyar’s sat on it with parchments inside and another roll lying outside. Cotton walked over to see Pollux Gallo behind bars. The cardinal and Stephanie joined him.

“These cells have been used by us for a long time,” Stamm said. “Mehmet Ali Agca was held here for a time after he tried to kill John Paul II.”

Cotton couldn’t help but think of the infamous Lubyanka prison in Moscow beneath the old KGB headquarters building, where political dissidents, artists, writers, and reporters had been tortured. He wondered why the Roman Catholic Church would need underground cells with restricted access.

“Is that the Constitutum Constantini?” he asked, pointing to the parchment.

“It is,” Stamm said.

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me why it’s so important?”

“It proves that all of this is a fraud,” Gallo said, approaching the bars. “The Roman Catholic Church is fake. Tell him, Cardinal. Tell him the truth.”

He waited for more.

“There’s an African proverb. Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. It’s so true. In our case, the glory went to those who took the lead.” Stamm paused. “Constantine the Great changed the world. He first united the Roman Empire, then divided it into two parts. Emperors ruled the eastern half. Popes eventually dominated the western. But not until they heeded his advice.”

Stamm pointed at the parchments.

“It’s a blueprint for a new religion,” Gallo said. “Instructions on how to make Christianity important. How to involve it in every aspect of people’s lives. How to use it to dominate followers. How even to kill them, if necessary, to preserve its existence.”

Stamm seemed unfazed. “I’ve read it and he’s right. Constantine wanted a religion of his own making, a mechanism whereby the people were kept away from revolt. All without them, of course, ever realizing they were being dominated. Unfortunately, that never happened during his life, or in the centuries after his death. Only bits and pieces of his ideas were implemented. No grand scheme. Not until his gift was rediscovered in the 9th century. Popes had, by then, become intoxicated with ambition. They were more than religious leaders. They were military and political leaders. By the 11th century the Catholic Church became the richest and most powerful institution in the world. All thanks to Constantine’s Gift.”

“Is this the only copy?” Stephanie asked.

“As far as we know. The Hospitallers obtained possession of it starting in the mid-13th century. Popes were terrified that it would be revealed, so they left the Hospitallers alone and the knights kept the secret.”

“Is it authentic?” Stephanie asked.

“With only a preliminary look, my experts tell me the script is Constantine’s. They compared it with verified originals we have in our archives. It’s in the original Latin, which is rare for one of his surviving manuscripts. We can test the parchment by carbon dating, but I’m sure it will date to the 4th century. I’m also told the ink is consistent for that time. It appears to be absolutely authentic.”

Cotton had no doubt.

“Napoleon tried to find it. Mussolini tried, too, and came the closest,” Stamm said. “But it stayed with the knights until 1798, when it was hastily hidden away amid the French invasion of Malta.”

“What do you think kings and emperors would have done after reading it?” Gallo asked, disgust in his voice. “Realizing that divine law was not God’s law. It was all man-made for their own selfish purposes.”

Stamm’s face never flinched. Not a muscle quivered to reveal what he might be thinking.

“What would the faithful think of the church’s original sin,” Gallo said. “The price we all supposedly pay for the fall of Adam and Eve. The sin of disobedience for consuming the forbidden fruit. It had nothing to do with any of that. It was just a way to create recruits straight from the womb. No need to actually convince anyone to join your church. Just decree that you’re born tainted, and forgiveness comes only from baptism, administered only by the church. Of course, if anyone declines that forgiveness they rot in hell, with the devil, for all eternity. But both of those were more of Constantine’s creations. None of it’s real. It’s all there to create fear and ensure obedience. And what better way to control people than through irrational, unprovable fear.”

Stamm stood quiet and still. Finally, the cardinal said, “My guess is that there would have been no church. Christians would have continued to fight among themselves, breaking into factions, accomplishing little to nothing. If left alone they never would have collated into anything meaningful. It all would have faded away, and kings and queens and emperors would have fought each other without reservation. Civilization, as we know it, would have been vastly different. The church, for all its failings, provided a measure of stability that kept the world from spiraling out of control. Without it, who knows how humanity would have fared.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Gallo muttered.

“But the world is no longer composed of illiterates,” Stamm said. “People now think of religion far more skeptically than did those of the 13th century. This revelation, made today, would have a huge impact.”

“Which was precisely what my brother was counting on. Your fear allowing him to get what he wanted.” Gallo glared at Cotton. “That parchment is eye opening. Don’t let them suppress it.”

Stamm reached into his cassock and withdrew something that he displayed. “Along with this?”

The flash drive.

“Archbishop Spagna was quite thorough,” Stamm said. “He found the many failings that have long existed within these walls and identified the offenders. His problem was his own ego. And the underestimation of his supposed allies.”

“Spagna was a fool,” Gallo said.

“Perhaps,” Stamm answered. “But he was my fool.”

“What are you going to do w

ith that flash drive?” Stephanie asked.

“All of the offenders will be dealt with. Contrary to what would have happened if Spagna, or our imposter here, had succeeded with their plans.”

The iron door behind them clanged opened.

Luke entered with another man in tow. Fresh off a plane from Malta.

“Head of Maltese security,” Stephanie whispered to him. “His name is Kevin Hahn.”

Stamm led the newcomer to a cell and locked Hahn inside. Cotton took the opportunity to shake Luke’s hand.

“The gang’s all here. Good job,” he told him. He noticed the same shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes from Malta. “Casual Fridays?”

“It’s been a long day.” Luke grinned. “I hear you’re riding trains now like in some Die Hard movie. It’s good to know that Pappy still has some life left in him.”

“Thankfully, it wasn’t moving all that fast.”

Luke noticed Gallo in the cell. “Damn. He looks just like the cardinal. Nobody would have ever known.”

“What are you going to do with the Nostra Trinità?” Gallo asked Stamm.

“The two parchments inside the reliquary will be returned to the knights as their property. But the Constitutum Constantini is church property.”

“So it goes into the Vatican archives?” Stephanie asked.

Stamm stepped to the table and lifted the rolled parchment. His right hand slipped into his cassock and came out without the flash drive. Instead he held a lighter. He flicked the flame to life, then set it to the brittle scroll.

Which ignited.

Stamm dropped the burning scroll to the floor, which turned to charcoal in a matter seconds.

“The matter is now closed,” Stamm said.

“We’re still here,” Gallo called out from his cell. “We know everything. This isn’t over.”

Charles Cardinal Stamm stood stoic as a statue. Burning the scroll was the most animation Cotton had seen from the man. But he also detected something else in the eyes as they’d watched the parchment destroy itself.