He’d ridden from the Madliena Tower with Chatterjee, following the north coast highway to the town of St. Paul’s Bay. It began as a sleepy fishing village, the adjacent shoreline one of the easier points on the island from which to gain land. Now it was a popular tourist spot, its unstylish concrete buildings overflowing with an overpriced array of restaurants, cafés, and boutiques, the mass-market hotels and nondescript apartments packed with people year-round.
He caught sight of one of the coastal towers, high above, standing guard from its lofty perch. Another grand master creation, this one in 1610 by Wigancourt, who built six facing the sea. He knew about the famed Frenchman. A knight his entire adult life, including during the Great Siege, he was popular with the Maltese, which was rare for grand masters. The viaduct he completed delivered water to Valletta until the 20th century.
Out in the calm bay boats lay at anchor, so many that their bulk formed a carpet on the water. Beyond them, he spotted the small island where the faithful believed that Paul himself first came ashore. What a tale. In A.D. 60 275 prisoners were being ferried toward Rome to be tried, Paul included. Their ship was ruined in a dreadful storm, drifting two weeks before breaking up just off the coast. Despite not knowing how to swim, miraculously all of the prisoners made it to shore. The Bible itself recounted the event, noting that later we learned that the island was named Malta. The people who lived there showed us great kindness and they made a fire and called us all to warm ourselves. As the story went, while Paul was ashore a poisonous snake bit him but he survived, which the locals took as a sign that he was no ordinary man.
No. That he was not.
More a brilliant rebel.
Like himself.
Kastor stood before a formidable church, one of 360 that dotted the island, this one a high building of burnt ocher, with a graceful spire and a beautiful cupola, vivid against the drabness of the shady street. Not much had changed in thirty years. As a young priest, serving his first parish, he’d said mass here many times. He noticed that the same two clocks remained in the tower. One real, the other a trompe l’oeil, installed by overly superstitious locals to supposedly confuse the devil when he came to collect souls.
He and Chatterjee entered through the front doors. Inside was the same low roof supported by arches, with little pomp or circumstance, shadows still the only adornment. A solitary figure stood beside the front pew.
“Come in, my friend. Please. We have much to discuss.”
A tall, stout, older man, with a noticeable midsection, paraded down the center aisle. He was robust, with a thick patch of pale-white hair and features framed by a pair of wispy white sideburns. Few angles defined the round face, the skin streaked by veins of yellow and purple, perhaps the lasting effects from years of smoking.
Danjel Spagna.
The few times Kastor had seen him at the Vatican, Spagna had worn the black cassock, purple skullcap, and silver pectoral cross of an archbishop. Today he was dressed casually, nothing reflecting any ecclesiastical status.
He’d never actually met Spagna, only heard the tales.
The press called it all the Vatican, but the Holy See was not the Vatican City State. The latter came into existence as sovereign territory only in 1929 because of the Lateran Treaty. It consisted of chapels, halls, galleries, gardens, offices, apartments, and museums. The Holy See, the episcopal seat of Rome and the pope, dated back to Christ, and was an independent sovereign entity that did not end at the death of a pontiff. The Holy See acted and spoke for the whole church, currently maintaining diplomatic relations with 180 nations. Ambassadors were officially accredited not to the Vatican City State, but to the Holy See. The pope was its unchallenged head, but it was administered by the curia, with the secretary of state acting like a prime minister, a buffer between the over two thousand employees and the pope. The old joke came from John XXIII. When asked how many people worked at the Vatican, he quipped about half of them.
As in any other nation, security had always been a concern.
The most secret agency within the Holy See had existed since the 16th century, created specifically by Pius V to end