The Lost Cathedral Read online

  He kept his head down with eyes cast to cement walkways, never looking up long enough for anyone to register his features. When he entered the eatery he ordered a coffee, nothing more, and watched the small TV that was situated against the far wall.

  The man responsible for the attempt on Bonasero’s life had escaped and was considered to be armed and dangerous. His photo was posted on the screen, causing him to lower the brim of his hat. Then the news segued to the welfare of the pope—who apparently remained in stable condition with added references that he was showing improvement.

  So you live.

  And I have failed.

  Then another transition on the monitor’s screen, this time showing the collapsed wing of Gemelli Hospital. Rubble was piled high like a scattering of small pyramids with rebar, metal and concrete dressing the landscape as if it was war-torn.

  When the waitress came by to add more coffee he placed his hand over the cup, refusing. He didn’t look or respond to her when she spoke. He simply sat there with his eyes cast downward until she finally walked away.

  The TV.

  More news of his escape: Four men were killed. A killer was on the loose. And the man was obviously insane, which made Phinehas scoff.

  He was not insane. He simply had different values embedded into his wiring. His lethal skills, however, came from years of training as a Vatican Knight.

  As he sat there he self-debated whether or not to make another attempt against the pontiff’s life. Obviously he was no longer at Gemelli. So he had probably been moved somewhere close given the nature of his condition. Most likely the Apostolic Palace, he considered. There he would be surrounded by scores of Swiss Guards and Vatican Knights—an impenetrable wall of security, even for him.

  So he decided to return to Brazil and to the Lost Cathedral, his sanction where he would live another day to fight in the honor of the Luminaries. More importantly, he would be among brethren, those he felt most connected to.

  As soon as the network started to loop back and repeat the news with no real updates, Phinehas went to the restroom, conducted his business. And like he did in the clothing store, he exited through the rear of the restaurant and stiffed the waitress with the bill.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Apostolic Palace

  Vatican City

  Four dead. Phinehas was on the run. And Kimball was out of the country. All a bad combination as Isaiah lowered the phone back to its cradle. He had received a call from the Gendarmerie stating that Phinehas had escaped his transport and was fully armed. An ATL (Attempt to Locate) was issued to all law enforcement agencies. And so far all attempts were negative. Phinehas was a much larger threat because nobody knew if he would make another run at the pope or flee the country. The only thing they could do was wait until he surfaced.

  Crossing the room where the doctor was taking vitals, Isaiah could see that the monitor was running at a consistent level of someone who was stable, rather than seesawing from the stages of steadiness to uncertainty. Bonasero had hurdled the hump and was on the mend, though slowly. The tubes had been removed from his throat, the oxygen mask from his mouth. Though when he spoke, it came in few words before he became fatigued by the effort. But his mind was sharp, as were his eyes. He slept. Then he’d awaken. And he would drink juices from foiled packets that had a straw poking from its side. His vitals, according to the doctor, showed promise as they improved steadily by the hour.

  When the physician moved away Isaiah went to the pope’s bedside and placed a hand upon Bonasero’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, Your Holiness? Do you have everything you need?”

  Bonasero pointed to a juice packet on the tray before him, which Isaiah grabbed and brought to the pontiff’s lips. After taking a few greedy sips, the aged man eased back against his pillow, contented. Then in a whisper: “I thought . . . I saw . . . Phinehas.”

  Isaiah knew he was talking about the moment of the assassination attempt.

  “Did my eyes . . . deceive me?”

  Isaiah shook his head. No. “You saw right,” he told him. “It was Phinehas. And he didn’t come alone. He came with Mordecai.”

  “Mordecai?”

  Another nod. This time ‘yes.’ “Mordecai took his own life,” he told him. “Unfortunately.”

  The pontiff’s face went into twists of myriad features between confusion and grief. “I don’t understand . . . Why?”

  “Kimball is trying to find out,” he told him. “Right now he’s in Colombia.”

  “Colombia?”

  Isaiah nodded. “We have reason to believe that the pilot of Shepherd One knowingly downed the plane three years ago in Brazil close to the Colombian border, and that the pilot was operating with a sect called the Order of Fallen Angels.”

  Bonasero remained rapt and provided his full attention.

  “The Gendarmerie effected an arrest on Phinehas.” Isaiah neglected to inform the pontiff of his subsequent escape. “And it appears that Phinehas . . . is not the same person.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s apparent that Phinehas and Mordecai have been washed.”

  “Washed?”

  “Brainwashed. They were operating under a new set of moral—or immoral—guidelines, with everything they learned as a Vatican Knight erased with the exception of few memories. We believe they were programmed to commit an act of terrorism against the Vatican. And who better than to recruit a branch of elite warriors who know best on how to breach the Church and see the matter of assassinating the pope done?”

  “And the others?”

  “We believe the other four may be alive in Brazil, in hiding, along with the cardinals.”

  “Why do they want to see me . . . dead?”

  “Phinehas said something about maintaining the idea of one rule, one law and one religion. But he didn’t really expound on that. In fact, he was under the misconception that you were someone else. Like I said: Phinehas is not in the same frame of mind.”

  All of a sudden Bonasero seemed to labor for breath, his eyes staring at the ceiling. The monitor started to blip a little faster.

  Isaiah reached over with concern. “Your Holiness?”

  Then the monitor began to stabilize and the pontiff’s breathing came close to natural, but a little ragged.

  “This order,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “All I know is that they started out decades ago as a neo-Nazi group trying to keep alive wartime ideologies of the Third Reich. But they’ve never been anything more than a syndicate siphoning funds from organizations and preying on unfortunates who are weak of mind. About six years ago the face of the organization disappeared after he learned that Interpol and the ABIN were looking for him regarding the illegal transfer of stolen funds. He hasn’t been seen until recently at an airport in Colombia.”

  “This . . . face. His name?”

  “Gunter Wilhelm.”

  The monitor started to blip at a far more rapid pace. And the pope suddenly appeared uneasy, which prompted the physician to intervene. When the monitor was back to normal the pontiff pressed Isaiah further. “Gunter Wilhelm?”

  “You need to rest,” said the doctor.

  But the pontiff looked right past him and fixed his sight directly on Isaiah. “You said Gunter Wilhelm, yes?”

  “I did, Your Holiness. Yes.”

  The pontiff fell back against his pillow. Gunter . . . Wilhelm.

  “Not to worry,” Isaiah added, placing a comforting hand on Bonasero’s forearm. “Kimball’s on top of this. Phinehas and Mordecai were sent here as tools to achieve the means that would serve whatever purpose this group intended. Their minds had been altered enough that they didn’t recognize you at all. They’d been programmed and deceived by the order not to see you as the pontiff. But as someone they called Franz Kleimer-Schmidt.”

  Bonasero eyes suddenly welled with tears. So when he blinked he was able to squeeze a few drops from the corners of his eyes and to the pillow. “They we
ren’t deceived,” he managed drily. “They came after who they were supposed to come after.” He then raised a palsied-looking hand and lightly tapped his stomach, indicating himself. “I’m Franz Kleimer-Schmidt.”

  PART TWO

  The Jungvolk Boys

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Germany, May 22, 1945

  They were nothing less than a league of boys trying to survive the streets two weeks after the Germans surrendered to Allied Forces. They were south of Munich and heading toward Italy, and away from the Red Army that was converging from the north and the east.

  They were waifs, orphans, children of a Nazi system that died the moment Adolf Hitler put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger, murdering a way of life. But ideas and beliefs were bullet-proof, so the ideology of the Third Reich remained in the hearts and minds of those who hung onto the only thing they had left after losing everything: a belief.

  After the ‘true’ soldiers of the Reich had perished or vacated the fronts when the Red Army approached, children from the Jungvolk and Hitler’s Youth were combined to serve the front lines on the Russian Front by 1942. By 1944 they were seasoned fighters who either witnessed or committed atrocities, sometimes both.

  Now, two weeks after Germany’s surrender, a gathering of boys were on the run from the Red Army with some still holding true to a dream of one rule, one law, and one religion—the makings of a true Aryan society.

  When they took flight they started out as unit of sixteen. Now they were down to twelve after four absconded from the group during the night. Four of the remaining members were from Hitler’s Youth who served as the lieutenants with complete dominion over the eight boys of the Jungvolk, children who were between the ages of ten and thirteen.

  Gunter Wilhelm commanded the unit while his lieutenant’s—Hermann Braun, Albrecht Krause and Fredric Austerlitz—stood by his side, the boys between the ages of fifteen and sixteen. So when Wilhelm discovered the absconding of team members from the Jungvolk, he took personal affront and went after their team leader, Franz Kleimer-Schmidt, a boy who was young and slight with big blue eyes that were much too large for his features.

  Wilhelm, who was much larger at sixteen, grabbed Franz by the front of his shirt and forced the child to the ground, screaming obscenities.

  “We’re not done!” he told Franz. “Not by a long shot!” Then with forced calm, he added. “The Reich is not dead. Germany will rise again.”

  “The war’s over,” Franz managed frailly. “It has been for two weeks now.”

  Wilhelm slapped him hard. “Don’t tell me about the war!” he said. “I’m talking about a belief! About a way of life! Did you learn nothing as a member of the Jungvolk?”

  When Franz started to cry, Gunter Wilhelm looked down at the child who was starting to curl into a fetal position. “You’re weak,” he told Franz. “And you’re the one who leads the Jungvolk?”

  Franz slowly got to his feet and offered Gunter a look that was less than challenging. After a moment he cast his eyes to the ground in submission while Gunter continued to pin him with a hard gaze.

  “One rule, one law, and one religion. Do you believe that, Franz?” Gunter asked him.

  Franz was terrified. “Yes,” he whispered.

  Then from Gunter. “Louder.”

  “Yes.”

  “I said louder!”

  “YES!”

  Gunter nodded in approval. “Very good.” Then he began to circle Franz with his hands clasped behind the small of his back. While Franz remained motionless, his eyes continued to stare at the damp earth that surrounded his feet due to the heavy rains, and refused to look up.

  Gunter Wilhelm stopped his circling and stood behind the much smaller boy. Then he leaned forward ever so slowly to whisper in Franz’s ear. “I lead my lieutenants,” he told him. “My lieutenants lead you. You lead the Jungvolk boys. That’s the order which cannot be broken. Servitude and discipline is everything. It’s success. If the chain is broken, then chaos reigns. Do you understand?”

  Franz nodded his head.

  “I can’t hear you, Franz. Do . . . you . . . understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Gunter Wilhelm leaned back with his hands still clasped behind the small of his back. “Very good, Franz. As leader of the Jungvolk boys you’ll be held accountable for their actions. If another leaves the unit, just one, I’ll hold you personally responsible. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gunter Wilhelm removed a Luger from his holster. It was the only weapon among them, and caressed Franz’s cheek with the thin barrel. “If there was accountability along the Russian Front,” he said levelly, “then we’d still be at war. The Russians would not have been able to push their way through the lines. Now we have to regroup, rebuild, and trust in our Aryan faith.” As he continued to stroke the point of the weapon against Franz’s soft cheek, he asked. “Do you believe this can be done?”

  Of course Franz didn’t believe this. No matter how many Russians were taken down by German rifles, they kept coming at them like hordes of ants, wave after wave. The Germans were defeated, Hitler was gone. Did Gunter Wilhelm truly believe that a dozen boys could keep a twisted dream alive?

  But Gunter wielded fear like a well-brandished tool and used it well.

  There was no other answer other than the one that Gunter Wilhelm wanted to hear.

  “Yes,” he finally answered.

  Gunter Wilhelm holstered his weapon. “Very good, Franz. True leaders never give up, never surrender. And in you I see potential. So lead your team and lead them well. Remember: accountability and discipline.”

  Franz’s eyes remained submissively cast to the mud surrounding his feet. “Yes, sir.”

  “And for the rest of you,” Gunter addressed the Jungvolk boys. “Any attempt to abscond from my unit will be met with harsh consequences. Understand this.” Then: “Now get some rest. All of you. Tomorrow we move south, toward Italy. The Red Army will not pursue us so deep. We will find others and regroup. Others who will support our cause.”

  When no one moved Gunter issued a final command. “I said . . . rest.”

  The boys broke and separated, looking for potential dry spots to lay and sleep. But the rains had made this impossible, the ground saturated. So the boys slept in mud as dampness chilled their bones. And to Franz Kleimer-Schmidt this was completely unacceptable.

  His mind was already working against Gunter Wilhelm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  During the night as an unseasonable chill came down from the northwest, two boys from the Jungvolk had taken it upon themselves the notion to vacate the camp. There was no fire, the lieutenants agreeing that a blaze could work as a beacon for members of the Red Army. The only light came from a moon that was waxing toward its full phase, the illumination casting a pale glow across the landscape.

  No words were spoken. One tapped the other on the shoulder and pointed to the line of trees that bordered a wooded area. Getting to their feet but hunkering low, they moved quietly toward the tree line.

  When they reached the boundary, however, two of Gunter’s lieutenants edged forward from the brush to stop their progress, catching the boys in obvious surprise as their mouths dropped into perfect O’s. Whereas the lieutenants held smiles of malicious amusement, there was also a sadistic cast to their eyes as well, an awful glint.

  Come morning when the camp awakened, the two boys were sitting on a log with their hands tied behind their backs. During the night they had wept quietly, their tears having drawn lines down their smudged faces. Their clothes were soiled, filthy, both having been dragged through the mud by the lieutenants before they had their wrists bound, the act by Gunter’s deputies one of malevolent play.

  As the day began anew with the sun hidden behind the ceiling of a slate-gray-sky that promised additional rain, Gunter measured the two boys—both eleven years of age and cousins to one anothe
r—in silent manner. This went on for twenty minutes with everyone watching and waiting in silence. With Gunter standing motionless throughout and staring at the boys with eyes of condemnation, this simple act eventually driving racking sobs from the boys.

  It was at this moment that Gunter finally responded.

  He walked away from the boys and stood before Franz, then regarded him with the same unflinching stare that was cold and unforgiving. “Did I not tell you that there would be harsh consequences, Franz?”

  Franz didn’t answer because bile was beginning to rise to his throat, hot and acidy.

  “Your team. Your boys,” said Gunter. “And not only did you fail yourself. You failed them.”

  “I didn’t know,” Franz mustered. “I can talk to them. I can make them believe.”

  “It’s your job to know. And they should already believe.”

  “Please,” Franz pleaded. “This doesn’t have to happen.”

  “I think it does, Franz. This will serve to motivate you more into acting responsible. To make them” –He pointed at the boys of the Jungvolk—“more responsible. It’s all about accountability, Franz . . . And the necessary discipline to see this through.”

  “Let me talk to them,” Franz said with more grit to his tone. “I promise you, they won’t do it again.”

  “I know they won’t do it again. None of you will do it again because I’m about to show you the value of harsh consequences, the full-proof power of control and its ability to vanquish incorrect thoughts in others, like running away.”

  Gunter Wilhelm stepped behind the two boys who began to cry uncontrollably. “You had your chance, Franz. And once again you failed.” He withdrew his Luger.