New by R. A. SCOTTI
BASILICA
The Splendor and the Scandal
Building St. Peter's
&
SUDDEN SEA
The Great Hurricane of 1938
New by R. A. SCOTTI
BASILICA
The Splendor and the Scandal
Building St. Peter's
&
SUDDEN SEA
The Great Hurricane of 1938
|
KISS OF JUDAS"A shocker! A descent into hell." —Los Angeles Times Book Review Allied with a traitor high within the Vatican, a ruthlessly idealistic terrorist cell masterminds a plot so daring and so audacious that, if successful, it will shock the world. The mission: To kidnap the Pope. Wrapped in clouds of incense, the celebrant bent to kiss the altar where the severed heads of Saints Peter and Paul were said to repose in silver reliquaries. The image on the 12-inch television screen flickered and the reed-like voice of Paul VI, wavering as if it were caught on the wind, filled the abandoned villa. “Introibo ad altare Dei. I will go to the altar of God.” The silver muzzle of a P-38 gleamed like the Cyclops eye. The German-made Walther was pointed directly at the fragile figure swathed in linens and heavily brocaded purple vestments. Sandro Buscati, watching the TV, twirled the P-38 on his index finger and responded aloud: “Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meum. To God who gives joy to my youth.” The words echoed eerily in the empty parlor….Buscati slipped the pistol under his belt and settled back to watch the spectacle unfold. It was theater, the color, the costumes, the intensity, the music, the mesmerized audience, its very attendance a deplorable act of communion, and the single old man drawing them together by the magic he performed, a magic that had held Italy in thrall since Constantine. Beside it Shakespeare and even Pirandello were dwarfed. This was drama like no other. Repeat performances. Encores for centuries. Why, Buscati wondered, didn’t the people see it for what it was? Theater, and nothing more. Even the basilica added to the illusion, he thought. San Giovanni in Laterano was the cathedral of Rome. It contained within its imposing walls all the history of the Eternal City. Fausta brought the land to Constantine as part of her dowry gift and was strangled in the hot room of the bath that had stood there. The basilica that replaced the lethal bath suffered vandals, earthquake and fire before it was rebuilt in the Middle Ages with frescoes by Giotto. When it was again destroyed by fire, a new cathedral rose from its ashes with bronze doors from the Curia of Foro Romano, a fourth-century pavement, and sculpture of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. Buscati knew his history. He was not like so many of his comrades from the proletariat. He was a son of the patrician class-educated, cultivated. He constantly had to disavow his background to prove that he belonged with the people. This sense of always being on trial drove him to be more daring, more dangerous than any of them. So he’d become catalyst and executioner, mercilessly emptying his revolver into the pleading prisoner’s chest. He wouldn’t be any more lenient with the one he had chosen to follow Moro. After this deed he would never again be doubted and never again doubt himself. It would be his catharsis, his act of purification-so perfect, so precise, hanging by threads as fine as the spider spins for its net yet resilient enough to ensnare the Fisherman of Souls. |
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