feet long. A battlement built from tuff blocks, flat bricks and travertine, and the only structure in all of Rome to remain free of posters, graffiti, and the ever-present » Ti amo per sempre!« The wall felt worn to the touch and utterly smooth wherever the travertine edges protruded. Ancient hooks were mounted in the sienna brown bricks and moss was growing in the cracks. The wall had sixteen gates. Two entrances led to the Vatican Museums, two were walled up, one was barred with an iron door and one was only passable by train. One small door led into a soup kitchen, another gate gave direct access to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and one gate led straight into the Vatican’s underground parking garage.
The main entrance, the Saint Anne Gate, was located next to the Swiss Guards’ barracks. Peter knew that this was the gate where they were currently conducting the strictest controls, and so he decided to use the Petrine Gate next to the Sant’Uffizio. Right behind it was the Campo Santo Teutonico, the German cemetery, which constitutionally was a territorial part of the former Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . If you displayed a rather self-confident and authoritative demeanor, and shouted in a firm voice in German »Zum Campo Santo, bitte!«, you could pass without showing a permit, and enter the Vatican.
However, Peter knew that this trick would not be working today. Not even at the Petrine Gate. Since the resignation of the Pope, the Swiss Guards had tightened their controls at all gates. So Peter showed his ID to the young guard at the gate and, after a long and careful look at it, he stamped the permit and waved Peter through. As he was passing through the gate, Peter saw the Swiss Guard reaching for the telephone; no doubt he was calling his boss.
Peter’s route led him through the Vatican Gardens, past Saint John’s Tower and the heliport and towards a non-descript little house, the Casina del Giardiniere, the former gardener’s house. Secluded from the hustle and bustle, in one of the most tranquil areas of the Vatican, right in the middle of the gardens and within sight of the rose garden and the statue of St. Peter, lived and worked Padre Luigi Gattuso. »Don Luigi«, as they respectfully called him in the Vatican.
One year previously, Peter had interviewed Don Luigi, and the Sicilian Padre seemed to take a liking to him after discovering their mutual penchant for American TV series. In any case, the highly educated Don Luigi had turned into a priceless source when it came to understanding the mysterious and complicated internal mechanisms of the Vatican, and Peter returned the favors by providing the Padre now and then with DVDs of the latest TV series.
Don Luigi, who was the author of more than twenty books that were sold across the world, knew everything about – and everybody in – the Vatican. As a special envoy to the Pope, he was a regular guest in the Terza Loggia. Within the Curia, too, the down-to-earth man in his mid-fifties enjoyed a solid reputation. Everybody knew that he was neither a blabbermouth nor a wise guy. Nevertheless, Peter owed quite a lot of insider information to him. Even Peter’s stubborn assertion that he was done with the Catholic Church, and that he did not believe in God, Christ, Maria, Allah, Shiva, nor in any other higher being, had no impact on Luigi’s trust in him. But this was, as Peter suspected, possibly linked to the fact that he regarded Peter as a »case«.
For Don Luigi was the Vatican’s chief exorcist.
It did not slip Peter’s attention that armed members of the Swiss Guards and officers of the papal gendarmerie were patrolling the Vatican grounds; they were everywhere. But nobody stopped him or asked for his permit. On his way, Peter walked past the entrance to the Vatican necropolis, the catacombs below the Vatican, a huge underground cemetery from early Christian times, which was not yet fully explored. In the dank
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