Vanour pager
Dom lesti diafh.


the party if ever it became powerful.
They include
a number of our civil servants, as you know.
You
speak fluent Italian. All useful stuff."
Here he
leaned forward.
"Has it occurred to you that you
could supply us with useful information?
I can give
you the name of someone at your embassy you could go
and see.' 11
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"You could earn a bit of money too---more than
translations bring you."
"I told you, it's out of the question."
The result of this interview was that his soggiorno
was cancelled and he was given 72 hours to get out of
the country. The police told him his father wanted
him back,
Just a month before this he'd met Laura, the blonde
English girl. They started an affair---and as suddenly
it went wrong. She denied she felt anything for him.
They had a series of incomprehensible rows.
There
was trouble with Luciana, the girl he was living with,
when she found out. He was perplexed, confused,
especially as Laura was a quite different woman in
bed. Only years later did it occur to him that some-
one was pulling his character down behind his back.
He left his apartment in Luciana's hands, furniture
and all, and flew from Ciampino airport intending never
to return and believing he might forget Laura. His
last week in Rome had been a turmoil of people turning
their backs on him, and inexplicable rebuffs, even in
his own bar on the Via Margutta. He felt like a child
all over again---needed the large cool parental house
in Colonial Heights with its wire netting over the
windows and a swimming pool behind the trees.
All his father said was, "Get yourself into a bit
of trouble?"---then a chuckle and a proud shake of his
head.
It was being trailed at the age of nineteen, and
the espionage offer by a high-ranking official, that
gave James El his first taste of the sweetness of
danger. It never left his system.
Back in Virginia
he enjoyed long days at the pool with his new girlfriend
Betty, who was in her first year at Sarah Laurence,
and he even thought he was in love with her.
And
he was bitterly angry with Laura, which helped him
believe he was finished with her.
Another couple
of years and he married Betty, now out of college.
He tried to forget that he'd enjoyed a life in Rome
of a quality he'd never dreamed about before. Little
nostalgic scenes kept coming to mind.
Only one thing
reconciled him to a marriage largely organised by
his parents,and a home and a job: his secret deter-
mination to lead a dangerous life, somehow, somewhere.
He looked around for risk all the time. And when
he started up in real estate with an office of his


1) James Elroy Merton was born in Richmond Va.,
so named by his wealthy British immigrant father
after his favourite poet James Elroy Flecker.
James El, as he is known to his friends, returns
to Rome after an absence of twenty years in October
He was last in Rome at the age of nineteen and
fell in love with an English girl called Laura. They
broke up after a short scene together but no other
woman, including the wife with whom he lived in various
parts of Virginia for over fifteen years, meant as
much to him as Laura. He was determined to see her
again. His wife knew nothing about this. Nor did
his friends.
He never once wrote a letter to Laura
in the twenty years he was absent from Rome, never
once referred to her.
In his teenage Roman days he was quite a communist.
In the Fifties Italian communism was different from
the later militant, trade-union orientated variety.
At that time there was a lot of poverty in the country
and trade unions were hardly known. James El
became convinced that further injections of American
capital into Italy would ruin Europe's 'little garden'
as it was called and eventually plunge it into civil
war. He was a regular at PCI meetings and frequently
went to communist headquarters at the Palazzo Colonna.
He was also picking up good pocket money translating
treatises and legal documents into English, and had
a small apartment on the Via Margutta, its windows
overlooking RAI headquarters. Here he gave small
parties from time to time and came to know a good
many government officials, partly because of his
translation work and partly because, being a potentially
wealthy young American, he attracted a lot of social
attention anyway.
Ralph Marriot was one of his closest buddies in
those days. No one knew much about Ralph. He was
said to be English but never went near England. He
did go to Malta from time to time and some said he
had a wife and child there, and a shop.
Where his
money came from was anybody's guess but he never
seemed short of it.
James El's first stay in Rome was brusquely cut off
by an early-morning call from the dreaded Questura,
Mussolini's internal security police who had been
retained under the post-war constitution. Even James
El's heart did a jump. He was told to go to head-
quarters at once and announce himself. He took a taxi,
still unshaven, and to his astonishment was ushered into
the office of the Questore himself. It wasn't the Questore
behind the desk but a high-ranking official: however,
the point had been made-- -James Elroy Merton was consid-
ered important bait.
For two hours the genial,


lazily smiling official sat talking to him.
The
gist of it was that he'd been trailed everywhere
during the last six months. He'd been seen visiting
PCI headquarters several times, so had his girl.
At the end of the two hours the official suddenly
suggested that James El should work for the American
Embassy as an informer. James El refused and was
out of the country in three days flat.
Just a month before this he'd met Laura, the blonde
English girl.
After an ardent start together they
had a series of incomprehensible rows. Only years
later did it occur to him that someone had been pulling
his character down behind his back, and that this
someone might have been Ralph Marriot.
He left his apartment in her hands, furniture and
all, and flew from Ciampino airport intending never to
return.
Back in Virginia he enjoyed long days at the
parental swimming pool with his new girlfriend Betty,
who was in her first year at Sarah Laurence.
He even
thought he was in love with her.
Another couple of
years and he'd married her.
Only one thing reconciled him to a marriage largely
organised by his parents---his determination to lead a
risky life even in straight business.
Somehow the
espionage offer in Rome had produced a catalytic change
in his blood. When he started up in his father's real
estate office he soon saw the possibilities. He began
making money so fast that even his father became alarmed.
When the second child came along he realised that
he intended to return to Laura however many years it
took him. He heard from Ralph Marriot occasionally,
the slack, amiable letters you'd expect him to write.
Nothing about Laura.
He opened a special bank account
in New York---the 'journey to Rome' account.
His
savings went into it over a period of at least ten
years. He swore to return to Rome as soon as he was
free of his family.
Providence helped him by tipping off the police
about some of his real estate deals.
His 'colleagues'
advised him to leave the US for a time, which was just
what he wanted.
His father got to hear of it, so did
Betty (James El made sure .of that).
He was just ready to leave when she plonked a
legal injunction on him. She got a nice fat settlement
which absorbed most of his savings. Legal fees to
protect him against an investigation, and generous
'gifts' to keep key people quiet, took care of the rest.
By the time he left for Rome he had just enough to
keep him alive for six months---if he was careful.
Even his inheritance became a chimera.
His father
blocked it by setting up a trust-fund available in
part to his children and in part to anyone James El wished
to name in his last will and testament.
It was a
bitter personal blow that had a lot to do with the
later events of his life.
In one other respect too he was a very different


CHAPTERSAMPLE 1.
It was half-past nine and most of the city was
at dinner.
He'd never seen the street so deserted.
The daily murders, the thefts, muggings and assassinations
had enforced an unofficial curfew on this earthy,
voluptuous yet sceptical city.
James El crossed the Garibaldi bridge into the
brash and popular district he loved most.
You could never be sure what lay behind Ralph's
glances, casual as they were. He looked at you
when your eyes were turned away.
Besides a weak
mouth he had a broad unlined brow as if thought and
care were unknown to him.
Ralph went in for wind-
jackets summer and winter, and tight Italian slacks
and high-heeled shoes which were unsuitable for his
age and out of date anyway.
Ralph was alone at a table for two.
They shook hands and James El felt a sudden
yearning for the heady effects of the trattoria's
home-grown frascati. A litre carafe of it was put
before him almost at once and he downed a glass in
a few gulps.
"Worried?" Ralph asked him.
Then, without waiting for an answer, "I talked
to a friend of mine called Johnny Lucubrese.
He must still have been in nappies when you were
living on the Via Margutta. He'd like to see you.
Tomorrow at the Flora, about midday, in the bar
downstairs."
"How will I recognise him?"
"He'll recognise you."
Next day it was just like the old Rome, bright
and warm with a bounce in the air. He took a taxi
to the Via Veneto and sat in a traffic jam for
twenty minutes cursing himself for not having walked.
"What's the hold up?" he asked the driver.
"Another murder."
Very laconic and flat.


"Some minister.
Three of the kidnappers were
wounded but they got the minister first."
He got to the Flora ten minutes late and Johnny
was already there, an easy-going, well-dressed type.
They went upstairs and sat outside in the stink of
the slow-moving traffic.
"I've seen you around with Ralph," Johnny told him.
When they'd had coffee they strolled to the top of
the hill into the Borghese Gardens.
He was surprised to find that Johnny was nervous
too.
"This evening somebody's going to phone you,"
Johnny said.
"Hang about your hotel-room between
eight and nine."
"There's no phone in my room."
"They'll call you downstairs won't they?"
Johnny said with irritation.
"Now all you do on
the phone is just listen and say yes and no and fine and
things like that.
Don't ask questions or make
comments."
"We'll meet again tomorrow same place same time.
Now before you come I want you to call at the Banco
di Roma and have a look at your balance."
"You know I've an account there?"
Johnny gave him a look of contempt.
Next morning James El found his account had
been credited a thousand dollars.
He just nodded
to the clerk and handed the statement back without
enquiring where the credit came from.
Then he strolled up the Via Veneto and waited
for Johnny a second time.
But Johnny didn't come.
James El gave him an
hour and then went back to his hotel.
As for the phonecall the previous evening, it
hadn't come either.
But now, just ten minutes after he got in from
the Flora, the woman from the desk downstairs knocked
on his door and said, "Telefono."


minister, within two in a position of entire confidence.
He was given a spacious apartment on the choice
Aventine hill. Here he gave parties and once more
became known as a desirable social contact.
He found
himself back in the fashionable restaurants of Parioli
and the Via Veneto, less and less at the Trastevere
trattoria.
To his surprise Ralph joined him in his
new life, indeed made him feel that his presence was
part of the bargain. James El felt safer with him
around---one neter knew when a dirty trick or two
might be needed.
He was now quite sure that Ralph had informed on
him twenty years before.
It explained why he was never
short of money---and why the Questura hadn't booted him
out of Italy as well.
Had Ralph been in love with Laura?
Something in Ralph's manner when he talked about her
seemed to suggest a possible background there.
Was
that why he'd informed against James El, to get rid of
him? And would he do the same kindofthing again,
given a second chance, particularly if Laura came into
their little circle?
The Tarot cards supported this
suggestion.
Well, Ralph had won the first round twenty years
ago. But James El was going to win the second.
the old days, he now felt, he'd deserved to lose.
the old days Ralph had been his master.
But now Ralph
was going to be his servant.
'James El's back in circulation'---it went round
Rome among those old enough to remember his 'wild' days
twenty years back, about which they now laughed. With
a middle-aged spread, a large apartment and a cook from
the Trento he was excellent company:
One evening, at a party compsed largely of Christian
Democrat people, he met Laura. Within seconds they were
madly in love with each other again.
They dined alone at his place the following week
and made love.
At a later party he met Marco Petrucci, her
husband, a quiet man of rather stunning good looks,
very masculine and steady.
James El inspected his account at the Banco di Roma
each month and found it replenished on time. He bought
a car and drove Laura out to Ostia Antica, Frascati,
Palestrina, all the old places. Simultaneously he
was going about his business of surveillance, often
with Laura in his company---at rigged dinner parties,
evenings at the Florida club. Daily he provided
details of the minister Pietrafino's movements, and
consigned them to a black plastic sack in a rubbish
dump among the tenement blocks of Monte Mario.
Just before the two months of his assignment were
up the minister was shot dead in his car on his way to
the Quirinale.
There were press photos of him hanging
from the driver's seat.
James El, his face flushed with anger, ran to the
phone and called Ralph.
"Some people never will learn


of the past months to Monsignor Salvatore who looked
very grave and for a moment terrified.
He gave
James El absolution and commended him for having
secretly tried to save the pope "even though only
against a quite imaginary plot produced by your own
fevered mind at the time.
"For this too I give you absolution, It he added.
James El felt childishly secure in Monsignor
Salvatore's tiny library where plots and informing
seemed entirely unreal.
He talked unguardedly to everyone as if he'd
found an invisible new protection which would see
him safe through everything. He went to church
almost every day (St Peter's).
People noticed a
strange elation in him. He took Laura to the same
restaurants as before, and to parties, with deliberate
carelessness. No new instructions came from 'Mike'.
The monthly instalments at the Banco di Roma ceased.
Meanwhile he and Laura pursued their secret plans
for departure.
There was the question of money.
It would be impossible for her to take her sizable
fortune out of Italy due to blocked-currency regulations.
They decided to take as much cash as they could handle
without arousing suspicion when withdrawing it from
the banks, and to slip across the border north of
Udine.
Not that he or she had real hopes that he would
survive that long. One morning, unable to bear the
silence and suspens e any longer, he rushed out to
make a call on Ralph.
The apartment was closed up.
Ralph's porter downstairs said he'd gone away
suddenly.
And the phone had been disconnected.
They timed their getaway attempt for December 13.
No unpleasant calls came. No one seemed to be trailing
them in the streets.
The days passed innerve-wracking
boredom.
He kept making sure that Ralph wasn't back in town.
On the evening of December 12 they went to a party,
wanting to behave as if nothing was about to happen.
When they got back there was a phonecall from Ralph.
James El's heart sank into his bowels.
"Think I'd deserted you?" Ralph said.
They met without Laura later that night at the
Florida club and to James El's immense relief he
found Ralph as distraught and clearly on the run as
he himself was. They drank a lot of frascati.
Ralph said he'd got himself into a bit of a fix and
didn't know how to get out of it.
"I tried a bunk to Malta but it didn't work."
Then: "You've got to get away by latest tomorrow
night. And take me with you."
"Take you?"
Ralph outlined his plan. At eight o'clock the
following evening James El was to be at the church of
Santa Lucia and wait there for him, kneeling in the
tiny chapel of the Madonna on the south side of the
apse. Ralph had chosen this church because tomorrow
would be the saint's name day and the place would
not only be open in the evening but plentifully
illuminated with candles.
It would be easy to merge


in with the crowd.
As for Laura, she was to wait for a car to pick
her up at James Ei's apartment.
It would arrive
at about 7.45 pm the following evening.
It would
take her to the church of Santa Lucia, behind the Campo
dei Fiori, and of course she had to be equipped for
travelling.
Neither of them, however, should arouse
suspicion by taking suitcases.
If Ralph hadn't turned up by 8.15 James El and
Laura were to go without him. They would be driven
to the airport where tickets were already waiting for
them. The driver of the car had received instructions-/
It was a clever plan and James El fell for it
without a moment's hesitation.
Ralph acted the part
of a hunted and frightened man to perfection. He
had not only James in his power but the woman he loved
too.
In fact, Ralph had strict orders that James El
must be got rid of. His own survival depended on
the success or otherwise of his mission.
8) Next evening the crowded church was brilliant with
lighted candles and as James El stepped inside a feeling
of extraordinary happiness came over him.
As he took
the holy water on the tips of his fingers and made the
sign of the cross a sentence came into his mind with
some clarity: 'And now you will meet the keeper of
the southern gate.'
Did it mean 'Mike' himself? or
something unusually fortunate? He took it as a good
omen.
He walked down the side-aisle to the little chapel
of the madonna and knelt close to the altar. He
found himself genuinely praying, his eyes closed.
He stayed like this for at least five minutes. He
heard a soft step behind him and guessed it to be
Ralph. He felt a pricking sensation in the elbow
and was just about to turn to find out what had happened
when a great weakness came over him and he fell slowly
sideways.
Not until the following day was he found, already
dead by several hours.
It hadn't entered his head apparently that Michael,
keeper of the southern gate, was also Lord of Death.
9) Laura waited in James El's apartment at the
appointed time. There were two letters from James
El for her, both marked 'To be opened later'.
A car was waiting downstairs with Ralph at the
wheel.
"We'll have to be quick about this," he said and
drove off at once.
After a time she realised they were driving towards
the coast.
"What about James El?" she asked him.
"Something went wrong.
Hopefully he's meeting


at the airport."
"What went wrong?" She was shivering.
"III tell you on the plane."
"Where are we going?"
He had air tickets ready. Only after take-off
did he relax. He turned to her with a smile and
said enigmatically, "Well, I wasn't worried for you
but I was for me!"
At London airport two security men came forward
at the passport desk and asked them to follow them.
They went to a room behind the customs area.
Ralph
was placed under arrest and Laura advised to find a
London hotel for a few days as she might be needed
for questioning.
As they walked together in front of the security
men Ralph told her in a normal voice, not at all shaken,
"I knew somebody was trailing me---thank God it was the
police! I
During the next few days Laura was interrogated
several times. In the second interview they showed
her a photograph of James El and asked her if she knew
him. When she said yes they told her he'd been found
dead in a Roman church.
She opened the two letters from James El. One
contained the cash he'd drawn from his account.
And
the other was a copy of his will leaving her that part
of his inheritance which he'd never been able to touch.
Perhaps he hadn't forgotten after_all, as he walked
into the church of Santa Lucia, that Michael keeper of
the southern gate was also Lord of Death.
Length: 80-100.000 words.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Until I see a full transcript of the report on
John Paul 1's death which was put before the judicial
authorities in Rome by the Civiltà Cristiana I cannot
of course give exact details of the weaknesses in
the security arrangements surrounding the pope, or
the suspicious nature of certain circumstances relating
to his death.
I've been promised this transcript or
a faithful verbal account when I return to Italy.
Thus the sample chapter above is imaginable rather
than probable.
Also the theme of the unknown doctor who examined
the pope on the day of his death (it is a fact that one
did see him five hours or So before) either has to be
ridded of the imputation that an injection was admin-
istered (asi P've-dome-here 1 A the synopsis) or, if
in fact an in'jection was administered, eliminated
altogether from the narrative as a libel hazard.


man from the youth who'd left for Rome twenty years
before.
Unknown to his family and most of his friends
he practised magic.
He'd also become uncannily expert
with the Tarot cards.
It had helped him get the
wiz-kid reputation in business.
He could predict the
future with enviable accuracy.
The cards told him that both Laura and Ralph were
still in Rome.
In Rome he found a cheap room on a monthly basis
in a hotel near the Pantheon.
By now Rome had become
Italy's crime-city No 2 after Milan. His favourite
Trastevere trattoria was much as it had always been.
He strolled in unannounced and walked straight to the
old table.
Ralph looked astonished to see his old
friend but in five minutes it felt as if they'd never
separated. He told Ralph he needed money---quick.
He describéd his real estate adventures back in
Virginia and asked him if anything might be going in
or around Rome.
"Similar but not the same" Ralph told him with a
funny look.
In a week a meeting was fixed up between James El
and a Johnny Lucubrese at the Flora, downstairs in the
bar.
They strolled up to the Borghese Gardens and
Lucubrese instructed him to wait for a phonecall that
evening from a man called 'Mike', who would do all the
talking.
After another week he was to inspect his
bank account at the Banco di Roma.
'Mike' did phone and made a series of what sounded
commonplace and casual remarks about meeting in Genoa,
visiting his country place etc. A week later James
El's bank balance was mysteriously credited with a
thousand dollars.
James El knew well enough that he was becoming
involved in some form of espionage and found himself
excited nather than frightened.
The next few weeks
were quiet.
He received a further thousand dollars
but no more phonecalls.
He knew he was being trailed
and observed.
Ralph kept a pretty close line on him
too, and was with him most nights of the week.
Laura had been traced.
She was married but
lived alone in the ghetto' area.
Her husband was
called Marco Petrucci and known to be rather wealthy.
They'd been together five years but had separated,
though they were good friends and went to the same
parties. James El asked anxiously if there'd been
children and to his relief was told no. Ralph
handed him Laura's address across the table one
evening.
James El avoided getting to know other women in
this interim period. He didn't want complications
when he came to know and once more court Laura. He
remembered a brothel in Via Monserrato from the old
days. With the abolition of brothels it had become
a small hotel much like the one he was staying in at


The man at the other end spoke English with a
slight Italian accent.
"This is Mike.
I'm glad
to find you at home.
How are you?"
"I'll be leaving for Genoa round two o'clock
on Wednesday, so we could meet at the station.
only need a couple of minutes together.
It'll be
nice to see you again after so many years."
"I hope you'll be free to join me in about a
month's time at my country place.
I'll let you
The phone went dead.
For the first time since
his arrival James El felt like laughing.
He drank
a coffee at a little bar across the road and smiled
to himself.
They put a thousand bucks in your
pocket for playing kid's games these days!
Well, well, he wasn't going to stop them.
Ralph professed himself completely mystified
by the phonecall, and even by Johnny's behaviour.
As for the sudden appearance of a thousand dollars
in James El's account, he thought it amusing.
"Are you sure it wasn't a draft you'd arranged
yourself?" he asked with an easy laugh.
James El knew well enough that he was becoming
involved in a form of espionage.
But his evening
divinatory exercises, and the mediumistic messages
he was getting with unfailing regularity, seemed to
assure him that all was well: he would somehow
keep his hands clean and emerge master of the situation
after all.
But more than this, he was ready to
sacrifice anything to reach Laura. He believed
that the work would be a perfect means to achieve this.
And he was right.
Ralph explained what he 'thought' the work involved.
"They need a good front man for these operations,
not that I know what the operations are. Probably
something to do with real estate, since you've always


been involved in that." When James El looked
sceptical he added, "I'm only guessing. You see
your value is that you're a personality, you've got
the right background, you know how to host people
and influence them, you're well travelled---whoever
these people are want you up front for some operation."
He knew Ralph was giving him real information.
"And what about the phonecall?" James El asked
him again.
"What did all that mean?"
"Ah there I can't help you."
And Ralph looked away.
The next few weeks were quiet. He received
another thousand dollars but no more phonecalls.
He knew he was being trailed and observed.
Ralph
kept a pretty close line on him too, and they were
together most days of the week. Laura had been
traced. She was married but living alone in the
'ghetto' area.
Her husband was called Marco
Petrucci and quite wealthy. They'd been together
five years or more but were now separated, though
still close friends and at all the same parties.
James El asked anxiously if there'd been children.
To his everlasting relief Ralph said "No." He
slipped Laura's address across the table to him,
and at that moment James El felt he would go to
the gates of hell with Ralph for that service.
Every evening after that he made a point of
passing through the little square where she lived
and looking up at what he guessed to be her window.
Standing below, he concentrated all his 'forces'
on her, sometimes for an hour or more. In his
hotel room he concentrated his magic on her too,
primitive though his ceremonies had to be in the
tiny room.
He avoided getting to know other women.
met several at the trattoria, friends of Ralph
mostly, among them several attractive American
girls, but he didn't make dates. He wanted no
flies in the ointmentwhen the time came for him to
meet Laura. He remembered a brothel in the Via
Monserrato from the old days where there had often
been lunchtime queues of men from the nearby markets.
Now, with the abolition of brothels, it had become
a small hotel much like the one he was staying at
near the Pantheon.
You took a girl in from the
street, or you booked one at the desk. James El
preferred the latter way of doing things and found
a sweet Neapolitan kid who curled softly all round
him and worked him hard, so that he would stumble
back to his own hotel feeling contentedly debauched
as dawn came through.
In this way sex desire was
appeased, attachments avoided.
He became one of
her steady clients and sometimes he had her over at
his own hotel.
He was beginning to feel that the
old Rome was still alive after all.


After a month like this Johnny met him in the
gardens again and told him he must go to Switzerland
the following day. He would fly to Zurich.
"Book a room at the Bau au Lac, do it by phone
from your hotel lobby. Talk as loud as you like.
When you get to Zirich take a taxi there direct from
the airport.
Walk into the lobby and through into
the lounge. Order some coffee. Go to the hotel
desk and look as if you're confirming your room: but instead
you can invent a name and ask them if the gentleman
has arrived yet. When you've drunk your coffee
order a taxi at the desk and then go to the Hotel
Excelsior where you'll find a room already booked
in your name. By the way, travel light, just one
piece of hand luggage. Stay in your room between
six and seven evety evening until a man knocks on
your door and introduces himself with the following
question: 'You are the American gentleman I met on
the plane aren't you?'. Your answer will be, 'How
nice of you to look me up. I'm just on my way out
to dinner. Won't you join me?""
"Isn't that rather corny dialogue?" James El
asked, marvelling again at the childishness of it
all.
"I didn't write it," Johnny said with a suggest-
ion of disgust.
"And do we go out to dinner?"
"He'll take you along the lake towards Zollikon.
I mean walking. It's quiet there."
"And what's he going to talk about?"
This time Johnny simply gave him a long hard
look.
"When he's told you everything you go back
to your hotel and dine there. And you leave as
early as possible the next morning, returning to
Rome via Milan."
The man who came to see him in the Zirich hotel
seemed to be Swiss. He talked in a mutter, as if
he'd learned it all by heart. He explained the code of
the 'Mike' phonecall James El had received, and
taught him how proper names were formed. James El
was astonished at the ingenuity. All had to be
committed to memory, nothing must be on paper except
a certain phone number. They strolled along the
path by the lake for at least two hours. The man
told him that he must wait at least an hour after
each phonecall he received: if a confirming call
had not come through within an hour he must get
out of Rome at once and call the number which the
man wrote down for him.
"If you call that number you'll be given another
number, only you have to say who you are."
"Who am I?"
"The keeper of the southern gate."
"What?" He jumped out of his skin at this
reference to one of the four 'gates' in the magic
he practised.
It was the one thing in his life no
one knew a thing about!
No one!
"Only in an emergency is that your name," the
other man said.


"And who do I ask for?"
"Lord Michael."
"But that is the keeper of the southern gate!"
James El shouted.
It was the other man's turn to look astonished.
He was clearly doing no more than passing on instruct-
ions.
"He'll call himself Michael or Mike," the agent
went on. "But if he refers to himself as Lord
Michael it means you're in great danger, be very
careful about being observed."
Only back in Rome did James El remember the
sweet little Neapolitan girl asking about the gaudy
robe she'd found in his wardrobe, and his paternal
explanation of the 'magic circle' with its north,
south, east and west each in the hands of a different
archangel. Damned fool!
From now on he'd got to
be cleverer than that.
He knew that terrorist outfits operated without
direct personal contact between Control and work groups,
at least in Italy.
This made it extremely difficult
for the police to break them open.
Those terrorists
the police did catch genuinely knew nothing about their
superiors or fellows. Often they didn't know what
group they were working for until the newspapers
told them after an operation, and even then they
couldn't be certain.
Of course there had to be contact
men like Johnny to handle the recruits but they slipped
anchor early in the game so that nothing could be
pinned on them. As for where the money came from--
East or West---even the leaders sometimes didn't know
that.
Not even Lord Michael himself.
Ralph assured him that no terrorism was involved.
It was some sort of 'protective' outfit.
You kept a
man under surveillance so that he could be protected
against threatened kidnap or murder.
Thus it was a
sort of counter terrorism.
James El's first assignment was to observe, then
get to know personally a minister by the name of
Lucchino Pietrafino. Mike gave him this name enclosed
in a series of apparently chatty and harmless
sentences which were in fact codes. Within a month
James El must be on close personal terms with the
minister, within two in a position of entire confidence,
so that he might be invited to the man's house without
fear. He was ordered to take an apartment on the
choice Aventine Hill: he would sign the contract
the following day, paying six months rent in advance.
He would be receiving a special draft for this.
The apartment was waiting for him. Here he must
give parties and become known as a desirable social
contact.
As for his sex life, this was entirely his
own affair, since he alone would be the sufferer
(to P.16


from any indiscretions.
James El sat deciphering
the coded sentences for days, as one phonecall
followed another with fresh instructions. Each
call was followed by a confirming one an hour later,
as the Swiss agent had promised.
It wasn't a difficult assignment for a man of
his background. He found himself back in the old
restaurants in Parioli and along the Via Veneto-
and less and less at the Trastevere trattoria where
he felt most at home.
Ralph joined him in his
new life, indeed he made him feel that his presence
was part of the bargain. Certainly James El felt safer
with him around: one never knew when one might want a
dirty trick or two to save oneself.
James El's apartment was vast, its tall, arched
reception room giving out on to the mellow walls of
S. Abbadia. He soon had a steady stream of visitors.
Access to the minister Pietrafino became easy.
James El was back in circulation-- -it went round Rome,
among all those old enough to remember his 'wild'
days twenty years back, about which they now laughed.
With a middle-aged sptead, a cook from the Trento and
a lot of anecdotes to tell James El was excellent
company. One evening, at a party composed largely
of DC people, he met Laura. It was difficult to
hide their astonishment from the others but they both
tried, perhaps because they knew what was going to
happen later: her husband and his friends were
there, and in Rome one had to be discreet even today.
They found each other more attractive than before,
they laughed a great deal, planned an evening alone
together.
Again he had the giddy sensation that the
twenty years in between had been swallowed up and
lost.
The two of them dined alone at his place the
following week and made love afterwards.
They were
awake all night.
At dawn they walked round the square
to the terrace and watched as the sun began to light
up the cupola of St Peter's in the valley, then trace
the Tiber and the Farnese roofs. They were in love.
He didn't attempt to hide this from Ralph.
One
evening she joined them at Gino's.
James El dismissed
his suspicion that she and Ralph had had an affair
from his mind.
But a sense of discomfort remained.
At a later party he met Marco Petrucci, her
husband, a genial quiet man with rather stunning
good looks, very masculine and steady.
"You're a fool for leaving him, James El teased
her.
"It was only a few months ago.
Something suddenly
snapped."


When he heard this James El felt both a tinge
of regret that he'd hurt her in his magical concent-
rations to get rid of her man, and triumph that his
powers had been adequate to the task.
3. Just before the two months of his assignment
were up the minister he was trailing, Lucchino
Pietrafino, was shot dead in his car on his way
to the Quirinale.
There were press photos of him
hanging from the driver's seat.
James El had
provided detailed accounts of his daily movements
in a series of reports, consigned to a black plastic
sack in a rubbish dump among the tenement blocks of
Monte Mario.
James El, his face swollen with anger, rushed
to the phone and called Ralph. They met in the
Piazza del Teatro Marcello, where in the old days
you got the best coffee in Rome.
Ralph almost
ran towards him, red in the face, frowning, and
grabbed his arm, pulling him towards the tiny bar.
"So the bastards got him after all!" he said.
"What bastards?" James El asked, marvelling
at his cunning.
"Well, the ones we were protecting him against
of courset"
"Protecting him?"
Ralph stopped and lowered his voice: "But did
you never realise, I'm in with one of the protection
groups? We tip people off when they're high in the
lists! We tipped him off!
Somebody was doing a
beautiful trailing job for us---knew every movement---
penetrated his home life-- --you see, people never will
learn not to do the same things every day!"
That evening they dined alone outside Rome.
When he got back to his apartment at two in the
morning James El couldn't for the life of him say for
certain that Ralph hadn't been spoofing. What was
happening to his judgement? A hot flush of guilt
suffused his face as he accused himself of Pietrafino's
murder (a particularly nice man...). Yet what Ralph
had said made a kind of sense. Since Ralph could
in this way protect him against unpleasant feelings,
he believed Ralph...
James El had a feeling that his apartment had
been visited.
He questioned the cook but drew a
blank. One morning he was almost knocked down by
a fast car along the narrow Via Pellegrino: but then
the driver might have been a fugitive from some
theft (it was the right kind of street for that).
He looked into his account at the Banco di Roma
each month and found it replenished right on time.
He bought a car at a big discount from one of his
regular visitors, a car salesman from Turin, and
drove Laura out to Ostia Antica, Frascati, Palestrina,
and for weekends to Felice in Circeo, Sorrento, all


the old places.
It was like coming back to life
after a twenty-year anaesthesia.
He was deliriously
happy to find that Laura felt the same.
"Did you think of me at all in those years?" he asked.
"Only as part of a scene that couldn 't be
repeated. Something that went wrong,and which I
didn 't understand. You see I fell in love with you
this time as if you were a new person."
"A completely new person?"
"Not really. Not quite new I suppose."
And with this she gave him to understand, in
a woman's way, that the past twenty years had been a
loss for her too.
They planned to get away. He knew a man back
in the States, in Florida to be exact, who needed
a partner. He told Laura about the difficulties
he'd got himself into in the States' but. said he hoped
the fuss had died down now.
"But why do you want to leave?" Laura asked him.
"I just don't feel good here like I used to."
She gave him a quiet look and he added, "Italy's
changed so much."
This time, he told himself, he'd be in the
States with a woman he felt it a privilege to be
with, and who only had to speak in order to command
his attention and thrill and excite him.
Just her
voice sent him wild with happiness. You couldn't
have said that for Betty, though he had nothing
against Betty. The thing with Laura was that his
old feelings for her didn't abate however much sex
they had.
Then came an unexpected phonecall from Michael.
It was a new assignment. James El knew better than
to answer back over the phone.
The confirming
phonecall came precisely an hour later.
It found
James El trembling violently.
For his next assignment
was Marco Petrucci, Laura's husband.
He spent the rest of the day decoding the message
again and again to see if he'd made an error over
the name.
But, apart from the fact that he'd made
no mistake, the identity-features he'd been given
fitted Marco and no one else in Rome. He called
at Ralph's flat at one in the morning and they
strolled round and round the great Roman baths in
the Piazza Farnese, talking in whispers. James
El broke the most sacred rule of his new job, namely
to reveal an assignment to living mortal. He
could feel a tremor of white-hot terror go through
Ralph as he did so. You could after all get killed
just for knowing something you shouldn't know.
In this world the matter of innocence counted for
little.
But James El quite deliberately burdened
him with it.
It turned Ralph into a fellow-
conspirator with as much to lose as he had.


He urged Ralph to tell him what he knew of
Laura's husband.
A wealthy and influential man,
close to high-ranking DC ministers-- -that he knew.
But he was also known to have left-wing sympathies,
and to have helped architect the famous compromesso
storico or 'historical compromise' between the
Christian Democrats and the communists which Aldo
Moro and Pope Paul crowned with respectability.
This was news.
"And whose side is he on now?" James El asked.
"His own. He's fighting for his survival like
the rest of us."
There also seemed a possibility that Marco was
involved, though at some distance, with forms of
espionage. He made frequent unexplained visits to.
Switzerland: some said he was involved in certain
financial operaticns which had a terrorist role.
"And all I can suggest, I1 Ralph said in a
frightened whisper, "is that once again you've been
roped in to protect someone. :1
"Well, 1t James El said quite loudly, "I hope he
don't get protected like Lucchino Pietrafino was
protected. -
Ralph simply shrugged.
James El wanted to tip Laura off in some way,
above all share his predicament with her, explain why
he wouldn't be able to leave Italy just yet. He
was jumpy, which she noticed at once. On his side
he thought he saw something apprehensive in her eyes,
especially when Ralph was with them.
He took the dangerous step of telling her to
warn Marco to change his daily routines, and to
continue varying them each day.
"Because nobody that busy should have a regular
timetable," he said.
"Of course it's only an
opinion."
Next day he asked her casually, "Did you speak
to Marco like I said?"
"He'd never do it. He'd laugh."
And she gave
him a sudden look: "He'd think I knew something. 11
He switched the subject at once, taking the hint.
"Yes, you're probably right."
Alone in bed that night he asked himself why he
hadn't taken her lead and revealed the whole thing to
her---taken her to that little fish restaurant along
the coast near Civitavecchia and talked all the way
in the unbugged safety of his car.
Feeling cold
while sweating profusely, he realised he was frightened
to do that because she might betray him.
What
had he sunk to?
He obeyed instructions, and his account at the
Banco di Roma continued to benefit. In the old days,
when he'd entered the bank's domed foyer, with the
sunlight glittering from the tall windows on to the
brass grilles all round, he'd felt a strange elation.
Now he felt distraught.


Marco Petrucci began coming to his apartment
quite frequently. Clearly he knew about James El's
affair with Laura and didn't seem to mind (he was
living with another woman himself). He liked James
El a lot. He invited him without Laura sometimes.
They went 'hunting' together in the Pisan hills,
though James El refused to fire at young wild boar
which were so domesticated that they almost came up
to you for a scratch.
When they were alone together
in one of the chalets, sipping Cointreau, in candle-
light, he tried to tip Marco off but it didn't work.
"A man in your position should vary his daily
routines."
"I'm not important enough for them, don't worry.' II
He gave James El a look that suggested he knew
what he was doing.
So James El felt absolved of
responsibility from that time on. After all, if
Marco was in some form of espionage he must take the
cookie whichever way it crumbled...
Marco was in the habit of flying to Palermo on
business in the company helicopter about once a month.
One evening he told James El over the phone that he
was going down there the following day. James El
made sure not to include this piece of information in
his report that same night.
The helicopter crashed with Marco in it. There
was no explosion.
The story going around was that
the pilot had heart failure. It seemed that neither
the police nor the medicos liked to invetigate a thing
like this too deeply.
Marco was killed instantaneously.
The moment he got the news James El rushed in a
panic to the phone to call Ralph.
But he stopped
and forced himself to wait.
At this point you didn't
make impulsive moves: things had got too dangerous.
Laura came to him with the news that Marco had left
her everything, his lawyers had just phoned her: the
family would contest it but as she was still Marco's
wife and they hadn't even legally separated the family
hadn't a chance.
The look in her eyes told James El that she knew
more than he thought.
That night, strolling up and
down a deserted lane outside Frascati, he told her
everything.
She said she'd had a 'brief and unpleasant'
affair with Ralph some years back, and that indeed it
had been Ralph who had attacked him most viciously
behind his back when he was in trouble with the
Questura. He'd invented all kinds of stories, such
as certain cynical remarks made by James El about
their love affair, which had corrupted her young
judgement. They resolved not to show signs of
having shared this information to Ralph.
ELI (L'Esercito della Liberazione Italiana, or
the Italian liberation army) claimed the murder, as
they had claimed that of Pietrafino.
James El wanted


to kill Ralph but Laura calmed him down.
"He's far too dangerous to try and hurt,' 11 she
told him.
She also told him that Ralph had reappeared in
her life soon after she'd married Marco.
This had
aroused her suscipions at the time.
James El blamed himself bitterly for the deaths
but persuaded himself that he was indeed part of
some protective outfit.
And nothing could be pinned on him. The money
kept flowing into the bank.
The following week ex-prime minister Moro was
kidnapped.
James El suddenly saw a design in it all:
Pietrafino and Marco, both high up in the Christian
Democrat heirarchy, had been among the negotiators
of the famous 'historical compromise' of which Moro
and the pope were said to be the authors.
And one
by one these men were to disappear.
In that case why hadn't he been put to watch
Moro instead of those two relatively unimportant
men? He would have been in an ideal position
socially to do so. He'd frequently met Aldo Moro
at receptions.
His blood went cold when he found out, doing one
of his divinatory exercises one morning, that he had
been marked out for bigger game even than the ex-
prime minister.
He knew that if he tried to get this over to
a police official or senior minister they would laugh
at him. Only a few police forces round the world
(Scotland Yard was one of them) worked with mediums.
4. The new instructions came on a grey morning
of scirocco when all Rome was irritable and sallow-
faced. He worked at the message all day and much
of the night, and finally had to face the fact that
he'd been given the pope as his third assignment.
In a moment he realised why he and not someone
like Ralph was doing this work.
Socially James El
could penetrate any drawing room in the city, and
he was frequently the guest of some Vatican minister,
monsignor or cardinal.
The message emphasised that he was being called
on not to watch pope Paul V1 or any particular pope
but the pope whoever he should happen to be.
His information must be most exact.
He knew
why this was.
The pope rarely left the Vatican.


Anyone with the job of killing him would have to be
an acknowledged employee at the Vatican or at Castel
Gondolfo, even a Vatican citizen.
The pope's tastes in food, his eating times, his
rising and retiring habits, the hours he spent in his
library etc had to be provided and kept meticulously
up to date.
James El heard rumours among journalists at the
Florida club that there was a Red Brigades plan afoot
to kidnap the pope.
But Wadi Haddad, the PLO leader
of the German-Palestinian terrorist network of which
the Red Brigades were said to be a part, refused
permission. The pope had been under close surveillance
on and off for the past two years, ever since the
raid on OPEC headquarters in Vienna.
The first plan
to kidnap the pope had been as early as 1975 after the
seizure of the Berlin politician Peter Lorenz.
This made James El feel even more certain that
he was in the 'protective' racket, called in to watch
the pope only when his life was known to be in danger.
The Moro affair ended in May 1978 with the ex-
prime minister's murder.
It was a terrific shock
in Rome.
James El's income was raised in the first days
of June.
The time came for pope Paul V1 to retire to his
palace at Castel Gondolfo for the dog days, according
to custom.
James El had by now increased his visits
to the Vatican, got nearer to the British minister,
come to know various of the Swiss and Palatinate
guard officers. His information on the pope was
plentiful. Paul V1's had been a long reign and
habits had established themselves firmly.
The summer was unusually hot and pleasant and
James El spent a lot of time with Laura on the beaches
at Fregene, like most of Rome's professional classes.
Almost every day they drove out of the sun-baked,
lead-poisoned city along the Via Aurelia, past those
thick walls he was penentrating so efficiently.
Pope Paul V1 had never evoked much personal warmth.
James El remembered his coronation over twenty years
before. Paul's austerity of manner had kept people
at a distance. An up-to-date portrait of him was
beginning to emerge. The pope felt rather fragile
these days. Surprisingly, given his long experience,
he was becoming increasingly shy. He made several
references to his coming death. The Moro affair
depressed him deeply.
Rumour said that it had become impossible to


kidnap the pope not only because of Haddad's disapproval
but because of the physical difficulties of taking a
man who rarely moved outside the Vatican walls.
For
this reason Moro had been substituted for him.
This thought too may have tortured the pope.
After
all Moro was perhaps his closest friend. Paul V1
seemed to feel increasingly isolated, and played his
favourite Vivaldi until late at night alone in his
room.
One day at the beach James El heard that the
pope was confined to his bed at Castel Gondolfo with
arthrosis, an old complaint of his. He had suffered
two bouts of influenza already this year.
But his
doctors felt no cause for anxiety.
After Moro's body was found in the back of a car
the pope had been given two heart-stimulant injections.
Suddenly, on the afternoon of Sunday August 6,
Vatican Radio announced that the pope was gravely ill.
A few hours later and the pope was dead. He
died at 9.40 that evening, a matter of hours after the
first announcement that something was wrong.
For James El it was a typical sudden death induced
by clandestine injection or poison.
To conceal such
a murder in the case of an old man was doubly easy
because no post mortem would be thought necessary.
James El was surprised by how many people shared
the hunch.
Foreign correspondents were in the habit
of saying that Romans saw a plot everywhere.
But this
was because there was a plot everywhere.
There was the telltale blood-clot.
The pope
was given intensive treatment, and oxygen, but the
blood-clot on the lungs, or pulmonary edema, had
complicated the matter fatally. His condition had
suddenly 'worsened' in the afternoon but no one seemed
to know for sure what had happened.
Monsignor Pier
Pastore described it as a 'cardiac crisis' and not
an infatto, which would have been the right word for
'heart failure'. Monsignor Giuseppe Caprio, the
pope's Under Secretary, said in a Vatican broadcast
that he hadn't expected So quick an end.
The day after the pope's death the German
magazine Der Spiegel (August 7 1978) published Hans
Joachim Klein's account of the Red Brigades' plan
to kidnap the pope.
According to Klein, Wadi
Haddad had said that no Arab country could officially
let anyone run around free who had kidnapped a pope.
It would have had to be a 'suicide' operation.
So the plan had been dropped.


(The Germans, by the way, had previously claimed
that they gave the Italian government due warning of
'something big coming up' before the Moro kidnapping.
It was clear to James El that the Moro plan had indeed
been substituted for the pope-plan and that this had
got around through German defectors from the 'Carlos'
network).
It became James El's growing conviction over the
next few weeks that someone close to the pope was in
the pay of a terrorist force.
And from this time he
was determined to devote his energies to protecting
the pope by means of a surveillance so close that he
would be able to isolate the killer.
He was also convinced that the killer would
remain in the Vatican after the next election.
He decided not to tell even Laura of his decision:
he was going to provide Control with meticulously
false information.
He received a phone message from Mike to
continue and if anything intensify his surveillance
grom the moment the next pope was elected.
The Conclave was a brief one. Pope John Paul 1
was elected on August 26, less than three weeks after
the former pope's death.
James El at once closed a clever social net
round pope John Paul 1, insinuating himself into
Vatican receptions, press conferences and churchcat
gatherings where one or more cardinals were present.
His friends were amused.
James El was going Catholic.
Some said they'd always thought as much.
The church---yes, even the 'railway waiting-
room' of St Peter's---was having an effect on him.
Every day he walked in the quiet of the Vatican
squares and gardens or hurried through the corridors
overlooking the Belvedere courtyard on his way to
the papal apartments or the Vatican library.
Frequently he was at Vatican Radio, also behind the
Vatican walls, or the Academy of Sciences a stone's
throw away, remote from the noisy city outside,
among priests and nuns and quaintly uniformed guards.
Scales, his most informative contact at the
Florida club, said that James El was getting a funny
look in his eye.
Thus nobody thought it strange
that James El should be avid for every scrap of
papal gossip he could get.
Pope John Paul 1 dispensed with the papal tiara
and said he would no longer use the sedia gestatoria
or travelling throne of wood which made it possible
for thousands to see him high above their shoulders,


though it was too practical to give up, as he
found out on his first trip outside the Vatican.
To balance the radical 'gimmicks' he declared that
there could be no cooperation between the Church and
communism.
James El went through further divinatory
exercises and saw some disaster ahead.
There was an incident that seemed to him an
evil potent. On September 6 Metropolitan Nikodim
of Leningrad, a senior of the Russian Orthodox
church, collapsed and died during an audience with
John Paul 1 at the age of only 49. That was a
natural death. He'd had a serious heart condition
for some time now.
Pope John Paul 1 was clearly upsetting the Curia
as hard as he could.
In front of the journalists he
replaced the traditional royal 'we' with 'I'. At
first the Curia insisted on issuing the texts of
his speeches with the usual 'we' but finally had to
give way. Also the pope entered and left audiences
at a smart trot, in defiance of the tradition that a
pope walks slowly and composedly. Cardinal Felice,
acting dean of the Sacred College, was. sent to see
him to request that he 'curb' his behaviour.
James El found an appalling lack of security
round the pope which he himself was trying to supply
in a desperate attempt to save him. For he became
more and more sure that this pope wouldn't last long.
John Paul's only means of contact with the outside
world once he'd gone to bed in the evening was a
be 11-push. The nearest duty aide was beyond calling
distance. The chief papal physician, Professor
Renato Buzzonetti, worked at a Roman hospital, not
inside the Vatican, and could declare himself un-
available in an emergency.
It was impossible for James El to hide his assignment
from Laura for long. They were at Vatican gatherings
almost daily. She went pale when he told her in the
car on the way to Fregene one afternoon.
"I'm one of those who know too much," he said.
"Types like me don't last long." n
Ralph contacted Laura secretly.
He told her he
had to see her at once on a matter connected with
James El's welfare.
They met without James El
knowing in the sunken garden of Castel Sant' Angelo.
He told her that James El was falsifying surveill-
ance information. He had slipped up badly on one
piece of information, then on another.
Ralph told


Laura, "You'xe got to get hold of the real information
and feed it to us. I don't care how you do it."
He added, "If you don't he'll be dead in a week, I
can promise you that."
She did it.
She got into James El's confidence
and helped him falsify the intricate daily chart of
papal movements, then she secretly consigned the true
information to another 'garbage sphinx' behind Piazza
Navona.
James El noticed how changed she was but put this
down to her concern about him.
He became obsessive in his idea that the pope was
soon to be murdered. He even began to see an American
interest in the new pope's liquidation because of a
remark made by Andrew Young, US ambassador to UNO,
saying he thought the election of John Paul 1 was a
mistake and that the pope should have been chosen out
of third-world candidates.
James El winced whenever John Paul 1 put the
Curia's backs up. At the Hall of the Consistory,
addressing the 88 cardinals who were still in Rome,
he abandoned the set speech which referred to the
indebtedness of the entire Church to the Roman Curia,
and casually said instead, "As soon as I had a little
time, the first thing I did on becoming pope was to
get hold of the Annuario Pontificio and study the
organisation of the Holy See."
Also pope John Paul renominated Cardinal Jean
Villot as Secretary of State despite Villot's bitter
critics in the Curia. And, most important perhaps 9
he suddenly cut the 'bounty' given to members of the
Curia on the election of a new pope by half, so that
they got $250 instead of $ 500.
Who was James El working for? The Left or the
Right, or both? Was he informing for an agency which
supplied to the highest bidder irrespective of allegiance?
He knew that no terrorist group could survive without
massive support from a foreign power. One by one
groups in various countries had disappeared from view--
the Baader-Meinhof people, the Japanese United Red
Army, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the British
Angry Brigade, even the bigger groups like the Tupamaros,
the Weatherman and the Brazilian ALN.
Was he working
for an information unit which didn't require such
support and need fear no extinction, because its
findings were paid for by all sides?
Was Ralph this
agency?
"Une charge tres lourde, I1 the pope confided to
Jean Villot one day about his new office.
In the first week of the new pontificate an intense


discussion went on inside the Vatican about what the
inauguration ceremony could be called if not 'coronation'.
John Paul rejected even 'enthronement'.
The whole city was now talking about the 'censored
CHAPTE R S AMPLE 2
He was sure it was going to happen tonight.
He almost fell up the softly carpeted steps of the
Florida club to hear the latest gossip.
He nodded to Scales, who was talking to a woman
from Paris Match, and ordered a whisky.
No woman stayed with Scales the whole evening
unless she was new to the club or, like Scales, a
queer.
After a few minutes Paris Match moved away
to another date in the corner.
James El kept thinking of Laura and how they
were meeting in an hour's time at Florio's, before
going to a reception given by Monsignor Salvatore
in the Borgia apartments.
He realised that Scales was already talking.
"He could be heard all the way down the corridor.
They drove him to the point of no return."
"Heard all the way down the corridor?"
"He had a God Almighty row."
"Tne pope."
He picked Laura up without stopping for a drink
and entered the Vatican by the Arch of the Bells.
The Swiss guards hardly looked at him and he parked
in the tiny Piazza Santa Marta.
The hot weather had broken and Rome was back to
damp and chill.
Thick low clouds overhead glowed
with a kind of rosy ominousness.
Other guests were arriving, mostly in black,
Rome's colour.
All the chandeliers were on in the Borgia apart-


ments and the babble of talk was loud.
He left Laura
in the care of one of poor Marco's closest cronies and
walked to the lavatory.
It was within easy access of Raphael's Loggias.
He'd worked it all out. He hurried along with the
Belvedere courtyard below on his left, its many
windows glittering.
All at once he was looking
down into the courtyard of San Tomaso.
He had reached
the papal apartments.
Here the real problem started.
To get to the
private apartments from here was considered impossible---
but only by those in charge of papal security.
He nodded to the guards in the Pontifical Hall
and passed through the Hall of the Swiss Guards.
Then came the Canton Hall with its friendly picket
of Palatine guards, one of whom asked him the time.
The Hall of Tapestries and the Hall of the Noble
Guard were empty.
He was suddenly in the Tronetto or Small Throne
Room.
After that came the library where popes were
said to spend most of their time.
The hush and the
attentive guard outside the door showed that indeed
the pope was there.
He asked the guard in a whisper for the way to
Monsignor Salvatore's quarters.
T,e man showed
considerable astonishment and wanted to detain him
until an officer came out of the guard-room and
recognised him.
"I'd give anything to see the pope's apartments
now I'm here, II James El whispered.
The officer looked round in silence.
"Come with me," he said.
They reached the pope's bedroom in a few
moments and as he stood in the doorway he felt pity
for a man who could enjoy so little privacy and was
therefore the victim of the unforeseeable.
"Suppose somebody wanted to kill the pope
tonight?"
The officer smiled and pointed to the window.
"No way of access.
And as for this way---" indicating


the corridor behind him---"we'd be on him in five
seconds."
"Is that a bell-push?"
"Could the wire be cut?"
Together with the officer he traced the wire to
its wall-fixture.
At that moment there was a movement of the guards
outside.
The pope was preparing to leave the library.
They closed the bedroom door and sped along the corridor
in the opposite direction.
He returned to the reception room flushed and
nervous, knowing he had failed.
At six the next morning Scales called him up.
"There's trouble. They've just sent out for a
doctor.
It sounds bad."
James El dressed frantically and drove across to
the Vatican but the Arch of the Bells was closed to
all but medical personnel.
When he got back at about ten o'clock the first
announcement was coming through.
The pope was dead.
The first question in his mind was, 'Why did they
delay announcing it for two hours?'
5. It was Friday, 29 September.
Few could believe
that John Paul 1, a manifestly healthy man of only 65,
had died naturally. The pope's brother, in Australia
at the time, told the press that the pope had recently
had 'some bad feelings round the heart' but a medical
check had found no cause for alarm. Father Rinaldo,
in the pope's village of birth, said that as far as
he knew the pope had never suffered from heart trouble.
Monsignor Giuseppe Rosa, Apostolic Administrator in
Venice, said he'd been received in audience only two
days before and the pope had appeared in good health.
The pope's physician, who had also seen him a few days
before, had found him in normal health.
The official story was that he'd been found at
5.30 am by his private secretary Father Magee of
Ireland. Father Magee had knocked on the pope's
bedroom door and not getting a reply looked for him
in his private chapel. No one was there either, so
he returned to the bedroom and opened the door. The


light was on and the pope was in bed with The Imitation
of Christ still in his hand.
The pope's face was
turned slightly towards the right and bore a smiling
expression.
Doctors calculated that he'd had a massive heart
attack at ten or eleven o'clock the previous evening
(Thursday 28 September).
He had been pope 33 days.
In the week before the second Conclave there were
two Red Brigades murders in Rome. Aldo Moro's will,
extracted from him under torture and the promise of
release, was published, revealing his horror at the
indifference shown by his political party at his fate
and his determination to leave the Christian Democrat
party if he survived.
It added to the general gloom.
By October 1 the Vatican was under considerable
pressure to hold a post mortem.
It was said that one
doctor had examined the pope only five hours before
his death and had reported him fit.
Why had emergency medical assistance been absent
from the papal apartments?
The call for a post mortem came mainly from a
right-wing Catholic group,, Civiltà Cristiana, which
asked for the 'true causes' of his death to be invest-
igated.
Only one simple examination was carried out on the
body. That was considered suffiecient basis for the
Vatican's claim that the pope had died after a heart
attack from natural causes.
The College of Cardinals
announced that it had no intention of having the pope's
body further examined.
Civiltà Cristiana furnished the Questura with a
report summarising all the suspicious circumstances
surrounding the pope's death.
Apparently the pope had prepared for bed at ten
o'clock on Thursday evening. All that was officially
said was that on being given the news that a left-wing
Roman youth had that day been murdered he had replied,
- Even young people are killing each other now...
These were said to be his last words.
Which at once
made James El wonder what had passed at that time:
another row?
There were claims that the Vatican statement
on the circumstances of the discovery of the pope's
body was not correct.
The pope had in fact been
discovered by the nun who brought him coffee every
morning.
She had found his coffee untouched in his
room and had then knocked on his bedroom door. Through
the keyhole she saw him lying dead.
She had called


Father Magee.
The Vatican denied this story.
Asked if they suspected foul play, Civiltà
Cristiana announced, 'We have our information which
we have placed in the hands of the judicial authorities.'
Later its spokesman Dr Franco Antico said, "We aren't
necessarily saying anything criminal happened.
But
there are many suspect facts and the situation isn't
clear."
It took James El some time to get hold of this
document. It supported in exact detail his earlier
suspicions.
By October 8 rumours and gossip were still hot
on the subject.
All Rome got hold of the report in
some form or another and embroidered it. Poison
was the main suggestion.
Suicide another, enforced
suicide another.
Many people felt that prompt action on Tn ursday
evening could have saved the pope but there had been
a deliberate withdrawal of medical facilities.
And still nobody in the Vatican explained why
it had taken them two hours after the doctors' final
confirmation of the pope's death to announce it.
Cardinal Silvio Oddi told the press, "We know for
certain that the death of John Paul 1 was because his
heart ceased to beat due to natural causes."
No one doubted that his heart had ceased to beat
or even that he'd had a heart attack, but certainty
in the matter of 'natural causes' could hardly be
established without an autopsy.
In fact an autopsy was hurriedly carried out--
or so it seems---a few hours before the pope's funeral.
The doors of the basilica were suddenly closed and
thousands of people waiting to file past the body
were turned away.
A group of men wearing white
smocks were seen to enter the church.
The Vatican
refused to comment, and no statement on the subject
was issued.
James El told Laura they must prepare to leave
Italy.
But the departure must be prepared carefully,
otherwise it would 'invite murder'.
She knew better
than he did that this was true.
James El suddenly had himself received into the
Cnurch. He told her that during a visit to St Peter's
one day he'd found a leaflet left on a pew by an
American missionary group and part of it said, 'When
you come up against a difficulty and there is confusion


and misunderstanding, go into your innermost
sanctuary. Seek the presence of the gentle Christ,
and ask what he would do in the circumstances in
which you are placed.'
This had relaxed him as
nothing else in his life had done.
He confessed everything to Salvatore who looked
very grave and for a moment terrified.
The Monsignor
gave him absolution and commended him for having secretly
tried to save the pope 'even though against a quite
imaginary plot inside your fevered mind at the time'.
"For this I give you absolution," he said.
James El felt childishly secure in Monsignor
Salvatore's tiny library, seemingly thousands of
miles away from the day-long traffic jams outside
and the atmosphere of crime.
Laura saw a kind of
quiet elation growing in him.
He talked to everyone about how the pope had
been murdered, taking no precautions with his speech.
Meanwhile he and Laura pursued their plan for
secret departure. There was the question of money.
It would be impossible for her to take her sizable
fortune out of Italy because of the blocked-currency
regulations.
They decided to take as much cash as
they could handle without arousing suspicion, and to
slip across the border north of Udine. From Salzburg
they would fly to Munich, then on to the States.
He was worried by Ralph's silence and one morning
decided to call on him. The apartment was closed
and the porter downstairs said that Ralph had gone
away suddenly.
The phone had been disconnected.
No new instructions came from Mike. One day
James El went to the Banco di Roma and to his horror saw
that his account had not been credited as usual.
He and Laura made several experimental trips to
Udine for ski-ing, so that their getaway trip wouldn't
look unusual when it happened.
He felt he was being
trailed and watched closely. He warned Laura to the
utmost caution. They talked only trivialities except
in the car or walking in open spaces.
Finally it was time to make the getaway attempt.
They planned to leave for Udine the following day.
They'd decided to take as little luggage as on their
previous trips to Udine.
He made sure that Ralph was still not back in
town. Laura was nervous and kept bursting into
tears. In public they tried to behave normally and
went to receptions and parties up to the last moment.


That night Ralph phoned.
James El's heart
sank into his bowels.
"Think I'd deserted you? What about dinner
tonight?"
They met without Laura at Gino's and to his
immense relief he found Ralph as distraught and
clearly on the run as he himself was. They drank a
lot of frascati.
Ralph said he'd got himself into
a bit of a fix and didn't know how to get out of it.
"I tried a bunk to Malta but it didn't work."
When they were sipping their coffee Ralph said
quietly, "They think you'll try a bunk too---tomorrow--
is that true?"
James El simply shrugged, feeling a tremor of fear
but only on Laura's account.
"You've got to get away tonight, "Ralph added.
"And take me with you."
"Take you?"
"I've got it all worked out.
There's no danger. #
"Isn't it unwise talking here?"
"Shit man, I know every bugging device in the
city---this is the only safe place within fifty
miles! Why, did you think you were safe in a lonely
lane outside Frascati?"
James El showed such astonishment that Ralph
burst out laughing.
"They've got you by the short and curlies,"
Ralph went on. "Don't look so worried---they only
trailed you there, they didn't pick up the conversat-
ion. All they needed for that was a bit of imagination."
Leaning forward Ralph told him what to do: 'Go
to that little church by the Santa Lucia market.
Today's Santa Lucia, did you know that? So there'll
be candles alight all over the church and lots of
people. Go there straight from here. Go to the
little chapel of the madonna at the side of the high
altar, and kneel and start praying. Stay like that
until I get there. I've got to organise the car.
It'll be waiting outside with me and Laura in it.
This is the number on the licence plate." He passed
James El a scrap of paper. "If I haven't turned up
by ten o'clock go without me, just you and Laura.
She'll be sitting in the car alone, outside the
church. You'll never hear from me again."
"I hope that doesn't happen," It James El said in
a moment of sentimentality.
"You hope?" He went on, "Get hold of Laura now.
Tell her to go straight to your apartment and wait
there. Can she get in?"
"Shit! You'll have to give her the keys before
you go to church."
"All right."
"And tell her to bring all her money.
What she
drew out. You and I are going to need that."


As he rushed over to Laura's place James El
went through several divinatory procedures, trying
as best he could to concentrate while driving the
car. He received the word 'ecstasy' many times,
and thought this referred to the experience he and
Laura would have once they were across the border.
He didn't trust Ralph of course.
But when he put
questions about Ralph's reliability the answers were
enigmatic:
Ralph was a 'viper', which he knew,
but he 'blocked the path'. What did that mean?
Was he blocking the path of the organisation, stopping
them from trailing them to the border? Anyway
there was no way of avoiding Ralph's help at this
point. He couldn't dare drive with Laura to Udine
right now, without Ralph, though it occurred to
him to risk it.
Ralph knew far too much.
Even
now he was being trailed, he was sure. The chances
were that Ralph had enclosed his plan inside some
cover which was acceptable to the organisation:
so Ralph meant safety.
He became surer and surer of
this as he drove along.
He told Laura what to do and gave her his
keys.
She begged him not to trust Ralph.
There
was a long tearful scene and at one point he agreed
that it had to be one more of Ralph's dirty deals.
"But he's our only chance," he said.
"They
know far more about you and me than I thought possible.
The one thing on our side is that he wants to get
away himself.
And that's why I told him all about
my Marco assignment in the first place, in case a
situation like this arose.
I reckon he has to
help us."
The crowded church was brilliant with lighted
candles, hundreds of them on all sides, and as James El
stepped inside a feeling of extraordinary happiness
came over him. As he took the holy water on the
tips of his fingers and made the sign of the cross
a sentence came into his mind with some clarity:
'And now you meet the keeper of the southern gate.'"
What did it mean? He took it as a good omen and
walked down the side-aisle to the little chapel.
He knelt close to the madonna and found himself
genuinely praying, his eyes closed. He stayed like
this for at least five minutes. He heard a soft
step behind him, much like those mysterious steps
he had heard in his mind during his first days in
Rome, and he guessed it to be Ralph. He remained
where he was for a moment.
He felt a pricking
sensation at the elbow and was just about to turn
to find out what had happened when he felt a great
weakness and slowly fell sideways.
Not until the following day was he found,
already dead for several hours. According to the
priest who found him he had a quite unbelievable look
of joy on his face.
It hadn't entered James El's mind, when that


sentence came to him on his entering the church,
that Michael, keeper of the southern gate, was also
the Lord of Death.
6. Laura waited in James El's apartment at the
appointed time.
There were two letters from him
on the table, both marked 'To be opened later'.
The car was waiting downstairs with Ralph at
the wheel.
"We'll have to be quick about this," he said
and drove off at once.
After a time she realised they were driving
towards the coast.
"What about James El?" she asked him.
"Something went wrong.
Hopefully he's meeting
us at the airport."
"What went wrong?" She was shivering.
"I'II tell you on the plane."
"Where are we going?"
"London. If the worst comes to the worst he'll
meet us there.
We worked out a whole lot of fall-back
plans."
Ralph had air tickets ready. He was trembling,
she noticed, which made her feel safer because it
meant that he was genuinely on the run, as James El
had said.
Only after take-off did he relax. He turned to
her with a smile and said enigmatically, "Well, I
wasn't worried for you but I was for mei"
At London airport two security men came forward
at the passport desk and asked them to follow them.
They went to a room behind the customs area.
Ralph
was placed under arrest and Laura advised to find a
London hotel for several days as she would be needed
for questioning.
As they walked together in front of the security
men Ralph told her in a normal voice, not at all
shaken, "I knew somebody was trailing us---thank God
it was the policel" He added, "I'll get five years
and by that time ELI and all its brothers and sisters
won't exist. I hope."
Laura was interrogated at her hotel several times
during the next few days. In the second interview,
before either she or the police had mentioned James El,
they showed her a photograph of him and asked if she
knew him.
When she said yes they told her he'd been
found dead.
And where.
She opened the two letters from James El. One
contained the cash he'd drawn from his account, the
other was a copy of his will leaving her his inheritance
which he'd never been able to touch.
It comprised in
great part areas of land in Florida.
The following
week she flew there.


Perhaps he hadn't forgotten after all, as he
walked into the church of Santa Lucia, that Michael
keeper of the southern gate was also Lord of Death.
Length: 80-100.000 words.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
While the 'papal' sections above are brief in relation
to the rest of the synopsis they will in fact comprise
in the book itself the greater part of the narrative.
My references to James El's 'divinatory exercises' are
vague because I haven't decided yet what form these
will take. Possibly a Tarot card system.
This clairvoyant background---James El's virtual mania
for divining the future-- -seems to me essential to
motivation in this book because otherwise he has little
apart from a suspicious frame of mind on which to
build up his picture of the coming threat to John Paul
1's life and its timing.
It is also important that James El should have an
obsessive or Tecstatic' element about him So that his
conviction that the two popes were murdered may be
seen to be an aspect of this, thus protecting the book
against seeming to make libellous and unfounded claims
while it still purveys the rumours and discussions of
the time.
Until I see a full transcript of the report on John
Paul 1's death which was put before the judicial
authorities in Rome by the Civiltà Cristiana I cannot
of course give precise details of the suspicious
circumstances of which James El becomes aware.
I've been promised this transcript or a verbal account
when I return to Italy.


loslie
FOR DAVID
1. do
I think this is apeten at DAY OF THE JACKAL,
only revolving round the Vatican and ending not
in a near-miss but the death of two popes,
pope Paul V1 and (after only thirty-three days
of office) pope John Paul 1. The author holds
that there are remarkably convincing arguments
to be drawn from rumours current at the time
throughout Italy, and in from the Civiltà
Cristiana's S report which they submitted to the
Italian ministry of the Interiror on John Paul's
sudden and unexpected death, urging on the Vatucan
whi a post mortem which was consistently refused
until the very last momenta (4f a Le tact fish plee).
You may already know some of Rowdon's books
on Italys where-he-has-lived most of-hisadult-life.
He has spert lived most of his adult life in that
country, eleven of them in Rome, withStPeters a f
justacross theway. Hehas thus had a opportunity
to-witness the growth of terrori
country
where not longage
nqueneey
He has thus had an opportunity of witnessing the
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