Exodus

by Tom Fox

Genres: Short Stories; Thrillers

Synopsis

Fans of Dan Brown and Simon Toyne will be gripped by this high-octane novella, which follows hot on the heels of GENESIS and DOMINUS by Tom Fox. In just eight hours and forty-five minutes, an explosive device is primed to rock the foundations of Rome... When journalist Alexander Trecchio is awoken from dark dreams and called to the Vatican in the face of emergency, he knows just how much is at stake. Someone has desecrated the Sistine Chapel - and they have revenge in their sights. As Alexander is drawn deeper into the deadly web of lies, it's clear he is about to come face-to-face with an evil force who will stop at nothing to succeed... Can he stop them in their tracks before it's too late? Available exclusively in ebook, this is the sequel to Tom Fox's electrifying debut novel, DOMINUS.

Release date: March 10, 2016

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 132

Sample

He did not come with trumpets from heaven. Angels did not burst into song. There was no darkening of the sun, and the fabric of the ancient basilica remained unscathed.

He entered quietly, without fanfare, though with every footstep he took, the world began to change.

Not that his outward appearance gave any indication of what was to come. An unassuming man in worn jeans. A grey button-down shirt, slightly wrinkled. His shoes, mildly tattered. In every visible way he was unremarkable.

Later, no one was able to recollect seeing him enter St Peter’s. Not one of the thousands gathered there observed him pass through the vast western doors or step into the great expanse of space designed to reflect the glorious meeting of heaven and earth. All they could remember was the way his silent walk through the interior had gradually drawn their attention once he was in their midst.

But of his demeanour, there in the centuries-old heart of Christendom, they remembered every detail. The way he’d moved calmly down the central aisle during the pontifical High Mass. The way men and women had unconsciously parted to create a path while their children had clambered towards him, inexplicably drawn. The way they’d all hushed as he drew near, and how their gazes had lingered on him as he’d moved by. They remembered that.

He had a posture that spoke of purpose, though he walked almost casually through the throngs. His hair, only a few inches in length, slightly wavy and with a gold-brown tone, seemed oddly bright in the orange light of the ancient church. As he strode towards Bernini’s great baldachin, his eyes were ever forward. Gentle and serene, yet strong.

They all remembered his eyes.

At the far end of the 211-metre-long nave, the Mass’s chief celebrant stood albedo in white, bent at the high altar. Though his bodily infirmity would have conveyed the message effectively on its own, the design of the massive bronzework above him reinforced the fact that, for all the pontiff’s worldly fame and power, he was yet a tiny figure before the majesty of God.

He was surrounded by two cardinal concelebrants, and between them and him were the customary assistants who went everywhere with the beleaguered Pope, holding his twisted form upright by the elbows for those parts of the service that required him to stand. He was far from an old man, but the specific type of spinal stenosis he had suffered from since childhood left him permanently disfigured and unable to stand under his own power. The lingering results of that infirmity, however, had never weakened his spirit. They had only strengthened it, and the man the media had cruelly termed ‘the crippled Pope’ was loved all the more by his flock for the weak body that made his inner spiritual convictions so evident.

The Pope and his assistants were flanked by a suite of priests and a full cohort of servers decked out in their liturgical fineries. Behind them, on specially constructed risers, the red-robed choristers of the Sistine Chapel choir filled the space with the angelic Latin of the Sanctus. The angels themselves, one elderly woman would later recall, could have produced no more glorious a sound.

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus

Dominus Deus Sabaoth …

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.

Holy, Holy, Holy

Lord God of Sabaoth …

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The stranger walked slowly forward.

The Pope glanced up from the instruments of the bloodless sacrifice – the chalice and paten of hammered gold – his face beaming the glory he felt at every celebration of the sacred service. It was clear, as he craned a pained neck and gazed out over the faithful, his hazel eyes reflecting the shimmer of the crimson wine in the chalice, that the inheritor of the office of the Apostle Peter was wholly enrapt in the sacrosanct liturgical rite.

It was as he looked over his flock that the pontiff caught his first sight of the stranger’s approach.

And it was then that the inexplicable began to take place.

At the front of the rows of chairs in the basilica’s central nave, just beyond the red ropes that kept the faithful at a respectful distance from the clerical centrepiece, the vivid blue, red and orange ceremonial uniforms of the Swiss Guard formed a crescent before the high altar. The men within the costumes, who looked like something out of a Renaissance carnival, were among the most highly trained and devoted military protective details in the world.

As the stranger approached the periphery, the guardsmen were the last bodies before the baldacchino and the clerics beneath it. By tradition and honour, as well as by the oath each had sworn when they were commissioned in the Cortile di San Domaso, theirs was a line they would allow no man to pass. Holiness incited hatred as well as reverence, and for centuries the Swiss Guard’s ranks had ensured that, at least in practical terms, hate did not win out over love.

But as the stranger continued to approach, it was clear that the path he intended to follow did not end at their cordon. The two guards closest to the central aisle stiffened, their position blocking his route, hands clutched tightly at their ceremonial halberds. Behind the approaching man it was as if the whole basilica had gone silent and stiff. The space was electric with focus. The thousands were staring at this man, totally enthralled.

The stranger slowed, his blue-jeaned appearance all the more out of place as he came before the ancient uniforms erroneously attributed to a design by Michelangelo. He drew to a stop only a few feet from the guards. He said nothing. He kept his eyes only on the Pope, beyond and elevated several steps above.

The stalwart guards tensed, devotion and tireless training calling them towards their sacred duty.

And then, as the stranger stood before them, they knelt.

The whole troop of elite soldiers, the de facto standing military of the Vatican, fell to their knees in almost perfect unison. The two closest to the stranger skirted aside, obei­santly poised, allowing him an unobstructed path.

Muffled gasps from the crowd were audible as the stranger resumed his progress, stepping softly around the entrance to the crypt of St Peter. A few paces later, he began his ascent to the high altar.

The corpulent red-robed director of the choir glanced over his shoulder, shocked, then spun away from his choristers. His fat arms were still suspended in a conductor’s pose as behind him the choir faltered, then went silent.

The sudden absence of sound in the basilica was over­whelming. The man’s footsteps could now be clearly heard, echoing through the mesmerised space as he mounted the final steps.

At last he stood face to face with the Holy Father across the laden altar. The Pope’s body was bent sharply to his right, his assistants firmly gripping his upper arms in support. He stood frozen in place, his fingertips still touching the shim­mering chalice, and locked eyes with the stranger.

‘Who are you?’ His familiar, sonorous voice trembled.

The man gazed peacefully into the pontiff’s eyes. While the people would remember the mysteriousness of the silence that filled the vast space during their long, interlocked glance, the Pope would recollect that it had been as if he was staring into eternity, his heart filled with the same sense of wonder and majesty that it formerly had equated only with gazing out over the undulating waves of the sea and contemplating the vastness of God’s glory.

Then, in a gentle voice, holding out two upturned hands, the stranger finally spoke.

‘Do you not know me, Peter?’

Gasps filled the basilica. Stillness gave way to a wave of sibilant tension as the man’s answer was whispered through the rows of faithful. The casual visitors in the throng strug­gled to comprehend what it meant, but the meaning of the words was apparent to men and women of faith. Apparent, and explosive. Peter was the name of the first holder of the papal office – the man who had denied Christ three times.

These were words the Saviour would speak to his own.

Camera flashes began to ignite the space in their hundreds. But the Pope only stared at the stranger’s extended hands. The pontifical eyes welled with unexpected tears.

‘My faithful servant,’ the stranger said a moment later, his voice rich and oddly soothing. He placed one of his hands upon the trembling pontiff’s shoulder. The assistant holding the Pope’s right arm reinforced his grip, but the stranger kept his gentle gaze on the Holy Father, absent of any menace.

‘Do not be afraid. It is I.’

The Pope’s eyes were like glass, his breath weak. In the distance, the stranger’s latest words had been heard and their even more direct contents ignited the faithful, who snapped images with their cameras, filming the scene with their phones, dozens dropping to their knees in prayer. The dozens became a hundred, and a hundred became two. But the pontiff gazed straight into the man’s face. His whole body trembled.

And then the miracle happened.

‘You are a man of faith,’ the stranger said softly to the Pope, ‘and your faith has made you whole.’ He reached out his other arm, grabbed the hands of both the assistants from the shoulders of the pontiff and pulled them gently aside. They resisted only a moment, then silently l. . .