Archivio Segreto Vaticano
Vatican City, Rome
November 1980
From his office, Clark Cardinal Agustin S.J., stared outside his window upon the Cortile del Belvedere to admire the sunset light as it played upon the fountain and wondered what tomorrow would be like. Already, the times were changing.
The Apostolic Library that surrounded the Cortile was an ancient sort, founded by Pope Sixtus IV in 1475 when his papal bull Ad decorem opened up the private papal libraries to the clergy. Over time, its columned marbled hallways began to collect from the four corners of the earth, an incalculable fortune in paper and parchment. The summation of the human knowledge in its entirety, in the attempt to understand the infinite knowledge of God.
But knowledge in itself, is but a tool and only greater by the capacity of its creator. It is the will to use that knowledge that guides the hand that wields the final execution. And so it was that in time, the scouring of learned men brought forth many secrets, many great and many profane. Strange and different wisdoms, deep and occulted from monstrous pagan lands. From the north came the secret of runes, a thing wrought in pain by a hanged god. From the desert sands and the holds of the Mohammedans, the means with which to divine the secrets of God from the heavens. And from the lands beyond those of Prester John the Priest-King, the workings of the flesh and the lore of the apothecary.
*Now what?*
The keepers of the Hallowed Scriptorium understood the nature of knowledge and also too well the nature of flesh. And so, long before Lion XIII finally opened the Library in 1880 to the public, a great content was secreted away, to be forever kept until man's understanding could accept them. And thus was born the Vatican Secret Archives.
The Cardinal paused and shut the curtains. And wondered what tomorrow would be like.
************
Cardinal Agustin thought about that morning as Vespers came and gone. At the request of His Holiness, Pope Johannes Paulus II, the Apostolic Library had been shut down and cordoned off this morning, in order to receive in utmost confidence, a most intriguing visitor. The President of the United States of America, His Excellency Jim Carter.
Behind the Iron Curtain, desperate voices had once again began to find the strength to cry out against the cruelties of Soviet Oppression. In Poland, a blade's edge was drawn. Martial law had been declared in the past year as the strikes in Gdansk-Sopot-Gdynia shipyards over rising food prices came head to head with the Communist Polish Government. On both sides, a hesitancy. Which side would blink first and give the other an excuse to unleash a torrent of bloodshed? The world watched nervously. Impotent to act. Would there be another Prague Spring?
The 71-year old American statesman had just presented news of the grimmest sort to the Patriarch of All the West. On the coffee table between them lay a well-thumbed seventy page report and assorted reconnaissance satellite photographs documenting and confirming Operation Wisona; a massive Soviet Red Army build-up right outside the Polish border, waiting for the final word. 18 Soviet divisions with orders to retake Poland. Due date: December 8, 1980.
The Library itself had an almost distant atmosphere, one better found to a market. A deal was being made. Or more accurately, a choice of two evils.
*Blackmail.*
"I'm not asking you to compromise your faith your Holiness. Solidarity may have done all this on its own, but for their ideals to succeed, the movement will have to be brought in line with American Foreign Policy." The President says composed.
"Poland already walks the edge of precipice." The Pope responded, drawn and tired. "I shudder to think of what may come if Moscow discovers American fingers in the pot."
" Coordination and control must be established." The President tells the Pope.
"I cannot show open support to your nation or any other nation Mr. President. Doing so would be an open cry for the support of Americanism."
"Would that so bad? Even if my society is anathema to Roman Catholicism, is not the old adage true? 'Enemy of my enemy is my friend?'"
"I will not be the excuse that Russia needs to invade my homeland."
"I don't think you fully understand the political nuances involved."
"Don't patronize me Mr. President. I am not a little prince, to be tolerated at the table. The Vatican has been a seat of political power long before the continent you call home was even discovered. Never forget that."
"I apologize for my short sightedness, but you must realize the situation we have at present. In terms of conventional weapons, they outnumber us fifteen to one. We have a slight advantage over them in terms of nuclear armaments, but we all know that they will never be authorized. Already the left has been co-opted. That leaves us with the Black Projects to make up the difference."
The Pope nods his acknowledgement. "Toys for spies."
"I know nothing of the sort."
*Poker.*
They look at each other in silence each weighing which decision the other might make. The President speaks first, "Might I offer an alternative then?"
Waving his hand for the President to continue Reagan says, "My country has many resources at hand that we use for the sole purpose of gathering information."
"I am aware of your NSA."
"What if I offered their services to you? All the information of the USSR's movements throughout Eastern Europe. Everything you need to tread carefully in this matter."
*Fold.*
"You're people are no doubt already in position throughout the area." The Pope says. "What do you want of us in return?"
"I wish to have access to your contacts within the Polish Solidarity movement."
The Pope scoffs, "You can have access to them but I cannot force them to do anything anymore than you can force me. What else are you trying to accomplish?"
"The United States is at war, it is a war that we cannot loose. To fight a war we need weapons, the strongest and best weapons available."
"Your country already has that."
*And 40 years to refine Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's saucer technology.*
"And the Russians have counters for them. The spooks have been agitating for a new breed of weapon in their silent war, something the Russians, in their frame of mind, cannot consider as conceivable."
"And you think that the Vatican has such a weapon?"
**
The President smiled, pointing to a nearby 10th-century Copt Bible. "As child at Sunday school, the old school marm would tell us stories of great feats and impossible happenings that we were taught to keep faith by for they were true. We already have most of the pieces of the puzzle. All we want is a quick peek at the box cover. Do you agree to my terms?"
*What choice do you leave me?*
"I will give you the contact information you want," The Pope says writing down some information, "But for you other request you need to talk to this man." He hands him the piece of paper.
"That is all I ask." Carter says standing up. "Thank you for you council your Holiness." With those last words the President of the United States exits the room.
Once outside the President motions to one of his aides, "Give this information to the DCI. He'll know what to do with it."
Inside the chambers the Pope sighs in a weariness that belies his true age. An aide is summoned. "Tell Cardinal Agustin that he should expect visitors and that his earlier suspicions to where the missing files of the Ahnenerbe- SS ended up were correct."
A pause in thought.
"Send a communiqué to Tel-Aviv by way of Patriarch Giuseppe Biltritti in Jerusalem. This 'Project 314' bears too many similarities to what my old friends in the Resistance observed Reichsführer Himmler testing in Kraków."
Pause.
"And have the Swiss mercenaries on standby. We may be left to clean up this mess."
*Again.*
************
From his office, Clark Cardinal Agustin S.J., stared outside his window upon the Cortile del Belvedere to admire the sunset light as it played upon the fountain and wondered what tomorrow would be like. Already, the times were changing.
The Apostolic Library that surrounded the Cortile was an ancient sort, founded by Pope Sixtus IV in 1475 when his papal bull Ad decorem opened up the private papal libraries to the clergy. Over time, its columned marbled hallways began to collect from the four corners of the earth, an incalculable fortune in paper and parchment. The summation of the human knowledge in its entirety, in the attempt to understand the infinite knowledge of God.
But knowledge in itself, is but a tool and only greater by the capacity of its creator. It is the will to use that knowledge that guides the hand that wields the final execution. And so it was that in time, the scouring of learned men brought forth many secrets, many great and many profane. Strange and different wisdoms, deep and occulted from monstrous pagan lands. From the north came the secret of runes, a thing wrought in pain by a hanged god. From the desert sands and the holds of the Mohammedans, the means with which to divine the secrets of God from the heavens. And from the lands beyond those of Prester John the Priest-King, the workings of the flesh and the lore of the apothecary.
*Now what?*
The keepers of the Hallowed Scriptorium understood the nature of knowledge and also too well the nature of flesh. And so, long before Lion XIII finally opened the Library in 1880 to the public, a great content was secreted away, to be forever kept until man's understanding could accept them. And thus was born the Vatican Secret Archives.
The Cardinal paused and shut the curtains. And wondered what tomorrow would be like.
************
Cardinal Agustin thought about that morning as Vespers came and gone. At the request of His Holiness, Pope Johannes Paulus II, the Apostolic Library had been shut down and cordoned off this morning, in order to receive in utmost confidence, a most intriguing visitor. The President of the United States of America, His Excellency Jim Carter.
Behind the Iron Curtain, desperate voices had once again began to find the strength to cry out against the cruelties of Soviet Oppression. In Poland, a blade's edge was drawn. Martial law had been declared in the past year as the strikes in Gdansk-Sopot-Gdynia shipyards over rising food prices came head to head with the Communist Polish Government. On both sides, a hesitancy. Which side would blink first and give the other an excuse to unleash a torrent of bloodshed? The world watched nervously. Impotent to act. Would there be another Prague Spring?
The 71-year old American statesman had just presented news of the grimmest sort to the Patriarch of All the West. On the coffee table between them lay a well-thumbed seventy page report and assorted reconnaissance satellite photographs documenting and confirming Operation Wisona; a massive Soviet Red Army build-up right outside the Polish border, waiting for the final word. 18 Soviet divisions with orders to retake Poland. Due date: December 8, 1980.
The Library itself had an almost distant atmosphere, one better found to a market. A deal was being made. Or more accurately, a choice of two evils.
*Blackmail.*
"I'm not asking you to compromise your faith your Holiness. Solidarity may have done all this on its own, but for their ideals to succeed, the movement will have to be brought in line with American Foreign Policy." The President says composed.
"Poland already walks the edge of precipice." The Pope responded, drawn and tired. "I shudder to think of what may come if Moscow discovers American fingers in the pot."
" Coordination and control must be established." The President tells the Pope.
"I cannot show open support to your nation or any other nation Mr. President. Doing so would be an open cry for the support of Americanism."
"Would that so bad? Even if my society is anathema to Roman Catholicism, is not the old adage true? 'Enemy of my enemy is my friend?'"
"I will not be the excuse that Russia needs to invade my homeland."
"I don't think you fully understand the political nuances involved."
"Don't patronize me Mr. President. I am not a little prince, to be tolerated at the table. The Vatican has been a seat of political power long before the continent you call home was even discovered. Never forget that."
"I apologize for my short sightedness, but you must realize the situation we have at present. In terms of conventional weapons, they outnumber us fifteen to one. We have a slight advantage over them in terms of nuclear armaments, but we all know that they will never be authorized. Already the left has been co-opted. That leaves us with the Black Projects to make up the difference."
The Pope nods his acknowledgement. "Toys for spies."
"I know nothing of the sort."
*Poker.*
They look at each other in silence each weighing which decision the other might make. The President speaks first, "Might I offer an alternative then?"
Waving his hand for the President to continue Reagan says, "My country has many resources at hand that we use for the sole purpose of gathering information."
"I am aware of your NSA."
"What if I offered their services to you? All the information of the USSR's movements throughout Eastern Europe. Everything you need to tread carefully in this matter."
*Fold.*
"You're people are no doubt already in position throughout the area." The Pope says. "What do you want of us in return?"
"I wish to have access to your contacts within the Polish Solidarity movement."
The Pope scoffs, "You can have access to them but I cannot force them to do anything anymore than you can force me. What else are you trying to accomplish?"
"The United States is at war, it is a war that we cannot loose. To fight a war we need weapons, the strongest and best weapons available."
"Your country already has that."
*And 40 years to refine Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's saucer technology.*
"And the Russians have counters for them. The spooks have been agitating for a new breed of weapon in their silent war, something the Russians, in their frame of mind, cannot consider as conceivable."
"And you think that the Vatican has such a weapon?"
**
The President smiled, pointing to a nearby 10th-century Copt Bible. "As child at Sunday school, the old school marm would tell us stories of great feats and impossible happenings that we were taught to keep faith by for they were true. We already have most of the pieces of the puzzle. All we want is a quick peek at the box cover. Do you agree to my terms?"
*What choice do you leave me?*
"I will give you the contact information you want," The Pope says writing down some information, "But for you other request you need to talk to this man." He hands him the piece of paper.
"That is all I ask." Carter says standing up. "Thank you for you council your Holiness." With those last words the President of the United States exits the room.
Once outside the President motions to one of his aides, "Give this information to the DCI. He'll know what to do with it."
Inside the chambers the Pope sighs in a weariness that belies his true age. An aide is summoned. "Tell Cardinal Agustin that he should expect visitors and that his earlier suspicions to where the missing files of the Ahnenerbe- SS ended up were correct."
A pause in thought.
"Send a communiqué to Tel-Aviv by way of Patriarch Giuseppe Biltritti in Jerusalem. This 'Project 314' bears too many similarities to what my old friends in the Resistance observed Reichsführer Himmler testing in Kraków."
Pause.
"And have the Swiss mercenaries on standby. We may be left to clean up this mess."
*Again.*
************