The Octopus at the Vatican

# 21 - the idea

Sunday, September 10, Vatican

In the afternoon, Vittorio Petri came to find him. The pope told him of the American president's phone call. Luciano was now determined to leave his post, without dying and without stepping down.

"That's the aim, my dear nephew, can you see a way to get there?"

Vittorio thought for a while. Then he suggested that Albino Luciani disappeared from the pontifical palace, as he had done successfully twice before. But this time, it would be forever. Simply. The pope would have disappeared. People would think what they wanted. Some would think the Holy Spirit had had a hand in this, others would put forward more straightforward theories. Everyone to his beliefs.

"And thinking further ahead? If I were officially dead, it would eliminate any risky guesses. And the mafia would not look for me."

"Yes, but how? No body, no death! You cannot play at being dead for four days on a raised platform for the whole world to see! Even Agatha Christie would never have come up with such a scenario."

While mulling it over, the two men thought about turning the murder plot in their favor. As in judo. With a perfect model and accomplices in the Vatican, it might be possible. Better still, the mafia might think they had succeeded. And Albino Luciano would be free. On the down side, reforms wouldn't be set up, unless the new pope was a more courageous liberal pope than him.

"Imagine the puzzlement of the mafiosi", laughed Vittorio, "if you die officially poisoned when they haven't yet put poison in your drink!"

"I love your black humor Vittorio", laughed Luciani. "If we found out the criminals' chosen day, we could make it all match up. We need to get ready as soon as possible, it could happen at any time."

"In the meantime, throw your chamomile down the loo! I have another idea", continued Vittorio. "To do this, we need people and money. Father Dubois, the old favorite of Paul VI, has become a friend. We play squash together. He has many hidden resources. He could be useful. But he is both busy and greedy. Without money, he won't do a thing."

"You know I don't have any, Vittorio."

Vittorio suggested he used his position at the IOR. He could divert part of the mafia's piggy bank.

He knew where their stashes were hidden. In the accounts' offshore companies. He could divert huge sums, hundreds of millions of dollars and leave no trace. It would be invisible. But Luciano couldn't agree. The seventh commandment forbade it, though stealing from a thief and assassin was not clearly dealt with in the bible. Above all, he reminded Vittorio of what had happened in Switzerland. How, after having fooled crooks, he had been beaten to death.

"The road accident was an explanation for others. Have you not learned anything? You nearly lost your health, your life even, and you want to start something even more dangerous?"

"You're right. But this time, I will not be able to be found."

"And what if you're wrong again? The first time you thought you were able to run between the bullets. I have thought of another way without exposing you. Call Aldo Bonassoli, our cousin. He may know how to create a good model. And if he can, I will tell Sister Vincenza, my friend Dr. Renato Buzzonetti and Cardinal Villot. And we go with it!"

"But it's impossible, we can't create a false body like that!" exclaimed Vittorio.

The pope liked Mark Twain. He replied with one of his lines.

"Go find out. 'They didn't know it was impossible, so they did it'. Let's try, we'll see."

On Monday 11 September, Vittorio called his cousin Aldo Bonassoli. He was in luck. Bonassoli had just returned from an exhausting oil prospecting trip in Gabon and Morocco. He was taking a break at home in Lurano, near Bergamo. They decided to meet up the following day in Milan. Vittorio would travel by plane.

After this call, Vittorio was again tempted by an embezzlement. The sums were large and the risk, small. He had the accounts, the offshore firms, numbered accounts in Switzerland, anonymous accounts in Austria. He knew how to send them. He could erase all traces of the telexes and make suspicion fall on others, such as Calvi, Sindona or Marcinkus. He could make the underworld believe the kitty was still intact when they would have lost one sixteenth of their funds. False statements were not made for nothing. They would be set up by creative accountants on his payroll, without them ever knowing who their employer was. In two years at the Institute of Works of Religion, Vittorio Petri had gone way beyond his gurus of hustle.

He remained tempted. What would his uncle say? But in fact, Albino didn't need to know. Just another lie. And it would be for him, to save him. But was it really to save his uncle or, without owning up to it, to make himself richer?

Then he thought he could always set this up a little later. Above all he was scared. And if I had forgotten that grain of sand? Albino is right. The mafia would end up putting two and two together and finding me. I would be tortured to death. Brrr! It was just like chess moves; you could always move one pawn but not take it back. He decided to keep that key pawn on its starting square. Without moving it. He also remembered this aphorism by the French politician Henri Queuille, there is no problem that an absence of a solution does not resolve.

He put it off till later. Or to the Greek kalends.