“Yes, he is the key.”

Aldo Moro was writing a letter to his family. It was one more among many he’d sent already, including those addressed to Pope Paul VI and to the main leaders of his party, during the fifty-five days he had been a prisoner of the Red Brigades.

By his looks, one would think he was a beggar, but this serene and peaceful man had been prime minister of Italy five times. The government, headed by Giulio Andreotti, would not negotiate with a terrorist organization such as the Red Brigades, which demanded that a number of prisoners be freed. Since that was not negotiable and the prime minister argued that the hostage himself opposed any engagement with these outlaws, it was difficult to anticipate what would happen to Aldo Moro, leader of the Christian Democracy at the moment of his kidnapping, on March 16 of that same year, 1978.

Since then, Moro hadn’t seen or spoken with anyone except Mario, his keeper, guard, and kidnapper. At first, Mario treated him as if he wanted to make him endure harsh interrogation, and Aldo Moro thought that his guard was trying to get certain information, but soon their meetings became long face-to-face conversations. As Mario saw it, Moro proved to be an admirable man who, in spite of the situation, had gained his respect.

The position taken by the administration and by the militants of Moro’s own party, however, deeply disappointed the prisoner. Nobody lifted a finger to help him, and in spite of the fact that in the letters he sent he had pointed out that the government had an obligation to put people’s lives first, most of the members of the Christian Democracy, and those in government, including the prime minister, believed that Moro had been forced to write those letters and that they therefore didn’t reflect his actual thinking. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Mario, as leader of the Red Brigades, could abandon his claims and demands, but he also could make a show of force and kill Moro in order to ensure the success of any future kidnapping. Or perhaps this young man was only a pawn in a chess game, a pawn who would never have any power to do or decide anything. Perhaps he just followed orders. Regardless, Moro was totally convinced he wouldn’t get out of there alive.

In another room of the same flat on Via Gradoli where Aldo Moro was writing his letter, Mario answered a phone call. Three other men were with him. Two were watching TV and the other was reading the newspaper.

“Hello.”

“Today,” said a male voice at the other end of the line. “Carry on as planned.”

“Okay,” Mario agreed.

“I’ll call you again in an hour. The American wants this taken care of as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Mario repeated, and hung up. “We’re going to finish this,” he announced to his comrades.

“Do you think this is the best thing to do?” the one reading the paper interjected with some hesitation.

“It’s not for us to decide. We can’t turn back.”

“I still think it would be better to free him. We’ve gone too far already, further than we ever imagined. They’ve gotten our message and they’ve understood it. Now they know there is no safety for them,” the terrorist said, folding his newspaper.

“It’s not our battle, Mario. We didn’t want this,” one of the comrades watching TV confessed, seemingly with conviction.

“When we started, we knew this could happen. And we accepted,” Mario pointed out.

“Don’t count on me to pull the trigger.”

“Don’t count on me, either,” the one sharing the sofa with him, still watching TV, warned. He’d been silent until then.

“We should free him. We don’t have to answer to anybody.”

“Don’t even think about it. We have to finish this today. We are not going to back down,” Mario asserted, trying to convince himself that it all was a political decision. He wasn’t even willing to consider that Aldo Moro’s life could depend on him. Moro’s fate had already been decided on March 16. It was just a matter of time. And the time had come to do what they had to do.

Mario walked to the bedroom and turned the key in the lock. Aldo Moro was sitting, still writing a letter to his loved ones.

“Get up. We are leaving,” the leader of the Red Brigades ordered, trying to hide his nervousness.

“Where to?” the abducted man asked as he tried to finish his letter in a hurry.

“We’re taking you somewhere else,” Mario answered, folding a blanket and avoiding his victim’s eyes.

“Would you mind mailing this letter for me?”

“It’ll be done,” Mario said as he took the letter and the blanket under his arm.

The two men looked at each other for a few moments. Mario couldn’t stand to meet Moro’s frank gaze, and was the first to avert his eyes. No words were needed. The prisoner knew exactly what was going to happen next.

They went down to get the car in the garage. Moro, blindfolded, was walking ahead, guided by Mario. The three other men followed uncomfortably, repulsed by a decision that was not even in agreement with the political principles of the Red Brigades. When they got to the garage, they ordered Moro to get into the trunk of a red Renault 4.

“Cover yourself with this,” his guardian ordered.

Aldo Moro covered himself with the blanket he was handed. Mario kept his eyes closed for a few moments that seemed to last an eternity. The terrorist was attempting to convince his conscience that this was inevitable. There was no other way. It was not up to him.

Mario pulled out his gun and shot into the blanket eleven times. None of the others pulled the trigger.

The plan had been carried out.

In a hotel room Rafael himself cut Sarah’s hair. She looked like another woman, sitting at the edge of the bed and sighing. It showed her anxiety, her tiredness, her despair, her frustration. And all because an unknown and sinister organization had done away with any remnant of normalcy in her life, including the length of her hair.

“I think I’m more confused now than when I didn’t know anything.”

This made Rafael smile.

“That’s natural.”

There was a silence for a few moments. Rafael and Sarah respected their implicit agreement of not talking about personal matters. They had too many things to think about, particularly Sarah. Strange and familiar names, political and religious figures, stories badly told, horrible revelations, Masonic lodges, grand masters, assassinations. And at the center of everything, her father. What kind of world was this, where not even those who were supposed to protect our faith could be trusted? And they were mean liars who killed one another.

“It’s obvious. That man Pecorelli sent the list to the pope, and that’s why the pope was murdered.”

“Don’t let your journalistic inclinations dominate you. That spoils everything. I never said that he died because of the list.”

“No?”

“No.”

That was true. Rafael had never said that John Paul I was murdered because he was in possession of a list that, basically, was almost common knowledge. The only thing he had said was that the list had been in his hands when he died. It was the consequences of that list that took the pontiff to his death.

“Misleading assumptions are at the root of most problems,” Rafael said cryptically.

The organizations connected with the P2, and the lodge itself, knew that Pecorelli had revealed the names on the list or that, at least, such actions had been attributed to him. There was no doubt that Pecorelli had tried to blackmail Gelli, and in fact, that was a very dangerous game to play with Gelli.

In March 1979, the body of the journalist was found, shot twice in the mouth. It was relatively easy to think of Gelli as his assassin, but that would be very difficult to prove. Besides, it would be very complicated to find the real capo behind that murder. Rafael could only suggest that behind the whole thing there was an ex-prime minister.