Michael's Mortal Sin

By Davd Soul

"Michael's Mortal Sin" is the last in a trilogy of historical novels retelling one Chicago lawyer's reluctant crusade against an international drug cartel that picks up where "Michael's Cardinal Sin" and "Michael's Original Sin" left off. The final episode reveals Michael Avalov's heretofore untold role as head of the white shoes KATZ law firm in not only campaigning in courtrooms against the powerful traffickers, but in lending his inside "dope" to help authorities thwart the attempted assassination of anti-drug Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square. Was it Fate or something else that all this happened on the anniversary of Mother Mary's first appearance & "Miracle of the Sun" at Fatima ... & just weeks after Michael & friends had witnessed the Pope's ally, President Ronald "War on Drugs" Reagan, being shot by John Hinckley outside a D.C. hotel?

Bringing down drug trafficking kingpins in USA courtroom battles in the first two novels set in the late 1970's was one thing. Michael's epic story against the international drug cartel & the Grey Wolf Mehmet Ali Agca's quest to kill the Pope now takes him, his fiancée & colleagues, as well as his readers, in a series of deadly confrontations in Rome, Florence & Venice. It's a matter of the final bets being placed by both sides, one in which the winner takes all. And, in the end, the ultimate question for Michael my come down to whether he has any choice … or, enough guts … in attempting to do something very bad to do good.

Come, join Michael then, in consulting the "Medici Art of Poisoning" & contemplating his final, deadliest & perhaps most mortal of sins ...

But, first contemplate for a moment the unlikely scenario upon which "Michael's Mortal Sin" (and "Michael's Original Sin") is/are based and really did happen: The attempts on President Reagan's and Pope John Paul II's lives within weeks of one another in 1981; both leaders' dedication to the anti-drug movement of their times; both leaders' fervent opposition to Communist Russia; and the Pope's deadly encounter in St. Peter's Square on the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima decades after it was predicted by the Marian apparition in 1917. Consider, too, the popular polish Pope's historical visit to Chicago in 1979 and his (fictional) first encounter in "Michael's Cardinal Sin" with Michael Avalov and the international drug cartel both were fighting in the courts of law as well as on the big city streets around the world.

As in each of the "prequel" trilogy novels as well as in the earlier "Nth Degree" trilogy novels, perhaps (again) the real question needing to be answered as to what happened to the players is: "Was it Fate, Free Will, or Something Else"?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667807300

Book preview

PROLOGUE: October 13, 1917 & May 10, 1981

FOR SEVERAL MONTHS the three young shepherd children had been seeing and talking to what they believed to be the Blessed Virgin at the Cova da Iria in Fatima, Portugal. An Angel, they now noted, had earlier in the year appeared to prepare them for something like this.

Lucia dos Santos, the eldest, as well as cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, remained unshakable in what they had since seen in an isolated meadow far away from the distant wars and any plague riddled nearby town. Indeed, they breathlessly explained, the apparition was brighter than the sun and wearing a white mantle edged with gold. A rosary was in this most beautiful lady’s hand. No matter their parents had feared they were making up the story, or that neighbors called them liars. Nor did it matter that local priests at first recoiled at their heresy, and progressive officials had tried to intimidate their families for their children’s superstitions. The many cares of life, even fear of death and surviving poverty, may have seemed to dominate every adult mind. But, not the children’s, not this rain swept Saturday, October 13, 1917.

Certainly, the young children grasped that everyone’s once simple life had been turned upside down. Yet, there seemed to be no turning back as many in the drenched crowd of 70,000 began to demand, not just hope for, an expected miracle. Since that life-changing 13th of May and the 13th day of every month since (except when the Lady appeared on August 19), the Marian apparition warned that God had been insulted by the many sins of mankind. The three children, ages 10, 9 and 7, had been told they were chosen to be His humble messengers. They would tell of the need for the whole world to repent. They must say the Rosary daily. Return to the meadow every month for further instruction. And, finally, on this stormy October morning, the Immaculate Lady would reveal her true identity, yield prophesied warnings to an unholy world, and perform a miracle so others might also believe.

Despite the incessant rain, the eldest Lucia and her younger cousins had patiently knelt at the favored spot, fervently saying the rosary as always. Lucia looked occasionally at the hunched Jacinto. Jacinta looked at a dripping wet Francisco. Minutes passed making more mud underneath the sea of umbrellas that were giving poor shelter to those huddling underneath. The human misery was becoming unbearable until the children’s posture suddenly straightened and those nearest gasped. The Lady had appeared once again to the children.

She says she is the Lady of the Rosary, the children turned to excitedly tell the gaping crowd that saw nothing but the smiling youngsters. Still, many began to kneel in the muck and mire, while others remained standing, frozen in place. The Mother of God assured the children the First World War would soon end, but gave them new visions of an even more terrible world war to occur if its people did not amend their sinful ways. A future bishop’s life was also seen as in the hands of a would-be assassin. The onlookers were, then, relayed the message that all must say the Rosary for the conversion of all sinners and especially Russia in the throws of a Marxist Revolution. And, oh yes, Lucia reminded, the Lady is going to perform the promised miracle.

The fine points of what happened next during The Miracle of the Sun would defer in the memories of those present. Yet, as some now wept and others extended their arms skyward, most agreed the clouds suddenly seemed to be ripped apart in a clasp of thunder to reveal a sun that could somehow be viewed without harm to the eye. In an instant, a silvery blue disc appeared to be enlarged, surrounded with a scarlet flame, then, aureoled in alternating hews of purple and yellow. Its pleasant light gave off a distinctive heat, much more intense than normal.

The children were the first to recognize the promised miracle in the making. Those not praying numbly closed their umbrellas and shook off the chill. Minutes passed as more slowly comprehended that something special was happening and more still when the unusually beautiful if dulled sun began to gently dance. Several minutes later the terrestrial fire wheel continued to delight them. Without warning, however, their joy turned to unbounded terror as the twirling rainbow disc seemed to descend earthward in a rush. Screaming people ran for cover that did not exist. Others remained stuck in the mud. And, just as quickly as the event had begun it ended. The sun quietly returned to its normal place in the sky as if sucked back into place by a mighty force, while clothing and turf everywhere had dried. It seemed like the spectacle had lasted an hour instead of the ten minutes in real time. But, it happened. Didn’t it?

MICHAEL AVOLOV HELD the struggling Cardinal in his arms. On the prostrate prelate’s own floor in his Tuscan villa. The 13 of May, the year of our Lord 1981, was approaching fast. And, Michael was dispensing what he hoped would be preventative justice, yet still as desperate for answers as the Cardinal.

Was it you? Was it YOU who has killed me? the prelate seemed to ask, but could only mouth the words. His outstretched accusatorial finger did not bother Michael.

The Chicago lawyer and former Marine no longer wanted to be a weekend soldier of war. But, we don’t always have a fuckin’ choice, do we? he mockingly told himself. By training or instinct, Michael fought off the numb that comes to one who has just committed the most heinous of crimes, even for a good cause. He looked blankly at the second priest, an Archbishop, who was motionless nearby, still seated with mouth dribbling spittle, his head slumped onto the dining room’s table. Michael glanced at the elongated refectory at which the three had just broken bread together. Two gifted goblets once filled with red wine from the Cardinal’s vineyard rested horizontally on the table as their remaining contents had flowed onto the floor to rest in a pool of red.

But, How? You drank from the wine we gave you, the stunned Cardinal’s bulging eyes seemed to say.

Michael nodded, but did not answer and turned away from the victim. Besides staff and guards in adjoining rooms who might be alerted, of most concern now was whether the experimental antidote he had taken earlier would work as the CIA’s chemical nerds had said. Closing his eyes, Michael shuddered. He could feel the Cardinal’s deadly poison that he had drunk. No denying the poison was attacking Michael’s mouth and innards as well. But, I’m still breathing, the priests not so good.

No more bloodshed, Your Eminence, Michael finally whispered as he watched another drop of the seemingly symbolic wine fall from the table to the floor.

Written on the Cardinal’s guilty face was his having tried to poison Michael … only to have the tables somehow turned on him …" His pained breathing now unbearable, he began to heave blood in uncontrolled spurts.

God works in mysterious ways, huh? Michael softly began, ignoring the exhaled blood and as if the dying Cardinal could engage. So does the devil.

Stubbornly fighting to live, the frocked Cardinal shook his head a plus forte, as if signaling he hadn’t any remorse.

Despite the history of animus between them, Michael still wasn’t sure. I had a vision, Your Eminence, he calmly continued, despite holding his own cramping stomach. In her own way, the Lady spoke to me. Forewarned me. Not just about your work with the Istanbul Cartel. But, that it hired a Grey Wolf assassin to kill the Pope in Rome.

The Cardinal’s fading eyes were suddenly ablaze. The Lady of the Rosary. Has she spoken to you? he seemed to beg with only a grotesque expression for words.

There is still time to confess, Michael urged without answering the prelate’s question. In a couple of days it will be May 13th and you know the Pope is to hold an audience in St. Peter’s.

The Cardinal gritted his blood soaked teeth, only to be convulsed anew with a coughing jag that sprayed blood onto Michael’s face.

Is this the day the Wolf will strike John Paul? Michael demanded as he wiped away the priest’s fluids with his sleeve. Grabbing the Cardinal by the shoulders and lifting him off the floor, Michael finally hissed: Tell me, damn you. Just nod.

Instead, the Cardinal only grinned.

Having broken into a cold sweat, Michael looked furtively toward the door and the escape route to safety. You can do this, he sighed. But, when Michael made his first steps, breathing became harder and a warm liquid running down his leg told him, all three of us might be dead in a few.

CHAPTER 1 – Dateline: Friday, April 17, 1981

MICHAEL AVALOV MARVELED at his own foolishness. Here he had thought getting engaged again would never happen. No freaking way, he had kept telling himself and anyone else who would ask the question. Yet, here he was on a rare warm and sunny April day walking up the handful of stairs into Sweet Home Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral with his bride to be.

The couple had just flown into O’Hare International Airport from Washington’s Reagan National for a meeting with the priest who would preside over their wedding later in the year. Glancing at Jill Harper, Michael thought … dazzling … she always has been. Friends, however, wondered why it took so long for him to realize his colleague at the international law firm he now chaired was the one for him. From the get go, it was obvious to everyone that Jill was a brilliant legal strategist. Tough minded, too. Then, there was her natural beauty. Tall and slender, with an aquiline nose perfectly dividing two perfectly rounded green eyes, Jill was any man’s looker. Her now long and flowing Cardinal red hair was almost too much, too good. The white chiffon dress she wore this day with its hem cut inches above the knee also bared Jill’s supple shoulders and well-endowed bosom with a neckline plunging just enough to be sexy. Yet, somehow, now and always, she came off with a girl next door aura.

Grrrrrrr, Michael gutturally exclaimed mimicking a purring alley cat.

You look very dashing, Michael, Jill purred back as she held tightly onto her fiancée’s hand. She meant it. But, Jill’s attraction to Michael was built on more than his decorated bravery while a Marine and during dangerous scrapes with drug lords she witnessed in recent years. Nor was Michael’s comely smile, steel blue eyes and wavy light brown hair the deal-maker; also nice, but not key was his impressive upper body built with a relentless free weights regimen and firm stomach nicely set within a powerful six foot one inch frame. No, I fell in love with Michael for the brains and charm he showed while mentoring me … and kept mentoring me, as if he’d never seen a Harvard Law grad.

Jill had joined Katz, Avelini, Tomasso & Zale more than a half dozen years earlier. How patiently Michael taught me the cutthroat legal world’s ropes, then, showed his own driven commitment to serving clients yet without ever abandoning his sense of right and wrong. Jill had tried to resist that powerful combination, even in the last few months when Michael and she had seldom seen one another, exhausted from commuting back and forth between Chicago and Washington DC. The long legged, smart as a whip beauty also had only slowly come to realize she had been flirting with another woman’s man, a once divorced one at that, until a cataclysmic event had changed their minds and fates forever. He might be damaged goods, Jill conceded. But, I’ll love Michael to the day I die.

Sweetheart, you’ve always taken my breath away, but you outdid yourself today, Michael whispered to respect the holy ground upon which he tread. Slightly scrunching his Grecian nose, Michael suggestively added, We’ve come a long way, Jill. A very long way, in so short time.

That, we have, Jill nodded, then, giggled.

Michael’s revelry with Jill was momentarily thrown off as he noticed to the couple’s left the faint bullet marks on the cathedral’s nearby cornerstone. It was here, the historian in Michael recalled, that North Side Gangster Hymie Weiss was murdered on October 11, 1926. He grinned. How many times Al Capone attended Mass or doled out charity to needy parishioners on these very steps … before gunning down an enemy, like Mugsy Moran’s crew on St. Valentine’s Day. Michael realized: I’ve already come across enough corrupt officials, gangsters and cartel chieftains in this city to fill up a lifetime.

I promise to take good care of you, Michael felt compelled tell Jill as he leaned into her. I swear to God.

I promise, too, she assured, as both pulled opened the gothic cathedral’s heavy metal doors to gaze upon its modernistic interior.

Michael and Jill were struck by the sun’s rays pouring through the cathedral’s themed stained glass windows and as they diffused onto its many front to back pews. The church itself was empty, except for a homeless man and woman looking for a kind word, as well as a few regular parishioners saying their daily devotions.

Walking slowly down the center aisle toward the altar where their religious counselor awaited them with a smile, Michael could not hold back the many feelings, good and bad, he had earned here over the years: As the archdiocese’s lawyer and consigliore to its Cardinal who now kindly nodded at him; as friend of the brutally slain Father Sebastiani, supposedly a mutual friend of the Cardinal’s; then again, as colleague to the butchered archdiocese accountant Joe Mantua. Then, there’s Bishop Condoleezza I can’t forget, poisoned as he was right in the Cardinal’s own mansion dining room while they supped. Flashing before his eyes as well was Michael himself barely escaping an assassination attempt only blocks away in his then-Old Town home. Did the Cardinal know?

Still troubling, too, was the lingering suspicion about his client’s involvement in an international drug trafficking operation then centered in Chicago. How ironic that in the months just gone by he, Jill and a band of Chicago-based KATZ lawyers while on loan to the firm’s DC office, had worked in tandem against that so-called Istanbul international drug cartel. How they, along with a battalion of federal law enforcers, had risked life and limb to hound the villains, in and out of numerous courts across the U.S. and abroad, until it had nearly broken apart. It was their duty, after all, a part of President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs.

Fantastically and just weeks earlier, Michael had at the 11th hour narrowly foiled a cartel assassin’s attack on the U.S. president, only to have No. 40 gunned down and nearly killed moments later by an insane lone wolf, John Hinckley, Jr. The government’s cover up plan was working perfectly. No one outside a small inner circle knew of Michael’s role or having himself suffered a serious, but now healed wound. Nor had it yet to be reported, and hopefully never would be reported, that a second attempt on POTUS’s life had been thwarted by a make shift team consisting of Michael, the CIA and the DEA, while the most senior agents for the FBI and Secret Service had fumbled their own defense of the president. But, did the Cardinal know?

Michael chuckled to himself in mid-stroll down the aisle with Jill. So, the Attorney General has another ‘special mission’ for me. The day before at his office, Michael had received a White House emissary who related the healing President’s concern about intel warning against yet another cartel plot. This time, the suspected conspiracy centered on killing Pope John Paul II, not only for his work to recognize the Solidarity labor union in his homeland, communist controlled Poland, but for his well-publicized anti-drug trafficking crusade. Something about the AG wanting me to work again with the CIA in following the cartels’ financial paper trails and deciphering intercepted coding in its communications. Try to determine who might be funding the plot. The Russians? Or was the depleted Istanbul Cartel still a force to be reckoned with and involved? We’d be working with the Vatican, Italian officials and Interpol again. The President had made the ask, so, how can I refuse? But, only so long as I can have my team with me … the CIA’s James Scarsborough, my friend and CPA Guy Panama Holmstead … and Jill.

It was no coincidence that Jill’s mind also drifted to the events of the previous March 30. It proved to be not only the end of Maria Cordero’s romantic spell on Michael, but his on her as well. Jill knew the one-time rival might never overcome recoiling at Michael’s killing of her brother, Miguel, catching the sicario before he could execute his planned presidential assassination on the grounds of that Washington hotel.

Jill fought off any remaining guilt. And, she forced herself to remember there had always been something attracting Michael to her and her to Michael. Above all was that one tête-à-tête in Michael’s private hospital room after all the well wishers had gone home for the day; it’s what triggered what most others thought to be their whirlwind romance. A warm embrace, a hot kiss. Suddenly, months of repressed feelings for one another had made words irrelevant. They just knew. Michael had crawled out of the hospital bed. Sporting bandages and all, he proposed marriage on bended knee. And, Jill tearfully accepted.

SUDDENLY, THE COUPLE found themselves staring into the dour eyes of Cardinal Schubert, the head of the city’s powerful archdiocese and a KATZ client. Michael had never come to fully believe, let alone trust, the Cardinal for his suspected, yet never proven, involvement in those cartel drug operations. The attorney-client relationship had continued, if awkwardly, on the strength of Michael’s ongoing legal work for the archdiocese and especially for having once shielded the church leader from potential criminal charges relating to the mysterious death of his own second in command.

Ah, Michael. Jill, beamed Cardinal Schubert, as he extended his ringed hand to be ceremonially kissed. I am so pleased to see you. We have so much to talk about.

Jill looked at Michael for how he would react to the humbly capped, yet powerful prelate he had been at loggerheads at times and in this holy setting on Good Friday, no less. I can’t tell you what an honor it is, Michael began with a nod and a measured air of sincerity, for the busy head of the Church in Chicago to be counseling Jill and myself in preparation of our marriage. And, to take time out on this holy day like this.

It is a privilege for me, counselor, the white haired Cardinal Schubert replied with equal sincerity as he played with his red Cossack and warmly stroked the crucifix hanging around his neck with one of his two massive hands. He thought: You, Michael, despite our differences, must know how much I owe you. I surely remember your clever defense on my behalf almost two years ago now when I was named a person of interest by the FBI for alleged ties to the Chicago Outfit drug cartel as well as to the Mexican and European trafficking they oversaw at the time; that is, until the foreign drug lords turned the tables on their American brothers, ironically, with the help of your sharp legal mind. And, your wounds, the Cardinal suddenly asked, the ones suffered in Washington? Are you fully recovered?

I am mostly healed, thank God, Michael assured, but with hesitancy in his voice Jill picked up on. How did the Cardinal know I had been hospitalized? Does he even know how I was injured in DC?

Yes, thank the Lord, Cardinal Schubert quickly said before Michael could ask the obvious question on his mind. But, come, sit down here with me in this front row pew, he begged. I have something to discuss first with both of you and it is best we have a private talk in plain sight.

Of course, Your Eminence, Michael replied as he and Jill joined the now seated frocked prelate with some skepticism. They knew the five foot ten priest before them had a terrible temper and was a resolute manipulator who usually brooked no opposition let alone criticism. Older and wiser now, maybe he’s mellowed, Jill silently hoped.

I understand you have been asked by our president to continue your pursuit of the Istanbul Cartel in Italy, the Cardinal bluntly said in a lowered voice and while leaning toward the couple for added privacy.

Michael and Jill were stunned. Your Eminence? is all Michael could weakly muster.

I hear our government is also concerned about a plot to assassinate His Holiness and, besides the usual Russian suspects, they mostly fear the cartel leaders wanting revenge for the Pope’s help in hurting their drug trade, not only in America, but throughout Europe.

I’m sorry, Your Eminence, Michael began. But, I’m not allowed to talk about such matters.

I understand. I understand, Cardinal Schubert assured as he looked squarely in turn into Michael’s, then, Jill’s eyes. He again stroked his crucifix as if it were a comfort stone. But, what I am telling you is that your renewed involvement in bringing the cartel down makes you its targets as well.

We knew going in … Jill began to say, but was cut off.

No, you don’t understand, the Cardinal interrupted with a shake of the head and sudden urgency, you are already a prime target of theirs.

Based on past close calls, Michael did not doubt the veracity of the ongoing cartel threat now revealed. But, how would you know? he wondered out loud.

My son, I am head of the largest Catholic population outside of Rome and a member of the Vatican College of Cardinals. I’ve had many a breakfast, dinner and lunch with three presidents.

But, how would you still have inside cartel information? I thought you had retired from any involvement with them, even for religious or charitable purposes. During our plea negotiations, you assured the Justice Department you had.

"I have wound down my affairs out side of my Church functions. But, you are wrong to suggest I was ever a friend of the cartel. You might say, we now have a ‘live and let live’ understanding.

Michael and Jill’s raised eyebrows were ignored.

Yet, Cardinal Schubert continued, if The Turk knew I was still talking to you, the FBI or the CIA like this … well, let’s just say he would not be happy. Fortunately, I have several ‘insurance’ policies that would make the Istanbul Cartel’s executive committee hesitate to harm me. And, I still have many favors owed to me from inside as well as outside their organization. Seeing the concerned looks on Michael and Jill’s faces deepen, Cardinal Schubert quickly added, Don’t worry. I’m not telling you anything you won’t learn in the government briefings you’ll get before heading to Rome.

"So,