Without knocking, Kempe walked back into Cullen’s office with draft copies of a statement. He read it aloud while the three bishops followed along.
“At the conclusion of the Confirmation Mass at St. Bernardine’s Church on February 5th, a laser beam was observed focused on Archbishop Wilfred Gunnison, the retired archbishop of Baltimore. Anyone with information concerning this incident is urged to contact the police or the chancellor’s office of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.”
“Don’t you think the statement should say that neither the archbishop nor the archdiocese have any idea what might have motivated this incident?” Gunnison asked expectantly.
There was an awkward silence.
Both Martin and Kempe shook their heads. Kempe said decisively, “We’d be encouraging speculation. If we have to go with a statement, the less said the better.” Another brief silence as the three men looked to Charles Cullen.
Cullen nodded his approval. “We’ll have it ready should the media want some comment from us. Of course, if we issue the statement, the police will be involved and that means they will have questions we have to be ready to handle. Aidan, you’ll be the spokesperson if this gets to the media. And give John Krajik a call. Tell him to direct any media inquiries to you at the Catholic Center. It’s important we keep him in the loop as much as we can.”
Cullen’s “Thank you” signaled the meeting was over.
As Martin moved to the door he turned to Cullen and Gunnison, “I’ll make the calls to the retired agents today.”
Kempe hid his surprise at the remark. What had he missed while he was drafting the statement? What agents was Martin referring to? He had an idea what Martin had in mind, of course, but especially in the inner workings of the diocese, knowledge, specific knowledge, was power. And in the present crisis mode, his being at the center was critical.
12
Ian Landers’ mother phoned a few days after the seminar.
“Ian? It’s Mother. How are you?”
“Wonderful. And how are you?” he asked in turn.
“I’m fine, dear. Listen,” Ella Landers asked straight out, “can you possibly come to a little dinner party this Friday?”
“Yes, yes I can,” Ian responded after a quick look at his calendar.
“I want you to bring your colleague, Nora Martin, the one you’ve been talking about. I’m not prying, Ian, believe me. I’d just love to meet her. I’ve invited my high school friend, Margaret Comiskey…she’s worked at the Catholic Center for ages and it turns out that she is a good friend of Nora’s brother, Bishop Martin. Margaret is driving down with the bishop, who is able to join us.”
“I’ll call Nora as soon as I get off the phone. I’ve heard a lot about Bishop Martin from Nora and I’d very much like to meet him.”
“Well, Margaret tells me the bishop would like to meet you as well,” Ella said, lifting her voice. “It should be a wonderful party, don’t you think?”
Before Ian could respond, Ella added, “Around seven then. Call if Nora can’t make it. See you this Friday. I can’t wait.” “It was clear Bryn liked you, Ian,” Nora said on the drive back to Baltimore after the dinner.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a bishop quite like him. What really struck me about him,” Ian responded, “was the way he kept Margaret in the conversation. He treated her like a colleague rather than the chancellor’s secretary. It’s clear she’s an intelligent and capable woman. I’m sure my mother would do anything for her.”
“Bryn’s told me she’s had a tough life,” Nora said. “Dropped out of college to take care of her widowed father. Years later when he died, she stayed on at the Catholic Center. Never married. Made working for the church her life. She has a widowed sister, Ann, I believe, who now lives in South Carolina. Ann has a son and Margaret is his godmother. Her sister and her nephew are the only family that’s left. The nephew just retired from a career in the army and is back home in Baltimore. Bryn thinks he might be staying with Margaret until he can find a place of his own.
“Your mother and Bryn were both fascinated to hear about the Combier papers. You’re obviously absorbed with them.”
“I’ve still got a lot of work to do on them,” Ian said. “There must be some reason why Father Combier came to Baltimore when he left the Vatican. Why the States? Why Baltimore? And I’m coming across notes he made on still another secret clerical society—the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple. Combier believed they were an offshoot of Fideli d’ Amore, just as the Fideli were an offshoot of the Knights Templar.”
“Who would’ve thought the Carmelites were sitting on this little treasure of church history?” Nora said, pleased with Ian’s interest in the Combier papers…and pleased with her role in bringing them to his attention.
Less than a mile behind Ian’s car, also heading north on Interstate 95, Bishop Martin and Margaret Comiskey drove for the most part in silence.
“Ella Landers is really remarkable, Margaret. How she prepared a meal like that and still found time to be present while we had drinks was quite a trick.”
“She’s a very capable person, Bryn, and a wonderful friend. She makes everything she does look easy, effortless. Really, her life couldn’t be more different than mine—Foreign Service, all those years abroad, meeting Owen, a son like Ian, not to mention her clandestine life with the CIA. But she always stayed in touch. We wrote to each other at least once a month and called on our birthdays and at Christmas.”
“I’m not sure there are many friendships like that today,” Bryn said. “At least not among men.”
“You know I haven’t much family. My sister Ann and her husband moved to South Carolina before he died. But my nephew, Mark, is in Baltimore. He just retired from the army and stayed with me for a while until he got his own place. My sister, Mark, and Ella mean the world to me.” Comiskey fell silent, starring through the windshield at the soft glow of the taillights in front of them. Her world was so small compared to Ella’s.
Martin glanced over at her. “You seem a little tired, Margaret.”
“I probably am,” she said returning his glance. Then haltingly, “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for some time now.”
“This might be as good a time as any,” Martin said gently.
“It’s very delicate, Bryn. I’m sure you know that being secretary to Aidan Kempe is very different from working with you when you were in the chancellor’s office.”
Martin gave Margaret a guarded yet knowing look.
“It has to do with Kempe. Tonight when Ian was telling us about the Combier papers he’s working on and the secret societies of priests Combier had discovered, I decided to say something about what I’ve noticed since I started working for him. But I need to get my thoughts in order. Tonight’s not the right time. When Kempe’s out of the office and you’ve got some time, I’d like to tell you what I’ve seen and heard.”
“Of course, Margaret,” Martin said. “But we should talk soon.”
“Yes, we should talk soon,” Comiskey said with evident fatigue; then she closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest.
Turning off the lights in her condo, Ella Landers knew that something happened during the evening that she didn’t quite understand. Both Margaret and the bishop took more than a casual interest in Ian’s discovery of the Combier papers. Something told her that it wasn’t just about sixteenth century Italy and the machinations of ambitious bishops. She would have to talk to Margaret—and to Ian.
She let her thoughts turn to Nora Martin and her bachelor son. Might she become a grandmother after all?
13
Mark Anderlee made his way up the open staircase in the back of Immaculate Conception Church. He would remain in the choir loft until the recessional following the Confirmation Mass and then take up a position on one of the lower stairs. The height advantage would be just right for the laser hit on Gunnison’s chest as he came toward him down the center aisle. The beam would re
st on its target for two seconds. Gunnison would have a restless night. Anderlee wanted the old man to know there was more to come.
There had been nothing in the Baltimore Sun about his first hit on Gunnison. Good, Anderlee thought. It would make this second hit easier. The guy had to be nervous after his last confirmation. Tonight might make the bastard a complete nervous wreck. Then, Anderlee mused, he would have the pleasure of ruining the archbishop’s big party.
The scent of incense reached the choir loft where Duane Moore, retired FBI special agent, scanned the parishioners gathering below for the Confirmation Mass. He loved the Church of the Immaculate Conception, his boyhood parish, but maybe he loved the elementary school even more. He had been an altar boy here, the first black to serve Mass, and he remembered how he had loved the smell of beeswax candles and the hint of starch in the white surplices. The parish was still mostly white, but blacks and Hispanics now had their place. He remembered the nuns. Almost all were kind and encouraging. The priests made him nervous.
But tonight was different. He wasn’t here to pray or even to remember his boyhood years. He sat close to the west wall of the choir loft. His position put his earpiece out of sight and his whisper into the wrist mike was soft enough not to be overheard.
“Havel? You in place?’ George Havel, the retired Secret Service agent, was stationed in the door of the darkened sacristy with a good line of vision to most of the congregation.
“Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary. It’s the recessional I’m worried about.”
Moore turned slightly to his right and scanned the dozen or so non-choir members. Five couples who probably were aunts and uncles of the kids being confirmed, an athletic looking man, alone, sitting erect with his shoulders squared, maybe a divorced parent who hadn’t been invited to the Mass, and two teenage boys who were busy texting or playing a computer game on their iPods. The ritual seemed interminable, the Confirmation Rite alone taking half an hour. Finally the sign of peace and the hundreds below started moving slowly up to the front of the church for Communion. Only the two teens and the lone male didn’t march down the steps into the nave for Communion. Moments later the choir members were climbing back to the choir loft.
“Everything looks good from here,” Havel’s voice said in Moore’s earpiece.
“Same,” Moore whispered into his wrist mike. Both men knew the laser dot had hit the archbishop at the end of the Mass as he processed out of St. Bernardine’s Church.
Archbishop Gunnison raised his right hand and gave the final blessing, genuflected towards the tabernacle, and took his place at the end of the recessional. The choir, accompanied by two trumpeters and the organ, began the recessional hymn, “Holy God We Praise Thy Name.” With his crozier in his left hand, Gunnison carefully took the three steps down from the sanctuary and started down the center aisle. He turned slightly from one side of the aisle to other, blessing the assembly with silent signs of the cross as he moved with episcopal dignity towards the vestibule. He tried hard to project a kindly, fatherly expression, one he had mastered years before. But it didn’t work. Tension ballooned in his chest. He couldn’t mask the fear in his eyes. Instead of the respectful nods he was used to, the parishioners were staring at him. Impulsively, Gunnison glanced down at the purple-trimmed off-white vestment and the gold-plated pectoral cross that the laser dot had targeted the week before. Just another fifty feet and he would be at the door of the church.
Duane Moore’s elbows rested on the choir loft railing as he scanned the assembly below. He saw nothing the least bit suspicious. He leaned back and studied the people in the loft. Each of the choir members held a hymnal, eyes moving from their music to the choir director and back to the hymnal. The two teens were gone—and so was the jock, the man he had pegged as the divorced dad.
“George,” Moore said into his wrist mike, “look for a single male, long coat, military bearing, late thirties, early forties. He was up here in the loft a minute ago. I can’t find him!”
Mark Anderlee stopped at the third step from the bottom of the open staircase and opened his coat.
Gunnison was just thirty feet from the vestibule when the laser beam hit. It rested steady for two full seconds just above his pectoral cross. He didn’t see the red dot, but the surprised and confused expressions on some of the faces he was blessing made Gunnison flinch.
Havel, ten feet behind the archbishop, saw a man in a dark coat dart out of the church. As he rushed to Gunnison’s side, he saw Moore moving as quickly as his middle-aged legs would permit down the choir loft steps and out the right front door.
Gunnison was smart enough to keep moving, trying to act as if everything was all right. Havel, now at his side, ushered the red-faced archbishop back to the sacristy by way of the side aisle.
“I don’t know what to make of this,” Gunnison whispered to Havel, trying to hide and steady his shaking hands. Moore ran into the sacristy, breathing heavily. “Our shooter was male, average height, late thirties, early forties, athletic, and in good shape. He was gone by the time I got outside the church.”
Gunnison felt sick. The description fit Anderlee.
“Any idea what this is about, Archbishop?” Moore asked.
“No, no, I don’t. It’s probably a not-so-funny prank,” Gunnison said. At that moment he wanted nothing more than a tumbler of scotch. Then he added, very formally, “Thank you both for giving up your evening.”
Havel and Moore exchanged a glance. The archbishop wasn’t telling the truth.
Dropped back at his residence by Duane Moore, who secured the premises before leaving, Gunnison poured himself a scotch and called Aidan Kempe. The chancellor listened to Gunnison’s shaking voice and incoherent account of the second laser incident without any show of surprise—or of any concern for the archbishop.
“I’m not going to disturb Cullen at this hour. I’ll call him first thing in the morning. He’ll want to see you, Martin, and me as soon as possible. This is getting out of hand, Wilfred.”
Kempe hung up with considerable impatience. Gunnison was a mess—that much was clear. And Kempe was ready to bet the purple purse that Mark Anderlee was behind the laser hits. The hundred grand wasn’t enough for the greedy bastard. Whoever was behind this bizarre, sick little game had a plan, a plan that might well culminate at Gunnison’s jubilee. Every instinct in his weary body told him this was moving with mounting speed to a public relations disaster. Gunnison, damn him, was putting the Brotherhood of the Sacred Purple at risk.
Gunnison’s hand shook as he put down his phone. His rising anger at the outrageous disrespect of Kempe’s abrupt termination of their phone call overcame his paralyzing fear for his safety—and for his reputation as the distinguished retired archbishop of Baltimore, the very seat of American Catholicism. Now angry, anxious, and frightened, the old man went back to his liquor cabinet. Scotch and a prescription narcotic were his only hope for the deliverance of sleep.
14
What happened last night at Immaculate Conception, Wilfred?” Charles Cullen asked his tense and drained brother bishop. He listened, along with Bryn Martin and Aidan Kempe, to Gunnison’s shaky recollection of the laser spot appearing on his chest as he moved down the center aisle after the Confirmation Mass.
“Bryn,” Gunnison said meekly, “thank you for arranging for the two security men. One of them, the one in the choir loft, thinks he saw the man with the laser. He said he was in his late thirties or early forties and rather athletic looking. But he didn’t get a good look at his face.”
“How are you holding up, Wilfred?” Cullen asked.
“This is rather unsettling, as you can imagine. My anniversary Mass and dinner…I don’t want anything to throw that off.” Gunnison paused, looking at each of the three men. “And I’m scheduled for another confirmation at St. Ignatius next week.”
“Let me take that confirmation for you, Wilfred,” Martin offered.
Gunnison nodded his acceptance. “Thank you, Bryn. I’d appre
ciate that.” Another pause. “I still can’t figure out what’s going on.”
Cullen’s and Martin’s eyes locked in on Gunnison’s glassy, dark-circled eyes. Both men thought, Level with us, Wilfred, level with us. Kempe’s expression remained impenetrable.
“So far there’s been nothing in the media at all. Is that right, Aidan?” Cullen asked, interrupting the awkward silence.
“So far,” Kempe added cautiously.
“That’s a blessing,” Cullen said, trying to offer some comfort to Gunnison. “But let’s look ahead to the anniversary Mass and dinner. None of us want anything to mar your jubilee.”
Gunnison shook his head, “But what, really, can we do?”
It would help if you’d tell the truth, Martin thought. Instead, hoping to ease Gunnison’s anxiety, he said, “The two retired federal agents, Duane Moore and George Havel, who were at Immaculate Conception yesterday, will be at the Mass, the reception, and the dinner.”
Martin broke off, realizing Kempe was in the dark about the agents. “They’re two friends of mine, Aidan. Moore is former FBI and Havel was with the Secret Service.”
Kempe simply looked at Martin, trying to convey indifference to this information, information he should have been privy to from the beginning.
Martin returned his attention to Gunnison. “They’ll be meeting with you before your jubilee to go over security procedures. Havel spoke of three cones of protection—I guess that’s Secret Service jargon. He’ll be as close to you as he can during all three stages of the event—the Mass, the social, and the dinner. The Mass, they think, will be the trickiest, since it’s the part of the jubilee that’s open to the public. We might have Havel vested in an alb and place him in the sanctuary. He’ll be as close to you as possible without creating a distraction.”
Cullen and Kempe listened with fascination—as if they were in some kind of situation room of the Secret Service.
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