the Third Secret

by Berry, Steve

  All was ready. Valendrea himself had supervised one of the last chores an hour earlier when the House of Gammarelli arrived with five boxes containing white linen cassocks, red silk slippers, rochets, mozzettas, cotton stockings, and skullcaps in varying sizes, all with the backs and hems unsewn, the sleeves unfinished. Any adjustments would be made by Gammarelli himself, just before the cardinal chosen pope first appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s.

  On the pretense of inspecting everything, Valendrea had made sure there was a set of vestments—42 to 44 in the chest, 38 in the waist, size 10 slippers—which would require only a few modifications. After, he would have Gammarelli fashion an assortment of traditional white linen outfits, along with a few new designs he’d been mulling over for the past couple of years. He intended to be one of the best-dressed popes in history.

  One hundred and thirteen cardinals had made the trip to Rome. Each of the men was attired in a scarlet cassock with a mozzetta encircling his shoulders. They wore red birettas and gold and silver pectoral crosses above their breasts. As they inched forward in a single-file line toward a towering doorway, television cameras captured the scene for billions around the world. Valendrea noticed the grave faces. Perhaps the cardinals were taking heed of Ngovi’s sermon at the noon Mass when the camerlengo urged each of them to leave worldly considerations outside the Sistine and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, choose a capable pastor for the mother Church.

  That word pastor was a problem. Rarely had a twentieth-century pope been pastoral. Most were career intellectuals or Vatican diplomats. Pastoral experience had been talked about over the past few days in the press as something the Sacred College should look for. Certainly a pastoral cardinal, one who’d spent his career working with the faithful, carried a stronger appeal than a professional bureaucrat. He’d even heard, on the tapes, how many of the cardinals mused that a pope who knew how to run a diocese would be a plus. Unfortunately, he was a product of the Curia, a born administrator, possessed of no pastoral experience—unlike Ngovi, who rose from missionary priest to archbishop to cardinal. He resented the camerlengo’s earlier reference and took the comment as a jab at his candidacy—a subtle poke, but more evidence Ngovi could become a formidable opponent in the hours ahead.

  The procession stopped outside the Sistine Chapel.

  A choir echoed from inside.

  Ngovi hesitated at the doors, then started forward.

  Photographs portrayed the Sistine as a huge expanse, but it was actually a difficult place in which to accommodate 113 cardinals. It had been built five hundred years ago to be the pope’s private chapel, its walls framed in elegant pilasters and covered in narrative frescoes. On the left was the life of Moses, on the right the life of Christ. One set Israel free, the other the entire human race. The Creation on the ceiling expressed man’s destiny, then foresaw an inevitable fall. The Last Judgment above the altar was a terrifying vision of divine wrath, one Valendrea had long admired.

  Two rows of raised platforms flanked the center aisle. Name cards delineated who sat where, the spots allocated by seniority. Chairs were straight-backed, and Valendrea did not cherish the prospect of sitting in one for long. Before each chair, on a tiny desk, sat a pencil, a pad of paper, and a single ballot.

  The men moved to their assigned seats. No one as yet had spoken a word. The choir continued to sing.

  Valendrea’s gaze fell on the stove. It sat in a far corner, raised off the mosaic floor by a metal scaffolding. A chimney rose, then narrowed into a flue that escaped out one of the windows, where the celebrated smoke would signal success or failure. He hoped there would not be too many fires lit inside. The more scrutinies, the less chance of victory.

  Ngovi stood at the front of the chapel, his hands folded before him beneath his cassock. Valendrea took note of the stern look on the African’s face and hoped the camerlengo enjoyed his moment.

  “Extra omnes,” Ngovi said in a loud voice. All out.

  The choir, servers, and television crews started leaving. Only the cardinals and thirty-two priests, nuns, and technicians would be allowed to remain.

  The room fell under an uneasy quiet as two surveillance technicians made a sweep down the center aisle. They were responsible for ensuring the chapel stayed free of listening devices. At the iron grille the two men stopped and signaled an all-clear.

  Valendrea nodded, and they withdrew. That ritual would be repeated before and after each day’s voting.

  Ngovi left the altar and marched down the aisle between the assembled cardinals. He passed through a marble screen and stopped at the bronze doors the attendants were pulling shut. Total silence draped the room. Where before there’d been music and the shuffle of feet on the mats protecting the mosaic floor, now there was nothing. Beyond the doors, from outside, the sound of a key slipping into place and tumblers engaging echoed.

  Ngovi tested the handles.

  Locked.

  “Extra omnes,” he called out.

  No one responded. No one was supposed to. The silence was an indication that the conclave had begun. Valendrea knew lead seals were being stamped into place outside to symbolically ensure privacy. There was another way in and out of the Sistine—the route to be taken each day to and from the Domus Sanctae Marthae—but the sealing of the doors was the traditional method of beginning the electoral process.

  Ngovi retraced his steps to the altar, faced the cardinals, and said what Valendrea had heard a camerlengo say at that same spot thirty-four months ago.

  “May the Lord bless you all. Let us begin.”

  FORTY

  MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

  2:30 P.M.

  Michener studied the house, a one-story built of stone, stained the color of moss. Dormant grapevines snaked across an arbor, and the only hint at gaiety sprang from swirling woodwork above the windows. A vegetable patch filled the side yard and seemed eager for the rain that was drawing closer. Mountains loomed in the distance.

  They’d found the house only after asking two people for directions. Both had been reluctant to provide help until Michener revealed he was a priest and needed to speak with Jasna.

  He led Katerina to the front door and knocked.

  A tall woman with an almond-colored complexion and dark hair answered. She was thin as a sapling with a pleasant face and warm hazel eyes. She studied him with a measured mien that he found uncomfortable. She was perhaps thirty, with a rosary draping her neck.

  “I’m due at church and really don’t have time to speak,” she said. “I would be glad to talk with you after the service.” Her words came in English.

  “We’re not here for the reason you think,” he said. He told her who he was and why he was there.

  She did not react, as if a Vatican envoy contacted her daily. Finally she invited them inside.

  The house was sparsely furnished in a mix-and-match decor. Sunlight spilled in from half-open windows, many of the panes cracked their length. A portrait of Mary hung over the fireplace, surrounded by flickering candles. A statue of the Virgin stood in one corner. The carved Madonna wore a gray dress trimmed in light blue. A white veil draped her face and highlighted wavy locks of brown hair. Her blue eyes were expressive and warm. Our Lady of Fatima, if he recalled correctly.

  “Why Fatima?” he asked, motioning to the carving.

  “It was a gift from a pilgrim. I like it. She seems alive.”

  He noticed a slight tremor to Jasna’s right eye, and her barren expression and bland voice were causing him concern. He wondered if she was on something.

  “You don’t believe anymore, do you?” she quietly said.

  The comment caught him off guard. “Why is that important?”

  She shifted her gaze pointedly in Katerina’s direction. “She confuses you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Priests rarely come here in the company of women. Especially a priest without his collar.”

  He had no intention of answering her inq
uiry. They were still standing, their host yet to offer a seat, and things were starting off badly.

  Jasna turned to Katerina. “You don’t believe at all. And have not in many years. How your soul must be tormented.”

  “Are these insights supposed to impress us?” If Jasna’s comment bothered Katerina, she apparently was not going to let the woman know.

  “To you,” Jasna said, “what is real is only what you can touch. But there is so much more. So much you cannot possibly imagine. And though it cannot be touched, it is nonetheless real.”

  “We are here on a mission for the pope,” he said.

  “Clement is with the Virgin.”

  “That is my hope.”

  “But you do him a disservice by not believing.”

  “Jasna, I’ve been sent to learn the tenth secret. Clement and the camerlengo have both provided a written directive for it to be revealed.”

  She turned back. “I do not know it. And I don’t want to. The Virgin will stop coming when that happens. Her messages are important. The world depends on them.”

  He was familiar with the daily messages from Medjugorje, faxed and e-mailed worldwide. Most were simple pleas for faith and world peace, fasting and prayer urged as a means to accomplish both. Yesterday he’d read some of the more recent in the Vatican library. Websites routinely charged fees for furnishing heaven’s mandate, which made him wonder about Jasna’s motives. But considering the simplicity of her home and the plain manner of her dress she wasn’t reaping any profit. “We realize you don’t know the secret, but can you tell us which one of the other seers we could talk with to learn it?”

  “All were told to keep the information private, until the Virgin releases their tongues.”

  “Would not authority from the Holy Father be sufficient?”

  “The Holy Father is dead.”

  He was tiring of her attitude. “Why must you make things so difficult?”

  “Heaven has asked the same thing.”

  It sounded to him an awful lot like Clement’s lamentations in the weeks before his death.

  “I have prayed for the pope,” she said. “His soul needs our prayers.”

  He was about to ask what she meant, but before he could say a word she crept close to the statue in the corner. Her gaze seemed suddenly distant and transfixed. She knelt on a prie-dieu, saying nothing.

  “What’s she doing?” Katerina mouthed.

  He shrugged.

  A bell pealed three times in the distance, and he remembered that the Virgin supposedly appeared to Jasna at three P.M. each day. One of her hands found the rosary that draped her neck. She clutched at the beads and started mumbling words he could not understand. He bent close and followed her gaze upward toward the sculpture, but saw nothing except the stoic wooden face of the Virgin Mary.

  He recalled from his research that witnesses at Fatima reported hearing a buzz and feeling a warmth during the apparitions, but he thought that simply part of a mass hysteria that engulfed illiterate souls who desperately wanted to believe. He wondered if he was truly witnessing a Marian apparition or just a woman’s delusion.

  He moved closer.

  Her gaze seemed locked on something beyond the walls. She was unaware of his presence and continued to mumble. For an instant he thought he caught a glimmer of light in her pupils—two quick flashes of a reflected image—a swirl of blue and gold. His head whirled left, searching for the source, but there was nothing. Only the sunlit corner and the silent statue. Whatever was occurring was apparently Jasna’s alone.

  Finally her head dropped and she said, “The Lady’s gone.”

  She stood and moved toward a table and scribbled on a pad. When she finished, she handed the sheet to Michener.

  My children, great is the love of God. Do not close your eyes, do not close your ears. Great is His love. Accept my call and my plea that I am entrusting to you. Consecrate your heart and make a home for the Lord within it. May He dwell within it forever. My eyes and my heart will be here even when I will not be appearing anymore. Conduct yourselves in everything as I’m asking you and leading you to the Lord. Do not reject God’s name from yourselves, so that you would not be rejected. Accept my messages so that you would be accepted. It is time for decisions, my children. Be of righteous and innocent heart that I could lead you to your Father. Because this, my being here, is His great love.

  “That’s what the Virgin told me,” Jasna said.

  He read the message again. “Is this directed to me?”

  “Only you can decide that.”

  He handed the page to Katerina. “You still haven’t answered my question. Who can tell us the tenth secret?”

  “No one can.”

  “The other five seers know the information. One of them can tell us.”

  “Not unless the Virgin consents, and I’m the only one left who experiences Her visits daily. The others would have to wait to receive permission.”

  “But you don’t know the secret,” Katerina said. “So it doesn’t matter you’re the only one who’s not privy. We don’t need the Virgin, we need the tenth secret.”

  “One goes with the other,” Jasna said.

  He couldn’t decide if he was dealing with a religious fanatic or someone truly blessed by heaven. Her impertinent attitude didn’t help. In fact, it only made him suspicious. He decided they would stay in town and try, on their own, to speak with the other seers who lived nearby. If nothing was learned, he could return to Italy and track down the one who lived there.

  He thanked Jasna and started for the door, Katerina in tow.

  Their host stayed rooted in the chair, her expression as blank as when they arrived. “Don’t forget Bamberg,” Jasna said.

  Chilly fingers danced along his spine. He stopped and turned back. Had he heard right? “Why did you say that?”

  “I was told to.”

  “What do you know about Bamberg?”

  “Nothing. I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Then why say it?”

  “I don’t question. I only do as I am told. Perhaps that’s why the Virgin speaks to me. There is something to be said for a loyal servant.”

  FORTY-ONE

  VATICAN CITY, 5:00 P.M.

  Valendrea was growing impatient. His concern about the straight-backed chairs was proving justified, as he’d now spent nearly two agonizing hours sitting upright in the sedate Sistine Chapel. During that time each of the cardinals had walked to the altar and sworn before Ngovi and God that they would not support any interference in the election by secular authorities and, if elected, would be munus Petrinum—pastor of the universal church—and defend the spiritual and temporal rights of the Holy See. He, too, had stood before Ngovi, the African’s eyes intense while the words were said and repeated.

  Another half hour was needed to administer an oath of secrecy to the attendants allowed to remain within the conclave. Then Ngovi ordered everyone but the cardinals from the Sistine and the remaining doors closed. He faced the assembly and said, “Do you wish a vote at this time?”

  John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution allowed for a first vote immediately, if the conclave so desired. One of the French cardinals stood and stated that he would. Valendrea was pleased. The Frenchman was one of his.

  “If there be any opposition, speak now,” Ngovi said.

  The chapel stayed in repose. There was a time when, at this moment, election by acclamation could occur, supposedly the result of a direct intervention by the Holy Spirit. A name would be spontaneously proclaimed and all would agree he was to be pope. But John Paul II eliminated that as a means of election.

  “Very well,” Ngovi said, “we will begin.”

  The junior cardinal-deacon, a fat, swarthy man from Brazil, waddled forward and chose three names from a silver chalice. Those selected would act as scrutineers, their task to count each ballot and record the votes. If no pope was elected, they would burn the ballots in the stove. Three more names, the revisers, we
re pulled from the chalice. Their job would be to oversee the scrutineers. Finally, three infirmarii were selected to collect ballots from any cardinals who might be taken ill. Of the nine officials, only four could be regarded as solidly Valendrea’s. Particularly upsetting was the selection of the cardinal-archivist as a scrutineer. The old bastard might have his revenge after all.

  Before each cardinal, beside the pad and pencil, lay a two-inch rectangular card. At the top was printed in black lettering: ELIGO IN SUMMUM PONTIFICEM. I elect as supreme pontiff. The space beneath was blank, ready for a name. Valendrea felt a special attachment to the ballot, as it had been designed by his beloved Paul VI.

  At the altar, beneath the agony of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, Ngovi emptied the silver chalice of the remaining names. They would be burned with the results of the first balloting. The African then addressed the cardinals, speaking in Latin, reiterating the voting procedures. When he finished, Ngovi left the altar and took a seat among the cardinals. His task as camerlengo was drawing to a close, and less and less would be demanded of him in the hours ahead. The process now would be controlled by the scrutineers until another ballot was required.

  One of the scrutineers, a cardinal from Argentina, said, “Please print a name on the card. More than one name will void the ballot and the scrutiny. Once done, fold the ballot and approach the altar.”

  Valendrea glanced to his left and right. The 113 cardinals were wedged into the chapel elbow-to-elbow. He wanted to win early and be done with the agony, but he knew that rarely had any pope won on a first scrutiny. Usually electors cast their initial ballot for someone special—a favorite cardinal, a close friend, a person from their particular part of the world, even themselves, though none would ever admit that. It was a way for the electors to conceal their true intentions and up the ante for their subsequent support, since nothing made the favorites more generous than an unpredictable future.