the Third Secret

by Berry, Steve

  Valendrea printed his own name on the ballot, careful to disguise anything that might identify the script as his, then folded the paper twice and awaited his turn to approach the altar.

  Depositing ballots was done by seniority. Cardinal-bishops before cardinal-priests, with cardinal-deacons last, each group ranked by date of investiture. He watched as the first senior cardinal-bishop, a silver-haired Italian from Venice, climbed four marble steps to the altar, his folded ballot held high for all to see.

  At his turn Valendrea walked to the altar. He knew the other cardinals would be watching so he knelt for a moment of prayer, but said nothing to God. Instead, he waited an appropriate amount of time before rising. He then repeated out loud what every other cardinal was required to say.

  “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”

  He laid his ballot on the paten, lifted the glistening plate, and allowed the card to slide into the chalice. The unorthodox method was a means of ensuring that only one ballot for each cardinal was cast. He gently replaced the paten, folded his hands in prayer, and retreated to this seat.

  It took nearly an hour to complete the balloting. After the final vote slid into the chalice, the vessel was carried to another table. There, the contents were shaken, then each vote was counted by the three scrutineers. The revisers watched everything, their eyes never leaving the table. As each ballot was unfolded, the name written upon it was announced. Everyone kept his own tally. The total number of votes cast had to add up to 113 or the ballots would be destroyed and the scrutiny declared invalid.

  When the last name was read, Valendrea studied the results. He’d received thirty-two votes. Not bad for a first scrutiny. But Ngovi had amassed twenty-four. The remaining fifty-seven votes were scattered among two dozen candidates.

  He stared up at the assembly.

  Clearly they were all thinking what he was.

  This was going to be a two-horse race.

  FORTY-TWO

  MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

  6:30 P.M.

  Michener found two rooms in one of the newer hotels. The rain had started just as they left Jasna’s house, and they’d barely made it to the hotel before the sky exploded into a pyrotechnic display. This was the rainy season, an attendant informed them. The deluges came quick, fed by warm air off the Adriatic mixing with frigid northern breezes.

  They ate supper at a nearby café crowded with pilgrims. The conversations, mostly in English, French, and German, centered on the shrine. Someone remarked that two of the seers had been in St. James Church earlier. Jasna was supposed to appear, but had failed to show, and one of the pilgrims had noted it was not unusual for her to remain alone during the daily apparition.

  “We’ll find those two seers tomorrow,” he told Katerina, as they ate. “I hope they’re easier to get along with.”

  “Intense, wasn’t she?”

  “She’s either an accomplished fraud or the genuine thing.”

  “Why did her mention of Bamberg bother you? It’s no secret the pope was fond of his hometown. I don’t believe she didn’t know what the name signified.”

  He told her what Clement had said in his final e-mail message about Bamberg. Do with my body as you please. Pomp and ceremony do not make the pious. For me, though, I would prefer the sanctity of Bamberg, that lovely city by the river, and the cathedral I so loved. My only regret is that I did not see its beauty one last time. Perhaps, though, my legacy could still be there. But he omitted that the message was a last statement from a pope who took his own life. Which brought to mind something else Jasna had said. I have prayed for the pope. His soul needs our prayers. It was crazy to think she knew the truth about Clement’s death.

  “You don’t actually believe we witnessed an apparition this afternoon?” Katerina asked. “That woman was strung out.”

  “I think Jasna’s visions are hers alone.”

  “Is that your way of saying the Madonna wasn’t there today?”

  “No more than she was at Fatima, or Lourdes, or La Salette.”

  “She reminds me of Lucia,” Katerina said. “When we were with Father Tibor, in Bucharest, I didn’t say anything. But from the article I wrote a few years ago, I remember that Lucia was a troubled girl. Her father was an alcoholic. She was raised by her older sisters. Seven kids in the house and she was the youngest. Right before the apparitions started her father lost some of the family land, a couple of sisters married, and the remaining sisters took jobs outside the home. She was left alone with her brother, her mother, and a drunk father.”

  “Some of that was in the Church’s report,” he said. “The bishop in charge of the inquiry dismissed most of it as common for the time. What bothered me more were the similarities between Fatima and Lourdes. The parish priest in Fatima even testified that some of the Virgin’s words were nearly identical to what was said at Lourdes. The visions at Lourdes were known in Fatima, and Lucia was aware of them.” He took a swallow of beer. “I’ve read all of the accounts from four hundred years of apparitions. There are a lot of matching details. Always shepherd children, particularly young females with little or no education. Visions in the woods. Beautiful ladies. Secrets from heaven. Lots of coincidences.”

  “Not to mention,” Katerina said, “that all of the accounts that exist were written years after the apparition. It would be easy to add details to give greater authenticity. Isn’t it strange that none of the visionaries ever revealed their messages right after the appearance? Always decades pass, then little bits and pieces come to light.”

  He agreed. Sister Lucia had not provided a detailed account of Fatima until 1925, then again in 1944. Many asserted that she embellished her messages with later facts, like mentioning the papacy of Pius XI, World War II, and the rise of Russia, all of which occurred long after 1917. And with Francisco and Jacinta dead, there was no one to contradict her testimony.

  And one other fact kept circling through his lawyerly mind.

  The Virgin at Fatima, in July 1917, as part of the second secret, talked about the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. But Russia at that time was a devoutly Christian nation. The communists did not rise to power until months later. So what was the point of any consecration?

  “The La Salette seers were a total mess,” Katerina was saying. “Maxim—the boy—his mother died when he was an infant and his stepmother beat him. When he was first interviewed after the vision, he interpreted what he saw as a mother complaining about being beaten by her son, not the Virgin Mary.”

  He nodded. “The published versions of the La Salette secrets are in the Vatican archives. Maxim mentioned a vengeful Virgin who talked of famine and compared sinners to dogs.”

  “The kind of thing a troubled child might say about an abusive parent. The stepmother used to starve him as punishment.”

  “He eventually died young, broke and bitter,” he said. “One of the original seers here in Bosnia was the same. She lost her mother a couple of months before the first vision. And the others have had problems, too.”

  “It’s all hallucinations, Colin. Disturbed kids who have become troubled adults, convinced of what they imagined. The Church doesn’t want anyone to know about the seers’ lives. It totally bursts the bubble. Causes doubt.”

  Rain pounded the café’s roof.

  “Why did Clement send you here?”

  “I wish I knew. He was obsessed with the third secret, and this place had something to do with it.”

  He decided to tell her about Clement’s vision, but he omitted all reference to the Virgin asking the pope to end his life. He kept his voice in a whisper.

  “You’re here because the Virgin Mary told Clement to send you?” she asked.

  He caught the waitress’s attention and held up two fingers for a couple more beers.

  “Sounds to me like Clement was losing it.”

  “Exactly why the world wi
ll never know what happened.”

  “Maybe it should.”

  He didn’t like the comment. “I’ve spoken with you in confidence.”

  “I know that. I’m just saying, maybe the world should know about this.”

  He realized there was no way that could ever happen, given how Clement had died. He stared out at the street flooded with rain. There was something he wanted to know. “What about us, Kate?”

  “I know where I plan to go.”

  “What would you do in Romania?”

  “Help those kids. I could journal the effort. Write about it for the world. Draw attention.”

  “Pretty tough life.”

  “It’s my home. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

  “Ex-priests don’t make much.”

  “It doesn’t take much to live there.”

  He nodded and wanted to reach over and take her hand. But that wouldn’t be smart. Not here.

  She seemed to sense his wish and smiled. “Save it, until we get back to the hotel.”

  FORTY-THREE

  VATICAN CITY, 7:00 P.M.

  “I call for a third ballot,” the cardinal from the Netherlands said. He was the archbishop of Utrecht and one of Valendrea’s staunchest supporters. Valendrea had arranged with him yesterday that if no success came on the first two ballots, he was to immediately call for a third.

  Valendrea was not happy. Ngovi’s twenty-four votes on the first scrutiny had been a surprise. He’d expected him to garner a dozen or so, no more. His own thirty-two were okay, but a long way from the seventy-six needed for election.

  The second scrutiny, though, shocked him, and it had taken all his diplomatic reserve to keep his temper in check. Ngovi’s support increased to thirty, while his own nudged up to a weak forty-one. The remaining forty-two votes were scattered among three other candidates. Conclave wisdom proclaimed that a front-runner must gain a respectable amount of support with each succeeding scrutiny. A failure to do so was perceived as weakness, and cardinals were notorious for abandoning weak candidates. Dark horses had many times emerged after the second ballot to claim the papacy. John Paul I and II were both elected that way, as was Clement XV. Valendrea did not want a repeat.

  He imagined the pundits in the piazza musing over two billows of black smoke. Irritating asses like Tom Kealy would be telling the world the cardinals must surely be divided, no one candidate emerging as front-runner. There’d be more Valendrea-bashing. Kealy had surely taken a perverse pleasure in slandering him for the past two weeks, and quite cleverly he had to admit. Never had Kealy made any personal comments. No reference to his pending excommunication. Instead, the heretic had offered the Italians-versus-the-world argument, which apparently played well. He should have pushed the tribunal to defrock Kealy weeks ago. At least then he’d be an ex-priest with suspect credibility. As it stood, the fool was perceived as a maverick challenging the established guard, a David versus Goliath, and no ever rooted for the giant.

  He watched as the cardinal-archivist passed out more ballots. The old man made his way down the row in silence and threw Valendrea a quick glare of defiance as he handed him a blank card. Another problem that should have been dealt with long ago.

  Pencils once again scraped across paper and the ritual of depositing ballots into the silver chalice was repeated. The scrutineers shuffled the cards and started counting. He heard his name called fifty-nine times. Ngovi’s was repeated forty-three. The remaining eleven votes remained scattered.

  Those would be critical.

  He needed seventeen more to achieve election. Even if he garnered every one of the eleven stragglers, he would still need six of Ngovi’s supporters, and the African was gaining strength at an alarming rate. The most frightening prospect was that each one of the eleven scattered votes he failed to sway would have to come from Ngovi’s total, and that could begin to prove impossible. Cardinals tended to dig in after the third vote.

  He’d had enough. He stood. “I think, Eminences, we have challenged ourselves enough for today. I suggest we eat dinner and rest and resume in the morning.”

  It wasn’t a request. Any participant possessed the right to stop the voting. His gaze strafed the chapel, settling from time to time on men he suspected to be traitors.

  He hoped the message was clear.

  The black smoke that would soon seep from the Sistine matched his mood.

  FORTY-FOUR

  MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

  11:30 P.M.

  Michener awoke from a sound sleep. Katerina lay beside him. An uneasiness flowed through him that seemed unrelated to their lovemaking. He felt no guilt about once more breaching his vow of Holy Orders, but it frightened him that what he’d worked a lifetime to achieve meant so little. Maybe it was simply that the woman lying next to him meant more. He’d spent two decades serving the Church and Jakob Volkner. But his dear friend was dead and a new day was being forged in the Sistine Chapel, one that would not include him. The 268th successor to St. Peter would shortly be elected. And though he’d come close to a red hat, that was simply not to be. His destiny apparently lay elsewhere.

  Another strange feeling surged through him—an odd combination of anxiety and stress. Earlier, in his dreams, he kept hearing Jasna. Don’t forget Bamberg . . . I have prayed for the pope. His soul needs our prayers. Was she trying to tell him something? Or simply convince him.

  He climbed from the bed.

  Katerina did not stir. She’d enjoyed several beers at dinner and alcohol had always made her sleepy. Outside, the storm was still raging, rain pecking the glass, lightning strobing the room.

  He crept to the window and looked out. Water pelted the terra-cotta roofs of the buildings across the street and streamed in rivers from drainpipes. Parked cars lined both sides of the quiet lane.

  A lone figure stood in the center of the soaked pavement.

  He focused on the face.

  Jasna.

  Her head was angled up, toward his window. The sight of her startled him and made him want to cover his nakedness, though he quickly realized she could not possibly see him. The curtains were partially drawn, a set of lace sheers between him and the sash, the outer pane smeared with rain. He was standing back, the room dark, outside even darker. But in the wash of the streetlights four stories down, he could see Jasna watching.

  Something urged him to reveal his presence.

  He parted the sheers.

  Her right arm motioned for him to come. He didn’t know what to do. She gestured again with a simple wave of her hand. She wore the same clothes and tennis shoes from earlier, the dress pasted to her thin frame. Her long hair was soaked, but she seemed unfazed by the storm.

  She beckoned again.

  He looked over at Katerina. Should he wake her? Then he stared back out the window. Jasna was shaking her head no, and motioning once more.

  Damn. Did she know what he was thinking?

  He decided there was no choice and quietly dressed.

  He stepped from the hotel’s entrance.

  Jasna still stood in the street.

  Lightning crackled overhead, and a renewed burst of rain poured from the blackened sky. He carried no umbrella.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “If you want to know the tenth secret, come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Must you question everything? Is nothing accepted on faith?”

  “We’re standing in the middle of a downpour.”

  “It’s a cleanse for the body and soul.”

  This woman frightened him. Why? He was unsure. Maybe it was his compulsion to do as she asked.

  “My car is over there,” she said.

  A tattered Ford Fiesta coupe was parked down the street. He followed her to it and she drove out of town, stopping at the base of a darkened mound in a parking lot devoid of vehicles. A sign revealed by the headlights read CROSS MOUNTAIN.

  “Why here?” he asked.
>
  “I have no idea.”

  He wanted to ask her who did, but let it go. This was obviously her show, and she intended to play it out her way.

  They climbed out into the rain and he followed her toward a footpath. The ground was spongy, the rocks slippery.

  “We’re going to the top?” he asked.

  She turned back. “Where else?”

  He tried to recall the details of Cross Mountain the guide had spewed out on the bus trip. More than sixteen hundred feet tall, it held a cross atop that had been erected in the 1930s by the local parish. Though unrelated to the apparitions, a climb to the summit was thought part of “the Medjugorje experience.” But no one was partaking tonight. And he wasn’t particularly thrilled about being sixteen hundred feet up in the middle of an electrical storm. Yet Jasna seemed unaffected and, strangely, he was drawing strength from her courage.

  Was that faith?

  The climb was made more difficult by rivulets of water gushing past him. His clothes were soaked, his shoes caked with mud, and only lightning illuminated the way. He opened his mouth and allowed the rain to soak his tongue. Thunder clapped overhead. It was as if the center of the storm had settled directly above them.

  The crest appeared after twenty minutes of hard climbing. His thighs ached and the back of his calves throbbed.

  Before him rose the darkened outline of a massive white cross, perhaps forty feet tall. At its concrete base, flower bouquets were buffeted by the storm. A few of the arrangements lay strewn about by the wind.

  “They come from all over the world,” she said, pointing to the blossoms. “They climb and lay offerings and pray to the Virgin. Yet she never once appeared here. But they still come. Their faith is to be admired.”

  “And mine is not?”

  “You have no faith. Your soul is in jeopardy.”

  The tone was matter-of-fact, like a wife telling a husband to take out the trash. Thunder rumbled past like a bass drum being worked to a beat. He waited for the inevitable flash of lightning and the burst splintered the sky in fractured bolts of blue-white light. He decided to confront this seer. “What’s there to have faith in? You know nothing of religion.”