the Third Secret

by Berry, Steve

  Valendrea actually wondered the same thing. Some would say he chose the name knowing what was recorded in the Vatican archives. But Peter had always been his preference, ever since he decided to achieve the papacy back in the days of John Paul II. He’d never told anyone, not even Ambrosi. And he’d never read Malachy’s predictions.

  He stared back at the archivist, waiting for an answer to his question. Finally the cardinal said, “I have nothing to say.”

  “Then perhaps you could speculate where the missing document might be?”

  “I know of no missing document. Everything in the inventory is there.”

  “This document is not on your inventory. Clement added it to the Riserva.”

  “I have no responsibility for that which is unknown to me.”

  “Really? Then tell me what you do know. What was mentioned when you met with Cardinal Ngovi and Monsignor Michener.”

  The archivist said nothing.

  “From your silence, I must assume that the subject was the missing document and you were involved in its removal.”

  He realized the jab would tear at the old man’s heart. As archivist, his duty was to preserve Church writings. The fact one was missing would forever stain his tenure.

  “I did nothing except open the Riserva on order of His Holiness, Clement XV.”

  “And I believe you, Eminence. I think Clement himself, unbeknownst to anyone, removed the writing. All I want is to find it.” He lightened his tone, signaling an acceptance of the explanation.

  “I, too, want—” the archivist started, then stopped, as if he might say more than warranted.

  “Go on. Tell me, Eminence.”

  “I’m as shocked as you something may be gone. But I have no idea when that occurred or where it might be.” The tone made clear that was his story and he planned to stay with it.

  “Where is Michener?” He was already reasonably sure of the answer, but decided verification would ease any concern that Ambrosi might be following the wrong trail.

  “I do not know,” the archivist said, a slight tremble in the voice.

  He now asked what he really wanted to know. “And what of Ngovi? What’s his interest?”

  The archivist’s face registered understanding. “You fear him, don’t you?”

  He didn’t allow the comment to affect him. “I fear no one, Eminence. I’m merely wondering why the camerlengo is so interested in Fatima.”

  “I never said he was interested.”

  “But it was discussed during the meeting yesterday, was it not?”

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  He let his gaze drift down to the book, a subtle signal that the old man’s obstinance wasn’t affecting him. “Eminence, I fired you. I could just as easily rehire you. Would you not like to die here, in the Vatican, as cardinal-archivist of the Catholic Church? Would you not like to see the document now missing returned? Does not your duty mean more to you than any personal feelings about me?”

  The old man shifted on his feet, his silence perhaps an indication that he was considering the proposal.

  “What is it you want?” the archivist finally asked.

  “Tell me where Father Michener has gone.”

  “I was told this morning he went to Bamberg.” The voice was filled with resignation.

  “So you lied to me?”

  “You asked if I knew where he was. I don’t. I only know what I was told.”

  “And the purpose of the trip?”

  “The document you seek may be there.”

  Now for something new. “And Ngovi?”

  “He’s waiting for Father Michener’s call.”

  His bare hands tightened on the edge of the book. He hadn’t bothered to wear gloves. What did it matter? The manuscript would be ashes by tomorrow. Now for the critical part. “Ngovi is waiting to learn what is in the missing document?”

  The old man nodded, as if it pained him to be honest. “They want to know what you seemingly already know.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  BAMBERG, 11:00 A.M.

  Michener and Katerina followed Irma Rahn through the Maxplatz, then beyond to the river and a five-story inn. A wrought-iron sign announced the name KÖNIGSHOF, along with the designation 1614—the year, Irma explained, the building was erected.

  Her family had owned the property for generations, and she had inherited it from her father after her brother was killed in World War II. Former fishermen’s houses surrounded the inn on both sides. Originally the building had served as a mill, the paddle wheel gone for centuries, but the black mansard roof, iron balconies, and baroque detailing were still there. She’d added a tavern and restaurant and now led them inside, where they sat at an empty table beside a twelve-paned window. Outside, clouds dimmed the late-morning sky. More snow seemed on the way. Their host brought them each a stein of beer.

  “We’re only open for dinner,” Irma said. “The tables will be full then. Our cook is quite popular.”

  Michener wanted to know, “Back in the church, you said Jakob mentioned that Katerina and I would come. Was that really in his last letter?”

  She nodded. “He said to expect you and that probably this lovely woman would come with you. My Jakob was intuitive, especially when it came to you, Colin. May I call you that? I feel I know you well enough.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to call me anything else.”

  “And I’m Katerina.”

  She threw them both a smile he liked.

  “What else did Jakob say?” he asked.

  “He told me of your dilemma. Of your crisis in faith. Since you’re here, I assume you read my letters.”

  “I never realized the depth of your relationship.”

  Beyond the window, a barge chugged by, heading north.

  “My Jakob was a loving man. He devoted his entire life to others. Gave himself to God.”

  “But apparently not completely,” Katerina said.

  Michener had been waiting for her to make the point. Last night she’d read the letters he’d managed to salvage and was shocked by Volkner’s private emotion.

  “I resented him,” Katerina said in a flat tone. “I envisioned him pressuring Colin into choosing, urging him to put the Church first. But I was wrong. I realize now that he, of all people, would have understood how I felt.”

  “He did. He talked to me about Colin’s pain. He wanted to tell him the truth, show him he wasn’t alone, but I said no. The time wasn’t right. I didn’t want anyone to know of us. That was something intensely private.” She faced him. “He wanted you to stay a priest. To change things, he needed your help. I think he knew, even then, that one day you and he would make a difference.”

  Michener needed to say, “He tried to change things. Not with confrontation, but with reason. He was a man of peace.”

  “But above all, Colin, he was a man.” Her voice trailed off at the end of the statement, as if a memory returned for a moment and she didn’t want to ignore it. “Just a man, weak and sinful, like us all.”

  Katerina reached across the table and cupped the old woman’s hand. Both women’s eyes glistened.

  “When did the relationship start?” Katerina asked.

  “When we were children. I knew then that I loved him, and that I always would.” She bit her lip. “But I also knew that I would never have him. Not completely. Even then, he wanted to be a priest. Somehow, though, it was always enough that I possessed his heart.”

  He wanted to know something. Why, he wasn’t sure. It was really none of his business. But he sensed that it was all right to ask. “The love was never consummated?”

  Her gaze engaged his for several seconds before a slight smile came to her lips. “No, Colin. Your Jakob never violated his oath to his Church. That would have been unthinkable for both him and me.” She looked at Katerina. “We must all judge ourselves by the times in which we live. Jakob and I were from another era. Bad enough for us to love one another. It would have been unthinkable to
take that farther.”

  He recalled what Clement had said in Turin. Restrained love is not a pleasant matter. “You’ve lived here, alone, all that time?”

  “I have my family, this business, my friends, and my God. I knew the love of a man who shared himself totally with me. Not in the physical sense, but in every other way. Few can make such a claim.”

  “It was never a problem you weren’t together?” Katerina asked. “I don’t mean sexually. I mean physically, close to one another. That had to be tough.”

  “I would have preferred things to be different. But that was beyond my control. Jakob was called to the priesthood early. I knew that, and did nothing to interfere. I loved him enough to share him . . . even with heaven.”

  A middle-aged woman pushed through a swinging door and spoke a few words to Irma. Something about the market and supplies. Another barge slipped past the window across the gray-brown river. A few flakes of snow tapped the panes.

  “Does anybody know about you and Jakob?” he asked after the woman left.

  She shook her head. “Neither of us ever spoke of it. Many here in town know that Jakob and I were childhood friends.”

  “His death must have been awful for you,” Katerina said.

  She let out a long breath. “You can’t imagine. I knew he was looking bad. I saw him on television. I realized it was only a matter of time. We’re both getting old. But his time came suddenly. I still expect a letter to arrive in the mail, like it did so many times before.” Her voice grew softer, cracking with emotion. “My Jakob is gone, and you are the first people I have spoken to about him. He told me to trust you. That through your visit I could gain peace. And he was right. Simply talking about this has made me feel better.”

  He wondered what this gentle woman would think if she knew Volkner had taken his own life. Did she have a right to know? She was opening her heart to them, and he was tired of lying. Clement’s memory would be safe with her. “He killed himself.”

  Irma said nothing for the longest time.

  He caught Katerina’s glare as she said, “The pope took his own life?”

  He nodded. “Sleeping pills. He said the Virgin Mary told him that he must end his life through his own hand. The penance for disobedience. He said he’d ignored heaven far too long. But not this time.”

  Irma still said nothing. She just stared at him with impassioned eyes.

  “You knew?” he asked.

  She nodded. “He’s come to me recently . . . in my dreams. He tells me that it’s okay. He’s forgiven now. That he would have joined God soon anyway. I didn’t understand what he meant.”

  “Have you experienced any visions while awake?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Just dreams.” Her voice was distant. “Soon I’ll be with him. That’s all that keeps me going. For eternity, Jakob and I will be together. He tells me that in the dream.” She looked at Katerina. “You asked me how it was to be apart. Those years of separation are inconsequential compared with forever. If nothing else, I’m a patient woman.”

  He needed to nudge her toward the point of it all. “Irma, where is what Jakob sent to you?”

  She stared down into her beer. “I have an envelope Jakob told me to give to you.”

  “I need it.”

  Irma rose from the table. “It’s next door in my apartment. I’ll be right back.”

  The old woman lumbered out of the restaurant.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Clement?” Katerina asked, as the door closed. The frigid tone matched the temperature outside.

  “I would think the answer is obvious.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Only a few.”

  She stood from the table. “Always the same, isn’t it? Lots of secrets in the Vatican.” She slipped on her coat and headed for the door. “Something you seem quite comfortable with.”

  “Just like you.” He knew he shouldn’t have said it.

  She stopped. “I’ll give you that one. I deserve it. What’s your excuse?”

  He said nothing and she turned to leave. “Where are you going?”

  “For a walk. I’m sure you and Clement’s lover have much more to talk about that doesn’t include me, either.”

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Katerina’s mind swirled with confusion. Michener had not trusted her with the fact that Clement XV took his own life. Valendrea surely must know—otherwise Ambrosi would have urged her to learn what she could about Clement’s death. What in the world was happening? Missing writings. Seers talking to Mary. A pope committing suicide after secretly loving a woman for six decades. Nobody would believe any of it.

  She stepped from the inn, buttoned her coat, and decided to head back toward the Maxplatz and walk off her frustration. Bells pealed from all directions signaling noon. She swiped the quickening snow from her hair. The air was cold, parched, and sullen, like her mood.

  Irma Rahn had opened her mind. Where years ago she’d forced Michener into a choice, driving him away, hurting them both in the process, Irma had ventured down a less selfish path, one that reflected love, not possession. Maybe the old woman was right. It mattered not about a physical connection. What counted was possessing the heart and mind.

  She wondered if she and Michener could have enjoyed a similar relationship. Probably not. Times were different. Yet here she was, back with the same man, seemingly on the same tortuous path of love lost, then found, then tested, then—that was the question. Then, what?

  She continued to walk, finding the main plaza, crossing a canal, and spotting the onion-domed twin towers of St. Gangolf’s.

  Life was so damn complicated.

  She could still see the man from last night standing over Michener, knife in hand. She hadn’t hesitated in attacking him. After, she’d suggested going to the authorities, but Michener had nixed the idea. Now she knew why. He couldn’t risk the exposure of a papal suicide. Jakob Volkner meant so much to him. Maybe too much. And she now understood why he’d journeyed to Bosnia—searching for answers to questions his old friend had left behind. Clearly that chapter in his life could not be closed, because its ending had yet to be written. She wondered if it ever would be.

  She kept walking and found herself back at the doors to St. Gangolf’s. The warm air seeping from inside beckoned her. She entered and saw the gate for the side chapel, where Irma had been cleaning, remained open. She stepped past and stopped at another of the chapels. A statue of the Virgin Mary, cradling the Christ child in her arms, gazed down with the loving look of a proud mother. Surely a medieval representation—that of an Anglo-Saxon Caucasian—but an image the world had grown accustomed to worshiping. Mary had lived in Israel, a place where the sun burned hot and skin was tanned. Her features would have been Arabic, her hair dark, her body stout. Yet European Catholics would never have accepted that reality. So a familiar feminine vision was fashioned—one the Church had clung to ever since.

  And was she a virgin? The Holy Spirit endowing her womb with the son of God? Even if that was true, the decision would have certainly been her choice. She alone would have consented to the pregnancy. Why then was the Church so opposed to abortion and birth control? When did a woman lose the option to decide if she wanted to give birth? Had not Mary established the right? What if she’d refused? Would she still have been required to carry that divine child to term?

  She was tired of puzzling dilemmas. There were far too many with no answers. She turned to leave.

  Three feet away stood Paolo Ambrosi.

  The sight of him startled her.

  He lunged forward, spinning her around and hurling her into the chapel with the Virgin. He slammed her into the stone wall, her left arm twisted behind her back. Another hand quickly compressed her neck. Her face was pressed against the prickly stone.

  “I was pondering how I might separate you from Michener. But you did it for me.”

  Ambrosi increased the pressure on her arm. She opened her mouth to cry out.

  �
�Now, now. Let’s not do that. Besides, there is no one here to hear you.”

  She tried to break free, using her legs.

  “Stay still. My patience with you is exhausted.”

  Her response was more struggling.

  Ambrosi yanked her away from the wall and wrapped an arm around her neck. Instantly, her windpipe was constricted. She tried to break his hold, digging her fingernails into his skin, but the diminishing oxygen was causing everything before her to wink in and out.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no air to form the words.

  Her eyes rolled upward.

  The last thing she saw, before the world went black, was the mournful glare of the Virgin, which offered no solace for her predicament.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Michener watched Irma as she stared out the window toward the river. She’d returned shortly after Katerina left, carrying a familiar blue envelope, which now lay on the table.

  “My Jakob killed himself,” she whispered to herself. “So sad.” She faced him. “Yet he was still buried in St. Peter’s. In consecrated ground.”

  “We couldn’t tell the world what happened.”

  “That was his one complaint with the Church. Truth is so rare. Ironic that his legacy is now dependent on a lie.”

  Which seemed nothing unusual. Like Jakob Volkner, Michener’s entire career had been based on a lie. Interesting how alike they’d turned out to be. “Did he always love you?”

  “What you mean is, were there others? No, Colin. Only me.”

  “It would seem, after a while, that you both would have needed to move on. Didn’t you wish for a husband, children?”

  “Children, yes. That’s my one regret in life. But I knew early on that I wanted to be Jakob’s and he wished the same from me. I’m sure you realized that you were, in every way, his son.”