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the Third Secret

Page 31

by Berry, Steve


  His eyes moistened at the thought.

  “I read that you found his body. That must have been awful.”

  He didn’t want to think about the image of Clement on the bed, the nuns readying him for burial. “He was a remarkable man. Yet I now feel like he was a stranger.”

  “There’s no need to feel that way. There were just parts of him that were his alone. As I’m sure there are parts of you he never knew.”

  How true.

  She motioned to the envelope. “I could not read what he sent me.”

  “You tried?”

  She nodded. “I opened the envelope. I was curious. But only after Jakob died. It’s written in another language.”

  “Italian.”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  He did, and she listened in amazement. But he had to tell her that no one left alive, save for Alberto Valendrea, knew what the document in the envelope actually said.

  “I knew something was bothering Jakob. His letters the last few months were depressing, even cynical. Not like him at all. And he wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “I tried, too, but he wouldn’t say a word.”

  “He could be like that.”

  From the front of the building he heard a door open, then bang shut. Footsteps echoed across a plank floor. The restaurant was to the rear, beyond a small lobby alcove and a staircase leading to the upper floors. He assumed it was Katerina returning.

  “May I help you?” Irma said.

  He was facing away from the doorway, toward the river, and turned to see Paolo Ambrosi standing a few feet behind him. The Italian was dressed in loose-fitting black jeans and a dark buttondown shirt. A gray overcoat fell to his knees and a maroon scarf draped his neck.

  Michener stood. “Where’s Katerina?”

  Ambrosi did not answer. Michener liked nothing about the smug look on the bastard’s face. He stood and rushed forward, but Ambrosi calmly withdrew a gun from his coat pocket. He stopped.

  “Who is this?” Irma asked.

  “Trouble.”

  “I am Father Paolo Ambrosi. You must be Irma Rahn.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  Michener stayed between them, hoping Ambrosi would not notice the envelope on the table. “He read your letters. I couldn’t get them all last night before I left Rome.”

  She brought a knuckle to her mouth and a gasp seeped out. “The pope knows?”

  He motioned to Ambrosi. “If this son of a bitch knows, Valendrea knows.”

  She crossed herself.

  He faced Ambrosi and understood. “Tell me where Katerina is.”

  The gun stayed on him. “She’s safe, for now. But you know what I want.”

  “And how do you know I have it?”

  “Either you do or this woman does.”

  “I thought Valendrea said it was mine to find.” He hoped Irma kept quiet.

  “And Cardinal Ngovi would have been the recipient of any delivery you made.”

  “I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “I assume you do now.”

  He wanted to pound the arrogance off Ambrosi’s face, but there was still the matter of the gun.

  “Katerina’s in danger?” Irma asked.

  “She is fine,” Ambrosi made clear.

  Michener said, “Frankly, Ambrosi, Katerina is your problem. She was your spy. I don’t give a damn anymore.”

  “I’m sure she will be brokenhearted to hear that.”

  He shrugged. “She got herself into this mess, it’s her problem to get herself out.” He wondered if he was jeopardizing Katerina’s safety, but any show of weakness could be fatal.

  “I want Tibor’s translation,” Ambrosi said.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “But Clement did send it here. Correct?”

  “I don’t know that . . . yet.” He needed time. “But I can find out. And there’s one other thing.” He pointed to Irma. “When I do, I want this lady left out of everything. This doesn’t concern her.”

  “Clement involved her, not me.”

  “If you want the translation, that’s a condition. Otherwise, I’ll give it to the press.”

  There was a momentary flicker in Ambrosi’s cold demeanor. He almost smiled. Michener had guessed right. Valendrea had sent his henchman to destroy the information, not retrieve it.

  “She’s a nonparticipant,” Ambrosi said, “provided she hasn’t read it.”

  “She doesn’t read Italian.”

  “But you do. So remember the warning. You will severely limit my options if you choose to ignore what I’m saying.”

  “How would you know if I read it, Ambrosi?”

  “I’m assuming the message is one that’s hard to conceal. Popes have shaken before it. So let it be, Michener. This doesn’t concern you any longer.”

  “For something that doesn’t concern me, I seem to be right in the middle. Like the visitor you sent calling last night.”

  “I know nothing about that.”

  “Same thing I’d say, if I were you.”

  “What of Clement?” Irma asked, a plea in her voice. She was apparently still thinking of the letters.

  Ambrosi shrugged. “His memory is in your hands. I don’t want the press involved. But if that occurs, we are prepared to leak certain facts that will be, to say the least, devastating to his memory . . . and yours.”

  “You will tell the world how he died?” she asked.

  Ambrosi glanced over at Michener. “She knows?”

  He nodded. “As you do, apparently.”

  “Good. That makes things easier. Yes, we would tell the world, but not directly. Rumor can do far more harm. People still believe the sainted John Paul I was murdered. Think what they would write about Clement. The few letters we have are damning enough. If you treasure him, as I believe you do, then cooperate in this matter and nothing will ever be known.”

  Irma said nothing, but tears soaked her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry,” Ambrosi said. “Father Michener will do the right thing. He always does.” Ambrosi backed toward the door, then stopped. “I’m told that the famous Bamberg crib circuit begins tonight. All the churches will be displaying nativity scenes. A Mass is said in the cathedral. Quite an audience attends. It starts at eight. Why don’t we beat the crowd and exchange what each of us wants at seven.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted anything from you.”

  Ambrosi flashed an irritating grin. “You do. Tonight. In the cathedral.” He motioned to the window and the building crowning a hill on the far side of the river. “Quite public, so we’ll all feel better. Or, if you prefer, we can make the exchange now.”

  “Seven at the cathedral. Now get the hell out of here.”

  “Remember what I said, Michener. Leave it sealed. Do yourself, Ms. Lew, and Ms. Rahn a favor.”

  Ambrosi left.

  Irma sat silent, sobbing. Finally, she said, “That man’s evil.”

  “Him and our new pope.”

  “He’s connected to Peter?”

  “The papal secretary.”

  “What’s happening here, Colin?”

  “To know that, I need to read what’s in this envelope.” But he also needed to safeguard her. “I want you to leave. I don’t want you to know anything.”

  “Why are you going to open it?”

  He held up the envelope. “I have to know what’s so important.”

  “That man was quite clear that you were not to do that.”

  “The hell with Ambrosi.” The severity of his tone surprised him.

  She seemed to consider his predicament, then said, “I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”

  She withdrew and closed the door behind her. The hinges squealed ever so slightly, just like the ones in the archives he recalled from that rainy morning nearly a month ago when somebody was watching.

  Surely Paolo Ambrosi.

  The muted blare of a horn blew in the distance. From across the river, bells p
ealed, signaling one P.M.

  He sat and opened the envelope.

  Inside were two sheets of paper, one blue, one tan. He read the blue sheet first, penned in Clement’s hand:

  Colin, by now you know that the Virgin left more. Her words are now entrusted to you. Be wise with them.

  His hands trembled as he laid the blue sheet aside. Clement had apparently known he would eventually find his way to Bamberg and that he’d read what was inside the envelope.

  He unfolded the tan sheet.

  The ink was a light blue, the page crisp and new. He scanned the Italian, its translation flashing through his mind. A second pass refined the language. A final read and he now knew what Sister Lucia had written in 1944—the remainder of what the Virgin told her in the third secret—what Father Tibor translated that day in 1960.

  Before the Lady left She stated there was one last message which the Lord wished to convey only to Jacinta and me. She told us She was the Mother of God and asked us to make public this message to the entire world at the appropriate time. In so doing we will find strong resistance. Listen well and pay attention was Her command. Men have to correct themselves. They have sinned and trod upon the gift given them. My child, She said, marriage is a sanctified state. Its love knows no boundaries. What the heart feels is genuine, no matter to whom or why, and God has placed no limit on what makes a sound union. Know well that happiness is the only real test of love. Know also that women are as much a part of God’s church as men. To be called to the service of the Lord is not a masculine endeavor. Priests of the Lord should not be forbidden from love and companionship, nor from the joy of a child. To serve God is not to forgo one’s heart. Priests should be bountiful in every way. Finally, She said, know that your body is yours. Just as God entrusted me with His son, the Lord entrusts to you and all women their unborn. It is for you alone to decide what is best. Go my little ones and proclaim the glory of these words. For that purpose I will always be at your side.

  His hands shook. It wasn’t Sister Lucia’s words, provocative as they were. It was something else.

  He reached into his pocket and found the message Jasna had written two days before. The words the Virgin told her on a Bosnian mountaintop. The tenth secret of Medjugorje. He unfolded and read the message again:

  Do not fear, I am the Mother of God who talks to you and asks you to make public the present Message for the entire world. In so doing, you will find strong resistence. Listen well and pay attention to what I tell you. Men have to correct themselves. With humble petitions they have to ask forgiveness for sins committed and those they will commit. Proclaim in my name a great punishment will fall mankind; not today, not tomorrow, but soon if my words are not believed. I have already revealed this to the blessed ones at La Salette and again at Fatima and today I repeat it to you because mankind has sinned and trod upon the Gift that God has given. The time of times and the end of all ends will come, if mankind is not converted; and if all should stay as it is now, or worse, should it worsen even more, the great and the powerful will perish with the small and the weak.

  Heed these words. Why persecute the man or woman who loves differently from others? Such persecution does not please the Lord. Know that marriage is to be shared by all without restriction. Anything contrary is the folly of man, not the word of the Lord. Women stand high in the eyes of God. Their service has too long been forbidden and that repression displeases heaven. Christ’s priests should be happy and bountiful. The joy of love and children should never be denied them and the Holy Father would do well to understand this. My last words are most important. Know that I freely chose to be the mother of God. The choice of a child rests with a woman and man should never interfere with that decision. Go now, tell the world my message, and proclaim the goodness of the Lord, but remember that I shall always be by your side.

  He slid out of the chair and fell to his knees. The implications were not in question. Two messages. One written by a Portuguese nun in 1944—a woman with little education and a limited mastery of language—translated by a priest in 1960—the account of what was said on July 13, 1917, when the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared. The other penned by a woman two days ago—a seer who had experienced hundreds of apparitions—the account of what was told to her on a stormy mountain when the Virgin Mary appeared to her for the last time.

  Nearly a hundred years separated the two events.

  The first message had been sealed in the Vatican, read only by popes and a Bulgarian translator, none of whom ever knew the bearer of the second message. The receiver of the second message likewise would have possessed no way to know the contents of the first. Yet the two messages were identical in content—and the common denominator was the messenger.

  Mary, the mother of God.

  For two thousand years doubters had wanted proof God existed. Something tangible that demonstrated, without a doubt, He was a living entity, conscious of the world, alive in every sense. Not a parable or a metaphor. Instead, the ruler of heaven, provider to man, overseer of Creation. Michener’s own vision of the Virgin flashed through his mind.

  What is my destiny, he’d asked.

  To be a sign to the world. A beacon for repentance. The messenger to announce that God is very much alive.

  He’d thought it all a hallucination. Now he knew it to be real.

  He crossed himself and, for the first time, prayed knowing God was listening. He asked forgiveness for the Church and the foolishness of men, especially himself. If Clement was right, and there was now no longer any reason to doubt him, in 1978 Alberto Valendrea removed the part of the third secret he’d just read. He imagined what Valendrea must have been thinking when he saw the words for the first time. Two thousand years of Church teachings rejected by an illiterate Portuguese child. Women can be priests? Priests can marry and have children? Homosexuality is not a sin? Motherhood is the choice of the woman? Then, yesterday, when Valendrea read the Medjugorje message, he’d instantly realized what Michener now knew.

  All of that was the Word of God.

  The Virgin’s words came to him again. Do not forsake your faith, for in the end it will be all that remains.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Clement was right. Man was foolish. Heaven had tried to steer humanity on the right course, and foolish people had ignored every effort. He thought about the missing messages from the La Salette seers. Had another pope a century ago accomplished what Valendrea had attempted? That might explain why the Virgin subsequently appeared at Fatima and Medjugorje. To try again. Yet Valendrea had sabotaged any revelation by destroying the evidence. Clement at least tried. The Virgin returned and told me my time had come. Father Tibor was with Her. I waited for Her to take me, but She said I must end my life through my own hand. Father Tibor said it was my duty, the penance for disobedience, and that all would be clear later. I wondered about my soul, but was told the Lord was waiting. I have for too long ignored heaven. I will not this time. Those words were not the ramblings of a demented soul, or even a suicide note from an unstable man. He now understood why Valendrea could not allow Father Tibor’s reproduced translation to be compared with Jasna’s message.

  The repercussions were devastating.

  To be called to the service of the Lord is not a masculine endeavor. The Church’s stand on women as priests had been unbending. Ever since Roman times popes had convened councils to reaffirm that tradition. Christ was a man, so priests would be, too.

  Christ’s priests should be happy and bountiful. The joy of love and children should never be denied them. Celibacy was a concept conceived by men and enforced by men. Christ was deemed a celibate. So should be His priests.

  Why persecute the man or woman who loves differently from others? Genesis described a man and woman coming together as one body to transmit life to another, so the Church had long taught that only sin came from a union that could not foster life.

  Just as God entrusted me with His son, the Lord entrusts to you and all women their unborn.
It is for you alone to decide what is best. The Church had absolutely opposed birth control in any form. Popes had repeatedly decreed that the embryo was ensouled, a human being deserving of life, and that life must be preserved, even at the expense of the mother.

  Man’s concept of God’s Word was apparently far different from the Word itself. Even worse, for centuries, unbending attitudes had proclaimed God’s message with a stamp of papal infallibility, which by definition was now proven false since no pope had done what heaven desired. What had Clement said? We are merely men, Colin. Nothing more. I’m no more infallible than you. Yet we proclaim ourselves princes of the church. Devout clerics concerned only with pleasing God, while we simply please ourselves.

  He was right. May God bless his soul, he was right.

  With the reading of a few simple words penned by two blessed women, thousands of years of religious blundering now became clear. He prayed again, this time thanking God for his patience. He asked the Lord to forgive humanity, then asked Clement to watch over him in the hours ahead.

  There was no way he could give Father Tibor’s translation to Ambrosi. The Virgin had told him that he was a sign to the world. A beacon for repentance. The messenger to announce that God was alive. To do that, he needed the complete third secret of Fatima. Scholars must study the text and eliminate the explainable, leaving only one conclusion.

  But to keep Father Tibor’s words would jeopardize Katerina.

  So he again prayed, this time for guidance.

  SIXTY-SIX

  4:30 P.M.

  Katerina struggled to free her hands and feet from thick tape. Her arms were folded behind her back and she lay sprawled on a stiff mattress draped with a scratchy quilt that smelled of paint. Through a solitary window she could see night approaching. Her mouth was covered with tape, so she forced herself to stay calm and breathe slowly through her nose.

  How she’d gotten here was a mystery. She only recalled Ambrosi choking her and the world going black. She’d been awake maybe two hours, and had yet to hear anything besides an occasional voice from the street. It appeared she was on an upper story, perhaps in one of the baroque buildings that lined Bamberg’s ancient streets, near St. Gangolf’s since Ambrosi couldn’t have carried her far. The cold air was drying her nostrils and she was glad he hadn’t removed her coat.

 

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