the Third Secret (2005)

by Steve Berry

  "More secrets everybody knows."

  She came to her feet and brushed grit from her pants. She was dressed the same as this morning and still looked lovely.

  He opened the apartment door.

  "Still going to Romania?" she asked.

  He tossed the key on a table. "Plan on following?"

  "I might."

  "I wouldn't book a flight just yet."

  He told her about Medjugorje and what Ngovi had asked him to do, but omitted the details of Clement's e-mail. He wasn't looking forward to the trip and told Katerina so.

  "The war's over, Colin," she said. "It's been quiet there for years."

  "Thanks to American and NATO troops. It's not what I would call a vacation destination."

  "Then why go?"

  "I owe it to Clement and Ngovi," he said.

  "You don't think your debts are paid?"

  "I know what you're going to say. But I was considering leaving the priesthood. It doesn't really matter anymore."

  Her face registered shock. "Why?"

  "I've had enough. It's not about God, or a good life, or eternal happiness. It's about politics, ambition, greed. Every time I think about where I was born, it makes me sick. How could anybody think they were doing something good there? There were better ways to help those mothers, yet nobody even tried. They just shipped us all off." He shifted on his feet and found himself staring down at the floor. "And those kids in Romania? I think even heaven has forgotten them."

  "I've never seen you this way."

  He stepped toward the window. "Odds are Valendrea will soon be pope. There's going to be a lot of changes. Maybe Tom Kealy had it right after all."

  "Don't give that ass credit for anything."

  He sensed something in her tone. "All we've talked about is me. What have you been doing since Bucharest?"

  "Like I said, writing some pieces on the funeral for a Polish magazine. I've also been doing background work on the conclave. The magazine hired me to do a feature."

  "Then how can you go to Romania?"

  Her expression softened. "I can't. Wishful thinking. But at least I'll know where to find you."

  The thought was comforting. He knew that if he never saw this woman again he would be sad. He recalled the last time, all those years ago, when they'd been alone together. It was in Munich, not long before he was to graduate law school and return to Jakob Volkner's service. She'd looked much the same, her hair a bit longer, her face a moment fresher, her smile equally appealing. Two years he'd spent loving her, knowing the day would come when he would have to choose. Now he realized the mistake he'd made. Something he'd said to her earlier in the square came to mind. Just don't make the same mistakes twice. That's all any of us can hope for.

  Damn right.

  He stepped across the room and took her into his arms.

  She did not resist.

  Michener opened his eyes and focused on the clock next to the bed. Ten forty-three P.M. Katerina lay beside him. They'd been asleep nearly two hours. He did not feel guilty for what had happened. He loved her, and if God had a problem with that, then so be it. He didn't really care anymore.

  "What are you doing awake?" she said through the dark.

  He'd thought her sleeping. "I'm not used to waking up with somebody in my bed."

  She nuzzled her head against his chest. "Could you get used to it?"

  "I was just asking myself the same thing."

  "I don't want to leave this time, Colin."

  He kissed the top of her head. "Who said you had to?"

  "I want to go with you to Bosnia?"

  "What about your magazine assignment?"

  "I lied. I don't have one. I'm here, in Rome, because of you."

  His answer was never in doubt. "Then maybe a Bosnian holiday would do us both some good."

  He'd gone from the public world of the Apostolic Palace to a realm where only he existed. Clement XV was ensconced within a triple coffin beneath St. Peter's and he was naked in bed with a woman he loved.

  Where it all was going, he could not say.

  All he knew was that he finally felt content.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28

  1:00 P.M.

  Michener stared out the bus window. The rocky coast whizzed past, the Adriatic Sea choppy thanks to a howling wind. He and Katerina had flown into Split on a short flight from Rome. Tourist buses had lined the airport exits, their drivers clamoring for passengers to Medjugorje. One of the men explained this was the slow time of the year. Pilgrims arrived at the rate of three to five thousand a day in summer, but that number dwindled to several hundred from November through March.

  Over the past two hours a guide had explained to the fifty or so making the bus trip that Medjugorje sat in the southern portion of Herzegovina, near the coast, and that a mountainous wall to the north isolated the region both climatically and politically. The guide explained that the name Medjugorje meant "land between the hills." Croats dominated the population, and Catholicism flourished. In the early 1990s, when communism fell, the Croats immediately sought independence, but the Serbs--the real power brokers in the former Yugoslavia--invaded, trying to create a Greater Serbia. A bloody civil war raged for years. Two hundred thousand lost their lives until finally the international community stopped the genocide. Another war then flared between Croats and Muslims, but quickly ended when UN peacekeepers arrived.

  Medjugorje itself had escaped the terror. Most of the fighting was waged to its north and west. Only about five hundred families actually lived in the area, but the town's mammoth church hosted two thousand, and the guide explained that an infrastructure of hotels, guest houses, food vendors, and souvenir shops was now transforming the place into a religious mecca. Twenty million people from around the world had come. At last count, there'd been some two thousand apparitions, something unprecedented in Marian visions.

  "Do you believe any of this?" Katerina whispered to him. "A little far-fetched that the Madonna comes to earth every day to speak with a woman in a Bosnian village."

  "The seer believes, and Clement did, too. Keep an open mind, okay?"

  "I'm trying. But which seer do we approach?"

  He'd been thinking about that. So he asked the guide more about the seers and learned that one of the women, now thirty-five, was married with a son and lived in Italy. Another woman, thirty-six, was married with three children and still lived in Medjugorje, but she was intensely private and saw few pilgrims. One of the males, in his early thirties, tried twice to become a priest but failed and still hoped to one day achieve Holy Orders. He traveled extensively, bringing the Medjugorje message to the world, and would be difficult to find. The remaining male, the youngest of the six, was married with two children and talked little to visitors. Another of the females, almost forty, was married and no longer lived in Bosnia. The remaining woman was the one who continued to experience apparitions. Her name was Jasna, thirty-two years old, and she lived alone in Medjugorje. Her daily visitations were many times witnessed by thousands at St. James Church. The guide explained that Jasna was an introverted woman of few words, but she did take the time to speak with visitors.

  He glanced over at Katerina and said, "Looks like our choices are limited. We'll start with her."

  "Jasna, though, doesn't know all ten secrets the Madonna has passed to the others," the guide was saying at the front of the bus, and Michener's attention returned to what the woman was explaining.

  "All five of the others know the ten secrets. It is said that when all six are told, the visions will end and a visible sign of the Virgin's presence will be left for atheists. But the faithful must not wait for that sign before they convert. Now is the time of grace. A time for deepening faith. A time for conversion. Because, when the sign comes, it will be too late for many. Those are the Virgin's words. A prediction for our future."

  "What do we do now?" Katrina whispered in h
is ear.

  "I say we still go see her. If for nothing else, I'm curious. She can certainly answer the thousand questions I have."

  Outside, the guide motioned to Apparition Hill.

  "This is where the first visions occurred to the original two seers in June 1981--a brilliant ball of light in which stood a beautiful woman holding a baby. The next evening, the two children returned with four of their friends and the woman appeared again, this time wearing a crown of twelve stars and a pearl-gray dress. She seemed, according to them, clothed by the sun."

  The guide pointed to a steep footpath that led from the village of Podbrdo to a site where a cross stood. Even now, pilgrims were making the climb beneath thick clouds rolling in from the sea.

  Cross Mountain appeared a few moments later, rising less than a mile from Medjugorje, its rounded peak standing more than sixteen hundred feet high.

  "The cross atop was erected in the 1930s by the local parish and carries no significance to the apparitions, except many pilgrims have reported seeing luminous signs in and around it. Because of that, this spot has become part of the experience. Try to make a trip to the top."

  The bus slowed and entered Medjugorje. The village was unlike the multitude of other undeveloped communities they'd passed along the way from Split. Low stone buildings in varied shades of pink, green, and ocher gave way to taller buildings--hotels, the guide explained, recently opened to handle an influx of pilgrims, along with duty-free shops, car rental agencies, and travel bureaus. Shiny Mercedes taxis skirted among transport trucks.

  The bus stopped at the twin towered Church of St. James. A placard out front announced that Mass was said throughout the day in a variety of languages. A concrete piazza spanned the front, and the guide explained that the open expanse was a gathering spot at night for the faithful. Michener wondered about tonight, though, since thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Soldiers patrolled the square.

  "They are part of the Spanish peacekeeping forces assigned to the region and can be helpful," the guide explained.

  They gathered their shoulder bags and left the bus. Michener approached the guide. "Excuse me, where could we find Jasna?"

  The woman pointed down one of the streets. "She lives in a house about four blocks in that direction. But she comes to the church each day at three, and sometimes in the evening for prayer. She will be here shortly."

  "And the apparitions, where do they occur?"

  "Most times here in church. That's why she comes. I must tell you, it's unlikely she would see you unannounced."

  He got the message. Probably every pilgrim wanted an encounter with one of the seers. The guide motioned toward a visitor center across the street.

  "They can arrange for a meeting. Those usually take place later in the afternoon. Talk to them about Jasna. You'll get more of a response. They're sensitive to your needs."

  He thanked her, then he and Katerina walked off. "We have to start somewhere, and this Jasna is the closest. I don't particularly want to talk with a group present, and I don't have any needs that require sensitivity. So let's go find this woman ourselves."

  THIRTY-NINE

  VATICAN CITY, 2:00 P.M.

  The procession of cardinals made their way out of the Pauline Chapel, singing refrains from Veni Creator Spiritus. Their hands were clasped in prayer, their heads lowered. Valendrea kept pace behind Maurice Ngovi as the camerlengo led the group toward the Sistine Chapel.

  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 mar
ble 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.