by Steve Berry
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.
For an instant in the church she'd thought her life was over. Apparently she was deemed more valuable alive--surely the bargaining chip Ambrosi would use to coerce what he wanted from Michener.
Tom Kealy had been right about Valendrea, but he was wrong about her being able to hold her own. The passions of these men were way beyond anything she'd ever known. Valendrea had told Kealy at the tribunal that he was clearly with the devil. If that were true, then Kealy and Valendrea kept the same company.
She heard a door open, then close. Footsteps approached. The door to the room opened and Ambrosi stepped inside, yanking off a pair of gloves. "Comfortable?" he asked.
Her eyes followed his movements. Ambrosi tossed his coat across a chair, then sat on the bed. "I would imagine you thought yourself dead in the church. Life is such a great gift, is it not? Of course you can't answer, but that's okay. I like answering my own questions."
He seemed pleased with himself.
"Life is indeed a gift, and I bestowed that gift on you. I could have killed you and been done with the problem you pose."
She lay perfectly still. His gaze raked her body.
"Michener has enjoyed you, hasn't he? Such a pleasure, I'm sure. What was it you told me in Rome. You pee sitting down, so I would not be interested. You think I don't lust for a woman? You think I wouldn't know what to do? Because I'm a priest? Or because I am queer?"
She wondered if this show was for her benefit or his.
"Your lover said he couldn't care less what happens to you." Amusement laced his words. "He c
alled you my spy. Said you were my problem, not his. Perhaps he's right. After all, I recruited you."
She tried to keep her eyes calm.
"You think His Holiness enlisted your aid? No, I'm the one who learned about you and Michener. I'm the one who considered the possibility. Peter would know nothing, but for me."
He suddenly wrenched her up and yanked the tape from her mouth. Before she could utter a sound he pulled her toward him and locked his lips on hers. The thrust of his tongue was revolting and she tried to recoil, but he maintained the embrace. He bent her head sideways and gripped her hair, sucking the breath from her lungs. His mouth tasted of beer. Finally, she clamped her teeth on his tongue. He pulled back and she lunged forward, snapping at his lower lip and drawing blood.
"You fucking bitch," he cried as he slammed her to the bed.
She spat his saliva from her mouth, as if exorcising evil. He leaped forward and swiped the back of his hand across her face. The blow stung and she tasted blood. He lashed out one more time, the force driving her head into the wall at the edge of the bed.
The room started to spin.
"I should kill you," he muttered.
"Fuck you," she managed to say as she rolled onto her back, but the dizziness was still there.
He dabbed his bleeding lip with his shirtsleeve.
A trickle of blood seeped from the side of her mouth. She bobbed her face on the quilt. Red splotches stained the cloth. "You better kill me. Because if you don't, given the chance I will kill you."
"You'll never have the chance."
She realized she was safe until he got what he wanted. Colin had done the right thing making the idiot think she was unimportant.
He came back close to the bed and dabbed his lip. "I only hope your lover ignores what I told him. I'm going to enjoy watching you both die."
"Big words, little man."
He lunged forward, rolled her flat, and straddled her. She knew he would not kill her. Not yet, anyway.
"What's the matter, Ambrosi, don't know what to do next?"
He quivered with anger. She was pushing him, but what the hell.
"I told Peter, after Romania, to leave you alone."
"So that's why I'm being beaten by his lapdog."
"You're lucky that's all I'm doing to you."
"Maybe Valendrea would be jealous. Perhaps we ought to keep this between us?"
The taunt brought pressure to her throat. Not enough to block her breathing, but enough to let her know to shut up.
"You're a tough man to a woman with her hands and feet bound. Untie me and let's see how brave you are."
Ambrosi rolled off her. "You're not worth the effort. We only have a couple of hours left. I'm going to get some dinner before I finish this." His gaze bore into her. "For good."
SIXTY-SEVEN
VATICAN CITY, 6:30 P.M.
Valendrea strolled through the gardens and enjoyed an unusually mild December evening. This first Saturday of his papacy had been busy. He'd celebrated Mass in the morning, then met with a procession of people who'd traveled to Rome to offer him their best wishes. The afternoon had started with a gathering of cardinals. About eighty were lingering in town, and he'd met with them for three hours to outline some of what he intended. There'd been the usual questions, only this time he'd taken the opportunity to announce that all appointments of Clement XV would remain in place until the following week. The only exception was the cardinal-archivist, who, he'd said, had tendered his resignation for health reasons. The new archivist would be a Belgian cardinal who'd already returned home, but was on his way back to Rome. Beyond that, he'd made no decisions and would not until after the weekend. He'd noticed the look on many in the chamber, waiting for him to make good on preconclave assurances, but no one questioned his declarations. And he liked that.
Ahead of him stood Cardinal Bartolo, waiting where they'd arranged earlier after the cardinals' gathering. The prefect from Turin had been insistent they talk today. He knew Bartolo had been promised the position as secretary of state and now, apparently, the cardinal wanted that promise kept. Ambrosi was the one who'd made the promise, but Paolo also had advised him to delay that particular selection for as long as possible. After all, Bartolo had not been the only man assured the job. For the losers, excuses would have to be found to eliminate them as contenders--sufficient reasons to quell bitterness and prevent retaliation. Certainly alternative posts could be offered to some, but he well knew that secretary of state was something more than one senior cardinal coveted.
Bartolo stood near the Pasetto di Borgo. The medieval passageway extended through the Vatican wall into the nearby Castel Sant'Angelo, a fortification that had once protected popes from invaders.
"Eminence," Valendrea greeted as he approached.
Bartolo bowed his bearded face. "Holy Father." The older man smiled. "You like the sound of that, don't you, Alberto?"
"It does have a resonance."
"You've been avoiding me."
He waved off the observation. "Never."
"I know you too well. I'm not the only one the secretary of state position has been offered to."
"Votes are hard to come by. We must do what we must." He was trying to keep the tone light, but realized Bartolo was not naIve.
"I was directly responsible for at least a dozen of your votes."
"Which turned out not to be needed."
The muscles in Bartolo's face tightened. "Only because Ngovi withdrew. I imagine those twelve votes would have been critical if the fight had continued."
The rising pitch of the old man's voice seemed to sap the strength from the words, gestating them into a plea. Valendrea decided to get to the point. "Gustavo, you are too old to be secretary. It is a demanding post. Much travel is required."
Bartolo glared at him. This man was going to be a difficult ally to placate. The cardinal had indeed delivered a number of votes, confirmed by the listening devices, and had been his champion from the beginning. But Bartolo's reputation was one of a slacker with a mediocre education and no diplomatic experience. His selection for any post would not be popular, especially one as critical as secretary of state. There were three other cardinals who'd worked equally hard, with exemplary backgrounds and greater standing within the Sacred College. Still, Bartolo offered one thing they did not. Unremitting obedience. And there was something to be said for that.
"Gustavo, if I considered appointing you, there would be conditions." He was testing the waters, seeing how inviting they might be.
"I'm listening."
"I intend to personally direct foreign policy. Any decisions will be mine, not yours. You would have to do exactly as I say."
"You are pope."
The response came quick, signaling desire.
"I would not tolerate dissension or maverick actions."
"Alberto, I have been a priest nearly fifty years and have always done as popes said. I even knelt and kissed the ring of Jakob Volkner, a man I despised. I cannot see how you would question my loyalty."
He allowed his face to melt into a grin. "I'm not questioning anything. I just want you to know the rules."
He eased a bit down the path and Bartolo followed. He motioned upward and said, "Popes once fled the Vatican through that passageway. Hiding like children, afraid of the dark. The thought makes me sick."
"Armies no longer invade the Vatican."
"Not troops, but armies do still invade. Today's infidels come in the form of reporters and writers. They bring their cameras and notebooks and try to destroy the Church's foundation, aided by liberals and dissidents. Sometimes, Gustavo, even the pope himself is their ally, as with Clement."
"It was a blessing he died."
He liked what he was hearing, and he knew it wasn't platitudes. "I intend to restore glory to the papacy. The pope commands a million or more when he appears anywhere in the world. Governments should fear that potential. I intend to be the most traveled pope in history."
; "And you would need the constant assistance of the secretary of state to achieve all that."
They walked a bit farther. "My thoughts exactly, Gustavo."
Valendrea glanced again at the brick passageway and imagined the last pope who'd fled the Vatican as German mercenaries stormed through Rome. He knew the exact date--May 6, 1527. One hundred and forty-seven Swiss guards died that day defending their pontiff. The pope barely escaped through the brick-enclosed corridor rising above him, tossing off his white garments so no one would recognize him.
"I will never flee the Vatican," he made clear to not only Bartolo, but also the walls themselves. He was suddenly overcome with the moment and decided to disregard what Ambrosi had counseled. "All right, Gustavo, I'll make the announcement Monday. You will be my secretary of state. Serve me well."
The old man's face beamed. "In me you will have total dedication."
Which made him think of his most loyal ally.
Ambrosi had phoned two hours ago and told him that Father Tibor's reproduced translation should be his at seven P.M. So far, there was no indication that anyone had read it, and that report pleased him.
He glanced at his watch. Six fifty P.M.
"Must you be somewhere, Holy Father?"
"No, Eminence, I was only considering another matter that is, at this moment, being resolved."
SIXTY-EIGHT
BAMBERG, 6:50 P.M.
Michener climbed a steep path toward the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. George and entered a sloping, oblong piazza. Below, a landscape of terra-cotta roofs and stone towers rose from the town proper, illuminated by pools of light that dotted the city. The dark sky yielded a steady fall of spiraling snow, but did not deter the crowds already making their way toward the church, its four spires splashed in a blue-white glow.