Chapter 28
Officially it was a relaxing weekend for President Carey; unofficially it was a confrontation he had sought to avoid. As he got out of his helicopter in the middle of the back pasture of Elihu Nimmo’s land, he hoped that there were no media types keeping watch with long-range binoculars. He waved to the riders who waited for him on restive horses, the three of them each leading a second, saddled horse.
“Climb aboard,” offered Tom Nimmo, holding out the reins of the tallest of the three horses to the President. “He’s used to big men.”
“I haven’t been on a horse in a decade,” Carey protested as he took the reins and prepared to mount. Tall as he was, he found the seventeen-one-hand black gelding formidable. He wished now he had worn something more substantial than running shoes and light-weight slacks.
“Shadow won’t mind. He’s gentle and easy, just the way your secretary told us you like ‘em,” Cliff Anderson said, glancing toward their companion. “You said you wanted to talk in private.”
“This is pretty private, I’ll give you that,” Carey conceded as he mounted and met Cardinal Mendosa’s eyes on the level. He pulled the big gelding back. “The other horses?”
“For your bodyguards, Secret Service and what-all. We’ll leave a couple of them here to watch you and take the rest back to the house. Don’t worry,” Tom assured him, “we know how to get to the barns without attracting attention.”
“Good,” said President Carey, and swung Shadow around to walk beside Cardinal Mendosa’s grulla. “They told me you like to ride, Cardinal.” It was the best opening he could think of.
“Used to. I don’t have the time for keeping up my touch. It was different way back when. Junior rodeo and the rest of it, when I was a kid,” said Cardinal Mendosa. “But I’m lucky if I ride one day a year now. There are times I miss it.” He nudged his grulla with the side of his leg and the gelding slid away. “I used to ride his mother, twenty years ago. He’s thirteen, as I remember.” He shrugged. “You’re not here to discuss horseflesh.”
“No,” said the President. “We have a number of problems we have to review. They’re all urgent.”
“I’m sure we do, and they are,” said Cardinal Mendosa, giving his nephew a single wave as Tom started back toward the ranch house, leading two of the Secret Service men. “If you hadn’t called me, I would probably have tried to reach you. But I would have understood if you hadn’t wanted to talk to me, with separation of Church and State.”
“I wish I could stand on that, you have no idea how much I wish I could, but it isn’t possible. Not with all this millennial fever. The entire world’s going crazy. Thank God I only have to worry about America—it’s bad enough. You know what Williamson has been saying. Marcus is worse. You didn’t hear his harangue last night, I’d guess. He’s trying to get his people to identify all Christians they don’t agree with so that when the Last Days come, they’ll know who to kill and won’t get the wrong people by mistake. Patton’s been telling his followers to burn down all religious buildings but his own. He has promised a place in heaven for anyone who ruins any church or synagogue or mosque or whatever that isn’t part of his Revelationist Pentecostal Church. They wrecked a meeting house in Cleveland yesterday. A meeting house, for Chrissake. What’s the point of attacking Quakers? Reverend Thorn’s Fundamentalist Coalition has staged demonstrations in a dozen major cities over the last week, saying that the world is going to end. And there are tens of thousands of people who’re agreeing with him. There’s even a large organization of Jews who are saying that the Messiah is coming—for the first time—by the end of this year.” He saw a stand of cottonwood about a quarter of a mile away. “It would be a good idea to get into cover. Just in case. We don’t want to be spotted. Is it possible?”
“Lead the way,” said Cardinal Mendosa, nudging his grulla to a jog-trot. “When I was twenty I could ride this way all day and never feel a thing. Now, if I’m in the saddle more than two hours my back’s stiff as cordwood. And my legs are terrible.” He made a dismissing gesture. “So what is the most pressing? The Fundamentalist crunch or the anti-Catholic activities of the last several months? Or what happened in Tampa last week? It can’t be Cardinal Gemme’s breakdown can it?—that was less than four days ago.”
“Didn’t that surprise you, Cardinal Gemme doing that?” President Carey could not resist asking.
“It fair to bowled me over. Marc-Luc is the kind of man who’s always been proud of how forward-thinking he is, and how reasonable. He’s got a lot of press over the years on those counts. And now this.” He shook his head. “Maybe it wasn’t the attack that got him, maybe it was this millennial looniness.”
“And you leave for Rome tomorrow, don’t you?” asked President Carey, hating the steady jarring pace.
“Very early, yes,” he said. “As you were certainly aware. I have assumed you wanted this meeting to be wholly confidential, or you might have arranged for me to reach Rome via Washington D.C.”
“If I wanted every newsman in the U.S. and Canada on the front lawn, that would be the way to do it.” He pulled his black in as they neared the stand of cottonwood. “I might as well announce I’ve chosen sides; that’s what they’d make of it, no matter what we said. But there’s been too much of that already.”
“You have a point,” said Cardinal Mendosa, also slowing his horse. “Tell me what you want to discuss, then.”
Now that he had the opportunity he sought, President Carey hesitated. “I don’t want to tell the Catholic Church its business.”
“But you’re going to anyway, at least so far as the U. S. of A. is concerned,” Cardinal Mendosa finished for him, his manner steady and friendly. “That’s your job, isn’t it? And it probably has something to do with the disputes that keep cropping up between Vince Walgren and me, am I right? You have to make the effort to end the hostilities between those who agree with him and those who agree with me.”
“Cardinal Walgren has been very outspoken,” said President Carey.
“He’s been outspoken ever since he got his red hat,” said Cardinal Mendosa bluntly. “He’s been riding his success at stopping Hispanic gangs from proliferating and having wars and riots in Southern California for all its worth, and now it suddenly gives him worldly political clout to use his popularity with that portion of the Catholic community to disrupt all the things the Pope has been doing. He’s got the credibility in the public eye, and that makes a difference.” He looked over at President Carey as he stopped his grulla. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“Among other things, yes,” said Carey. “He is determined to persuade American Catholics to reject your requests for giving Pope An the benefit of the doubt. He might very well try to make his followers, or your followers, seem like splinter groups from real Catholicism. You are aware that he has been very critical of your support of Pope An for the last half year.”
“I could hardly miss it,” said Cardinal Mendosa dryly. “Yes, Vince Walgren doesn’t like the way things are going. He has taken it upon himself to interfere with the reforms Pope An has introduced. Vince Walgren tends to forget that the Pope is the final authority in the Church, Chinese woman or not.” He looked over at President Carey. “I’m assuming that if you expect me to keep your confidence, you will keep mine?”
“Of course,” said President Carey, just a little too quickly.
Cardinal Mendosa pretended he had not heard this too-prompt agreement. “You see, Cardinal Walgren—if I may be blunt?—has trouble with women. He resents them. He is anti-abortion, not because of the soul of the unborn, but because he believes that women must suffer for the Sin of Eve. The press hasn’t paid much attention to that side of him. He wants women punished for being able to get pregnant. He has dogmatically opposed any change in the status of women in the Church. Unfortunately, he has taken the Apostle Paul as his guide, and Pope An has put a stop to that, for everyone in the Church. Apostles won’t do it any more. The only authori
ty she will recognize is Christ.” He rested his forearm on the saddlehorn and leaned forward. “The changes Pope An have made for women in the Church have troubled Cardinal Walgren deeply. He’s feeling undermined and he has to do something to shore himself up. The appointment of Prioress Wilgefortis Standart to the Curia, the Congregation of the Propaganda, was the last straw for him, not to mention most of the Curia. He is aware that it is not wise to attack the Pope directly, not even this Pope. He is convinced he’s right, but not so convinced that he wants to chance excommunication. But he is determined to attack her supporters, preferably her American supporters. Which means me.”
“You do support Pope An,” said President Carey.
“Yes, I do, completely and unreservedly,” said Cardinal Mendosa, adding simply, “And I will continue to support her as long as God gives me life.”
“And no matter what her rule does to the Church,” President Carey went on, prodding.
“Since her election was determined by the Holy Spirit, I wouldn’t be a very good Cardinal if I set myself against the Pope. Okay, I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with the Throne of Saint Peter, I admit it. But Pope An is something different. I know how…startled we all were when we elected her. Twice. There wasn’t anyone politicking for her, and no one who stood to profit from her election. Because none of us knew she existed. But she was elected. Whatever she does, she does it with the license of the Holy Spirit, and that is an authority that no true Catholic can question.” He cleared his throat. “Some of what she does might be a bitter pill for a few of our guys to swallow, but that’s not the fault of the Holy Spirit or Pope An. That is the human capacity for mistake.”
“No matter what Cardinal Walgren does, or says,” said President Carey heavily.
“No matter what,” said Cardinal Mendosa. “But don’t worry; I don’t want to lock horns with him if I can help it. I don’t like to see the Church so divided at a time like this. The rest of Christendom has turned itself inside out over the beginning of the Third Millennium. The Mormons are dashing off to the far corners of the earth on their crusade, and the way the Baptists are acting, we ought to be weaving robes of white wool. I’d rather the Catholic Church didn’t join those festivities. We’ve had more than enough of that this last year.” He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t stop supporting Pope An, but I can urge Catholics not to be drawn into religious disputes, either with other Catholics or members of other sects or religions. I can give a press conference to that effect, if you like; on my next visit we can arrange for some kind of ecumenical debate, if that seems like a good idea. In the meantime I can arrange to tape a dozen different spots you can show anywhere in the country. I can slant them for regions or for Protestants instead of Catholics. Hell, I’ll talk to Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Zoroastrians and pagans and atheists and people who worship the strange little guys from outer space, if it’ll help. I can tape a couple of lectures, too, that clarify the role of the Pope in the Church, so those who are worried about Pope An might be less upset. I’d be very happy to do that; we’ve got a little studio of sorts at Four Evangelists, and I can have the tapes ready for you before I fly out of here,” Cardinal Mendosa offered. He sneezed once and went on. “I don’t know if it would make much difference, but I’m willing to try that or any other reasonable means of diminishing the hostilities.”
“Religious battles at the start of a re-election campaign.…” President Carey opened his hands to show how futile it felt to him.
“I do understand, Mister President,” said Cardinal Mendosa. This time he stopped the sneeze before it got started. “It’s the number, you know, the two thousand. It has them all spooked, and that includes Republicans and Democrats.” He sniffed. “Have you talked to Alex Bradeston yet?”
“Last week,” said President Carey. “He told me that the situation in New England was getting very disturbing. I don’t know what to do about that situation, though there’s going to be violence before too long. If I interfere, it’s against the Constitution, because I would be disallowing freedom of religion. I don’t argue with the principle, but the abuses of it.… That Julian Salonipolis has been stirring up all kinds of trouble, most of it along sexual lines, calling for a return to traditional Christian values, meaning bigotry and the rest of it,” he said, watching as Cardinal Mendosa drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Is something the matter?”
Cardinal Mendosa gestured to the trees. “I’m allergic to cottonwood,” he said, ending on a lavish sneeze. “Sorry.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” President Carey demanded.
“Because I agree with you about security. And most people around here know I never go near cottonwood. So clearly, whoever’s over here sure as shit ain’t me. It’s a double screen.” He blew his nose and looked directly at the President. “Go on. Traditional Christian values, meaning the most repressive rules Paul could think up, like telling women to be silent in church and submissive to the rule of their husbands; and the resultant fifteen hundred years of the erosion of legal rights for women, and the diminished position of children, and the adapting of those dicta to endorse a social order that reduced most of European females to the position of property.” Seeing Carey’s expression he managed to chuckle. “Does it surprise you, my attitude about this? Why should it? We’re not all of us conservative bastards who never got over the way our mamas toilet-trained us.”
“Clearly not,” said President Carey, aware that he had underestimated Cardinal Mendosa. The rangy Texan with the badger-grey hair was a force to reckon with. He decided to ask one unguarded question. “Why do you keep doing it, knowing the deck is stacked against you?”
Cardinal Mendosa sniffed his way through a laugh. “Oh, pure cussedness, in part. At least half of the time. Someone has to hold up our end of the table.” He grew serious; he turned his reddened eyes on President Carey. “Though there is one more thing: truly, in my heart of hearts, I believe.”
* * *
Clancy McEllton sat at the writing desk in his Paris hotel suite and scribbled notes from time to time as Cardinal Hetre paced up and down, gesturing and ranting about the legal debate over Cardinal Gemme. He listened only to the cadence of the rise and fall of the inflection of the Cardinal’s voice and paid no heed to the subject matter.
“What is the worst of it all is that they are calling him mad. Mad! As if a man undertaking such a mission must be mad to do it. Once a man has thought of it, he must be mad not to act.” He stopped moving and glared at McEllton. “You probably think so, too, that he is mad, in your lapsed way. You must be like that French jurist, the one who gave the long analysis last night on the news. You’ve decided that Cardinal Gemme broke under stress, or something like that. You support the theory that Cardinal Gemme was irrational.”
“I don’t have an opinion, and I don’t know enough to subscribe to any theory. And I don’t care enough to learn much more.” said Clancy McEllton, wishing that Greene would arrive and take the Cardinal off his hands.
Spurred by his headache, Cardinal Hetre paced more frantically. “This entire thing is a disaster. Their plans were ill-conceived, and Cardinal Gemme botched the work completely. It has forced us to curtail our actions and their plan failed. We might have proceeded undetected until the work was over.”
“That’s probably true,” said the other man. He wanted to make his notepaper into an airplane and see if he could hit the moving target of Cardinal Hetre with it. The man was impossible, all but hysterical in his hatred of Pope An, but unable to commit himself to the necessary actions to end her reign.
“According to Gemme, there were others in it with him. Sinclair for one, I think. The Irish are a mercurial race, aren’t they, and they are preoccupied with death. There’ve been items in the paper about Cardinals Sinclair and Gemme.” Cardinal Hetre turned abruptly away, sickened by what he said. “Why would he reveal the names?”
“How do you know he really gave away anything. Perha
ps he made them up, to make him seem less guilty? Maybe he chose the names of men who said things he agreed with,” suggested Clancy, drawing squares around Cardinal Sinclair’s name. He was not surprised that Cardinal Gemme had had accomplices, or that he had revealed names, since he took so much pride in what he had attempted to do.
“But why implicate those men? Cardinal Dellegos—who pays any attention to him? Cardinal Sinclair has some impact in the world, but Cardinal Dellegos? Croatia can’t bring itself to decide what part of the country it wants to keep and what part it wants to throw away. Why should Cardinal Dellegos be drawn into anything like.…” He waved his arms. His head was surrounded by fangs and he had to force himself to keep from shouting as relief for the pain.
“Perhaps he thought doing something on a wider scope would help his country come to its senses?” Clancy scribbled a few more meaningless notes, then heard his telephone ring. He rose with alacrity to answer it.
Rufus Greene promised to arrive in a few minutes, and wanted to be prepared for the state of mind of Cardinal Hetre. He listened to Clancy’s deliberately vague phrases, knowing how to sort out the real information.
“Tell him that we will have to be more careful and more thorough now because the police have been alerted, and they are not so foolish as Cardinal Hetre would like to believe.”
“I shan’t put it quite that way,” said Clancy, “but I’ll get it across, believe me.” He put the receiver down and gave Cardinal Hetre a brief, carefully edited version of what Mister Greene had said. “He’s in as delicate a position as you are, in some ways. He’s going to be joining us shortly. He has to make a call to International Vision, Ltd.”
“Excellent,” said Cardinal Hetre. He swung around to watch Clancy more closely. “I am not able to think clearly. I have prayed for guidance but none has come. I am too demanding, and God does not respond to demands.”
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