“Ah, yes, the redoubtable Stelo,” said Karodin thoughtfully.
“Did he know who that man of yours is?” asked Cardinal Mendosa.
“Alas, no; but you will soon. I’ve asked him to meet us in half an hour,” said Karodin, enjoying the astonishment the Texan could not conceal. “I believe it would be wisest if we worked a bit more closely for a while. The three of us, I mean. Without the good offices of Professor Bell.”
“Because?” prompted Cardinal Mendosa.
Karodin brushed the lapel of his gorgeous Italian wool suit, of a shade of brown between antique oak and dark mauve. His response was indirect. “I read the statement you gave the newsmedia about the trial of Reverend Williamson, and the change of venue to Hawaii. The Department of Justice worked very swiftly for once. You’re probably right, there would have been too much sensationalism if he was to be tried anywhere in the continental United States. It’s also likely that many of his followers will not be able to get to Hawaii for his trial, and there will not be the tremendous demonstrations that were feared.”
“No argument,” said Cardinal Mendosa, wishing he could require Karodin to come to the point; he obliged the Russian by remarking, “There’s also a better chance that they will be able to seat a jury that isn’t too opinionated.”
“And the jurors will not be harassed the way they might be in the Forty-Nine.” Karodin pursed his lips. “Do you think the verdict in Greene’s case will make a difference?”
“You mean conspiracy to commit second degree murder, while under duress?” Cardinal Mendosa inquired, suspecting he was being put to some variety of test. “It doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of Williamson or his associates or his conversion techniques. By the same token, that tirade Williamson had on television shortly before he was arrested probably hurt his cause more than it helped it. Little as his people may like the Catholic Church, most of them do not condone murder. He came off looking rabid. Most Americans don’t like extremists, not after the first thrill of absolute conviction. I doubt that most of the people listening felt that Williamson was as justified as he said he was.” He lifted his brows. “Well?”
“To a point, we’re in accord,” said Karodin. “Whatever danger Williamson represented has been diminished because of his behavior in the last week. Those who were uncertain of him are probably now against him; those of his followers who are convinced that he is God’s man on Earth no doubt consider him a persecuted hero. If you want my opinion, I’d say that his ranting was a gamble, a deliberate gamble. How much of that might be a legal ploy, I can’t say, but if it was one, it misfired.” He motioned to Cardinal Mendosa. “It would be wiser to leave. One or the other of us could be recognized.”
“That had crossed my mind,” said Cardinal Mendosa sardonically.
Karodin grinned. “I have a car waiting outside. I think it would be best if we let my driver take us for a short scenic tour, don’t you?”
“A short scenic tour sounds sensible,” said Cardinal Mendosa, his apprehension beginning to lift. “You want to make sure no one overhears us?”
“That’s part of it. And because my man in the Vatican is supposed to meet us at another location in a little over twenty minutes.” He started toward the door, then paused to look up at the scaffolding. “I understand that tourist donations have paid for this work. Is that true?”
“For the most part, yes,” said Cardinal Mendosa.
“What does Pope An have to say about that?” He was not expecting an answer and so was not disappointed when Cardinal Mendosa had no comment to make. He went outside, shading his eyes against the sun. “Even at the beginning of March the Roman sky is brilliant,” he said as he fumbled for dark glasses.
A limousine with amber windows drew up to the curb.
“Yours?” asked Cardinal Mendosa. “Isn’t that a little grand?”
“‘When in Rome,’” quoted Karodin, and opened the door for Cardinal Mendosa before climbing in behind him. “Were we in Russia,” Karodin went on as the limousine pulled into traffic, “we would not use a vehicle like this. But in Russia there would be places I could arrange to use that would guarantee our privacy. Oh,” he went on, seeing the rigid disapproval in Cardinal Mendosa’s face, “nothing unpleasant. There is a dacha very near Moscow that is quite nice, a wooded setting with a brook for trout.”
“And you go there to fish,” said Cardinal Mendosa, leaving no doubt as to his meaning.
“Sometimes,” said Karodin. “Unfortunately, here I am reduced to using luxury transportation.”
“How regrettable,” said Cardinal Mendosa with exaggerated sympathy. “But in these capitalistic times, I thought luxury was possible in Russia.”
Karodin laughed. “I like you, Mendosa. I suspected all along that I would. And certainly you are aware that capitalism in Russia is unpredictable.”
“You’re very kind,” said Cardinal Mendosa nastily, then relented. “Sorry. You have something you want to tell me.”
“Yes, I do.” The amusement disappeared at once. “I wish I didn’t.”
“Then it is serious,” said Cardinal Mendosa, his chest feeling suddenly very cold. “In that case, you’d better tell me; I need to know if there’s anything I’m going to do about it.”
Once again, Karodin’s response was indirect. “What is the state of Maetrich’s security effort, do you know?”
“You’re not speaking against Axel Maetrich, are you? He’s been taking very good care of Pope An,” exclaimed Cardinal Mendosa, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’ll have a hard time convincing me that he’s up to no good. He’s been dependable and circumspect.”
“No, no. That wasn’t my meaning. As far as I am aware, Axel Maetrich is a very honorable man. He has made a number of realistic and sensible changes in commendably brief time. But I fear he is short-sighted.” He leaned forward, the leather upholstery creaking with his movement.
“Short-sighted how?” asked Cardinal Mendosa.
“From what I have learned, he has become…relaxed. Now that he has instituted better security scanning for the general public and several sorts of monitors throughout the Vatican, he is convinced he is prepared and will not be taken unaware. It appears that he is satisfied that there are no more plots against Pope An, not for the time being. He has let it be known that anyone who had been thinking of killing the Pope would now have the good sense to abandon the plan, given what happened to Cardinal Sinclair’s group, Urbi, and then Reverend Williamson. He has determined that there is no reason for immediate concern, what with Interpol and the Eurocops assisting Vatican Security. I wish I could agree with him: that is not my assessment of the situation.”
“Meaning that you suspect there may be another conspiracy?” Cardinal Mendosa asked, reserving his opinion.
“I don’t suspect it, I am certain of it.” Karodin said it intractably.
The limousine crossed the Cavour Bridge and headed eastward through hectic traffic. Its size gave it an advantage against everything but trucks and vans.
“Does that mean you have suspects, or only suspicions?” asked Cardinal Mendosa, reserving his assessment for the moment.
“Some of both,” said Karodin. “What I lack is admissible evidence. I cannot take what I have to the courts, not at the Vatican and not in The Hague. But what I have learned troubles me.” He pulled a large sealed envelope from the space concealed under the armrest. “Have a look at this. If you know someone in the intelligence field you trust, get a second opinion.”
“My brother-in-law,” volunteered Cardinal Mendosa. “If you don’t object to my faxing whatever you’ve got here to him. He’s got a secure line and I have used it from time to time. He’ll keep it to himself.” He resisted the urge to tear the envelope open.
“Ah, yes, the incomparable Mister Nimmo. I’ve never actually met him, though there was a time some years ago when we came very close to it.” His smile was genuine and voracious at once. “By all means, let him examine what we have
discovered and make the most of his opinion.”
“I’ll give him your regards,” said Cardinal Mendosa with urbanity.
“Please,” said Karodin sincerely. “Agents of his caliber don’t come along often. When he retired, I missed him. He understood the game better than most.” He tapped on the window dividing the front of the limousine from the back. The driver nodded. “We’re about to pick up the man you’ve been so curious about,” he told Cardinal Mendosa. “My mysterious man at the Vatican. I imagine you’ve tried to figure out who it could be.”
“Naturally,” said Cardinal Mendosa. “Leo Pugno told me about your meeting with him in Austria, but he’s not the one, is he?”
“No, of course not,” said Karodin. “He was a precaution.”
“I hope you didn’t tell Leo that; he’d be outraged.” The Texan made a gesture of restraint. “Will you answer me one question before we pick him—whoever he is—up?”
“I may. It depends on the question,” said Karodin.
Cardinal Mendosa nodded his acceptance. “Why are you doing this? It’s been driving me round the bend, trying to figure it out. The whole of it, the intelligence work, the support. You’ve gone out on a limb for Pope An. I can’t figure out what you hope to gain by it.”
“Ah.” Karodin shrugged. “And why not?” He turned toward Cardinal Mendosa. “For one thing, I have a natural tendency to…I think you call it kick shit.” His amusement faded. “Do you have any notion how rich the Church is? Do you know how much political power it has? Do you have any comprehension how great its influence is?”
“Some. Not from your perspective,” said Cardinal Mendosa.
“I thought someone like her might change that, might turn the power and wealth of the Church to other uses, less oppressive ones. At the least, I thought she would bring about a reassessment. It seemed worth the effort.” He looked out the window. “She’s been…a godsend, hasn’t she?”
“Quite literally,” said Cardinal Mendosa, his voice very quiet.
Then Karodin sat up straighter. “There he is.” He rapped on the window again and the driver pulled the limousine toward the curb in front of San Camillo. Karodin reached to open the door.
A few seconds later, Piet, Cardinal van Hooven stepped into the limousine and met Cardinal Mendosa’s dumbfounded gaze with a hint of apology. “Shocking, isn’t it? It began as blackmail, Charles,” he said as he took one of the rear-facing seats. “But eventually I decided that Karodin has a point.”
“How could anyone blackmail you?” Cardinal Mendosa asked before he could find a more diplomatic way to express it.
Cardinal van Hooven hitched up his shoulders and looked directly at Cardinal Mendosa. “Because I’m homosexual,” he answered.
Cardinal Mendosa slapped his knee. “Well, hell’s bells, Piet, so’s my nephew Tom. You didn’t have to knuckle under because of that. How many of the College of Cardinals are like you? Twenty-five percent, sounds about right, don’t you think?”
“Yes, as far as it goes,” said Cardinal van Hooven.
“Meaning?” challenged Cardinal Mendosa, pretending he did not see the irony in Karodin’s eyes.
“Meaning, I suppose, that I had little protection in the hierarchy. My family controls no banks, no corporations, no crime syndicates, no transportation organizations, has no political position, no academic acclaim, nothing, in short, that would immunize me from disgrace and excommunication.” His slight smile was sad. “Pope An changed that, but it was too late to have impact on me, other than philosophical relief.”
Karodin addressed himself to Cardinal Mendosa. “You spoke out against the persecution of homosexuals by the Church two decades ago, as I recall. It got you a great deal of attention.”
“Seventy-nine,” said Cardinal Mendosa. “I was a bishop then, and one of my priests had been arrested. God, it made me mad, watching how they dogged his heels and ran him into the ground.” His color heightened at the memory. “Josh Winters was his name, poor bastard.”
“Then you understand my predicament,” said Cardinal van Hooven quietly.
“Oh, yeah,” said Cardinal Mendosa, then made a gesture showing his helplessness. “You of all people. You’re a psychiatrist.”
This time Cardinal van Hooven was able to chuckle. “Use your head, Charles. Why do you think I became one, if not to understand my own needs?”
“Makes sense,” said Cardinal Mendosa. He looked at Karodin out of the tail of his eye. “You going to tell me why you blew van Hooven’s cover?”
“My reasons are completely pragmatic,” said Karodin. “Pope An is in danger and she needs the help of those who truly support her and her works. And,” he went on before either Cardinal could speak, “I’m relying on both of you to keep your mouths shut.”
“If it would protect her, I’d take a vow of silence this afternoon,” said Cardinal Mendosa, with such utter conviction that even Karodin was impressed.
Van Hooven looked oddly pleased behind his thick glasses, but said nothing as the limousine sped on.
Chapter 33
In spite of the scrambler and the distance, Elihu Nimmo’s voice sounded remarkably distinct, as if he were talking from Rome instead of Texas. “You had breakfast yet?” he asked his brother-in-law in Rome.
“Five-thirty’s a little early for me,” said Cardinal Mendosa, dead-pan.
“Oh.” Nimmo paused to work out the time zones. “Sorry. Your man said he’d get you and I thought—”
“Don’t worry about it, Spook. I said I wanted to take your call, whenever it came.” He was impatient with Nimmo; he was anxious to know what he thought of Karodin’s information. “I meant it.”
“Well, I didn’t want to.…” He let his apology drift. “I’ve been over your stuff,” he said, sounding more like himself. “I don’t know where you got it, but it’s damned potent. I’ve been over it, looking for flaws or plants and I’m damned if I can find any; if they’re there, I haven’t been able to spot them. I’d say this is straight goods. I’m convinced. You don’t want to hear this, but if it was up to me, I’d have to tell you that your Pope is in a very tight situation. The men behind this have a plan and they’ve covered their asses. And I don’t have a notion how you can break the case before one of these maniacs tries something stupid.”
It was the answer Cardinal Mendosa was expecting but it was also the one he wanted least to hear. “Can’t you suggest something?” he asked, hearing his desperation in his voice; the dream had ended in a nightmare again last night, Pope An’s luminous face destroyed and Cardinal Mendosa unable to prevent it.
“You mean, something you could do on the sly?” said Nimmo, in a tone that told Cardinal Mendosa that Nimmo had already thought about it.
“Yeah, something like that,” said the Cardinal.
“That depends,” said Nimmo, his manner becoming distant and critical. “You’re not in a good tactical position, but we might be able to work out a strategy that will turn it around.”
“Why is my position bad?” asked Cardinal Mendosa sharply.
“Because you live in a fishbowl, Charles. You’re always in the spotlight. You have a very high profile.” He said it casually enough, but Cardinal Mendosa could hear the disapproval behind the smooth rejoinder.
“But there’ve been other Cardinals who were trying to bring her down, and we didn’t find out about it until pretty late in the game,” the Cardinal protested.
“They had the other Cardinals to act as baffles. You don’t.”
“You mean some of the others don’t cotton to me. That’s true enough. I don’t cotton to all of them, either. And I’m not inconspicuous the way some of them are. When I think someone’s scum, it shows.” He had learned to speak about himself as if he were another person many years ago and there were times he clung to the skill with frantic tenacity—never more than now.
“You’ve been allied with the Pope since before day one. You can be pretty sure that there are some of the other Card
inals who resent the shit out of you for that.” Nimmo paused. “I’d guess, from what I’ve seen, that you’ve got half a dozen men in this plot. They’ve got to be Bishop-rank and higher up. One or two of them must be Cardinals, just for access.”
“The man who provided the information would agree with you,” said Cardinal Mendosa. “He reckons that it’s half Cardinals. Three. If there are no more than six men in the conspiracy.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.” Nimmo paused and there was a faint crackling that might be the sound of rustling paper or feedback from the scrambler. “I go along with what your man guessed. Whoever he is, he knows his business.”
“He said the same thing of you,” Cardinal Mendosa interjected.
“Well, well—that limits the field; you’ve got a good contact,” said Nimmo, and resumed his evaluation. “My fix on these guys would be Latin America, just like your contact thinks; maybe other Third-world countries, or Pacific region, where they worry about China. I go along with the assumption that the Cardinals involved are tied into the upper-class power organizations, the ones with a lot to lose if Pope An follows through with this World Hunger project of hers. The ones who have relatives in high places and money in the family. The Cardinals who protect the poor and work for the relief of the oppressed are not going to be part of this, but the guys who are part of the money-influence-prestige circuit, they fit the profile for the conspiracy.”
“It could get very sticky,” said Cardinal Mendosa, thinking aloud.
“It already is sticky, Charles. You’re so used to it, you haven’t noticed,” Nimmo corrected him. “You told me a few years ago that the Vatican was the most convoluted, deceptive, untrustworthy, corrupt place in the world.”
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