Papal Decree (35 page)

‘He has a special knack for getting people to do things for him without having to ask.’

‘I thought to myself, why not give him a little hand? What could it be that the church wants back so badly that they have to ask a living legend like JC to do it?’

‘I understand you,’ Rafael said ironically. ‘They have to be pretty desperate to ask the pope’s assassin to do something like this.’

‘The alleged assassin,’ Barry corrected.

‘The assassin of who?’ Aris asked curiously, joining the group.

‘I’d like to introduce my operative, Aris,’ Barry said. ‘This is the famous Jack Payne.’ He looked at Gavache. ‘And you are?’

‘The no-less-famous Inspector Gavache of the French police.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’ Barry offered his hand.

Aris greeted the two men also, looking at Rafael more closely than good manners might dictate. ‘The assassin of who?’ he asked again.

‘Rafael was talking about JC, the alleged assassin of Pope John Paul the First.’

‘This is getting more interesting by the moment,’ Aris said.

‘So you decided to give us a ride,’ Rafael concluded.

‘Exactly. For old times’ sake.’

For a moment there was a feeling of tension in the air. When Rafael was a double agent under the name Jack Payne, he collaborated with the CIA as part of P2, a Masonic lodge controlled by JC. In truth it was a triple situation, since Rafael didn’t loyally serve the CIA or JC, but the Holy Church. He was still not looked at kindly by the Agency, but he had earned the respect of the old man. Very few managed to deceive JC and survive.

‘I imagine he’s somewhere in Jerusalem,’ Rafael suggested to break the ice.

‘You know how he is. Here today, there tomorrow. I didn’t want such important documents on a commercial flight. The Holy See is grateful.’

I imagine so,
Rafael thought to himself. He knew that nothing Barry said was entirely true. Barry wanted to be in JC’s good graces, a powerful ally it was convenient to cultivate. Then the Holy See would owe him a favor, whether they liked it or not. But above all, Barry wanted what all secret agencies want – information. Whoever has it comes out on top.

The flight attendant interrupted this pleasant conversation. ‘Excuse me. We’re taking off now, and I have to ask you to take a seat.’

‘Certainly,’ Barry obeyed. ‘Later, Payne.’

Rafael looked at Gavache with an unfriendly expression.

‘I understand your irritation, Father,’ Gavache offered. ‘You’ve got to understand that sometimes to get the ship to a good port, you need to navigate in the fog.’

‘I don’t understand why I had to come to this plane to meet that bastard,’ he said, pointing at Jacopo, ‘and Sarah …’ Then he stopped, as if he couldn’t say more. Of course. It could only be so. He began to shake his head. He couldn’t believe it. He was a naive fool. He’d let himself be used like a puppet. He was losing his touch.

‘Don’t blame yourself, Father,’ Gavache said, grabbing some crackers the flight attendant was offering on a tray. ‘You couldn’t have known. When we don’t want someone to focus on something specifically, we simply –’

‘I know how you work,’ Rafael interrupted. This made him even more annoyed. ‘You never needed me for anything, right? Jacopo was the bait, and I fell for it like a beginner on his first mission.’

‘What do you think, Jean-Paul? I never needed the reverend father?’ He asked toward the backseat.

‘Father Rafael was the one who discovered the Jesuit involvement, Inspector,’ Jean-Paul replied behind.

Gavache looked at the priest with an expression as if to say,
You see how important you were?

‘But you were working with JC,’ Rafael argued.

‘The only thing I did for JC was guarantee that Sarah would leave Ben Isaac’s house with the documents.’

‘Why did you call me to Paris to stage that scene with me over why I was there or not,’ Rafael pressured him.

‘Why did I call the reverend father to Paris, Jean-Paul?’

‘Technically, it was also JC who asked, Inspector.’

‘Okay, so I did two favors for JC,’ he responded, without a trace of shame. ‘That means he holds you in high regard.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The truth is, I have two related crimes on my hands and your contribution to solving them was decisive. I know you’d like a more elaborate explanation, but I’m not the one to give it to you, Father,’ Gavache concluded.

Rafael blamed himself. How could he have been such an idiot? JC again pulling all the strings in the plot, but this time it was different. JC was involved with the Vatican. He looked at Jacopo angrily. He wanted to strangle him.

‘Don’t stare at me,’ Jacopo said uncomfortably. ‘I didn’t know any more than the inspector,’ he said in his defense.

The engines of the plane started and emitted a rising roar. They were moving to the runway and finally taking off.

Rafael continued to reflect. He was going to have to do something very difficult: talk to Sarah. He looked at her seat, but she still hadn’t returned. He began to hear an irritating noise at his side. Gavache was leaning against the window, making more noise than the engines.

While Rafael endured Gavache’s snoring, Sarah waited in the bathroom for the result of the test. The instructions said ten minutes for the blue strip to change to red in case of a positive result. No change had taken place yet. She placed the test on the washbasin and avoided looking at it. Each minute seemed like five, a torture. She closed her eyes. Then she turned her gaze away, in case the test gave her a result ahead of time. She found herself hoping the strip would stay blue. Maybe she was selfish, but she didn’t want to be a mother, not at this unpredictable stage of her life, when she didn’t know where she’d be the following day or where she’d sleep that night. Perhaps in Francesco’s cozy arms in their suite at the Grand Hotel Palatino … but was that what she wanted? Damn, Rafael made her doubt everything. He had so much influence over her without even lifting a finger, simply by being out there in one of the seats. She was tired, fed up, hungry, unhappy. She needed a hug. She thought about her mother and father and the estate in Beja, Portugal. She’d give anything to be there right now. She needed her father’s embrace. The plane shook as if it were rolling down a street full of potholes. Soon they would leave the runway, and the engines accelerated to their maximum power to lift off.

Ten minutes had passed, and she didn’t dare look at the verdict. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to face the hard reality. She feared the red strip, the positive result, the divine blessing of procreation. She didn’t want to be ungrateful, but … two light knocks on the door.

‘Miss Sarah, we’re in line to take off. We’re fifth.’ It was the attendant’s voice. ‘In five minutes we’ll take off.’

‘I’m coming. Thanks.’

Reality was pressuring her. She got up and opened the door. ‘Excuse me,’ she called.

The attendant came to the door. ‘Can I help you?’

She gestured for her to come in. The attendant was surprised but did what she asked. On these flights one didn’t question the passengers. For the fortune they paid, wishes were orders.

‘Can you see that on the washbasin?’ Sarah asked, her voice choking.

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me what you see, please.’

‘What?’

‘Tell me what you see.’

The attendant went over to the sink and saw what she was referring to. She checked it and gave Sarah an uncomfortable half smile. Tears were running down the journalist’s face.

‘Congratulations,’ the attendant said in a questioning way.

Tarcisio rode in the backseat of a luxurious Mercedes, and felt an unbearable absence, as if he’d lost a familiar part of himself. Trevor had been a dedicated assistant, and Tarcisio didn’t return a third of the attention the young Scotsman devoted to him. A man as pious as the secretary of state should not feel remorse. His feelings were supposed to follow a sense of right, of purity, full of love and compassion. Still, he couldn’t help but feel overwhelming guilt for having taken Trevor for granted, with never a friendly word of recognition. Although the Scotsman had never indicated he felt the lack of appreciation, Tarcisio now felt he should show a paternal concern for a life whose only detail he knew was his nationality. Tarcisio had been embroiled in his own problems, the church’s problems. Never had he called Trevor at the end of the day to ask him about his hopes for the future, how his family was … if he needed anything. Trevor never missed work for an illness, never showed a lack of respect toward anyone. The church and the secretary of state were the first priority in his short life. He had died under terrifying circumstances without a friendly hand to help him. Remorse. That’s what Tarcisio felt, though his position did not permit it.

His eyes couldn’t camouflage his grief and guilt. If it weren’t for the presence of Cardinal William and Father Schmidt in the car, Tarcisio would have cried openly.

The secretary didn’t have the courage to look at poor Trevor’s body splayed out in the corridor of the Domus Sanctae Marthae. It was a sight he didn’t want to remember. William spared him that suffering and offered to go in his place. Trevor was not his assistant. He saw him often and always considered him a good person, but felt nothing more than the normal shock of seeing a life cut short in that way.

‘This doesn’t seem prudent to me,’ William protested vehemently in the backseat. ‘It goes against all security standards.’

‘You’ve already said that,’ Tarcisio answered impatiently, his voice breaking a little.

Daniel, the commander of the Swiss Guard, had also disapproved when he’d heard Tarcisio’s intention in his office.

‘There are security protocols that have to be complied with,’ he’d asserted. ‘With all due respect, the secretary of state can’t leave the Vatican like a normal citizen or even like a normal cardinal. Your Eminence knows you are not a cardinal like the others, excuse my familiarity.’ This last remark was for William, who agreed with him and was not offended.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ the secretary argued.

‘It would be the first time under these circumstances. Two murders in one day. We’re under attack, Your Eminence agrees, I know. The secretary of state is the most important prince of the church.’

‘You don’t have to teach me my position, Daniel,’ Tarcisio grumbled.

‘Your Eminence, pardon me, but I can’t let you leave without security.’

‘Be reasonable, Tarcisio,’ William said.

Tarcisio persisted. ‘I’m the cardinal secretary of state of the Holy See,’ he cried, flushed with anger. ‘His Holiness is the face of the church, but I’m the one who has to expose my chest to the bullets. What happened here today and in the last few days must not happen again. The Society of Jesus wants to negotiate, and with these latest developments they’re in a position to do so.’ His voice broke. ‘I don’t want to belong to a church that won’t defend its own.’

Daniel took a deep breath after listening to the secretary’s arguments. What a situation. ‘Very well, Your Eminence, I’ll prepare a car. You’ll take one of my men as the driver, and I’ll go in back.’

‘I’d like to go with Your Eminence to help as much as possible,’ Father Schmidt volunteered.

Tarcisio laid a grateful hand on Schmidt’s shoulder. ‘I appreciate it, my friend, but you’ve been through a lot today, and I want you to get some rest. I’ll take care of this.’

‘I won’t be able to rest until you return. Let me go with you, please.’

Tarcisio said nothing. He went to the window and looked at the sun setting behind the buildings.

‘All right,’ he finally decided.

‘I’ll come also,’ William said.

Daniel held a Beretta up in front of Schmidt’s face. ‘Do you know how to use one of these?’

Schmidt blushed and smiled nervously. ‘Of course not.’

‘I’ll explain it quickly.’

The Mercedes left twenty minutes later with a driver and two Swiss Guards, young but well trained, and two Volvos behind the Mercedes.

‘Was it Adolph who called?’ William asked.

‘No, Aloysius.’

‘What do you expect from this?’

‘I have no idea, Will. Not the slightest.’

‘But …’

‘He threatened to kill more people, Will,’ Tarcisio suddenly confessed. ‘He said they would kill …’ He hesitated. ‘His Holiness, to be specific. After what happened to Trevor, I don’t believe I’m in a position to bargain,’ he added in defeat.

‘The bastards,’ the prefect swore.

‘We can’t foresee their game, Will. We can only look out for ourselves.’

‘There’s nothing that can be done?’ Schmidt asked.

The two cardinals gestured negatively.

‘The person who helped us with this tragic operation complied with what was specified. Our interest was only the parchments. They’re in our possession,’ Tarcisio explained.

William didn’t approve of the secretary revealing these details to someone unknown. They might be friends, but that didn’t give him the right.

‘Who did you trust with this job, if I might ask?’ William insisted with no embarrassment or hesitation to interfere.

Tarcisio looked out at the Roman street they were passing before responding, ‘The pope’s assassin.’

Everyone follows predetermined patterns. His weak father had chosen to be an alcoholic who abused his wife and three children. Being a bricklayer was no excuse for staggering home every night, reeking of alcohol and shouting insults at his children and the bewitching woman to whom he was married. He was cursed for life with the responsibility of being the head of a family … or at least that’s what he blabbered during those long sessions with a belt in one hand and a beer in the other.

His mother never intervened. She always ended up asleep at the table, deaf to their wails and their father’s roars. When he tired of beating them, he knocked her awake and dragged her to the bedroom, slamming the door. A few minutes later the creaking of the bed could be heard.

For years he hated his mother for her weakness, her lack of concern for them, for falling asleep during almost every supper, for having to take her plate away so that her stringy blond hair didn’t get in the food, and for leaving them at the mercy of his father’s belt. Sometimes he saw her swollen face or eyes, a look of suffering, or a more pronounced limp in a woman who must have been very beautiful once.