To Kill the Pope (29 page)

“My name is Fawzi,” the beefy Algerian told Tim, “and, as it happens I, too, am an imam . . . What you said about Jesuits is very interesting. I hope you can repeat it for the benefit of my friends tomorrow.
Salaam Aleikum . . .”

“Aleikum Salaam,”
Tim responded gravely to the salutation. “May peace be upon you.”

*  *  *

“The five of us are the council of elders in Toulouse,” the elderly man informed Tim as he was ushered into the room by a muscular young man in a track suit. “It is the council of the beneficial associations, and I am currently the chairman. I am also the imam from a mosque not far from here. My name is Faisal . . . And we were advised that you desire to ask about the events in Rome in 1981. But we wonder why?”

Faisal spoke in elegant Arabic. He was a frail, elderly man with a carefully trimmed short white beard, who sat behind a long table in a large room behind the storefront office of the Beneficial Association. Two men, one of them Fawzi, sat on either side of him.

Faisal spoke in pleasant, businesslike tones. There was no hostility in his attitude, and his curiosity about Tim's mission seemed genuine. Tim had already decided to be almost absolutely honest with the council—he would skip some operational details and he was glad he had not mentioned to Fawzi the previous day his Cairo CIA connection—simply because it was the only rational strategy at this juncture.

“We are both men of God,” he told the imam, “and I shall speak
the God's truth. I work as an Islam scholar at the Vatican, and our Holy Father has instructed me to learn all I could about the attack on him because Italian and international investigators had been unable to come up with adequate answers. I was chosen for this mission because the assailant is a Turk and, frankly, the Holy See suspects what they call a ‘Muslim Connection' in this affair. And I am specialized in Islam.”

“But why does your pope insist on an investigation now?” Faisal asked. “After all, God had saved him—and the Turk is safely in prison . . .”

“Honestly, I don't know,” Tim answered. “The reason and the timing were not explained to me. Perhaps because the Holy See fears that the pope remains in danger if we do not find out what was behind the shooting, and is not in a position to defuse new conspiracies. I really don't know, except that it is a top priority for the Apostolic Palace.”

“I see,” Faisal said. “But I fail to grasp what has led you to Toulouse. Can you enlighten us?”

“Yes, of course,” Tim assured him. “In a sense, I was working my way back, with quite a bit of luck—and help. Because Italian investigators had determined that Circlic, the Turkish shooter, had once belonged to the Gray Wolves, a terrorist organization in Turkey, I flew to Istambul in the hope of contacting the Wolves to confirm that this was correct—and to inquire why they had recruited Circlic, who is mentally unstable, for the job.”

“You certainly take chances,” Faisal remarked. “They could have killed you. We know something about them. And you are very imaginative in your pursuit. If I didn't know that you are a priest, I would have thought that you are a professional intelligence agent, the way you operate. But please go on.”

“Thank you,” Tim said. “To make a long story short, I found friends in Istambul who did put me in touch with top people of the Wolves. Once we had something of a rapport, I asked them if they knew anything about Circlic and why they had hired him to kill the pope. I pointed out to them that this whole thing was a mystery, that I couldn't understand what Turkish Muslims, even fundamentalists, had against Gregory XVII that they would want him dead.”

Faisal leaned forward, enthralled. “And then what?”

“Well, I must confess that I was surprised that the Wolves did not deny hiring Circlic for the assassination. But they told me that it was really none of their business and they had provided the Turk on the request from their ‘French Brethren.' They said that it was a request from fellow Muslims that simply couldn't be refused, that it was a matter of solidarity among Muslims around the world, and, consequently, they asked no questions. They had no idea who, exactly, the ‘French Brethren' were, but they had been contacted through secret Turkish Muslim fundamentalist emissaries. And, yes, the money to pay Circlic and meet his expenses also came from the ‘French Brethren' . . .”

The men behind the table gasped. “ ‘French Brethren,' ” Faisal repeated almost inaudibly.

“The next logical step for me was to go to Paris, where I have Muslim friends, to try to figure out who are the ‘French Brethren,' ” Tim went on. “In Paris, an Egyptian friend introduced me to the imam at the Stalingrad mosque who encouraged me to go to the south of France, to Toulouse, to pursue my leads. You know the rest. The imam told you to expect me. So here I am.”

Silence descended on the room when Tim finished speaking. Faisal, the imam, and his colleagues looked at each other confusedly, wordlessly. At length, the imam addressed Tim.

“This is terrible,” he said. “I am at a loss for what to say to you. Everything you learned in Istambul and Paris is unfortunately true. We, this council, are the ‘French Brethren' you were told about. It is true that we contacted Muslim brethren in Turkey to request the hiring of a man who would be prepared, for money, to undertake the assassination of a world figure. But we didn't know that the pope would be the target.”

It was Tim's turn to be confused. He looked from one end of the table to the other, at the faces of the five members of the council, trying to comprehend what he had just heard.

“I don't understand,” he said, his voice rising in indignation and puzzlement. “What possible interest would you, French Muslims in Toulouse, have in killing the Roman Catholic pope? My God, the wars of the Crusades ended over six centuries ago! What were you thinking? And what do you mean that you didn't
know that the pope was the proposed victim? It doesn't make any sense!”

“No, it does not,” Faisal said. “Except that we did not realize it at the time. We asked the people in Istambul for an assassin, may Allah forgive us, but we were not apprised that he was to assassinate your pope . . .”

“Apprised by whom?”

“By people here, in Toulouse, who had approached us to help them find an assassin. They convinced us that the death of that world figure, as they put it, would restore our great religions to the glories of the past, the glories of Allah and the glories of your Christian God. We didn't ask any questions; we agreed to help, and even to transfer funds to Istambul for this operation.”

“But, for God's sake,” Tim shouted,
“who
are these people?”

Faisal looked to the right, then to the left, at his fellow council-men. He sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling and heavens above.

“They are Roman Catholic traditionalists. Priests and bishops. They call them ‘integrists,' ” Faisal said hoarsely. “Or they are called fundamentalists. We are Muslim fundamentalists. And their fundamentalism and our fundamentalism are part of ancient traditions that are still strong, that unite us. We must stand together to preserve the essential values of our great religions. This is the reason we agreed to hire an assassin at their request. But, I swear, Father Savage, they never told us that it was the pope they wanted to kill. After we established the contacts with Istambul and Agca was hired, we were no longer in the picture. We were not told anything. These ‘integrists' established direct lines of communication with the Wolves and, I presume, with the Turk himself to give him precise instructions. You can imagine, Father, our paralyzing shock when we heard that the Turk whom we had provided had attempted to kill the pope . . . Of course, we share the blame—this is why I am telling you the truth tonight . . . But the Catholics were the original sinners against the head of their Church. . . .”

*  *  *

At the Apostolic Palace in Rome, Monsignor Sainte-Ange summoned Sister Angela to his second-loggia office the day after her return from Paris.

“How was your visit home, my child?” he asked.

“Oh, fine, Monsignor, just fine. I saw relatives, did some errands, bought some books, and prayed at our convent chapel.”

“And did you call Father Savage, as I suggested?”

“Yes, Monsignor,” Angela replied. “Not only did I call him, but we met for a
citron pressé
on St. Germain one day. He seemed to be in good form.”

She chose not to say that they had met at Deux Magots, not exactly the proper site, even for a platonic rendezvous involving members of the opposite sex who were also members of ancient religious orders. And she omitted mentioning their bistro dinner.

“Did the Father talk about his investigation?” Sainte-Ange inquired. “Did he have anything interesting to say?”

“No, not really,” Angela told him. “He said he had seen an old friend from his Cairo days and visited a mosque in the Muslim suburbs. And now he has gone to Toulouse to follow whatever leads he thinks he has.”

“Why Toulouse? What leads?” the monsignor asked. His voice was suddenly tense, alert.

“I have no idea,” Angela said truthfully. “He didn't say.”

*  *  *

In the papal study later that day, Sainte-Ange told Gregory XVII that Tim Savage had gone to Toulouse after conversations with some Muslims he knew in Paris.

“I wish I knew more about the Toulouse idea,” he added.

“Yes,” the pope agreed. “Me, too.” “This is becoming a bit sensitive. And the Languedoc, believe me, is a can of worms.”

I
T WAS A GHASTLY
can of worms, all right, Tim Savage, who had the same thought, said to himself. A fundamentalist can of worms, with Muslim and Catholic theological hard-liners in a lethal alliance.

It also was pure horror, the discovery he had just made that dissident or rebel Catholics, and priests of God at that, would arrange to assassinate the pope, the head of the universal Church, in the name of religious “glories of the past.” And it meant that having failed once, the Catholic fanatics would unquestionably try again. Sometime, somewhere. Tim had no reason to doubt the veracity of Faisal's account. It followed logically from what he had learned in Istambul and in Paris, and the Toulouse imam would have no motive to invent such a tale. It was common sense. Step by step, he thought, it was all beginning to fall into place. But only
beginning
to fall into place.

And as a purely practical and immediate matter, Tim realized, his duty was to defuse new conspiracies, if they already existed, or prevent them from being hatched. This was the classical responsibility of an intelligence case officer—to obtain thus far unattainable secret information and to act upon it.

Tim's information, however, menacing and sinister as it was, did not indicate how and where he should act. He was given no names, identities, or details about the Catholic fanatics. Tim could not have pressed them further at their evening meeting. He could not ask the Muslims to betray, in effect, their fellow fundamentalists. The Christian-Muslim history in southern France was very old, almost a thousand years, and traditional ties could not be severed so easily. The imam, caught up in his own moral dilemma, gave him the facts concerning his council's involvement—and conveyed his
tormented regrets—but he would not go beyond that. He and his associates may have felt betrayed themselves by the Catholic group's failure to tell them that Gregory XVII was the intended target of the plot. Still, loyalties existed among fundamentalists of different faiths—Tim knew this was not confined to southern France—because they shared the vision of a collapse of moral order in a rapidly changing world, which emphasized materialism, contempt for tradition, and the abandonment of ancient values. Jewish fundamentalism and Hindu fundamentalism were as powerful in the new age as that of the Christian and Muslim faiths. In Iran, for example, after the Khomeini revolution, Shiite Muslim fundamentalists killed moderates. In fact, extremisms of one sort or another have existed since the inception of religions—because the world has always been changing.

Under the circumstances, Tim's investigation was very far from complete, and dangers to the pope still lurked. It was now late September, and Gregory XVII had come and gone safely without any reported incident during his visit to France. It did not surprise Tim. Killing the pope in France would have been too dangerous, too easily traceable. So it would be attempted elsewhere, in an anonymous fashion, along the general lines of Agca Circlic's attack. The event at St. Peter's had been perfectly planned, and it had failed only because the bullet had missed the pope's heart by millimeters—as Gregory XVII believed, God had saved him. But Tim had to worry about the
next time,
especially in the light of what he had learned in Toulouse, and the only questions were how soon and where?