Now, when Bondurant burst through the kitchen door with a bag full of groceries in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, Parenti and De Santis were close behind. Bondurant gave Domenika a warm kiss, and the four soon sat down together for their meal. As they prepared to say grace, De Santis reached out for Domenika’s hand, which drew a distinct roll of the eyes from Parenti. The little priest, on the opposite side of Domenika from De Santis, quickly took her other hand. Domenika watched Bondurant smile, take each of the two priests’ free hands in his to complete the circle, and bow his head in silence. She knew Bondurant saw no value in prayer and might only mumble along with the blessing. He’d told her he had real trouble seeing the practical use for it, and she had accepted rather than argue with his point of view. At least there was real progress in his attitude of respect for others who saw the benefit of prayer in their lives, she thought.
When the meal was over and they had enjoyed another bottle of wine before dessert, De Santis set his empty glass on the table. He looked intent, as though he were ready to make a point.
“Jon, I know I’m among friends, so I’m sure you won’t mind me raising this,” he said. “But I couldn’t help but notice that when we asked the Lord to bless us and thank him for our food, which Domenika so graciously prepared for us, you did not join us in prayer. Was there a reason for that?”
Domenika watched Parenti shift uncomfortably in his chair. It was Jon’s birthday, and she too preferred to keep the conversation light for the evening. Aldo, who had been sitting beneath the table, made a hasty exit to the daybed in the room next door.
“Father,” Bondurant said, “I—”
“I’m going to insist you call me Giancarlo,” De Santis said.
“Giancarlo, while I don’t pray, I’m also not the bona fide atheist I once was. I’ve come to believe there is some kind of higher energy, a higher source,” Bondurant said.
“I see,” De Santis said. Domenika detected the tone of studied skepticism she’d heard in the priest’s theology courses years before.
“I’m still a doubting Thomas when it comes to the significance of all this ceremony surrounding faith. Not just your own, Father, but faith of any kind.”
“If there is a higher energy, a higher source,” De Santis said, “isn’t the value of prayer obvious?” He looked toward Domenika.
She could tell Bondurant had hit a nerve. She interpreted De Santis’s stare as though it were a signal for her to defend the practices of the faith, given Bondurant’s opposition toward something as fundamentally important as prayer. She reached for the wine bottle in front of her and began to fill each glass again.
“I’m sure it’s obvious to you, Giancarlo,” Bondurant responded. “And when I find myself in need of help from this higher power, you can rest assured I might try it.” His forced smile spelled some angst.
“I’m going to clear the table for the cake,” Domenika interrupted as she rose and reached for their dinner plates. She hoped De Santis would interpret her movement as a sign that the conversation, if taken further, might spark an unpleasant debate she would prefer to avoid.
“Yes, we all have those times, don’t we?” De Santis said. “When our higher power is the only place to turn for help.”
Domenika watched Parenti stare at De Santis across the table with a studied look, one that portrayed a real wariness.
“I’ve had some close calls these last few years when I thought it was all over,” Bondurant said in earnest. “I didn’t find myself in prayer at the time. Perhaps I should have. In any event . . .”
“You knew how to pray as a child,” De Santis said. “Of that I’m sure.”
“How can you be so sure, Father?” Bondurant asked.
“You were an altar boy, Jon. It’s in our records. The Vatican has quite an extensive library, does it not, Father Parenti?”
“Yes, it does,” Parenti said. He tapped his spoon on the table as if he were impatiently waiting for the cake to arrive and the conversation to end.
“That’s right; I was an altar boy,” Bondurant said. “That was a long time ago. I was a child. It’s what I was taught. I think I’ve experimented with prayer only once since then.”
Domenika set her homemade cake, adorned with candles, on the table directly in front of Bondurant as the most obvious signal yet that it was time to change the subject.
“And of course, there are the other records that reference you as well as your brother in our vast archives, ones I’ve been made privy to and for which I cannot stress enough on behalf of the Church how terribly sorry we are.”
Domenika could see that De Santis’s glass was empty again. She watched as he reached over, took Parenti’s glass of wine, and managed a large gulp.
She stopped in her tracks. She had been prepared to light the candles on Bondurant’s cake but now stood in abject terror over what De Santis was up to and what he might say next.
“What do you mean by that?” Bondurant asked. He pushed the cake slightly aside as though it helped to hide a secret.
“Nothing. He means nothing,” Parenti proclaimed, eager to stop the inquiry.
“Father Parenti, I know that both you and Domenika have been privy to the same documents I’ve seen regarding the Church’s sordid history involving Jon and his younger brother as a child. Domenika herself told me of them long ago.”
“Giancarlo, you mustn’t,” Domenika said. Her head began to spin slightly, and she suddenly felt ready to faint.
“Mustn’t?” De Santis said. “But it was you, Domenika, who wrote the memo. It has your name on it.”
“What memo is that?” Bondurant asked. He had turned toward Domenika and faced her directly.
“The Jozef Memo, Jon,” De Santis said. “No doubt you’re familiar with it. Why, your own wife wrote it. While she’s not a psychologist, I thought she did a splendid job pointing out that your lifelong animosity toward faith stems from gross and personal injury.”
Bondurant immediately pushed himself back in his chair as if a knife had been lunged across the table. Domenika watched his face instantly turn pale as though he were in shock.
“Just what are you saying, Father? Domenika, what the hell is he talking about?” Bondurant asked.
Domenika could hear the voice of the man she loved tremble with fear that someone might have discovered the terrible truth about his past.
De Santis had a look on his face she had never seen before, one determined to harm instead of heal. “The old priest, the one from Maryland, who preyed upon you and your little brother as a child. He’s now long gone, but we have records of his deathbed confession.”
Domenika could see Bondurant had turned red with rage or embarrassment, both of which spelled disaster.
“And we have the Jozef Memo,” De Santis said. “Surely you’ve discussed it.”
“Father, I’m afraid we haven’t,” Domenika said.
She collapsed into her chair and stared blankly at the wall, unable to look at Bondurant or to speak. Her knowledge of the incidents and the horror the Bondurant children had faced before Jon’s brother’s suicide was so terrible that unless he decided to raise the subject, it was a nightmare she planned to take to her grave. Now it was too late. She had long deceived the only man she had ever loved about what she’d learned of his past, and now he plainly knew it. Domenika gathered the courage to glance toward Bondurant for just a moment and saw only utter helplessness on his face.
Bondurant looked in shock. Then, in one great heave, as if to expunge a terrible secret, he vomited onto the table before them. Parenti stood, placed his arm gently around Bondurant, and held a napkin to his mouth. Bondurant quickly shrugged Parenti away. When he had gathered the strength to stand, he looked over at Domenika in complete disbelief.
“Jon, there is no shame,” was all Domenika could bring herself to say. She urged him to sit back down.
“We were just boys, Father,” Bondurant said to De Santis as he choked forth the words. He
grabbed the jacket that hung on the wall behind him, ready to leave. “And you know something? I did pray to your God to stop the madness and bring my brother back. But he didn’t.”
With those words, Bondurant moved swiftly toward the front door. Domenika could only watch. She saw him hesitate for a moment, as if to stop before he did something he might later regret. Then he turned from the wife and the life she knew he loved and slowly walked away.
Chapter 29
Bethesda, Maryland
When Khan saw the huge crush of reporters, photographers, and television cameras staked out at the bottom of the front steps of the National Institutes of Health headquarters in Bethesda, she understood why her assistant, Juliet, had moved the announcement outdoors. The NIH’s briefing room inside was too small to accommodate the throng of media gathered for the news she was about to convey. While being introduced by the Institutes’ director standing at the lectern beside her, Khan took a moment to gaze out toward the heavens. In all her life, she had never seen the sky more blue or the sun more brilliant than on this day.
The string of events that had occurred over the previous weeks—which landed her in front of the most prestigious health research organization in the world with major findings to report—was improbable at best. When Bondurant had literally stumbled upon her in the subway several weeks before, Khan was on her way to pack in preparation for a trip overseas to investigate another supposedly promising lead in the fight against the Devil’s Sweat.
While Khan had heard of Bondurant before and knew of his reputation as a skilled forensic anthropologist, she also knew he was clearly out of his league in the field of immunology and contagious disease. She’d taken the vial of blood he had begged her to examine as a source for a candidate vaccine and dismissively tossed it into her briefcase. She’d given it about as much attention as the pack of gum that lay beside the vial for several days.
When she’d arrived at the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases laboratories in London to hear of their latest thesis on the virus’s propagation, she’d rested her briefcase against her chair and opened it to reach for some papers inside. When she did, Bondurant’s vial had fallen onto the rug and rolled under the chair of her assistant. When she’d spied the blood-filled container, she’d reached down and picked it up.
“What’s this?” the aide had asked.
“Oh, that. Have them spin it, Juliet,” Khan had whispered, so as not to interrupt the presentation. “Test it against the Sweat. When it fails, just dispose of it.”
Five days later, Khan had opened her door at three o’clock in the morning, bleary-eyed, to see Juliet with a set of charts that demonstrated the impossible. The tests conducted on the sample of blood Bondurant had passed to Khan had revealed properties that were impervious to the virus and that had been successfully replicated in a primitive serum. Several plague-stricken test patients injected with the first crude batch of vaccine derived from the sample had been cured. It was the first incident of patient survival the WHO had witnessed since the outbreak of the unknown disease several years before. Three of the largest pharmaceutical labs in the world were now on alert and set to manufacture a more refined vaccine at a breakneck pace to ready the drug for emergency trials in the field.
It was this news that Khan was prepared to bring to the world, absent the story of the source for the cure. Bondurant’s phenomenal gift was still a complete mystery to Khan, and she had no credible way to explain it.
“I’m pleased to announce,” Khan said, as she paused for a moment in front of the cameras, “that the long nightmare known as the Devil’s Sweat is near an end.”
Khan was completely drained and physically exhausted, but she knew the import of her words. She gave the press extra time to settle in as the camera crews pushed and shoved their way toward her. She knew it was the sound bite that would dominate the news cycle around the entire planet for days.
She continued. “In the past week, through the tireless work of hundreds of scientists, a vaccine that renders one immune to the virus has been developed. It has been tested with both active carriers of the disease who are now on their way to recovery and healthy individuals who have been successfully immunized. We have every reason to believe it will satisfy our need for a cure and widespread inoculation on a massive scale. We estimate that millions of lives will be spared.”
The assembled media members broke into applause. It was a reaction Khan had not previously expected or seen from an often-skeptical press corps. She wanted to savor the rare moment. A few reporters began to shout questions as she paused.
“A moment, please,” Khan said. “The international travel restrictions, onerous as they have been, will continue to be in effect until WHO announces they are no longer necessary. They have saved many millions. All quarantine procedures in place in those countries classified as high risk will continue as well. With the rapid vaccination regimen we have planned for the population in the regions affected, I believe we will see the complete eradication of the disease within a time frame of two months.” Khan rested her hands on the podium. “Now I’d be happy to take a few questions.”
A cacophony of questions shouted all at once quickly set Khan on edge. She was tired from the marathon work of the week behind her as well as her red-eye flight from London.
“One at a time!” Khan shouted. “You.” She pointed to a correspondent from CNN who had followed the story of the plague for years.
“Only a week or two ago, the director of the World Health Organization suggested that the identification of an antidote to fight the virus was nowhere in sight. Some in the scientific community had actually given up hope entirely. How do you explain such a rapid and fortunate turnabout?”
“Between the diligence of our hardworking scientists and an unexpected discovery, a source carrying the effective antibodies was located. It was tested in short order. I realize this is good news, but perhaps you will feel obligated to report it.”
“Carolyn Mason, CBS. Are you certain the vaccine you’ve described is absolutely effective? One is treated or vaccinated, and one lives?”
“In all my years, I have never seen immunity and, indeed, a complete cure develop as rapidly or effectively from the antibody discovered.”
“Mark Jaffe, Washington Post. Can you elaborate on the ‘unexpected discovery’?”
Khan knew the simple truth involved being handed a mystery vial by a stranger on a train. That would only raise a raft of questions for which she had no good response. “Suffice it to say,” she said, “one scientist in particular had a remarkable hunch that deserved a closer look. Fortunately for millions, his hunch was correct.”
A flood of questions, one piled on top of another, burst forth. She singled out a correspondent from NBC she knew well in an attempt to bring some order to the chaos.
“Dr. Khan, who is this scientist you’ve referred to who deserves the credit?”
Khan had no interest in converting Bondurant, whom she hadn’t seen since the night on the train and whom she’d treated like a fool, into an instant worldwide media sensation before he was prepared. “I’m not at liberty to divulge that at present, but I assure you there are many who have worked diligently to bring us to this point. I’ve got time for just one or two more questions, and then I’ll turn it over to Dr. Richardson.”
“A name! A name!” one reporter shouted. “Give us a name.”
“I’ve said it would be premature to release that,” Khan said. The frustration rose in her voice.
“Come on,” another reporter from the back of the pack yelled out. “How about a name?”
“You ask again,” Khan said, “and I’ll give you the finger.”
“A name, please,” another correspondent in front pleaded.
Khan raised her right hand, lifted her middle finger, and flipped off the entire swarm of press before her. Then she stepped back from the podium and left it to the NIH director to manage the melee as she headed for her waiting car
. They got what they came for, Khan thought. Enough was enough.
She turned toward Juliet. “You remember that anthro I told you about?” Khan said as she opened the rear door and threw her briefcase onto the backseat.
“Yes, I think so,” Armistice said. “The one who brought you the vial?”
“That’s the one. Find him. Find him fast,” Khan said. “I’m going to thank him like he’s never been thanked before.”
Chapter 30
The Vatican
Pope Augustine slowly closed the cover of his briefing book, which he’d avoided for days as though it were a snake half-asleep on his desk. He stared out toward St. Peter’s Square. The famous basilica that towered behind his office lit the night sky of Rome. While the windows before him were closed, he could still hear the din of street vendors and a smattering of tourists enjoying the late-summer evening outside.
The pontiff had never felt more alone. His beloved Church, to which he had devoted his entire life, was in deep trouble. The material he’d finally forced himself to read after he’d stalled for a week was a summary report of questionnaires provided by parishes around the world. He’d ordered the surveys two months earlier and now wished he hadn’t. The tale the documents told was a devastating mess.
The Vatican, the report bluntly stated, faced its biggest crisis in a millennium, perhaps its entire history. The church had lost faithful by the millions during his relatively brief reign as pope, and, worse yet, the trend had started to accelerate. For every person who converted to Catholicism today, the estimates were that four more would desert the Church in the decade to come. Thousands of parishes had closed their doors due to a lack of funds, and thousands more, while still nominally open, had no celebrant to call their own. Many priests had jumped ship. Ten thousand had deserted their calling in the last few years, which left a historic low of barely forty thousand to administer to all of the Church’s faithful worldwide. At the present rate, the total number of Catholic priests was projected to fall to an astoundingly low thirteen thousand in twenty-five years. The situation in Europe alone was even worse. In Ireland, which had stood as one of the strongest bastions of Catholic faith for centuries, the churches were abandoned. Spain was now Catholic in name only, if that. Nearly three-fourths of its people reported rarely or never attending Mass.
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