The Pope's Assassin

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  21

  Francesco couldn't imagine making the trip to Ascoli without Sarah.

  To make the scene more troubling, he didn't know what had hap pened to her. They were supposed to be going the next day to meet his mother. It was important.

  "Not even a phone call to let me know you're okay?" he sighed to himself, annoyed. Had something happened to her?

  He pressed his cell phone to his ear with his shoulder while holding the hotel phone in his other hand. Someone must know something.

  "Sarah, let me know if you get this message. I'm getting really worried."

  He shouldn't have let her leave without finding out where she was going. He'd looked out the window and seen her get into an imposing Mercedes. They went up Via Cavour and were lost to sight. From there they could have gone anywhere. She wasn't coerced. She got in will ingly. Still, he'd tried to read the license plate, but he was too high up to make it out.

  This had happened five hours earlier. Five hours was a long time. Enough to cross the entire continent. He hung up his cell and took the earpiece from his ear. He laid his hand on the other phone to give his shoulder a rest and continued to wait.

  Think, Francesco, think. But he didn't know what to do, except what he was doing.

  The operator left him on hold too long, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of hanging up. He couldn't stop. Finally someone answered on the other end of the line. No news. They couldn't help him. Fury mixed with apprehension overcame Francesco.

  "Listen up. I know she was called by someone in the Vatican," he lied. "I saw the priest who came to get her. You have an hour," he emphasized, raising a finger, "one hour to give me news. If not, her face is going to be on all the lead stories of the international news media, and I'm going to accuse you of kidnapping a British citizen. Do you understand? I'll turn the eyes of the world on you. One hour." Fran cesco was fed up.

  The operator maintained the same serene, routine voice and said she'd communicate the message to the proper party, wished him good night, and hung up.

  Tears filled his eyes, but didn't fall. He covered his face in his hands and took a deep breath. He was exhausted. He looked at his wristwatch. It was two thirty in the morning. He got up and went to the window, drew the curtain back, and looked down. There was no sign of the Mercedes or Sarah. The pavement was wet, parked cars covered with drops, but it was not raining. On the other side of the street he saw the steps leading to the engineering school and the Church of Saint Peter in Chains, where the chains that had bound Saint Peter on his fate ful journey to Rome could be found, as well as a monumental statue of Moses by Michelangelo. The steps passed below the palace of the Borgias— Rodrigo, Cesare, and the beautiful Lucrezia—who in other times wandered through these streets, masters of Rome, but Francesco didn't think about this. He ignored the history of the building on the other side of the street.

  Where are you, Sarah? he asked himself.

  He felt like waking up the whole place with a huge outcry, but Sarah might just saunter into the room at any time without a mark, calm, with her usual composure, calling him an idiot for entertaining these fantasies. He remembered her nausea and dry heaves, and felt tightness in his chest.

  Outside there was little movement. A car or two passing in the direction of the Piazza dell'Esquilino, a car coming down Via dei Fori Imperiali. Rome slept the eternal sleep of night, disordered layers of time flowing together. The streets, plazas, alleys, avenues, and all the roads came together in Rome, this millennial city, and no street ended in a dead end. There was no better city to disappear in than this, where everything was connected, like arteries in the human body.

  The phone ringing on the bed startled Francesco so much that he jumped. He immediately grabbed it and looked at the screen. An unknown number. Tonight was not going to be easy. He took a deep breath and answered the call.

  22

  Of all the professions exercised on the surface of the globe, none was as peculiar as Ursino's.

  For forty years he had carried out his illustrious offi ce from Monday to Friday, sometimes Saturday, but never on our Lord's day of rest, since if He rested on the seventh day, who was Ursino to do differently?

  He was grateful to Pope Montini, recorded in the rolls of history as Paul VI, for having designated him for such a prestigious and pictur esque role.

  He had the privilege of working in the apostolic palace on the ground floor in a room called the Relic Room. It contained thousands of bones of accepted saints celebrated by the Holy Mother Church and sent them to new churches built every year throughout the world. These relics, diligently sent in small quantities by Ursino, were what gave sanctity to the new place that without a bone, without the mystery of something used or touched by the saint, would be nothing more than a space without divine aid, a temple in which the name of the Lord could not be invoked, at least not by the Roman Catholic Church, since it would be invoked in vain.

  Whenever possible, Ursino took care to send a relic of the saint that the new church celebrated. A piece of Saint Andres's tibia if the church was dedicated to him, and if one existed in the thousands of drawers that filled the giant cases with such relics. Of course, that most sacred archive contained only one of Saint Andres's fingers, part of a skull, and pieces of the cross on which he was martyred, all sent to Patras, where he was patron, decades ago.

  He was diligent, yes, but the Milanese Ursino had a fault. He wasn't very sociable, perhaps from spending so much time alone caring for the relics, the requests, and the new sacred bones that arrived less fre quently now that there were fewer saints. The protocol had become so difficult that today it was extremely hard to pass from the level of sin ner to the society of saints.

  Although he would deny it if asked, the requests for relics were fewer now, too. Forty years ago he had more than one request a day: a piece of Saint Jerome's radial, a splinter from Saint Margaret's wheel, or Saint Nicolas's metatarsal—back when he was a saint, not long, since he ceased being one under Paul VI. Now Ursino passed weeks in which all he did was organize the immaculate archive of relics so that he knew exactly where something was stored in the immense cases that guarded such sacred content.

  In earlier days the schedule was tight for the amount of work he had. Lots of discipline, rules, and organization were necessary to fulfi ll all the requests and sanctify thousands of Catholic churches around the world. Now he had the luxury of looking through the shelves and inventing things to occupy his time.

  A portrait of Pope Benedict dominated the wall near his dark oak desk. Working in front of the wall, he often looked at it. He was an aus tere figure, unhappy, without joy, or charisma, but a good man. He had dealt with him a few times over the course of the last twenty years, and knew that the Holy Father was a very educated, intelligent man who wanted only to improve the church.

  "Is it too late for an old grump?" Ursino heard a friendly voice behind him.

  The Milanese didn't turn around, and continued to sort some of the vertebrae of Saint Ephigenia, a contemporary of Jesus, into some small linen bags.

  "I can ask the same. Has the Austrian iceman come to see me?"

  "I had a meeting that lasted all night, and now I'm going to rest," Hans Schmidt explained.

  Ursino got up, approached Schmidt, and embraced him. "It's been a long time, old friend." He held up a linen bag. "I'm waiting for a telephone call."

  "Late, it seems."

  Ursino pulled out a chair and invited Schmidt to sit. "Are you still running around with crazy ideas in your head?"

  "What do you call a crazy idea?" Schmidt asked.

  "I read your writings. A little avant-garde for me. The idea of the observer over the thinker made me nervous."

  Ursino sat in his chair and sighed.

  "They're ideas," Hans replied without further elaboration.

  Ursino sniffed and stuck a finger in his nose to remove what was there. Forgivable manners for someone who worked alone for decades, and su
rely not a sin in the eyes of our Lord God. "The idea that my thoughts were not my own went over my head. I couldn't understand it."

  Hans smiled. "Have you ever done something that was contrary to the will of your inner voice?"

  Ursino thought a few moments in doubt and rubbed his chubby belly. "Yeah."

  "Your inner voice is the thinker. That which didn't hear the voice is the observer, or . . . you."

  "Are you telling me I'm two people? One is already too much for me," Ursino joked impolitely with a grin.

  "No, Ursino. We're only the observer," Schmidt explained, "but we think we're the thinker, and we're prisoners of our thoughts when ulti mately our thought is simply a reasoning to help us from a practical point of view."

  "Do you control the thinker?"

  "Totally."

  They didn't speak for a few moments. Ursino mulled over what his friend had said and bit his nails.

  "Let's not talk about this anymore or I'll be invited to keep your society tomorrow morning at the hearing." He meant it as a joke, but didn't manage to smile. When the last word left his mouth, Ursino felt his observation was in bad taste. "Are you prepared?"

  "For what?" Hans asked.

  "For the hearing tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow is only tomorrow. Now I'm simply here with you." He looked Ursino in the eye, very attentively, very calmly.

  Ursino sniffed again and sighed. "On your way, and don't contami nate me with those ideas."

  "Nice seeing you," Schmidt said, getting up.

  The phone rang abruptly at that moment, and Ursino answered it. "Hello, Ursino."

  Whatever had been said on the other end of the line transformed Ursino in a way that left him confused and indisposed. When he hung up, he raised his hand to his chest. He felt his heart would burst.

  Hans looked apprehensively at him and tried to help. "What's the matter, my friend?"

  Ursino felt like fainting. It was difficult to breathe, shivers ran up his spine.

  "What's the matter, Ursino?" Schmidt's voice was more insistent.

  "They know about the bones," Ursino stammered.

  "What bones?"

  Ursino stopped suddenly, as if he had been miraculously cured. He no longer panted or felt palpitations. He started pacing back and forth, thinking.

  "Call the secretary of state, please," the curator of relics asked him.

  Schmidt quickly picked up the phone and dialed the extension he knew by heart. Trevor took time answering before he was informed of the urgency to call Tarcisio. The assistant assured them he'd get Tarci sio immediately.

  "They're waking Tarcisio. Are you going to tell me what happened? Who are they? What bones are you talking about?"

  Ursino continued thinking, thinking, thinking, until he paused and looked very seriously at Hans Schmidt. "The bones of Christ."

  23

  The nausea turning her stomach made her vomit empty gasps of nothing. Try as she might to expel the sickness she felt in her stomach, Sarah succeeded only in dry heaves. She bent over the not very private toilet of the Learjet. She had started to feel bad as soon as they took off from Fiumicino. Leaving the ground provoked a sicken ing dizziness that made her press against the back of the seat. She tried to find the most horizontal position possible, which was still too verti cal, and she knew the nausea was coming. Even before the plane had reached its cruising altitude, Sarah had unbuckled the seat belt and run for the toilet.

  It must have taken half an hour to compose herself again. As sud denly as the nausea had come on, it disappeared.

  She returned to the cabin, red-faced, overheated, and aching all over. The table in front of her seat held a tray with a teapot, cup and saucer, and a roll.

  "Sit down, dear," the comforting voice of Myriam said. "I asked them to make you both some chamomile tea. Drink it. It'll make you feel better," she added with a knowing smile.

  That "both" upset Sarah, since she'd tried to hide it. The word hit her in the face and spread to the rest of her body. Could it be? Was she carrying someone with her in her womb? Was she pregnant?

  The feeling of happiness that all future mothers supposedly feel was not there. The feeling Sarah experienced was panic, with no joy. Was she normal? She remembered Francesco just then and how anx ious he must be without news of her. At once she imagined him at her side, she with an enormous belly almost at the end of her third trimester, soon to embark on an unknown parental sea. She wanted to force a smile, to feel a minuscule portion of happiness, anything positive, but couldn't. Worse, she didn't want it to be true. She enjoyed Francesco, admired him, but she didn't want to have a child with him. Rafael's image invaded her thoughts. She enjoyed Francesco, respected him . . . wanted to enjoy . . . to admire. She should want to have a child with him. Francesco was a marvelous man. He'd be a great father and lov ing husband . . . but Rafael's image would not leave her mental screen.

  "Don't tell me you didn't know?" Myriam interrupted, not know ing she was interrupting anything.

  Sarah shook her head.

  Myriam put her hand on top of hers. "You don't have anything to worry about, dear. It's a divine condition." Her voice changed, and it was Sarah's turn to offer her a friendly shoulder.

  "Don't be afraid, Myriam. Everything is going to be okay," she wished. "We're going to get there on time and resolve everything."

  Myriam dissolved in tears as Sarah hugged her. The sorrow was contagious, but someone had to be strong.

  "It's not fair, Sarah. No parent should lose a son." Myriam wept hard.

  "That's not going to happen," Sarah comforted her. "We're going to look for him. Everything will turn out right."What more could she say?

  "Don't speak about my son as if he were dead, Myr," Ben Isaac admonished her, from his own seat, not looking at the women. "Little Ben is alive. They're not going to do anything to him."

  Sarah asked the attendant for a cup of water with sugar. The plane continued northeast, but for Ben it seemed motionless. He spoke with the pilot to move things along, but they were at the maximum altitude and speed the jet could tolerate. The more you hurry, the slower you go, Ben Isaac thought, his heart heavy with sorrow. But he would not be weak in front of a woman he didn't know.

  The cardinal who had surprised them didn't continue the trip with them.

  "You're a difficult man to find, Ben Isaac," William observed.

  "I'm not hiding," Ben Isaac said.

  "Let me introduce you to Sarah Monteiro."

  "I'm sorry I don't have time for a longer conversation," Ben Isaac said, excusing himself politely. He wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

  "We know about your son," William suddenly cut them off. "We received a DVD. I'm very sorry."

  Myriam lowered her head and controlled herself. It seemed like a death announcement. Her chest burned with a torrent of tears she forced herself not to show in front of the cardinal and this Sarah, who remained silent.

  "You received a DVD? Then you know I'm in a hurry," Ben Isaac proclaimed. He was losing his patience and had no time for the rules of etiquette or good manners.

  "Certainly. I'm leaving," William excused himself. "Sarah is current on everything and is going to go with you."

  The situation was strange, but Ben Isaac didn't protest. Here was a cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith telling him he was current on everything, knew about his son's kidnap ping, and imposing a woman on him. They were in the same boat, or, in this case, the same plane. She had disappeared into the toilet for half an hour. After freshening herself up, the time had come to lay all the cards on the table.

  "What's your role in all this?" Ben Isaac wanted to know.

  "If you want me to tell you frankly, I don't really know," Sarah answered timidly.

  "Did you see the DVD?"

  "On the way to the airport."

  "What did they tell you?"

  "They talked about the Status Quo."

  Ben looked at her with different eyes.
They'd told her everything. Why was she so special?

  The attendant arrived with the sweetened water and gave it to Myriam.

  "Tell me about yourself," he asked, softening his all-knowing attitude.

  Sarah didn't like to describe herself, but she understood. "I'm a journalist, the editor of international politics for the Times. I live in London. My father is Portuguese, my mother English."

  "I think I've read something written by you."

  "It's probable. I published two books on the Vatican, specifi cally on the two popes before this one."

  "The church trusts you?"