The Third Revelation

by Ralph McInerny

  “It looks genuine enough.”

  “Of course it’s genuine,” Zelda said.

  “Is Sister Lucia at Fatima?”

  Heather explained that Lucia was in a Carmelite convent in Spain. And that the Carmelites were an enclosed order.

  “Too bad. What did she make of the revelation of the secret?”

  Heather let Zelda tell him. Her account was more or less accurate. It did seem a good idea that Zelda should work with her husband at Refuge of Sinners. Meanwhile, Mr. Hannan had asked Duncan Stroik to fly in from South Bend so they could discuss a building site for the new foundation and architectural ideas. In the interim, Faust was temporarily housed in the Empedocles complex.

  The various crews from the police department had finished their examination of the scene of the crime, and the fateful suite was ready for occupancy should it be needed. Father Burke had consulted with Father Crowe’s cousins in Ireland and the decision had been made to have the burial in New Hampshire. Mr. Hannan got permission for a grave to be dug in the shadow of the grotto and it was there, after the funeral Mass at Saint Cyril’s, that the remains of the slain priest were brought, prayed over, and lowered into the ground. It was a solemn moment. Father Burke’s voice had been firm enough when he said a few things about his late friend in the church, but reading the prayers at graveside his voice broke, and for a moment it seemed the tears must come. Beside him, Father Krucek took the book and finished reading the prayer. Father Burke recovered and sprinkled the casket with holy water. The mourners were then asked to do the same, and the sprinkler was handed around. And then all withdrew.

  Heather walked to the administration building with the two priests. Laura had arranged for a caterer to provide a breakfast for the group. It was an odd gathering. Only Father Burke had known the deceased well.

  “I feel responsible for his death,” Mr. Hannan announced.

  “Nonsense,” Laura said.

  “He’d be alive today if I hadn’t persuaded him to come over here.”

  “I did that.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Mr. Hannan wanted to know if he should hire detectives to look into what had happened.

  “Nate, the police are already doing that.”

  “And what have they learned? Nothing.”

  And now the story about Vincent Traeger had appeared, depicting him as a fanatic and disenchanted former member of the CIA. Mr. Hannan seemed to think that the explanation of Brendan Crowe’s death had been found.

  Heather kept her counsel still. If anyone knew that Traeger had not killed Father Crowe, it was she. She had been with him when the body was found. His reaction, she realized now, had been professional, and he had prevented her from following him into the bedroom. But she had not been spared the horrible sight. Then Traeger had sent her running back to the main building.

  Would the man who had killed Father Crowe—and it was a man who had driven off in Vincent Traeger’s rental car—wonder why no mention had been made of the papers he had come for? Would he think he had killed in vain?

  That night, when she arrived at her house, she put the car in the garage. As the door was lowering, the door that led to the house opened and Vincent Traeger said hello.

  III

  “Yes, we did.”

  Montreal was both close enough and far enough away, and Anatoly relaxed, feeling that this time he had outwitted Traeger.

  In Rome, when Traeger had confronted him after what Anatoly had considered a pretty effective job of tailing, things could have become violent. How oddly friendly they had been, the two of them, both nostalgic for the time when they had been sworn enemies. It had been tempting to tell Traeger about the years of resentment spent in retirement in the south, Odessa mainly, but with a spell in Yalta. He had visited Chekov’s house, more than ever a place of pilgrimage. The writer had been taken up during the years of the USSR, a new and elegant edition of the complete works made available, along with the correspondence. Chekov’s wonderful account of his visit to the penal colony at Sakhalin had been taken to make the case for the party against the czar. As if Siberia had ceased being Siberia during what was now considered the darkest pages of Russian history. What Anatoly was unable to figure out was Chekov’s attitude toward the Orthodox Church.

  The official line had been that he was agnostic at best, if not atheistic, but no reader of Chekov could believe that, and now there was no longer any political need to adopt that interpretation. But what was one to substitute for it? Chekov’s reading, his fascination with monasteries, the late story “The Bishop”—none of that suggested the party line on Chekov. So he didn’t get to church that often, so he didn’t fast; the man was an invalid, dying a slow death from consumption. “Anatoly the monk,” he had described himself in those last years in Yalta. Tolstoy was another story, mad as a hatter, as the English would say. True religion was to be found in the lives of the peasants. Chekov as a doctor had enough to do with peasants to know better.

  Because he had been stationed in Rome, Anatoly had read Solzhenitsyn with dread fascination when he was banned in Russia, hating the man for giving all that ammunition to his country’s enemies. Well, the idiot had moved to the West and been thoroughly disillusioned. He had thought he was moving to Christendom. Now he was back in Russia, enjoying the oblivion he deserved.

  But it was the internal collapse in the Kremlin, the useful idiot Gorbachev, denouncing the system to which he owed everything, that had drawn Anatoly out of retirement. Not back to the old outfit, of course. From now on he would operate as a freelance. But with lines into altered officialdom. Traeger had his Dortmund; Anatoly had Lev Pakov. And Pakov had offered to engineer the abduction of Dortmund. He had provided the dossier on Traeger’s work in the CIA that had been fed to the press to neutralize his adversary. Where could Traeger surface now without finding himself up to his ears in difficulty?

  Pointing the finger at Traeger as the hit man who had done away with that priest from Rome had suggested a further possibility.

  Pakov listened impatiently while Anatoly spoke of the murders in the Vatican.

  “We had nothing to do with that,” said Pakov.

  “Yes, we did.”

  If eyes are the mirror of the soul, Pakov had none. When was the last time the man had expressed an emotion? Probably the last time he had felt one. Men now shaved their heads in order to get the effect Pakov had come by naturally. It was hard to believe that hair had ever grown on that muscular globe.

  “You?”

  “Yes.”

  Anatoly didn’t expect the current equivalent of the Order of Lenin, but Pakov might have commented on the daring and success of the operation.

  “What was the point?”

  “To get hold of those damnable reports on the attempted assassination of John Paul II. To show we had nothing to do with that.”

  “You picked an odd way to make the point. Did you get the reports?”

  “You know I didn’t.”

  “It is Chekovsky’s task to gain control of those.”

  “Chekovsky!”

  “So what’s your point? Do you want to try again?”

  It was a tempting thought, but if he were inclined to try again he would not let even Pakov know in advance. Things had gone smoothly that day. The basilica guard had been a necessity, his death of no importance. But the secretary of state with his condescending published remarks on the new Russia deserved what he had got. His assistant? Well, he was his assistant. Anatoly’s informant had told him the file was with Cardinal Maguire. That was when the plan went awry. He had silenced the cardinal when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs to the rooftop. Escape was imperative. The fact that the events of that day were hushed up by the Vatican convinced Anatoly that even an aborted operation had had its effect. And then had come the crushing blow.

  “The file was in his villa.”

  It might have been a line of poetry. His reaction had not been aesthetic. He stared at the word
s that were the complete e-mail message. With what intention had they been written? To inform? To express irony? The effect on Anatoly was to enrage him. If there had ever been a time when he might have repeated the operation, it was then.

  He had seethed. He had grown careless. That is when Traeger had turned the tables on him, tailing Anatoly, and then confronting him.

  He had learned that Traeger and Carlos Rodriguez, the chief of Vatican security, had come to the archives asking for a file.

  “Did they get it?”

  “What they wanted was not there.”

  So where had it gone? The Irish priest, Brendan Crowe, was the one who had surprised him on the rooftop of the Vatican Library and spoiled the operation. He was named acting prefect. Anatoly asked himself what the one responsible for the archives would do with a file that was not safe in his archives. Of course Traeger had questioned Crowe. And then Crowe had flown off to America. It could mean anything, or it could have, until Traeger went in pursuit of him. Anatoly followed.

  What had happened in the guest residence at Empedocles was a farcical repetition of what had happened in the villa atop the Vatican Library. Anatoly had just entered the suite when he heard footsteps. He concealed himself in the bedroom, but when Crowe shut the hall door he came out and confronted him.

  “Where is it?”

  “Who are you?” the priest demanded.

  Anatoly put the point of his knife on the man’s chest. He had not expected resistance from a priest. The priest’s arms lifted, and the knife flew free. He pushed Anatoly, who careened toward the bedroom, falling on the bed. How much time before the priest stood over him? He had Anatoly’s knife in his hand. He extended it to him, handle toward his hand.

  “Take this and get out.”

  Anatoly had taken it, and this time the point of the knife did not stop on the surface of the priest’s chest. Even wounded, he had fought. Finally, weakened like a bleeding bull, he had been unable to fight anymore. Anatoly stood over the body, breathing heavily. And then, my God, once again, footsteps.

  It had been a nice touch to flee in the car Traeger had been driving. He had driven half a mile after leaving Empedocles before he pulled over and waited. Sure enough, a car came tearing along the road with Traeger at the wheel. Anatoly had pulled out and followed him.

  He would have given the coup de grace in that hotel in Cambridge, but Traeger, the old pro, must instinctively have known he was in danger. And so Anatoly had lost him.

  His aim had become to avenge himself on Traeger. This he had done by publicizing Traeger’s hitherto secret activities with the CIA. Traeger’s presence at Empedocles when the Irish priest had been killed, the fact that he had left the scene, did the rest.

  If those murders in the Vatican could also be pinned on Traeger, Anatoly felt that he might be ready to return to Odessa and try retirement again. Meanwhile, he caught his breath in Montreal, keeping an ear out for news from across the porous border.

  IV

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “John, I’m so sorry that things turned out this way.”

  He put his arm around Laura’s shoulders. No need for any other response. They were in Logan Airport, where he would catch his flight back to Rome, having fended off Ignatius Hannan’s persistent offer of a private plane. To travel once that way had been an adventure, but it would not do to make it a habit. Besides, on the flight over he had been able to enjoy the novelty with Brendan.

  All departures are sad, at least in part. “I wish I’d gone to see Mom again,” John said.

  It was her turn not to reply.

  She finally said, “We have time for a drink.”

  He had checked his bag and gotten his seat assignment and there lay ahead the annoyance of security. A drink sounded just right.

  When they were settled at a table, drinks ordered, the two of them drawn closer by the conversations around them, the bustle, the constant unintelligible announcements, she leaned toward him. “All right, what do you really think of Ray Sinclair?”

  “That you’ll be very happy together. Have you set a date?”

  She sat back, smiling ruefully. “ ‘No date has been set for the wedding.’ I was always struck by that statement in the announcement of engagements. It makes everything sound so tentative.”

  “You could marry in Rome.”

  “In Santa Susanna?”

  John laughed. Zelda and her new husband had added a half comic note to recent days.

  “John, you do approve of Ray?”

  “I approve of everything you do.”

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “I like him. I like him a lot.”

  Saying it seemed to make it true. The truth was that John didn’t know what to make of Ray. There seemed more intensity on Laura’s part than on his, and John mildly resented that. He was more impressed than ever with Laura’s obvious success. Nothing happened at Empedocles without her imprimatur. Ray seemed to take her for granted.

  “Good.” She put her hands over his. “Pray for us?”

  “I remember you and Mom in every Mass I say.”

  “And Ray?”

  “He’s part of the package now.”

  She sipped her drink. “Nate is a bit overwhelming, isn’t he?”

  “You seem to have him pretty well under control.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t let him bully you into accepting his offer of a plane.”

  “How much money does the man have?”

  She just lifted her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Not that the amount stays the same. Mainly it just grows.”

  He wondered if he should repeat Father Krucek’s description of Ignatius Hannan as a Barnum and Bailey Catholic. Better not.

  “I like Heather.”

  “Our resident saint.”

  “She took instruction from Krucek. He thinks the world of her.”

  “My only fear is that she’ll run off to a convent.”

  “A fate worse than death?”

  “I’m thinking of what it would mean to Empedocles.”

  They finished their drinks and Laura came with him as far as was permitted, then threw her arms around him. He patted her back. “My sister. All departures are sad.” There were tears in her eyes when he turned to go.

  John had never crossed the Atlantic by ship. Now few people do. Once it had been a prolonged adventure, months on the water. That is how their great-grandparents had come from the old country, in steerage. People complained about coach accommodations, but imagine being tossed about for week after week, looking forward to you knew not what. The mystery of families. All those forebears of whom he had no knowledge. Back to his grandparents they knew the names, but little else, and before . . . The thought of all the anonymous generations stretching back to the dawn of time gave a powerful sense of the contingency of life. How easily one link in the chain might not have been formed and he and Laura would not have been even logical possibilities. Now there were just the two of them, and if she did not marry and have children one line would be broken forever.

  Napping, trying to ignore the inane films that went on nonstop on screens that seemed to draw the eyes to them, the jangled incoherent memories of his visit succeeded one another in his mind. Krucek. John smiled. Young priests had a way of being condescending toward the previous generation; after all, they had been implicated in the mess that followed the Council. But then there were stalwarts like Krucek.

  “You taught philosophy?” he asked the older priest.

  “Well, I gave courses in it.”

  “Such as?”

  “The usual seminary fare. The fare that no one was interested in anymore. Worse, I was a Thomist.”

  “From Louvain?”

  “Nowadays you could say from anywhere. It’s all dead as the dodo.”

  “It’s coming back,” John said.

  “The thing itself is as true as it always was. I speak of the reception, or nonreception, of
it.”

  The thought took Krucek back to Heather. “The Church doesn’t deserve such converts. But then converts don’t deserve the Church.”

  He meant that conversion was a grace.

  “You took your doctorate at Louvain,” John said.

  “Yes.”

  “What was your dissertation topic?”

  Krucek smiled. “How long it has been since I thought of such things. I wrote on the phenomenology of Edith Stein.”

  “Ah.”

  “Louvain is, at least was, a hotbed of phenomenology. The Husserl papers ended up there, thanks to a wily Franciscan. What do you know of Mercier?”

  “Not much.”

  “Ah, the vagaries of reputation. Read David Boileau’s life of the man. The same fight is fought over and over. I was there with Whipple and Sokolowski. I suppose you don’t know them either.”

  John laughed. “I feel that I’m flunking an exam.”

  “Most of the time I feel posthumous.”

  It had proved more difficult to have a conversation with Heather. In desperation, he asked her what she was reading.

  “Thomas à Kempis.” She paused. “And Oriana Fallaci.”

  “What a combination! She’s under indictment in Italy for defaming Muslims.”

  “If what she says is true, why is it defamation?”

  “You have to live in Europe to understand.”

  Well, maybe understanding wasn’t the right word. John had become aware during his visit of the wrangling over Latino immigration in the States, but Europe faced a far more radical problem. Did she know of the Battle of Lepanto?

  “I know Chesterton’s poem. I can’t say that I understand it.”

  “What if all the battles, all the crusades, are going to be negated simply by flooding Europe with Muslims?” He laughed. “That sounds bigoted.”

  “No, it sounds like Oriana Fallaci.”

  CHAPTER FOUR