The Third Revelation

by Ralph McInerny

  “My first husband was non-Catholic, too,” Zelda said.

  There was his excuse. But he had told her he was Catholic.

  “Of a sort,” she reminded him. “I know how people outside the Church can feel somehow in it.”

  Well, well. “No need to speak of this to Ignatius Hannan,” Gabriel said.

  “God forbid.”

  Gabriel Faust crossed himself. He was getting the hang of things.

  They saw it all, spending hours wandering about the place, then had their driver take them to the Hotel Cinquentenario. There, of an evening, while Zelda read or pretended to follow the programs on television, Gabriel continued his study of the documents he had downloaded from the web before leaving. In Fatima itself, he was able to buy books that increased his confidence that what had at first presented itself merely as a wild thought might not be so wild at all. But why pursue it?

  Even in his recent elation, a fundamental truth had come home to him. With marriage to Zelda, he had passed from a chancy hand-to-mouth existence to affluence. With his appointment as director of Refuge of Sinners, his horizon had expanded exponentially. But what had not come was the thought that he had enough. What can sufficiency mean when it comes to wealth? Already he had begun to sense the oddity of possession. Wealth was invested, stocks rose and fell, there was always the possibility that they might plummet, plunging him and everyone else back into the pit from which he had extricated himself. He wanted more.

  And so he pored over the books and printouts on the desk in their hotel room. He got out his pens, and he bought ink and, after a search, some simple school notebooks.

  “What are you writing, Gabriel?”

  “Just brushing up on my calligraphy, my love.”

  IV

  “In a safe place.”

  At first he had used Heather’s car, but one day he was pulled over and a cop all leather and metal sauntered up to the window Traeger had opened.

  “This your vehicle?” the cop asked.

  Traeger got out the registration and handed it to the cop, hoping that this was not going to require drastic measures. The cop wanted his driver’s license. He gave him one.

  His partner joined them. “The reason we stopped you? This car was reported stolen.”

  “It was stolen. We got it back.”

  “That’s what I just found out. Sorry.” The second officer threw him a salute. The other handed back his license, disappointed. Was their day really that boring? Probably.

  From then on he had Heather rent a car for him. When he had come back to her house, he spent a long time explaining to her what was going on.

  “Where is the file now?”

  “In a safe place.”

  Unable to get through to Dortmund, he had driven down there, at night, to see what the hell was happening. Every secret he’d had in the agency had been in the papers. If he was being thrown to the wolves, he wanted to hear it direct from Dortmund.

  The house was on a spit of land, one of maybe four in all summer places, but Dortmund had lived in his the year round. There was a boat dock but no boat. As far as Traeger knew, Dortmund had never sailed in his life. What is it that makes even landlubbers want to end up by the edge of some body of water? There seemed a nostalgia for a prenatal condition in it.

  Traeger approached the house from the sea, coming in a flat-bottom boat powered by a small and noisy engine that he had borrowed from the marina up the shore toward town. He cut the motor when he came in sight of the row of houses. No lights in any of them, but it was two in the morning. He tied up at Dortmund’s dock and then crawled toward the house, so far an unopposed landing. Where the hell was Dortmund’s dog? He had a big, playful golden retriever named Marvin he seemed to think was a watchdog. Traeger and Marvin were old friends, so where was he?

  Traeger stood and saw a fragment of yellow plastic tape fluttering in the wind, caught in the doorway. He pulled it free, and moonlight was enough to tell him it was crime scene tape. He went rapidly around the house, to see if there was any more of it, but that little shred had been all. What crime had taken place here?

  As soon as he had let himself in, he knew the house was empty, no Dortmund, no Marvin the golden retriever. He looked around the main room, chiaroscuro in light and shadow. It was here he and Dortmund had talked some months before he had been sent on the mission to Rome. Traeger felt an impulse to report to that empty room. But the tale of his deeds was not one he could take particular pride in. He did tell Dortmund, or the ghost of Dortmund, that as far as he was concerned it came down to Anatoly.

  The empty house filled him with a wave of sadness. What was the point of the long crusade he and Dortmund and others had been on for all those years? The older man had preserved a kind of psychic distance from the horrors of the work, and Traeger had tried to emulate this. He looked around at the emptiness. The house seemed to be the tomb of the unknown agent. Who in the hell really cared about what the two of them had done? He shook these bitter thoughts away, with an effort. He would complete what he had set out to do, as a tribute to Dortmund.

  It was the murders in the Vatican that had been the basis for Traeger’s being sent to Rome. All right. Those murders belonged to Anatoly, so nailing him meant mission accomplished. And now there was the added incentive that Anatoly was making a monkey out of him. Standing in Dortmund’s house, Traeger’s suspicion that his old boss had thrown him to the wolves disappeared. Dortmund would throw himself to the wolves before he would do that. Here I am, he wanted to say, being sought by the police for a killing Anatoly had done.

  And now Dortmund was not in the only place he wanted to be anymore, this house by the sea. A place that had apparently recently been taped off as a crime scene.

  Traeger left the boat tied to the dock and walked up the shore to the marina parking lot and his rental car.

  The following day the Washington Post ran a story attributed to unnamed sources that the rogue ex-agent sought in connection with the murder of a priest in New Hampshire was now suspected of having abducted his former superior, Gillian Dortmund.

  Traeger imagined Anatoly grinning at the disinformation he was sowing.

  That night he drove again to the building that housed his business and took the elevator up to seven. He unlocked the door and stepped in, and almost immediately wanted to step back.

  He covered his face with a handkerchief and moved into the inner office.

  Bea sat in his desk chair, which had been wheeled into the center of the room. Duct tape had been used to fasten her arms to those of the chair. Her mouth, too, was taped. Her eyes were full of whatever they had last seen. She had been shot in the forehead.

  He looked behind the desk. The flap of carpet was thrown back, the safe gaped open. Empty.

  He glanced at Bea as he left. It was a rotten way for a good woman’s life to end. The sense of the futility of his work, the feelings he had felt in Dortmund’s empty house overcame him. And he remembered those half-formulated thoughts about himself and Bea, of a normal life with her when his task was completed. He wished that he had not learned not to cry.

  On his way back to Heather’s he wondered if he was jeopardizing her life as well.

  When she came home, she said someone named Carlos Rodriguez had telephoned Empedocles, asking for Traeger.

  “I’ve got to get to Rome,” he told her.

  “I’ve never been there.”

  Heather had a way of responding as if there were two conversations going on at the same time.

  She said, “How will you get there?”

  He looked at her. She wasn’t asking whether or not he would fly, but wondering how he could get on a plane. This took them back to her remark that she had never been to Rome.

  The following day she talked to Ignatius Hannan, telling him she wanted to go to Rome. He said he wished she’d brought it up earlier, when he was trying to send John Burke back in a company plane. Heather said she wished so, too. The upshot was that he offered her
one of Empedocles’ planes. When she told Traeger, she said, “So that is how you’ll get to Rome.”

  V

  “If you would steal, you would lie.”

  The call came on his cell phone, which was unusual, as no one knew the number of his cell phone. Even so, Jay had caller identification, and the area code meant nothing to him. He took the call.

  “Father Trepanier.”

  “Jean-Jacques Trepanier?”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “On peut parler français?”

  “S’il vous plaît.”

  “Comme vous savez le soi-disant troisième secret de Fatima a été volé de la bibliothèque du Vatican.”

  Jay said that he had indeed heard of the missing file from the Vatican Library.

  “I have it.”

  There are problems that are the delight of moral theologians. While one may never do evil in order that good might ensue, how is one to construe the case where an innocent life can be saved only by means that, by and large, would be wrong. “Par exemple,” Professor Coté would say, his eyes shining with the hope that he could make relativists of them all. “For example, you promise a man that you will not reveal that he has a deadly, communicable venereal disease. He does not tell you and you do not make it a condition of your promise that he will remain celibate. Enter your only lovely daughter announcing that she has agreed to marry the man. Would you keep your promise?” While all around him fellow students were declaring that they would consider themselves absolved of the obligation to keep a secret, Jay alone had held out for the exceptionless character of promise keeping. Debate raged, Jay was attacked from all sides, while Professor Coté looked on, delighted. When the bell rang signifying the end of the class, Jay announced that he had been lying, of course he would break his promise. And why had he lied? It was an agreement he had made with Professor Coté before the class. Coté erupted in fury. No such agreement had been entered into. “Either I am lying when I assert it or when I deny it,” Jay had said triumphantly.

  Beware of the casuist. That was the main lesson Jay took away from his study of moral theology. Cases or examples invented for classroom discussion reduce moral decision to a game. He alone had rejected the famous principle of double effect, the usual dodge to get around prohibition of evildoing. I do not intend the death of the unborn child when I remove a cancerous uterus; my intention is to save the life of the mother and not to kill the child, however necessarily connected the two events may be. Again he stood alone against such tomfoolery. Save them both, he had cried.

  “That is impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible to God.”

  “A surgeon is not God.”

  “Precisely my point.”

  He had not been popular, and he had exulted in his unpopularity. Now, for the first time in his life, and in the real world, he seemed confronted with such a problem.

  “How did it come into your possession?” he asked his caller.

  “There is no need to go into that.”

  “If you would steal, you would lie. How do I know it is authentic?”

  By asking the question, he had already crossed the line, and he knew it. He was bargaining with a thief but what was at issue was the third secret of Fatima!

  “You will know,” the man assured him.

  “What do you want?”

  “Four million dollars.”

  Jay laughed. “That is absurd.”

  “Not everyone will think so.”

  “Wait!” If not everyone, then someone, and Jay knew who that someone was. His mind was darting from thought to thought, from premise to conclusion, but looming behind it all was the face of that someone. “I will need time.”

  “Twenty-four hours.”

  The connection was broken. Jay took the cell phone from his ear and stared at it as Adam had stared at the apple from which he had just taken a bite. He closed the instrument and put it in his pocket.

  First, he went to the chapel and knelt before a statue representing Our Lady of Fatima, asking what he should do. But he had already made up his mind, and he knew it. He left the chapel, got into his car, and carefully, using both thumbs, punched in the number of Ignatius Hannan.

  Laura Burke put him through, despite her initial remark that Mr. Hannan was unavailable. The urgency in his voice convinced her that this call was indeed a matter of life or death. He waited. Life and death represented a contrast that had been brought vividly home to those at Empedocles.

  “Hannan.”

  “This is Father Trepanier. I must see you at once.”

  “Work it out with Laura, Father. She makes all my appointments.”

  “She put me through to you. I will say only this.” He took a deep breath. “The third secret of Fatima.” Another breath. “I have it.”

  A pardonable anticipation of a future fact.

  “That’s impossible.”

  Hannan’s matter-of-fact tone brought Jay down to earth. How could he possibly know if his mysterious caller had what he claimed to have? Against his better judgment, he decided that he had to say more if he was to insure the cooperation of Ignatius Hannan. Who else could come up with four million dollars without batting an eye?

  As calmly as he could, he told Hannan of the phone call. He reminded him of what they knew of recent events in Rome. No need to emphasize the importance of the third secret itself. With it in hand, they could demonstrate that the so-called revelation of the year 2000 had been only partial.

  “You’re being had,” Hannan said with infuriating calm.

  “I am convinced this man has what he claims to have.” Hannan’s skepticism fed his own sense of certainty.

  “He doesn’t.”

  “How can you possibly say that?”

  “Because I already have it.”

  Jay drove down the interstate in a trance. When one has his eyes tested, he is asked to look directly into a beam of light. Doing so blinds the eye to everything else. Jay drove as if he were heading into such a light. Was it possible that he would soon hold in his hands the little school notebook in which Sister Lucia had written with her precise and careful hand the message meant for the Holy Father, a message of consummate importance for the Church and the world? Who could regard the revelation of 2000 as conveying such urgency? The whole point of that exercise had seemingly been to marginalize private revelations, to insist that nothing essentially new was in the message. The catechism was more informative of what the Christian needs to know than the document supposedly being made public. They might have been scolding the Blessed Mother for wasting their time. The only way to counter that was to compare what had been released with the message itself. The message Hannan calmly asserted was now in his possession.

  At the gate, the guard would not let him through without calling the administration building. Security had been tightened as the result of recent events. Jay was asked to look into a camera.

  “It’s okay,” Laura Burke said, her voice seeming to come from out of thin air. “Welcome, Father Trepanier.”

  He thanked the camera and proceeded up the drive to the administration building.

  How painful to be only a spectator at such an historic moment. In the manner of gawkers, Jay wanted to press through and be among those closest to the table. Gabriel Faust stood behind it.

  “We delayed this in order that you might witness it, Father Trepanier,” Hannan said.

  Now Ray Sinclair stepped aside so Jay could get closer.

  Faust began with a lecture! He reminded them of the provenance of the holdings of even the most prestigious museums. Conquerors had carted home works of art, the spoils of war; many items had come into the possession of museums in a manner that would not withstand close scrutiny. Faust cited the Ambrosiana in Milan.

  “All this as preface to the fact that I do not intend to discuss how this document came into the possession of Refuge of Sinners. The important thing is that it is here, safe and secure.”

  “The
re is no doubt of its authenticity?”

  Faust nodded as if to show the relevance of Jay’s question. “The leading expert in the field, a friend of mine, as it happens, Miki Inagaki, has subjected it to the most demanding tests.” Faust smiled at Jay. “It is authentic.”

  “And may I examine it?”

  Ignatius Hannan took over. “I understand your curiosity, Father.”

  Curiosity!

  “But given all the controversy that has been stirred up by this document, I don’t think that any of us has the right to examine it. It is my plan to return it where it belongs, the Vatican Library.”

  Jay could not believe his ears. Return the rescued lamb to the wolves? That would be insane. Here was the opportunity to settle once and for all the adequacy of the revelation made in 2000 by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI. Jay had fallen into the intonations of a television commentator as he spoke, someone on the History Channel, perhaps, stating information his listeners knew perhaps as well as he.

  Ignatius Hannan was adamant. He had okayed the purchase of this document in order to return it to the Vatican. There was nothing to discuss.

  “I know you understand, Father Trepanier.”

  “You overestimate me.”

  Jay watched Gabriel Faust bear the precious notebook away to its temporary resting place in Empedocles’ safe. Drinks were served. They seemed to be celebrating the defeat of all his hopes. Sick at heart, he slipped away, but before he left the building, his name was called. He turned. It was Gabriel Faust.

  “Could I have a word with you, Father?”

  VI

  As he waited, he was thinking.

  Anatoly did not make a second call to Jean-Jacques Trepanier. He had picked up the number of the priest’s cell phone while sitting outside the entrance to Fatima Now! in the car he had acquired across the border. As they talked, he had been able to watch the priest and he knew he had his fish hooked. If nothing else, Anatoly meant to gain something from this infuriatingly frustrating series of events. He was not one to brood over the lives that had to be taken on the way to the goal. His whole training made that inevitable, neither good nor bad. But to have come this whole bloody way and find that the document he had was not the one he sought tested the slow, sullen patience with which he had practiced his craft over the years.