The Third Revelation

by Ralph McInerny

  What he wanted was the documentation on the attempted assassination of John Paul II. He was certain that the investigations would have established that the plot had neither been executed nor drawn up in the Kremlin. It offended his professional sense that such a bungled job should be attributed to the KGB. Imagine an assassin who would become part of such a crowd as that gathered in Saint Peter’s Square. Of course Agca had been apprehended immediately. Anatoly knew how he would have carried it off. From the spot where the assassination attempt had been made, Anatoly had often stood looking at the nearby building on the Janiculum hill. The house of the Augustinians was too close, one might as well be in the crowd in the square. No, the perfect position for the assassin would have been on the roof of a building Anatoly learned was the North American College. The concierge was a countryman who had gone over to Rome but welcomed the opportunity to speak Russian. He took Anatoly onto the roof. While they were up there, Lev began patting his pockets. Where were his keys?

  Anatoly helped him search. When they gave up, Lev threw up his hands. No matter. There were other sets.

  Anatoly left with the keys in his pocket.

  It was as if he were demonstrating to himself how that assassination should have been conducted. If ever any accusation had been made publicly, it would have been child’s play to show the amateurishness of the attempt.

  When he had persuaded the terrified woman in Traeger’s office that she would live only if she showed him the safe, he pulled up a patch of carpet behind Traeger’s desk and studied the dial. He shot it away and pulled the door up. And there it was, at last. He must have been smiling when he turned. Above her taped mouth, the woman’s eyes were wide with terror, looking at the still smoking gun he held. Anatoly had no wish to prolong her agony. He stepped up to her, put the gun to her head, and dispatched her.

  And then to find that what he had gotten was the account of private revelations by one of the seers of Fatima!

  His fury abated only when he reminded himself that there were some who wanted this document as much as he wanted the report of the investigation into the assassination attempt on John Paul II.

  He imagined himself once more entering the Vatican and confronting whoever was sitting in for the late Brendan Crowe and proposing an exchange. He smiled at the brazenness of the idea. He let it go only reluctantly. That would be as stupid as Acga immersing himself in the crowd in Saint Peter’s Square.

  If not a quid pro quo, then money. A huge sum of money. Money was the answer to most problems, human greed being what it was. Over the past weeks, he had learned more about Ignatius Hannan than he had cared to know, but now that knowledge seemed relevant. But here, too, a direct approach seemed inadvisable. One did not willingly return to the scene of a crime. And so he had thought of Jean-Jacques Trepanier.

  And Trepanier had taken the bait and gone to the man who had the kind of money Anatoly demanded. Anatoly followed him down the interstate, but did not, like Trepanier, enter the gate of Empedocles. He continued down the road, made a U-turn, and waited.

  As he waited, he was thinking of how the exchange could be made. The exchange was always the neuralgic point in such operations. Which is why kidnappers usually came for their reward only after having killed their hostage. Four million dollars. He smiled at the sum that had come to him as he spoke with Trepanier. The very amount underwrote the value of what he had. It was not the money itself that interested him. Oh, a fantasy of affluence flitted through his mind. He was only human, after all. A Swiss account, a dacha just outside Yalta. He dismissed the thought. He would be as bored as Chekov there.

  What he wanted was vindication, of the organization for which he had worked, for his country as it had been. He wanted to show Chekovsky how one went about such things. After that, the future became vague. It didn’t matter. He had lost interest in the future.

  An hour had gone by when Trepanier’s car emerged from the gate of the Empedocles complex. As he followed him, Anatoly punched redial. Trepanier’s was the last number he had called.

  “Do you have it?” he asked.

  “Do you expect to get your money?”

  What did four million dollars look like? “How do you propose that we make the exchange?”

  The priest laughed. “Look, I don’t know who you are and what kind of stunt you’re trying to pull.” Ahead of him, Trepanier’s car did a slight zigzag in company with his furious tone.

  “I have the third secret of Fatima.”

  “Oh do you? Perhaps it is the fourth. Ignatius Hannan has come into possession of what you so generously offered to sell me.”

  Anatoly shut off the righteous voice. He glared at the car ahead. He was tempted to stamp on the gas, ram the car, and push the priest with his taunting voice into the ditch. Instead he passed Trepanier, not looking at the man as he went by, but in the rearview mirror he watched the disappearance of one more hope.

  Either Hannan had a fraudulent copy or he did. Anatoly was no judge of such matters. He must go to one who was. To Remi Pouvoir.

  VII

  “That isn’t what I meant, Laura.”

  Heather seemed oddly reluctant to accept Laura’s offer to take her to the plane when she set off for Rome, but finally she agreed.

  “I hate to put you to any more bother, Laura.”

  “More?”

  “The plane.”

  “Oh that. It’s costing us money just sitting there, Heather.”

  Heather would know better than she would the money side. In any case, she went by for Heather and was startled to find her waiting with a bearded man who turned out to be Vincent Traeger.

  “Oh my God,” Laura cried.

  “It’s all right,” Heather said in her calmest voice. “He’s coming with me.”

  Laura looked at the man who was being sought for the murder of Father Crowe, who had recently been described by all the media as an ex-agent out of control, liable to do anything. Had Traeger somehow forced Heather to put him on the Empedocles plane? No wonder Heather had tried to refuse the offer of a ride to the airport. It occurred to Laura that now she herself was in danger.

  Heather took her aside while Traeger was putting her luggage in the trunk. “He’s none of the things they say, Laura.”

  “Is he forcing you to do this, Heather?”

  Heather actually laughed. “It was my idea.”

  “And you’re sure . . .”

  “Laura, he’s been staying with me here.”

  Well, that was a conversation stopper if Laura had ever heard one. Heather with a man in the house? Whatever persuasion Traeger had exercised now took on a different complexion. Laura stepped back, displaying her palms.

  “That isn’t what I meant, Laura.”

  And almost despite herself, Laura believed it. Heather still had an otherworldly look. She could probably have a platoon of men in the house and preserve her virtue.

  And so she drove them to the airport, went to the private plane terminal, and introduced them to the copilot and pilot, Laurel and Hardy, as Ray referred to them. A special seat had been installed for the pilot, Hardy, who was now checking the flight plan. Laurel came with them into the cabin, to settle them in. It seemed a dirty trick to involve those two in a flight to get a fugitive out of the country.

  She waited and watched the plane taxi out and get into line for takeoff. She waited another half hour until she saw it gathering speed as it went down the runway and then lift gracefully into the air. Not so long ago, she and Ray had been flying off to Rome in that very plane, combining business and illicit pleasure. On a mission from Nate. Only she and Nate knew of the mission Heather was being sent on. Laura doubted that Heather would confide in Vincent Traeger.

  Driving back to Empedocles, she thought of all the things that had happened since their fateful trip to Rome. More than anything else, she marveled at the ease with which she had accepted Heather’s explanation of the presence of Vincent Traeger in her doorway.

  He’s been sta
ying with me here. While the police and no doubt the FBI as well as Traeger’s own agency were trying to track down a man described as an out-of-control killer whose skills, once in the service of his country, were now, et cetera, et cetera. Under the flood of coverage it was difficult to resist the thought that, however he had done it, Traeger must be responsible for the death of Brendan Crowe. It had become received opinion at Empedocles. Heather must have heard the talk, the indignation expressed by Nate, the increase in security as a result: heard it all and said nothing. And Laura had accepted Heather’s assurance that Traeger was not the man so frantically described in the media.

  But her lack of concern in all that increased in direct proportion to her distance from Logan, and by the time she drove through the gate of Empedocles, her mind was full of the problems of the day. Nate’s impatient energy was now directed on the new site where Refuge of Sinners would be located. Much of the acreage of the Empedocles complex was still wooded, and the architect found a perfect location not a mile away, through the woods, at the far edge of the property. Nate went with Duncan Stroik, listened, thought about it, checked it with Laura, and then said go ahead.

  And of course he meant now. There would be a museum, a chapel, an administration building. For now. Gabriel Faust acted as if decisions were made in this way anywhere else in the world. A strange man. At first he had seemed moody, dim, a bauble Zelda had picked up on her travels, but he had gradually transformed himself into the temperamental expert called upon to explain to the uninitiated the arcana of his trade. The manuscript of the third secret had been a coup.

  “How did you learn of it?” Nate asked when Gabriel Faust informed him of the Vatican folder. Of course Laura was present.

  “A telephone call,” Faust said.

  “Some nut?”

  “Precisely my reaction. I hung up.”

  Faust explained, in more detail than was necessary, the care and caution that had led finally to the meeting with the man. At this point, he had brought Nate into the picture. The sequel had been bizarre. Nate made out a cashier’s check to the amount of four million dollars, and Gabriel Faust went off alone to keep the rendezvous. It was as elaborate as a kidnapping. Faust had been warned that his life was forfeit if anyone accompanied or followed him. An hour and a half later, he was back at Empedocles, eyes asparkle, clutching the treasure. After its authentication, the announcement was made. Poor Father Trepanier looked as if he would weep for joy.

  And now what? Gabriel deferred to Ignatius Hannan on the matter.

  “It is stolen property, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a rather stark way of putting it. As I explained, museums are full of things with histories of, shall we say, unusual previous ownership.”

  “Stolen?”

  Faust’s shoulders lifted.

  “Stolen,” declared Nate Hannan. “A message from the Blessed Virgin Mary. That adds sacrilege to the crime.”

  Faust was unprepared for this. During the announcement of the acquisition, the new director of Refuge of Sinners had been allowed to bask in his triumph. Now he was being faced with something like a scolding.

  “Rescued, perhaps.”

  Laura intervened. “Doctor, have you prepared a release on this matter? Some indication of the contents of the document?”

  “I will do so immediately.”

  “Of course you yourself have read the message,” Laura said.

  “Of course.”

  “And the expert you consulted?”

  “Inagaki, yes.”

  “Anyone else?”

  A pause, then, “No.”

  Laura said, “You hesitated.”

  “I consider my wife my alter ego, not someone else.”

  “Zelda has read the message?”

  “Oh no. No! But we discussed it. As husbands and wives will.”

  Gabriel went away to prepare the release Laura had mentioned.

  “Well?”

  Nate looked at her. But Laura had long since learned to discern when he really wanted her advice.

  She said, “What do you intend to do?”

  “Return it.”

  Return it unread. Ignatius Hannan had no intention in the world of reading a message from the Blessed Virgin, through Sister Lucia, that had been meant for the eyes of the pope. He had meant it when he had added sacrilege to theft in speaking of how this document had come into his possession. After the announcement, the precious document had gone into the Empedocles safe.

  Gabriel Faust brought a statement on the new acquisition. Nate thanked him and had Laura rewrite it.

  VIII

  He told her about Bea.

  When they landed in Rome, Father John Burke met them with a Vatican car. He sat up front with the driver as they took Heather to the Bridgetines near the Campo dei Fiori where she would stay. Then they went on to the Casa del Clero next to the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, where Burke smoothed the way. He came up with him to the little boxlike room with an armoire, a desk, and a bed that looked perhaps two feet wide. Traeger dropped his bag on the bed.

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “It is pretty austere, isn’t it? Laura emphasized something out of the way. What could be more out of the way than a residence for priests?”

  Burke assured him that none of his fellow residents would question him or probably show much interest in him at all.

  “Temporaries come and go, and the permanent residents hang together. The beard was a good idea.”

  Well, that cleared that up. Traeger had wondered if Father Burke knew he was sheltering a fugitive. Whatever Laura had told him seemed to have allayed any doubts he’d had. He handed Traeger his card.

  “My cell phone is also listed there.”

  Traeger brought it to his brow in a salute. And then he was alone.

  The adjoining bath was almost as large as the room. He put his bag on the floor and lay on the bed. The room had a very high ceiling. Traeger began to compute the square footage, comparing the height of the walls with the width of the room. Turn it on its side, and it wouldn’t be so bad.

  He was not complaining. At Heather’s he had had time to think. He needed more time. The image of Bea, taped in that chair, came and went. The poor, dear woman. During his active years, he had often worried that she might be exposed to danger, but it had never happened. Since his retirement, he had unwisely ceased to worry.

  Was Dortmund, too, dead, yet to be discovered, added to the toll Anatoly was taking? But Dortmund had been part of the game, he had survived years of undeclared combat, and he had earned the peace and quiet of his place beside the sea. Now it seemed to Traeger that Dortmund had had some premonition that the two of them were moving back into the target area when he sent Traeger off to Rome.

  Well, now he was back in Rome, this time to escape the baying hounds that had been after him in the States. The rogue ex-agent.

  “I can’t stay here,” he had said to Heather when he returned after discovering the body of Bea.

  “Of course you can.”

  “My safe was broken into.”

  She looked at him. “Is it gone?”

  “Yes.”

  He told her about Bea. The existence of evil did not seem to surprise Heather.

  While he was there, she slept on a couch downstairs in her oratory, giving Traeger the master bedroom. That was not the bedroom she used. Across the hall was a smaller bedroom with blue walls, chintzy curtains, pastel pictures, and a fluffy throw rug beside the bed. He assumed that must be her usual bedroom. But down the hall was another bedroom in which there was a single bed, a dresser, and venetian blinds at the windows. On the wall at the foot of the bed was a very large crucifix. On the dresser, a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. A wooden beaded rosary hung from the bedpost.

  Grudgingly, Traeger admired Anatoly’s skill. Not the murders—any old hand could have done those—but the manipulation of the media. Was he getting help? And from whom? The disappearance of Dortmund made Traeger realize ho
w on his own he was. Maybe it wasn’t so far off to call him a rogue ex-agent. He wondered if Carlos Rodriguez would still accept him as an authorized delegate from the old agency. It was time to find out.

  He made the call flat on his back, staring at the distant ceiling.

  “Carlos. I’m back. Where can we meet?”

  “Remember Trastevere?”

  “Of course.”

  “The trattoria next to Sabatini’s.”

  “When?”

  “Two?”

  “Two.”

  He hung up. It was not yet noon. Did he dare to fall asleep? The flight over had begun in daytime, against the movement of the sun, gaining five hours as they came. The sun had been setting behind them when they landed in Rome. He closed his eyes.

  He walked to Trastevere from the Casa, favoring narrow streets like the Via Monterone, crossed the Vittorio Emanuele, and soon was at the bridge. Central Rome, ancient Rome, is a compact place. He went past the trattoria several times. The outside tables were empty. On his third pass, he went in. Carlos was at a table. Across from him was Dortmund.

  “I thought you were dead,” Traeger said, taking a seat. For a dizzy moment he had wanted to embrace the old man.

  “They killed Marvin.” His golden retriever. “Carlos was good enough to offer me sanctuary. Almost literally.” Dortmund was housed in an apartment in the Vatican Observatory, within the walls, on a hill behind the basilica.

  To Carlos, Traeger said, “I’ve been snookered.”

  Carlos ran that through his mental dictionary.

  “Screwed.”

  “Ah.”

  “Outfoxed and robbed.”

  He explained the odd itinerary, the stolen Vatican Library file he had taken until it had been stolen again, from Traeger’s safe.