Rain pounded the cafe's roof.
"Why did Clement send you here?"
"I wish I knew. He was obsessed with the third secret, and this place had something to do with it."
He decided to tell her about Clement's vision, but he omitted all reference to the Virgin asking the pope to end his life. He kept his voice in a whisper.
"You're here because the Virgin Mary told Clement to send you?" she asked.
He caught the waitress's attention and held up two fingers for a couple more beers.
"Sounds to me like Clement was losing it."
"Exactly why the world will never know what happened."
"Maybe it should."
He didn't like the comment. "I've spoken with you in confidence."
"I know that. I'm just saying, maybe the world should know about this."
He realized there was no way that could ever happen, given how Clement had died. He stared out at the street flooded with rain. There was something he wanted to know. "What about us, Kate?"
"I know where I plan to go."
"What would you do in Romania?"
"Help those kids. I could journal the effort. Write about it for the world. Draw attention."
"Pretty tough life."
"It's my home. You're not telling me anything I don't already know."
"Ex-priests don't make much."
"It doesn't take much to live there."
He nodded and wanted to reach over and take her hand. But that wouldn't be smart. Not here.
She seemed to sense his wish and smiled. "Save it, until we get back to the hotel."
FORTY-THREE
VATICAN CITY, 7:00 P.M.
"I call for a third ballot," the cardinal from the Netherlands said. He was the archbishop of Utrecht and one of Valendrea's staunchest supporters. Valendrea had arranged with him yesterday that if no success came on the first two ballots, he was to immediately call for a third.
Valendrea was not happy. Ngovi's twenty-four votes on the first scrutiny had been a surprise. He'd expected him to garner a dozen or so, no more. His own thirty-two were okay, but a long way from the seventy-six needed for election.
The second scrutiny, though, shocked him, and it had taken all his diplomatic reserve to keep his temper in check. Ngovi's support increased to thirty, while his own nudged up to a weak forty-one. The remaining forty-two votes were scattered among three other candidates. Conclave wisdom proclaimed that a front-runner must gain a respectable amount of support with each succeeding scrutiny. A failure to do so was perceived as weakness, and cardinals were notorious for abandoning weak candidates. Dark horses had many times emerged after the second ballot to claim the papacy. John Paul I and II were both elected that way, as was Clement XV. Valendrea did not want a repeat.
He imagined the pundits in the piazza musing over two billows of black smoke. Irritating asses like Tom Kealy would be telling the world the cardinals must surely be divided, no one candidate emerging as front-runner. There'd be more Valendrea-bashing. Kealy had surely taken a perverse pleasure in slandering him for the past two weeks, and quite cleverly he had to admit. Never had Kealy made any personal comments. No reference to his pending excommunication. Instead, the heretic had offered the Italians-versus-the-world argument, which apparently played well. He should have pushed the tribunal to defrock Kealy weeks ago. At least then he'd be an ex-priest with suspect credibility. As it stood, the fool was perceived as a maverick challenging the established guard, a David versus Goliath, and no ever rooted for the giant.
He watched as the cardinal-archivist passed out more ballots. The old man made his way down the row in silence and threw Valendrea a quick glare of defiance as he handed him a blank card. Another problem that should have been dealt with long ago.
Pencils once again scraped across paper and the ritual of depositing ballots into the silver chalice was repeated. The scrutineers shuffled the cards and started counting. He heard his name called fifty-nine times. Ngovi's was repeated forty-three. The remaining eleven votes remained scattered.
Those would be critical.
He needed seventeen more to achieve election. Even if he garnered every one of the eleven stragglers, he would still need six of Ngovi's supporters, and the African was gaining strength at an alarming rate. The most frightening prospect was that each one of the eleven scattered votes he failed to sway would have to come from Ngovi's total, and that could begin to prove impossible. Cardinals tended to dig in after the third vote.
He'd had enough. He stood. "I think, Eminences, we have challenged ourselves enough for today. I suggest we eat dinner and rest and resume in the morning."
It wasn't a request. Any participant possessed the right to stop the voting. His gaze strafed the chapel, settling from time to time on men he suspected to be traitors.
He hoped the message was clear.
The black smoke that would soon seep from the Sistine matched his mood.
FORTY-FOUR
MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
11:30 P.M.
Michener awoke from a sound sleep. Katerina lay beside him. An uneasiness flowed through him that seemed unrelated to their lovemaking. He felt no guilt about once more breaching his vow of Holy Orders, but it frightened him that what he'd worked a lifetime to achieve meant so little. Maybe it was simply that the woman lying next to him meant more. He'd spent two decades serving the Church and Jakob Volkner. But his dear friend was dead and a new day was being forged in the Sistine Chapel, one that would not include him. The 268th successor to St. Peter would shortly be elected. And though he'd come close to a red hat, that was simply not to be. His destiny apparently lay elsewhere.
Another strange feeling surged through him--an odd combination of anxiety and stress. Earlier, in his dreams, he kept hearing Jasna. Don't forget Bamberg . . . I have prayed for the pope. His soul needs our prayers. Was she trying to tell him something? Or simply convince him.
He climbed from the bed.
Katerina did not stir. She'd enjoyed several beers at dinner and alcohol had always made her sleepy. Outside, the storm was still raging, rain pecking the glass, lightning strobing the room.
He crept to the window and looked out. Water pelted the terra-cotta roofs of the buildings across the street and streamed in rivers from drainpipes. Parked cars lined both sides of the quiet lane.
A lone figure stood in the center of the soaked pavement.
He focused on the face.
Jasna.
Her head was angled up, toward his window. The sight of her startled him and made him want to cover his nakedness, though he quickly realized she could not possibly see him. The curtains were partially drawn, a set of lace sheers between him and the sash, the outer pane smeared with rain. He was standing back, the room dark, outside even darker. But in the wash of the streetlights four stories down, he could see Jasna watching.
Something urged him to reveal his presence.
He parted the sheers.
Her right arm motioned for him to come. He didn't know what to do. She gestured again with a simple wave of her hand. She wore the same clothes and tennis shoes from earlier, the dress pasted to her thin frame. Her long hair was soaked, but she seemed unfazed by the storm.
She beckoned again.
He looked over at Katerina. Should he wake her? Then he stared back out the window. Jasna was shaking her head no, and motioning once more.
Damn. Did she know what he was thinking?
He decided there was no choice and quietly dressed.
He stepped from the hotel's entrance.
Jasna still stood in the street.
Lightning crackled overhead, and a renewed burst of rain poured from the blackened sky. He carried no umbrella.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"If you want to know the tenth secret, come with me."
"Where?"
"Must you question everything? Is nothing accepted on faith?"
"We're standing in the mid
dle of a downpour."
"It's a cleanse for the body and soul."
This woman frightened him. Why? He was unsure. Maybe it was his compulsion to do as she asked.
"My car is over there," she said.
A tattered Ford Fiesta coupe was parked down the street. He followed her to it and she drove out of town, stopping at the base of a darkened mound in a parking lot devoid of vehicles. A sign revealed by the headlights read CROSS MOUNTAIN.
"Why here?" he asked.
"I have no idea."
He wanted to ask her who did, but let it go. This was obviously her show, and she intended to play it out her way.
They climbed out into the rain and he followed her toward a footpath. The ground was spongy, the rocks slippery.
"We're going to the top?" he asked.
She turned back. "Where else?"
He tried to recall the details of Cross Mountain the guide had spewed out on the bus trip. More than sixteen hundred feet tall, it held a cross atop that had been erected in the 1930s by the local parish. Though unrelated to the apparitions, a climb to the summit was thought part of "the Medjugorje experience." But no one was partaking tonight. And he wasn't particularly thrilled about being sixteen hundred feet up in the middle of an electrical storm. Yet Jasna seemed unaffected and, strangely, he was drawing strength from her courage.
Was that faith?
The climb was made more difficult by rivulets of water gushing past him. His clothes were soaked, his shoes caked with mud, and only lightning illuminated the way. He opened his mouth and allowed the rain to soak his tongue. Thunder clapped overhead. It was as if the center of the storm had settled directly above them.
The crest appeared after twenty minutes of hard climbing. His thighs ached and the back of his calves throbbed.
Before him rose the darkened outline of a massive white cross, perhaps forty feet tall. At its concrete base, flower bouquets were buffeted by the storm. A few of the arrangements lay strewn about by the wind.
"They come from all over the world," she said, pointing to the blossoms. "They climb and lay offerings and pray to the Virgin. Yet she never once appeared here. But they still come. Their faith is to be admired."
"And mine is not?"
"You have no faith. Your soul is in jeopardy."
The tone was matter-of-fact, like a wife telling a husband to take out the trash. Thunder rumbled past like a bass drum being worked to a beat. He waited for the inevitable flash of lightning and the burst splintered the sky in fractured bolts of blue-white light. He decided to confront this seer. "What's there to have faith in? You know nothing of religion."
"I only know of God. Religion is man's creation. It can be changed, altered, or discarded entirely. Our Lord is another matter."
"But men invoke the power of God to justify their religions."
"It means nothing. Men like you must change that."
"How would I possibly do that?"
"By believing, having faith, loving our Lord, and doing as He asks. Your pope tried to change things. Carry on his efforts."
"I'm no longer in a position to do anything."
"You are in the same position in which Christ found Himself, and He changed everything."
"Why are we here?"
"Tonight will be the final vision of our Lady. She said for me to come, at this hour, and to bring you. She will leave a visible sign of Her presence. She promised that when She first came, and now She will keep that promise. Have faith in this moment--not later, when all will be clear."
"I'm a priest, Jasna. I don't need to be converted."
"You doubt, but do nothing to relieve that doubt. You, more than anyone, need to convert. This is the time of grace. A time for a deepening faith. A time for conversion. That's what the Virgin told me today."
"What did you mean by Bamberg?"
"You know what I meant."
"That's not an answer. Tell me what you meant."
The rain quickened and a fresh burst of wind whipped drops like pinpricks across his face. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, Jasna was on her knees, hands clasped in prayer, the same faraway look from this afternoon in her eyes as she stared up to the black sky.
He knelt beside her.
She seemed so vulnerable, no longer the defiant seer seemingly better than everyone else. He looked skyward and saw nothing but the blackened outline of the cross. A flash of lightning momentarily gave life to the image. Then darkness reenveloped the cross.
"I can remember. I know I can," she said to the night.
Thunder again rolled across the sky.
They needed to leave, but he was hesitant to interrupt. It might not be real to him, but it was to her.
"Dear Lady, I had no idea," she said to the wind.
A bright flash of light found earth and the cross exploded in a burst of heat that engulfed them.
His body rose off the ground and flew backward.
A strange tingling surged through his limbs. His head slammed into something hard. A wave of dizziness swept through him, then sickening nausea claimed his gut. His vision swirled. He tried to concentrate, to force himself to stay awake, but couldn't.
Finally, everything went silent.
FORTY-FIVE
VATICAN CITY
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29
12:30 A.M.
Valendrea buttoned his cassock and left his room in the Domus Sanctae Marthae. As secretary of state he'd been provided one of the larger spaces, normally used by the prelate who managed the dormitory for seminarians. A similar privilege had been extended to the camerlengo and the head of the Sacred College. The accommodations were not what he was accustomed to, but a big improvement from the days when a conclave meant sleeping on a cot and peeing into a bucket.
The route from the dormitory to the Sistine was through a series of secured passages. This was a change from the last conclave when cardinals were bused and escorted when traveling between the dormitory and the chapel. Many had resented having a chaperone, so a sealable route had been created through the Vatican corridors, available only to conclave participants.
He'd quietly made clear during dinner that he wanted to meet with three of the cardinals later, and the three now waited inside the Sistine, at the opposite end from the altar, near the marble gate. Beyond, past the sealed entrance, in the hallway outside, he knew Swiss guards stood ready to throw open the bronze doors once white smoke seeped skyward. No one really expected that to occur after midnight, so the chapel would provide a safe place for a discreet discussion.
He approached the three cardinals and did not give them a chance to speak. "I only have a few things to say." He kept his voice low. "I'm aware of what the three of you have said in previous days. You assured me of support, then privately betrayed me. Why, only you know. What I want is for the fourth ballot to be the last. If not, none of you will be a member of this college by this time next year."
One of the cardinals started to speak and he raised his right hand to silence him.
"I don't want to hear that you voted for me. All three of you have supported Ngovi. But that will change in the morning. In addition, before the first session I want others swayed. I expect a fourth-ballot victory and it's up to you three to make that happen."
"That's unrealistic," one of the cardinals said.
"What's unrealistic is how you escaped Spanish justice for embezzling Church funds. They clearly believed you a thief, they just lacked proof. I have that proof, gladly provided by a young senorita you're quite familiar with. And you other two shouldn't be so smug. I have similar files on each of you, none of the information flattering. You know what I want. Start a movement. Invoke the Holy Spirit. I don't care how it's done, just make it happen. Success will ensure that you stay in Rome."
"What if we don't want to be in Rome?" one of the three asked.
"Would you prefer prison?"
Vatican observers loved to speculate about what happened within a conclave. The archives w
ere replete with journals depicting pious men wrestling with their consciences. He'd watched during the last conclave as cardinals argued that his youth was a disadvantage, since the Church did not fare well with a prolonged papacy. Five to ten years was good. Anything more created problems. And there was truth to that conclusion. Autocracy and infallibility could be a volatile mixture. But they could also be the ingredients of change. The throne of St. Peter was the ultimate pulpit and a strong pope could not be ignored. He intended on being that kind of pope, and he wasn't about to let three petty fools ruin those plans.
"All I want to hear is my name read seventy-six times in the morning. If I have to wait, there will be consequences. My patience was tried today. I would not recommend a repeat. If my smiling face does not appear on the balcony of St. Peter's by tomorrow afternoon, before you make it back to your rooms in the Domus Sanctae Marthae to retrieve your things, your reputations will be gone."
He turned and left, not giving them the chance to utter a word.
FORTY-SIX
MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
Michener watched as the world spun in a blurry haze. His head pounded and his stomach flip-flopped. He tried to stand but couldn't. Bile pooled in his throat and his vision winked in and out.
He was still outside, now only a gentle rain soaking his already saturated clothes. Thunder overhead confirmed that the nocturnal storm was still raging. He brought his watch close to his eyes, but multiple images swirled before him and he could not read the luminous dial. He massaged his forehead and felt a knot on the back of his head.
He wondered about Jasna and was just about to call her name when a bright light appeared in the sky. He thought at first it might be another bolt of lightning, like what surely had happened earlier, but this ball was smaller, more controlled. He thought it a helicopter, but no sound preceded the blue-white splotch as it drew closer.