The Expected One (52 page)

Peter transported his precious cargo carefully in his black leather carry-on bag. He crossed the river on his way to Notre-Dame, where he was met at a side entrance by Father Marcel. The Frenchman ushered Peter in and crossed with him through the rear of the cathedral, where they entered a chamber door camouflaged by an ornate choir screen.

Peter entered the room, expecting to see his handler, Bishop Magnus O’Connor. Instead he was met by another official of the Church, an imposing Italian wearing the red robes of a cardinal. “Your Grace,” he gasped, “forgive me. I did not expect this.”

“Yes, I understand that you were expecting Bishop Magnus. He will not be coming. I believe he has done quite enough already.” The Italian official kept his face expressionless as he held out his hands for the bag. “You have the scrolls in there, I assume?”

Peter nodded.

“Good. Now, my son,” the Cardinal said as he took the bag from Peter. “Let us talk about the events of these past weeks. Or perhaps we should talk of the events of these past years? I will let you decide where to begin.”

Château des Pommes Bleues
July 3, 2005

T
HERE HAD BEEN FRENETIC ACTIVITY
at the château all day. Sinclair and Roland were buzzing around, chattering in French and Occitan with each other, with the servants, and with various people by telephone. On two occasions Maureen thought she heard Roland speaking Italian, but she wasn’t certain and didn’t want to ask.

She joined Tammy for a while in the media room, looking through some footage for her documentary on the bloodline. They talked about how Mary Magdalene’s scrolls would change Tammy’s perspective as a filmmaker. Maureen gained added respect for her friend as she saw how capable and creative she was, and how Tammy was able to throw herself into her work when she was stressed, as they all were at the moment.

Maureen, on the other hand, felt absolutely useless. She couldn’t concentrate on anything, had absolutely no focus. She felt she should be scribbling notes furiously, trying to capture from memory as much as she could about the Magdalene material. But she was simply unable to do it. She was too disheartened by the personal betrayal of Peter. Whatever his motives, he had left without saying a word, and he had taken something that was not his to take. Maureen thought it would be a very long time before she recovered from this.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair with just three of them — Maureen, Tammy, and Sinclair. Roland was out but would be returning shortly, according to Sinclair and Tammy. He was picking up a guest from the private airport in Carcassonne, Tammy explained. Once this mystery guest arrived, they would have more information. Maureen nodded her understanding. She had long since learned that pushing an issue here didn’t get her anywhere. They would reveal their secrets in their own time; it was part of the culture here in Arques. But she did notice that Sinclair appeared more tense than usual.

Shortly after they adjourned for coffee in the study, a servant came in and spoke to Sinclair in French.

“Good. Our guest has arrived,” he translated for Tammy and Maureen.

Roland came through the door with an equally imposing man. He was dressed in dark clothing, casual but elegant and of the finest Italian fabrics. This man had the air of an aristocrat and was clearly comfortable with his power and influence. He commanded the energy in the room from the moment he entered.

Roland stepped forward. “Mademoiselle Paschal, Mademoiselle Wisdom, it is my pleasure to introduce you to our esteemed friend, Cardinal DeCaro.”

DeCaro held out his hand to Maureen first and then to Tammy. He smiled warmly at both women. “It is a pleasure.” He gestured to Maureen and asked Roland, “This is our Expected One?”

Roland nodded.

“I’m sorry, did you say ‘Cardinal’?” Maureen asked.

“Do not let the simple clothes fool you,” Sinclair said from behind her. “Cardinal DeCaro is an official of immense influence in the Vatican. And perhaps his complete name will be helpful to you. This is Tomas Francesco Borgia DeCaro.”

“Borgia?” Tammy exclaimed.

The Cardinal nodded, a simple answer to Tammy’s unspoken question. Roland winked at her from across the room.

“His Excellency would like to spend some time with Mademoiselle Paschal alone, so we will leave the two of them for now,” Roland said. “Please ring if you require anything.”

Roland held the door for Sinclair and Tammy as Cardinal DeCaro gestured to Maureen to sit at the mahogany table. He took a seat opposite her. “Signorina Paschale, I want to tell you first that I have met with your cousin.”

Maureen was taken aback by this. She didn’t know what she had expected, but this wasn’t it. “Where is Peter?”

“On his way to Rome. I was with him in Paris earlier today. He is well, and the documents that you discovered are safe.”

“Safe where? And with who? What…”

“Patience, I will tell you everything. But there is something I would like to show you first.”

The Cardinal reached into an attaché case he had carried into the room and removed a series of red folders. They were labeled
EDOUARD PAUL PASCHAL
.

Maureen gasped as she saw the labels. “That’s my father’s name.”

“Yes. And in these folders you will see photographs of your father. But I need to prepare you. What you are about to see is disturbing, yet very important for you to understand.”

Maureen opened the top folder, dropping it onto the table the first time as her hands started to shake. Cardinal DeCaro narrated as she looked slowly through the graphic photos of her father’s wounds.

“He was a stigmatic. Do you know what that is? He manifested the wounds of Christ on his body. There are his wrists, his feet, and the fifth point here, below his ribs, the wound where Longinus the centurion pierced Our Lord with a spear.”

Maureen stared at the photos, dumbfounded. Twenty-five years of speculation about her father’s alleged “illness” had corroded her opinion of him. Now it was falling into place — her mother’s fear and hostility, her anger toward the Church. And this explained the letter from her father to the Gélis family that was in the archives here at the château. He was writing to the Gélises because of his stigmata — and because he wanted to protect his child from the same tortured fate. Maureen looked at the Cardinal through her tears.

“I — I was always told that he took his own life due to mental illness. My mother said he was insane when he died. I had no idea, no one ever told me anything like this…”

The churchman nodded solemnly. “Your father was misunderstood by a great many people, I’m afraid,” he said. “Even those who should have been able to help him, his own Church. This is where your cousin comes in.”

Maureen looked up, listening with her full attention. She could feel the chills running down her back and all the way to her toes as the Cardinal continued.

“Your cousin is a good man, Signorina. I think you will not judge him for what has happened when I tell you this. But, you see, we must begin back when you were a child. When your father developed the stigmata, the local priest he went to for help was part of a rogue organization within the Church. We are like all people — we are human. And while most of us within the Church are dedicated to the path of goodness, there are some who would protect certain beliefs at any cost.

“Your father’s case should have been brought directly to Rome, but it was not. We would have helped him, worked with him to find the source or understand the holy significance of his wounds. But the men who intercepted him made their own determination that he was dangerous. As I said, they were rogues within the Church, operating on their own agenda, but they had influence that stretched into the upper ranks, which is something I have only recently discovered.”

The Cardinal continued to explain the vast network that emanates from the Vatican, the tens of thousands of men who work throughout the world to preserve the faith. With such enormous numbers spread over the face of the earth, it was impossible to track the personal motives of individuals or even groups of men. An extremist shadow organization had developed following Vatican II, a cadre of priests who vehemently opposed the reforms of the Church. A young Irish priest called Magnus O’Connor was recruited to join this organization, as were a number of young Irish men. O’Connor was working in the parish outside New Orleans when Edouard Paschal contacted the Church for help.

O’Connor had been spooked by Paschal’s stigmata, but even more disturbed by his visions of Jesus with a woman by his side, and Jesus as a father with children. The Irish cleric had evaluated the case within his own secret organization rather than through official Church channels. After Edouard Paschal took his own life out of despair and confusion over his stigmata, this shadow organization within the Church continued to watch his wife and daughter. Little Maureen Paschal had visions like those of her father from the time she was a toddler. O’Connor convinced her mother, Bernadette, to distance the child from the Paschal family. It was then that Maureen’s mother moved them back to Ireland and reverted to her maiden name of Healy. She attempted to change her daughter’s name, but at almost eight years old Maureen was already extremely strong-willed. The child refused, insisting that Paschal was her name and she would not change that for any reason.

It proved immensely convenient for Magnus O’Connor, now elevated to the rank of bishop, that the Paschal girl had a close relative with a vocation. When Peter Healy entered the seminary, O’Connor worked the Irish angle to get to Peter in the same way they had worked on Bernadette. Peter was informed of Edouard Paschal’s history and asked to keep a close eye on his cousin and make regular reports on her progress.

Maureen stopped the Cardinal to ask for clarification. “You’re telling me that my cousin has been watching me and reporting my actions to these men since I was a child?”

“Yes, Signorina, that is the truth. However, Father Healy did not do so out of anything but love. These men manipulated him, led him to understand that this was all in the interest of protecting you. He did not know that they had refused to help your father or, worse, that they were perhaps to blame for his sad demise.”

The Cardinal looked at her with compassion. “I believe that your cousin’s motives where you are concerned are pure and commendable, in the same way that I believe he chose to turn over the scrolls to the Church for the right reasons.”

“But how can that be? He knows what’s in them. How can he want to suppress that?”

“It would be an easy thing to misjudge him based on the limited information that you possess. But I do not believe that Father Healy wanted to suppress anything. We have reason to suspect that Bishop O’Connor and his organization put pressure on him by threatening your safety. Please understand that this is entirely outside of official Church business and is not sanctioned by Rome. But your cousin took the scrolls to O’Connor to trade for your safety.”

Maureen was allowing it all to sink in, not sure how she should feel. There was a sense of relief that Peter, the only true and trusted ally in her life, had not betrayed her in any real sense. But there was so much new information to digest.

“And how did you discover all of this?” Maureen wanted to know.

“O’Connor’s ambition got the best of him. He was hoping to utilize the discovery of Mary’s gospel for his own advancement within the accepted hierarchy of the Church. In turn, he would have more power and access to higher-level information for his shadow organization and their intolerant agenda.” Cardinal DeCaro’s smile was just the slightest bit smug. “But don’t worry. We are working to reassign O’Connor and his associates now that we have identified them all. Our intelligence network is second to none.”

This did not surprise Maureen, who had always thought of the Catholic Church as an omnipotent organization with arms that stretched all the way around the world. She knew they were the richest organization on the planet and had the best resources that money could buy.

“What will happen to Mary’s scrolls?” she asked him, preparing herself for an unpleasant answer.

“If I am to be honest with you, it is hard to say. I am sure that you can understand that this discovery is the most important of our time, if not the most important in Church history. It is a matter that will need to be discussed at the highest levels once they are authenticated.”

“Peter told you what was in them?”

The Cardinal indicated affirmatively. “Yes, I read some of his notes. Signorina Paschale, this may surprise you, but we do not sit on silver thrones in the Vatican and plan conspiracies all day.”

Maureen laughed with him for a moment, then asked very seriously, “Will the Church try to stop me if I write about my experiences here — and more important, if I write about what is in the scrolls?”

“You are free to do whatever you choose and go where your heart and conscience guide you. If God is working through you to reveal Mary’s words, it would not be anyone’s place to stop you from that sacred duty. The Church does not set out to suppress information, as many believe. That may have been true in the Middle Ages, but it is not today. The Church is interested in the survival and propagation of the faith — and it is my personal belief that the discovery of Mary Magdalene’s gospel may give us a new opportunity to bring more and younger people into our fold. But” — he held up his hand as he said this — “I am only one man. I cannot speak for the others, nor for the Holy Father himself. Time will tell.”

“And until then, what happens?”

“Until then, the Arques Gospel of Mary Magdalene shall be preserved in the Vatican library, under the observation of one Father Peter Healy.”

“Peter is going to stay in Rome?”

“Yes, Signorina Paschale. He will oversee the team of official translators. It is a great honor, but one that we feel he deserves. And do not think we have forgotten your contribution,” he said, handing her a calling card from his attaché case. “Here is my personal line in Vatican City. When you are ready, we would like to invite you to be our guest. I would like to hear from your lips the entire journey that brought you here to this place. Oh, and you can reach your cousin at this number until his own is established. He will be working for me directly.”