The Third Revelation (35 page)

She put a pillow over his face. He freed himself.

“Do you think that maybe Heather and Traeger ever . . .” She got the pillow back over his face and fell out of bed in the process. She went on to the shower where, all aglow, as if the water were washing her sins away, she sang, not quite in tune, “Get me to the church on time.”

 

 

But these pleasant plans were interrupted by the bombshell of Trepanier's disclosure of the suppressed third secret.

“Get Faust,” Nate said, white with fury.

Ray went away and in ten minutes was back. “He's not here.”

“Call Zelda,” he said to Laura. “I'll talk to her.”

Laura got through to the happy bride and turned the phone over to Nate.

“Zelda,” he cried, with delight, and Laura and Ray exchanged a glance.

They listened to the billionaire spend five minutes on trivia with Zelda, minutes that could have been given a more or less distinct calculation of the money they were costing him, and then, “Say, is Gabriel there?”

He listened. His expression changed. But his voice was still sweet when he said, “Zelda, sometimes I think I'll forget my own name.”

More schmoozing before he hung up.

He said, “I have just learned that I sent Gabriel Faust to Rome so that he could return the document.”

A long silence broken finally by Laura.

“Poor Zelda.”

Not Castel Gandolfo.

The Reverend Jean-Jacques Trepanier had arrived at his apotheosis. The dream of crowning achievement had been reached. He had exposed the myrmidons of the Vatican as unreliable custodians of the secrets of Fatima.

The gush of elation that surged through him was slightly abated by the thought that it was difficult to know what he could ever do that would surpass this triumph. Where does a climber go after conquering Mount Everest?

He dismissed such thoughts as unworthy, as distractions and temptations. What he had unleashed upon the world was not about Jean-Jacques Trepanier. If that were all that was at issue, he could confess to a measure of disappointment. But the very surprise of the passage Gabriel Faust had provided him in photocopy seemed a confirmation of its authenticity. Never in a million years had Trepanier imagined that Our Lady had warned of the subjugation of Europe by Islam, a new dark age spelling servitude and persecution. And to think that this had been suppressed when there was still time to storm heaven and pray that the punishment not descend.

He felt no responsibility for the riots and bombings and sacrileges that followed on the release of the suppressed portion of the third secret. The blame for all that must fall on those who had concealed the Blessed Virgin's warning.

That said, he could not look at the television coverage of what was happening, in the Arab world, in the countries of Europe, in Rome itself. Trepanier was appalled at the venom with which the Holy Father was attacked. He himself had always been careful to aim at targets beneath the Chair of Peter itself, to suggest that the pope was the victim of cynical bureaucrats. John Paul II had been too trusting. Benedict XVI was too trusting. If Trepanier felt any sadness it was at the thought of the Holy Father realizing at last how poorly he had been served by those he had trusted.

Calls came from Empedocles. He did not take them. Calls came directly from Ignatius Hannan himself, and still Trepanier did not take them. There was of course some sense of treating Hannan badly. He knew what the man must have paid for that document, whereas he had gotten the nub of the thing for a relatively modest amount. But who could own a message from the Blessed Virgin? Just as poverty and starvation trumped the right of private property, so the demands of heaven put ordinary morality in abeyance. He made a note of that; it could form the basis for his next televised sermon.

In the meantime, he went to the studio, where all scheduled programming was halted while viewers were addressed directly and live by the founder.

“Haec est dies quam fecit Dominus,”
he began, the text springing to his lips without forethought. But he was accustomed to finding himself inspired whenever he stepped before the camera. Thoughts, insights, connections came to him that he would never have come upon in the privacy of his own mind, so to speak.
“Fides ex auditu!”
That of course was the motto of the station, a reminder that he had begun with radio alone. His personal motto might have been
fides ex loquendo
.

He began with a swift, sure summary of the events of Fatima, of those successive Fridays when the beautiful lady had appeared to Jacinta and Francisco and Lucia. Jacinta and Francisco were in heaven now, beatified, whereas Sister Lucia had lived a very long life, in the course of which she was favored with other visits from the Lady. It was under instruction that she had composed her long account of the apparitions as well as later confidences she had received. These had gone to her bishop, to his superior, and eventually on to Rome, for the eyes of the Holy Father only. These were warnings to the world, made not to frighten but to stave off the punishment that must come if men continued in their sinful ways. It is an old truth, we have it from Paul himself, that no word of Scripture is without its importance, to instruct, to exhort, and so forth, and the same may be said of those words spoken in private revelations. They are all spoken for a definite purpose.

What then are we to make of those who arrogate to themselves the right to prevent the faithful from hearing the message? Who suppress news of the ultimate punishment awaiting if prayer and penance do not define our lives? But that is exactly what happened.

Worse, an effort was made to pretend that the whole had been made public. There was a great media event in 2000, complete with downloadable copies on the Internet and an accompanying theological explanation of Fatima and private revelations generally. Trepanier did not mention now, as he once had, the role Cardinal Ratzinger had played in this. In those days, he had made much of the statements of 2000 and those in the
Ratzinger Report
of 1985.

Then the secret had been called too sensational to reveal. But what was there sensational about the secret supposedly published in its entirety in 2000?

Trepanier would make no direct criticism of the Holy Father. He would leave that to more incendiary groups, no need to mention Catena and the Confraternity of Pius IX.

Now they knew what Our Lady had warned would come. The prayers, the fasting, and the penance that might have turned away the punishment had not been done. Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us.

 

 

He left the studio, waving aside the usual congratulations of the crew, and went on toward his office. As he was passing through the reception hall, his eye was caught by a monitor in the corner. Had he half expected to see himself on the screen? But it was not the scheduled programming of Fatima Now! that was being shown. The monitor had been turned to a commercial station.

Trepanier stopped, stunned at the news. The Holy Father had been removed from the Vatican by helicopter. To an undisclosed location. Not Castel Gandolfo. The Holy Father had insisted that that at least be made clear, lest that lovely town in the Alban Hills also become a target of the howling mob. The pope reportedly said something about not wanting to give the Athenians a chance to sin again against philosophy, an enigmatic remark that kept commentators and pundits occupied, diverting them from speculation about where the pope had been taken.

In Florence, where the baptistery had come under assault by Muslim rioters who were throwing buckets of filth on the engravings on its magnificent doors, a reaction had set in: the populace was rising to protect the culture that gave the city its eminence. Pitched battles were being fought. Trepanier felt his pulse quicken at the thought of Christians in hand-to-hand combat with these raging heretics.

“I don't understand.”

John Burke had taken Heather with him when he went to Cardinal Piacere to discuss the package that she had brought with her from the States.

“What is it?” he had asked.

She looked at him for a long time before she answered. As he listened, John felt that he was suddenly swept back into the madness of those days at Empedocles Inc. The secret of Fatima. He looked at the manila envelope she had given him. How in the name of God could that have been taken from the archives, found its way to Ignatius Hannan, and now been brought back by Heather? And even as he asked himself the question, he thought of Brendan. His horrible death had seemed at first only one of those random acts that characterize the modern world, a mindless slaying by a thief surprised at his work. Before John had left, he had of course heard the speculation that Vincent Traeger had been the assassin. And here he was, bearded but recognizable, standing beside Heather on the tarmac after they had descended from the private plane with the logo of Empedocles emblazoned on its tail fin.

On the drive to the Vatican, Heather sat between him and Traeger on the backseat, speaking in her calm voice of what had gone on since his departure.

“They actually thought Vincent had killed Father Crowe.” The incredulity in her voice was infectious.

“But how did Mr. Hannan come into possession of this?”

“He bought it.”

“From whom?”

“From the one who took it from Vincent's office.”

Traeger added to this story, making it more mystifying still. An ex-Soviet agent roaming the country?

“He killed your friend,” Traeger said.

“But why?”

“For that.”

“My God.” The package suddenly seemed heavier than before.

The driver had been given instructions to take them to the Casa del Clero, and once Traeger was settled there, John took Heather on to the Bridgetine convent. It was the following morning that he came by for her, wanting her to accompany him on his visit to Cardinal Piacere. The thought of telling this twisted tale all by himself was not welcome; he wanted Heather there to supply answers to the questions the cardinal would surely ask and to which John himself did not have the answers.

Meanwhile Rome had become a war zone. The main streets of the old city were crowded with men in burnooses and women in burkas. Signs in Arabic and Italian proclaiming that there is no God but Allah were everywhere. At the first outbreak of violence, John had received permission to have Heather transferred to the contemplative community founded by John Paul II, the convent within the walls of the Vatican. A Carmelite welcomed them and Heather stepped back.

“Saint Teresa!” she said.

The nun smiled. “No, Sister Dolores.”

“I meant the habit.”

“I know, I know.” She took Heather's arm and looked at John. “She'll be fine here.”

When he came by for her, to take her along on the appointment with Cardinal Piacere, she was radiant.

“What a heavenly place, Father.”

“I have said Mass there once or twice.”

“Two of them speak English.”

“So does Cardinal Piacere,” John said, and they started down the road to the office of the acting secretary of state. To their right, higher still, was the observatory, and below them was the building in which John worked, which housed the various pontifical academies. After the tumult of the city, the quiet, the peacefulness was all the more striking.

 

 

Bernagni, a priest John knew from the Domus, welcomed them in the outer office and took them right in to the cardinal, muttering about the tightness of the schedule. Piacere rose slightly from his chair, making a little bow to Heather, and asked them to pull chairs up to his.

“So you are the assistant of the famous Ignatius Hannan?” Cardinal Piacere said to Heather.

“Is he famous? I suppose he is. No, I am not his assistant. That is Laura, Father Burke's sister.”

“And you are a messenger who brings things to Rome?”

“This is my very first visit, Your Eminence.” John had told her the correct form of address.

“You have come in troubled times.” Piacere made a gesture and Bernagni came forward to give him the envelope Heather had brought. “All because of this.”

And then, as John had predicted, the cardinal wanted as complete an account of the document as Heather could give him. She made a point of the fact that people had died because of it.

“Father Brendan Crowe,” John said.

“And Vincent Traeger's secretary, Beatrice.”

Piacere repeated the name with an Italian pronunciation.

“Ah. Be-a-tri-ce. Let us pray that she is with her namesake in Paradiso.” His eyes fell again to the envelope he held. “Yes, people have died because of this. Many more will, I am afraid. This is a forgery.”

He drew a booklet from the envelope that had been sent to him, a school notebook, and fluttered its pages.

“It took but a few minutes to determine that this document is at most a month old. The handwriting is remarkably similar to that of Sister Lucia, almost identical. Almost—not quite.”

John said, “Then all the rioting and attacking of the Church and the Holy Father is based on . . .”

“A fanciful interpolation to what is in the authentic text.”

“Making that public will quiet things down. How soon will the announcement be made?”

“I have advised against any announcement,” Piacere said softly. “And I will tell you why. First, the claim that this document is a fake, even though accompanied by the written judgment of manuscript experts, would be regarded as a ploy.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, yes, we are well into the age of suspicion. You can appreciate the paradox: the announcement that the document that has caused blood to run in the streets is a fake is accompanied by the expert judgment to that effect. Fraud and forgery are in the air and they taint the expert judgment as well. But that is not the main reason. The most decisive way to show that this”—again he fluttered the pages he held—“contains an interpolation not to be found in the original and authentic document would be simply to lay them side by side.”