To Kill the Pope (43 page)

Living as he had for years in the center of the Holy See's policy making, watching at close quarters Vatican intrigues and promotion-driven political corruption, the arrogance of power, ruthlessness, and hypocrisy, Tim had begun to wonder whether
believing
in the Church and
belonging
to the Church as part of the pious priestly bureaucracy were one and the same. And his exposure to Archbishop Leduc's deadly maneuvers and conspiracies as well as his startling experience with Monsignor Saint-Ange, topped by what he had learned from Paul Martinius, had further undermined his priestly faith and commitment to rigorous, blind submission.

Mysteriously, Tim thought, his fundamental doubts had converged with his attraction to Angela, creating a whole new dilemma. He was anxious not to confuse the two sets of situations: not to justify his love for Angela—he was now convinced it was love, a new emotion for him—with his disappointment in the Church. It would be wrong to allow himself the luxury of rationalization. Finally, Tim had no clear idea how Angela felt about him and
her
Church vows. Her warmth in Paris and touching his hand at a Rome restaurant were hardly declarations of love.

The most rational thing to do would be to see Angela again, to try to gauge her feelings toward him, if any. He could be dead wrong about reciprocity. Tim faced, however, the practical problem of getting in touch with her. Since Sainte-Ange had terminated his ties to the Apostolic Palace and had so informed Angela,
he could no longer call her directly. He had to take it for granted that all calls to the Papal Household, of which Angela was part, were monitored, and he could not risk embarrassing her.

*  *  *

Finding elusive people was supposedly one of the most elementary skills of intelligence officers. As Tim began to work out a plan, he was put to shame a few days later when Angela called and asked him quite plainly to have dinner at the midtown apartment of a French woman friend.

“She's away this week so we'll be undisturbed,” she said gaily. “And I'll cook . . . yes, I know how . . .”

Angela looked beautiful in Tim's hungry eyes, the dinner was prepared to perfection, the wine was fine, and she came to the point quickly.

“There are two things I want to say to you, Tim,” Angela told him as soon as they sat down at the table and she had served him. “The first thing is that you should waste no time getting out of Rome—for good. They are out to get rid of you. I don't mean physically, of course, but you have absolutely no future in the Vatican. My impression is that Sainte-Ange is not only disappointed and furious as a result of your mission, but he believes that your presence should no longer be tolerated in the Curia. That you must be punished in some way . . . I've heard enough around the office to know how you are regarded by the Monsignor. And, naturally, he has the power to have the punishment inflicted. My best guess is that you will be dismissed from the Council and the Commission—with no formal reason given—and that you will not be given any other post in the Vatican. Not even at a pontifical university, like the Gregorian.”

“I guess I shouldn't be surprised,” Tim said. “I'm the last person he would want around Rome. He's probably worried that staying here and being around Church people in the normal course of events, I might inadvertently betray something of what I know, and that it would be instantly all over Rome. I imagine that it's safer and more convenient for the Monsignor if I'm sent away as a missionary or something somewhere far in the world, like East Timor or Patagonia, where nobody would know what I'm talking about—even if I do talk, which I don't intend to do, anyway.”

“It's not for me to offer you advice on how to manage your life, but perhaps you should resign before you're fired,” Angela remarked. “But that's for you to decide. The other thing I wanted to bring up tonight is—us . . .”

“Us?” Tim asked with overwhelming incredulity, his heart beating faster. “What about us?”

“Look, I believe in being open and honest,” Angela told him. “For reasons I won't go into at this point, I have resolved to renounce my nun's vows. I no longer wish to live this kind of life. Suffice it to say that the Monsignor's behavior toward you was the last straw for me. I've seen too much of that sort of thing . . . Nor do I wish to cloister myself in a convent and pray and hope to become Mother Superior someday.”

“It's miraculous,” Tim broke in, unable to keep silent as she spoke, “to hear you tell me about resigning your vows because giving up priesthood is exactly what has been going through my mind and, I guess, my soul . . . And not only because of my recent experiences as a Vatican detective . . .”

“Well, perhaps it isn't so miraculous,” Angela answered. “We haven't known each other long or well, but I have the impression that we think very much alike. And I trust you . . .”

“Yes, we do, and I trust you, too,” Tim said, not quite believing what was happening. “What do you suppose would happen if we both left the Church?”

“For one thing, we might give some thought to life together,” she said firmly. “I told you that I'm open and honest. I am attracted to you. I think that you are attracted to me . . .”

“My God, yes!” Tim exclaimed, so full of joy that he could not articulate another coherent sentence. “You will never believe how much I've thought about you since the day we met!”

“But we don't want to do anything rash, Tim,” Angela said. “Why don't we think about all our ideas and talk about them, and, God willing, we shall find the way.”

They parted kissing chastely on the cheek.

*  *  *

May 13, 1987, the feast of Our Lady of Fátima, fell on a Wednesday. Archbishop Leduc had planned to deliver a homily at a solemn Mass at noon in the chapel of the Pius V Fraternity seminary in
Mirepoix. He left his residence at the Cisterian abbey mid-morning, going over his prepared text in the right-hand side seat of his powerful armor-plated black Mercedes limousine. Jean-Pierre, his security chief, was next to him, an automatic assault rifle at his feet. The black-suited driver and the security agent in the front seat with him had their weapons within easy reach. A lead black Citroën with four armed agents and a chase Citroën with its security complement brought up the rear. This was the routine mode of Leduc's travel.

The motorcade made a right turn at the Carcassonne-Mirepoix highway, then began the three-mile climb toward Fanjeaux. At its highest point, the Fanjeaux square where the café was located, the highway veered sharply to the left to descend to the southwest plain. As Leduc's limousine passed the café, moving at about thirty miles per hour, a heavy white semi twelve-wheeler, of the variety used for transporting tons of merchandise, that had been parked for an hour at the edge of the square, suddenly lurched onto the highway at the curve. It was precisely 10:23 A.M. that sunny morning.

The truck's front end smashed into the Mercedes, hitting it with such force that the car's right-hand side, with its armor plates, was impelled into the middle, flattening it like a tin can and sending it hurling down a ravine on the far border of the highway. Within seconds, the vehicle exploded in an orange ball of fire, incinerating its occupants. The truck went into reverse, regained the road, turned left, and raced downhill toward Carcassonne. Exactly thirty seconds had elapsed, which was the time specified in the detailed timetable for the crash to occur. The white semi was already out of sight when the chase car had reached the top of the Fanjeaux hill and the security agents saw the burning remains of Archbishop Leduc's limousine.

*  *  *

At the precise moment the archbishop's Mercedes was exploding below the Fanjeaux square, three high-velocity bullets were fired in succession at the altar from the inside of the door of the little church at the foot of Via di Porta Ponciana in Rome, three blocks down the street from the Jesuit residence at Villa Malta. It was the church where Tim Savage usually celebrated the early morning
Mass on Sundays and the ten o'clock Mass on Wednesdays, when he was in Rome. On this particular Wednesday, Tim was celebrating his first Mass at the little church since his return from France.

Standing behind the altar, Tim was facing the congregation of ten or so elderly women when the shots were fired. What had probably saved Tim's life was the fact that the church was penumbral and he had begun to turn to kneel before the altar, making him a moving target. All three bullets missed, becoming embedded in the wall just below the sculpture of the crucified Christ. Tim never saw the assailant, but the police later found the discarded Walther automatic on the stone floor by the door; not surprisingly, there were no fingerprints on the weapon. The shooter had probably fled on his
motorino,
becoming an untraceable part of the Roman traffic gridlock.

Back at his Villa Malta room, still shaken from the church shooting, Tim turned on his television set for the RAI UNO noon newscast. The lead story was a report from Toulouse that Archbishop Leduc, the controversial leader of a traditionalist Roman Catholic faction in France, had died that morning in a fiery accident at the small town of Fanjeaux in the foothills of the Pyrénées. Leduc's face appeared on the screen along with some footage from church-occupying marches by Pius V Fraternity militants and a sound bite of the original Vatican announcement of Leduc's excommunication.

The date—May thirteenth—also flashed on the screen at the end of the broadcast, and Tim abruptly realized that this was the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima, the anniversary of the day on which Agca Circlic had attempted to assassinate Gregory XVII. This could not be a coincidence—simultaneous lethal acts against two persons directly involved in the matter of the attack on St. Peter's Square. It was diabolical symbolism, but, Tim wondered, was it also a fresh threat against the pope and those who knew too much? In any case, these acts had to have been perpetrated by someone who knew absolutely
everything.

All in all, it made no sense. If these events on the anniversary of the 1981 attempt were meant as a menace to the pope by Leduc's Fraternity, why was the archbishop himself killed this morning? Tim did not believe for a moment that Leduc's death in Fanjeaux
was an accident—it simply was not credible—so it could be ruled out as a warning to Gregory XVII. In that case, who would wish the old archbishop dead? Some rogue elements in the Pius V Fraternity? Not likely, either.

The attack on Tim in the church that same morning was obviously related to the conspiracy and synchronized with the Leduc “accident.” However, if it stemmed from fear that he would reveal his knowledge, it could have harmed nobody but Leduc and the Fraternity. Yet, Leduc had been executed at the same moment more than a thousand miles away, and why choose the Fátima anniversary for the attacks? What kind of a message was being sent by whom—and to whom?

*  *  *

Tim and Paul Martinius met early in the evening at the Excelsior Hotel bar on Via Veneto, a tourist-infested oasis of wealth where cocktail-time crowds provided suitable cover for discreet meetings. Martinius had called Tim just as the Jesuit was about to phone him. Events were now moving rapidly, and both were anxious to compare notes.

“My Interpol friend tells me that Leduc's death was no accident,” the CIA man said. “The French police, who have been investigating it all day, say that it was murder pure and simple. That truck had been waiting for the archbishop's limousine much of the morning, its engine running and ready to go. When Leduc appeared on the highway curve, the truck just smashed into his car, broadside, like a tank . . . And the next thing anybody knew, the truck had disappeared. So, who do you think wanted to kill him?”

“I really don't know, Paul,” Tim answered. “And what's more, I cannot make any sense out of it, especially because of the date and what happened to me today.”

“Meaning what?”

“Do you realize that today is the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima and the anniversary of the attempt on the pope?”

“Christ, no . . . I didn't make the connection!” Martinius said, a bit too loudly. “And what happened to you?”

“Well, someone fired at me three times with an automatic weapon when I was at the altar celebrating Mass at the little
church at the bottom of Porta Ponciana. As you can see, he missed. But the best I can reconstruct it, the shooting was at exactly the same time Leduc was killed up in Fanjeaux.”

“At least you're in good company, getting shot at while saying Mass,” Martinius said, regaining aplomb. “There was the Polish bishop in the eleventh century, Becket in the twelfth century, and Romero a couple of years ago . . . ‘
Oh, rid me of that meddlesome priest!'
Remember?”

“Thank you,” Tim said, “that's very uplifting. But where does it go from here? Clearly, conspiracies around Gregory XVII aren't quite over. The place is redolent with hatreds, revenges, and Roman vendettas . . . And, by the way, did your people also check with the SDECE to see whether they thought it was an accident that killed Leduc?”

“No,” Martinius replied. “We stopped sharing intelligence with the French after de Marenches died . . . We don't like the new fellow.”

*  *  *

Late in the evening, Monsignor Sainte-Ange called the Paris apartment over his secure line.

“Was it necessary to go quite that far this morning, Georges?” he asked. “It really looked horrible on television, the wreck and so on. And are you quite sure that you'll get away with the ‘accident' version?”

“The answer is ‘yes' to both questions,” his cousin replied. “You cannot perform autopsies on incinerated bodies. And the problem with shooting at people is that you never know whether it will succeed—as Leduc found out with Circlic and your guys in Rome found out when they missed Savage in the church . . . Anyway, we removed today one cancer that was beginning to spread all over the body. My boss, the president, thinks so—and I, a civil servant, of course agree with him. But we must extirpate this other cancer as soon as possible. He is quite resistant, or lucky, as we have now seen twice. He's a pro, too, and he'll figure out all the connections, sooner or later. Although nobody would believe him if he chose to speak out, we can't afford to let him be a loose cannon. It would be bad for France and it could hurt us with the politicians here who know that Leduc was close to the
Front National
and my other conservative
friends, and that probably I, too, had ties with the archbishop.”