The Miracle Part 39

"The French surgeon's name?"

"Can't use it. Bill. He ignored the medical chain of command to do this. He'd get in a lot of trouble if his name was publicized."

Trask, an opponent of anonymity, snorted. "You've got to be kidding. I'll make him the most famous French doctor since Louis Pasteur, for G.o.d's sake. They won't be able to touch him. Liz, you don't honestly think you can keep a lid on this, do you? Come on, give."

She held her breath for a moment, then said, "All right, but you didn't get it from me."

"Relax. You won't be the only source on this and you know it. Listen, Dr. -- what's his name?"

"Duval. Maurice Duval from Paris."

"Dr. Duval will be the first to thank you when he gets back from Stockholm. Don't worry. Now, what else?"

"Just before her surgery in Lourdes, Mrs. Moore hobbled over to the grotto for one more prayer session, as usual invoking the good offices of the Virgin Mary. When the hospital wanted her in surgery, her husband and I set out to look for her. We found her on her knees at the grotto in a trance, almost catatonic, and she had to be carried away on a stretcher and taken to the hospital. There she came out of her trance, and was wheeled into surgery. I was in the waiting room while the surgery took place. After four and a half hours the word came out. The surgery on Mrs. Moore had been successful. She had gained her life but lost her miracle woman status. And then-hear this, boss-coming out of surgery, she blurted out that at the grotto the Virgin Mary had reappeared before her, promised that she would be cured, rea.s.sured her that science was compatible with faith-"

"Say, that's a new angle. This could be a super story. Does the entire press gang out your way have it?"

"Bill, I have it all alone for twenty-four hours. An exclusive beat."

"Wonderful, wonderful! Do you want us to work from these notes, because if you do we'll need a few more-"

"No, Bill, I've got the entire story in my mitt-everything from the Virgin Mary's latest fas.h.i.+on outfit to the name of the hospital, and so forth. I'm ready to read it to you. About a thousand words. You want me to go?"

"The machine's on. Go."

Liz's monotone read the story of the new miracle woman and Trask's recorder transcribed it.

When Liz concluded, she said, "Thirty. Okay, that's it."

"Congratulations, Liz. You've got a real winner there."

"I have more details, but that can wait for when I get back. I knew Mrs. Moore a little, you see, and I actually interviewed her before all this. I could do a follow-up color feature story once I'm in the office again." She paused. "If I am in the office?"

It was infrequent that evidence of pleasure ever marred Trask's constant scowl that came with his job. But now he sent the scowl off. "You have news for me, Liz, and I have news for you. I've been holding it back to see if you'd dehver. You delivered in spades, I a.s.sure you. Okay, my news. It was to be you or Marguerite, so spake the home office, and they left it to me to decide. Admittedly, Marguerite had the inside track, the juicier a.s.signment. Andre Viron, possibly our next Stavisky, right? Well, Marguerite handed in her story yesterday. It read like a crummy publicity release. I knew she could do better, had done better, and wanted to know what happened. She's spent enough time with Viron, G.o.d knows. She played it close to the chest, until I backed her against the wall, roughed her up, so to speak. She finally confessed that there was more to the story. She'd gotten close to Viron-read that to mean bedded down with him-and got plenty of material. But she'd also fallen in love with the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and didn't want to hurt him, wanted to go on having a relations.h.i.+p with him. So she couldn't give me the real thing, just wouldn't. I really chewed her out. I told her that was the pits of unprofessionalism. The story always came first. I told her if she held back she was fired. She held back. So I fired her. Sorry to. She had a nice a.s.s, and a fair way with words. But she wasn't the reporter I wanted." Trask punctuated with a pause, then resumed. "But you are the reporter I want. You're a pro. You've got the job and you'll have a nice hike in salary. Oh, h.e.l.l, you'd have had the job over her anyway, after cranking out the story you just did. Okay?"

He heard Liz crying on the other end of the line.

"Th-thanks, boss," she choked.

"Okay, miracle woman. Come home. Want to see you at your desk by nine tomorrow morning. Be on time and get right to work. No room for prima donnas round here."

In Moscow . . .

After the Aeroflot Stolichnaya of Vnukovo airport, and taxied along till it reached the tumoff to the air terminal, the arrival in Moscow was announced over the loudspeaker. Unbuckling his seat belt, a clean-shaven Sergei Tikhanov took up his flight bag and was the first in the aisle for disembarkation.

Standing there, he reflected briefly once more on his flight from Lourdes. It had been a harrowing escape. After leaving behind the corpse of GKsele Dupree, he had worried that he might have been seen. Then he had worried, before checking out of the hotel in Lourdes, whether he would be able to get a place on the next flight to Paris. Luck was with him, Tikhanov learned. Everyone was coming to Lourdes, few people were leaving, and there was no trouble about a reservation. At the airport, early, he had worried that the police would get on to Samuel Talley before he was airborne.

But there had been no problem, and soon he was on Air Inter, and an hour and fifteen minutes later he had been put down at Orly. First thing, before going to the men's room, he had telephoned the Soviet Emba.s.sy, identified himself, and requested that a car be sent for him. Immediately after that, he had gone into the men's room of the airport, shut himself into a toilet, removed and discarded his hateful Lourdian mustache, then washed his worn face until Talley had been toweled away forever and the renowned Sergei Tikhanov had once more been restored.

In the Soviet Emba.s.sy, he had holed up for two days to establish a record of meetings and activity. The second day, he had learned two things. Reading France-Soir, he had come across a brief bit of reportage datelined Lourdes. A minor bit of violence during the holy week. The body of a well-known local, an agency tourist guide, Gisele Dupree, had been found in a friend's apartment, strangled. Plainly murder. No suspects. Ah, no suspects. How could there be? Samuel Talley no longer existed. Three hours later Tikhanov had learned a second piece of news. Premier Skryabin had died while in his coma. The Politburo was discussing a successor. Then followed a call from Moscow, from KGB chief, General Kossoff, advising him to wind up his affairs as quickly as possible and summoning him to Moscow no later than the following day.

And now Tikhanov was in Moscow's Vnukovo airport, the VIP airport.

And now he was disembarking from the plane with twinges of pain, not master of his muscular dystrophy and his mortality, but certainly arriving as master of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and a.s.sured to be at his nation's helm and a world leader for at least two or three years.

Descending, he could see that his subordinates, soon to be his subordinates and do his bidding, had figuratively laid out the red carpet for his arrival. They were bunched together at the foot of the ladder waiting to welcome him.

He found himself surrounded by well-wishers, receiving kisses from that garlic-smelling brute, General Kossoff, from his old friend United Nations amba.s.sador Alexei Izakov, and handshakes from several KGB officers.

Once through the bustling terminal, ordinary pa.s.sengers making way and awed to have a glimpse of him, Tikhanov climbed into the luxurious rear seat of the black Chaika limousine. Within a minute they were off, preceded and followed by white police cars to Moscow and Tikhanov's seat of power, the Kremlin.

Throughout the half-hour drive, Kossoff kept pouring vodkas for the three of them from the backseat bar and telling coa.r.s.e jokes about ballerinas. Tikhanov accommodated the KGB chief with restrained bursts of laughter, but he only wanted to know about the premiers.h.i.+p and his immediate future. Once, he managed to wedge in a question about that. Kossoff, showing no mood for politics or business, simply said, "The Politburo has been meeting the entire afternoon. A verdict is promised by the evening. The verdict is a foregone conclusion."

Tikhanov had felt easier after that, and enjoyed another vodka as he endured yet another one of General Kossoff's interminable and boring stories. Tikhanov wondered if he would have to endure Kossoff's company after he had been made premier. Perhaps he would replace Kossoff. He would see about that.

Suddenly, he was aware that the limousine had slowed, and was stopping. Tikhanov thought that they had halted for a red light, and was surprised that the limousine had pulled up at the curb beside a white brick building, a building in a suburb of Moscow and unidentified.

Kossof was pus.h.i.+ng open the car door. "Come on with me. Amba.s.sador Izakov, and you too, Sergei. Have a look around. The minister of internal affairs has something he wants me to do here, before going on to the Kremlin."

Dutifully, Tikhanov followed Kossoff inside the building, through a gla.s.s-paneled door. Going to the entrance, Tikhanov had caught a glimpse of a high whitewashed brick wall, topped by barbed wire, running around the side and back of the building. At the far end, he had seen an armed guard with an automatic weapon.

Inside the reception room-the barest he had been in for many years, a wooden bench, no tables, another door to the interior of the building -- Tikhanov found three men on hand to greet them. Kossoff's introductions were hasty and slurred, and Tikhanov could only make out the t.i.tles of the three-one a director, one a lieutenant-colonel, one a major.

Tugging at General Kossoff's sleeve, Tikhanov was curious to know where they were. "What is this place?" Tikhanov wanted to know.

"Your home," said General Kossoff.

Carrying his briefcase, Kossoff stepped over to the bench, set it down, and opened it. Completely at sea, Tikhanov followed him.

"What did you say?" asked Tikhanov.

Ignoring him, Kossoff pulled a large envelope out of the briefcase, and removed a smaller envelope and several pages from it. Opening the smaller envelope, Kossoff took out what appeared to be a photograph.

He handed the snapshot to Tikhanov. "A souvenir for you of your holiday."

The instant he took the photograph in his hand, Tikhanov had a premonition of disaster. His eyes held on the photograph. It was a print of one of the snapshots of him taken near the grotto in Lourdes by that little French c.u.n.t Gisele. Tikhanov could feel his eyes burning in his skull and his dry mouth falling open. When he raised his head, Kossoff was out of focus, and the barren room was revolving, going round and round. To keep himself from fainting, he clutched the back of the bench.

"But how?" he managed to gasp.

"Comrade Tikhanov, you deserve an explanation," the KGB head was saying. "Your young French victim was clever, more clever than you. She understood the danger of blackmail, and what you might have at stake. While she did possess a weapon to protect herself, she was too eager and naive to have it ready. But she was not naive in one respect. If you proved untrustworthy, she would have her revenge. The morning you met her, before your arrival, she had posted an extra copy of the snapshot she had taken of you at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes-that and a letter about one Samuel Talley-to an important Frenchman who had once employed her. She had posted all of this in a large sealed envelope, along with a cover letter, and sent it to the French amba.s.sador to the United Nations, Charles Sarrat, who was in Paris. She had advised him that if he read in the Parisian press about any harm befalling her, he should then, and only then, turn over the envelope to the Soviet amba.s.sador to France at the Soviet Emba.s.sy in Paris. As we all know, great harm did befall Miss Dupree. It appeared, the report of her murder did, as a short squib in most of the Paris papers. Naturally, Amba.s.sador Sarrat read it, and following instructions, he turned the envelope over to our Soviet Emba.s.sy, which in turn promptly pa.s.sed it on by courier to Moscow."

"But-"

General Kossoff would not listen. He was implacable. "Once the contents of the envelope sent by your young French lady were studied, the MVD convened a hearing at the Ministry of the Interior. You were heard, or tried, if you will, in absentia. A vote was taken, a decision reached, and I must tell you that it was unanimous. Because of your unthinkable escapade, your jurors determined you to be of unsound mind and too mentally unstable to any longer serve in any official capacity in the Soviet Union."

"I was ill, I was desperate-"

"We know about your illness, about the muscular dystrophy. We conducted a full investigation before the hearing. But any Soviet citizen of sound mind, especially one in high office, would have turned himself over to our medical speciahsts, physicians who are the envy of even our capitalist enemies. But only a man of defective mentality, deranged, unbalanced, even mad, would have considered doing and have actually done what it is now known that you did-travel to that sink of iniquity, Lourdes, that Christian shrine packed with idiots and drugged malcontents-there to grovel on your knees before a cave in a mountain, waiting for the appearance of a vaporous mother figure, a charlatan who allegedly performs cures and miracles. Therefore, you were sentenced to be confined to this place.

"What is this, you wanted to know? This is SPH 15-Special Psychiatric Hospital 15, at the outskirts of Moscow. You have been sentenced to spend the remainder of your life within these walls. These three gentlemen-the director of the facility, the colonel and chief psy- chiatrist, the major and head warder-will be in charge of your treatments and care for you for the rest of your days." General Kossof snapped his briefcase shut. "Yet, out of respect for your long service to the State and the Party, you will be given a few advantages. While you will be confined to a cell, of course, a cell six meters square that normally holds two patients, you will be allowed to inhabit the cell by yourself. And for recreation, you will be permitted to read-thanks to the thoughtfiilness of our UN amba.s.sador- & new book that has been published in New York. You will find it on your bunk. The t.i.tle is Bernadette and Mary. You will also find a rosary with which to while away the extra hours. Have a good long life, Comrade Tikhanov, and good-bye."

In Venice . . .

They had arrived in Venice just as the sun was dipping below the coast of the mainland, and their launch from Marco Polo Airfield had carried them skimming along the placid blue lagoon and up the short ca.n.a.l that led to the water entrance of the Hotel Danieli.

Mikel Hurtado had never been to Venice before and was dazzled and subdued by the beauty of the place, but Natale was animated as she had never been before by the opportunity to see this glorious city, this colorful carnival, once again.

After registering, they had rushed up to their second-floor room overlooking the blue lagoon and the Isle of San Giorgio s.h.i.+mmering with illumination in this early part of the evening.

There was a single telephone, and Hurtado wanted Natale to use it first. She had put through a long-distance call to her parents' shop in Rome, hoping to catch her mother and father before they had left for the day. But only Aunt Elsa had been there to close up the shop. The elder Rinaldis had gone off to dinner. And so, with difficulty in modulating her voice, in containing her thrill, Natale had spilled it all out to her dear Aunt Elsa-the miracle of seeing the apparition of the Virgin Mary at the grotto, of seeing Her -- yes, Aunt Elsa, yes, yes, yes, I can see again, my sight is restored. An ophthalmologist in Milan had confirmed the inexplicable restoration of her sight two hours ago. There had been a high-pitched exchange in Italian back and forth, an uncontrollable torrent of words ft-om both ends. At last Aunt Elsa was shutting the shop early, hastening out to locate Natale's parents at dinner, to inform them of the exquisite news. Natale had cautioned that no one must ever know, beyond her three relatives, exactly how Natale's cure had come about. Aunt Elsa had pledged her word. Natale had promised to telephone her parents at home later that evening and had promised to return to Rome-with a surprise guest-in two days.

Now it was Hurtado who was on the phone, speaking to Augustin Lopez in San Sebastian.

"I am glad you were not headstrong, young man," Lopez was saying. "I'm glad that you heeded my word and did the grotto no violence."

"I decided against it, after hearing from you."

"And a good thing, too, Mikel, you will agree. For the word is out everywhere in the city, on television, and radio, that the Virgin did make her appearance as she promised and she did perform some kind of wonder for a British woman pilgrim."

"Yes, I heard of that."

"Now, Mikel, you will be gratified to hear more, the results of our patience and trust. Not a half hour ago I had a call from Madrid. From old Minister Bueno himself. He was filled with the news, filled with religion, and absolutely euphoric about the miracle at Lourdes. He had made a promise, and he was ready to keep it. He wanted to arrange for a series of meetings in Madrid. He indicated that there would be an acceptable compromise, a compromise and settlement that every Basque would find agreeable. I believe we've won, Mikel. How's that?"

"That's great. Congratulations."

"When will you be coming home?"

"One day soon. I'll have someone with me. No questions. You will see for yourself. And tell my mother I'll be phoning her tomorrow. Good luck, Augustin. G.o.d go with you."

Descending the marble staircases to the Danieli lobby, Natale was pleased to note that Hurtado's limp had disappeared. "Faith," he explained cheerfully. Leaving the lobby, they made their plans for the balmy evening.

First to the Basihca of San Marco to offer up thanks for their resurrection.

Next to Quadri's cafe for Camparis.

Then to Harry's Bar for piccata di vitello.

Then a gondola ride up the Grand Ca.n.a.l.

Then back to the Danieli to make love.

"And after that?" asked Natale.

'To Rome, to keep company with a young woman I know, and to write a play for a young actress I love."

"Who's this young actress?"

"Who do you think?"

"If you're speaking of Miss Rinaldi, she accepts the role even before you write it You will write it, Mikel?"

"I'll write it."

"I'll star in it." She smiled at him. "And after that, Mikel?"

"I want to give you babies, a whole bunch of bambinos, our babies."

"Not unless you marry me, Mikel. Will you marry me?"

"Do you think I want children out of wedlock? You'll be the most married woman in history forever."

"And ever," she said.

Hand in hand, they walked on happily into the Piazza San Marco.

In Vatican City . . .

His Holiness, the Supreme Pontiff, Pope John Paul III, successor to the throne of St. Peter, still clad in the white-linen ca.s.sock, white skullcap, heavy gold pectoral cross dangling from the gold chain around his neck, slowly entered his bedroom, the favorite of the eighteen rooms of his private apartment, among the 10,000 rooms, chambers, halls of the Apostolic Palace.

Moving slowly across the Afghan rug toward the wooden shutters covering the two comer windows of this top floor, he meant to peer through the shutters down upon the vast St. Peter's Square below. His mind was on the news transmitted to him at dinner, and what had been transmitted to the world and its 740,000,000 Catholics, its one million nuns, its half million priests, its 4,000 bishops and cardinals. Surely tonight was the high moment of his entire pontificate.

Suddenly, in his profound joy, he was eager to commune with G.o.d.

He circled away from the window shutters, and shuffled toward his bra.s.s bed. Neatly folded on the bed covering was his white nights.h.i.+rt. Above the bedposts was the touching painting of Christ in agony on the Cross.

On the bedstand were his electric clock with its Roman numerals and the worn Bible he had received at his first Holy Communion. By habit he checked the clock's alarm, was satisfied it was set for six-thirty in the morning, and then he sauntered, almost buoyantly, to the prie-dieu, his kneeling bench. Hanging over it, on the pastel linen wallpaper, were two objects, a simple crucifix and a delicate painting of the Virgin Mary in a thin gold frame.

The Pope stood silently gazing at the Virgin Mary, and gradually he lowered himself to his knees on the embroidered and padded prie-dieu.

Tired though he was, he felt renewed strength flowing through his aged body at the glad tidings that he had heard throughout the evening.

He placed the tips of his wrinkled fingers together in prayer and shut his eyes.

To begin with, a favorite pa.s.sage from his beloved St. Mark. The Pope's hps moved as he recited the pa.s.sage barely above a whisper.

"In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

His Holiness held his breath and resumed.

"O Lord in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. As Thy vicar on earth and successor to St. Peter, I thank Thee for Thy goodness, for the return of the Immaculate Conception, and the reaffirmation that Thy miracles shall never cease. As long as Thee will permit it, there will be humanity on earth and belief, and there will remain goodness and hope -and there will continue to be miracles unto eternity, and we dedicate our grateful love to Thee Father, and to Thy Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

"Amen."

In Paris . . .

Late at night, not ten minutes before midnight, a weary and disheveled Liz Finch stepped out of the elevator at the API editorial rooms and dragged herself across the floor.

Liz could see that the night s.h.i.+ft was already on, and the lone survivor of the day s.h.i.+ft, Bill Trask, was still hunched over his desk inside his gla.s.sed-in cubicle.