The Holy Bullet Part 24

"What if we leave the priest out and send out an advisory on just the others?" Herbert tried again.

"It won't work," Barnes said. "The woman has an influential position at the Times Times. It's only going to hurt us."

More silence.

"What time is Littel getting here?" Barnes asked.

"Two hours from now."

Barnes sighed.

"Very well. Two hours. Until then we won't do anything. When he arrives, we'll make a decision," he bl.u.s.tered again. "Get me something in the next two hours, Jerome. We're not looking good with our friends in Opus Dei." He pointed in Herbert's direction, who noticed his sardonic tone.

The door opened to let in Thompson.

"We have news."

"Spit it out." Barnes jumped up.

"Between five and six a metropolitan policeman returning to his house after his s.h.i.+ft saw a Mercedes of the same description as our alert enter the garage of a house on Clapham."

"What are we waiting for, gentlemen?" Barnes asked as he grabbed his gun.

43.

MIRELLA.

May 7, 1983

At the age of sixteen the libido renewed itself every second that pa.s.sed. The awakening of sensual, l.u.s.tful feelings, satisfied with the simple stare of a longing male, avid for a contact that is never permitted. The first steps in the art of seduction began, the looks, the signs one body sends to another, under control at this stage or not, affected by an urgent immaturity satisfied by a simple smile, an anxious voice greeting one from a distance, a compliment shouted from a Lambretta that made one blush secretly, the more direct the better, a furtive touch, without delicacy, on a b.u.t.tock covered with a tight skirt. Triumph was an invitation to go out, or a kiss on the mouth, with or without the tongue, according to what she wanted-it's always she who asks-or, the gold medal, an invitation to dinner with an older man. Not with just any twenty-year-old student, studying architecture or law, which would also be a victory, but with a man turning thirty-seven or forty, with a car, house, settled life, perhaps divorced, in fact separated, one or two children he doesn't bother to mention, desiring the new feeling of a younger woman, a woman capable of turning the clock back to former years of pa.s.sion.

Mirella looked at herself in the mirror for the umpteenth time. One couldn't run risks in an encounter of this kind. Any error was harmful, able to shake the confidence of an adolescent who considered herself an adult. Of course she wasn't actually thinking of these technicalities. She acted, with an instinct for self-preservation humans can't escape no matter how intelligent they consider themselves.

Obviously, when she was sixteen, her parents were not going to permit a candlelit romantic dinner, as she imagined, with a man old enough to be her father, enchanted with her femininity, ready to smother her with expensive presents and endless gallantries. So she'd accepted his suggestion to tell her parents she was staying with an old friend from school. That way no suspicions were aroused. Not to do that invited a serious paternal interrogation that would conclude with a prohibition without appeal, tears on Mirella's part, locking herself in her bedroom for hours lamenting her bad luck and cursing her bad parents, and a long face for days until she found a new source of diversion to make her forget the previous one. But none of that was necessary.

"Where are you going to eat?" asked her mother, who had just come in the bedroom where Mirella, elegant and beautiful, was admiring herself in the mirror.

"At Campo dei Fiori. I still don't know where," Mirella replied without taking her eyes off what looked like the inopportune beginning of a pimple on her chin. "What a bother. It's starting to look red."

It was one of the dramas of adolescence. Certain bodily a.s.saults one couldn't foresee or avoid.

"Pay no attention to it. He'll have a lot also."

"It looks really bad," Mirella protested.

Her mother took her chin and turned her face toward her, like an object she owned, which was somewhat true, according to her point of view. She examined the irritated skin of her daughter's face with a maternal expression. A small red spot could be made out on the right side of her chin, nothing serious.

"This is nothing. It's going to take some time before it breaks out," her mother declared. "You've got to learn to live with those."

"What did you do to get rid of pimples?" Mirella asked, interested in the magical formula that, at times, mothers seem to possess.

"Don't worry about it," her mother answered. "Someday you'll do the same," she finished with a smile.

The wise words of a mother or father, not always so wise, fall on deaf ears in anything related to the dramas of surviving p.u.b.erty. Someday would Mirella stop worrying about the infamous pimples that broke out on her face just before her period? Never. Naturally, she wasn't, at the moment, in possession of all the information about what her future life would be, no one is, it's the rules of the game. If she were, she'd know that she'd never have to worry again about cutaneous eruptions, menstruation, cla.s.ses, excuses, sensual seductions, joking, libidinous thoughts, worrying about conquests, feeling admired, the erections that her simple presence provoked, the calculated, suggestive smile, dinner with older men, her parents . . . or her life.

It was almost time, and Mirella went to the window to see if his car was already waiting there. She flashed a fascinating smile when she saw him there. He'd arrived five minutes early. A good sign. Romans were not punctual in any way. It was their style to arrive late for everything. Fifteen minutes to a half hour didn't seem bad to anyone.

"I'm going," she called from the kitchen. "See you later."

"Don't forget. Home by twelve at the latest," her mother reminded her, although the door had already closed, leaving Mirella free to go.

A mother's anxious heart told her to go to the window and watch from behind the curtain the car her daughter got into at that moment, smiling, full of light, s.h.i.+ning intensely. She felt a heavy heart, a disturbing anxiety, gloomy thoughts, nothing she should give importance to. She couldn't see the driver's face because of the dark, moonless night that had settled over the street. She thumped her chest to rid herself of the tightness. A few seconds later she felt relieved, her soul relaxing, the bad feeling had dissipated, everything was fine.

She left the window to go serve dinner, and left her daughter and the friend to follow the road in the privacy of the BMW.

44.

It was time for the Farewell Procession in the Cove of Iria, when the Virgin Mary was carried in procession among the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims back to the Chapel of the Apparitions, where she would remain until the next year. A light mist marked the blessing of the act in this place central to the Catholic world, on a par with Saint Peter's in the Vatican. Hundreds of thousands of white handkerchiefs waved in the air, marking the immaculate farewell. People wept in prayer, with pet.i.tions for help, genuine or bizarre, because no one was there for no reason, out of a pure manifestation of faith and feeling for the Mother of Christ. There was always a request, a grace, Save my daughter. Help me in this business deal. Give me money and fortune. . . . Save my daughter. Help me in this business deal. Give me money and fortune. . . .

To the right of the colonnade was the chapel of the Perennial Exposition of the Holy Sacrament, where the Congregation of the Religious Observers of Our Lady of the Sorrows of Fatima has prayed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus seven days of the week, twenty-four hours a day, since 1960. It's a worthy act for forgiveness of worldly sins, according to the call of the Virgin in 1917 to the chidren, without requiring anything in return except peace on earth, no small thing, comparable to a miracle from heaven. These were the teachings of Father Formigo's disciples, whom the Virgin asked to forgive sins after the prayer. All this Marius Ferris experienced, kneeling in the last row of the chapel with the sister there in front of him finis.h.i.+ng her turn at prayer.

After making the sign of the cross, Marius Ferris got up and left the chapel. From there, under the colonnade, he could see the sea of people crowding the vast enclosure, the processions in the back, on the way to their usual site, the exact place where the oak was found that sheltered the visions of Mary.

"Do you believe that one of the bullets that threatened the life of the Polish pope in 1981 is in the crown of the Virgin of Fatima, Brother?" The voice came from behind Marius Ferris.

"That's public knowledge," Ferris replied. "We know that Wojtyla was very devoted to Mary." He quickly bowed before the man confined to a wheelchair. "Your blessing, Your Eminence." He kissed one of his hands.

"G.o.d bless you, my son," the other recited, concluding the ceremony of greeting.

The man was much older than Marius Ferris, near ninety you might guess. He was wearing a black suit and a large yellow gold cross hanging from a thick chain around his neck. A young cleric dressed in a black ca.s.sock, perhaps his aide, pushed the chair according to the old man's wishes.

Marius Ferris rose after a few moments of prayer and looked at the old man in front of him.

"I envy your physical fitness," the old man praised him.

"Don't be envious. I'll never reach your age." A smile appeared on his face.

"Only He knows that," the other observed. "Do me the favor of pus.h.i.+ng my chair, Brother." It was a demand, not a request. With a gesture, he dismissed the young man. The conversation would be private now.

Ferris took the chair and pushed it smoothly along the colonnade toward the Basilica. The voice of a prelate could be heard resonating from the loudspeakers inside. A polyglot expression of grat.i.tude to all the pilgrims, directly from the altar placed in front of the Basilica, at the top of the stairs, which was used in the international celebration of the Ma.s.s.

"Is it the Roman envoy?" Ferris asked.

"Yes, Sodano."

"The one the pope forgot?" A certain joking in the voice, a certain disdain.

"He always finds a way to promote his position. Besides, the German has chosen a very bad secretary of state."

"Did he choose, or was that the only option they gave him?" Ferris countered.

"Could be. In any case the present pope knows what was agreed to in his election. If he should go back on the deal-"

"What's the deal?" Ferris interrupted.

"Whatever it may be, Brother. Draw in the Church, rea.s.sert the old dogmas, combat any menace of liberal reform, stop creating this constant circus in the media. Christ is not an amus.e.m.e.nt park." A certain flush showed how deeply he believed this.

"A Church turned inward."

"How?" the man went on, having just started his sermon. "If they followed the teachings of our Church, the only, the true one, we wouldn't have half the problems society debates today. Abortion? Contraception?" His irritation grew with each topic. "Ec.u.menism? Why? Interreligious dialogue? There is us and there is them. There's no conversation. Yes, in some way, they attack us; we throw ourselves on them. It's always been like that. Why are we bothering now with stupid diplomacy?"

"It's going to change," Ferris predicted.

"I hope so. Otherwise we'll have to do something about the German."

"I don't think it'll come to that."

"Is everything going as you planned?" An almost imperceptible change of subject.

"Until now, yes," Ferris lied. A small lie. He didn't want to worry him with insignificant things that would be resolved shortly, perhaps already had been.

"Wonderful, wonderful," the other rejoiced. "Are you going to blame the Russians and Bulgarians?"

"They were actually guilty for a long time," Ferris a.s.serted.

"Do you know where I was on May thirteenth, 1981?" the prelate asked.

"In Rome?" Ferris guessed.

"Of course in Rome. In the Bethlehem Crypt."

"In the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore?"

"Indeed," he confirmed. "Expiating my sins next to the cradle of the Infant Jesus," he confessed.

"Is Pius still praying there?" Ferris smiled, referring to a statue of the pope praying before the holy manger.

"Yes, he is. But he was a real pope. He didn't fool around with insufficient methods. He acted, made decisions, and kept everything in its place."

"Those were other times," Ferris observed.

"The times are what we make of them. For fifty years we have had movie stars on Saint Peter's throne."

Marius Ferris stopped pus.h.i.+ng the wheelchair. He looked at the procession of the Virgin, who was now in the place where she reposed daily, adored by millions of people every year, in person or at a distance. The ceremony had ended, and it would be hours before the asphalt enclosure emptied and returned to normal. Soon they'd see wors.h.i.+ppers again, lighting candles, praying the rosary humbly, following the path on wounded knees, doing the promised rounds around the chapel to thank the Virgin for grace bestowed or asked for, since they had to pay in advance.

"At the moment the Pole was shot in Saint Peter's, I was praying for him. The Lord wanted him to live some twenty years more, and I always obey His will, even if I don't agree, because He is infallible."

"In any case he turned out to behave himself well," Ferris said.

"We managed to control him, thank G.o.d. At least until the end of the eighties. After that he followed his whims."

"Yes, but it wasn't bad. Ultimately he couldn't go back on his word."

"It's true. But I can't forget who gave him that independence in the nineties." His voice was irritated again.

"Nor I. We're taking care of that."

"That's good," the cleric advised. It sounded almost like a threat. "I want him dead."

The man took off the chain with the gold cross, reached for Marius Ferris's hand, and gave it to him.

"In the Bethlehem Crypt, next to the manger you will find what you need. It's been there for twenty-six years waiting for you," he told him.

Marius put the gift in his pocket with as much care as if it were a treasure from heaven, which, in a sense, it was. They resumed their way as if two friends on a walk.

"At the precise time the Pole was being shot, I was praying for him in Santa Maria Maggiore," the old man repeated. "And now the bullet is right there, a few yards away, in the crown of the Virgin. It's like a curse that follows me," he confessed.

"This place is like a discount store for relics," Marius Ferris declared. "We have the three shepherds buried in the Basilica, a few feet away from here a piece of the Berlin Wall."

"A testimony to our work," the cleric observed.

"Of course. Every holy place is a guarantee of the Church's capacity to realize its mission," Ferris a.s.serted with a smile.

"And what about Mitrokhin?" the old man asked seriously.

"What he left is controlled by the British. It's in their interest, too."

They stayed silent as they watched the faithful disbanding. At the back a little to the left there was the new Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, with the capacity to hold almost nine thousand people. The power of the Church expressing itself in concrete.

The young attendant approached and took over the wheelchair. No one had called him, but he'd seen that whatever had to be said was said.

"Bring our s.h.i.+p into good port," the old man said, calmer now, with a lethargic, pensive expression, tired from so much talking.