Nelson Demille: The Quest

“It is 1974, Father.”

“Yes. Since 1936, almost forty years. I have been in a prison. To the east of here.”

“Forty years?” Mercado exchanged a look with Purcell. “Forty years? Why? Why have you been in prison forty years?”

“They kept me from the world. To protect the secret. But they would not kill me because I, too, am a priest. But they are the old believers. The Copts. They have the sacred blood and the…” His voice trailed off and he lay still, staring up at the sky.

Mercado said to the priest, “Go on. Slowly. Go slowly.”

“Yes… you must go to Berini and tell them what has happened to me. Giuseppe Armano. They will remember. I have a family there. A brother. Two sisters. Could they be alive?” Tears welled up in the old priest’s eyes, but he insisted on continuing. He spoke more quickly now. “I left my village in 1935. August. It was a hot day. A man came and said I was in the army. Il Duce needed priests for his army. So we went… some other priests, too… and many young boys. We walked in the sun and reached Alcamo. There was a train for us in Alcamo and then a boat from Palermo. I had never been on a train or boat and I was frightened of the train, but not so much of the boat. And the boys, peasants like myself, some were frightened, but most were excited. And we sailed in the boat to Reggio. And there was a train in Reggio and we went north to Rome…” He lay back and licked his dry lips. Vivian moistened them again as she translated for Purcell.

The old man smiled and nodded at the kindness. He again refused Mercado’s offer to sleep. “I am very sick. You must let me finish. I feel the burning in my belly.”

“It’s just the food, Father. It has made the acid. You understand?”

“I understand that I am dying. Be silent. What is your name?”

“Henry Mercado.”

“Henry… good. So we went to Rome, Henry. All my life, I wished to go to Rome. Now I was in Rome. What a city… have you seen it? Everyone should go to Rome before he dies… You are a Catholic, Henry?”

“Well, yes, sort of. Yes.”

“Good.” The priest stayed silent awhile, then continued. “We were taken to the Vatican… all the priests from Sicily… there were twelve of us, I remember… to the Vatican, some place in the Vatican. A small building near the Sistine Chapel. There was a cardinal there dressed all in white. He did not give his name and I remembered thinking that this was ill-mannered, but what was I going to say to a cardinal of the Sacred College? We sat in chairs of fine fabric and we listened. The cardinal told us we would go with Mussolini’s army. Go to war in Ethiopia. We listened sadly, but no one spoke. The cardinal showed us an envelope, a beautiful envelope of hard paper, colored like butter. On the envelope was the seal of His Holiness… the ring of the fisherman…” The old priest stopped, and Vivian finished her translation.

Purcell thought he had passed out, but then he opened his eyes and asked, “Who sits on the throne of Saint Peter, now? How many since Pius?”

“Three, since Pius, Father,” Mercado replied.

Purcell said to Mercado, “The guy is near dead and he wants to know who his boss is. Listen, Henry, he is going to ask you a thousand irrelevant questions. Get him back to the story, please.”

“He is telling the story in his own way, Frank. The man has suffered. You and I know how he has suffered. These questions are important to him.”

Vivian put her hand on Purcell’s arm and said softly, “Let Henry handle it.”

Purcell grunted. Mercado spoke again in Italian. “After Pius XI was Pius XII. Then John XXIII. You would have liked him, Father. A good man. He died eleven years ago. Now Paul VI sits on the throne of Saint Peter. A good man also,” he added.

The old priest made noises that sounded like quiet weeping. When he spoke again, his voice was husky. “Yes. All good men, I am sure. And Il Duce? Is he still alive?”

Mercado replied, “There was a war. In Europe. Mussolini was killed. Europe is at peace now.”

“Yes. A war. I could see it coming, even in Berini. We could see it.”

Mercado asked, “Father, did you see what was in the envelope? The one the cardinal showed you?”

“The envelope…?” He paused. “Yes. There was an envelope for each priest. The cardinal told us we must keep the envelope in our possession always. Never, never must it leave our person… we were never to mention the envelope to anyone. Not even to the officers. The cardinal explained that when a priest dies in the army, all his possessions are given to another priest. So the envelope would always be in the hands of those who were sworn… we had to take an oath… sworn never to open it… but we would know when to open it. This cardinal with no name said that as a further precaution, the message on the inside was written in Latin, so if someone else should open it, he would have difficulty with the words. My Latin was bad and I remembered being ashamed of that. Latin is not used so much by a country priest. Only in the Mass. You understand? But the letter was in Latin, so that if it was opened by error, it would no doubt be taken to a priest for translation. This cardinal said that if we ever came upon the letter in that way, we were to say we had to take the letter and study it. Then we were to make a false translation on paper and burn the letter.” The priest breathed heavily, then moaned.

Vivian finished translating for Purcell, then said, “This is getting interesting.” She suggested, “Henry, push him just a little.”

“In his own way,” Mercado answered flatly. “He will get it all out.”

The priest moaned again. Vivian put her hand on his sweaty forehead. “He has fever, Henry. Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“I’m afraid not. If he holds out till morning, we can make Gondar in a few hours. There’s an English missionary hospital there.”

Purcell reminded them, “Prince Joshua’s army and the Provisional government army are less than an hour away-in those hills. I wouldn’t try it now, but in the morning, maybe. They should have a surgeon.”

Mercado thought a moment, then replied, “I don’t know. He is obviously a fugitive of some sort. When we find out from whom, then we can decide where to bring him.”

“Right. But push him just a little, Henry,” he said, mimicking Vivian’s words.

Mercado turned his attention back to the priest and asked him, “Father? Can you continue?”

“Yes. What are you talking about? I cannot go to Gondar.”

Mercado told him, “We will take you to an English hospital in the morning. Continue, if you feel-”

“Yes. I must finish it. The envelope… he told us that we were on no account to open it, unless, when we got to Ethiopia, we should see in the jungles a black monastery. Black like coal, made of black stone, he said. Hidden… in the jungles. There was none like it in all of Ethiopia, he said. It was the monastery of the old believers… the Coptics. And in this black monastery was a reliquary and within that reliquary was the relic of a saint, he told us. An important saint. A saint of the time of Jesus, he told us… The relic of the saint was so important that His Holiness himself wanted very much to have the relic carried back to Rome where it belonged, in the true church of Jesus Christ. In the Church of Saint Peter.”

Vivian translated for Purcell, who commented, “Don’t they have enough stuff in the Vatican?”

Mercado leaned closer to the priest. “Which saint? What kind of relic? A lock of hair? A bone? A piece of a garment?”

The priest laughed. “It was not the relic of a saint at all. Can you imagine such a thing? A cardinal of the Sacred College lying to a flock of rustic priests… Yes, we were well chosen to follow and serve with the Italian infantry. We asked no such questions as you ask now, Henry. We were simple country priests. We had strong legs and strong hearts and strong backs for the infantry. And we asked no questions of the cardinal who spoke to us in the shadow of the Basilica of Saint Peter, a man who had no name himself, but who spoke in the name of His Holiness. One priest, though, a young man… he asked why we should take a relic from a Christian country, even though it was not a Catholic country. It was a good question, was it not? But the cardinal said the relic belonged in Rome. That priest did not go to Ethiopia with us.” The old priest laughed softly, then let out a long groan and lay back.