Luis Rocha - Papal decree

Rafael stayed with Gunter, who was fading fast. ‘Rafael,’ he murmured.

‘Don’t talk, Gunter. Don’t try. The ambulance is coming.’

With a last effort Gunter raised his hand to Rafael’s head and pulled him down lower. ‘Plaza… plaza,’ he whispered.

Rafael listened to his words fading away. With each second Gun-ter’s life was draining away.

‘Saint Ignatius.’ He sighed before giving himself up to God. The pain was over. He was at peace. Rafael closed his dead friend’s eyes and blessed him. He folded his hands and prayed for God to receive his soul. ‘Peace be with you.’

Gavache continued to try to calm the acolyte, who trembled more and more. ‘Don’t do anything foolish.’

Rafael got up and fixed the acolyte with a hard stare. ‘You killed a good man.’

Those words stirred him up even more. ‘I had to. It had to be. He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t tell.’

The siren grew louder as the ambulance got closer to the church. It would be transporting a dead man, not a wounded one.

‘Drop the gun,’ Gavache ordered. ‘I’m not going to warn you again,’ and he cocked the Glock. Jean-Paul did the same.

Maurice raised his hand to his head and shut his eyes. He made the sign of the cross and kissed the crucifix hanging on his chest.

‘Ad maiorem Dei gloriam,’ the acolyte muttered before placing the mouth of the barrel under his chin.

‘Don’t do it,’ Gavache shouted.

The bullet made more noise exiting from his head than it did from the gun. Maurice fell helplessly, without life.

For a few moments nothing but the siren was heard. Not rain, or breathing, or heartbeats. Nothing. It wasn’t the usual scene inside a church. Corpses were common, but during funeral rituals, not from some priests killing others on holy grounds.

The doors opened and the paramedics entered.

Rafael and Jacopo watched silently. Gavache came over and looked at them coldly.

‘What the hell is going on?’

The secretary dragged his left leg as he walked as fast as he could. The light was dim at that hour of night, and he’d asked that no lights be lit at all. There was no need to raise trouble among the staff of the apostolic palace. The intrigues of the day were enough. Trevor followed at his side in silence, submissive, respectful. Tarcisio knew it was more fear than respect.

His leg pained him, but that was nothing compared with the reason Trevor had awakened him. That indeed was eating at him.

‘Did you alert William?’ he asked with effort.

‘Yes, Your Excellency.’

It was important that Cardinal William know about this. There still weren’t a lot of facts, but Ursino had been blunt. They were in open war with an unknown enemy who had an advantage over them. They possessed confidential information that indicated that someone in the bosom of his church was the source. Christ had to separate the wheat from the chaff more than two thousand years ago. Saint Peter and he also had to do it, as did all those who succeeded them. The struggle never ended, it was a permanent war; the battles only changed generals from time to time.

With a commanding air, befitting a general, a brilliant strategist, Tarcisio entered the Relic Room, where he found Ursino and Hans Schmidt.

Ursino asked for his blessing, knelt, and kissed Tarcisio’s ruby ring. ‘Pardon me for disturbing your sleep, Your Eminence.’

Tarcisio helped him up quickly. ‘Tell me everything, Ursino. Who are they?’

Ursino explained. The voice that had spoken to him on the phone was male. He called during the afternoon office hours and said he would call back later, after midnight, and it would be in his interest to be there. He used a friendly tone, conciliatory. Ursino wondered why he had to wait for a telephone call so late in the night. He was used to going to bed right after sunset. The speaker said it was about Yaman Zafer and important.

‘Zafer?’ Tarcisio interrupted. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I am, Your Eminence. These ears God gave me work perfectly. He said Zafer.’

‘Did he sound like a young man or older?’ Schmidt asked.

‘Middle-aged, but I can’t really say. You know how it is. Voices are confusing.’

‘Of course. Continue,’ Tarcisio asked, raising his finger to his lips. He was all attention. He wanted to know everything.

‘I confess curiosity got the best of me,’ Ursino continued, trying to be as precise as possible. The past mixes up thoughts and desires, dreams, all in the same stream of consciousness, and it is necessary to separate what happened from what was wished for, what was real from fiction.

After midnight he returned to the Relic Room and waited for the call. Father Schmidt appeared unexpectedly to keep him company. Just then the call came. Same voice, another tone. Arrogant, sarcastic, cruel, vengeful. He said Zafer was dead and very soon the world would know about Christ’s bones.

‘Holy God,’ Tarcisio exclaimed, raising his hand to his sweaty face. ‘Christ’s bones.’

‘It could be a bluff,’ Schmidt warned with a calm voice that settled the atmosphere as much as possible.

‘I don’t think so,’ Ursino said. ‘He mentioned Ben Isaac.’

Tarcisio stretched out in Ursino’s chair, exhausted. He’d heard that name too many times already in the last several hours. It was never a good sign to hear Ben Isaac’s name.

‘The agreement expired,’ the secretary said at last. ‘Any connection between the Holy Faith and Ben Isaac is over.’ Again he had mentioned the name.

‘The question is whether Ben Isaac will have any conditions for protecting the documents, now that the contract has ended,’ William commented as he entered the room. ‘And they’ve kidnapped his son.’

‘I should leave.’ Schmidt started to go.

‘Please, Father Schmidt, if it’s for my sake, stay,’ William said, walking over to the desk next to the portrait of Benedict XVI.

‘I don’t think its proper for us to meet before the hearing of the congregation…’ said Schmidt, excusing himself.

‘Nonsense,’ William blurted out. ‘We’re not going to talk about that, are we? This has to do with the church and defending her, and we’re all together on that. Please stay.’

Thinking quickly, Schmidt agreed to stay. His case had nothing to do with this situation, which at the moment demanded more attention.

‘I am very worried about this, too,’ Tarcisio declared. ‘On the one hand he guarded the documents competently for more than fifty years. But a son is a son. That changes everything.’

‘Zafer, Hammal, Aragones.’ Schmidt counted them off. ‘Ben Isaac Jr. Apparently they know more, and we know less. We don’t even know who they are.’

William paced from one side to another, thinking. ‘I don’t think we should trust Ben Isaac. Not for his honesty and competence, but because of the delicacy of the situation. I think we should get possession of the documents as quickly as possible.’

Tarcisio shook his head no. ‘It’s not going to be easy. Pope Roncalli was forced to enter into the agreement with him because he couldn’t get his hands on the documents. I don’t think he’s going to give them up for free.’

‘Let’s pay,’ William cut in.

‘Do you think we haven’t offered money? Ben Isaac is a multimillionaire. Any offer is small change for him, and he’ll laugh in our face. He would pay us instead to keep them. The second agreement was so difficult that Pope Wojtyla limited himself to extending the term without discussing other deal points at all.’

‘Why does he want to hold on to the documents so much? He can’t use them. He gains nothing with them. As far as we know he’s never mentioned their existence to anyone. On the contrary, he’s kept them under enormous secrecy, which, fortunately, is in our own interests. No one can come near two hundred yards from the papyrus without swearing an airtight oath of complete silence. I don’t understand his fixation on them,’ William declared.