Luis Rocha - The Last Pope

“And now?”

“Now he must be dead,” her father said, his voice choked up.

Thinking about it, Sarah grew very serious.

“I didn’t remember that I had an Italian godfather.”

“Don’t let the name fool you. Firenzi was of solid Portuguese stock.”

“All the same, he endangered everybody.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth. He stuck his nose into something that was just fine as it was. What did he expect to accomplish?”

“To bring the truth to light.”

“That truth was fine as it was, locked away.”

Rafael looked for something inside the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a sheet of paper and a photo of Benedict XVI.

“What’s that?” Sarah asked.

“What Father Felipe received in Madrid.”

He handed the letter to her. Although she didn’t speak Spanish, the language was so similar to Portugese that she understood nearly everything.

Today, on my seventy-fourth birthday, my past mistakes have caught up with me. Divine irony doesn’t pass unnoticed, and I know that He is the one behind all of this. As life unfolds, it’s difficult to understand the implications and consequences of our decisions and actions. We start from the right principles, having the noblest of dreams, and in time we come up against our own monstrosity, the vile and cruel consequence of what we have done. No matter how much we may spend the rest of our days using good to atone for the bad, completely denying ourselves for the other, the stain remains, always sneaking up behind us, whispering, “You won’t escape, you won’t escape.” Until it ends up fulfilling its promise, as happens today, on my birthday. Before saying good-bye, I want to present you with this letter and the photo of my beloved pope, to whom you’ll know how to apply the tender light of prayer. As for myself, I bid farewell with a confession. Because of my cowardice I let a pope die, and I did nothing to prevent it.

“The Spanish authorities gave this to me when I went to arrange for Felipe’s funeral. My good friend Felipe.”

“And they didn’t find the content strange?”

“They didn’t put two and two together. And luckily, I arrived before anybody from the organization could get hold of the letter. In Buenos Aires that wasn’t possible, and not only did they kill Pablo, but they also took the photo.”

“What’s special about the photo?”

Raul took out a small pocket flashlight with ultraviolet light.

“Come closer.”

Hesitant at first, Sarah moved closer to her father, driven by curiosity. Rafael took an occasional glance, without neglecting his driving. They saw, under the application of the black light, how the face of Benedict XVI disappeared, and there was instead the face of an old man, skillfully traced with thousands of fluorescent filaments.

“Who is it?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know,” her father answered.

“A double portrait,” Rafael said.

Raul removed the magical light, and immediately the image of Benedict XVI reappeared.

“I’m confused.”

“I don’t know who it is, but they must know already. I suppose,” Raul added, “right now it’s the man who has the papers.”

“And that brings us to the two other elements that Sarah received,” Rafael said.

“Which?” Raul asked.

“A code-”

“That your friend swallowed, for better or worse,” Sarah noted.

“And the key.”

“That’s right, the key.” Sarah had completely forgotten about this. She retrieved it from her pants pocket and showed it to her father. A very small key to a padlock.

“Where could it be from?” Raul asked, studying it. “What would it open?”

They were silent for a few seconds, each analyzing possible theories about the key, the photo, and Raul’s most recent revelations.

“You mentioned a code.”

“Yes, but it’s gone,” Sarah pointed out.

“The original disappeared, but I have a copy,” Rafael announced, holding a piece of paper he’d removed from his pocket. It was the paper on which he’d copied the code, before having Margulies try to decipher it.

Raul looked at it, paying close attention to the code.

18, 15-34, H, 2, 23, V, 11

Dio bisogno e IO fare lo. Suo augurio Y mio comando

GCT (15)-9, 30-31, 15, 16, 2, 21, 6-14, 11, 16, 16, 2, 20

“Did your friend manage to decipher it?” he finally asked.

“He didn’t have time,” the young woman explained. “They killed him first.”

“Then it’s going to take us a few hours.”

“Wait,” Rafael said, thinking, trying to remember something. “He looked at me before he died.”

“Who?” Sarah asked, wondering.

“Margulies. He looked at me before he died, and told me to count the letters.”

Raul stopped listening. He set the paper in his lap, meanwhile scribbling with his mechanical pencil, and counting on his fingers. In a very short time, he straightened up.

“Now I’ve got it.”

L, A-C, H, I, A, V, E

Dio bisogno e IO fare lo. Suo augurio Y mio comando

GCT (DI)-N, Y-M, A, R, I, U, S-F, E, R, R, I, S

“ La chiave -the key?” Sarah exclaimed. “Marius Ferris? Who is Marius Ferris?”

“It must be the man in the double photo,” her father guessed.

“If you’ll permit me, Captain, I think we can interpret it two ways. Either the key is Marius Ferris, or else the key opens something in New York.”

“ New York?” Sarah wondered why he referred to New York.

“Yes. NY must be New York.”

“And GCT?” Raúl asked.

“GCT,” Rafael repeated, thinking, but nothing came to him. “And the two letters in parentheses? It’s not so simple.”

“Is it correctly decoded?” Sarah asked.

“I think so,” her father affirmed. “Notice the first words: la chiave. They leave no doubt. Marius Ferris could be the man we need to find. We just have to decipher GCT and the letters in parentheses.”

“Let’s look at that during the trip, Captain.”

“You’re right.”

“You’re exactly sure where we’re going?” Sarah asked, noticing the lights of Lisbon in the distance. “And what if we go to a hotel, for a decent night’s sleep?”

“Don’t even think about it. We’ve got a lot of miles to go to get to Madrid.”

“ Madrid?”

“What’s your itinerary, my friend?” Raul asked, trying to reassure his daughter.

“By car to Madrid and then by plane to New York.”

“ New York?” Sarah was intrigued. “And we’re not even sure the code is sending us there.”

“Yes,” Rafael declared, totally confident. “Burn the code, Captain. I already know what it says.”

Finally the long-awaited moment came. The one he had anticipated for many years. Including, if he really thought about it, even going back to the times when he held his father’s hand in the streets of old Gdansk.

His father, a metallurgist by profession and an active member of Solidarity, cherished the deeply rooted ideal of a free Poland. He hated the dictatorship in his country, but was blind to the one that he imposed on the boy’s mother, who never lost her cheerfulness, despite the physical and psychological hardships she had to face. It touched her to see how the boy managed to keep in his mind a fixed, happy image of his father and mother together, on the bank of the Motława, when his father’s most noteworthy traits were violence and prolonged absences from his family, as a result of his unequal battle against a totalitarian government. In that area, at least, one had to give him credit for his steadfast commitment to his cause. It was too bad that he failed to establish those same hard-won freedoms in his home. For instance, he very easily could have granted the boy’s mother freedom of expression. The image of the river could well be the happy picture taken by a happy mother. But no. That in no way represented reality. That photo never existed, was never taken. What did exist was fear, the everyday terror of hearing the key turn in the lock to make way for the devil. After a long absence, it was the end of peace. Once again there was the black suitcase full of dollars for the cause. “It’s from the Americans,” he said, wolfing down the dinner prepared by his wife, so pure-hearted that she never once thought to season it with rat poison. That’s what he would have done. “It’s from the Vatican,” his father continued. “This time we will finish them.” And he laughed like a child on the verge of seeing his dreams come true. He said they couldn’t talk to anybody about the source of the money. Should its existence become known, they would all deny it. Besides, it was dirty money, obtained at other people’s expense-from drugs, from trafficking in poorly guarded secrets. Dirty money to finance noble ideals, of equality, justice, and liberty. Foreigners, prying eyes, and naturally enemies couldn’t learn the source of the money. It was from the Americans and the Vatican, his father said, without specifying the twists and turns those bills had taken, the hands through which they had passed, the shadow enterprises, the administrators of corrupt banks. No one would ever know.