Berry, Steve - the Third Secret

“You must learn what’s in Tibor’s response,” Ambrosi said.

“Colin wouldn’t open it.”

“Find a way.”

“How do you expect me to do that?”

“Go upstairs. Seduce him. Read it while he sleeps afterward.”

“Why don’t you? I’m sure priests interest you more than they do me.”

Ambrosi lunged, wrapping his long thin fingers around her neck and collapsing her down onto the bed. The grip was cold and waxy. He brought his knee onto her chest and pressed her firmly into the mattress folds. He was stronger than she would have thought.

“Unlike Cardinal Valendrea, I have little patience for your smart mouth. I remind you that we are in Romania, not Rome, and people disappear here all the time. I want to know what Father Tibor wrote. Find out, or I might not restrain myself the next time we meet.” Ambrosi’s knee pressed deeper into her chest. “I’ll find you tomorrow, just as I found you this evening.”

She wanted to spit in his face, but the ever-tightening fingers around her neck cautioned otherwise.

Ambrosi released his grip and headed for the door.

She clutched her neck and sucked a few breaths, then leaped from the bed.

Ambrosi spun back to face her, a gun in his hand.

She halted her advance. “You . . . fucking . . . mobster.”

He shrugged. “History teaches that there truly is an imperceptible line between good and evil. Sleep well.”

He opened the door and left.

TWENTY-ONE

VATICAN CITY, 11:40 P.M.

Valendrea crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray as a knock came on his bedchamber door. He’d been engrossed in a novel for nearly an hour. He so enjoyed American suspense thrillers. They were a welcome escape from his life of careful words and strict protocol. His retreat each night into a world of mystery and intrigue was something he looked forward to, and Ambrosi made sure he always had a new adventure to read.

“Enter,” he called out.

The face of his chamberlain appeared. “I received a call a few moments ago, Eminence. The Holy Father is in the Riserva. You wished to be informed if that occurred.”

He slipped off his reading glasses and closed the book. “That will be all.”

The chamberlain retreated.

He quickly dressed in a knit shirt and trousers, slipped on a pair of running shoes, and left his apartment, heading for the private elevator. At ground level he traversed the empty corridors of the Apostolic Palace. The silence was disturbed only by a soft whine from closed-circuit televison cameras revolving on their lofty perches and the squeak of his rubber soles on the terrazzo. No danger existed of anyone seeing him—the palace was sealed for the night.

He entered the archives and ignored the night prefect, walking through the maze of shelves straight to the iron gate for the Riserva. Clement XV stood inside the lighted space, his back to him, dressed in a white linen cassock.

The doors of the ancient safe hung open. He made no effort to mask his approach. It was time for a confrontation.

“Come in, Alberto,” the pope said, the German’s back still to him.

“How did you know it was me?”

Clement turned. “Who else would it be?”

He stepped into the light, the first time he’d been inside the Riserva since 1978. Then, only a few incandescent bulbs lit the windowless alcove. Now fluorescent fixtures cast everything in a pearly glow. The same wooden box lay in the same drawer, its lid open. Remnants of the wax seal he’d shattered and replaced adorned the outside.

“I was told about your visit here with Paul,” Clement said. The pope gestured to the box. “You were present when he opened that. Tell me, Alberto, was he shocked? Did the old fool wince when he read the Virgin’s words?”

He wasn’t going to give Clement the satisfaction of knowing the truth. “Paul was more of a pope than you ever could be.”

“He was an obstinate, unbending man. He had a chance to do something, but he let his pride and arrogance control him.” Clement lifted an unfolded sheet of paper that lay beside the box. “He read this, yet put himself before God.”

“He died only three months later. What could he have done?”

“He could have done everything the Virgin asked.”

“Do what, Jakob? What is so important? The third secret of Fatima commands nothing beyond faith and penance. What should Paul have done?”

Clement maintained his rigid pose. “You lie so well.”

A blind fury built inside him that he quickly repressed. “Are you mad?”

The pope took a step toward him. “I know about your second visit to this room.”

He said nothing.

“The archivists keep quite detailed records. They have noted for centuries every soul who has ever entered this chamber. On the night of May 19, 1978, you visited with Paul. An hour later, you returned. Alone.”

“I was on a mission for the Holy Father. He commanded that I return.”

“I’m sure he did, considering what was in the box at that time.”

“I was sent to reseal the box and the drawer.”

“But before you resealed the box, you read what was inside. And who could blame you? You were a young priest, assigned to the papal household. Your pope, whom you worshiped, had just read the words of a Marian seer and they surely upset him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If not, then he was more of a fool than I think him to be.” Clement’s gaze sharpened. “You read the words, then you removed part of them. You see, there once were four sheets of paper in this box. Two written by Sister Lucia when she memorialized the third secret in 1944. Two composed by Father Tibor when he translated in 1960. But after Paul opened the box and you resealed it, no one again opened the box until 1981, when John Paul II read the third secret for the first time. That was done in the presence of several cardinals. Their testimony confirms that Paul’s seal was unbroken. All present that day also attested that only two sheets of paper lay inside the box, one written by Sister Lucia, the other Father Tibor’s translation. Nineteen years later, in 2000, when John Paul finally released the text of the third secret to the world, there remained only the same two sheets of paper in the box. How do you account for that, Alberto? Where are the other two pages that were there in 1978?”

“You know nothing.”

“Unfortunately for both me and you, I do. There was something you never knew. The translator for John XXIII, Father Andrej Tibor, copied the entire two-page third secret onto a pad, then produced a two-page translation. He gave the pope his original work, but later he noticed that upon his pad was left the impression of what he’d written. He, like myself, had the annoying habit of bearing down too hard. He took a pencil, shaded out the words, then traced them onto two sheets. One, the original words of Sister Lucia. The other, his translation.” Clement held up the paper in his hand. “One of those facsimiles is this, which Father Tibor recently sent it to me.”

Valendrea kept his face frozen. “May I see it?”

Clement smiled. “If you like.”

He accepted the page. Waves of apprehension clutched his stomach. The words were the same feminine script he remembered, about ten lines, in Portuguese, which he still could not read.

“Portuguese was Sister Lucia’s native tongue,” Clement said. “I have compared the style, format, and lettering from Father Tibor’s facsimile to the first part of the third secret you so graciously left in the box. They are identical in every way.”

“Is there a translation?” he asked, masking all emotion.

“There is, and the good father sent his facsimile along.” Clement motioned. “But it is in the box. Where it belongs.”