the nunciature, I phoned Ruth and asked her to run a check on it. Phone calls, diplomatic telegrams, radio messages - everything. I think she’d better tell you what she found herself.’
Ruth hesitated. For some reason the priest made her anxious. For all the range of her parents’ friends, she had had little contact with Catholics and almost none at all with priests. Like many women, she found their conscious option for celibacy a rejection of something essential to herself. She supposed men felt the same about nuns. For the first time in years, her social skills betrayed her. She was ill at ease and aware that she showed it. The fact that he was black made her feel even more awkward. Racial distinctions had never meant anything to her, but that very fact made her more conscious that her uneasiness might be misinterpreted.
‘Father Makonnen,’ she began, ‘you probably know that your people - I mean the Vatican State - and the CIA regularly exchange intelligence information. As Patrick ... Mr Canavan so kindly pointed out, you naturally understand that we also like to keep ourselves independently informed of any items of interest that may for any reason have been omitted from our regular briefings. And I’m sure your own intelligence people have their ways of informing themselves of some of our less well-kept secrets.’
She hesitated. There was no telling how Makonnen might react to what she had to tell him. She took a deep breath and plunged on.
“Yesterday,’ she said, ‘after Patrick phoned, I went across to the embassy and looked up some old computer files. Patrick has explained to you that we were looking for something with the word “Passover”. He didn’t mention that, on one occasion, we ran the word “Easter” through as well. “Pasqua” in Italian. Well, all we came up with were a few messages to and from the nunciature. Nobody even bothered to read them. After all, what could be more normal than the Vatican talking about a major Christian festival?’
She paused and glanced out the window. A large bird circled the tower, its wings catching fire momentarily in the early afternoon light.
‘But someone had been careless. “Passover” isn’t the sort of word our translators usually have to handle. Anyway, it turns out that Pasqua isn’t just Italian for “Easter”. It’s also the word Italian Jews use to refer to “Passover” if they happen to be talking to Christians: Pasqua Ebraica - the Jewish Easter.
‘So I went back through the messages involving the nunciature. The first two could have referred to either Passover or Easter, it wasn’t clear. But the third was more puzzling. It was dated February third, it was in code, and it was signed, not with a proper name, but with a sort of pseudonym -Il Pescatore, the Fisherman.’ She paused. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’
The priest thought for a moment. She saw the faint shadow that crossed his eyes, sensed his hesitation.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it means nothing to me.’
But she knew what he was thinking, that Peter had been the first Fisherman of the Church. And the first Pope.
‘The message was addressed to Balzarin in person. It instructed him to have courage. All was going well. Plans had been completed. Pasqua would take place in exactly one month, on March the third.’ She paused. ‘Someone should have noticed that Easter this year isn’t until April nineteenth.’
Makonnen listened with growing bewilderment. Where was this leading? He fumbled with the beads of his rosary, moving them nervously in a form of silent prayer. He felt compromised and abandoned, like a child on the verge of adulthood.
‘And the Jewish Passover starts on March the third?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘No. That’s what’s puzzling. Passover begins a few days before Easter. But in the message Pasqua definitely means “Passover”, not “Easter”. The writer speaks about “the day the children of Israel fled from captivity in Egypt”. And both De Faoite and Chekulayev spoke quite clearly of “Passover”.’
Makonnen got out of his seat. He felt trapped, as though this Fisherman in the Vatican had him fast by a long line and a hook. He went across to the window and looked out, at the grey tower and the winter trees, at the dark water, the gathering clouds. Even in winter it was green here, green and wet beyond all his childhood imaginings. Why is the world so desolate, he thought, so empty even when it is full?
Why are we talking about this here?’ he asked. Why are you telling me? You have a huge organization: men, computers, files. I’m just a priest, I can’t help you.’
Ruth glanced at Patrick. Her expression was one of exhaustion, of despair almost.
‘We can’t do that, Father,’ Patrick said quietly.
Makonnen turned and looked at him.
‘Why not?’
In answer, Patrick picked up the file Makonnen had found on Balzarin’s desk. He opened it and took out a sheet of paper. Gently, he laid it on the table for the priest to read. It was a small sheet of headed notepaper. At the top was a round shield, underneath which was inscribed a biblical quotation: ‘And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’.
Makonnen came to the table and picked up the sheet.
‘My brother? the letter read, 7 have received your letter and that of the Pillars. May God bless you and all you seek to accomplish in His path. The hour of Passover will soon be upon us. Rest assured of my prayers and my assistance. If there is anything you or the brothers need that I can supply, do not hesitate to ask. All that is mine is yours: you know that. I have given the instructions you requested. You will not be interfered with. Give my greetings to Cardinal Fazzini. In His name, Miles Van Doren.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Makonnen, handing the letter back to Patrick. ‘What does this mean? What’s this shield at the top?’
‘The shield,’ Patrick said slowly, ‘is the official seal of the Central Intelligence Agency.’ Ruth was looking away, her eyes fixed on the distance. ‘The words are from the Bible: you can see them any day of the week if you walk into the entrance lobby of the Agency out at Langley.’
‘And this man, Miles Van Doren - who is he?’
Ruth watched a cloud pass like a veil behind the tower. She had chosen this place for its silences. But the world had followed her and was filling her grey spaces with its own sounds.
‘Miles Van Doren,’ she said in a voice so quiet Makonnen had to strain to hear it, ‘Miles Van Doren is my father. He’s the President’s Advisor on Foreign Intelligence and a Deputy Director of the CIA. Those were his men who picked you up at the nunciature. Not ordinary agents. Special Operations men fresh from Honduras. He sent them into Ireland three weeks ago. The two who came for you weren’t the only ones. There are others.’ She looked up, the expression of pain in her eyes unbearable. ‘They’re looking for you again,’ she said. ‘Only this time my father’s with them.’
TWENTY
In spite of the fire it was growing chilly in the room. Ruth threw on another block of peat and poked the ashes, sending bright sparks up the chimney.
‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I’d like to take a walk about, see that everything’s all right out there. I might go on down to the lake.’
She took a green Barbour jacket from a hook near the door and slipped it on.
‘Take care. Don’t walk too far. We’ll look after things in here.’ Patrick knew what Ruth meant when she said she would see that everything was all right. In this business, constant vigilance was the price, not so much of freedom as of life itself.
The door closed gently behind her. Patrick indicated the easy chairs by the fireplace.
‘Let’s sit down over here.’
For a while they sat, drinking coffee, watching the flames rise through the soft peat. The priest needed time to digest what he had just been told, to understand that his ordeal was not over, that it had only begun. When the coffee was finished, Patrick found some sherry in a cupboard, an old Manzanilla, very dry and very pale. It would have been better chilled, but he poured it anyway. They began to talk, returning before very long to the mystery that had brought them there.
‘Chekulayev was killed,’ Patrick explained, ‘by the same people who killed Eamonn De Faoite. Eamonn knew about Passover. The papers he sent to Balzarin must have contained details: names, places, dates -whatever he’d been able to dig up.’
