stopped for lunch. It was all over the television.”
“Serbs?” asked the man.
“They have no idea,” Mendravic answered. “No one killed. Just the building.”
“So why the roadblocks?” asked the man, a growing frustration in his voice. “You’d think they’d be happy that the Catholics got it. Happier if it had been a mosque.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Mendravic answered. “That’s why they were there. You were lucky to get away.”
“Because of some hysteria about a church, I lost a man?” Pearse could see the rage in his eyes, the utter disbelief. “They’ll blame it on us, won’t they? Catholic church. Muslim KLA. Probably did it themselves just for the excuse.” The man began to shake his head, all the while staring at Mendravic, Pearse evidently still invisible. When the words wouldn’t come, he finally looked at the priest, no hint of kindness in his eyes. For a moment, it seemed as if he might say something. Instead, he turned and headed back to the clinic.
“What weren’t you telling him?” asked Pearse when the man had moved out of earshot.
“It’s the stupidity that’ll make him want to kill them even more now,” Mendravic said, his eyes fixed on the retreating figure. When he realized Pearse had said something, he turned to him. “What?”
“There was something else you didn’t tell him, wasn’t there?”
Mendravic waited before answering. “When did you get to be so smart?”
“What didn’t you tell him?”
His eyes narrowed for just a moment. “It wasn’t only one church. There were three others. Two in Germany, another in Spain. Also this morning.”
“And they think they’re connected?”
“They? Yes, the TV people think that they’re connected.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Was there any news on the election?”
“Election?”
“The Pope.”
“Oh. Black smoke. They’ll do it all again tomorrow. What does that have to do with-”
“That’s probably your answer.” Stopping Mendravic short, Pearse added, “What better time to strike? The church preoccupied. No single authority. Catch them with their pants down.”
“For what reason?”
“It might be more obvious than you think.”
Again, Mendravic paused. “You think it has to do with your little book.”
“So do you. That’s why you didn’t say anything to your KLA friend.”
Another pause. “All right,” he admitted. “Then what, exactly, is in that book that would explain all of this?”
It was now Pearse’s turn to wait. “I wish I knew, Salko. I wish I knew.”
Kleist glanced over his shoulder one last time. Highly unlikely that anyone had followed him down here, but best to be sure. An endless assortment of pipes-all wrapped in plaster-ran along the low ceiling, the hum of a generator and furnace somewhere off in the distance. Otherwise, the basement of the Domus Sanctae Marthae lay in silence.
Above him, a hundred cardinals waited in their rooms, relaxing or praying, or doing whatever it is that cardinals do between conclave votes and dinner. Tonight, he had no intention of disturbing them.
Except for one.
Checking the building schematic for perhaps the fifth time in the last minute, he came to a small door located low on one of the walls, the hatch no more than two feet square. Fixed into its lower left-hand corner waited a simple lock, brand-new from the shine. Kleist pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, slipped one into the slot, and pulled back the door. Dropping to his knees, he angled his flashlight up and peered through.
No more than four feet across, the opening extended up beyond the reach of the light, equally distant to both his left and right. It was as if a four-foot wedge had been yanked from the center of the building, leaving this hollow tucked deep within. The light caught on a group of pipes perhaps twelve feet above him, open space above that, then another set of pipes twelve feet above that, so on and so on, the crude demarcation of the floors of the building. Kleist slid himself through and stood, pulling the door shut. He then flattened himself against the cement- block wall and again checked the schematic. The flashlight found what he was looking for off to his left-the iron rungs of a ladder built directly into the wall. Not an easy climb, but certainly manageable.
When he reached the “fourth floor,” he stepped out from the ladder and onto the piping, using his hands along the walls to keep his balance. Flashlight in his mouth, he counted off four heating ducts before bringing out a razor knife from his pocket. At the fifth, he sliced an opening into the aluminum, then tossed both knife and flashlight into the vent and hoisted himself up.
Fifteen minutes later, he sliced a second hole for his exit. This one dropped him down into another narrow passage, Sheetrock having replaced cement. He aimed the light to his left and slowly traced it along the wall. About a third of the way back to him, the light flashed momentarily. It had caught on something. Quickly, he made his way to the spot. A hinge. Two feet below it, a second. He placed his flattened palm on the wall and pushed.
It gave way with surprising ease. Again on his knees, Kleist ducked his head under, then pulled the rest of himself through. He was met by a cushioning of wall-to-wall carpeting beneath him. To his left, a bed. He stood and shut the door.
“You’re late.”
Kleist turned to see Cardinal von Neurath seated in a chair across the room. It had been von Neurath who had discovered the approach to the room in the plans. Nothing easier than to install a door and arrange the room assignments.
“Yes, Eminence.”
“Keep your voice down. These walls are paper-thin.”
Kleist nodded and moved toward the cardinal. A chair waited for him; he sat.
“I want one of those children taken. And I want it on the news quickly.” Von Neurath saw the momentary confusion on Kleist’s face. “Doesn’t matter which one. Any of them will send the message to the rest. I need those six votes, and I need them tomorrow.”
“The news? How would that-”
“We’re sequestered, Stefan. We’re not sealed in a vacuum. We all managed to hear about this morning’s events in Bilbao and Gottingen, and whatever that place is called near the Yugoslav border. You take the child, we’ll hear about it.” He let the words sink in. “Those weren’t supposed to go off for another few days, were they?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Miscommunication.”
Von Neurath waited before answering. “Get word to Harris. He has a tendency to overreact. Tell him, nothing changes.”
Kleist nodded.
“If for some reason the vote doesn’t come through tomorrow, I want you to leak the Syrian link to the bank. And keep Arturo’s name at the forefront.” Even more pointedly, he added, “And remember, nothing about this to the contessa or Blaney. You don’t have to understand why.”
Another nod.
“Now, where’s our priest?”
“Most recent contact was last night. He phoned.”
“That was good of him.” The irritation lasted less than a second. “Does he have the ‘Hodoporia’?”
“He will in a few days.”
“I see.” Von Neurath saw the moment’s hesitation in Kleist’s eyes. “What?”
“At the refugee camp-he says four men were tracking him.”
“What four men?”
“We don’t know.”
