“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to get that document.”
A bitter edge laced to the words. “I believe you would.” He needed to leave. “Am I dismissed?”
“Get out. But I’d better hear from you in two days time or you won’t like my next messenger.”
He wondered what that meant. The police? Somebody else? Hard to say.
“Ever wonder how Ms. Lew found you in Romania?” Valendrea casually asked as he reached the door.
Did he hear right? How did he know anything about Katerina? He stopped and looked back.
“She was there because I paid her to learn what you were doing.”
He was stunned, but said nothing.
“Bosnia, too. She went to keep an eye on you. I told her to use her talents to gain your trust, as she apparently did.”
He rushed forward, but Valendrea produced a small black controller. “One press and Swiss guards charge into this room. Assaulting the pope is a serious crime.”
He halted his advance and repressed a shudder.
“You aren’t the first man to be duped by a woman. She’s clever. But I’m telling you this as a warning. Careful whom you trust, Michener. There’s much at stake. You may not realize it, but I may be the only friend you’ve got when all this is over.”
FIFTY-SIX
Michener left the library. Ambrosi was waiting outside but did not accompany him to the forward loggia, saying only that the car and driver would take him wherever he wanted to go.
Katerina sat alone on a gilded settee. He was trying to understand what had motivated her to deceive him. He’d wondered about her finding him in Bucharest, then showing up at the apartment in Rome. He wanted to believe everything that had passed between them had been sincere, but he could not help thinking that it was all an act, designed to sway his emotions and lower his defenses. He’d been worried about the household staff or listening devices. Instead the one person he trusted had become his enemy’s perfect emissary.
At Turin, Clement had warned him.
His throat tightened as he came close to Katerina. Perhaps his strained expression betrayed his thoughts.
“He told you about me, didn’t he?” Her voice was sad.
“You expected that?”
“Ambrosi almost did yesterday. I figured Valendrea certainly would. I’m of no use to them anymore.”
Emotions ricocheted through him.
“I told them nothing, Colin. Absolutely nothing. I took Valendrea’s money and I went to Romania and Bosnia. That’s true. But because I wanted to go, not because
The words sounded good, but were not enough to ease his pain. He calmly asked, “Does the truth mean anything to you?”
She bit her lip and he noticed her right arm trembling. Anger, which was her usual response to a confrontation, had not surfaced. When she did not answer him, he said, “I trusted you, Kate. I told you things I would never tell anyone else.”
“And I didn’t violate that trust.”
“How am I to believe you?” Though he wanted to.
“What did Valendrea say?”
“Enough for us to be having this conversation.”
He was rapidly numbing. His parents were gone, as was Jakob Volkner. Now Katerina had betrayed him. For the first time in his life he was alone, and suddenly the weight of being an unwanted baby, born in an institution and stripped from his mother, settled upon him. He was in many ways lost, with nowhere to turn. He’d thought with Clement gone the woman standing before him held the answer to his future. He was even willing to discard a quarter century of his life for the chance to love her and be loved back.
But how could that possibly be now?
A moment of strained silence passed between them. Awkward and embarrassing.
“Okay, Colin,” she finally said. “I get the message. I’ll go.”
She turned to leave.
The heels of her shoes tapped off the marble as she walked away. He wanted to tell her it was okay.
He headed in the opposite direction, down to ground level. He wasn’t about to use the car Ambrosi had offered. He wanted nothing more from this place except to be left alone.
He was inside the Vatican without credentials or an escort, but his face was so well known that none of the guards questioned his presence. He came to the end of a long loggia filled with planispheres and globes. Ahead, Maurice Ngovi stood in the opposite doorway.
“I heard you were here,” Ngovi said as he approached. “I also know what happened in Bosnia. You okay?”
He nodded. “I was going to call you later.”
“We need to talk.”
“Where?”
Ngovi seemed to understand and motioned for him to follow. They walked in silence to the archives. The reading rooms were once again full of scholars, historians, and journalists. Ngovi found the cardinal-archivist and the three men headed for one of the reading rooms. Once inside with the door closed, Ngovi said, “I think this place is reasonably private.”
Michener turned to the archivist. “I thought you’d be unemployed by now.”
“I’ve been ordered out by the weekend. My replacement arrives the day after tomorrow.”
He knew what the job meant to the old man. “I’m sorry. But I think you’re better off.”
“What did our pontiff want with you?” Ngovi asked.
Michener plopped down in one of the chairs. “He thinks I have a document that was supposedly in the Riserva. Something Father Tibor sent to Clement that concerns the third secret of Fatima. Some facsimile of a translation. I have no idea what he’s talking about.”
Ngovi gave the archivist a strange look.
“What is it?” Michener asked.
Ngovi told him about Valendrea’s visit yesterday to the Riserva.
“He was like a madman,” the archivist said. “He kept saying something was gone from the box. I was truly frightened of him. God help this Church.”
“Did Valendrea explain anything?” Ngovi asked him.
He told them both what the pope had said.
“That Friday night,” the cardinal-archivist said, “when Clement and Valendrea were in the Riserva together, something was burned. We found ashes on the floor.”
“Clement said nothing to you about that?” Michener asked.
The archivist shook his head. “Not a word.”
A lot of the pieces were coming together, but there was still a problem. He said, “This whole thing is bizarre. Sister Lucia herself verified in 2000 the authenticity of the third secret before it was released by John Paul.”
Ngovi nodded. “I was present. The original writing was taken, in the box, from the Riserva to Portugal, and she confirmed that the document was the same one she penned in 1944. But, Colin, the box contained only two sheets of paper. I myself was there when it was opened. There was an original writing and an Italian translation.
