the Third Secret

Nothing more.”

“If the message was incomplete, would she not have said something?” Michener asked.

“She was so old and frail,” Ngovi said. “I recall how she merely glanced at the page and nodded. I was told her eyesight was poor, her hearing gone.”

“Maurice asked me to check,” the archivist said. “Valendrea and Paul VI entered the Riserva on May 18, 1978. Valendrea returned an hour later, on Paul’s express order, and stayed there, alone, for fifteen minutes.”

Ngovi nodded. “It seems whatever Father Tibor sent to Clement opened a door Valendrea thought long closed.”

“And it may have cost Tibor his life.” He considered the situation. “Valendrea called whatever is gone a facsimile translation. Translation of what?”

“Colin,” Ngovi said. “There is apparently more to the third secret of Fatima than we know.”

“And Valendrea thinks I have it.”

“Do you?” Ngovi asked.

He shook his head. “If I did, I’d give him the damn thing. I’m sick of this and just want out.”

“Any thoughts as to what Clement might have done with Tibor’s reproduction?”

He hadn’t really considered the point. “No idea. Stealing was not like Clement.” Neither was committing suicide, but he knew better than to say anything. The archivist had no knowledge of that. But he sensed from Ngovi’s expression the Kenyan was thinking the same thing.

“And what of Bosnia?” Ngovi asked.

“Stranger than Romania.”

He showed them Jasna’s message. He’d given Valendrea a copy, keeping the original.

“We can’t put too much credence in this,” Ngovi said, motioning with Jasna’s words. “Medjugorje seems more a sideshow than a religious experience. This tenth secret could simply be the seer’s imagination and, quite frankly, considering its scope, I have to seriously question if that isn’t so.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Michener said. “Jasna has convinced herself it’s real and seems caught up in the experience. Yet Valendrea reacted strongly when he read the message.” He told them what had just happened.

“That’s the way he was in the Riserva,” the archivist said. “A madman.”

Michener stared hard at Ngovi. “What’s going on here, Maurice?”

“I am at a loss. Years back, as a bishop, I and others spent three months studying the third secret at John Paul’s request. That message was so different from the first two. They were precise, detailed, but the third secret was more a parable. His Holiness thought guidance from the Church, in its interpretation, was called for. And I agreed. But never did we consider the message incomplete.”

Ngovi motioned to a thick, oversized volume lying on the table. The huge manuscript was ancient, its pages so aged they appeared charred. The cover was scrawled in Latin, surrounded by colorful drawings depicting what appeared to be popes and cardinals. The words LIGNUM VITAE were barely visible in faded crimson ink.

Ngovi sat in one of the chairs and asked Michener, “What do you know of St. Malachy?”

“Enough to question whether the man was genuine.”

“I assure you, his prophecies are real. This volume here was published in Venice in 1595 by a Dominican historian, Arnold Wion, as the definitive account of what St. Malachy himself wrote of his visions.”

“Maurice, those visions occurred in the middle of the twelfth century. Four hundred years passed before Wion began writing everything down. I’ve heard all the tales. Who knows what Malachy said, if anything. His words have not survived.”

“But Malachy’s writings were here in 1595,” the archivist said. “Our indexes show that. So Wion would have had access to them.”

“If Wion’s book survived, why didn’t Malachy’s text?”

Ngovi motioned to the book. “Even if Wion’s writing is a forgery, his prophecies instead of Malachy’s, they, too, are remarkable in their accuracy. Made even more so with what’s happened over the past couple of days.”

Ngovi offered him three typed sheets. Michener scanned the pages and saw that it was a narrative summary.

Malachy was an Irishman, born in 1094. He became a priest at age twenty-five, a bishop at thirty. In 1139 he left Ireland for Rome, where he delivered an account of his diocese to Pope Innocent II. While there he experienced a strange vision of the future, a long list of men who would one day rule the Church. He committed his vision to parchment and presented Innocent with the manuscript. The pope read the offering, then sealed it in the archives where it remained until 1595, when Arnold Wion again recorded the list of pontiffs Malachy had seen, along with Malachy’s prophetical mottoes, starting with Celestine II, in 1143, and ending 111 popes later with the supposed last pontiff.

“There’s no evidence that Malachy even experienced visions,” Michener said. “As I recall, that was all added to the story in the late nineteenth century from secondhand sources.”

“Read some of the mottoes,” Ngovi calmly said.

He stared again at the pages in his hand. The eighty-first pope was prophesied to be The Lily and the Rose. Urban VIII, who served at that time, came from Florence, which used the red lily as its symbol. He was also bishop of Spoletto, which took the rose for its symbol. The ninety-fourth pope was said to be A Rose of Umbria. Clement XIII, before becoming pope, was governor of Umbria. Apostolic Wanderer was the predicted motto for the ninety-sixth pope. Pius VI would end his days a wandering prisoner of the French revolutionists. Leo XIII was the 102nd pope. A Light in the Sky was his attributed motto. The papal arms of Leo showed a comet. John XXIII was said to be Shepherd and Sailor. Apt since he defined his pontificate as that of a shepherd and the badge of Vatican II, which he called into session, displayed a cross and a ship. Also, prior to his election, John was patriarch of Venice, an ancient maritime capital.

Michener looked up. “Interesting, but what does this have to do with anything?”

“Clement was the one hundred and eleventh pope. Malachy labeled him From the Glory of the Olive. Do you recall the gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, the signs of the end of the age?”

He did. Jesus left the Temple and was walking away when his disciples complimented the beauty of the building. I tell you the truth, He said. Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down. Then later, on the Mount of Olives, the disciples beseeched Him to say when that would happen and what will be the sign of the end of the age.

“Christ foretold the second coming in that passage. But, Maurice, you can’t seriously believe that the end of the age is at hand?”

“Perhaps not something that cataclysmic, but nonetheless a clear ending and a new beginning. Clement was predicted to be the precursor to that event. And there’s more. Of Malachy’s described popes, starting in 1143, the last of his one hundred and twelve is the current pope. Malachy predicted in 1138 that he would be named Petrus Romanus.”

Peter the Roman.

“But that’s a fallacy,” Michener said. “Some say Malachy never predicted a Peter. Instead, that was added in a nineteenth-century publication of his prophecies.”

“I wish that were true,” Ngovi said as he slipped on a pair of cotton gloves and gently opened the bulky manuscript. The ancient parchment crackled from the effort. “Read this.”

He glanced down at the words, penned in Latin:

In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Peter the Roman who will feed his flock among many tribulations, after which in the seven hilled city the dreadful judge will judge all people.

“Valendrea,” Ngovi said, “took the name Peter on his own accord. Do you see now why I’m so concerned? Those are Wion’s words, supposedly Malachy’s as well, written centuries ago. Who are we to question? Maybe Clement was right. We inquire far too much and do what we please, not what we’re supposed to do.”

“How can you explain,” the cardinal-archivist asked, “that this volume is nearly five hundred years old and these mottoes were attributed to these popes long ago? Ten or twenty being correct is coincidence. Ninety percent