Conrad sipped some coffee. “What is it with you, anyway?” He gestured at his collar. “It’s a powerful symbol, makes you a
The last thing Daniel needed was people putting on more of a show for him than they did already. But he wasn’t about to take the bait. “Too hot,” he said.
“Tell you one thing,” Conrad puffed on the hookah, “that kid never would’ve pulled a gun on a priest.” He blew out a white cloud. “I’m curious. How much did you give him?”
Daniel shrugged.
“And how much does a gun cost on the street? Forty, fifty bucks?”
Another shrug.
“So what did you achieve? He’ll just buy another gun, with cash to spare.”
And the kid probably would. But what the hell. Daniel had resolved the situation without hurting the kid or getting shot, and as a bonus, he’d taken one gun off the street.
And maybe he’d given the kid something to think about.
Maybe.
He puffed on the hookah. He said, “Which case?”
“The girl.”
“Which girl?” He knew perfectly well which girl, but he wasn’t giving anything away for free.
By way of explanation, Conrad held his hands out, displaying his palms. “South of Abuja. We need this one.”
So Conrad had access to Daniel’s e-mails. Only way he could’ve known his personal persuasion was necessary. Another fun-filled day of Vatican office politics.
“The investigation was fair,” said Daniel. “The girl is not a miracle.”
“A lot at stake here, Golden Boy.”
“Especially for the girl.”
Conrad shot back the rest of his coffee, sludge and all, brought the cup down hard. “You think you’ve got the moral high ground? You don’t. We’re at war, and this girl lives on the front lines.
“This isn’t about me.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
Daniel swallowed his first response. “Father Conrad,” he said, “I agree with the goal, but this is not the way to get there. The ODA is independent for a reason, and we don’t knowingly certify fake miracles.”
“From what I hear,
A little below the belt, but Daniel didn’t flinch. “Not yet. Still looking, though.”
“Then step down off the cross and look a little harder at Stigmata Girl. The parish has been flooded with converts since she started manifesting.”
“It was goat.”
“Boko Haram is acting on its promise. The head count is over a thousand and accelerating.”
“Father Conrad, I read the report.”
“Then consider this: despite everything, and because of this miracle, we’re winning hearts and minds up there.”
“I wish you success in keeping them, but my orders are clear. I follow the evidence where it leads.” Daniel put back the rest of his coffee. “And I don’t work for you.”
Conrad reached into his jacket and came up with an envelope, handed it across the table.
Daniel turned the envelope over, and his heart sank. The flap bore the red wax seal of Cardinal Allodi, the direct superior of both Conrad and Father Nick. Daniel had long suspected Allodi favored the political mission of World Outreach over the more esoteric duties of the ODA.
Daniel broke the seal and read the letter.
“Cardinal Allodi told me about Honduras,” said Conrad, “so don’t act like you’re above this.”
Daniel’s blood rose. He pictured breaking Conrad’s nose with a hard right, followed by a hook to the ribs and an uppercut to...He reined it in, refocused on what the man was saying.
“…you can’t just pretend it never happened. People
“Three,” said Daniel. “I killed three. And you already know that…or are we pretending you haven’t read the case file?”
Conrad’s mouth tightened very slightly. “Watch yourself, Daniel.”
Daniel nodded, not an apology but a grudging acknowledgment of his station.
Conrad’s tone turned conversational. “You’ll enjoy your time in Outreach. We have many pencils that require sharpening, and you’re just the man for the job. We’ll cure you of your sin of pride, and you’ll be a better priest when I decide it’s time for you to return to the ODA.” He flashed Daniel a grin that said:
Daniel picked up his Honda Shadow from long-term parking at Leonardo da Vinci Airport, hit the Autostrada, and pointed the motorcycle toward the lights of Rome, barely seeing the road, his mind replaying scenes from Nigeria.
The obsequious parish priest, angling to parlay his local miracle into a promotion to the big city. The grandparents and parents filled with pride because “God has chosen our little Abassi to bear the wounds of Christ.” And the teenage girl with endless brown eyes, manic energy, and a handful of three-inch twisted-shank roofing nails hidden under her mattress.
Daniel had caught her in the act. He knew she was self-mutilating, but he played dumb for a few days, interviewing the girl and her family with softball questions, lulling them into a sense of security. Every few hours, the family would contrive to leave the girl alone. “She needs to rest, this is so hard on her,” one of them would say, and all would agree with pitying nods of the head, wringing their rough country hands. They would sit in the kitchen and drink tea from chipped china, and when they returned an hour later with a cup of tea for the girl, their footfalls were loud and they paused a little too long between knock and enter.
Willful blindness. He tried not to hate them for it.
On the third day, during one of the girl’s “rests,” Daniel excused himself from the kitchen table and headed for the bathroom, exactly as he had done the previous days. But this time he walked straight to the girl’s room and threw the door open.
She sat smiling on her bed, quietly singing “Jesus Loves Me,” while jabbing a nail straight through the palm of her left hand. Then twisting the nail, enlarging the hole as blood dripped into her lap.
Conrad wasn’t wrong about what was at stake. The twisted, fundamentalist brand of Islam that Boko Haram was selling in Nigeria was beyond regressive—it was violent, misogynistic, and apocalyptic. Their name meant “Western education is sacrilege.” They’d vowed to kill all the Christians living in their territory, and they were making good on it. They’d already killed over a thousand, burned over three hundred churches. Last Christmas Day,
