"Nothing that comes up at this meeting is to be discussed outside," said Mother Edwina, obviously meaning her words for Chantal.
"Of course," she said. She always picked up the impression that the older woman didn't quite like her.
"Done," said the Cardinal, "we're definitively debugged. This meeting is not being recorded. It will not exist on our records."
"Fabrizio," said Georgi, “this is your presentation.You may begin."
"Thank you, Holy Father…"
Cardinal DeAngelis stood up, and a map appeared on the screen. Chantal recognized an area covering the United States, Mexico and most of the Central American Confederacy. It was covered with little red crucifixes she supposed were churches, and the crucifixes were linked by a glowing spiderweb.
"As you can see, we have been attempting to bind our operations in the continental Americas into one supranational datanet. This leeches onto the local datanets, but is not entirely absorbed into them. There has, of course, been some difficulty in realizing this objective. While the hostility between Washington and Managua continues, neither the US nor the CAC are especially keen on our linkages, but I am now in a position to reveal that we have been successful. We are now fully integrated in the New World, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, even to the Antarctic…"
Cardinal Brandreth clapped leisurely. Chantal caught a feint trace of sarcasm on the camerlengo's elegantly curled lips.
"Thank you, but your congratulations are premature. There are problems. And, as it stands, our entire operation is jeopardized."
DeAngelis paused, allowing his aquiline profile to be silhouetted against the map. He passed a beringed hand through his leonine mane of coiffeured hair. Mother Edwina fidgeted. DeAngelis tapped a key. The map disappeared, and a blurry snapshot, blown up to gigantic size, appeared. A man in black, with sunglasses and a broad black hat, stood in the glaring light of the sun, his arms out in a benediction.
"This is Elder Nguyen Seth of the Church of Joseph."
"I've heard of him," Chantal said, starting for some reason at the blobbily reproduced face. "He's the man behind Deseret."
"That is correct. He successfully lobbied Washington a few years ago and was granted deed to the then-useless State of Utah, which he renamed Deseret and has raised from the dead. He has, by all accounts, made a garden in the desert."
Aerial views of wheatfields, rice paddies and greenhouses appeared behind the Pope. Ceorgi did not turn to look. His gaze, as it had been when she entered, was on Chantal. She felt slightly uncomfortable at this scrutiny. It was as if the joke had finally turned serious.
"Of course, we have notionally recognized the Church of Joseph along with all the other protestant sects since Vatican LXXXV, but we have not been overenthusiastic in its case. Like too many American fundamentalist churches, it combines some of the less attractive aspects of zealotry with a certain cracked quality that appears to sell well. It would be a negligible force if it weren't for Elder Seth."
Another snapshot enlargement appeared. A man in combat fatigues and sunglasses, carrying an assault rifle, was firing into a hut. There was jungle in the background, and soldiers were caught by the camera in action. Puffs of smoke and flame were coming out of rifles.
"This, you'll be surprised to learn, is Nguyen Seth in 1974, with a detachment of the Khmer Rouge. He is in the process of razing to the ground a village on the Vietnam-Kampuchea border. The blurred fellow behind him with the grenade launcher has been tentatively identified as a Frenchman, currently a highly in-demand international terrorist named Roger Duroc. During the Vietnam War, Nguyen Seth fought alongside the Russians against the Chinese, and switched sides several time. Whichever side he was on was usually the one committing the atrocities at the time. The Republic of Vietnam still has a price on his head for singularly revolting war crimes. Before going into battle, he would generally perform several human sacrifices to bless his military ventures."
"So," said O'Shaughnessy, "the Elder of Joseph is not a nice person?"
"He is considerably more than that. Father. As we now see." A new picture appeared. "This is a group portrait, taken in 1933 on the Isis at Oxford. The bald fellow is Aleister Crowley, the mountain-climber and magician. The one who looks furious with him is W.B. Yeats, the poet. This is Arthur Machen, a curious Welsh writer. This is Julian Karswell, a raving psychopath. This is a young lady who was found floating in the river the next day without her head. And this oriental gentleman is…"
"Nguyen Seth," said Brandreth.
"That can't be," said O'Shaughnessy. "Seth's father?"
"He doesn't seem to have had one," said DeAngelis. "Here, this is 1888. It's from the Illustrated London News"
It was an age-spotted magazine photograph, with the print showing through. Only the posed principles were in sharp focus. The background crowds were fuzzy, caught in motion.
"Inspector Lestrade of the Metropolitan Police examines the Whitechapel site of one of the Jack the Ripper murders. Looks like a blithering idiot, doesn't he? No wonder they never caught the murderer. But who do we find rubbernecking in the ghoulish crowd…”
In the amorphous mass, one man had stood still enough for his face to come out clear. Nguyen Seth.
"One more photograph, and we're back to paintings, I'm afraid." The photograph appeared. "This is Hendrik Shatner, brother of the founder of the Church of Joseph, modelling a pair of divinely-issued mirrored sunglasses. And, as you can see, he has an Indian friend…"
Hendrik was peering hawk-faced at the camera, leaning on a Springfield rifle, every inch the pioneer pilgrim. Nguyen Seth was dressed in buckskins and had long braids, but the face was the same.
"History calls Hendrik's Tonto 'The Ute,' but our ethnographers tell me no Ute wore necklaces like that. No Native American did, in fact. They're human fingerbones strung together."
Another picture appeared. "That was 1868. This is 1476. It's an engraving entitled 'The Death of Dragulya'. As you may know, Vlad the Impaler was killed by his own troops while disguised as a Turk, and his severed head was sent to Constantinople where the Sultan put it on display. Take a look at the features of the Moldavian hacking away at Vlad's neck. He is believed to be the traitor who gave the order to kill the prince and then spirited the head away."
The features were roughly carved, but unmistakable, realism was not usually a high priority with mediaeval artists, but this looked as if it had been done from life.
"He would have to be nearly six hundred years old," spat Brandreth.
"Um, older, actually. All the images—and we have literally hundreds more in the archive—show him to be about the same age, somewhere between forty and sixty but hale and hearty. We have no reason to believe that he was any younger ever. Our friend Elder Seth is well-titled by the Josephites. He is indeed, the Elder of us all. Even if you don't discount the legend of the Wandering Jew…"
"Which the church, incidentally, does not," put in the Pope.
"Quite so, Holy Father. Anyway, Ahasuerus aside, this individual, whatever his name, is probably the oldest person walking the earth."
"So, he's been a not-nice person for a very long time."
"Well put, Father O'Shaughnessy. And now, he is, we have reason to believe, planning a coup which will put the Catholic Church in the New World back in the position it had before the first Jesuits set out in the wake of Columbus and Vespucci…"
"And, incidentally," said O'Shaughnessy, "massacred entire civilizations."
"That was a previous papal administration," said Georgi, "for which we can take no responsibility."
"I don't see it," said Chantal. "Where's the threat?"
The map came back. DeAngelis tapped the State of Arizona.
"Here, somewhere. Tombstone would be my guess, based on Seth's nasty sense of humour, but it could be anywhere in the South-West. We've not established all the links as strongly as we might wish to. We've been getting reports of major disturbances on the edges of the Outer Darkness. All our spies in Deseret have disappeared, but we have reason to believe that Nguyen Seth has been invoking demonic powers on an unprecedented scale, and his only logical target is our datanet. Specifically, we think he's going to aim for the Central American Confederacy."