“Leo Tunney is an embarrassment, you said.”
“Not yet but there is every indication he will be. There are two problems here, Martin. We must know what he does. What did he see or do or feel in… in the wilderness, as it were? And why has the CIA kept him closeted for six days? Not a flutter from them. This is all rather ominous, Martin, and I think our prodigal missionary should be advised at the earliest opportunity to make his report to his Church. First. And last.”
“Will he obey an interdict?”
Ludovico shrugged as he strode on. “We must assume he will. The problem comes with the CIA. How do we get to him?”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Martin Foley. “They can’t keep him prisoner.”
“Of course they can. They have. But that is doubtless temporary. What I cannot understand is how and why he came out of the jungle now. Why not ten years ago? Or twenty?”
“Is this a plot then? Of the Americans?”
Ludovico smiled. “I thought so at first. Now I have second and third thoughts. The idea twists and twists upon itself. If the CIA engineered his return, what would the reason be?”
“Leverage,” the priest said.
Ludovico murmured approval. “Good.”
“I presume the Americans can be as interested in our good graces as the Soviets.”
Ludovico laughed aloud. “Precisely. It would all be so logical, except for the first part of the plan. To engineer any plot, to set it up, they would have had to have Leo Tunney in the first place. Did they hide him for twenty-one years?”
“No, but perhaps they found him and decided to use him—”
“That’s not very logical, I think.”
“Nothing in the return of Father Tunney seems logical.”
“Yes, Martin. Exactly.”
“He was an agent for the CIA, then?”
“Agent is not the word. Too strong. The Holy Word Fathers had a certain… shall I say, confusion of missions in the 1950s. They certainly weren’t the only order affected but they were the worst affected. The CIA was using priests and nuns and other religions and laypeople connected to our hospital and relief efforts throughout Asia, as part-time listening posts, couriers, watchers. They were Americans, it’s true, but their loyalties to their vows, to their mission, became confused with their sense of patriotism. In the Holy Word Fathers, however, we have more than patriotism. Or perhaps I should say, less.” Cardinal Ludovico paused and stared across the nearly empty square at the Egyptian obelisk at the center of it. “Most generous bequests came into the motherhouse of the order and that’s when I decided to investigate all this nonsense. They were living like royalty in Florida, the father-general had a yacht he kept at a private pier at Clearwater Beach, they were generating scandal every day. And there was a matter involving a young woman… well, that’s ancient history now.” Ludovico started to walk again, this time across the square. Foley followed. “We cleaned our own house then, Martin; there was very nearly talk of disbanding the Order.”
“And Tunney was involved?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He went to Asia in 1958 via the Philippines and then to Korea. He had been ordained in 1955. The question could be, why did he choose to join the Holy Word Fathers but that’s… well, what did he know of them? That they were being funded largely through laundered money from the CIA in the last years? He wanted to be a missionary priest. They advertised in American youth magazines in those days — join the Holy Word Fathers and see the world while you’re saving souls.”
Martin Foley laughed aloud.
“Yes, Martin. Yes. He was very young. Perhaps he was naïve about the Order. Perhaps it didn’t matter. But when he was in Asia, finally in Laos, he certainly did his part for the Americans. Yes. You might have called him a patriot. Nothing too demanding: a report on troop movements, a report on famine in a village. Information and information. I don’t blame the CIA. Perhaps even the priests are not to blame. We all fought the same enemy in those days—‘godless communism.’ So they thought.”
The last words carried an odd bitterness in them, foreign to Ludovico’s usual speech. Foley stared at him. Ludovico paused again, in the middle of the square, and raised his eyes to the great roof of the church where stood the heroic statues of Christ and the Apostles.
“Inside,” Martin Foley said. “In the jungle. During all those years and wars. He must have seen it all, seen the Americans. And he didn’t come out.”
“Until now.”
“What do I do when I make contact?”
Almost with reluctance, as though he had been disturbed at prayer, Ludovico took his gaze away from the church and stared at Foley. “You are an emissary of the Pontiff. Not a papal delegate, mind, just an emissary for this matter. Very low-key, all of it, but not unofficial. Leo Tunney is not to think that there is a decision involved in this, that he can say yes or no.”
“Will I work through Ramirez?”
“You can’t avoid him, I’m afraid, but keep your distance.” For fourteen years, Ramirez had been the Congregation’s man at the United Nations, sending back charming and witty and nearly useless reports on the prattle of diplomats at cocktail parties. Ramirez was also de facto chief of American intelligence operations for the Congregation. Twelve years before, Ludovico had made a move against him, to shake him out of the Congregation, but the Spaniard had revealed his own base of power in the Vatican bureaucracy and Ludovico had decided that, in the long run, it was easier to leave Ramirez where he was. “Out of harm’s way,” as Ludovico had explained it somewhat lamely at the time.
“Besides,” Cardinal Ludovico now said aloud, “our colleague in New York is not much interested in matters that would take him beyond the Hudson River. He has become a New Yorker over the years.”
“Not unlike our Romans,” said Foley.
“No, Martin. In New York, it is chauvinism to be interested only in your city and its matters. Here in Rome, it is a cosmopolitan insularity.”
Foley smiled at that.
“Martin.” Again, the older man began to stride across the square, to the steps of the church. “This is the best time of year. The season is so melancholy and yet so clear, as though we can at least see all the trees, the colors of nature, the cycle of things as they really are. Don’t you think so?”
Foley had never heard him speak this way. He didn’t know what to say.
“And what if Tunney has something?”
“Yes.” Ludovico did not look at him as they walked. “Yes, a secret.”
“What could he have known?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he told the Americans?”
“We can only ask him.”
Ludovico thought then that it was not fair of him, that there were layers of matters beyond Martin Foley that would make it easier for him to operate but that could not be revealed to him. Things were hidden from every eye except his own. Things were written down in files that would be closed for a thousand years; and yet, despite the secrecy of the files, they would be kept always. The Church had a passion for files, dossiers, histories; everything was kept, wrapped and silent, in tombs and catacombs.
Waiting for the last day, Ludovico thought with a melancholy that had become part of his nature in the past few years.
Tunney had been part of a secret for a long time. He should have been dead, Ludovico thought. In fact, once, Ludovico was certain he was dead. And now he had come back to life and created a delicate imbalance. He must be dealt with, before silence came again and he was put back into the forgotten files, waiting for history.
“He has a secret,” Ludovico said. “Enough to worry a nation like the United States.”
Or a church, thought Martin Foley. But he did not speak again as the two men continued up the steps of the church, through the vast doors, into the silent, brooding, and grand interior. They would pray.