“Damn,” Fraser said. “Have your agents withdrawn from that priest or not?”
“Yes.”
“But you said you weren’t certain about this other… agent. From R Section?”
“Yes. R Section. I didn’t say that. I merely said I had not double-checked. I gave explicit instructions in the afternoon. To the Section. Withdraw him immediately. They were expecting contact from him momentarily—”
“But you’re not certain.”
“I’m ninety-nine percent certain. My God, Henry, what’s wrong? Is there a problem?”
Henry Fraser banked his rage. After all, Vanderglass exuded confidence. And if the Adviser was a bit of a fool… there was no reason to upset everyone.
“No. Not at all.”
The voice was calm and courteous again. “Curiosity only. At this stage, I tend to get a little fussy about details. It wouldn’t be good for us — for you and me — or for TransAsia to have any little… well… embarrassment brought up now. Rehash it all in the popular papers, on the talk shows.”
“Of course, Henry, I understand completely,” the Adviser said, understanding not at all. “If you mean everything that happened… well, a long time ago, with this cleric and his connection with the Agency. I can see your point. We don’t want to ruffle anyone’s feathers, do we? Either our friends in the Administration or the investors. Or our friends in Vietnam, either.”
“Precisely. Don’t forget InterComBank was also involved with the Agency, laundering funds out of Asia for them. I mean, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it was our duty, but we don’t need to see all this brought up again because of some half-crazy old priest.…”
“Absolutely, Henry, I couldn’t agree with you more. You know how it goes. Conspiracies become so popular in the public mind.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you know what my theory is?” The Adviser put his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned back on his heels in the manner of a raconteur preparing to offer a favorite story. Evelyn, his long-suffering wife, had seen the gesture a thousand times in her marriage and come to dread it.
“The way I see it, this whole conspiracy-theory concept — as a concept — was pretty well discredited after the Kennedy assassination in 1963. I mean, people who ran around talking about two or three rifle shots and all that, they became identified with the lunatic fringe. And that just about did the conspiracy idea in… until Watergate, that is. Watergate just gave it a whole new life because of those two damned reporters for the Post. I mean, for more than a year, we were watching one story after another, linking one more name to the conspiracy, implicating more and more people. So now we all have to be on our guard again about this conspiracy stuff. Sinister. Everyone sees it as a sinister matter where I think that most conspiracies are for the good. I mean, the work the bank did in the past channeling Agency money back and forth. What was wrong with that? Damned patriotic, I call it. For my part, I say to hell with the critics and let’s give InterComBank an award instead of… well, hiding its light under a bushel as it were. But fashions, even in politics, change and I’m sure that the bank’s turn will come someday to get a full measure of credit.”
What a fool, Henry Fraser thought. “A bank is a corporation. It’s a person only in the legal sense. I don’t think a bank will care one way or another whether it receives a presidential medal.”
The Adviser laughed. It was a rare and grim chuckle but the closest he ever came to mirth.
“Yes, Henry. I see your point.”
But Henry Fraser wondered about that.
28
“My dear friends…”
It was ten thirty in the morning. Leo Tunney hesitated and looked around him but, of course, none of them were his friends. He knew no one at all. Again, just for a moment, he thought of Phuong and the boy and a stain of bitterness spread across his sea of thoughts. Phuong. In a little while, he thought, I will be with you.
If there is anything after this.
Doubt cast its shadow. In those years with her, he had doubted so long and so profoundly that he thought at times he could not bear it. Pain and loss could be borne, but not doubt; doubt was too much to live with. So he had thought but he had not died; Phuong, the boy, Van, the others had all died but he had lived until now. Until doubt could be put aside. Not destroyed; doubts never were dispelled once they had life; they lived like secret viruses, feeding quietly on the host until it was time to emerge again.
The little church was bursting with people, some coming for the Mass, some for miracles, some out of curiosity because of all that had happened there in the past week. They jammed the pews and stood along the walls fanning out from both sides of the main door. The air carried the varied smells of their packed bodies and an edge of expectation in the restlessness that rode below the polite silence like a murmur.
“My dear friends in Christ,” Tunney began again with more confidence. “This has been a time of sorrow for us here. For me, in this place.” Again, he paused and waited for words. “I am a stranger who came to you and you welcomed me.” No, he thought, this is wrong, this is not to be a speech; he wanted words from his heart.
For a moment, he felt dizzy and swayed at the pulpit, gripping the rosewood very tightly until his thin fingers were white at the knuckles.
“My dear friends,” he began again.
The murmur rose, broke through the surface of silence; they began to nudge each other in the pews, they looked around to confirm their normalcy to each other.
“… in a time of sorrow, we look around us to the seasons—” He remembered such words from his youth, a childhood of such memories in the deep, narrow valley in western Pennsylvania where the seasons tumbled after each other down the slopes, coming in waves of green, of colored leaves, of snow, and finally, in spring, the raging tide of black mud and bitter rains.
Some rose in the pews; others spoke openly; his distress was communicated to them. The sea of people, feeling the sense of each other — the sense of something wrong — roiled in confused waves, waiting for a storm.
He could not speak. He did not have words left. Phuong, he cried in memory. He held her body, the body of a fallen bird, light and cold in death.
But I was given faith again, he thought.
Where are the words?
“Please sit down,” he said suddenly, in a clear, calm tone. The moment of panic had passed.
Some who had risen returned to their seats.
Rustling in the crowd, murmurs, coughs.
It was so clear to him now. “As you may know, I was in the jungle, in Asia, for a long time.” It was so clear, why hadn’t he seen it before?
“Since I have returned, my Church has sent an examiner to me, to ask me what I saw in the jungle. Also my government — your government — and they have asked me many questions. I did not answer their questions not out of stubbornness but because I could not speak, I could not think to speak. I was frightened as I had been frightened before, many times; and I had learned to deal with my fear, with those who caused it.…”
He smiled now, the thin face forming a look that combined humor and sadness. His eyes were shining. “I did not speak. I had more than one secret and they could not even guess what the secrets were.”
Again, a smile; peace crossed the sun-dark face. “You see, a man in his journey through this life also journeys through his times of doubt. There are many periods of doubt that frighten most of all; because it is profound, doubt cannot be dispelled by the morning light. A doubt is a secret and it cannot be shared, even when you speak of it; a doubt is the worst fear of all because to speak only enlarges it, lets it fill in all the corners of the mind.” He leaned forward, the eyes earnest and shining. “Do not be afraid of doubt. I can see that now.”