“Exactly.”
“I see,” Sarah said, thinking. A moment later she looked intently at her father. “Obviously we haven’t got any time to waste, so start telling me, from the beginning, everything I don’t know, don’t leave anything out.”
Raul sat across from them, separated by a dark, very ornate table.
“That’s fair. You have the right to know everything. What has Rafael told you?”
“Nothing good. Mostly horrible things, considering that I received a list of offenders that included my father’s name.”
“Let’s be calm, my dear,” the captain asked her in a conciliatory tone.
“Calm? You’re asking me to be calm? Some guys are following me, guys who killed important people, who even liquidated a pope! See if you can be calm.”
“Fine. Now you’re going to be quiet and listen to what I have to say. But first I’m going to serve us all some port, understood?” Finally the military tone appeared in Captain Monteiro’s voice. He got up to keep his word, filled three glasses with a Ferreira Vintage port, and handed one to each of them.
Rafael remained serene, unaffected, sitting next to Sarah. Raul finally returned to his place and took a sip of his drink.
“Every man makes mistakes in the course of his life. And I’m no exception. In 1971 I was admitted into the P2 because I thought that by doing so I would be helping my country. We had a dictatorship in Portugal, and the P2 offered me the chance to try to change that situation. Or at least that’s what I wanted to believe. When I discovered the true objective of its leaders, I separated very quickly from the lodge. Unfortunately, no one gets to leave the P2 of his own free will. I wasn’t the only Portuguese member, as you must have seen from the list. And there were many more who had the good luck not to appear either on that list or on the one published in 1981.”
“I recognize that,” Sarah agreed. “Some of our most famous political figures.”
The captain disregarded his daughter’s remark.
“My relationship with the P2 ended in 1981. Mine and many other people’s. But the organization continues to exist, as you had the chance to witness in the worst possible way. During the eleven years that I belonged to it, I never put anyone’s life in danger, and I didn’t kill anybody.” He uttered this last statement looking straight into his daughter’s eyes, so there wouldn’t be the slightest doubt. “I kept an eye on many people in Portugal, people the organization wanted to keep under constant surveillance. Some were foreigners or transients. But as far as I know, only one of those people ended up dead, but not by my hands. One of them was Sá Carneiro.”
“Oh, my God,” Sarah said, and gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. “The prime minister. He died in a plane crash.”
“That story put an end to my involvement with the lodge.”
“And when does mine begin?”
“We’re getting to that. First I’ve got to explain what those papers are. We’re talking about thirteen pages.”
“Thirteen? But I only have two. I mean three. I had three but lost one, in a man’s stomach.” She turned to Rafael. “The one with the code.”
“What code?” her father quickly asked. “No, wait, we’ll talk about that afterward. Let me finish. Those thirteen pages include the list you received, four pages with information concerning high officials in the Vatican, and another list with the pontiff’s future appointees, some of whom were going to be put in place the day the pope died. The papers also contain his various annotations concerning papal measures-short, medium, and long term-for a controversial papacy. And there is also the Third Secret of Fátima.”
Sarah was perplexed. “The one that John Paul II revealed in 2000?”
Raul shot a surprised glance at Sarah.
“Of course not. The true third secret, which reveals the death of a man dressed in white at the hands of his peers.”
Some people thought that the third part of the secret of Fátima had not been published in its entirety. What Sister Lucía had written referred to an appeal by the Blessed Virgin Mary, who had warned, “Repent, repent, repent!” She had then seen a bishop dressed in white, which she identified as the Holy Father. She also saw other bishops, priests, monks, and nuns climbing a steep mountain, at the peak of which was “a great cross of rough beams, as if they were of cork oak, still with the bark on.” Before arriving at that cross, the pope, or the figure that Sister Lucía identified as the pope, went through a great city in ruins. The pontiff seemed to be “trembling, his gait unsteady, overwhelmed by pain and sorrow as he prayed for the souls of the corpses he found by the road.” The vision continued, always according to what the Vatican published, describing how the man dressed in white arrived at the mountain peak, knelt at the foot of the great cross, and was murdered “by a group of soldiers who shot him several times using guns and crossbows.” The prophetic vision concluded with the assurance that other bishops, priests, nuns, and monks died with him in the same way, including many men and women of different stations. Beneath the arms of the cross were two angels, according to Sister Lucía, each of them holding a large glass vessel in which they retrieved the martyrs’ blood.
Sarah was still thinking about her father’s story, trying to assess its consequences. Given the choice, she would prefer to keep it all hidden, never to be discovered by anybody.
“Then why did they bring that story out in 2000?”
“Because they had to think of something. And it was better to disappoint expectations than to say that the third secret predicted the murder of a pope by his own men.”
“Of course,” Sarah agreed, still holding on to a thoughtful attitude. “I imagine it can’t be easy to handle a revelation that way.”
“No, it isn’t. That’s why they waited so long before letting it be known. Then they prepared the 2000 event, very carefully staged. The faithful bought the goods, along with the unfaithful, and the case was wrapped up.”
Sarah’s wineglass was still untouched. Rafael’s, in contrast, was already empty.
“Why did those papers come out now? If he was murdered by the Vatican, why did they save those papers, instead of destroying them?”
“First, let’s make something clear. The Vatican, as an institution, had nothing to do with this. A group of men, even hiding beneath a habit or a red cap, do not amount to the whole Church. Today the Vatican continues to have undesirables, just as in 1978. The difference is that they aren’t so influential. Even though the Roman Curia is as conservative as it was then, the P2 doesn’t hold any power over it. It can’t manipulate conclaves or papal decisions. Certainly there are other organizations playing that role now, but we can’t be sure whether they are laundering money and producing false titles.”
“Manipulate conclaves? And the cardinals? And the Holy Ghost?”
“The only Holy Ghost I know is a bank,” her father wisecracked. “Clearly the conclaves are, above all, political events, subject to external influences and manipulations, like any human election. Until the beginning of the conclave, eligible cardinals carry out campaigns intended to produce the greatest possible number of votes. The Curia, supported by powerful organizations, elects its candidate, and when the cardinals enter the conclave, everything is practically decided.”
“Then, it’s all a farce?”
“Theoretically-the Church has various factions. The most conservative, represented by the Curia, and other, more liberal ones. Once one of these factions gains dominance, the other cardinals are pulled to it.”
“They follow the locomotive.”
“Yes, I suppose you could put it that way.”