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“You don’t actually believe we witnessed an apparition this afternoon?” Katerina asked. “That woman was strung out.”

“I think Jasna’s visions are hers alone.”

“Is that your way of saying the Madonna wasn’t there today?”

“No more than she was at Fatima, or Lourdes, or La Salette.”

“She reminds me of Lucia,” Katerina said. “When we were with Father Tibor, in Bucharest, I didn’t say anything. But from the article I wrote a few years ago, I remember that Lucia was a troubled girl. Her father was an alcoholic. She was raised by her older sisters. Seven kids in the house and she was the youngest. Right before the apparitions started her father lost some of the family land, a couple of sisters married, and the remaining sisters took jobs outside the home. She was left alone with her brother, her mother, and a drunk father.”

“Some of that was in the Church’s report,” he said. “The bishop in charge of the inquiry dismissed most of it as common for the time. What bothered me more were the similarities between Fatima and Lourdes. The parish priest in Fatima even testified that some of the Virgin’s words were nearly identical to what was said at Lourdes. The visions at Lourdes were known in Fatima, and Lucia was aware of them.” He took a swallow of beer. “I’ve read all of the accounts from four hundred years of apparitions. There are a lot of matching details. Always shepherd children, particularly young females with little or no education. Visions in the woods. Beautiful ladies. Secrets from heaven. Lots of coincidences.”

“Not to mention,” Katerina said, “that all of the accounts that exist were written years after the apparition. It would be easy to add details to give greater authenticity. Isn’t it strange that none of the visionaries ever revealed their messages right after the appearance? Always decades pass, then little bits and pieces come to light.”

He agreed. Sister Lucia had not provided a detailed account of Fatima until 1925, then again in 1944. Many asserted that she embellished her messages with later facts, like mentioning the papacy of Pius XI, World War II, and the rise of Russia, all of which occurred long after 1917. And with Francisco and Jacinta dead, there was no one to contradict her testimony.

And one other fact kept circling through his lawyerly mind.

The Virgin at Fatima, in July 1917, as part of the second secret, talked about the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. But Russia at that time was a devoutly Christian nation. The communists did not rise to power until months later. So what was the point of any consecration?

“The La Salette seers were a total mess,” Katerina was saying. “Maxim—the boy—his mother died when he was an infant and his stepmother beat him. When he was first interviewed after the vision, he interpreted what he saw as a mother complaining about being beaten by her son, not the Virgin Mary.”

He nodded. “The published versions of the La Salette secrets are in the Vatican archives. Maxim mentioned a vengeful Virgin who talked of famine and compared sinners to dogs.”

“The kind of thing a troubled child might say about an abusive parent. The stepmother used to starve him as punishment.”

“He eventually died young, broke and bitter,” he said. “One of the original seers here in Bosnia was the same. She lost her mother a couple of months before the first vision. And the others have had problems, too.”

“It’s all hallucinations, Colin. Disturbed kids who have become troubled adults, convinced of what they imagined. The Church doesn’t want anyone to know about the seers’ lives. It totally bursts the bubble. Causes doubt.”

Rain pounded the café’s roof.

“Why did Clement send you here?”

“I wish I knew. He was obsessed with the third secret, and this place had something to do with it.”

He decided to tell her about Clement’s vision, but he omitted all reference to the Virgin asking the pope to end his life. He kept his voice in a whisper.

“You’re here because the Virgin Mary told Clement to send you?” she asked.

He caught the waitress’s attention and held up two fingers for a couple more beers.

“Sounds to me like Clement was losing it.”

“Exactly why the world will never know what happened.”

“Maybe it should.”

He didn’t like the comment. “I’ve spoken with you in confidence.”

“I know that. I’m just saying, maybe the world should know about this.”

He realized there was no way that could ever happen, given how Clement had died. He stared out at the street flooded with rain. There was something he wanted to know. “What about us, Kate?”

“I know where I plan to go.”

“What would you do in Romania?”

“Help those kids. I could journal the effort. Write about it for the world. Draw attention.”

“Pretty tough life.”

“It’s my home. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“Ex-priests don’t make much.”

“It doesn’t take much to live there.”

He nodded and wanted to reach over and take her hand. But that wouldn’t be smart. Not here.

She seemed to sense his wish and smiled. “Save it, until we get back to the hotel.”

FORTY-THREE

VATICAN CITY, 7:00 P.M.

“I call for a third ballot,” the cardinal from the Netherlands said. He was the archbishop of Utrecht and one of Valendrea’s staunchest supporters. Valendrea had arranged with him yesterday that if no success came on the first two ballots, he was to immediately call for a third.

Valendrea was not happy. Ngovi’s twenty-four votes on the first scrutiny had been a surprise. He’d expected him to garner a dozen or so, no more. His own thirty-two were okay, but a long way from the seventy-six needed for election.

The second scrutiny, though, shocked him, and it had taken all his diplomatic reserve to keep his temper in check. Ngovi’s support increased to thirty, while his own nudged up to a weak forty-one. The remaining forty-two votes were scattered among three other candidates. Conclave wisdom proclaimed that a front-runner must gain a respectable amount of support with each succeeding scrutiny. A failure to do so was perceived as weakness, and cardinals were notorious for abandoning weak candidates. Dark horses had many times emerged after the second ballot to claim the papacy. John Paul I and II were both elected that way, as was Clement XV. Valendrea did not want a repeat.

He imagined the pundits in the piazza musing over two billows of black smoke. Irritating asses like Tom Kealy would be telling the world the cardinals must surely be divided, no one candidate emerging as front-runner. There’d be more Valendrea-bashing. Kealy had surely taken a perverse pleasure in slandering him for the past two weeks, and quite cleverly he had to admit. Never had Kealy made any personal comments. No reference to his pending excommunication. Instead, the heretic had offered the Italians-versus-the-world argument, which apparently played well. He should have pushed the tribunal to defrock Kealy weeks ago. At least then he’d be an ex-priest with suspect credibility. As it stood, the fool was perceived as a maverick challenging the established guard, a David versus Goliath, and no ever rooted for the giant.

He watched as the cardinal-archivist passed out more ballots. The old man made his way down the row in silence and threw Valendrea a quick glare of defiance as he handed him a blank card. Another problem that should have been dealt with long ago.

Pencils once again scraped across paper and the ritual of depositing ballots into the silver chalice was repeated. The scrutineers shuffled the cards and started counting. He heard his name called fifty-nine times. Ngovi’s was repeated forty-three. The remaining eleven votes remained scattered.