Six Seconds

36

Vatican City

In the moments before sunrise, the pope stood alone at the window of the papal apartment in the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.

He watched twilight paint the Basilica, Bernini’s colonnade and St. Peter’s Square in pale blues and purple as a few police officers strolled the empty, silent piazza.

Weariness settled more heavily than usual on him because of his troubled sleep. Again, he had struggled to determine the meaning of his distraction.

It was the dream.

First light dawned.

He left the window for his private chapel and a session of private prayer. He prayed for the world’s troubles and for the personal requests sent to him. The ten-year-old boy from El Salvador who had lost his family in the recent earthquake; the grief-stricken widow in Belfast afraid of losing her faith after the death of her husband; even for the little Swiss girl who had lost her kitten and included a photo and a little map, “so God will know where to look.”

He smiled at that one.

After prayers, he celebrated Mass with a small group then ate breakfast with a few invited guests, a delegation of nuns from Brazil. Then he went to his private office to study his draft texts for his upcoming visit to the U.S. They concerned the environment, human reproduction, abortion, the sanctity of family, the erosion of the numbers of priests and the role of women in the church.

But in a far corner of his mind he thought of the dream.

At midmorning he held a series of scheduled audi ences in the public part of the papal apartment. They were followed by lunch with a number of newly arrived diplomats posted to Rome and the Holy See, from the Netherlands, France, Japan, India and Chile.

Later, he returned to his office and opened the locked pouch that had arrived from the Secretariat of State. It contained secret correspondence with world leaders and other important documents, such as a highly clas sified note pertaining to security for the U.S. visit.

The note was written by the U.S. Secret Service, with an attached analysis by the chief of papal security for the trip. It outlined a number of ongoing threats, sus pected sources, analysis, probability of success and ongoing counteraction.

Such analysis was done for all foreign trips.

The pope stroked his chin at the underlined portions, requesting that he wear “specially designed body armor” during all public events of his seven-city visit.

“Intelligence indicates the strong likelihood that

Six Seconds 233 an attack will be attempted to gain instant and world wide impact.”

Such threats were common and some were carried out.

The pope considered the recent and past history of attempted papal assassinations, including the shooting of John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square.

The prospect of assassination lived in a pope’s shad ow. He was not foolish about this aspect of his office. Since the days of Peter, it was part of the job.

He accepted the risks.

A familiar two-beat knock sounded at the door.

The deputy chief of the Secretariat of State appeared.

“Apologies, Holiness. It is time to meet with the car dinals and others on the final preparations for the American trip.”

The pope took in a long breath, let it out slowly, then accompanied his trusted secretary, never tiring of the splendor of the Apostolic Palace as they walked along floors of sixteenth-century marble, lined by walls with ornate tapestries, gilding and Raphael frescoes.

The others, some two dozen in all, had been briefed by the deputy chief on the most pressing matter. The pope immediately raised his hand, the one with the Fisher man’s Ring, inviting those present to begin speaking freely.

“Your Eminence,” the first cardinal began, “the Americans are responsible for papal safety during the visit. They have provided us with intelligence suggest ing an assassination attempt is probable. But there’s nothing specific. And some U.S. church groups are growing vocal, openly urging the Vatican to abbreviate

234 Rick Mofina the visit. The U.S. Secret Service is asking us to make a decision on the visit’s final agenda.”

The pope acknowledged this as the cardinal continued.

“Eminence, to curtail matters now diminishes the importance of the papacy. It is out of the question.”

“It is simply too late,” another said.

And so it went from chair to chair to chair while the pope’s thoughts left the room for the photographs on his nightstand of the Buffalo Breaks in Montana. They were beautiful in conveying the vastness of what was known as “Big Sky Country.” Last week, he had re quested the Vatican library also fetch him the private journals kept by the Jesuits who first arrived there in advance of white settlers in the early 1800s.

He enjoyed reading the poetry of their descriptions at night before he fell asleep.

“This is a place like no other,” one had written, “where the earth meets heaven, where your relationship with God, your sense of self-importance, is either heightened, or diminished. I fear it is a place of reckoning.”

A place of reckoning.

Then there was the pope’s recurring dream.

He’d told no one.

It was more like a vision.

Sister Beatrice, incandescent, ascending above the prairie, telling him he must come, that his destiny was here.

Someone was speaking to him.

“Excellency?”

“Yes.”

“As the date of your visit to America draws near, we are requested to give a prompt response to Washington.”

Six Seconds 235

The pope nodded thoughtfully.

In his own private assessment, he looked to the history of the church. In carrying out their work, priests and nuns had been murdered and had faced every threat and danger imaginable.

In many parts of the world, this remained true today.

And in many parts of the world it held true for the congregation as well.

The pope, above all, was a priest.

If God had decided these would be his final days, then he embraced the decision.

He was not afraid to die.

Your destiny is here. A place of reckoning.

“Your Excellency?”

The pope sighed.

“We need to examine this a bit more,” he said. “Meanwhile, original preparations should continue. We’ll provide our response to Washington by the end of the day.”