The Holy assassin

48

The vehicle moved over the rough ground at a moderate speed to avoid disturbing the occupants. There were still a few miles to go on this side road until they reached the national expressway, then turned right and continued straight. Fifty-three miles on the expressway would bring them to Lisbon; in two and a half hours they’d be at the airbase of Figo Maduro, where a private Learjet was waiting for them.

Inside the car we find JC in the backseat with Elizabeth beside him, Captain Raul Brandao Monteiro in the front passenger seat, and the cripple driving, as befits an assistant.

‘I don’t understand why we have to go with you,’ Elizabeth protested.

‘My dear, you can’t stay because you cannot be protected. If you were caught, you could be used as a bargaining chip to blackmail your daughter. That would give them an advantage over us. Unacceptable. Unacceptable. The enemy must negotiate with the weapons they have, not with weapons we give them.’

‘But you spent the night in my house. There was no problem,’ Elizabeth argued insistently.

‘Have you heard of fugitives from the law who never sleep in the same place twice?’ He waited for her to confirm. ‘That’s our case at the moment. Being in one place and predictable is the enemy of strategy. We have to stay moving.’

‘Where are we going?’ the captain wanted to know, turning toward the back.

‘You’ll soon see.’

The car traveled a few miles without a word being said. They were still in familiar territory for Raul and Elizabeth. Each one thought about his life and the common purpose the present moment required of them. Except for the cripple, who still hadn’t gotten over his anger at having Rafael on the same side and was still slowly fuming over it.

Raul prayed his daughter and Rafael would arrive on time safe and sound. That was the most important thing.

‘So what does all this have to do with John Paul the Second? He is dead, poor man. He suffered miserably,’ Raul said, bringing up the subject of the night before.

‘Haven’t you heard it said that we suffer in proportion to the evil we do? Karma is something like that. Not that I believe in that, obviously.’

‘The man was a saint.’ Elizabeth was offended.

‘A man can be a saint and a sinner. Sin doesn’t invalidate his holiness. There are thousands of examples in the Church.’

‘But what’s the connection with him?’ Raul insisted.

JC adjusted himself in the seat. The rough ground had been left behind, and now there was a good road to Lisbon, straight all the way that could be seen.

‘Let’s say we had an agreement.’

‘You and he?’

‘He and I.’

‘What sort of agreement?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘That’s a long story.’

‘We don’t have to be anywhere,’ Raul argued. ‘We’re in your hands. Time is something we have plenty of.’

JC half looked at the green landscape, yellowed by the late afternoon light that spread over the road. The immensity of Alentejo, filled with black poplars, vineyards, and endless fields of rye. The beauty of nature, untouched in some parts.

‘Wojtyla got caught in a great net when he was elected pope. The Church was coming out of a traumatic event from which it took many years to recuperate.’ He looked Raul in the eye without contrition. They both knew what the trauma referred to; nevertheless, JC was an excellent judge of people and confident, just by a glance, that Elizabeth didn’t know the twists and turns of the situation. ‘Of course he didn’t know what had to come. He even paid homage to his predecessor, taking his name. John Paul the Second,’ he proclaimed triumphantly. ‘He could little imagine that his beloved Church would decide to run no more risks with JP the First. You know that certain… let me find the right word… certain obsessions overcome the chosen one after the canonic election. They come from a vague holiness.

‘Well, Wojtyla was in an exceptional situation. Pope Luciani didn’t even warm the seat.’ A new exchange of looks with Raul. ‘For that reason remembering and paying homage to him benefited his image.’

‘Are you accusing him of taking advantage of John Paul the First?’ Elizabeth was frightened.

‘I’m only mentioning the credit and the debt. Whether good or bad, it was well done and useful for him. The Pole was a dynamic man, taking charge, prepared to work, to fight.’ A sarcastic smile came over his face as he remembered. ‘He didn’t know what was coming. He made the same mistake as his predecessor.’

‘What?’ Raul was totally caught up in the story.

‘He got mixed up with Marcinkus.’

‘Marcinkus?’ Elizabeth interrupted. ‘Who’s Marcinkus?’

‘He was the director of the IWR, the Vatican bank, at that time and remained so for many years during Wojtyla’s papacy. An American bishop John Paul promoted to archbishop, but never to cardinal, not that that would have been accepted. He only looked out for his own interests and never for others, but who am I to accuse?’ He paused for a few seconds to let what he’d said sink in. ‘He certainly wanted the promotion. Imagine, Cardinal Marcinkus. Your God would have a lot of trouble just removing the pride from his face.’

‘And what else?’ Elizabeth urged him to continue.

‘And then we come to 1989. The Pole had postponed the so-desired promotion time and time again. He couldn’t keep doing it. For complicated reasons, which I’ll summarize if you’re interested, Marcinkus had a good hold on him… or at least I believe he did.’

‘The pope?’ Elizabeth was scandalized. It was a scenario hard to conceive. She didn’t know about the political games behind the scenes in the Church. Fighting for power, control, just like your own country and all other politicians. To think that the Vatican, a symbol of faith, was immune to these vices… was deceiving oneself.

‘Yes,’ the narrator confirmed.

‘This man who, if he put one foot out of the Vatican, even a toe, would be immediately arrested by the Italian authorities, who considered him a criminal… was he going to be a cardinal?’ It was Raul’s moment to try to comprehend the scale of imperfection of political systems.

‘In politics, as in everything else in life, what counts is to have the advantage. Your prime minister has to dance to the tune of whoever discovered that he flunked out of his last year of college. The American president is obliged to invade Iraq because his patrons are pressuring him… the Saudis, who, to avoid attention, refused to let the attack proceed from their country. We’re all compromised by someone, and we’re always subject to someone’s advantage over us.’

‘What was Marcinkus’s trump card?’ Raul wanted to know.

‘Wojtyla’s life,’ was all JC said.

Neither Raul nor Elizabeth expected that comment. How could someone control the life of a pope? There might have been other trump cards, but never one so decisive.

‘How can that be? A man who has hundreds of people guarding his security,’ Elizabeth questioned.

The setting sun poured into the interior of the car, the last gleam of the reigning star before submerging itself in the horizon, the darkness of night extending through the Alentejano plains until they were covered in blackness. Astronomical, scientific explanations disprove the idea that the sun sinks, since it’s the center of our solar system. The universe is like religion; metaphor is always more beautiful. What matters is belief.

‘The attempt of 1981 was threat enough,’ JC said.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Think back. Marcinkus lost one of his right-hand men inside the Vatican with the death of the secretary of state, Cardinal Jean Villot, who died in March of 1979. In itself this was an enormous loss for someone trying to manipulate the pope. One day he received a visit from the German cardinal, part of the inner circle the Pole confided in, who told him his work was being investigated closely-’

‘What work?’ Elizabeth interrupted. ‘Wasn’t he the director of the Vatican bank? He wasn’t dealing honestly?’

Raul and JC looked at each other, Raul a little uneasy.

‘Of course not. Do you know any bank that doesn’t pursue its own profit?’

‘Banks should pursue an honest profit. But surely this Marcinkus must have had to account to someone. The pope, for example?’

‘You’re right in the sense that the bank belongs to the Supreme Pontiff, but Marcinkus didn’t account to anyone but himself. Because of this lack of hierarchical oversight, the business dealings of the bank touched on the scandalous.’

‘Touched?’ Raul asked. He knew something.

‘It’s a euphemism. I don’t want to make your head swim with financial technicalities, legal or illegal. In the end who decides what can or can’t be done? Based on what assumptions? Who can deny the fact that the IWR, under the management of Marcinkus, was the owner of businesses involved in the production and sale of pornography? Or factories for contraceptives and armaments, or operations that stimulated the economy, or financed things like genocides in Africa? Who could blame him?’

‘The values the Holy See defends are opposed to these kinds of businesses,’ Raul said angrily, although it wasn’t the first time he had heard this. ‘I understand John Paul the First was going to close the bank. It has a bad reputation.’

‘It’s business,’ JC contradicted him. ‘Don’t be fooled by the official name of the Institute for Works of Religion. It is a bank; it needs to generate profits, make money… lots of money. Faith doesn’t run the world… money does. In that the Holy See has always been in the vanguard.’

‘You are in favor, I presume?’ Raul suggested.

‘I’m not in favor or against… I understand; that’s different. Capitalism is not a perfect system. Nothing invented by man is. It’s a system of reaction. It needs medicine from time to time so that the markets will react and money circulate. Money must constantly be changing hands. It’s essential. An explosion in an oil pipeline so that the price of a barrel of oil goes up, the threat of war, a real war. Everything is calculated. Nothing is left to chance.’

‘I never realized all this,’ Elizabeth exclaimed.

‘Of course you didn’t. No one realizes. Marcinkus knew nothing of economics, but he had infinite business sense, to say nothing of the blessing of God. With all that, there was no shortage of candidates to help him invest. Marcinkus’s economic games cost the Vatican treasury a billion dollars, and he was responsible for the attempt on John Paul the Second’s life.’

‘He was? What about the Bulgarians? The Soviets? Not them?’ a stunned Raul asked.

‘You know Licio was always a master of disinformation.’

‘Licio? Who is Licio?’ Elizabeth asked in turn.

‘Licio was the Grand Master of the order I preside over. Anything that was necessary, Licio resolved it. Is a new government necessary in Argentina? When? That would be Licio’s question. Are arms necessary to confront the British in the Falklands? Make a list, Licio would say. I have this judge on top of me, another person would say. ‘Relax, tomorrow the pressure will be gone, Licio would advise.’ His voice rose as he listed the various possibilities or memories. A man coming to terms with his past. ‘He had a solution for everything. And he had one for John Paul the Second.’

‘For being such a great defender of Licio, you don’t sound very happy,’ Raul provoked him.

‘Age begins to call for rest, my dear friend. The past remains more vivid and pursues us. You’re proof of that, too.’

Silence settled in. There was too much information to assimilate all at once.

Elizabeth broke the silence. ‘Why did you decide to tell us all this?’

JC gave her a superior look. ‘You can do absolutely nothing with this information, so I have nothing to lose… nor you to gain. Consider it a courtesy on my part.’

‘I think it is one of those things everyone wants to know, but prays isn’t true,’ Elizabeth confessed.

‘Ah, that is true, very true.’

‘So there was no conspiracy of the Bulgarians or the Soviets to kill the pope. Everything started with Marcinkus,’ Raul concluded.

‘In the final analysis everything comes down to a group of less than five people. It’s the only way to guarantee that everything will be covered up.’

‘And in the case of John Paul the First?’ Raul asked subversively. ‘How many were there?’

‘According to what I heard, it was his heart that conspired against him,’ he said sincerely. ‘Don’t believe everything you read in books. What these people want is to sell.’

‘So this Marcinkus was behind everything,’ Elizabeth summarized, ignoring the innuendos between the two men.

‘Marcinkus gave up his soul to God in 2006,’ JC informed her. ‘Licio was the mastermind of May thirteenth, 1981.’

‘But John Paul the Second didn’t die,’ Elizabeth said.

‘That’s true. There were many mistakes in implementing the plan. And this resulted in a profound change. But it wasn’t difficult to convince the Pole that another attempt could happen anytime and anyplace.’

‘He threatened him?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Ah, that’s where the Bulgarians, the Soviets, the East Germans, and also the Poles come in. They were all informed by your friend that an attack on the life of the pope was imminent. There are innumerable reports that indicate the presence of agents of the KGB, KDS, Stasi, and Poles in Saint Peter’s Square that day. It was a masterful move,’ he proudly asserted.

‘He thought he was being threatened by the Eastern Bloc,’ Raul concluded thoughtfully.

‘And he was. But not directly. For that, Marcinkus, Licio, and I fabricated a scenario of constant menace. We invented a contact with a man who presented himself as Nestor, an agent of the KGB, who used Marcinkus to contact the pope and present the Soviet interests.’

‘But the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991.’

‘Yes, but that was because someone helped the Pole then. You know in this profession you can’t trust anyone for long.’

‘Who helped?’ Raul and Elizabeth asked, almost at the same time.

‘I did.’