He stared back at the Indian.
“Get out,” Chatterjee said again. “Stay out of sight. I’ll divert them.”
“Let’s stay together.”
For some reason he did not want to be alone.
“You’re going to be pope. I’m hired help. Now get the hell out of this boat and let me do my job.”
He hopped onto the limestone, the ledge perched just above the surface. He heard the dghajsa’s outboard rev and the craft sped away, deeper into the grotto, toward the exit on the far side. From beyond the entrance he heard the roar of the powerboat, drawing closer, its engine a steady drone above the wind and rain. Chatterjee slipped back out into the storm.
Then a new sound invaded the monotony.
Rat, tat, tat.
Gunfire.
More fear swept through him. He’d never felt more helpless. A need to withdraw came over him. He stared into the blackness and saw an even darker splotch. A cave? He carefully inched his way across the rough rock, slippery with seawater, and saw he was half right. Not a cave, more a tunnel. He knew most of them came to a dead end. He headed inside. This one drained into a small chamber hewn from the rock.
More gunfire could be heard.
He recalled the caves he’d explored as a child, most decorated with stalactites and splash deposits. Sometimes even crude paintings from antiquity. Hard to know if this one came with any of that. He sat on the wet limestone, breathing evenly, gathering his strength. He dared not give way to panic and forced his mind to behave.
What a predicament for a prince of the church.
He backed himself against the wall, his head pounding like a piston.
Once again he felt like Paul, who also supposedly found refuge in a Maltese cave. Paul was not one of the original twelve, but an apostle nonetheless. A servant of Christ who experienced a sudden, startling revelation that set him apart from others. He gained a reputation for bucking the law. His fate was sealed by writing letters to the Romans, Galatians, and Corinthians. He recalled the words from Acts about the viper on Malta. How the locals said, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live. But Paul shook off the bite of the viper and they were expecting that he would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had looked for a long time and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.
He’d planned to also shake off the viper, suffer no harm, and be regarded as a god. Like Paul, though, it seemed he might meet a horrible fate. No one really knew how or when Paul died. But every account that had survived described a violent demise in one form or another. Decapitation. Crucifixion. Stabbing. Strangulation.
Would his fate be similar?
There’d not been any more shots for a few minutes.
A good sign?
Had Chatterjee led them away?
From the tunnel’s entrance, back into the grotto, he heard the hum of an engine. Low, steady. His gaze locked on the blackness.
A new surge of fear swept through him.
Footsteps approached. Coming his way across the hard stone through the tunnel. He dared not say a word. Then a form appeared in the chamber. No details. No face. Just a man.
“Eminence.”
Chatterjee’s voice.
Thank God.
“Are they gone?” he asked, hoping.
Chatterjee stepped farther inside. Another form appeared behind him, the outline of a gun in the man’s right hand.
“No,” Chatterjee said. “And I was caught.”
He did not know what to say.
The form behind him stood still.
He wanted to stand but his muscles had frozen. Two bangs echoed off the stone walls, which hurt his ears. Chatterjee pitched forward and fell hard to the ground, not moving. He stared at the dark form in astonishment. Would it all end here? Alone? Inside a cliff. With no meaning or purpose? All that he’d endured would come to nothing?
He finally gave in to his calling and closed his eyes, saying a prayer, hoping God, if he existed, was indeed merciful.
Nothing happened.
He opened his eyes.
The sound of footsteps moved away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Luke finished off another of the ring-shaped loaves filled with cheese and meat. Laura called them ftira, something of a cross between a calzone and a sandwich. What he particularly liked was the thin slices of potato that adorned the outer crust. Unusual. But tasty. He washed the late supper down with a Kinnie, reminiscent of a Coke with less sugar. A beer would have been preferable, but none had been offered. He’d been grateful for the meal. He was hungry, and every growing boy needed three squares a day. Or at least that’s what his mother always said.
Laura had eaten a little before an older, dark-haired man with a pouch around his waist appeared. She introduced him as Kevin Hahn, her boss, head of Maltese security. She then left with Spagna and Hahn. He’d wondered about all the chumminess that excluded him, but decided not to allow his feelings to be hurt, using the time to think.
A couple of newspapers were lying on the kitchen table. The Malta Independent. He noticed a front-page headline dated a few days ago—ALL IS READY FOR THE CONCLAVE—and scanned the article.
VATICAN CITY—Cardinals are filing into Rome for preliminary meetings to ponder who among them might be best to lead the church. Invitations to attend went out to all cardinal-electors under the age of 80 the day after the pope died. They arrive by private car, taxi, and mini bus at the gates of the Vatican for gatherings known as general congregations, closed-door meetings in which they will get to know each other and decide who will next lead 1.2 billion Catholics.
“We need a man of governance, by that I mean a man who is intimately connected with the people he chooses to help him govern the church,” Cardinal Tim Hutchinson, the former archbishop of Westminster in London, said.
The voting-cardinals, numbering about 150, have been holding two meetings a day. One of their purposes is to select the conclave officers and review all of the rules. They also talk of the Holy See, the curia, and the expectations of a new pope. These preliminary sessions provide the cardinals a chance to size up potential candidates by watching them closely in the debates and checking discreetly with other cardinals about their qualifications or any skeletons in their closets. All necessary as these men come from all over the world and are rarely together.
“We’ve had meetings all this week to get to know each other better and consider the situations that we face,” Hutchinson said.
He added that he could not say, at this stage, who the favorites might be. Cardinals never reveal publicly who they prefer but they do occasionally drop hints in interviews by discussing their view of the ideal candidate. The most frequently mentioned quality is an ability to communicate the Catholic faith convincingly. But the suddenness of the pope’s death means that no front-runner currently stands out.
The Sistine Chapel itself is being prepared. The chimney is installed, leading down to the stove where the ballots will be burned after each vote. White smoke signals success. Black smoke failure. The color of each is ensured by a chemical pack added to the flames.
A further mix of high-tech gadgetry and Old World tradition will ensure secrecy, including a scrambling device that will block any attempt to phone or text the outside world. Bug sweepers will also guarantee the chapel is secure from unwanted eavesdroppers. Jamming will be used both inside the Sistine and at the nearby guesthouse at Santa Marta where the cardinals will sleep during the conclave. Computers will also be banned, so email and Twitter are firmly out of bounds.