Relic of Time (47 page)

Carlos was on his knees in the aisle, groaning as he moved toward the altar. He stopped short of it and held out his arms.
Santa Madre, Santa Madre.
Traeger left the gardener to his devotions. Outside, he could see and hear Crosby talking with Craig and Wilberforce. All three had their weapons on display. They came onto the lawn and stopped. A great whirring sound was approaching, and then the lawn lit up like noonday as the chopper trained its lights on the ground below. Craig stepped forward, waving his arms. There was the sound of an automatic weapon from the chopper and Craig went down.

Traeger went around the basilica, keeping out of the glare of the overhead lights. The area illuminated diminished as the chopper settled down. That was when Wilberforce opened fire on the men emerging from the chopper.

Traeger had reached the far end of the hacienda and he went around it to a patio and let himself into the house. There was the sound of terrified talking in the living room. Traeger took the staircase and went up it two at a time. He came into a hallway with an open lighted door at the end. Traeger opened a door and let himself into a darkened room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Standing in the dark, breathing heavily, listening to the thumping beat of his heart, he tried to figure out what was happening. The helicopter had not been of the kind that had descended on Grady's hideout near Pocatello. Were the Rough Riders riding again? Like everybody else, they would be certain that the missing image of Our Lady of Guadalupe had to be here, where the pointless trip to return it had begun. Grady's men had taken care of Morgan, but why would they open fire on Craig? Traeger decided to get into the action. Why was he cowering in a dark room when things might be coming to a head?

He opened the door to find Frater Leone about to open it. The priest was astounded to find Traeger in what, it emerged, was Frater Leone's room. Traeger turned on the light. His eyes seemed to be directed by Frater Leone's to the huge image of Our Lady of Guadalupe propped against the wall. Suppressing a delighted whoop, Traeger reached out to touch it. The search was ended!

Only it wasn't. “It is a copy,” Frater Leone said. “As you can see.”

The image was on canvas. Traeger could have cried out in disappointment. He pushed past the priest to go downstairs.

By the time he came into the living room, the chopper had gathered up its wounded and was lifting off, no lights on now. Wilberforce emptied his weapon at the chopper but without effect. In a minute it was gone, and silence descended. Craig was being carried inside when a car came up the driveway. It stopped and Laura and Ray Whipple got out, all smiles. Clare was on the phone, summoning medical aid for Craig.

“Where have you been?” Wilberforce asked Traeger.

“Reconnoitering.”

That exchange made Traeger's presence known. In every eye that looked at him he could see distrust and accusation. He put his pistol away. There was the sound of another car arriving and Arroyo joined the group.

“Okay, Traeger, where is it?” he asked as he entered the room.

Traeger was about to make a profane remark when there was a voice behind him.

Frater Leone had come down the stairs, his hands beneath the scapular of his Benedictine habit.

“I will tell you,” he said.

Neal Admirari felt that he was living the last chapter of his book. What had begun in Mexico City was finally to be explained. The ascetic-looking priest looked sadly around at his audience.

“The image is hanging behind the altar in the basilica.” He pointed. “It never left here and I am responsible for that. What a blessing it was to have her here in our midst. You can imagine the emotions stirred up by her departure. And so her departure was prevented.”

“But how?” Arroyo demanded.

“She had been put into a foam case, which was put behind the altar until the departure began. The image was removed, and a copy substituted. Come, you can see for yourself.”

And so the group left the hacienda and walked to the basilica. Inside, Frater Leone turned on the lights. A kneeling figure with outspread arms did not move. Frater Leone led the group around him. He stared up at the illumined image. It was Clare Ibanez who spoke. “It is,” she cried. “That is the original.”

Frater Leone turned away from the image with reluctance. “Now I am ready to pay the price for what has been done.”

“No!”

The anguished cry came from Carlos, who staggered to his feet and came to Frater Leone, where again he fell to his knees.

“Father, you must not say that. I was the one. You had no idea what I had done.”

Frater Leone was trying to help Carlos to his feet, but the old gardener shook him away. “I confessed my crime to you. You know that I am the guilty one.”

Traeger had gone forward and stood looking up at the illumined image. Where would you hide a book?

Beside him, Wilberforce said, “I wish my mother could see that.”

Lulu took Neal's hand and led him away. “We're all going inside to celebrate.”

Inside, Frater Leone went upstairs to be with Don Ibanez. Carlotta was with her desolate father, so Lulu volunteered to make the drinks. Clare went to help her. When Traeger came in, thinking a guard should be posted at the basilica, Laura brought him his drink.

“Mission accomplished,” she said.

But Traeger's eye was on two newcomers, A short-haired, sour-faced woman he didn't know, and Gladys Stone. Gladys was shaking her head at what the other woman was saying to her. And then those old eyes saw Traeger. She reached into her purse and pulled out a pistol and was trying to get a bead on Traeger despite the crowded room. Traeger had not yet got out his own gun when the woman beside Gladys picked up a pottery vase and brought it down on the old woman's head. Gladys slid to the floor. Traeger crossed the room and picked up Gladys's fallen weapon.

“Thanks,” he said to Sourpuss.

No one else seemed to have seen what had happened.

EPILOGUE

The milk white Alitalia plane approached the field from the east, gliding with dreamy slowness to its assigned runway at the Mexico City airport. When it landed, a cry went up from the some fifty thousand who had managed to get an invitation to this first event of the papal visit. The plane taxied toward the waiting crowd, which only with difficulty was held back by the police. A great stairway moved toward the now opened door of the aircraft. All was in readiness, but a long minute passed, and then, there he was, the now familiar figure in his white cassock, white zucchetto, and ruddy Bavarian countenance. His arms lifted in response to the hysterical welcome and then he came slowly down to the reception committee gathered at the foot of the stairway.

This was not an ordinary visit, he told them. His scheduled visit to Mexico would take place later in the year as planned. He had come on this occasion as a pilgrim like each of them, to witness the reinstallation in her shrine of the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“Your Mother has come home!” cried the Holy Father. “
Our
Mother has come home!”

Saint Peter, like the other apostles, had been granted the gift of tongues in order to announce the good news in every human language. Popes have always been polyglot, some more than others, and if Benedict XVI spoke Spanish as a learned language, his words were celestial music to the delirious crowd. The dignitaries were shepherded away.

Awaiting them were the cars of the motorcade that would take the pope, along with dozens of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops from all over Latin America, through the streets of Mexico City, thronged with men, women, and children, many of them holding high above their heads copies of the famous image. But these were slowly lowered when the lead vehicle, specially built for the occasion, approached. In it, through bul-letproof glass for all to see, was the centuries-old image of Our Lady that had appeared on the tilma of Juan Diego and whose adventures in recent weeks had been the news of the day throughout the world. The crowd was on its knees as the pope, the whiteness of whose clothing seemed whiter in contrast to the black limousine from whose windowed roof his upper body emerged, scattered blessings over the ecstatic devotees of the Mother of God.

The crowds grew thicker as the procession approached the shrine; the motorcade slowed to a mere crawl as the passage through the clogged streets became ever narrower. Behind the motorcade, most of those who had watched it pass fell in to follow it to the shrine. There an enormous gathering awaited in the plaza before the great circular basilica. Many men wore the costume Juan Diego had worn all those years ago when the Lady appeared to him. Women of every class had donned the clothing of simple peons. The modern dress of the other girls and women, however stylish, was of unusual modesty, the beauty of the senoras and senoritas concealed for the occasion, their heads veiled in black lace mantillas. When the vehicle bearing the sacred image entered the plaza the vast crowd seemed to exhibit the systole and diastole of the human heart, pulsing forward and then back again to let the motorcade through. The shouts, the cheers, the weeping suddenly ceased and a vast silence fell.

The silence deepened as the image was taken from its special vehicle. The monks of the abbey in their Benedictine habits were given pride of place. Several cardinals, trying to remain at the pope's elbow, were kept at bay by sharp Benedictine elbows. Six men of massive height and strength now took possession of the image. The doors of the basilica were open, but inside there was as yet no one. The pope followed the sacred image inside and up the main aisle to the prie-dieu that had been prepared for him before the altar. All those who could fit inside the basilica, and more, followed. The image disappeared behind the altar. An unbearable minute went by and then she rose slowly into view and was returned to her place. A collective sigh filled the basilica. Weeping was the order of the day. The pope, sunk in prayer, from time to time lifted his eyes to the image of the Mother of God and his Bavarian eyes were moist with tears.

His private prayers finished, the pope rose to his feet, bringing the vast throng to theirs, and intoned the
Te Deum.

Throughout the country, throughout Latin America, in churches and cathedrals all over the world, that great hymn of thanksgiving went up to heaven. “
Te Deum laudamus, te Domi-num confitemur . . .”

On land he had purchased a few miles out of Guadalajara, a retired American who styled himself Geraldo Bradley grumbled through the delay as the well-digging crew watched the events in the capital on a television set placed on the tailgate of one of their trucks. Amanda, his wife, who had not been an enthusiastic supporter of her Geraldo's plan for their twilight years, wore an I-told-you-so expression.

“You're lucky they didn't decide to put it off until mañana.”

Long years of married life had taught Geraldo when to speak and when to remain silent. He lit a cigarillo, and Amanda, who was downwind, disappeared into the house.

Finally the television was turned off and the great rig, which had been put in place the previous day, began the task of drilling for water. Surveys of the property had been ambiguous. Only God knew how deep they would have to go for water. “China,” Amanda had muttered. “They'll bring in tea if anything.”

But it was not tea that came gushing forth after an hour's drilling. A great black fountain arose from the earth, washing away the drilling equipment and showering the area with ebony drops. Oil! Geraldo's initial disappointment gave way to elation at the realization of what was happening. Spattered like Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable in the movie sometimes seen as a golden oldie on late night television, Geraldo danced around the gusher. Even Amanda did a sedate two-step in celebration of this incredible outcome.