The Book of Q (45 page)

“Good.” Mendravic nodded.

“Look, I’ll … figure it out. I have to figure it out.”

“I don’t think anyone was worried about that,” she said.

Mendravic put his hand to Pearse’s neck; he squeezed once. “My guess
is, you get to Visegrad, and everything falls into place. Trust me. You’re friend will be fine.”

Pearse nodded. Why not? The alternative wasn’t worth thinking about.

The contessa had been right. The congregation seemed primed to hear him speak. Harris had spent the better part of the last hour listening to what many considered the preeminent Pentecostal preaching in the South. Archie Conroy and his Ministry of Peace. Five thousand strong had gathered in the largest amphitheater he had ever seen. Another 120,000 had tuned in for the early-morning services. That the contessa had set it all up on such short notice had astounded him. Thirty million on deposit was one thing. Having one of the most powerful ministries in the States at his beck and call was another. Conroy hadn’t flinched. If the contessa was involved, Harris had carte blanche. He was learning not to underestimate her.

“Now, before I hand you over to the colonel, who has been so kind to join us here this morning”—Conroy’s accent and demeanor reeked of southern hospitality, with a little medicine show thrown in just for fun—“I want him to know who is with him today, joining him in prayer.” Conroy paused. “I think I would be right in saying it’s a community of the faithful.” Amens from the crowd. “Which embraces anyone of faith.” He smiled and looked over at Harris. “Even an Anglican, Colonel. Even an Anglican.” A wave of laughter from the audience. Harris could see Conroy wasn’t quite ready to cede the stage.

“Because we
are
a community here, even though you may be sitting next to someone you don’t know, whose own brand of faith is unknown to you. Look around you. Does he call himself a Baptist? Does she call herself a Methodist? Another a Pentecostal?” Again he turned to Harris. “I think it’s a pretty safe bet you’ll be the only Anglican here, Colonel.” Harris nodded with a smile as the audience laughed. Conroy turned to his congregation. “But does any of it matter if we are a true community in faith? As Paul tells us in Romans, ‘Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.’ Or elsewhere, when he tells us, ‘With one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord.’ ‘One voice.’ For ‘if the dough offered as first fruits
is holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.’ Look around you at those branches. ‘One voice.’ Can you say that with me?”

The entire congregation echoed, “‘One voice.’”

“Again.”

“‘One voice,’” this time louder.

“Can you hear the power in that? Can you sense the power of that one indomitable spirit—unbroken, untarnished by personal desire, by personal lusts, by personal affectation. ‘One voice.’ Paul warns us in Philippians. He tells us that there are those who ‘preach Christ from envy and rivalry.’ ‘Envy and rivalry,’” he repeated. “How? How can they preach it that way? Because they ‘proclaim Christ out of partisanship.’ ‘Partisanship,’” each syllable given its due. “Those walls they build high, as if somehow they can keep the Word only for themselves, hold Christ within their churches? Can the Lord be so tethered? Can the Lord be kept for only one group, no matter what they call themselves? No. He alone flies free to all who would embrace Him. But to those who embrace ‘partisanship,’ He has only one answer: ‘Affliction and imprisonment.’ Choose to build those walls, choose to place those stumbling blocks between brothers, and you will not find Salvation in Him.

“It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? One God, one salvation, one faith, one voice. How else would He hear us? Even when He afflicted us with the Tower of Babel—that voice scattered throughout, altered, and divided—His message was clear. Those differences don’t matter. Language, culture, wealth”—he paused for emphasis—“denomination. Seek Him out, and you speak but one language. The language of God. The language of Christ.

“Now, I know there are plenty of preachers who think my views on inclusion only complicate things.” He began to pace, nodding, eyes staring straight ahead. “‘Leave things the way they are,’ they say to me. ‘Archie—Baptist with Baptist. Methodist with Methodist. We all have different needs,’ they tell me. And maybe they’re right. Who am I to argue with the status quo? Who am I to say we’re stronger than that, that the only thing that matters is our faith in Christ? What other needs do we have? I don’t know.” He stopped and turned to face the audience again. “When the Pharisees told Jesus that His ways were too dangerous, His message of love and inclusion too bold, He continued on. I don’t know if I have that strength. I can find it only through Him. But he
never talked about different needs. He never talked about the status quo. He talked of love and salvation. He talked of ‘one voice.’”

Archie turned again to Harris. “It’s a kind of salvation itself, isn’t it, Colonel?” For all his homespun rhetoric, Conroy knew exactly how to lead a crowd. He was making Harris an essential part of the message—the dissolution of denominational differences, with its personification sitting up onstage with him. An English Anglican and a southern Pentecostal. What could be clearer? Harris was beginning to understand why the contessa had insisted on this venue.

“A kind of protection,” Conroy continued, addressing the audience. “But protection from what? It’s so hard to talk of inclusion when there are those whose very existence is bent on destroying that voice, whose sole aim is to maintain a ‘noisy gong or a clanging cymbal’—as Paul tells us in Corinthians 1:13—rather than to embrace the singular Truth that is Him.” He stopped. “And I’m not talking about my fellow preachers who say, ‘Archie, give it a break.’” A few titters from the audience.

“We’ve been doing it to ourselves for centuries, haven’t we? Allowing personal ends, political ends, commercial ends dictate the destruction of that ‘one voice.’ Within our own community of faithful.” He paused. “And outside it.” He waited for complete silence.

“How many of you think I’m talking about our friends in Rome?”

The response was minimal, the congregants having been too well prepped over the last few weeks of sermons not to know where he was going. “I’m sure I could find fault there. More so than with my fellow preachers. I could give you reasons for five centuries of animosities, bring in experts to explain why that conflict exists, justify the ongoing division. I’m sure the colonel here could tell you far more about that than I could.

“But I won’t ask him, because I believe in ‘one voice.’ Because I believe that maybe, just maybe, we can begin to recognize what binds us and not what separates us. Maybe there’s a chance that we can begin to see beyond our own history to our future. Maybe there’s something in the air that gives us hope, a new beginning”—he again looked to Harris—“a brave new dawn. You’ll forgive me, Colonel, but it is such a nice phrase.” Harris laughed along with the audience.

“Things are happening here that give us that hope, organizations, like the colonel’s, that are saying, ‘Haven’t we come to a point when we’re sick and tired of using our faith to differentiate rather than to incorporate? 
Disharmonize rather than harmonize? Rend apart rather than heal within?’ We must remember, ‘if two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, “Move from here!” and it will move.’ And there’s never been a better time to make peace in our house.” Another pause.

“Because there is something far more dangerous than our own bickering out there now that demands our attention. Those who want to talk about doctrines and rituals and five hundred years of contention might be too caught up in their own little worlds to recognize when something far more profound appears on the horizon. If we’re to find salvation, we must remember that ‘that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition.’ Thessalonians 2:3. He who encourages that ‘noisy gong,’ that ‘clanging cymbal’ revealed. He who delights in our own disunion. He who so desperately needs to keep our house divided. For if we were to unite, he would have no hope of defeating us.

“He’s an old foe in a new garb, still intent on his holy war. Who am I talking about?”

A murmur swept through the hall, all of those listening once again too well prepared not to understand whom Conroy meant.

“And he has the audacity to call us godless.” He paused once more. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. I think it’s time to let the colonel tell you all about that, and the wonderful work he and his Faith Alliance are planning.” Conroy turned to him. “It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you, Colonel Nigel Harris.”

The audience erupted as Harris stepped to the podium to shake Conroy’s hand. The man had set him up masterfully. The audience was primed. Harris only hoped that the other ministries the contessa had scheduled would make his job as easy.

Éeema, Éeema, Ayo.

Black smoke.

From his perch on a balcony above the Arco della Campane, Kleist watched as the mass of humanity let out a collective groan. The second vote of the morning. He could only imagine the cardinal’s mood right now.

They had taken the girl last night in Berlin, centrally located enough so that the story had hit most of the European papers and television shows by midmorning. Maybe not early enough. Kleist had to hope that
the news would find its way to the appropriate ears by the afternoon vote, for his own sake, if not for von Neurath’s.

Even so, they’d already targeted a second child—in São Paulo, with enough traces left behind at the scene to point a finger at yet one more of the soon-to-be-infamous groups out of the Middle East. It would be sufficient to get the message across.

While he watched the horde pulse within St. Peter’s Square, Kleist pulled what looked to be a calculator from his jacket pocket, the device no bigger than his palm. He flipped open its lid, revealing a small screen with three or four buttons below. Using the tip of his pen, he began to tap out various instructions, file after file appearing then disappearing before he reached deep enough into the system to find what he wanted. He pressed one of the buttons; the hum of a phone line began to emanate from the device. Within a few seconds, it was dialing, the sound of a fax connection moments later. With another quick tap, the information on the screen began its cyberspace journey to the editors of
Corriere della Sera
in Milan. Von Neurath’s choice. Something about completing the circle. Kleist hadn’t bothered to ask.

When the transmission was complete, he pulled up a second file, more information linked to the Syrian involvement with the Vatican Bank, various holes from the first file filled in, others made more ambiguous. This time,
La Repubblica
in Rome the destination. A third file for
La Stampa
in Turin.
Il Gazzetino
in Venice was the last to receive the anonymous tip. Together, the four papers would be able to piece together enough to make the story front-page news. And always with the name Arturo Ludovisi at its center.

Sacrificing one of their own for the sins of the many.

At least that was how von Neurath had explained it—the choice of words, thought Kleist, a clear indication that perhaps thirty years within the fold had affected the cardinal more than he realized.

No matter. By tonight, the entire world would be privy to the latest mind-bending catastrophe out of the Institute of Religious Works, a mere trickle of the deluge to come. But the bloodhounds would have to wait for at least a few more days. Time enough to place von Neurath on the papal throne.

And by that time, there’d be much bigger stories holding their attention.

Pen at the ready, Kleist stared at the delete command flashing up at him. For some reason, he was having trouble following von Neurath’s
instructions to erase the files. He stood alone on the balcony, the room behind him empty. Still, he felt the need to glance over his shoulder. No one. Kleist looked back at the tiny screen, his pen once again poised above.