The Second Messiah

Before Ryan could speak further, there was a rustle of the curtain and the wine arrived, served by the nun. When Cassini nodded his approval with the first sip, the nun filled both their glasses. A waiter arrived with their food, serving them from silver platters. Their tasks completed, the nun and waiter silently withdrew. Cassini waited to be certain they were gone, regarded the food on the china plates with obvious relish, and then offered Ryan the briefest of smiles. “Grace first, I think. Then we talk.”

Cassini joined his hands, lowering his head as Ryan did likewise. “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts . . .”

32

The cuisine was delicious, as always. Cassini was a man who relished his food and he wasted no time tucking into his meal. “So, Sean, what’s bothering you?”

“I asked the Holy Father to curtail his movements and agree to wear a bulletproof vest under his garments at all times, at least for the next few months.”

“And what was his response?”

“He refused point-blank. Looked me in the eye and said, “I trust in God.”

Cassini speared a piece of tender saltimbocca with his fork, popped it in his mouth, and washed it down with a mouthful of Barolo. “Knowing John Becket, I’m hardly surprised. He’s a remarkable man who doesn’t scare easily.”

“Such bravery is all very admirable, Your Eminence, as is his faith, but it’s my job to protect him. And despite what most people think, assassination of a public figure isn’t such a difficult thing.”

“Explain.”

“Take the slaying of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Or Jack and Bobby Kennedy. Or even the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life. High-profile political leaders, all tightly protected. But still each of them got hit. Why? Because no matter how careful the planning or how stringent the security cordon around them, all their assassins needed was the tiniest chink in the armor.”

“What are you saying, Sean?”

“That there are no guarantees. No matter how tight a ring of steel we put around the pontiff, history will tell you there’s always a chink: a window of opportunity when an assassin can strike, when he’ll have surprise on his side. He doesn’t even have to be particularly intelligent or an expert marksman. All he has to be is lucky.”

Cassini sighed. “Please, go on.”

“Ali Agca is a classic example. They might have called him ‘the jackal,’ but he wasn’t particularly bright, a mentally disturbed Turkish peasant really. Yet despite the fact that there were thousands of Rome police, carabinieri, and security officials in the vicinity of the pope’s cavalcade that day, he managed to get off five shots, three of them hitting their target.”

“But Agca was trained by the KGB in Libya. He was a skilled assassin.”

Ryan, only half his fettuccine eaten, pushed aside his plate and shook his head. “Trained he might have been, but he was never more than a zealous amateur, like most would-be assassins. And the proof is that he failed to kill his target and got caught.”

“What’s your point?”

“That I dread to think what chance we’d stand against a real professional. And there’s always another jackal who could come from anywhere.”

“Where, for example?”

There was noise beyond the curtain, a discreet pause, and then the waiter arrived to clear away their plates. “Dessert, Your Eminence?”

Cassini consulted the menu, chose a rich banoffee, followed by coffee laced with fragrant amaretto, and for afterward, a special reserve cognac. Ryan ordered the simplest dessert on offer: fresh fruit salad, drizzled with lavender honey, and tea to follow. They waited until their desserts and refreshments arrived, and when the waiter left, Cassini savored a mouthful of banoffee. “You were about to tell me from where this jackal might come.”

“Virtually any camp you’d care to mention. Catholicism, like any faith, has its own fair share of dissidents, fanatics with their own agendas, and insane people with grudges or deranged minds. Even terrorists like the Red Brigades, who plagued Italy for decades and were more than once suspected of attempting to kill the then Holy Father, were mostly right-wing Catholics.”

Ryan ignored his dessert and spooned two sugars into his tea and stirred. “And then there are the ultratraditional, secretive lodges within the church, notorious for conspiring, which see any kind of change as a direct threat to their power and influence. Or the lunatic religions on the fringe, who believe the pope’s some kind of Antichrist and want to see him dead. And I haven’t even mentioned the many different Christian churches in America that are deeply suspicious of the Roman pope. The source of the danger could come from any one of those quarters, as you suggested.”

“I know, and it’s depressing me, Sean,” Cassini said gloomily as he pushed aside his dessert plate. “Speaking of worrying developments, I’ve had my own.”

“Your Eminence?”