“Just a few of them so far.”
Ari was impressed. “It’s fantastic. The value of it…”
“Is beyond calculating. We can create elements undreamed of. Superconducting materials. Batteries that last a decade. Solar cells thousands of times more efficient than the ones we have now. But we didn’t build the lattice to make ourselves rich. Catriel Levine has ironclad patents—the rights belong to Technion…and…”
“To the Mishmar,” Kristall interrupted. “Enough money to persuade a good many people in high places to, let us say, align themselves with your way of thinking?”
“The Jewish people need the Temple, and we will do whatever we can—legally—to bring it about.”
Kristall shook her head wearily. “Dr. Halevy, the Israeli people don’t want the Temple. Ninety percent of us are secular. All we ask for is a little peace, to live our own lives and let our neighbors live theirs. People like you disturb our peace. You scratch at old wounds until they bleed and turn septic. In August somebody fired a rocket at Al-Aqsa and nearly brought the wrath of twenty Islamic nations down on us.”
“Others would come to our aid. America.”
“Doctor, now you’re making me laugh.”
“And God.”
Kristall put out her cigarette and stood. She was tired of this. She whispered to her GeM and the electronic lock on the door released itself with a quick hum. “Dr. Halevy, I sincerely hope your intellectual property is as secure as you think. Today there was a break-in at the offices of your solicitors in Tel Aviv. Two people were murdered, one of them the superintendent of security at Technion.”
“Security? You don’t mean Tempelman?” Halevy murmured.
“I do. The other victim was Levinsky’s daughter, Catriel Levine.” Kristall fingered another cigarette and walked out. “Take him upstairs, Davan,” she called over her shoulder. “I want to talk to him again in the morning.”
Halevy suddenly looked a hundred years old. His eyes shrank in his head, his hands and legs shook as he crumpled to the floor, and a high wail rose softly and hung in the air.
Ari watched with revulsion as Tovah Kristall disappeared down the corridor.
Palace of Sant’Uffizio, Vatican City, 0530h
The cobbled square below his window was unusually dark. Night lasted longer now, and the lamps that ordinarily lit up the City were kept low in mourning for the dead Pope. Cardinal Tyrell stood at the window and watched for his visitors.
As he waited, he prayed. There can be no compromise with evil, he said to God. Evil can be stopped. Noah stopped it, Moses stopped the Midianites, Elias stopped the priests of Baal. The Lord Himself cast out evil spirits. He can cast evil from the Church. He sent Peter Chandos to remove Zacharias; He must now finish His work.
Two figures emerged from the darkness and sounded the bell. Tyrell called for them to be let in.
Shedding his cloak, Cardinal Estades came in moaning about the early hour and his arthritic legs. “This day will be far too long. The funeral goes on for eternity, which is fitting, I suppose. And then if the conclave begins immediately…”
“The conclave will not begin until the end of canonical mourning,” said John Paul Stone, the cardinal archpriest, who stood like a giant in the entryway. He stepped forward, removed his cloak and laid it carefully down, sitting uninvited in an armchair. He sat still and rocklike.
“Is there coffee?” Estades asked. Tyrell rang for coffee to be brought, and Estades leaned back with relief on the settee. “Well. Here we are, Leo, as you asked. Father John Paul has a busy day ahead, you know.”
“I know. We all have a busy day ahead.”
“I need to see to final preparations,” Stone said. “It’s not very convenient, so let’s get to business.”
Tyrell looked at Stone with distaste and spoke abruptly. “I want your assurance that you won’t oppose the calling of an extraordinary conclave immediately after the funeral.”
Stone realized that, despite the bullnecked strength of the man, Tyrell was deeply exhausted. He knew he had been holding telecons day and night with cardinals in South America and the Far East, lobbying hard with the conservatives for the election.
“The camerlengo’s office won’t permit it.”
Tyrell snorted. “The camerlengo will do as we tell him.”
Stone didn’t want the conclave rushed; he needed time to put the opposition case to these same cardinals.
“At any rate, I’ll give you no such assurance. Not until after a decent interval of mourning for Pope Zacharias.”
Tyrell braced himself with a swallow of coffee. “Let’s be realistic, Father. You know that a dozen Latin American bishops are ready to leave the Church. The same is happening in Africa and China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines. The archbishop in Manila is refusing to ordain women, and so is Nunes in Sao Paulo.”
“If they disobey the Pope, they can be replaced,” Stone shrugged at this.
“Replaced with whom? People who think as you do? You have no constituency—just empty cathedrals in Europe and the coastal archbishoprics in the USA”
“Being right is enough. Justice and fairness are enough. The Holy Spirit assists the conclave—that’s enough of a constituency for me.”
“And the Holy Spirit assists perversion and sodomy in the Church? In the priesthood itself?”
“In Salutem Ecclesiam. The encyclical…”
“There will be other encyclicals,” Tyrell snapped.
“You can’t switch these things on and off like a light bulb. The magisterium of the Church is at stake.”
“Brothers,” Estades interrupted. “If there is a conclave on Monday or not, it isn’t the end of the world. What are a few weeks in a two-thousand-year-old Church?”
It could be the end of that Church, thought Tyrell. He was desperate to move now; he calculated having a bare majority in the Council, but many were wavering. Once the Cardinal Archpriest and the energetic young men around him began their offensive, a few weeks could make all the difference. He sat down heavily in his vast swivel chair.
“ ‘Brother.’ It’s a good word,” Tyrell intoned. “We are brothers, you and I, priests of Christ after all. So, Brother Stone, I would really like to know why…I would really like to understand…why you are so eager to open the Holy Sacraments, even the priesthood itself, to unconfessed sinners. To people who practice the most abominable perversions.”
Stone smiled and shook his head. “It’s very simple. I don’t consider them sinners. God has made them what they are, and they are my brothers, too.”
“For two thousand years…before that, from Sinai, from the angels who destroyed Sodom, God has decreed death as the penalty for these sins.”
“It was the times, Brother Tyrell. At Sinai, death was decreed for many things—for marrying a Gentile woman, for adultery…Would you have all adulterous Catholics stoned in the streets?”
“They choose death. God administers it.”
“But God loves them…”
Tyrell rose from his chair. “ ‘God will not withhold justice even from those he loves.’ Saint Augustine.”
“ ‘The anguish in our neighbor’s soul transcends all doctrines. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.’ Saint Edith Stein.”
Estades interrupted again. “Stop. All morning you will throw quotations at each other like rocks. Leo, I don’t know why