marblesarcophagus and pulled out a file from a narrow compartment. He flipped it open and plucked out a photograph. It featured a close-up of Savita Sajan. She was standing beside a black stallion, wearing jodhpurs, staring up at an indigo sky.
Is she the one?
Lacey wondered.
And is she the last in the line?
They had to find the Gospel of Judas. It was the key to the God machine. But it had to be done very carefully, without incident. With the Papal election just a few days away, they could ill afford some new scandal. Which meant that they needed the cover, the support of the American government, and all of its security apparatus—the police and Homeland Security. And that was not going to be easy.
Lacey sighed once again. He stuffed the photograph back in the file. There was no love lost between the current Administration and the Catholic Church. Not after that business during the last presidential election. Which meant that he, Lacey, had to forge an alliance with Thaddeus Rose, that Evangelical peacock, as distasteful as that was. There was no way around it. It had to be done.
The archbishop glanced at his watch.
Time to go
, he thought. Sister Maria Morena Diaz would be waiting in the gardens above.
Archbishop Lacey had known Sister Maria for three and a half years. She had been brought to his attention after having been caught up in an unfortunate robbery and murder in Tuquerres, Colombia. Orphaned by gangsters as a child, Maria had turned to prostitution during her teenage years to survive, and then—following a startling conversion—had become a Franciscan Sister of Mary Immaculate. But her misfortunes had trailed her,for one evening, following vespers, she had come upon two robbers intent on stealing some artifacts on exhibit in the church next door to her convent.
Like many nuns who came from and still frequented the worse parts of the city in their daily ministrations, Sister Maria carried a gun. A Taurus. A low-cost Brazilian knockoff of the Smith & Wesson revolver. When the robbers ignored her pleas to depart, she had pulled out her pistol and brandished it. One of the thieves, a large man with a great bushy beard, had lunged at her, thinking that this pretty young nun didn't have the
cajones
to shoot him—only to feel his left ear blown cleanly away. The other robber surrendered soon after, but vowed to return. And he had. Four months later, he had broken into the convent and raped the young nun in her cell, over and over, until—in a way that she never fully explained to the prioress or the bishop—she had somehow disarmed him and put a slug through his head.
Sister Maria was disgraced by the murder, but her story came to Lacey in that roundabout kind of way that it does on occasion, one informer to the next to the next, like the crowing of roosters, and he had offered the young nun from Colombia a choice: stay with the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate, but remain a pariah, an outcast; return to the streets; or join with the Order of the Dames of Malta, the Knights' female auxiliary. She had skills, he insisted, which the Order could leverage.
Sister Maria glanced over her shoulder, as if sensing his presence, as Lacey approached the stone patio. She was a beautiful woman. Her traditional full-length navy blue habit and gray tunic could scarcely contain her womanly figure. Though in her mid-thirties, her dark unfathomable eyes, small buttonlike nose, round features,and diminutive stature—she was barely five feet—made her seem significantly younger. Until you looked in her eyes.
As the archbishop drew near, he held out his hand and Sister Maria dipped down to kiss his ring. “How was your trip?” he inquired in Spanish.
“As expected,” she answered.
The archbishop sighed. To say that Sister Maria was laconic was a gross understatement. She was a nun of few words, but it was her actions that mattered to Lacey. He was used to this ritual. He simply needed to coax her.
“And how was
Is she the one?
Lacey wondered.
And is she the last in the line?
They had to find the Gospel of Judas. It was the key to the God machine. But it had to be done very carefully, without incident. With the Papal election just a few days away, they could ill afford some new scandal. Which meant that they needed the cover, the support of the American government, and all of its security apparatus—the police and Homeland Security. And that was not going to be easy.
Lacey sighed once again. He stuffed the photograph back in the file. There was no love lost between the current Administration and the Catholic Church. Not after that business during the last presidential election. Which meant that he, Lacey, had to forge an alliance with Thaddeus Rose, that Evangelical peacock, as distasteful as that was. There was no way around it. It had to be done.
The archbishop glanced at his watch.
Time to go
, he thought. Sister Maria Morena Diaz would be waiting in the gardens above.
Archbishop Lacey had known Sister Maria for three and a half years. She had been brought to his attention after having been caught up in an unfortunate robbery and murder in Tuquerres, Colombia. Orphaned by gangsters as a child, Maria had turned to prostitution during her teenage years to survive, and then—following a startling conversion—had become a Franciscan Sister of Mary Immaculate. But her misfortunes had trailed her,for one evening, following vespers, she had come upon two robbers intent on stealing some artifacts on exhibit in the church next door to her convent.
Like many nuns who came from and still frequented the worse parts of the city in their daily ministrations, Sister Maria carried a gun. A Taurus. A low-cost Brazilian knockoff of the Smith & Wesson revolver. When the robbers ignored her pleas to depart, she had pulled out her pistol and brandished it. One of the thieves, a large man with a great bushy beard, had lunged at her, thinking that this pretty young nun didn't have the
cajones
to shoot him—only to feel his left ear blown cleanly away. The other robber surrendered soon after, but vowed to return. And he had. Four months later, he had broken into the convent and raped the young nun in her cell, over and over, until—in a way that she never fully explained to the prioress or the bishop—she had somehow disarmed him and put a slug through his head.
Sister Maria was disgraced by the murder, but her story came to Lacey in that roundabout kind of way that it does on occasion, one informer to the next to the next, like the crowing of roosters, and he had offered the young nun from Colombia a choice: stay with the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate, but remain a pariah, an outcast; return to the streets; or join with the Order of the Dames of Malta, the Knights' female auxiliary. She had skills, he insisted, which the Order could leverage.
Sister Maria glanced over her shoulder, as if sensing his presence, as Lacey approached the stone patio. She was a beautiful woman. Her traditional full-length navy blue habit and gray tunic could scarcely contain her womanly figure. Though in her mid-thirties, her dark unfathomable eyes, small buttonlike nose, round features,and diminutive stature—she was barely five feet—made her seem significantly younger. Until you looked in her eyes.
As the archbishop drew near, he held out his hand and Sister Maria dipped down to kiss his ring. “How was your trip?” he inquired in Spanish.
“As expected,” she answered.
The archbishop sighed. To say that Sister Maria was laconic was a gross understatement. She was a nun of few words, but it was her actions that mattered to Lacey. He was used to this ritual. He simply needed to coax her.
“And how was
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