The Celtic Conspiracy (30 page)

“Ronald, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t counted on anything like that either and—”

“How can they simply label you an IRA terrorist when you were fighting
against
them? The Italian police can’t be manipulated that easily!”

“I’ll explain everything when I’m back in Washington. It’ll be another couple of days, though, because I’m still on the wanted list. I’m getting some papers and I’ll be flown to Washington on a private jet.”

“Take care of yourself, Thomas! And remember, you have to come see me first. We’ve already gotten quite a few things rolling here. Right now I’m standing in front of the White House. They’ll help you in any way they can when you’ve landed, and hopefully you’ll soon be standing in front of the Supreme Court.” Normally no witnesses were heard in a case tried before the Supreme Court, but in this case, the justices would hardly be able to object. They had made too many mistakes in Boston.

“Understood. I’ll contact you again when I have more specific info. How are Adam and Deborah? Did they get everything back safely?”

“Not only that, Thomas, but Adam has blossomed into a real Irishman. If you knew what the two of them have been up to...”

“That’s good, but I didn’t really expect anything less. I rarely make mistakes with people, Ronald. I have to get off now. I’ll call again tomorrow. Thanks for everything.”

“I’ll take care of—” Ryan had already hung up.

Relieved, the justice looked around at the present company. “Now let the old men in Rome play their
games. We’ll do what we discussed with the president. Jennifer, have you finished the documents?”

“Of course. They’re already at the court. You just have to set a hearing.”

MacClary had spent the whole morning thinking about how he could create some confusion in Rome. What did they already know? What were they afraid of, and what was their next move?

Suddenly he jumped up and scrambled through his notebook for the telephone number for Edonardo Vasaci, a journalist in a Roman news agency. He’d been combing his memory for the name.

The phone rang for quite a while before Vasaci finally picked up.

“Hello, Signore Vasaci, I hope you still remember me.”

“Honorable Justice! I’d recognize your voice anywhere! Tell me you have another story for me. I still owe you for the last one.”

“No, no,” MacClary said, smiling. “This time you can pay me back for the last time.” Several years ago, MacClary had passed on some sensational information to Vasaci about the government of Andreotti.

MacClary could hear a vacuum cleaner outside the door of his apartment. The cleaning service was making its weekly rounds. This was one of those moments when he longed for Dublin. He was sick of the noises in this town; it never rested. “I would be incredibly grateful if you could float a story for me. It won’t be long. I’ll call you back when you can retract it as a hoax.”

“Understood, Justice. I’ll do anything for the story, even thumb my nose at my job.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

MacClary knew he could depend on Vasaci. When they’d finished talking, it was time to meet with the other justices. The president should have had the chance by now to exert her influence on them. He picked up the phone again.

“Mr. Carrington, I’ll need a ride in twenty minutes.”

“Very well, sir.” Ronald’s driver was one of the few people who somehow managed to arrive on time, no matter what the traffic in Washington was like.

Some of the justices would continue to resist Jennifer’s appeal, but he knew he had two or three securely on his side. Plus the court in Boston had dismissed the case far too quickly; just the formal irregularities were serious enough. Ronald knew that everything was coming down to the wire now. His—and the president’s—political survival was hanging from the thread of Jennifer’s seamless marshaling of evidence and his clever maneuvering to provide for any contingency.

The telephone rang.

“MacClary.”

“Ronald, it’s Jennifer. I just heard from Democratic Senator Jeff Bukake that one of the justices in the court is trying to mobilize against you. There are rumors that a Republican in the House of Representatives wants to mount an impeachment process against you if you vote to take on my appeal.”

MacClary wondered on what basis someone could launch an impeachment process. His lectures couldn’t possibly be enough to discredit him to that extent. Had Rome come up with something insidious?

“Well then, I have to get enough of the justices on my side to make my vote unnecessary, Jennifer,” he said, surprising himself by how calm and composed his voice sounded.

“Ronald, if what I’ve heard is correct, it will be enough that you’re still a member of the court, let alone the chief justice. If the case is adopted, there won’t be any way of stopping it anymore.”

“Jennifer, there are three months until the congressional elections. The president has a respectable majority right now, and by the time any impeachment procedure comes to a vote, this whole thing will be long over.”

“Not necessarily. You know as well as I do that a hearing can be postponed until the process against you has been resolved one way or another.”

“Jennifer, please! Are we really still so backward that we’re going to let attempted murder, theft, and cover-ups simply go unchallenged?”

He could hear Jennifer sigh. “Ronald, be honest. How many justices do you have on your side?”

“Well, I have Bob Johnson, Ian Copter, and Barbara Andrews for sure. I confirmed that this morning. I don’t think a single one of the justices would take the risk of going behind my back like that. If it should come out, they’d be in hot water themselves. But who knows. I’ll be at the court in an hour and I’ll speak with Alex Winster. I hope I can make him see the light. I might have to play my trump card earlier than I had planned. I’ll discuss it with Ryan, and then we’ll see. Oh, and another thing. Yesterday I spoke with some delegates from the Irish Parliament and told them about our find. The Irish Foreign Ministry has clearly committed itself to our cause and wants to make this clear under international law. They stand ready to do more.”

“That’s good news, Ronald. Good luck in court.”

“Thank you. I’m afraid I’m going to need it.”

* * *

Salvoni had finished his siesta when he heard the news broadcast on the radio. One item made his afternoon coffee superfluous. Could he really be so lucky?

He quickly got up, pulled on his pants and shirt, and ran out of the room as if his life depended on it, straight into a priest who was coming toward him in the corridor
and who was now getting up again, cursing the whole time. When he arrived at the press department, Salvoni attacked the most recent Italian wire copy.

“I can’t believe it! Thank you, Lord, thank you.” Salvoni pulled his cell phone from his pocket and tried to reach Lambert, to no avail. He ran through the gardens of Vatican City to the Government Palace, ran up the steps, and stormed into Lambert’s office.

Lambert sat in an adjoining room making a telephone call in English. He threw a grim look toward Salvoni, but Salvoni’s beaming face made him take the telephone away from his ear.

“What is it?” Lambert whispered.

Salvoni hurried over to Lambert and gave him the wire copy as Lambert asked the person on the telephone to wait a moment. As he read the news he almost dropped the telephone. “Mr. Carrington, I’m afraid I have to interrupt our conversation for a bit. I believe our situation has taken a dramatic turn. I’ll call you right back.”

Lambert hung up and looked at Salvoni. “Has this been confirmed, Victor?”

That was the first time in nearly thirty years that Lambert had addressed him by his first name. “Yes, I think so. He was found in Austria.”

Lambert smiled darkly. “Are you aware that this changes everything? Be ready for a trip to Washington. We shouldn’t miss this opportunity to snatch the justice’s triumph against the Holy Church from his hands. Have
you had everything taken care of in Orvieto? Are the rest of the scrolls here?”

“Yes, they are in the archive of the Holy Father.” Salvoni was suddenly plagued by doubt about the reliability of the news, about the possibility of opposition. “As much as I would enjoy it, isn’t it a bit too risky, just flying off to Washington?”

“No, don’t worry about it. Not only do we have diplomatic immunity, we also have the full support of the Holy Father.”

Salvoni knew that Lambert was a sly fox. He was always amazed at Lambert’s ability to protect the Vatican from any kind of criticism or even criminal prosecution. That’s what assured him his almost untouchable position, and Salvoni, not for the first time, was convinced that he was standing in front of the next pope.

“I will inform the Holy Father,” Lambert said. “You are welcome to come with me. I think you have earned the right.”

Even though he felt as though his talk with Jennifer had brought him to a new level of understanding, Ronald could hardly contain his rage. For more than a quarter of an hour he’d been sitting in the conference room waiting for the justices. And something else Jennifer had told him was bothering him even more. Not only had Ruth Copendale lived all those years with the horrible knowledge about the death of his father, but she had apparently also prayed for Ryan, Shane, and Deborah on the evening before their departure for Austria. He had never known her to pray outside of church.

“Ronald!”

“Elora, I’m glad you got here first, I—”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Ronald,” Justice Elora Spencer said. “It might surprise you, but I will be voting to approve this petition if I’m convinced by the lawyers and the facts. The president called me yesterday. I didn’t vote for her and she’s not a member of my party, but in this case she was able to convince me that
I shouldn’t let myself be guided by my respect for the Vatican, and I won’t. You, however, are still a problem.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“How could you get involved in this matter in Dublin, Ronald? There are two possibilities as I see it. Either you tender your resignation now or you take the risk of being forced out of office. No matter what you decide, we won’t block the hearing. I’ve spoken with the other justices, and if we count your vote, we’ll have a majority—”

“Well, that should make you happy!” John Faster said, plowing into the room. “This Church founded our civilization, with all its strengths and foibles, and you go and stomp on it.” Faster, as always, was ready for a fight. Enraged, he slammed his briefcase on the polished conference table.

Elora Spencer leaned forward a bit and laid both of her hands on the table. “John, could you calm down a bit, please? None of us has any intention of indiscriminately harming the Church. But we’ve already discussed all of this. You’ll have sufficient opportunity to pick apart the lawyers.”

Faster reluctantly calmed down and sat, his face crimson red, at the other end of the conference table. The remaining justices methodically entered the teak-walled conference room. An enormous Persian rug gave the room an air of warmth.

Ronald opened the session as usual. “Dear colleagues, we’re speaking today about the urgent application from the district attorney in Boston and the attorney representing
Thomas Ryan, a US citizen. In light of recent events, I would like to make one thing absolutely clear: my private research and lectures have no influence on my professional integrity, even if one of the justices present today has tried to discredit me for it.”

A murmur went around the room.

“It’s a good thing there aren’t thirteen of us and that you, Faster, are not Judas, otherwise people might think we were at the Last Supper here. Of course, it’s possible that Senator Bukake was simply mistaken yesterday.”

Faster stood up and slammed a copy of the Constitution on the table. “Mr. Chief Justice, this is our Constitution. Perhaps you’d like to sue the United States as well, since we haven’t always followed our own rules.”