The Celtic Conspiracy (41 page)

That feeling of clarity and pain overwhelmed him again as he thought of how many generations had been betrayed, murdered, and banished. Incredibly, the older scholars and Druids had apparently accepted their fate with stoic calm. He could feel them as they wandered through Europe, harassed and hunted down, never able to settle anywhere. They simply kept moving westward, finally finding safety on the island where all paths ended. But how was it possible that these family trees had been passed down for so long? Why were they only now being discovered? It couldn’t be a coincidence. Something was missing from the puzzle. Maybe he would learn more, or understand more, when he was in Rome.

Waking up was horrible the next morning. MacClary had hardly been able to shut his eyes, still feeling intensely guilty about Ryan, even though Deborah had tried to assure him the night before that Ryan was solely responsible for his decisions and that she didn’t blame anyone for his death. MacClary managed to struggle out of bed and hoped that he would get back to Dublin in time to help Ruth Copendale understand what had happened. She rarely watched television, but she must have read the newspapers by now.

The streets were full and he was so late that he nearly missed the last meeting. In front of the Supreme Court there was dead silence. After the assassination the day before, the buffer zone had been enlarged. Security had been increased and armed security officers could be seen everywhere. When the first busses with the cardinals and bishops arrived, the atmosphere seemed even more haunting. In their red-and-black robes, they went up the steps to the main hall.

* * *

Jennifer and Deborah had ridden in a bus with most of the Irish families. A depressive mood lay over them. O’Brian and Sarah had been talking with Jennifer about why the court might still dismiss the case. The pressure on the justices was too intense. No one knew for sure if they would rule according to the facts of the case or if they would still take the political situation into account. Since the pope himself had gotten involved by dismissing Salvoni and Lambert and handing over the parchments, the uncertainty had only increased.

Sarah was the first to get out of the bus, waiting for Deborah at the bottom of the stairs. She gave her a concerned look. “Do you think you’ll make it?”

“I have to, Sarah. I owe it to Thomas. I owe it to myself. I just hope this is over fast. Then I just want to go home with all of you.”

As Jennifer was getting out of the bus, she was suddenly afraid. Shane was going to meet with the pope shortly after the pronouncement. She looked up into the clear, cloudless sky.

Deborah was standing next to her, looking searchingly into her worried face, and folded her arms around her for a brief instant.

* * *

When MacClary arrived at the court through a back entrance, Chief Justice Barbara Andrews was already in front of the conference room, waiting for him.

“Good morning, Ronald.”

“Good morning, Barbara. I hope you got some sleep, at least.”

“Not really. But we did arrive at a decision. We have decided to approve the motion. Only Faster was against it at the beginning, but he finally changed his mind after we made it clear to him the importance of a unanimous decision. Not counting your abstention, of course.”

MacClary looked at the ruling. They had all followed his lead. This exceeded even his wildest expectations, but at that moment he could only feel profound exhaustion. There was simply no room for joy.

“Good. Then let’s get this over with,” he said, heading toward the conference room to put on his robe, most likely for the last time in his life.

“Ronald.” The chief justice looked at him reflectively. “We would like you to be the one to read the decision aloud. We think you’ve more than earned it,” she said.

* * *

The marshal announced the justices for the last time in this hearing. The chief justice announced that the decision would be read by Ronald MacClary.

The tension in the courtroom was palpable.

“I will now read the decision,” MacClary said. Suddenly he could feel his emotions. The grief at the horrible loss of a friend. The relief that this tension would soon be behind him. The joy of victory. The appreciation for everything that had happened in the last several days and weeks. And the deep bond with his father. Today the history of the world would be changed, and an era of lies and crimes in the name of faith would finally end.

MacClary looked at the back wall of the courtroom and took a deep breath before beginning to speak. “Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I abstained from voting on the motion made by the district attorney’s office in Boston because of my personal involvement in the case.”

The courtroom grew restless again. One of the cardinals couldn’t control himself and called MacClary a heretic. The chief justice gestured to two guards to escort the cardinal out of the courtroom, which just increased the volume of the man’s tirade.

MacClary watched the cardinal leave and then continued. “The Supreme Court is more than cognizant of the unusual circumstances of this case. Still, we must consider it like any other, soberly and unemotionally. Accordingly, the motion from the Boston district court against the Vatican regarding the international theft of cultural articles has been deemed acceptable and is referred back to that court for a new trial.”

Ronald had hardly finished that sentence when the Irish group broke out in deafening cries of jubilation. Deborah hugged Jennifer, laughing and crying at the
same time, and was pulled into the embrace of the Irish families. This decision was no more than a start, but they knew their cultural heritage would come home from the Vatican archives sooner or later.

The chief justice attempted to calm the uproar. “This court will come to order,” she cried into the crowd.

Ronald continued. “The present evidence and testimonies lead us to conclude that the people involved in these illegal actions were not only individuals, but highly placed individuals within the Vatican. In addition, the court finds that this is not the first time that the Vatican has taken possession of a people’s cultural heritage. They did this to suppress historical facts, and in doing so were responsible for committing criminal acts. These incidents, however, are not the subject of this hearing, which is hereby concluded.”

Indignant cries again came from the bench where the cardinals and bishops were sitting. The lawyer for the Vatican just looked at the ceiling in resignation.

“For the last time, order in the court!” the chief justice roared, as more guards entered through the two side entrances to enforce order if necessary.

MacClary continued. “On the orders of the UN Security Council, Victor Salvoni and Thomas Lambert will be turned over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague this week for attempted murder and suspicion of murder. The appropriate files will be immediately delivered to the ICC for further investigation and hearing of the evidence.”

* * *

Jennifer leaned back for a moment in relief.
That’s it
, she thought.
That will open the way. The Vatican will no longer be able to shirk its responsibilities
. The only one who had been acquitted today was the imaginary Christian God, in whose name murder and terror had been spread over the entire globe for nearly two thousand years. How would this Church—which had, with no real sign of remorse, placed itself morally and ethically above the law—react to the decision?

Jennifer couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the next days would bring even more dramatic events.

It is the essential human, who, bound and blinded by his body, captive to his drives, only dimly aware of himself, is longing for deliverance and redemption, and can find them in this world...

—Karl Jaspers

Shane was sorry that he hadn’t been at the Supreme Court for the ruling. On top of this, he’d forgotten his cell phone in Washington. He tried reaching Jennifer on the hotel telephone but to no avail. Apparently the lines were as overwhelmed as they’d ever been. He tried other numbers but couldn’t reach anyone. He hated that he couldn’t touch base before heading to the Vatican.

In St. Peter’s Square, an increasing number of people were gathering, but the aggression and the loud protests had been replaced by a strange calm. People were talking
with each other. Many of them simply praying. Everyone was waiting for whatever would come next.

It took Shane nearly a half hour to cross the square even with the help of the police, who’d blocked it off and were only admitting people after searching them and checking their papers. Every access point was completely jammed. In their black uniforms, with helmets, black protective padding, and weapons, lined up in three rows, the police reminded Shane of the Roman legionnaires he had seen in his dream. This filled him with an odd feeling of danger, as if he had slipped through time. What had truly changed since the Roman legionnaires had fallen on unarmed Druids? This question reminded him of when he was only about twenty years old and stood in the Colosseum at the site where the Roman leaders had made decisions of life or death with a simple motion of the thumb. What
had
changed since then?

* * *

After he had received the written report about the decision in Washington, Pope John Paul III was plagued again with despair. Seated at his desk, he read the ruling another time. “My Lord, what have we done? It can’t go on like this. Lord, please, help me in these dark hours.”

As he turned around, he knocked over a large gilded cross that was hanging on a bar. He felt like everything was going in slow motion. He wanted to stop it. For a moment, he had to hold his breath, and his legs threatened
to buckle under him. He looked on helplessly as the cross broke into thousands of pieces with a deafening crash. Now thunderous silence filled the room. He stared at the shards on the floor.

He couldn’t see any way out of this. The strain on his conscience was only getting worse. How could he lead the Church into a new era? He could see very few ways to defend the Christianity—and the world—in which he had believed for his entire life. With a last helpless look at the shards, he fell back into a chair. He looked at the desk near the window and the buttons underneath it that operated the loudspeakers for St. Peter’s Square. He wasn’t surprised by what had happened in Washington. He had expected this decision, even if there had still been a glimmer of hope until the end that Morati’s exculpatory testimony about him might allow the Vatican to be spared one more time.

In any case, the news from the US confirmed his decision. Calls for a Third Vatican Council had been made for years now. Even Vatican II, a desperate attempt to align Church dogma with the realities of the time, had ultimately failed. The conservative factions would do their best to make this one amount to nothing as well. The cardinals of the Curia, Lambert in particular, had always fought against another council, feeling that it might threaten their power and influence. Now that Lambert was no longer around, the pope believed he might be able to move things in a positive direction.

He was just about to get up again when there was a knock at the door.

“Holy Father, Mr. Adam Shane is here.”

The pope welcomed Shane into his offices and appraised him. “Mr. Shane, I have to say, it took a lot of nerve to come here.”

“I felt compelled to do so. I do not believe that the arrest of your state secretary was just a tactical decision, but rather a—”

“You’re
concerned
about us?” the pope replied in surprise.

Shane hesitated for a moment. “Why does that surprise you so much? Is it beyond your imagination that a person can respect another person who has a very different conception of life and God?”

The pope sat down and contemplated Shane for a while. “I can assure you that I am deeply shocked by what took place in the courtroom in Washington. And I am just as shocked at what has apparently been going on for decades in a small circle of this church, out of fear—”