The War of Immensities (47 page)

“Don’t worry
about checking out. The US Treasury will have to worry about the
hotel bill. Just round up the team and get them moving. I’ll get
the details of the next event to you as soon as I know it. You’ll
have to use your celebrity status to get yourself on air and tell
it to the world.”

“All by
myself?”

“We are, each
of us, all on our own from now on. We do what we do, the best way
we can.”

“You run a
pretty loose ship, Harley.”

“When will you
realise that I’m not in charge of anything. I just do my part for
the project, same as everyone else.”

He jumped in
the cab and was whisked away into the traffic, and she stood,
truncating a wave. She was a young girl in a strange city, alone
and abandoned and far from home. And she knew just exactly what she
had to do.

Cardinal
Valerno was a much younger man than she expected, maybe
forty-something but with the general appearance of an Italian
businessman—black-haired, strong-jawed, ruggedly handsome features.
He arrived dressed in a simple cassock and the sisters fussed as
they brought him through to the small garden courtyard where
Chrissie sat on the fountain in a white robe and bareheaded, just
to make sure than no one mistook her for a nun.

Outwardly, she
offered her most serene mode—inwardly, she was a ball of nerves.
She had never encountered anyone as important as a cardinal before,
and the word around the convent was that he was some sort of envoy
from the Pope himself. Hence the younger man, someone she could
almost regard as a contemporary, was a grave disappointment. She
expected to be overawed, instead she wondered how appropriate it
might be to ask him for a date.

“It’s good of
you to see me, sister,” Valerno said in English with a fulsome
bow.

“I don’t think
it’s right to call me that,” Chrissie replied in Italian. “I’m not
one of the Sisters, nor anything else officially.”

“So we have
noticed,” the cardinal smiled. His English was just the way they
spoke it in Oxford, without trace of accent, cool and assured. She
wondered if his Italian and Latin were as good. “We have decided
that Sister would be the best form of address only after much
discussion— at a very high level, I might add.”

If he was
surprised at her Oriental appearance, or even at her command of
Italian, he gave no sign of it. Undoubtedly he had been well
briefed. It made her almost desperate to shock him.

“Well we can
ditch the protocol for starters,” Chrissie said aggressively,
settling them into English. “My name is Christine. You should call
me that. If we get to be friends, you call me Chrissie.”

Cardinal
Valerno smiled and bowed—next he’d be grovelling on his knees. “I
would sincerely hope that we do become friends, Christine.”

“Well that
isn’t going to happen if I have to call you Your Holiness or Your
Eminence or whatever the right term is. What’s your first
name?”

“Luigi.”

“Okay, Luigi.
Sit yourself on whatever stone you like and for God’s sake, stop
all that bowing and scraping.”

She knew what
this was all about—the Mother Superior had warned her. When the
pilgrimage began, three cardinals had been sent, along with other
lesser dignitaries, to try and take command of the convoy. Their
failure to stop it, or redirect it, or even slow it down, was a
matter of record. Then Chrissie arrived by helicopter and walked
out in front of the first truck and the whole procession halted,
seemingly at her command. Of course they thought it a miracle and
the press described it that way to the great embarrassment of the
Vatican, but the truth was that, as she advanced through the rain
toward the convoy, she knew the sun was setting at that very moment
in Japan.

Cardinal Luigi
sat on a stone bench facing her and looked as awkward as is
permitted for a man of the cloth. He nodded his approval at
everything she said. But she could see beads of sweat across his
brow. The day was cool and pleasant. She decided the conversation
should be as well. But not just yet.

“You are not
one for formalities, then, Christine,” Luigi said lightly.

“The Apocalypse
is eight months away. There’s no time for formality.”

“My thinking
exactly.”

“And that of
your masters, presumably, or else they wouldn’t have sent you,”
Chrissie said jubilantly.

“The matter of
which of us was likely to be able to communicate with you most
effectively was the basis of their choice, I understand.”

“Well I think
they made a very good choice,” Chrissie grinned.

Luigi Valerno
was not so deeply engrossed in the faith that he did not recognise
the fact that she had made a pass at him. “It’s very good of you to
say so,” he said, but she could tell he was flustered.

Chrissie smiled
jubilantly. It amazed even her to realise how good she was at this
sort of thing. “Explain to me precisely the nature of your
mission.”

“Liaison.
Between yourself and the Holy See.”

“I’ll accept
any help I can get. In case you haven’t noticed, we have an
escalating situation going on. Or don’t heathen Japanese
count.”

“There are many
Catholics in Japan, as everywhere else, Christine,” Luigi said,
beginning to relax a little. “And, in any case, let me assure you
that the Vatican is not so narrow minded that it imagines it needs
to serve only the faithful. We wish to offer whatever help you
need, to whomsoever needs it, as best we can.”

“On what
terms?” Chrissie asked slyly.

“I should
imagine that you would be dictating the terms,” he said with bland
generosity.

“I don’t. The
circumstances do that.”

As he absorbed
that, the cardinal lowered his tone. “Of course. Tell me, this
matter of the Apocalypse..?”

“Yes.”

Valerno was not
sure how to proceed. Plainly they were getting down to the point
before he was quite ready for it. “Needless to say, His Holiness
has expressed some concern...”

“As well he
might.”

“I’m sure you
can see the difficulty confronting His Holiness. There is a
question of the basis upon which the date was chosen.”

“Oh Luigi, come
on. It’s a matter of faith.”

That perplexed
him. He paused twice as he searched out the appropriate reply. “As
are all things. But in this case, we were wondering about the data
upon which the idea is based.”

“You’ll need to
talk to Professor Thyssen about that.”

Luigi Valerno
plainly did not want to talk to such a pagan. “Did he verify the
date?”

“He hasn’t
questioned it.”

“That’s hardly
the same thing...”

“It is for a
man like Harley. He questions everything. He is going along with my
work. If he had doubts, I’m sure he would have expressed them.”

Valerno,
through this, was contemplating the sea gulls that lined the roof
at this time of day. To them, he explained. “Still, surely you
understand how our independent experts might wish to make their own
study of the data.”

“You only have
to ask.”

Now he turned
to look her right in the eye. “I’m asking you.”

“You must ask
the professor. It is his data.”

Luigi was
stumped. His face contorted with the effort of finding the right
words as he continued. “Professor Thyssen is... I understand... not
an easy man to deal with.”

“Rubbish. He’ll
talk to anyone willing to give him the opportunity. Even His
Holiness.”

“His Holiness,
on the other hand, has matters of protocol and ... other matters...
to take into consideration.”

“And an
audience with a renegade like Harley would not go down well with
the faithful, hmm?”

Valerno
flinched. “It is the matter not of what actually takes place but
how it might be perceived. You must understand—the slightest
suggestion of Papal approval of Professor Thyssen will create an
ill-balance in the situation...”

He tailed off,
unsure how the sentence ended, if it did.

“The data is
there to be had. All His Holiness has to do is ask.”

Valerno took a
very deep breath before going on. The whole conversation seemed to
be becoming increasingly painful to him. “To do so would give a
credence to the prediction that... without having had the
opportunity to study the data... the Papacy would find... it could
not accommodate with comfort...”

“I’m sure it
can all be arranged in a manner which is comfortable for His
Holiness.”

Valerno’s face
lit up and he raised a declamatory finger. “Ah. Now we are to the
nub of it.”

“Are we
indeed?”

“Obviously, His
Holiness would not, in all conscience, be able to offer whole
hearted public support for Professor Thyssen.”

“Hardly.”

“But perhaps
the right word in the right official ear might go a long way to
restoring Professor Thyssen to his former position within the
project.”

She wanted to
laugh. This silly stuffy man was so polite, even when broaching
Papal corruption. But he was rather sexy, for all that...

“In return for
which, the Vatican gets full disclosure,” she said, only to assure
him she understood and was not anywhere near as shocked as she
should have been.

“Exactly.”

“You might tell
his Holiness that the idea seems most satisfactory.”

“Then I will
see what can be done. After all, time is short.”

“Indeed it is.
Just two hundred and forty days, in fact.”

It was when
Lieutenant Jackovitch made reference to hostages that Felicity was
suddenly possessed of a profound enlightenment—a moment of clarity,
as someone once said. They had flown her to San Diego as an expert
witness in a preliminary hearing to determine what charges be laid
in regard to the ‘unsanctioned and inappropriate use of USS Barton’
as Jackovitch termed it. Apparently, Captain Maynard had taken full
responsibility for all of the actions of his crew and faced Court
Martial on an array of charges but of course it wasn’t as simple as
that. Every one of the crew had breached regulations in some way or
other, and the trial of each individually was not an impossible
outcome.

But that was
the US Navy’s problem—hers was that no one listened when she tried
to explain that she actually had no qualification and no expertise
to offer as a witness.

“We need you to
help us understand what happened, ma’am,” Lt Jackovitch explained
in his initial telephone call. Felicity wearily packed her bags and
went.

“We all
expected you to rush off to Japan anyway,” Wendell said, no less
wearily.

“And who did
you imagine would pay for it?” she asked.

“Who is paying
for it?”

“The US Navy,
as it happens.”

“A Supermum’s
work is never done,” Gavin remarked dryly.

“Oh stop it,
you lot,” she grumbled generally at her far too perfectly
understanding family. “I already feel such a fake.”

She flew to San
Diego, a hot ugly city although since all she saw of it was the Air
Force and then Navy Bases, maybe she was judging harshly.
Lieutenant Ryan Jackovitch was a handsome young man, too handsome
to take seriously, too young to possibly defend any case
competently. She had always thought casting actors like Tom Cruise
in such roles was just Hollywood marketing—now she realised it was
factual. He collected her from the plane and they rode in a
chauffeur-driven Navy limousine, sitting a mile apart in the back
seat as could be done only in American cars.

“I really don’t
see how I can help,” Felicity insisted. “Everything I know is well
documented. I’m just a Physician with no specialist field. No one
will take me seriously.”

“I was assured
that you are the only specialist in the field of the Shastri
Effect, Ma’am.”

“I can give you
the names of a number of real specialists who are all far more
qualified than me.”

It turned out
that Jackovitch already had the names of her former team of
specialists and several of them had already agreed to give
evidence. They were readily available, being currently based in
Hawaii because that was where the former Project Earthshaker
control group were currently stationed.

“They wanted to
study the crew of USS Barton in relation to the control group, in
order to assure themselves that there would be no ill effects,”
Jackovitch said.

“Then they must
have expected the pilgrimage.”

“They did. They
just didn’t expect them to hijack their own ship.”

“The Pilgrims
will always make their way to the focal point by the best means of
travel available.”

“There!”
Jackovitch cried jubilantly. “You see? Expert knowledge. If the
hospital staff and security forces had known that in advance, the
ship could never have been stolen.”

Felicity
groaned. “Surely one of the medical team knew that.”

“They are each
experts in their own fields. It’s you who has the overall picture.
That’s why we need your evidence.”

“No one will
believe me. I don’t even quite believe what I know myself.”

It was true,
Right then, she was wondering just exactly how she knew that the
Pilgrims chose the best means of transport available. No one had
ever said so. It was just... well... obvious. If so, her so-called
expert knowledge was no more than a bunch of unfounded guesses.
There had been no study of how the Pilgrims arranged their
transportation, there was no proof that her statement was correct.
She had just said it, as if it was a profound truth, but really it
was all her own speculation and hearsay, based mostly on Brian
Carrick’s propensity for stealing trucks. She shuddered to think
what a good prosecutor might do with evidence like that.

“But everyone
says you are the one who understands it best,” Jackovitch
persisted.