“Hasn’t he shown his face yet?” the younger man wanted to know.

“No, he’s an old fox, like me. But we have to make him appear; otherwise the plan is compromised.”

“We’ll make him appear. London will bring him out.”

“Yes. As soon as he emerges, don’t think, act. If you give yourself the luxury of thinking, even for only a second, by the time you’re ready to move, he’ll have already won.”

The young man couldn’t imagine such a situation. He was prepared for everything. The idea that they were up against such fast-thinking people seemed unlikely to him. Besides, we’re talking about an old man more than seventy years old. What danger could he represent? He didn’t reveal such thoughts to the old man seated at the table, or rather, his table.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the old man warned. “All humans have weaknesses. Mine is the Church, yours is self-confidence. It’s a flaw. Take your ego out of the equation. That’s the only way to guarantee you won’t fail.”

“I will.”

“You must. If things don’t work out, you won’t be the one looking at their corpses. In London, honestly, it won’t be easy.”

“I have a very efficient man there who’ll clear the way for me to do my work.”

“Let me clarify something before we continue. At the moment I have no reason to criticize or censure your work. One hundred percent efficient, but you haven’t yet dealt with what you’ll have to contend with this time.”

“The plan is practically infallible,” the young man dared to answer back.

“There’s no such thing,” the other argued. “You have a plan where everything has to come together precisely and you can’t make a mistake. Infallible? Not even the pope.”

“Of course, but-”

“To finish my point,” he interrupted, “just a little warning.” He waited for the young man to look him in the eye, holding his complete attention. “JC is the man who murdered John Paul the First in 1978, and, even so, he was unable to kill the pope in London. He, too, had never failed.”

The young man took in his words and thought about them for a few moments. The old man was right. Overconfidence was the enemy of avoiding mistakes. That was the message the other man wanted him to get.

“I understand. I won’t give anyone a chance to try something.” He also realized that if he failed, he wouldn’t survive. Whether through the intervention of JC or through this frequent client of the restaurant located in the unnamed city, he wouldn’t live to see the next day. It was time to change the subject.

“What about Mitrokhin?”

“I’m on that,” the old man replied. “My contacts in Moscow are taking care of it at this very moment.”

“What about the Turk?”

“Let him stay a prisoner. He won’t be hurting anyone. Don’t forget, we won’t communicate again until the plan is concluded.”

“Yes, I understand. I won’t forget. Only one thing is missing-”

“The Vatican,” the older man interrupted. “I’ll take care of them personally.” For the first time the old man smiled faintly.

Everything has a beginning.

2

WOJTYLA

May 13, 1981

Among those twenty thousand people, not one would be able to say with certainty if it rained or the sky was clear on that thirteenth day of the fifth month of the year of Our Lord 1981. Perhaps if they made an effort, they could say with some degree of certainty that it was a day of brilliant sun, pleasant spring warmth, in spite of its having rained a little in the middle of the afternoon, not much, barely five minutes. Of those twenty thousand people, more than half wouldn’t remember the pleasant spring warmth or the sun, but they would not forget the rain. They’d feel it wetting their bodies, soaking into their bones, just as it did on the day in question. Some would even doubt it had rained only five minutes. No. Five minutes doesn’t soak you like that. But those twenty thousand people wouldn’t remember the rain or sun. They would feel the tears running down their faces, and the sharp sound of each shot still vivid in their minds, one, two, three, four, five, six. And the impact that tore the flesh and made twenty thousand people scream with sorrow, as much as the victim himself. That they would remember. What does the sun or the rain matter in a calvary like that? What does the exact hour matter, if the pope could have died?

Twenty thousand people waited for him that day in the majestic plaza of Saint Peter’s Square, the reception hall for the Catholic world. Of the large number of a billion Catholic believers who, according to statistics, are spread over the globe, only a few million can say they have seen the pope. Of these even fewer can swear they saw the pope at an identifiable distance. And only a very small number of these thousands can prove they touched the pope or exchanged some words with him. For most, the pope is never more than an image on television or in a photo. For the young man of twenty-three who waited in the crowd, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, the Supreme Pontiff, Karol Wojtyla, was only a job.

He’d been in Rome for three days and expected to leave the country that same thirteenth of May, after completing the job entrusted to him. It wasn’t easy to pull off, but the challenge thrilled his young heart. If he overcame these obstacles, everyone would look at him differently, with respect and admiration, even some envy-well, those within his own circle would, obviously. Society, however, would never know of his existence or his central role in the act that would change the Catholic world forever. Killing a pope was not really new; others had done it in the past. The former pope, Albino Luciani, was proof of that, as he well knew, but never had anyone done it before the eyes of the world in plain daylight, without waiting for the silence of the night to later blame a weak heart. This murder was much more daring: killing and escaping, in the middle of twenty thousand people in broad daylight at five in the afternoon.

The afternoon rain gave way to the sun that shone on the city and the small Papal State with pleasant spring warmth. The rain might be a good ally. He could hide his movements behind the open umbrellas. On the other hand, John Paul would have to have an assistant holding an umbrella over him. Worse, he might have to ride around in a closed vehicle. With sun, the universe conspired in his favor. The perfect crime is not one that doesn’t look like a crime, but one for which no one is caught.

His orders had been precise, kill and leave, shoot and flee. If he was captured, they could do nothing for him. But everything was going to go well. Full of faith in himself, he squeezed the handle of the revolver in his jacket pocket. Fifteen more minutes…

A FEW BLOCKS from Saint Peter’s Square there is another admirable temple of Christianity, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the most ancient place of worship on earth dedicated to the Virgin. It is also known as Santa Maria della Neve, or Liberiana, in honor of Liberius, a fourth-century pope, to whom the Virgin appeared in dreams and whom she asked to build a chapel in Rome in a place where it would snow in a few days. Such a climatic miracle happened in fact in full summer on the night of the fourth or fifth of August in the year 358 on the Esquiline Hill. As pope, Liberius forgot the Virgin’s humble request and sketched out a plan in the snow for what would be an enormous sanctuary. It would not be until a century later, during the papacy of Sixtus III-immediately after the Council of Ephesus, which confirmed the divine maternity of Mary and made official what had been known for five centuries, the existence of the Son of God, conceived without sin-that the basilica was constructed. It was even larger than had been planned in the initial project of Liberius’s sanctuary, to whom it was consecrated. This same sacred edifice, restored above and below, stands today over the Esquiline Hill and every fifth of August is flooded with white petals symbolizing the snow that never again fell in full summer.