“Why didn’t she come here with you?”

“Because she wouldn’t be able to stand this solitude. There’s no television, no radio, no Internet-nothing.”

“Where is she?” she asked, somewhat resentfully. The relief at seeing him was already gone. Her mind was back in control, recalling all that had happened, the questions, everything that was in play.

“Your mother’s in a safe place. Near Oporto,” her father answered. “I filled her in on everything. Her reaction wasn’t the best, as you can imagine.” Nodding slightly, Sarah signaled her understanding. They both knew this woman. “She wanted to come get you in London, but once she understood the magnitude of the problem, she went along with my plan. She can’t be out there alone. If they caught her, they’d be able to use her as a bargaining chip. They know how to do that. Besides, the CIA agents involved in this are very active.”

”That’s right,” Rafael agreed. “But we are still a few hours ahead.”

“Hours?” Sarah asked, not sure she’d heard right.

“Yes, hours,” her father repeated. “These people are extremely well prepared. They can’t reconstruct our every step, but there’s always some clue left, and they are certainly going to find it.”

Fear again overpowered Sarah, raising her heartbeat and giving her chills.

“Can they find us here?”

“Not here,” Rafael hastened to clarify. “But they can place us in Mafra.”

“How?”

“By checking with the company from which we rented the car.”

“Then they can also find out what hotel we stayed in?”

“Yes, theoretically. If they check the registers of all the hotels in the area. But if they locate the taxi driver who took us from the airport to the hotel, we’re not in danger, because-”

“I know,” Sarah interrupted, remembering that as they left the airport Rafael had asked the taxi driver to take them to the Hotel Le Meridien. At the end of the trip, when Sarah thought she would finally be getting some rest, Rafael started walking away from the hotel. And when she asked him where they were going, he answered that they wouldn’t be staying there. They walked a half mile or so to the Altis Hotel. Now she understood his tactics. “They’d think we stayed at Le Méridien.”

“Exactly.”

“I see,” Sarah said, thinking. A moment later she looked intently at her father. “Obviously we haven’t got any time to waste, so start telling me, from the beginning, everything I don’t know, don’t leave anything out.”

Raul sat across from them, separated by a dark, very ornate table.

“That’s fair. You have the right to know everything. What has Rafael told you?”

“Nothing good. Mostly horrible things, considering that I received a list of offenders that included my father’s name.”

“Let’s be calm, my dear,” the captain asked her in a conciliatory tone.

“Calm? You’re asking me to be calm? Some guys are following me, guys who killed important people, who even liquidated a pope! See if you can be calm.”

“Fine. Now you’re going to be quiet and listen to what I have to say. But first I’m going to serve us all some port, understood?” Finally the military tone appeared in Captain Monteiro’s voice. He got up to keep his word, filled three glasses with a Ferreira Vintage port, and handed one to each of them.

Rafael remained serene, unaffected, sitting next to Sarah. Raul finally returned to his place and took a sip of his drink.

“Every man makes mistakes in the course of his life. And I’m no exception. In 1971 I was admitted into the P2 because I thought that by doing so I would be helping my country. We had a dictatorship in Portugal, and the P2 offered me the chance to try to change that situation. Or at least that’s what I wanted to believe. When I discovered the true objective of its leaders, I separated very quickly from the lodge. Unfortunately, no one gets to leave the P2 of his own free will. I wasn’t the only Portuguese member, as you must have seen from the list. And there were many more who had the good luck not to appear either on that list or on the one published in 1981.”

“I recognize that,” Sarah agreed. “Some of our most famous political figures.”

The captain disregarded his daughter’s remark.

“My relationship with the P2 ended in 1981. Mine and many other people’s. But the organization continues to exist, as you had the chance to witness in the worst possible way. During the eleven years that I belonged to it, I never put anyone’s life in danger, and I didn’t kill anybody.” He uttered this last statement looking straight into his daughter’s eyes, so there wouldn’t be the slightest doubt. “I kept an eye on many people in Portugal, people the organization wanted to keep under constant surveillance. Some were foreigners or transients. But as far as I know, only one of those people ended up dead, but not by my hands. One of them was Sá Carneiro.”

“Oh, my God,” Sarah said, and gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. “The prime minister. He died in a plane crash.”

“That story put an end to my involvement with the lodge.”

“And when does mine begin?”

“We’re getting to that. First I’ve got to explain what those papers are. We’re talking about thirteen pages.”

“Thirteen? But I only have two. I mean three. I had three but lost one, in a man’s stomach.” She turned to Rafael. “The one with the code.”

“What code?” her father quickly asked. “No, wait, we’ll talk about that afterward. Let me finish. Those thirteen pages include the list you received, four pages with information concerning high officials in the Vatican, and another list with the pontiff’s future appointees, some of whom were going to be put in place the day the pope died. The papers also contain his various annotations concerning papal measures-short, medium, and long term-for a controversial papacy. And there is also the Third Secret of Fátima.”

Sarah was perplexed. “The one that John Paul II revealed in 2000?”

Raul shot a surprised glance at Sarah.

“Of course not. The true third secret, which reveals the death of a man dressed in white at the hands of his peers.”

Some people thought that the third part of the secret of Fátima had not been published in its entirety. What Sister Lucía had written referred to an appeal by the Blessed Virgin Mary, who had warned, “Repent, repent, repent!” She had then seen a bishop dressed in white, which she identified as the Holy Father. She also saw other bishops, priests, monks, and nuns climbing a steep mountain, at the peak of which was “a great cross of rough beams, as if they were of cork oak, still with the bark on.” Before arriving at that cross, the pope, or the figure that Sister Lucía identified as the pope, went through a great city in ruins. The pontiff seemed to be “trembling, his gait unsteady, overwhelmed by pain and sorrow as he prayed for the souls of the corpses he found by the road.” The vision continued, always according to what the Vatican published, describing how the man dressed in white arrived at the mountain peak, knelt at the foot of the great cross, and was murdered “by a group of soldiers who shot him several times using guns and crossbows.” The prophetic vision concluded with the assurance that other bishops, priests, nuns, and monks died with him in the same way, including many men and women of different stations. Beneath the arms of the cross were two angels, according to Sister Lucía, each of them holding a large glass vessel in which they retrieved the martyrs’ blood.

Sarah was still thinking about her father’s story, trying to assess its consequences. Given the choice, she would prefer to keep it all hidden, never to be discovered by anybody.

“Then why did they bring that story out in 2000?”

“Because they had to think of something. And it was better to disappoint expectations than to say that the third secret predicted the murder of a pope by his own men.”