The Confessor

assessing whether it was real or merely an object in a dream. He wished it could carry him away, transport him to another time--a time before his faith and his obsession for revenge had caused him to behave with the same cruelty and depravity as his enemies. He saw Angelina, seated on a blanket in the shade of a stone pine in the Villa Borghese. He bent to kiss her, expecting to find the taste of strawberries on her lips, but instead he tasted blood. He heard a voice. In his memory, it was Angelina, telling him she wanted to spend the summer holiday in the mountains of the north. In reality it was Cardinal Brindisi, holding forth on why the murder of a pope would serve the interests of both the Church and Crux Vera. How easily the cardinal speaks of murder, thought Casagrande. And then he saw it all clearly. A Church in turmoil. A time for proven leadership. After the Holy Father's death, Brindisi would seize what the last conclave had denied him.
    Casagrande marshaled his forces and proceeded carefully. "If I may approach the issue from an operational standpoint, Eminence, killing a pope is not something that can be done on the spur of the moment. It takes months, perhaps years, to plan something like this." He paused, waiting for Brindisi to interrupt, but the cardinal kept walking, a man on a journey with a great distance still to go. Casagrande carried on. "Once the Holy Father leaves the territory of the Vatican, he will be under the protection of Italian police and security services. At the moment, they are on war footing because of our spurious papal assassin. There will be a wall around the Holy Father that will be impossible to penetrate."
    "What you say is true, Carlo. But there are two important factors weighing heavily in our favor. You work for the Vatican Security Office. You have the ability to get a man close to the Holy Father whenever you please."
    "And the second?"
    "The man you will get close to the Holy Father is the Leopard."
    "I doubt even the Leopard would accept an assignment like the one you're proposing, Eminence."
    "Offer him money. That's what creatures like him respond to."
    Casagrande felt as though he were hurling himself against the walls of the old abbey. He decided to make one final assault.
    "When I came to the Vatican from the carabinieri, I swore a sacred oath to protect the pope. Now you are asking me to break that oath, Eminence."
    "You also swore a sacred oath to Crux Vera and to me personally, an oath that binds you to absolute obedience."
    Casagrande stopped walking and turned to face the cardinal. His spectacles were dotted with rain. "I had hopes of seeing my wife and daughter once again in the Kingdom of Heaven, Eminence. Surely the only thing that awaits the man who carries out this deed is damnation."
    "You need not worry about confronting the fires of Hell, Carlo. I will grant you absolution."

"Do you really have such power? The power to cleanse the soul of a man who murders a pope?"
    "Of course I do!" snapped Brindisi, as if he found the question blasphemous. Then his demeanor and his tone softened. "You're tired, Carlo. This affair has been long and difficult for all of us. But there is a way out, and soon it will be over."
    "At what cost, Eminence? To us? To the Church?"
    "He wants to destroy the Church. I want to save it. Who do you stand with ?"
    After a moment's hesitation, Casagrande said, "I stand with you, Eminence. And the Holy Mother Church."
    "As I knew you would."
    "I have just one question. Do you intend to accompany the Holy Father to the synagogue? I wouldn't want you to be anywhere near the Holy Father when this terrible deed is done."
    "As I told the Holy Father when he asked me the same question, I intend to have a case of the flu on Friday that will not permit me to be at his side."
    Casagrande seized the cardinal's hand and feverishly kissed his ring. The prelate extended his long fingers and made the sign of the cross over Casagrande's forehead. There was no love in his eyes; only coldness and a fierce determination. From Casagrande's vantage point, it seemed he was anointing a dead man.
    Cardinal Brindisi departed for Rome first. Casagrande and Roberto Pucci remained behind in the garden.
    "It doesn't take a terribly perceptive man to see that your heart is not in this, Carlo."
    "Only a madman would relish the opportunity to murder a pope."
    "What do you intend to do?"
    Casagrande moved some gravel around with the toe of his shoe, then looked up