The Trinity Game

women found him attractive. But it was also a bitter reminder of the woman he’d left to join the priesthood,the love he’d cast aside and tried so hard to forget. And the truth was he didn’t need a reminder.
    Because he thought of her, every damn day.
    Daniel’s father confessor
was the only other person who knew. They’d talked about it countless times, most recently just a month ago...
    “God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, Daniel,” said the father confessor. “You’re supposed to
emulate
Jesus, not
be
Him. And as He was tempted, so are you. This woman is your temptation.”
    “It’s more than just a passing temptation. I’m still in love with her.”
    “So that’s your cross to bear. You love her, but you choose to love God more.”
    The words rang hollow in Daniel’s ears.

Singapore…
    C hulia Street was so perfectly paved the airport limousine seemed almost to float as it cruised along, the soft hum of its tires the only evidence of contact with the road. On either side, young trees rose from evenly spaced planters along spotless sidewalks. As the newly built Sato Kogyo-Hitachi building slid by on the left, Conrad Winter set his watch ahead to local time.
    Seven hours ahead, twelve spent in the air, for a net loss of five hours. A negative way to frame it, no doubt, but Conrad was not looking forward to this meeting. At least he’d have a night in Singapore before flying out again.
    Conrad loved Singapore for all the reasons he didn’t love Rome. Rome was a city that fetishized the past, lived in the present, and made no plans for the future. But Singapore was
all about
the future. Singapore tore down her outdated relics and built gleaming new skyscrapers at a furious rate, always thinking big, always looking forward. The seven-hour time difference between the two cities might as well be seven centuries. No wonder the council kept its headquarters here.
    There were many good men at the Vatican but, like the city that surrounded them, they were not sufficiently forward-focused. They were wearing blinders that obscured the future. Most of them, but not all. Besides Cardinal Allodi, Conrad knew five other council operatives within the Holy See itself, although there were surely others as yet unknown to him. The council was not the sort of organization that published a list. The Church demanded undivided loyalty, and affiliation with the Council for World Peace was grounds for excommunication. But that was a rule made by the good men wearing blinders. Conrad’s loyalty was not divided. Conrad’s loyalty was to God.
    And God would never leave the fate of the world to good men wearing blinders.
    The council had operatives everywhere and introductions were on a need-to-know basis. So he couldn’t say who had alerted the director to the setback in Nigeria, but someone had and now he would have to explain himself. It was just as well, since he had other, more important news to report.
    The limousine pulled to the curb and Conrad instructed the driver to take his bag on to the Raffles Hotel. He stepped out into the hot, muggy air and headed toward the entrance of UOB Plaza One, stopping briefly, as he always did, to look at the large Salvador Dali bronze,
Homage to Newton
.
    The grotesque figure stood rigid, arms stretched out to its right, a sphere hanging from its right hand by a thin metal thread. This sphere was supposed to be Newton’s proverbial apple, the one that hit him on the head and taught him about gravity. There was another sphere, representing the heart, suspended in Newton’s wide-open torso, and there was also a gaping hole in his head. Art critics said this represented “open-heartedness and open-mindedness.”
    To Conrad, it mostly looked painful.
    Inside, the building’s atrium was all granite and glass and brushed steel and high ceilings. Conrad plucked the fabric of his shirt away from his chest, moist from the brief time outdoors, made clammy by the arctic air conditioning. Stepping into the elevator, he remembered his last visit, at the conclusion of a successful project. The deputy director had taken him to lunch at Si Chuan Dou Hua on the sixtieth floor—they’d ordered honeyed lotus root at the chef’s suggestion, and it was excellent—and the director himself had joined them for a drink at the end of the meal to thank Conrad personally for his work on the assignment.
    Conrad’s finger moved past the restaurant level and pressed the button for the