The Fifth Gospel(182)

            Nowak stands. He ignores Michael and keeps his eyes on the judges when he says, “You may ask about Father Black’s injury but not about Father Andreou’s trips. Thank you.”

            “Yes, Your Grace,” the lead judge says. Then, as if afraid this will be his last chance to ask it, he poses the question.

            “Father Black, who attacked you?”

            Michael squirms. The interruption has given him a moment to collect his wits. “No comment,” he says.

            Wordlessly, the judge lifts a photo from the file. “Taken by a security camera at the airport,” he says.

            Mignatto and I both crane our necks, trying to see what the photo shows. A black cassock hovers over Michael’s body on the floor, staring down at it. The picture is grainy and small. But at the witness table, Michael glances pointedly over at Nowak.

            Mignatto’s eyes have never left the photo. I hear him murmur, “My God.”

            “Who is it?” I whisper.

            “Tell us what happened, Father Black,” the judge says quickly, as if trying to make the most of Nowak’s silence.

            When I look at the photo again, I still can’t make out the face. But in the pit of my stomach, something clenches. The priest standing over Michael’s body has the posture of a boxer standing over his opponent.

            “Like I told you,” Michael says, “he was doing what he was told. And I was doing what I was told.”

            The dull shock spreads. The breath is heavy in my chest.

            The judge lifts the picture of Michael’s face again. “You’re suggesting someone told the accused to do this?”

            “Andreou was sent to meet with the Orthodox patriarch. Cardinal Boia wanted to know where he was going, so I was sent to follow him. Father Simon saw me, and it got physical.”

            “He almost killed you.”

            “No. We argued. I’m the one that threw the first punch. He just responded. And he was only there because he was sent there.”

            The presiding judge squints. “Are you defending him?”

            Michael smashes a hand on the table. “Like hell! I had to have surgery! They still won’t let me come back to work!”

            “Then what are you saying?”

            “I’m saying that you”—he points to all three of them up there, in their silk and ermine cloaks—“don’t get it. Everything with you is right or wrong, black or white. But that’s not how it is. Down here, you fight for what you believe in. You fight for it.”

            “What on earth are you—”

            And this is the moment Michael chooses to turn to me and say, with wild eyes, “Alex, I’m sorry I lied to you about what happened in that airport. But you gotta know something. Simon’s wrong about this. He’s wrong.”

            I don’t even understand what he means. Everything feels so foggy and faraway. My eyes are fixed on Michael’s face. On the wounds that still haven’t healed. Simon can’t have done that. Can’t have.

            The judges stop Michael. They tell him his deposition is over. Numbly I stare as he exits the courtroom. Then I hear the presiding judge calling the next witness. The one I fear most.

            “Officer, bring in your commander.”



* * *



            A BROODING FIGURE WALKS in, wearing his familiar midnight-blue blazer and patterned charcoal necktie. From a distance his face is all hooked nose and web of wrinkles. But as he approaches, everything converges in his tiny black eyes. Here is the man who sees all, who registers every face that stops to gawk at the pope. Nearly sixty years he has served inside these walls, forty as director of papal security, and on the day John Paul was shot twice and nearly killed in Saint Peter’s Square, he hunted down the shooter on foot. Now, taking his oaths, he murmurs the words unintelligibly. And the judges, knowing his reputation, give him this latitude. The Vatican newspaper says he has never granted an interview. Not one, in six decades.