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“DOMINIC?” INSPECTOR Carrola spoke softly, respectful of the chapel and the prayers recited here.
Dominic lifted his head from his hands and shifted his knees on the thick padding of the pew’s knee rest. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t have to. The voice was instantly recognized. He had been waiting these past few hours for him to come. The hours spent here in the chapel had been a welcome relief from the minutes spent on the tarmac at the airport. The flow of adrenaline pumping through his veins, as he watched the Novice toy with Tonita’s life, and his own, had faded soon after the events unfolded, and had left him feeling empty, sad, depressed and exhausted.
The Novice got what he deserved, Dominic thought and then immediately tried to erase the thoughts and the vision from his consciousness of the final moments. Instead every detail grew sharper, words and sounds unheard, as he stood upon the tarmac, were now clearly heard and left to repeat in his mind. Sights and smells came rushing back as he contemplated the moments. He had, just in the nick of time, as the saying goes, he thought, pulled Tonita to safety. But the vision of two-foot diameter wheels rolling over her torso, with the hundreds of tons of aircraft above them flattening her body—kept playing out in his mind. Dominic shook his head trying to dislodge the vision.
The medical team at the airport pounced on Tonita once the area was cleared. They swarmed around her, shouting in Italian for medical equipment and supplies. They pumped and pounded on her frail body. Jabbing syringes of clear liquid into her veins. Her body remained limp. And despite the comforting words of the medics, Dominic could not help but wonder and worry and draw the only conclusion that he could.
Until that moment in the customs area of the airport, when the image of the Novice, disguised in a hooded robe at Cardinal Celent’s apartment, flashed back, he had all but forgotten about the man he now knew as the Novice of the Jesuit order. A Novice to the Society. He had believed that the man—the Novice—was dead, or at least seriously injured after the fall down the long set of stairs that led to Cardinal Celent’s apartment. He never expected to see the man again, and when he saw him at the airport with his hair deep red and his strength intact the images of the man in Cardinal Celent’s apartment and the man in customs, did not immediately come together. He consoled himself with the thought that he didn’t even know of the man and his determination to kill both Tonita and himself.
At Cardinal Celent’s apartment, he had acted on instinct. There was a clear sense of evil and Dominic had acted almost without thought, pulling the Novice forward, causing him to lose his balance and tumble down the stairs. All of his actions—reactions, he reconsidered—were that of prey. It was instinctive. It was an act of self-preservation.
It was all coming together as he laid out the events of the last few days. The monk who attacked him and Cardinal Celent in his apartment. The priest who died there. The Novice. Cardinal Celent. Senator Scott. The Vatican. Each had a role in the events. Each participated to do what they thought or were told that God wanted them to do. And then a thought struck him with an emotional sledgehammer.
Tonita?
His doubts played on him. He pushed them away with prayer. Our Father who art in heaven...he began the silent prayer, but before he could finish the first line, the words of the Novice came back to him. I have not chosen to leave him after he has placed such faith in me. He started the prayer again, Our Father who art in heaven...and the doubts intruded once again. Dominic raised his eyes upward, looking to the one stained glass window high above the Nave of the chapel. The blue, red, yellow, and purple glass reflected the light, not cast from the sun, but from the LED lighting framing the window. Dominic shook his head in dismay.
The Novice had spoken the truth. Dominic had chosen to leave the church. He had given up on God and the church, but still lived in the shadows of Vatican, taking refuge there. And he did this while denying the church and God. How had the Novice known? The question dogged him.
Had he become a modern version of Judas, betraying God, and all the while taking comfort and refuge in his church? He hid there, just as Judas had.
Dominic had left the church because of the lingering doubts in his belief. He had convinced himself that those were doubts about God, and whether He existed. And if He did, whether He cared about man or not. Now, head raised to the heavens, he realized the cloud of doubt was not about whether God existed, but, instead, whether Dominic existed. He was secure in the existence of the shell that others called Dominic—in his body of flesh and blood. He could feel it, taste it, and abuse it. It was his to do as he wished. But there was more. Or, he thought, should be more, and that is where his true doubt lie. He could not commit to the spirit of himself. Self-preservation or divine intervention? The question rose up in his thoughts.
A hand touched Dominic’s shoulder, lingering lightly there. “Chi più meglio per indicare che il dio esiste, il credi o non—il credi? Who better to learn that God does exist? The believer or the non-believer?”
Dominic turned toward the softly spoken voice.
Cardinal Celent took hold of the pew rail and lowered himself to the bench. He carefully slid forward, placing his knees on the knee rest. He brought his hands together, then, making the sign of the cross, he said, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and ...” he paused, turning to Dominic, “in the name of the Holy Spirit.” Completing the sign of the cross, Cardinal Celent raised his hand, moving it to Dominic’s face. He wiped away a tear that had slowly formed in the corner of Dominic’s eye. He stared for a long moment, looking past the surface of Dominic’s eyes and into his soul. “And Jesus wept,” he said, repeating the words from the shortest verse in the Bible.
Dominic leaned his head on Cardinal Celent’s shoulder. Then, turning to the large cross that hung from the ceiling of the chapel at the front of the nave, he spoke, “Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the words and I shall be healed.” He repeated the words falling into a chant, “Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the words and I shall be healed. Lord, I am not worthy...”
And Cardinal Celent joined in, “... But only say the words and I shall be healed.”