25

THE VATICAN—14 MAY

“Your Holiness, it’s time,” said the voice behind the door.

“Come,” the old man said, his throat sore, his voice frail.

The large oak door opened, and in walked a man half the pontiff’s age carrying a small leather case.

“Commander Gianetti, how good to see you, as always.”

“How are you feeling, Your Holiness?” the Vatican’s chief of security asked.

“Not so good today, my friend,” came the reply. “But the Lord is my Shepherd, yes? What shall I want?”

“Perhaps a cure for diabetes,” the commander said with a gentle smile.

Pope Pius XIII laughed and then began to cough violently. Alphonso Gianetti stepped into the adjacent washroom, poured a glass of water, and brought it to him. The old man nodded his thanks, caught his breath, and took a sip.

“I’m getting too old for this, my friend,” he sighed. “It’s time for the Lord to let me rest with my fathers.”

“Well, my job is to make sure that doesn’t happen on my watch, Your Holiness,” Gianetti replied. “So you’ll forgive me if I don’t give up on you yet.”

“Perhaps, but ten Hail Marys first, Gianetti.”

The old man laughed at his own joke as the commander went to the washroom to clean his hands with soap and water. When he returned, as per their typical morning ritual, Gianetti unzipped the case and withdrew a blood glucose meter. After inserting a fresh test strip into the meter, he lanced the pope’s finger and positioned the edge of the test strip to take a drop of blood. A moment later, the glucose level appeared on the digital display.

“A little high today, Your Holiness,” the commander said as he put away the meter and drew a syringe and bottle of insulin from the leather case and prepared to give the pope his morning injection.

“That’s the least of my worries, young man, believe me.”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“All the cardinals angling to be my successor?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“What then?”

“This trip you want to make to the States.”

“I trust all the planning is going well.”

“It is, Your Holiness, but one of the local papers is suggesting that the bombing in Libya means you will be canceling your tour.”

“And you would like me to say the report is true?”

“Yes.”

“You’re afraid a papal visit so soon after such a high-profile military attack will reflect poorly on my office and my mission of peace.”

“I wouldn’t presume to counsel you on matters of theology, Your Holiness,” Gianetti demurred, as the pope opened his robe and exposed his gray and wrinkled stomach. “I restrict myself to matters of your security and your health, and thus I’m concerned about a possible retaliatory action by the Kairos organization.”

Gianetti pinched his subject’s skin at a forty-five-degree angle, plunged the needle all the way in, released the skin, and slowly injected one hundred units of insulin.

“A retaliatory action?” the pope asked. “At the White House?”

“It’s not the White House that I’m concerned about, Your Holiness,” Gianetti said as he waited five seconds and then withdrew the needle. “The Secret Service is the best in the world at protecting the president and his guests. No, my concern is that you will be holding Mass in four enormous stadiums, in four very large metropolitan areas, all of which would be tempting targets for any terrorist organization, especially one whose leader has just been, well, taken off the board.”

“You don’t trust the Americans to keep me safe wherever I go?” the pontiff asked as he buttoned up his robe again.

“Trust is not exactly the defining feature of my job, sir,” Gianetti said with a smile.

“But it is the defining feature of mine,” the pope said. “That’s what faith is, Commander—it’s putting your trust in another. I have happily placed my faith in you, my friend, and you’ve never let me down. More importantly, I have placed my faith in the Great Shepherd of my soul. When my time has come, I am ready to go peacefully into the night. But more than that, the world has just witnessed a modern miracle. The Saudis and the Israelis signing a peace treaty. Few thought it was possible, but it has happened in our lifetime. And isn’t this my message—calling the Catholic world to pray for peace in our time and to celebrate it when our prayers are answered?”