“With the shroud and the Sophia Passion, we may even be able to win a few of our battles,” Gunther added, then receded in his chair. “Now, I believe it is your turn.”

Over the simple cold meal, Seth and Zoe once again recited the tales of their ordeals. The stories had grown shorter with each telling, as they chose an economy of words to rush past the pain and fear.

Morgen, in turn, explained that the nucleus of reformers in the Vatican had steadily dwindled over the years. They were seen as a threat to those who had vested their lives in the power struggles and Byzantine bureaucracy. And even those who agreed that Vatican corruption was fundamental and had to be reformed looked upon the reformers as a potential source of embarrassment.

“That is why we were not able to protect either of you so well.” Morgen said regretfully.

Ridgeway nodded understandingly before he spoke. “What you’ve said clears up a lot of things, but it still doesn’t explain why the KGB killed your man in the park in Amsterdam. You’ve been talking about the danger from the church. But all the danger Zoe and I have faced has been from the Russians, I don’t see where the two—the church and the KGB—are connected.”

“You have really asked several questions,” Morgen began. “First of all, the KGB wasn’t responsible for the killing in Amsterdam.” He paused as if what he had to say next hurt even to think about. “The Congregation killed him. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—the new name for the Holy Inquisition.”

Ridgeway and Zoe fixed Morgen with an incredulous look.

“Believe me,” he said. “And it wasn’t the first time. The Church has money and it has influence. Both of these can be used to hire men, to influence them to kill. They have been killing for almost a millennium now.”

“I thought that went out with the Borgias,” Ridgeway said.

Morgen shook his head sadly. “It didn’t end with the Borgias and it didn’t start with them. They just took it to its greatest extremes. Governments—all governments have found it necessary to kill people for one reason or another. The killing is sometimes written about in brave and noble terms, but then, history is always rewritten to justify the winners.

“And that’s where the KGB and the church are linked—they are both governments, and as such, act like governments. The church fears and loathes Zhirinovsky. He and his supporters—including much of the KGB—fear and hate the church. And in this joint fear and hatred, there is a brotherhood of violence.”

“But what’s in it for the KGB?” Seth persisted. “Why do they want it so badly? It can’t just be because the church wants it badly and therefore they should want it too.”

“That’s partly it,” Morgen said. “But mostly, they want it for the same reasons Hitler wanted it.”

Ridgeway and Zoe looked at him questioningly.

“The Sophia Passion is power. Power to use however you wish, whomever you are. In this case, Zhirinovsky—or if he dies, the people just like him—want to use the Sophia Passion to blackmail the church—all churches—into silence on his atrocities and his new Russian, expansionism and the genocide that will certainly follow. Churches have been a great influence in rallying people against unjust regimes. Zhirinovsky knows, just as Hitler did, that a government is secure where it is not in conflict with the people’s religions. People everywhere still vote their religious beliefs.