Seth waited for more information, but Morgen had fallen silent Seth started the snowmobile engine once again and steered the machine down the mountain.

THIRTY-SIX

Dawn had barely begun to model the shadows in Bernini’s colonnade around Saint Peter’s Square when police began setting up the crowd-control barriers in preparation for the Pope’s weekly audience.

For a very long time, Wednesday had been the day when the Pope granted audiences to people “without rank or name” from anywhere in the world. Even though this Wednesday fell on the day after Christmas, the Pope saw no reason to postpone the weekly audience.

The Pope walked thoughtfully from his private chapel, fortified by more than ninety minutes of matins, lauds, and the prime of his daily audience.

He paused at a window of his apartment in the Apostolic Palace and looked out at the activity below. At the very periphery he saw the beginnings of the crowd that later would parade through the auditorium that Paul VI had built solely for the convenience of the public audience. He particularly enjoyed the public audiences. These were the real people, the flock that God had chosen him to administer to. No one could take that away from him, not even Braun.

The Pope tried to quench the rage rising within him. He had trusted Braun with the most sensitive issues of the church, had defended him from those who felt the Cardinal from Vienna was too combative, too lacking in charity and forgiveness. Standing there, looking down at people who had gotten up in the middle of the night to get here before the sun rose, the Pope felt tears of frustration, anger, and sadness welling up in his eyes. If Braun had his way—and the bold cardinal had almost always succeeded—these public audiences would very soon pass into the ambitious Austrian’s hands.

The Pope took a long shuddering breath, held it, and let it out in a sigh that could have encompassed the universal sorrow of the world but that this morning only included the unearthing of the shroud and the Sophia Passion.

Braun had awakened him late last night with the news, and the demand that the College of Cardinals be convened immediately. Braun emphasized that he wanted an orderly transition.

Orderly transition. The Pope snorted to himself as he turned away from the window with his uncharitable thoughts. He walked toward the dining room. Despite the crisis, he was hungry.

Immediately after Braun’s telephone call, the Pope had sent his secretary of state, Richard Borden, and a team of Vatican archivists to Innsbruck to authenticate Braun’s claim. The Pope looked at the old clock with the wooden cogs hanging on the wall. When would Borden call? It had been a sleepless night for all of them. When would he call?

He walked into the dining room and greeted his staff. They bade him good morning with sad, searching eyes. Did they know? How?

The call the Pope had been waiting for came as he scanned the front page of the Rome Daily American.