“Okay, okay,” Jack conceded. “I understand how Shawn claiming Mary did not rise up to heaven when the Church has declared she had would be a serious blow to the Catholic faith.”

“It would be an equally disastrous blow to those who venerate Mary almost as they do Jesus Christ. You have no idea of her position among the Catholic faithful, who would be cast adrift if Shawn has his way.”

“I can see that, too,” Jack said, sensing that James was working himself into a minor frenzy.

“I can’t let that happen!” James snapped, slapping his palm on the table hard enough to cause the dishes to rattle. “I can’t let that happen, both for the Church’s sake and my own!”

Jack raised his eyebrows. Suddenly, he saw his friend as he was back in college, sensing James’s beneficence and concern about the bones in the basement was based on more than the Church’s well-being. James was also a skilled politician. Though Jack had doubted his chances, James ran for class president in college. Jack had underestimated James: With an innate sense of people’s inner needs, fears, and sensitivities, plus his ability to flatter, James was a natural. He was also driven, pragmatic, and shrewd. Everyone liked him, and to Jack and Shawn’s amazement, he won the election. Jack had every reason to believe it was these same qualities that helped James rise to the exalted level of cardinal.

“An added problem,” James continued, “is that that clever Shawn has me by the balls.”

Jack’s head snapped back as if he’d been slapped. Such language coming from a Roman Catholic cardinal was completely unexpected. Of course, he’d heard this all the time in their college days.

Catching Jack’s reaction, James guffawed. “Oh! Sorry!” he said. He then purposefully echoed Jack by following up with “Pardon my French.”

Jack laughed, realizing he had been guilty of stereotyping his old friend, who, despite outward appearances, was still the same person he’d been. “Touché,” he said, still smiling.

“Let me put it this way,” James continued. “By sending the ossuary from the Vatican to me with my name as the sender, he avoided customs and took advantage of my covetousness, since I was so quick to imagine it was a birthday present. By accepting the crate and signing for it, I have become, if you will, an accessory. I should have refused the carton so that it would have ended up back at the Vatican. As it is, whatever havoc it will evoke, I will be personally implicated, since it was my involvement that got him access to Peter’s tomb in the first place. I am in this hook, line, and sinker.”

“Why don’t you just call the media and confess right off the bat that you had no idea what you were signing for?”