The number answered after the first ring: “
Oui?
” a woman’s lucid voice enquired.
“
Prélature belge?
” he asked curtly.
“
A qui ai-je l’honneur?
”
“Joaquín Pla—”
“
Pax, mon père
.”
“My sweetheart. May I speak with the Counsellor?” he asked in an exceptionally cordial tone.
“
Tout de suite, mon père
.”
He waited a few seconds.
“Van Reyn,” a high pitched voice broke the silence.
“Hervé? Joaquín.
¿Que tal, querido amigo?
”
“
¡Muy bien! ¿Y tú?
”
“
Yo tambien.
”
They continued in Spanish, a language the Belgian Regional Vicar of Opus Dei, Baron Hervé van Reyn, spoke with some fluency. He had studied philosophy for three years at the Opus-Dei-run University of Navarra in Pamplona and had degrees in politics, economics and environmental planning.
“Good news?” van Reyn enquired.
“Is this a safe line?”
“What a question…”
“I presume you have heard about the problems surrounding the father of one of our candidate numeraries, Didier Savelkoul?”
“To the last detail.”
“Can you suggest an adequate solution?”
“I think so.”
“I’m listening.”
“We first have to ease the father away from that er… whore, then we can get down to business.”
“Exactly. And the footnotes?”
“Destabilize the whore and then blackmail. The man is vulnerable enough…”
“Is he corrupt?”
“Corrupt is a somewhat er… elastic term in Belgium, but yes, he is corrupt and in more than one domain, although we have no hard evidence as yet.”
“But that is precisely what we need.”
“And we’ll have it in due course.”
“I’m listening.”
“We’ll employ a private detective to learn more about the whore and her background.”
“Good idea. And?”
“There are claims that he has a bank account in Switzerland.”
“And?”
“As you know, my family is well informed on banking matters. We have a supernumerary in Zurich who can find anything. All we have to do is ask. Am I making myself clear? By the way, did you see
la madre
?”
“She was sitting in front of me not a quarter of an hour ago. As supernumerary, she relinquished a considerable portion of her family patrimony. Didier’s inheritance for one, and a… er… sizeable supplement for arranging an aristocratic title with your Royal Family.”
“Aha, excellent news.”
“Are you acquainted with King Albert’s personal secretary?”
“Saint Pierre? The man is inclined to favour the Charismatic Renewal, but he has never refused a favour.”
“Does he have that much influence with the King?”
“His Majesty always listens to his advice. He’s even close to the crown prince, a sort of spiritual director. They attend weekly prayer services in the palace together. The Belgian lefties claim he’s running the country, and in a sense they might even be right, ha ha.”
“So you’ll organize the detective and the Swiss connection.”
“You can depend on it, but I’ll need the documents for the notary.”
“Should I send them by special mail?”
“The fax should be fine.”
“Is that safe?”
“My private fax, remember. Then we can be sure they don’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Business as usual otherwise?”
“What do you mean?”
“Fishing… new members…”
“Twenty per cent of our approaches to potential members have been positive so far this year. We’ve just purchased three properties to house the new candidates.”
“Where?”
“Ghent, Antwerp and Liege. What about Rome?”
“
Calma
. The Prelate is on his way to Peru and Colombia.”
“Colombia? I’m intrigued…”
“Problems with the Medellin clan.”
“Well, well…”
“They claimed their ‘prices’ had come under such pressure from competition and terrorism in the interior that they could no longer afford to finance the construction of our new hotel school in Bogotá.”
“Ha ha ha, cocaine has never been so expensive. So… don’t their children attend our schools?”
“Their Achilles’ heel, precisely. By the way, before I forget… is Didier’s father a member of the Lodge?”
“No. He appears to be fairly neutral on matters of ideology. I only hope that our plan doesn’t create more problems than it solves. He is a senior magistrate after all.”
“
Querido amigo
, don’t forget Saying 702: ‘Never forget that the importance of events or of people is very relative’.”
“Never!”
“I’ll fax the documents…” Pla y Daniel concluded.
“
Muy bien. Adios
.”
“
Adios.
”
Joaquín Pla y Daniel folded his hands with a satisfied grin, opened a drawer in his desk, produced a packet of Marlboros, fished a lighter from his pocket and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and stared vacantly into space. The drawer remained open. He smoked until the ash of his cigarette was too long and flicked it into an ashtray in the drawer.
Then he jolted, all at once, as if overcome by a violent shock. He stared at the surface of the desk, ran his forefinger over it and looked around the room in desperation. He pressed a button on the switchboard.
“Padre?”
“Come to my office now!” he snapped.
A minute or so later there was a knock at the door.
“Enter! ”
The door opened and a woman with the features of an Andalusian farmer, and dressed in the same outfit as the women in the crypt, hurried inside and knelt down at his chair. He touched her head fleetingly as if it was a time bomb, and pointed to the surface of the desk without a word.
She scurried out of the room and returned moments later, red-faced and gasping for breath, spray polish and a duster in hand. She set about polishing the desk with uneasy strokes. He remained seated, his eyes shut, his hands folded around the wooden crucifix, waiting motionlessly until she finished.
Whenever he had to control himself in such a way he always suffered an allergy attack. He rummaged in his desk for a Rhinocort nasal spray, which he squirted awkwardly a couple of times into each nostril and snorted loudly.
After the woman had left the room, he removed the documents from the black leather file and walked over to the fax.
5
Without waiting for the fax from Rome, Baron Hervé van Reyn, Opus Dei’s Regional Vicar in Belgium, consulted his telephone list kept in a small beige leather book in which he had noted “important” numbers in minute yet extraordinarily clear handwriting.
He was forty-eight and had the looks that one would expect of someone with old aristocratic blood: arrestingly youthful and fit, the consequence of a moderate lifestyle. His manner conformed perfectly to well-defined criteria: evident class without pretence, and the complete avoidance of anything people of his standing referred to with disdain as “
nouveau riche
”. His facial features, reminiscent of the eighteenth-century portraits hanging in his ancestral castle in ’s-Gravenwezel, even reflected his manner. He looked as if he had just returned from the barber, and was flawlessly shaven without the slightest hint of cologne. A permanent smile hovered over his lips, as if he was arrogantly suppressing some or other private joke. His glasses were expensive but conventional and he took care to maintain an open, candid and interested expression, conscientious, without the slightest trace of affectation, focused on the world outside, worthy of his family device “
Droit et en avant
”. His stylish yet traditional blue blazer was tailored to perfection, his grey trousers had old-fashioned turn-ups, and his shiny black Keith Highlander shoes glistened like the boots of a British Royal Guardsman. His military tie, with the insignia of the 1st Cavalry Regiment, in which he was once a reserve lieutenant, matched his blue-and-white-striped shirt, made to measure by a shirt maker with a shop on New York’s Fifth Avenue, diagonally opposite Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.
Although he was a priest, ordained in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome by Cardinal Palazzini, he rarely wore a soutane or clergyman’s outfit. He didn’t even wear a cross on his lapel. He was a close friend of Joaquín Navarro Valls, head of the Vatican press office, senior Opus numerary, and doctor and bullfighter in a former life. When they greeted one another, they would do so by swapping portions of El Padre’s Saying 836: “To serve as a loudspeaker for the enemy is the height of idiocy; and if the enemy is God’s enemy, it is a great sin.” They had developed the habit of referring to Opus Dei as “the Company”, in line with the CIA, convinced that their code word testified to their capacity for healthy irony and bore witness to their intelligence. When van Reyn was in Rome, which was frequently the case, they would dine together every evening at Da Fortunato, a restaurant near the Pantheon, frequented by parliament members, artists, journalists and prelates, an establishment known for its discretion, delicious food and the slightly nonchalant service of the waiters, most of them on the wrong side of sixty.
Van Reyn and Navarro Valls both considered themselves acutely superior to ordinary numeraries, so much so that they insisted on the right to live a distinct lifestyle, without exaggerated penance, a clandestine gentlemen’s agreement, which they enjoyed like a pair of naughty boys and gently mocked at one and the same time. Wearing the cilice, a penitential chain with jagged barbs worn around the thigh, and self-mortification with the lash was for other people, not them. They no longer slept on the floor, didn’t spray their bed with holy water, took warm showers and limited their “daily obligations” to the recitation of 150 Ave Marias, the celebration of Mass (for van Reyn only) and a half-hour meditation on one of the Sayings. They were relieved de facto of the obligation to do public penance (van Reyn as priest, Navarro Valls as senior numerary), their letters were left unopened, and the only obligation they were unable to avoid was weekly confession. “Confessional tourism” was not permitted, however, and both men were required to confess to a “Company” priest.
Baron Hervé van Reyn had advanced through the Opus Dei ranks at lightning speed, and by pure accident. His family happened to be related to Monsignor Papejaens, Professor of Canon Law at the Catholic University of Leuven in the 1970s, and appointed secretary by Pope Paul VI of a council of ninety-eight consultants from every part of the globe, charged with the task of adapting the Code of Canon Law to modern times. The professor, who enjoyed good food and wine, was fêted by the prelature of Opus Dei in the best restaurants in the country. Papejaens was a human being, of course, and the prelature’s strategy enjoyed considerable success. The Codex Juris Canonici, drafted in 1978 and promulgated in 1984, clearly bore the signature of Opus Dei. “Dinner table diplomacy”, much praised by El Padre, had proven its worth yet again.
A broad toothy grin took hold of his face as the fax machine buzzed into action. He closed the small leather notebook, stuffed it into his inside pocket, and called a number on his mobile. He never made such calls via the central switchboard. He trusted the secretary one-hundred per cent, but he considered a degree of suspicion justifiable, under the circumstances. He thought for a moment of using the public phone on the corner of Avenue de Floride and Avenue Montjoie, but someone from Belgacom had once assured him (incorrectly) that a mobile could not be tapped.
“Marlowe et Compagnie,” said a gravelly male voice.
“
Bonjour
,” van Reyn replied in true managerial style, “may I have a word with the director?”
“Who can I say is calling?”
“I prefer not to mention my name.”
The call was transferred without further comment.
“Hello…” The voice seemed at first to come from a distance, but after a click it became clear. A sign that the conversation was being recorded, he thought, but took it as a mark of efficiency and nothing more.
“Am I speaking to the director?”
“Yes. With whom do I have the honour?”
“A client who used your services in the past, much to his satisfaction I might add.”
“Thank you. How can I be of service?”
“I would like to pass on the assignment by phone as I did before.”
“Quite acceptable,
monsieur
.”
“I still have your bank account number, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I understand, sir. How can I be of assistance?”