One of the Swiss Guards held open the glass door, and Richter, his right hand raised in blessing, went inside. The gleaming white lobby echoed with a multilingual din. The 225 members of the College of Cardinals had spent the afternoon discussing the Church’s future. Now they were partaking of white wine and canapés in the lobby before sitting down to supper in the Casa Santa Marta’s simple dining room. The Apostolic Constitution dictated that only the 116 cardinals under the age of eighty would be allowed to take part in the conclave. The elderly cardinals emeriti made their preferences known during informal gatherings such as these, which was where the real pre-conclave horse trading took place.

Richter discreetly acknowledged the greetings of a pair of well-known traditionalists and endured the icy stare of Cardinal Kevin Brady, the liberal lion from Los Angeles who saw a pope each time he looked in the mirror. Brady was conspiring with tiny Duarte of Manila, the great hope of the developing world. Cardinal Navarro was brimming with confidence, as though the papacy was already his. It was obvious that Gaubert, who was scheming with Villiers of Lyon, did not plan to go down without a fight.

Only Bishop Hans Richter knew that none of them stood a chance. The next pope was at that moment standing near the reception desk, an afterthought in a room filled with towering egos and boundless ambition. He had been given his red hat by none other than Pietro Lucchesi, who had been deceived into believing he was a moderate, which he most definitely was not. Fifty million euros, discreetly deposited in bank accounts around the world, including twelve at the Vatican Bank, had all but guaranteed his election by the conclave. Securing the vast sum of money required to purchase the papacy had been the easiest part of the operation. Unlike the rest of the Church, which was on the verge of financial collapse, the Order of St. Helena was awash with cash.

Cardinal Domenico Albanese was whispering something into the ear of Angelo Francona, the dean of the College of Cardinals. Spotting Richter, he beckoned with a thick, furry hand. Francona, a leading liberal, immediately turned on his heel and fled.

“Did I do something to give offense?” asked Richter in flawless curial Italian.

“You offend by your very existence, Excellency.” Albanese took Richter by the arm. “Perhaps we should speak in my room.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually moved in.”

Albanese grimaced. As prefetto of the Secret Archives, he was entitled to a luxurious apartment above the Lapidary Gallery of the Vatican Museums. “I’m simply using my room here as an office until the start of the conclave.”

“With any luck,” said Richter quietly, “you won’t have to stay long.”

“The media are predicting a titanic struggle between the reformers and the reactionaries.”

“Are they?”

“Seven ballots seems to be the general consensus.”

A blue-habited nun offered Richter a glass of wine. Declining, he followed Albanese to the elevators. He could almost feel the eyes of the room boring holes in his back as they waited for a carriage to arrive. When one finally appeared, Albanese pressed the call button for the fourth floor. Mercifully, the doors closed before loquacious Lopes of Rio de Janeiro could squeeze inside.

Bishop Richter made several unnecessary adjustments to his purple-trimmed cassock as the carriage slowly rose. Handmade by an exclusive tailor in Zurich, it fit him to perfection. At seventy-four, he remained an imposing physical specimen, tall and square-shouldered, with iron-gray hair and an unbendable countenance to match.

He looked at Cardinal Albanese’s reflection in the elevator doors. “What’s on the menu this evening, Eminence?”

“Whatever they serve us will be overcooked.” Albanese smiled gracelessly. Even in his red-trimmed cassock, he looked like the hired help. “Consider yourself lucky you don’t have to actually take part in the conclave.”

In the nomenclature of the Roman Catholic Church, the Order of St. Helena was a personal prelature—in effect, a global diocese without borders. As superior general of the Order, Richter held the rank of bishop. Nevertheless, he was among the most powerful men in the Roman Catholic Church. Several dozen cardinals, all secret members of the Order, were obliged to obey his every command, including Cardinal Domenico Albanese.

The elevator doors opened. Albanese led Bishop Richter along an empty corridor. The room they entered was in darkness. Albanese found the light switch.

Richter surveyed his surroundings. “I see you’ve assigned yourself one of the suites.”

“The rooms were assigned by lottery, Excellency.”

“Lucky you.”

Bishop Richter held out his right hand, the wrist cocked slightly. Albanese dropped to his knees and placed his lips against the ring on Richter’s third finger. It was identical in size to the Ring of the Fisherman that Albanese had recently removed from the papal apartments.

“I swear to you, Bishop Richter, my eternal obedience.”

Richter withdrew his hand, resisting the urge to reach for the small bottle of sanitizer in his pocket. Richter was a germophobe. Albanese always struck him as a carrier.

He moved to the window and parted the gauzy curtain. The suite was on the north side of the guesthouse, overlooking the Piazza Santa Marta and the facade of the basilica. The dome was aglow with floodlights. The wounds from the Islamic terrorist attack had healed nicely. If only the same could be said for the Holy Mother Church. She was a shadow of her former self, barely breathing, close to death.

Bishop Hans Richter had appointed himself her savior. He had been prepared to wait out Lucchesi’s disastrous papacy before putting his plan into action. But His Holiness had given Richter no choice but to take matters into his own hands. It was Lucchesi who had erred, Richter assured himself, not he. Besides, God had been knocking on Lucchesi’s door for some time. To Richter’s way of thinking, he had merely given Pope Accidental an early start on the inevitable process of canonization.

Richter’s thoughts were interrupted by a thunderous flush of the commode. When Albanese emerged, he was wiping his big hands on a towel—like a ditchdigger, thought Richter. And to think he actually regarded himself as a potential pope, the one Richter would choose to be his puppet pontiff. He was no intellectual giant, Albanese, but he had played the curial insider’s game well enough to secure two critical papal appointments. As camerlengo, Albanese had shepherded Lucchesi’s body from the papal apartments to his tomb beneath St. Peter’s with no hint of scandal. He had also placed in Richter’s hands copies of several sin-filled personnel files from the Vatican Secret Archives that had proven invaluable during the preparations for the conclave. For his reward, Albanese would soon be the secretary of state, the second most powerful position in the Holy See.

He dried his pitted face and then tossed the towel over the back of a chair. “With all due respect, Excellency, do you think it was wise to come here this evening?”

“Are you forgetting that many of those cardinals downstairs are now wealthy men because of me?”

“All the more reason you should keep a low profile until the conclave is over. I can only imagine what the likes of Francona and Kevin Brady are saying right now.”

“Francona and Brady are the least of our problems.”

The simple wooden armchair into which Albanese lowered himself groaned beneath his weight. “Is there any sign of the Janson boy?”