“So good of you to come to visit us,” Father Pilar began in his cultivated Brazilian accent, somewhat faded after fifteen years in New England.
His thin face was wreathed in smiles. “You must be horribly busy.”
The Cardinal nodded, returning the smile politely. “I’m just getting the lay of the land, Father.”
He was a tall man with a somewhat reserved manner. His Midwestern frankness reminded Pilar of the manner of some of the older, patrician investment managers with whom he’d had to deal on questions of which bond funds the Community was interested in.
These norteamericanos with their over-sized suits and bland faces were such dunderheads, really.
“Ah, yes, it’s such a learning curve at first, isn’t it?” Father Pilar remembered to be solicitous.
They spent the next thirty minutes engaged in small talk, followed by a short tour of the facilities. The Cardinal asked some polite questions, but Father Pilar was not at his ease as he stood watching his visitor drive off in his unremarkable, mid-size Japanese sedan. It had been barely an hour’s visit.
Pilar was a product of the Community, of course, which had been always careful to maintain its façade of complete orthodoxy and faithfulness to the Church’s precepts. At the same time, they were absolutely modern in their beliefs and liturgical practices. In this way, they stayed above the fray generated by the traditionalists and modernists in their global cat-and-mouse game; in contrast, the Community engaged in an elaborate dance carefully choreographed to deflect any untoward curiosity.
After all, religious politics was a relatively unserious pastime. From their perspective, there were far more important concerns to focus on.
The new Cardinal, however, was playing his cards close to his chest.
As he watched the sedan disappearing down the long corporate driveway, Father Pilar was sure of it.
CHAPTER 6
Stacey White Toffler sighed, and leaned back in her airplane seat. A petite blonde, at 33 she was the mother of two young children, well cared-for by the military’s elaborate benefits for senior officers on foreign assignments.
The RAF base they were assigned to was nestled in East Anglia’s low, flat lands across the Channel from the Netherlands.
Every day, outside the window of her Grade A-listed, rented home, the enormous US Air Force tankers and AWACS would suddenly appear, dropping out of the cloudy English skies like machines from a science fiction future.
The contrast with the environs of the 17th century village in which they lived couldn’t be more pronounced.
REGINA | 100