Quart laughed. "I was thinking of His Eminence Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz," he said. "They don't condemn people to the stake anymore." He swallowed the last of his drink. "Or excommunicate them."

Spada grunted ferociously. "There are other ways of casting someone into darkness. Even we've done it. You have yourself."

The archbishop fell silent, watching Quart's eyes. He wondered if he'd gone too far. But he'd spoken the truth. In the early days, when they hadn't been in opposing camps, Quart supplied Iwaszkiewicz's henchmen with ammunition. Again Quart saw Nelson Corona – his myopic frightened eyes, his glasses misted, sweat running down his face. He'd been defrocked a week later, and a week after that he was dead. That was four years ago, but the memory was as sharp as ever.

"Yes, I have," he said.

Spada studied Quart, curious. "Corona, still?" he asked gently.

Quart smiled. "May I speak frankly, Monsignor?"

"Yes."

"Not just him. Also Ortega, the Spaniard. And the other one, Souza."

There had been three priests, proponents of so-called liberation theology. They had opposed the reactionary tide from Rome. And in all three cases the IEA had done the dirty work for Iwaszkiewicz and his Congregation. Corona, Ortega, and Souza were prominent progressive priests working in marginal dioceses, poor districts of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. They believed in saving man here on earth, not waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven. Once they'd been identified as targets, the IEA set to work, finding the weak points to put pressure on. Ortega and Souza soon gave in. As for Corona – a popular hero in the favelas of Rio and the scourge of local police and politicians – it had been necessary to remind him of certain dubious details of his work with young drug addicts. Quart had spent several weeks investigating the matter, not leaving a stone unturned. But the Brazilian priest refused to mend his ways. Hated by the extreme right, Corona was murdered by death squads seven days after he was suspended a divinis and expelled from his diocese. His photo was on the front pages of all the papers. They found the body on a rubbish dump near his former parish. His hands were tied and he'd been shot in the back of the head. COMUNISTA E VEADO: Communist and fag, read the sign around his neck.

"Father Quart. Corona forgot his vow of obedience and the priorities of his ministry. He was asked to reflect on his mistakes. That's all. But things got out of hand. It had nothing to do with us. It was Iwaszkiewicz and his Congregation. You were just obeying orders. What happened wasn't your fault."

"With all due respect, Your Grace, it was. Corona's dead."

"Well, we both know others who died. The financier Lupara, for instance."

"But Corona was one of us, Monsignor."

"One of us, one of us… There is no 'us'. We're all on our own. We answer to God and the Pope." The archbishop paused deliberately. "In that order." Popes died, but God was immortal.

Quart looked away, as if he wanted to change the subject. Then he lowered his head. "Your Grace is right," he said, inscrutable.

Exasperated, the archbishop clenched his huge fist as if to bang the table. But he didn't raise it. "Sometimes," he said, "I detest your damned discipline."

"What am I to say to that, Monsignor?"

"Tell me what you think."

"In situations like these I try not to think."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm ordering you to tell me."

Quart said nothing for a moment, then shrugged. "I still believe that Corona was one of us. And an honest man." "A man with weaknesses."

"Maybe. What happened to him happened precisely because of that, a weakness, a mistake. But we all make mistakes."

Spada laughed. "Not you, Father Quart. I've been waiting for you to make a mistake for ten years. The day it happens, I'll have the pleasure of giving you a hair shirt, fifty lashes, and a hundred Hail Marys as punishment." Suddenly his tone became acid. "How do you manage always to be so virtuous?" He passed his hand over his bristly hair. He shook his head, not waiting for an answer. "But about that unfortunate business in Rio, you know the Almighty works in mysterious ways. It was just bad luck."

"Luck or not, Monsignor, it's a fact. It happened. And some day I may have to answer for what I did."

"When that day comes, God will judge you as he judges all of us. Until then – only in official matters, of course – you know you have my general absolution, sub conditione"

He raised one of his large hands in a brief gesture of blessing. Quart smiled.

"I'll need more than that. But can Your Grace assure me that we would do the same today?" "By 'we' do you mean the Church?"

"I mean the Institute for External Affairs. Would we be quite so quick now to bring those three heads on a tray to Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz?"

"I don't know. A strategy consists of tactics." The prelate broke off, looking worried, and glanced sharply at Quart. "I hope none of this will affect your work in Seville."

"It won't. At least I don't think so. But you did ask me to speak frankly."

"Listen. You and I are both career churchmen. But Iwaszkicwicz has either bought or intimidated everyone in the Vatican." He looked around, as if the Pole might appear at any moment. "Only the IEA hasn't yet fallen into his hands. The Secretary of State, Azopardi, went to college with me. He's the only one who still puts in a good word for us to the Holy Father."

"You have many friends, Your Grace. You've done favours for a lot of people."

Spada laughed sceptically. "In the Curia, favours are forgotten and slights remembered. We live in a court of tattling eunuchs, where promotion comes only with the support of others. Everyone rushes to stab a fallen man, but otherwise nobody dares do anything. Remember when Pope Luciani died: to determine the hour of death it was necessary to take his temperature but nobody had the guts to stick a thermometer in his rectum."

"But the Cardinal Secretary of State…"

The Mastiff shook his bristly head. "Azopardi is my friend, but only in the sense that the word has here. He has to look out for his own interests. Iwaszkiewicz is very powerful." He fell silent for a few moments, as if weighing Iwaszkiewicz's power against his own. "Even the hacker is a minor matter," he said at last. "At any other time it wouldn't have occurred to them to give us this job. Strictly speaking, it's a matter for the archbishop of Seville and the parishioners of his diocese. But with the situation as it is, the slightest thing gets blown out of all proportion. The Holy Father shows an interest, and it's enough to set off another round of internal reprisals. So I've chosen the best man for the job. What I need above all is information. We need to present a report this thick"- he held his thumb and index finger five centimetres apart – "which leaves us looking good. Let them see that we're doing something. It'll satisfy His Holiness and keep the Pole quiet."

A group of Japanese tourists peered inside the cafe admiringly. A few of them smiled and bowed politely when they saw the priests. Monsignor Spada smiled back absently.

"I think highly of you, Father Quart," he went on. "That's why I'm letting you know what's at stake here, before you leave for Seville… I don't know whether you're always 'the good soldier', but you've never given me reason to think otherwise. I've kept an eye on you since you were a student at the Gregorian University, and I've grown fond of you. Which may cost you dear, because if I fall from grace some day, you'll be dragged down with me. Or you might go first. You know how it is, the pawns are sacrificed."

Quart nodded, impassive. "What if we win?"

"We'll never really win. As your fellow countryman Saint Ignatius Loyola would have said, we've chosen what God has to spare and others don't want: torment and struggle. Our victories only postpone the next attack. Iwaszkiewicz will be a cardinal for the rest of his life, a prince by protocol, a bishop whose investiture is irrevocable, a citizen of the smallest and – thanks to men like you and me – most secure state in the world. And, for our sins, one day he may even be pope. But we'll never be papabili, and possibly never even cardinals. As they say in the Curia, we've got an impressive CV but not much of a pedigree. We do have some power, however, and we know how to fight. That makes us formidable opponents, and for all his fanaticism and arrogance, Iwaszkicwicz knows it. We can't be crushed like the Jesuits and the liberals in the Curia, to the benefit of the Opus Dei, the fundamentalist Mafia, or God on Sinai. Totus tuus is all very well, but they'd better not mess with me. Mastiffs don't go down without a fight."