Chapter 18 Summary

General Vrona, the Minister of Security, meets Cardinal Bem and Janik at the plane. They are taken to meet Prime Minister Urban, a man with whom Cardinal Bem attended Jesuit school. The Prime Minster tells the cardinal that there was a terrorist attack on a military target and a CIA-backed group called the Christian Fighters, headquartered in Gneisk, has claimed responsibility. He says he believes Cardinal Bem is behind it, and that he believes the cardinal cooperated with the "kidnapping" and was on his way to Gneisk to join the other terrorists.

Cardinal Bem reminds the Prime Minister that he knows him better than that, and that Bem cares for the people and the country just as much, if in a different way, than the Prime Minister himself. He asks the Prime Minister for twenty-four hours to put a stop to the demonstration...