Dark Prophecy

by Anthony E. Zuiker

  THE DEVIL

  PRIEST SHOT IN FRONT OF ASTONISHED PARISHIONERS

  FRESNO, Calif. (AP)—Father Warren Donnelly, pastor of a local parish in an impoverished neighborhood, was shot twice in the chest today during the annual Halloween Morning Parade.

  Donnelly had been leading the parade, a decades-old tradition in the southwest Fresno area. Police say that a man in an animal mask shot twice before making his escape.

  Donnelly, appointed to Saint Jude’s Parish a little more than a year ago, was taken by ambulance to Community Regional Medical Center.

  chapter 70

  Fresno, California

  Johnny Knack had never seen a man die before, much less a priest.

  And it was all his fault.

  The images were still swirling around in his brain. One minute you think you’re in total control of the situation. Then . . . everything is lost. Knack sat on the marble stairs of the church, phone in his hands. The story had already gone out over the wire. Nobody had made the Tarot Card Killer connection yet, but it was just a matter of time. The Slab’s story editor had sent him six texts in the past two minutes:

  NEED AN UPDATE NOW

  KNACK COME ON

  ARE YOU FUCKING THERE?

  For the first time in his life Knack felt at a loss for words. He’d come to Fresno thinking he had the world by the balls. He’d find Dark—the Mystery Texter said he’d guide him all the way to him— and then force him to tell his exclusive story. Knack would hole up in a hotel room and record Dark for days, if necessary. Journalists could offer their subjects something the cops and the courts couldn’t: a chance to explain freely and uncensored. Clearly, time was running out for Dark, and Knack thought he was holding the lifeline.

  Now, though, he was holding the weapon that had really killed that priest. His phone.

  The texts burned in his mind:

  DARK @ ST. JUDE’S PARADE SW FRESNO

  DARK IS IN THE CROWD

  APPROACH HIM NOW

  And Knack had, just like a good little accomplice.

  He had to make this right. Forget the book deals, forget the career . . . that was nothing. Just go somewhere quiet and write everything down. The complete truth, for a change.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  A thin, dark-haired woman was suddenly standing next to him, a panicked looked on her face. “I can’t find my son—he’s only five, and . . . oh, please, can you help me?”

  Knack climbed to his feet. “Of course.”

  They tried the parking lot behind the church, because the woman—who was actually kind of beautiful, behind the worry—thought she saw him run back here. Knack suggested they find a cop immediately, but the woman shook her head, frantic, insisting they’d be too busy looking for the gunman to stop and look for her little boy. Knack assured her that wouldn’t be the case.

  “You have something on your face,” the woman said, then took a handkerchief out of her pocket. Before he could reach up and feel for himself, the woman was wiping at his upper lip with her handkerchief. Knack smelled almonds. Cyanide? Then he felt strangely weak, like he’d stood up too quickly. How was that possible? He had already been standing and trying to help this poor woman find her missing boy . . .

  The woman who now guided him to the side of a van, leaning his weight against it and whispering in his ear:

  “You’ve done good work so far, Mr. Knack,” she said. “But there is still more of the story to tell.”

  chapter 71

  Riggins received constant updates as they swept toward the Southwest. Dark had been at the parade. The priest was shot—but expected to live. A gunman in a goat mask was spotted—the shooter was not Dark. Eyewitnesses said Dark tried to stop the shooter. The priest was rushed away in an ambulance, but hadn’t arrived at the hospital yet.

  Constance drove. “Maybe we’re wrong about Steve.”

  “We’re not wrong about him being involved,” Riggins said. “In fact, I’ll bet he made contact with the priest.”

  “Let’s go to the hospital then. You know Dark’s long gone from the church.”

  “Yeah.”

  Dark was long gone from everything, Riggins thought.

  Riggins tried the hospital, but still no contact with the ambulance driver. Which didn’t make sense. The hospital wasn’t all that far away, if the mapping program on his phone was right. What the hell was going on?

  Unless the ambulance wasn’t going to the hospital.

  Riggins thought about Dark’s accomplice—the chick with the fancy moves from the back of the van. He’d only had a glimpse of the gear inside, but he saw enough to know it was on par with what they had back in Quantico, maybe even better. What if Dark didn’t leave Special Circs to “retire,” but instead left it for another agency? Special Circs was the top of the food chain when it came to catching monsters. But that didn’t mean other parts of the government weren’t interested in doing the same.

  If that was the case, why wouldn’t Dark tell him about it? What, were they offering better medical and dental? It made no sense.

  Riggins told Constance to head for the hospital anyway. Maybe he could talk to a dispatcher there, figure out how the system worked here. Narrow down the field a bit.

  You can pull all the fancy moves you want, Riggins thought. But you and your weird girlfriend can’t take a dying priest and vanish from the face of the earth.

  chapter 72

  Father Donnelly sat up on the ambulance gurney, clutching his sides. “Jesus,” he muttered. “This fucking hurts.”

  Dark nodded, an ice pack pressed against his jaw. “I know what it feels like. You’ll have serious bruising, and your muscles will be tender for weeks.”

  “But at least I’m alive, right?” The priest’s grimace turned to anger. “Is that what you’re going to say? You going to stand there and gloat, tell me you people were right? I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. The looks on those kids’ faces . . .” Donnelly sat up and swung his legs over the side. “What a nightmare.”

  Graysmith put a hand on Donnelly’s shoulder. It was only the three of them in the back, with a driver and his partner upfront. They weren’t real EMTs; this wasn’t a real ambulance. The whole setup was something Graysmith had arranged less than two hours ago, to be on standby in case something happened. The moment the first shot was fired, Graysmith pressed a button on her phone, signaling them. Right about now there would be real EMTs showing up at the scene, wondering where their patient had gone.

  “You’re alive,” she said, “and nobody in the parish was hurt. That counts for something.”

  But the Maestros would keep going. There were two cards left. The most frightening cards of all.

  The Tower.

  Death.

  “Tell us about the Maestros, Father.”

  “Do you really believe that was Roger out there just now, trying to blow my head off?”

  “We’re sure of it,” Graysmith said.

  Donnelly sighed. “I prayed with the man over his son’s dying body. I never met someone who seemed so utterly lost and devastated. There’s really not much sense you can make to someone in that position—they’re lost in their own torment, and all you can do is assure them that you’re there, that you’ll pray with them, that there is a light at the end.”

  “Did you see him after the funeral?”

  “No—I was transferred a short while later. He dropped out of sight, which didn’t come as any real surprise. I continued to pray for him. I suppose all prayers aren’t heard.”

  Graysmith handed Donnelly an ice pack. “What about his wife, Abdulia?”

  “She was always skeptical about my presence. I got the idea that she tolerated me being around, because praying with her husband seemed to give him some kind of peace.”

  “Abdulia studied the occult,” Graysmith said. “She’s written a few books on the history and art of the tarot. In her circles, the books were praised for their insight. Outside, she was totally unknown.”<
br />
  “That would explain it,” Donnelly said. “But what about Roger?”

  “Ex-military. Navy Seal. He received a dishonorable discharge after a friendly-fire incident. Came back to the States, found a job as a shop foreman in an auto plant, making $118,000 a year, full benefits. Lost his job not long after, though. Moved into construction. Work dried up.”

  “It did for a lot of people,” Donnelly said.

  “Yeah, but that was just the beginning. After the layoff, Abdulia tried to amp up her tarot-reading business. Someone got jealous, put the local business-affairs people after her. She was convicted of scamming people during readings.”

  “I had no idea,” Donnelly said.

  “You were gone by then,” Graysmith said. “The Maestros were in over their heads, losing their house, losing everything. Victims of forces beyond their control.”

  Now it made sense to Dark. All of the victims were players—directly or symbolically—in the Maestros’ personal nightmare. The Hanged Man, Martin Green, was a money man advising banks—the same banks that turn down loan requests from people like the Maestros. The Fool was a symbol of the cop who accused Abdulia of being a con artist. The Three of Cups were MBA students who were killed before they could blossom into greedy adults. The Ten of Swords senator was in bed with Wall Street. The Ten of Wands were fat cats who made insane profits from closing American factories—like, say, auto plants. The nurse failed to save their son, despite promising to do everything she could. Kobiashi, spinning the Wheel of Fortune, wasted money while others were unable to buy health care. The Devil priest asked God to save their boy, but failed.

  But how did the Maestros—a broke couple who couldn’t afford to pay for medical treatments for their son—afford this cross-country killing spree? They needed weapons. Plane tickets. Surveillance gear. All of it expensive as hell.

  Maybe they financed it from the first murder—Martin Green.

  He asked Graysmith to call up Paulson’s notes from his visit to the crime scene. Dark scanned them quickly. Paulson had been young, but he had a good eye. He’d been asking the right questions. For one thing, he hadn’t been distracted by the grisly nature of the torture-murder. He’d asked good, solid questions about motive and potential suspects. And there it was, in Paulson’s own hand: Follow the money.

  According to the local cops, Green had kept a lot of cash in a bedroom safe. Kind of ironic for a guy who made a living consulting bankers and financiers. What if Roger and Abdulia knew that? What if he was chosen to be their first victim because he had a lot of cash on hand, and because he fell within the right geographical area? The first murder covers the rest.

  He made a note to have Graysmith pluck all Roger and Abdulia’s financial records. In the words of Jeb Paulson: Follow the money. Because as much as they wanted to pretend this was about fate, this was also about finance.

  Dark silently thanked Paulson. If you can hear me, Jeb, I think you just helped me catch your killers.

  “So what now?” Donnelly asked.

  “We take you to the hospital,” Graysmith said. “The vest may have absorbed most of the impact, but you still need to be checked out for internal injuries.”

  “What are you going to do, then? Just drop me off and vanish into thin air?”

  “That’s the idea,” Graysmith said. “These men will take you to the hospital. If anyone asks about the delay, tell them they said something about being new, and being lost.”

  “And the bullets that were supposed to have hit my body?”

  “You have no idea. You were knocked to the ground. Consider it divine intervention.”

  “Nobody’s going to believe it,” Donnelly muttered.

  “Why not?” Dark asked. “You’re a priest.”

  chapter 73

  When the fake ambulance finally pulled up at Community Regional Medical Center, Riggins was waiting for them.

  He didn’t get in their faces; he let them do their thing, which was mostly handing off the injured priest to the ER staff. Riggins watched them. The two men seemed like they were in an awful hurry to get the hell out of there, to step back into the fray. Which wasn’t like most of the EMTs Riggins had known over the years. You catch a call to bring someone to the ER, you hang out, catch a smoke, a coffee, until it’s your turn in the barrel again. There’s usually no rush—especially on a Sunday. Even if it was Halloween.

  “Constance, you talk to the priest,” he said. “Get him to tell you everything. Beat him if you have to. The old Dirty Harry shoe-leather-in-the-bullet-wound trick should work just fine.”

  “You’re a sick man,” Constance said. “What about you? Where are you going?”

  “Going to catch an ambulance,” he said, then trotted off back to their car.

  Surprise, surprise—the EMTs took their vehicle not to the closest dispatching station, but to a private garage in suburban Fresno. After parking the vehicle and peeling themselves out of their fake uniforms, they bullshitted with each other for a while, with Riggins watching them from across the street. One of them must have suggested breakfast, since it was Sunday morning, and the other agreed. They piled into a Ford Taurus and drove a half mile to a diner. Climbed into a booth, ordered some eggs, bacon, muffins, coffee.

  Riggins entered one minute later, slid in next to them. Put his Sig Sauer on the table. Eased back, like he had all the time in the world, then showed them his Special Circs badge.

  “Hi, fellas,” he said.

  chapter 74

  Dark thought about Hilda’s interpretation of the Tower:

  The Tower card is about war, breaking apart. A war between the structure of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The lightning is Thor’s hammer.

  A bolt of divine power, almost a cosmic course correction.

  God strikes you down when you are arrogant, she’d continued, hoping that you’ll see the truth. And tap back into the heart of innocence. It’s a divine act. A wake-up call for the rest of your life.

  The image on the face of the card was horrifying, with shades of 9/11 and the apocalypse and the Tower of Babel rolled up into one black spectacle. A proud gray edifice is struck by lightning from the ebony skies, knocking a gold crown from the roof, setting it ablaze. Two figures fall from the skies, one wearing a crown, the other not. Both stretch out their arms in stark terror. Below is nothing but a terribly eroded foundation, proof that you’ve built your entire life on unstable ground that has been rotting away beneath you. There is no escape. Everything you know is about to be struck down.

  The card was about sudden change, a downfall, and a revelation.

  Like every tarot card, there were positive and negative interpretations of the image. The Tower, to some, would be welcome, because it would mean a spectacular breakthrough, exposing the hidden truth behind a situation, or receiving an answer—like a bolt of inspiration—after months of denial. The Tower card didn’t spell doom. Like the Fool, it promised a new beginning. The negative interpretation, however, meant a devastating loss of fortune, the crisis of your life, and utter chaos.

  So far, every murder (or attempted murder) had been closely tied into the images on the cards.

  Who was the Tower? The Maestros believed someone had built up something powerful and mighty on a ruined foundation . . . so who?

  The geography of the card layout also had to be a factor. Las Vegas, Fresno, the card progressing in a northwesterly direction to . . .

  Wait.

  Graysmith stepped out of the shower to find Dark poring through the documents on her laptop.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Tell you if I find it.”

  If the Maestro’s financial records were right, Dark knew exactly where they were going to strike next.

  IX

  the tower

  To watch Steve Dark’s personal tarot card reading,

  please log in to Level26.com and

  enter the code: tower.

  THE TOWER

 
; Scrawled on the back of the owner’s copy of a receipt from Send It Packing, a mail delivery service located in Nob Hill, San Francisco, California.

  You won’t find this note until it’s all over.

  You may call us monsters. That would be missing the

  point. The fate of this country has already been written.

  Our path leads to death and destruction.

  YOU CANNOT CHANGE YOUR FATE

  EMBRACE IT

  chapter 75

  San Francisco, California

  Dark looked up at the Niantic Tower in downtown San Francisco.

  There were only two structures said to be able to withstand earthquakes: pyramids and redwood trees. The Niantic Tower kept both in mind when it was built in the early 1970s. Named for the massive whaling vessel buried near the foundation, the Niantic was a forty-eight-floor crushed-quartz rebuff to Mother Nature, built on top of notoriously unstable ground. The Niantic had a nine-foot foundation that took a full day to pour, and a base made of eighteen thousand cubic yards of concrete and enough rebar to stretch from San Francisco to Santa Barbara. The Niantic’s base was also incredibly flexible; that, along with its truss system, meant it was able to withstand any seismic jolt imaginable.

  The Niantic was also home to Westmire Investments, the umbrella corporation to dozens of lenders, including the particular lender that foreclosed on the Maestros’ home.

  The Niantic had to be their target.

  But how?

  What kind of lightning bolt from the sky could they have prepared—just the two of them, to topple this tower?

  “You’re infamous now,” Graysmith said, looking at the screen on her phone. “Special Circs has a hard-on for you. Big manhunt and everything. The Slab’s got the whole story.”