The Sign

by Raymond Khoury

  “When I see it,” the old priest continued, “it . . . it speaks to me. Somehow, it’s as if it’s putting the words and ideas in my head.” He studied their faces intently, his gaze magnetic, his eyes jumping from one to the other, searching for comfort. “Don’t you hear them too?”

  Gracie didn’t know what to answer. She felt the others shifting uncomfortably, not knowing what to say either. The abbot got up and crossed over to Father Jerome. He placed a comforting arm around his shoulder. “Perhaps we should take a small break,” he suggested, nodding at Gracie. “Let the good father’s mind settle down. It’s a lot to take in.”

  “Of course,” Gracie agreed with a warm, supportive smile. “We’ll wait outside.”

  The three of them left Father Jerome with the abbot and the younger monk and stepped out into the small clearing outside the cave’s entrance. The last vestiges of day that they’d witnessed on the climb up were now gone. With a total absence of ambient light as far as the eye could see, the ink-black dome above them looked unreal, blazing with a dazzling array of stars, an astounding and humbling display the likes of which Gracie had rarely seen.

  No one said anything. They each seemed to be processing what the priest had said, looking for a rational explanation to it all. Gracie glanced absentmindedly at her watch, and saw that it was coming up to the hour. She suddenly remembered what they’d agreed with Ogilvy. “Where’s the satphone?” she asked.

  Finch retrieved it from his bag, which he’d left at the door of the cave, inserted the battery back into it, and switched it on. Within seconds, it pinged with several text messages. The one that caught his eye was from Ogilvy. It simply said, in loud, capitalized letters, “CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS.” He handed it to Gracie. “Something’s up.”

  The curtness of the message unsettled her as she thumbed the redial key. Ogilvy picked it up inside of one ring, the words somersaulting out of his mouth.

  “They just aired the documentary footage from the cave.”

  Gracie froze. “What?”

  “They showed it,” Ogilvy reiterated, breathless with urgency. “It’s out. The whole thing’s out. Father Jerome, the monastery, the symbol he’s painted all over his cave. It’s on every TV screen from here to Shanghai as we speak,” he told her, uncharacteristically nerve-wracked, clearly struggling to process the implications himself. “This thing’s just blown wide open, Gracie—and you’re standing right at ground zero.”

  Chapter 33

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Larry Rydell was having a hard time focusing on what his chief advertising strategist and his director of interactive marketing were saying as they stepped out of the elevator. He’d had trouble concentrating on the conversation throughout their lunch at the firm’s laid-back canteen—a moniker that seriously understated the fine sushi and Mediterranean cuisine that were on offer. He knew both executives well. They were part of the brain trust that ran the firm—his firm, the one he’d founded twenty-three years earlier, before he’d dropped out of Berkeley. He used to thrive on their informal meetings. They were part of what fueled the company to its global success, and he normally enjoyed them with the enthusiasm of a young entrepreneur hell-bent on conquering the world. Lately, though, he’d been more distant, less focused, and today, he was only there in strictly physical terms. His mind was entirely elsewhere, locked on the events that were taking place continents away.

  He gave them a casual half smile and a small wave as they parted, then strode down the wide, glass-covered hallway to his office. As he reached the secretarial pool stationed outside his door, he saw Mona, his trusted senior PA, and his three other assistants clustered around the bank of wall-mounted LCD screens that were constantly tuned to the major international news channels.

  The sight surprised him somewhat. They’d already watched the Greenland sighting that morning. Mona turned and spotted him. She waved him over while gesturing at the screen. “Did you see this?” she asked. “It’s from a documentary they filmed six months ago in an old monastery in Egypt. You’ve got to see this.”

  He felt a pinch of concern as he stepped closer to the screen, then the blood drained from his face as the significance of what it was showing sank in.

  He managed to mask his unease and feigned sharing in their excitement for a minute or two before retreating into the sanctuary of his office, where he studied the news reports in private. He was familiar with Father Jerome, of course—who wasn’t—but he’d never heard of the monastery. Close-ups of the markings on the cave wall were everywhere he looked, and were definitely renderings of the sign. Which sent Rydell’s mind cartwheeling in all kinds of deeply troubling directions.

  He flicked around TV channels and websites feverishly, looking for something, anything, to put his mind to rest. Nothing came to his rescue. On the screens, legions of commentators on the news networks were competing to make sense of it.

  “Well, if what we’re seeing here is true, if this footage was really filmed when they’re saying it was,” one notable pundit was saying, “then clearly, it’s an association between this unexplained phenomenon and a highly regarded man of faith, and not just any faith—a Christian man of faith,” he emphasized, “who somehow foresaw these events we’ve been witnessing, while staying in one of Christianity’s oldest places of worship . . .”

  The implications of the footage were obvious and inescapable, and it was already creating a huge stir. Evangelists and born-again Christians, parishioners and preachers alike, had begun staking their claim on the sign and making all kinds of prophetic proclamations. The followers of other faiths—predictably—didn’t share in their euphoria and felt excluded and threatened. A few angry denunciations had already been voiced by Muslim scholars. More would inevitably come, and from other religions too, Rydell was certain.

  Which wasn’t part of the plan.

  He pulled back and engaged his mind in a broader, less prejudiced analysis of what this might be. He knew there were a lot of other possible explanations for it. They’d expected people to claim the sign all along. They knew that crazies in every dark corner of the planet would be coming out of their rabbit holes and making all kinds of nonsensical declarations. But this was no nutcase. This was Father Jerome. The Father Jerome.

  No, he was sure of it. Something was very, very wrong.

  He’d misjudged them again.

  And that possibility—that certainty—sent a bracing shot of ice rushing through his veins.

  He did all he could to keep his anger in check as he picked up the phone and punched the speed-dial key for Drucker.

  SEATED COMFORTABLY IN HIS OFFICE on Connecticut Avenue, Keenan Drucker watched his TV monitor with avid interest. He marveled at how quickly the media pounced on any development and whipped it around the planet. The content beast needed to be fed, and ever since the first appearance of the sign, it was positively feasting.

  He felt a deeply rooted satisfaction at how things were unfolding, and his gaze ratcheted back from the plasma screen on his wall and dropped down to a framed picture on his desk. Jackson, his son—his dead son—beamed back at him from behind its thin glass plate. Drucker felt the same stab of grief he suffered every time he glanced at the picture. He tried to keep that image of Jackson in his mind—alive, vibrant, handsome, proudly turned out in his crisp officer’s dress uniform, the young man’s eyes blazing with a sense of pride and purpose—and not let the horrific images from the mortuary seep in and overpower it. But he never could. The images from that visit to the base, when he and his wife were presented with what was left of their son, were permanently chiseled into his hardened soul.

  I’ll make things right, he thought to Jackson. I’ll make sure it never happens again.

  He tore his eyes off his son’s face and looked up at the screen. He surfed away from the mainstream news networks and trawled the Christian channels instead. The sound bites coming through were promising. The footage from the caves was whipping up a storm of exc
itement, that much was clear. The people in the street were lapping it up. The preachers, however, were being more cautious. He watched as one televangelist after another gave cagey responses about what was going on, clearly unsure about how to handle this unexpected intrusion into their cosseted worlds.

  Typical, he thought, knowing they had to be seriously threatened—but also aware that they’d be watching each other, waiting to see who’d be the first to jump into the pool.

  “If he’s the real deal,” he heard one pundit remark on air, “these preachers will soon be falling over themselves to embrace him and claim him as their own.”

  They’ll get there, he mused. They just need some encouragement.

  Covert encouragement, to be precise.

  Which, as it happened, was something Keenan Drucker excelled at.

  His BlackBerry pinged. He dragged his concentration away from the monitor and glanced at the phone. It was Rydell.

  As expected.

  He inhaled a long, calming breath, then picked it up. Rydell’s voice was—also, as expected—agitated.

  “Keenan, what the hell’s going on?”

  Time for damage control. Something else he excelled at.

  “Not on the phone,” he replied curtly.

  “I need to know this isn’t what I think it is.”

  “We need to talk,” Drucker just repeated, his words slow, emphatic. “In person.”

  A beat later, Rydell came back. “I’ll fly down first thing in the morning. Meet me at Reagan. Eight o’clock.” And he was gone.

  Drucker nodded slowly to himself. Anticipating Rydell’s reaction, and his call, hadn’t exactly taken an act of supernatural-level divination. It was simple cause and effect. But it meant he needed to initiate an effect of his own.

  Maddox picked up his call within two rings.

  “Where are you?” Drucker asked him. “Where are we with Sherwood’s brother?”

  “It’s under control,” Maddox said. “I’m dealing with it myself.”

  Drucker frowned. He didn’t expect the Bullet to dive in himself unless things were getting out of hand. He decided now was not the time to delve further on that front. He had a more pressing message to convey, in the form of three short words.

  “Get the girl” was all he said. Then he hung up.

  ALMOST TWO THOUSAND MILES EAST, Rebecca Rydell was still in bed and enjoying a late lie-in. By conventional standards, it was past lunchtime, but Costa Careyes was far from conventional. And at the Rydells’ sprawling Casa Diva, moreover, as in the other villas and casitas on the sun-kissed Mexican coast for that matter, life was unfettered by such mundane limitations.

  She’d been up most of the night, with her friends. They’d watched the latest sighting on the big screen in the open-air living room before adjourning to the beach and wondering about it over ceviche, grilled shrimp, margaritas, and a big bonfire under a pearlescent moon.

  Vague recollections of the evening drifted into her mind as she stirred, half-awake, her senses tickled to life by the delicate scents of bougainvillea and copa de oro that wafted through the house. She usually liked to sleep with the French doors open, preferring the sound of the ocean’s waves and the salty taste of the air to the clinical hum of the air conditioner, but it had been a particularly hot week, hotter than she could ever remember. Still drowsy, she realized something else had nudged her awake. A faint noise outside her bedroom. Footsteps, getting closer.

  The door to her room swung open, and Rebecca almost jumped out of her skin at the sight of the two men who hurried in. She knew them, of course. Ben and Jon. The bodyguards her father had insisted should accompany her whenever she left the country. Especially when she was in Mexico. They were normally very discreet and stayed well out of sight, particularly here, in the sleepy, remote playground of Careyes, far removed from kidnap-central Mexico City and the drug warzones farther north. She’d known the two men for over a year now, and she liked and trusted them—which is why she sat up briskly, a sudden ripple of fear rushing through her. For them to be barging into her bedroom like this, without so much as a knock, meant that something very, very bad had happened.

  “Get dressed,” Ben told her bluntly. “We have to get you out of here.”

  She pulled the sheet right up against her chest and shrank back against the headboard, her breath coming short and fast. “What’s going on?”

  Ben’s eyes fell on a light, floral-patterned dress that was strewn across a bench at the foot of her bed. He picked it up and flung it at her.

  “We have to get you out here now. Let’s go,” he ordered.

  Something about the way he said it, something about the way Jon’s eyes were dancing back and forth warily, made her uneasy. Her hand fumbled to the night table and she grabbed her cell phone. “Where’s my dad? Is he okay?” she asked as she hit the keypad.

  Ben took a couple of quick strides to her bedside and snatched the phone out of her hand. “He’s fine. You can talk to him later. We have to go now.” He slipped her phone into his pocket and looked at her pointedly.

  The finality of his words pummeled her into submission.

  She nodded hesitantly and reached for her dress. The two men half-turned to give her some privacy as she pulled it on. She tried to calm herself, to placate the terror that was coursing through her. The two men were professionals. They knew what they were doing. This was what they were trained to do. She shouldn’t be asking questions. She knew her dad only hired the best of the best. She was in safe hands. She’d even met her bodyguards’ boss, the slightly creepy guy with the granite eyes whose firm handled all aspects of security for her dad’s businesses, a man who didn’t look like he did anything halfheartedly.

  Everything would be fine, she tried to convince herself.

  She slipped her sandals on. Seconds later, they were rushing her out of the house and into a waiting car that charged out of the estate and barreled down the bumpy road, heading for Manzanillo.

  Everything’s going to be fine, she told herself again, although somehow, deep inside, a little voice was telling her she was wrong.

  Chapter 34

  Brighton,Massachusetts

  Mattwas parked across the street and six car lengths back from the target house. He’d been there for over an hour, sitting low, watching, waiting. Thinking about his options. Not really liking any of them.

  He’d ditched the RAV4 and picked up a bathtub-white Camry, pre-’89 and hence pre-car key transponders. Probably the blandest car he’d ever stolen—it even out-blanded the Taurus, which was no mean feat. Regardless, he’d felt a pang of guilt as he’d hot-wired it. Several people were now facing the unpleasant task of dealing with their insurance companies regarding their stolen cars, all because of him. Still, he didn’t really have a choice. He figured they’d probably understand if they knew what he’d been going through.

  The gray house he was watching was equally unremarkable. Small, run-down, two floors, clapboard siding, gabled roof. Probably leased in the name of a shell company. Rent paid in advance. Practically untraceable, Matt imagined. It squatted there anonymously, its gray boards mirroring the dreary wintery sky overhead, looking as bleak and lifeless as the bare-limbed red oaks that dotted the quiet neighborhood. A small driveway ran alongside it and led to a covered single-car garage out back. The Chrysler was parked outside, as was the van—the one he’d last seen barreling down the snow-lined avenue after he’d jumped out of it.

  His nerve endings bristled with impatience and anticipation. The answers he so wanted were probably inside that house, but he couldn’t exactly waltz in there and get them. He needed to bide his time. Watch. Study. And come up with a plan. One that had half a chance of working. One that wouldn’t end up with him dead.

  He’d come up with one earlier, back at the motel, before driving over. A grand plan, one that had him excited—for a short spell, anyway.

  He’d call the cops. Do the “anonymous-tip” thing and tell them Bellinger’s real ki
llers were in the house. They’d send a car to check it out. The cops—maybe the ones who showed up at Bellinger’s apartment that night—would come up to the door and knock. One of the goons—not bob-girl, presumably, since she was one of the “witnesses” who’d “seen” Matt chase down Bellinger—would answer. They’d have a little Q&A. Dance around some questions.

  And then Matt would ramp things up a notch.

  He’d pick up a couple of empty bottles from a Dumpster on the drive over, along with any old rag he could find. He’d buy a jerrican of fuel and a lighter at a gas station. He’d fill the bottles with fuel. He’d shred the rag into strips and stuff them into the necks of the bottles and use them as wicks. And then he’d firebomb the house.

  Maybe from the back. Or from the side. Just sneak up to a spot where he wouldn’t be seen and chuck a flaming bottle or two through a window. And watch. It would take them all by surprise. The cops would want to go in to help put out the fire. The goons would probably resist, not wanting them in the house where their gear might be on show. Their behavior would certainly be less than ingenuous, and they would probably behave suspiciously. The cops would get curious, especially given the reason they were there in the first place. They’d probably call for backup. A standoff would ensue. The goons would have a lot of explaining to do. In looking into the unexplained arson attack, the cops would find some forensic evidence in the van, linking it to Bellinger’s murder. The goons would get mired in a procedural swamp. They’d be off Matt’s back, and, with a bit of luck, Matt would be off the hook for the stabbing.