The Brotherhood of the Rose

by David Morrell

  The guard frowned. “But—”

  “Are you deaf?”

  Squinting with anger, the guard pulled out a key and freed the lock.

  Orlik stepped in.

  The room had been stripped of furniture Erika could have used as a weapon. She’d been allowed jeans and a flannel shirt, but her shoes had been taken in case she broke free and tried to run. Her belt, a potential weapon, had been taken as well. She glared up from where she sat on the floor in a corner.

  “Good. You’re awake,” Orlik said.

  “How can I sleep with these lights?”

  “I need information.” Turning, Orlik nodded to the guard and closed the door.

  He crossed the room. Grim, he pulled a Soviet Makarov nine-millimeter pistol from behind his suit coat.

  She didn’t flinch.

  He studied her, brooding, deciding.

  “So it’s time then?” Her eyes were as dark as coal.

  He rehearsed the scene he anticipated in the living room and nodded. “Yes, it’s time.” He handed her the pistol.

  Her pupils widened.

  Leaning close, he smelled the fragrance of her hair.

  He whispered. Finished, he straightened. “My one consolation is that though you don’t want to, you’ll be helping me.”

  Needing the friendly contact of flesh, he stooped and kissed her. On the cheek. As he would a sister. Considering what awaited him.

  He turned and left the room. The guard seemed impatient.

  “I know,” Orlik said. “They want me.”

  He walked along the hall. The living room grew brighter as he neared it. Plain, sparse, drab. A sooted fireplace. A threadbare sofa. A creaky rocking chair.

  On which a gaunt joyless man surveyed him.

  Orlik concealed his surprise. He’d expected his immediate superior or at worst the European director. But the man confronting him, more thin-cheeked and ferretlike than even himself, was the quarry he’d hunted, the Russian descendant of the Abelard group, the Soviet equivalent of Eliot.

  A man named Kovshuk. Wearing black. He halted in the rocker, voice clipped, speaking Russian. Stern guards flanked him.

  “I’ll be plain. You had instructions to kill the American. You disobeyed. You arranged his escape. I assume you intend him to kill me.”

  Orlik shook his head. “I don’t know what…” He sputtered. “Naturally I’m honored to see you. But I don’t understand. I can’t be held responsible for inferior assistants. If they’re so clumsy—”

  “No. I don’t have time for theatrics.” Kovshuk turned to a guard. “Bring the woman. Use whatever method you like. Make her admit what she knows. Document their crimes. Then kill them together.”

  “Listen.”

  “Interfere, I’ll kill you right now. I want to know where the American is.” Kovshuk turned to the guard again. “I told you, bring her.”

  Orlik watched the guard disappear. “You’re mistaken. I want the American as much as—”

  “Don’t insult me.”

  Orlik’s senses quickened. He carried a second gun. With no other choice, he drew it. If he killed the remaining guard before—

  But Kovshuk had anticipated, already drawing his own gun, shooting.

  Orlik took the bullet in his chest.

  The impact jolted him. He lurched back, eyes wide, toppling. Despite the blood spewing from his mouth, he managed a grin.

  He’d lost.

  But won. Because from the hall he heard sharp pistol cracks, recognizing the Makarov’s sound, confident both his disloyal assistant and Kovshuk’s bodyguard were dead. The woman was as skilled as she was erotic.

  A door banged open.

  His senses faded. Nonetheless he heard the Makarov bark again. He’d warned her about the guards outside and where they were positioned.

  He imagined her running through the night.

  He grinned at Kovshuk. Heard the Citroën roar. The Makarov barked again.

  And he died.

  13

  Erika’s bare feet were slick with blood. She’d gashed them on the gravel lane as she raced from the house toward Orlik’s Citroën. The key had been in the ignition as Orlik had promised. Her bloody feet slipped off the clutch and accelerator. Angry, she applied more pressure, switching gears, roaring faster down the lane, the rear wheels fishtailing, the night like a wall before her. She didn’t dare flick on her headlights. Though she might skid off an unseen curve, she had to avoid the risk of making the lights a target.

  As it was, the roar of the engine made a sufficient target. The rear window imploded. She heard repeated staccato bursts from automatic weapons, a sequence of wallops jolting the car. In the mirror, she saw strobelike muzzle flashes, recognizing the distinctive crack of the submachine guns.

  Uzis. She’d had too much experience with them to be wrong. Suddenly understanding what Saul had felt like in Atlantic City, she skidded around a bend in the road, barely spotting it in time.

  Her thoughts intruded on her instincts. Why would Russians prefer Israeli weapons?

  No time. Bleeding on the clutch, she jerked the gearshift higher. The dark was thicker away from the house. The Citroën scraped against a tree. She couldn’t postpone it any longer, turned on her lights, and stared at a massive shadow crashing from the underbrush.

  A van. She jerked the steering wheel to the left and floored the blood-slick accelerator. The Citroën veered past the front of the van, sliding sideways, its rear end whacking against a stump. The taillight shattered, but the wheels churned gravel, gaining traction, rocketing forward. She surged past the roadblock, seeing a tunnel of trees and bushes—at the end of which a country road beckoned.

  Other Uzis rattled. The second taillight shattered. Good, it distracted their aim. She geared down, skidding from gravel to tar, aiming left on the country road. On a straightaway, she switched to high gear and watched the speedometer climb past 120 kilometers, urging it to the top.

  She knew she’d be chased. The Citroën shuddered as if from structural damage. She had to run with it till it fell apart. Or she found a better car.

  But the open road was before her, and her purpose was vivid. Orlik’s whispered warning had been explicit, the interrogation before him, the threat they both faced, the reprieve he was granting her. Prepared, she’d shot the man who came for her—and the guard in the hall. She’d killed the sentries who flanked the house. Though her bare feet stung from gravel, specks of which were imbedded in her soles, she felt energized, free and with a goal.

  Saul needed her. Orlik had told her where he was.

  But racing through the night, seeing headlights in her rearview mirror, resting her hand on the pistol beside her, she couldn’t avoid the thought that earlier had occurred to her. The Uzis. Why would Russians prefer Israeli weapons?

  The answer troubled her. Because the man who waited for Orlik at the house had been the Russian equivalent of Eliot. His guards, like Eliot’s, had received killer-instinct training as their final preparation. They’d been taught to act like Israelis, and the consequences would be blamed on…

  Erika clenched her teeth. On Israel.

  She raged past farms and orchards. If the headlights gained on her, she’d stop and take her chances, blocking the road, blowing her pursuers to hell.

  But despite the Citroën’s shudders, she kept her distance, roaring through the dark.

  Orlik’s final whisper repeated itself in her mind. “Saul’s headed for Eliot. The old man chose the perfect sanctuary. It’s a trap.”

  But for whom? For Saul or Eliot?

  She knew this much. Orlik had told her. A province. A city. A mountain valley.

  Canada.

  And she would get there.

  REST HOMES/

  GOING TO GROUND

  1

  The highway became so steep Saul switched from second gear to first, hearing the strain on the Eagle’s engine, forcing the station wagon higher. He’d chosen this model because, while it looked conve
ntional, it had four-wheel-drive capability. On the one hand, he didn’t want to seem conspicuous. On the other, he didn’t know how rugged the terrain would get before he reached his destination.

  The terrain looked imposing enough already. An overpacked car with out-of-province license plates was stalled on the shoulder, its hood up, its radiator steaming. The driver—a harried man with his hands spread attempting to reassure his frightened wife and children—had evidently not been familiar with techniques of driving in the mountains. Probably he’d used too high a gear or worse, an automatic transmission, either of which would put too great a stress on the motor. Going back down, the driver would likely use his brakes instead of his gears to control his speed and end up burning the shoes and drums out.

  Driving was complicated by more than just the steepness of the road. That slowed a car, but so did the long procession of laboring traffic above, retarded by an exhaust-belching semitruck at the head of the line. In frustration, Saul felt he crawled at a rate of millimeters instead of kilometers. The sharp switchbacks made driving worse. Angled left, Saul would suddenly reach a hairpin turn and try to keep the Eagle from stalling as he swung the steering wheel hard to the right, squeezing past downward traffic.

  Above, beyond 10,000 feet, swollen mountains obscured the sky, snowcaps glinting. Granite ridges, studded with fir trees, zoomed down, furrowed as if a giant’s fingers had gouged at them. The Canadian Rockies, though strictly speaking this section was known as the Coast Mountains, but Saul thought of them as an extension of the Rockies farther inland. Together, these British Columbia ranges were so huge and rugged they dwarfed the Colorado mountains he was familiar with, overwhelming him.

  Below, the plain he’d left had a different splendor. Wooded slopes dipped to grassland, then to the sprawling expanse of Vancouver, its expensive high-rises contrasting with underground shopping centers, sleek subdivisions, and landscaped homes. The impressive Lions Gate suspension bridge stretched across Burrard Inlet, linking districts.

  Paradise in the sun. A sea breeze dispelled the heat. To the west, sails gleamed in the sound. Beyond, Vancouver Island’s mighty hills protected the city from ocean storms while the sheltered strait of Juan de Fuca admitted the warm Pacific current.

  A perfect combination of climate and scenery. Saul squinted with hate. A perfect locale for a “rest home.” Eliot—God damn him—had chosen his battlefield well.

  He bristled, aggravated by the slow-moving traffic, anxious to reach the easier road at the top. To get there.

  And pay back his father.

  Mercifully, the road leveled off. Between slopes of pine, the belching semitruck squeezed toward the crushed rock shoulder, allowing traffic to go around. Saul put the Eagle in second gear, increasing speed, watching the heat gauge dangerously near the top creep lower as the motor worked less hard. He felt a breeze through his open window.

  A speed limit sign said 80 kilometers. He stayed below the limit, noticing another sign—in French as well as in English—that warned about sharp curves. The slopes formed a V through which he focused on a towering peak as if he aimed through the notches on a rifle sight. Determined, he steered through corkscrews, mustering patience.

  Soon now. Take your time. Eliot’s counting on you to be so anxious you make mistakes.

  He veered down a winding road to a wooded valley. To the left, he saw a glacial lake as blue as a diamond. To the right, a campground crammed with mobile homes advertised horseback riding and nature walks. The air was dry and warm.

  These mountains were pocked with similar valleys. He quickly glanced at his terrain map as he drove. Orlik’s instructions had been precise till now, bringing him thirty miles northeast of Vancouver. But from here, he had to rely on half-remembered rumors. After all, when he’d been younger, why would he have guessed he’d ever need a rest home? A safe house maybe, but…

  There. He saw it on his map. Two ridges over. Cloister Valley. “Remember that,” Eliot had said. “If you’re ever desperate enough to need a rest home, think of being cloistered. Go to that valley. Look for a sign. The Hermitage.”

  Saul fought the urge to speed. He passed a fisherman on a bridge who paused in his angling to sip a bottle of beer. Labatt’s. If this had been Cloister Valley, Saul would have taken for granted the fisherman was a sentry. But for now, the scenery was innocent. The sun glared directly overhead, its reflection making him put on Polaroids. With the claustrophobic peaks, though, sunset would come much sooner than he was used to. Though he couldn’t rush, he couldn’t dawdle. Timing was everything. He had to get there before dusk.

  The map was precise. He reached a T intersection, turned right, and passed a log cabin motel. The road flanked a tumbling stream. He heard its splash. As he angled up a ridge, pines blotted the sun. He cursed.

  His brother would never again feel cooling shadows.

  2

  Safe houses, rest homes. The designers of the Abelard sanction had been wise, understanding short-term as opposed to long-term goals. An operative, threatened, on the run, needed hope. Without it, what was the point of belonging to the craft? A neutral zone, a respite—even at Franklin, “home free” had been the goal of games—was paramount. An operative required the chance to scuff the ground and say, “All right, you beat me, but dammit all, I’m still alive. And dammit worse, you’ve got to let me back in play. I got here, see. I’m neutralized.” A guaranteed sanctuary, inviolable, where any attempt to kill meant instant reprisal.

  But a safe house was temporary, designed for operatives and hired hands. What if you’d risen so high and made so many enemies you could never dare leave the safe house? What if your hunters hated you so much they’d never stop waiting for you to come out? It wouldn’t matter how many guards you had to protect you as you left—you’d still be killed.

  Clearly something better was needed than just the protection of what amounted to a motel. How many paces of your room could you tolerate—how many records could you listen to, how much television could you watch—before the walls squeezed in on you? The constantly repeated daily pattern eventually made a safe house a prison. Boredom became unbearable. You started to think about sneaking away, risking your hunters. Or maybe you saved them the trouble, sticking a gun in your mouth. A week of safety? Wonderful. Maybe a month. But what about a year? Or ten years? In a place like the Church of the Moon, even safety became damnation.

  Something better, more ultimate, was needed, and the Abelard designers in their wisdom had imagined further. Rest homes. Permanent sanctuaries. Complete environments. Absolute satisfaction.

  For a price. Faced with death, an outcast would gladly pay the limit for guaranteed immunity and every comfort. Not a safe house. A rest home. Always and forever. Desperation rewarded.

  There were seven Abelard safe houses.

  Rest homes, though, were complicated. Sweeping, huge, complete. Only three of them. And because their clients tended to be elderly, climate was a factor. Not too hot and not too cold. Not moist but not obscenely dry. A paradise in paradise. Because of the need for long-term security, the rest homes had been situated in traditional neutral countries, their politics stable—Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Canada.

  The Cloister Valley. British Columbia. Canada.

  The Hermitage.

  Eliot had sought retirement, hoping to lure Saul into a trap.

  But as Saul urged the Eagle higher, reaching the treeline, passing snow, about to descend to another valley, thinking of Chris, he murmured through his teeth, “What’s good for the goose is good for the fucking gander.”

  Traps could be turned around.

  3

  He reached a crossroads, pausing to study his map. If he headed right again, he’d veer up a slope, go through a narrow pass, and, angling down, reach Cloister Valley. He assumed he’d find a weather-beaten sign—nothing blatant certainly—for the Hermitage. An unaware traveler wouldn’t know if it meant a lodge or someone’s cottage. Trees would hide the property. No doubt a pad
locked gate and a potholed lane would discourage curiosity.

  He also assumed there’d be sentries down the lane to turn back unwelcome visitors. Every entrance to the valley would be watched. A country store would be a surveillance post, a gas station would be staffed with guards, a fisherman sipping Labatt’s would this time have a walkie-talkie in his knapsack. From the moment Saul reached the pass, his every movement would be reported.

  In themselves, these precautions didn’t bother him. After all, a rest home needed security. Its administration would be professional, using first-rate tradecraft. What did bother him was that some of the sentries along the road would belong to Eliot, not the rest home.

  That’s the way he’d do it, Saul thought. Distribute a hit team through the valley, wait till I was spotted, and kill me before I ever got on the grounds. The rules forbid interference once I’m on neutral territory, but nothing says he can’t kill me on the way. The entire valley isn’t protected, only the land owned by the rest home. I’d be foolish to drive through the valley.

  But he knew another way. Instead of turning right and heading up the pass, he went straight ahead. Three elk grazed in a meadow beyond a stream. A pheasant flew across the road. He studied a line of aspen to his right, glanced at his map, then back at the trees. What he looked for shouldn’t be far. Wind fluttered the leaves, their silver undersides turning up, glinting in the sun. That made him conscious of the sun’s lower angle. Three o’clock. At the latest, to take advantage of the remaining light, he had to be ready by five.

  A half-kilometer farther on, he saw it. There, to the right through the trees, a lane so obscured by undergrowth he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been warned by the map. No cars ahead. None in his rearview mirror. Stopping, he flicked a switch on the left side of the steering column and converted the Eagle into four-wheel drive. He entered, snapping bushes.