by Jack Yeovil
“Holy Father,” she said, kissing Georgi’s ring.
He signed a cross in the air, and indicated a chair. They all sat down at a circular table. Cardinal DeAngelis had a console in front of him. He dimmed the lights, and punched buttons. He worked the keyboard with the precise movements of an epicure picking at a supremely artistic salad.
“Excuse me, but I’m double-checking the security. We must take precautions.”
“Nothing that comes up at this meeting is to be discussed outside,” said Mother Edwina, obviously meaning her words for Chantal.
“Of course,” she said. She always picked up the impression that the older woman didn’t quite like her.
“Done,” said the Cardinal, “we’re definitively debugged. This meeting is not being recorded. It will not exist on our records.”
“Fabrizio,” said Georgi, “this is your presentation. You may begin.”
“Thank you, Holy Father…”
Cardinal DeAngelis stood up, and a map appeared on the screen. Chantal recognized an area covering the United States, Mexico and most of the Central American Confederacy. It was covered with little red crucifixes she supposed were churches, and the crucifixes were linked by a glowing spiderweb.
“As you can see, we have been attempting to bind our operations in the continental Americas into one supranational datanet. This leeches onto the local datanets, but is not entirely absorbed into them. There has, of course, been some difficulty in realizing this objective. While the hostility between Washington and Managua continues, neither the US nor the CAC are especially keen on our linkages, but I am now in a position to reveal that we have been successful. We are now fully integrated in the New World, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, even to the Antarctic…”
Cardinal Brandreth clapped leisurely. Chantal caught a faint trace of sarcasm on the Camerlengo’s elegantly curled lips.
“Thank you, but your congratulations are premature. There are problems. And, as it stands, our entire operation is jeopardized.”
DeAngelis paused, allowing his aquiline profile to be silhouetted against the map. He passed a beringed hand through his leonine mane of coiffeured hair. Mother Edwina fidgeted. DeAngelis tapped a key. The map disappeared, and a blurry snapshot, blown up to gigantic size, appeared. A man in black, with sunglasses and a broad black hat, stood in the glaring light of the sun, his arms out in a benediction.
“This is Elder Nguyen Seth of the Church of Joseph.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Chantal said, starting for some reason at the blobbily reproduced face. “He’s the man behind Deseret.”
“That is correct. He successfully lobbied Washington a few years ago and was granted deed to the then-useless State of Utah, which he renamed Deseret and has raised from the dead. He has, by all accounts, made a garden in the desert.”
Aerial views of wheatfields, rice paddies and greenhouses appeared behind the Pope. Georgi did not turn to look. His gaze, as it had been when she entered, was on Chantal. She felt slightly uncomfortable at this scrutiny. It was as if the joke had finally turned serious.
“Of course, we have notionally recognized the Church of Joseph along with all the other protestant sects since Vatican LXXXV, but we have not been overenthusiastic in its case. Like too many American fundamentalist churches, it combines some of the less attractive aspects of zealotry with a certain cracked quality that appears to sell well. It would be a negligible force if it weren’t for Elder Seth.”
Another snapshot enlargement appeared. A man in combat fatigues and sunglasses, carrying an assault rifle, was firing into a hut. There was jungle in the background, and soldiers were caught by the camera in action. Puffs of smoke and flame were coming out of rifles.
“This, you’ll be surprised to learn, is Nguyen Seth in 1974, with a detachment of the Khmer Rouge. He is in the process of razing to the ground a village on the Vietnam-Kampuchea border. The blurred fellow behind him with the grenade launcher has been tentatively identified as a Frenchman, currently a highly in-demand international terrorist named Roger Duroc. During the Vietnam War, Nguyen Seth fought alongside the Russians against the Chinese, and switched sides several time. Whichever side he was on was usually the one committing the atrocities at the time. The Republic of Vietnam still has a price on his head for singularly revolting war crimes. Before going into battle, he would generally perform several human sacrifices to bless his military ventures.”
“So,” said O’Shaughnessy, “the Elder of Joseph is not a nice person?”
“He is considerably more than that, Father. As we now see.” A new picture appeared. “This is a group portrait, taken in 1933 on the Isis at Oxford. The bald fellow is Aleister Crowley, the mountain-climber and magician. The one who looks furious with him is W.B. Yeats, the poet. This is Arthur Machen, a curious Welsh writer. This is Julian Karswell, a raving psychopath. This is a young lady who was found floating in the river the next day without her head. And this oriental gentleman is…”
“Nguyen Seth,” said Brandreth.
“That can’t be,” said O’Shaughnessy. “Seth’s father?”
“He doesn’t seem to have had one,” said DeAngelis. “Here, this is 1888. It’s from the Illustrated London News.”
It was an age-spotted magazine photograph, with the print showing through. Only the posed principles were in sharp focus. The background crowds were fuzzy, caught in motion.
“Inspector Lestrade of the Metropolitan Police examines the Whitechapel site of one of the Jack the Ripper murders. Looks like a blithering idiot, doesn’t he? No wonder they never caught the murderer. But who do we find rubbernecking in the ghoulish crowd…?”
In the amorphous mass, one man had stood still enough for his face to come out clear. Nguyen Seth. “One more photograph, and we’re back to paintings, I’m afraid.” The photograph appeared. “This is Hendrik Shatner, brother of the founder of the Church of Joseph, modelling a pair of divinely-issued mirrored sunglasses. And, as you can see, he has an Indian friend…”
Hendrik was peering hawk-faced at the camera, leaning on a Springfield rifle, every inch the pioneer pilgrim. Nguyen Seth was dressed in buckskins and had long braids, but the face was the same.
“History calls Hendrik’s Tonto ‘The Ute,’ but our ethnographers tell me no Ute wore necklaces like that. No Native American did, in fact. They’re human fingerbones strung together.”
Another picture appeared. “That was 1868. This is 1476. It’s an engraving entitled ‘The Death of Dragulya’. As you may know, Vlad the Impaler was killed by his own troops while disguised as a Turk, and his severed head was sent to Constantinople where the Sultan put it on display. Take a look at the features of the Moldavian hacking away at Vlad’s neck. He is believed to be the traitor who gave the order to kill the prince and then spirited the head away.”
The features were roughly carved, but unmistakable, realism was not usually a high priority with medieval artists, but this looked as if it had been done from life.
“He would have to be nearly six hundred years old,” spat Brandreth.
“Um, older, actually. All the images—and we have literally hundreds more in the archive—show him to be about the same age, somewhere between forty and sixty but hale and hearty. We have no reason to believe that he was any younger ever. Our friend Elder Seth is well-titled by the Josephites. He is indeed, the Elder of us all. Even if you don’t discount the legend of the Wandering Jew…”
“Which the church, incidentally, does not,” put in the Pope.
“Quite so, Holy Father. Anyway, Ahasuerus aside, this individual, whatever his name, is probably the oldest person walking the earth.”
“So, he’s been a not-nice person for a very long time.”
“Well put, Father O’Shaughnessy. And now, he is, we have reason to believe, planning a coup which will put the Catholic Church in the New World back in the position it had before the first Jesuits set out in the wake of Columbus and Vespucci…”
“And, incidentally,” said O’Shaughnessy, “massacred entire civilizations.”
“That was a previous papal administration,” said Georgi, “for which we can take no responsibility.”
“I don’t see it,” said Chantal. “Where’s the threat?”
The map came back. DeAngelis tapped the State of Arizona.
“Here, somewhere. Tombstone would be my guess, based on Seth’s nasty sense of humour, but it could be anywhere in the South-West. We’ve not established all the links as strongly as we might wish to. We’ve been getting reports of major disturbances on the edges of the Outer Darkness. All our spies in Deseret have disappeared, but we have reason to believe that Nguyen Seth has been invoking demonic powers on an unprecedented scale, and his only logical target is our datanet. Specifically, we think he’s going to aim for the Central American Confederacy.”
“President North will give him the Congressional Medal of Honour.”
“Sadly, that is possible. The CAC represents the only successful synthesis of the Catholic Church and a governmental body outside the Vatican itself. If you weren’t on the side of the angels, you wouldn’t want it on the same landmass as you, even with the isthmus of Panama and the killing grounds of Mexico between you and it.”
“Thank you, Fabrizio,” said the Pope. “Father O’Shaughnessy, you have been monitoring the… uh… anomalies?”
O’Shaughnessy looked serious finally. “Chantal knows most of this. I’m pleased that you’re at last taking notice. It’s not a small, isolated thing. There have been temporal displacements all over the Western hemisphere. The epicentre, not coincidentally I should say, would seem to be Salt Lake City. Many of the anomalies have been observable only on a subatomic basis, but they’re there all right. I assume Mother Edwina has been keeping up with the rash of disappearances in the international scientific community. They tie in too, I think. The disappearees have been a job-lot, with all kind of disciplines jumbled in, but they’ve all been at the cutting edge of dealing with this epidemic of impossibilities. As a footnote, my guess is that I would be next on anyone’s list of to-be-vanished candidates.”
“That has been taken into consideration,” said Mother Edwina. “After this meeting, you will indeed disappear. But we’ll take care of the disappearance ourselves. You’ll be continuing your work under close guard in a secret location.”
“That’s a relief.”
The map disappeared, and the lights came up. Chantal knew she had come a long way from Lausanne. No one was smoking, but this was nonetheless one of those fabled smoke-filled rooms in which the fate of the whole world was decided. Brandreth and Mother Edwina were in a huddle, and Fabrizio DeAngelis was sitting back waiting to be admired. Chantal wasn’t too distracted to notice the young Cardinal taking an interest in her. The Pope leaned forwards, and came to life.
Since that day on the jetty by Lake Geneva, Chantal had been waiting for Georgi to ask her for something. This wasn’t the request she had been expecting.
“Chantal,” he said, looking straight into her eyes, “you must know what we want you to do. You’ll have diplomatic privileges and a limited amount of cooperation from the local authorities. We can’t tell them too much, so you’ll be travelling on your Swiss passport. Of course, all our clergy and lay-people will be with you… but the projections suggest this is a one-person mission. And you, of course, are the only active operative at our disposal with the skills required. You’ll take it?”
Chantal bowed. “Of course, Holy Father.”
“Bless you, my child. We shall pray hourly for your success.”
“Thank you, Holy Father.”
She stood up and backed out of the room. Within the hour, she was in a private jet out of Rome for Phoenix, Arizona.
Underneath the plane, the world turned slowly.
Part Seven: Holding the Fort
I
“That’s some story, sister,” said Stack after Chantal had finished telling him why she was in Arizona. “I suppose that’s right, isn’t it. Sister? I should call you sister.”
She stood up and stretched, catlike in her uniform. “It’ll do, but my name is still Chantal. We don’t give up everything.”
She walked towards the entrance of St Werburgh’s, and was haloed by the sunlight. It was going to be another hot day in the desert. Flies were beginning to buzz around the dead priest.
“But… but you’re an Op.”
“It’s a very old Agency. The church has always had soldiers. Father O’Pray was one, too.”
She went outside, found something, and came back. She had an old shovel over her shoulder.
“Now, we bury him.”
Stack looked at the mess. “You’ll have to get him loose first.”
The woman—the nun—set her mouth in a straight line, and tossed Stack the spade.
“I have a handlase in Federico. You find a clear spot outside, and dig a grave.”
Stack reckoned he had the easier detail, but didn’t speak up about it. He had the impression that Sister Chantal wouldn’t go much for gallantry.
Outside, he picked out a plot away from the church walls, shucked his shirt, and set to digging. Inside the church, he heard the hiss of the lase cutting through steel, and the creak of machinery falling apart.
He was six feet into the sandy soil before Chantal brought the body out. She had tried to do something about the hole in O’Pray’s chest, buttoning his coat over it, but nothing much could disguise the terrible wound. She had to wrestle his stiff limbs into a position of repose on his chest.
“That’s deep enough, Stack.”
He climbed out, and took his shirt from the gravestone he had draped it over. Chantal cast her eyes over his wounds.
“Don’t you need any medication for those? Federico has a full field hospital in his trunk.”
“I was drugged out yesterday, thank you. I’ll let nature take its course.”
“There might be infection.”
“Nahh, US Cav morph-plus is two parts penicillin to one-part pain-killer, and I was tripped out on that for more than a day.”
The sun was overhead now, its light falling on the graveyard like a blanket of heat. Chantal had dirtmarks on her face and hands. She wiped them with a dampraguette, cleaning away the filth, and flexed her hands.
“The bellrope was burned.”
“So?”
“O’Pray died well, he should have the bell tolled. He should have a funeral.”
Stack looked up at the tower. The bellhouse was undamaged, apart from a few cracked slates. The bell hung motionless.
He drew his side-arm and shot it. The noise was unnaturally loud in the still quiet. The bell shifted, but didn’t peal. He fired again, and scored another hit. This time, the clapper was displaced and Stack was rewarded with a resounding clang. He looked at Chantal. She unholstered her SIG, and pumped the whole clip at the bell, which swung vigorously, sounding out. The din was almost painful, and yet there was an aptness about it. Stack hadn’t known anything about the dead man, but he felt that anyone who would choose to pursue his calling in Welcome would appreciate the rough music of ScumStopper and cast iron.
People appeared in the graveyard. Armindariz was there, sheepish and hung-over, and Tiger Behr, favouring his robo-leg over his real one. Pauncho the chef wobbled his belly up the low hill to the church. A tribe of children came in a column, led by a dignified woman in black. Sandrats shamefully detached themselves from their boltholes, shaking the dirt and dust from their clothes, hanging their heads. Stack thought of checking IDs against the Wanted sheets back in the wrecked cruiser, but decided to offer a morning-long amnesty in honour of Father O’Pray. A cyke with a sidecar drew up. Shell and Miss Unleaded got off and out. They held their hands away from their guns and came into the churchyard. Shell raised his claw in front of his face to shield his eyes from the sun.
Chantal signalled to Armindariz and Pauncho that they should take the shovels. She went to Federico, and pulled
out a loose black robe, more like a monk’s than a nun’s, which she tied about herself. It fastened around her neck, and left her face a white mask. The change was quite startling. Stack derived a perverse enjoyment from observing the expressions of those who had been in the Silver Byte last night. Even Miss Unleaded’s impassive little face registered something approaching shock and surprise.
Chantal started speaking in Latin. It was the Mass for the Dead, Stack supposed. Some of the words sounded a little like Spanish, but he couldn’t make much of it out. Wherever responses were expected from the mourners, he left them to the extensive Armindariz family. Father O’Pray’s parishioners were used to funerals, he realized.
When she was finished, Chantal had Armindariz and his assistant sexton fill in the grave.
“Make him a headstone,” she told the saloon keeper, “and rebuild the church.”
“Bot, there ees no more Padre Burracho… no more priest.”
She ripped her robe away, and scraped her fingers through her hair. “A priest will come. Where one falls, another springs up.”
Chantal got into Federico, and switched its systems on. One or two of the congregation had been eyeing the car lasciviously. They would have to be watched closely.
“Buongiorno, sorella,” the Ferrari said. “My senses indicate demonic activity within the immediate vicinity. Hostilities will be commenced within thirty seconds. You are advised to take evasive action at once.”
Chantal had her gun out. Stack looked around. The mourners were either shocked or bewildered by what must seem to them a sourceless voice. The children were huddled to their mother.
