The Second Coming

by John Heubusch

“It’s a good cloth,” Christopher said.

  They both stared into the night, quiet save for the low whine of car wheels that ran along the freeway toward the vast expanse ahead.

  Christopher broke the silence. “Sometimes my gift doesn’t work. Like when I get headaches,” he said.

  “I see,” Parenti said. “They didn’t find your headaches at the hospital, did they?”

  “No. Maybe they won’t find them. They only come with the noise,” the boy said.

  “The noise?”

  “Yes. When my head hurts, it’s from the noise. A big noise. Like when the radio or TV is on too loud. My head hurts then, and the gift goes away for a while.”

  “I see,” Parenti said again. “Does your head hurt very often, Christopher?”

  “Sometimes. I don’t know. I think someone tries to hurt me,” the boy said.

  Parenti handed Aldo to Christopher for him to pet. Aldo always seemed to comfort him.

  “What do you mean?” the priest asked.

  “There’s someone I don’t know who wants to hurt me,” Christopher said. “That’s all I know.”

  “Do your mother and father know that—”

  Suddenly, Christopher gripped Parenti’s hand as tight as he could and stopped him in mid-sentence. The boy looked at him with genuine panic on his face. “I think someone wants to come for me right now!” Christopher said. The boy slipped off the hood of the car and quickly hid behind Parenti’s legs.

  The priest felt the boy put one arm around his leg and squeeze Aldo close for comfort with the other arm. Mystified, Parenti looked out into the darkness that surrounded them, but saw and heard nothing strange. The night air was still. As he looked toward the inside of the truck stop, he saw Bondurant and Domenika at the cashier as they paid for their things. What had frightened the boy Parenti wasn’t sure. But he was reassured that they would soon be on their way down the road again.

  Then, as if from nowhere, he heard a faint, strange sound off in the distance, one he didn’t immediately recognize. It wasn’t a car or a truck that approached, as the noise seemed to come from out of the black of night far overhead. Aldo began to turn his head from side to side as if aware something was headed their way from above. Parenti held his breath and listened as intently as he could to determine the source of the sound. He positioned himself in front of Christopher to defend him against whatever invisible threat might be headed their way.

  As the noise came closer and grew louder, the sound began to envelop them from above. At first, Parenti thought it could only be thunder, but the night sky, filled with stars, was nothing but clear as far as his eyes could see. Eventually, from out of the black and at a great height, the priest detected a small red light. It seemed to float above them in a wide circle and then slowly started to descend. Then, in an instant, a brilliant flash of light blinded the little priest. A funnel of intense luminescence as bright as the sun enveloped everything around them in a circle almost fifty yards wide. Parenti strained his eyes to determine what had beset them, but it was useless. He simply couldn’t see. Then a tunnel of wind that seemed to blow from all directions began to circle about them, a surge so intense it made it difficult for Parenti to stand. As it buffeted them and rocked the car violently, Parenti thought they might next be lifted into the night by the invisible source’s tornado-like grasp.

  Aldo jumped from Christopher’s arms and cowered beneath the car.

  “Helicopter,” Christopher said as he pointed into the beam of light above them.

  Parenti, his vision still blurred by the light, watched in amazement to see that the boy was right. Less than thirty yards from where they stood, a large helicopter as black as the night quickly set down before them. Its rotor wash was so intense that it shook the ground beneath them and sent dust and dirt from the pavement flying in every direction as it singed his skin and stung his eyes.

  Events moved so quickly that Parenti barely had time to react. He saw several figures dash toward them, heavily armed and shrouded in black as they ducked their heads beneath the massive rotors that chopped the night air. Men were on top of them before the priest could cry for help. He felt a terrific blow to his head, so hard he lost whatever strength he had to hold on to the boy. Parenti was knocked to the pavement, and his head hit the ground, his body unable to move. From his strange vantage point as he lay on his side, he saw a surreal sight. He looked on helplessly as Christopher struggled furiously to free himself from a man who carried him like a small sack across his back. Christopher kicked and screamed as his captors made their way purposefully back to the helicopter they’d leaped from only seconds before. Then, as swiftly as the masked strangers had descended upon them, they lifted off in their machine into the void of the night.

  One of the last things Parenti knew before he fell unconscious was the sight of Bondurant and Domenika as they rushed toward him. Unable to lift himself from the pavement, he remembered Christopher’s last words of warning. He knew it was time to pray for the boy.

  Chapter 46

  New York City

  When Father Parenti walked into the Rose Club, the storied bar inside Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, he was nervous. He found himself so uneasy that he decided to head straight to the bar. He hadn’t a clue what a “stiff drink” meant, but he’d heard Bondurant complain often enough about needing one when life deserved complaint, and these were difficult times. A few minutes early for the extraordinary rendezvous he’d hastily planned, he climbed up onto a tall stool at the end of the bar, one that afforded a nice view out the large window toward Central Park South. That way, he might see him coming.

  “Telephone book, Father?” the bartender asked as he leaned over to get a glimpse of the little priest.

  Parenti thought it was an unusual offer. He gave the bartender a strange look. “For what?” he asked.

  “To sit on,” the bartender said. “You’re so short I can barely make you out from behind the bar.”

  Parenti rolled his eyes. The meeting he was about to have portended nothing but danger, and he was in no mood for a comedian. “I’ll take a stiff drink,” the priest said. He pointed to the dozens of brands of liquor arrayed before him on the wall. “And make it snappy.” Parenti dangled his feet from the tall stool like a child and wondered what concoction he would be served.

  The bartender smiled. “I’ll make it stiff, but maybe you should tell me what you’re having first,” he said. He swept his hand across scores of brightly lit bottles that rested on mirrored shelves behind him.

  Parenti scanned the wide assortment of elixirs on display without a clue what to choose. “I’ll take the Macallan,” he said. He recognized the name of Bondurant’s favorite Scotch on a bottle at the end of the bottom row.

  “A man who knows his drink,” the bartender said. “You want it straight up? On the rocks?”

  “I’ll have a bottle of the twenty-five,” Parenti said with authority. “Bring it over.”

  “Father, I can’t sell you the whole bottle.”

  “All right, then, just pour some in a glass,” Parenti said. He began to grow testy. “Is getting a drink in this town always this complicated?”

  The bartender reached for the bottle and gave the priest an odd look. Then he poured Parenti a tumbler half full, neat, and slid the glass in front of him. “Bottoms up,” he said.

  “Bottoms up,” Parenti replied.

  The bartender looked on in amazement as the tiny priest chugged the entire glass of some of the world’s most expensive Scotch down his throat in an instant. Before Parenti could slam his empty glass back down on the bar, a loud wheeze of air spewed forth from his lungs. His throat was on fire, and his eyes, seemingly floating in Scotch, sent a small trail of tears down the priest’s face.

  The bartender tried not to laugh. “Have another?” he asked.

  Parenti attempted to recover from the burning sensation that quickly drove its way toward his stomach. His could tell his face was as red as the pope’s shoes, an
d, uncharacteristically, he was momentarily speechless. He couldn’t believe Bondurant would ever let the awful, poisonous liquid anywhere near his lips.

  “Double or nothing,” Parenti croaked as he shoved his empty glass toward the bartender. He was positive he’d heard Bondurant use the expression before when he drank.

  “You mean double it?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s what I mean,” the priest said as he stared out the window to avoid the bartender’s odd gaze while he wiped away his tears and attempted to recover.

  “No dogs allowed in here,” the bartender said. He pointed to Aldo, whose head had popped out of Parenti’s shoulder sack.

  “I’ll have you know he’s a therapy dog, sir,” Parenti said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He’s been in and out of therapy his entire life. He stays right here with me.”

  Once Parenti’s second drink was poured, the bartender mercifully left him to tend to another customer who’d arrived at the other end of the bar. Parenti nursed his Scotch in tiny sips and prayed that several more ounces of the liquid courage would do the trick.

  He was on a mission. He’d been with Bondurant and Domenika at the St. Regis Hotel in New York, where they’d been holed up for days, desperate for news about the boy. Domenika had become hysterical. Parenti could take the tension no more. He’d secretly phoned one of the few trusted researchers remaining at the Vatican library who would talk to him. After a series of several surprisingly productive calls with contacts in Tel Aviv, Geneva, and Rome, the priest found himself bound for the Plaza. He’d departed his room without a word to Bondurant or Domenika about where he was headed. Now he sat ready to negotiate a life-and-death deal with someone who was five minutes late.

  As he looked out at the lush green of Central Park and counted his troubles, Parenti felt a tap on his shoulder. It soon grew into a painful thump. When he turned around to see the massive hand that now covered nearly half his back, he stared at a Goliath of a man who towered above him.

  “You are Father Plenty?” the man grunted.

  “Parenti, Father Parenti,” the priest said. He looked the giant up and down from head to toe. He’d never seen such a man before. “You are Galerkin?”

  “Yes. You look like Father Tiny,” the assassin said. “You have the money? We don’t talk without the money.”

  Parenti reached into his coat pocket and, his hand visibly shaking, turned over to the behemoth an envelope stuffed with cash. Galerkin shoved the money into his coat pocket. He didn’t bother to count it.

  “First, you tell me how you find me,” Galerkin said. “Then we talk.”

  “Through the Vatican,” the priest whispered. “Papal Intelligence. Swiss Guard.”

  “Doesn’t fit,” Galerkin said.

  “It works like the CIA.”

  “I don’t see connection.”

  “They were aware of some work you did for the Mossad, apparently right here in this city. They say you also work for Hans Meyer.”

  “Yes, I did job for the Jews. But you,” Galerkin said as he stopped and inserted his massive forefinger between Parenti’s white collar and his neck. He yanked him in close. “You are fish eater. No connection.”

  Parenti could feel the breath being choked from him as his collar tightened. He tried to twist his neck away from Galerkin’s grasp, but it was no use.

  “Jesus was a Jew,” Parenti croaked. “We get along fine with them.”

  Galerkin plucked his finger away from the priest’s throat and sat down on the stool beside him. He reached over and gently scratched the top of Aldo’s head.

  “I am just playing. Okay, little mouse,” Galerkin said. He reached over for Parenti’s Scotch and downed it quickly, like a shot of water. “What you want?”

  “The child of the Shroud,” Parenti said. “We only want the child. We will pay whatever it takes.”

  “You can have the little bastard,” the assassin said. “He lives in Geneva. You don’t need me.”

  “He’s in Geneva?”

  “Since he’s a baby. He’s the devil. Got me fired.”

  “Are we talking about the same child?” Parenti said. “I’m talking about young Christopher. He’s six years old. Meyer’s men stole away with him by helicopter just a few nights ago.”

  “No, Meyer has just one child, no more,” Galerkin said. “But he’s no child. He’s the devil.”

  Parenti was dumbfounded. He couldn’t believe someone other than Meyer had nabbed Christopher. Then he made the connection.

  “You’re referring to the boy they call Hans Jr., is that right?” Parenti asked.

  “Hans Devil,” Galerkin said. “I had year of work lined up. Not now. He’s the competition. He works on his own.”

  “I see.”

  “But Mr. Meyer, he knows of this boy, this one you mention. The other boy. He’s with the doctor and this lady, Jozef.”

  “Yes, that’s him!”

  “Impossible to find. Impossible to kill,” Galerkin said.

  “What do you mean?” Parenti pushed back on his stool but knew he would have been dead by now if the assassin had wanted it so.

  “I mean I search for years. Maybe you are the priest they travel with all this time? I think is you.” Galerkin looked at him with contempt. “You are too clever. But doesn’t matter now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I try many times to find all of you. No luck. I chop head off wrong woman. I get final chance. I blow up wrong girl. Nice car. Now the contract to kill the boy, the doctor, the girl, maybe you, I don’t know. Not the dog. It goes to someone else, I guess.” Galerkin reached for the silver container full of nuts that sat on the bar between them and emptied the entire bowl into his mouth.

  “Someone else?” Parenti said. He was relieved to hear that Galerkin had lost any interest in ending his life. It was the risk he’d taken when he arranged the meeting in the first place. But now the priest looked all around him and wondered who else might be a threat. “Who? Are you able to tell me who?”

  “I don’t know him. Seen him only once,” Galerkin said. “Fish eater like you.”

  “A Catholic?”

  “A priest.”

  “A priest?” Parenti’s mind began to reel with the preposterous thought. It was impossible. He immediately wondered if Galerkin had reason to lie. It didn’t matter. Christopher was not in Meyer’s hands after all, and Parenti began to question whether his heroic mission was a colossal waste of time.

  Then, like an epiphany, it came to him. Parenti was certain he knew who held Christopher captive. And with his revelation came another inspiration, one that could possibly halt his seemingly endless time on the run with Bondurant and Domenika forever.

  “Mr. Galerkin?” Parenti said. This time, it was the priest who grabbed the assassin by his collar and pulled the giant in close, nose to nose.

  “Yes, little mouse,” Galerkin said.

  A broad smile grew across Parenti’s face for the first time in days. He reached for his pocket and pulled out his life savings, another thick envelope stuffed with more cash.

  “I, my friend,” Parenti said, “have another proposition.”

  Chapter 47

  Castel Gandolfo, Italy

  Of all the places to have a breakfast meeting, Bondurant sat in the one spot in the world where he never expected to dine: the Pontifical Villas that overlooked the magnificent shoreline of Lake Albano and the idyllic town of Castel Gandolfo below. The pope would soon arrive.

  The agreement to meet with Pope Augustine at his grand and guarded summer residence had resulted from an accord reached between Parenti and a special emissary of the pope who’d traveled from Rome to New York to arrange their meeting. It came with a single condition: secrecy. His audience with the pope high above the crystal-clear lake and every word they uttered were to remain strictly confidential. Given what Parenti had discovered involving the whereabouts of Christopher and who had kidnapped him, Bondura
nt immediately accepted the terms. Twenty-four hours later, he found himself in the pleasant, rolling hills just outside Rome.

  It was still morning, but the temperature outside Villa del Moro had already reached ninety degrees. Bondurant sat at a small table complete with a colorful assortment of fruit, breads, juice, and coffee. He watched as the pope slowly emerged from his living quarters onto the balcony, dressed as though ready for a day at the beach. They were at the pope’s vacation home, and Augustine’s casual appearance and approach seemed designed to take some of the edge off Bondurant’s angry mood. Bondurant got up from his chair, quickly loosened his tie, and shook the pope’s hand. In doing so, he was certain he had likely violated every protocol established over the centuries for greeting the Holy Father, but the pontiff waved off formalities and asked Bondurant to take his seat once more.

  “We are speaking in utmost candor and in complete confidentiality. Our meeting this morning is a secret. Is that your understanding, Dr. Bondurant?” the pope asked.

  “By your choosing. You have my word.”

  “That’s excellent.”

  “Your Holiness,” Bondurant said. He blanched at the term he had never used before, but he was in the pope’s home, and he knew no less formal title to address him by. “I’ve come a long way. You know I’m here for Christopher. It’s plain you’ve taken him. I want to discuss the terms for getting him back.” There was sternness in Bondurant’s voice that he had no intent to disguise. Previous popes during the early history of the Church had been murdered, and Bondurant was angry enough to consider it.

  The pope averted his eyes, looked down, and slowly buttered his toast. Bondurant could see that the pontiff’s hands trembled and wondered whether it was a sign of age or a tremor caused by the tone with which he had started their conversation.

  “First things first,” Augustine said. “How is my Domenika? Please tell me she’s well.”

  “She’s not,” Bondurant said. “She’s lost all her spirit and maybe even some of her faith in the Church. She’s lost a son. And, like me, she wants him back.”