Brotherhood of the Rose

by David Morrell

  "No." Saul shook his head. "If you want it, then it's too damned easy."

  "True. I understand. Revenge isn't satisfying if the man you hate won't resist. Very well. If that's the way it's to be, then by default you've made a choice."

  Saul and Eliot stared at each other. "I don't suggest a reconciliation," Eliot said. "But I wonder if a grudging acceptance might be possible. I'm your father. No matter how much you hate me, we still share a bond. As a favor, in memory of when you loved me, let me live my last few years in peace."

  Saul almost shot him then, tempted by the thought of denying Eliot what he wanted.

  But he realized he'd been talking with Eliot long enough for Castor or Pollux to have killed him where he hesitated in the open., Eliot had truly surrendered.

  No, not here, not now, he thought. He couldn't shoot. Not face to face if his father refused to fight back. "After everything you taught me, I failed."

  His father raised his eyebrows sadly, quizzically. "Or you didn't teach me well enough," Saul continued. He lowered the Uzi. "And maybe that's all to the good. I'm finished. I'm resigning. Fuck the agency. Fuck you. There's a lady I know. Instead of playing games with you, I should have gone away with her."

  His father brooded. "I never told you. Back in '5 1. Perhaps you wondered why I never married. See, I had to make a choice. The agency or... Well, I'm not sure my choice was the right one." Thunder rumbled. The old man peered at black rolling clouds. "I always wondered what became of her." His eyes narrowed, nostalgic. Then his mood broke, and he tugged at his suit "You and 1, we're ridiculous." He sounded amused. Standing in the rain. A young man like you, you don't seem to mind getting wet. But these old bones..." He chuckled in "self-derision. "Thank God, this is over." He held out his handit shook. "I've got some Wild Turkey in my suitcase. A farewell drink might be in order. To chase the cold away."

  "You told us never to drink. You said it dulls the mind and the senses."

  "I didn't expect you to share it with me. But now that you've retired, what difference does it make?"

  "Old habits die hard."

  "I know. Forgive me. No matter how hard you try, you'll never be normal. That's something else to haunt me."

  Eliot turned wearily, stepping up on the cabin's porch, shielded from the rain by an awning. He gestured across to the cabin behind the Ford. Pollux stood nervously in the open doorway over there, but seeing the signal from Eliot, he relaxed his shoulders. In a moment, he went back in the cabin, shutting the door.

  Saul approached his father. "Inasmuch as we'll probably never see each other again," Eliot said, "I want to share a secret with you."

  "What?"

  "About Chris and the monastery. Something that happened to him there. It helps, I think, if you know about it." The old man went in his cabin, rummaging through a suitcase, finally raising a fifth of Wild Turkey. "There ought to be a glass around here. Good." He poured a small amount of whiskey into it. "Sure you won't join me?"

  Saul neared him impatiently. "What about Chris? What happened in the monastery?"

  Behind him, the slight creak of the open door was his only warning. He automatically leaned ahead, stooping to protect his renal artery. It happened swiftly, the brush of cloth, the rush of air. But not a knife, instead a glint of piano wire flashing from above him, streaking past his eyes toward his throat.

  A garotte. The weapon was usually hidden under a collar. Two wooden handles, pulled from a shirt pocket, snapped into hooks on each end of the wire, prevented an assassin from cutting his fingers while he controlled the strangulation.

  Saul jerked up his hands to protect his throat, the gesture instinctive, also a mistake.

  Andre Rothberg: Use only one hand to protect your throat. Keep your other hand free so you can fight. If the wire traps both hands, you're dead.

  Saul corrected his impulse, wrenching his left hand free. His right hand, shielding his larynx, was caught by the wire. Behind him, Castor, who'd been hiding behind the open door, applied more pressure.

  Saul dimly heard Eliot say, "I'm sorry. But you know I can't trust you. What if you woke up tomorrow and decided you wanted to kill me anyhow?"

  He shut the door. "This way's better. There'll be no shooting. No frightened tourists. No calls to the police. We'll have time to get away. I regret having tricked you, though. If it makes any difference, I love you."

  A garotte kills in two ways: by strangling the victim, by cutting his throat. In its simplest form, it's nothing more than a strand of piano wire. But the better type uses several strands, twisted under pressure, with industrial diamonds imbedded among them. As a consequence, if a victim manages to raise a hand to stop the garotte from touching his throat, the assailant can use the edge of the diamonds to cut through the victim's fingers.

  That began to happen now. Saul struggled, feeling the diamond-studded wires saw back and forth across the fingers he gripped protectively over his voice box. The diamonds gnawed his flesh and ground his bones. Blood streamed down his arm. Even with his hand as a buffer, he felt the pressure on the garotte squeezing off his air. He gagged.

  The door came open. Pollux stepped in, briefly distracting Castor.

  It gave Saul time. Though his mind swirled from lack of oxygen, he drew his free arm forward, making a fist, bending the elbow, ramming it back as hard as he could. The blow struck Castor's chest. Andre Rothberg had taught Saul well. The elbow smashed Castor's rib cage. Bones cracked, impaling a lung.

  Groaning, Castor released his grip and staggered back. Saul didn't waste time removing the garotte. As Castor sagged, Saul swung, feeling a sharp pain in his elbow, realizing he'd fractured it, but that didn't matter. Rothberg's training was based on the theory that a few parts of the body could still function as weapons, even though injured. The elbow was one.,of those parts.

  Saul straightened his arm, ignoring the pain, continuing to swing. The side of his rigid hand caught Castor's brother,.Pollux, in the throat. The damage was lethal. Pollux dropped uncontrollably, convulsing.

  Incredibly, despite the massive trauma to his chest, Castor had still not fallen. A palm thrust to his shattered ribs jerked him back. He trembled in death throes, collapsing.

  Saul tore the garotte from his throat and whirled toward Eliot. "I meant it. At the last, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have killed you."

  Eliot blanched. "No. Please." Saul picked up the Uzi he'd dropped in the scuffle. "Now," he demanded fiercely. Stepping ahead, he embraced his father. Clutching him with his injured arm, he used the other to raise the Uzi to almost point-blank range.

  Eliot squirmed. Hugging him, Saul pulled the trigger. He kept it pressed back. The Uzi rattled, ejecting empty casings, making a noise like a sewing machine.

  And stitched out his father's heart. "You never had one anyhow."

  Saul dripped with blood as his father's shuddering body slid from his grasp. "For Chris," Saul moaned.

  And realized he'd begun to cry. He wrapped a handkerchief around his bleeding fingers. The bones, though gnawed by the garotte, would heal. The pain was intense, but he ignored it, hurriedly taking off his bloody wet clothes, putting on Pollux's dry jeans and denim shirt.

  There was much to do. The guards and the police would soon be here. He didn't dare return to the stolen van, so he'd have to take the Ford, though tourists alarmed by the shots would see him drive away in it. He'd found its keys on Pollux. To be safe, he'd soon abandon it. If he could reach Vancouver, he'd be able to disappear.

  And then? The police would have no leads. But what about the profession? Would he still be hunted? Till he knew he was free, he couldn't join Erika.

  Rain gusted in as he opened the cabin's door. He glanced back at Eliot's body. For Chris, he'd said. Now his voice cracked. "And for me."

  Epilogue

  SANCTION'S AFTERMATH

  ABELARD AND HELOISE France, 1138. Peter Abelard, onetime canon of the church of Notre Dame, formerly revered as the greatest teacher of his day, had fallen from
eminence for love of his beautiful student, Heloise. Castrated by her angry uncle because of her pregnancy, pursued by jealous enemies eager to take advantage of his disgrace, he founded a safe house, the Paraclete, and invited Heloise, now a nun, to be in charge of a convent there. His emasculation prevented them from joining in love, but profoundly devoted to one another as brother and sister, they composed the documents -Abe lard's history of his calamities, Heloise's letters-that became the basis for the legend of their tragic passion. After repeated attempts to regain his former glory, Abelard died, dejected, weary, some say of a broken heart. Disinterred from the priory of Saint Marcel, his body was secretly delivered to Heloise at the Paraclete, where after more than twenty years of mourning she died and lay in the ground beside him. Their remains were moved several times during centuries to come but were finally put to rest in the tomb that bears their name in the cemetery of P@re-Lachaise in Paris.

  Where they found eternal sanctuary.

  UNDER THE ROSE FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA (AP)-A powerful explosion last night destroyed a greenhouse behind the home of Edward Franciscus Eliot, former Chief of Counterespionage for the Central Intelligence Agency. Eliot, a rose enthusiast, was murdered six days ago while on vacation in British Columbia, Canada. His funeral in Washington, Tuesday, showed a rare accord between Democrat and Republican legislators, who as one mourned the loss of a great American. "He served his country selflessly for more than forty years," the president said. "He'll be sorely missed."

  Last night's explosion, investigators said, was caused by a massive thermite bomb. "The heat was incredible," a Fire Department official announced at a press conference. "What it didn't burn to ashes, it melted. We couldn't get near the greenhouse for several hours. I can't imagine why anybody would want to destroy it. I'm told those roses were gorgeous, some of them extremely rare, one of a kind. It's senseless."

  The mystery deepened when firefighters clearing the wreckage discovered a locked steel vault beneath the greenhouse. CIA personnel, in cooperation with the FBI, sealed off the area. "We worked all night to open it," a spokesman said. "The heat from the thermite bomb fused the locks. We finally had to cut it open. The vault had been used to store documents, that much we know. But what the documents contained is impossible to determine. The heat soaked through the walls of the vault. The documents were seared into dust."

  REDEMPTION

  Enjoying the heft of the shovel in his hand, Saul threw dirt along the bank of the ditch. He'd been working for several hours, enjoying the strain on his muscles, the trickle of honest sweat. For a time, Erika had dug beside him, helping to extend @@%,the the ditch, but then the baby had started to cry in the house, and she'd gone inside to nurse him. Afterward, she'd braid and bake the challah dough for their Sabbath bread. Watching 'her walk to the house, made from concrete blocks painted white, the same as the other dwellings in this settlement, he'd smiled in admiration of her strength and dignity and grace.

  The sky was turquoise, the sun molten white. He wiped his brow and got back to work. When his network of irrigation trenches was completed, he'd put in vegetable seeds and grapevines. Then he'd wait to see if God would do His own part and send the rain.

  He and Erika had come to this settlement- north of Beersheba and the desert region-six months ago, just before the baby was due. They'd wanted to help extend the nation's frontier, but disillusioned with international rivalry, they'd stayed away from land contested by the Arabs, preferring to develop the nation inward rather than out. But borders were never far. An unexpected attack was always possible, so he took care to have a weapon with him everywhere. A high-powered rifle lay near the ditch.

  As far as the sanction was concerned, he thought he'd protected himself. In theory, the intelligence community had still been after him, so after punishing Eliot he'd contacted his network along with representatives from MI-6 and the KGB. His revelation of the conspiracy involving descendants of the original Abelard group had gone a long way to put him back in their good graces. They'd felt bitter pleasure in knowing that their suspicions about internal sabotage of their operations had been justified. Taking steps to undo the damage Eliot and his group had caused by interfering, they let'global tensions assume their natural course.

  Saul's own network required a further gesture of good faith before they'd absolve him of blame, however. The documents, Saul had said. Eliot's collection of scandals. The blackmail that had kept him in power. "But no one knows where those documents are," the agency had said. "No, I do," Saul had said. He'd been thinking about those documents since Hardy had first explained about them. Where would Eliot have hidden them? Pretend you're him. In Eliot's place, where would I have hidden them? A man obsessed by verbal games. Whose life had been based on sub rosa. Under the rose? The old man couldn't have chosen any other hiding place. Refusing to hand over the documents lest someone else take advantage of them, Saul had suggested a compromise, blown up the greenhouse, and destroyed them. The president, despite his public praise of Eliot in death, had felt immensely relieved.

  But the rules of the sanction were supposed to be absolute. Saul received only unofficial immunity. "What we're agreeing to do is look the other way," a senior intelligence officer told him. "If you hide well enough and don't raise your head, we promise not to come looking for you."

  And that was good enough for Saul. Like Candide in his garden, he retreated from the world, enjoying the pleasant exhaustion of manual labor, digging his irrigation ditch. He reflected on the grave Chris had dug in Panama. Now life instead of death would come from turning the ground. Old habits fade hard, however, and when not engaged in establishing a home for Erika, their son, and himself, he taught the youth of the village how to defend themselves if the settlement was ever attacked. He was foremost a warrior, after all, and though he'd disowned the profession, his talents could be put to constructive use. It struck him as ironic that many of the boys he trained had been adopted by the village: orphans. This time around, the process seemed justified. But as he tossed more dirt from the ditch, he remembered that Eliot too had felt justified.

  He'd expected revenge to be satisfying. Instead it filled him with misgivings, haunting him. A lifetime of love, no matter how misguided, couldn't be dismissed, any more than his love for chris could be dismissed. Or his love for Erika. If things had somehow been different. In somber moments, Saul debated with himself. Perhaps what he'd really wanted was the tension of the,rest home to last forever. Punishment prolonged. Eliot and himself eternally trapped there. Bound by hate.

  And love. But then Saul's mood would lighten. Glancing at the broad warm sky, smelling the hint of rain in the air, he'd listen to Erika talking to their baby in their house, their home. He'd swell with affection, wholesome, unlike the perverted affection Eliot had created in him, and realize that his father had been wrong. "No matter how hard you try, you'll never be normal": one of the last things his father had said to him. You bastard, you were wrong. And Saul, who in a special sense had always been an orphan, delighted in the thought of being a father to his son.

  He set down his shovel, thirsty, retreating from the highest heat of the sun, picking up his rifle, walking toward his home. Entering its shadows, he sniffed the fragrance of tomorrow's challah, walked to Erika, and kissed her. She smelled wonderfully of sugar, flour, salt, and yeast. Her strong arms, capable of killing in an instant, held him tight. His throat ached.

  Drinking water from a cool clay pot, he wiped his mouth and crossed the room to peer down at his son in a blanket in his cradle. Friends from the settlement had remarked at first about his name. "What's wrong with it?" Saul had asked. "I think it's a good name."

  "Christopher Eliot Bernstein-Grisman?"

  "So?"

  "Half Christian, half Jewish?" "Chris was a friend of mine. In fact, you could say he was my brother."

  "Sure. Chris Grisman. They'll love it when he goes to school. And what about Eliot?"

  "I used to think he was my father. Now I'm not sure w
hat he was. No matter. I'm-what he made me."

  The friends didn't understand. But sick in his heart, Saul didn't either.

  Even more than the name for the boy, the friends from the settlement drew attention to something unique outside the Bernstein-Grisman home. It seemed a miracle, they said.

  A sign from God that the settlement had been given a blessing. How else could it be explained?

  A man (with a past, it was rumored in the settlement, and not without respect) who'd never grown anything in his life? And in such brittle ground?

  A large black rose. About the Author David Morrell is the author of FIRST BLOOD, the basis for the movie starring Sylvester Stallone, and of four other novels, including BLOOD OATH. He is a professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, where he lives with his wife and two children.

  The End