The Sacrifice

by William Kienzle

  As the dust began to settle, Koesler could see pretty well throughout the church. Thank God! he whispered. No one hurt. With the racket that had occurred, it was a miracle.

  Then he remembered. Joe Farmer.

  Farmer had been investigating something in the sanctuary. Something in the vicinity of the altar.

  The crowd was spilling out of the church. Almost all of them were coughing and blowing their noses.

  But in the crush of survivors who had brushed by him on their way to fresh air Koesler did not spot Joe Farmer. He pulled his cassock above his knees and ran full tilt toward the sanctuary.

  Somebody was running with him. A sidelong glance identified Lieutenant Tully headed in the same direction and pulling ahead of him.

  Koesler briefly thought of the original Easter when, having heard of the Lord’s resurrection, the Apostles John and Peter ran to the tomb. John, by far the younger man, won the race, but waited for Peter to be the first to enter and find it empty.

  Tully clearly was going to be first. But Koesler was fearful that they would not find an empty sanctuary.

  FOUR

  The scene in the sanctuary was surreal.

  Several statues were tipped over. Some had toppled to the floor. Their eyes, which had never been alive, were freshly dead. Cracks like drunken spiders’ webs crazed the stained glass windows.

  But structural damage was not the prime interest of Father Koesler and Lieutenant Tully. While Father Tully was ministering to those panicky people who had been in his general vicinity, his brother and Father Koesler were looking for victims, fervently hoping there were none. Lieutenant Tully wanted to find anybody who might have seen and survived. Koesler was concerned about one particular person who, he feared, had been in the epicenter of this explosion.

  As it turned out, Zoo Tully was the first to locate Father Joe Farmer.

  The officer had seen death in all of its various guises: murder, suicide, natural causes, gunshot, strangulation, execution, drowning, asphyxiation—and explosion. He knew what he was looking for. And he found it.

  Koesler hurried to the lieutenant’s side as Tully halted before a pile of clothing. It looked as if someone had dumped a bundle of soiled laundry that waited inertly to be picked up. If Koesler had not been looking for Farmer specifically, he doubted that he would have recognized this pitiful heap as being human.

  Zoo knelt alongside Farmer, bending over the priest’s body. The officer’s mouth was no more than an inch from Farmer’s ear. Then he turned his head to put his ear to Farmer’s lips.

  Koesler could not tell what was being said. Tully was not whispering, but there was so much hubbub that even at this proximity verbal communication was problematic, if not impossible.

  Evidently whatever information Tully was trying to get from Farmer wasn’t forthcoming. Tully kept shaking his head in obvious frustration.

  The lieutenant finally straightened up and, seemingly for the first time, became aware that Father Koesler was kneeling beside him. As Tully began to raise himself from the unforgiving marble floor, he said, “He wants to go to confession.”

  Wordlessly, Koesler inched nearer. The closer he crept the more obvious was the extent of Farmer’s injuries. The very capable emergency staff at Receiving Hospital just minutes from St. Joe’s church would do their best to patch Humpty Dumpty. Koesler hoped only that they would be able to relieve the priest’s pain.

  As Koesler gingerly bent low over Joe Farmer, Lieutenant Tully traced a path of blood that stretched from the altar to where Farmer’s broken body now lay.

  The poor bastard, Tully silently commiserated. He must’ve been right on top of the damn thing when it detonated. Tully moved away from the victim. As he did so, he said to Koesler, “Ask him if he saw who did it. Ask him if he knows who did it.” Questions that Tully had pumped at Farmer. Questions that had met only with a plea for a priest to hear his confession.

  “I’m here, Joe,” Koesler said into Farmer’s ear. He would hear Farmer’s confession first; only then would he treat with Tully’s concerns for information. “You wanted to go to confession, Joe. This is Bob Koesler. You ready? Go ahead when you’re ready.”

  “This is it, isn’t it, Bobby?” Farmer mumbled. “I’m dying … I’m dying …”

  Probably, Koesler thought, that would be the best thing that could happen to you now, you poor guy. You’re too old—as am I—to go through all this just to exist immobilized and in agony … or at least trying to cling to life while undergoing attempts to deal with constant pain. “It’s too soon to know whether this is it, Joe. Now, is there anything on your mind? Anything you want to set straight?”

  Slowly, agonizingly, Farmer shook his head. “Just that from here my life seems such a waste,” he murmured. “I didn’t do anything with my priesthood. Just those same old sermons, over and over. Things changed … I didn’t. Maybe I should have.”

  Koesler was acutely conscious that valuable time was slipping by. If this was going to be the end, he wanted Farmer to leave comforted in and by his priesthood. He deserved to be thus comforted. If only he would let it happen. “Joe”—Koesler’s lips were almost pressed against Farmer’s ear—“put yourself in the welcoming arms of Jesus. In a few moments you may be judged by Love. God is full of mercy and compassion. Lose yourself in Him.”

  Koesler raised his head slightly. He saw one lonely tear finding its way down Farmer’s face. In its wake it carried blood and black powder. The track of that tear was the only white spot on Farmer’s exposed flesh.

  It was almost as if Father Farmer was there one minute and in the next he was gone. In that brief span, a team of well-trained paramedics lifted him as gently as possible onto a gurney and began to roll the package toward the door. As with a thought placed out of due time, Koesler realized that he had not absolved the priest. He did so now. He finished the rite just as the gurney reached the outer door, turned to the left, and passed out of sight.

  The thought crossed his mind that he should accompany his colleague to the hospital. But immediately he realized that he would only be in the way. He had heard Farmer’s confession; he had given him absolution. All was now in the hands of God—and the emergency room staff. Koesler turned back to Lieutenant Tully.

  “Did he have anything to say about who did this?” Zoo Tully asked.

  Koesler realized that he hadn’t quizzed Farmer on what he’d seen. There was a slight guilt, washed away quickly by the reality that there had been neither time nor opportunity to do so. He shook his head.

  “Damn!” Tully said.

  Koesler stood and looked about him. Where had all these cops come from? Before the blast he had been peripherally aware of a considerable number of uniformed officers outside the church. But they had been busy mostly with traffic control. Now they were very definitely on graver duty.

  They were, in police parlance, securing the area. And, along with that, interviewing the members of the congregation, in hopes of finding someone, anyone, who had seen something, anything.

  But these witnesses had seen everything and nothing. Unfortunately, none related anything even remotely helpful.

  Most had paid no attention to what was going on at the altar; they had been busy renewing old as well as recent friendships. Others had been occupied in securing a prized vantage for the ceremony. This was not the usual group of church attendees who filled the back pews first and only reluctantly allowed themselves to be herded toward the front. Today the pews starting at the sanctuary had filled first.

  Thus the police hoped to find somebody who might have noticed some sort of activity adjacent to the altar. But their frustration mounted as it became increasingly clear that most of those present had seen no one in the sanctuary—neither near the altar nor anyplace in the immediate vicinity. At best, they might have noticed a florist making last-minute arrangements of floral pieces. A few recalled some young men who were adjusting the sound system.

  Those who’d been aware of any activity
whatsoever gave their names, addresses, and phone numbers to the police. They would be contacted later and interviewed in greater detail.

  All this Koesler noted and took in. There was a lot going on. From the selfsameness of the questions, it was obvious that a similar routine was going on throughout the church.

  Personally, he was just beginning to recover from the numbing shock of it all. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware someone was beckoning. Lieutenant Tully. Koesler moved mechanically to where Tully was standing with another man, whom he introduced as Officer Lloyd.

  Koesler’s first impression was that Lloyd—“Call me Gil”—was heavily padded and hung down with equipment—the walking equivalent of an armored vehicle. It was a safe guess that Gil Lloyd was with the Bomb Squad.

  “Stick close to me, Father,” Tully said. “In a little while I’m going to be questioning some priests and even a bishop. You may come in handy.” With those few words Tully made clear what Koesler’s role would be. Koesler didn’t mind; it was something like being a translator at the United Nations.

  For now, this would be a meeting between the Bomb Squad and the Homicide Squad. Koesler would be kept on ice. He would be needed later.

  “There’s no doubt, “ Lloyd stated, “where the seat of the blast occurred.”

  “The altar,” Tully observed.

  “Check.”

  “What did he use?”

  “Gimme a break. We just got here.” Detectives! thought Lloyd; they want everything yesterday. If we gave ’em what they wanted when they wanted it, they’d still have only half a package. From experience, he’d learned the simplest way to handle a dedicated professional such as Tully was to take the detective along on the painstaking investigation. He invited Tully, who invited Koesler; the three made up a small procession.

  They started at the “seat of the blast”—the altar. The Bomb Squad had already begun its work, starting at the altar and fanning out in concentric circles, establishing the perimeter of the blast.

  So far, they had established that the force of the blast had not traveled beyond the front of the altar area. The space between the altar and the first pew was not affected. Dust and debris had settled over the surface, but no damage had been done. Not even to the many religious statues and paintings outside the altar area.

  So, very quickly, the squad had narrowed its focus. Although there was almost no damage in front of the altar, there was plenty of wreckage to the rear of it.

  “The perp,” Lloyd pointed out, “must have laid the device against this corner of the altar. You see”—he pointed to his team who had worked themselves to the end of the sanctuary and were checking the walls—“my squad is following the path of the explosion.”

  With that, one of the crew brought over a box containing a variety of objects that had been all but pulverized by the blast. He placed the box atop the altar and began to reassemble the pieces as best he could.

  “Where’d this stuff come from?” Lloyd asked.

  “Pretty much a straight line from this table to the rear of the church.” The officer pointed in an imaginary line to the rear wall.

  “Okay,” Lloyd said. “Where are we in here?” He looked expectantly at Koesler. “This part of the church has a name, doesn’t it?”

  “Sanctuary.”

  “Sanctuary. I thought that was a place you could go for safety.”

  “The name goes a long way. It can mean a particularly holy place in a church. Or a place where you can be safe from the law—but that’s mostly medieval. Or a refuge for wildlife—” Koesler stopped, aware that all this information was considerably more than the bomb expert wanted.

  “Yeah, okay …” The other officer was taking notes. As he wrote, he spoke aloud. “… found in direct line from altar to rear of … uh … sanctuary.”

  “Let’s see what we’ve got,” said Lloyd.

  Both men continued to spread the fragments across the altar top. Koesler noted that it was with a look of satisfaction that Lloyd set certain items apart. “This thing is coming together faster than I thought it would.” Lloyd was enjoying their success and making no bones about it. “This,” he said, “is ‘The Building of a Bomb 101.’ I’m looking for a timing device and what do I find? The face of a Big Ben pocket watch. Here’s the winding stem.”

  “And look here,” the other officer said, “here’s a battery and wires.” That said, he headed off in search of additional pieces to fit into the puzzle.

  Lloyd’s latex-clad fingers turned what was left of the battery over and back again. “Plenty of energy to get this limited job done. From here on, I know what I’m going to be looking for. The whole thing fell into place the instant we found the watch. There was a hole drilled in the face and the face is bent, but there’s no doubt it’s a Big Ben. And that’s what gives this business its character.”

  “You’re sure?” Tully asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Lloyd responded. “What are you looking for when you find a timing device in a bomb?”

  “A time bomb!” Koesler had not realized that the question had been rhetorical as far as the other two were concerned. After a brief, awkward silence, Tully tried to redeem the situation. “That’s right, Father: a time bomb.”

  Lloyd scratched the day-old stubble on his chin. “This puts me in mind of something …” His voice trailed off as his brow knit in an evident attempt to recall—what?

  “You’ve seen your share of bombs,” Tully said. “Something peculiar about this one?”

  “Maybe it’s the placement …”

  Oddly, this scene rang a bell in Koesler’s mind. Having just made a virtual fool of himself answering an obviously rhetorical question, he was in no mood to repeat the performance. But, since neither of the other two was offering the elusive example, he thought he’d get his feet wet again. “Could it be,” he ventured hesitantly, “that attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler?”

  Lloyd nodded thoughtfully. “World War II, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Koesler nodded. “The placement of the bomb. As you said …” He paused to allow one or the other of the officers to continue.

  Then he recalled ruefully that the incident had taken place almost sixty years ago—in 1944, toward the closing of the European segment of the war. He couldn’t count on either of these younger men coming up with the particulars.

  Koesler had a singular reason for remembering this attempted murder of the Austrian-born dictator. He preferred that interpretation of history which posited that the war in Europe would have been over much earlier had not Winston Churchill wanted his pound of flesh. The British Prime Minister wanted to make Germany pay for the destruction it had wreaked on England.

  Many Germans, particularly of the military, had grown convinced that the war was lost, and wanted to sue for peace. As part of the bargain, the Germans would eliminate Hitler. When the Allies rejected this offer, a core group of German officers concocted a plan to assassinate the Führer, thus presumably clearing the way for a surrender.

  The mechanics of that plot had caught Koesler’s memory.

  Since it was obvious that neither of the others remembered it clearly. Koesler decided to recount that event. He sensed some relevance to the present situation.

  He explained first the German need to eliminate Hitler, then how the plot was supposed to work. “It was early on a July morning and Hitler summoned members of his military high command to a meeting at his field headquarters. One of those summoned was a member of the conspiracy—a Colonel von Stauffenberg, if memory serves.

  “Stauffenberg carried a bomb, much the same as we have here. It was in a briefcase. The staff assembled around a huge granite table covered with battle maps. Stauffenberg carefully placed the case containing the bomb against the table leg near where Hitler was standing. Then the colonel casually stepped out of the bunker.

  “The bomb exploded shortly after that. Stauffenberg assumed he had carried out his part of the plan and that Hitler was dead.”<
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  “Yeah,” Lloyd said, “but somehow Hitler survived it.”

  “Yes, he did. Just before detonation someone had moved the briefcase to a spot farther away from where Hitler was standing. He was burned and bruised, but he was alive. Alive and enraged enough to carry out a purge that wiped out several in his high command, including Field Marshal Rommel—probably his most brilliant general. And Rommel was not even actively involved in the murder plot, although he had known about it.”

  “Wow!” Lloyd exclaimed. “What a memory!”

  Koesler smiled self-consciously. “It’s not so much a good memory. I lived through that era, though, thankfully, not on the spot. I was fifteen at the time it happened. It impressed itself upon me as one of the most memorable incidents in twentieth-century history.

  “And,” Koesler continued, addressing Lloyd, “when you talked about where the bomb was positioned, it brought back that memory. I mean, in both cases, the bomb was placed so that it would focalize, sort of, the maximum destruction.”

  “So”—Tully had become fascinated with the story and its theories—“the colonel wanted to get rid of Hitler. The others in the headquarters didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how many got killed as long as Hitler bought it … that the idea?”

  “Well, I don’t really know about that,” Koesler admitted. “If I recall correctly, there was only one death from the bomb. And, while I don’t remember who was killed, it certainly was not the intended victim. So, one fatality. And, I think, ten or eleven others were injured.”

  “It must have been a time bomb,” Lloyd observed. “No one was near it to detonate it.”

  “I assume that’s right.”

  Tully began to pace in small circles. “And it didn’t reach the intended victim because the briefcase containing the bomb had been moved.”

  “Right.”

  “And,” Tully continued, “ours was a time bomb.”

  “That’s what this leads up to.” Lloyd fingered the remains of the bomb. “And—what’s this?” One of Lloyd’s assistants had presented him with more misshapen debris.