The Third Hour

by Richard Devin

  “Forgive me, God. For I desecrate your church!” The Novice screamed out, as he pushed his body back. Suddenly, the back of the chair snapped. The wood splintered, sending the carved relief of the crucifix tearing into his flesh and muscle. Blood oozed from the red swollen skin surrounding the wound and the Novice tilted backwards. Steadying himself, he pushed down onto the armrests of the chair, forcing the stiff muscles of his legs and back to allow him rise. His legs failed him and he began to fall forward. In an attempt to slow the fall, he pushed out with his arms and hands, but they, too, had atrophied from the pressure of his own weight, having sat motionless for many hours.

  He collapsed.

  His elbows and shoulders hit the floor hard. “My God. My God. Why has thou forsaken me?” he cried out with all the volume his vocal chords could summon, quoting Jesus from his final hours. “Show me no mercy Lord, as I am not worthy.” His body heaved, as he gasped for breath, crying. He gained control of his emotions and pulled himself up, arms shaking, sweat glistening from his body. And then on unsteady legs, he tried to stand. He managed to get to his knees. Then, using the seat of the chair, he pushed up. His legs would not support his weight and again he began to crumble.

  Out of the darkness, an arm wrapped around the Novice’s waist. And then another wrapped around his chest, supporting him, pulling him up. “You have been forgiven,” the Jesuit’s soft voice whispered into the Novice’s ear.

  The Novice turned his head to the side and laid it on the Jesuit’s shoulder. “Why did you leave me?”

  The Jesuit pulled the Novice in closer to his body, using his own body as support to help the Novice stand. He turned the Novice around so that they were face to face. “My son, I have born witness to your punishment. I did not leave you. You were never alone in this room.” His voice remained soft and low. He stared into the eyes of the Novice, “I have been here all along.”

  FORTY SEVEN

  IT WASN’T QUITE WHAT he had expected, Dominic thought, as he looked into the room beyond the sliding wall. But on second thought, he didn’t really know what to expect. He glanced around the once hidden, now exposed, room. It was nothing more than a room. No fancy or high-tech equipment. Not a map, nor a “Mission Impossible” style wall of glass that one could wave an arm about and bring up maps and schematics. No blinking diodes and screens. No bars or bunk beds. No sink, toilet, or drain. Not even a chair. As he took in the contents, or rather the lack of contents of the room, he readied himself, waiting for something to pop out at him.

  He looked over his shoulder at the soldiers. They had not moved and offered no advice, no orders. As inconspicuously as he possibly could, he took inventory of the soldiers, noting the earpiece wires hanging from the backs of one ear on each of the men. Both were dressed in the same manner as those who manned the security lines in the public areas of the airport terminal. They had TSA badges sewn onto the black baseball caps covering their short cropped hair. The same badge was displayed on their shirtsleeves and onto the fronts of the crisp, white shirts that fit tightly to their bodies. The shirts were tucked neatly into black pants that fell to a cuff at the top of black-laced, rubber soled shoes. No military boots here. To the casual observer walking through the maze of walkways, halls, and corridors of the old airport, and with the exception of starched white shirts, as opposed to the wrinkled, untucked and unkempt white shirts of the generally talkative Transportation Security Administration agents who manned the lines, these agents would fit in completely, going unnoticed as anything different. Dominic noted that the agents had remained on the outside of the sliding wall, while he and Tonita had been prodded to cross the track that the wall slid on, and they now were on the inside.

  “Sorta anticlimactic, don’t you think?” Tonita asked as she looked around the room.

  “I like it that way.” Dominic moved his gaze around the room and up to the ceiling. “Doesn’t look like much happens here.”

  The clicking sound of metal on metal caused both Dominic and Tonita to turn around and come face to face with the barrels of MP5’s, raised to shoulder level and pointed directly at them.

  “I think I’ve figured out why the room is empty,” Dominic said, as he intertwined his fingers with Tonita’s, gripping them tightly. He tried to smile, but it quickly faded. “They obviously don’t want us to leave.”

  TONITA MOVED CLOSER to Dominic, pressing her shoulder against his. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it when she could not find the words. She closed her eyes as a strange thought crossed her mind, asking if she would hear the shot first or feel the bullet rip into her body first, followed by the sound of the bullet exploding from the gun? She tried to dismiss the gruesome thought and concentrate on something else—like the sound of something scraping and sliding. Stone over...She opened her eyes to the real not imagined-sounds of stone sliding over stone, as the wall, that had slid open to reveal the room inside, was now slowly closing.

  “I don’t think they’re going to shoot,” Dominic said, releasing Tonita’s hand from his grip. He wiped his sweaty palm on the leg of his pants.

  The wall continued sliding easily on the narrow track.

  Once the wall had finally closed completely, Tonita breathed again. “That was fun. What more do you have in store for us?”

  “Like I knew that was going to happen.” Dominic moved to the sliding wall, inspecting it. “This is ingenious really. Walking down that hallway, I doubt anyone would realize that it can move.” He lay face down onto the floor, peering into the slight crack between the floor, the track, and the wall. “Look, whoever designed this even put in base molding that slides along with the wall.”

  “Remind me to tell Bob Villa.”

  “I’m just saying that it’s really pretty ingenious.”

  “Oh. And so is being trapped in a room with no window and no doors.”

  “There’s a door.”

  “Well then, go ahead and open it...if you think the soldiers and those big guns on the other side are gone.” Tonita walked around the room letting her hand slide over the marble tiled walls. “What the hell is this?”

  “I think someone is trying to keep us and does not want us to discover something.”

  Tonita stopped, turned around, and stared at Dominic. “What? Please tell me that you not telling me the obvious?”

  “Look. Sorry. But I’m just as scared as you are. And I’m just talking out loud to calm our nerves.”

  “Well, actually, you’re getting on mine,” Tonita said, as she turned back and continued to slide her hand over the marble walls.

  “All right. Let’s look at this logically,” Dominic said. “The soldiers or secret service, or whatever they are, could have just shot us. But they didn’t. They could have searched us for weapons. They didn’t. They could have taken away our documents.”

  “They didn’t,” Tonita repeated for him. “I get the picture. Someone wants to detain us and knows that we’re no threat to them.”

  “Right.”

  “So this someone could be a friend?”

  “Right.”

  “We’re just being held here while this friend is where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you think that this friend is on his way?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” Dominic leaned against the wall. “Either that or we could die here and no one would ever know?”

  FORTY EIGHT

  “THEY HAVE BEEN CONTAINED.” Inspector Carrola stepped into the cool room and closed the door behind him.

  “There has been no harm done to them, I trust?” The question came from the weak old man lying face down on the bed. He struggled to raise his head from the pillow and face the inspector. “Come closer. I cannot see you.”

  Inspector Carrola stepped around the intravenous stand and the beeping machinery full of lines and tubing running to and from the man, and came alongside of the bed. “W
e expected the Jesuit to prevent them from leaving, but the Key is resourceful.”

  “They will not stop until he is dead.” The patient coughed. “It has taken us many years, my friend, to build the trust of the few, and now we are nearly able to expose the truth.”

  “If God be willing.”

  “And the church.”

  “We have friends.” Inspector Carrola placed his hand on the old man’s arm.

  “We are old and weak.”

  “But we have God. He is on our side.”

  “That is what the other side thinks too.” The old man coughed several times. He placed his face into the pillow. When the coughing stopped, he continued, “Do we know after these sixty years whose side God is on? I am nearly defeated and yet the Jesuit appears strong. If it is he who is strongest, who will win? Then where is our God?” He coughed again, arching in pain.

  “Cardinal, you must rest,” Inspector Carrola said, while pushing a small button on the tip of a long cord, silently summoning the nurse.

  The door to the hospital room opened even before Inspector Carrola had released his finger from the button. “Inspector? Cardinal Celent?” The stout nurse asked as she glanced at the beeping machinery and the zigzagging lines on the monitors.

  “I will be leaving now.” He looked to Cardinal Celent then back to the nurse. “Someone must be with him always.”

  “I will be here, Inspector,” the nurse said nodding.

  “Good,” he said a little too sharply, then added. “And thank you, nurse.”

  “Cardinal, are you in pain?” The nurse adjusted a dial on the heart monitor and watched the lines spike up and down. “Maybe some medicine to ease that?”

  “There is no medicine that can ease the pain of my deceit,” Cardinal Celent said.

  “It was necessary. Dominic will understand when this is done,” Inspector Carrola said from the doorway.

  “You are right, of course.”

  “If we had not told him that you had died, he would have remained here looking for answers.”

  “The answers were buried sixty years ago.”

  “And he will succeed in finding them.”

  Cardinal Celent raised his head from the pillow. “Go. I will be fine,” he said, as the pain medication took control and he drifted into sleep and the memories of long ago.

  Bill Celent hit the ground hard. He rolled, fell two feet down an embankment, landed on top of a rock the size of a basketball, slid off of the rock, scraped a knee, and finally came to a stop on his back. He gasped as the air was forced out of his lungs and into the atmosphere. He sucked in as much air as he could, but his diaphragm and lungs would not cooperate and he could not catch his breath. His arm, scratched by the dry, sunbaked desert crust, bled from his shoulder to his elbow. His head throbbed and his ribs ached. He touched his side, applying the slightest amount of pressure, and a searing pain shot through him. He closed his eyes, allowing the haze in his mind to disappear and waited out the pain. Slowly the pain in his side faded, as his lungs began to fill and an even rhythm to his breathing returned. Cautiously he sucked in oxygen with quick shallow breaths, allowing his lungs to fill. Then exhaled slowly. He repeated the processes of quick breaths and long exhales until his body relaxed and his muscles responded. Then he opened his eyes.

  A sky, slightly darkened and overcast with scattered clouds, filled the panorama of his sight. He blinked away the slight dizziness behind his eyes and fought back the nausea gnawing at his stomach. Bill slowly raised an arm up to his head, running a hand through his hair and lightly massaged his scalp. He brought his hand to his face. No blood. Then he moved his arm back down to his side, anticipating the pain at his rib cage to return. It didn’t. Good. Bruised, a little bloodied, but not broken, he thought.

  He pushed off of the small rocks and stones that covered the ground he had landed on and raised up slightly. “Oow!” he spoke out loud. “That hurt.” He brushed the dirt and small embedded pebbles from his skin and clothes, and took in his surroundings. The desert, just like it should be, Bill thought.

  He stood, pushing up on shaky knees and dusted off the fabric of the thin gray jump suit meant to protect him from possible radiation exposure and heat. The suit may very well have done a great job on the heat and radiation, but it was terrible at stopping rocks. The legs of the jump-suit were torn, allowing bare bloody skin to show through.

  A flap of the gray shiny material at his chest was nearly gone. He finished brushing away the dust and picked at the desert thorn brush that had become attached to the torn and frayed fabric. He stretched, and feeling only a slight ache in his side, started off toward a high outcropping of gray brown stone.

  The loose stone and gravel slipped under his weight, creating small avalanches that tumbled down the side of the embankment as he scrambled up. Bill fell to one knee, and slid down several feet. He cursed the pain in his side that had been growing, aggravated by the climb, and regained his footing. A few well-placed steps and he reached the top.

  Bill stood looking north. The land in the distance was arid desert, covered with brown, shrub brushes, low growing trees with snarled snake like branches, and dry washes, that would fill during a storm and flow like a river for several hours after a downpour. They were now empty of water, filled only with desert debris. A hot breeze kicked up, scented with the slight briny smell of salt.

  Odd, he thought.

  He turned around slowly, carefully, taking in the vast open land. His foot loosened a stone and it tumbled down the hill, hitting others on the way, scaring up a large-eared fox from its den. The fox darted down the hill into a nearby ravine. Bill watched as the fox, with its large oversized ears, disappeared from sight. Then a moment later, popped its head up from behind a brush and stared back at Bill. When he seemed secure that Bill was no threat, the fox darted back to his den.

  Bill steadied himself on his precarious perch, checked his footing, and continued to turn around. “Oh my God,” he said out loud knowing that it would be only himself and to the heavens that would hear. And then there were no words. He stood dumbfounded, opened mouthed. What he saw before him could not be. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking that he may have hit his head harder than he had thought. When he opened his eyes again, the vision remained. He believed that he had returned to the desert just as he was meant to. That the experiment had gone as planned. But now he realized that it did not. He was not where he was supposed to be. What lie before him could not be. And yet it was.

  Not fifty yards in the distance, a mass of people chanting, screaming, crying out, mixed into others that were laughing and dancing gleefully, all flowing from an arched gate in a large stone wall. They surrounded a group of soldiers surging around and in between them. Scuffles broke out among the crowd as some of the soldiers pushed at them, shoving some to the ground, chasing and hauling others away, as they cleared a path for the object of their furor and ridicule. In the center of rock strewn, dirt roadway, a small thin man carrying his burden walked slowly and deliberately on the path in the space created for him by the soldiers. His body bent forward under the weight of the heavy timber upon his shoulder. He stumbled, losing his balance briefly, paused, then regained his footing and continued on, only to fall to his knee two steps later. The crowd of onlookers spat at the man when he stumbled, pelting him with stones and whipping him with palm fronds as he struggled to rise again. A dark-skinned man standing along the side of the roadway where the road met a steep cliff, stepped forward to aid the fallen man with his burden. Before the dark-skinned man could reach him, other angry men in the crowd rushed forward and shoved him back away from the man who remained on his knees, pushing and shoving until the dark-skinned man was at the edge of the road and too near the steep sides, to fight back. The dark-skinned man brushed his hand over his torn clothing and looked back to the pained figure lying upon the roadway. The fallen man regained his strength and took to his feet pulling himself up and hosting the wooden beam back upon his shoulde
rs. The masses, that had only moments ago jeered and spat upon the man, kicking at him and throwing stones at him, now cheered and urged that same man forward.

  Bill studied the path, taking in the entire route from the large arched gate in the stone wall to the crowd and the place where the man had stumbled, risen and was now walking. He looked beyond the man and the onlookers, following the well-worn road to a small hill that rose up from the roadway and leveled off to a plateau. An outcropping of rock on the side of the hill jutted out becoming rounded along the top of the hill and came together at odd angles toward the bottom before falling off to a valley below. The sun, now hanging above the horizon, but not yet near its pinnacle, cast light and shadows upon the rock. It highlighted the ridges and deepened the pockets and the shadows where the sun’s light could not reach. Bill gasped as his eyes and mind transformed the light and shadows, the ridges and the pockets, into that of a face upon the rock. Then with sudden realization, Bill saw that the wind and water carved face was not a face at all. It was a skull.

  He quickly turned his gaze back to the crowd. He took in the soldiers and the man with the heavy wooden beam hoisted upon his shoulder, now struggling to make his way up the path to the top of the hill and the plateau above the skull-faced rock.

  And then he saw them. Not slim trees as he had first thought them to be. But stakes. Three stakes standing tall, firmly planted into the ground above the skull rock, two were complete.

  And the third stood empty.

  Waiting.

  FORTY NINE

  TONITA WOKE TO THE hushed sounds of a male voice whispering. Her cramped arm lay under her and the cold marble tiles of the secret room’s floor chilled her entire right side. She pulled her arm out from beneath her body’s weight, raised herself up and leaned back against the wall.