The Third Hour

by Richard Devin

  “Dom? Just sit down and relax.” Tonita patted the seat next to her that Dominic had just vacated. “No one is going anywhere, and we’ll have to wait at baggage claim anyway.”

  Dominic sighed, stood his ground, half in and half out of the aisle for a moment, longer, and then relented, taking the seat next to Tonita. He placed the backpack on his lap and waited for the other passengers on the plane to begin moving forward.

  A voice on the intercom announced they had arrived in Rome, and that it was now safe to deplane the aircraft.

  “Who made up that word?” Dominic turned to Tonita not really expecting an answer. “I hate it. We are not deplaning. We’re disembarking. We’re exiting. We’re getting off.”

  “Okay, Dom. I get it.” Tonita rested her hand on Dom’s arm. “You’re a little edgy?” It wasn’t really a question.

  Dominic sighed, brushed the hair from his face, and waited as the front rows of passengers started to move out.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Tonita emerged from the rest room, stationed along the corridor of gates. She hesitated in the hallway, looking around for Dominic. A moment later, she saw him in a bookstore, just across from the restrooms. She’d just started off in his direction, when she banged into the side of something hard.

  “Oh, excuse me,” the voice came from a man.

  “No. I’m so sorry,” Tonita responded, and reached out to the man’s shoulder. It was as hard as muscle could get, and as Tonita took in more of the young man, she realized how handsome he was. No, she thought, gorgeous. He wasn’t just handsome; he was a hunk.

  “I should have been watching where I was going. Did I hurt you?” the hunk said, beaming bright white teeth at her, through perfectly parted lips.

  “No. No.” Tonita stared into his almost hypnotic eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “Va Bene,” he said in Italian, belying his native tongue.

  “Yes. All is well,” Tonita translated into the English.

  He arched an eyebrow. “Well, then I hope the rest of your journey is uneventful.” The man turned and walked off.

  Tonita stood and watched the young hunk walk away, and just as she was about to look away and attempt to relocate Dominic, the young man turned back to her. He winked and smiled. Tonita glanced away, looking past him, and then quickly moved her eyes back to the man. She smiled back to him.

  He nodded, turned, and continued moving down the corridor toward baggage claim and the airport terminal exits.

  Tonita found Dominic still browsing the aisles of books and book related gadgets. “Ready?”

  Dom looked up from the back cover of a newly released book on Jack the Ripper and the woman who loved him. “This is interesting.” He held out the book to Tonita.

  She took it, looked at the front cover, examining the raised letters in blood red and the beautiful girl below them. She turned to the back of the cover and read the blurb.

  “I never thought about it,” Dominic continued. “But, even Jack the Ripper could have had someone who loved him.”

  Tonita finished reading the back cover blurb and flipped through the pages, as if she could judge the contents of the writing by the weight of the page. “Looks intriguing. I’ll have to read it.” She placed the book back onto the shelf. “I love a good story.”

  THEY WALKED OUT OF the small bookstore and headed toward customs and baggage claim. The lines at customs snaked around a series of handrails, designed to keep everyone in order and moving forward. Constant announcements from the overhead public address system, warned all, that cell phone use in this area was prohibited, and to please wait for the agents to call you forward. The PA repeated in Italian, English, Spanish, and Japanese, before Dominic lost interest and stopped paying attention. He took Tonita’s hand. “Come on,” he said, leading her to one of the available customs agents. Dominic pulled out the Vatican diplomatic cards and waved them in front of the agent.

  The bored looking man hardly glanced at the documents before saying, “Benvenuto a Roma, goda il vostro soggiorno.”

  Dominic smiled at the agent, then responded, “I live here. But, of course, I’ll enjoy my stay.” He continued ahead, walking past lines of tourists awaiting their passport inspections. When he reached the doorway leading to baggage claim, he stopped and waited for Tonita to catch up.

  She was standing just past the customs desk, speaking animatedly with a man that looked like he had just stepped off of the covers of high-end fashion magazine.

  The man was casually dressed in low cut jeans and a button-down shirt that was mostly unbuttoned. He had the shirt untucked in the back and partially tucked into the jeans in the front. His deep-red hair was brushed back off his face, and hung over his ears, as though each strand had been perfectly arranged. There was a familiarity about the man that Dominic could not immediately place, and he thought that the man may have been a model or actor that he had seen on television or in a magazine. Whoever he was, Tonita appeared to know him. Dominic swept the room with his eyes. Odd, he thought. If the man was an actor or some supermodel, no one else recognized him. Hundreds of people just deplaned, and were now lined up against the rails slowly making their way through customs. Not one of them took notice of the man. Dominic concentrated on the man’s face. He had seen him before. That he was sure of. He called out to Tonita, “Hey, come on.” A touch of jealousy surged up from his stomach as Tonita turned in his direction, smiled at him, and held up her index finger in the “just a minute” gesture.

  Dominic leaned back on the wall and, trying to act as uninterested as possible, stared down at the floor. Every half a minute or so, he pushed the hair from his face in an attempt to disguise the fact that he was watching Tonita’s engrossed conversation with this man. A moment later, he abandoned the hair in his face ploy and just stared out into the crowd, unconcerned.

  Tonita laughed a laugh that distance prevented Dominic from hearing. She covered her mouth like a silent film star, sweeping the air in a grand gesture with her other hand, then bringing it back to her waist, as though she had been choreographed in the art of seduction.

  The man reached out with one hand and rested it gently on Tonita’s arm. He cocked his head, completely absorbed by Tonita’s conversation. Then, he turned in Dominic’s direction, diverting his gaze from Tonita to him, and a slow smile that could only be described as pure evil, spread across his face.

  In a flash of recognition, Dominic realized that the man Tonita was standing with, was the same man, dark haired at the time, head partially covered by a hood, and body robed, that they’d discovered in Cardinal Celent’s apartment. The man who claimed he was in the apartment at the behest of Vatican officials to watch over and protect Cardinal Celent’s belongings. The man who had tumbled down the flight of stairs leading to Cardinal Celent’s apartment, landing in a crumpled heap. And the same man that Dominic and Tonita had left for dead. Without a moment of hesitation, Dominic burst into a full run, charging straight at the man.

  Too late. The Novice had contemplated Dominic’s every possible move, and moved his hand from Tonita’s arm up to her throat in a split second.

  Tonita was caught completely off guard, and could barely get out a muted scream, before The Novice’s hand closed around her throat.

  With incredible speed and strength, the Novice moved behind Tonita, replacing his hand with his forearm, planting it precisely against her trachea. He pulled back onto her body and she could do nothing more than give in and fall back onto him. His smile grew.

  “Let go of her,” Dominic was yelling as loudly as he could, still racing forward.

  The commotion attracted the attention of the customs guards, who ordered people down, and then rushed toward the trio, rifles raised.

  “Aiutila. Help her!” Dominic shouted to the guards, obeying their command to stop.

  “Sono un Novice. Questa donna è un whore e deve essere delt con!” The Novice raised his voice to a shrill. “Deve morire!” His words were followed by a heinous laugh. “She
must die priest. And so will you!” he spit out in English.

  Dominic took a cautious step toward the Novice.

  The Novice countered with a jerk on Tonita’s neck. Her eyes fluttered, as her face began to turn a deep red, going to blue, as the trachea was sealed and her breath was cut off. The Novice moved, dragging Tonita with him as he headed toward baggage claim. He made his way quickly through the glass enclosed security door separating customs from baggage claim, easily slipping by the guards and security agents there, who were just as ineffectual as the guards and agents in the customs hall.

  A baggage carousel that snaked, rather than circled, filled the area around baggage claim number seven. The track, weighed down with hordes of overstuffed bags, entered the public area of baggage claim through a black, heavy vinyl flapped door on one side of the track, and after snaking around the loop exited out another black vinyl flapped doorway on the far end. If a bag remained on the track, in several minutes it would come out the first doorway again, snaking around the track until claimed, or back out the into the maze of belts, risers, and rollers to start the trek again.

  The Novice pulled Tonita up to the snaking baggage track and quickly flipped her over his body, slamming her onto the moving beltway. He jumped on top of her, and like a kid in a carnival thrill ride, waved as he and Tonita exited through the flapped door into the bowels of the airport.

  A tremendous amount of shouting and commotion accompanied the rush of guards, security, and police as they scurried about the customs and baggage claim areas. All rushing about, but accomplishing little.

  Dominic jumped onto the moving belt and began to ride it into the unseen baggage loading area of the airport, following the same path that the Novice had just taken. Suddenly, he was thrust forward, tumbling off the belt, hitting his head on the metal edge of the beltway platform, and falling onto the hard, tiled floor. He pulled himself up and saw that a security agent had pressed the emergency button and stopped the belt. He cursed at the guard, “Va Funguila!” checked the backpack on his shoulder, and threw himself through the door, leaving the public area of baggage claim behind.

  Once through the thick black, vinyl flaps and into the interior maze of the baggage transit area, Dominic’s eyes had to adjust to the stark difference in lighting from the harsh florescence of the public area to the poorly lit inner workings. Only luggage generally traveled through this inhospitable maze of belts and rollers that took the overstuffed bags from hundreds of travelers from the holds of hundreds of aircrafts, and routed them to the correct baggage claim area. It was a place that few ventured into, except on the rare occasions to dislodge a bag that had become stuck on a curve or a loose rail.

  Tonita’s scream echoed among the clanging, moving bridges of metal-wheeled rollers and thumps of the heavily stitched seams of the rubber belts spinning rapidly around tension pins.

  Dominic looked up. He scanned the upper reaches of the crisscrossing belts and rollers. Luggage and boxes of every sort and size passed around and in front of him, confusing and camouflaging any movement that the Novice might make. Dominic noticed a two foot-wide catwalk that followed the path of most of the belts and rollers. In some places it extended above a set of rollers, and in other spots, crept below. If a piece of luggage slipped into a support brace or jammed on a curve, the blockage would cause a collision and a pile up of luggage just like a jackknifed rig on a four lane highway in fog. A maintenance worker would be summoned and have to crawl, stoop, and hurdle the belts and rollers following the catwalk to find the area that needed clearing. The design was certainly drawn out by a crazed person, as no normal mind could have come up with such configurations.

  “Dom!” Tonita yelled. This time clearly.

  Maybe she had gotten away, was Dominic’s first thought, and he responded, “Tonita? Tonita?” He whirled around, looking up and down, searching the area on either side of him. In between the thumps of belts and clangs of rollers, he heard the quick sound of leather shoes pounding on metal-ridged grating. He quickly turned and caught the movement of the Novice with the limp body of Tonita slung over his shoulder.

  She had been able to scream out his name only a moment ago, and now she lay flung over the Novice’s shoulder, unconscious...or worse. An image of her face, contorted, gasping unsuccessfully for breath with the Novice’s hands wrapped around her throat, flashed in Dominic’s mind. He forced the image out of his thoughts, then scrambled up the catwalk. He jumped over the belt and slid down a roller, riding a piece of luggage, like a raft down a waterslide, but again the Novice was too fast.

  Distant voices and the crackling of radios let Dominic know that security and the police were inside. He called to them, “Sono Dominic Renzi, Padre Renzi. L'uomo biondo ha...” He almost said that the man they were hunting for had his girlfriend, but after just announcing that he was a priest, decided that would not be the correct wording, and just said girl. “Una ragazza chiamata, Tonita. È dentro qui.”

  “Come out. Uscito—lasci la polizia prendere la cura di questa situazione and, let the police handle this.” A gruff voice made its way to Dominic.

  Slightly below Dominic, and off to the right a good twenty yards, a blast of light flooded the interior of the baggage area. A door had opened and closed quickly, letting in the blinding burst of sunlight and the unmistakable sounds and smells of a roaring jet engine.

  Dominic leapt down to the ground, secured the backpack to him and hurried in the direction of the door. Several police officers, mixed with a couple of airport security agents, had also decided to make a run for the door. The pack met there almost simultaneously and pushed on each other to get through. If Tonita’s life had not been in danger, Dominic thought that this scene would have been laughable. But now, it only spurred him to anger. He burst through the guards and police, and found himself on the tarmac face to face with the Novice.

  Tonita lay at his feet. Her body limp. Her color becoming blue. Dominic wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive. He raised his eyes from Tonita’s body to the Novice.

  “Don’t be so concerned priest. Your whore is not dead.” The Novice grinned. “Not yet.” He raised his foot and placed it on Tonita’s neck. “But she can be, if you’d like.”

  “Leave her.” Dominic knew that the words were meaningless, but the urge to say something, anything, to the deranged man, overcame his senses. “Take me. That’s what you want.”

  “Oh, I will take you.” The Novice laughed. “As if you have a choice, you offer yourself up to me. What about God? Did you offer yourself up to him in the same way? You are a fake. You are no priest, and you do not deserve the Lord’s blessing. So there is no need for you to offer yourself as a sacrifice. Your life is mine. And you will die.” The Novice leaned his weight forward allowing the toe of his shoe to come down on Tonita’s neck. “Just like your whore.”

  Dominic diverted his eyes from Tonita’s neck and the Novice’s foot firmly planted on it, to the distance over the Novice’s shoulder. He noticed a jet taxiing toward the gate that he, the Novice, the police, and security, were standing around. Apparently, no one in ground control noticed that there was a crowd of people gathered on the tarmac at the gate, and apparently, none of the guards or police considered calling in it in.

  Instead, they stood, rifles and pistols raised, some pointing at the Novice and others pointing at Dominic. He hoped that the Novice might turn and look in the same direction, giving the police and security a clear shot. When he did not, Dominic spoke up, “It’s not safe here. Let Tonita go and take me. I can get us out of here.”

  The Novice considered the words for a moment. “You are right that it is not safe here...for you and the whore. If I am to die with you, that is what God has planned for me. I am his servant, and unlike you, priest, I have not disavowed him. I have not chosen to leave him after he has placed such faith in me. I am his soldier, a novice with the Jesuit order. I will fulfill my commitment to my oath and my God, and I will protect the Pope, even if it means giv
ing up my life.”

  Dominic shifted his feet in an attempt to disguise the slight forward movement. He shuffled a bit to one side and then the other, inching forward.

  The Novice’s foot still lay angled onto Tonita’s throat, with the heel of his shoe on the tarmac and the upper portion at the toe on her jugular. He looked as though he was demonstrating the use of a fuel pedal in an automobile. “That’s right. Come closer, priest. I want you to see her die.”

  Dominic went ridged.

  “You fear death.” The Novice shouted. “You fear your death and her death. Yet you live because God gave up the life of his only son. He did not fear death as you do. He willingly gave into it. You are not worthy.” The Novice shifted his body putting one leg behind him, then leaning back.

  The taxiing jet had closed in on the gate and was now making a final turn, following the painted lines leading directly to the gate and jet way. The groundscrew, that would normally accompany an inbound aircraft, was nowhere in sight. They had abandoned the pilot to steer the jet clear of other aircraft and into the gate on his own.

  Tonita stirred. One arm lifted slowly up, and then it fell again.

  An immediate wave of relief flushed through Dominic’s body. She was alive, he thought. Then the gnawing fear came flooding back, replacing the relief and the realization that he had to act soon.

  And, as if he could read Dominic’s thoughts, the Novice shouted, “Not much longer priest. Repent and I may let this whore live. Explain to God why you left him, and why you continue to hide in his church. Why is it, priest, that you use him so?”