Then a rocket hit the craft, and a ball of fire slid down the cliff face.
* * *
In a basement room of the Refectory Building, Liz Torrence, Siana Harui, and Yonney Zakheim were cornered. They threw their weapons down, and emerged with their hands raised high.
Security guards collected the weapons and snapped handcuffs on the failed kidnappers.
* * *
On her way back to the quarters of the she-apostles, Dixie Lou overheard a security guard shouting over a radio handset, and a voice on the other end saying all of the fugitives had been captured with the exception of Alex Jackson and Lori Vale, who’d been seen at the body of a murdered guard.
Dixie Lou felt empty in the pit of her stomach. Had they seen anything?
* * *
Lori’s flashlight beam played off the rock walls of a wide passageway, throwing eerie reflections. The sides of the corridor were cut irregularly, leaving protruding rock shapes that looked at times like human heads and bodies, and from some angles like ferocious gargoyles. She had to keep shining the light directly at them to reassure herself. It smelled moldy in here, and she saw grimy green and black streaks of moisture on the walls, and gutters of shallow water on each side.
“I’ve never been this far,” Alex said, from her left. Limping, he carried the automatic rifle, which glinted dully in the shadows. In the darkness he had dropped and broken the radio handset before they’d been able to use it to eavesdrop on the conversations of the guards who were bound to be pursuing them.
The fleeing pair were somewhere in the maze of passageways at the heart of Monte Konos, where rail cars and lifts didn’t go. Hoping to find an exit at the base of the mountain, they had been attempting to descend for an hour, but at times couldn’t tell up from down, since some of the inclines were so slight. Lori felt disoriented.
Hearing a noise, she flipped off the flashlight and froze in her tracks. Alex disengaged the safety of the automatic rifle, making a soft click beside her. Lori’s ears probed the cold, damp darkness.
She identified footsteps, the percussion of boots on hard rock. More than one person, she thought. Guards? She struggled to determine direction but an echo effect made it difficult. She concentrated harder. Whoever was approaching seemed to be behind them, so maybe she and Alex should run ahead. But she wasn’t sure, and that could hurtle them right into the wrong hands.
“Which way are they coming from?” she whispered.
His response was only a little louder. “I can’t tell!”
Lori shivered in the dank cold, hugged her arms against her chest for warmth. A hardpack of Greek cigarettes bulged in a pocket of her jeans. Though she’d gone cold turkey the day before, vowing to quit smoking, she hadn’t thrown the cigarettes away. Now she felt her hands shaking, and not from the low temperature. A cigarette—even a bad one—might calm her nerves, but she didn’t dare light one now. She also couldn’t use the small flashlight in her hand. . . .
Paramount in Alex’s mind, he wanted to protect Lori, since she didn’t belong in this mess. No lights came from either direction of the tunnel. Were the guards wearing night vision goggles? He’d heard the UWW had them, for use in certain contingencies. Was this one of those occasions? Could they see him now? His sore ankle throbbed.
The sound of footsteps grew louder, but still he could not confirm direction.
He pulled Lori back against a rock wall, seeking an alcove or indentation behind which they might conceal themselves. With one of his athletic shoes he felt the contours of a gutter on the floor and considered lying in it, with his gun ready.
Alex detected a little trickle of water, which seeped through the fabric of his shoe. Probing more with his foot he slipped, and as he fell his rifle clattered noisily onto the rocky floor.
“Are you OK?” Lori whispered.
Frantically Alex felt around and finally located the weapon, by a wide hole in the gutter. The opening was wide, and he could barely reach across it. But how deep was it? Sticking his rifle inside, he couldn’t find the bottom. A musty, rotten odor filled his nostrils.
“I found a hole, a big one,” he whispered to her. “I think it’s a storm drain, but the cover is off, if it ever had one.”
In Lori’s ears, footsteps seemed to be coming from all directions. They echoed off the ancient rock walls. Louder, closer. Then she saw a play of lights coming from her right, the direction she and Alex had been heading. She had been correct not to run that way. Behind the illumination of flashlights she made out three human shapes.
Too late to run.
“Into the hole!” Lori husked.
“I couldn’t find the bottom.”
“We’ll get inside and hang onto the edge,” she said.
With her heart pounding fiercely, Lori slipped her small flashlight into a back pocket of her jeans. Even though she couldn’t see, she bravely lowered herself into the hole, grasping the edge with both hands. The surfaces were moist and slippery, but with both shoes she found purchase on a protruding stone.
She heard Alex sliding in beside her, and hoped he could hold onto the rifle without dropping it down the hole. It worried her that they hadn’t found the bottom. They didn’t dare use the light now. She felt cold wetness on her fingers, water from the gutter. It ran down the sides of the hole, soaking her blouse and jeans all the way to her skin.
Overhead, light touched the top of the orifice, and her fingertips, over her head. She held her breath, saw Alex’s eyes glint beside her, in a flicker of light.
The footsteps seemed to slow. Have we been seen?
They picked up pace again, making punctuating noises on the ancient rock floor that once had been traveled by religious hermits. The intrusive, approaching footsteps seemed to be right beside them now.
Lori’s nose twitched . . . a powerful, unstoppable sneeze coming on. She wrinkled her nostrils in the dense air, sniffed as quietly as she could. Water splashed across her hands and against her face. A rush of water could be heard, getting louder very quickly, and she tried to firm up her handholds and footing.
“Must be raining like hell up there,” a woman said.
The water grew louder, a mounting roar.
Cursing under her breath, Lori wanted to be anywhere but here, in the monastery’s storm-drain system. Unable to suppress her sneeze, it cut loose just as a torrent of frigid water inundated her and Alex. Lori’s feet and fingers slipped. She tumbled into the hole, letting out an involuntary cry.
She thought she heard shouting but couldn’t be certain, because the sound and substance of the water consumed her, sweeping her downward. Alex seemed to be below her, because seconds before, she had bumped into him.
Her lower back slammed painfully into a rock at the side of the hole, and she groped and kicked, trying to find some way to arrest her descent. This only succeeded in skinning her knuckles and knees.
Struggling to breathe, Lori sucked in a lung full of air and water, making her cough. The water was carrying her down feet-first, flowing with her, bouncing her painfully against the rough rock sides of the storm drain. Trying to protect herself, she put her hands over her face.
* * *
In the darkest hour of the night, a robed figure hurried down a passageway beneath the Refectory Building. The smell of rotting garbage from the cafeteria filled Dixie Lou’s nostrils. Her powerful flashlight illuminated the way. She could have gone a different way, but this was a shortcut.
At a heavy metal door she pressed her hand against a security plate and the door opened. She slipped through and the door thunked loudly behind her. No matter. She wasn’t trying to be quiet. No odor of garbage here.
She was in a wider corridor, one of the main pedestrian arterials of the hivelike monastery. Spotting her, two slender female guards came to rigid attention and saluted. Dixie Lou passed between them, into the stud harem.
A faint red glow illuminated a large room containing more than forty beds, some with curtain dividers between them
. Casting yellow light ahead of her with a flashlight, she walked down the main aisle. Some of the forms on the beds stirred. Giovanni was on the right, at the end.
Reaching him, she stood and looked down at him as he lay on his back, snoring gently. She directed a beam of light at his eyes, leaned down and husked in his ear, “I should kill you right now.”
His eyelids twitched, and opened. He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down roughly.
“Do you want to die in your sleep?”
He rubbed his forehead, as if that would produce clear thoughts. “What’s wrong?”
“As if you didn’t know. The innocent little boy. You know perfectly well what’s wrong: The gospels. Give me everything you have. Immediately.” She studied the adjacent beds, satisfied herself that the occupants were asleep.
“You got it, the last time we—”
With a backhand across his face, she snapped, “The council told me you’ve been carrying around excerpts of the gospels.”
“A few sheets, that’s all I had. You showed them to me, remember?”
“And then you took them.”
“You didn’t seem to mind.”
“Keep your voice down. You’re going to forget all that, if you want to live.”
Looking fearful, he nodded.
“Give me all the copies.”
Giovanni climbed out of bed. He wore only black bikini underpants, but this time Dixie Lou wasn’t aroused. Lifting the mattress, he said, “This is where I kept them, but they’re missing.”
“Under the mattress,” she muttered. “What an original place to hide something. You aren’t as smart as I thought you were.”
He hung his head, awaited her next command.
“You have no idea who took them?”
“No.”
Again Dixie Lou studied the nearby beds, and saw no signs that any of the stud knights were awake. She stepped close to Giovanni, so that she could smell the musk of his cheap cologne. “You’re expendable, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. Do you still want me to visit you?”
“That’s the least of your worries.”
With that remark she whirled and strode off, but didn’t get very far before she felt faint and almost dropped to her knees. Grabbing the headboard of one of the beds, she remained standing but images assailed her mind. The walls seemed to close in around her, constricting to a more austere enclosure, one with less beds, less sleepers. Rough, black-streaked stone walls, without adornment. Different shadows.
A prison cell, she decided, a relatively large one . . . The sound of a rodent chittering in the darkness. Dizziness, and suddenly she was moving between beds with a knife, stabbing the sleepers through the blankets, over and over. Hurrying between beds, killing everyone before they could awaken and stop her.
Reliving the moment, an enormous sensation of satiated revenge swept over her. It was done!
The images faded, and her mind pulled one way, then another. A new image took shape before her. She stood on a platform and was dressed in a white robe, made to appear whiter by the intense blackness of her skin. She fingered a metal pendant that dangled on a chain from her neck. Beside her stood a man in a similar robe, with a glittering pendant matching hers on his chest, shining like a star. With an icy expression he gazed down on a bearded prisoner who stood serenely before them, looking ragged but proud in the polished elegance of the room. The prisoner was answering a question that had been put to him.
Dixie Lou despised the prisoner’s arrogant manner, the way this impoverished man held his head high like a king and said anything he pleased, without fear of the consequences. The man beside her was questioning him again, and Dixie Lou remembered her companion’s face and name.
“Joseph Caiaphas,” she murmured in the darkness.
Suddenly he leaped down from the platform, ripped the prisoner’s clothing, and hit him hard on the side of the face. “Blasphemer!” Caiaphas shouted. “We have no king but Caesar!”
The images faded, and as Dixie Lou looked around, she felt as if she was awakening from a deep sleep. She stood in the stud harem again, and around her the men were sleeping peacefully. Continuing uncertainly down the aisle, she reached the corridor. For several moments a feeling lingered that she had killed many people back there, but the rational side of her brain told her this had not happened.
I’m going mad.
Chapter 24
Thus saith the Lord She-God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt her that is low, and abase him that is high.
—Ezekiel 21:26, as amended in the Holy Women’s Bible
Lori was underwater, surging feet-first through the current in the storm drain. Struggling to find air, she tried to dog paddle, and managed to lift her head clear. This permitted her to gasp a little breath, but she choked and coughed when she was dragged under again. The torrent slammed her sideways and her lower back hit something hard. She cried out in pain.
The roar of rushing water filled her ears, but somehow she was no longer moving with the current, was no longer immersed in the water. She lay on her side, then sat up, coughing and spitting out foul-tasting fluid. In her back pocket she located the flat flashlight, and almost dropped it. Lori flipped the switch, was relieved when a beam of light revealed the gray rock walls of the tunnel.
Shivering, she sat on a narrow ledge inside a section of horizontal tunnel, with water at least a meter deep rushing by her feet. With the light she saw a black drop-off not far away, where a waterfall rushed over a precipice.
Alex lay a short distance from her on the same shelf of rock, struggling to sit up. His black hair was disheveled and pressed flat and wet against his scalp. Relieved that he appeared to be all right, except for scrapes and bruises like her own, Lori helped him up.
As she did so, she thought about how much she liked him, and how there had been no time so far for her to consider her feelings. But this was no place, or time, to develop a relationship.
The ledge was narrow, with most of the water roaring around their perch and some of it splashing their faces. In the illumination of the flashlight the air was misty, and quite cold. She prayed the storm would let up, hoped the torrent would not sweep them away again.
Hearing what sounded like voices, she flipped the light off, and moments later saw flickers of illumination from high above them—possibly the flashlights of guards in one of the passageways that was not a storm drain. Had they seen or heard something?
The voices of the guards, already weak because of the noise of water, faded with their light, and all around Lori it grew pitch black.
* * *
In the terrifying darkness, Lori heard the ominous sound of water increase. More frequent and larger splashes hit her.
“It must be raining harder up there!” she shouted, to be heard over the noise.
Alex held her close against him. His arms were strong, and he made her feel safer, but only a little. “Don’t be afraid!” he yelled.
“I’m not!” But this wasn’t true.
Moment by moment, more water entered the storm drain system from above, and became a deafening roar in Lori’s ears. She and Alex backed up against the tunnel wall behind them, and she found a hand grip. It felt like a metal railing.
She guided his hand to it, then released her hold for a moment and reached over the wall, touching the surface. Feeling an indentation, she wondered if it might be the edge of a service door for the tunnel. She was about to pull the flashlight out of her pocket when water roared against her, covering her up to her waist.
Alex pulled her close, and she held the railing with her free hand.
But the railing was coming loose.
And she remembered the drop-off.
* * *
As Dixie Lou hurried across the plaza in the night, heading for her apartment, she felt a loss of control, that she couldn’t keep all the important pieces of her life together, and portions of it were slipping
from her grasp. Unexpected complications were making things difficult; her list of secrets was growing larger. In addition to the murder in the tunnel, she would have to conceal the stud knight’s thefts from her office safe: money, a pistol, and, worst of all, a recent printout of the in-progress Holy Women’s Bible. She cursed Giovanni, and herself as well, for allowing him to get too close to her. A man. As Chairwoman of United Women of the World, she should have known better.
She took a rock-hewn staircase down one level and caught a rail car.
* * *
The water was up to Lori’s chin, and the railing in her grip felt as if it might break loose at any moment.
“We’d better let go!” Lori shouted. “Before the tunnel fills and we have no air!”
He yelled something in response that she couldn’t make out, and she hoped he understood her.
With great difficulty she removed the little flashlight from her back pocket and flipped the light on. It revealed only a few centimeters of airspace left, and a torrent of water rushing toward the drop-off.
With the beam of light she pointed down-tunnel, then tugged on the arm Alex had been holding around her waist. He nodded.
Fighting the current, Lori replaced the flashlight in her pocket, hoping she and Alex would live to use it again.
They let go of the hand rail, tried to hold onto one another.
And went over the drop-off in a thundering torrent of water.
Chapter 25
After being sentenced to death by crucifixion, the Lord Jesus Christ faced Pontius Pilate in his palace without fear and said to him, “I forgive you, for you are not evil but are on a path set for you by others.” Upon hearing such love from a man condemned to die, the Roman governor wept, and then sent Jesus away to be crucified.
—Gospel of Lydia 22:14–15, Holy Women’s Bible
The women of the council were seated in the half circle of black leather chairs, facing a stony-faced Dixie Lou Jackson as she addressed them from the historic red chair.
The Stolen Gospels Page 20
