Relic of Time

by Ralph McInerny

  “Congratulations!” cried the congressman.

  What the hell did Mooney think had happened?

  “It was a bloody mess, sir.”

  “But you recovered the thing! What if it had been returned? That would have ruined everything.”

  Despite his gringo name, Mooney was nine-tenths Latino, the darling of his Arizona constituents. He was Grady’s vocal support in Washington and, more important, the main conduit through which essential government equipment flowed to the Rough Riders.

  No need to enlighten Mooney, even if he could have. The congressman seemed to think that Grady had set the whole thing up, led Morgan into a trap, and got the picture back, as well as the money the zealot Hannan had put up. Not a bad day’s work.

  “I’d rather be down there with Pulaski.”

  “Hey, whose side are you on?”

  The fact was that Grady could not have answered that question. As in Albania, he was satisfied with wreaking havoc in the unexamined hope that havoc would give rise to something good. Mooney had not liked Grady’s press conference remarks in El Paso.

  “We’ve been through that.”

  After El Paso, in answer to Mooney’s objections, Grady had told the congressman that he was playing both ends against the middle. Keep them off balance, that was the thing.

  Arroyo, on the other hand, had liked the way Grady took responsibility for what had happened in the basilica in Mexico City. Why wouldn’t he? It took him off the hook, unless of course Grady changed his story.

  Wortman and those with him had not returned, and Grady was thinking of that bag of money. Crosby, he learned, had checked into a motel on the outskirts of Pocatello after following Ehman to where the road led up to his mountain cabin. Grady would have called it the Eagle’s Nest, but he didn’t like the connotations.

  Having Crosby located gave him time to think of the next step. Sometimes he regretted not having Crosby brought to him right away. On the other hand, he doubted that Crosby would long remain a single threat, and it was important to learn who might join him.

  Grady opened the package in the privacy of his bedroom and smiled. Morgan was a dead duck either way, betraying the Rough Riders and trying to palm off a copy of the missing image.

  V

  “Yo.”

  There was some comfort to be had from having been in communication with Traeger but Crosby had no illusions about his situation. He was on his own. He had long since driven out of range of immediate help. Traeger’s reassuring I’m on my way was followed immediately by thoughts about how long that way was. With a Hummer ahead and a Hummer behind, Crosby had a problem, and he braced himself to make his move. But what would be theirs?

  Crosby imagined the two huge vehicles forcing him off a bridge or off a mountain road. Or they could hem him in at a rest stop and do it the old-fashioned way. The one he was following had increased its speed. Where the hell were they headed anyway? They had gone through Reno and then Salt Lake City and were now nearing Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello. There were some funny names of cities when you came to think of it: Kalamazoo, Baraboo, Kokomo. Crosby’s guess was that the Hummers were going to where Theophilus Grady was holed up.

  The Hummer following him was closing the gap and Crosby picked up his weapon from the seat beside him, the hand on the wheel tensing. Here it comes. But the Hummer ahead speeded up and its rear lights went out of sight. Crosby let down the window beside him, and there was a roar of wind. The menacing grille of the Hummer came closer, increasing its speed. In the rearview mirror the damnably bright lights of the vehicle suddenly were no longer visible. They were coming alongside, the seemingly little windows high above the rental. Crosby brought his weapon to the open window and shot, first a front tire and then a rear, then stomped on the gas, but not before the Hummer began to lurch and careen. His back window went as the Hummer returned fire, the shattering sound unnerving, and the rental was nicked by the Hummer’s fender as Crosby shot by, but he kept control. Now in the rearview mirror he could see the vehicle careening, out of control, heading for the drop-off to the right of the road, so deep that the tops of trees seemed like roadside bushes. The driver must have slammed on his brakes because the Hummer went over sideways and, as the interstate curved gently eastward, Crosby saw the Hummer’s lights seeming to grope the darkness wildly and then drop out of sight. He rolled up the window. He inhaled. The next breath you take may be your last. In that moment of maximum danger it was as if Lucille and the children had been with him in the car.

  One danger past, he could call it off. Between the double lanes at intervals there were linking roads so that maintenance trucks could cross. He could get onto the southbound lanes and just get the hell out of there. Ninety percent of him wanted to do that, but the ten percent dominated. He had not come all this way just to save his own ass. The thought that the peril he was in had been cut in half drove away the fear he had felt when that Hummer pulled alongside him.

  The Hummer ahead came into view again. It had begun slowing down as they neared a turnoff called Pueblo. Crosby slowed to a crawl and checked his mirror as if to make sure the other Hummer was truly gone. Watch your back. Letting up more on the gas, to keep the distance between the Hummer and himself, he was down to thirty miles an hour when the Hummer made its turn. Crosby was hardly moving when he made the turn himself, thinking ambush, but then he saw the back lights of the vehicle preceding him up the road. He cut his lights, using those red lights as guides as he closed the gap between them.

  Another turn and then they were on a narrow mountain road, dark as a well, except for the three red rear lights ahead. Even the Hummer seemed to proceed cautiously. Crosby pulled over, let down the window beside him, and listened to the mountain wilderness. Through it he could hear the growl of the Hummer still. And then it stopped. Crosby eased onto the road and, headlights still cut, crept forward. He dipped in his shirt pocket for his cell phone and punched redial. Traeger’s number.

  “Yo.”

  “Traeger?”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  That voice bouncing off a satellite and into his ear, gruff, no-nonsense Traeger, made Crosby want to cheer.

  “I am south of Pocatello, Idaho, a turnoff marked Pueblo.”

  “Okay. Why don’t you hold everything until I get there?”

  Crosby liked the suggestion that he would storm in on his own, invade Grady’s hideout, if that was what this was, and round up all the Rough Riders single-handedly.

  “How long will that be?” He tried to get reluctance into his voice but couldn’t.

  Traeger was flying toward Salt Lake in one of the Empedocles planes, guest of the returning Ignatius Hannan, who had gone up front and taken the controls for a half hour before he joined Traeger in the cabin.

  “Did you ever fly one of these things?” He was happy as a kid.

  “I don’t have a license.”

  “Neither do I.” He frowned. “I’ve never had the time.”

  “That was lucky about the money.”

  “Lucky! What a boondoggle.”

  He glared at Traeger, then relaxed. “I’m not blaming you.”

  “Good.”

  “Or Crosby.”

  “Crosby’s a good man.”

  Hannan accepted that. Maybe a good man was simply one Hannan had hired. But it was clear that the affluent little man took small comfort from having retained the million-dollar ransom. He was probably making that much in interest as they flew.

  “We’ve got to get that image back.”

  Traeger nodded.

  “You’re a Catholic, if I remember.”

  “I would be even if you didn’t remember.”

  Hannan liked the remark. Traeger didn’t. Maybe if he was as rich as Hannan and had his own fleet of jets, he would get pious, too, and build a replica of the grotto at Lourdes in his backyard. Not that he doubted the man’s sincerity. Once Ray Whipple had told him the theory he and Laura had developed. When Hannan hit fifty, he w
ould divest himself of everything and head for the Trappists at Gethsemani in Kentucky.

  “Come on,” Traeger had said.

  After a moment, Ray said, “You’re right. He couldn’t keep quiet.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Sui generis.”

  Traeger waited.

  “One of a kind.”

  “Smoke if you want to,” Hannan said now. And then, “I like Don Ibanez.”

  “Quite a man.”

  “We let him down.”

  “He took it well.”

  And the old man had taken it well. The serenity of age? Maybe.

  Hannan perked up when the call from Crosby came. Immediately, he went forward. When he came back, he said. “We can land in Pocatello.”

  They had to wait for a commercial jet before they could land. Hannan had the pilot pull over to the regular terminal and came inside with Traeger to the rental car counter. Hannan slapped down a credit card. Not a million dollars, but Traeger liked the gesture.

  “Be careful,” Hannan said.

  “I always am.” Another remark that Hannan liked and Traeger regretted.

  As he headed south, he called Crosby and told him where he was. Crosby mentioned an oasis he had passed just before the turnoff to Pueblo and they agreed to meet there.

  There was a motel at the oasis, and Crosby checked in. The sight of the bed made him realize how tired he was. The stake-out in San Francisco, the long drive, the dangerous moment on the road when he put the Hummer out of commission and watched it plunge into darkness—a full day’s work in any man’s book. He decided he would just lie down and close his eyes.

  He was brought out of a crazy dream in which a dozen Hummers drove across the roofs of cars parked at an airport, he heard again the shattering of the back window of his rental car, saw the menacing bulk of the Hummer loom beside him, both of them going like bats out of hell. The phone was ringing.

  “Yes?” “Yes?”

  “Traeger.”

  “You’re here.”

  “There’s a bar. Let’s meet there.”

  It was a low-ceilinged place, with pecky cypress walls, beer signs flashing in the windows, tables, booths, two or three silent drinkers at the bar. They shook hands and headed for a back booth, where they reviewed the day.

  “You saw who shot Morgan?”

  “I had him in my binoculars. Both of them. Not that it matters.”

  Traeger waited.

  “They’ve gone to God.”

  He described the incident on the interstate, and could feel Traeger’s approval. What they couldn’t figure out was what the hell had gone wrong in long-term parking. The image hadn’t been recovered.

  “They opened the trunk of Morgan’s car.”

  “And removed something.” Crosby paused. “Maybe it was in the Hummer that went off the road.”

  “Jeez.”

  They observed a moment’s silence, thinking of that precious image consumed by flames when the Hummer finally rolled to a stop.

  “You saw flames?”

  “No.”

  They decided they would check out that Hummer in the morning. The waitress came and they ordered draft beer and hamburgers.

  “French fries,” Traeger added.

  “They come with the burger. You want cole slaw, too?” They wanted cole slaw, too. Crosby felt he could have eaten the table and a chair or two. How long had it been since he ate? Traeger seemed famished, too, and they ate in silence. Then Traeger put in a call to Dortmund. Crosby lit a cigarette and heard one side of the conversation. Mainly Traeger was reporting, telling him of the events of the day, at least as far as he understood them. There was silence then, while he listened. He listened for a long time before he turned off the cell phone.

  “He says we should watch our backs.”

  In the morning, they had a hearty breakfast and then drove into Pocatello to a sporting goods store and got rigged out for the task ahead. Back to the motel then, where they changed into hunters’ gear and then set off in Traeger’s rental.

  “It gets breezy in mine with the back window shot out,” Crosby said.

  Traeger had examined the damage before they went into Pocatello.

  “Jeez.”

  Now they went up the interstate again, keeping to the lower limit, while other cars shot past them. They found where the Hummer had left the road, crashing through a guardrail and clipping trees as it went. They kept going to the turnoff to Pueblo and left Traeger’s car there. The distance had seemed short in the car, but walking back was another thing.

  The descent was precipitous, but it was easy to follow the path the Hummer had taken. Traeger went ahead, which was all right with Crosby. And then they saw it. It had come to rest on its roof. Doors of the vehicle were open. They approached carefully. Traeger, weapon drawn, took one side of the vehicle, Crosby the other. They might have been aiming at one another when they looked across the empty seats.

  There was nothing in back either.

  “Maybe they were thrown out,” Crosby suggested.

  But when they stepped back from the Hummer they saw a half dozen men surrounding them, rifles at the ready.

  Traeger tried telling them they were just a couple of hunters, but their hand weapons told against that. Reluctantly they turned them over.

  “Theophilus Grady is expecting you.”

  They went single file—Crosby, Traeger, their escorts—and it was not a walk in the park. There was nothing like a path, and the undergrowth between the trees was like the hedgerows in France. The exertion of the steep climbs and then steeper descents kept them silent. What was there to talk about anyway?

  “How far is it?” Traeger called back over his shoulder.

  “We’re halfway there.”

  Halfway! It was like hearing that you’d gotten half the forty lashes you had coming. It was fifteen minutes later that they heard the roar overhead. An engine. A whir of blades. A helicopter. The column stopped and tried to see it through the tops of trees.

  “That’s not one of ours,” someone said.

  It sounded like a Chinook to Crosby. Traeger looked at him but said nothing. Twenty-five yards farther on, they could see the cabin through the trees. The helicopter had landed and there was the sound of gunfire. Their captors were looking at one another.

  Traeger said, “Give us our weapons before you go. It looks like we’re going to need them.”

  The handguns were hurled at them and then their escort melted into the trees. Going to help their besieged fellows? Not very likely.

  Traeger and Crosby went to earth, lying still and watching the action. One of the black-clad warriors from the helicopter went down and that seemed to galvanize his fellows. There was an assault on the cabin, a bursting inside, more gunfire, then silence. While they watched, a Pontiac with tinted windows arrived.

  Crosby and Traeger waited. It was ten minutes more before Theophilus Grady was hustled out the door, trying to retain his dignity as he was pushed toward the helicopter. His holsters were empty.

  Twenty minutes later, after the helicopter had lifted off, there was only silence. The car with tinted windows stayed, the house doubtless being searched. Eventually, the driver came out carrying a package as big as he was. He stowed it carefully in the backseat, got behind the wheel, and the car slid away. Crosby looked at Traeger.

  “Were they ours?”

  “Maybe. The car with the tinted glass? That’s the one that followed me out of St. Louis.”

  Then they went for their car, taking what they thought was a shortcut, which added considerably to the distance. They fell into the car finally, huffing and puffing after the long scramble through the woods, up and down, a helluva hike. Traeger got out his cell phone.

  “Dortmund? Traeger.”

  He listened.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “He said he tried to warn us, but he had company.”

  “From the Company?”

  “Who else?”
>
  PART II

  Holy Hoax

  CHAPTER ONE

  I

  “What are your illusions?”

  The arrest of Theophilus Grady was not announced immediately, doubtless so his captors could squeeze out of him where the missing sacred portrait was. If they were surprised at his answer, which he clung to throughout what must have been a pretty rough grueling, it was as nothing compared to the public reaction. No one believed that the head honcho of the Rough Riders did not have the missing portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

  “Waterboard the son of a bitch,” urged Gunther. “The only thing that will quiet things down is the return of that picture.”

  Miriam Dickinson, who had inspired the rosary crusade to send up ceaseless prayers so that Our Lady’s miraculous portrait would be returned to the shrine in Mexico City, where pilgrims could once more revere it, urged a redoubling of the effort.

  From Washington came the announcement that a thorough search of Grady’s Idaho hideout had not turned up the missing miraculous image.

  As days passed, the awful thought occurred that Grady might be telling the truth. Garbled accounts of the events that had taken place in long-term parking at the San Francisco airport prompted some to think that, while Grady might have had the portrait, it had been seized by someone else. But who?

  Working with Jason Phelps, Catherine had noticed the books that kept arriving from Amazon.com, all of them concerned with Juan Diego and his cape. When Juan Diego opened the cape to show the skeptical bishop the unseasonable roses he had gathered at the behest of the Virgin, her image on the cape drove away all doubts. It was that cape, that tilma, as it was called, revered for centuries, that had been forcibly taken from the basilica.