Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  This afternoon? And maybe not even then?

  Someone had to be told. At Gina's apartment, he'd seen yesterday's Boston Globe. There'd been no mention of what had happened at the monastery. Unless the authorities were keeping the story a secret, the bodies had not yet been found. But it was hard to believe that such a story could be contained. As he proceeded along the crowded sidewalk, heading back toward Boston Common, his imagination conjured up the bloated corpses sprawled across the table or on the floor of their cells. Dead. All dead.

  Again, reluctantly, he thought about the police. Perhaps if he simply called them. But they wouldn't believe him. They'd ask him to identify himself, to meet with them, and he wasn't prepared to do that, not until he was guaranteed safety. In the meantime, if he managed to convince them that he wasn't a crank, they'd alert the authorities in Vermont, where someone would check the monastery. When the bodies were found, it would soon be clear that one monk had escaped. The Boston police would make the connection with the man who'd called them. Who else could have known about the bodies, except a survivor or someone who'd killed them?

  Drew shook his head. At worst, the police would suspect he was implicated in the deaths. At best, even if they believed he was innocent, they'd send out an APB for him, in effect helping the hit team to narrow their own search. And he hadn't even considered what would happen when the police looked into his background, first puzzled, then alarmed by the smokescreen of his past. It would be disastrous if their questions led them in that direction.

  No. The route he'd first selected remained the best, the safest. Father Hafer. His confessor. Bring me in. As soon as possible. And help me find out who my enemies are!

  Alien, he wandered the haphazard maze of Boston's streets. He roamed through shopping centers, introduced to glaring noisy video arcades and the incredible technology that taught adolescents to develop the deadly reflexes of fighter pilots. At every game he examined, the purpose was to attack and destroy. The winner obliterated the enemy. And sometimes nuclear clouds announced survival or defeat.

  Adolescent males strode through the shopping centers in fashionable camouflage combat fatigues, while style-conscious older men wore imitation World War II bomber-pilot leather jackets.

  Madness. Dear God, he asked himself, what had happened in the six years that he'd been away?

  He fought to subdue his concern. Something was more important. Salvation. If the world was determined to destroy itself, very well. But what he needed was peace and seclusion. To die was inevitable. To do so during prayer made death acceptable.

  He phoned the rectory several times that afternoon, feeling more lost and impatient when he learned that Father Hafer had still not returned. Time became torturous. The newest edition of The Boston Globe still contained nothing about the monastery, though that in itself was not significant. Several explanations for the absence of the story were possible. But he couldn't bear the thought that the corpses had not yet been discovered, a blasphemous secret. At almost half-past four, as he walked through another shopping center, he suddenly faltered, blinking at what confronted him. A crowd shuffled toward him, their eyes red, wiping tears away.

  Something horrible must have happened, he thought. He remembered 1963, America's reaction to President Kennedy's assassination, and braced himself for the worst.

  He went over to them, alarmed by their grief. "What's happened? Why are you crying?"

  A heavy middle-aged woman sniffled into her nand-kerchief, shaking her head. "So sad."

  "What?"

  "Seen it eight times. It still makes me cry. She looks so beautiful, dying from cancer."

  "Cancer?"

  "Debra Winger."

  "Who?"

  The woman looked shocked. "Terms of Endearment. Where have you been?"

  The woman pointed beyond the crowd behind her. A movie theater. The show had just ended, the audience coming out.

  In confusion, he found a row of phones next to a Lady Godiva lingerie store, its window filled with panties. A man wearing earrings walked past, then a woman with a heart tattooed on her hand. Drew shoved coins in the phone and hurriedly dialed the number he'd memorized.

  "Holy Eucharist Parish."

  "Please, is Father Hafer in yet?"

  "Ah, it's you again. I told him about your calls. Just a moment. I'll see if he can be disturbed."

  Drew slumped against the wall and waited. When at last he heard a rattle as the phone was picked up, he didn't recognize the strained, out-of-breath voice. "Yes, hello. This is Father Hafer."

  Drew frowned. He hadn't spoken to Father Hafer in six years. How could he be sure?"I have to meet with you, Father. Now. Believe me, it's urgent."

  "What? Who is this?"

  Drew stared at the phone, suspicious. Suppose in their search the hit team had guessed the logical man to whom Drew would go for sanctuary? Suppose this voice, which sounded too hoarse and breathless to be Father Hafer's, belonged to one of the men who was after him? No, Drew had no choice. He had to follow the safeguards of his former profession. He couldn't afford to be careless.

  "I asked, who is this?" the raspy voice insisted.

  Drew's thoughts became frantic. Despite his misgivings, he nonetheless hoped. He needed to believe. A recognition code, some information that only the two of them shared. "Six years ago, we met in your office. We had an argument. But then we went to the church across the street, and you heard my confession."

  "I've heard a lot of... six years ago? There's only one confession I can think of that anyone could be certain I'd remember."

  "We had a discussion about a liqueur."

  "Good God, it can't be! You?"

  "No, listen. The liqueur. Do you remember its name?"

  "Of course."

  Drew scowled. "It comes to mind so quickly?"

  "The Carthusians make it. I chose it deliberately. It's named for the fatherhouse. Chartreuse."

  Drew relaxed. Good. Or at least, it would have to do.

  Father Hafer kept talking. "What in heaven's name is all this mystery about? Where on earth are you? Why are you calling me?" The priest was even more out of breath. "You're obviously not at - "

  "No, there's been an emergency. I had to leave. We've got to talk."

  "Emergency? What kind?"

  "I can't say on the phone. I have to meet with you. Now."

  "Why are you being so evasive? Meet where? And what's wrong with telling me over the phone?" The voice paused abruptly. "Surely you're not suggesting... ?"

  "It might be tapped."

  "But that's absurd."

  "Absurd is what it is out here, Father. I'm telling you I don't have time. An emergency. Please listen to me."

  The phone was silent except for the priest's strained breathing.

  "Father?"

  "Yes, all right. We'll meet."

  Drew glanced around the shopping center, keeping his voice low but urgent. "Get a pad and pencil. I'll tell you the way to do this. You've got to help me, Father. You have to bring me in."

  10

  A classic intercept operation. A version of the dead drop. Theoretically. But this time Drew had to make allowance for more than one variable.

  His primary fear, after all, was that the hit team had assumed where he'd have to go for help. By definition, not to the police, not with Drew's background. And not with his predictable need to avoid being held in their custody.

  The logical alternative? The priest who'd sponsored him as a candidate for the Carthusians. After all, who else would be understanding? But by the same logic, the hit team would maintain surveillance on the priest. And when Father Hafer suddenly left the rectory during supper hour, an alert would be issued. He'd be followed.

  The extra factor? Suppose the police had become involved, either because the bodies had been discovered or because Father Hafer was sufficiently disturbed by Drew's call to ask them for protection? It was possible that not only the hit team or the police but both would follow the priest. T
hat complication changed an otherwise textbook operation from the equivalent of algebra into calculus. Regardless of how sophisticated the plan became, Drew had to begin with the basics.

  Several times during the day, he'd passed Boston Common, scouting it from every angle, calculating its advantages. A large park filled with trees and paths, gardens, ponds, and playground equipment, it was flanked by rows of adjoining buildings, commercial and residential, on every side. He'd chosen a likely vantage point and, by seven o'clock that night, had positioned himself on an apartment building's roof. He crouched behind the cover of a chimney, concealing his silhouette, and peered down toward the Common. In mid-October, the sun had already set; the park was in darkness except for streetlights along the borders and lamps beside the paths.

  The advantage of this rooftop location was that Drew could study three of the four streets flanking the Common. The far side was cloaked by the black intersecting branches of leafless trees. But the far side didn't matter; it was too remote for the hit team or the police to rush to this side without exposing themselves and giving Drew a chance to get away. And it was on this side that Drew intended to approach Father Hafer.

  But not in person.

  He'd been cautious about what he told the priest. If he'd merely instructed Father Hafer to go to the Common and wait for further developments, he'd have risked being found on this roof by either the hit team or the police when they predictably checked the buildings along the Common's perimeter. That way of thinking assumed that the rectory's phone had been tapped or that the priest was cooperating with the authorities. But Drew's survival depended upon assumptions. Even now, after many years, he vividly recalled the Rocky Mountain Industrial College in Colorado, Hank Dalton, and his lectures: "Paranoia will save your life. In your world, boyos, it's crazy not to be paranoid. Assume the bastards are against you. All the time. Everywhere."

  So Drew's instructions had been so complicated that he'd told Father Hafer to write them down. No hit team or police force could possibly have so many men that they could cover the complete itinerary with only a few hours' notice. They'd have no specific target area. From their perspective, contact might be established anywhere.

  But needing an extra margin of safety, Drew had decided not to make that contact in person. As he scanned the three shadowy but visible streets - below him, and to his right and left - he saw no evidence of surveillance, no loiterers or vehicles that stopped with no one getting out. The streets looked normally occupied, innocent, ordinary.

  He'd soon find out. At ten past seven, he saw the priest. Father Hafer wore a long dark overcoat, its top buttons open as instructed, the white of his collar clearly visible in the partly illuminated night. But the way Father Hafer moved caused Drew to frown. The priest didn't walk so much as he shuffled, slightly stooped, with evident fatigue. He came from the corner on Drew's right, beginning to cross the Common. Something was wrong. Drew shifted his gaze toward the street that the priest had left. No one seemed to be following.

  Drew darted his eyes back toward the priest, and abruptly his alarm increased. Not because he'd discovered a trap, but because of something far more unexpected, though now that Drew thought about it he'd been given all the clues. He should have realized. Father Hafer was bent over, coughing so hard that fifty yards away Drew was able to hear it. The priest seemed in pain. And thinner than Drew recalled. Even at night, his pallor was evident.

  The priest was dying.

  "Treatment," the sherry-dusted voice had said from the rectory phone. "He might not want to be available after his treatment."

  Chemotherapy. Radiation. Father Hafer was dying from cancer. The hoarseness, the lack of breath, how else to account for them? The cancer was in his throat, more likely in his lungs. And with terrible sorrow, Drew recalled the cigarette after cigarette that Father Hafer had smoked six years ago during the interview. The priest once more bent over, coughing, in evident pain. He used a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and straightened slowly, proceeding with difficulty toward the Common. Drew concentrated on the third bench along the path that the priest had been instructed to walk along.

  The first. The second.

  As Father Hafer reached the third, a shadow darted from bushes, rushing toward him.

  Now, Drew thought. If he's under surveillance, now. Instead of watching the lean, jackal-like figure that seemed to be attacking the priest, Drew focused all his attention on the neighboring streets.

  But nothing happened, no shouts, no sirens, no sudden eruptions of shadows or gunfire. Nothing. Eerie, the night remained still and, except for nearby traffic, silent.

  Drew jerked his attention back toward the third bench along the path. His instructions to the lunging shadow had been explicit, based on the location of lamps in the park, allowing Drew an unimpeded view of what would happen. If the priest had been given a microphone and battery pack to hide beneath his clothes, the shadow's hasty frisk would reveal it. The figure would raise his right hand, warning Drew to run.

  Of course, the shadow needed incentive to perform the frisk, and earlier Drew had looked for an evident but functional junky in the Combat Zone. He'd given the addict some, but promised him more, of a glassine bag of heroin that Drew had spent part of the afternoon relieving from a second-rate pusher. The bribe had been sufficient to motivate the junky but not enough to moderate his desperation, and not enough for Drew's purpose - or the possible danger - to be questioned.

  Drew watched as the darting shadow collided with the priest, frisked him without seeming to, and delivered a note to the palm of Father Hafer's hand. At once, the shadow lunged away, retreating through a dark space between two path lamps, visible again when he scrambled through illuminated playground equipment, rushing as instructed toward the corner of the Common on Drew's left.

  My, my, Drew thought. Well, what do you know? Not bad. Really not too shabby. It just goes to show - in a pinch, don't underestimate a junky, as long as he's properly motivated. Drew was delighted not only by the junky's performance but by his survival. The junky had not been killed.

  Conclusion: If the hit team was in the area, they'd realized that the shadow down there wasn't Drew but instead a courier. They'd devote their attention to the courier as much as to the priest, in the hope that the courier would lead them back to Drew or at least give them information about what was in the note. The courier would lead them all right - to a cul-de-sac alley three blocks away where Drew had promised to pay the junky the rest of the heroin in the glassine bag.

  Drew had left the bag on a window sill, and now, as he watched the junky disappear safely, he began to believe that neither the hit team nor the police had followed Father Hafer. But he still wasn't totally sure. He'd planned yet another diversion, and that was the purpose of the note that the priest now held in his hand.

  Drew switched his attention back to the park. Father Hafer stood next to the third bench on the path, clutching one hand to his chest as if to control the startled pounding of his heart. Recovering from the assault, he peered down mystified at the note he held in his other hand, but before he could read it, he suddenly burst into another fit of coughing, pulling out his handkerchief, retching into it.

  May God have mercy, Drew thought.

  The priest wearily approached a nearby lamp and hunched his shoulders, straining to read the note. Drew knew what he would see.

  My apologies for the surprise. I have to be sure that you're not being followed. If there'd been another way... But we're almost there. Go back the way you came. Return to the rectory.

  The priest jerked his head up from the note, glancing around with what, even at this distance, was evident annoyance. He crammed the note into his overcoat pocket, bent forward again, and coughed painfully into his handkerchief. With energy born from impatience, he turned to shuffle angrily from the Common, back the way he'd come.

  If I'd known you were sick, I wouldn't have done it this way, Drew thought. I'd have chosen a shorter, less difficult route. Fo
rgive me, Father, for the suffering I've caused you. I had no choice. I had to make the enemy feel as impatient as you are.

  He watched the priest walk with effort away from the Common, then trudge out of sight down the street to Drew's right. He saw no evidence of hastily reorganized surveillance. No vehicle turned to head in the priest's new direction. No figure pivoted, hurrying to keep the priest in sight.

  Drew waited twenty seconds longer, and when he still saw nothing unusual, he became as convinced as he was going to be that neither the police nor a hit team were involved.

  Still, from his rooftop position, Drew couldn't see the street that the priest had entered. Unless he hurried from this roof and rushed to peer around the corner, he couldn't know if that street was safe. To approach the priest there might be a risk.