Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  All the same, no harm in being careful, Drew thought. Besides, as he cupped a hand over the luminous dial of his watch, he saw that he still had a minute to wait while Arlene and Father Stanislaw got in position. So he might as well use that minute to double-check the darkness of the lane.

  A light came on in the house behind him.

  He squirmed beneath the spreading boughs of a fir tree. Smelling its resin, he squinted through needles toward the light. It was on the second floor of the house. The curtain was drawn. He saw a silhouette stand sideways, motionless for several seconds. Then the silhouette reached down, pressed something, and walked out of sight. The light went off.

  A bathroom? Drew wondered. A man relieving himself? Whatever, the silhouette hadn't peered outside. There seemed no cause for alarm.

  But as he returned his attention toward the wall, a whoosh of flame erupted on the other side of the wall, toward the front of the house. Another fiery roar. Then another.

  While he'd been studying the light in the window, concerned that he'd been spotted, the others had reached their positions on either side at the front of the house. The minute had passed. They'd started lighting and throwing their napalm-filled bottles. The grounds at the front - and to the right and left - exploded with flames.

  They'd calculated that for each of them to light and throw eight bottles would take thirty seconds. Possibly less; an adrenaline rush could make a person move awfully fast. Then they had to scramble out of the area. Because after thirty seconds the element of surprise would have dissipated. Ray's guards would come charging out of the compound, guns ready, searching.

  Drew had to get started. But as he braced himself to surge from beneath the branches, he froze.

  Someone else was out here. A shadow detached itself from the blackest section of the wall. A man with a gun, a silencer projecting from it. He turned to stare toward the top of the wall, toward the reflection of flames off the house.

  Their roar grew louder, fiercer. Sixteen bottles thrown evenly around the front and sides of the house. And the bottles didn't have to shatter when they landed. The heat of the burning tampon would ignite the napalm inside, causing the glass to explode, scattering the fiery gasoline-and-detergent mixture. The house would be surrounded by flames.

  At least, the house was supposed to be surrounded by flames if Drew accomplished his part of the mission. He stared at the man with the gun who'd appeared from the blackness of the wall.

  Drew's approach had been such that bushes concealed him. But if it hadn't been for the sudden light in the house behind him, he would have crept a little closer and been seen, been shot.

  Distraught, the man abruptly raced down the lane, around the corner, toward the front of the house.

  Drew's instincts told him to use this chance and get away. But he couldn't let himself. The plan depended upon the full effect of all the explosions. If Uncle Ray were inside, he had to be made to feel totally trapped, completely vulnerable. Taking several deep breaths, an athlete preparing himself, Drew lunged from beneath the fir tree, pulled the bottles from the knapsack, and hurriedly lit them, then frantically threw one, two, desperate to make the bottles land as far inside the compound as possible.

  Three, four.

  Heaving them as hard as he could, he kept darting his eyes toward the corner of the lane.

  The bottles exploded.

  Five, six.

  Flames roared, cresting the wall. On the other side, men shouted.

  Seven.

  His heart pounding, he lit the eighth. Lights came on in several houses behind him. Their manifold gleam, added to the glare of the flames, made him feel exposed as if in daylight.

  Attracted by the explosions at the rear of the house, the man with the gun came running back around the corner of the wall. Sprinting along the lane, he skittered to a stop when he saw Drew, and raised his gun.

  Drew had no chance to reach for his own. He realized that the only weapon he had available was the bottle, its tampon burning closer to the napalm.

  The man aimed. Drew flung the bottle toward him, diving for the cover of the fir tree. The man, distracted by the flame on the bottle streaking toward him, shot at Drew but missed.

  The bottle struck the gravel in front of the man. Drew had thrown with such force that the glass broke on impact against the stones, and a wall of flames erupted, blocking the lane.

  The man stumbled back, his hands up, protecting his face. But he lost his balance and fell as the blaze streaked toward him. He rolled to avoid the splatter of the fire. Swatting at specks of flaming detergent that clung to his coat, he screamed.

  Drew lunged to his feet. As he raced between the houses, a man in pajamas burst out the side door.

  "What the hell's going on?"

  Drew jolted against the man, toppling him against the house, and continued racing toward the street. Behind him, he heard the increasing roar of the fires in the compound. Screams. Shots, though he didn't know if they were aimed at him. He saw the reflection of the blaze off clouds in the sky.

  His lungs in agony from exertion, he ran across the street, between more houses, across another street. His shirt was drenched with sweat beneath his insulated coat. He vaulted a fence, turned right at the next street, and sprinted along the sidewalk. He ducked left down a lane, glanced behind him, banged his hip against an unseen barrel, but ignored the ache in his muscle, and ran.

  In the distance, sirens shrieked.

  11

  Limping from fatigue, at last he reached the rendezvous point. He'd been forced to approach it in a roundabout fashion, using precious time to hide every time he saw headlights or thought he saw someone searching the street. But finally he was here, a parking lot near MIT. Their fall-back position. After the attack on the house, Arlene and Father Stanislaw were supposed to have hurried to their cars, making sure they weren't followed. Drew, on foot, was supposed to have joined them at this parking lot an hour ago.

  But the only two cars in the shadowy lot were neither an Oldsmobile nor a sports car.

  He paused, exhausted. Had Arlene and Father Stanislaw been caught? Or, like him had they been forced to flee at random till they couldn't get back to their cars or couldn't reach the rendezvous point in time?

  Or perhaps they had reached this parking lot on schedule, waited, and finally decided that prudence required them to leave before the authorities widened their search.

  In that case, he had to cross one of the two near bridges to get to the townhouse in Beacon Hill on the other side of the river. If the townhouse was safe anymore. What if Arlene and Father Stanislaw had been caught? What if... ?

  No, he thought, angry at himself. Neither Arlene nor Father Stanislaw, if they were caught, would talk. Unless chemicals were used.

  Soaked with sweat, he shivered. Headlights caught him in their glare. From the side of a building to his left. He stiffened, debating whether to trust that this was Arlene, or whether to run.

  The headlights came toward him.

  In case this was a cop, he decided that he'd better keep walking - straight ahead, away from the approaching headlights. He tried to look natural, as if one of the two cars in the lot belonged to him.

  The headlights veered to follow. His reflexes quickened. He turned to look.

  And sighed, recognizing Arlene in the sports car.

  She stopped and he got in, his body welcoming the heat, the chance to relax.

  "Some date you are." She put the car in neutral. "I was beginning to think you'd stood me up." But despite the joke, her voice didn't hide her concern, and she leaned over, touching him.

  "Sorry. I had this marathon to run first," he said.

  "Excuses, excuses."

  He couldn't help it; he returned her embrace. "But I'm here now. Are you okay?"

  "It's a good thing I've got long legs. They came in handy running tonight," she said. "But I missed the rendezvous time. In fact, I didn't get here till twenty minutes ago. I thought maybe something ha
d happened to you. Or you'd been here already, got afraid of waiting, and left. I kept expecting a police car to check out the lot."

  "That's what I thought you were." He studied her face. "Thanks. For taking the risk. For waiting for me."

  "Shut up. You want to thank me? Monk or not, hold still for this."

  She kissed him on the lips, a gentle kiss, soft and full of love.

  In this night of surprises, his body responded. At once, self-conscious, he leaned back. "It's been a long time." He shook his head in torment. "Too much has happened. I vowed to be celibate."

  "That means not marry. I'm not proposing. I'll give you all the time you want."

  He stared at her. "I can't promise anything."

  "I know it."

  "Fair enough," he said.

  She put the car in gear, and drove from the lot.

  "Where's Father Stanislaw? Did he go ahead to the townhouse?"

  "He was shot." Her voice became professional.

  "Dear God."

  "He's alive. Bleeding heavily. But it looked to me like the bullet passed through his shoulder. I don't think anything vital was hit. He's one of the reasons I was late. I had to take him for help."

  "A hospital? The police will... "

  "No, he made a phone call to one of his contacts. They gave him the address of a doctor we can trust. And they sent someone to get the Oldsmobile."

  "Father Stanislaw and his contacts." Drew's voice was filled with admiration.

  "Their motivation's powerful."

  "To save their souls."

  She turned a corner. Ahead, Drew saw the bridge that would take them to Beacon Hill.

  "What if the police have a roadblock?"

  "Then we'll just tell them the truth," she said.

  He didn't understand.

  "We were back in that parking lot necking," she said. Her eyes crinkled. "Well, sort of necking, anyhow."

  12

  The woman's voice was the same - prim, precise, professional. "Good morning. Risk Analysis Corporation."

  "Mr. Rutherford, please," Drew said in a Charles-town phone booth down the street from the Bunker Hill Monument.

  "I'm sorry. Mr. Rutherford won't be coming into the office today."

  "I had a hunch he wouldn't be. But I wonder if you can get a message to him."

  "I'm not sure if... "

  "To Uncle Ray? Could you tell him his nephew would like to speak with him?"

  The woman's voice became alert. "He did mention he hoped you'd be calling. He left a phone number where you could reach him."

  "Good. I look forward to talking to him."

  She read the number to him; he wrote it down.

  "If you speak to him in the next few minutes, tell him I'll phone that number as soon as - "

  The receptionist interrupted. "Mr. Rutherford asked me to tell you that his schedule is extremely crowded today. The only time he'll be at that number is four o'clock this afternoon. He said if you called any earlier or later, you wouldn't be able to reach him."

  Drew's head ached as he hung up.

  Arlene stood next to him. In the background, tourists surveyed the Bunker Hill Monument.

  "So?" she asked.

  Drew explained what he'd been told, then showed her the number he'd written down.

  "Four o'clock. Okay, what's the matter? How come you're frowning?"

  "I'm not quite sure yet. Something. I don't know -call it a premonition. I feel like I'm being manipulated."

  "We have to expect he'll want to get back at you."

  "That's the point," Drew said. "Why would he let me have all day to learn the address of this new number?" He studied the tourists on Bunker Hill. "Maybe I'm overly cautious, but we'd better not hang around this phone booth."

  They started down Monument Avenue.

  "If it makes you nervous, don't call him," she said.

  "I have to."

  "Why?"

  "To say I want to meet with him."

  She turned, surprised. "Meet with him? He'll set up a trap."

  "Of course. But I won't show up. I'll make an excuse and arrange another meeting. But I won't arrive for that one, either. In the meantime, we can think of other ways to put pressure on him. I want to keep aggravating him, make him nervous. Or better yet, maybe we could plan a meeting in such a way that we could turn his trap around." Drew couldn't quell his uneasiness. "That new number he gave me. To call at four o'clock. What's he up to?"

  "You're right - he has to assume you'll learn its location."

  Drew stopped abruptly and studied her face. "Is that it? He's trying to trick me into going to that location? He wants me to try to grab him while he's making the call?"

  "And his men would kill you instead."

  He shook his head. "No. He gave us too much time to anticipate the trap. Whatever he's got in mind, it isn't that. His tactic's working, though. He's got us confused. He's put us on the defensive. I told you. He isn't stupid."

  13

  At noon, a van arrived outside the Beacon Hill house. Two men helped Father Stanislaw get out. The priest was pale, his arm in a sling. Supported by his escorts, wincing from the strain, he mounted the steps of the townhouse; but once inside, with the door closed, he crumpled into their arms. Gently, they lowered him onto a sofa.

  A middle-aged woman came in behind him. Handsome rather than pretty, with a conservative haircut and no makeup, she wore a blue London Fog overcoat and a gray wool suit. As the two men left, never saying a word, shutting the door again, she explained that she was there to take care of the priest. His wound wasn't critical, but he'd soon be needing another sedative, she said, and there was always the danger of infection. She carried a medical bag. Drew noticed that she didn't volunteer her name, and neither he nor Arlene asked for it.

  They helped Father Stanislaw up the stairs to a bedroom, made him as comfortable as they could, and let him sleep.

  "His constitution's remarkable," the woman said when they returned to the living room. "Polish, I believe. Hardy Slavic stock. He barely has a fever."

  "We have to wake him up soon."

  The woman spoke sharply. "I'm afraid I can't allow that."

  "We wouldn't do it if we had a choice."

  "I'll be the judge of that." She stood with her back to the stairs, as though to bar Drew from going up again. "What did you wish to speak with him about?"

  He had a sudden intuition. Remembering how Father Stanislaw had addressed the businessman in the church in Pennsylvania, he said, "The Lord be with you."

  "And with your spirit."

  "Deo gratias."

  The woman relaxed. "Then you're one of us."

  "Not exactly. Close enough. For six years, I was a Carthusian."

  "In New Hampshire."

  Drew sensed he was being tested. "No. In Vermont."

  She smiled. "The Carthusians are saints on earth."

  "Not this one, I'm afraid. I'm a sinner."

  "Aren't we all? But God understands human weakness."

  "I hope so. We have to talk to Father Stanislaw so we can get in touch with his contact at the telephone company. We need to find the location of a number we've been given."

  The woman reached out her hand. "Give the number to me."

  "But... "

  "It that's the only information you want, there's no need to wake Father Stanislaw. I'll take care of it myself."

  Drew blinked.

  "Surely you don't think I'd have been allowed to attend him if I weren't responsible," the woman said. "Please, give me that number."

  Drew did.

  She walked to a phone, dialed, and, in a soft voice, gave instructions. She hung up, and they waited.

  At two o'clock, the phone rang. The woman answered, listened, said, "Deo Gratias." And hanging up, she turned to Drew.

  "A pay phone near the Paul Revere statue and Old North Church."

  "A pay phone?"

  "In North End," the woman said.

  "But... "
>
  Arlene leaned forward from a canvas director's chair. "What's wrong?"

  "A pay phone? Near the Paul Revere statue - a tourist area?" Drew's stomach felt packed with ice. "And Uncle Ray gave us the day to find where it was? That doesn't make sense. He wouldn't dare to use that phone. It's too exposed. If we staked out that location, we could tell right away if Ray was setting up a trap. He'll never go there. But he'll spread men through the neighborhood in case we do."