The Painted Messiah

by Craig Smith

  Tonight they wanted one painting — if it even existed. He moved to the second wall, which included biographies and secondary matter related to magic.

  Hiding in plain view? He scanned the shelves, looking for anything that might conceal a small panel painting.

  'Anything?' Kate asked.

  'Not yet.'

  'There's nothing in here!'

  'Check the masonry. We're close, I can feel it.'

  'What I can feel is we're running out of time.'

  'We're okay.' He broke the lock on the desk with his crowbar and felt a twinge of guilt at the destruction of such a beautiful piece. Inside the only drawer he found a Mont Blanc and pale cream-coloured stationery embossed with Corbeau's coat of arms featuring a raven in flight. Beneath it were the words Gare le Corbeau! He looked at the two pictures on the wall separating the library from the tower. One of them was a faded print of a young girl, maybe nine or ten years old, sitting naked in an antique graveyard on what appeared to be her shroud. Her eyes were opened wide in apparent surprise at finding herself alive again. It was framed in a delicate grey. The framer had accented the grey with a thin, faded vermilion line. Penciled in a tiny script was the phrase, Nothing but the beautiful is true, followed by initials and a date: O. W., March 29, 1899.

  'We have the right man,' he said, and felt his pulse kick up. O. W. Oscar Wilde. He had been here a century ago. To see it again? Summoned? Gentleman that he was, Oscar had brought a gift - something to commemorate their first meeting? What Ethan wouldn't give to know that story!

  'We're running out of time, Boy.'

  Ethan turned from the print to the painting, a small dark landscape of Golgotha after the execution. He walked toward it. It was a primitive black on grey study of the crucifixion scene after the bodies had been taken down and the crowd had gone home. Ethan reached out carefully to touch the thing. The frame stayed tight against the wall. Checking more closely he saw a tiny hinge behind the frame. When he pulled on it harder, the edge of the painting came off the wall like a small door opening. Inside he found a recessed, metal lever. Ethan pulled it, but nothing happened. Next, he tried turning it. The mechanism worked, but again nothing happened.

  A booby-trap?

  He looked at the raven heads on the pocket doors. No. The door handles provided the only trap Corbeau needed. This was the way in. The Knights Templar had used three empty crosses to indicate the treasure, or possibly the key to the treasure or even the place of concealment, depending on the context. It was not a symbolism widely recognized beyond Templar enthusiasts. The raven, on the other hand, was the essential ornament on Corbeau's coat of arms, underscored by the words Gare le Corbeau! Beware the Raven!

  He tried pulling the lever in its new position and discovered to his surprise the pocket doors began to slide back. Kate stood in the darkened room, her night vision goggles in place over her hood. She pulled these up and let them rest on her forehead as she stepped into the library. Ethan showed her the handle, the painting, and the print of the young girl. 'Look at the initials.'

  'Oscar Wilde,' she said. 'Maybe he took it.'

  'It's here, Girl. It's the Corbeau family heirloom.'

  Ethan stepped into the gloomy tower. There were no light fixtures, no electrical outlets, only candelabras with half-burned candles set about the room. The room itself was a perfect circle. On the floor in a mosaic, Ethan recognized the Grand Seal of Solomon. The letters of the magical words were all written in a Greek script. Kate's climbing rope lay coiled upon it. It stretched up through the broken ceiling some twelve feet overhead.

  Before the explosion there had been a ceiling painting. Most of it was gone, but Ethan could make out that it was the traditional occultist's Tree of Life with the ten emanations of God, each named in Greek letters. 'There's nothing here,' Kate whispered. For the first time she sounded anxious. Her burglar's heart had an internal clock.

  Ethan studied the empty room. He saw the Masonic eye of God. Before it were two small marble pillars. A plain stone altar had been placed neatly between them. He walked around the room examining the stone benches built into the wall. 'Where would they keep the paraphernalia?' He studied the Seal of Solomon.

  'We have to go.'

  'It's here.'

  'Doesn't matter. We're out of time.'

  Ethan walked across the floor scrutinizing the intricate patterns and letters. He was looking for a telltale crack in the stone. He pulled his flashlight and began walking the circle of the seal. The stone had been laid over a century ago. There were tiny fissures and a bit of yellowing, but that was all. Kate spoke again, 'Time!'

  Ethan looked toward the altar again. He focused on the eye. Was the eye staring at it? He spun around and looked at the wall, then walked toward it, shining his flashlight. Nothing. He went back to the library and touched the painting of the empty crosses. Which was it: the treasure, the key to the treasure, or the place of concealment?

  Kate took his arm. 'Now,' she said.

  Ethan pulled his knife and began cutting along the edge of the canvas. 'One minute. Then we go.'

  She checked her watch. Nothing appeared behind the canvas. So the painting was the key. He tried to turn the handle but it did not move. He pushed it back into the wall, and the pocket doors began sliding together. He watched until the doors came together, then turned the handle as he had before. Pulling it out again, he watched the doors begin to open.

  While they were still moving, he tried turning the handle. This time he got something. The lever snapped easily to a new position. The doors continued to open, but the wainscoting along the lower part of the wall slipped down behind the baseboard revealing three shelves. On the top, he saw a skull and crossbones sitting on a piece of white linen. The linen was wrapped around a small flat rectangular object.

  'This is it,' he said.

  Slipping the packet out from under the bones, Ethan hurriedly unfolded the cloth and came face-to-face with a portrait of Christ that was painted, if the legends could be trusted, inside Herod's palace in Jerusalem at the order of the prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate. According to the oldest reference to the relic, anyone who looked upon it would live forever and never grow old. The Templars had thought it inspired visions.

  'Let's go, Boy,'

  Ethan slipped the panel into a waterproof pouch and tucked it into the metal frame between Kate's back and backpack. 'Having any visions yet?' he asked.

  'I'm seeing trouble.'

  'Then we better go.'

  A man appeared at the door to the library as Ethan said this. He was wearing a tuxedo and carrying a semiautomatic pistol in his right hand with the casualness of someone holding a drink. He was tall and trim, somewhere in his mid-thirties. He did not seem especially surprised to find two intruders wearing black silk hoods inside Julian Corbeau's library. In fact, he seemed to expect it. Kate reached for her pistol as Ethan drew his own gun, but they were both responding. The man was ready and appeared remarkably relaxed as he pointed his pistol at Kate and shot her.

  Kate kicked back under the impact of the bullet as Ethan's Colt cleared its holster. The man turned his weapon calmly toward Ethan and fired again. This time he missed. Kate's weapon fired from the floor simultaneously, and the man in the tuxedo fell back against the door. A split-second later Ethan's Colt fired, striking the man's neck as he went down.

  Ethan stooped down to check on Kate, whose smoking gun was still pointing toward the door. He found the bullet hole over her heart. 'I'm okay ... I think,' she groaned.

  Ethan probed the opening and discovered a hot flattened piece of lead. 'Got to love the Cobra,' he whispered.

  Kate came slowly up to her feet. Together they looked at the dead man sprawled against the door. 'Where did he come from?'

  'I don't know, but if he has friends—'

  They heard voices calling in German from the stairway. Two? Three? Ethan could not tell, and did not look forward to finding out.

  '—we're in trouble,' she whisper
ed.

  'You get out with the painting.' He pointed toward the rope. 'I'll keep them busy.'

  Ethan walked to the doorway of the library stripping his silencer off his Navy Colt. He grabbed the dead man's weapon in his left hand. A voice called up the stairs in German. 'Did you get them?'

  Ethan looked back and saw Kate staring at him. 'Go!' he hissed. 'I'll meet you downstairs.'

  It was a lie, probably the last thing he would ever say to her. It didn't matter though. The problem now was getting Kate out alive. All he had to do was live long enough to give her a chance. She could take care of the rest. He went down the tiny corridor fearlessly. He could not remember ever having such certainty or courage. Kate's life depended on him now and what he could do in the next few seconds. That was all that mattered. Two men in tuxedos on the stairway fired their guns simultaneously as Ethan rolled forward across the hall. He came up on one knee with both guns leveled on them and fired the weapons successively. One man went down under the barrage. The second pulled back. Another voice called from below. He heard footsteps ascending the stairs and came back to his feet - his retreat cut off. That was when Kate came out and began firing her Navy Colt without the silencer. One of the men screamed. The others fell back. Ethan fired two shots as he crossed the open area and came back into the tight corridor.

  'Go,' he told her. 'I'll hold them until you're out!'

  He turned out and fired three more shots to keep the men back while Kate ran to the tower. Pulling his grenade, he slipped the pin and dropped it in the tight confines of the narrow corridor. Kate was nearly out of the tower when Ethan took the rope and began climbing it with a rapid hand-over-hand. He heard the voices of two men as they came up the stairs. The grenade exploded before they got to it, but it slowed them down enough for Ethan to get to the roof. He pulled himself out with the help of his climbing pick.

  Kate, covering him, dropped her own grenade into the tower and pulled the rope out. She reset the grappling hook and began down the side of the tower. Ethan watched the yard as she did, but no one came outside. He heard the grenade inside the tower explode just as he dropped off the roof and began rappelling down the tower. On the ground Ethan scrambled toward the wall. The lights in the house went off and a volley of automatic weapon fire poured from three points along the ground floor.

  'AK-47s,' Kate whispered in the aftermath of the sustained burst.

  As the next volley began, a man sprinted out of the house and moved quickly into the shadows of the wall opposite them.

  'One in the yard,' Ethan said, moving carefully back until he found a tree and a rock that would give him something more than just concealment. 'I'm going to draw his fire!'

  He fired blindly at the house once. As he did, the gunman in the yard responded with a long volley. Mulch and dirt blew into his face. Splinters of stone stung his neck and hands. As soon as the gunman open fired, Kate responded with three quick shots at his position. A scream of pain ended it, and then Kate was running for the cliff.

  Ethan began squeezing off rounds toward the muzzle blasts inside the house. He continued firing until he was standing and moving across the brightly lit field. He fired until his ammunition was gone, then dropped both weapons and sprinted for the cliff. Kate went over, her modified parachute blowing out behind her.

  Ethan got nearly two seconds of silence for his efforts, but then the automatic weapons began again. His legs felt heavy and uncooperative. The ground ripped crazily before him. He heard small cracking sounds as the bullets passed by his head. Logically, he knew he could cross the twenty-five yards in a matter of three or four seconds. Without cover, with automatic fire from two weapons bearing down, the final two seconds seemed like ten.

  He fell once, rolling back to his feet, then, his legs betraying him, he staggered toward the edge of the cliff. He touched the ripcord a step before he went over - exactly as he and Kate had practised it. He felt the heat of one bullet pass him as he pulled the cord, and he knew with a sudden exhilaration he had made it.

  That was when his back lit up in pain. Instead of jumping as Kate had done, Ethan grunted at the impact and stumbled over the retaining wall. He heard the parachute open with a snap, and felt the drag of it pull him upright. It let him drift out toward the water without his assistance. His night vision goggles still resting on his head, he saw nothing before he plunged into the lake.

  He waited for his body's buoyancy to take him to the surface, then fought free of the ropes and canopy. He tasted the lake water and nearly went under again before he wrestled free. He searched for the gunmen at the top of the cliff. All he saw was a mass of rock and the night sky. They would be heading for the boats.

  A flash of light across the water caught his attention, and he whispered, 'Do you see me?'

  There was no answer. He had lost his headset and goggles when he hit the water. He whistled, failing miserably, then found his flashlight and signaled once, hesitated, then twice more. Kate flashed her light once, and Ethan heard the outboard motor purr. He looked up toward the top of the cliff again. Still empty. Kate brought the raft to him and leaned over with her hand held out. He took her wrist and the grab line. Rearing up out of the water he fell across the raft.

  Corbeau could hear them pulling away with a small outboard motor as he climbed aboard his cruiser. He signaled Bremmer toward one of the Jet skis and pressed the keypad by the pilot's wheel to open the gates of the dock. The cruiser's triple engines roared to life, but the gates did not move.

  'Open the gates!' he shouted.

  Bremmer pulled forward and tried the key pad. 'Jammed!' he called.

  Corbeau swore angrily and killed the motor. 'Call the police!'

  While Bremmer spoke on the phone, Corbeau cursed his folly and paced the deck. For days he had been waiting for another attempted kidnap, never imagining the real danger.

  And now it was too late.

  CHAPTER TWO

  New York City

  October 3, 2006.

  Because she had never gotten the field out of her blood, Jane Harrison came in from the west side of the park and took a piece of high ground for no better reason than to observe Thomas Malloy reading his newspaper. Malloy did his best not to notice. Jane had been his boss too many years for him not to play to her vanities.

  He was seated under a canopy of golden leaves by one of the roads running through Central Park just off Fifth Avenue. Malloy had boulders at his back, a stream and woods covering his left flank. The weather was cool and cloudy and it was early, so there were not too many people in the park yet. At precisely the moment he had indicated they should meet, Jane walked down the hill, crossed a piece of pavement and sat beside him. Looking like an Upper West Side matron she arranged herself comfortably and began to work on a fairly impressive piece of needlework. It was a skill Malloy had not known she possessed. 'You've become a trusting soul since retirement, T. K.'

  Jane Harrison was sixty-two years old, as trim and plain as the day Malloy had met her. She had not changed her hair in twenty-five years. Even the colour, a dull salt-and-pepper, remained a constant. Jane had been at Langley so long everyone imagined it was where she had started, but Malloy's father had told him years ago that Jane began her professional life playing the part of a disaffected expatriate wandering through Europe.

  Following a series of raids and bloody assassinations of the Italian Communists, who were 'knee-capping' American tourists among their other victims, Jane transferred quietly into Langley, trading in her beads, long hair, and free love credo for the bureaucrat's uniform. She worked for a while as an analyst, then crossed the hall and rejoined operations at a supervisory level. Malloy had never confirmed the story, but legend had it that Ted Kennedy in his younger days had struck out with her at a party. Complaining bitterly about it, he had called her the Iron Maiden. True or not, the moniker attached itself, and that was still how most people referred to her. At least behind her back.

  Malloy had met Jane shortly after Reaga
n began his second term. A young operative, Malloy's first tour of duty overseas had ended disastrously. He was expecting a life sentence inside Langley, probably as the Iron Maiden's Boy Friday. To his astonishment, Jane offered him a chance to redeem himself with the most coveted overseas assignments in the agency, a three-year tour of duty in Switzerland as a NOC, a NOC being any officer operating with No Official Cover. Years later Malloy realised what kind of courage it took for her to do that, but even as a young man he had been impressed by her confidence in him.

  'I'm meeting the deputy director of operations for a notoriously paranoid government agency in Central Park, Jane. That means we've got guardian angels all around us. Why shouldn't I take advantage of the extra security and enjoy my newspaper?'

  'Assume nothing, my friend. Didn't I teach you that?'

  Malloy folded his paper and began scanning the classifieds. Jane's message to him was running again. So was his response.

  The last time Malloy had seen Jane Harrison had been at his retirement party. Jane had told him when the time was right she would be able to offer him all the contract work he could handle, but for a while he was on his own. It was not the kind of promise supervisors offered at the typical thirty and thirty-five-year retirement parties. Malloy wasn't an old warhorse turned out to pasture and given promises so he could keep his dignity.

  He had been an accomplished operative sidelined by the new director of operations. Rather than get old behind a desk he had taken his twenty-year-pension and walked. Jane made the promise. Like a good operative Malloy settled down with his cover and waited. He read the classifieds every morning, the Times when he was stateside, the Herald Tribune when he was abroad. Two days ago, Jane had finally run the lonely hearts advertisement they had agreed on. Malloy's answer ran the following morning setting up the rendezvous.