by Tom Clancy
Hardly anyone noticed when the priest celebrating the Mass slipped into the sacristy. It was several minutes after the communion before any of the parishioners, heads bowed, deep in prayer after receiving the body of Christ, realized he had gone. Even then, it was easy to believe that he might have been called away to tend to someone dying or had gone home not feeling well. A few thought he had looked extremely pale during the communion part of the service. They noted that his forehead was wet with perspiration. The deacon concluded the Mass, telling the faithful: “The Lord be with you. Go in Peace.”
Right after leaving the altar, Steve stripped off his vestments in the sacristy, put his chalice in its case, and rushed outside to his car. He took off, heading north on Route 153 in the direction of Pine River Pond. Through the rear view mirror, he could see brothers Michael and John in what was probably a rental car in hot pursuit. The gloves were off now. They were after him in broad daylight. As he drove towards his house on the pond, he thought he might call the police on his cell phone, but decided against it—who would believe that two Catholic monks were trying to kidnap or murder a Catholic priest?
Steve fairly roared up 153, skidding on some of the turns and bouncing over the railroad tracks. He abruptly turned left at the row of mailboxes lined up on the main road for the residents of Pine River Pond. He swerved down the winding single lane road that led to the pond. It was just lucky that no one was coming in the opposite direction. Trees flew by on both sides. He had two miles to go. Looking through the rear view mirror, he could see the monks were still behind although they had lost ground. They had been sidetracked a few times on the winding unmarked road then had to back up.
Pulling the car into the driveway to his house, Steve jumped out and started running to the beach, his black chalice case under his arm. As he ran, he almost pulled up short asking himself why the panic? Why am I trying so hard to elude two monks I had already beaten that night at the monastery? He quickly recalled however, that at the monastery he had caught them by surprise in the dark. This time he knew it would be different. The monks would be taking no chances. It was foolhardy to think they wouldn’t be equipped with weapons like blackjacks or brass knuckles. And after the incident on the pond the night before, he knew they would stop at nothing to capture him, beat him to a pulp, and if it suited them, even kill him.
Brothers Michael and John smiled at one another in the following car as they approached the driveway to Steve’s house. At last, they had him. He would be trapped. There would be no escape by water because earlier that morning they had slipped onto the property. Finding Steve had already gone to the church, they disabled the throttle on the speedboat. For extra insurance, they had dropped a rock into the canoe, which chopped a splintered hole in the bottom. The rowboat was cut loose and the oars thrown far out where they floated away. The inflatables were punctured.
But as their car screeched to a stop, where was the priest?
“We better search the house,” Brother Michael said. “And be careful because he may have a gun in there. This is hunting country after all.”
The front door was locked, but picking up a stone, Brother Michael smashed one of the small glass panes so he could reach in and unlock it. After searching the entire house and the cellar, they could find no trace of the priest; however, Brother Michael noticed a shotgun on the mantle over the fireplace. In a nearby drawer he found the shells. It was double-barreled, an old model, but he slipped a shell in each chamber and snapped the barrel in place. “Only two shots, but it only takes one to cream this bastard,” he said with a grin. “Then we’ll tie a rock to his body and sink him somewhere along the shore where the water’s deep.”
Moving out to the shoreline, they relished the fact that their prey was in a panic to get away. They decided a slow deliberate stalk was in order. There was no need for hurry now. His car was blocked in. And even if Steve decided to swim, they would simply drive around the pond and wait for him. He couldn’t stay in the water forever. Walking along the small beach with an almost leisurely stroll, the monks moved down to the boathouse to corner this errant priest who had eluded them for so long.
As they approached the boathouse, they were startled by a roar and a rush of wind as the bright red and white seaplane came to life and taxied out of the boathouse. Although the monks had come upon the seaplane earlier, they had no idea Steve was a pilot and even if he were, they assumed it took fifteen minutes or more of ground checks before anyone would risk taking off. Added to that, holing a canoe and cutting loose a rowboat were minor infractions, whereas a disabled seaplane might wind up killing innocent bystanders. But as they saw Steve taxi out, if they had it to do over, they would have sunk the damn thing.
In the months that Steve lived on the pond he had kept the plane ready to go, figuring that if the monks ever got on his track, they might disable the boats but either overlook the plane stored in the boathouse or assume he wasn’t capable of flying it. Happily, the engine caught quickly, the propeller spun up and the plane taxied out. Looking out from the cockpit window, Steve smiled broadly at the monks standing on the shoreline. Brother John, who ran knee-deep into the water, showed his disgust by angrily kicking a spray of water into the air. Giving his pursuers a thumbs up, Steve taxied out of the cove and down almost a mile into the larger part of the pond. Swinging around, he aimed the seaplane straight down the middle of the pond and soared into the air above a speedboat pulling a water skier. The people in the boat waved at him as he flew over. The loons went crazy at the sound of the airplane. Loud wailing echoed across the pond from the birds on the nesting islands.
In a final gesture, Steve circled over his house and dipped his wings as he made a low pass over Brother John who was still standing in the shallow water. Brother Michael was nowhere in sight. Steve had an urge to scare hell out of the monks by zooming in low and scraping their heads with the pontoons but he couldn’t risk it because of the high trees that bordered the cove. Then, suddenly a shot rang out—a heavy boom from a shotgun. He briefly glimpsed Brother Michael step out from behind a tree as he fired. As the monk quickly fired a second shot and began to reload, Steve decided it was time to leave. He gunned the engine and soared up into the sky. After he leveled off, from his cockpit seat he examined what he could of the plane and rechecked the instruments. All of the controls responded correctly. The shots had luckily missed.
Although he was filled with remorse at leaving his parishioners, in the months he had spent at Wakefield, Steve knew the day might come when he would need a getaway plan. His carefully laid plan was to fly to Vermont, abandon the plane, call his brother Jonathon to retrieve it and head west on a commercial flight far away from Archbishop Rhinehart and Brothers Michael and John. As he had told Janet, he liked the idea of going to Alaska—to the Aleutian Islands in particular. The remote outer islands might need a priest. He relished the thought of an island-hopping ministry in a seaplane. He recognized that a common thread ran through all his years of flying. It hadn’t dawned on him right away. It had grown on him through the years. It wasn’t his kind of flying unless it was in a seaplane—skimming over the water; then lifting onto the step and soaring up into the sky over beaches, cliffs, or tree-lined shores like a giant seabird in glorious flight.
*****
As the seaplane flew over his house on the pond, Steve’s neighbor, Lew, who had stayed home from church that morning complaining of a cold, heard the roar and rushed out to see the plane heading west into the blue. Since he thought Father Steve was busy saying Mass in Wakefield, Lew thought the plane had been stolen. He called the local police not so much to report the theft but mainly to complain that seaplanes were illegal on the pond and when the hell were the police going to do something about it. He also complained about someone hunting on Sunday morning. But he knew it wasn’t illegal, just another pain in the neck he had to put up with when he was trying to rest easy. He later regretted his call to the police because if the plane really was stolen, it would b
e good riddance.
*****
Henrietta heard the next day that their new priest had vanished after a ministry of only a few short months. Calling each of her women ‘parishioners’ in turn, she exulted in announcing that hereafter their Masses would not be held in one another’s homes—no, they would say Mass in the newly refurbished St. Mary’s Catholic Church. She asked the women to spread the word and if anyone didn’t like it, he or she could just drive over to Wolfeboro. Henrietta felt she had to remind them that when winter came, it could take two hours to get there on the icy roads and two hours to get home again. And for the faithful, the long trek had to be made not just for Sunday Mass, but also for Mass on Holy Days of Obligation, baptisms, weddings, confession and novenas. Henrietta’s most compelling argument however, came in announcing that a revolution was in the making. After two thousand years of male domination in the Catholic Church, women were beginning to rise from the ranks of silent observers to meaningful positions in the church: altar girls, deaconesses, administrators responsible for finances and managers of parish operations. And now they had the grand opportunity to conduct the holy offices of the priesthood. They were on the path to Rome itself! What Henrietta failed to mention however, was that the same path led to excommunication from the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
*****
Old Mrs. Winters, housebound for a week because of her arthritis, hobbled slowly and painfully into her living room leaning on her cane. Looking down she saw two tiny scraps of paper on the rug—another opportunity to be close to Christ in the next world. As she bent over in almost an agony of knee and back pain, she plucked up the scraps saying, “Jesus, remember I do this for you.” Then, as she fell back heavily into an overstuffed chair and laid her head back on a white doily covering the back of the chair, she exhaled a sigh of relief. She remembered how a few weeks before she had sent the letter to the diocese thanking the bishop for finally sending them a resident priest for St. Mary’s Church. In her letter, she had extolled the virtues of Father Murphy, his caring attitude, his wonderful sermons, the hard work he did to re-establish the parish and refurbish the building. As she dozed off, Mrs. Winters was happy in the knowledge that her letter would certainly move the bishop to keeping St. Mary’s as an active church with Father Murphy as its pastor.
29
His excellency, Archbishop Phillip Rhinehart, successor to the recently deceased Cardinal Wollman, was livid. Never in his forty years in the church had he ever seen such gross incompetence. He found it almost inconceivable that two Passion Brothers, presumably tough, dedicated and experienced in tracking down renegades could have let Reverend Steve Murphy slip through their fingers again.
“Brothers Michael and John are here, Your Excellency. Shall I show them in?”
“Please do, Mrs. McIntyre,” the archbishop said as he flopped into the executive chair formerly occupied by Cardinal Wollman and began fingering and then bending a pencil until it snapped. “And, Mrs. McIntyre, please get me another box of pencils from supply.”
The brothers, dressed in their gray monastic robes lumbered into the office meekly and with a rustle of their voluminous robes slipped into seats facing the archbishop’s desk. They sat upright at attention. They knew they were on the carpet.
“I did not give you permission to sit down. Get up at once.”
With nervous glances at one another, the brothers stood up. Squaring his shoulders, Brother John spoke, “Your Grace, we...”.
“I don’t want an explanation,” the archbishop snapped. “I know precisely what happened. Because of your stupidity first in Tucson and now in New Hampshire, Murphy has escaped once more. His whereabouts are unknown. God knows how long it will take to find him and stop this ministry of Satan. You do understand, I suppose, that we have not been dealing with an authentic Catholic priest.”
“Brother Michael was curious. “Are you saying, Your Excellency, that Murphy is an imposter?”
Leveling a disgusted look at the brother, the archbishop barked, “Yes, only much worse. I will not give you details, but this person is a serious threat to Holy Mother Church.”
“Are you saying he’s a heretic? His ministry is heretical?”
“I told you, Brother Michael, I will not provide details. You have been apprised of all you need to know.”
“Permit me to explain, Your Excellency,” Brother Michael said at the risk of being told to shut up. “He was a celebrant at a Mass we attended in New Hampshire. We received the Holy Eucharist from him. Are you saying the transubstantiation was invalid?”
“Are you saying you were inches away from him and yet you failed to apprehend him?”
“We did have him trapped later at his lakefront house, but he is resourceful. He....
“Brother, as I said before, I want to hear no excuses. I don’t want to know what you have to do to stop him, but he must be stopped. The devil has unleashed on this earth an enemy of the church. He is using Murphy as an accomplice to harm the souls of the faithful. We must not walk away from this. I am releasing both of you temporarily so you can return to your monastery in Arizona. However, I expect you to stand ready when we locate Murphy. You will be given one more chance,” the archbishop said, thinking that if there were any others in the church willing to take on the task, he would have sent the brothers packing. “Bishop Hernandez and your immediate superior, Brother Berard, have been advised of the current state of affairs and have agreed to make both of you available immediately upon my call. Do you understand? If so, you may leave.”
Brothers Michael and John, somewhat relieved about being given another chance, bent forward in deep bows as they slowly backed out of the archbishop’s office. Just before closing the door, they said in unison: “Your Excellency, remember the Crucified Christ.”
Archbishop Rhinehart did not respond. In his anger and disgust he chose not at that moment to remember the Crucified Christ—he much preferred the image in his mind of two Passion brothers hanging upside down on crosses after the manner of St. Peter’s execution by the Romans.
30
The Reeve Aleutian Airways Boeing 737 touched down at the airport serving Unalaska/Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. The flight from Anchorage had hopped down the Aleutian Island chain dropping off and picking up passengers at Kodiak and Unimak Islands as it worked its way west along the Aleutian archipelago that stretched from the Alaskan peninsula over towards Japan and Asia. The landing at Unalaska completed the eight-hundred mile flight for Steve. The flight had been turbulent as Steve knew flights typically were when they alternately flew across land and water. He would soon learn that the area around the outer Aleutians was known as the Cradle of Storms because it was here in these bleak treeless islands that the warmer waters from the south—the Japan current, met the cold waters of the Bering Sea to the north. The mixing of warm air and water from the south with cold in the north produces enormous amounts of rain and fog, making air travel uncertain and necessitating close attention to weather forecasts. Steve, an experienced pilot, sensed that flying in the mountainous and windswept Aleutians would be challenging and dangerous. On the other hand, the soaring snowcapped mountains and deep green valleys on the islands were a spectacular sight that filled him with awe, fully compensating for the piloting difficulties.
On the shuttle in from the Unalaska airport, Steve noted that the tiny settlement of Dutch Harbor was no more than an enclave stretching along the shoreline with a backdrop of high rocky snow-capped mountains, one of which he was told, harbored an active volcano.
By the time he walked into the Dutch Inn, Steve was chilled to the bone. It was late in the year and the damp freezing air contained a few snowflakes— the seeds of an approaching snowstorm. The inn, one of the few public lodgings in the little seaside frontier town was actually a small well-appointed, modern hotel. After checking in, Steve sat at a table in the corner of the near-empty dining room where he had a view across the parking lot of the only supermarket in Dutch Harbor. The waitress t
old him the supermarket, built as part of a mini-mall, was a recent and welcome addition to the town. Before that, the inhabitants had to contend with a few small stores scattered around the island.
At dinner, he was told the current chef specialized exclusively in seafood. He had a choice of king crab, salmon or halibut, delivered fresh from a local fishery on the island. When he inquired about other menu offerings, he was informed politely but firmly that he could have steaks, chops, Chinese or Italian food—but he would have to go over to the Harbor Restaurant if he wanted anything other than the hotel’s catch-of-the-day menu offerings. Glancing out the window at the snow that was beginning to fall in a steady shower, he chose the salmon.
Steve stared out the window at the swirling snow. He watched several bundled people hurrying into the supermarket opposite. He questioned why he had come to the Aleutian Islands when the islands of Hawaii would have been vastly more pleasant. On the other hand, the foggy and sometimes snowy seascape was ideal for contemplation, prayer and hopefully a ministry. And he needed someplace remote, far from Washington and Archbishop Rhinehart and the religious thugs, Brothers Michael and John. He was still perplexed that two Catholic monks living in modern times had actually tried to kidnap or kill him. If the incident had occurred during the Italian Renaissance or the years of the Spanish Inquisition he might have believed it, but hadn’t the church long since abandoned such methods? He doubted the monks had been told the whole story—about his being a clone and worse than that a chimera. Archbishop Rhinehart would have kept that potential scandal a secret limited to a few of the hierarchy of the church. Steve surmised that the brothers, in their zeal to please their superiors, had been blindly following orders and if those orders meant kidnapping or even killing, so be it. The Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Kill, was not an impediment to what needed to be done. The monks knew they could be absolved of a serious sin in the confessional, but their superiors’ displeasure if they failed, would remain with them for the rest of their lives.
