The sophomore album, Sitting at the Crossroads, set her in stone in both the music and Catholic worlds. Never before had popular music seen a performance like it: seven Number One singles in seven attempts with the third, “Searching for a Soul,” establishing the standard for pure chart strength by holding the pinnacle of Billboard’s precipice for a dazzling 23 weeks. Of the seven Grammy nominations, she captured six for Best Song, Best Female Pop Performance, Best Single, Best Pop Video, Best Duet (with Andy Polanski) and Best Album, oddly missing the Best Contemporary Gospel statuette.
And There Appeared to Him an Angel, her current collection, was destined to compound the legend: record stores, her label and the pressing plants unable to keep up with the demand. The initial 10,000,000 unit shipment vanished like the moon in a thunderstorm, the projections predicting that this third outing might have the legs to make an assault on the best selling album in history, Wexford’s The Shortened Life, the masterpiece that had held the crown for 15 years at 78,000,000 units.
But even if Appeared didn’t have great enough legs to conquer The Shortened Life, Angelique had two of her own which she lazily crossed, the pointed white heel of one sandal targeting him like an arrow.
“How did you get in?”
“Opened the front door.”
“That’s kind of rude.”
“Nobody answered the doorbell.”
“I wouldn’t just walk into your house if no one answered.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she smiled.
“I don’t think you should…”
“Be here?” she asked innocently, hands locking around a knee, head snapping once as she regarded him with curiosity.
“Look,” he replied. “My life has gotten real nuts in the past few hours and I don’t need to complicate it more.”
“What’s going on, honey?” she asked, standing then joining him on the love seat, her arm draping adventitiously around his shoulder. “Tell me.”
It might have been a question, it might have been a demand. Whichever it was, he was too weak to fight.
“You wouldn’t believe it in… “
“Try me, honey.” Her head moved to his neck, her lips brushing against it, a light kiss left in the wake. “You can trust me with your secrets. You know that.”
“Peter… I mean the Pope… made me Secretary of Finance.”
She raised her hands to his face, rested them a moment on the burning cheeks, then purposefully turned his to hers.
“Then congratulations are in order,” she purred as her hands crept around to the back of his neck. “Must be nice,” she added as she tilted her head a bit, her lips moving to his, airily kissing again. “It’s nice to know someone who’s got an in with…”
Samson heard her finish the thought though didn’t understand the words, the headiness of the moment ethereal, her fingers kneading the muscles in the upper reaches of his spine, her hip pressing provocatively. Too dangerous, he thought, standing.
“I won’t hurt you, honey,” she teased, relaxing into the cushions. “You know that.”
“I suppose,” he replied, sitting at the piano. “I mean, I know you wouldn’t.” He pecked at a couple of the keys.
“Heart and Soul?” she laughed. “With this one and the baby grand downstairs, you must be a bit more versatile than that.”
“They belonged to my wife.”
“I didn’t know you were married.”
“I was.”
“Nice of her to leave them behind,” she replied. “Or isn’t she done cleaning you out yet.”
“Nope.” Samson looked at her. She smiled. He didn’t. “She died.” He pointed at the stain on the carpet. “Right there.”
She glanced toward it, surprise replaced by shock. She stood and nervously tugged the braid with both hands as a novice bell girl might a rope before calling her first angelus. She resumed her seat, now caressing it. Unhurried strokes. “I’m sorry.”
“So was I. What are you doing here?”
“How did your wife die, honey?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell me,” she said, patting the cushion next to her.
The two had met three months earlier in Los Angeles at a benefit banquet/ fundraiser to launch the St. Scolastica Foundation. SSF was one of the few enterprises the Sancters and Acers could agree upon completely, an ambitious enterprise Annie Knight had nurtured from its inception. Its long-term goal was the funding of parochial high school/trade schools to exclusively serve the needs of handicapped adolescents of any faith. Virtually everyone else in the respective camps wanted to get their hands on a piece of the action, if for no other reason than that it was one setting where they could all get together to trade notes about the upcoming campaigns and perhaps make a few contacts that might be of value when a favor was needed off the record.
Samson enjoyed the work he was asked to do on SSF and was rewarded with a seat on the second tier at the banquet next to his counterpart at ACP, Charlie Brewster. Brewster was an easygoing, unassuming functionary who took the whole operation with a grain of salt, his small eyes glowing behind his massive pop bottle glasses when he often wondered aloud, “Is this any way to run an airline to heaven?”
He and CB had met just before Peter’s election at another bipartisan affair and since Samson’s transfer to Party Headquarters, they’d stayed in regular contact. Brewster always bragged that he was pretty tight with Angelique but Samson wrote it off to imagination. Until that night. The singer was seated on the top dais beside Annie Knight. Seated next to Brewster was Julianne Pratt, which was about as close to Angelique as one could get—the aggressive viper having taken over management after the nightingale left her husband. Brewster and Pratt traded platitudes about her during the span of the five-course meal, both of them giving the songstress a few nods or winks. And the couple times Samson followed their gaze, he thought he’d gotten a smile from her himself. When Pratt introduced the two at a VIP following the banquet, Angelique spent some time with him instead of a number of RCC luminaries also present. At the end of that conversation, he began to appreciate the spell she so effortlessly cast.
The beginning of a tear shimmered in one of her eyes as Samson finished the story of Kim’s death. She raised her arms and wrapped them gently around his shoulders, pulling him close then hugging him hard. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. He was about to return the gesture when a loud pounding downstairs and the rapid chiming of the doorbell interrupted.
“Oh, shit!” He was on his feet. “Does anybody know you’re here?”
“Of course not. Why? Who is it?”
“Look. If you’re found here, I’d be… we’d both have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Okay.”
“So just stay here until I find out what’s… “
“Okay.”
As he reached the door he turned to repeat himself but went speechless, noticing the gun on the carpet. He stepped back, nudged it under the love seat with his foot, and then made his way down to the front door. Opening it, he faced two Vats, one with her sidearm drawn. “Secretary Samson? There’s been a breach. Our records show you are the only resident at this address.”
“That’s correct.”
“Is anyone else staying here?”
“Staying here? No. No one is staying here.”
“I’m going to request you to remain inside, lock the doors and not leave the residence until you hear from GenCom.”
“I have a lot to do today.”
“So do we, Secretary. If you wouldn’t mind. We’ll have the street well-patrolled and it may only be for an hour or so but I must insist you stay inside until all clear.”
“But…”
“This is a Level Five, Secretary. You know the rules.” She looked past him. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Fine. I just have a lot to do.”
“We’ll notify you,” she said, and turned away. “Please lock the doors.”
As he clicked the dead bo
lt he heard the piano again, playing hauntingly, permeating what used to be his personal sanctuary.
Chapter Ten
The first call Samson tried to make from the den was to Carter but as was the case when there was a real or perceived security problem in the Creek, the lines in Residential scrambled, only random calls connecting. He met with equal failure when he tried his offices at Party and Administration. His fourth attempt was going to be to Peter, or Clarence, or even Rosalita at Compound, but Angelique entering the room prompted him to set the phone back in its cradle.
“So what’s up?” she asked as she sat on a low bank of drawers across from him. “Did somebody find out about us?”
“This isn’t a game, Angelique. There’s serious stuff going on.”
“Like what?”
“Like a Level Five.”
“Which is?”
“Essentially, if you’re in the wrong place and can’t explain it, they shoot first and don’t bother asking questions later.”
“I like it when you talk to me that way,” she replied as she flipped her braid behind her back. “Tell me more, honey.”
“And could you cut the honey stuff, too?”
“Sure. Great,” she responded, beginning her exit. “I’ll be going now.”
“Wait!”
She stepped back. “What?”
“Don’t leave.”
“Is that an order?”
“I told them nobody was here. And besides, it might be dangerous.”
“For who?”
“For somebody who can’t explain what they’re doing here.”
“I just came by to chat, Terry. That’s it.” She placed her hands on her hips. “And do you really think they’d shoot Angelique Caulfield.”
“Maybe they’d mistake you for a body double.”
“Touché.”
She headed to the couch and dropped onto the cushions, patting the one next to her as she had upstairs. Samson figured if he had to spend the afternoon under house arrest, he might as well enjoy it. He closed the wide, white wooden blinds, the room darkening but barely concealing the pout on her lips.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” he said.
“I’d say you’re acquainted with my personal life enough to do so.”
“That night. In Los Angeles. Would you have finished if I hadn’t interrupted?”
She thought a moment. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe.”
He switched on the television, tuning in Chicago Cable News Network to learn more about what was going on in the Creek than the Vats were willing to tell. The station was broadcasting live from the formal front gates, a number of microphones held at the smooth, plucky, you’d-better-ask-twice-or-no-dice Secretary of Information.
“Cardinal Mannherz, can you tell us what’s happened?”
“There’s been a helicopter crash within the boundaries.”
“Was it one of yours?”
“No.”
“Whose was it?”
“We haven’t ascertained who the aircraft belongs to, or should I say, did belong to.”
“Did belong? Then it was destroyed?”
“Completely incinerated.”
“Were there any casualties?”
“We believe there are casualties.”
“How many casualties?”
“There were, to the best of our knowledge, three.”
“To the best of your knowledge?”
“To the best of our knowledge.”
“Were there any deaths?”
“At least three.”
“At least three?”
“At least three.”
“Why do you say at least three?”
“Because there were at least three.”
“There may have been more?”
“There may have been more.”
“Were all the known casualties persons in the helicopter?”
“We believe so, yes.”
“No casualties on the ground?”
“Not to the best of our knowledge.”
“But there may have been?”
“We don’t know at this juncture.”
“Do you know the names of the persons killed?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea who they may have been?”
“At this juncture, no.”
“There is an unconfirmed report that there may have been more than three passengers in the helicopter. Can you comment?”
“I have no comment.”
“Do you think this may have been an attack or an invasion or an intrusion of some kind?”
“I have no comment.”
“Where is the Pope?”
“The Pope is safe. There is no threat to the Pope.”
“Is the Pontiff in residence?”
“The Pontiff is safe.”
“Do you believe this crash may have something to do with the death of Cardinal Castro?”
“Can’t comment.”
“Is it true the Council of Twelve has been summoned to Sanctuary Creek to attend a special meeting with the Pontiff?”
“Not that I am aware.”
“Is it true that the Secretary of Finance position has been assigned, against the wishes of the Council, to a non-cleric?”
“Not that I am aware.”
Samson sat up. What’s this bullshit? Mannherz knew he was the new Secretary of Finance.
“Welcome to the wonderful world of misinformation,” Angelique breathed as she placed a cool hand at the nape of his neck.
“Is it true the Secretary of Finance position has been given to a Party operative?”
“Not that I am aware.”
“Is it true that Terry Samson, the Party Finance Director, has been given the position?”
“Yes.”
“Temporarily?”
“You’d have to ask His Holiness about that.”
“Has the FAA been notified of the crash?”
“Yes.”
“Will they be investigating?”
“Investigating?”
“Will the FAA be investigating the crash?”
“In what sense?”
“In the sense that they will be allowed…”
“Sanctuary Creek has the status of a sovereign state. We have our own security force, our own investigative procedures.”
“Then the FAA will not be allowed on the property?”
“At this juncture, I don’t know.”
“Who would make that decision?”
“I’d imagine Cardinal Valenti.”
“Have you spoken to him since the crash?”
“It only happened a short while ago.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“Yes.”
“Will the FAA be allowed in to investigate?”
“That is an option under examination.”
“Has the Governor been notified?”
“Yes. Thank you, folks.”
“One other question, Eminence?”
“One more, Marion.”
“Were there four or five people in the helicopter?”
“No comment.”
The camera turned to a CCNN reporter, one of those who’d been asking the questions. She said that she’d heard an unconfirmed report over her earpiece that one or possibly two persons were seen running from close to the site of the explosion and fire. She said there was a report that the helicopter had in fact landed in one piece inside the Creek and then exploded shortly afterwards. She said that County and Illinois State Police had been barred from entering the property. She said that there were now members of the Swiss Guard and Vatican Guard posted at all entrances to the Creek, dressed in battle gear and armed with assault rifles.
The camera swung around and focused on one, then another, then a third outfitted as described, standing stoically behind the high fence near the main gate. The reporter said she was handing the broadcast back to the anchors. “This is Pam
Neri reporting from Sanctuary Creek. Back to you, Geoff.”
Gradings, the top CCNN anchor, appeared on the screen.
“Thank you, Pam. For those of you just joining our broadcast, an update. An unidentified helicopter has either crashed or landed and exploded within the boundaries of Sanctuary Creek, the American base of the Roman Catholic Church, located in northwest suburban Barrington. Unconfirmed reports list three persons dead, another one or possibly two passengers unaccounted for. State and local authorities have not been allowed to enter the property and the Secretary of Information for the Church, Eugene Cardinal Mannherz, has indicated that it is possible Federal authorities will also be barred from the property until the Church completes its own investigation of this tragedy.
“This would not be the first time that the Church has exercised its power to exclude government officials from the grounds of Sanctuary Creek. Just 18 months ago, three vandals belonging to the so-called Cult of Six, an outlaw organization of disaffected Catholics, broke into Sanctuary Creek to supposedly desecrate the Cathedral located on the property. In the gun battle that ensued, two were wounded and one killed, along with two Vatican Guards who were also injured. All were taken to the hospital on the grounds and State and Federal authorities were not allowed in to conduct any operations until three days after the event, and then with only minimal access.
“Today’s events will no doubt serve to increase the air of tension present at Sanctuary Creek, a tension which sources close to the Administration say have been high for months since the still unsolved murder of comedian/impressionist Arthur Guralski in California. Guralski, as many of you know, made his reputation performing impressions of the leader of the Catholic Church, Peter the Second, and was killed in a manner similar to an attack made on the Pontiff when he was the Archbishop of Chicago. Now we’re going to switch back to Pam Neri at Sanctuary Creek.”
“Geoff, I have with me Rick Calvello, the head of the Swiss Guards, the Pope’s personal security force, and Mr. Calvello, can you give us any new information on the accident?”
“An eyewitness has informed us…”
“Who was the witness?”
“An eyewitness has informed us that the helicopter in question apparently landed, then exploded.”
“How did it explode?”
Sanctuary Creek Page 11
