David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  "Egyptian coffee? That stuff's so strong I might as well put a gun to my head and blow my brains out that way." Drew started to laugh but stopped when he heard a chair scrape behind a wooden partition to his left. A man in a white suit appeared from behind the partition and paused at the table. The man was solidly built, olive-complexioned, with a thick dark mustache that emphasized his smile. The smile was one of amusement as much as friendliness. "Ms. Hardesty, I spoke to you earlier on the phone."

  "You're not the priest who came to me in New York," Arlene said. Drew braced himself to stand. "No," the man said agreeably. "You're right,

  I'm not. The priest you spoke to--Father Victor--was called away on an urgent assignment" The man continued to smile. "My name is Father

  Sebastian. I hope the shift in personnel is acceptable. But of course, you'll want credentials." The man held out his left hand, palm down, revealing a ring on his middle finger. The ring had a large perfect ruby that glinted even in shadow. Its band and setting were thick gleaming gold. On the top of the ruby, an insignia showed an intersecting sword and cross. Religion and violence. The symbol of the Fraternity of the

  Stone. Drew shuddered.

  "I see you're familiar with it." Father Sebastian kept smiling.

  "Anybody can wear a ring."

  "Not this ring."

  "Perhaps," Drew said. "May the Lord be with you." Father Sebastian's smile faded. "Ah."

  "That's right." Drew's tone became gruff. "The code. Go on and finish it. The Fraternity's greeting. 'May the Lord be with you.'"

  "And with your spirit"

  "The rest of it?"

  "Deo gratias. Are you satisfied?"

  "Just getting started. Dominus vobis cum

  "Et cum spiritu tuo."

  "Hoc est enim..."

  "Corpus meum."

  "Pater Noster..."

  "Qui est in co eli Arlene interrupted, "What are you two talking about?"

  "We're exchanging the responses of a traditional mass," Drew said. "The

  Fraternity's conservative. In the mid-sixties, it never shifted

  Catholic ritual from Latin into the vernacular. And you"--Drew studied the swarthy, Egyptian-looking man with the ring who'd said his name was

  Father Sebastian-- "are younger than I am. Thirty? Unless you belonged to the Fraternity, you wouldn't have seen a real mass in so long you couldn't remember the Latin responses. Who founded the Fraternity?"

  "Father Jerome."

  "When?"

  "The Third Crusade. Eleven ninety-two."

  "His real name?"

  "Hassan ibn al-Sabbah. Coincidentally the same name as the Arab originator of terrorism a hundred years earlier. Though a monk. Father

  Jerome was recruited as an assassin by the crusaders because he was an

  Arab and hence could mix freely with the enemy. But in contrast with

  Arab tenor. Father Jerome's was holy terror. And since that time, we've"-- Father Sebastian shrugged--"done whatever was necessary to protect the Church. Now are you satisfied?" Drew nodded. The priest sat at the table. "And your credentials?"

  "You had plenty of chance to study me through that partition. You must have a photograph."

  "Plastic surgery can work wonders."

  "Your ring has a poison capsule inside. Your monastery is on the western coast of France, across from England, in the territory contested by

  France and England during the Thud Crusade. Only someone who'd been approached, to be recruited, by the Fraternity would know these things."

  'True. Approached. And now we approach you again." Drew felt suddenly tired. It was all coming back.

  There was no escape. His voice shook. "What do you want? If you knew where I was hiding, why did you force me to spend a year... "In a cave in the desert? You had to do penance for your sins. For your soul. To purify you. We kept you in reserve. You refused to join us, but we found a way to encourage you to help us if we needed it."

  "Help?"

  "Find."

  "What?"

  "A priest." The room exploded.

  1 he concussion struck Drew a millisecond before he heard the actual sound of the blast. The room became bright, then smotheringly dark as he flew back against the wall. The back of his head struck stone. He rebounded toward the table. It collapsed from his weight and the force of the explosion. The impact of his chest against the floor took his breath away. As he squirmed in pain, the room burst into flames. The counter, now obliterated, must have been where the bomb had been hidden.

  The waiter behind it and the two men near it never screamed, presumably torn apart by the detonation. But this understanding came much later. He did hear screaming. Not his own. A woman's. Arlene's.

  And his urgent loving need to save her brought him back to the flames and the devastated room. Smoke made him gag convulsively. Crawling toward Arlene's anguished screams, he felt someone grab him. He struggled and cursed but couldn't stop himself from being lifted and dragged away. Outside in the hot, dusky, narrow street, encircled by a crowd, he couldn't hear Arlene screaming any longer. He made a final frantic effort to free himself from the arms that encircled his chest, to lunge back into the ruined building. Instead he collapsed. Through swirling vision, he peered up, convinced he was hallucinating, for the face above him... belonged to Arlene.

  " 1 was afraid you were dead."

  "The feeling was mutual," Arlene said.

  He squeezed her hand. They sat on metal chairs in a sandy courtyard enclosed by a high stone wall. Beyond the walls, the din of Cairo intruded on the peacefulness of one of the few churches in this Arab city. A Greek Orthodox church, its bulbous spires in contrast with the slender minarets of a mosque. It was early the following morning.

  Shadows filled one side of the courtyard. The heat was not yet oppressive. "When the fire started, I heard you screaming." He continued to squeeze her hand. "I was screaming. Your name."

  "But you sounded so far away."

  "I sounded far away to me as well. But after the blast, I wasn't hearing anything that didn't sound far away. Even my breath seemed to come from outside. All I knew was, I could move better than you could.

  And both of us had to get out of there." He laughed. The laugh made his ribs hurt, but he didn't care. It felt too good to know that Arlene was alive. "How did we escape?"

  "Father Sebastian had a backup team."

  "Professional."

  "They got us away from the restaurant before the police arrived," she said. 'I don't remember a lot after we reached the street, but I do remember both of us being carried through the crowd and lifted into the back of a truck. After that, things got fuzzy. The next thing I recall is waking up in our room in the rectory of this church."

  "Where's Father Sebastian?"

  "Very much alive," a voice said. Drew turned. Father Sebastian, looking more Italian than Egyptian now that he wore a priest's black suit and white collar, stood in the open doorway. He held a handkerchief to his nose.

  When he stepped from the rectory's shadows into the sunlit courtyard, the handkerchief showed spots of blood, a consequence of the explosion.

  Drew assumed. The priest brought over a metal chair and sat down. "I apologize for not joining you earlier, but I was celebrating morning mass."

  "I could have served for you and taken communion," Drew said.

  "You were still asleep when I looked in on you. At the time, your bodily needs seemed more important than your spiritual ones."

  "Right now, my psychological needs are even more important."

  "And those are?"

  "I get miserable as hell when someone tries to blow me up. Under other circumstances, I might believe we simply happened to be where terrorists decided to set off a bomb. In Israel, say. In Paris or Rome. But in

  Cairo? It's not on their itinerary."

  "That isn't true any longer. While you were away in the desert, Cairo too became a target of terrorists."

  "But in an unimportant restaurant,
in an out-of-the-way part of the city? What political purpose would the explosion have served? That bomb wasn't placed at random. We didn't just happen to be there when the blast went off. We were the targets."

  "For the second time in two days," Arlene added. Father Sebastian straightened his chair. "That's right. For the second time,"

  Drew said. "While Arlene and I were crossing the desert..." He told the priest about the two Arab gunmen in the pass. Arlene elaborated.

  "You don't think they were simply marauders?" Father Sebastian glanced toward Arlene. "You mentioned an earlier attack by two would-be rapists. In that same pass. Possibly the second pair... They could have been relatives out to avenge..."

  "The first two were amateurs,"

  Arlene insisted. "But the second pair..."

  "If not for the grace of God and a cobra, we'd have been killed," Drew said. "Those men were fully equipped. They were pros."

  "Someone knew I'd been sent to get Drew. But I told no one," Arlene said. "So the leak could have come only from within your organization,"

  Drew said. Father Sebastian rubbed his forehead. "You don't seem surprised. You mean you'd already suspected--?"

  "That the order had been compromised, that someone in the Fraternity was using his position to gain his own ends?" Father Sebastian nodded. "How long have you--"

  "Merely suspected? Almost a year. Became virtually certain? Two months. Too many of our missions have ended badly. Twice, members of the order have been killed. If not for our backup teams, the bodies of our fallen brethren would have been found by the authorities."

  "And their rings," Drew said. "Yes. And their rings. Other missions were aborted before such disasters could occur. Our enemies had been warned they were in danger and changed their schedules, increased their security. All of us in the Fraternity fear we're in danger of being exposed." Arlene's eyes blazed with resentment

  "So that's why you sent me to bring back Drew. You wanted an outside operative, someone not associated with you but nonetheless controlled by you.". Father

  Sebastian shrugged. "What's the gambler's expression? An ace in the hole. And indeed," he told Drew, "apart from your skills and reputation, you do seem to have a gambler's luck."

  "We all do," Drew said. "For sure, we didn't survive that blast because of skill, but only because the bomb was placed in the only likely hiding spot, away from us, behind the counter in back."

  "Two customers and a waiter died in the explosion," Arlene said. 'If you hadn't sent us there..." Father Sebastian sighed. "Their deaths were regrettable-- but unimportant compared to protecting the

  Fraternity."

  "What's important to me is survival," Drew said, "the chance for Arlene and me to live in peace, some place where you and your colleagues can't get to us."

  "Are you certain there is such a place? Your cave wasn't it."

  "I want the chance to keep looking. I asked you yesterday. What do I have to do to stop being threatened by you? You mentioned a priest. You wanted me to--"

  "Find him. His name is Krunoslav Pavelic. He's not just a priest. He's a cardinal. Extremely influential. A member of the Vatican's Curia.

  Seventy-two years old. On the twenty-third of February, a Sunday evening, after celebrating a private mass in the Papal city, he disappeared. Given his important position within the Curia, we consider his abduction to be a serious assault upon the Church. If Cardinal

  Pavelic wasn't safe, no other member of the Curia is. We believe it's the start of an ultimate attack. But because the Fraternity seems threatened from within, we need your help. An outsider, an independent but motivated operative."

  "What if he can't be found? What if he's dead?" Drew asked. "Then punish those who took him." Drew flinched inwardly. He'd vowed to himself--and to God--that he'd never kill again. He concealed his abhorrence. Though determined to keep his vow, he negotiated. "What do I get in exchange?"

  "You and Ms. Hardesty are relieved of your obligation to us, your need to atone for your part in the death of one of our members. I consider this condition to be generous."

  "That's not the word I'd have used." Drew glanced toward Arlene, who nodded. With a silent crucial qualification, he continued. "But you've got a deal."

  Father Sebastian leaned back. "Good."

  "There's just one thing. Break your word, and you'd better keep praying an Act of Contrition. Because, believe me, Father, when you least expect it, I'll come for you."

  "If I broke my word, you'd have every right But as far as an Act of

  Contrition is concerned, my soul is always prepared."

  "Then we understand each other." Drew stood. "Arlene and I could use some breakfast. A fresh change of clothes. Travel money."

  "You'll both be given an adequate amount to start with. In addition, a numbered bank account will be opened for you in Zurich, along with a safe-deposit box. The Fraternity will have a key for it. We'll use the box as a way to send messages between us."

  "What about travel documents? Since the enemy knows we're involved, it isn't smart for us to use our own."

  "To leave Egypt, you'll be given Vatican passports, under different names, for a nun and a priest."

  "We'll attract attention in an airport filled with Arabs."

  "Not if you leave with other nuns and priests who've been in Egypt on tour. You'll fly to Rome, where a priest and a nun will attract no attention at all. If you choose to switch to lay identities, other passports, American, several, under various names, will be placed in the

  Zurich safe-deposit box."

  "Weapons?"

  "Before you leave Egypt, you'll give me the ones you have. When you reach Rome, others will be supplied to you. Weapons will also be left in the Zurich safe-deposit box."

  "Fair enough. As an added precaution..." Father Sebastian waited. "I don't want to test my luck a third time. Our weapons, our passports--make sure they're supplied by an outside contractor, not someone in your network. Open our Zurich bank account yourself."

  "Agreed. The leak in my network makes me as nervous as it does you."

  "One thing you haven't told us." Father Sebastian anticipated. "Where do you start to look? The same place your predecessor narrowed his search and failed."

  "Predecessor?"

  "The priest who contacted Ms. Hardesty in New York and sent her to find you. Father Victor. I said he'd been called away on an urgent assignment. He was. To his Maker. He was killed in Rome, two days ago.

  Take up the hunt where he left off. He must have been very close."

  In the room where they'd slept in the rectory. Drew and Arlene put on the religious costumes the priest had supplied. Except for Drew's black bib and white collar, he looked as natural as if he'd put on a dark business suit. But he'd been concerned that Arlene, with her athletic grace, would seem awkward in a nun's robe. Quite the contrary. The black garment flowed in rhythm with her figure. The white cowl that hid her auburn hair and framed her green eyes turned worldly beauty into innocent loveliness. "Astonishing," Drew said. "You look like you've found your vocation."

  "And you could be a confessor."

  "Well, let's just hope no one asks us for religious counseling."

  "The best advice is 'go in peace and sin no more.'"

  "But what about us?" Drew asked. "What we're about to do--for the second time I'd hoped I wouldn't have to face the decision--will we sin no more?" She kissed him. "Just one more assignment," she said. "We'll watch over each other and do our best"

  "And if our best is good enough..." he said. "We'll be free." They held each other.

  BOOK THREE

  PINCER MOVEMENT

  death's head

  Halloway stood on the granite steps before his mansion, watching Icicle and Seth get into the Cadillac. The three of them had spent the night and morning making plans. Now at last, in mid-afternoon, the plans were ready to be activated. Seth would drive Icicle to the rented car he'd hidden down the road the night before. Icicle would follow Seth
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