She was a friend of his aunt’s and he hated her.
“Come in and help me find the source of this smell, then, Miss Rosa,” he said, and even though she hesitated, the curiosity—and the possibility of catching him in some renter’s infraction—proved too tempting, and she had picked up her rickety walker and stamped her way through his doorway as he stood aside.
The hammer blow to the back of her skull reminded him of that made by a ripe melon hitting the side of the road. He only needed the one, but allowed himself a half dozen more. The voices cheered. The whispering afterward commended him on a job well done, and reminded him that the greatest and most important job still needed doing.
“Sono pronto,” he said. I am ready.
“Non ancora, ma presto,” responded the most prevalent voice, one that sounded like the hiss of a serpent but lingered in his hearing like a lover’s purr. Not yet, but soon.
It had only been a week since Miss Rosa had joined his three crazy ladies, and now the stench was beginning to seep from the sealed windows. He hoped it would be soon, not because he wanted to be rid of the stench, but because he wanted the same fragrant scent everywhere.
At work, he watched the lights on the board and bided his time, saluting his men as he had always done, but no longer hearing what they said. He’d become an expert pretender, but what he did mostly these days was listen to the voices explaining what he would need to do and when.
Where he would have to go, following the interminable tunnels until he reached the place which had been described to him.
And there he would dig.
Soon after, he would do more than stare at the board. He would use his access cards and he would lead the visitors to the place where He waited.
Impatiently.
So impatiently.
Patience had lasted long centuries.
Capitano Emanuele Spada waited, almost as impatient as his new master.
He whistled a tune that sounded very much like the sing-song voices in his head, and he smiled.
Not long now.
Chapter 76
Edificio Nuovo, Comitato per Interventi
Vatican City, Rome
Father Martin sleeve-wiped the sweat from his forehead. There was a cold tickle down his back.
They watched helplessly through the drone’s high-def cameras as Caterina’s car was about to be squashed on the FDR—between a line of vehicles stopped by an accident and the pursuing SUV.
“Keep up, keep up!” Martin shouted. “Lower, lower!”
They had a panoramic view of FDR Drive, which zips south to north along the eastern edge of Manhattan, clogged now by the cluster of emergency vehicles. The flashing lights were distracting, but young Ferro had another problem—the director’s orders meant his drone was plummeting at an alarming rate.
Out of room in all northbound lanes and still moving too fast, Caterina’s little car would crash in a moment. The pursuing SUV gathered speed, clearly intending to trap or kill the car’s occupants by T-boning the Mustang.
A few seconds left…
“Damn it, Ferro, do something!” Martin shouted.
“What? I’m a surveillance drone!”
“Not any more,” muttered the VSS director. “Crash it!”
“What?”
“Crash the drone! Right now, into the SUV!”
“But there will be an explosion—”
“Exactly!. Do it! My authority.” He glued his face to the nearest screen. “Now, Ferro!”
Cat’s Mustang went into a skid, fishtailing toward the column of stalled vehicles.
The pursuers’ SUV was meters away, about to strike Caterina’s car...
Ferro made a strangled squawk, half-turning, half-standing in his control chair and twisting his body over the joystick.
The camera view shuddered, there was a bright, blinding flash, and the screen went to loud snow.
The other screens went black.
Moments later, Martin was wiping a river of sweat, uttering a short prayer over and over.
Waiting for a text from Caterina.
Chapter 77
Court Square Diner
Long Island City, New York
“You ever hang out anywhere but diners?” Simon slid into the corner booth, where Vandenberg was sitting in front of a glass block window.
He had left Walton outside in his Lexus, parked under the subway’s elevated section which cast shadows over the long, narrow building. Walton’s role would have been too complicated to explain, especially since the crimes Vandenberg was interested in did not involve the Florida statue, only the one found in Queens.
Vandenberg chuckled without real humor. “In my line of work, I mark the time of shift with the place I grab a coffee or a meal. Breakfast is great here any time of day.”
“I’m sure it is, but I don’t have the time. Something else is going down that requires my attention, Jerry.”
Vandenberg perked up. “I’ve heard some strange calls coming in. A restaurant shoot-out just over the bridge.” He glanced at his battered Timex. “Didn’t take you very long to get here, actually.”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“I bet. Also in the neighborhood of that explosion on the FDR?”
Simon frowned. He didn’t know much about that one yet. Was it Cat’s rental car? He couldn’t ask the cop without stoking his suspicions, and the last thing he needed was Vandenberg deciding to bring him in as a material witness. Though doubtless he had cause to do so. Only the cop’s instinct that Simon was on the right side kept him from doing just that, or at least Simon hoped.
“I had nothing to do with that,” Simon said truthfully.
But the guilt he felt at putting Cat in danger was already digging at him. Only hearing she was safe would help him now.
Get in touch, Cat. Let me know where you are.
Vandenberg grunted. “Yeah, well, I’m sure your name would pop up somewhere in the official account, if we ever had one of those filed.”
Simon changed the subject, prodding. “You did call me.”
As usual, a tired-looking waitress chose that moment to approach with a warming coffee pour for Vandenberg and a raised eyebrow for Simon.
“I’ll have the coffee. Smells…wonderful.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was insulting the coffee or not, but he liked the ambiguity. She flipped and filled his stained cup and stalked away, full of stiff uncertainty.
“Thanks,” he muttered. “Actually it’s not bad,” he said after a mouthful.
“The facial recognition hit might be of interest to you, Mr. Exorcist. The guy who talked to our bomber wasn’t in our offender database, but we can also run a search of saved data from the CCTV cameras all over the city.”
“And?”
“And I did that—even though it led to some questions being asked—and we got our hit. Our guy shows up on a routine random shot of a side entrance of the Kessler Building, the recent one they call the Pinnacle.”
“So, maybe he just works there? He could be anything—a janitor.”
“It’s a private entrance with tight security. I doubt this guy would be coming through that doorway if he’s a broom-pusher.”
“So how do you analyze it?”
“This head Pinnacle guy, Cornelious Kessler, sounds like he could be a textbook nutcase megalomaniac. The way he spells his first name makes him look like something of a dick, too.”
Simon said, “Isn’t he a software guy? Like Gates and Jobs, but more mysterious?”
“Yeah, and richer than both. His company’s about to become the biggest in the world. The highest value, or whatever. Saw it on HuffPost last week.”
“So what does this mean?” Simon had a pretty good idea.
“You said once you were looking for somebody with means. Lots of means. This guy’s loaded with means.”
Simon chuckled. This cop was amusing. “Yes, he might fit the profile of someone who would get interested in t
his kind of shenanigans.”
“But I still don’t get the Vatican angle, Padre.”
“I told you, there are people who believe they can gain power through ritual. Doesn’t matter whether it’s true, but they believe it. They’ve convinced themselves. And if they’d do anything to get their way…”
“If they can afford to do anything…” Vandenberg waved his hand dismissively. “I get it, but not the Vatican connection. You keep dancing around it.”
“It’s the statues, Jerry. They are deeply embarrassing to the Church, and my bosses are tasked with getting them back.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what. You know the Vatican employs all kinds of people. The Swiss Guard don’t just juggle flags in their Renaissance costumes. They’re well-trained soldiers and commandos. Don’t you read Dan Brown? So why can’t you accept that someone like me would work for the Pope?”
“Someone like what, exactly?”
Vandenberg seemed to want Simon to admit who and what he was. Simon smirked. “You know who I am, Jerry. I’m the guy who’s getting back those statues.”
He pushed a little, tentatively, to see if Vandenberg would back off when prodded with some subtlety.
The cop blinked a few times, his eyes defocusing even while staring at Simon. His mouth snapped closed as if by remote control.
Bingo.
Looked like he’d finally reached the cop with a push. It seemed to have stopped him from asking more questions. They paused to sip cooling coffees.
“So what will you do with this information?” Vandenberg said finally. “The Kessler connection.”
“What will you do with it?”
“I tried to get a call through to this Kessler, but I was told he wouldn’t see me. Which confirms my analysis of his dick-hood. Then I tried getting a warrant, and three judges in a row turned me down flat. Almost as if they’re scared shitless to sign one. Frankly there aren’t too many other choices. Kessler’s a bit of a hermit. He lives in his own building—fuck-all floors and penthouse above them all. He never has to leave, if he doesn’t want to. Helipad on the roof, if he wants to leave without seeing mere mortals.”
“So what do you expect me to do?” Simon asked. He knew he could perhaps infiltrate the building, push his way in, and shoot Kessler in the head while he sat at whatever expanse of exotic wood and glass served as his desk.
Or could he?
He was willing to bet it wouldn’t be that easy.
And he wasn’t sure the events already set in motion still needed the head—Kessler, perhaps—to seek their own conclusion. The demon Astaroth had a reputation for taking over the minds of his followers. Humans always thought they could use demons…never realizing until it was much too late they themselves were being used.
Only if he recovered all the statues would there be some sort of guarantee, and frankly he wasn’t sure whoever it was would give them up all that easily.
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” he repeated.
Vandenberg looked around to make sure no one was watching. Satisfied, he slid a badly folded newspaper across the table. It was a cluttered social column from one of the city’s less serious papers.
“Kessler’s throwing a big fancy charity soiree,” said Vandenberg. “It’s an annual feel-good gig for his billionaire friends. No way in hell I can get in there, but maybe someone like you…”
“What does that mean, Jerry? Someone like me?”
“You know, connected.”
“Right. I’ll think about it.”
“Check,” he called out to the waitress, pointing at Simon. “I’m still trying the warrant route. I got more judges to roust. But not much hope left.”
“Good luck,” said Simon. “Watch your back. Rich assholes don’t play nice. Especially if they want to rule the world with a demon on their shoulder.”
Vandenberg chuckled, but a flicker of doubt briefly crossed his features.
Simon’s phone buzzed. Text from Cat?
He threw a twenty on the table and walked out before Vandenberg could protest. He stood on the sidewalk less than a minute looking at his phone before Walton roared up to the curb.
“They made it,” he said, getting in, and Walton stepped on the gas.
Chapter 78
On the FDR
Manhattan, New York
Caterina resisted a shudder as she surveyed the mangled ruins of the SUV that only moments before had almost squashed her, Straker, and Bella into hamburger.
Regardless of whether or not the three smoking skeletons now fused to the interior of the vehicle would have survived that crash, it was not likely she and her passengers would have.
After being treated by EMTs from one of the phalanx of ambulances drawn up on the closed thoroughfare, they were given clearance. Straker had managed to disappear his pistol—no one in the massive police and emergency response had yet made a connection to the shooting at Docks.
Cat figured the NYPD’s counter-terrorism unit was swarming the restaurant, but she’d dared a text to Simon’s phone. Anxious, she stared at the screen. There was no response.
“You think they didn’t make it out of there?” Bella’s voice was hoarse.
Cat shrugged. “If anyone can survive a scene like that it’s Simon Pound.”
Of course, she expected he would have made it, but what about the VSS double, Walton? And what of innocents? This had all the earmarks of an international incident.
She watched the first of the crime scene investigators poking around the SUV. She knew what they were already guessing as they erected aluminum-frame barriers around the smoking hulk. The smell of roast flesh permeated the air, but it didn’t seem to bother Straker in the least. Like all of them, he wore bandages over cuts made by the car’s shattered windshield.
Cat had heard the sound just before the explosion. She deduced Martin had decided to use the surveillance drone as a missile, knowing the explosion would take out both the SUV’s occupants and most of the evidence. The CSU people would easily determine the explosion had been caused by a drone, but they’d have a hard time figuring out whose.
And so far no one knew Cat and her passengers were anything but innocent folks whose lives had been spared by the freak accident of the crashing aerial vehicle.
Bad luck for that SUV, though.
She looked up at the sky, past the reflections of the flashing light strips on the police cars and ambulances.
Thanks, Martin.
Her phone buzzed and she smiled after glancing at it.
Chapter 79
The catacombs beneath the Edificio Nuovo, Comitato per Interventi
Vatican City, Rome
Most often the voices made a confused muttering in his head, a cacophony of words spoken over each other so none could be truly understood. Sometimes the silences aligned just so and then he understood enough quite well, even if only briefly.
But today, halfway through Spada’s shift at the gateway, all the voices suddenly ceased speaking.
There was silence in his head for the first time in…years, and it was so unexpected that he almost jumped out of his chair. He half-crouched over his desk and stared around to see if anyone had noticed. But the other guards all remained at their routine posts, unaware.
Slowly he sat again, unsure what to expect.
His cubicle, tucked amidst the layers of bones that made up the walls all around, and impossibly bland in its modernity, was like the square peg forced into the round hole. Spada himself felt like that peg, and it had ruined his life. But he had known since the first day of this duty that he was called to some great destiny.
And not that of his wife’s church, or her mother’s, or her damned sister’s. Crones, all of them. No, it wasn’t that destiny, the kind pushed by his superiors in the lauded Swiss Guard.
This was his destiny.
Whenever the voices had spoken to him, they had prepared him for this day although not always with his full understand
ing. The plan was revealed to him in bits, like one of those idiotic puzzles his despicable aunt used to spread all over his table—until he had put a stop to that!—and slowly the picture had formed for his eyes only.
He understood instinctively that now the sudden silence meant his destiny was imminent.
It was preparation for the words He would speak in Spada’s mind, the instructions He would give, and the rewards He would promise.
Spada watched those around him with suspicion now, wondering when he would be asked to kill. Hoping it would be soon.
Soon.
When the voice spoke clearly in his head, pictures appeared there, too. Spada nodded as he followed what He now instructed him to do.
Spada knew he was preparing the way for a savior. He was ready.
After the instructions, the old voices returned to fill his head. He smiled, because he was so accustomed to their company.
He was ready.
Soon.
Chapter 80
The Round Room
The Pinnacle (Kessler Building)
Pinnacle Industries International Headquarters
Manhattan, New York
Cornelious Kessler stalked around the round table, on which the Egyptian statuette now rested, clearly thrilled at its arrival. He paused to touch here and poke there, his fingers tingling with the sense of history—and destiny—represented in the vile work.
He stared at the two empty spots on the pentagram he himself had drawn on the table in blood during the last ritual. The blood had dried and looked like dark maroon crayon now.
THE JUDAS HIT Page 23
