The Quest: A Novel

by Nelson DeMille

  Getachu stared at her for a long time, then said, “But you look very good in the shamma.”

  Vivian did not reply, but she held Getachu’s stare.

  Finally, he said, “The Revolutionary Army came into possession of some interesting equipment which the Americans provided to the Royal Army. One such item was a device called a starlight scope. You know of this? A telescopic sight that allows one to see in the dark, which my sentries use in the watchtower to look for the enemy, outside and inside the camp.”

  No one responded, and Getachu continued, “So it appeared—to my sentry at least—that you, Miss Smith, and you, Mr. Purcell, engaged in a behavior that did not please Mr. Mercado.” He asked, “Or did my sentry misunderstand what he saw?”

  Again no one replied, and if anyone thought that Getachu had brought this up solely to amuse himself, Purcell knew otherwise.

  Getachu said to Mercado, “So perhaps you will write in your confession that you discovered that Mr. Purcell and Miss Smith were spying for the Royalists.” He assured Mercado, “You need not write that about yourself. That would condemn you to death.”

  Purcell glanced at Mercado, expecting that Mercado understood that he needed to reply with a firm fuck you, but Mercado did not reply.

  “Mr. Mercado?”

  “I… don’t know what you’re talking about, General.”

  “You do. And you should consider my offer.”

  Again, Mercado made no reply.

  Getachu glanced at his watch as though this was all taking more time than he’d allowed for it. He said, “To my mind, you are all guilty, but as I said to Mr. Purcell and Miss Smith last night, it is possible to make your punishment less severe.” He looked at Gann. “Even you, Colonel, could be spared from death.”

  “As you spared Prince Joshua?”

  “I’m glad to see that Mr. Purcell has told you everything, and I’m glad to see that you speak.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “There is no hell. And no heaven. There is no more than what you see here.”

  Gann did not reply, and Getachu continued, “They taught me otherwise in the missionary school, but I did not believe them then or now. But I do believe in the use of earthly pain to punish bad behavior, or to make a person confess to his sins.” He pulled Gann’s riding crop from his pocket and said, “Or simply to give me pleasure.” He flexed the crop.

  Gann stared at Getachu and they made eye contact.

  Getachu stood and said to Gann, “So, the good headmaster beat me in that English school, and he taught me something. But not the lesson he thought. He taught me that some men can be broken with the whip, and some cannot. My spirit was not broken.”

  Purcell thought Getachu’s mind was broken, and he saw what was coming, so he said, “General, we will not sit here and witness—”

  Getachu slapped the crop on his desk. “Shut up!” He said to Gann, “I will spare your life if you drop your pants, as I did many times, and allow me to deliver thirty blows to your bare buttocks.” He added, “Here and now, leaning over this desk, in front of your friends.”

  “I think it’s you, Mikael, who needs another good beating.”

  Getachu literally shook with rage, then pulled his pistol, aimed it at Gann, and shouted, “I give you five seconds to do what I say!”

  “You can give me five years and I will tell you to go to hell.”

  “One—”

  Purcell stood. “Stop this.”

  The soldier behind Purcell pushed him down into his chair.

  “Two.”

  Vivian said, “Colonel, please. Just do what he wants… please…”

  “Three.”

  Mercado closed his eyes and lowered his head.

  “Four.”

  Gann stood and Getachu smiled. Gann turned, dropped his pants, and said, “Kiss my arse.”

  Purcell thought he’d hear the loud explosion of the gun, but there was complete silence in the room.

  Finally, Getachu let out a forced laugh, then said, “Very good, Colonel, you may sit.”

  Gann pulled up his pants, but did not sit and kept his back to Getachu.

  Getachu saw that Gann was not going to turn around, and he said, “You will not provoke me into giving you an easy death.”

  Gann remained standing with his back to the general, and Getachu said something to the soldier, who came around and drove the butt of his rifle into Gann’s groin. Gann doubled over, and the soldier pushed him into his chair.

  Getachu holstered his gun and put down the riding crop, but remained standing. “You all understand, I hope, that I can have each of you shot as spies.”

  Vivian surprised everyone, and herself, by saying, “If that were true, you would have done it.”

  Getachu looked at her and said, “It is true, Miss Smith, but as we discussed, there are some men—and women—who I would rather see broken than dead.” He reminded everyone, “And those who agree to serve the people’s revolution may also be spared.”

  Mercado spoke up. “I did serve the revolution for many years, and I would be willing to serve it again with my written words—”

  “Your written words are like adding your shit to a fire.”

  Mercado seemed to shrink in his chair.

  Getachu looked at Gann, who was obviously in extreme pain, and said, “Colonel, if you agree to become an advisor to my army—as you did for the former prince’s army—I will spare your life.”

  Gann shook his head.

  Getachu seemed frustrated with the man’s stubbornness and said, “I will take you to see your former employer and also his aides, who I am sure you know, and then you can decide if you wish to help the revolution or if you wish to assist the prince in his new duties.”

  Gann did not reply, and Getachu said, “Or perhaps I will turn you over to the Gallas, and wash my hands of you.”

  Purcell leaned toward Gann and said softly, “Just say you’ll do it.”

  Gann shook his head, and Purcell wondered if Getachu really wanted or needed Colonel Gann’s military skills, or if he just wanted the satisfaction of seeing the Englishman—the knight—crawling to him before he killed him. Getachu had tried the carrot and the stick, and neither was working on Gann, who Purcell suspected knew Getachu’s game better than anyone.

  Getachu’s field phone rang, he answered it, spoke briefly, then hung up and said, “My helicopter has arrived from Gondar.” He asked, “Would you all enjoy a ride to the capital?”

  Purcell assumed there was a small catch, but the carrot sounded good. He said, “We’re ready to go.”

  “So you said. But first I need some information from all of you. If you give me this information, you will be put on my helicopter and flown to the capital. If you do not give me what I am looking for, then a fate worse than death awaits you here.” He looked at Vivian and said, “Unless, of course, you enjoy the attention of thirty or forty men a day.”

  Purcell knew these were not empty threats, but everyone seemed to have become numb to Getachu’s words, and Getachu sensed this as well, so he sat and lit a cigarette, then remembered to offer the pack to Purcell, who declined.

  Getachu seemed deep in thought, then began, “A company of my soldiers occupied the Italian spa, where they found empty cans of food and tire tracks.” He looked at Purcell. “You were there?”

  Purcell replied, “We said we were.”

  “Correct.” He continued, “My men also found fresh earth which they took to be a grave, and which they dug up.” He asked his guests, “Did you dig that grave?”

  The easy answer, Purcell thought, was, Yes, so what? But Getachu was not asking out of idle curiosity, and a better answer might be no. Vivian, however, had taken a photograph of the grave, and her camera was sitting on Getachu’s desk. Still, they could deny digging the grave, and he would have done so if it was only he and Vivian answering this psychopath’s questions; but Henry, he realized, was ready to say or do anything to save himself from death or torture. Some
men, like Gann, could hang from a pole all night and say, “Kiss my arse.” Others, like Henry, cracked easy and early. But Purcell couldn’t judge Mercado unless he himself had been hanging from the next pole.

  “Did you dig that grave?”

  Purcell replied, “We did.”

  “Who did you bury?”

  “We buried who you dug up.”

  “My men dug up the body of an old man, Mr. Purcell. I am asking you who it was.”

  “A man we found dying in the spa.”

  “Why was he dying?”

  “He had a stomach wound.”

  “How did he get this wound?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Did you not speak to him?”

  Purcell thought it was time to turn this over to Henry to see what, if anything, he had to say about this, so he replied, “The man spoke Italian and I do not.”

  Getachu looked at Mercado. “Doctor Mato informs me that you speak Italian.”

  Mercado nodded.

  “Did you speak to this dying man?”

  “I… I did… but, he died before I could… find out much about him.”

  Purcell was not completely surprised that Mercado was keeping a secret from Getachu, because to Mercado it was a secret worth keeping.

  Getachu looked long at Mercado. “If you are lying to me, I will find out and then we have no agreement, Mr. Mercado. And then… well, you have sealed your fate.”

  Mercado kept eye contact with Getachu. “The man died without telling us who he was.”

  Getachu kept staring at him, then shifted his attention to Vivian. “And Doctor Mato informs me that you speak Italian.”

  “I do.”

  “And what did this dying man say to you?”

  Purcell wondered if Vivian would take this opportunity to repay Mercado for not firmly defending her against Getachu’s charges of spying. But women, Purcell had learned, are loyal to men who don’t deserve loyalty. On the other hand, it was Vivian who’d been disloyal first, and probably she was feeling as guilty as Henry was feeling angry. Sex has consequences beyond the act.

  “Miss Smith?”

  Vivian replied, “The man said nothing more to me than he said to Mr. Mercado.”

  “How convenient. Well, let me tell you who I think this old man was. It could only have been Father Armano.” He looked at his guests. “As I’m sure he told you.”

  No one replied, and Getachu continued, “Two nights ago, one of my artillery batteries bombarded the nearby fortress of Ras Theodore, who is of the family of my present guest, Joshua. Within this fortress was this Father Armano, who had been imprisoned there since the days of the Italian war.” He asked his guests, “Do you know this story?”

  Vivian and Mercado shook their heads.

  Getachu went on, “The bombardment attracted the attention of the Gallas, as it always does, and they descended on the fortress and massacred the Royalist survivors, though some managed to flee into the jungle. But my infantry company captured some of these men and brought them here. In fact, you may have seen these soldiers of Ras Theodore hanging outside this tent alongside the soldiers of Ras Joshua.”

  Getachu lit another cigarette, sipped some water, then continued. “But before they were brought here, they were brought back to their fortress. Why? To assist my men in determining the fate of Father Armano—and as they discovered, the prison cell of this priest was empty, and the captured soldiers could not identify a body as that of the priest. But they did find a Bible, in Italian, on the floor of his cell, with a hole in it—perhaps a bullet hole. So it is my assumption that the wounded man you discovered was Father Armano.” He looked at his guests closely, then asked Mercado directly, “Why do you think this priest who you came upon was so important?”

  Mercado replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Then I will tell you. Well, perhaps I won’t. You seem to have no information about this man or this matter, so we have nothing to discuss, and you have nothing to trade for your freedom or your lives.”

  Purcell said, “I hope you had the decency to rebury the old man.”

  “I have no idea if he was reburied, and I don’t care if the jackals eat his body. But it is interesting that you took the time and effort to give an unknown man a burial.”

  “Interesting to you. Common decency to us.”

  “I don’t like your attitude of moral superiority, Mr. Purcell. I had enough of that in school.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Don’t provoke me.”

  “We have no information for you, General. May we leave?”

  Getachu seemed not to hear him, and he sat back in his chair and said, “I will be open with you, and perhaps you will do the same for me.” He looked at each of them, then said, “The black monastery. You know of this place. What is in it, I do not know, nor do I know its exact location. But Father Armano knew its location and he may have told you something of this.” He looked at Purcell, then Vivian, then Mercado, and said, “I hope for your sake that he did.”

  Mercado said, “He did not.”

  “I will ask you again later. But for now, I will explain to you my interest in the black monastery.” He leaned forward and said, “The Provisional Revolutionary government is interested in selling precious objects to museums and churches outside the country. The government is selling most of the emperor’s trinkets now. We need the money for food and medicine for the people. But when a very old regime ends, some people become upset. Nostalgic. Some people are fond of kings and emperors and aristocrats on horses—as long as it’s not in their own country. You understand? The end of the empire is a historical necessity. And gold and jewels are worthless in a modern state. We need capital. And we are acquiring it in the only way we can. The traditional way of revolutionary governments. We rob the rich of their baubles. A few suffer. Many gain. The churches, especially, are better off without their gold. They can concentrate more on God and saving souls without the worry of keeping their property intact. Everyone benefits. So in exchange for any information you might have on the location of this monastery—and what is in it—I will allow you all to return to the capital, including Colonel Gann, who will be dealt with at a higher level, and therefore dealt with less severely than I would here at the front.” He added, “You all have my word on that.”

  Purcell wondered if Getachu knew specifically about the so-called Holy Grail, or if he was just interested in looting another Coptic monastery. It made no difference to Purcell, but it did to Henry Mercado. Henry wanted to get out of here and go look for the monastery and the Grail; Henry wanted to have his cake and eat it too. But he couldn’t.

  Getachu suggested, “Perhaps you would like a private moment to discuss this.”

  Purcell knew, and he hoped Henry and Vivian also knew that even if they could take Getachu at his word, what little they knew was not enough to get them out of here. But it was enough to keep them as Getachu’s guests for a long time—just as Father Armano had been a guest of Ethiopia for a very long time. Or Getachu would just do away with them if Henry decided to clarify his lie.

  “Mr. Mercado?”

  Mercado said, “We told you all we know about this man. He was dying, and in pain, and he said almost nothing except to ask for water.”

  “I know you are lying.”

  Purcell didn’t think that Mercado was doing a good job of putting this to rest, so he pointed out, “Why would we lie about something that has no meaning to us?”

  “I told you. Some people are fond of the old regime and the old church, which are one.”

  “I don’t care about either.” Purcell added, “And if this old man did speak to us, and if he was Father Armano, what do you think he would tell us? The location of the monastery? I don’t understand how he would know that. You said he was in this fortress for almost forty years. I’m not understanding what you think we should know.”

  Getachu seemed to have a lucid moment, and he nodded. “You make a good point. In fact
, you have nothing to give me.” He added, “And I have nothing to give you.”

  “Except,” Purcell suggested, “our belongings, and a ride to Addis.” He added, “Our embassies and our offices are awaiting word from us.”

  “Then they will have a long wait.” Getachu informed everyone, “This proceeding is finished. I will consider my judgment. You remain under arrest.” He said something to the soldier, who escorted them out into the bright sunlight where a squad of soldiers waited with leg shackles.

  Chapter 13

  They were marched to a deep ravine, and Purcell saw that there was fresh earth at the bottom, and shovels, and it was obvious that this was a mass grave, and perhaps a place of execution. They were ordered to climb into the ravine, and it seemed to Purcell that Getachu’s judgment had traveled faster than they had. But to be more optimistic, he didn’t think that Getachu was through with them yet.

  At the bottom of the ravine, they could smell the buried corpses. Purcell and Gann looked up at the soldiers, to see if these men were their executioners, but the soldiers were sitting at the edge of the ravine smoking and talking.

  Gann said to Purcell, “Sloppy discipline.”

  “You should have taken the job.”

  “They’re a hopeless lot.”

  “Right.” But they won.

  No one had anything else to say, and Purcell was sure that each of them was thinking about what had transpired in Getachu’s office. It had been a very unpleasant experience, he thought, but it could have gone worse, though not better. In any case, everyone seemed relieved that it was over, even if it wasn’t.

  Finally, Gann said, “The man’s a bloody lunatic.”

  No one argued with that, and Gann added, “Ungrateful bastard. Got a decent education from the good Church of England missionaries, and he complains about a few strokes on his arse. Did him more good than harm, I’m sure.”