The Quest: A Novel

by Nelson DeMille

  Purcell assured him, “My compass says we’ve been heading generally due east.”

  Gann concurred and added, “It always seems longer on the ground than on the map.”

  Purcell looked at Vivian, whose white skin was now alarmingly red, and asked her, “How are you doing?”

  She nodded her head.

  He looked at Mercado, who also seemed flushed. The jungle, Purcell knew, sucked the life out of you. Theoretically, according to a Special Forces guy he’d interviewed in Vietnam, the jungle was not a killing environment, the way a frozen wasteland was. The jungle had water and food, and the climate, though unpleasant, would not kill you if you knew what you were doing. Snakes and animals could kill you, but you could also kill them. Only disease, according to this SF guy, could kill you, and if you got malaria or dengue fever, or some other fucked-up tropical disease, then you were just an unlucky son of a bitch. End of story.

  Gann stood and said, “Press on.”

  The trail seemed to be getting wider, and there was more headroom now, so they were able to walk upright. Within fifteen minutes Gann held up his hand, then he pointed up the trail. He got down and crawled the last ten yards, then raised Mercado’s binoculars and scanned to his front.

  Gann got up on one knee and motioned everyone forward. The head of the trail was wide enough for everyone to kneel shoulder to shoulder and they looked out across a clearing to Prince Theodore’s fortress—a blasted mass of stone and concrete sitting under the noon sun.

  Gann was looking through his binoculars again and said, “Don’t see any movement.” He handed the binoculars to Mercado, who agreed, and he gave the binoculars to Vivian, who said, “It looks so dead.” Purcell took the binoculars and focused on a section of collapsed wall that allowed a peek into the fortress. If anyone was in there, they weren’t moving around much.

  Gann wanted to go in first, with Purcell covering, but Purcell said, “My turn.”

  Vivian grabbed his arm, but didn’t say anything.

  Purcell stood and began walking the fifty yards across the clearing to the fortress walls.

  There were wooden watchtowers at intervals along the parapets, and he kept an eye on them as he was sure Gann was doing with his binoculars. As he got closer, he could see more clearly through the opening in the wall, and there didn’t seem to be anything living within the fortress.

  He reached the pile of rubble from the collapsed wall, pulled his revolver, and climbed to the top. Inside the fortress he could see stone and concrete buildings with corrugated steel roofs in various states of ruin. The whole compound seemed to cover about two acres, which was not large for a fortress, but it looked imposing here in the jungle.

  He satisfied himself that the place was deserted, and signaled everyone to join him.

  Gann, Mercado, and Vivian began crossing the clearing quickly, and Purcell came down from the rubble pile.

  He said to them, “No one home. There’s an open gate around the corner.”

  He led them along the wall and they rounded the corner, where large iron gates stood open in the center of a long stone wall.

  They passed cautiously through the gates and into the fortress. In front of them was an open area, a parade ground, where grass now grew. As they moved farther into the compound, they saw bleached white bones and skulls lying in the brown grass. The smell of the dead was barely noticeable after five months, but it still clung to the dusty earth.

  Gann looked around and said, “This is what a half-hour artillery barrage will do.” He looked at the collapsed section of wall where Purcell had stood atop the rubble, and said, “Gallas probably came through that breach.” He added, “Nasty combination of Getachu’s modern artillery and primitive, bloodthirsty savages waiting like jackals to get in.”

  Purcell could imagine the artillery rounds falling into this tight compound, blasting everything to rubble as the sun set. He could also imagine Prince Theodore’s soldiers being blown to pieces by the explosion, or ripped apart by shrapnel. And when the barrage ended, there would be a minute or two of deadly silence before the Gallas came screaming over the walls.

  Gann, too, was imagining it and said, “The Gallas who got in first on foot would have opened those gates, and the mounted Gallas would have come charging in.” He added, “A Galla war cry is something you don’t want to hear more than once in your life—in fact, if you hear it once, you will not hear it again.”

  Purcell saw Mercado looking over his shoulder at the open gates, as though expecting a horde of Gallas to come charging in. Also, Henry’s face had gone from ruddy to pale. Henry was remembering Mount Aradam again.

  Purcell shifted his attention to the field of bones. Indeed, it must have been terrifying, he thought, for the soldiers here who had survived the barrage to see Galla horsemen pouring through the open gates with their scimitars raised. Death on horseback.

  Gann said, “I don’t see any horse bones, so it wasn’t much of a fight.” He let them know, “Even if your walls are breached and your gates are open, you must maintain discipline and put up a good resistance. Better than being slaughtered like lambs in a pen.”

  Purcell didn’t think that was information he could ever use, but he was glad to see that Colonel Gann was wearing his brass military balls.

  Purcell said, “The question is, how did Father Armano survive this slaughter?” He said quickly to Vivian, “Do not say it.”

  “Well, I will. God spared him.”

  Purcell was getting a bit impatient with her divine explanations for everything, and he pointed out, “God wasn’t looking out for the Coptic Christian soldiers of Prince Theodore.” He suggested, “Maybe God is Catholic.”

  Vivian seemed annoyed and didn’t respond.

  Mercado said, “It does seem a bit of a miracle that Father Armano escaped this.”

  Purcell speculated, “It might have something to do with his prison cell. Certainly the Gallas did not spare him.” He suggested, “Let’s look around.”

  They walked through the small fortress which held only about twenty buildings, consisting mostly of barracks and storage structures. A large water-collecting cistern had been shattered by an explosion and it was dry. An ammunition bunker had been hit, and the secondary explosions had flattened everything around it. The headquarters was identified by the Lion of Judah painted in fading yellow over an open doorway. They looked inside and saw that whatever had been there had been burned, and a fine layer of ash lay on the floor and on the skeletons of at least a dozen men.

  Gann drew everyone’s attention to the pubic bones of the men, and pointed out the hack marks, saying, “They use their scimitars to do their nasty business. Sometimes the poor buggers aren’t even dead.”

  Purcell said, “Thanks for that.”

  They continued on between the shattered structures and came to an almost undamaged building that measured about ten feet on each side. It was the only building whose door was intact and closed. The door was rusted steel and there was a hasp on it, but the lock was gone. At the bottom of the door was a steel pass-through with an open bolt.

  Purcell said, “Looks like a prison to me.”

  Purcell stepped over several disjointed skeletons that lay near the door and pushed on it, but it would not give. Gann joined him and together they put their shoulders to the door, but it was stuck, probably rusted shut.

  Vivian suggested using the pass-through at the bottom, and Purcell knelt and pushed on it until it squeaked open.

  Vivian, too, knelt and said, “I’ll go.” No one objected, so she shucked her backpack but kept her camera, and squeezed her slim body into the opening. Her legs and feet disappeared and the door fell shut.

  They all waited for her to call out, but there was only silence.

  Finally, Purcell banged on the door. “Vivian!”

  “Yes… come in.”

  Purcell went first, followed by Mercado and Gann.

  They all stood in the middle of the dirt floor and looked aroun
d at the small, stone prison cell. The floor was covered with debris, and the roof was gone except for a single sheet of corrugated steel. There was a small opening high up one wall, and under the opening was a cross that had been etched into the stone.

  Vivian said, “Forty years… my God.”

  She reached up and touched the cross. “What incredible faith.”

  Purcell and Gann looked at each another. Mercado said, “Indeed, this man was a saint and a martyr.”

  Purcell wanted to point out that it was other Christians who’d put the priest here, but he’d exhausted his theological arguments.

  Vivian took a dozen photographs of the cell, then suggested they all observe a silent minute of prayer.

  They had been mostly silent anyway, and Purcell had no problem with this as long as they could do it standing, which they did.

  Vivian said, “Amen.”

  Purcell said, “This, I think, solves the mystery of how Father Armano escaped the Gallas.”

  They looked around the sparse cell in case they missed something, like a note scratched in the wall or, Purcell hoped, a map or instructions directing them to the black monastery. He reminded everyone that Getachu’s soldiers had been here five months ago, and said, “This place has been picked clean.” Purcell suggested, “We should get out of this cell.”

  Gann agreed. “This is not a good place to be if anyone comes round.”

  Gann crawled out first with his Uzi, followed by Mercado, Vivian, and Purcell. Gann suggested, “We can take a short lunch break, then move on to our next objective.”

  They found a shady spot along a wall and sat on the ground. They broke out some bread and dates, but no one seemed to want the dried meat, perhaps because of the smell of death on the bones all around them.

  Gann said, “We need to find a stream. Shouldn’t be too difficult, but sometimes it is. Don’t drink from the ponds. But a wash is all right.”

  Mercado said, “I saw some berries on the trail. And fruit of some sort.”

  “Yes, some are good. Some will kill you.”

  Vivian asked, “Do you know which is which?”

  “Not actually.” He admitted, “Never could get them right.”

  Purcell suggested, “Henry can be our taster.”

  “After you, Frank.”

  Gann asked Purcell for the area map. He studied it and said, “I see you’ve got six numbered circles here.” He asked, “Are they numbered in order of importance?”

  Purcell replied, “Sort of. But not really.”

  “All right, then… we’ll do them geographically.” He studied the map again and said, “Unfortunately, I don’t see any marked trails, but all of these places are within fifty kilometers of this fort… and there will be trails converging on this fort. We need to find the various trailheads, then decide which one to take.” He looked up from the map. “But these six points are not necessarily connected by trails, or by open terrain. So if we have to cut brush and vines, this could take… well, I’m afraid a month. Or more.”

  “Unless,” Mercado pointed out, “we get lucky on the first try.”

  “Yes, of course. But you understand, old boy, none of these little circles here could be the place we are looking for.”

  “In fact,” Purcell said, “I don’t think any of them are.”

  No one responded to that, and Purcell continued, “As you said, Colonel, there would be a number of trails converging on this fortress, so the question is, why didn’t Father Armano take one of the other trails? Why did he choose and continue along that bad game trail? Was his choice pure chance? I don’t think so. How would he have ever found that small game trail? Unless he came to this fortress on that trail.”

  Again, no one responded, then Vivian said, “He was going back to the black monastery—back to the Grail.”

  “Where else would he want to go?”

  Gann said, “By God, that’s it.”

  Mercado, too, agreed. “It was staring us in the face.”

  Purcell pointed out, “All of our recon was based on a lot of speculation and false assumptions, all of it wrong. Everything we looked at from the air was east of the road. But in fact, if Father Armano was going back to the black monastery, then the monastery is west of the road, and west of the spa.”

  They all thought about that, and Mercado stated the obvious. “We have no photos… no idea what is west of the road.”

  “No,” Purcell agreed, “we do not. But we have a map that shows part of the area, and we have two points of reference—this fortress and the spa.”

  Mercado said, “Any two points will make a straight line… but that line does not necessarily give us the third point.”

  “Right. But we need to go back to the spa, cross the road, and head west.”

  Mercado thought about that, then said, “So you’re suggesting we abandon all we’ve done and head into a new, unknown area.”

  “Only if we all believe that Father Armano was walking to the black monastery.”

  They all thought that over and Gann said, “You also need to believe he remembered the way he came here from the monastery.”

  Purcell replied, “I believe it was burned in his mind. And when he escaped from here and walked through those open gates, he knew exactly which way to go.”

  Gann agreed. “I’ve heard stories of that.”

  Vivian spoke. “I think we all believe that Father Armano was going to the black monastery, and that he knew the way.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  They packed up and stood. Vivian asked Purcell, “When did you think of this?”

  “Halfway here.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “You needed a photo op.” He added, “We needed to be here.”

  She nodded.

  They left the ruins of Prince Theodore’s fortress by the gates that Father Armano had entered forty years before and had exited five months ago. They walked across the clearing toward the game trail, which they now saw was marked by a towering and distinctive cedar.

  As they walked, Vivian came up beside Purcell and said with a smile, “That was a divine inspiration, Frank. Don’t deny it.”

  He smiled in return. “I like to think of myself as a rational genius.” He added, “But I could be wrong about that and about this, too.”

  “You’re not wrong.” She also said to him, “Prepare yourself for a miracle.”

  They’d already had several of those, mostly having to do with flying. He said, “I am open to miracles.”

  “And while you’re at it, open your heart to love.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “We could die here in the blink of an eye. So you need to tell me now that you forgive me, and that you love me. Before it’s too late.”

  He stayed silent a few seconds, considering this, then said, “I love you.”

  “Forgive me.”

  “I cheated on you before you came to Rome.”

  “I forgive you.”

  He took her hand. “All is forgiven.”

  Chapter 49

  They reached the spa in the late afternoon, and though there were hours of daylight left, Gann made the decision to stop for the day, saying, “I don’t want any of us to overdo the first day.”

  Clearly, Purcell thought, Gann was concerned about Henry, and maybe Vivian. He was a good officer. Purcell also pointed out, “We have no idea where we’re going after we cross that road, so we should stop and think about it.”

  “Quite right.”

  Vivian reminded Gann, “You said Gallas stop here.”

  “Yes, well, they’ve mostly gone east, and their horse droppings look rather old. Also, this is a large place, and we will pick a dark corner of it and be quiet during the night.” He added, “I have my Uzi, and Mr. Purcell has my service revolver.”

  They found the bathhouse, which still had fresh spring water flowing into large sunken pools from the mouths of black stone faces embedded in the marble wall
s—similar to Miriam’s bathhouse, Purcell noted, except these faces were not of lions, but Roman gods and goddesses, one of which looked suspiciously like Benito Mussolini.

  Gann again marveled at the engineering, saying, “Reminds me a bit of the Roman baths in Bath. Water’s still flowing there after two thousand years.”

  And that, Purcell thought to himself, was the last decent plumbing installed in England.

  They drank from the mouths of the gods and goddesses, hoping the water was potable, then filled their canteens. The spring water was cold, but they bathed privately, and washed their clothes.

  Not a bad first day, Purcell thought, and in the morning they’d cross the road and strike out into terra incognita.

  They reconnoitered the spa complex and found a wing off the main lobby where the guest rooms had been. Gann explained, “This is where the Italian soldiers, administrators, and men of business came from Gondar for the weekend after a long week of exploiting the Ethiopians.” He added, “Built mostly by slave labor—captured Ethiopian soldiers. And staffed by young Ethiopian women.”

  Purcell commented, “Sounds very Roman Empire-ish.”

  “Indeed. It’s in their blood, you know.”

  Purcell resisted any comments about the British Empire, but Gann said, “At least we brought order, education, and law.”

  “Thank God you didn’t bring your plumbing.”

  Gann smiled.

  They found a guest chamber that looked fairly clean, and went inside the whitewashed room. All the furniture had been carried off, of course, but a chair sat in the corner in an advanced state of rot.

  The spa once had electricity, undoubtedly from a generator, and Purcell noticed electrical outlets, and a ceiling fan that hadn’t turned in forty years.

  The room also had a large arched window that faced east and would let in the dawn sun. The window had never been glazed, but sagging louver shutters were still fixed to the stone arch. The view from the window was of a garden that had become a miniature jungle, which Gann pointed out as a place to go if anyone came through the door. Conversely, if anyone showed up at the window, they could exit through the door and retreat into the large hotel complex.