Almost afraid to do so, Jack ran through the list of key phrases in his head:
Heresy; John the Baptist as Messiah; the virgin birth; Jesus surviving the crucifixion; Jesus getting married; Jesus having children; Abraham; a new Saviour; Armageddon; the line of David; Ephesus; the seven churches of Asia; the Book of Revelation; Eternal Life; Reincarnation; Jean Cocteau; Leonardo Da Vinci.
And cross-referenced them against everything that Andy had just told him:
Abraham, Armageddon, the line of David, Ephesus, the Book of Revelation, Eternal Life and the most important of all; a new Saviour.
Seven distinct matches, all from a meeting that Koresh may have attended in Turkey.
It was enough. “I need some serious intelligence from Ephesus,” Jack said defiantly. It was a blunt-edged statement not open to argument. There had to be a cult based somewhere in that area; somewhere that Koresh might have visited. Whoever they were, they were good; some might even call them clever because they were not listed on but one of the F.B.I.’s files. Christ, he thought, people who borrowed ‘Catcher in the Rye’ from their local library were on F.B.I. files, but not these guys. They had avoided detection for a long time, but now they had messed up. Big time. They had killed Jack’s daughter. They existed and it was them. Jack could feel it.
They had her child. A major factor of their existence that was about to change.
“Already on it,” Andy said, knowing how desperate Jack would be. “Trust me, if there is a cult, a group or whatever hiding out or meeting up in so much as a cow-shed within one hundred miles of that town, then we’ll find ‘em for you.”
“I want you, well your guys, to look into these for me as well,” Jack said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. Andy extracted the photocopied sheets and gave them a cursory glance. “What are they?” he asked.
“Companies,” Jack said. “And some of the products they’ve been buying apparently.”
Andy cast Jack a filthy look. “I can see that,” he said. “What I mean is; what relevance do they have to me trying to dig up some shit on cults for you?”
“I don’t really know,” Jack said. “But I’ve already found some rather dubious links between the companies themselves.” He rifled through the sheets in Andy’s hands until he reached the last one, a type-written sheet on which he had already detailed his own findings. “Now I need to know what other links there might be. If any.”
Andy looked back through the other sheets again, looking for obvious links, then shrugged. “Well, they mean nothing to me, but I’ll get the Feds looking into them. I presume you just want to know about anything that looks out of place?”
“I just want to know about anything, full stop,” Jack said.
Andy nodded, folded the sheets into the envelope and placed them in his pocket. “Consider it done.”
Jack smiled lamely, laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder and thanked him as they walked back toward Andy’s car. As he turned to say goodbye, something caught the Senator’s eye. “Talking of Feds,” he said. “You expecting any?”
Jack turned to follow his line of sight and caught a face in the crowd. Still wearing his distinctive raincoat despite the heat, Agent Warner was also wearing his other identifying feature; the stare. The same glare of dormant interrogation that had been fixed in Jack’s direction throughout Dave’s funeral.
“Agent Warner,” he sighed. “You know him?”
Andy shook his head. “No but I recognise the cut of his coat. And that middle name rings a bell now that you come to mention it. You hang around with as many Feds as I do, you get to know the attire. He giving you any shit? If he is I could have words?”
“I can handle him,” Jack said. “You just do what you can to get me a link between Ephesus and that god-damned list.”
From inside his light tweed jacket, Andy’s mobile phone started to ring and he nodded. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, reaching into his breast pocket to retrieve it. Jack patted the senator on the shoulder, smiled a thank you and walked away.
Toward the crowd. Toward Warner.
Toward whatever shit the pain-in-the-ass agent was just itching to throw at him this time around.
them which believe not
2 Corinthians 4:4
As the surrounding hills stirred gently into life, the heads of the disciples were all lowered in subservience. Silent.
Ephraim, The Jacob, offered prayers for the future of The Child and thanked God that he had seen fit to bless those gathered today as His holy keepers. He stood with his head held high on the central balcony of the Temple of Salvation, his frail body upright and proud. Michael, Sariel and Gabriel, the appointed Archangels, stood to his left; The Joseph to his right.
The Abraham did not attend.
At Ephraim’s final ‘amen’ the blanket of shaven heads raised as one to hear him deliver his sermon for the day. As it was during each of The Jacob’s daily sermons, they would listen to, and hear, every word that was spoken. Such was the beauty of messing with the minds of the weakened, the desperate and the disparate, that there was not one present among them who would offer anything less than one hundred percent acceptance of the words offered to them.
“We are all servants of the True Christ,” he began, pushing his voice hard to disguise its inherent frailty, “the child that dwells among us. He is preparing to lead us into a New Age. An age where tyranny and corruption are cast back into Hell from whence they came and one that will dwell forever in the future of man.”
A brief silence followed. Ephraim wondered if the men and women who gathered before him now would maintain a comparable silence once they were viciously turned over to the servants of evil. Like most events in the true bible, he mused, sacrifice lives on.
“But the road to righteousness is not an easy one,” he continued, “and soon you will be forced into the wilderness beyond this sanctuary; this Bethlehem. You will encounter many who seek to protect the devil’s investment on earth. Be not tempted, for it is your God who offers you unto them so that he might be assured of your faith. Be not speakers of words. Blessed are those who are strong in the sight of God, for their reward shall be a place by His side in the New Kingdom.”
Ephraim lifted his voice yet further and added a tone of prophetic optimism. “Tonight I have spoken at length with our guide in this life, The Abraham, eternal protector of David’s line and prophet of the new dawn, and I have witnessed God granting a vision to him. He has seen them approaching. He has seen them gathering at the gates of Bethlehem armed with words of evil and weapons of destruction. He has seen them coming to take us away from this holy place and tempt us, that we might hand our Saviour unto their arms of fire and hatred.”
He lowered his voice again whilst keeping it just loud enough for everyone in the congregation to hear. “Hold on to your tongue as you offer your body to the servants of the devil so that they might see the strength of your spirit; that they might be deafened by your silence. They will not harm you. Your temptation will be brief and, when it is passed, silence will be your salvation.”
Walking slowly to the edge of the balcony, he rested his hands on the cold stone and smiled as he saw two hundred and fifteen faces watching and not one questioning his words. They would do as they were told and offer themselves over without a fight. Ephraim, on the other hand, would be a great many miles away. Like the Child, he would be safe.
* * * * *
“You wanted to see me?” Jack said, one part question mixed with three parts contemptuous statement.
“I did indeed, Mr. Bernstein,” Warner replied, his eyes still weaving a rich tapestry derived from an inherent sense of victory. “I did indeed.”
A small coffee shop, nestled under a canopy on the waterfront a few hundred yards from the NetCenter, seemed to Jack as though it might offer welcome shade and he directed Warner toward it. For the first few paces through the crowd silence was maintained but, to Jack’s annoyance, it also continued f
or a few too many paces after. Though his face was demanding an explanation from the agent, none was forthcoming.
In the end he gave up. “Well...?” he asked impatiently.
“It’s concerning your trip to Rome, Mr. Bernstein.” Warner offered, his walking pace as slow and deliberate as his words. “There are a few details I think we should...”
“We have already discussed my trip to Rome, Agent Warner,” Jack interrupted. He sighed wearily. “I really don’t think there is anything to be gained by going over it all again.”
As they passed into the shade of the billowing red canopy, Jack indicated to the waitress that they would like two coffees as Warner found a seat at a table overlooking the beach. The crowds had relaxed now that Jack’s speech was over, most getting back to the serious business of improving their tans, but the press were still there, making the most of an IntelliSoft official P.R. day. Even so, many were now reduced to interviewing semi-vacant netheads as to what effect the system might have on the computer industry as a whole, no doubt hoping that the sheer volume of people might allow them at least one intelligible soundbite from ‘the man in the street’ before their day was at an end.
“Well, see now, it all stems from me wondering what connection young Mr. Clearwater’s death might have had to that of your daughter. I knew there had to be one, the timing of two uniquely obvious terrorist acts being so close together and, how shall I put this...? So close to you. Thing was, I just couldn’t see it.”
Jack bit his lip to avoid disclosing the things of which Andy had made him aware. “There is no connection,” he lied, his voice was almost snarling.
The waitress arrived with coffee, cream and sugar on a tray. The speed of service was an obvious indication that she understood the importance of her visitor and had reacted accordingly. She smiled at Jack as she placed the individual items on the table, then dutifully retreated again.
“Oh, but there is a connection, Mr. Bernstein,” Warner offered knowingly, sipping his coffee black. “Isn’t there? It’s a tricky one I’ll grant you and certainly not an easy one to find, but it’s there alright.” He smiled and lowered the cup from his mouth. “And yes, just in case you were wondering... I did find it.”
Jack calmly added cream and one cube to his coffee. And said nothing.
“You see...” Warner continued expressively, “I didn’t have much to work with. I had Flight 320 and young Clearwater. That was it. But then, right out of the blue, I get a call telling me that one of the residents of the Monastère Saint Jerome in Montecastrilli has gone to meet his maker in remarkably conspicuous circumstances. The killer, it seems, had no desire to conceal the fact that it was an act of murder. You might even say he chose to shout it from the rooftops. The monk in question was a really old guy by the name of...” He deliberately checked his notes. Timed his pause.
“Frederico,” Jack said without thinking. His voice was painfully subdued.
Though Jack didn’t care, saying Frederico’s name out loud was precisely what Warner had wanted him to do. Effectively he had reached across the table and removed Warner’s gun from its holster.
Then shot himself in the foot.
“Do you know?” he said, nodding victoriously. “I had a feeling you two fellas might have known each other. Especially when I discovered that, in addition to stringing him up like some latter-day Jesus from the cross on the monastery roof, they also nailed a nice little plaque above his head. Solid gold it was.” He took another drink, his smiling eyes never leaving Jack’s. “Care to hazard a guess as to what it might have said?”
Every muscle on Jack’s face tensed with shock. Was he really hearing this? Frederico dead. Frederico murdered. He was unable to believe that it had actually happened or, with the fears that Simon had carefully planted regarding Dave’s death, that he had somehow not seen it, or at least something this bad, coming.
It was true. They were fighting back. Far harder than he could ever have imagined. As though warning him off in the worst way possible. And still they were invisible. Nowhere. He could suddenly feel the rollercoaster, the one that had been climbing skyward since his first meeting with Simon, crossing the apex; the point of no return. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and pray that the ride was mercifully brief.
“Knight takes Bishop,” Warner said with a confident sneer. He paused to allow his words enough time to truly to sink in and was pleased with the gift he received in return. The sight of Jack’s worried face, so very removed from his denial at Dave’s funeral, was one to behold.
“So,” he continued, “we have Dave Clearwater, who you describe as your personal factfinder, killed with a remarkably strange M.O. and a plaque left at the scene which read ‘Knight takes Rook’, followed by Brother Frederico who, shortly afterwards, shares a similar fate. Thousands of miles away.” Warner was on a roll now. The checking he had initially done on Jack’s trip to Rome was paying dividends. “But I’m still having a problem because, short of your visit, I still don’t have the final link. The reason for your visit. So I take my chess theme and I ask around, and I’m talking major worldwide networking here, agency to agency, Interpol, everyone. And guess what... I come across another rather strange incident.”
He removed a digitised colour laser proof from inside his jacket pocket and slid it across the table toward Jack. Reluctantly, Jack glanced down at it. The picture was of a young man’s smiling face, possibly Southern American or Mediterranean in appearance, and looked awkwardly posed; like a copy of a passport photo. The enlarged copy had obviously come from Warner’s office printer. If that was the case then the chances were that it had been sent to him along a digital network. It could have originated anywhere in the world.
“Recognise this man?” he asked matter-of-factly.
Jack shook his head. “Never seen him before in my life.” It was the truth. For once.
“It’s not a very good picture,” Warner explained casually, “More of a ‘before’ shot really. Here, I’ve got an ‘after’. Maybe that will help.”
He slid another picture across the table. It looked like the remains of what had once been a garden fire containing a pile of burnt leaves and a black refuse sack. It had come from the same printer as the first image, and presumably from the same place in the world.
The closer he looked, the more Jack began to understand the nature of what he was being presented. The sack in the middle of the picture was not a sack. It was the remains of a man’s body, his contorted face scorched jet black and his body crumpled on top of the surrounding ash. An ‘after’ shot.
“Shit,” Jack said. “Who the hell is it?”
Warner smiled. “Spanish national by the name of Paulo Estadore.” He had doubted that Jack would recognise the man’s face, but had hoped he might have recognised the name. His blank expression told him otherwise. “Few days ago it seems he had the terrible misfortune to find himself burnt alive at the stake. At the stake, mind.”
Warner winced at his own words, then shrugged and sipped his coffee as though he was casually discussing a film he had seen the previous evening. “Nasty way to go I reckon. Personally, I don’t care how they call me as long as it’s not burning or drowning. Well, a house fire perhaps.” He wobbled his downturned palm in an ‘I could just about cope with that’ gesture. “At least with house fires you’re usually dead from the fumes long before you get toasted but... whew... out in the open air? All that breeze? That ventilation? You’d be feeling the flames right until the moment they licked away at your flesh, and that’s just gotta sting. Oh, by the way, that yellow square that you can see...? That’s a plaque that the killer very kindly nailed to the stake for the police to find. A gold plaque. I believe that this one read; ‘Knight takes pawn’.”
Leaning across the table with a wry smile, he looked Jack in the eyes. “Now I get the distinct feeling that you know where I’m going with this.”
Jack was trying to remain calm; in control, but it was just one more game he was losi
ng. He could already feel that he was sweating more than he should have been. “This has nothing to do with me,” he said nervously. “I can see how you might think there’s a link because of the chess references but I can assure you that I know nothing about this. I don’t even know this Paulo Escadore.”
“Estadore,” Warner corrected. “Well, to be honest I wasn’t looking too closely at the chess link, Mr. Bernstein. That was just my catalyst. At first all I wanted was a link between Clearwater and Frederico and, as you don’t seem to have grasped it yet, this young man was it. He was described by the people living nearby as a ‘nethead’; I think that’s what you computer freaks call it. Spent night and day surfing the worldwide web; barely spoke to anyone face to face. Now I also happen to know from a bit of heavy questioning that Paulo Estadore’s computer had a list of most-used e/mail addresses. And there, right in the top five of that hitlist was ‘[email protected]’.“
He took another, much longer drink of coffee. It was cooling now and was actually a good blend, better than the sludge he endured from the eight-year old machine at the field office. “These guys were net-buddies, Mr. Bernstein. They probably exchanged information on a regular basis. Information, as in ‘Information Acquisition’, which I believe you offered as Mr. Clearwater’s title within your organisation. By a process of elimination, I’m guessing that any information they exchanged was the kind that you asked Dave to acquire.”
He smiled again. This time it possessed a definite sadistic slant. “Want to know what else I reckon?”
“Enlighten me,” Jack said, wishing to God that he had chosen to be somewhere else today.
“Well, like you, I initially thought that Clearwater could have been killed for personal reasons. It was actually possible back then. He was the first, or so I thought. But not now that I have my link. Now I think that Clearwater was scouting something for you; something important. So Paulo, sitting behind his computer in Spain, gets a call from Clearwater asking for information on a subject that in the very near future you will be enlightening me about. Paulo probably tells Dave about a monk who might have some answers. A monk who has no phone, no fax and no pigeon-post. So, the next thing we know, you’re belting over to Rome for, what did you call it? ‘A conventional business meeting’.” He shook his head again. “You had a conventional business meeting with an eighty-something year old hermit who just happens to find himself crucified a few days later whilst lacking all the adequate tools for his predecessor’s miraculous resurrection?”
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