"Maybe he's not a reader," Tony said casually to Laika.
"Sonny, I was reading the Harvard Classics before you were a sinister gleam in your daddy's eye." Joseph snatched the books from Tony's hand. "And you're not manipulating me—I'm just following orders." He tossed a toasted bagel onto a plate and filled his cup with coffee. "I'll be reading in my boudoir, if anyone wants me."
"Not in your boudoir," Tony said, and even Joseph laughed.
After breakfast, while Joseph was reading the books, Tony connected to Langley and requested a search for a Father Samuel UNSUB who served St. Stephen's Church in the 1910s. The answer came back by early afternoon, and Tony called Laika and Joseph around his computer.
"There was a Father Samuel at St. Stephen's," Tony said. "Father Samuel Doherty. He was swimming in the East River in the summer of 1919, when he vanished from sight. He was assumed drowned, and his body was never recovered."
"Why doesn't that come as a surprise?" asked Joseph.
"Well, maybe this will," Tony said. "St. Stephen's was Father Samuel's third church. He served it beginning in 1909, and before that he had had two other parishes—St. Aloysius' in Brooklyn from 1902 to 1909, and St. Vincent's in Harlem. He started there as a young priest in 1887."
"What?" Laika said, and Joseph made a throaty sound of disbelief.
"Father Samuel Doherty," Tony said quietly, "was born on August twentieth, 1863."
"It can't be the same man," said Joseph. "Maybe it's . . . it's a crime so great they have a new scapegoat every generation or so."
"It's ridiculous," Laika said, "to think the Catholic Church would have an innocent man suffer for the sins of somebody else."
"Ridiculous?" Joseph said. "Forgive me, but I've always thought that was the whole premise of the Catholic Church."
"You know what I mean. That's a farfetched idea, Joseph."
"And a hundred-and-thirty-five-year-old man living in a tomb isn't?"
"Sure it is," Tony said. "But this isn't the first time we've hit the longevity thing. What about that Scotsman, Robert Gunn?"
"That case has no connection to this one." said Laika.
"Oh yeah?" Tony said. "Maybe the priest and that Gunn guy were taking the same tonic."
"Look," said Joseph, "no offense, Tony, but the Catholic Church has a long and dishonorable record of scapegoats. What was that Inquisition thing all about?"
"That happened hundreds of years ago," Tony said. "Sure, but even in the early part of this century, the Church was still playing fast and loose with morality. Hell, they made Ralph Reed look like a kid soaping windows. All I'm saying is that it's possible whatever Father Samuel—the original Father Samuel—did in freeing this prisoner, maybe it was a sin so terrible that someone has to keep paying for it. Neither of those two at the church were spring chickens, and this whole thing could have been set in place long ago."
"It's possible," said Laika.
"Of course it's possible, more possible than a hundred-and-thirty-five-year-old man living in a damp hole for most of this century."
"Speaking of possibilities," said Tony, "you finish the books yet?"
Joseph nodded.
"And?" Laika asked.
"And I think it's all pretty preposterous. Oh, it's very clever, there are all sorts of connections that look impressive, but it really hinges on flimsy evidence. Here's the deal.
"In the late 1800s, this poor French parish priest finds a couple of old manuscripts hidden inside a column in his church. In the next few years, the priest gets a lot of money—enough to fix up the church and build several structures, including a tower and a new villa. So where did the money come from?
"One possibility is that the priest discovered something that let him blackmail the church. There were some ciphers in the documents he found, and by interpreting these in a certain way, the conclusion is that this priest discovered that Jesus didn't die on the cross, but married Mary Magdalene, with whom he had children. Another theory is that he did die at the crucifixion but had impregnated Mary Magdalene first.
"Whatever happened to him, Mary Magdalene's children got married to Visigoths, the ancient Germans from whom the Merovingians were descended. Now, history says they were all wiped out, but the theory is that the line survives in some of the European royal families, and this secret society called the Prieuré du Sion, or the Priory of Zion, wants to put these descendants of Jesus back on the European thrones."
"What European thrones?" Laika asked dryly.
"Yeah, that does pose a problem," Joseph said.
"Before I even ask you what you think of this," Laika said, "I'd suspect that if this theory had firm evidence, it would've gotten a lot more publicity by now."
"Right. The evidence is very shaky. A lot of it apparently comes from a French nobleman who claims to be a descendant, and so stands to benefit if the throne is restored—fat chance. And much of it comes from these secret dossiers that no other historians have even seen. One of the rumors, not surprisingly, is that some of these documents were taken by British agents at the request of the CIA."
"Hell," said Tony, "it wouldn't be a good conspiracy if it didn't have us spooks in it."
"You've never heard any of this at Langley?" Laika asked.
Joseph shook his head. "Just as jokes—the CIA–P2–Knights of Malta connections, tabloid stuff that our people have laughed about for years. Some people think the Company's in bed with every secret society in the world."
"So all in all?" said Laika.
"I think it's preposterous," Joseph said. "It's this gigantic grab bag of clues tied into everything you can think of—not just the Company, but the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail, the Masons, you name it. It's very clever—a lot of time was spent concocting this theory—but it's basically. . . ." He searched for the word. "Baseless. 'Wackier than shit' would be a good description, too. So thanks, Tony, for letting me spend a very entertaining morning. Thank God I can speed read and didn't have to spend more time with these books."
"Look," Tony said. "I've just got one question. From everything you've read, you're saying that this whole thing is very improbable, right?" Joseph nodded. "I just want to know—is it possible?"
Joseph crossed his arms and shook his head. "All right, all right, Tony. This theory, like everything else, is possible. UFO abductions complete with lost time, implants, and the ever-popular anal probes are possible. Bending spoons by telepathy may be possible." He smiled grimly. "People having prophetic dreams may be possible. Happy now?"
"Yeah."
"But," Joseph went on, "I see absolutely no connection between what's in these books and the ramblings of a crazy old man. Now maybe, if nobody wants me to look into reading the entrails of birds, we could get back to following Peder Holberg's map."
"I haven't been totally idle while you two were working," Laika said. "I've been looking into another confluence of iron pipes. This one here seems to indicate this spot." She pointed to a map on her computer screen. "The only thing is, it's another one of those locations where the pipes went under the floorboards. So odds are good it'll be underground. Now there's a subway entrance right here, so I overlaid our schematic of the sculpture on the Transit Authority's subway map, found the location, and placed that on the outdated maps that we requested—they were downloaded to us this morning. It so happens that there's an abandoned subway station right at that site."
"What's the nearest station?" asked Tony, looking over her shoulder at the computer monitor. "Cortlandt?"
"Actually, Rector," Laika said. "Closer by about fifty yards."
"We have to walk down the tracks?" said Joseph, and Laika heard the concern in his words.
"Actually, I think running would be a better idea." Then she smiled. "Don't worry, I've got the schedules. Three or four in the morning, those stations are pretty dead down there. We'll just drop off the platform, walk down to the closed-off entrance, there'll be plenty of time. Tony, bring your picks."
"Always,"
he said.
"So what are we going to find," Joseph said, "in an abandoned subway station at three in the morning?"
"Jimmy Hoffa?" Laika suggested.
"Nah. He's at Giants Stadium," Tony said offhandedly. "Under Gate B."
Chapter 38
At 3:30 the following morning, the three agents stepped off an empty 1/9 train and entered the Cortlandt Street subway station. They had come equipped with plenty of firepower and wore long coats to cover it all. Joseph had said that it seemed like overkill, but Laika had only smiled and stashed a second weapon in the voluminous folds of her coat.
The station, as Laika had predicted, was nearly empty. A couple stood, their arms around each other, at the uptown platform's edge, but didn't even glance at them. Drunk or stoned, Laika thought. Maybe the gods would see them safely home.
As they waited for the couple's train to arrive, Laika could almost feel the weight of the World Trade Center directly overhead, pressing down on them. She thought about the skells and "mole people" who lived on the subways, sometimes even squatting in the many abandoned stations that dotted the system like ghost towns. Or ghost tombs, she thought, far underground.
She hoped they wouldn't run into any of the subterranean dwellers. Their firepower gave them clear superiority, but many of the squatters were clinically insane and might disregard the threat of guns. Laika didn't want to shoot any crazy people.
At last a nearly empty train stopped and the couple got on, but no one got off. The train pulled away, and they waited until its lights had disappeared around a bend in the tunnel. Then they took a look around, and, unobserved, hopped down onto the track and dogtrotted into the darkness. "Don't step on the third rail," Laika said for Joseph's benefit.
"Thanks for the tip," he replied, hugging the opposite side of the tunnel as if even proximity to the electrical rail would fry him.
When the light from the station faded behind them, other bulbs shone dimly along the tunnel wall, but it was hardly enough for safe walking, so they turned on their flashlights. Occasionally Laika heard things skittering ahead of them in the dark, but her light was never quick enough to find any of the creatures. "Rats," Tony said, after something scuttled near them, making her stop and shine the light around. "They won't bother us," he went on. "More scared of us than we are of them."
She didn't argue that she wasn't scared of rats, since Tony had used the plural. If he was willing to admit the rodents creeped him out, so was she, at least tacitly. At least they hadn't come across any of the sad human creatures who called these tunnels home.
A few minutes later, the beam of her light found a small door that, according to the Transit Authority plans, led to the abandoned station. Tony eyed the large padlock, turned it over in his hands, and smiled. Within two minutes it snapped open, and he took it from the hasp and opened the door.
Six steps led down, and they descended into a wide hallway. Dark puddles spotted the floor, and the ceiling was slightly higher than that of the tunnel through which they had come.
They walked down the hallway, shining their lights into the openings on either side. Some were simply small rooms, while others were halls that vanished into darkness.
"So is right here the area on the map?" Tony asked in a whisper which was probably unnecessary, but which the damp and shadowy chamber seemed to demand.
"I think a little further ahead," Laika answered in the same soft tone.
A moment later, Joseph, who was in the lead, stopped dead and turned his light off, signaling to the others to extinguish theirs as well. When they did, they saw a yellow glow reflect softly off the damp surfaces of the hallway. There was an opening ahead where the light was coming from, and they advanced slowly, trying to avoid splashing through any of the frequent puddles.
The opening was the size of a double door, and the three operatives approached it hugging the shadows of the walls. A landing lay before them, with stairs to either side leading down into a very large room, with the arched mouths of tunnels visible both to the left and right.
But in the middle of the room, twenty people were gathered. Laika had expected to see the skeletal and ragged inhabitants of the tunnels, but instead, the occupants were all dressed in black and red, and none was older than his mid-thirties. Some sat in ratty chairs, while others were seated around tables. Still others stood talking to each other. None was at rest. They were in constant motion—moving their hands as they talked, or crossing and uncrossing their arms. Even those seated jiggled their legs, or jerked their heads to and fro, as if looking for something. Laika hoped it wasn't them.
"These folks seem wired," Joseph whispered to her.
But before she could respond, if only to signal him to keep quiet, Tony spoke softly. "I know them." She turned to him questioningly, and he explained in whispers, "They're the cult that was hassling Holberg. The Esoteric Order of Dagon. They look harmless, but they pack heat." He pointed to a long, lanky man with stringy blond hair who seemed to be berating several of the others. "That's the leader, I think."
"Will they pull on us if we try to talk to them?" Laika said.
"Don't know. They're pretty damn crazy, but they really wanted to know whatever I knew about Holberg. There's some reason the map showed this place. I think we oughta try it. They try anything funny. . . ." He shrugged. "Nobody'd ever know, not down here."
"There are twenty of them, Tony."
He shrugged again, and Laika nearly shuddered at the cheapness of human life that his shrug implied. She hoped it was just macho bullshit, but wasn't sure. "I think we show our guns first," Tony said, "they might not be so anxious for a fight."
"Perhaps a little display of firepower?" Joseph suggested. "Just to get their attention?"
Tony shook his head. "I've seen these people. They're spooky. We fire over their heads, they'll return fire quicker'n hell. Let's just look bad." He reached under his coat, detached two sling holders, and brought out a SIG SG 550-1 assault rifle.
"Hunting sewer moose later?" Joseph said, taking out a standard Uzi.
"They just look at this and they shit ice cubes," Tony said.
Laika said nothing as she pulled out a Finnish Jati-Matic, folded down the front grip, and clicked in a twenty-round clip. Joseph nodded admiringly. "Fearless Leader looks like she's ready," he said.
"Tony, you've dealt with them before. You want to do the talking?"
"Sure, but what the hell am I asking for?"
"Let's feel them out," she said. "Ask what they're doing here, what they wanted with Holberg. Maybe they've gotten a little closer to their goal, which, for all we know, might be the same as ours."
Tony nodded. With his rifle in front of him, he moved slowly into the light. Several of those below saw him before he spoke, and pointed toward him, uttering shrill barks of surprise. Laika and Joseph flanked him, their weapons exposed, their faces grim with unmistakable threats.
"We see a gun," said Tony loudly, "and people die." The words were few and sharp and did the trick. Everyone stopped moving, except for a few hands that went up slowly into the air. "If you're packing," Tony went on, "take the weapon out slow, pop the clip or eject the shells from the cylinder, and place it on the ground, don't throw it."
Laika knew that was a bluff. There was no way to tell who had guns, short of patting them down, but four of the men reached gingerly into deep pockets and into the small of their backs and took out pistols, which they carefully set down. The gaunt man Tony had pointed out looked at them as though they were stupid. He was right, thought Laika.
"Hey, Ichabod," Tony said, gesturing with the barrel of his gun at the gaunt man. "I know you've got something. Let's see it." The man cast an even sharper glare at Tony, but reached under his leather vest and came out with a .44 Magnum hand cannon. "Ooh. I'm impressed. Empty it and drop it." Ichabod did as ordered.
"Now," said Tony, "suppose you tell my friends and me what exactly it is you're doing here."
"We're waiting for a train,"
said Ichabod, and the others laughed bitter, nasty laughs. "Why the hell should we tell you?"
"Because we've got the guns. And because I think we may be after the same thing."
"We all look for the Lord," said Ichabod, and though his intensity remained, he seemed sincere, as though he were proselytizing. "The junkie, the whore, the priest, the killer. We all need Him."
"So where is the Lord?" Tony asked.
"In all of us. The Holy One's in you, friend. Oh yes, I see Him in you. He was there that night you escaped us. You nearly killed Dante, you know. He just about choked to death. And the way you hit Elaine when she went after you . . . oh yes, my dark friend, He was in you, all right."
"But you're still looking for him?" Tony asked.
"So are you," Ichabod said. "What are you, man? Who are you with?"
"I'll answer your questions when you have the guns."
Then Ichabod tilted his head, and his expression grew cagy. "We were waiting for you, you know, or somebody like you. We knew somebody would come sooner or later. The Holy One wouldn't let us just sit and wait forever, just because none of us had the power to hear His voice. We thought the Iron Warden was going to show us."
"Iron Warden? You mean Peder Holberg?"
"Yeah. But he was chickenshit. He got scared."
"Scared of what?" Tony asked.
"Of His strength, His power. You know, man. It's the same thing you're looking for. But why the hell did you come to us? How did our Lord send you?"
"He works in mysterious ways," Joseph said, "His blunders to perform."
"Oh, He sure does," Ichabod said. "He can even deliver you out of the hands of your enemies, did you know that? And deliver them into your hands. He can make the plain places rough, and the straight crooked. He can do some really, really cool shit. Why, He brought you here, to show us where He is. There's no other way you could've found us, except through Him. And if He led you to us, He can lead you to Him. And we'll be following you, all the way."
"I don't think so," Tony said.
City of Iron Page 23
