by Rene Fomby
“Akko? That doesn’t have anything to do with the Templar fortress, does it?”
Gavin was impressed at the breadth of Andy’s knowledge of the area. He personally had never even heard of Akko before, much less the fortress. “Why, as a matter of fact it does. How do you know about that?”
“I think it’s part of a project I was given a while back by my boss, Bob Sanders. Some university professor wanted us to use our satellite radar array to scan for hidden passageways and rooms in a number of locations around Europe and the east coast of the U.S. and Canada. In fact, that’s how we came upon the thing out in the Sahara. The tech who was inputting coordinates for one of the sites got his latitudes and longitudes mixed up. Good thing, too, or we never would have found out about Labarum.”
Andy could almost hear the gears spinning in Gavin’s head. “Hmm. If all this is tied into your earlier assignment, do you think you could get Sanders to let you come along? I mean, check out the fruits of your hard work, and all that?”
“I don’t need to ask permission, Gavin,” she said, grinning. “And after all, it’s technically just a logical extension of the raid, following up on our interviews. You up for another free ride, courtesy of the Navy?”
“That depends, Andy,” Gavin told her, rubbing his head. “All this back and forth from the Mediterranean to the U.S. and so forth. Does the Navy offer anything in the way of frequent flyer miles?”
the chi rho conspiracy
84
Istanbul
Peter Boucher had to check his cell phone twice to make sure he had the right place. The unprepossessing appearance of the Patriarchal Church of St. George took him completely by surprise, given that it represented the epicenter of the entire Christian faith, and the successor church to the Hagia Sophia. Unlike the heavily Byzantine ornamentation of even ordinary Orthodox churches, the plain marble three-story façade of St. George’s struck him as more of an office building than the seat of His All-Holiness, Eusebius II.
He entered the church through a set of ordinary wooden doors and continued into the vestibule, where icons of St. George and the Prophet Elijah hung on the wall, and an ancient-looking candle stand sat just off to his right, elegantly inlaid with ivory petals in the shape of pentagons. Passing through a second set of double doors, he entered the church itself. Tall dark marble columns flanked both sides of the passageway, each side filled with eight or nine rows of simple, red-cushioned wooden seats, three to each row. A narrow red carpet runner led up to the front of the church, which was lit primarily by a number of impressively elaborate crystal chandeliers, hanging from iron bars embedded in the capitals of each column. At the other end of the church, the far wall halfway up to the ceiling was dedicated to the Iconostasis, a golden icon screen that separated the nave from the altar.
Off to the right, two thirds of the way to the Iconostasis, an old man with a flowing white beard sat waiting for him on a small raised bench, the Patriarchal throne created for St. John Chrysostom at the end of the fourth century. The old man was dressed in a simple black robe and a black felt skufos. Boucher stepped briskly down the red carpet, finally turning to face the man and kneeling before the throne.
“Your All-Holiness, your servant has returned,” Boucher said in a quiet and reverent voice, crossing himself in the true manner of the faith, from right to left.
The Patriarch stood up slowly, waving a silver-and-gold crozier with his gnarled left hand in Boucher’s direction. The jewel-encrusted top of the crozier depicted two golden serpents, facing one another other, their forked tongues outstretched, separated only by a Greek cross. The eyes of the serpents were made up of large rubies, sparkling in the light from the chandeliers.
“Rise, my son. Tell me what you have learned.”
Boucher stood, but kept his eyes slightly downcast. “Your All-Holiness, I have done as you instructed. My work at Labarum is complete, and I am ready to serve you with my life and my mortal soul. Here in Constantinople, or elsewhere as you wish.”
“I see,” the Patriarch muttered, almost to himself, using the crozier to balance himself as he slowly descended the throne. “And our churches, are they prepared?”
“Our plans are complete from Cappadocia to Catalonia. Only the western-most parts of Spain remain to be consecrated, and even that should be ready within one to two months.”
“And the sacraments?”
The Patriarch of Constantinople was now standing directly in front of him, so Boucher had no choice but to meet his gaze. “We have finished testing, and the combination of a small oral dose, followed by a subcutaneous dose, will serve to keep our acolytes filled with the Holy Spirit for two days at least,” he explained. “The presbyters have all been fully trained, and have been given their preliminary instructions, awaiting the Coming. We have distributed the sacraments to the bishops, and they have also been fully trained in administering the sacrament of Christ, when the time is nigh.”
“What about the girl?” the Patriarch asked. “Constantine is very anxious about obtaining the banking codes.”
Boucher swallowed hard. “I was able to intercept the witch in Las Vegas, following my daughter Claudia’s instructions, and bestowed upon her our Lord’s sacrament. She opened her eyes to the radiance of the Lord, at least for a short while, but I was unable to get her to tell me how to gain access to the last of the bank’s assets. All she would say was, the instructions were locked away in an encrypted file on her tablet, just as Claudia had suggested. I managed to clone both her tablet and her cell phone, and our technical team has been pouring over the contents of both ever since, but so far we have turned up nothing.”
The Patriarch stared down at the floor, tapping the crozier lightly against his leg. “Unfortunate, but not entirely unforeseeable. Your daughter Claudia must have been misinformed about the Jew’s access to the money.” He looked up again, now smiling. “Well, at least our mutually satisfactory relationship with our Muslim friends in Ankara and Istanbul held up well. It cost us dearly, but now she is left without any other viable options, and when the bank falls—”
Boucher returned his smile, relieved that his failure had been graciously ignored. “When it collapses, we will be in the perfect position to swoop in and gather up the entire Ricciardelli empire in the name of our Savior. Particularly since we will be holding the reins to all of southern Europe in our hands.”
“And, my son.” The Patriarch leaned forward with a worried frown laying across his face. “The Jew. I take it you heeded my advice and did not soil yourself with her filth.”
Boucher swallowed again. He wasn’t sure which sin was the greatest, taking his physical pleasure with the demon, or lying to His All-Holiness about what had happened. “No, I restrained myself, as you suggested. Although it would have been nice to see if we could have cracked her open once again, as we did when we arranged that little accident for her husband. And the drugs I gave her back then were nothing compared to the sacraments. I can’t help but think that, with a little extra nudge, we could have left the whore irretrievably broken this time, lost down a dark and treacherous path that she could never return from.”
“No, it is not yet time for that, my son. Her time will come very soon, believe me, when she shall face the wrath of our Lord in all His fury.” The Patriarch paused, reaching out with his right hand and resting his fingertips lightly on Boucher’s forehead. “You have done well, my son. Constantine was correct in his appraisal of you. You are a true Ιππότης του Σταυρού, a true Knight of the Cross.” He leaned forward and touched the crozier lightly to each of Boucher’s shoulders. “And henceforth you shall be known to all as the Bishop of that order. As the general of our great army, serving our Emperor, Constantine, and our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, the Lamb of God. Who comes once again to judge the wicked and the dead.”
85
Houston
The courtroom behind him was packed
, a sea of defendants waiting for their own shot at five minutes before the judge. But right now it was Harry’s turn.
Judge Henry looked very young, even to Harry, and like many big-city Southern female judges, equally as pretty. A product, perhaps, of the fact that the people making the decision on how best to fill vacancies on the bench were almost always male. Her long brunette tresses and sparkling green eyes looked especially winsome set off against the background of her stark black judicial robe. But Harry wasn’t in court today for romance.
“Mr. Crawford, I believe it’s your motion. What do we have here?”
Harry stepped up briskly, setting his soft-sided leather briefcase down on the floor beside him. “Your honor, my client is in Harris County jail, stuck behind bars without bail going on five months, now, because Immigration has slapped an ICE hold on him.”
“So he’s an illegal?” the judge asked.
“Yes, your honor, he’s undocumented,” Harry corrected her, subtly. He couldn’t afford to get sideways with her, not now, not right when he needed her to make a key ruling in the case. “The thing is, he’s being accused of sexually assaulting a fifteen-year-old girl at a Houston area mall well over twelve years ago. And the State has zero evidence that he did it. He’s innocent, but he’s rotting away in jail without bail nonetheless, because Immigration’s got a lock on him.”
Judge Henry leaned forward, scowling down at him. “Sexual assault of a minor. That’s a pretty serious charge. Your client could very well get life for that.”
“Yes, your honor,” Harry said. “But the thing is, the rape kit they ran at the hospital after the young girl first made the allegations showed no evidence whatsoever of sexual assault, or sexual activity of any sort, for that matter. And that was just a few hours after the assault allegedly took place. In fact, even though the girl reported that he repeatedly penetrated her, and quite deeply, the medical records show that her hymen was still intact. And when she talked to the police—”
“Okay, that’s enough from you, Mr. Crawford,” the judge snapped, turning to the Assistant District Attorney, standing off to Harry’s left. “Ms. Lewis, what evidence do you have connecting his client to the assault?”
Sharon Lewis looked down at her notes for the hearing. “Mr. Herrera was stopped for a DWI, and, as is routine, they got a DNA specimen from him while we were still processing the Immigration paperwork. It came back with a hit on the cold case database, tying him to a sample the doctors at the hospital had retrieved from the victim’s abdomen. A perfect match.”
“And did the DNA hit come back as sperm?” the judge asked. “Any broken tails, anything that would indicate it was from the defendant’s penis?”
Harry jumped in to answer that question. “No, your honor. It wasn’t sperm. It was saliva. And the specimen was found on the right back side of her abdomen, where Mr. Herrera might have placed his hand after wiping his mouth. They were kissing rather ardently, according to the girl.”
Judge Henry’s eyes shot back toward the ADA. “Ms. Lewis, is that correct? It was saliva?”
Lewis looked like she was ready to crawl under a rug, but she gave the judge her most confident face and answered in a quiet but unwavering voice. “Mr. Crawford is correct, your honor. It was saliva, and it was located on the back—”
“And the medical report,” the judge pressed her. “She was still a virgin? No sign of any sexual activity?”
“Umm, no your honor,” Lewis answered, now not able to look the judge in the eye.
The judge paused, chewing on her lower lip and staring down at the ADA. “So, tell me, Ms. Lewis, if there’s no proof of a sexual assault, or really anything other than some kissing and maybe some groping, why exactly are you pushing this case forward?”
ADA Lewis hesitated, trying to find an artful way to answer the question. And finally failing. “Because my boss informed me I had to.”
“Blocker’s making you do this?” the judge asked. “Let me guess. It’s election season, and the idea of playing hardball with an illegal Mexican accused of raping a little girl plays well with his supporters. Is that about it?”
Lewis could do little but shrug her shoulders. The judge turned back to Harry. “Okay, now I get it. And as to your motion, I take it you’re new at this?”
“Yes, your honor,” he answered. “Just got my license last week.”
“And it shows, young man,” she told him, shaking her head. “Under the circumstances, a Motion to Dismiss without holding an evidentiary hearing first just won’t cut the mustard. But I understand what you’re trying to do, and we all have to learn the hard way, sometimes. I admire you for trying.” She shuffled through the papers in the trial folder sitting in front of her. “Okay, we have two choices here. One, we can set this for an evidentiary hearing. Until I see all of the evidence on the record, I can’t legally rule on a dismissal. In the alternative, we could set this up for trial, and—is she a white girl?”
“Yes, your honor. Caucasian, that is, not white Hispanic.”
Judge Henry made a notation in her file. “As to the possibility of a trial, you would then have the option of electing a bench trial, or going with a jury trial. But, given that you’re defending an illegal Mexican, accused of invading our sacred borders to rape an innocent little white girl, I might suggest—”
“That we go with a bench trial,” Harry agreed. “A jury wouldn’t be able to see past all that to realize he’s innocent.”
“Exactly. So, Tara.” She motioned to the court clerk, sitting off to her right. “When’s the next date we could schedule this for either a hearing or a trial?”
Tara examined the court calendar on her computer. “We had a jury trial set for Monday, but that got pled out this morning, along with our two backups. So, if the parties are ready, we could set it for first thing Monday morning.”
The judge nodded, looking back at the two attorneys. “Any problems with teeing this up the first thing Monday?” she asked.
Lewis cleared her throat. “Well, I’d have to clear it first with Don—”
“You let me handle Mr. Blocker,” the judge snapped. “I’m asking you. Do you have another trial scheduled, or did your mother just pass away? Other than those two excuses, I’m expecting you to be in my courtroom at nine o’clock, ready to go. That is, if Mr. Crawford is ready.”
“I’ll be there, your honor,” he answered brightly.
“And I guess I’ll be ready, as well,” Lewis agreed.
“Good.” Judge Henry focused on Harry. “So, which will it be, Mr. Crawford? An evidentiary hearing, or a full-on bench trial?”
Harry shrugged. “Don’t see as it makes all that much difference, your honor. The evidence and the witnesses would be the same, either way. I guess the best option, then, would be to just set it for a bench trial. That would greatly simplify the appeals issue, assuming I win.”
“And you’re comfortable with that?” she asked. “You’re ready to take on a real trial, just a week out of earning your stripes?”
Harry nodded. “While it’s true I haven’t first seated a real trial before now, I did second seat an attempted murder, plus a triple murder of our client’s wife and children. And won acquittals both times. Plus, I won a national championship in mock trial at Baylor last fall. Not exactly the same, but with almost a hundred mock trials under my belt, I’m not completely wet behind the collar. Procedurally, at least.”
“No, I think you’re already a lot more qualified than most of the lawyers I see around here,” the judge suggested. “Alrighty then, I guess we have us a trial! Counselors, see you both back here bright and early Monday morning.” She paused for a brief moment as they were both turning to leave. “Mr. Crawford?”
He turned back, one eyebrow arched in confusion. “Yes, your honor?”
She motioned for him to approach, then leaned forward, smiling slightly and shaking a pen in his direction. “Bring your ‘A’ game, okay?” she al
most whispered. “I don’t want to have to rule against you on this one.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, flashing his own smile back at her. “And don’t worry—I’m gonna try and make you proud!”
※
Harry was ready in the courtroom at eight in the morning, the first person the bailiff ushered in. He busied himself with setting out his trial materials and trying to settle the butterflies in his stomach. For all of the confidence he had shown the judge regarding his trial abilities, this was his first full ride with the training wheels off, and if he screwed it up, his client could very well wind up spending the rest of his life in jail. A prospect that had him every bit as nervous as a whore in church.
He looked toward the back of the courtroom, where Elena Herrera was sitting, waiting patiently for her husband’s trial to begin. A place where normally he would have expected Annabelle to be sitting, watching his debut performance as a licensed trial attorney. But Annabelle had begged off that morning, claiming that she had “other plans” that she couldn’t change. Not that Harry was fooled by any of that. She had six months to kill before she could possibly take the bar exam again, and so far she’d shown zero interest in lining up any sort of job to fill the gap. Not while Daddy was still content to write the checks and pay the bills. No, this wasn’t at all about “other plans.” It was about this particular case, about her sending a clear signal that she wasn’t happy with Harry ignoring her demands that he should drop it.
But plowing that particular field wasn’t going to help him right about now, and Harry turned his full attention back to the trial. This was a bench trial, with everything focused on the judge, so the normal preliminary steps required for a jury trial would be skipped. No motions in limine, no voir dire. It was straight into opening statements, and then the trial would begin in earnest.
