by Cook, Lori
“I have a suggestion,” she said softly.
The Cardinal looked up from his thoughts, his head slightly to one side, amused almost. Carol didn’t usually make suggestions. That was what he liked about her; what she did, she did with utter dedication. But she never got involved in his side of things.
“Are you sure it fits our criteria?” he asked, polite but wary.
“I think so.”
She explained the situation briefly, making sure not to stress her own emotional involvement in the case. It was, on the contrary, a matter of theft on a grand scale, of a person becoming not a millionaire but a billionaire. It was about people having been duped, quite legally. All things considered, it was exactly the kind of case that moved the Cardinal to action.
With his customary politeness, he let her finish, then pressed his palms together and took a long time to think about it.
“How much of this is public knowledge?” he asked.
“Apparently, people tend not to mention it because it might reflect badly on them. Plus, they might have difficulty finding work elsewhere if they get a reputation for accusing employers of theft...”
“Especially when they themselves signed their rights away.”
She sighed. “Jason was young, innocent, and plagiarism of programming code is hard to prove. He tried, but he didn’t have the resources to do anything else about it.”
The Cardinal stood to leave. “Let me look into this.”
With that he gave her the briefest of nods.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. Their relationship was not one of friendship. It was one of trust. He trusted her to get the job done. And now he simply asked her to trust him. Within days he would know as much about Strange Tech as any person on the planet. Of that Carol had no doubt.
A minute later the Cardinal disappeared down the sidewalk. She would see nothing more of him until the next time he had a use for her, which might be weeks, months away. Who knew, she might never see him again. Although she somehow suspected that they would be working together again quite soon...
Her mind now drifted back to her first time in New York, after the Cardinal had helped her escape from Mexico. Things had not changed much in those ten years. When she’d first met the Cardinal, she had no idea who he was, only that his modest black suit and white priest’s collar concealed something deeper, more unnerving. This was no ordinary priest, swinging incense and idling away the hours in the confessional. There was a natural authority to him, a bearing of carefully wielded power in his tall, angular frame. She could never have guessed what the Cardinal was, but a simple priest he most definitely was not.
He had appeared at the convent school the day after Raúl died, out of nowhere, like a dark cloud moving suddenly across the sky. It had been just a few days before she turned eighteen, and he’d saved her from a cruel and underserved fate. But whatever this man had wanted in return, she’d told herself, back then, as she gazed into his narrow eyes for the first time, she had no idea.
He had been slow and calculated, quite businesslike, as if Raúl’s death was of merely passing interest. No; what the Cardinal required had been far more complex than simply cleaning up after an untimely death. It would require a great deal more than penance. It would require, indeed, total dedication.
Did she have a choice? Back then, it seemed not. It seemed that her destiny had been decided for her. The Cardinal was not like that, though. It only seemed so. He had a mission, and it did not involve compelling anyone to join him in his work. Carol Schmidt, on the verge of womanhood, had been given the choice. And she had accepted. It was not a decision she had ever regretted.
She now stood up from the table, noticing that the Cardinal had left twenty American dollars under his saucer for the two drinks, an enormous tip in these parts. Money had never been an issue in their line of work. It would be the same tonight, she knew, as she readied herself for another job; whatever the financial settlement this evening, she would not be required to hand the money back. From now on, she was on her own.
She looked at her watch. It was only noon, still seven hours to go before her appointment with Father Hernández. After that there would be his associate, the cool and slightly unnerving Ms. Lescheva. Carol had already met her, and was keen to renew their acquaintance.
Chapter Six
It had been late yesterday evening when she knocked on the heavy door of the Social Center for the first time. Behind her, across the road, was the modern brick building of San Filipe Church, a large but not particularly impressive place, its bricks a dull orange and its dark windows covered in steel grills. She hadn’t been inside it; churches were not her thing, not since leaving the convent school. A childhood of yawning through morning mass, her nose itching with the incense in the air, had been more than enough time spent in churches for anyone.
Fortunately, her meeting was on the opposite side of the road, in the church’s Social Center. And now, at almost eleven in the evening, it had closed its doors to the public.
She knocked and waited, looking at the words Centro Social above the door. Several bolts clunked on the other side before it opened with a low groan. The woman standing there was tall, with short dark hair and a fixed, icy smile.
Even in her somber clothes, a dull gray blouse and a voluminous dark blue skirt, the similarity was striking. She was perhaps a few years older than Carol—thirty, thirty-two? Thereabouts. She was a little taller, too, and a touch less curvy, with an aura of athleticism. But the two women were very closely matched, right down to the hair.
“Carol?” she said.
“Sí,” said Carol, in perfect Spanish, forcing a flutter of nerves into her voice. “¿Usted es Irina?”
A moment’s pause.
“I...” the other woman said.
“Oh, sorry! You don’t speak Spanish. Are you Irina? I’m Carol. I spoke with Father Hernández on the phone earlier.”
“Yes,” she said. “Please, please, come inside.”
Carol tried to look reticent about entering, playing the part as well as she could. It was as if now, having plucked up the courage to come to the center and knock on the door, her confidence was on the verge of collapse.
Inside there was a ping pong table. A soda machine stood in one corner and next to it a shelf crammed with books and magazines. In the middle of the room were three ancient sofas, low-slung and sagging so badly that they looked like distorted, indeterminate lumps of color.
“Please, take a seat,” Irina said.
She was Russian, and had a light but perceptible Slavic accent, lending her words a tantalizing, far-off quality. And there was something deliberate about her movements, thoughtful and unhurried. Around her neck hung a small silver crucifix on a fine silver chain. It caught the light continually, set against the skin of her neck, which was very pale for someone with such dark hair.
Carol sat down on one of the sofas. It was large and remarkably comfortable, its old, deep cushions so soft that as she sank down into them it felt like she was being cupped from underneath by an enormous hand.
“Have you thought about what the father told you on the phone?” Irina said, lowering herself down next to Carol.
Between them on the sofa, she placed a plastic folder.
Carol nodded.
“Please,” Irina said, patting the folder. “Take a look. Tell me what you think.”
Carol took the folder, laid it across her thighs, and opened it. A photograph took up the whole of the first page. It showed a collection of large wooden cabins in what looked like a mountain paradise. Way up behind them was a ridge of purple peaks, the sun peeping over them tantalizingly.
There might have been fifty or sixty dwellings of various sizes. Outside many of them bicycles were leaning against the verandas. Others had sun shades extending out from the eves of their sloping roofs. There were several larger buildings, and a kids’ playground, full of sturdy, wood-built swings and climbing frames.
The villa
ge itself was snuggled in a lush green valley surrounded by forest. To one side a stream meandered, with several little wooden bridges over it, like miniature Monet bridges, real picture book stuff.
“Call it our little Eden,” Irina said, encouraging Carol to turn the pages.
Each new photograph showed the place in more detail, or showcased the breath-taking views out across the valley. There were a couple of dozen shots, and Carol looked at them all, pausing to ask the odd question here and there, admiring this or that about the settlement, visibly impressed, it seemed, taking it all in with awe.
And it was impressive, a whole community constructed out in the wilderness. Each of the wooden dwellings looked warm and welcoming. The interiors of the houses were also pictured. They were sumptuously decorated, all mod-cons and soft furnishings. There was nothing remotely basic about this mountain life.
Carol recognized some of the photos. She’d seen them before, just a couple of days ago. They were publicity shots for a high-end vacation resort in rural Brazil, the kind of place rich business people from Saõ Paulo and Brazilia go for a week’s retreat into nature, surrounded by servants and cooks, pampered like rare parakeets in a zoo and drinking mango daiquiris as the sun goes down.
Yes, Carol knew exactly what the place was. She also knew exactly what it wasn’t: it was not New Dawn Pueblo, a self-sufficient spiritual community run by volunteers. New Dawn Pueblo did not exist, other than briefly, in the minds of a few young women who were unlucky enough to have seen this folder, who had dreamed of waking up there and breathing the crisp mountain air, of striding joyously through the forests, their new lives just beginning.
“Do you like?” Irina said, at a whisper but pretty business-like. “Tell me, Carol, what do you think? Is it for you?”
“Will you be there?” she asked shyly, glancing fleetingly at Irina, then down at the floor.
“I’m going back tomorrow night. You can come with me if you like. If you’re ready.”
Carol’s head moved, just fractionally, as if she hardly dared to nod.
“I want to be ready,” she said.
Irina reached across and squeezed her hand. She looked right into Carol’s eyes and smiled.
“Are you sure?” she said. “Do you want me to explain?”
She gripped Carol’s hand, their fingers interlocking.
Then Irina pulled her hand away and jumped up, standing in front of Carol, hands on hips, before moving back a ways and perching on the edge of the sofa opposite.
“Everyone in the Pueblo chooses their own way of life. Whatever else, you must understand that.”
“I do.”
“There are no rules. Just respect and tolerance. We are a community of love and forgiveness. We are free. Free to choose. Free to live exactly as we feel. To love exactly as we feel. There are no boundaries other than respect and tolerance.”
“I understand.”
“Those who come to live among us taste the ultimate freedom. They choose to be free of the confines of society, especially the emotional and sensual rules of normal life. Some of those in the Pueblo express this through celibacy. Others through monogamy. For others, and this includes me, the freedom leads to something more open, more of a perpetual exploration.”
She stopped, but she wasn’t finished. She simply wanted the picture she was painting to emerge in all its splendor in Carol’s mind.
“The path you take,” Irina continued, “is yours alone to decide. No one will question its fitness for you, Carol, whatever you chose. No one will force or compel or persuade you that one way of life is better than another. All that is required, and this is a great deal to ask, is that you demonstrate to us that you are willing to commit to the ultimate freedoms that we cherish.”
“And how can I demonstrate that I am willing?”
Irina ran her hands through her own hair. Her smile disappeared.
“It is not easy. You must deliver yourself up, show us that you embrace true freedom, that the desire truly exists in your soul. You must offer up your whole being, your body, show us that you are willing to free yourself from the physical realm and all that governs it.”
“And if I do that?”
“If you do that, Carol, you will be free. Forever.”
Carol’s expression changed. It became more intense.
“Tell me how. I’m ready.”
Irina took Carol’s hands in hers. They both stood up, and embraced.
“Tomorrow evening,” she whispered, her face pressed into Carol’s neck, her lips touching the soft skin there as she talked. “Father Hernández will speak to you, and if he agrees, you will offer yourself up to me.”
“Anything,” Carol said. “I will do anything.”
That was yesterday. And since then, all Carol could do was wait in her hotel room, and imagine what Irina had in store for her.
Chapter Seven
At seven thirty she was knocking on the door of the social center again. She wore loose canvas pants and a white cotton shirt, and she looked about as innocent as a freshman lining up for college registration.
When the door opened, a priest stood there.
“Padre Hernández, buenas tardes,” she said.
He was in his forties, a full face, the skin dark and leathery, but not unhandsome. He was shorter than her, but made up for it in bulk.
“Carol,” he said, his voice a dull, low monotone. “Welcome. We have been expecting you.”
On the phone they had spoken in Spanish, although he’d also mentioned that he spoke some English.
He closed the door behind them, and clasped his hands together in front of him.
“Come,” he said, gesturing toward the sofas.
His expression was serious as he waited for her to sit down. He then sat down on the sofa to her right. She twisted a little so as to be able to see him as he settled in his seat. He was clearly in no hurry, taking his time to flatten out his black, full-length cassock over his thighs.
“Irina tells me that you have decided to join the community in the hills,” he began, his voice slow and measured, as if he was talking to a child.
“Yes.”
He nodded as he considered her response.
“As I told you on the phone, it is an unusual spiritual journey,” he said, as if delivering bad news, “and the rites demanded of you are equally unusual. Have you understood that?”
She nodded obediently.
“In order to be truly free, you must first banish from your soul all contamination from this corrupted world. To ascend to the spiritual plane, you must divest yourself of shame and self-concealment. It is not,” he said, his words even slower now, “a path that all people could or should take.”
“I understand, Father.”
He appeared to think about this.
“There is only one way to ascend, to truly ascend, and that is to overcome all shame. Are you ready to demonstrate to me that you have begun that journey?”
“Yes, Father, I am ready.”
He swallowed, and looked away as he spoke.
“Very well. Please stand up and face the door.”
She did as she was told, her back to the priest, perhaps six feet away from him.
For some time he said nothing. She imagined his eyes running over her body. Her pants revealed little of her strong, firm behind. But would he be searching for the lines of her body? How do priests look at women? This priest? For him it might be no more than a game. But how seriously did he take the game?
She was about to find out.
“Touch yourself,” he said, that same soft, low monotone, not a scrap of emotion in his voice.
For a few seconds she remained there, quite still. Around them the silence seemed to intensify. She listened in vain for the sound of his breath.
Slowly, as if unsure of what to do, she brought a hand up to her breasts, running the palm carefully over them, making them lift then fall. She felt the tiniest tingle in her nipples, as if they’d been
awoken from a dream-filled sleep.
The sensation reminded her of hours spent alone as a teenager, alone and naked, admiring her body as she explored herself, knowing she could touch every inch of it, in any way she wanted, and no one would tell her to stop.
The excitement of those delicious, spine-tingling journeys of self-discovery had never left her. Indeed, they’d gotten better, right up until she left the convent. She still did it now, whenever she was alone, standing in front of a mirror and playing with herself quite happily. Over the years she’d developed new and more profound ways of extracting pleasure from her body, so much so that if she happens to find herself alone for whole weeks at a time, it hardly matters; she can touch herself in so many different ways that each day, each hour, feels like a new lover is caressing her for the first time.
Tonight, though, there would be a new twist. Having someone to watch her had always been a particular turn-on. But for the person watching to be a man of the cloth, a celibate man (at least, that was in the job description), this would be something special. She’d always loved showing herself to others, of putting on display the whole repertoire of her well-practiced self-gratification. But a priest? Now that was extra-special, the naughtiest sort of exhibitionism.
She closed her eyes, relaxed, and began to trace the outline of her breasts, using her fingers sparingly, the very gentlest touches, little more than a feather-light tickle.
Behind her she could almost feel his eyes on her ass. She took it slow, pacing herself, knowing just how long she could keep this kind of thing going. But even now she could feel her nipples hardening. Her rear end started to rotate in small, almost imperceptible movements, and she could feel her panties riding a little way up between her buttocks.
There was something about the room, about the situation. It took her back to her youth. Suddenly she was like a teenager again, amazed at the sheer physical wonder of her own flesh, and how much she adored her own body and what she could do to it.
Her hands began to grope her breasts. It was as if her tits had never been touched before. One of her hands slipped inside her shirt and she pulled the cup of her bra down, taking the nipple between two fingers, rolling it between them, her mouth opening, miming silent words of delight.
