by Gavin Reese
February 13, 10:29am
San Miguel Chapel. Santa Fe, New Mexico.
After that morning’s mass celebration, Michael sat on a wobbly stool in the chapel’s small, secluded sacristy to speak with his boss. This is the only place in the chapel that no one could reasonably eavesdrop on me. The stone walls and heavy doors block all sound from leaving, and the chapel’s Wi-Fi is concealed in the ceiling. Best signal in the joint. Michael’s cell phone rang at precisely the appointed time, and he accepted the call without looking at the caller ID. “Andrew.” Michael answered with the apostolic pseudonym John demanded he continue to use.
“You secure, shithead?” John usually started their conversations with “shithead” and his operational security concerns.
Michael’s heart rate increased when John’s gruff baritone voice boomed through the phone. A deep breath helped. It’s happened every time since I first met the man. Might have something to do with all the secrets I’m keeping from him, or our history of violence. If he ever learns about my lies, or that I went back to the Wyoming compound, he’ll come at me with something better than the box cutter he used last time. John might mean ‘shithead’ as a term of endearment like he claims, Michael thought, but he never sounds like it. He checked his phone’s VPN, even though it always ran in the background. Good. Shows my signal routing through Canada. “Yep, all secure.”
“You’ve been kinda hard to reach. By my count, ya got home three days ago, and this’s the first chance I’ve had to debrief your London trip.” John paused as though expecting a response. He finally contined. “I got your report, but I still gotta hear it from the horse’s mouth. Where you been all this time?”
“Just haven’t been able to get myself in a secure place to talk without drawing attention. This chapel’s on the National Register of Historic Places, and most of my time away from the chapel has been dominated by family problems. It’s not like I can just go sit on a public park bench so we can discuss the weather.” Confident he’d left no evidence that John could use to uncover his recent foray back up to their abandoned training camp, the one thing Michael couldn’t alter was time.
“Where are you now?”
“In the sacristy between the chapel and our living quarters in the rectory. The monsignor’s busy hearing confessions and the volunteer staff are managing the tourists for now. I’ve got a couple minutes.”
“I don’t give a damn what you have to tell people, what excuse you have to make, or how hard it is to lie to mommy and her new husband, Andrew. You’re gonna start makin’ time for me within twelve hours of landing back on terra firma from now on. We clear on that?”
Michael shook his head, angry at John for his treatment and at himself for ending up in this position. “Crystal.”
John’s pause emphasized the severity of his pronouncement. “Any leaks you’re aware of, holes I need to plug?”
“Nothing related to London. Thomas is still the only one that I’m aware of, but he hasn’t been on the news for a couple weeks. Is that activist group still tryin’ to get him released into a public psych facility?"
“They can try all they want. They got no standing to make the courts tell us to blow our nose, much less turn that traitor over to anyone else. Turns out he's the Judas I warned everyone about on Day One of the training program. At the end-a the day, that asshole ain’t your concern no more, Andrew, and you’d best leave him be. We got a program for him.” Silence again reinforced his directive. “Tell me about London.”
“There’s no evidence.”
“You sure you looked everywhere?”
“Yes, multiple times over multiple days, just like I said in the report. There’s nothing there to be found.”
“What about hidden compartments?”
“Nothing, there’s nothing there.”
“You check the walls, the floors, cabinets, ceilings?”
“Yes. I checked all that.”
“Crawl spaces, attic, the under-drawer spaces? That there’s a great place to hide docs and pics, ya know.”
“John, I checked it all. I was in and out of the house four times over a six-day stretch. Every time he went to work, I got back in and dug around for as long as I could. It wasn’t there. There was nothing to be found. You know this isn’t my first rodeo, so why are you hassling me like this?”
John scoffed. “Huh. Kinda sucks havin’ your colleagues question your decisions and your ability to do your damned job, don’t it?”
“Point made.” Michael waited for John to respond and direct the conversation. If he only knew how much I’ve been questioning.
“My desk-nerds are absolutely certain this London guy’s the real deal. They say there’s no doubt, well, no reasonable doubt, right, so we still gotta corroborate the man’s statements to move forward. I wish that asshole’d go take his confessions down to Scotland Yard instead of the local parish. That’d make things a damned sight easier for all involved.”
Michael saw his chance to reiterate a change to their strategy and tactics. “He’s almost guaranteed to have an off-site, some place where he does all this, assuming he is guilty of his confessed sins, of course. Somewhere that he keeps all his trophies, maybe even the victims and their remains, but there’s no way for one of us to find it. If we send in a team--”
“I’m well aware of the logistical limitations of our present operational security protocols, Andrew, and there’s a buncha reasons I wrote ‘em this way. Every tactic is a double-edged sword, so we always give up somethin’ to get somethin’ else we want more.”
“One guy has no chance to prove or disprove the confessions, no matter how many times he goes.”
“That’s my concern, not yours. Just like Thomas and the rest-a the op-sec.”
“Yeah, sure, John, except that I know about the allegations in London! I wake up every morning and turn on Sky News to see if another victim’s been butchered there, or if the Yard is working new leads or made an arrest! I’m carrying this tremendous burden around, like it’s gonna be my fault if he kills again and I didn’t stop it.”
“We don’t even know for sure yet that it’s him.”
“Exactly! We don’t know for sure because I can’t find the evidence that your intel people are so damned certain is there! You said your people have no reasonable doubt!”
“Don’t mean they’re right. One of them Italians called me an ‘intolerable asshole’ the other day, so they’re damned sure not perfect.”
Michael ignored the man’s dry humor. “You realize we’re back to the beginning of a circuitous argument?”
“I worry about the logistics. You go where we send you and do what we trained you to do. That’s it. You can’t carry around the guilt about anything you did or didn’t do. You’re just a gravedigger, Andrew, like we talked about before. The outcome of all this is outta our hands, and you’re not the only one that’s struck out on this inquiry.
“It’s up to God to use us, if He chooses,” John continued. “We can help Him call these monsters home, unless He wants ‘em to hang around a while longer. Even if they’re guilty as sin, He might still have a higher purpose they ain’t served yet, so He ain’t ready to see ‘em. You know all this shit. Why’s it got your drawers in a ruffle now?”
Michael sighed and considered how much to say. He’s not a warm-and-fuzzy kinda boss, and he doesn’t have much of a caretaker mentality with his employees. “I can’t view this in a vacuum. This is like my old life as a cop, and I can’t leave all my emotions and personal buy-in at home and still show up and give one hundred percent to the job. If you tell me there’s allegations that a bad man’s doing bad things to those around him, I need to have the confidence that it’s true. The possibility that I can stop people from becoming victims demands that I treat these assignments as though lives depend on me, for they most certainly do! That makes it impossible for me to not take it personally when I strike-out. I rationally understand there’s a thousand reasons for me to come up
empty-handed, but I don’t have to like any of ‘em. The only one I have to accept is that God isn’t ready for them yet. Anything else is the direct result of some failure, and this is too goddamned important for us to be content with failure at any level by any member of the team.”
“Hmmff. I’ll try to keep all that in mind,” John facetiously offered. “This is exactly what I meant when I warned you about diggin’ a grave for yourself. You need to get your head straight, and quick. You’re likely gettin’ a new assignment in the next day or so.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you’re needed. There’s a woman that’s sought our sanctuary from her husband. Claims he’s about to become a mass murderer. I got my suspicions, but the desk-nerds’re lookin’ into it. Stay close to home and keep your phone charged. If we send you, it’s gonna happen quick. Can’t wait another three days for you to decide to grace us with your presence.”
Michael heard the call disconnect and considered his position. I’m willing to believe in John’s assignments and technical advice, but I’m skeptical that he’d sacrifice his own well-being for the team. Just like the Spartans, the Roman Legionnaires, and my old patrol squad, it’s all about the man on my left, the one I can protect with my own shield. I can trust the man on my right to keep me safe, unless John’s standing there. Then I could find myself fighting a two-front war, and that never works out well. It’s not that I don’t trust him, the problem is that I trust him to first act in his own self-interest, not in mine or in that of my fellow Absolvers. Just like he said back at the training camp, he’ll burn down every individual to save the organization. Michael smirked at his own gallows humor. Doesn’t bode well for my retirement options.
February 13, 1:14PM
Thomas Residence. Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Michael knelt on the floor of his childhood bedroom and recited None, the afternoon liturgical prayers.
brrtbrrt
His cell phone vibrated twice to announce a private, encrypted text message waited for him. Michael finished his recitations, rose, and checked the text app. A new dialogue had opened with “J,” the contact title he used for his friend, Sergio. If John ever finds out we’ve kept in touch since graduating his training program, he’ll go apeshit. No telling what he’ll do if he learns me and Sergio worked together in Ecuador years before the program started. Best to keep calling him by his apostolic pseudonym ‘Jude’ and try to limit John’s potential rage.
“Busy?” the text asked.
“Just finished None. Sup?” They’d chosen the text app because it auto-deleted their dialogue after one day and offered full, end-to-end encryption. The cops or Interpol have a hard time getting our texts, but the Holy See and our minders in the Vatican only need someone like us. One ideological employee motivated to serve God and overlook pesky things like corporate policies and secular laws. Can’t defeat every obstacle, I guess.
“you see about Thomas”
“yeah”
“whaddayou think”
“he’ll stay isolated and medicated until they decide he doesn’t matter anymore”
“he ruined his own life”
“should’ve known better, dude wasn’t cut out to be a priest anyway”
“think they’d send us for him”
Michael grimaced as he read the text. Punctuation would tell me if he meant that as a question or a statement. He let a few moments pass while he considered how to respond. “i hope not. no way, no basis for it.”
“what about someone john trained after us, that doesn’t know him. thomas wouldn’t know him either. someone from john’s old life could do it too”
“no way”
“hope your right. trust john that much? what about the scared old men that give his orders?”
Moments such as this acted as recurring tests of Michael’s confidence in Sergio and their conspiratorial betrayal of John’s op-sec directives. The best answer is not the true answer. He chose to respond by asking his own dangerous question. “where you been”
“Here and there. Headed to London. Thought you just got back from there?”
“Contact?”
“Fr. Flanagan.”
“Met with him again last week. Spent six days investigating, came up blank.”
“What’s your gut say?”
Michael spent several moments pondering his answer. “Don’t wanna taint your opinion, but I think it’s legit. All makes sense, but no corroborating evidence. I think the guy’s escaped custody because he’s smarter than the avg criminal and he’s got an offsite.”
“That makes it tough.”
“Depending on the site and his tradecraft, it might be impossible for one person to find what we need.”
“John should send in a team.”
“That’s what I told him this morning. He told me to pound sand. I’m glad they’re not dropping the investigation, but we’re demanding divine intervention to come through for us. Double-check my work, but I’ll buy drinks for the night if you find it there.”
“You know I got a powerful thirst, right? That’s a helluva risk you’re taking, cowboy.”
Michael snickered as he typed. “You won’t find it without help. No offense.”
“I’ll let you know. maybe I get lucky or he gets sloppy. maybe ur bad at ur job. If I strike-out, I’ll see if John will let us get the band back together.”
“thought you’d never ask!”
“Who else? You’re the best second fiddle I know. headed to meet transport. be safe. PII”
Michael chuckled at the “PII,” his friend’s clandestine reference to Ira Incorporatus, their private nickname for the official unnamed Absolvers organization. Wrath, Inc, he thought, and recalled the logo Sergio had drawn based on the original Chi Rho cross. Our background P is crossed with two Is, though, not the traditional X. It’s subversive and it hides well in plain sight. Michael texted back: “u 2”
Just as Michael had done, Sergio kept his childhood home as his base of operations. He goes back and forth from Long Beach instead of Santa Fe. Idiot thinks he got the better deal. I’ve got access to an isolated airstrip a few miles outside of town, and I bet he has to drive a couple hours to find someplace the Vatican’s private jets can pick him up without creating a paper trail with T-S-A.
taptap
Michael locked his phone before responding to the knock at his door. “Come in.”
His father, Francis “Frank” Thomas, opened the door and leaned into the room, just as he’d done most of Michael’s life. He wore a white chef’s hat and a white apron with “Don’t Trust Skinny Cooks” written in large black letters. “Lunch’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes,” he explained. “Want a beer or glass of wine to go with it?”
“What’re you ruining, I mean, serving?”
“Har-har, funny man. Green chili chicken alfredo with spinach salad and garlic bread.”
“Sounds like a lager kinda meal, pop.”
“I’ll make it so. Want this closed?”
“No, just finished up my afternoon prayers. How’s mom?”
“She’s tired. The M-S injection she had this morning always leaves her cold and a little tuckered. I tried to get her to eat in bed, but she’ll insist on joining us in the dining room, especially with you here. All things considered, she’s okay. Told me today that she won’t let her M-S win. In her words, she’s adamant that she’ll live long enough to die from something else.”
Michael chuckled and shook his head at his parents’ dry humor. “That’s a relief. I was starting to worry all the mystery had gone out of it.”
brrt brrt brrt
His vibrating cellphone garnered Michael’s attention. “I’ll be out in a couple minutes.”
Frank frowned at the too-familiar noise. “Not if these ‘church emergencies’ keep pulling you away. I guess I can put it in a doggie bag for you.”
“Har-har, yourself, pop. I’ll be right in.” My dad and Monsignor Hernandez are both getting real inquisi
tive about my assignments. I might be able to trust H with my secret life, but I can’t ever reveal this to dad. If he doesn’t understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of all this, it could end up killing at least one of us.
Michael’s father cast him a suspicious gaze and pulled the door closed behind him. As soon as he was alone, Michael opened his email app and saw the expected notice from John.
“Actung, shithead. Be at Ohkay Owingeh Airport by 1800 hours 14-Feb to meet your transport. 2268. 2276-7. 2284-7. 2290-1. – John”
Michael sat back and exhaled in surprise at John’s list of alleged Catechism offenses. Wow. Intentional Homicide, Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and Drugs, probably manufacture and trafficking. This guy’s a real asshole, whoever he is. Seems like he’s a legit target. He set his phone atop the room’s small desk, leaned back in his chair, and considered his position. I need to put more blind faith in John and the rest of this anonymous cabal. I can’t be effective in this role if I don’t trust what I’m told, where I’m sent, or the motivations of those appointed over me. Even though John refused to tell me what they’re doing about Thomas, I know they went to a lot of trouble to make sure no outsiders can ever verify Thomas’ allegations about the training program. That’s something. As long as he’s on lockdown in their own psych facility, it’ll always be easy to kill him and cover it up, but I wanna believe that’s not the route they’re taking. Their efforts to shutter the camp in Wyoming are points in their favor, I suppose.
Michael sighed and stood up to join his parents. John is forcing me to trust him. Regardless of what his desk-nerds say, I’ll never offer anyone a Final Absolution without irrefutable evidence to justify it. It’s like Uncle Ronnie said back in the Cold War: ‘Trust but verify.’ Maybe the fact that I don’t completely trust everyone else around me will ensure that I never send someone to an early judgment.
