by Gavin Reese
"H, take a breath and hear me out, before you do anything rash.” Michael paused as he watched his beloved mentor take a deep, fearful breath. “I’m saner and more reasonable than I’ve ever been, and everything you’ve heard is protected by the confessional seal. You can reveal my secrets at the risk of your own immortal soul.”
February 13, 9:23PM
San Miguel Chapel Rectory. Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“H,” Michael pleaded as he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of his face. “Please hear me out before you rush to judgment. I didn’t come to this lightly, and it’s not fair that I’m asking you to accept in a few minutes what took me eight months to realize.”
“I can’t imagine what words you think could convince me that killing for the Church is anything but murder. I can’t believe I just had to say that to you, Michael! I mean, do you remember a few of the darker moments in our history, little things like, I dunno, the Inquisitions, or maybe, the Crusades?!”
Michael nodded his understanding but hoped to prove Hernandez wrong. “Do you believe in angels?”
“Of course.”
“Demons?”
Hernandez scoffed. “Come on, belief in one demands belief in the other.”
“Are some people too broken, too evil to be rehabbed or fixed?”
“Of course. They usually end up on death row if they can’t get elected to Congress first.”
Michael hoped H’s continued sense of dark humor indicated how this would play out. “I agree. Do you believe death penalties have a place in society?”
“You know I do, but that’s no longer our understanding.”
“Do you agree that, absent a scheduled appointment with their maker, most men on death row won’t consider reconciliation before the eleventh hour?”
“Yes, and I also believe most of them won’t live long enough to see ten-thirty. Where’s this going?”
“Bear with me, H.” Michael sat up a little straighter. “Doesn’t that mean, that by taking away the death penalty for the greatest evils that walk among us, that we’re condemning more of those men to eternity in Hell? That they won’t seek God until the end is near, but they’re likely to die unaware of how little time they had left?”
Hernandez considered Michael’s point for a few moments. “I agree, in theory.”
“Because such men cannot be rehabbed, and they can’t live in society without destroying the lives and dignity of those around them, I propose the only ethical solution for men tasked with shepherding our flock, such as ourselves, is to offer such evil men a final absolution.”
Hernandez eyed him through weary slits and considered Michael’s words. He spoke slowly when he finally did so. “A, final, absolution...?”
“Yes. Let me explain in a little more detail.” Michael cleared his throat and suddenly realized how hesitant he felt about revealing the inner-most workings of the secret cabal. If I have to trust someone, H is the one man on Earth who fits the bill. “It all starts with information that comes into the clergy, usually through confessions. Without divulging anything that violates the Seal of the Confessional, allegations that involve heinous sin make it to our intel staff. My boss calls ‘em ‘desk nerds.’ They gather raw information and try to establish its legitimacy. Once they believe they have a solid profile of someone infected with real evil, that can’t be rehabbed, corrected, or addressed by other men and other means, they dispatch someone like me. I’m really just an investigator, H.”
“I suspect there’s more to it than that.”
“Not at first. I go where I’m needed, and I find objective verification, evidence, that irrefutably supports the allegations that this person is a mortal danger to those around them and to their own eternity.”
“Based on the words of victims, witnesses?”
Michael nodded his head. “I investigate accusations primarily from victims who only wanna be heard, guided, and counseled, not avenged. These assignments involve a narrow few areas of criminal psychology and evil that everyone agrees cannot be altered, changed, or rehabilitated.”
“Murder?”
“Maybe,” Michael replied, “but even then, it must meet certain criteria. Someone who kills their spouse in the heat of an argument isn’t it. A serial killer? Those are the kinda guys I’m sent after. Pedophiles, serial rapists, mass murderers. No one else ever has reason to fear that I’ll darken their doorstep. In reality, no living person should ever know I exist.”
Hernandez leaned back again as though to distance himself from Michael. “Sounds like it. Why me, then? Why now? Are you in trouble, are the cops or feds coming after you?”
“No,” Michael assured, “none of that. I can’t keep lying to you, H. You’ve been in the Church for too long, and you’d obviously assumed I was part of some secret movement, anyway. I wanted someone outside my organization to know, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case something happens to me, and the truth needed to come out. My parents deserve to know more than will ever make it onto the evening news.”
Hernandez leaned forward again, and concern swept over his face. "So, you are in trouble, just not from the cops? Did something happen you didn’t expect?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Okay.” Hernandez looked down at his hands for a moment. “I’m sure you can understand that this is a lot to process, all at once like this. I mean, this isn’t anything like what happened in Bogotá. I know you killed that guy, but it was obvious self-defense, and even priests don’t hafta let people stab ‘em in dark alleys.”
“I understand, and I’m sorry to have to burden you with this.”
“Well, can you help me understand what happens when you don’t find the evidence you’re after?”
“Simple, no evidence, no action. We disappear like we were never there.”
“Do you contact the accused?”
“That’s one of most important parts of the whole thing. I can’t ever reveal myself until I know I have to move forward to the final absolution. When I was a cop, I could walk up to anyone at any time to ask about alleged crimes. It didn’t matter because everyone knows who the cops are and what they’re about. Now, no one else can ever know about me, about those like me. If we’re revealed to someone whose soul is not destined for immediate judgment, then all our work and effort, everything, the whole organization is at risk. The only way to solve that leak and keep our secrets would be murder, H. We’re not murderers. We’re absolvers.”
“Absolvers, huh? That what you all call the group?”
“No, we’ve got strict orders not to call it anything. It’s a nameless, faceless, totally compartmentalized organization that is almost beyond betrayal. We can’t say what we don’t know, and when it gets down to it, I don’t know shit. At least not about anyone else or what they’ve done.” A slight tinge of guilt struck Michael at his lie. It’s not my place to reveal Sergio’s identity to someone he doesn’t know.
“So, how does this final absolution thing work?”
“I isolate the accused with the evidence against them, explain my purpose and what’s about to happen. I give them a chance to admit everything in their own words and make peace with God through Reconciliation.”
“What about false confessions, Michael?”
“That’s a psychological phenomenon that doesn’t concern us. People give false confessions to the cops for a number of reasons but, usually, it’s because they’re insane, low-functioning, or the cop doesn’t know how to run an interrogation. Most suspects who give false confessions are trying to end prolonged or adversarial questioning while they’re trying to find a suspect. That’s not how we work. I have to find irrefutable, objective proof of their sins before I ever introduce myself.
“If we do meet like that,” Michael continued, “they’re gonna die regardless of what they say. They can choose to confess and be absolved of their sins, or they can elect to meet God just the way they are. Either wa
y, they’re not getting out of it. I am the consequence that God sent because of their conduct, and nothing they can say will secure their earthly freedom. I’m just there to save their soul and their eternity, if they’re willing to accept it.”
Hernandez seemed hesitant to ask his next question. “Then, what happens?”
Michael first balked at answering. “After I lead them through the Reconciliation ritual, hear their confession and contrition, I absolve their soul of its sins and then, well, I separate it from their mortal body.” That’s the theory of how it’s supposed to work, anyway. Actual results may vary.
“You kill them.”
“Their body, but yes. I kill their body in order to save their soul.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, he’s usually there.”
Hernandez and Michael both chuckled. “I didn’t know what you were up to. I knew it wasn’t parish work, but I never expected this.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it on the face, H, but by absolving the men of their sins and killing their mortal body, I’m giving their soul its one and only chance to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Without this process, there’s one destination for such men. No one else can serve them like this, and there’s no other way to keep all the future victims from suffering at their hands. Every final absolution saves dozens, maybe hundreds, even thousands of ruined lives.”
“What happens to their victims in all this? Do they ever know what’s happened, what their confession set into motion?”
“No. I ask the condemned to reveal all their victims to me so we can offer recovery services to them or help bring closure to their families. We want to ensure the victims know the sins and crimes committed against them were born from another human infected with evil, and not of an unjust, uncaring, or unloving God.”
Hernandez leaned back farther and again pulled the chair’s front legs up off the ground. He looked at the ceiling overhead. “I don’t like that you’ve chosen to burden me with this, Michael.”
“In all fairness, you wanted to know what I’m doing. It’s been this elephant in the room with us for the last four months. Even if you thought you might not like what you heard.”
“Did this all start after I took you to the archdiocese last year, after Bogotá?”
“Yes. The very next day.”
“Oh, my God. I was told they were interviewing priests for assignment to the prison missions. The archbishop told me to have you interview after he learned why the Bogotá diocese had you transferred home so fast. I did this. This is my fault that you’re involved.”
“No, it’s not. This is a blessing to me, a cross that I’m more than willing to carry. I’m indebted to you, except that we both know God put all this into motion. This is all divine intervention.”
Hernandez wiped tears from his eyes and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Your secrets, your confessions, Michael, they’re as safe with me as they’ve always been. I suppose this is the part where I now have to confess to you.” He wiped his nose on a paper napkin atop the table with his empty beer glass. “For both my soul and your op-sec.”
Michael smiled, “I’m all ears, Father.”
Hernandez chuckled at the repetition of his previous offer to hear Michael’s confession. “Bless me, Father, for I’ve sinned. It’s been one day since my last confession, and I come to you today out of fear and guilt.
Hernandez paused, and his voice trembled when he spoke again. “I’ve seen and done terrible things in the service of my nation. I still live with the nightmares, the memories, the flashbacks to my days in the Army. I fear, Father, that I’ve inadvertently sent a beloved and cherished friend down the same path, to suffer the same demons that still haunt me, and I’m terrified for the things that I know await him in the night.”
February 14, 08:52am local
Karlsplatz Train Station. Vienna, Austria.
Dressed in his best attire, Fuerza stepped from a red passenger train car assigned to the U2 line at the Karlsplatz station. His cohort, Negro, stepped out behind him and strode up the northbound Operngasse at his side. Fuerza scanned the crowds around them for potential threats. Undercover cops, military, nosy bitches. Even his nicest clothes couldn’t overcome the stark class difference between him and the other pedestrians. There’s the bosses, the powerful, their trophy wives, and the service staff. We look like some kinda low-level hotel service managers. Good enough to work around here, but not rich enough to stay the night. Dedos was right, him ‘n Retaco couldn’t walk three blocks here before a buncha chingadera cops jumped ‘em.
Neither man spoke until the crowds thinned farther away from the train station. At this early hour, the Royal Opera House wasn’t a pedestrian destination, and few people strode along its empty sidewalks.
“I heard a story,” Negro finally offered in Spanish, “about how you got your name.”
Fuerza grinned and nodded. The tale had grown taller each year. “Who told you?”
“El Trece. Said he gave it to you after you stood up for him. He said you backed down a dozen puercos that tried to search his house.”
A smile broke across Fuerza’s face. He liked the street cred and admiration the embellishment brought to him. “Nah, it’uz just six.” The memory flashed across his mind of the lone cop that had asked to come inside. Somehow, telling that one cop ‘no’ and closing the door in his face has grown into me fighting off a whole squad of policia.
“I got Negro just cuz my momma’s Dominican, but for El Trece to name you ‘Force,’ that’s cool, mijo.”
“It’s a lot to live up to,” he responded and spit on the sidewalk to his left, “but I’m up to it.”
“Nicknames are weird, right? I’m Tebo at home, from Esteban, my father’s name. What’s your momma call you?”
Fuerza scowled and walked on in silence. Even though his mother had named him after three saints and his dead father, Fuerza hadn’t answered to any of those names for years. He could recall having used them once when he first arrived in Austria six years ago with hundreds of South American refugees. There hadn’t been many other Hondurans on the Red Cross flight with him and his brother. Fuerza used his name so seldom that he had to stop and consciously remember it: Miguel Pablo Pedro Madera Lopes.
“She don’t call me nothin.’ She’s dead, and you talk too much.”
The pair didn’t speak for the rest of their walk to the Tourist Information Center. As this was their first time following the African drug trafficker, Fuerza expected this morning’s work would be a short assignment. Once inside the building, their first task was to recon the lobby, nearby hallways, and elevator bank. With that completed, he positioned both of them to wait for their target’s arrival. Fuerza placed Negro in a chair near the end of the main hallway, and he found a seat across the lobby that allowed him a view of the elevator bank and the beautiful brown-haired receptionist. Maybe she’s got a bad-boy itch I can help her scratch...
Fuerza sat and flipped through a handful of tourist brochures, and he sent the occasional glance or smile toward the brunette. She’s polite, but that bitch thinks I ain’t good enough for her, like I’m here for a stupid janitor interview, or somethin’. In his peripheral vision, a brown van stopped near the front entrance to his left. He looked over as the African stepped out into the cold. The target left his van running, its emergency flashers and heater both at work. Fuerza looked down at a pamphlet and pretended to read, even though it had been printed in some unknown, foreign language that didn’t look like German.
The delivery driver strode past. The brunette waved at him, and Fuerza understood his target had been here enough to be familiar and welcome. The arrogant receptionist focused on her computer after the African walked by, and she ignored Fuerza. All for the best.
The driver stepped straight to the elevator bank, pushed the “up” button, and waited. Fuerza watched him over top of the pamphlet. We gotta be careful. Dedos and Retaco are ‘sposed to be outsid
e in a car to follow the van after he leaves here. If their intel’s good, and this is the African’s only delivery customer, then it’s also gotta be his dope supplier. This is the time to be patient and invisible, just like a snake.
The elevator doors opened, and the African stepped inside. Fuerza focused all his attention on the paper in his hands and didn’t look anywhere near his target. Once he heard the doors close, he nonchalantly rose and stepped closer to the elevator. Negro met him there, despite instructions to stay put.
“Come on, let’s go up there and see where he goes.”
“No,” Fuerza whispered. “The elevator stopped at 3. We stay here and watch it from the lobby. See if it goes back to 3 to bring him back down. Then, we’ll go up to three and have a look around. If we can find a good place up there, then, tomorrow, we go up to three and wait for him to walk by and see where he goes from there. We don’t hafta follow him all the way to the goal line today. He’ll make us if we do that. Patience, Negro, we gotta do it in pieces. A little at a time.”
“How long’s this gonna take, then?”
Fuerza disliked explaining simple things. He exhaled and kept his voice low. “With luck, we’ll know where he’s going in another day or two, maybe three. Plenty of time before he’s ‘sposed to sell us the dope. Then, maybe we can cut out the middleman and go straight to the source. If he doesn’t like our offer, we can snuff him out, too, and just take over his spot, too. It’s just business, and nothin’ goes together like drugs, money, and blood. That’s why we don’t gotta worry about dying like weak old men, Negro. We ain’t gonna live long enough to sit around eat’n soft vegetables with shit in our pants.”
Fuerza glanced back to the elevator, which still had “3” lit in blue above the closed doorway.
“Go back to your spot,” he ordered the subordinate, “and don't move until I come for you. If we’re slow and careful, like snakes, we’ll getta eat all the rats we want."
