The Absolver: Rome (Saint Michael Thriller Series Book 1)

by Gavin Reese

  “No way, you were a cop! I figured you would-a had all that searching-shit down pat!”

  “I thought so, too, but I don’t think there was anything to be found.” Michael looked out at the light traffic around them. None of the nearby cars have been with us long. We’re not being followed…yet…

  “When I was searchin’ through my target’s place, Mike, I really wished you’d been there to help. He’s supposed to be a pedophile with a taste for really young boys, so I damned sure wanted to find the evidence and follow through on it. The intel packet said I was to search his computer for digital photos, so, I go into the guy’s home-office and it took me like, maybe, two minutes to find where he’d written down his username and password. Who does that?”

  “Right,” Michael agreed with his suspicions. “Nobody.”

  “Yeah, so I search the computer on his desk anyway. Nothing. Search through the iPad. Nothing. There was supposed to be hundreds of files, pics, messages. Nothing. Not a single porn pic, even legal stuff. I put everything back and got out before he came home. I was worried because I didn’t know if they’re just gonna let this one go for now, or if someone else is gonna have to go in and try to clean up after me.”

  Michael checked the side-view mirror for anyone that paid them too much attention. “Same thing for me. Different crime, but I was supposed to find a hard drive with all the evidence on it. Nothing. So, now it kinda looks like there wasn’t anything to find in the first place.”

  “Think that’s a coincidence,” Sergio asked. “I don’t believe much in coincidence, especially not when John’s involved. He tries too hard to manage the potential outcomes.”

  “I agree. Now comes the hard part.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Going back and pretending we don’t know we struck out. Makes me think that everyone struck out, and I’m gonna have a hard time believing anyone that says otherwise.”

  “Hell, we did a good job so far. Far as I know, Thomas was the only one that ever caught on to us.”

  Michael recalled that moment out on the rifle range and deeply exhaled. “That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life!”

  “That was even worse than when those damned rebels came into the church, back in Ecuador, remember that? They wanted to string you up as a C-I-A agent!”

  “You never told me that, Serge! You just said they wanted me to leave because they didn't trust white guys!”

  “Well, that was true,” Serge defensively replied, “I just didn't give you all the details about why they didn’t trust you or how they wanted to go about it.”

  “Man, I knew something wasn’t right. I never could understand the fast-talkers, man.”

  “Turns out they were kinda on to something, right?”

  Michael chuckled at the realization. “Yeah, I guess so, they were just about four years too soon.”

  “Anything you've been holding out on me?”

  “Not intentionally, but, there is this one thing, I guess,” Michael explained. “I kinda killed a guy in Bogotá a few months back.”

  “WHAT?! Are you serious? You gotta tell me this one, and start from the beginning.”

  “We don’t have that much time. I’ll make it quick, because you still gotta return the rental car so we can go grab the cars John’s goons stashed in the long-term lots for us. If we leave his cars at the airport and both show up together in a rental, he’ll have a goddamned coronary!” Michael spent fifteen minutes giving Sergio his best summation of the killing and its immediate aftermath. Sergio managed to turn only one circuit around the airport in that time.

  “Damn, man, that’s a helluva story,” Sergio proclaimed. “Anything else you’re holdin’ onto?”

  “I think John has small kids at home, or, maybe, he recently had small kids at home.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He made a reference to a kid's book one time, and it’s not one that he would’ve read as a kid, it’s too new.”

  “What’s the book?”

  “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “My cousins’ kids all read it,” Michael explained. “Not that old.” He rechecked the side-view mirror for tails. “What if we’re not the problem, and it’s the program that’s a failure?”

  “Like, you mean the intel's bad?”

  “Maybe. Hard for me to believe we’d both strike out, unless the intel network’s a dud and the info’s worthless, or this was another one of John’s field problems.”

  “Bet we find out in the morning, but I will add one more potential explanation, at least from John’s perspective.”

  “What’s that,” Michael asked.

  “We’re the worst and dumbest shitheads to ever walk on God’s green earth.”

  “Guess what,” Michael called out in his best impression of John’s voice.

  “I dunno, John, what?” Sergio chuckled as he replied.

  “I found out Andrew’s about the biggest goddamned piece of shit, just as I always thought! And his friend, Jude, well, that bullshit’s just Mexican-talk for ‘Judas!’”

  “How now, brown cow?!”

  “Man, I wanted to laugh so bad the first time he said that, Serge! My mom used to say that all the time, but she was usually talking about herself in the third person, you know, like she’s the brown cow that can’t figure out what to do next.”

  “Who do you think we really work for?”

  Sergio’s unexpected question caught Michael off-guard. I assume Sergio did that on purpose to try to get a genuine reaction. Michael shrugged. “Dunno. I’d say John, but he’s just a manager, and not even a middle manager, I don’t think. Pretty sure he takes his orders from the guy who takes them from the guy who...you get the idea. This thing has to go pretty far up the ladder.”

  “Way above my pay grade, anyway, mijo. I’m just a lowly Mexican-American priest that’s never been paid to think in his whole life.”

  Michael ignored his friend’s intellectual self-deprecation. “I do wonder how far this goes up the Church hierarchy, ya know?”

  “Well, like I said, I think we go pretty close to the top, if not all the way to the white Cossack. I’m sure they’ve got this compartmentalized and insulated enough to protect His Holiness from blowback, but, it’s not like we’re working for some Charles Manson cult.”

  “Probably time to drop this off, Serge. If John has trackers on our cars, he’s gonna wonder why they haven’t started moving yet.”

  “Yeah, just lemme run something by you. I know we’re not supposed to call this anything, right, not give the organization a name, or what-not.”

  “Right,” Michael replied, “but you think you’ve got a winner?”

  “Check it out. Wrath, Incorporated. Whaddaya think?”

  “Wrath, Inc. Ira Incorporatus, in our revered Latin. I think I like it, Serge, it’s got some legs.”

  “Oooo, yeah, Ira Incorporatus! We’ve always made a good team, mijo. The two-man demon-wrecking crew of Ira Incorporatus.”

  “Yeah, I dunno now, Wrath, Inc., does have a nice ring to it,” Michael offered. “The Latin just sounds more official. Now we just need a corporate logo, Serge, think we can work that out over the next couple days? You used to draw, didn’t you?”

  ‘That was a lifetime ago, Mike, but I’ll see what I can come up with.”

  “Something subtle, you know, so we can hide it in plain sight.”

  “Just like the old days in Ecuador, right? Quaere veniam, noli potestam.”

  “Yep,” Michael agreed, “just like that. Seek grace, not opportunity.”

  “Definitely sounds better than what we originally intended.”

  “Ask forgiveness, not permission,” Michael recalled. “It’s always easier to just go out and do the right things, at the right times, for the right reasons, and worry about all the permissions and politics later.”

  “Might be why the rebels wanted to kill you, you know that, ri
ght?”

  “Fair enough. There is safety in permission.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to ask for the last seven months, man, how’s your folks doing?”

  Michael immediately felt much more somber as his mother came to the forefront of his thoughts. What would she think of all this? “Good enough, I guess. My dad semi-retired a couple years ago. He quit working full-time so he can take care of my mom. She got diagnosed with an aggressive form of M-S.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Mike! Is there anything that can be done for her?”

  “Not really,” he offered, “we’re kind of in a holding pattern. The current treatments are slowing the progression, but the only real hope she’s got is for new medical advances. It looks like some promising advances in stem cell therapy might help, but the cost is too high right now, and the F-D-A hasn’t yet approved the treatments here in the States.”

  “Where would she have to go?”

  “Europe,” Michael explained, “and she’d need to take about a quarter-million dollars with her.”

  Sergio whistled and took an exit to again drive them back around the airport perimeter. “I’ll pray for them. If I get an unexpected inheritance from a rich uncle I never knew about, though, you’re all on the first flight out.”

  “Thanks, Serge, I appreciate that. Maybe we should pray for rich uncles.”

  “I think it’s fine as long as you pray for someone else to have one.”

  “You mind dropping me first? Help make it look like we didn’t just do this. If our G-P-S trackers light up at the same time, John’ll be suspicious.”

  “Seems legit, where’s your drop-car?”

  “East economy, row R-R.” Michael wondered how tomorrow would go, given what he now knew about Sergio’s experience. We either failed to find evidence that actually exists, or we succeeded by not taking action without evidence, or, worst-case, we exposed real problems with John’s program and its intel sources and analysis. And, I’ve gotta play dumb about Sergio’s shut-out. John’s reaction will tell me everything I need to know.

  SIXTY

  Friday, 0733 hours.

  Rural Compound. Niobrara County, Wyoming.

  “This damned chair,” Michael murmured beneath his breath, “swear to God this is gonna be the next thing I kill.” Once again seated with his three remaining trainees in their converted classroom, Father Harry delivered their mass celebration. Hope we never meet here like this again. I thought I’d already left for the last time, but this place is threatening to become a bad yo-yo. As the monsignor delivered a monotone homily, the wind gusted and howled behind him. So tired of the goddamned wind up here. I’m always gettin’ sandblasted, or sunbaked, or windblown. If John keeps us here all winter, this place’ll become my Catholic Siberia, after all. He knelt down in front of the chair and ensured his now-ragged prayer towel was placed beneath his kneecaps. This is almost as cozy as that piece-of-shit chair.

  After Father Harry concluded the small service, the four students moved the two remaining banquet tables back to create a single row and waited a turn to confess their recent sins. Michael, seated closest to the stall that the monsignor had only recently turned into a makeshift booth, stepped over when Father Harry indicated he was ready and waiting. No way this guy’s getting anything but the Bull Durham speech. ‘Glad to be here, part of a great team effort, no ‘I’ in team.’ The works.

  Michael confessed only his trespass into Jordan Miller’s residence and private things, and the guilt he felt for not finding the evidence that would have allowed him to prevent Miller from harming additional victims.

  “I understand the remorse that’s in your heart, son,” Father Harry offered, “but you needn’t worry about any of this as a sin. You took reasonable action to protect the victims and their dignity, and it isn’t your responsibility to find all the alleged evidence. If it’s there to be found, and it’s God’s will that you do so, it will be. Clearly, God didn’t mean for you to find anything, maybe just not find it at this time. Just as Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica, it’s entirely possible for God to use the demons among us for His will, as well. Miller might be innocent of the alleged sins, or God might still have a purpose for him. Neither of those possibilities is within your control, so you needn’t take on that guilt and remorse for something you didn’t do. Do you understand, son?”

  “Yes, Monsignor, I understand. Thank you.” There's no way I’m gonna confess my apprehensions about John to him. ‘Father Harry’ can claim to be an objective counselor, but he’s just as anonymous and vested in this program as John. Deciding that his confessed sins weren’t legitimate, Father Harry let him off without any required contrition.

  “Peace be with you.”

  “And with your spirit, Father.” Michael stepped from the “booth” and strode back to the banquet table. He motioned to Phillip, who rose and marched over to take his turn. After returning to his uncomfortable seat, Michael leaned forward and sat in silent prayer while he awaited the conclusion of their confessional time.

  Almost an hour passed before Sergio returned to the table, which signified the close of their morning services. Father Harry departed the classroom and, as Michael expected, soon returned with John.

  “Congratulations, gentlemen,” their lead instructor announced. Michael thought he heard actual joy in the man’s voice. “You've just enjoyed your last mass here at ‘Our Stepmother of Perpetual Suffering.’”

  “You feelin’ alright, John,” Sergio asked.

  “It’s a great day. We got sunshine, light breezes, and winter’s still weeks away, boys. It’s taken me and the staff here only two-hundred-twenty-four days, two hours, and about eighteen minutes to transition you four from absolute shitheads to respectable, just, and Godly warriors. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I guess we can’t expect the same of constructing men, either.”

  “John, that’s almost a compliment,” Phillip surmised. “I might even take it that way if I didn’t know you better.”

  “Don’t get too excited and start pissin’ your panties yet, we still got work to do today.”

  “Told you, Jude,” Michael announced across the table.

  “Wanna go double-or-nothin’ on what it is,” his old friend asked.

  “Alright,” John impatiently announced, “two warriors and two shitheads, but, I'll take what I can get at this point.”

  Michael saw that John and Father Harry both practically beamed. Maybe that means we’re almost outta here for-real. They both look like they just passed the program themselves, but I don’t remember ever seeing ‘em out running the trails with us.

  “First thing,” John announced, “is that I wanna congratulate and thank all y’all for the strong work you did in the last couple days. From what I and a few select others can tell, everything went off without a hitch. Everybody’s got a successful operation under their belts, and it looks like Father Harry and me’s done all we can do for you here.”

  And that seals it, Michael thought. That had to have been a training exercise. We’re all back to the compound at about the same time, and I’d bet the other two didn’t find shit for evidence, either. Just knowing that Serge and I both struck out, John oughta be asking us a million questions about our tactics and procedures to make sure we held up our end. No way that was a legit investigation. How could they have stopped us from going through a Final Absolution, though, if we thought we had found corroborating evidence? Michael quickly contemplated his reality. How now brown cow? He smirked at himself and the answer he knew was in front of him. I have to find a way to put more blind faith in John and his program. I won’t be effective if I question every detail and directive. John works to tightly control the outcomes, so he must have had something in place to keep us from murdering someone who didn’t have it coming.

  “Second, before we meet with each of you again, I wanna ask you to indulge me in one final philosophy discussion. Then, and only then, do you get to leave my precious and sacr
ed compound, so make it good.” John strode back over to the Matthew and Proverbs verses that hung from the interior wall to the left of the trainees. “Y’all been walkin’ in here most every day for the last seven, damned near eight months, seeing these hangin’ here every time you did so. I asked you on your second day here, now two-hundred-and-twenty-two days ago, to keep them in mind as you moved through my training program and its curriculum. I hoped you might find new meaning in these words.

  “So, after all this time,” John continued, “here we are together for the last time, and I’m hopin’ at least one-a you’s got something for me besides pop culture bullshit.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stood as though he intended for them all to remain there until he got the answer he wanted.

  Alpha half-raised his hand and John motioned for him to proceed. “It seems to me now,” he began in his heavy French accent, “that the first of the Beatitudes deals with our victims, or, I mean, the victim’s we’re trying to help.”

  “I gotcha, Alpha,” John smirked. “Carry on.”

  “So, the victims, they’re uh, the poor, they mourn for themselves, for the crimes and injuries that their assailants have put upon them. They are the meek, for they did not take action, uh, on their own, and they sought counsel and guidance rather than the vengeance they deserve. They, of course, hunger and thirst for righteousness, in our context, for the wrongs against them to be right. I think the second half, though, I believe that they deal with us.”

  “How’s that,” John asked.

  “So, our purpose,” Alpha continued, “our calling here, providing the final absolution to evil. God is showing them his mercy, through us, by offering their only conceivable chance at eternal redemption, despite the horrible things they have done. We are the ones who are acting of pure heart, without selfish motivation or anger or malice, even though we will surely despise the actions that those men, and some women, have done. We still, despite that we can say they deserve to spend eternity in hell, we offer them instead the kingdom of heaven.