She could hear, suddenly, above the din of the waves, the faint drumming of the wooden gong that summoned the monks to matins, echoing around the monastery walls high above her. It was half past two in the morning.
This was her third January here, and each of them had been equally harsh. Despite the window in her room being shut, she felt the blast of the icy squall outside on her face, and pulled the bedclothes tighter around her.
Then she pulled her hands together.
Praying.
Praying for the man in the photograph on her wooden dresser. Praying with a warm heart and with cold hands that were red and coarse from manual work. That sweet, sweet Disciple, with his gentle voice and his soft touch, and all the dreamy promises they had made to each other.
Timon.
The memories of that week of praying side by side with him in the chapel, and that one night she had been permitted to spend alone with him, still sustained her over three years on. They were preserved in her heart by the love the Virgin Mary had for her, for all three of them, for herself, for beautiful Timon, and for beautiful Saul, asleep in his crib just beyond the end of his bed, who would be two and a half soon.
He had not yet met his father.
She smiled. Imagining Timon’s expression when he saw his child, his son, his boy, his baby, this beautiful baby whom God and the Virgin Mary had given them. The same Virgin Mary who had spared her from having to kill the Infidel Cardelli family in Como. God had sent her to a convent there, while she was pregnant with Saul, to wait for His command to strike against the family and their twin boy and girl spawned from Satan.
But then the Virgin Mary had sent an avalanche of snow down on to the Cardellis’ car as they negotiated a pass in the Dolomites, sweeping them off the road and down into a deep ravine, burying the wreckage beneath a quilt of pure, white flakes.
Come let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow. Isaiah 1.
Now, every day and night her prayers were the same. Please God, Sweet Lord Jesus and Blessed Mother Mary, bring Timon home to my arms.
So I may feel his seed entering inside me and grow more babies who will become strong here, away from the sewers of the world. Babies that Timon and I can nurture, who will grow up alongside all the other babies here to be fine, strong people, to become, one day, soldiers in your army, who will go out into the world and destroy evil.
Please bring him home to me soon.
94
The rain beat down relentlessly on the Disciple’s car. This was weather he had prayed for. On a night like this, no nosey villager would be out walking their dog, wondering what a strange vehicle was doing in the car park behind the schoolhouse.
Inside the little rental Ford it sounded like a never-ending sack of pebbles was being emptied onto the roof. The car smelled of plastic and velour and damp clothes. His body itched all over; he had broken out in a rash.
Nerves.
He felt terribly alone, suddenly, as if God was putting him through this final test, here on this vile night, in this foreign land, with rain spiking the tar-black puddles all around him. But he would do it. For God and for his Master and for the love of Lara, he would do it.
Under the miserly glow of the dome light he unfolded the plans for the Infidels’ house, which he had photocopied on Tuesday morning at the County Planning Office in Lewes, and looked at them carefully one final time. Ground Floor. First Floor. North Elevation. East Elevation. South Elevation. West Elevation.
The layout was simple, there wasn’t anything to it: the master bedroom was evident, and the Spawn would be in one of the three smaller rooms. Speed was crucial. In his briefing, three years back – but as clear as if it had been only hours ago – his Master had impressed on him the need for speed. To remember the ticking clock. To never forget every mission has a ticking clock.
Six minutes on this one tonight. That was all he could risk. He had found out the name of the alarm company from the box on the outside of the house on his visit to the property on Tuesday morning. Then it had been easy. He had phoned the company, given his name as the Infidel’s and explained a problem he was having with the system. From the reply the engineer gave him, he now knew everything about the system.
From this he could work out that he would have six minutes to be finished and out, across the fields, heading back to his car.
And then.
The 3.30 a.m. reservation on the Eurotunnel Shuttle. He had practised the route on Sunday and Monday night. With the minimal traffic at that hour, and adhering strictly to every speed limit, the drive should take comfortably less than two hours from here.
By 5.30 a.m. Continental time, he would be on the autoroute heading to Paris. There he would leave the Ford in the long-term car park at Charles de Gaulle Airport, and take the transfer bus to Orly Airport. Plenty of leeway to make the 11.05 a.m. flight to Athens. Then two hours later the connecting flight to Thessaloniki. From there, a taxi to the port of Ouranoupoli where, after dark, the Master’s launch would be waiting to ferry him the twenty kilometres across the Aegean Sea to the monastic island.
To Lara.
He looked at his watch. It was half past ten. In a little over twenty-four hours he would be in Lara’s arms, at the start of his new life, in the Promised Land. And in the sight of God.
He folded the plans and put them back into his pocket, then for the final time he went through his checklist. Air rifle and telescopic night-sight. Maglite torch. Swiss Army knife. Gloves. Toolkit. Canister of liquid propane gas. Canister of compressed ketamine (which he had purchased in Brighton), which would paralyse for thirty minutes. Lighter. Beretta. 38 handgun, with full magazine and silencer.
He felt nervous now. Far more nervous than on any of his previous American assignments. Slipping his hand into his anorak pocket he pulled out the stubby, heavy weapon and looked at it for some moments, stared at the dull black metal. Gripped it in his hand and slipped his finger over the trigger.
His instructions from his Master were only to use the gun in a worst-case scenario. If you fired a gun, one day, someone would be able to connect you to that gun. To fire a gun was to cross the Rubicon. You could never go back; you could never be a Soldier in the army of the Lord again.
He was tired of being a Soldier.
He wanted to come home.
He wanted to sleep tomorrow night in the arms of Lara.
This was why, aided by the illumination of the dome light of the rented Ford Focus sedan, he attached the silencer, taking several goes to catch the threading correctly. Then with a badly trembling index finger he pressed the safety catch down, into the off position, and jammed the now much bulkier gun back into his anorak pocket.
On the three occasions he had checked during the past month, the Infidels’ bedroom light went out around half past eleven. It was now half past ten. At midnight he would make his way across the fields and up to the house.
He closed his eyes, placed his hands in front of his face, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. It was the start of his ninety-minute prayer vigil for strength.
95
Light suddenly exploded across the rain-drenched windscreen. Brilliant white one moment, blue the next, and for an instant the Disciple, hands clasped in prayer in front of his face, froze in panic.
Police?
The car slid past in front of him, splashing through the deep puddles of the pot-holed lot. He heard the bass beat of music. Ker-boom-ker-ker, ker-boom-ker-ker, ker-boom-ker-ker, ker-boom-ker-ker. It wasn’t police, it was one of those fancy sports cars with those halogen lights that glinted blue when you caught them at certain angles.