He was having a wonderful dream — the happiest, perhaps the best he had ever had — and then it went away when an alien sound brought him back to a baffling awareness. Pope Pius XIII finally opened his eyes, his lids fluttering — the world, the ceiling, still clouded from a drug-induced haze. And then he realized that he was no longer in a wonderful dreamscape, but awake in a large room choked with dust and darkness. The internal walls were gutted, revealing bare studs underneath, and the floor was trashed with broken plaster, litter and waste. Here was abandonment.
When he turned over on the mattress he could feel the weight of the chains that shackled him to the brick wall. On the other side of the mattress lay a coffee can to accept his bodily wastes during his confinement.
The pope propped himself up on his elbows and tested the strength of the chain by tugging at the mooring. The links rattled like a pocketful of coins, but the chain held firm.
“I’m afraid it’s no use. The plates are anchored firmly to the brick.”
Pope Pius XIII narrowed his eyes in an attempt to pierce the darkness. What his sight finally settled on was the vague outline of a man, standing against the opposite wall. If the man had chosen not to speak, the pope would never have known he was there.
The figure stepped into a shaft of wan light, with his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a black tactical jumpsuit, a black ski mask, and combat boots. “How are you feeling?” the man asked, speaking in a clipped accent.
Pope Pius XIII raised his bony hand, the chained hand, the movement itself imploring and fragile. “Please,” he said. “Why are you doing this?”
The shape took a step closer, the toes of his boots nearly touching the edge of the pope’s mattress. “I do this,” he answered, “to end the madness once and for all.”
The pope gave him an inquisitive look.
“Whereas your Christ was the King of Kings who readily embraced the world, Pope Pius XIII shall become the Martyr of Martyrs who will divide it.” The shape took a step back and was again swallowed in darkness. “You will be the catalyst for the beginning of the end.”
The pope was unable to grasp the meaning of what was being said, the words cryptic, the voice hollow and growing distant. The shape spoke in riddles, while his mind was still numb from the ketamine in his system.
“I don’t understand.”
The shape illuminated one thing further. “Tomorrow you will begin to usher in a new age,” he said.
And like a wispy comma of smoke in a blowing wind, the shape was gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Team Leader made it a point to separate the pope from the bishops of the Holy See and the governor. He wished to evaluate each man on his own mettle, without any support, encouragement, or comfort from the pope.
He wanted to see if the bishops truly believed in a paradisiacal afterlife, if they would readily accept death as a graduation rather than the end. He would watch them with studious appraisal to see if their eyes reflected hypocrisy or genuine belief in the moments before he pulled the trigger. In this fashion Team Leader was an observer, a scientist, a searcher for truth. Does an afterlife of absolute peace and tranquility exist? And is blind faith the wings that carry humankind to such a place? If he could discover the truth, he would gladly surrender to it.
But Team Leader had grown tired; his searching always ended in disappointment. He had seen nothing more than cowardice in the faces of all the men he had killed. Still, he searched for a spark of hope that a better life than this existed. Everybody wants to go to heaven, he considered, but nobody wants to pay the price of admission.
Shaking his head in disappointment, Team Leader walked into the dank and hollow corridor. In the slivers of fading light that penetrated the edges of the boarded-up windows, he walked to the room where his team had anchored the governor and the bishops of the Holy See to a wall with lengths of chain. The stench of their filth hung on their garments and in the air, constant and unyielding.
On the mattresses, still affected by the sedative, the bishops were moving humorously about like corpses in a George Romero film, as they reached mindlessly for the purchase of something not there. On the last mattress lay the governor, a silver thread of drool spilling from the corner of his lips as he lay unmoving.
“Tomorrow, my dear governor,” whispered Team Leader, “we’ll start with you and write a new chapter of history.” And then he turned to wake his team from their short, but granted time for rest.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The distance between the Archdiocese of Washington and the Sacred Hearts Church was less than a mile. The Vatican Knights walked through the soup of an early morning fog, their footfalls quiet and catlike.
When they arrived, the church’s brownstone walls bore the greasy sheen of wetness. The stained-glass windows emitted a faint glow from candles burning within, flickering with the rhythm of a heartbeat.
When they stepped inside the church, the fog did not follow, as if the hallowed interior prohibited its wisps. Kimball closed the door, the snicker of the bolt echoing throughout the church.
The church’s interior was a magnificent blend of Gothic and Baroque design with a few medieval touches. The altar, adorned with alabaster statues of angels and cherubs taking flight above a crucified Christ, served as the focal point. The surrounding rows of pews remained empty and waiting.
Kneeling before the altar, Father Juan Medeiros, in full vestments, prayed silently with his head bowed, his lips moving and his hands held together. When finished, he gained his feet, gave the sign of the cross, and turned toward the Vatican Knights, who stood in the shadows by the archway.
“How can I help you at so late an hour, my brothers?”
Kimball stepped into the sallow light, the candles’ flames throwing odd shadows along the walls as he and the other Knights made their way to the altar.
“You would be Cardinal Medeiros?” asked Kimball.
Medeiros came forward and lifted the sleeve of his cleric robe to offer a hand. “Kimball Hayden. I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
“And this is my unit.”
Cardinal Medeiros smiled, his face hardly seamed by age. “Yes, of course,” he acknowledged. He observed the Knights’ black berets, each bearing an embroidered coat of arms, the symbol of their unit.
“Please,” he said, pointing toward the rear of the altar, “this way. We’ve much to do and talk about.”
The Knights followed the priest through a warren of hallways to a door. Crossing the threshold, they descended a staircase, then maneuvered through a dank corridor cluttered with discarded furniture destined for Goodwill Industries. Finally, they halted before a metal fire door.
“No doubt Cardinal Vessucci has told you of my position here in the States.”
Kimball shook his head. “Only that we were to contact you for intel, nothing more.”
The cardinal felt slighted at being identified as “nothing more” than an intel source, but he said nothing.
To the left of the fire door, Cardinal Medeiros typed in a numeric code on a keypad, which drew back an electronic bolt. When the door opened, the men descended another set of stairs leading into sepulchral darkness. With every step the air became noticeably cooler and damper, carrying the smell of must and earth. At the bottom of the stairwell was a brownstone wall with several outcroppings of fieldstone arranged like diamonds set within a pendant. Prudently, Cardinal Medeiros began to push certain stones while ignoring others, causing the false wall to slide inward and grate against the concrete floor.