Aunt Sallie signaled to Church to look at the information on her monitor. Church nodded.
“It’s my understanding that Charles LaRoque has been treated for a variety of personality disorders since boyhood,” said Church. “Paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis. A handful of others. How is he able to run an organization as sophisticated as the Order?”
“The priest.”
“Priest?”
“The priest,” she said again, emphasizing the word.
“Lilith, you never mentioned a priest to me. Let’s remember that I’ve asked you many times for a complete history of the Red Order and each time you’ve refused. Actually, each time you never responded at all. So, again I ask, which priest? Who is he?”
There was a pause and when Lilith spoke again her tone changed. Less harsh, more cautious. “When Sir Guy LaRoque founded the Red Order he did so with the blessing of a priest from the Knights Hospitaller. Ever since then, each Scriptor has had a priest as his spiritual advisor.”
“And the current priest is part of the Order? And he is managing Charles LaRoque even though the young man is mentally unstable? That suggests that it is the priest who is the de facto head of the Red Order.”
“Yes.”
“Who is this priest?”
“Arklight has been trying to figure that out for a long time,” said Lilith. “There are some anomalies in his file.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the fact that when we compare a four-month-old surveillance photo of him it is a perfect match to a photo from 1936 that was part of some church records recovered after the Second World War.”
“There are a number of ways to doctor a—”
“And both photos match paintings hanging in churches in northern Italy. One from 1897 and one from 1633.”
Aunt Sallie mouthed the words “Oh shit.”
“We also have reliable visual confirmation from an agent in Baghdad that the current priest died in the bombing along with Charles’s grandfather and the Tariqa council.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything, St. Germaine.”
“I prefer ‘Church’ these days. Or ‘Deacon,’ that still works. I don’t really have a connection to ‘St. Germaine’ anymore. I’m sure we’re both adult enough to understand why.”
“Why not for once simply use your real name?” groused Lilith.
Church’s voice was very cold. “Do you really want to open that door? There are other skeletons in the same closet.”
Eventually Lilith said, “No.”
“Will you give me the name of the current priest? And the names of any of the others you know to have been associated with the Red Order?”
“You still don’t get it,” said Lilith. “There is only one name.”
“They … all adopt the same name?”
“That’s one theory.”
Church cocked his eyebrow at Aunt Sallie, who parked a haunch on the edge of the table and stared at him over the lenses of her granny glasses.
“Give me the name.”
Lilith said, “Father Nicodemus.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
On the Streets
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 11:22 a.m.
Ghost and I walked quickly through five or six streets lined with houses that had been left to crumble beneath the relentless Iranian sun. I saw a single sign with a notice about rezoning and impending construction, but it was at least five years old. The only life we encountered there were starving dogs who fled from Ghost’s warning growls, and a single vulture who sat on a telephone pole that had long ago been stripped of its wires. The vulture’s ugly, naked head swiveled slowly on its scrawny neck, watching us as we walked past.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I warned the scavenger, and gave him an evil squint that entirely failed to impress him.
A few blocks later we reentered a residential quarter where people still lived, though even here there was a sense of life fading to dust. I knew from my travels that the typical meal in an Iranian home was unleavened bread and lentils. That’s it. Animal protein was a rarity. I wanted to sneer about it and speculate on how often the ayatollahs had lamb or chicken; but I’m from Baltimore. I’ve seen American poverty at its worst, and as the richest nation on earth we’re the last ones who should throw stones about allowing poverty and starvation within our own borders.
There were a handful of cars, mostly junkers that were held together by rust and need. But one car caught my eye. It was also beat up but it didn’t labor to make it down the block; and I saw it three times. Twice on streets that paralleled the one I was on, and once idling at a light a block ahead. My route may have been random, but I paid close attention to cars and people; and one of the tricks is looking down a cross street when you reach a corner to see what cars are moving along at your pace a block or two over.
Spotting the same car three times could have been a coincidence. Kim Kardashian’s boobs could be real, too, and that’s about as likely.
When I got to the next block, I cut through an alley, running only as fast as Ghost could manage. At the end of the alley, I went through a couple of backyards and then a side yard which took me back to the street just as the little sedan drove past. I was in deep shadows and the driver was looking slowly side to side to check the faces of pedestrians on a moderately busy market street.
The driver was a woman.
I could not tell much because she wore a chador, but her eyes were intelligent, intense and, except for heavy makeup, they did not look even remotely Middle Eastern. Northern Italian at best.
“Violin,” I said, and I knew that I was right. My own Sniping Beauty. And as I murmured her name she turned in my direction, but I was in shadows and the traffic gave her no room to stop.
She could not have heard me. No way.
I opened my cell phone and called Bug, giving him the make, model, and license plate number of Violin’s car.
“Whoa!” Bug said as soon as he ran it. “This is really weird. I got a screen pop-up that says all inquiries for this plate number are to be directed internally. Here, I mean. The DMS. The pop-up is initialed D.”
D. For Deacon.
Church.
“Put him on the line,” I demanded.
“I can’t,” said Bug, “he’s on a conference call with somebody overseas. Don’t know who and he’s marked his line for ‘no intrusion.’”
“Then make goddamn sure I’m his next call,” I growled, and hung up.
Violin’s car was gone by the time I stepped out of the alley with Ghost lumbering along beside me. A few people threw me annoyed looks. Iran had weird rules about dogs on the street. I ignored them.
As we picked our way through the crowds of shoppers, I kept one eye on the cars, watching to see if Violin circled back. Then I froze. Another car drifted along, and the driver, much like Violin, was looking side to side to scan the pedestrians. It wasn’t my guardian angel. It was a man, and when he turned my way I saw a gaunt face and red rat eyes staring through the glass.
A Red Knight.
Christ.
I darted out of the flow of traffic and stood in the dense shadows under the broad awning of a big vegetable stand. The car rolled along, and the head moved back and forth, and I held my breath. Then it was gone in the long flow of traffic that vanished into the heat haze. He hadn’t spotted me.
“Sheeez,” I breathed.
I was becoming increasingly paranoid. It felt like there was nowhere to go, no place, not even a street corner, where I could catch my breath. It was getting hard to catch my breath and that had nothing to do with the relentless heat.
The vegetable seller glanced at me and offered a handful of figs. I shook my head, and with a word to Ghost, turned and headed a different way. We needed to get off the street right now. The CIA safe house was close.
We kept our heads down and melted into the crowd.
Interlude Three
>
Council Chamber of the Red Order
Jaffa, The Holy Land
October 1191 C.E.
Sir Guy LaRoque and Father Nicodemus sat at the end of a long rectangular table made from a massive and ornate wooden door that had once hung in a Jewish temple. The temple was now in ashes, its treasures parceled out among the priests and senior knights of the Hospitallers.
There were a dozen seats at the table. Nine knights sat there, and the rest were minor priests of Nicodemus’s choosing. Each of them had sworn the same oaths, each had sealed their oaths with the tip of a heated knife blade.
Without looking up, Nicodemus said, “Do you know this story, Sir Guy? The binding of Isaac?”
The Frenchman hedged. “Perhaps not as well as I should—”
Nicodemus waved away the excuse with a gentle movement of his hand. “There are valuable lessons in the Bible’s older books.” He tapped the carving of Abraham with a long fingernail. “This one in particular. Abraham, a holy man, was commanded by God to bring his son to Mount Moriah, and there to build a sacrificial altar and sacrifice Isaac upon it. Abraham did as he was told. He built the altar and bound his son to it, drew his knife, and was ready—despite his breaking heart—to kill Isaac to prove his devotion to God. However, before the knife could plunge down, an angel appeared and stayed his hand, directing him to sacrifice a nearby ram instead.”
As he spoke the men seated around the table grew quiet so they could hear the story. A few stood to better see the carving. Nicodemus nodded approval.
“The whole drama,” he continued, “had been staged to force Abraham to prove beyond question his steadfast devotion to God.”
Two of the priests murmured “Amen,” which was picked up and echoed by the knights. However Nicodemus’s next words silenced them. “Or so Abraham told everyone.”
He looked at the men, each in turn, and the molten gold color of his eyes seemed to swirl with shadows. “Personally, I have sometimes doubted whether the story was fairly reported. After all, except for the boy, who was traumatized and confused, there were no credible witnesses.” No one said a word. No one dared. “The power of the story is immeasurable. Because of it Abraham became the father of the Israelites, the father of us all in many ways. He became a leader whose right to lead was bestowed upon him by God. Directly by God. And why? Because of the power of his devotion, a devotion so steadfast that he would have slaughtered his own son.”
The others nodded but said nothing.
“As I sat waiting for our brotherhood to gather,” continued the priest, “I pondered this story, as I have oftentimes pondered it. We know firsthand that the histories being written about our Crusades are often at odds with the facts, but seldom at odds with the truth.” He paused, eyes intense. “With the most useful version of the truth.”
A wealthy knight halfway down the table said, “Surely, Father, there is only one truth. Everything else is…”
His voice trailed off as Nicodemus leaned forward. “Doesn’t that depend on who is telling that truth, and who is listening?” Nicodemus allowed them to ponder that. “I have long ago accepted that history of any kind may be only a version told to suit the listener and serve the teller. Like the story of Abraham and Isaac. While we can understand and fully appreciate the effect of this story upon all of the generations that followed, we liberated thinkers are now called to look at the actual events. We can wonder what Abraham’s true feelings were for Isaac. He could as easily have despised the boy. Or found him bland and uninteresting. Or, if—as some church scholars insist—Isaac was a grown man in his thirties at the time of the sacrifice, then the whole event might have been concocted by father and son. Certainly the result was that their line became the bloodline of the Jews. To tell you the truth, I rather like the idea that it was an agreement between them. It shows high intelligence and careful planning and demonstrates, to us in particular, the power that can be harvested from such courses.”
“But you say that it might all be a lie,” insisted the youngest man at the table, a priest who was the brother of a powerful knight.
“Yes,” agreed Nicodemus, “a lie, but a lie with a purpose. A lie that guided the course of a nation, shaped the future of a people. A lie that, through the blood and history of the Jews, allowed for Christianity and Islam to be born into this world.”
Sir Guy tapped the table with his forefinger. “Yes!” he said emphatically. “And there are two things that are most important about that lie. First, is that it was a lie. That is crucial to know. And the second thing is that no one else knows that it’s a lie. Even you, Father Nicodemus, cannot and do not know that it was a lie. If proof ever existed it was either hidden away or erased, which is a very good thing to do with such dangerous truths.”
The men agreed and a few beat their fists.
Nicodemus smiled his approval.
“And what dangerous and important truths rest with us,” he said softly. “Tell me, my brothers … how will we write them into the pages of history?”
Chapter Fifty
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
June 15, 2:55 a.m. EST
“Nicodemus?” repeated Church. “That’s very interesting. Is that a first or last name?”
“It’s all we have,” said Lilith. The speakers on Church’s phone were of the best quality, and it sounded like Lilith was in the room with them.
“There have been priests named Nicodemus associated with the Red Order for eight hundred years?”
“Yes.”
“And as far as you can determine they all look similar?”
“Disturbingly so.”
Church glanced at Aunt Sallie, who nodded.
“Lilith, I just e-mailed you an image file. Take a look at it and let me know if this man is similar in appearance to the priest currently working with LaRoque.”
“Opening it now,” said Lilith. She made a sharp, disgusted sound. “Yes, that’s him. Damn it, if you already know about him why are you grilling me on—”
“We did not know about the priest,” interrupted Church. “This photo is from a supermax prison in Pennsylvania, here in the States.”
“This man was in prison?”
“Yes. He was arrested at the scene of a multiple murder in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania and later convicted of the murders. The case was built on strong circumstantial evidence but there were no other suspects and he offered no defense.”
“This looks exactly like the priest. Exactly. What is his name?”
“Nicodemus.”
“When was this? When was he arrested?”
“1996.”
“When was he released?”
“Lilith,” said Church slowly, “he was not released. He was incarcerated at Graterford Prison until December of last year, at which point he apparently escaped.”
“Then it can’t be the same man. We have pictures of him from just before the air strike on the presidential palace in Baghdad on March 19, 2003. That’s when the old Murshid and the Tariqa high council were killed, along with the current Scriptor’s grandfather. So, your man would have been in prison.”
“Yes,” said Church softly. “Odd, isn’t it.” He did not phrase it as a question.
“One of us is working with bad intel,” growled Lilith, “and I really doubt it’s us. Arklight isn’t—”
“Please,” cut in Church. “No need to sell me on Arklight’s capabilities. But there’s something more about the prisoner Nicodemus. He was involved in the Seven Kings affair last year. The bombings and other attacks that were part of the Ten Plagues Initiative.”
“Hugo Vox?”
“Yes.”
“Mother of God.”
“Yes.”
“Vox knew most of the men who were killed in the Baghdad bombing. He’s known the LaRoques all his life.”
“I—didn’t know that,” admitted Church.
Lilith snorted. “You need better sources.”
“T
he DMS often relies on the goodwill of its allies and the exchange of crucial intelligence. Tell, me … how is Oracle working out for you?”
The only reply from Lilith was a stony silence.
Aunt Sallie mouthed the words, “Stop dicking around and play the card.”
Church sighed and nodded. “Lilith, when I gave you the Oracle system it was with the understanding that it be used to help your cause, and to provide occasional support for my operations.”
“That was long before you built the DMS. I have no standing agreement with the Americans.”
“You have an agreement with me,” Church said quietly. “And with Aunt Sallie.”
“Is she listening?” demanded Lilith.
“Yes.”
“Bitch.”
Aunt Sallie grinned, but said nothing.
“This conversation has made it abundantly clear,” said Church, “that you have information that is likely crucial to one of our ongoing operations. I have never used MindReader to intrude into Oracle, and I would prefer not to.”
The threat hung in the air.
“No. You tell me what’s going on. Why is your man Ledger taking meetings with Jalil Rasouli.”
“I want your word that this will be a fair and free exchange, Lilith. No games, okay?”
Instead of answering the question, Lilith said, “The shooter tracking Captain Ledger is my daughter.”
Church sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.
“You put her in the field?”
“Of course I put her in the field. That’s what she has trained for.”
“Have you told her?” asked Church. “Does she know who her father is?”
Lilith took a moment, and when she spoke her voice was bitter. “She knows. Telling her was the cruelest thing I have ever done.” She paused. “But I don’t need to tell you about breaking a daughter’s heart, do I?”
Church sighed again. “That’s unkind, Lilith. I do what I do to protect Circe from who and what I am.”
“So, she doesn’t know who her father is?”
“She knows enough,” said Church. “I don’t see any benefit in doing her any additional harm.”