The Quest

  Vivian did not reply.

  They all stood and continued on. It was becoming warmer, and more humid, and the thick, rotting vegetation gave off noxious vapors, which reminded Purcell of the jungles of Southeast Asia. There was a reason that few people lived in the lush tropical rain forests of the world; it was a hostile environment to humans, and a paradise for insects, slithering snakes, and animals with fangs and claws. In fact, he thought, the jungle sucked.

  They continued on.

  Colonel Gann walked easily, like he did this every day before breakfast, Purcell thought. And Vivian had youth on her side, but about sixty pounds of gear on her back, and Purcell could see she was dragging a bit. Henry, too, seemed a bit fatigued, and if physical exhaustion is mostly mental, then Henry should be thinking about their last trek when he’d run out of gas at a bad time, which led to a series of events that nearly got them all killed. Henry now wanted to redeem himself, and impress Vivian, of course, or at least not pass out in front of her, and that should keep him moving. If not, he should think about Gallas coming for his balls.

  They continued on through the jungle, or rain forest, as Purcell’s editors now wanted it called. The insects and birds made a lot of noise, which covered the sound of danger. But as Purcell had learned in Vietnam when traveling with army patrols, if the birds become quiet, they’ve heard something. It could be you they’ve heard, or something else.

  Purcell considered himself in fairly good shape, despite the cocktails and cigarettes, and this hike, even with all the carried weight, was so far like a walk in the park. But after a week of this, and sleeping on the ground, and the scant rations, he could imagine that they’d all be having some problems. It was obvious why the Gallas rode horses, and why many armies used mules as pack animals. But Colonel Gann had vetoed both for a variety of practical reasons, mostly having to do with noise discipline, and water and forage for the animals. Purcell did not usually defer to anyone in his business, which was why he was freelance and mostly between jobs; but he would defer to Colonel Gann in his business, as long as he thought Gann knew what he was doing.

  About two hours later, Gann motioned everyone together and said, “The spa is about fifty meters ahead. I will go first and recon.” He borrowed Mercado’s binoculars, then handed Purcell the Uzi and three extra magazines and said, “You will cover me.” He pulled a long-barreled revolver from under his bush jacket and headed down the trail. Purcell motioned Vivian and Mercado to stay put, and followed Gann.

  The trail ended at the clearing around the spa, and fifty yards ahead was the side of the white stucco hotel, sitting in the sunlight. Gann was scanning the area around the building, then moved toward it.

  Purcell took the Uzi off safety and followed Gann through the tall grass. Gann went around to the front of the hotel, and Purcell kept about twenty yards behind him. Gann climbed the steps and disappeared into the building, and Purcell waited. A few minutes later, Gann reappeared and signaled all clear.

  Purcell looked back to the edge of the jungle and saw Mercado and Vivian making their way through the chest-high grass. He motioned them to join him, and together they walked quickly to the front of the spa hotel.

  They stood at the base of the steps that they’d climbed with the Jeep and looked at the crumbling ruin.

  Vivian said, “We are back.”

  Purcell looked across the field toward the narrow road they’d driven that night, and he could see the place where he’d crashed the Jeep through the thick wall of high brush that blocked the spa from the road. He looked back at the hotel. He must have seen the dome, he thought, or it registered subconsciously, and that was why he’d suddenly turned off the road.

  Vivian saw what Purcell was looking at and said, “Fate, Frank. Don’t try to understand it.”

  Mercado agreed, “I see God’s hand in this.”

  Hard to argue with that, so he didn’t.

  Vivian walked halfway up the steps, and Mercado and Purcell joined her.

  She looked around and asked, “Can you believe this?” She turned to Purcell. “We are back where it began.”

  Actually, Purcell thought, this all began in the Hilton bar, with Henry inviting him to come with them to the front lines. A simple “No” would have been a good answer. But Henry’s invitation was flattering. And Vivian had smiled at him. And he may have had one cocktail more than he needed.

  Ego, balls, alcohol, and a restless dick; a sure combination for glory or disaster.

  Vivian said, “We will begin here, where Father Armano ended his life. We have been to Berini, and we have been to Rome, and we will follow the priest’s footsteps to his prison. And with his help and God’s help we will also follow his footsteps to the black monastery, and the Holy Grail.”

  Vivian took both their hands, and they continued up the steps to the place where Father Armano’s fate had intersected with theirs.

  Chapter 47

  They found Colonel Gann standing in the rubble-filled lobby. It looked the same as when they’d last seen it, except that along the frescoed wall where Purcell had parked the Jeep, and where they had heard Father Armano’s story, there were bones and skulls strewn over the marble floor.

  Gann said, “Firing squad.”

  Vivian stared at the skulls and bones, put her hand over her mouth, and said, “Oh my God…”

  Purcell moved closer to the execution wall. Some military gear and rotted shammas confirmed that this was a mass slaughter of Prince Joshua’s soldiers. Jackals and ants had nearly cleaned the bones, but some desiccated brown tissue remained, and dried blood covered the marble floor.

  The plaster fresco on the wall was shattered where fusillade after fusillade had cut down the condemned men. Purcell noticed that splashes of blood and perhaps brain stained the remnants of the fresco, as high as ten feet off the floor, adding a grisly touch to the pink bathing nymphs.

  Mercado, too, was staring at the scene, and he said, “This is evidence of a war crime.”

  Purcell, trying not to sound too cynical or unfeeling, replied, “Henry, this country is drowning in blood. What difference does this make?”

  “This is inhuman.”

  “Right.” They’d both seen battle deaths, but that was what passed for normal in war. Mass executions, on the other hand, had a special ugliness.

  Purcell counted skulls, but stopped at about fifty.

  Gann was poking around the lobby, gun in hand.

  Vivian had walked away and was standing at the back of the lobby, which opened out onto the courtyard and gardens.

  Mercado stared at the corner where they had laid the priest and covered him with a blanket—the now desecrated spot where he and Vivian felt a miracle of sorts had taken place.

  Mercado said, as if to himself, “The blood of the martyrs gives nourishment to the church.”

  Purcell could not completely understand how people like Henry Mercado, and to some extent Vivian, persisted in their belief in a benevolent power. But he’d come to see that there was a special language used to explain the simultaneous existence of God and human depravity. You would need the right words, Purcell thought, evolved over thousands of years, to keep your faith from slipping.

  Vivian had unexpectedly returned to the scene, and she had her camera out now. She took a deep breath and shot a few pictures of the grisly carnage. She moved closer to the corner where the priest had lain and died, to shoot photographic evidence of both sainthood and mass murder.

  Mercado stood close to her, to give her moral support and silent encouragement. It occurred to Purcell that Vivian and Henry might well be better suited to one another than Vivian and Frank could ever be. It bothered him to think that, but that may have been the truth. Henry and Vivian were, in a way, kindred spirits, eternally joined at their souls, whereas he and Vivian were connected only once a night. Well… but there was more there between them.

  Gann had joined them and inquired, “I don’t suppose any of these bones are that of the priest?” br />
  Vivian replied, “No. We buried him.”

  “That’s right. Well, lead on.”

  They exited the lobby through the rear and walked quickly across the paved courtyard, with Vivian and Mercado in the lead and Purcell and Gann on the flanks with their weapons at the ready.

  Gann pointed out horse droppings, obvious evidence of Gallas, but he assured them that the droppings looked to be months old. Maybe weeks.

  Purcell thought back to when they’d first walked through this spa complex without too much concern about Gallas, soldiers, partisans, or armed and desperate outlaws who roamed the countryside. God, indeed, watched over idiots.

  Gann was being both security man and tourist, and remarked, “Incredible engineering.” He added, “Rather a waste, though.”

  They found the garden where they’d buried Father Armano. Getachu’s soldiers had exhumed the body, and jackals had scattered the bones in the garden and on the paths. The grave itself had caved in and a colony of red ants had taken residence.

  Gann seemed pleased for Vivian at all the bones, and Purcell thought Gann was going to pick one up for her and say, “Here we go. Nice one. Let’s move on.” But in fact he stood patiently and reverently, staring at the grave. Vivian took photographs of the grave and of the scattered bones, while Mercado again stood beside her.

  The time had come to pick a bone as a relic of the saint-to-be, and Mercado informed everyone, “The skull is considered the most important mortal relic.”

  But there was no skull in sight, so that set off a search through the overgrown gardens. Gann let everyone know, “The jackals will often take a bit of their find to their lairs.”

  Indeed, Purcell had noticed that there were not enough bones to make a complete skeleton. But there were some good-sized bones, including a femur and a pelvis, and he would have pointed this out to Henry and Vivian, but he wasn’t sure of the protocol.

  Vivian was about to settle for the femur, but then Henry exclaimed, “Here it is!” and retrieved a skull from the underbrush. He held it up, sans jawbone.

  Purcell was standing closest to Henry, so he could see that, thankfully, the skull had been picked clean by jackals and red ants, and that the rains and the sun had contributed to the job, though the white bone was stained with red earth.

  Vivian hesitated to take a photograph of Henry holding the skull, which might be considered macabre back at the Vatican, so Henry set the skull on the stone bench, then thought better of that, and set it beside the grave. Vivian took six pictures from different angles and elevations. Gann glanced at his watch.

  So now, Purcell knew, they needed to take the skull with them, for eventual delivery to Vatican City. Purcell also knew that if he ever made it back to Rome, he would not be with Henry or Vivian when they presented their relic to the proper church authorities. And when they got to Berini, they’d bring photographs.

  Vivian had taken a plastic laundry bag from the Hilton, which was in her backpack, and which she could use to hold Father Armano’s skull in a safe and sanitary manner. She opened the bag, and Mercado took a last look at the skull, as though hoping it had something to tell him. He deposited the skull in the bag and they crammed it in her backpack.

  Next, the priest’s bones needed to be reinterred, and Purcell helped Mercado hand-dig the loose earth from the grave, evicting the red ants and other things from the pit. Gann contributed his machete, which they used to loosen the soil. They went down only about two feet because there were just bones to bury now, and not many of them.

  They gathered up the bones and carefully placed them in the shallow grave, in no particular order. The three men refilled the grave and Vivian took photographs. Purcell supposed that as with photos taken on an exhausting holiday, say to the Mojave Desert, these scenes would be more appreciated when viewed at home.

  The time had come for a prayer and Mercado volunteered. He said, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life.” He added, “Rest in peace,” and made the sign of the cross, and everyone did the same.

  Purcell sat on the stone bench, wiped his sweating face, and recalled that Father Armano’s death had compelled him into thoughts of his own mortality. But for some reason, seeing and reburying the priest’s bones had filled him with a far deeper sense of mortality. The difference between then and now, he understood, was what he’d seen in Getachu’s camp, and what he’d just witnessed in the lobby of this haunting ruin. He had already seen firsthand in Southeast Asia that life was cheap, and death was plentiful. But here… here he was looking for something beyond the grave. And he wanted to find it before the grave. In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life.

  Vivian put her hand on his shoulder and asked, “Would you like a bath?”

  He stood and smiled. They found the sulphur pool, but Colonel Gann, in the interest of security, and perhaps modesty, forbade any skinny dipping and suggested, “Mr. Purcell and I will stand watch, and Mr. Mercado and Miss Smith will bathe fully clothed. Five minutes, then we will switch.”

  So they did that, and it felt good to be submerged in the warm water, which was cooler than the hot, humid air. Purcell made eye contact with Vivian, who was sitting on a stone bench next to Mercado, and she winked at him.

  After Purcell got out of the pool, Gann gave him the revolver with a box of ammunition, which Purcell stuck in his cargo pocket, and Gann took the Uzi submachine gun, which was a far more deadly weapon.

  They made their way to the back end of the spa where a wide, overgrown field stretched a hundred yards out and ended at a wall of jungle growth. They began crossing the field, and as they walked, Vivian said, “This is where Father Armano walked when he came out of the jungle.”

  She turned and looked back at the white spa. “I wonder what he thought when he saw that? Or did he know it was there?”

  Gann reminded everyone, “It was not built when he was imprisoned.” He also told them, “The road was also not yet improved, as we saw on the map in the Ethiopian College.”

  Purcell assured him, “It is not improved now.”

  “Well, it has deteriorated over the years. But in ’36 or ’37, the Italian Army widened it, put in drainage ditches, and paved it with gravel and tar, all the way to Gondar. Then they built the mineral spa for their army and administrators in Gondar. That’s what I saw when the British Expeditionary Force came through here in ’41 on the way to taking Gondar from the Italians.”

  Mercado said, “So we know that Father Armano was not looking for this spa—or perhaps not even the road.”

  Purcell said, “For sure not the spa. But he may have remembered the Ethiopian dirt highway from his travels with his battalion, or from the patrol he was on.” He added, “He may have been thinking of following the dirt track to Gondar.”

  Gann again reminded them, “Gondar was still in Ethiopian hands at the time of Father Armano’s imprisonment, and his knowledge of the world was frozen at that moment, and remained so until his escape forty years later.”

  Purcell said, “Right. So where was he going?”

  Mercado suggested, “He had no idea where he was going. He was just running. And if he did know of that dirt road he may have intended to go north to Lake Tana where his battalion had made camp forty years ago. Or he could have taken the road south, toward Addis, where the main units of the Italian Army were pushing north to Tana and Gondar.” Mercado added, “As Colonel Gann said, his knowledge was frozen in time, and he was acting on what he knew, or thought he knew.”

  Everyone seemed to agree with that theory, except Vivian, who said, “He was coming to find us.”

  Purcell knew better than to argue with that, but he couldn’t help pointing out again, “The spa was not here in 1936.”

  Vivian assured him, “That does not matter. We were here.”

  They continued on and reached the towering tree line, then separated to look for a trailhead. Gann, who seemed to have a k
nack for finding openings in the jungle, found it.

  They gathered at what seemed at first a solid wall of brush, but Gann parted the vegetation and showed them the narrow path that led into the dark interior of the rain forest. He said, “Game trail. But suitable for human use.”

  Purcell took out his map, and also the photograph that showed the destroyed fortress. He took a compass reading and assured himself and everyone that this trail led almost due east, toward the fortress, though there was no way of knowing if it turned at some point.

  They made their way through the brush and onto the narrow overgrown trail, and began moving through the deep jungle.

  Purcell had no doubt that this trail would lead them to the fortress that they’d seen from the air. And from there, there would be many jungle trails converging on the fortress. But Father Armano had picked this one, and Purcell now thought he knew why.

  Chapter 48

  The game trail had not been traveled by humans in a very long time—except perhaps Father Armano five months ago—and at some point they thought they’d lost the trail. Gann still refused to use his machete, so there were times when they had to get on all fours and crawl through the tunnel of tropical growth.

  The five or six kilometers that showed on the map should have taken about two hours to travel, but they’d been walking and crawling close to three hours because of the slow progress.

  They’d drunk most of their water and were now into the fruit juice. Sweat covered their bodies and the insects were becoming annoying. Gann had assured them that the lions in this region were nearly extinct, but something big roared in the deep jungle, which made everyone stop and listen. Snakes, however, were plentiful, and Purcell spotted a few in the trees, but none on the ground, so far.

  They stopped for a break and Mercado wondered out loud if the trail had gone off in another direction and if they’d missed the fortress.

  Purcell assured him, “My compass says we’ve been heading generally due east.”