Purcell went back to the other two executed soldiers and retrieved their first aid kits, which each held a pressure bandage. He checked the two soldiers who’d taken the full brunt of the grenade blast, but their web gear was as shredded as their bodies, and he saw that one of them had a protruding intestine.
He went back to Gann, and he knelt beside him and felt for a pulse, but there was none. Purcell pushed his eyelids closed and said, “You did good, Colonel.”
Henry was naked now, on all fours, and Vivian was dabbing iodine on his legs and butt, which caused him to cry out in pain.
Purcell walked over to them and knelt on the other side of Henry. He counted three shrapnel wounds in his left leg and two in his buttocks. He could see the shrapnel sticking out of one wound and he pulled it out, which made Henry yell in pain. Purcell said, “I think you may be very lucky.” He took his penknife from his pocket and said, “This will hurt, but you will remain still and quiet.”
He managed to get all but one piece of metal out of Mercado’s flesh, and Henry kept relatively still, as Vivian kept talking to him.
He gave Vivian the other two first aid kits. “Bandage the ones that look the worst.”
He looked at her kneeling on the other side of Mercado and she looked at him. He said, “Be quick. We need to get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“You know where we’re going.”
She nodded, then started opening the first aid kits.
He stood and again surveyed the scene, then lit a cigarette. “My God. Oh my God.”
He wanted to bury Colonel Gann and Miriam and not leave them for the jackals, but he didn’t see a shovel, and he didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.
He walked over to Gann and hefted him onto his shoulder, then carried him to Miriam and laid Gann down beside her. He crossed their arms over their chests. Hopefully Getachu’s men, looking for their general, would know that someone had respected the bodies, and maybe they’d do the same. Maybe, too, they’d be happy to find their general with a bullet in his brain.
Purcell watched Vivian help Henry into his clothes. Henry seemed all right.
Purcell pulled up his pant leg and looked at his wound. A piece of metal protruded from his calf and he pulled it out.
Shrapnel from an exploding grenade or shell was a random thing, he recalled from his time in Southeast Asia—hot metal shards or pieces of spring-loaded wire, killing and maiming some, leaving others untouched. It really didn’t depend too much on where you were standing or lying when it went off—close, far, standing, or prone as Miriam was—it didn’t matter. When it was your time, it was your time. When it wasn’t, it wasn’t. It was Colonel Gann’s time, and Miriam’s time. It was not Henry Mercado’s time. Or Vivian’s, or his. Indeed, they had been chosen.
He walked over to them and said, “We are going to the black monastery. We are going to see the Holy Grail.”
Chapter 54
Purcell had the Uzi, and he gave Vivian his reloaded pistol, and Henry retrieved one of the AK-47s. They slipped on their backpacks and walked away from the rock quarry, down the slope toward the giant cedar, and continued on toward the wall of tropical growth in front of them.
No one spoke, but then Mercado asked Purcell, “Did you take any food from the soldiers?”
“No.”
“We should go back.”
Purcell replied, “Put your hand into the hand of God, Henry. That’s why we’re here.”
Mercado stayed silent as they continued on, then said, “Yes… I will.”
Vivian said, “We are all in God’s hands now.”
Purcell did not have to look at his compass to know he was heading due west, with the cedar and the monolith behind him.
There was a worn black rock lying on the ground at the edge of the wall of trees, and beyond the rock he saw a trailhead. They crossed over the black threshold and entered the rain forest. Limbs and vines reached out overhead and immediately blocked out the sunlight.
The land sloped gently down, and the trees became taller, and the canopy became thicker. After a while, Purcell noticed that the ground was becoming soft and spongy as though they were entering a marsh or a swamp.
The trail was no longer defined by walls of vegetation, but it was discernible if you looked ahead and saw the slight difference in the ground where it had been walked on.
Mercado said, “I don’t see a stream.”
Purcell did not reply, and neither did Vivian. They continued on.
The ground was definitely spongy now, and Purcell could see changes in the landscape. Huge banyan trees started to appear, as well as swamp cedar and cypress, which he remembered from the swamps of Southeast Asia.
The land was sloping more steeply now, and Purcell guessed they were entering the bottom drainage basin from the Simien Mountains, which he’d noticed in the air and on the map but which they had not thought to consider as a place where the black monastery could be.
In retrospect, he realized that they had been… maybe mesmerized by Father Armano and his story, and the priest had given them information, but not knowledge. He had told them enough to put them on the trail, but not enough to bring them to the end of it. They had to do that on their own. And if indeed they were chosen, then they would be guided on the right path.
Purcell looked around him. The terrain appeared deceptively pleasant and sylvan, but he could now see pools of water filled with marsh fern on both sides of their disappearing path. Marsh gasses rose in misty clouds, and the air was becoming hot and fetid. Wispy strands of gray moss hung from the tree limbs, and he noticed that there were a lot of dead trees, and creeping marshwort ran over the deadwood on the wet ground. Huge, silent black birds sat on bare tree limbs and seemed to be watching them as they passed. He realized that the marsh was much quieter than the jungle, and there were almost no sounds from insects or birds. A sense of foreboding came over him, but he said nothing and they pressed on.
The land seemed to be bottoming out and becoming a true swamp, and Purcell wondered if this was passable. He also wondered if they were going in the right direction. The path had disappeared, but there was a meandering ribbon of spongy higher ground that passed through the swampy expanse of terrain. The mud was sucking at their boots, and Vivian took off her boots and socks and walked barefoot through the muck. Purcell and Mercado did the same.
Vivian noticed now that Purcell had blood on his pant leg, and she asked him, “Did you get hit there?”
“I’m fine.”
“Let me see that.”
“I’ve already seen it.”
She insisted they stop, and Purcell sat on the trunk of a fallen tree while Vivian knelt in the mud, extended Purcell’s leg, and examined his wound.
He said, “It’s really okay.”
She had an iodine bottle in her pocket and she dabbed some of it on his wound, then sat beside him on the tree trunk.
They looked around at the swamp. Without saying it, they all knew that Father Armano had never mentioned a swamp.
Vivian said to Mercado, “Sit down, Henry.”
He sat slowly on the tree trunk and grimaced in pain.
Purcell said, “I think I left a piece of metal in you.”
“Indeed you did.”
They all smiled, but it was a tired and forced smile. The shock and horror of what had happened was still very much with them, and it was time to say something.
Purcell said to them, “Edmund Gann was a very brave man.”
Mercado said, “He was a soldier and a gentleman… a knight.”
Vivian said, “I know that he is with Miriam now.”
“Indeed he is,” Mercado said.
Vivian put her arm around Purcell and squeezed him closer to her. “You are a very brave man, Frank Purcell.” She told Henry, “He threw himself over me when the hand grenade exploded.”
Mercado nodded.
Vivian put her hand on Mercado’s shoulder. “Wh
at did you say to Getachu in Amharic?”
“The usual—that his mother was a diseased prostitute who should have smothered him at birth.”
Vivian said, “A bit rough, Henry.” She smiled.
Mercado said, “I hope he is now burning in hell.”
No one spoke for a minute, then Mercado asked Vivian, “Do you still have Father Armano’s skull?”
“I do.”
“Well, we are going to take him where he wanted to go.” He stood. “Ready?”
Vivian and Purcell stood, and Vivian assured them, “The stream is ahead of us.”
They continued on.
The ground was rising now, and the marshland was again turning to tropical jungle. What looked like a beaten path began to materialize in front of them.
Vivian suddenly stopped and said, “Listen.”
They stopped and listened, but neither Purcell nor Mercado could hear anything.
Mercado asked, “What do you hear?”
“Water.” She moved to her right and the men followed.
Running down the slope was a small stream, choked with water lilies and vines. It was, Purcell thought, a stream from the hills that emptied into the marsh basin.
Vivian knelt down and put her hand into the flowing water. She turned to Purcell and Mercado, silently inviting them to do the same.
They knelt beside the stream and let the water run over their hands.
Vivian said, “This is the stream. Do we follow it? Or do we follow the path?”
Purcell thought the path and the stream seemed to run parallel, but they might diverge.
Mercado said, “Ruscello. He said it twice. Il Ruscello. The stream.”
Vivian nodded and stood. They all stepped, still barefoot, into the cool, shallow water and walked upstream.
Without looking at his watch, Purcell knew they had been walking about five hours, and it was close to noon—a half day’s walk from the meeting place of the monks and the Falashas. And it had been mostly due west, even through the meandering path in the swamp. It seemed simple enough, after you’ve done it, and he tried to imagine Father Armano on his patrol with the sergeant named Giovanni, walking from the black rock—which the priest and the soldiers had no way of knowing was a meeting place of Coptic Christians and Jews. Giovanni had then taken his patrol to the giant cedar, and through the jungle, to the swamp, and to the stream, all of which the sergeant had found by accident on a previous patrol. And they had arrived again at the black monastery—but this time they entered by the reed basket, and only Father Armano came out of there alive.
And when the priest was healed of his wounds—by nature or by faith—he was given over to the Royalist soldiers and taken by the same route, or maybe another route, to his prison in the fortress, and there he remained for nearly forty years. And whatever he had seen in that monastery had sustained him, not only for all those years in his cell, but also for the hours he walked with a mortal wound on his way back to where he had experienced something so remarkable—or miraculous—that he had to return to that place, even as he was dying. He never made it back, but he had made it as far as the ruined spa, which was not even there when he had last been that way. And what he had found in the spa were three people who themselves were trying to find something. Trying to find the war. And Father Armano had asked them—or asked Vivian—Dov’è la strada? Where is the road?
Indeed, where is the road? There are many roads.
The jungle became thicker, and the stream became more narrow, and they could see smaller streams feeding into it from the higher ground. They also noticed more clusters of palm trees. None of them doubted that the black monastery was ahead, and that they were walking toward it. It was just a matter of hours, or maybe days, but it was sitting there, still hidden from the eyes of men, still unwelcoming to visitors, yet hopefully ready to receive them with a basket made of reeds.
The sun was setting ahead of them, and the few patches of sunlight were becoming dimmer. It was harder to see more than twenty or thirty feet ahead, but the stream guided them.
The jungle looked somehow different, Purcell thought, and it was more than the changing light that made it seem altered. Purcell noticed date palms and breadfruit trees, and trees that bore fleshy fruit, and other trees that he thought bore nuts, and black African violets covered the ground. This was tended land, a tropical garden such as Purcell had seen in Southeast Asia, barely distinguishable from the untamed jungle. He said, “The monastery is just ahead.”
Vivian, who was in the lead now, said, “I know.”
The stream bent sharply to their right, and they followed it for a minute, but then Vivian stepped out of the stream and walked between two towering palms.
Purcell and Mercado joined her.
To their front, about thirty feet away, rising above a twenty-foot-high thicket of bamboo, was a black wall.
Vivian stared up at the glossy stone. She said simply, “We are here.”
Chapter 55
Purcell had no image in his mind of what the wall would look like, and he saw now that the black stones were the size and shape of brick, laid without mortar, piece by piece, until the wall reached about forty feet, the height of a four-story building.
The sun had sunk lower, and the east side of the monastery where they were standing was in dark shadow, but there was a sheen to the wall, and the bamboo thicket and surrounding palms seemed to be captured in the stone.
None of them seemed to know what to do or say next, but they all understood, Purcell thought, that the road that had taken them here was strewn with betrayals and death—but also with acts of courage and caring, and memories that would last them a lifetime—no matter how short or long that was.
Mercado asked, “Do you think anyone is here?”
Vivian replied, “Let’s find out.”
They pushed their way through the thicket of bamboo to a narrow path that ran along the base of the wall and they went to their right.
They walked along the wall for about two hundred yards to the corner and turned along the north side, then around to the west, and to the south side of the long wall, then back to where they had started. As Father Armano had said, the monastery was built in the style of the Dark Ages, without an opening. But sitting on the ground now was a large basket attached to a thick rope.
Purcell was about to ask if they were sure they wanted to climb into the basket, expecting some hesitation or discussion, but Vivian threw her revolver on the ground and stepped into it without a word. Mercado dropped his AK-47 and followed. They both looked at him. Purcell said, “Maybe we want… a potential survivor.”
Vivian said to him, “That is your decision, Frank.”
Mercado said, “Don’t wait for us too long.”
Purcell hesitated again, then threw his Uzi on the ground and climbed into the basket, and held on to the rope that Vivian and Mercado were holding.
The basket began to rise.
They didn’t bother to look at the top of the wall—there would be no one there.
The basket came to a halt, and they were now able to see the roof of the church that Father Armano had described.
They climbed over the parapet onto a wooden walkway that surrounded the walls, and they looked down into the monastery below. It was as the priest had described—a fountain, gardens, eucalyptus trees, palms, and a pond. The peaked roof of the large church was made of a translucent material, also as the priest described. There seemed to be no one there. But of course, there was.
Again without hesitation or comment, Vivian led the way along the wooden walk until they came to a staircase, which they descended.
They all walked toward the closed doors of the church, which were covered in silver that had obviously been rubbed and polished not too long ago, and they saw the symbols of the early Christians on the doors—lambs, fish, and palms, and in the center of each door was a Coptic cross.
Vivian asked Purcell, “Do you have any weapons?”
&n
bsp; “No.”
“Then open the door.”
Purcell grasped the large ring on the door and pulled. The door opened easily and he went inside, followed by Vivian, then Mercado.
The inside of the large church was simple and almost crude. The walls and floors were of black stone and there was no ornamentation, and Purcell was reminded of the church of San Anselmo in Berini. But unlike San Anselmo, the altar here was a simple and crude table, partially covered by a white cloth, on which sat a Coptic cross. Also unlike San Anselmo, there were no stained glass windows—in fact, no windows at all.
But the sun was still high enough to come through the high ceiling, and a strange, prismatic light came through the translucent roof, casting rainbows over the floors and walls. The colors seemed to dance, and to separate into their primary components—red, green, blue—then blend again into their various hues.
Purcell noticed a door behind the altar, and he walked toward it. Mercado and Vivian followed, and Vivian said in a barely audible voice, “This is the way Father Armano walked.”
This door behind the altar was open and Purcell passed through it. He sensed, but could not see, that he was in a large space. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out that he was in a long, narrow gallery, and that two rows of stone columns ran the length of the space.
Vivian came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. Mercado stood to Vivian’s side, and they all stood where Father Armano and the ten men of his patrol had stood forty years before. Unlike Father Armano, Sergeant Giovanni, and the other men, they did not move forward—but neither did they retreat.
At the end of the long gallery they could now see two fluttering candles, but the candlelight was so weak that they could see nothing but the flames, as though the fire radiated no light, but gave light.
They stared at the candles. Vivian said, “It is there.” She took their hands and began walking with them between the two rows of thick columns.