Covenant Of The Flame

  'Rig the charges,' Father Baldwin said. 'Everywhere.'

  'I've already started.'

  'The statue's my priority. I'll set a bomb and blow it to hell. Thank God, at last we found the central nest. There'll be other nests, but this one's the most important.'

  'What about the woman and the detective? I still haven't found them.'

  'Probably buried beneath the rubble. They might even still be breathing. Five minutes from now, it won't matter,' Father Baldwin said. 'If they're somehow still alive, they'll die when the explosions bring down the ceiling. We owe them a debt. But they can't be allowed to know our secrets. Their reward for their service will be in Heaven. The charges?'

  'I just finished.'

  'And I just finished planting a bomb at the foot of the statue. Like it, the bodies of the vermin will be blown to hell.'

  'Let's go.' The taut-voiced man lunged from the cavern into the chapel.

  Other footsteps scurried.

  The rest of the charges?' Father Baldwin demanded, his voice receding.

  'Ready. We'll need five minutes to get out of the cave. That's how long I've set the timers.'

  'Hurry,' Father Baldwin again demanded, his voice even farther away. 'Set more charges as we leave. I want these caverns completely destroyed.'

  'No problem. We'll be able to see the fireworks from the bottom of the outside slope.'

  A final far-away scurry of footsteps.

  Craig removed his hand from Tess's mouth. Their clothing soaked with blood, they squirmed up the steps and reached a slab of rock that lay across the exit. Groping, Craig found a gap and squeezed through, followed by Tess, who scraped her back on the rock. Although the chamber was dark, flames from burning oil in the chapel provided sufficient reflected light for them to be able to make their way through the rubble. Their wet clothes caused them to shiver.

  'We have to get out of here,' Craig said.

  'How?' Tess hugged her gore-drenched chest. 'Even if we reach the exit before the bombs go off, Father Baldwin's men will shoot us.'

  'We can try to dismantle the bombs.'

  'No. We'd never find them all.'

  'But we can't just stay here and wait to die,' Craig said. There has to be a way to-'

  'I just thought of something.' Tess gripped his arm. 'Remember when we entered the cave and Fulano locked the doors. He left three guards outside.'

  Craig nodded. 'And if the guards were overpowered, if they didn't respond to a message from a walkie-talkie' - his voice quickened - 'Fulano said we could use another exit. There's another way out of here!'

  'And it has to be close!' Tess said, heart pounding.

  Craig sank against a rock.

  'What's wrong?'

  'In the dark, we'll never find the exit.' He suddenly straightened. 'Just a minute. I think I can get us some light. Stay here.'

  Desperate, confused, Tess watched him climb over rubble, searching. 'What are you looking for?'

  'A body. My clothes are too soaked,with blood. My jacket won't burn.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'You will. Here. I found a." Yanking a jacket off a corpse, Craig left the cavern and reached the flames in the chapel. There, he touched one of the jacket's sleeves to a blaze, igniting it. Hurrying, he returned, the fire spreading up the sleeve of the jacket. The grenades knocked over the torches back here and extinguished the flames. But there has to be oil all over the floor. I can smell it.' He dragged the burning sleeve across the floor, trying various places among the rubble, and suddenly flames grew, oil igniting among the fallen rocks.

  The flames spread. Tess and Craig backed away. The chamber became illuminated.

  'Over there. On the left.' Craig pointed. 'A tunnel.'

  As the ceiling groaned and more rocks fell, Tess scrambled over the rubble, frantic to reach the tunnel.

  'Go slower,' Craig said. 'If you break an ankle.'

  'I'm more worried about the bombs.' A section of roof collapsed, its impact thunderous. 'And being crushed.'

  They came to the tunnel.

  'This is probably where Kelly and his men brought the bull in,' Craig said. The entrance from the chapel is too narrow for the animal to have gotten through. And the bull would have been so difficult to handle that whoever designed this tunnel would have made the passageway as straight and short as possible.'

  Craig was right. The fire from the oil in the cavern reflected into the tunnel and showed an exit twenty yards ahead. But Tess moaned when she saw that the exit was blocked by a metal door. She moaned ever worse when she and Craig strained to open the door but couldn't.

  The damned thing's locked.' Angry, exhausted, Craig leaned against a wall, blood dripping from his clothes. 'We wasted our time. There's so little left.'

  'Maybe there's another exit.' Jess's voice shook.

  'Don't count on it. And even if there is, those bombs will go off before we find it.'

  'We've got to try.'

  Craig studied her with resolve. 'Yes.'

  They rushed back along the tunnel, reaching the cavern. Another section of roof crashed. The force of its impact jolted them and made the flames from the oil waver.

  'Over there. In back,' Tess said. 'Another tunnel.'

  'Any minute now, those bombs will-'

  'The flames, Craig! Look at the flames!'

  'What about them?'

  They're still wavering! They're leaning toward that tunnel. When we first entered the chapel, I noticed the torches waver, but I thought that was just because our movement created a breeze. Air's flowing into that tunnel. It has to be going outside.'

  Craig nodded. 'But what if the hole's too small for us to-?'

  'It's our only choice!' The roof groaned again. 'Let's go! Before-!'

  They scrambled toward the tunnel at the rear. The moment they entered, another huge slab of rock fell, barely missing them.

  They stumbled forward, the light diminishing.

  'If this tunnel branches out into other tunnels, we don't have a chance.' Craig breathed hard.

  The light from the flames in the cavern became so weak that Tess had to grope along the walls. 'Do you feel a breeze? Does it seem to be getting stronger?'

  'Yes! But what am I hearing?'

  Ahead, something roared, constant, louder as they approached.

  The tunnel curved and slanted down, blocking the light from the flames. In total darkness, they kept groping along the walls. The roar gained volume, so loud that Tess could hardly hear what Craig shouted.

  'What?' she yelled.

  'I think it's a-!'

  The blackness was absolute. She couldn't see him, grabbed for his hand, took another step, and abruptly lurched forward, the shock waves of repeated explosions shoving at her. The ceiling cracked, about to collapse. Propelled, she stepped into nothingness. With air instead of rock beneath her, she plummeted. The ceiling gave way, slamming down behind her. She screamed. Her stomach rose as she dropped. Clutching Craig's hand, she swooped toward the black, louder, closer, continuous roar.

  The roar, she discovered, was an underground stream. Its icy current stunned her, drowning her scream. She went under, panicked, powerless, unable to see or breathe. Dimly, she understood that concussions behind her were slabs of rock hitting the stream, but the current's force sucked her away before the rocks could crush her. She tumbled beneath,the rushing surface, straining to raise her head, hoping frantically that the breeze she and Craig had followed meant that the stream had an open space above it. But no matter how hard she fought, she couldn't reach the surface.

  The stream gained speed. She banged against a polished curve in the channel, twisted, slammed against another curve, lost her grip on Craig's hand, struggled again to reach the surface, and suddenly felt herself dropping. Oh, Jesus, she prayed, unable to hold her breath, about to inhale reflexively.

  The stream kept falling. At once, she burst through an opening, was hurled from the water, and flipped through air. The pressure of dropping made her
chest heave. She gasped uncontrollably. Her lungs expanded, air rushing down her throat. The next thing, she struck a pool, propelled beneath it by the thunderous thrust of a waterfall. When she clawed to the surface, her arms thrashing weakly, she breathed in desperation and gradually realized that there were stars above her, that she was outside in the sweet spacious night, that she was close to the rim of the pool.

  A moment later, in a frenzy, she pivoted to search for Craig. His body floated toward her. Urgent, she swam and grabbed him. He raised his head, coughing, spitting out water, while she tugged him toward the rim of the pool. They lay on a grassy bank.

  But Craig kept coughing, choking. He vomited water. In a rush, she turned him onto his chest, moved his head sideways, checked to make sure that there were no obstructions in his mouth, and pressed her hands on his back, squeezing his lungs, sensing water escape from his mouth. He coughed repeatedly. Then gradually his spasms diminished.

  He began to breathe freely.

  Only then did she slump back, exhausted. The air smelled fresh and clear. The moon and the stars were glorious. Despite the thunder of the waterfall, she heard a nearby stream flowing from the pool, trickling over rocks toward the valley.

  Craig moved his head to study her. He coughed again and clutched her hand. 'Thanks.' He managed to smile.

  'Hey, it took two of us to get out of there.' She returned his smile, her heart swelling with relief that he was alive.

  Then she, too, coughed up water. She shivered so bad that her teeth chattered.

  Side by side, they held each other, trying to regain their strength.

  Five minutes later, Craig roused himself. That water was so icy.' He shook uncontrollably.

  'Hyperthermia?' Tess frowned.

  hat's right.' He continued shaking, worried. 'In these wet clothes, even on a warm night in June, we're both so chilled we could die from exposure. We have to get warm and dry. Soon.'

  Realizing the danger, Tess hurriedly glanced behind her toward the valley. No, she thought, we can't have survived what we did, only to freeze to death. At once she mentally thanked God. 'Everything's fine. No problem.'

  'What? The nearest village is probably miles away. We'd get delirious, fall asleep, and die before we managed to walk there, assuming we could even find it.'

  'I still say no problem.' Painfully cold, Tess trembled from her head to her feet.

  'You think all we have to do is rub two sticks together and build a fire?'

  'No. Someone already did that for us. In fact a lot of people.'

  Puzzled, Craig turned to follow her gaze and let out his breath in wonder. Below them, across the fields in the valley, dozens and dozens of bonfires glittered in the darkness. Their glow was splendorous.

  'The feast of Saint John. I'd forgotten,' Craig said.

  'Like tiny pieces of the sun. For once, flames are going to help us.' Tess managed to stand, trembled, and reached for his hand. 'Bright flames. Not dark. Come on, babe.'

  It took all her strength to raise him. Arm in arm, huddled against each other, clinging for warmth, they staggered down a grassy slope toward the fires.

  'At least the stream washed the blood from our clothes,' Tess said. 'I guess in a way. It was like a baptism. Except that the second baptism canceled the first. The second was truly purifying.'

  'The thing is, our problems aren't over,' Craig said.

  'I know. Father Baldwin. What made you realize that he didn't want us to escape?'

  'Just a hunch, but in my line of work, you learn the hard way to respond to hunches. I figured we ought to wait and see how much he wanted to find us in the rubble. Obviously he thinks we're a threat because of the secrets he told us.'

  'Right now, I don't care about his damned Inquisition. All I want to do is keep holding you. It feels so wonderful to be alive.'

  'Good fighting evil.' Craig shivered. 'In this case, it's hard to tell the difference between them. Both are evil. I'm sure of this - as soon as the Inquisitors learn we're still alive, they'll come after us.'

  Tess hesitated. 'Maybe not.'

  'You've got a plan?'

  'Sort of. I'm still thinking it through. But if they do decide to come after us, I'm ready to fight them. As far as I'm concerned, they committed an unforgivable sin.'

  'Because they turned against us?'

  'No. Because they blew up the paintings. I'll always remember them - the deer, the bison, the horses, the ibex, the bulls. So awesome, so magnificent, so irreplaceable.'

  At the bottom of the slope, Tess noticed shadowy figures and realized that they were villagers huddled around a fire, holding their crosses woven from flowers and stalks of wheat. The villagers frowned at Tess and Craig, suspicious. But she raised her right hand, still wet from the stream, and touched it to her forehead, her chest, her left and right shoulder. The villagers nodded and motioned for Tess and Craig to sit.

  The fire quickly warmed them, drying their clothes. Tess and Craig continued to hold each other lovingly and remained there throughout the night, sometimes dozing, only to waken and stare again, as if hypnotized, toward the power and magic of the flames.

  FOURTEEN

  Alexandria, Virginia.

  With Craig's comforting presence beside her, Tess stood in a cemetery near the city's outskirts and stared at her mother's grave. Tears misted her vision. The funeral had been yesterday, six days after she and Craig had escaped from the caverns and two days after they'd returned from Spain.

  Much had happened. Following the night at the bonfire, their Spanish companions had escorted them across the valley to the nearest village. There, with great difficulty because of her unfamiliarity with the language, Tess had managed to use a phone and eventually contact the American embassy in Madrid. Her report had caused a half-dozen helicopters to arrive by mid-afternoon, American and Spanish officials accompanied by armed guards hurrying out. From then on, she and Craig had been questioned repeatedly. They'd shown the investigators the obliterated, former entrance to the caverns. They'd taken the investigators to the waterfall that had saved them.

  Soon other helicopters had arrived, bringing more investigators and guards. The interrogation had continued well into the night. After a few hours' sleep and a meager breakfast, Tess and Craig had wearily answered further questions, continuing to repeat the story that they'd agreed on before Tess had phoned Madrid.

  The story was the core of Tess's plan to protect themselves from both the Inquisitors and the heretics. More than anything, she wanted to tell it to reporters, to make sure it was publicized, but when reporters did arrive, she and Craig were taken under guard via helicopter to Bilbao and then to Madrid, where the questioning continued at the headquarters of Spain's intelligence service, distraught American CIA officials joining in.

  Reporters managed to learn enough from unnamed sources to publish and broadcast the story. It spread quickly around the world. Under pressure from numerous governments, Spanish and American officials finally admitted the truth of what they'd dismissed as rumors. America's vice president and the presumed future president of Spain indeed had been assassinated by terrorists while showing two American guests various cultural and geographical features in the province of Navarra in northern Spain.

  The terrorists remained unidentified.

  What the accounts did not include, of course, was the increasing frustration with which the grim investigators questioned Tess and Craig.

  'Why the hell did you come to Spain? How did you enter the country? You don't have any passports.'

  'My mother was recently murdered,' Tess continued to repeat what she'd answered so often. 'Alan Gerrard is - was - a longtime, close, family friend. He invited my fiance and me to accompany him on Air Force Two to Spain in the hopes that the trip would take my mind off my sorrow. His invitation was sudden. We didn't have time to get our passports, and I was too stunned by grief to think clearly, to refuse a request not just from a friend but from the vice president of the United States. Would you have
turned him down?'

  'But what were you doing in - how did you get to - northern Spain?'

  'Before Alan began his official duties, he wanted to visit Jos‚ Fulano at his estate near Pamplona. The two were friends. But I suspect that they might also have had some business to discuss. At any rate, we were taken along. Alan was quite enthusiastic, still trying to distract me from my grief. He claimed that he'd never forgive himself if we didn't have a chance to see that dramatically beautiful area of the country.'

  'A cave? At midnight?'

  'Because of the feast of Saint John. Both Alan and Jos‚ insisted on showing us the bonfires in the valleys. Then they ordered the helicopter to land so they could also show us the cave. It was special, they said, because it had Ice-age paintings that very few people had ever seen.'