The Fraternity of the Stone

  One policeman lived to tell the story. Further investigation revealed that the metal container concealed in the wall behind the girlfriend’s bookshelves also held a notebook in which addresses in various cities and countries turned out to be those of the five priests who had died.

  4

  “Reactions so far?” Father Stanislaw asked.

  Drew thought about it, troubled. “If this McIntyre’s an assassin, he needs a few lessons in tradecraft. That rickety bookshelf. Panicking in front of the police.” He shook his head. “An amateur.”

  “So it seemed to me. Unless…”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Unless he was putting on an act.”

  “You think he wanted to expose himself?” Arlene asked, surprised.

  “But why?” Drew added.

  “To announce himself. To gain a reputation quickly,” Father Stanislaw said. “And once he’d been exposed, no doubt deliberately on his part, he suddenly became professional. The authorities did everything possible but couldn’t find him, and in rapid succession, three other politically active priests were killed. Then Opus Dei members themselves began to be killed. Corporation executives, publishers, but mostly politicians. And it now was clear, this Thomas McIntyre, and his various other similar names on other bogus passports, was engaged in systematic terrorism against—”

  “—the Catholic Church.” Sickened, Drew turned to Arlene. “You told me he’d been killing politicians, but you didn’t tell me—”

  “—they were in Opus Dei? How could I have known?”

  “You couldn’t have,” Father Stanislaw said. “How could anyone outside the intelligence network of the Church have known? That’s the whole point. The members of Opus Dei are a secret.”

  “Not anymore,” Drew said.

  “And now we come to you.” Father Stanislaw sat down next to Drew. “As the authorities investigated, spurred on by powerful members of Opus Dei anxious to find the man who was stalking them, other rumors began to surface. A man with the code name Janus was buying weapons and explosives on the European black market and at the same time hiring freelance investigators to document scandals involving the Catholic Church. These scandals ranged from mistresses whom various Church officials maintained, to homosexual affections, to rich estates that no priest, given the vow of poverty, ought to have the resources to own. Alcoholism. Drug addiction. Deadly sins. If a priest or a member of Opus Dei had a vice, Janus wanted to know about it. And be given the proof. Sometimes he merely sent the documentation, including photographs, to the newspapers. Other times, he killed the priest or the Opus Dei member and then sent the documents, apparently to justify the assassinations.”

  “Janus,” Drew said.

  “The connection was obvious. Thomas McIntyre, the assassin with the same ambition? Could he be Janus? Indeed, when the authorities tracked down one of Janus’s contacts and made him talk, the man identified the passport photograph of Thomas McIntyre as his employer.”

  “Identified?” Drew stiffened. “You’re telling me that this Janus—this McIntyre—actually let his contacts see him? He didn’t even have the sense to use a safe phone? Something’s wrong. The tradecraft’s so clumsy it almost seems…”

  “Intentional?” Father Stanislaw asked. “Almost as if he wants to be caught? Indeed. The same pattern. And yet, despite the efforts of the most powerful members of Opus Dei, and their considerable influence on Interpol and MI-6, no one’s been able to find him.”

  “But you thought I was Janus,” Drew told Arlene. “Or at least you did till I made you give me the benefit of the doubt. Why were you tempted to make the connection in the first place?”

  “Because of the photograph in all those passports,” Father Stanislaw answered for her. “It took some time, but finally the American authorities managed to find the same face in its files. Part of the difficulty was that your own legal passport had now expired. But as they searched their previous records… Younger. Thinner, though not as thin as you are now. Nonetheless an obvious likeness. Andrew MacLane. The similarity of your last name with Janus’s many last names attracted immediate attention. McIntyre, McQuane, Malone, Mulligan. Granted, an odd blend of Irish and Scot. But nonetheless the parallel could not be ignored. Janus, the authorities decided, had to be you.

  “Your choice of code name seemed puzzling for a time. But intelligence officials soon understood. You’d worked for a now defunct American antiterrorist network, though what you did for that network was naturally never revealed. In Seventy-Nine, you’d sold out to Iran. You’d dropped out of sight for several years, but now you were back, ignoring your former loyalties, working for whoever paid you the most. Janus. The code name then seemed perfectly apt. The Roman god who stared forward and backward.”

  “Janus, the two-faced,” Drew said bitterly.

  “When the story went public,” Arlene said, “Jake and I were stunned. How could you be an assassin attacking the Catholic Church? It didn’t make sense. But the proof was overwhelming. Jake got more and more upset. He began to act strangely. And disappeared.” She clenched her fists. “Why didn’t he tell me what was going on?”

  “He couldn’t,” Drew said. “Not until he was sure it was me. After all, Jake knew I was supposed to be dead. He was the man who claimed to have killed me, and Scalpel had accepted his proof. But as far as Jake could tell, I was in a Carthusian monastery up in Vermont. So how could I be killing priests and politicians in Europe?”

  “Unless you’d left the monastery,” Father Stanislaw said. “Unless you’d simply used him. So you think he went to the monastery to find out?”

  “I never saw him there. But my guess is he didn’t.”

  “What then?”

  “Let me put it this way. Whoever Janus is, he’s taken a lot of effort to make the authorities think—”

  “—that he and you are the same,” Arlene completed his thought.

  Drew struggled to concentrate. “Why would he do that? Why would he be so determined to blame the killings on me? If the authorities found me, I could prove that I hadn’t done them.”

  “True,” Father Stanislaw said. “If you were in a monastery, your alibi would be perfect.”

  Drew’s scalp tingled. “But Janus couldn’t have known I was in that monastery. And yet he was sure I’d never be able to prove I wasn’t Janus. Why?”

  Arlene spoke, her voice somber. “He thought you were dead.”

  The three of them stared at each other.

  “If the authorities were hunting a dead man, Janus wouldn’t have to worry. I’d be a perfect distraction for them. While they went after a ghost, he could…”

  “Be invisible and do what he wanted.” Arlene stood, distressed. “Then did Jake investigate his former superiors in Scalpel?” Her voice shook. “Because he believed that one of them was using the fact that you were dead—or supposed to be dead—as a cover for Janus?”

  Drew nodded.

  “And whoever invented Janus found out what Jake was doing?” She shuddered. “I hate to think it, let alone say it. Did someone kill Jake to prevent him from finding out who was masquerading as you?”

  “Arlene, we don’t know that.”

  “But is that what you suspect?”

  Drew looked at her with pain. “I’m sorry.”

  Her face went pale. Her eyes became frightening. “Whoever did it will be even sorrier.”

  “But the sequence didn’t stop there. Whoever invented Janus must have forced Jake to admit why he was investigating them,” Drew said. “If they found out I was still alive, in the monastery, they’d have had to kill me as well. To protect their cover for Janus. And that presented a problem. Because the Carthusian monks are anonymous, the entire monastery had to be taken out to make sure I was really dead this time. And then, I assume, my body would have disappeared.”

  Father Stanislaw’s mouth tightened. “And the Church, when it investigated, would have wondered why. Which brings us back to the concern you
expressed to the bishop. No one could know that the Church inadvertently was sheltering an assassin, albeit one whose motives could be justified. The controversy would have been intolerable, undermining the authority of the Church.”

  Drew’s voice was guttural with rage. “Like a spider web. Everything interconnected. Janus must have found it amusing. Thinking I was dead, he used me as an alias to attack the Church. Then, realizing I was alive, he decided he could kill me without the authorities ever finding out. Because the Church, to protect itself, would have to cover up the mass murder. The Church in effect would be helping him. Clever to the point of genius. And if I have my way, I’ll see that he suffers in a clever part of Hell.

  “My double,” Drew suddenly added. The rush of understanding made him shiver.

  Father Stanislaw squinted, rubbing the sword and cross on his gleaming ring. “So he occurred to you as well?”

  Arlene nodded forcibly. “When you mentioned him earlier, I started to wonder.”

  Drew shivered again.

  A turncoat assassin … assuming Drew’s identity, resembling Drew’s passport photograph, sufficiently similar to convince those who met him that he was Drew.

  “Dear God,” Drew said. “It sounds like the double I used when I was in Scalpel. My alibi when I went on a mission. They disbanded Scalpel. But they must have contacted some of its former members and created another network like it. Under another name, Scalpel still exists!”

  “But what network?” Father Stanislaw studied Arlene. “Were you and your brother asked to join another intelligence unit?”

  Arlene shook her head. “These days, I’m a civilian. I teach outdoor survival and climbing techniques.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “He worked for another network. That much I know. But he never told me which one, and I followed protocol by never asking. He wouldn’t have told me if I had. I wouldn’t have expected him to.”

  “Janus,” Drew said with disgust. “Like monkshood, the poison used at the monastery, Janus is another Goddamned pun. The two-faced. The hypocrite. Sure. But literally Janus is a man with two lookalike faces. And the only person I can think of to tell us who’s behind this is my double.”

  “Do you know where to find him?” Father Stanislaw asked.

  5

  The bond that Drew and his classmates had shared at Scalpel’s training school in Colorado had been too strong to be dissolved by their dispersal after graduation. He, Arlene, and Jake had kept in touch with each other, for example, maintaining their friendship; eventually Drew and Arlene became lovers.

  But Scalpel had forbidden Drew ever to associate with Mike, his double, lest their remarkable resemblance attract attention and jeopardize assignments. It hadn’t been a burden for Drew to accept this separation, for among all his classmates at the training school, the only one he’d never gotten along with was Mike. Their similarity had produced a rivalry, particularly on the part of Mike, that prevented them from ever feeling close to each other. Drew had nonetheless remained curious about the man upon whom he depended for his life, and whenever he’d had the chance, he’d asked former classmates what his lookalike was doing. In ’78, Drew had learned that Mike was taking courses at the University of Minnesota. American Lit. The same kind of master’s program that Drew had been taking at Iowa. It figured. He and his double didn’t just look alike; they thought alike. They preferred the same cover as literature students in college towns.

  “One of the few differences between us was that I liked classical American authors, and he liked the moderns,” Drew said. “I heard that after he finished his degree at Minnesota, he planned to go to the University of Virginia to work on Faulkner. After Faulkner, he wanted to become an expert in Fitzgerald, then in Hemingway. Figure two years for each master’s degree. If the timing’s right, he should be working on Hemingway now.”

  “Assuming he kept to that schedule. Even if he did, it won’t help us find him,” Father Stanislaw said. “Every university in the country teaches Hemingway.”

  “No, the two top specialists on Hemingway are Carlos Baker and Philip Young. Baker’s at Princeton; Young’s at Penn State. Their approaches are so different that someone determined to be an expert in Hemingway would have to work with either or even both of them. Believe me, I’ve got enough advanced degrees to know what I’m talking about.”

  Princeton or Penn State? But how to be certain? How, among tens of thousands of students, to find the quarry? The literature department would be the focus of the search. So would the local gyms. Because Drew’s double had to keep himself in shape for his missions, he had to work out every day. But he’d want to be invisible, so he’d go to the gym as early as possible when hardly anyone was around. Drew knew—he was sure—because he himself had followed that schedule.

  Father Stanislaw made phone calls to his Opus Dei contacts. Seven hours later, the priest received a call from the Penn State campus about a man who matched Drew’s age and description, who was taking graduate courses in American Lit, who worked with Philip Young on Hemingway, and went to a local gym every morning at six.

  The man was a loner.

  A half-hour later, Drew, Arlene, and Father Stanislaw were on the road.

  6

  A cold wind nipped Drew’s cheek as he crouched with reverence at the side of a meadow halfway up a slope where he was concealed by thick leafless trees. He, Arlene, and Father Stanislaw had traveled together in the priest’s black Oldsmobile, leaving Arlene’s Firebird at a parking garage that offered long-term rates, paying several weeks’ rent in advance. Drew had driven the motorcycle to the sleaziest bar he could find, making sure that no one saw him take off the license plate when he left the chopper next to the garbage cans in back. The police would eventually find it, but without the plate, they’d be slow to link the Harley with one stolen in Massachusetts. And because he’d wiped off his fingerprints, no one could link it to him.

  While Arlene slept, Drew sat next to Father Stanislaw, still smelling the acrid smoke from Bethlehem’s steel plants. He peered toward the Appalachian slopes before him. “I guess this place will do.” He pointed toward a wooded ridge that loomed ahead on his right. “As good as any.”

  “Do you think you’ll be long?” Father Stanislaw asked.

  “We’ve got a schedule to keep. Not long. Leave the motor running.”

  Father Stanislaw parked on the gravel shoulder, and though the sun was bright, Drew felt a stinging wind as he got out. His eyes narrowed, he climbed the dead grassy slope. For all a passing motorist might guess, he was headed toward the trees above to relieve himself.

  But when he reached the trees, he continued through them, pausing only when he came to the edge of this upper meadow. He glanced around, seeing game trails through the grass, smelling autumn’s sagelike fragrance. Yes, this place would do.

  With a sturdy branch, he dug a tiny trough in the grass, two inches wide, ten inches down. The semifrozen earth resisted. The tip of the branch broke. Finally, though, he was finished. Crouching, he reached in his coat and pulled out the plastic bag that contained the body of Stuart Little. Strange that the mouse hadn’t rotted. Was that a sign? he wondered. A message of approval from God? He dismissed the thought, unable to allow himself to pretend to know God’s mood.

  Untying the plastic bag, he gently dropped Stuart’s body into the bottom of the trough, then used his hands to fill in the dirt, covering it with a clump of grass. To complete the ritual, he gingerly stepped on the grass, tamping down the earth, making everything smooth. The edge of the meadow now looked undisturbed.

  He stared down, for a distressing instant reminded of his parents’ graves.

  “Well,” he said, “you saved my life. The fact is, you brought me back to life. I’m grateful.” He almost turned before he thought of something else. “And I’ll get even for you, pal.”

  He left the trees, grimly descended the windy grassy slope, and got in the car.

  “Drew?” Arlene
was awake now, frowning with concern.

  He shrugged.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You were up there twenty minutes,” Father Stanislaw said. “We almost went looking for you.”

  “Well, now I’m back,” Drew said. “I made a promise up there. So let’s put some miles behind us. I want to see this damned thing finished. I want to make sure I keep my promise.”

  “The look in your eyes,” Father Stanislaw said. “God help the people we’re after.”

  “No, that’s wrong.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “God help us all.”

  7

  One range blended with another, then another. By mid-afternoon, they reached the Alleghenies, following the twists and turns of roads that led past barren strip-mined slopes and dying towns. Massive oil pumps were sometimes visible among skeletal trees, their metallic beaks rising and falling, rising and falling, their relentless thump oppressive even through the car’s closed windows.

  In contrast with their long intense discussions back at the motel room, neither Drew, Arlene, nor Father Stanislaw spoke much now, each brooding privately.

  They reached their destination, zigzagging down a road that took them into a circular valley, located at almost the exact midpoint of Pennsylvania. And there, in the middle of the valley, they came to State College.

  It was one of those towns that Drew had said was best for cover. The sprawling campus was large, with majestic vine-covered buildings and rows of towering trees. Because the town had no other major business, the local population had been forced to adjust to the vagaries of the more than twenty thousand students upon whom they depended for their livelihood. Typical of any large college town, half the population was constantly in flux, students coming and going, enrolling and graduating. An operative who liked to fill his time between assignments by reading and going to classes could have a satisfying life here and, more important, could have a cover that no one questioned. As long as he didn’t need a social life, he’d be invisible. He could disappear.