Just before she entered the turn, every instinct in her body told her to brake hard as she flew down the hill. Her engine was in an absolute roar. It strained at nearly eight thousand rpm in second gear, close to the red danger line. She knew she needed to slow further, but her competitive nature and the absence of a premonition before she took off urged her on. Tempted to let loose on the gas and sail safely through the turn, she checked herself. Then, in one swift motion, she jerked the throttle back hard to accelerate through the next two hundred feet of the impossibly narrow corner, which looked like it yearned to reach out and grab her. When she leaned in, she dipped her bike dramatically steep to clear the last few feet of the treacherous turn. As she did, the metal foot peg of the bike dragged along the road bed in a fury of flying sparks, until it unfortunately found a hole in the pavement several inches deep.
Khan grimaced. She knew the physics. Metal foot peg attached to motorcycle inserted into hole at eighty-five miles an hour equals large flying object. In an instant, she was airborne. She did exactly what her instincts dictated. She let go of the bike’s handlebar, curled into a ball with her hands gripping her knees, stayed loose, and prepared to do a body roll. Her Honda, in an unforgiving explosion of metal, plastic, rock, and debris, took out a large section of the stone wall. Khan sailed over the same unyielding rocks, missing them by six inches, and somersaulted her way forty yards deep into a farmer’s field. She came to rest, still conscious, within a few feet of a Guernsey cow that feigned complete disinterest in her sudden landing.
Khan, bruised but with pride intact, slowly pushed herself off the ground with both arms, and in doing so pressed her right hand deep into a fresh pile of warm cow dung. She stared out at the broken wall and what was once her prized bike. It now lay in a thousand pieces along the road. She glanced down once more at her filthy hand.
“Crap!” was all she could think to say.
Chapter 6
St. Michaels, Maryland
Jon Bondurant dove headlong into the Miles River. As he pierced the water’s surface with only a minimum of splash, every graceful movement of his muscular body was geared for speed. He hadn’t swum competitively for twenty years, but given that he’d been in the water several days a week since his college days at Stanford, he’d lost very few precious seconds off his personal best. Halfway across the wide and fast-moving stream within seconds, he entered his usual and comfortable stride.
Suddenly, the water exploded around him, with sharp sounds like a woodpecker knocking on wood. The black-and-yellow helicopter gunship that hovered menacingly overhead like a giant wasp had come from out of nowhere. When he realized that he was under fire, he immediately dove beneath the surface. From then on, only ten feet of murky water concealed his form and separated life from death. As hundreds of bullets continued to trace a lethal path around him, Bondurant stayed safely submerged. He knew that the rounds pierced the water at 2,800 feet per second, certain to shatter on impact. Their fragments slowed as they penetrated the water and sank harmlessly past him to the river bottom below.
But he couldn’t stay submerged forever. He knew his time was about to run out. He held his breath for more than two minutes while he swam swiftly below the surface toward the dilapidated dock he’d leaped from only seconds before. He knew his only chance was to make it to his .44 Auto Mag where he’d left it on the pier at least fifty yards away. His lungs began to burn. The faster he swam, the more oxygen he used. He knew he had about twenty strokes left before he’d be forced to the surface to breathe. He pressed forward, counted each stroke methodically, and squeezed his lungs for every ounce of air that remained.
As he made his final surge underwater toward the dock, the pilings that moored it to the river bottom came into view. When he finally emerged, hidden beneath the slats of the ancient wooden pier, Bondurant lifted his mouth barely above the waterline and gasped for air. Out of sight for the moment, he crept his way beneath the shadows of the dock toward the spot where he’d left his gun. He spied the towel it lay beneath. He knew he had five seconds, maybe less, to reach over the top of the pier, grab his semiautomatic, and fire back. Hopefully, he’d hit something fragile like a fuel line, or even the pilot. Barring that, he’d be exposed and dramatically outgunned.
Bondurant looked up and saw the helicopter firing a hail of bullets into the water forty yards from the dock where he hid. He leaped straight out of the water beside the pier, tossed aside his towel, grabbed for his gun, and, with both arms extended, fired directly at the cockpit of the helo that hovered a hundred feet above. For a moment, the gunship swerved wildly to the east and gained altitude in an attempt to avoid his fire. Then, unfazed by the handful of bullets that had passed, the aircraft turned toward him and sent a rain of fire swiftly across the river in a straight line toward the dock.
He took a last, giant gasp of air and dove headlong into the river’s depth for cover again. He spun reluctantly from the dock and the inviting light that reflected off the water’s surface above. Given the circumstances, he was likely going to die. He was sure of it, and he was certain the gunner relentlessly firing on him from above now knew it, too. He kicked hard with his powerful legs and dove toward the dark river bottom below, determined to spend his last few seconds of life where he could make peace with himself quietly, alone.
As he reached a depth of twenty feet, his mind raced along with a disjointed string of thoughts, some trivial, some profound, until the dim world around him began to slow to a crawl. As he thrust himself farther into the darkness toward the shadows that began to come into view on the river floor, he settled on the few things he wanted to remember as he left the world.
There was Domenika, of course. He’d kissed her good-bye only minutes before on the steps of the trailer hidden in the grove upstream. He’d known many women, but it was her and her alone that he’d loved. She was beautiful and brilliant and everything he’d ever wanted but had been too clumsy and distant to find until they’d met. Devout and his polar opposite in so many ways, she’d found a way to reach his soul and taught him to love. It was a miracle.
There was Father Parenti too. He’d dearly miss him. He was the one who had forced Bondurant to open his eyes to the mystery of life, to admit the unknown. Once a brazen scientist with an overinflated ego tough to tame, Bondurant had learned much from the tiny priest. Parenti had helped him gain a measure of humility and even a sense of compassion for others that he’d never possessed before.
There was the secret, too—his secret—the very dark one he’d locked away as a child. Bondurant had succeeded in life. He was wealthy. And as a scientist, he was world-renowned. But he’d never dealt with it. It was a secret terrible enough that he’d rather it die that day inside him than revisit it once more.
But of all the thoughts Bondurant had as he surged toward the river bottom below, it was the changes that churned inside him that intrigued him the most. By no stretch was he now a believer in God. Religion, the product of man-made belief, was still alien to him. But, remarkably, he now harbored doubts about his doubts. Who or what was the creator of the created? How could miracles like the kind he’d seen in Parenti actually occur? Was it really possible for life to follow death? Ironically, with death now imminent, it anguished him that the journey of self-discovery he’d only just begun would end so soon.
Bondurant reached a depth of thirty feet, and his lungs, now completely starved for air, began to spasm in pain. He felt as if his chest was on fire from within. Water began to flood into his mouth and the back of his throat as if to douse the flame. It pushed past his nostrils, intent on filling every cavity it could find. He knew his time was close. Only a few feet from the river’s bottom, he looked around frantically in the silt for something, anything he might grab to anchor himself in the depth. Without such a hold, his survival instincts would send him speeding toward the surface and the deadly gunfire that waited above.
As he peered into the darkness across the river floor, a large, hazy object
about fifty feet away came into view. At first, he thought his mind and eyes deceived him, driven by the panic that had overtaken his brain. It was an odd sight, clearly out of place. But as he scuttled toward it and agonizingly inhaled a mouthful of water deep into his lungs, he knew the sight was for real. It rested upside down on its cabin, with its V-shaped hull still fully intact. It was a forty-foot-long skipjack, an oyster dredger once common in the nearby Chesapeake Bay.
A fitting resting place, he thought. As he called on his last ounce of strength, he reached into the hole on the side of the hull and pulled himself into the blackness. He began to choke violently from the water that filled his lungs and rose to slam his head against anything solid he might find. He wanted to knock himself unconscious to kill the misery that rushed to overtake him. But when he bolted upward to strike a heavy beam and end the torture, he found something else instead.
Air.
From bow to stern, a pocket of oxygen about eight inches wide was trapped between the briny water inside the boat and the narrow V of the hull. In one great heave, Bondurant vomited into the open space and expunged from his lungs most of the water he’d swallowed. For a full minute, he coughed and wheezed forth every droplet he could.
It took a few more moments in the complete darkness that surrounded him for Bondurant to fully comprehend what had occurred. When he did, an enormous sense of exhilaration consumed him, so overwhelming that he began to sob. He realized then, more than at any other moment in his life, that he was alive. The air pocket he’d discovered in the pitch black was small. He craned his neck painfully to gasp the stale oxygen inside the tiny space. But he knew one thing for sure. There was plenty of air for him to stay submerged inside the sloop for a while, at least enough to outlast the fuel tanks in the helicopter that hovered above.
I’m going to make it, he thought.
Bondurant was determined to swim his way out of the river and make it to St. Parenti’s as fast as he could. There he hoped to find Domenika still alive. They would make plans. They would flee once more. And now that they’d been found, there was no choice about what to do next. He knew he had to act—and soon. If he didn’t, many more were going to die.
Chapter 7
Barcelona
Father Giancarlo De Santis stared at himself in the ornate full-length mirror and admired the view.
He marveled at how well the vestments of Bishop Santiago Alvarado so perfectly fit his own physique. Alvarado, on an assignment from Rome, was not expected to return until the following day. In the meantime, De Santis, a favorite of the pope yet just a priest, had been seconded to Alvarado’s diocese for several days. He’d taken advantage of the present private moment and borrowed the ceremonial dress of the bishop to . . . to . . .
Strive as he might to invent a legitimate reason for donning the robes of a bishop, De Santis knew he had no other purpose in mind than to dream big. For a few unexpected minutes, the priest had the grand sacristy of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross all to himself. He intended to take full advantage of the glorious moment to look the part.
De Santis, Italian by birth, descended from a family renowned for its strong Catholic roots. His surname, De Santis, meant “holy” or “devout.” Every generation before his, reaching back to the Middle Ages, bore at least one or two sons who had risen through the ranks of the Catholic Church. Numerous priests, several bishops, and even a cardinal who reigned in the eighteenth century before a scandalous defrocking had contributed to the hierarchy and history of the Church.
Naturally, De Santis had always viewed his family as having a rightful role in the Church’s ruling class. He was an intellectual, well versed in catechism and lore. He knew that when Rome had come full circle, from persecution to praise of Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries, it was the Church that often provided legal authority to settle disputes in vast regions of the Holy Roman Empire where there was no rule of law. As a result, a Church official, particularly one in the more senior position of bishop, often took on the role, likeness, and accoutrements of a Roman judge.
Beneath Alvarado’s extraordinary but expropriated robes, De Santis wore the typical black cassock and a clerical shirt and white collar, the uniform for all Catholic priests. What he had borrowed for the time being were the numerous ornate vestments, layer upon layer, typically worn by a bishop for special events. His outermost wear included a deep violet–colored cappa magna—great cape—that flowed behind him. He admired the long train of the robe as he sashayed in front of the looking glass. There was also a stole, a sash that extended from the back of his neck across his shoulders to his chest, which hung down and almost touched the ground.
He held in his hand a crosier, the bishop’s staff. He briefly set down the staff and reached for the bishop’s gold embroidered mitre, the white canonical hat. He placed it on his head. Then, cautiously so as not to disturb the crown, he reached for the staff again.
De Santis closed his eyes. For just a moment, he savored the thought of the procession before him. He imagined himself gliding like a swan down the long central aisle of a grand and glorious cathedral. He was preceded by countless assistants swinging their censers of incense. This assemblage was accompanied by a choir of young men and boys, all dressed in their black cassocks and white lace surplices. They sang in perfect harmony and marched in perfectly straight rows out ahead.
This would be a day of magnificence, De Santis thought. This would be a day of love. This would be a day for all mankind to give praise to God’s glory and his kingdom here on earth.
This would also be the wrong day for Bishop Alvarado to come home early. But he did. So when he unexpectedly stopped into his sacristy upon his return to find Father Giancarlo De Santis in front of his dressing mirror bedecked in his robes, there was going to be a very big problem in Rome on De Santis’s return.
Chapter 8
Washington, D.C.
When Bondurant slammed on the brakes of his Audi in front of St. Peter’s Church in Queenstown, he left a decent-sized skid mark and a billow of white smoke behind him. He leaned on his horn.
“Get in!” he shouted to Domenika and his little priest friend. “Get in!”
The small crowd of worshippers who had left the early-afternoon Easter Mass were startled at the scene. It wasn’t often that their services were met with a crazed man in a car on the run. Bondurant was amazed that Domenika and Parenti were still alive. They got into the car, and Bondurant drove as fast as he could away from the hideout near the river that they once called home and toward Washington, D.C.
It was late at night by the time they pulled into the parking lot at the Key Bridge Marriott that overlooked the rain-soaked city. Bondurant’s joints ached. The city of monuments, now shrouded in a spring thunderstorm just across the Potomac River, was still slightly aglow from the street lamps that ran from the cobblestone alleys of Georgetown all the way to Capitol Hill. Other than the distant rumble of thunder that rolled in from Maryland to the north, the town, like Domenika curled up in the backseat, was sound asleep. A handful of cars headed into the city slowly made their way in the rain across Key Bridge just below their parking-lot perch. Parenti sat with Bondurant and watched in awe as a lone airliner dropped from the impossibly low clouds and banked southward, hugging the outline of the river on its final approach toward Reagan National Airport upstream.
“What an invention,” Parenti said. His voice was filled with marvel as the airplane that seemed to fill the car’s windshield streaked across the night sky.
“Yeah,” Bondurant said. “The pilot of that thing probably didn’t see the ground until—”
“No, no, I mean these french fries,” Parenti said.
Bondurant watched as Parenti stared at the large pack of McDonald’s fries in his lap. He ate them slowly, one by one, as if to savor every moment of the experience. Aldo sat inside the priest’s vestment pocket and emerged every so often to snatch one of the treats held forth.
Bondurant turned toward
Domenika in the backseat. “I can’t believe she’s able to sleep through all this.”
“She’s exhausted. It’s been a long day,” Parenti said.
“I need to tell you something that I’m sure would upset her,” Bondurant said, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “I might be wrong about it. But it’s tied to some ancient biblical stories—just stories, mind you.”
They had been through enough adventures together that Bondurant was comfortable thinking out loud when his friend was at hand. So he was surprised to see Parenti’s stunned look in return.
“I need to tell you something as well,” Parenti said. “I know you had quite a day. People shooting at you from the sky and all that.” Parenti dug deeper into his pack of fries. The patter of rain on the roof of the car began to grow louder as the intensity of the storm gathered around them.
“So what’s wrong? Did anyone recognize you in the church?” Bondurant asked.
“Not as far as I know.” He looked about them in the dark, but the rain on the windshield now completely obscured his view. “It’s what happened during the service that concerns me.”
Bondurant watched Parenti hesitate. Something troubled him deeply.
“Then you were seen,” Bondurant said.
“It’s not who saw me,” Parenti said, “but who I saw.”
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