“Your baby Jesus,” Galerkin said. “This is him on the bike?”
“Yes, it is,” Meyer said as he beamed. He watched the child intently, since the two-year-old had navigated his way uncomfortably close to the edge of the pool. “You’re one of the very few living outside the compound who have gotten this close.”
“You should charge people money to see him,” Galerkin said. “This is what I would do.”
Though the child was more than fifty meters away across the pool, his striking features were evident. With curly auburn hair that touched his shoulders and a fair complexion lightly freckled by the sun, he looked the picture of playfulness. He squealed in delight. Strewn across the lawn behind the boy were every manner of toy and gadget, several play sets, and a half dozen miniature carnival rides fit for a toddler. Off in the distance behind a small grove of trees were stables. Several ponies, perfectly groomed, grazed on the lawn in front.
“So, when was the last sighting?” Meyer asked.
“You mean Bondurant and the girl? I have someone tell me they go to Dulles. Where? I don’t know. But they have the munchkin with them, that little priest.”
“Dulles? Are you sure about that?” Meyer asked.
“I’m not there to see. I don’t know. This is what I am told.”
“I see.”
“Look,” Galerkin said. “You can go many places from Dulles. The whole world you can go. This man, Bondurant, he is smart. The world is a big place, you see? One time I track a man four, five years. No kidding. Five years.” He reached beside him and picked up a small teddy bear that lay on a chair. He wrapped his fat fingers around its throat.
“Bondurant, the girl, they’re less worrisome to me now,” Meyer said. “They haven’t made a peep to the authorities. They’re running scared.”
Galerkin looked directly at Meyer and began to twist the bear’s neck into a knot.
“What you mean no peep? Who is peep? We have a deal. One million dollars,” Galerkin said. He rose from his seat quickly. The shadow he presented was large enough to shade Meyer entirely from the sun. Meyer knew better than to stray an inch from a deal with Galerkin.
“Of course, of course, we still have our deal,” Meyer said. It was time to quickly change the subject. “Tell me about this Father De Santis,” he said. “I’m told he’s been dispatched in my direction.”
“Sent by the pope,” Galerkin said. He sat back down.
“I know that. What else do you know?”
“I hear they have interest in your baby Jesus. That’s all I know,” Galerkin said. “You want De Santis on the list? I charge extra for priests.” Meyer watched Galerkin reach for his wallet on the presumption that he had another name to add to his hit list.
“Not yet,” Meyer said. “I need to learn more about him first.” He was ecstatic to confirm that he’d gotten the Church’s attention already—and at the highest level. This before he’d even lifted a finger to reveal the child and demonstrate to the world the powers the boy had begun to display.
They watched the child closely as he made a wide arc and spun the bike in their direction. Having spotted Meyer’s guest, the boy began to pedal cautiously toward them from the far side of the pool.
“Look closely, Vitaly,” Meyer said. “The little boy on that bike will one day have the pope on his knees, bowing to me. It will be a Demanian world. Wait and see.”
“I don’t know. I don’t like religions,” Galerkin said.
“You’ve said that before.”
“I don’t like these Christians most of all. Doing favors. Feed the world. Keeping so many alive.”
“Yes, I know,” Meyer said, exasperated. He’d heard this speech from Galerkin before.
While Meyer sometimes felt his executioner possessed the intellect of a child, when it came to the assassin’s opinion of Christianity, he enthusiastically supported Galerkin’s point of view, although Meyer had important and personal reasons of his own.
He’d always believed the Catholic Church was responsible for the death of his mother. She’d been spurned by the faith for her marriage outside the Church when denied an annulment from her physically abusive first husband. Her very public excommunication in such a small and close-knit town had been bitter. His family, once in the center of a strong circle of faith, had been destroyed and ostracized, and in the aftermath, his mother had taken her own life, thereby committing a mortal sin. As though his mother’s death was not enough, according to Church “law,” Meyer had been branded a “bastard” son from the age of ten. It was an insult he’d carried into adulthood, one he’d sworn he would eventually avenge.
Now he watched as the child safely made the turn at the corner of the pool. He was headed straight for them.
“I don’t like your big plan,” Galerkin said. “Silly. Too many people already in this world. Why you need to clone more?”
Meyer let out a quiet sigh. He figured Galerkin had maybe a fifth-grade education at best. It was no use trying to reason with a giant who seemingly possessed the brain of a child.
As the boy sped forward on the tricycle to within a few feet of where they sat, he backed off the pedals, put his feet on the ground to stop, and came to a halt with a broad grin.
“He’s little Gorbachev!” Galerkin blurted out. “Where did boy get such god-awful spot on his head?”
Meyer grimaced as he watched the assassin press his fleshy finger directly against the deep purple mark on the child’s forehead. The mark Galerkin referred to was a port wine stain that ran halfway across the child’s forehead. It was a permanent disfiguration and his only imperfection. The boy, obviously sensitive to the flaw, pushed Galerkin’s hand away and cupped his own hand over the spot to hide it. He pushed his bike forward and ran his front wheel on top of Galerkin’s pricey Italian leather shoe, over and over.
“That mark’s been there since Kapoor had him baptized in the river. It left a stain. I haven’t a clue why.”
“Little Gorby, that’s what he is,” Galerkin said. He pointed to the mark again as he chuckled. “Looks the same as him. Too bad for you.”
The boy stepped off his bike and said nothing. Instead, he reached for the teddy bear Galerkin held in his hand and seized it. Then he stared at Galerkin purposefully. He held the teddy bear close and plucked out the stuffed animal’s eyes.
“Does not look like Jesus Christ to me,” Galerkin muttered. He turned away from the child as though to dismiss him.
Meyer could see the boy was upset. Galerkin was being an idiot. Meyer was worried it might prompt one of the child’s tantrums, something he wanted to avoid at all costs. People had been severely hurt. He thought of a way to soothe him.
“You see this face?” Meyer said. “You see this throat? Gifts from the child. Several caresses each day, and I was healed within a month.” He ran his hand through the child’s locks and smiled, but the boy, still offended by Galerkin, resisted and pulled away. “He is pleasant and giving to those he likes. Not so for those he doesn’t,” Meyer said as he stared at the assassin. “You should choose your words more wisely.”
“He’s fake child Jesus,” Galerkin said. “I don’t believe.”
Meyer had heard enough, and he could tell Galerkin had too. His face had turned red with rage over the scolding. Meyer had seen the look before. He was certain Galerkin didn’t take well to criticism and probably felt he was being made a fool—to a child, no less.
Meyer got up from his chair. Galerkin rose just as quickly, but instead of turning to depart up the hill, he grabbed the handle of the boy’s tricycle. He lifted the bike slowly, stared at it, looked down at the boy, and then pitched it twenty feet away, where it sank into the shallow end of the pool.
“Walk on water, Jesus Christ,” Galerkin said. “You go.” He let out a loud laugh.
Before Meyer could summon a servant to wade into the water to retrieve the bike, the child bolted in the direction of the pool. When he reached the water’s edge, it was clear he could see
the bike was fully submerged in the pool almost ten feet from dry land. He stared at it closely and paused as if to consider the difficulty of the feat. Then he stepped forward, one foot after the other, directly on top of the water as if it were a delicate sheet of glass. Having taken several small steps across the top of the water for a full ten feet, he reached down into the pool for the tiny red bike and lifted it into the air by the handle. Then he turned and made his way back, completely dry, with the bike in hand. When he arrived at the pool’s edge and stepped onto hard ground again, perfectly dry, he looked up and smiled.
At that, both Meyer’s and Galerkin’s jaws dropped. Meyer stepped forward, ready to embrace the child for his newfound talent. Galerkin stepped backward, ready to run.
CHAPTER 22
Baltimore
One year later
Father Parenti sat across from Dr. Terry O’Neil in the living room of the spacious two-story penthouse suite that had been their home for all of two days. It was their third hideout in as many months, and it overlooked the strand of distant lights of the Baltimore skyline. For Bondurant, Domenika, Parenti, and his lovable dog, their life on the run had come to a critical pause.
Nearly swallowed by the massive leather couch that enveloped him, Parenti reverted to his nervous habit. He fidgeted with the buttons on his cassock, one after the other.
“I thought Bondurant said you were considering giving up the priesthood,” O’Neil said. “Why the costume?”
O’Neil, a brilliant Oxford scientist, DNA expert, and friend of Bondurant’s, had flown in from London the previous evening when he knew the birth was at hand.
“We have a special visitor coming tonight, and it’s important I look the part,” Parenti said.
“A special visitor?” O’Neil asked. “Bondurant said nothing about such a surprise.”
“It was Domenika’s idea. He’s sworn to secrecy, and I’m not at liberty to say,” Parenti responded as he looked about. “And to tell you the truth, I’m not the least bit happy about the setting here.”
“I thought the first Christ child was born in a manger, Father. No room at the inn and all that,” O’Neill said. “I presume this place will suffice.”
Parenti could tell O’Neil was trying to lighten the moment, but it was useless. He was concerned that Domenika and Bondurant had chosen the privacy of their temporary home over the safety of a hospital to bring the child into the world. He was beside himself with anxiety. They all had agreed that the birth should occur with the utmost secrecy, but Parenti was sure a birthing at home was going too far. What if there were problems? Dr. Laurent, who had attended far more complicated births in places much less hospitable than a two-story apartment, had assured Parenti he could relax. He was not the least bit concerned.
Every facet of Domenika’s pregnancy, from in vitro fertilization (IVF) a bit more than forty weeks earlier to the full onset of induced labor that day, had gone smoothly. Almost a year had passed since Laurent had found himself at the mercy of the couple who had barged their way into his office in Paris and demanded his help.
Almost two years before, Bondurant and Parenti had obtained a sample from the only other relic beyond the Shroud known to possess what many believed to be the savior’s blood—a small cloth in the Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium. The genetic material on the relic matched that of the Shroud, and, using DNA from the cloth sample spirited away from Bruges, Laurent had successfully created a living embryo from a combination of stem cells and an enucleated egg after more than seven hundred painstaking tries. From there, it left only a routine IVF procedure with Domenika as the surrogate mother for a pregnancy to occur. All that was needed now was the safe delivery of the child, and Laurent’s role was complete.
Laurent had induced Domenika into labor six hours earlier. With her pregnancy at full term, she and Bondurant agreed the moment had come. She lay in bed with Bondurant at her side. She was now fully dilated and ready to give birth. Parenti listened closely from the living room. When there was momentary silence, he could tell she was resting between the deep contractions. Then came the inevitable chill of her cries of labor. Aldo sat nervously glued to the couch, his tiny paws covering his ears to muffle the sound.
“Remind me again why this was a good idea?” O’Neil asked as he grew increasingly anxious. “This isn’t exactly how I envisioned the Second Coming.”
“Nor I. Dr. Bondurant and I debated over this moment and its meaning to no end,” Parenti said. “He told me to take swimming lessons if I was so concerned.”
“Swimming lessons?”
“I think Domenika filled his mind with prophesies of the Rapture and the great flood that’s to come before the savior returns. He’s joked about it ever since.”
“I see,” O’Neil said. He looked about him as though rising water might be a real concern.
“But the devil’s agent walks this earth, Doctor,” Parenti continued. He reached for Aldo and held him close in the crook of his arm.
“And this Christ child, reborn as it were, is truly our only hope?”
“I have always believed, and still do, that it is Christ’s return to this earth that will save mankind. I just never imagined it would happen like this.”
“Suppose this is the Christ child to be born in this house tonight,” O’Neil responded. “Or a clone, that is, from Christ’s blood. What is an infant to do in the face of living evil the likes of which you and Bondurant have described?”
Parenti held his ears as Domenika’s moaning became loud once again. A worried look grew on his face. “As an infant? Nothing, I’m sure,” he replied. “But Bondurant has a theory about the blood you speak of and how it just might halt this plague. But it requires belief. And prayer.”
“And after that? Even if the virus were to end, what about the Watcher who remains?”
Parenti paused to think. “He’s not much more than a toddler himself. One day, they will meet. And we will need a savior who stops this creature from finding other means to take us all.”
O’Neil shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “How old was Jesus when he performed his first miracle, Father?”
“I’m afraid we don’t have that long,” Parenti replied. “He was thirty years old before he turned water into wine.”
“We’ll definitely need a bigger feat than that.”
Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Aldo leaped excitedly off Parenti’s lap and skittered along the marble floor toward the entryway of the apartment. Parenti rose from the couch and bounded as quickly as he could down the hallway after Aldo toward the door. When he returned to the living room a minute later, he was followed by two tall men dressed in black, both carrying sidearms. Behind them marched a priest who carried a small cross of gold held directly in front of him. To Parenti’s dismay, the bearer of the cross was followed close behind by Father De Santis, Domenika’s mentor and friend. And just behind him, a gray-haired figure slowly appeared. He shuffled forward with age in his step but a look of purpose in his eyes.
O’Neil, stunned at the presence of the two armed men, rose from the couch to greet the visitors behind them. His eyes grew wide.
“Dr. O’Neil,” Parenti said as he took a knee and cast his eyes downward, “I would like to introduce you to the Holy Father, Pope Augustine the Second, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ.”
O’Neil, in utter shock, sank to his knees alongside Parenti and his dog and awaited the pope’s blessing. Augustine smiled, touched each of their foreheads—including Aldo’s—and made the sign of the cross.
“Padre Parenti, I trust you are well?” the pope asked. “You’re standing proudly now, I see, and every bit the hero we have come to know.”
“I’m fine, Your Holiness,” Parenti said, pleased that the pontiff had noticed his straightened stature. “I only hope your secret journey was not too taxing.”
“No trouble at all. Now, the mother, Domenika, where is she?” the pope asked.
&nb
sp; “Just up the stairs, Your Holiness,” Parenti said. “I know that she feels blessed to have you here for the historic birth.”
The pope smiled but shook his head. “Padre Parenti, you know that it’s only for Domenika that I’m here,” he said. “May God bless this child, and may he walk in the light of the Lord. But—”
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Holiness,” the little priest said. “You’ve reminded me of this before.”
“I have, good father,” Augustine said as he helped Parenti off his knees. “Domenika has every good intention in mind. But I do not believe—the Church does not believe—that the Lord’s divinity can be rearranged under a microscope or transferred by what our scientists call DNA.”
At that moment, Domenika’s cries from the pain grew even louder and began to come in short bursts. The pope made another sign of the cross and went to his own knees in prayer.
Suddenly, Domenika’s moans ceased. Sensing something terribly wrong, Parenti leaped to his feet and raced toward the foot of the stairs. Before he could climb them, a faint cry that quickly grew in strength seemed to vibrate the walls of the entire home. It bore the unmistakable sound of a newborn infant, a sound more beautiful than any Parenti had ever heard before. After several minutes in which no one emerged, Parenti could not help himself. He bounded up the steps and was greeted by Bondurant at the top of the landing.
“What has happened, Dr. Bondurant? Is everything all right?” Parenti cried out.
“He’s born, Father,” Bondurant replied with the broadest smile Parenti had ever seen on his friend. Bondurant then pointed to the window that revealed the cloudless skyline of Baltimore to the east. “And Father, mind you, not a single drop of rain.”
The Second Coming Page 13