F Paul Wilson - Novel 03

by Virgin (as Mary Elizabeth Murphy) (v2. 1)

  A camera crew is on the way to the scene and we will bring you live coverage as soon as it is available.

  To repeat . . ."

  News Center 4

  "Do you remember me?"

  Dan forced his eyes open. He was cold, he was sick, he was emotionally drained and numb; his head was pounding like a cathedral gong, and his scalp throbbed and pulled where it had been stitched up. But the greatest pain was deep inside where no doctor could see or touch, in the black void left by Carrie's death and the brutal, awful, finality of her dying.

  He looked up from his seat in the Emergency Room of Beekman Downtown Hospital. For a rage-blinded instant he thought the black-bearded man with the accented voice standing over him was the bastard who'd shot Carrie. He tensed to launch himself at him, then realized this was someone else. Just as intense, but much too short. He'd seen this man before but his grief-fogged brain couldn't recall where or when.

  "No," he said. And I don't care to.

  "At Tel Aviv airport last summer . . . I was questioning your nun friend and you—"

  Now Dan recognized him. 'The man from the Shin . . ." He fumbled for the word.

  "Shin Bet. The name is Kesev. But I'm here unofficially now."

  "I wish we'd never gone to Israel," he said, feeling a sob growing in his chest. "I wish you'd arrested us and jailed us. At least then Carrie would still be alive."

  Carrie . . . dead. Dan still couldn't believe it. This had to be a dream, the worst nightmare imaginable. A dream. That was the only logical explanation for all these fantastic, unexplainable events, the most unbelievable of which was Carrie's death. Life without Carrie ... a Carrie-less world . . . unthinkable.

  But it had seemed so real when he'd held her limp, cold, blood-drenched body in his arms back there in St. Joe's.

  So real!

  "So do I," Kesev said. "For more than her sake alone. There are other matters to consider."

  "Yeah? Like what?"

  Dan heard the belligerence creeping into his tone, into his mood. What right did this Israeli bastard have to come up to him here in the depths of his grief and start bothering him about Carrie? What did anything matter now that Carrie was dead?

  "We must find the Mother."

  "You find her! She's brought me nothing but grief."

  He started to rise but Kesev restrained him with a surprisingly strong hand on his shoulder.

  "If we find the Mother, we find the killers."

  Dan leaned back into the chair. Find the killers . . . wouldn't that be nice? To wrap his fingers around that big bearded bastard's throat and squeeze and squeeze, and keep on squeezing until—

  "Father Fitzpatrick?"

  Dan looked up. One of the homicide detectives who'd questioned him before was approaching—Detective Sergeant Gardner. He carried a black plastic bag in his hand.

  What did he want now? He'd told him everything, given descriptions of the killers, the sound of their voices, anything he could think of. He was tapped out.

  He noticed Kesev slipping away as the detective neared.

  "They're shipping her body uptown," Detective Gardner said.

  Dan lurched to his feet. "Why? Where?"

  "S.O.P. To the morgue. They're going to autopsy her right away."

  "So soon?" Hadn't Carrie been through enough? "I'd’ve thought—"

  "The pressure's on, Father. We've got a big, mean, unruly crowd outside your church, and from what I hear, the commish has already heard from the Cardinal, the mayor, Albany, even the Israeli embassy. Everybody but everybody wants these guys caught and that relic returned. The commish wants a full forensic report on his desk by six A.M., so they're going to do her right away."

  "Can I see her before—"

  Gardner shook his head. "Sorry. She's gone. Saw her off myself." He held out the black plastic bag. "But here's her personal effects. You want to return them to the convent? If not . . ."

  "No, that's all right," Dan said. "I'll take them."

  Detective Gardner handed the bag over and stood before him, awkward, silent. Finally he said, "We'll get them, Father."

  Dan could only nod.

  As the detective hurried away, Dan sat down and opened the bag. Not much there: a wallet, a rosary, and Carrie's Ziploc bags of the Virgin's clippings and nail filings.

  For an insane moment Dan thought of cabbing up to the morgue—it was up in the Bellevue complex, wasn't it? . . . First Avenue and Thirtieth . . . he could be there in a couple of minutes. He'd sneak into the autopsy room. He'd sprinkle the entire contents of both bags over Carrie's body and . . .

  And what? Bring her back to life?

  Who am I kidding? he thought. That's Stephen King stuff. Carrie's gone . . . forever.

  Without warning, he broke into deep racking sobs. He hadn't even felt them coming. Suddenly they were there, convulsing his chest as they ripped free.

  A hand touched his shoulder. He fought for control and looked up. The man called Kesev had returned.

  "Come, Father Fitzpatrick. I'll take you home. There are things we must discuss."

  Dan nodded absently. Home . . . where was that? The rectory? That wasn't home. Where was home now that Carrie was dead? He didn't care where he went now, he just knew he didn't want to stay in this hospital any longer.

  He bunched up the neck of the plastic bag and followed Kesev toward the exit.

  Dr. Darryl Chin, second assistant medical examiner for New York City, yawned as he pulled on a pair of examination gloves. This is what you get, he supposed, when you're down-line in the pecking order and you live in the East Village: They need somebody quick, they call you.

  "Could be a lot worse," he muttered.

  He looked down at the naked female cadaver supine before him on the stainless steel autopsy table, dead-pale skin, breasts caked with blood, dark hair tangled in disarray, jaw slack, dull blue eyes staring lifelessly at the overhead fluorescents. The murdered nun he'd heard about on the news tonight. Young, pretty, and fresh. The fresh part was important. Only a few hours cold. He might get some useful information out of her. Better than some stinking, macerated, crab-nibbled corpse they'd dragged out of the Hudson. And this was a neat chest wound, not some messy gut shot. They'd be through with this one in no time.

  If they ever got started.

  Where the hell was Lou Ann? She was supposed to assist him tonight. She lived in Queens and had a longer ride, but she should have been here by now. Probably had to put on her face before she came in. Joe had never seen her without two tons of eye liner and mascara.

  Vanity, woman be thy name.

  No use in wasting time. He could get started without her. Open and drain the thorax at least. These chest wounds always left the cavity filled with blood.

  He probed the entry wound with his little finger. Looked like the work of a 9mm slug. Good shot. Right into the heart. Poor girl probably never knew what hit her.

  He reached up and adjusted the voice-activated mike that hung over the table. He gave the date and read off the name of the subject and presumed cause of death from the ID card, then reached for his scalpel.

  Time to open her up. Get the major incisions out of the way, drain and measure the volume of blood in the thoracic cavity, and by then Lou Ann would be here and they could start in on the individual organs.

  He poked his index finger into the suprasternal notch atop the breast bone, laid the point of the blade against the skin just below the notch, and leaned over the table to make the first long incision down the center of the sternum.

  "Please don't do that."

  A woman's voice. He looked around. Who— ?

  Then he looked down. The cadaver's blue eyes were no longer dull and unfocused. They were bright and moving in their sockets, looking at him.

  The scalpel clattered on the metal table as he jumped back.

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "Please don't take His name in vain," the nun said, staring at him as she levered up to a sitting position on th
e table.

  Darryl felt his heart hammering in his chest, heard a roaring in his ears as he backed away.

  She's dead! She's dead but she's talking, moving!

  She swung her legs over the side of the table and slipped to the floor. Still backing away, Joe dumbly watched her naked form cross the room like a sleepwalker and pull a white lab coat from a hook on the wall.

  Darryl's heel caught against something on the floor and he fell backward, his arms pinwheeling for balance. He grabbed the edge of a table but his fingers slipped off the shiny surface and he landed on his buttocks. His head snapped back and struck the painted concrete block of the wall.

  Darryl tried to call out but found he had no voice. He tried to hold onto consciousness but it was a losing battle. The last thing he saw before darkness closed in was the dead woman slipping into the lab coat and walking out the door, leaving it open behind her.

  IN THE PACIFIC

  24° N, 120° W

  Reconnaissance flight 705 out of San Diego is buffeted by tornadic winds and blinding torrents as it fights its way toward the center of the huge, mysterious Pacific storm that shows up on satellite photos but not radar. An unclassifiable, logic-defying storm with the combined properties of an Atlantic hurricane, a Pacific typhoon, and a Midwestern supercell. All that can be said of it from orbit photos and fly-by observation is that a towering colossus of violent weather topping out at fifty-thousand feet is crossing the Pacific in the general direction of northern Mexico.

  Reconnaissance 705's mission is to classify it, but right now, hemmed in by roiling clouds and radar that shows clear, calm, open sea ahead of them, they are truly flying blind. The pilot, Captain Harry Densmore, has never experienced anything like this. The barometric readings are in the mid-twenties as he approaches what should be the center of the storm. He wants to turn back but he needs to know what's at the heart of this monstrosity. There's no eye visible from orbit, but all indications point to an organized center. One look, one reading, and he'll turn tail and run. This monster hasn't killed anybody yet but he's afraid he and his crew might change all that. He'll count himself lucky if he sees San Diego again.

  Just a little farther . . .

  Suddenly the plane is buffeted by a gust that knocks it forty-five degrees off line. Metal shrieks in Densmore's ears and he's sure she's going to come apart when suddenly they're in still air.

  "It's got an eye!" he shouts. "We're through the eye wall!"

  But an eye should be clear. And in an eye this huge, blue sky should be visible above. Not here. It's dark in this eye. Very dark. And raining.

  Maybe it'll clear up ahead.

  The copilot calls out the barometric reading: Twenty-three.

  "Twenty-three? Check that again. That's got to be wrong!"

  Then lightning flashes and Densmore sees something through the rain ahead. Something huge.

  Something dark. The far side of the eye wall? Maybe this eye isn't as big as he thought.

  Maybe—

  "Oh, Christ!"

  He turns the wheel and kicks the rudder hard, all but standing the plane on its wing-tip as he banks sharply to the left. The shouts of alarm and surprise from his copilot and navigator choke off as they see it too.

  He finishes the turn and levels off on a circular course around the center of the eye, catching lightning-strobed glimpses of the cyclopean thing in the heart of the storm. His copilot's and navigator's hushed, awed voices fill the cabin.

  "What in God's name is that?"

  "I don't know."

  They are at 20,000 feet and whatever it is reaches from the ocean below and disappears into the clouds miles above them.

  Densmore realizes that what he sees before him is impossible. He knows his physics, and something that big breaks all natural laws. Just like the storm itself.

  Which means something else is driving this storm that breaks all the rules and defies the world's most sophisticated radar tracking system.

  And God help whoever is in its way when it makes landfall.

  Suddenly he wants to be as far away as possible from this unnatural phenomenon.

  "Take some pictures so people won't think we're all crazy, and let's get the hell out of here."

  Moments later reconnaissance flight 705 reenters the eye wall but instead of flying through, it is tossed back by the hellish fury of the tornadic winds. Densmore tries again and again to pierce the eye wall but each time his craft is rejected like an unwanted toy.

  The storm won't let them leave. They're trapped . . . in the eye . . . with that thing . . .

  Densmore resumes a circular path along the eye wall, staying as far as possible from its center.

  They're safe here in the relative calm of the eye—safe at least from the winds—as long as their fuel holds out.

  But they've only got a few hours' worth left.

  Part IV

  Assumptions

  23

  HURRICANE WATCH

  THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS

  ISSUED A HURRICANE WATCH FOR SANTA

  BARBARA, VENTURA, LOS ANGELES,

  ORANGE AND SAN DIEGO COUNTIES.

  BRING IN LOOSE OUTDOOR OBJECTS,

  FILL UP YOUR CAR WITH GAS, AND STAY

  TUNED FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS.

  THE WEATHER CHANNEL

  Manhattan

  Neither Father Brenner nor Mr. Kesev of the Shin Bet wanted a drink, but Dan didn't let that stop him. Monsignor Riccio had come by to offer his condolences. He seemed to know Kesev—apparently they'd met on the street awhile back.

  The Monsignor didn't say, "This is what you get for recklessly going public with the Virgin," but Dan guessed he was thinking it. He was gracious, however, and sincerely wished for the speedy capture of the killers, then he left. Father Brenner had sat up with him awhile, then he went to bed. Now it was just Kesev and Dan, sitting in silence.

  "Sure you won't have one?" Dan said, crossing the front room of the rectory to pour himself a third Dewar's.

  "No," Kesev said, "and I do wish you would not drink too much."

  Dan stopped in mid-pour. Kesev was right. This wouldn't do him any good. Wouldn't ease the pain, even a little. The wound was too wide, too deep, too fresh.

  "This is my last. But what's it to you? What do you care about me or how much I drink?"

  "I'm sorry for you and for that poor dead woman. But I'm concerned for my own sake as well. You see . . . for many years I have been the Mother's guardian."

  "The Mother,'" Dan said softly. "The Virgin. How Carrie loved her." Then the rest of Kesev's words sank in. "Guardian? We had a fake scroll supposedly written by the Virgin's guardian back in the first century."

  The memory of Carrie's girlish excitement over that scroll punched a new ache through his chest.

  Carrie, Carrie . . . why couldn't you have just let them take her?

  "Yours was a forgery, a copy of another, but the words were true, as you discovered."

  "Any idea who wrote it?" Dan said.

  "I did."

  Dan stared at him. "You must know your first century, Mr. Kesev. That was a pretty convincing scroll. Where'd you learn all that?"

  Kesev shrugged. "From life."

  "You mean from the guardians before you, passing it down. Who are these guardians anyway? Members of some sect?"

  "No. Only one guardian."

  This conversation was getting strange.

  "You mean just one at a time . . . one guardian from each successive generation, right?"

  Kesev shook his head. "No. Just one guardian. Ever. From the beginning. Me."

  "But that would make you a couple of thousand . . ."

  Kesev nodded slowly, but he wasn't smiling.

  "No . . ." Dan said. "No, that would be—"

  "Impossible?"

  Dan was about to say yes when it occurred to him: Was anything impossible anymore?

  And then he heard the rectory's side door open. He stood up and started to cross the roo
m. Now who was it?

  Paraiso

  "So this is what all the excitement is about."

  Arthur Crenshaw stared down at the mummified body where it rested before him on the glass coffee table.

  Paraiso was empty except for him and Charlie and Emilio. Decker and Molinari had returned to their respective homes directly from the airport. Arthur had sent all the help—domestic as well as nursing—home for the night. The fewer who knew about his "borrowing" of the relic, the better. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the great room lay the unrelieved gloom of the night and the ocean. No starlight broke through the restless mantle of cloud that stretched above the Pacific like a shroud. The only sound in the great room was the swoosh of the wind against the glass and Charlie's labored breathing.

  He walked around the table, examining the body from all sides. Not very impressive. Hardly lifelike at all. You could tell it was somebody old and female, but that was about all. Could this be the actual remains of the Virgin Mary? Didn't seem possible. All right, possible, yes, but highly improbable. You'd think there'd be some sort of glow or aura about it if it was really Mary. So maybe it was just the nicely preserved remains of an early saint.

  Whatever it was, could it save Charlie?

  Arthur sighed. Apparently it had healed others—many others—back in New York. No reason why it shouldn't do the same here.

  But whatever it did, it had better do it quickly. Charlie was fading away before his eyes. The latest try at a new experimental therapy had failed. Charlie's CD-4 count was lower than ever. He didn't have much time. This relic was his last chance at a cure.

  But how to go about it?

  Charlie was running one of his fevers again, semicomatose most of the time, and when he was responsive he was delirious—no idea of who he was or where he was or even that he was sick. He couldn't pray to this object, couldn't ask it or anyone else for help.