The Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  Drew backed off, rain streaking across his face. He glanced at the ax in his hand and decided that he couldn’t attack by rushing beneath the tilted back of the nylon sheet. That posture would be too awkward. There was too much risk of his slipping in the mud or nudging the sheet and warning the man.

  No, Drew thought, there had to be a better way.

  He watched the nylon sheet being buffeted by the wind and nodded, creeping toward the right, toward the rope that attached one corner of the sheet to a tree. He felt the knot and recognized its shape. A slip knot. Strong and dependable, it could nonetheless be easily released by a quick tug on the free end of the rope.

  He did so now. His plan was to trap the man inside the sheet and knock him unconscious with a blow from the blunt end of the ax. But instead of collapsing, the sheet was caught by the wind and driven upward, exposing the man to the storm. As lightning shattered a nearby tree, the man whirled in surprise and noticed Drew.

  The ax was useless now. Too heavy, too slow. Drew dropped it, lunging, but surprise was still in his favor, for the man seemed startled not only by the upraised sheet but as well by what confronted him—the righteous eyes of a raging monk, his ascetic face an image of terror, his robe so dripping with mud that he might have been a nightmare sprung from the earth.

  The hit on the monastery had shown that the team was professional, but even so, the spotter screamed reflexively, and at that moment, Drew screamed as well, the traditional Zen outcry, intended to distract his opponent while helping Drew to focus the strength he released along with the air from his lungs. He hadn’t engaged in hand-to-hand combat for years, but his daily exercises, in part involving the dance steps of martial arts, had kept his reflexes tuned. Those dance steps had been practiced for spiritual reasons. But some things apparently could never be forgotten. His prior instincts returned with alarming precision.

  To an untrained observer, what happened next would have seemed even quicker than the thirteen seconds it took to occur. Blurred movements would have been confusing, almost impossible to distinguish from each other.

  But to Drew—and no doubt to his opponent—the passage of time became amazingly extended. As a champion tennis player paradoxically sees the ball approach across the net with the bulk and lethargy of a beach ball, so these men confronted each other as if they were giants in slow motion.

  Drew struck the heel of his palm against his opponent’s chest, directly above the heart. The blow should have shattered his enemy’s rib cage, thrusting bone splinters inward to impale both the heart and lungs.

  It didn’t happen. Through the heel of his palm, Drew felt at once what was wrong. His opponent’s padded nylon vest was so filled with down, or more likely quick-drying Thinsulate, that it had absorbed the force of the blow. A grunt from the man indicated that damage had been done, but not enough to incapacitate him.

  Drew’s opponent had already braced himself, bending his knees, supporting his back against a tree. Drew had to thrust with the heel of his other palm, this time toward the throat. But his opponent responded. As lightning blinded Drew (but presumably his opponent as well), he sightlessly tried to deflect the blow that he knew would be aimed at his heart.

  He’d used his right hand first. So now he thrust his left palm upward, tilting it slightly inward, anticipating that his opponent—having been struck at the heart—would have to respond from the opposite half of his body.

  Drew’s left palm struck his opponent’s lunging right arm at the elbow, dislocating it. The force of the impact caused them both to reel off-balance in the mud. Drew heard the man’s groan. His enemy slipped, colliding with him, entangling his dislocated arm in the bib of Drew’s muddy robe. The bib was large enough that it could have been used as a sling.

  As darkness returned, they found themselves locked together, chest to chest. Drew smelled the garlicky sausage that the man had eaten. The unfamiliar stench of meat was nauseating.

  He pushed, then braced himself, his enemy pushing back. They skittered one way, then another, sliding across the mud, their breathing strident.

  Drew felt his opponent reaching backward, groping for something on his hip.

  He remembered.

  The knife sheathed on his opponent’s belt.

  Prepared to grab for the hand that would hold the knife, Drew frantically changed his mind. He had to strike sooner. He needed a weapon.

  The weapon was close at hand. Oblivious to the significance, he grabbed the crucifix that dangled on a chain around his neck. He clutched Christ’s head and rammed the long slender base of the crucifix up his opponent’s widened right nostril.

  The storm unleashed its full fury. As if condemning what Drew had done, the sky blazed with so many jagged bolts of lightning that Heaven itself seemed fractured.

  The man wasn’t dead. Drew hadn’t expected him to be. But such an invasion to a bodily orifice would produce shock. Predictably, the man straightened in agony, wailing, beginning to shake. Amazingly, his survival mechanisms continued to function, his free hand lunging with the knife.

  Still locked against the shuddering body, Drew parried the knife, its blade slicing through the sleeve of his robe, and jabbed the web of skin between his thumb and first finger up hard against the man’s throat, hearing the windpipe crack.

  Lightning struck beside him, disintegrating the nearest tree. The roaring brilliance stunned him, lifting him off his feet. While splinters lanced him, he and the man were thrown from the forest. They tumbled into the clearing, rolling down the slope, twisting over each other, now Drew on top, now the man, thumping to a stop against a boulder. Drew gasped from the impact. Straining to disengage the man’s arm from his robe, he peered down at the gloom-obscured face, touched the vein on the side of the neck, and realized that the man was dead.

  Drew gagged. The crack of the lightning still reverberated in his ears. Dizzy, he shook his head and squinted through double vision toward the top of the clearing, toward the glowing smoke that rose from the shattered base of a tree ten feet from the now shredded nylon sheet. The smell of ozone drifted heavily around him. Lightning formed a rictus in the sky.

  He shuddered, again peering down toward the man he’d killed. When he’d entered the monastery, he’d sworn that the killing had come to an end. And now?

  He could have justified killing the man in anger—for the monks, if not for Stuart Little. Anger was a natural human fault, an innate weakness. The legacy of Cain. But he hadn’t killed in anger. He’d passed far from anger, descending into an even more basic motive, survival. And the years had made no difference. He still retained the instinct, and his training had been so effective that even now he was capable of unleashing death automatically—as a knee will jerk when the hammer taps.

  If I’d killed him by chance, I wouldn’t care. But I did it reflexively. Because I was better at it.

  Oh, Jesus. He prayed, recalling with horror what he’d done with the crucifix. Have mercy on this sinner. I didn’t want to become what I am. It was forced upon me. But I should have had more control.

  While rain streaked down his face, mingling with tears, he bowed his head toward the man he’d killed and struck his breast. Through my fault. Through my most grievous fault.

  He wanted to vomit.

  Still, he had no choice. He had to keep himself in control. Bitterly he stood and took off his robe and hair shirt. His naked body shivered in the icy rain. He stripped the dead man, putting on his clothes. If he was compelled to reenter the world, he couldn’t expect to survive by attracting attention in a habit. He had to take precautions. This man had not been alone; others were out there, waiting to kill him. Why? He didn’t know. But a new understanding had come to him. His motive had passed beyond the need to avenge his fellow monks. A base emotion, necessarily dismissed. For now that he’d killed again, he’d put his immortal soul in jeopardy, and whoever was responsible had better have a damned good reason.

  24

  His enemy’s clothes fit Drew
badly, everything too loose. He had to pull his own socks over the dead man’s in order for the hiking boots to feel firm. The jeans sagged as if he’d been on a diet, which in fact he had. If not for the padded vest on top of the heavy outdoor shirt, Drew might have looked as if his chest had caved in. He put the handkerchief that contained Stuart Little into a pocket of the vest and tied the skipping rope around his waist. He retrieved the photographs from his robe and slipped them into the other pocket of the vest. Then he stalked up the slope toward the tripod, rifle, and infrared scope.

  Rain drenched him. Glancing around, he focused on the knapsack that his opponent had wedged in the crook of a tree. He opened it…

  A Mauser pistol. He checked it, making sure that it was fully loaded, and shoved it behind his jacket, beneath the belt at the base of his spine.

  Two magazines filled with ammunition. He put these in the pocket with Stuart Little.

  A large plastic bag containing chocolate bars, peanuts, and dehydrated fruit. Starting with the peanuts, wanting their salt, he chewed them slowly, hungrily.

  No time. What else could he scavenge before he left? He forced himself to think. What else would he need to confront the world? What had he formerly taken for granted but learned to live without?

  One item occurred to him, and he reached for the hip on the jeans he wore, removing the dead man’s wallet. He opened it, squinting to protect his eyes as lightning flashed, and saw several twenties and fives. All right, then, he had what amounted to another weapon. In a compartment of the wallet, he felt several plastic cards, which he assumed would be a driver’s license and credit cards. All the statistics on them would be fake, of course. A professional would never go into an operation with bona fide I.D., the purpose of the documents merely to avert suspicion if the man were inadvertently involved in a traffic incident or forced to spend a night in a motel. But the fake identity would survive offhanded scrutiny, and Drew could temporarily use it.

  What else? As he glanced around, debating, he suddenly heard a voice behind him. He crouched, spinning, his palms raised to defend himself. Despite the shrieking wind, he heard the voice again—ahead, to his left, strangely muffled, loud yet distant.

  “George?”

  Drew frowned, suspicious, scanning the woods.

  “George, where are you?” The voice sounded amplified, vaguely metallic. Static crackled. “George, what the hell are you doing, taking a leak? You’re supposed to check in.” More static.

  Drew relaxed, feeling the urgency drain from his muscles. He approached the sound of the voice. The walkie-talkie hung near the knapsack on the tree, formerly sheltered by the nylon sheet but now exposed to the rain.

  “For Christ’s sake, George. Check in.”

  Drew almost pressed the send button, strongly tempted to answer—not to pretend to be George, however, for Drew had no idea of whether George’s voice was high or low, whether George had a distinctive accent or even a cold. It was highly unlikely that the man on the other end would be deceived. But Drew nonetheless wanted to answer, to imagine the shock that the man would feel if an unfamiliar voice came over the walkie-talkie and suddenly announced, “I’m sorry. George can’t come to the phone right now. He’s dead. But can I take a message?”

  Get control, Drew thought. When you start imagining jokes like that, you’re close to the edge.

  He restrained the impulse. But already he knew more than he had a minute ago. The spotter had not been out here alone. Somewhere close, the spotter had a partner.

  He assessed the possibilities. This hill above the monastery was the best place from which to study all the exits from the compound. But was it practical to put two men up here? Did it make more sense for the men to work in shifts, taking turns so that they each had a chance to get out of the cold and sleep?

  Sleep where? Did the surveillance team have a vehicle in the area? As much as Drew wanted answers, he also needed transportation, but he didn’t have much time to look for it.

  “George, what the hell’s going on?” the crackling voice demanded from the walkie-talkie. “Quit fooling around! Are you okay?”

  Before the man on the other end became sufficiently disturbed to search for his partner or else drive away from the area, Drew had to find him. And if Drew’s logic was valid, he had a good chance by searching along the road.

  He left the trees, pushed by the rain, descending the gloomy slope. But coming to the dead man, he stopped abruptly. He’d asked himself what else he would need to survive in the world. An object on the naked corpse, the only thing that Drew hadn’t thought to remove, attracted his attention. Totally artificial, completely unnecessary for the past six years, it suddenly seemed essential.

  He knelt in the rain and took the wristwatch from the body.

  Buckling it on, he felt a change come over him. Yes, he thought with immense sorrow, tears again flowing. He’d rejoined the world now.

  Time had begun again.

  25

  At the bottom of the slope, Drew angled right, shifting quickly through another stretch of forest till he came to a section of the high chain-link fence that enclosed the land around the monastery. The noise of the storm persisted, hiding the jangle that the fence made as he climbed it. The moment he dropped to the mud on the other side, he assumed an instinctive defensive crouch. He’d crossed yet another threshold. Like the watch on his wrist, the fence was one more shift from the peace of the monastery toward the turmoil of the world.

  But he couldn’t allow his regrets to disturb him. He had to reach the Church, specifically Father Hafer, his contact, his protector. He had to accept the conditions that had been forced upon him, to go where necessity took him. The answers, the dead monks in the monastery, they were what mattered. Not his reluctance.

  He proceeded through the storm down the next wooded slope until he reached the road. A flash of lightning revealed that, as he’d remembered, it was paved. Rain glistened off it. After the difficult landscape through which he’d struggled, the smooth, unobstructed surface invited him. But he didn’t dare show himself; he’d have to creep through the undergrowth along its border.

  He paused to assess his location. The monastery was now to his left. Farther to his left, several miles away along corkscrew winding turns, was the nearest town, Quentin. He tried to imagine the strategy of the death team. If he was one of two men they’d left behind to check the monastery—just in case their quarry had remained in the area—he wouldn’t want to be camping in the woods. Too damp and cold. He’d want a dry, warm place in which to sleep and change clothes and get something to eat while his partner took his turn on the hill. But he’d also want mobility, the chance to leave the area in a hurry if he had to. That combination of requirements suggested a vehicle large enough to hold equipment and a bed—a camper-truck, for example, or a van. And he certainly wouldn’t park it where the authorities might drive by. Its probable hiding place would not be along the portion of the road that led toward Quentin. Instead, it would be on the opposite side of the monastery. On Drew’s right. Where the road led toward the maple syrup factory, and after that, scenery, little else.

  He found a van fifteen minutes later. On the far shoulder of the road, just before a curve would have made it impossible for an occupant to see the entrance to the lane up to the monastery. The position was logical, Drew thought. The only sure sign that I escaped would be a lot of vehicles arriving at the monastery—ambulances, cops, the coroner. Who else could have warned the authorities except a survivor of the killings? As soon as the team felt confident that I wasn’t in the area, their back-up pair could pull out. Conversely, the longer the authorities failed to arrive, the more suspicious the team would be that I hadn’t escaped.

  But he had to verify that the van wasn’t parked here simply because of a breakdown or an innocent sleepy driver. He crawled farther through the undergrowth along the road until he faced the rear of the van—no windows along the side but a bubblelike window in back. Ducking to keep from
being spotted through that window, he sprinted across the pavement to crouch beside the rear right tire. The convex back window could have been designed to deflect the heat of the sun; on the other hand, it could have been designed to keep an outsider from getting an undistorted view of the interior. Perhaps the window worked only from inside to out; or perhaps it had a pull-down blind. The glass might even be bulletproof, the van’s body reinforced against attack also. These possibilities were hypothetical, of course, unverifiable except by assault.

  Nonetheless, there was one easy test to find out if a seemingly ordinary vehicle had been designed to go into combat. All Drew needed to do was sink to the pavement and peer beneath the chassis. In the dark, he had to wait for lightning to reflect its gleam off the asphalt, but even with the brief illumination, he saw what he needed. The van had no visible gas tank.

  The conclusion was obvious. Mounted inside the back compartment of the van, the fuel tank would be as protected as the vehicle’s occupants. There wasn’t any question now. He had to believe that the van was armored. To get into it, he’d need a weapon considerably more powerful than a Mauser pistol.

  But even Goliath could be defeated. A reinforced vehicle was designed to survive an attack while it was moving. Stopped, it became more vulnerable, especially if the enemy got close to it. He knelt to feel the right rear tire, concluding without surprise that the rubber was extra thick and no doubt layered with metal. A bullet from the Mauser would do little damage, not enough to prevent the driver from speeding away.

  The trick was to convince the occupant—already distressed because he couldn’t raise his partner on the walkie-talkie—that he had another and more immediate problem: the rain’s long-term effect on the gravel shoulder of the road. Even a bullet-resistant tire had to be inflated, or to use that logic in the reverse, it could also be deflated. True, by letting air from the tire, Drew wouldn’t be able to drive the van away, but this well-equipped vehicle would surely have a spare.