The Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  He quit counting, secured his rope, turned his back to the cliff, and as his stomach soared toward his throat, he dropped.

  12

  He stepped on a loose chunk of rock. It tilted. Lurching sideways, fighting for balance, he heard it clatter in the dark. He froze.

  He’d reached the bottom. Behind the Horn, the wall of the neighboring bluff loomed close behind him, creating a thicker dark. The narrow enclosure smothered him. He felt disoriented, defenseless. Where was Arlene?

  The snap of a finger told him where she stood. To his left. Across from him, near the other cliff. With as little noise as possible, he started in that direction.

  He realized that anyone could have made that noise. In the dark, the surveillance team might have approached the base of the Horn, assumed that Arlene would descend from the back, and waited there for her.

  For me as well, he thought. He strained to see a figure in the night. Again he heard fingers snap. He pulled out his Mauser, his muscles hard with tension, stalking forward.

  A scream broke the silence. Unnerving, it came from above. Drew felt a rush of air—again from above—and stumbled frantically back as a massive object plummeted past him, walloping on the rocks. Though it seemed to be heavy and solid, it made a sickening plop, like a watermelon dropped from an overpass onto a freeway. Warm liquid spattered his face. He jerked a hand to his cheek.

  His surprise became shock. His shock changed to urgency, commanding him. Though he knew what had fallen, he had to find out if this was Arlene. The fear made bile rush into his mouth.

  But he felt Arlene suddenly next to him. This close, he recognized her shape, her smell. Then who had…? He lunged forward, crouching with his Mauser in one hand, reaching with the other. His fingers touched bloody hair, a shattered skull, warm and sticky. He traced his hand along the torso. A man. The clothes were grimy, torn, buttons missing, a rope for a belt. The dingy clothes a wino might wear. Or someone disguised as a wino, one of the men who’d followed Arlene from her brownstone.

  But how could this have happened?

  As Arlene knelt beside him, he tried to think the problem through. The surveillance team must have become impatient. Suspecting that she would try to sneak down from the Horn at night, they’d split up. The wino must have tried to find a way up to the bluff behind the Horn. In turn, his partner, the well-dressed man with the earphones, had waited in case Arlene decided on the easy route and came back through the trees at the entrance to the basin.

  So far, it made sense, Drew thought. The wino, hiding on top of the bluff in the dark, must have heard the scrape of our boots on the rocks when we touched down. If he leaned too close to the rim, he could have lost his balance and fallen. Easy enough to do at night.

  But the explanation troubled him. It wasn’t the kind of mistake you’d expect from a pro. Beside him, Arlene removed her hands from the corpse and slowly stood. He knew that she too would be trying to figure out the sequence. They didn’t need—didn’t dare—to discuss what had happened. The other member of the team was still in the area. Maybe up on the bluff, in fact. Maybe both men had gone up there, reasoning that the cliff behind the Horn was the logical spot for Arlene to try eluding them.

  Too many variables. Too much uncertainty.

  But this he did know. The falling wino’s scream would have warned his partner. If the well-dressed man was in the woods at the basin’s entrance, he might decide to come this way and investigate.

  On the other hand, a professional wasn’t supposed to allow a scream—even one from his partner—to lure him into what might be a trap.

  Arlene touched his shoulder, communicating the same urgent need he felt to get away. They crossed the dark narrow chasm and stopped at the bluff behind the Horn. Behind them, the corpse made a gurgling sound, pressure forcing gas and blood from the torso.

  Drew shut out the noise, concentrating on the problem he faced. Though a night climb was always difficult, the cliff behind the Horn offered one compensation. It wasn’t as severely vertical as the Horn, and it offered more ledges, more outcrops. Arlene’s shadowy form reached up, choosing a handhold, testing it, then raising her boot to fit it into a crack. Drew brooded. If the well-dressed man had gone with the wino up to the top of the bluff, we’ll never get over the rim. We’ll be pushed down here with his friend.

  No, all of this felt wrong. He tugged the back of Arlene’s jacket as she raised herself. She stiffened, resisting. He tugged again. She stepped back down, her indistinct face swinging toward him. He gripped her hand and used it to point away from the cliff, past the Horn, toward the entrance to the basin. He touched her hand to his chest, to hers, and again pointed past the Horn. The message, he hoped, was clear. It might be better if we went that way. She seemed to think about it. Two taps on his shoulder. Okay.

  They crept from the chasm between the Horn and the bluff. If the well-dressed man was out there hidden in the dark of the woods, watching them through a night scope, they’d be obvious targets caught in the open. But Drew had an intuition, an instinct, that the situation was even more confused than he imagined, that no bullet would pierce his chest, that he and Arlene had a better-than-even chance to get away.

  They angled to the right, leaving the bluff on their flank, descending the slope of fragmented rock, entering the narrow exit from the basin. The woods they reached were still and cold but, because of their tangle, reassuring.

  In keeping with their training, they stayed twenty feet apart, Drew taking the lead, shifting past deadfalls and boulders. Separated, they made less easy targets, and if a sniper shot at one of them, the other would have a chance to see the muzzle flash and return the fire. Drew felt reassured by the pistol that she’d taken from her pack.

  This time, when he reached the stream, he didn’t waste effort trying to find a log with which to cross, but simply waded, nervous about the inadvertent splashing sounds he made.

  Then the stream was behind him, and hearing Arlene follow, he crept farther through the bushes and trees, easing his boots down on leaves that blessedly were still so soaked from yesterday’s rain that they didn’t crackle. With the stars to guide him, he headed east toward the two-lane road and the motorcycle he’d hidden near it.

  His tension eased when he saw the blacktop. The moon had risen, casting a glow across it. The skeletal silhouette of a hydro pylon loomed against the pattern of stars to his right. When he’d arrived that morning, he’d chosen the pylon as a landmark to guide him back to where he’d hidden the chopper, and now heading right, through the bushes that flanked the road, he came to the Harley. He checked the bike; no one had tampered with it.

  Still, he didn’t want to start the motor and attract attention, so he walked the bike down the road, heading left of the pylon this time, soon reaching the spot where Arlene waited for him.

  In the moonlight, he saw her gesture toward an overgrown lane that jutted into the woods. The bushes and saplings had been bent as if a car had gone along it. She motioned for him to follow, and thirty yards down the lane, he found the dark blue car almost indistinguishable from the forest.

  It was occupied.

  The well-dressed man sat motionless behind the steering wheel. A thin gash encircled the front half of his throat. The gash was deep, the obvious aftermath of powerful hands on a razor-sharp garotte. Moonlight filtered through the trees, revealing the blood that drenched the front of the dead man’s overcoat.

  Drew spun toward the black of the forest. The wino hadn’t fallen from the cliff near the Horn! He’d been pushed! There was someone else in the forest!

  Silence no longer mattered, Drew thought. Whoever’s out there knows every move we’ve made.

  He straddled the motorcycle, stomping down on the starter. The engine’s roar broke the stillness. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  13

  Feeling Arlene’s breasts against his back, her arms around his chest, he sped toward the gravel parking area where she’d left her car—a Firebir
d, the nameplate said, though he didn’t recognize its design.

  They quickly inspected it, but as with the Harley, no one had meddled. Indeed, it started the instant Arlene turned the ignition key. Its tires throwing up gravel, Arlene raced from the parking area. Drew hurried after her.

  But five miles down the road, just after a hairpin turn, he let her taillights disappear while he hid in bushes beside the road, watching for anyone who followed. He waited ten minutes.

  No one came. It doesn’t make sense, he thought. Whoever killed those men must have seen us leave. Why aren’t we being tailed? Frowning, he left his hiding place and met Arlene ten miles farther along.

  “There has to be someone,” she said.

  “I know.” He glanced along the dark road. “I never thought I’d be bothered because I wasn’t being followed.”

  “Let’s try it one more time. After the next sharp turn, pull off the road again and wait.”

  No car followed. Distressed, he hurried to join her.

  “That’s it then,” she said. “Let’s put some miles behind us. Stay close. I’ll use back roads.”

  “To where?”

  “You said it yourself. We need to find a place that’s safe, where you can answer my questions.” She sounded exhausted. “And tell me what all of this has to do with Jake.”

  Troubled, they both glanced behind them. What had happened in those woods?

  “We’ve got to find Jake,” Arlene said urgently.

  14

  Heading south through Pennsylvania, they stopped at Bethlehem on the Lehigh River. The motel they chose was off a side street, a line of adjoining units with a parking slot outside each door. Facing a sleepy clerk, they registered as Mr. and Mrs. Robert Davis, requested the unit that was farthest in back (“So the morning traffic doesn’t wake us”), and discovered that at 3 a.m. all the nearby diners were closed. They had to settle for the rest of their trail food along with stale cheese and crackers from a coin dispenser in the motel’s lobby.

  They parked the Firebird in front of the unit but left the motorcycle around the side out of sight from the street, locked the unit’s door behind them, closed the drapes, and only then turned on the lights.

  At once, Arlene sank across the bed, her arms outstretched. Against the white spread, she looked as if she were making angels in snow. She closed her eyes and laughed. “Just like the old days, huh? Reminds me of the time we holed up in Mexico City. You and me and—”

  She opened her eyes, no longer relaxed.

  “And Jake,” Drew said.

  She frowned. “It’s time.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You promised.”

  “Sure. It’s just that…”

  “Jake. You said you were in a monastery. You said six years ago Jake killed you. What does that mean?” Her voice hardened. “Tell me.”

  He’d known this was coming. During the troubled drive here (again the terrible question: What had happened in those woods? Why hadn’t they been followed?), he’d tried to prepare himself.

  But he still wasn’t ready.

  “I’m afraid it’ll take a while.”

  “Then don’t waste time. Get started.” She stood, taking off her khaki jacket, beginning to unbutton her heavy wool shirt.

  The intimate gesture surprised him, though clearly she didn’t think twice about it, still relating to him as if they were lovers. Again he felt a rush of love for her, a bittersweet nostalgia for their former life.

  “And while you’re at it—” she opened the door to the bathroom “—I’ve got dibs on the shower.” She turned impatiently, oblivious to the corner of one breast that showed through her partly opened shirt. “Come on, Drew. Talk to me.”

  His thoughts were in chaos, his subconscious struggling not to give up the nightmares it had buried. He glanced at the floor.

  When he peered up, Arlene was gone. From the bathroom, he heard the scrape of hooks on a shower curtain, the spray of water into a tub.

  The curtain scraped again, and he walked in. Her shadow moved behind the yellow-flowered barrier. Her dusty climbing clothes were piled beneath the sink. Steam rose, filling the room. “Drew?”

  “Here. I’m trying to decide where to start.” He bit his lip, closed the lid on the toilet seat, and eased himself down.

  “But you said six years ago.”

  “No. It starts before then. Unless you know what happened before, the rest of it doesn’t make sense.” He stared at the steam that filled the bathroom. Despite their intimacy, he had never told her any of this before. The memories had been too depressing. “Japan,” he murmured.

  “What? I can’t hear you. This shower.”

  “Japan,” he said louder.

  The mist swirled thicker. For a dizzying moment, he had the sensation of falling in.

  PART FIVE

  VISITATION

  THE SINS OF THE PAST

  1

  Japan, 1960.

  On June 10, prior to a planned visit by American President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a raging mob of ten thousand Japanese anti-American demonstrators stormed Tokyo’s airport to protest a new Japanese-American defense treaty that permitted the continued presence of American military bases, and worse—considering the A-bombs the United States had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the inclusion of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. The immediate targets of their fury were the American ambassador to Japan, along with several members of Eisenhower’s White House staff. As a warning of worse riots to come if the American president arrived in Japan, the mob surrounded the limousine in which the American contingent had planned to drive to the embassy, so threatening the occupants that a U.S. Marine helicopter made an emergency landing among the protestors and flew the officials to safety.

  Six days later, the Japanese government requested a postponement of Eisenhower’s visit. However, the massive demonstrations continued.

  2

  Tokyo, one week later. The recent “troubles”—Drew had heard his father use the expression often lately—the “troubles” were to blame for the cancellation of his birthday party. He didn’t know what the troubles were (something to do with the mysterious place called the embassy where his father worked), but he did know that last year when he turned nine there’d been twenty children at his party, and this year, tomorrow, there wouldn’t be any.

  “With the troubles, it isn’t safe for Americans to associate with each other,” his father had said. “So many cars and parents arriving. They’d attract too much attention. We can’t afford further incidents. I’m sure you understand, Drew. Next year, I promise, we’ll give you a bigger, better party than the one we planned for this year.”

  But Drew didn’t understand—not any more than he understood why his father had told his mother at supper last night that they might have to move from their house to the embassy.

  “Temporarily.” Sometimes Drew’s father used words too big for Drew to grasp. “Only until the situation has stabilized.”

  Whatever “stabilized” meant. The only sign Drew had of anything wrong was that during the past few weeks, most of their Japanese servants had resigned. And now that Drew thought about it, there’d been one other thing. His best friend in the neighborhood, a Japanese boy, no longer came to play. Drew often phoned him, but his friend’s parents always said that the boy wasn’t home.

  “Hey, never mind the party, sport,” Drew’s father said, and playfully mussed his hair. “Don’t look so glum. You’ll still have presents. Lots of them. And a big chocolate cake, your favorite. I’ll even stay home from work to help you celebrate.”

  “You mean you can actually get away?” Drew’s mother asked, delighted. “Won’t they be needing you at the embassy?”

  “With the hours I’ve been putting in, I told the ambassador my son’s more important than any damned crisis.”

  “And he didn’t get angry?”

  “All he did was laugh and say, ‘Tell your son Happy Birthday for me.’”
/>   3

  A long black limousine stopped in front of the house at two the next afternoon. Drew watched, excited, from his bedroom window. The car had a small American flag on a metal post near the driver’s side-view mirror. Its license plates were the same kind as on his father’s car—from the embassy. A uniformed American got out, took a large red-white-and-blue package from the seat beside him, straightened the bow, and proceeded up the curved front walk, past an ornate Japanese garden, toward the entrance.

  He knocked on the door and, while he waited, adjusted his chauffeur’s cap, then turned, attracted to the song of an unseen bird in a nearby blossoming cherry tree. An elderly Japanese woman, one of the few local servants who hadn’t quit working here, came out and bowed gracefully in her brilliant orange kimono.

  The driver bowed slightly in return and then, from American habit, tipped his cap. “Please tell Mr. MacLane that the ambassador sends his compliments.” The driver grinned. “Or I guess you should tell his son. And give him this birthday present. The ambassador hopes it makes up for the canceled party.”

  The driver handed the package to the servant, bowed again, and returned to the limousine.

  4

  Despite his growing impatience, Drew obeyed instructions and waited in his room while his mother and father made sure that everything was properly arranged.

  “It’s just the three of us,” his mother had said. “But we’ll have enough fun for twenty.”

  Eagerly he paged through the American comic books—Superman and Davy Crockett were his favorites—that his father had arranged to be specially delivered. “In the diplomatic pouch,” his father had said, though Drew knew he was joking. “Nothing’s too good for my son.”