The Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  Drew heard the sorrow in Jake’s tone. “But do you want to kill me?”

  “Christ, no! Why do you think I’m stalling?”

  “Then maybe there’s a better way.”

  “If there is, I don’t know it.”

  “Go back and tell them you found me and killed me.”

  “What the hell good would that do? They wouldn’t just take my word. I’d have to bring them proof!”

  “So what’s the problem? Give them that proof!”

  “Make sense.”

  “Tell them you rigged a car bomb and blew me up.” Drew remembered the method of execution he’d been told to use in the Alps. “Take photographs. They like photographs.”

  “Of what? A bombed-out car won’t…”

  “No, of me getting in the car and driving away. Of the car blowing up, toppling into a river. Under the circumstances, if you tell them you couldn’t get me except with a bomb, what more proof could they want? But I won’t be in the car.”

  “You stop the car and get out before it blows?”

  “That’s right. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to report to the monastery. It’s up in Vermont. But I can wait till morning to help you take the pictures.”

  Drew started forward, toward Jake’s voice in the darkness.

  “Stay where you are, Drew.”

  “I can’t wait any longer. I have to know. It’s time to put our friendship on the line. Shoot me, or help me. There’s no other choice.” He stretched his arms out again. A gesture of openness.

  “I’m warning you, Drew.” Jake sounded panicked. “Don’t make me do it. Don’t come any closer.”

  “Sorry, buddy. I’ve been running too long. I’m tired. And I want to see your face.”

  “For Christ’s sake!”

  “Yes, that’s right!” Drew came within ten feet from the clump of bushes where Jake was hidden. Five. And stopped. He stared at the darkness. “So what’s it going to be? Do you want to help me prove to them that you killed me? So you can get me off the hook, and I can spend the rest of my life in peace? Or do you want to kill me for real?”

  He waited. Silence closed in.

  The bushes rustled.

  Drew tensed, fearing he’d miscalculated, imagining Jake raise his weapon.

  A figure emerged from the darkness.

  Jake approached, his arms outstretched as Drew’s were. “God love you, pal.”

  They embraced.

  5

  “In Seventy-Nine?” Arlene scanned Drew’s face, her voice as taut with emotion as Drew’s had been.

  “In March. In Boston. The day before I entered the monastery.”

  She slumped back into her chair. “You’re right. I had to hear all of it before I could understand. It’s like…”

  Drew watched her struggle to find the words. “I came to think of it as a spider web,” he said. “Everything interlocked, interwoven, coming full circle. For a terrible purpose. Because the ultimate spider’s waiting.”

  She studied him. “And Jake did what you asked? He helped you?”

  “We staged the photographs. I don’t know what he told Scalpel. But he must have been convincing. From what you’ve said, there weren’t any repercussions. In fact, until two weeks ago, you didn’t notice anything unusual.”

  “That’s right.” She brooded. “But then he became nervous.”

  “And shortly after Jake disappeared, the monastery was attacked,” Father Stanislaw said.

  The room seemed to narrow with tension.

  “Are the two events related?” The priest turned to Drew. “Did someone decide that Jake knew more than he was telling? Was he forced to admit that you were still alive, to reveal where you were?”

  “But why the six-year delay?” Drew asked. “If Scalpel was suspicious about his story, why did they wait so long to question him?”

  “Scalpel?” Arlene looked incredulous. “You’re assuming they’re responsible? That they caused Jake’s disappearance and attacked the monastery?”

  “I have to. Everything points to them.”

  “But—” She became more agitated.

  “What’s wrong? I thought you took that for granted the same as I did.”

  “No, you don’t understand. It’s impossible.”

  “But everything fits.”

  “It can’t! Scalpel doesn’t exist anymore!”

  Drew’s stomach dropped. “What?”

  “The network was disbanded, in 1980. When you were in the monastery.”

  Drew flinched.

  “She’s right,” Father Stanislaw said. “My sources are very firm about its cancellation. As you discovered, the program had gotten out of control. Far exceeding its mandate, it wasn’t just counterattacking terrorists but had taken the potentially catastrophic step of interfering in foreign governments and plotting assassinations of heads of state. If the Ayatollah had learned that Americans were trying to kill him, he might have executed the hostages instead of merely holding them for ransom. For sure, he would have used the assassination attempt as proof that everything he said against America and its degeneracy was true. That’s no doubt why Scalpel wanted you killed. Your failure to accomplish the hit and, worse, their suspicion that you’d become unstable enough to give away their secrets must have terrified them.”

  “But then they thought I was dead.”

  “And probably got their first good night’s sleep since your failed assignment,” Father Stanislaw said. “My sources feel that Scalpel decided it had come too close to disaster. A few even feel that someone in Scalpel was worried enough to let the State Department know how politically dangerous the program had become. Remember what happened to the CIA when the Senate’s Church Committee uncovered the agency’s assassination plots? Against Castro, Lumumba, Sukarno, the Diem brothers?”

  “The CIA was almost disbanded,” Drew said. “As a compromise, its powers were severely restricted. And seven hundred members of the covert operations branch were fired.”

  “Obviously Scalpel didn’t want the same scandal. Protecting their careers, its administrators carefully and quietly dismantled the antiterrorist network. The dismantling took a year from your failed attempt against the Ayatollah.”

  “Then who the hell tried to kill me? And why?” Drew asked.

  “And what made Jake so nervous?” Arlene stared at them.

  “Maybe the poison will give us a clue,” Drew said. “If we knew the type used to attack the monastery.”

  Father Stanislaw considered him. “Yes. The bishop told me you’d kept the corpse of the mouse that saved your life. Your pet.”

  “Stuart Little.” Drew had trouble breathing. “I figured the last thing he could do for me was to help me find the answers. With an autopsy, if the poison was distinctive, I might have the information that would lead me to whoever had ordered the attack.”

  “I wonder. Would you mind? May I see the body?”

  “It isn’t pretty.”

  “I expect that by now you know I’m not innocent.”

  Drew glanced at the eerie red ring, the intersecting sword and Maltese cross. “I got that impression. The fraternity of the stone?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’ll have to tell me about it.”

  “When the time is suitable. And in the meanwhile?”

  Drew went to his coat. Remarkably, when he pulled out the plastic bag, the tiny cadaver seemed unusually preserved. It was dry and shrunken, like a mummy.

  Father Stanislaw accepted it with reverence. “From tiny creatures…” He glanced from the mouse to Drew. “I’ve explained that I had the corpses removed from the monastery. Your concern was well founded, the fear of scandal you expressed to the bishop. If the authorities had learned about the attack, their investigation would have led them to discover that one monk had survived. And when they’d dug more deeply, they’d have learned about your background. The Church protecting an international assassin? It wouldn’t do. So after our own investigation, we eras
ed the evidence. The corpses were buried in keeping with Carthusian custom. Respectfully, but humbly, without a headstone to identify them. We maintained the privacy that the monks had always wanted. But autopsies were performed. The poison is distinctive. And under the circumstances, appropriate.”

  Drew waited.

  “Monkshood.”

  The play on words was blasphemous. “If I ever get my hands on…”

  “Patience,” Father Stanislaw said. He set the plastic bag on the dresser and touched his priest’s white collar. “I should have put on my vestments.”

  “For what?”

  “Your confession, for that’s what this has been. A difficult problem of canon law. I wonder if my oversight makes your confession invalid.”

  Drew’s voice broke. “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t, either. God understands. Is that the end of it? Have you told me everything you think is pertinent? Everything that leads up to the attack on the monastery?”

  “Everything I can think of.”

  “Then bow your head, and complete the ritual.”

  “Father, I’m heartily sorry for these sins and the sins of all my life.”

  Father Stanislaw raised his right hand, making the sign of the Cross. The priest prayed in Latin. Drew recognized the petition to God for forgiveness.

  Father Stanislaw paused. “To kill another human being is one of the ultimate crimes. Only suicide is greater. But the circumstances moderate your culpability. As does your lifelong ordeal. Make a good act of contrition.”

  Drew did so.

  The priest said, “Go in peace.” Then added, his voice suddenly harsh, “But stay right where you are.”

  Drew glanced up, startled.

  “It’s time to talk about Yanus.”

  Drew frowned. “You said that in the chapel at the retreat house. It took me a while to figure it out. Your accent. You mean Janus?”

  “The assassin,” Arlene interrupted.

  Father Stanislaw nodded. “The two-headed god. Who’s supposed to be Drew.”

  PART SEVEN

  JANUS

  THE SINS OF THE PRESENT

  1

  In Ancient Rome, when an imperial army marched off to war, complex rituals had to be obeyed, lest ill fortune fall upon the venture. One of the most important of these rituals required that the army pass through a ceremonial archway while the favor of the gods—and one in particular, the god of good beginnings—was invoked. There were many such archways throughout the city, and most were not connected to walls or buildings but rather stood freely, as if their lack of practical purpose would emphasize their symbolic function. Likewise, small buildings were sometimes constructed for no other purpose than to provide a suitable setting for a priest or politician to walk into and out from.

  The most respected of these buildings was a shrine to the north of the Forum. Simple, rectangular, it had double bronze doors on its east and west side, facing the rising and setting sun, as if to signify that, while the good beginning of a venture was hoped for, so too was a successful end. Like the archway through which Rome’s mighty armies marched on their way to battle, this temple too was associated with war. Indeed, so frequently did the empire’s generals pass into and out of the double doors facing east and west that by custom the doors were left open. Only when Rome was at peace were the doors closed, an event that happened rarely—during the first seven hundred years of the city’s greatness, from the reign of Numa to that of Augustus, only three times.

  The god to whom this shrine was dedicated was not, as might be expected, Mars. Instead, the statue that priests, politicians, and generals meditated upon as they passed from one set of doors to the next was that of a greater deity, Janus, whose likeness could easily be distinguished from those of all other gods because he had two faces, one in front, the other in back, peering toward each set of doors, the east and the west, the start and the finish.

  When petitioned for success at the start of a day, he was known as Matutinus, from which comes matins, the Roman Catholic Church’s word for the first canonical service of the day, just after midnight. But Janus was also petitioned at the start of each week and each month and, in particular, at the start of each year. Appropriately, the first month of the Roman calendar was named in his honor: January.

  Janus, the two-faced, staring eternally forward and backward.

  Toward the beginning. And the end.

  2

  “At the start,” Father Stanislaw said, “what we had were mostly rumors. Almost a year ago.”

  “We?” Drew squinted. “Who’s we?” He gestured toward Father Stanislaw’s ring, the magnificent ruby, the intersecting sword and cross. “The fraternity?”

  “Is it necessary to be explicit? A man with your experience…” Father Stanislaw considered him. “It shouldn’t surprise you. The Church with its seven hundred million followers is virtually a nation unto itself. Indeed, in the Middle Ages it was a nation, composed of all of Europe, during the Holy Roman Empire. It needs to watch over its interests. Just as all major nations do, it needs an intelligence network.”

  “Intelligence network?” Drew’s voice hardened. “I’m beginning to understand.”

  “At least, you think you understand. But one stage of explanation at a time. The principal sources of our intelligence are various members of an ambiguous religious order that has come into prominence since you entered the monastery. The order is known as Opus Dei, the great work of God. I describe the order as ambiguous because its members—mostly successful middle-class professionals, doctors, lawyers, business people—continue to pursue their lay vocations despite their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They dress according to the fashions of society, though many retreat at night to cloisters, and all bequeath their possessions to the Church. Their views are conservative. They’re fiercely loyal to the Pope. Their membership in Opus Dei is kept a strict secret.”

  “In other words, an invisible order.”

  “Correct. The theory is that they can spread the Church’s influence by using its doctrines in their daily business practice. A kind of Catholic fifth column, if you like. Imagine the effect if members of Opus Dei were elected to Congress, or if one became a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. But they aren’t merely in America. Opus Dei exists in strength in over eighty countries. One hundred thousand professionals, using their ambition, striving to gain as much secular power as they can, for the sake of the Catholic Church. They are the basis for the Church’s intelligence network. And it was from rumors they began to pick up that I first heard about…”

  3

  A freelance mercenary, who as if from nowhere appeared abruptly on the European scene and was reputed to be responsible for five assassinations in rapid sequence, all involving Catholic priests. In each case, the priests—politically active, influential, and fiercely opposed to Communist factions in their country’s government—had died in ways that at first seemed merely unfortunate. A car accident, for example, a heart attack, a fire.

  Widely separated, the deaths would not have attracted notice, but so many in quick succession, and most in Italy, prompted Opus Dei eyebrows to be raised. Powerful members of the order used their influence to make sure that investigations became more thorough. Soon, various factors in each death began to seem suspicious, though not conclusively incriminating. In the case of the car accident, the brakes had failed, and yet the brakes had recently been serviced. In the case of the heart attack, an autopsy on the victim revealed no weakness in his cardiovascular system. In the case of the fire, no one could recall the priest, who’d always been compulsively neat, ever allowing oily rags to accumulate in the rectory’s basement.

  At the same time, in Geneva, a young woman deeply in love made a frightening discovery. The man with whom she’d been having an affair, a pleasure-giving American, had recently installed a set of bookshelves in her apartment. One of the brackets that held the shelves to the wall had pulled from the plaster, causing the she
lves to lean out alarmingly. Because the boyfriend, Thomas McIntyre, was out of the city on business (what kind of business she didn’t know, something to do with imports and exports), she telephoned her brother to come to her apartment and advise her about the shelves.

  When the two of them chanced to peer behind the shelves, they noticed a hole in the wall that had not been there before. And exploring further, they discovered a cavity filled with plastic explosives, detonators, automatic weapons, ammunition, and a metal container from which they extracted the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars in various European currencies, along with three passports for Michael McQuane, Robert Malone, and Terence Mulligan. Despite the difference in names, the photograph on each of the passports was identical. It portrayed the face of the woman’s boyfriend, Thomas McIntyre.

  After a long, intense, and violent argument, in which the woman defended her lover, threatening never to speak to her brother again if her lover wasn’t given the chance to explain, the brother phoned the authorities. Three policemen arrived within the hour. They examined the objects concealed behind the bookshelves and proceeded at once to the apartment of the boyfriend, who—it turned out—had come back from his business trip early and, without informing his lover, was having a party. After the policemen knocked on the door and were with reluctance admitted by one of the guests, they faced a group of drunken revelers in the midst of which a man who resembled the photograph in the various passports agreed to answer questions in the bedroom. Once inside, however, the American pulled a pistol, shot the three policemen, and fled down a fire escape.