The Fellowship

by William Tyree

  They had come in hopes of anything that would lead them to the remaining Black Order operatives.

  It was broad daylight, but that didn’t matter much. Carver didn’t expect to find the priest at home. One way or the other, Callahan had been an accomplice to Nico’s abduction. If he was working with the Black Order, he would be long gone by now. If he wasn’t, he was likely dead.

  “You do any climbing?” Seven asked.

  Carver shrugged. “Not really. Just a couple of indoor climbing walls.”

  “It’s just three floors up. Piece of cake. Just follow my lead.”

  He watched as Seven walked underneath the front canopy and jumped straight up, gripping the canopy frame. She swung her right foot into a crevice in the brickwork. Then she reached to the side, gripping a decorative flourish in the building’s façade and, with spider-like movements, pawed her way up the building’s face until she was high enough to grab the ironwork supporting the second floor balcony.

  She paused to look down at Carver, who stood in awe on the sidewalk. “Coming?”

  “No. Just buzz me in, will you?”

  In less than a minute, Seven let him into the apartment. She was covering her nose with her sleeve, and Carver soon caught wind of the overwhelming stench.

  “Somebody died,” Seven whispered.

  Carver didn’t think so. He’d smelled plenty of decomposing bodies before. That was a stench you never forgot. This was something else.

  The apartment was ransacked. Every drawer and cabinet in the place was open. The floor was strewn with clothing and documents. A suitcase that looked as if it had been carved up with a razor blade sat open on the couch.

  The bathroom and lone bedroom were clear. Carver found the source of the smell in the kitchen. The refrigerator door had been left wide open. Carver slammed the door on a piece of raw fish and a few warm dairy products.

  A shrill ringing sent Seven darting across the room. She spun so that her back was against the wall and her weapon was extended before her.

  “Relax,” Carver said, pointing to an old analog phone mounted on the kitchen wall. “You think I should answer it?”

  Seven swallowed hard and nodded.

  Carver picked up the yellow receiver and put his ear to it.

  “I’d just about given up on you.”

  The voice belonged to Father Callahan. So he was alive. Carver slowly lowered himself into a chair, scanning the shelves and ceiling. Where was the camera?

  “I suspect the line is bugged,” the priest said, “so do be concise, if you please. You remember where I took you for dinner on your first trip to Rome?”

  It would have been a ludicrous question for nearly anyone else. That had been years ago. The city was huge and contained thousands of restaurants that would seem similar to a foreigner. Nobody could have been expected to remember something like that.

  And yet Carver did remember. He had arrived in town very late, arriving at the priest’s apartment at 11:37 p.m. He had been famished. The priest had taken him to a trattoria called Osteria Dell’Angelo just a few blocks north of the apartment. The cross streets were Via Pietro and Via Simone. They had been served a fixed menu consisting of tonnarelli cacio e pepe and tripe and braised oxtail. The proprietor was an ex-rugby player who had chastised Carver for not touching his wine during dinner.

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “I thought you might. Rendezvous in front in two hours.”

  The line went dead.

  The White House

  Speers sat on the couch opposite Chad Fordham. President Hudson was running a few minutes late, and Speers was grateful for the additional prep time. In the span of a week, he had gone from a broad, strategic integrator of the intelligence community to a hands-on doer who had to hyperfocus on a single massive threat and its ripple effect across borders, time zones and allegiances.

  Carol Lam entered with a tray of her famous cappuccinos. On the edge of each small plate rested a small moist brownie.

  “Fudge?” Speers inquired.

  “Homemade,” Carol said. Her smile faded when she saw Speers’ swollen ankle elevated in an opposing chair. “May I ask what happened?”

  “If I told you, Chad here would have to put you in the witness protection program.”

  “Well, enjoy the pick-me-up.”

  He intended to. The ankle was improved, but it still hurt like hell. Even a small gesture of compassion felt good. On the few occasions when he had come home over the past week, all he’d gotten was a cold glare and a garbage bag full of dirty diapers.

  The president entered just as Carol left, wearing a black top with a white ruffled collar. “I have London on video conference,” she said without preamble. She motioned for them to rise and follow her through the east door into her private study. There, Speers was astonished to see that the British Prime Minister had joined Sir Brice Carlisle onscreen.

  The President quickly introduced Speers and Fordham. Sir Brice wasted no time on pleasantries. “I’m told that our joint operation in Rome last night eliminated Gish’s killers in addition to the two others that were dispatched in Seattle. Where does that leave us? Are we out of the woods?”

  Speers set his cappuccino on the table. “We are left with an unknown number of Black Order operatives still on the loose that may continue to target prominent world leaders. So no, we are not out of the woods. Our joint efforts in Rome continue as we try to locate the ossuary.”

  “The ossuary,” Sir Brice said dismissively. “Surely you don’t believe the myth. It’s rubbish, right?”

  Speers carefully measured the tone of his answer. “It really doesn’t matter what we believe. The security situation deteriorated the moment it was taken from the Vatican.”

  “So according to you, people will continue to die until this relic is recovered. How many people are we talking about?”

  “We have identified,” Speers began, “with 95 percent confidence, 11 surviving senior members of The Fellowship World Initiative. This includes foreign ministers from Australia and New Zealand, several prominent Middle Eastern and European politicians, a congressman from Indiana, and the CEOs of two multinational companies. There are also hundreds of others that we suspect but have yet to verify.”

  Fordham cut in. “Until the ossuary is recovered, we strongly recommend alerting these individuals as to the threat they face, and if possible, extending security around them.”

  “And how would that help us?” Sir Carlisle probed.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Speers said. “These are all people with significant power and influence. Until the ossuary is found, they’ve got targets on their back.”

  “Offering protection could be perceived as taking sides,” the President said.

  “No,” Speers insisted. “This is peacekeeping.”

  The prime minister spoke for the first time. “Here’s a mad idea. What would happen if we just let this play out?”

  “You mean, just let them kill each other?”

  “Precisely.”

  Speers chuckled, and then pulled it back, suddenly aware of how condescending he sounded. “Let me try to put this into perspective. Hundreds of years after the Crusades, we view the Sunni and Shi’a violence in the Muslim world as something that’s so foreign, so unimaginable to us. That’s just because we have short-term memories. It wasn’t so long ago that Protestants and Catholics in Ireland were killing each other on a regular basis. And that was Europe for hundreds of years, by the way.”

  “I see your point.”

  “Do you? With all due respect, I’m telling you that this situation is a powder keg. If we’re not proactive, we’re going to experience global sectarian violence like the world has never seen.”

  The group sat in silence for several moments. The president looked up at the screen. “Gentlemen, I need just a few minutes alone with my staff, if you don’t mind.”

  The screen faded to black before displaying the presidential seal. The President stood an
d went to the window. “Julian,” she began while looking out at the south lawn, “you said it doesn’t matter what we believe. What if our beliefs are the only thing that really matters?”

  Rome

  Carver and Seven sat picking at salads and San Pellegrino. The priest was already a half-hour late. They were taking a risk waiting here. Carver’s trust in Callahan had waned considerably in the last two days. Still, his instincts told him that they needed to get to Lang, and that was going to be very difficult without the priest’s help.

  “I could down an entire bottle of grappa,” Seven said, gesturing to a cabinet full of the stuff. “Every time I slow down, I see Sam’s body on that staircase.”

  Carver nodded solemnly, not knowing what to say. Every comment that popped into his head seemed inane or insensitive. Finally, he said, “Were you two close?”

  She thought about the question for a few moments before speaking. “Personally speaking, I didn’t care for him. But he somehow managed to have a family, which is far more than I can say for most of us. There must’ve been something good about him.”

  “Right,” Carver managed, even though he didn’t agree. Even Charles Manson had a “family.” That didn’t mean there was anything good about him.

  “What about you? Anyone waiting for you at home?”

  “Just Marty.”

  “Let me guess. A dog?”

  “A pipe organ cactus. He’s very understanding about these long trips away from home.”

  Carver was relieved when his phone buzzed. His eyebrows arched as he read the text message.

  “Callahan?” Seven said hopefully.

  “Nico. He’s got something.”

  He wasted no time in logging into the mission cloud. Nico had apparently infiltrated the booking systems for at least one of the lab equipment manufacturing companies. Carver began perusing an air waybill from a company called Symplexicon Labs, and a detailed packing list containing virtually every piece of equipment that Dr. Calipari had mentioned. There was an additional set of shipments from 9002 River Road, in Rockville, Maryland. Eden.

  Nico had linked the delivery address to a satellite map of Rome, along with a street view photograph. Carver was not surprised when he saw the Renaissance-era mansion near Piazza del Popolo. A man of Wolf’s means was not going to downsize from Eden to a one-bedroom apartment.

  A white Peugeot sedan pulled up slowly. It was obviously a rental. As for the driver, Carver would have recognized Callahan’s bulbous head anywhere.

  He laid 20 Euros on the table and ran out to the car with Seven. They got into the back seat and buckled themselves in as Callahan stepped on it.

  “Where the hell have you been hiding?” the priest said, peering nervously into the rear view mirror. “I’ve been trying to call you.”

  “I had to ditch the satphone,” Carver said, deliberately withholding the story about Nico’s abduction. “When you didn’t show for our meeting, I started feeling itchy.”

  The priest made a sharp turn into a parking garage, where Carver guessed he intended to leave the car.

  “That makes two of us, my friend. My home security alerts went off about an hour before we were supposed to meet. I was finishing up a funeral at the time. Dust to dust, etcetera. You can imagine my shock when I logged into my living room camera feed and saw someone ransacking the place.”

  “Anyone you know?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Someone I’ve hired from time to time. And by the looks of the sound suppressor screwed onto his gun, he found a new employer.”

  The priest pulled into a parking spot and shut off the motor. A car came careening down the aisle. The priest, Carver and Seven unbuckled their seatbelts and dropped to the floorboards. The car’s radio blasted Italian pop as it passed harmlessly.

  “Kids,” the priest sighed with relief. He popped the trunk and got out of the car. “I packed us some goodies.”

  The three went to the trunk and looked down upon a treasure trove of weaponry, ammunition, satphones and assorted devices.

  “Time for a yard sale,” Carver said. He reached in and plucked out one of many stun grenades that were still in the original factory box. “Could have used a couple of these last night.”

  “Was there some trouble?”

  “You could say that.”

  “You remember Antonio Tesla?” Callahan said. “The detective from the city morgue?”

  “Sure.”

  “He left several voicemails saying he was looking for you. He wants you to come down to the morgue to look at three more bodies.”

  Seven swore and broke away, stomping down the aisle of parked cars.

  “What’s with her?” the priest asked.

  “One of those cadavers was her partner.”

  The priest shook his head. “Bloody shame. This thing’s getting out of control fast.”

  Carver opened a rifle case containing a disassembled Heckler & Koch assault rifle. He picked up the butt stock and tested it against his shoulder. “It was nice of you to bring toys,” he said, “but I was hoping for information.”

  “I did some snooping around, all right. You were right about Lang. I’m afraid he’s gotten himself mixed up with the Black Order.”

  Carver nodded, having suspected all along. “I need you to take me to him.”

  Callahan laughed. “I’m afraid my access to the Apostolic Palace has been revoked.”

  “That won’t be a problem. I found another way in.”

  “What in heavens are you talking about?”

  “That little Vatican break-in you told me about? The one they spun as art theft? They didn’t come for the Garofalo. And they sure as hell didn’t come through the front door.”

  The White House

  Washington D.C.

  At Eva’s request, Mary brought the rest of the fudge brownies into her private study. After wave upon wave of interns had hit the plate, just nine cut squares had survived.

  Mary set the tray down on the table. “Rough day?”

  “And about to get rougher,” the president said. “Thanks.”

  She waited until Mary had left the room to pick up one of the decadently fudgy brownies. She forced herself to chew slowly. Lunch was usually a blur of quick micro snacks afforded by her caveman diet. A handful of nuts, a few berries, an olive or two.

  “Madam President,” Speers asked, “You ever regret declaring war on the vending machines?”

  In an effort to boost the overall health of the staff, she had ordered vending machines removed from all White House areas. In their place, she had added refrigerators and shelves stocked with a variety of organic snacks. The move had inspired a variety of anonymous notes decrying the presence of items such as kale chips and unsweetened green tea, and demanding an immediate return of Cheetos and Diet Coke. To stave off complete mutiny, Eva had decided to pay for the new fare with her own money for one year.

  “If the staff saw me eating like this, they’d hate me.”

  “I think you should have left just one machine,” Speers said. “Chocolate only, with the prices jacked up so high that the staff would only use it in times of serious emotional crises.”

  “Like the one I’m having right now?”

  “You don’t seem emotional.”

  “The fact is, I have something difficult to share with you, and I wanted something sweet to kill the bad taste in my mouth.”

  The two intelligence directors set their treats down and braced themselves for bad news. Speers dabbed a napkin at the corner of his mouth.

  “Given the misdirection tactics we employed in our public information efforts around the deaths of Senator Preston and Sir Gish,” she said, “I asked you to give me clear options, but also to keep me ignorant from the details. It seems now that my directive wasn’t so smart.”

  Speers folded his arms across his chest. “How so?”

  “Today was the first time you’ve mentioned the name Sebastian Wolf in my presence,” she said. “I have to disclos
e to you that Sebastian Wolf is an acquaintance of mine.”

  Speers swore, and then apologized for his language. His stomach felt as if he were freefalling. How could this happen? He knew the president was an Episcopalian. Was she also in the Fellowship?

  Fordham slumped back in his chair, as if he had been slugged. “And how is it that you two know each other?”

  Eva leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. “We were introduced by Senator Preston at the Council on Faith luncheon. He invited me to Eden for dinner. I began with my standard line about having someone look into my schedule, which means it’ll never happen. Then the Senator told me that Wolf had helped create NASA, and that he was a major source of funding for genetic research, and that every president since LBJ had been a guest at his home at least once.”

  “Did Preston also tell you that he was a former Nazi?” Speers said.

  “Julian, please shut up and let me finish.”

  “I’m sorry, Madam President.”

  “I suppose I felt unduly obligated. So I asked my scheduler to make it happen.”

  Speers was awestruck. “And?”

  “And I enjoyed his company. After that, I invited him to the White House on two occasions.”

  Speers felt that his head would explode. The president of the United States had ties with a cult leader that had made himself the archenemy of the Catholic Church. And Senator Preston had facilitated the introduction.

  “What was the nature of your conversations?” Speers asked.

  “Truth be told, I found him to be an excellent sounding board on spiritual matters.”

  “Did you two discuss the Fellowship?” Fordham said. “Did you discuss anything related to these weird science projects he was funding?”

  “No. Our conversations were very personal in nature. There was no business involved whatsoever. And he never mentioned this ossuary business. That is a complete shock to me, I swear to you.”