by Brett King
He twirled his brush, mixing blood with paint. He touched the paintbrush to canvas, dotting blood droplets around the blessed saint’s face.
“Blood has iron in it,” Cress said. “When it dries, does it change the color of the paint?”
“A little, but it’s all about transformation. Andy is more than my model. His blood and soul are poured into this painting.”
Cress tapped his touch-screen PDA. “Your guest from Italy arrived. Who is he?”
“Gabriel Bitonti. He heads the Vatican’s Consulta Medica, a medical board of one hundred doctors who investigate miracles. He is also a consultant to the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archeology.”
“I read about him. They call him the Miracle Detective. When are you meeting him?”
“I need more time with Andy.” The Knight examined his paint-flecked fingers. “Dr. Bitonti must be exhausted from his long flight. A nap and a shower might refresh him. Tell the doctor he has time for such an indulgence if he wishes. Then I’ll clean up and meet with him.”
Washington, D.C.
4:12 P.M.
Founded in 1824, the George Washington University Hospital had a long history of treating presidents and other world leaders with crippling illnesses and medical emergencies. After arriving at the hospital, Deena had learned that Dillon remained in critical condition. Still comatose, he had been moved into the GW Surgery Center for additional treatment. Dillon’s story dominated the holiday news cycle. Reporters circled the hospital like sharks. She had sent an e-mail to the Taft-Ryder stockholders, reporting on his condition. Her back ached from the explosion, so she had consulted a nurse, who gave her painkillers.
She glanced around the hospital’s private VIP suite, watching Beltway insiders mingle with business people. Despite the tragic circumstances, the power games were in overdrive. Almost everyone here was a high-ranking business or political figure.
Inside a cluster of friends and family, Brooke Armstrong looked composed as she sat on a sofa. It was awkward seeing her here. Of course, Brooke had no idea about Deena’s tryst with her husband. Deena planned to talk to the woman, but decided to wait. She was headed to the restroom when she saw President Armstrong down the hallway with his Service detail. He had finished meeting with surgeons.
“Anything new on Dillon?”
“Not as promising as before the surgery. Right now, it’s touch and go.” He pointed to a conference room. “Let’s talk.”
She followed him. Stepping inside, the president closed the door.
“I didn’t want to say this in the hallway, but they might need to amputate Dillon’s legs.”
She dropped into a chair, stunned by the news.
“Listen, Deena, if the Radix can do what you claimed earlier, we could help Dillon.”
“I had the same thought. I think Dillon would want to give the Radix a try. He was interested in purchasing it. The seller is demanding payment later today. If we miss this window, the Radix goes to another buyer.”
The president grabbed his neck, working an inflamed muscle. “How much money are we talking?”
“Two billion, if it’s authentic.” She moved close to the president, taking his hand. “It’s called the perfect medicine. If they’ve found the Radix, it’s worth the money.”
“I don’t get it, Deena. Why would it be worth that kind of money?”
“Because,” she said, “the Radix belonged to Jesus Christ.”
Part Five
The Eye of God
Death is indeed a fearful piece of brutality; there is no sense pretending otherwise.
—Carl Jung
Chapter Thirty-five
Washington, D.C.
4:20 P.M.
“The Radix belonged to Jesus Christ?” Armstrong asked. He wasn’t sure he had heard Deena right.
“According to legend, Jesus used the Radix to create medicine,” she explained. “Along with his disciple, Luke. The physician. They consecrated oil for healing. You know the miracles described in the New Testament?”
“Jesus performed them using the Radix?”
She nodded. “At Gethsemane, Jesus handed the root to Luke. Fearing his own arrest, Luke gave it to a wealthy senator from the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish council. His name was Joseph of Arimathea. He was meeting with Luke when the Sanhedrin questioned Jesus.”
“I’ve heard of Joseph of Arimathea,” Armstrong said, tracing one finger along the handle of his coffee mug. “Can’t say I know much about him.”
“Some people think he may have been Jesus’s maternal uncle. After the crucifixion, he asked Pontius Pilate for Jesus’s body to prepare it for burial. Together with Nicodemus, Joseph wrapped Christ’s body in linen and consecrated it with spices mixed with the Radix. They entombed him in Joseph’s own sepulchre, then rolled a stone into place, blocking the grave. According to legend, the Radix plants withered and vanished from the earth around the time of Jesus’s crucifixion. The canonical Gospels don’t discuss Arimathea’s later life. Apocryphal legend fills in the gaps. Joseph traveled to Gaul in Western Europe on a preaching mission with Mary Magdalene and Lazarus.”
“Western Europe?”
“Southern France. Mary Magdalene and Lazarus remained in Marseilles. The rest headed north. Joseph traveled with twelve followers to establish Christianity on the British Isles. He had made money in the metal trade. The Roman Empire established fertile mining districts in southwestern Britain. Some believe he traveled there on an earlier trip, possibly taking his nephew.”
“You’re joking,” he said, sipping coffee. “Jesus traveled to England?”
“The poet William Blake thought so. Others did too. After the crucifixion, Joseph landed in the Glastonbury Marshes. He climbed a hill with a staff grown from Christ’s crown of thorns. He thrust it into the ground, saying he and his companions were ‘weary all.’ The staff took root, flowering for centuries at Christmastime. Today a thorn bush stands on Wearyall Hill.”
“After the crucifixion, did Joseph take the Radix to England?”
“According to legend. In addition to the staff, he brought two cups. He’d used one to catch the blood and the other the sweat of Jesus as he died on the cross.”
“The Holy Grail, right? I thought it was one cup.”
“Sometimes the Grail is described as twin cruets used at the Last Supper. Some believe Jesus and Luke used one cup to mix the Radix and other ingredients into a medicine known as the White Chrism.”
“Why did this one root survive, when all the other plants perished?”
“Good question,” she said. “In plant biology, a member of a species can survive even after mass extinction. According to medieval legend, Joseph of Arimathea dipped this last-known piece of the Radix in a cruet containing Christ’s blood, preserving it. The truth is, no one knows. It’s one of many mysteries surrounding the Radix.”
“Joseph of Arimathea was the first Grail Keeper?”
“More importantly, he was the first Keeper of the Radix.”
She explained that Joseph hid the Radix near Glastonbury. For ten centuries, it remained buried but never forgotten, as generations of mystery cults kept alive the Radix romance. In 1113, a farmer named Thomas Locke discovered a bag of relics while digging his brother’s grave in his Glastonbury field. Sensing its importance, Locke traveled to the Holy Land to have it blessed. During his pilgrimage, thieves assaulted Locke and left him for dead. The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem found him. At the time of the First Crusade, they were a medical brotherhood known as the Knights Hospitaller. They had founded hospice camps, giving inspiration in later centuries for the word hospital. At one hospice, they nursed Locke back to health. Like other grateful patients saved by the Hospitallers, Locke bequeathed his estate to the order. The Knights’ leader, a Benedictine named Gerard de Saxo, visited the farmer. In gratitude for saving his life, Locke presented his bag of relics to Brother Gerard. After that, the Knights of Saint John became the Keepers of the Radix.
&
nbsp; The Knights of Saint John had a long interest in herbal medicines, including treating the wounds of crusaders with Saint-John’s-wort, using an Anglo-Saxon word that referred to a medicinal herb. The Hospitallers studied the Radix, hoping to tap its healing power. They kept their Radix gift a secret, even years later while locked in a bitter rivalry with the military Order of the Knights Templar.
She explained that the Templars had been charged with defending the Holy Land, while the Hospitaller order cared for wounded soldiers and pilgrims during the Crusades. Tension swelled between the two orders over the Templar obsession with finding treasures in the Holy Land. The bad blood continued in 1191 when the Knights Templar moved to Cyprus, leaving the Hospitallers to both protect pilgrims and care for them. For centuries, the Hospitallers were renowned as brilliant healers. One pope described their healing arts as miraculous. The Vatican had no idea the Knights Hospitaller possessed the greatest relic in Christendom.
He studied her. “If the Knights understood its power, how did they lose it?”
“The son of Pope Alexander VI heard a rumor from Leonardo da Vinci. Using Vatican pressure, Cesare Borgia discovered that the Hospitallers—then called the Knights of Rhodes—possessed the Radix. After assaulting the Knights’ grand master, Cesare Borgia seized it.”
“Now you want it.”
Deena’s eyes twinkled. “Think I’m crazy?”
“If anyone else told me this,” he said, “the answer would be a resounding yes. But you and my brother are hard-nosed businesspeople. You don’t believe in superstitions.”
“I believe in the Radix. So does your brother. Do you?”
“Maybe,” he said. “If it can save Dillon.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Los Angeles
1:35 P.M.
Brynstone didn’t like sitting on his ass, doing nothing, a bitter holdover from his days in a wheelchair. Right now, he didn’t have much choice. During the six-hour nonstop flight from New Jersey to California, his mind drifted from his wife and daughter to the blood inside the Zanchetti mummy to Cori and Wurm in Switzerland to Delgado’s lies.
He could barely stay in his seat when the pilot announced their descent. Jordan had recruited three former NSA spec ops and they were waiting at Los Angeles International. He didn’t know if they were right for this job, but he had faith in her judgment. He just hoped they could find Kaylyn and Shay in time.
The fugitive sun lingered in seclusion over the smoggy California sky as the private aircraft taxied across the runway. Even on Christmas afternoon, LAX earned its reputation as one of the world’s busiest airports. It was more sedate on the airfield’s south side, where the Armstrong family jet pulled into a Mercury Air Center FBO hangar.
They hurried off the Gulfstream jetliner and headed toward a black Navigator.
He climbed in front with the driver, an ex-marine sniper who introduced himself as Bob. An Irishman with an unshaved face and stringy long hair, Bob was wearing a black shirt emblazoned with the message “Guns don’t kill people. I kill people.”
A man of subtlety.
Behind them, Jordan had wedged between a big man named Steven Cloud and an even bigger agent named Spencer Tilton. Both were ex-Delta intel and demo operatives. An assortment of Heckler & Koch firearms occupied space at the rear of the vehicle. They came ready to play.
Metzger was supposed to call at any minute. As they waited, Bob the Driver looked over, seeing the one-eyed cat curled on Brynstone’s lap, preening herself.
“That thing belong to you?” he smirked.
“Yeah,” Brynstone answered. “You got a problem with my cat?”
“Nope,” Bob said, admiring his diamond pinkie ring. “No problem.”
Nobody spoke until Brynstone’s phone rang. He snapped up the cell. Restricted call. He put it on speaker.
His wife blurted out the words, “John, where are you?”
“In town. You okay?”
Nothing.
“Kaylyn?”
“Welcome home, Herr Doktor.” Metzger made no attempt to smother his sharp accent. “You may think I’m beneath you, but you’ll find I’m a fearsome challenger.”
“Cut the crap and tell me where to find my family.”
“The Linda Vista Hospital in Boyle Heights. Be here in twenty.”
“Let me talk to my wife.”
Metzger hung up. The waiting game was over. Jordan was strapping on her Kevlar. Bob the Driver was already pulling onto La Cienega Boulevard.
“Head for I-105 East,” Brynstone ordered. “From there, we’ll go to I-110 North. Move.”
The Linda Vista Community Hospital had been built in 1937 as an east-LA hospital for Santa Fe Railroad employees. Now the art-deco building was locked behind a wall of chain link and razor-ribbon wire. After medical operations ceased in 1990, Linda Vista had survived the decades—not always with grace—as a set for film crews. Years back, Brynstone had passed through Boyle Heights and recognized the building from TV medical dramas and a low-budget horror movie.
Turning off South Chicago, Bob the Driver pulled up beside a portico with a red Spanish tiled rooftop. A shattered padlock rested in front of a wide gate. Brynstone jumped out before the Lincoln Navigator rolled to a stop, taking a look around. Jordan handed out comm sets as the team joined him. He planned the approach and entry into the hospital as the team locked and loaded their H&K MP5 submachine guns.
“We’re moving on a quick and dirty contingency here. If you see Metzger, take him down, no questions. After we enter, we’ll break into two teams. Bob, you’re on overwatch.” He paused. “Thanks everybody for helping get my family back.”
The team gave him a nod, acknowledging the plan and his gratitude.
Brynstone was running the operation in the mind of everyone but Bob the Driver. He could tell the guy was itching to be on the entry team, but he had the most sniping experience in the group, hands down. Bob’s eyes revealed he was pissed off about the assignment, but he grabbed a PSG-1 semiautomatic sniper rifle and posted up outside the portico, keeping watch for anyone coming out. Brynstone placed Banshee on the floor of the Navigator, then closed the door. The cat stared at him, swishing her tail in a wide swath as she made an exhaled snort.
He could tell she didn’t like her assignment any better than Bob.
Brynstone moved under the walkway, then kicked opened the portico gate. He sprinted ahead, leading the squad in a snake pattern to the ambulance entrance. A window had been broken near the door. He paused beside it. “Sound suppressors on?”
Everyone nodded. They were decked out in Kevlar and tactical gear.
“Breech and clear?” Cloud asked.
“Negative,” he answered. “My family’s inside. There’s no room for error.”
He checked the emergency entrance for explosives. Finding it safe, he went in Linda Vista’s admission area as point. The place surprised him. He’d expected to find abandoned hospital rooms with boarded-up windows. Although aging, Linda Vista’s first floor had been scrubbed and renovated to attract filmmakers. It seemed like a normal hospital with all the equipment and beds and facilities, but no people. And that, along with the deathly stillness, made the place chilling. Linda Vista had been associated with supernatural sightings, everything from a giggling little girl to the ghost of a mental patient locked inside a cage.
The squad spread out and cleared the room, sweeping from left to right, then moving into their respective areas of responsibility. From her AOR, Jordan whispered in her comm set, “Clear.” Brynstone joined in with Cloud and Tilton, each reporting the area clear as they proceeded through the first floor. That’s when Brynstone’s cell vibrated. He answered it.
“Who are your friends?” Metzger asked. “LAPD? FBI?”
“I don’t work with cops. Don’t like ‘em any better than you do.”
A faint chuckle. “Why is that, Dr. Brynstone?”
“Long story. Hand over my wife and kid and I’ll tell you over a cold beer.”
Another chuckle. “I almost like you.”
“Terrific. Where’s Kaylyn and my daughter?”
“Want to know?” Metzger taunted. “Come find us.” He hung up.
Brynstone glanced outside the window. He had ordered Bob the Driver to post up outside the portico. The man wasn’t there. He tried to reach him. No answer.
“Where’s Bob? Anyone see him?”
“Don’t know,” Tilton grunted. “Guy’s a Section Eight. Always one for tie-ups.”
“If that lunatic blows this,” Brynstone growled, “my wife and baby pay the price.”
Metzger saw a man with long greasy hair in the hospital stairwell. Shame it wasn’t Dr. Brynstone, but he sensed this fellow would provide amusement. This one was a rebel. A man ready for action. He had been posted outside the hospital. Metzger had lingered in front of a window, allowing himself to be seen. As expected, the man had deserted his post. Why? He liked the glory that would come from tracking down the world’s greatest assassin. The evidence was in his smirk.
Like a specter, Metzger followed him down the stairs. His prey had no clue. He admired the sniper rifle. He had a nice view of the Präzisionsscharfschützengewehr as it hung from the man’s back. Five months back in Hamburg, he had taken out a Spezialeinsatzkommando who packed a PSG-1. A dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
The man kissed his pinkie ring. His arm, extended as he sighted down his pistol, was decorated with a tattoo: KILL OR BE KILLED. It was his creed, Metzger guessed, spelled in ink across his skin. Leading with his sidearm, a Heckler & Koch USP40, the man stepped off the stairs, then looked around. He sucked in a breath when he saw a woman thirty feet away, tied to a chair. No doubt the man was thinking this would be easy. Time to introduce him to reality.
“Excuse me, are you lost?” Metzger asked with a welcome expression, looking like a neighbor coming over to introduce himself.