“Eladio, you know the drill,” the man said in a crisp voice. “Hide the van and don’t forget to blow out the tracks on the road.”
Eladio stepped to the man’s side and waited.
“While you’re doing that, I’ll make the introductions. I go by Phinehas, and you’ve met Eladio. We could have met last night, but you took me a bit by surprise. I blame myself. As Eladio knows, we’ve been expecting you, but in a different form, I should say. Yes, a very different form.” He paused and bowed slightly, a smile playing across his face.
He was expecting us? Father Fortis thought. Had he been hiding nearby the night before?
With a mere flick of his hand, Phinehas brought Eladio to life. The derelict raised his arm from beneath the serape, exposing a semi-automatic weapon. He pointed it levelly from one of them to the other.
Sera muttered something in Spanish as she clutched at the crucifix around her neck.
She’s a police officer, Father Fortis thought, and that means she’ll blame herself for not seeing this coming. That’s what Worthy would do. But no one could have seen this coming.
Phinehas smiled placidly at the three of them. Instinctively, Father Fortis knew he was facing the person who’d killed, then stabbed, Sister Anna in the retreat house and the man who’d tricked Victor onto a cross before burying him alive.
“It’s a beautiful day to welcome the end of the world, don’t you think?” the stranger said, the odd smile growing on his face.
The end of the world. That was what Eladio had muttered at the general store in Truchas four weeks before.
Father Fortis glanced toward Father Bernard, expecting the ex-Navy Seal to be determining how to counter the threat before them. He was stunned to see Father Bernard’s hands stretch out toward the killer, his face enraptured.
Father Fortis wiggled his fingers, fighting the creeping tingle of numbness. Sitting across from him in the stark room was Sera, her ankles and wrists shackled like his to a steel chair, her wrists further confined by a chain wound under her knees. The lights on the motion detectors attached to their chairs blinked on and off.
The two of them wore khaki vests, their many pockets filled with explosives. Their vital organs were now only inches from military grade C-4, Phinehas had calmly explained when he and Eladio led them into the empty morada. The room looked just as it had the night before, until Eladio reached into the pile of leaves against the wall and pulled on a handle. A six-foot door rose from the ground, not one leaf on its top fluttering.
In handcuffs, the three had been directed down a stairway into a brightly lit chamber. Ahead, through another door, was a larger room of the same black metal walls and floor. Father Fortis had the odd feeling that they were entering some huge filing cabinet.
“Welcome to the ark of salvation, the new Jerusalem,” Phinehas had announced as he motioned them into yet a third room. It was another box of black metal, but longer, perhaps twenty feet by ten feet. Identical doors with small windows were built into all three walls, suggesting the existence of rooms beyond.
How big is this place, Father Fortis wondered, and how could anyone build it out here in the middle of nowhere? Maybe that was the answer. The space-age bunker below the nineteenth-century morada was in the middle of nowhere, ten miles from the nearest well-traveled road. But could two men have built something like this? If not, were there others hiding somewhere in this metallic warren?
In the larger room, the three were bound securely to the chairs. In their explosive-laden vests, they looked like fly fishermen waiting for a ride to a trout stream. Father Bernard had been bound first, Father Fortis second, and Sera last. “Sorry to be so impolite, ma’am,” Phinehas explained patiently, “but we need to neutralize the two bruisers first.”
When Eladio was shackling and binding Father Bernard, Father Fortis noticed the two whispering. Eladio’s hand stopped momentarily on the monk’s wrists before finishing the job. Then, after Sera was bound, Eladio approached Phinehas and whispered something to him. The leader nodded, a grin forming on his face.
“Okay, here’s the plan. We’re going to drag you two,” he said, pointing at Sera and Father Fortis, “into the next room. I’ll be in to orient you to your new home presently.”
“And Father Bernard?” Sera asked.
“You’ll see him directly.”
But neither had been true. It had been Eladio who’d come in to spoon-feed them a meal of canned hash. And it was Eladio who’d later unlocked the chains so they could, one at a time and still shackled, use the small bathroom off the room. But there’d been no visit from Phinehas and no reappearance of Father Bernard. Father Fortis didn’t know whether to worry about the monk or worry because of him.
What amazed Father Fortis was how quickly his brain accepted the crazy situation and focused on matters closer at hand. When first bound and set in the room, he’d fought a panic attack of claustrophobia, but soon he felt air coming down from a ceiling vent above them. Funny, he couldn’t hear a generator. Someone has done a frightfully good job with this prison, he thought.
“Do you think we can talk?” Sera whispered from across the room.
“If you’re asking if I think they’re listening or recording us, I’d say yes. It depends on how many there are, I suppose.”
He studied the room. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, while a desk in one corner held a blinking computer. Mismatched metal bookcases lined one wall. He studied the computer again. Had it been from this desk that Phinehas had notified the Missouri group about Sister Anna being at St. Mary’s? He racked his brain to recall the name of the group. Oh, yes, the Christian Warriors.
Christian Warriors. Why did that sound familiar? It took a moment for the conversation from breakfast to come back to him. Father Bernard had been the one to suggest that the name Phinehas was derived from a Biblical priest-warrior. Coincidence?
He squinted at the books in the bookcase across the room. There were multiple copies of one titled The Forgotten Books of the Bible, while others near it concerned the Dead Sea Scrolls. A massive two-volume set farther down the row was titled The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. Below them, commentaries on the books of Daniel and Revelation were wedged in between numerous copies of worn Bibles. On the very bottom shelf were books related to engineering and construction. So Phinehas is a fanatical Bible student interested in engineering, Father Fortis concluded. The spotlessly clean bunker was certainly a testimony to someone’s skill.
He tried to put the man they’d met outside into focus. One thing struck him. Father Linus may have been right. Phinehas didn’t look like a Penitente, although he must have some twisted connection with the group. Another obvious fact was that Phinehas was a formidable adversary. He’d met them and led them down into this prison as if they’d been expected.
If Father Linus could see them, he’d bolt out of his infirmary bed and storm the place. No doubt his heart would give out, too, though Father Fortis knew old Linus would like nothing better than to spend his last breath screaming at the man who’d jeopardized his precious Brotherhood.
“I’m going to take a chance, but I’ll whisper, Father,” Sera said. “How are your hands and ankles?”
“Almost numb.”
“Mine, too. Listen, Father, I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in—”
“Don’t say it, Sera. Nobody forced me to be here, and no one could have seen this coming.”
“No one? I’m not so sure about your friend, Father Bernard.”
He’d had the same thought. It had been Father Bernard who had advised Sister Anna to go to the retreat house, where Phinehas, Eladio, and perhaps others had been waiting. It had been Father Bernard who had gone into this same morada the night before and found the note that had brought them to Eladio. And now Eladio had led them to Phinehas.
“He called him Bernardo, did you notice that?” Sera asked.
“Who did?”
“Eladio. He never calls him Father.�
��
“You mean like the two knew each other well?” Father Fortis asked.
“Or Eladio doesn’t respect him.”
“I saw Father Bernard whisper something to Eladio when he was being tied up,” Father Fortis said softly.
“Really? So what are they talking about right now?” Sera bit her lip. “They’re the killers, aren’t they, Father?”
Father Fortis nodded and the policewoman slumped. He could hear her mutter something in Spanish, perhaps a prayer.
“You must be worried about your son,” he said.
Without looking up, Sera nodded. “He’s with my grandfather. My son already lost his father. Now it looks like he might—”
“Don’t,” Father Fortis interrupted. “The best thing we can do for ourselves and your son is to think clearly. Our hands and feet may be bound, but not our minds.”
She looked up and nodded. “You’re right. It’s just hard to believe anyone is going to find us in this tomb.”
“Don’t underestimate Christopher, my dear. He has a way—no, a gift—for figuring things out.”
Sera shook her head. “Chris is hundreds of miles from here looking for Ellie VanBruskman.”
“But he must know by now Father Bernard and I came along for the ride.”
“Okay, but all he knows is that we’re somewhere in Colorado. How’s he going to find us here? We’re a needle—”
“In a haystack,” Father Fortis finished the sentence. “Then that’s what we should pray for.”
With their watches removed and no clocks on the black metal walls, the two captives had no way of knowing how much time had passed since they’d been brought below ground. The only break in their isolation came when Eladio, every two to three hours, brought plastic cups of water or juice, or let them, one at a time, hobble to the bathroom. Father Fortis took note of the light on Sera’s motion detector going off just before Eladio entered the room. By remote control, he reasoned.
The third time Father Fortis heard Eladio at the door, he craned his neck to peer into the other room. He saw neither Phinehas nor Father Bernard, nor did he hear anything. How many rooms are down here, he wondered, and what is Father Bernard up to?
During that third visit, Eladio removed Father Fortis’s pectoral cross and put it into his own back pocket.
“Why are you doing that?” Father Fortis asked.
“You’ll know soon enough,” Eladio replied, moving toward the door.
“It’s because Christ is still hanging on my cross, isn’t it?”
The question had done its job. Eladio stopped in his tracks.
“Phinehas doesn’t like crucifixes, does he?” Father Fortis pressed.
“Shut your mouth. He loves the cross!”
“Not ones with Christ dying on them. Am I right?”
“You’re too nosy, that’s what you are. You shouldn’t want too many answers.”
“How well did you know Father Bernard in the old days?” Sera asked.
“Bernardo? He’s not my father,” Eladio said, repeating the words Father Fortis had heard weeks before in Truchas.
“But he was your priest,” Father Fortis said. “What do you think God will do if you let someone die who gave you the sacrament of His Son’s very body?”
“Bernardo is only a sign from God. You are signs, too.”
Phinehas’s words, Father Fortis thought. “What kind of signs are we?”
“Phinehas knows the way!” Eladio whispered hoarsely. “You can’t see that because you are blind. The Bible says so.”
Father Fortis racked his brain to decipher Eladio’s babbling. He looked over at the books in the case. Slowly, the thought came to him.
“Phinehas thinks we’re signs of the end of the world. You believe that, Eladio?”
“In the last days, principalities and powers will rise up. But the Messiah will come to our rescue,” Eladio said, as if reciting from a script.
“What if Phinehas is wrong, Eladio? What will God think of what you’ve done?”
“His words are true words. He is the teacher, the Teacher of Righteousness.”
Father Fortis’s brain hummed. He’d heard that title long ago, maybe in seminary. What did it mean?
“He’s a killer, Eladio,” Sera said. “You know that. He killed an innocent—”
“Shut up!” Eladio said, glancing nervously at the door before stepping toward the two of them. For the first time, the derelict looked frightened. “Everything you say is part of the plan. The plan.”
“Was Sister Anna part of the plan? Was Victor?” Father Fortis asked.
“Judgment is near,” Eladio whispered. “Those who question the truth must die.”
“Is that what they did? Did they question Phinehas?”
“I’ve warned you,” Eladio said, returning to the door. “The sons and daughters of death will perish from the earth. The plan says so.”
“Is Father Bernard part of the plan? Is he questioning Phinehas?” Sera asked.
“No. I mean, yes,” the derelict said, looking confused. “Bernardo has questions, but Phinehas, I don’t know, he likes them. Yes, he likes them.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The shimmy in the tires at eighty miles an hour on I-25 as he headed north toward Colorado forced Worthy to ease off on the accelerator. What Ellie had said about Victor reconnecting with the “angel” from Colorado filled him with dread, as this “angel” must be the killer. But he could not explain why he was gripped with an even deeper sense of dread that the killer had returned to Colorado instead of heading south, as Lieutenant Choi believed. His head pounded with the fear that Sera, Father Fortis, and Father Bernard, in revisiting where Victor had been in Colorado, might inadvertently find themselves face to face with the killer or killers.
His shoulder throbbed, the pain shooting into his neck, but he couldn’t afford the drowsiness that the pain pills would bring. Thinking clearly was his only hope, and the pain was now his friend, helping him to stay alert.
Maybe that’s what the Penitentes know, he thought. Pain keeps you alert.
He told himself there could be many reasons why Sera hadn’t answered her phone. The batteries could be low, or she might have left it in a restaurant, as he’d once done. Or possibly, he comforted himself, the three of them were in a mountain valley where her phone was useless.
Whenever he managed to take the edge off his fears, he’d ease off on the pedal and the car would cruise happily at seventy. But within a mile or two, he was back up to eighty again, trying to ignore the shimmy as he flew north on the freeway. Three times his fears boiled over, and he pulled off at a gas station and tried to reach her again. Nothing. Damn cell phones, he thought.
Above him, the cumulus clouds marched like loyal soldiers from one mountain range to another. By the time he reached Albuquerque, the afternoon heat had built to its peak. Sweat poured off him, drenching his shirt beneath the sling. The pain drummed from his arm up to his shoulder and into his brain.
“I need a plan,” he said. “I’ve got to think of a plan.” As soon as he crossed the Colorado border, he could contact the local authorities, ask if they’d gotten the message from the Santa Fe office. But southern Colorado spanned two full pages of his road atlas, and Sera and Father Fortis could be anywhere. No, if he expected any real help, he’d have to narrow his search.
He tried to remember Sera’s exact words. Choi was sending her to Colorado to find Victor’s “angel,” assuming that this person had helped the troubled boy. Had she mentioned a town? He didn’t think so. The three of them were somewhere up ahead, and Sera wouldn’t even be carrying a gun.
He looked at his watch. Three o’clock. Heading up Route 68 out of Alcalde, he found the road flat and straight as it crossed a barren plateau. If all went well, he could make the border in two hours. That would still give him a couple of hours of daylight. But that assumed he’d have a trail to follow. He could just imagine what the local cops would say if he tried to tell
them about Victor’s angel. No, he’d have to do better.
He eased off the pedal again and set the car on cruise control. Finding Sera and Father Fortis, he realized, meant picking up Victor’s trail himself. So where would he look?
The highway ahead gradually rose in elevation, and he heard the engine begin to ping as he tore past warning signs in the Carson National Forest for elk and deer. Miles of roads stretched out before him, and not one town listed on the road signs was familiar.
How absurd, he thought. Of all people, I’m the one looking for Sera and Father Fortis. If it were the other way round, they’d have a chance. Sera would know where to start, what to say, and what not to say. If this were Detroit, he’d have a chance, but here he was an alien. But what choice did he have? Choi and his men were convinced that the case would be solved hundreds of miles south of him. How he hoped Choi was right. How he wished for a message saying that Sera and Father Fortis were accounted for.
But wishful thinking wasn’t a plan. He rubbed his eyes with his good hand, remembering that Ellie had mentioned a morada known to Victor’s father. Was it possible that this angel had met Victor there?
He sped up again. Yes, that was a beginning. Certainly, the local police would know the location of such places. Moradas had to be on some map, didn’t they?
A few minutes after he crossed the border into Colorado, he received an answer to his question. The overweight sergeant at the Antonito police station expertly rotated a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. “It’s not like we have a map of that sort of thing. Hell, there’s a bunch of those old places falling down all around here. And as far as I know, they don’t keep records as to who they buried where. You’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Unless Worthy was mistaken, a pepperoni pizza had preceded him into the local police facility, clearly a former gas station. A desk, a counter, two file cabinets, and a coffee table accounted for the entire law enforcement operation of Antonito. Outside, the wall of the building assured passersby that the town stood one hundred percent behind U.S. troops.
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