Comes a Horseman

by Robert Liparulo

“Agent Moore asked the same thing,” he said. He sounded amused.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That the two of you showed up.”

  She lifted her head to see him. “What does that mean?”

  He watched her through the bars a long moment. Then he glanced around furtively, as though contemplating or listening. He touched a keypad that was apparently set into the front of the door. Metal and stone were still as impenetrable as they were a millennia ago; not so for ancient locking mechanisms. It beeped three times, then the bolt within thunked. Scaramuzzi came back in and took his place on the cot opposite hers. He leaned over, closing the gap between them.

  “From your notes, I gather you understand the somewhat fragile nature of my relationship with the Watchers.” His voice was low, conspiratorial.

  She nodded.

  “Even among the Council, I have enemies, those who expend considerable resources and energy to discredit me.” He shrugged. “I appreciate that their efforts are part of a process designed to ensure that only the rightful heir claims the inheritance with which the Watchers have been entrusted. But I think the safeguards have been refined over the centuries to the point where not even the one whose rise to power was foretold could get past them.”

  “And you are that one?” she said. She managed to keep her cynicism out of her tone.

  His eyebrows went up. “Of course. Jesus Christ was who He said He was, as well, but nobody believed Him either. At least not enough to save Him from crucifixion. Don’t you think if He had tried a little harder, He could have convinced more people, the people who mattered?”

  “The Pharisees?”

  “The Pharisees,” he agreed. “The ones who were supposed to be watching for the Messiah. And they blew it. They didn’t recognize Him.” He shrugged. “Naturally, I don’t want the same thing to happen to me.”

  “You being Antichrist?”

  He gave her a small bow.

  “So you’re trying to convince them. How?”

  “By bringing them evidence. Some prophecy previously overlooked that I fulfilled. Just as Jesus fulfilled prophecy and performed miracles to prove who He was.”

  She was finding it harder to remain composed. “What miracles have you performed?”

  He appeared disappointed, a teacher whose student wasn’t getting it.

  “None . . . yet. Are you familiar with Antichrist prophecy?”

  “I’m learning.”

  “‘And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men.’ Revelation 13. That’s me, my future. I can’t wait.”

  He’s serious, she realized. It was in his eyes. He wasn’t acting or lying.

  “What does that have to do with us, Brady and me?”

  “Where Jesus went wrong was always having an audience. No one ever stumbled onto Him in a field alone levitating sheep.” He shook his head. “Uh-uh, He had to feed the five thousand and raise Lazarus with a mob of mourners outside the tomb.”

  When he didn’t continue, she said, “And . . . ?”

  “And because He always had an audience, His miracles looked planned. Staged with the intention of impressing the crowd. That’s what the Pharisees thought, I’m sure. I have the same problem. I need to convince my Council, but the very act of my bringing them evidence undermines that evidence.”

  “They need to find their own proof,” Alicia said, summarizing.

  “Exactly. Either of my being who I say I am—which is not such an easy task, since almost all the prophecy is already on the table and everyone knows about it—or of my sincerity.”

  “They have to know you’re not scamming them.”

  “I knew you were smart, coming as close to finding me as you did.”

  She risked voicing her thoughts: “So being insane is better than being a con artist?”

  Didn’t faze him. “An insane person couldn’t function under the intense scrutiny I’m under.”

  “An insane person could function better. No pressure.”

  “Then we should all be insane. Barring that, proof of my sincerity would go a long way toward securing my colleagues’ confidence.”

  “Okay.”

  “What better way to do that than their finding out I acted on a prophecy for my own selfish motives? Not for show, because it was hidden from them.”

  She shook her head.

  “I have a marvelous theologian who finds prophecy that fits my life. He also works with the Council’s theologians. He gets a peek at what they’re working on. A few months ago, he came to me with a prophecy they’d stumbled onto. From the prophetess Priscilla, I believe: ‘The one who carries the flames of the pit shall lay down the man of sin.’ Apparently, in Priscilla’s time—the first century—‘carry’ was a euphemism for memory or ‘having seen.’ ‘Lay down’ means kill. Of course, the pit is hell, and I . . . well, I am the man of sin.”

  He smiled at Alicia’s skewed expression. “Prophecy is like that. Exegesis. Every word analyzed—by itself, in textual context, in historic context, in relation to other known prophecies. It’s a wonder anyone understands anything about it or that theologians ever reach a consensus. For the Priscilla prophecy, the Council’s theologians are in the process of trying to find corroboration in prophetic writings and analyses—from Montanus and Tertullian, for example—and the symbolic language of Daniel or John. As it stands, the prophecy can be translated as: ‘Antichrist will be killed by someone who has seen hell.’”

  “Hell? How can—” Then she got it. At least a part of it. “Hellish near-death experiences,” she said. “You’re killing people who claimed to have seen hell in a near-death experience. Because of a prophecy no one is sure about.”

  “The prophecy will be confirmed. They nearly all are, those that have reached this level of investigation. But even if it is not,” he said, “it will have suited my purpose.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “The Council needs only to think that I believed it and that I attempted to act on it covertly, without their knowledge. They would logically assume that my action was not predicated on impressing them, but on protecting myself from a prophesied threat. Therefore, I must truly be who I say I am. Or at minimum believe it myself.”

  “Making you either Antichrist or insane, but not a con artist.”

  “I can’t tell you how much easier my job will be once that is out of the way.”

  She tried to follow the scheme from beginning to end. As she encountered obstacles, she slowly articulated them.

  “But the plan would require their finding out what you’re doing, without you bringing it to their attention—even while you try to conceal it from them.”

  Scaramuzzi nodded. He watched her working it out.

  “A lot of attention, media attention,” she said.

  His lips stretched wolfishly.

  She said, “Which even serial killings don’t guarantee anymore. But which the killing of the FBI agents investigating the case would.” Her eyes snapped to his for verification.

  He faked a shiver and said, “Oooh . . . smart. I had to attack quickly, before your team caught my man in the field.”

  “Your killer.” Her voice was hard, sharp.

  “The sensational murders of two FBI agents would concentrate unprecedented attention of the case they were working, the serial killings. The NDE link would come out.”

  “Do your Council members know about the prophecy yet?”

  “No, their theologians only bring them new prophecies when they’ve been confirmed, or when my theologian presents something they need to independently corroborate. And that adds to the appearance of my trying to operate under their radar.”

  “But one of the theologians would undoubtedly hear about the murders of endears and—”

  “Of who?”

  He didn’t know the term. He had not spoken to Father McAfee the way she had. He had only used him to develop a hit list.
>
  “Endears,” she said. “N-D-E-ers. One of the theologians would hear of their murders and report the ‘coincidence’ to the Council, who would investigate and find you.”

  “That’s one line of communication. Redundancy improves the probability of success. I also made sure to use your country’s Office of Contingency Planning. The OCP was founded by one of the Watchers’ forebears. We enjoy a very . . . symbiotic relationship. They, too, would contact the Council about the deaths of two agents they recently assisted in locating. The Council would, as you said, find me behind the killings and determine that I must be genuine if I am attempting to destroy the one prophesied to destroy me.”

  “And doing it covertly,” she added, still trying to comprehend the complexity of Scaramuzzi’s plan—and its sheer wickedness.

  “They, of course, would talk me out of continuing such a blind assault on so many people. When King Herod heard that magi had come to honor the birth of the prophesied Messiah, he ordered the death of all boys two and younger in Bethlehem and its vicinity. An atrocious slaughter, and for nothing; Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt with the baby Jesus, and Herod missed his target. The wise way of handling this newly revealed prophecy about me is to wait until enemies show themselves, then find out which one or ones died and were resuscitated.”

  He’s talking as if it were true, Alicia thought.

  He continued: “I’ll have to convince the Watchers my judgment was clouded by passion and concern. A small blow to my reputation for managing the resources they’ve entrusted to me. A small price for the confidence in me it buys.”

  “So Brady and I were just flares to light up the serial killings? And the killings were staged to make you appear concerned about a prophecy?”

  Scaramuzzi squinted in thought. Then he nodded and said, “Yes.”

  He stood. Conversation over.

  Alicia wanted to hurl herself at him, to get her hands around his neck and not let go until one of them was dead. A wave of nausea and dizziness kept her down.

  He stepped out and shut the door. It clanged and beeped. His smile said he was enjoying her dumbfounded anger.

  “Don’t feel bad,” he said insincerely. “People die all the time for more frivolous reasons. Whole battalions destroyed trying to take a hill because some general thought the maneuver sounded impressive, something he’d read back in his war-college days.”

  He walked toward one of the corridors, stopped, and turned back to her.

  “At least you know why you have to die.”

  73

  The binoculars were cheap and underpowered, but from the roof of the Gloria Hotel a block away, Brady could make out the identifiers Ambrosi had described. A sloping drive on the south side of the Latin Patriarchate. A wall shielding it from the activity in the seminary’s front yard. Immediately to the right of the drive was the Old City wall, rising up, then dropping off into rubble and trees before Jaffa Road and modern Jerusalem took over the terrain. The drive was very private and nondescript; it could have been a utility-access alley, which is what most of the students and faculty probably believed it was. From his five-story perch, Brady was able to view straight down the drive to where the pavement leveled out. He could not see the metal door Ambrosi said was there, leading into a walled-off portion of the seminary’s basement and the tunnels underneath. The seminary building was constructed with yellow-gold Jerusalem stone. It was a handsome finish, but its rectangular shape and small, evenly spaced windows gave it the appearance of a prison.

  He watched as a figure walked down the drive from the seminary’s main parking lot. It paused at the bottom, pulled open a door. When it shut, the figure was gone. The pause meant the door was kept locked.

  Brady scoped the vicinity. The drive terminated in a concrete wall roughly ten feet high, which brought the top of the wall to ground level. Bushes overhung the edge.

  Leaving the binoculars behind, he pocketed a few pebbles from the roof and descended the stairs to the lobby. He bought a pack of gum from the hotel’s gift shop and nodded to the front desk clerk on his way out. He walked briskly up Latin Patriarchate Street until he was in its parking lot. Moving casually, he made it to the last row, twenty yards from the drive’s entrance. Elms as tall as the four-story seminary shaded the entire south side of the lot.

  He felt cloaked in shadows, but he knew from his own surveillance it was a false security; pedestrians under the trees were darkened but completely visible. A minivan pulled into the lot. He pretended to search his pockets for keys as it cruised past slowly. It pulled into a slot a dozen vehicles closer to the seminary’s main doors. Three young men in their early twenties climbed out. They were dressed identically, in dark slacks, white shirts, black ties. They headed for the doors, never glancing Brady’s way.

  When they were gone, Brady walked to the far side of the drive. He stepped over a dying bush and stood between the drive and the Old City wall. The drive dropped away as he headed for its terminus. He could see the metal door now. Wide and black, with rivets. Heavy looking, like a vault. A keypad was mounted to the stone beside it. Five, six feet.

  He reached the drive’s back wall. The Old City wall angled in, arcing past the rear of the seminary. The ground here was sodded and trimmed with billowing bushes. The drive was wide enough to accommodate a truck, which would doubtless back down to unload freight. With a quick glance around—no one watching—Brady dropped to his knees, then to his belly behind the bushes. He reached back, touched the butt of the Kimber pistol in a belt holster at the small of his back. At least it had not fallen out: Avi had given him the only holster he had that was open at the bottom so the silencer could slip through, and it fit the Kimber poorly. He opened the pack of gum and stuck two pieces in his mouth.

  He waited. Five minutes . . . ten . . . He examined the bandages wrapped around his left hand. They were frayed and dirty and bore a heavy stripe of brown blood over the palm. He closed his hand, opened it. No pain, just pressure, as though a string were wrapped around it too tightly. Still, he was thankful that he had damaged his left hand. His right was his gun hand, and on a good day he wouldn’t bet on his marksmanship. He had nailed Malik—in the shoulder, when he had been aiming center-mass, but hey, the guy was dead and he wasn’t. A thought to hold on to as he went forward.

  Footsteps on the drive.

  Brady pulled back. He parted the branches. Two men coming down the drive, one carrying a box. They were conversing—something funny by their smiles and chuckles—but Brady didn’t know the language. They stopped at the door, and the empty-handed man punched a code into the keypad. Too quick for Brady to see. The man pulled open the door and held it until his companion walked through. Then he followed and the door began shutting slowly, as Brady had seen it do through the binoculars. A hydraulic door-shutter attached to the jamb and top of the door made sure the door latched after each opening, but it took its sweet time.

  Brady rose to a crouch, stepped over the bushes, grabbed hold of the top of the wall, and swung himself down. He dropped to the pavement, landing on tiptoe. Two seconds later, he had his chest and cheek pressed to the wall beside the door, which had fifteen inches left before it was sealed.

  Voices came through the opening. Close.

  Brady pulled two pebbles from his pocket, held them to his mouth, and pushed the gum onto them. He kneaded the wad, satisfied at its size and the firmness the pebbles gave it. Without looking, he slipped his hand around the edge of the doorjamb.

  No yells . . . yet.

  He used his pinky to locate the recess for the door’s latch. Stuck in the wad. Retracted his hand.

  If a light on the inside confirmed the successful closing and locking of the door, and if the people using it were disciplined enough to watch for it, well, then he’d be up a creek. Security systems were only as effective as the people using them, however, and time begot complacency. He was counting on that now.

  The door shut. Didn’t click, didn’t beep.

  He wait
ed thirty seconds. When he pulled on the handle, it held firm. His stomach clenched. He tugged. With a quiet snick, the door opened. He quick-peeked around the jamb, saw no one. He stepped in, holding the door with his foot. No keypad on the inside, a press bar on the door. It was designed to keep people out, not in. He dug the gum and pebbles out of the bolt slot, tossed the wad outside.

  The room was dim, lighted only by an exit sign over the door. He waited for his eyes to adjust. Musty odor in the air, and rust. Slowly, a room the size of a convenience store came into view. Concrete and stone. An old, monstrous boiler, a matching furnace, and assorted other equipment hunkered like stealthy beasts in the shadows on the far half of the room. Closer to him, crusty paint cans, wooden crates, and lawn tools appeared to have come here to die. The setup reminded Brady of an attraction at Disney World: very well staged. However, nothing lay between him and a door set in the left-hand wall. It was also metal, but rusty and dented. A breaker box was set into the wall beside it.

  He went to the door, felt around the edge. A tight seal, despite its appearance. Behind the breaker box door, he found a keypad, its rubber buttons lighted from behind.

  A rumbling, as much felt as heard.

  He stepped back, thinking the old door was about to burst open. Then he realized the sound was coming from the other door, from outside. The squeak of brakes. A truck had come down the drive. He hurried to the boiler, stepped behind it. The darkness was complete here. The outside door opened wide. The sunlight was blinding. The hazy silhouette of a man filled the opening, then backed away. A chain rattled. Doors creaked on their hinges, banged against the truck’s metal sides. The whirl of a small motor—a hydraulic lift.

  A single sharp sound that made Brady’s skin tighten on his muscles: a bark, deep and vicious.

  A man snapped, “Freya!”

  Brady backed farther behind the boiler. He squatted down, closed his eyes. No reason he should come to the conclusion he did, but he knew, he simply knew: They were here. They had followed him.

  Clanging, banging outside.

  The same sharp voice: “Careful!”