The aircraft continued its descent, now at a mere 200 feet per minute. He checked their approach airspeed: 165 knots.
The VOR needle centered.
Everything A-Okay.
Beside him, as though nothing out of the ordinary had been said, Gostini began running through the final pre-landing checklist. Every moment or so he glanced at a list clipped to his knee.
“Ignition,” he said, reaching up and pushing the switches to the continuous position. “No smoke...radar’s up and off...gear down...! He glanced at the annunciator panel - small squares which would light up while giving a verbal warning if anything was wrong. Every square was A-Okay - good news.
“One thousand, instruments cross-checked, landing memo green,” he continued, reaching to the center control pedestal to grasp the spoiler lever and pull it into the armed position.
“Dan?”
Gostini looked at the pilot: “Yeah?”
“Maybe you should take a rest after this flight...eh?”
“Wayne, I saw what I saw! It was a-a...humanoid...a-a creature of some kind.”
There was no reply from Bowden.
Gostini pressed his point. “I know you’re eyeing the fire extinguisher in case I flip out but I swear to God there was this-this THING...hanging onto the fuselage just behind my window!”
Bowden cleared his throat: “We’ll deal with it after landing.”
“Damn!” Gostini said, angry with himself for speaking up.
“Let’s just forget it,” the pilot said. “When I’m tired, I’ve seen some pretty strange things out the windows too...” He grinned and added amiably: “Once I thought I saw Rocky the Flying Squirrel out there but my first officer said I was nuts. It was definitely Bullwinkle J. Moose.”
Gostini didn’t laugh and Bowden took the rejection with a shrug. Instead the co-pilot retreated into a moody silence, watching the twin rows of runway lights reaching up for them. Blue taxiway lights led off to the right and left down in front, and he could make out the lights of another airliner shooting towards the sky from an alternate runway off their starboard side.
“Here we go,” Bowden said, pushing the nose down a fraction and further reducing power. “Hello Rome, are we glad to see you!” The runway rushed towards them as the computer’s metallic voice counted out “200 feet...100 feet...50 feet.” At 50 feet he cut power entirely and brought the nose up three degrees to flare for landing. A welcome jolt announced they were down.
~ 2 ~
Clay felt himself being lifted to his feet. Still groggy, he barely managed to grab hold of the edge of a white metal table before he teetered and almost fell. His legs felt rubbery and weak; the inside of his mouth was most certainly coated with fuzz. He had thrown up a few minutes ago which made his stomach feel better. They’d allowed him a quick rinse with mouthwash, to use the bathroom and then escorted him back to a couch.
The doctor, who had introduced himself a few seconds earlier as Dr. Butler, helped him maintain his balance with a hand under his arm.
“You’re just a little rocky, Mr. Montague. It’ll pass.”
“Yeah...thanks Doc.”
Clay’s mind was whirling. He had awakened less than five minutes ago to find himself in some sort of medical dispensary along with Butler and a nurse who deliberately ignored his questions as they repeatedly encouraged him to get to his feet.
He had been helped up, led along a short corridor and into what looked like an operating theatre and seated on a white, leather couch. Despite his best efforts, he had promptly fallen asleep again.
Now he raised his head and looked over at three men dressed in black suits and clerical collars busily gathering up papers, coats and hats. The elderly priest was obviously in charge as he murmured orders to the other two. The doctor and nurse had disappeared.
Where the hell am I, he wondered looking carefully about the interior of the room for the first time. The operating table and various other pieces of medical equipment around the walls confirmed he was in a medical center of some kind. But where? Was he still in Manhattan? Or somewhere else in the city? And, how long had he been unconscious?
As Clay’s senses became more acute, memories flooded back: the office, the Watchers breaking through the door, and the impacts of the slugs hitting him in the chest.
He’d been shot several times.
Cautiously he raised his hand to his chest expecting to find it swathed in bandages. Though his chest was awfully sore he couldn’t feel any bandages through his clothes, merely what seemed to be a number of small pieces of taped gauze on his chest.
Now he realized with a start that he was dressed in garb similar to the priests. He felt the constriction of a clerical collar about his neck and fingered it curiously as he gazed down at his own black suit. He knew he should feel anger but he only felt confusion.
The tallest priest had stopped his business to catch the detective’s eye. Clay was sure he was one of the Watchers – possibly the Leader.
“Fancy that,” Clay said with a wry, if weak, attempt at humor. “I must have slept through my ordination.”
Father Murphy grinned: “Just a precaution, Mr. Montague.”
“Who are you? What’s g-going on?”
“You’re safe.” The new voice was soft and feminine and came from his right.
Clay turned and almost fell sideways on the couch. A small hand grasped him firmly by the arm as he shifted his gaze to a young woman in a red sweater and a grey skirt who held him steady and stared up with genuine concern in her eyes.
“Will you be able to walk?” she asked, her voice light, almost musical and having the slightest French accent.
“I-I don’t know,” he said, doubtfully. “Where am I?” Neither the girl nor any of the three priests made any comment; the men merely went back to gathering up their wares. The girl smiled.
Clay looked down at her again and took in a pair of huge, dark eyes and a classic bob haircut; her dark brown hair framed her small, heart-shaped face. Her naturally red lips, moist and parted, revealed a slight overbite, but just enough to give her a hint of mischievous impertinence to an otherwise open, honest face. She was only slightly over five and a half feet, he guessed and incredibly attractive. For the first time in years, he felt a strange thrill permeate his body and his heartbeat quicken.
Clay then became distracted by a throbbing through the floor. The low rumble of some sort of furnace he decided. Suddenly the thunderous roar of what could only be a jet aircraft taking off also filled the room. He looked towards what appeared to be an open doorway twenty feet forward of where he stood. At the same time he noted the cylindrical shaped ceiling and walls of the operating theatre. It told him enough.
“We’re on an aircraft,” he said in surprise.
Father Murphy nodded, stuck out his hand and grasped Clay’s in a firm handshake: “We may as well get acquainted. I’m Father Dermott Murphy....this is Father Ronald Langevin and Bishop Aquila.” The other two followed suit and shook hands.
The young woman merely nodded. “I’m Sister Maria,” she said simply.
Despite the grogginess and overall confusion, Clay still had the presence of mind to feel a certain disappointment; she was a nun. He quickly chastised himself. What did it matter? Right now he obviously had major problems since he’d been drugged and kidnapped by...clergy?
“We’ll explain everything very shortly, Mr. Montague,” Bishop Aquila promised, all business now. “I’m sure you have many questions.”
Clay nodded and looked at the other two men. “You’re the Watchers,” he said to Murphy and Langevin as they donned their black coats and wide-brimmed hats.
“Our group is called the Watchmen but we can go with your title.” Langevin said.
“You’ve been following me for weeks.”
“More like years,” the priest ventured, with a slight chuckle.
“Years? And you shot me,” Clay continued, feeling his temper rising as he remembered them firing at him;
he rose unsteadily.
“These men saved your life, Mr. Montague,” Aquila said, stepping between them and gently placing his hand against Clay’s chest.
“Saved my life? Like hell! They shot me...”
“...with tranquilizing darts,” Aquila finished.
“Darts?”
“Yes,” Murphy chimed in. “We used darts on you...” He touched a small white bandage near his eye and added wryly: “...while you tried to use a small howitzer on us!”
The dry witticism softened Clay’s anger and he relaxed. Darts? That explained the absence of bandages and why he was so groggy. “I’ve been asleep for...how many hours?”
The priests looked at each other.
“Actually...days,” Murphy corrected.
“Days...” Clay repeated, still dazed. He looked closer at Murphy and Langevin. There was something familiar about them. He strained to remember. Finally...”You guys were at Hitch’s funeral. You followed me onto the hill!”
Murphy nodded. “We were there. We’ve been doing our best to look after you for years,” he admitted, with a tired sigh.
“I thought Catholic priests were into bingo, not kidnapping,” Clay said.
“This isn’t a kidnapping,” Maria said. “More of a rescue mission.”
Clay turned to her. “And I suppose you’re mystery woman from the Saab?”
“I was there,” she said gently. “We had to get you out.”
Suddenly the image of the cloaked woman facing the child on the rainy street came back to the detective.
“The kid..?” Clay asked, hoarsely. “Where is she?”
Maria gave a faint shudder. “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
Clay shook his head trying to clear it. After years of self-recrimination and guilt, his one hope, a single link with the past, had been within his grasp. Something told him the child was the same one he encountered so long ago. If he could bring her to the FBI, he could find out who butchered his deputy and remove any lingering shadow of doubt that might still hang over him. “Listen to me,” he said to Maria and then swept his hand towards the priests to include them all. “I want to know where that child is, or so help me, each and every one of you will be standing trial for kidnapping!”
“If that happens, Mr. Montague,” Langevin answered, gently, “then you will already be dead...or at best killed shortly thereafter.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Clay said, shaking off Maria’s hand.
Murphy looked at him and said quietly: “It’s not a threat, my son, it’s a fact. And you wouldn’t be harmed by us. You’d face something a lot worse. Something you faced before. We’re here to protect you. Please believe me; please believe in us!”
For some unfathomable reason, Clay did believed him; whatever their purpose, in his bones he knew these people were not out to harm him.
“Enough!” Aquila said, thrusting a passport into Clay’s hand. “You’re Father André Maisonrouge from Niece, France, in case we are stopped. If we bump into the wrong crowd, we may have to go through customs and immigration. At least until we can summon our man here.”
Clay looked at the passport. It was French. He thumbed it open to find a photo of himself in clerical garb. As he took in his half-open eyes, the memory of a flash of light came to him. They must have photographed him while he was only partially conscious.
Without further ado, Clay was led to a set of stairs at the door of the plane. Cool night air wafted through and helped him clear his head, even though it was mixed with the kerosene-like odor of jet fuel.
Father Murphy turned to the doctor who had reappeared. “When we’re out, close the door and have Captain Bowden move the plane to our assigned post as usual. We’ll contact you tomorrow.”
The doctor nodded.
Clay, Maria and the three clergymen all stepped out of the plane onto a metal ramp with a stairway extending down to the ground. Murphy stopped Clay from descending the steps and told him to hang on. Everyone grasped the railings as the steps, attached to a small vehicle underneath, moved away from the aircraft and stopped when it was well clear of the wingtip.
It was a cool, moist night. An absence of stars signaled it was slightly overcast. Their hard soled shoes rang hollow on corrugated aluminum as they walked down the metal staircase mounted on the truck. More roars of jets taking off could be heard in the distance and Clay noted that they were disembarking about a mile from what seemed to be a main terminal building. He could make out a hub of activity surrounding the building topped by a control tower on which a beacon slowly rotated intermittently sending a brilliant swathe of cloudy light cutting across the night sky.
“Move quickly,” Aquila said into Clay’s ear as they descended.
“Where are we? Where are we going?”
“To a comfortable bed. That should make you happy.”
The bishop was right. Clay couldn’t wait to rest his unsteady legs. As they descended, he saw other out-lying buildings around the field. Amid the taxi-ways and main strips there were scores of large jets clustered around terminal ramps. It was raining as they came off the steps; their heels clattered onto the cool tarmac and they marched hurriedly towards a long, black limousine about three hundred feet from the plane. The automobile’s emergency lights were rhythmically flashing a silent red tattoo into the pools of water lying on the wet pavement; Clay noted a wisp of smoke curling from the automobile’s exhaust pipe.
The golf-cart sized vehicle with the steps pulled away. It’s orange light flashed as it sped off across the field..
Clay glanced back and noted that the white A320, had no markings other than registration numbers on the tail. It seemed to be waiting for something on the apron. Its strobe light flashed. He could just make out the pilot above them in the warm, amber glow of the cockpit lights.
Glancing towards the terminal building again, he saw that amid the rumble and whistle of departing and taxiing aircraft, comparatively small airport luggage carriers scurried from aircraft to building. Fuel and catering trucks, as well as fork-lifts piled high with crates, moved purposely about their business. Hosts of men in coveralls and yellow safety vests swarmed like worker bees beside and around the planes gleaming in the floodlights. Figures worked at open baggage compartment doors, or clamped refueling hoses to the undersides of wings. Other workers walked about with orange cone lights in hand to receive incoming airliners at their gates.
“Why didn’t the driver park closer,” Aquila grumbled, glancing nervously around as they continued walking towards the limousine parked near the grassy border of the tarmac.
“Where’s the driver?” Father Murphy asked, expecting him to jump out and open the back door. “He couldn’t miss us landing.”
WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON?
Idly, Clay wondered if he should make a break for it. The priests and Sister Maria were doing their best to surround him, but short of Father Murphy, Clay figured he could easily break away. Whether he could evade being recaptured was another matter. He was still pretty weak.
Maria seemed to read his mind for she crowded closer ushering him quickly towards the automobile. They moved in an awkward form of a huddle, the two priests casting quick, nervous glances to the left and right, and even upward into the sky.
“Don’t think about running, Mr. Montague, you could be killed!” Maria warned, her tone worried.
“By you?” Clay asked, beginning to breath heavily from the exertion, his strength ebbing quickly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, tightly. She looked over at Murphy. “Father, there’s something here...I feel it. I really feel it!”
Clay felt apprehension wash over him like an ice cold shower. Murphy looked at her and raised his eyebrows. He held up his hand and they all stopped.
Behind them, the port engine on the A320 suddenly increased in intensity to a loud whine and the aircraft began to turn away. It’s jet wash momentarily whipped a wind at them but it quickly swept past as the aircraft mad
e ready to roll to its overnight parking location.
Clay felt Maria stiffen and draw a deep breath. He was surprised to see both Langevin and Murphy now clutched heavy, silver Crucifixes in their hands. The two priests started to move forward from the group, Murphy on the perimeter and Langevin towards the back door of the vehicle.
“Wait!” Maria called, her voice low but nevertheless conveying an urgency few could ignore.
At the automobile, Langevin froze and then gingerly removed his hand from the back door handle; the priest cautiously backed away from the door.
Maria had been holding Clay’s arm tightly, crowding him in her hurry to get him into the limo. Now, with her body still pressed close to his, he felt her beginning to tremble. Silently she began to draw him backwards, away from the vehicle. “Mother of God!” she whispered, her eyes wide. “There’s something here!” She was looking towards the darkened driver’s window while backing up and pulling Clay.
Aquila stood his ground and called out loudly: “Driver!”
Though Clay could make out the form of a man sitting at the steering wheel, the figure failed to respond to the bishop’s voice.
“Christ!” Murphy exclaimed tersely as he and Langevin rejoined the group. He nodded to Langevin.
Both reached inside their jackets and pulled out heavy, black revolvers with their free hands.
“Darts?” Clay asked sarcastically, wondering if he was dealing with the church or the Mafia.
“Not this time,” Murphy mumbled. “Ruger .44 Magnums with +P-loads and hollow-points...dipped in holy water and blessed by a cardinal...for all the good they’ll do if we’ve been compromised.”
Despite the tension, Clay was impressed. He knew weapons and the .44 Magnum was one of the most powerful handguns on the planet. The +P-loads indicated higher-quality gun powder in larger quantities, and hollow points or dum-dums delivered maximum stopping power. These boys were sporting handguns that could literally bring down a rhino.
“Sister, open the driver’s door and stand back,” Murphy ordered, holding his revolver steady. Clay saw that he had exchanged his Crucifix for a small but powerful halogen flashlight. He and Langevin moved forward and covered the front door with their weapons.
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