David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  "Mother of God"--that would give them access to the box. As they reached the entrance to the bank, Arlene's green eyes flashed with apprehension. "Suppose the code words don't work. Or the key. Suppose

  Father Sebastian didn't plan to back us up as he said he would."

  "So far he's kept his word. He met us at the Vatican gardens.

  He supplied us with weapons, passports, money, and Father Victor's research about Cardinal Pavelic's disappearance. There's something terribly wrong for sure, but I don't think Father Sebastian's to blame."

  "We'll know soon enough." They entered the bank. Its marble floor, massive pillars, and high curved ceiling reminded Drew of a church.

  Echoing voices had the awe of parishioners responding at mass.

  They passed guards and clerks, desks and counters, found a sign in

  German, French, Italian, and English that directed them toward safe-deposit boxes in the basement, and descended as if to a crypt

  "Mother of God," Drew said in German to a severe-faced woman, the guardian of the sanctum, and showed her the number on his key. She examined a list of box numbers and code words, then directed her narrow gaze toward Drew. "Very good, sir." Drew suppressed his tension while the woman escorted him into a vault of safe-deposit boxes and used

  Drew's key, along with her own, to open a metal slot. She pulled out an enclosed tray and, with the reverence of a priestess conferring a sacrament, handed it to him. Three minutes later, he and Arlene were alone behind the closed door of a cubicle. Drew opened the lid, finding two pistols, two passports, and an envelope that, as Father Sebastian had promised, contained money. "He kept his bargain," Drew said. "It's good to know a priest who belongs to the Fraternity can be trusted."

  "So far," Arlene said. They concealed the weapons behind their jackets.

  Before they'd passed through the metal detectors in Rome's airport, they'd rented a locker and hidden the handguns Father Sebastian had earlier given to them. Oppressed by the weight of the pistol against his spine. Drew pocketed the money and passports, then pulled out a pen and piece of paper, printing boldly

  IMPERATIVE WE MEET WITH YOU SOONEST POSSIBLE. LEAVE INSTRUCTIONS

  FOR TIME AND PLACE. THE PENITENT.

  He set the note in the tray, closed the lid, and opened the cubicle door. The guardian came to attention as if about to receive a holy relic. The tray safely locked away, the key in his pocket. Drew followed Arlene from the temple of the money changers. He scanned the busy street, found no indication that he and Arlene were under surveillance, and walked back toward the river. "So now we wait," Drew said. "We'll come back this afternoon and tomorrow morning and however many other mornings and afternoons it takes. Maybe a miracle will happen, and we'll never be contacted. This isn't our fight. We were forced into it. We've done our part for now. After this, it's up to

  Father Sebastian, and if he doesn't get in touch, we can't be blamed. I could gladly wait here forever with you."

  "But you know it won't happen that way," she said. In despair. Drew nodded. "The Fraternity never lets up. Until we accomplish what they want, we won't be free of them. I hate the things I was trained to do, but I'll use those skills to finish this. So we can start our lives together." Arlene held his hand. "We already have started our lives together. All we can count on is now."

  At four o'clock that afternoon. Drew opened the safe deposit box for the second time that day. Instead of the note he'd left, he found a different one, its printing more forceful than his own. The instructions were clear, professional, precise. Below them, in a melted drop of wax, an insignia had been indented, a sword intersecting with a cross. This time, he'd entered the bank alone. He left, walked in the opposite direction from the river, and reached the Bahnhofstrasse,

  Zurich's main business district, where he paused to peer at flowers in a window. A moment later, Arlene stood beside him. He saw her reflection in the window. She'd been following him since he'd left the bank. "No one showed any interest," she said. That didn't prove they weren't being watched. Nonetheless, they'd have been foolish not to take the precaution. They joined the stream of shoppers along the street. "We got a message," Drew said. He didn't show it to her. Couldn't. In the cubicle at the bank, he'd torn the note into minuscule pieces and kept them in a pocket of his trousers. While he'd walked to the

  Bahnhofstrasse, he'd surreptitiously dropped the bits here and there along the sidewalk. "Assuming the message was actually from Father

  Sebastian," Drew said, "he gave us a time and place for a meeting tonight. He also gave us two fallback times and places for tomorrow in case we didn't get his message today."

  "Thorough."

  "No more than I'd expect from a member of the Fraternity."

  Again her eyes flashed with apprehension. "Where do we meet him?"

  At 1 a. m., they emerged from the darkness of an alley, crossed the narrow stone expanse of the Rathausbrucke, and reached an ornate fountain. Mist from the river drifted toward them. "I can think of better places for a meeting," Arlene said. "One less exposed?" Drew asked. "On the other hand, anyone following us would have to cross the bridge. This late at night, hardly anyone else around, we'd be sure to notice him." The instructions had been to reach the fountain at five minutes after one, but they knew that the rendezvous might not occur until as long as a half-hour later. Father Sebastian would want to satisfy himself that they hadn't been followed before he showed himself.

  But a half-hour later, the priest had still not arrived. "I don't like what I'm feeling. We'll try the fallback time and place tomorrow morning," Drew said. "We'd better get out of here." Arlene didn't need encouragement She walked from the fountain, but not back toward the bridge, instead toward the street along this side of the river. Drew followed. The mist thinned. Reaching a murky side street, they passed a restaurant, its windows dark. Ahead, a young man drove a motorcycle through an intersection, the noise so loud that for a moment Drew didn't hear the car behind him. He spun toward its headlights. The car raced toward them. Drew pressed Arlene back toward a doorway and reached for his pistol. The car was already stopping. Through an open window.

  Father Sebastian said, "Get in. Quickly." They did. Drew barely had a chance to close the door before Father Sebastian stepped on the throttle and urged the car down the street. "What took you so long?" Drew said.

  "Why didn't you meet us?" Father Sebastian sped around a corner. "I've been watching you from a block away. In case you'd been followed, I wanted to make it seem the meeting had been aborted and you'd given up.

  I waited till contact was least expected, with little chance of anyone catching up to us." The priest wore dark slacks, a dark zipped-up windbreaker, and dark driving gloves. The ring on the middle finger of his left hand made a bulge in the glove.

  "I'm surprised you got our message as soon as you did. We left it at the bank only this morning," Drew said. "Are you staying here in

  Zurich?"

  "No. In Rome."

  "Then how... ?"

  "From the moment I gave you the safe-deposit box key and the code words, my most-trusted assistant has been assigned to a cloister here in

  Zurich. He checks the box daily. When he found your message, he phoned me in Rome. I told him to arrange for several possible meetings and left at once for Zurich. My flight arrived this evening."

  "But if your assistant knew about your plans..."

  "Exactly. As much as I trust him, prudence required me to add my own variation. By such precautions, the Fraternity has kept itself secret all these centuries. And we mustn't forget-- I recruited you, an outsider who had no choice except to help me, precisely because I have reason to believe there is an enemy within the order." The priest sped around another corner and checked his rearview mirror. "No one behind us. It seems we've accomplished our purpose. Would you care to do some late-night sightseeing?" The priest sped north, toward the wooded hills outside the city. 4

  Your request for a meeting was unexpected. Indee
d, from a security point of view, most distressing." Father Sebastian continued driving.

  "What do you want?"

  "Information," Drew said. "You couldn't have put your questions in writing and left them at the bank?"

  "So your assistant could learn what I needed before you did? What precautions could you have taken after that?"

  "I grant your point"

  "Besides, a great deal's happened since we met you at the Vatican."

  "I hope that means you've made progress."

  "It means there are other players in the game." Father Sebastian turned sharply toward him. "Who?"

  "If I knew, I wouldn't have had to risk asking for this meeting. I need your resources, your network, to help me find out." The priest concentrated on the road. "Explain." Drew began with his decision to investigate the possibility that terrorists were responsible for

  Cardinal Pavelic's disappearance. 'Terrorists used to be my specialty, after all," he said bitterly. "But Father Victor's research seemed to indicate he hadn't explored mat possibility."

  "Cardinal Pavelic's disappearance might have been the first stage of a terrorist attack against the Church? My compliments. It hadn't occurred to me." Tm not sure I'm right But two other men had the same suspicion."

  Drew explained about his conversation with Gatto and how the arms merchant no longer privy to confidential information, had directed him to Medici. "But when Arlene and I were set to grab Medici, two men took him first. And when we returned to Gatto to ask what he knew about these men, we found his villa had been attacked. His bodyguards were dead. He'd been tortured. His throat had been slit." Father Sebastian gripped the steering wheel. "Then you assume the two men forced Gatto to reveal what he'd already told you?"

  "Yes. I believe those two men tortured Gatto to learn if terrorists were involved in the cardinal's disappearance. I think they have the same purpose I do. And I want to know who they are."

  "Describe them." Drew remembered his view from the alley as the two men subdued Medici's bodyguard and chauffeur, then shoved Medici into his limousine. The confrontation and abduction had been amazingly quick--no longer than twenty seconds-- but Drew's expert memory envisioned it again as if he were watching a filmstrip. "They were in their early forties," he said. "They both wore caps. Even so, I could see hair at the back of their heads and along their ears. One man was a blond, the other a redhead. The blond was six feet tall, tanned, well-built, as if he lifted weights, big shoulders and chest, wide forehead and jaw. The redhead was taller, maybe six foot-two, extremely thin and pale. His cheeks were gaunt. His face seemed squeezed together."

  "A charming couple," Father Sebastian said. "But without more information, I don't see how my sources can identify them.

  A muscular blond and a pasty redhead. Did you get any sense of their nationality?"

  "Only in a negative sense. I had the impression they weren't French,

  Spanish, or Italian. Still, we do have other information."

  "Oh?"

  "Those men were professionals. I don't mean just that they knew what they were doing. I mean world-class. I've seen few men better, and in my former life, I dealt with a lot of experts. They can't be mat good and not have a reputation. My guess is the color of their hair is part of their trademark. Ask your sources about top-of-the-line assassins.

  Find out if two of them are a blond and a redhead. And something else--assuming they're not Italian, they had to come through immigration. Check with your Opus Dci people in Italian security, faterpol, the CIA. Maybe our two friends entered Italy recently. Maybe somebody spotted them."

  "It still isn't much of a lead."

  "It's all we've got," Drew said. "All you've got I'm handing the case over to you for now." 'Tor now? Or is this your attempt to bow out completely?

  You haven't forgotten your bargain, I hope. If you cooperate, we'll pardon your sins against us."

  "I haven't forgotten. All I want is the chance to be with Arlene. I know if I betray you I'll never get me chance. But how can I cooperate if I don't get the information I've asked for?" Father Sebastian debated. "As you say, it's in my hands for now. Check the safe-deposit box every morning at ten, every afternoon at three." Exhausted by the discussion. Drew leaned back. Next to him, in the rear of the shadowy car, he felt Arlene gazing at him searingly. "I'll try to have an answer for you soon," the priest said.

  The Langenberg Wildlife Park, off a scenic road southwest of Zurich, allowed its visitors an intimate glimpse of chamois, marmot, deer, and boar. Drew and Arlene drove from the park's two acres of rocky forested hills and proceeded farther south along a series of rising switchbacks until they stopped at the top of Albis Pass. From its 2,600 feet, they had a view of rolling countryside. More important, their position gave

  Father Sebastian a chance to see if they'd been followed from the park.

  Ten minutes later. Father Sebastian pulled up beside them. After Drew and Arlene got in, the priest sped down the road from the pass. He soon turned onto a wooded side road and checked his rearview mirror. It was the afternoon after their late-night meeting. The sky was cloudy, with a threat of rain. "Icicle and Sem." Drew didn't understand. "Icicle and

  ... ?"

  "Seth," the priest repeated. "Those are their cryptonyms. I confess I didn't think I'd learn anything about them. But as soon as I mentioned a blond and a redhead, I got an immediate reaction from my Opus Dci contacts in Interpol. I'm embarrassed I hadn't heard about these two men before. The only excuse I can think of for my ignorance is they haven't made a move against anything that involves the Church. They're not terrorists; you wouldn't have known about them either."

  "What about them?" Drew asked. "They're extremely expensive, extremely skilled, extremely deadly. They don't work often, but when they do, it's a major job. They're experts at hiding. No one knows where they live."

  "By definition," Drew said. "Otherwise there'd have been reprisals against them."

  "One Interpol theory is that they use a major proportion of their income to buy protection. But even so, they've made a few mistakes. Along the line some security cameras tookphotographs of them. Only a couple. The images are blurred. But these days, computers can do wonders to add high-resolution to murky photographs. And those enhanced photographs were used to identify two men who came through Rome's airport two days ago from Canada. Each man alone might not have triggered interest. But both of them on one plane..."

  "Sure. They attracted attention to each other. The watcher was bound to notice."

  "That's part of the reason they were spotted," Father Sebastian said.

  "But there's a stronger reason for both of them on one plane to be unusual. I told you their code names are Icicle and Seth. Both are appropriate to killing."

  "Death is an iceman. Seth is the red-haired Egyptian god of the underworld."

  "And forty years ago, the men with those code names were mortal enemies," Father Sebastian said. "That's impossible! Forty years ago, the men I saw would have been infants!"

  "I'm talking about their fathers whose code names the sons inherited, In the Second World War, Icicle and Seth were Hitler's personal principal assassins. Each tried to outdo the other's body count--to gain approval from the Fflhrer. And after the Third Reich collapsed, the favored assassins continued to challenge each other. On several occasions, they tried to kill each other. Because of a woman, some sources say. Do the sons of old enemies consort with each other? Travel on the same plane?

  Cooperate to kidnap an informant? That's what attracted Interpol's attention. Whatever's happening is more disturbing than I feared.

  Icicle and Seth--the conjunction's unnatural." 6

  The sky became grayer. A light rain started falling as Father Sebastian let them off at the top of Albis Pass. "And now the case is yours again," the priest said. "I don't know how you can use the information

  I've given you. But I recruited you precisely because I didn't want to risk involving the Fraternity in the investigation.
If you need me to do your work for you, why should I have bargained with you? I'm becoming impatient." With an angry glare, the priest sped away. Drew watched him disappear down the pass. The rain was like a heavy mist. It drifted across his face. Despondent, he and Arlene got into their car. "What now?" Arlene asked. "Even with what he told us, I feel helpless. Where do we go?"

  "I think back to Rome." He tried to sound confident, "Where Cardinal

  Pavelic disappeared, where Father Victor was shot, where Seth and Icicle went after Gatto and Medici."