David Morrell - League of Night and Fog

by League of Night

  "But the CIA," Drew said. "You know how I feel about--"

  "The way you handle yourself," Saul said, "I would have figured you were with them."

  "Not with the Agency. With the State Department's version of it. I want nothing to do with either."

  "But you agreed to cooperate with the Fraternity," Saul said.

  "There wasn't a choice."

  "Listen carefully. My wife is missing.

  That's all I care about right now. But I think if I get some answers from this priest, I stand a good chance of finding out where she is. I can get an expert team over here to help. I can do my best to guarantee the Agency doesn't know about you. I'm asking you to let me make the call." Drew stared at the floor. Arlene said, "If it helps to end this.

  Drew, tell him it's okay." Drew raised his eyes. "We're getting in deeper." 'Tell him."

  "All right"--Drew sighed--"make the call." Saul grabbed the phone and dialed. A husky voice answered, repeating the number Drew had used.

  "This is Romulus. Tell Gallagher I have a reluctant source of information. I need a medical interrogation team. Now."

  "What address?" the voice asked. "He knows where I'm staying." Saul set the phone back onto its cradle. "Where the fuck is my wife?"

  15

  A half hour later, Saul heard a knock on the door. He glanced through its peephole, expecting the man with the pockmarked face, surprised to see Gallagher himself out there. He made a warning gesture to Drew and

  Arlene, who took their suitcase and shut themselves into the bathroom.

  Then he opened the hallway door. Gallagher stepped in, his eyes putty from lack of sleep.'A reluctant source of information'?" Saul shut the door and locked it. Gallagher kept talking. "Strictly speaking, I belong back in Austria. Our Zurich people didn't object to my entering their jurisdiction. But our Rome people like to run their show themselves. If you'd just agree to let another station chief be your control..."

  "You wanted this relationship. Now you're stuck with it,"

  Saul said. "I won't risk trusting anyone else."

  "It's so nice to be popular. What have you got?" Saul led him down a short hallway into the bedroom. Gallagher blanched when he saw who was on the bed. "Good God, I don't believe it! You kidnapped a priest! How the hell can I put this into a report? And look at his face! What did you do, run over him with a truck?"

  "He's not just a priest. He's a personal assistant to a cardinal in the

  Vatican's Curia." Gallagher's mouth hung open. "I'll get even with you for this! You've just made my life--!"

  "Before you start worrying about your job, take a look at this." Saul showed him the ring Drew had taken from Father Dusseault. Gallagher studied it in surprise. "The details are starting to fit together. You already proved that the men who tried to kill me were funded through an office in the Vatican." Saul pointed toward Father Dusseault

  "Through his office. His boss is the cardinal who's missing." Saul raised the priest's right arm and rolled up the coat sleeve, revealing the spring-loaded sheath. He handed Gallagher the knife Father Dusseault had used. "Just your basic standard equipment for a priest. Believe me, he knew how to use it."

  "Keep going. You're convincing me."

  "Not only is there a network we never heard of, but I was right--it's composed of priests," Saul said. "They call themselves after the ruby on their ring. The Fraternity of the Stone." Gallagher chuckled.

  "Romulus, you're as good as you ever were. You've learned a lot"

  "But not enough. I told your man on the phone. I want a medical interrogation team."

  "They won't know all the right questions to ask."

  "But I do. As soon as he's ready, I want to be alerted. I'll do the questioning. I intend to squeeze this priest for everything he knows."

  "What's wrong? Has something happened to you? Your voice sounds--"

  "My wife's disappeared."

  "What?"

  "She was with me when we staked out the priest's apartment. He left the building. We followed him separately, to avoid attracting attention."

  Conscious of Drew and Arlene in the bathroom, Saul omitted their part in the night's events.

  "After I got my hands on him, I looked for Erika." His throat squeezed shut; he had difficulty continuing. "She vanished. I searched everywhere. She's gone. If this priest knows anything about why she disappeared, by God he's going to tell me. If anything's happened to her, whoever did it is going to die." Gallagher stepped backward. The phone rang. Saul lunged for it. "Erika?" But a man's voice said, "Put

  Gallagher on." Saul closed his eyes, trying to control his disappointment. He handed the phone to Gallagher. "Yes, come up,"

  Gallagher said into the phone and set it back on its cradle. He turned to Saul. "That was the team. They're down the block. I didn't want to send them here till I understood what was happening."

  "And now you're satisfied? 'Take it easy. Remember, I'm on your side."

  "Are you? Fair warning, Gallagher. Just tell your team to prep the priest. Then he's mine."

  "Under other circumstances"--Gallagher squinted--"I wouldn't put up with your tone." His glare diminished. "But I guess you're entitled. Get some sleep. You'd better eat something. You look awful."

  "Sleep? Eat? How the hell, when Erika's--?"

  "Do it, Romulus. You're no good to her or anyone else if you fuck yourself up." Saul suddenly realized how close to the edge he was. He took a deep breath. "You're right... I'm sorry."

  "For what? In your place, I'd be climbing the walls. Count on me. I'll do everything I can to help." Saul smiled in gratitude. Five minutes later, three men arrived.

  One was slight and wore glasses. He pursed his lips when he saw the priest's battered face. He checked the priest's vital signs, then turned to Gallagher. "It's safe to move him." Gallagher nodded. The two other men stepped forward. Both were well built. "Where do we take him? Back to the shop or--?"

  "Can you do it here?" Gallagher asked. "In another room in the hotel?"

  "Sooner or later we'll have to take a skull X-ray, but I didn't see any swelling behind his eyes, so I'm probably being overcautious. His blood pressure checks out. Yes, I guess I can do it here in the hotel."

  "I already phoned down for a reservation. They had a room at the end of this floor." Gallagher motioned to one of the well-built men. "Go down and check in. Bring the key." Ten minutes later, the team was ready to leave with the priest. "I'll need some equipment from the van," the man who wore glasses said. "Whatever you want," Gallagher said, "you get."

  They checked the hallway outside. It was empty. The wellbuilt men braced the priest between them. Holding his arms around their necks, they walked him down the hall. The man who wore glasses followed. No one saw them. Gallagher turned from where he'd been watching at Saul's open doorway. "Remember, get some rest. I'll phone when he's ready."

  Saul leaned against a wall, his knees weak from exhaustion. "I'll be waiting." He locked the door.

  16

  The bathroom door came open. "You," Arlene told Saul, "are going to take

  Gallagher's advice. I'm calling for room service."

  "She thinks she's Florence Nightingale. She gets mean when her patients don't let her help," Drew said. Saul smiled. Fatigue made him slump toward a chair. Arlene picked up the phone. "My friend here seldom eats meat,"

  she told Saul. "How about scrambled eggs, rolls, and coffee?"

  "I'm too tense already," Saul said. "No coffee."

  "Milk," Drew said, "and fruit. Lots of fruit." Arlene made the call to room service. Saul watched her. She was tall and lithe, reminding him of Erika. But there the similarity ended. Arlene's hair wasn't as dark and long. Her face, though beautiful, was more oval. Her skin, though tanned, wasn't naturally swarthy as Erika's was. The big difference was in the eyes. Arlene's were green while Erika's were brown. Erika. To distract himself, he shifted his attention toward Drew and again was reminded of Chris. "You still haven't told me whether you're r
eally a priest."

  "No." Drew sounded wistful. "I was once a brother, though." The reference caught Saul by surprise. "Brother? You mean like--?"

  "I'm a Roman Catholic. I used to be a monk." Sam strained to sound casual. "I had an extremely close friend, a foster brother you might say, who was Roman Catholic. Irish."

  "I'm Scottish."

  "My friend joined a Cistercian monastery and stayed there for six years," Saul said.

  "Really? That's quite a coincidence."

  "Oh?" Saul's nerves quivered.

  "How's that?"

  "I was in the monastery almost as long. But I was a Carthusian."

  "Yes, my friend told me about the Carthusians. He said his own coder, the Cistercians, were tough. They didn't speak. They believed in hard physical labor. But the Carthusians-- they each lived alone in a cell, hermits for life, totally solitary--he said the Carthusians were the toughest."

  "I enjoyed the peace. What was your friend's name?"

  "Chris?"

  "Why did he leave the order?"

  "He had nightmares about things he'd been forced to do before he joined the order. In fact, those things were what made him join the order in the first place."

  "Things?" Saul told him. Drew flinched. His shock was palpable. "You can't understand unless you know that Chris and I were orphans. The institution where we lived was modeled after the military. From when we were kids, we were taught to be warriors. A man officially adopted us.

  His name was Eliot. He took us on trips. He gave us candy. He made us love him." Saul had difficulty continuing. "It turned out he worked for the government, and his motive for becoming our foster father was to recruit us into intelligence work. After we went through extensive training, he sent us out on missions. The U. S. doesn't officially condone assassination, of course, but that's what we did just the same.

  We thought our missions were government-sanctioned, supposedly for a just cause. As it happened, we weren't working for the government but for Eliot himself. We loved him so much we'd do anything for him. So he told us to kill. For his own reasons. Chris broke down from the stress of what we were doing. To atone for me things he'd done, he entered the monastery. But his nightmares kept haunting him, and he retreated even more from the world. He lapsed into trances. The condition's called catatonic schizophrenia. Meditative paralysis. The

  Cistercians insisted on each monk contributing equally to the labor of the monastery, but Chris's trances kept him from working. The order had to ask him to leave."

  "He must have felt torn apart."

  "Oh, believe me, he did. But he's at peace now."

  "How?"

  "He was killed," Saul said. Drew's eyes narrowed. "Stabbed to death--because Eliot eventually turned against us. To protect his secrets, he betrayed us. I evened the score for Chris, though."

  "How?"

  "I killed Eliot... And you?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean," Drew said. "Why did you leave the

  Carthusians?"

  "A hit team took out the monastery." Saul blinked in amazement

  17

  Beside him. Drew felt Arlene tense in astonishment at his candor.

  "Took out the monastery?" Saul asked. "I'm an orphan, too. My parents were killed when I was tea," Drew said. "In Tokyo. My father worked for the U. S. State Department there. In 1960, he and my mother were blown up by terrorists. The authorities never found whoever was responsible. I was only ten, but I made a vow that one day I'd track them down or, if I couldn't find them, I'd punish whoever was like the people who'd murdered my parents. I was sent to America to live with my uncle." Bitterness distorted his voice. "That didn't work out too well. So my father's best friend adopted me. His name was Ray. He worked for the State Department, the same as my father had, and he took me all over the world on his assignments. Wherever we went, he made sure I learned the martial art of that country. I still intended to keep me vow I'd made--to revenge my parents--so Ray recruited me into a secret State Department antiterrorist group called Scalpel. I was trained to be an assassin. For ten years I killed."

  "Ten years? What made you stop? Why did you enter the monastery?" The same reason as your friend. I had nightmares. In 1979,1 was sent on a mission that ended with the death of an innocent man and woman. I blew them up, just as my parents had been blown up. Their son saw it happen just as I'd seen it happen to mine."

  "This man and woman, you say they were innocent? You made a mistake?"

  "No. Scalpel wanted them killed for political reasons. But I couldn't justify what I'd done. I'd become a version of the people who'd murdered my parents. I'd turned into the scum I was hunting. I was my enemy. I had a... breakdown, I guess you'd call it I was so desperate to redeem myself, to punish myself for my sins, that I became a

  Carthusian. For almost six years, through penance and prayer, I achieved a measure of peace."

  "And that's when the hit team took out the monastery?"

  "Nineteen monks were poisoned. Two others were shot I was the primary target, but I escaped. I vowed to find out who'd killed my fellow monks and threatened my chance for redemption. In the end, I discovered that the man who'd ordered the hit was Ray. He feared that one day, because of my breakdown, I'd reveal secrets about him. He'd been searching for me all those years, and when he finally learned where I'd gone to ground

  ... Well, as you said about the man who ordered your foster brother's death, I found Ray, and I killed him."

  18

  Saul listened, deeply moved. The parallels between his story and Drew's were unnerving. But Chris had been killed. And Drew had survived, resembling Chris, with his fan- hair, fiery eyes, hint of freckles, and strong-boned rectangular face. Saul had the sense that a niche had been filled in his life, that a ghost had come back. "You didn't say if you had any brothers," Saul said. "No brothers. I'm an only child." Saul smiled. "If you want a brother, you've got one now.

  You wouldn't have told me your background if you didn't recognize the similarities between... It's uncanny."

  "I noticed the parallels," Drew said, "and I can't explain them either."

  "Running into each other. How could--? I can't believe it's just a coincidence."

  "The question is,"

  Arlene interrupted, "how many other similarities are there?"

  19

  The two men turned to her. Arlene had listened with growing distress as

  Saul and Drew talked to each other. It was startling enough that two men who'd never met before should quickly become so open with each other. Even more startling were the parallels between Drew and Saul's dead foster brother. What Saul had said just now was true--it was uncanny. And the most disturbing part was that she didn't think the surprises were over. "Other similarities?" Saul asked. "You showed up in the Vatican gardens at the same time as we did--to force information from Father Dusseault," she said. "Doesn't that make you wonder? You've got to be curious what we were doing there. I'm sure curious to know what you were doing there. In different ways, did we come there for the same reason?"

  "Your wife's father was missing--isn't that what you said?" Drew asked.

  "And three men tried to kill you? Men who wore a ring identical to

  Father Dusseault's?" Saul didn't answer for a moment Then he shuddered, and it seemed to Arlene that he did so to force his attention back to this conversation. Because, if she guessed correctly, the disappearance of his wife was related to everything they were discussing. "Right,"

  Saul said. "And we traced those three men to Father Dusseault. To what you called the Fraternity of the Stone. All priests. What is the

  Fraternity?"

  "Soldiers of God," Drew said. "Church militants."

  "Explain."

  "The order dates back to the twelfth century, the Third Crusade," Drew said. "They follow a tradition established by an Arab who converted to

  Catholicism, became a priest, and used his knowledge of Arab ways to help the crusaders try to liberate the Holy
Land from the Muslims."

  "Help the crusaders? How?"

  "Since he was an Arab, he could easily infiltrate the enemy. His mandate was to execute Muslim leaders in the same brutal way that their assassins had executed leaders of the Crusade. Specifically, he came upon his targets while they slept and cut off their heads."

  "Graphic,"

  Saul said dryly. "And no doubt dramatically effective."