by Brett King
“It’s a diverse group. To stay ahead of their competition and the authorities, all members of the Chapter are required to be well educated. They hold degrees ranging from business management to accounting to sociology. We’re talking about well-rounded individuals who know how to execute an operation. They also blend into different cultures, posing as legitimate citizens in regular clothes or business suits. They don’t do or own anything or talk in any way that would set them apart from the average citizen in their respective country.”
Angelilli continued, “If authorities apprehend a member, they must be willing to commit suicide and burn everything connecting them to the Chapter. INTERPOL has only caught them once, so they are a hard group to track.”
He outlined their alleged activities from human trafficking to drug trafficking, mostly heroin, crack, MDMA, and designer synthetic drugs. In the early years, the Shadow Chapter had been involved in currency counterfeiting as well as prostitution of women from war-torn or politically unstable regions. Since that time, they had branched into more sophisticated operations.
“On occasion, they are also involved in assassinations,” Angelilli said. “The ten crime lords know this is messy and can lead to a quick downfall for the organization when too many institutions get involved, so they play it safe in that arena.”
“One question,” Vice President Starr asked. “How do you play it safe with an assassination?”
“Well, sir,” Angelilli answered, “you hire Erich Metzger.”
Cori Cassidy backed into the corner of the elevator car, trying to stay out of sight. Her gut felt like it was twisted into knots. She pressed her butt against the wall along with the palms of her hands. The metal surface against her hands turned her skin fish-cold as the elevator doors opened on the second floor.
Pull it together, she thought to herself. She couldn’t look like some frightened escaped patient to whoever was getting on.
Her heart drummed inside her chest. She coached herself to play it cool, standing tall, trying to look like a doctor.
The doors glided open all the way.
No one was waiting. She sagged with a sense of relief. Someone had pressed the button before deciding against taking the elevator.
As the doors began to slide closed, she found the courage to move away from the wall and look down the second-floor corridor. She took a couple steps forward to peek out.
What she saw didn’t make sense.
The area outside the elevator looked nothing like the third floor. In fact, it looked nothing like a hospital at all. Instead, it resembled an army compound. She saw soldiers dressed in black tactical clothing and combat gear. Armed with assault rifles, they stood in a circle listening to a hardened-looking man with dark brown hair who appeared to be their leader.
There was no sign of doctors or nurses or medical equipment.
The doors closed all the way. The elevator continued its journey down to the first floor.
Terror sunk in, deeper than before. What was happening on the second floor? Huddled against the elevator wall, she was bewildered as she hugged herself. She had been reluctant to contact NYPD before, but now she was determined to find a cop the minute she escaped this place.
The elevator reached the lobby and the doors opened. If the third floor seemed like a hospital ward and the second like a military base, then this floor resembled a Wall Street lobby, all metal accents and soaring windows. A handful of people milled around in business suits, attaché cases in hand.
More confused than ever, Cori spied an exit to her right. Fighting for composure in her walk, she headed for the door, then pushed it open and moved outside. Dazzling sunshine greeted her as she stepped onto the sidewalk. She took a quick glance at her surroundings.
She straightened up and rolled on her feet, jerking back in disbelief and apprehension. In stunned silence, Cori snapped her head around, looking in every direction. Nothing made sense. She raised her eyes, taking a peek at a street sign.
Her face became ashen. A ripple of unwelcome surprise overtook her.
She wasn’t outside the Mount Sinai Hospital.
Hell, she wasn’t even in Manhattan.
There were no skyscrapers or honking yellow cabs scattered in traffic or sidewalks jammed with bustling pedestrians. Nothing here looked familiar. Instead, blocks of aging flats and café bars crammed with tourist and craft shops lined the street. The hospital experience had been creepy, but this was a whole new level of weirdness. Lost in this Twilight Zone moment, she discovered her mouth was still gaping.
On instinct, she started walking, her feet moving almost without her knowing. The doctor had told her she had to hurry to a park, but she didn’t even know where she was right now.
With no police in sight, she needed to get to a phone fast.
Cori saw her reflection in a store window. The place looked like a taverna with the sign spelled in a language that appeared to be Greek. The same was true with the next store. She knew that Astoria had a Greek neighborhood, but this didn’t look anything like Queens. The doctor claimed she had been given hypnotic drugs. Was she hallucinating again?
Now that she was outside, Cori wished she could ditch the green scrubs. Keeping her head down as she walked, she didn’t want to be noticed and she worried the clothes made her stand out. She glanced around but didn’t dare stop. She passed two women, both tanned in summer dresses, but she didn’t make eye contact.
She peeked at a row of compact, European-style vehicles parked curbside and stopped behind a green Renault. The license plate was imprinted with three letters and four digits, along with two additional white letters—GR—on a blue rectangle.
GR? It didn’t make sense. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. None of the cars looked American, and they all had similar plates. Could that be right?
I’m in Greece?
Cori’s mind was spinning. How could she be in Europe? She couldn’t remember much about the accident, but she thought she’d been in New York City. At the very least, she’d thought she was in the United States.
Not Greece.
Something made sense now. She remembered waking a while back when she thought she was hallucinating. The ceiling seemed curved and too low for a typical ceiling. She had wondered at first if she had been in an ambulance, but she thought it had to be a room. She realized now that she must have been inside a jet. Whoever had taken her had drugged her and flown her to Greece. Someone wanted her out of the country.
Who did this to her? And why was she here?
Cori looked back at where she had first stepped onto the sidewalk. Two men walked a half block behind her. They were dressed all in black like the soldiers she had seen on the second floor of the building. The sight of them back there swung her from paranoia to outright panic. As far as she could tell, they did not have combat gear or rifles, but she didn’t hold her gaze for too long. She turned around and forced herself to keep walking, so the men behind her wouldn’t become suspicious or catch up. Had they followed her out of the hospital or whatever the hell that place had been?
She walked a little farther, then decided to take a different street. Before turning the corner, Cori glanced back. Everything inside told her not to, but she was desperate to look again.
The two men had closed the gap. There was no doubt about it—they were definitely coming after her. A look of menace flashed across their faces.
Burning with adrenaline, Cori knew one thing. It was time to run.
Shayna was asleep, cuddling a stuffed animal.
Nebola stood beside the bed, watching her. His men had gotten a couple of toys for her. It had been funny to see the bewildered expressions on the men’s faces when Nebola had ordered them to buy stuffed animals. They had obliged and returned with several for Shayna to choose from as a traveling companion. She had picked a black kitten with green eyes. Personally, Nebola h
ad liked the plush porcupine, its back an explosion of brown bristles. Maybe that said more about his childhood than he had realized.
Wingo came up to him. “Mr. Nebola, mind if I interrupt?”
He motioned Wingo to the door. He didn’t want to wake the kid.
“What is it?” he said, stepping outside the room.
“Cori Cassidy escaped our facility.”
“What? How’d that happen?”
“A doctor helped her escape. One we hired to staff the mock hospital.”
“Sonuvabitch,” Nebola growled.
“A nurse tried to stop them, but the doc took her out. Caught us with our guard down. Happened during a shift change.”
“You tracking Cassidy?”
“She’s a couple blocks from the facility. We have men in pursuit.”
“You better,” he snarled. “Apprehend her, fast.”
“Yes, sir.”
He cursed again. Nebola had learned that the Cassidy woman was good friends with John Brynstone, and that his daughter was close to the woman as well. The idea was that Cassidy might prove useful in winning Shayna Brynstone’s trust. Which is why at the last minute, Nebola had spared Cassidy when he had ordered the hit on the CIA officers in the wrecked SUV. He had staged a hospital on the third floor of a Shadow Chapter building and had sequestered her there.
“Tell me about the doctor who helped Cassidy escape.”
“Peter Spanos. He’s on the run as well.”
“With her?”
“Don’t believe so. We have leads. We’ll find him.”
Nebola glanced at the sleeping child. “Let me know the minute you find that prick. He’s gonna pay.”
Chapter 29
Vienna, Austria
10:05 a.m.
Edgar Wurm gloated. He had settled into a room at Le Méridien Vienna, a luxury hotel located on the famous Ringstrasse, not far from the Vienna State Opera and the Imperial Hofburg Palace. Settling into a crisp blue armchair, he studied the left skull piece of the Roman helmet. He had learned a few tricks about getting around security measures after years of working at the National Security Agency. It had been a little risky smuggling this thing out of Barcelona, but it had been worth the effort.
This skull piece gave a detailed story about the origin of the helmet and the man who had engraved a code on it. It gave new insights. He understood now that the legend of the Holy Grail blended with the legend of the Radix, revealing Joseph of Arimathea as a central figure in both stories.
The left skull piece revealed the name of the Roman soldier who had engraved a code on his helmet. Quintus Messorius Gallienus had served with the Roman army in England somewhere around 64 CE. During that period, he had been sent to Glastonbury to break up a fight between Christians and pagans. The conflict in Britannia centered on Joseph of Arimathea and a pagan king named Crudel, originally of North Wales.
On a peacekeeping mission, Quintus had tried to stifle hostilities between the two camps. It did not go well. During the visit, Crudel had fatally stabbed Quintus. The pagan warlord insisted that Joseph of Arimathea take responsibility for the murder. Despite protests from his son, Josephus, Arimathea agreed to accept the blame on the condition that it would bring peace between the Christian and pagan camps.
The pagans had hauled away Joseph of Arimathea. Presenting him to Roman officials, they demanded that the Christian leader be placed on trial for the murder of Quintus. In a rush to save his father, Josephus had created the Black Chrism without fully understanding its power. The dead Roman soldier was still sprawled on the ground outside the Glastonbury camp. Josephus had poured the formula down the throat of the dead man. According to the helmet’s code, the Black Chrism brought Quintus back to life. When Quintus arrived at the trial, revived and healthy, Joseph of Arimathea was granted his freedom.
The story was beginning to gel in Wurm’s mind. He had spent considerable time researching everything he could find on Joseph of Arimathea and his son. After decoding what he had of the engraved helmet pieces, Wurm better understood the role that they along with the soldier Quintus played in the Radix legend.
Eighteen years after resurrecting Quintus, Josephus was hunting with his son, Nathan, in the woods of Glastonbury when they became separated. The legend took a critical turn at that point, almost two thousand years ago. As Wurm put together the story, he learned about a fateful day, one on which everything would change for Josephus of Massilia. A day on which he would emerge as the Keeper of the Radix.
The Keeper’s Tale
82 CE, late July
Glastonbury, Britannia
A terrible revelation came to Josephus as he staggered alone and half naked through the wilderness. John the Baptist, lost in the depths of wretched isolation and zealotry, could not have summoned greater insight from near madness. The revelation came to Josephus with an understanding of what it meant to lose everything. The old ways in this land—the pagan law—had survived for ages, resisting the seed of Christianity.
The old ways were winning.
Josephus and his people were losing.
Twenty years before, he had sailed to the Britannic Isles on a vessel with a ragged band of believers clinging to hope more than certainty. His father, alone, had a vision that escaped the others. Joseph of Arimathea had left his native home north of Jerusalem some fifty years before, with hope of spreading a message. In a trek from Judea to Gaul, they had finally arrived on this soil. As a gift, King Arviragus had granted parcels of land—without taxation—to Joseph and his brother, Bron of Arimathea. They had constructed an abbey that rivaled the Tabernacle in the Wilderness in scope if not in grandeur. They cultivated a simple hope. A destiny. A dream dedicated to the careworn and humble prophet known as Jesus of Nazareth.
The dream had all but died.
And now, at thirty-eight, Josephus was on the run.
Hunted.
He climbed a tree, moving from branch to branch. As he looked for those who hunted him, a terrible curiosity came into his mind. Within his clan, Josephus was the recognized hunter, more accomplished with spear and bow than with the Gospels. Perhaps that was why his new role—more prey than hunter—sickened him.
He peeked out from the shelter of his leafy fortress, searching the surrounding meadow. Daggers of late-morning sunlight cut through the glade. A silent breeze pulled branches beneath his feet, leading his body into a wide, yawning sway. In his desire to find his lost son, Nathan, he had wandered into a territory that had brought great danger. His boy had been missing for seven days now. Bron and his dozen sons had joined in the search for Nathan, but no sign had been uncovered. Josephus had not given up. Nothing would make him abandon hope for finding his son.
Climbing down, he crawled through the wooded area with his weapon poised, searching for movement. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had been without the comfort of food for days. He had hunted game in that time, but he offered it to his people to sustain their search for his son.
The silence of the birds filled him with an uneasy feeling.
Despite the hushed wilderness, he took a risk and climbed down from the tree, hunger teasing him with the notion that the clan had discovered Nathan. Even his father, now close to ninety years in age but still vital, had searched for his grandson. Others in their clan had given up hope. Joseph of Arimathea was a man unable to escape hope.
As Josephus hurried down a slick green hill and made his way deeper into the forest, he spied movement against an oak tree. He recognized Nathan.
The image sickened him.
The boy, no more than eleven, was pulled tight against the bark, his thin wrists strained against misshapen branches. His stance was no accident; it mimicked Jesus of Nazareth when the Romans fixed him to a cross some fifty years before. Josephus’s heart seemed to stop inside his chest. Had his thoughts tricked him into seeing Nathan here?
He couldn’t imagine hunger devising such an elaborate illusion. The frightened brown eyes. A quivering lip. His son looked starved, his ribs pushing through the thin veneer of skin near his stomach.
Josephus scrambled across rocks and fallen trees. At last, he made it to the boy. Josephus sliced the leather cord binding his son’s wrist. Tears filled Nathan’s eyes when he saw his father.
The boy cried out, but Josephus didn’t hear the words. Not at first. When he did, it was too late.
“Father, behind you.”
Josephus turned.
They were everywhere.
The pagans had slathered their faces and bare chests with mud and reddish paint. They emerged from bushes and ferns and, as if with magic, they seemed to appear from the rocks themselves. He might convince himself that hunger or madness had conjured this army of the forest, save for one thing.
Nathan saw them first.
Josephus reached for his spear. Six men descended on him, whooping with the cries of night demons. Their eyes burned wide and white. He threw the spear. The blade found the chest of an advancing warrior. At the same time, Nathan used his free hand to untie the strap confining his other arm. Glancing back at the enemy, Josephus reached for his knife. The blade swept across air before slashing the neck of a pagan. As blood splashed Josephus’s face, he had already stabbed a third.
But there were more. Many more. Twenty pagans, all dressed in demonic forest paint.
A weapon whistled past his ear. He turned. Was the spear meant for Josephus, only to miss its mark?
No.
The horror was unimaginable.
The weapon was buried in his son’s chest, trapping him against the tree. Blood gurgled from Nathan’s mouth. He cried like a dying animal. His vacant brown eyes sought out his father beseechingly.
Then he was lost forever.
Nathan!
Josephus sensed the pagan rank closing around him. Bright with rage, he vowed to kill them all. He fought with renewed fury, losing count of the pagans dropping around him. The faces blurred, but he recognized their tribe. They followed Crudel, the pagan chieftain who made a sworn enemy of Joseph of Arimathea and his clan. Crudel, the man who bolstered his numbers even as the people in Arimathea’s clan had dwindled. Crudel, the man who tied a boy to a tree, then sent an army to kill him.