The Lost Apostles

by Brian Herbert

  “I didn’t think so! As a doctor you must have taken the Hippocratic oath.”

  She nodded. “Now we need to borrow Domingo Petrovese’s van, or rent a vehicle ourselves.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll go talk to Domingo,” Fujiko said, rising to her feet. “I’m an excellent driver, but I’ll have to be careful in Rome, the way these Italian men drive.” Again, the gnat got in front of her face. This time, by clapping her hands sharply, she got it, then flicked the victim off one palm.

  “Not part of the Hippocratic oath,” she said, with a grin. The Japanese woman went out the door and down the outside stairs.

  Lori and her companions had covered their tracks well, and didn’t think anyone dangerous would discover where they were staying, not even if Wendy Zepeda and the two guards—when released—filed complaints with Italian authorities. No one would know where to look.

  Of utmost importance to Lori, she always made certain not to do anything morally wrong. She had not harmed the prisoners, and only had them under soporific medication temporarily. To her credit, she had removed eleven she-apostles from the clutches of the dangerous and unpredictable Dixie Lou Jackson—and she had told the truth to the world.

  A few minutes later, the diminutive Fujiko returned. “We can use the van,” she said. “And Domingo won’t take any additional money for it. He even went out to fill it up with fuel for us.”

  “OK. We need to pick a safe place to drop our patients off. Not only safe for us, but for them. This evening should be a good time, when their drugs have worn off a little.”

  “Right,” Fujiko said. “I’ll monitor them as they come back to awareness, and tell them we’re taking them out blindfolded to let them go, but only if they don’t raise a stink.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  * * *

  Lori, Fujiko, and Rea Janeg waited until darkness had settled over the city, then took the prisoners down to the parking garage underneath the building. Rea had her gun drawn, and remained behind the others. Fujiko noticed that Wendy Zepeda was slow to come out of her induced sleepiness, and was much more sluggish than the two guards with her. At first Lori wondered if that might be because the councilwoman was thinner than the other two women, but Fujiko said she had already taken that into account when administering the dosages.

  They were discussing this while getting into the van, when Zepeda suddenly struck Rea Janeg in the nose with her fist, stunning her and knocking her gun away. Rea went to her knees, groaning in pain.

  Reaching down, the councilwoman tried to grab the handgun, but Lori kicked Zepeda in the forehead and sent her sprawling. Rea, her nose bleeding, grabbed her weapon again and motioned the guards back into the van, while Fujiko and Lori pounced on Zepeda. They held her down, and tied her hands with a length of rope. Then they secured the hands of the guards in the same manner.

  “You OK, Rea?” Lori asked, as she shoved Zepeda onto the rear seat between the guards.

  “I’ve been hit harder, but never in the nose,” she replied. Rea slipped her gun into a shoulder holster under her coat, then used a cloth to wipe away the blood. “Yeah, I’m too tough to let a lowlife like her take me out.”

  Fujiko slid into the driver’s seat, with Lori and Rea in the back to watch the prisoners.

  “I told you we should have killed them,” Fujiko said, looking over her shoulder and winking at Lori. She started the van and pulled out of the garage onto the street.

  Zepeda turned red, apparently not noticing the wink. “Are—are you going to kill me?”

  “Would you like us to?” Lori asked. “I’m sure we could talk Rea into it, for your little trick.”

  “I’m sorry—I just panicked.”

  “We told you we’re going to release you,” Lori said, with rising anger. The van picked up speed. “Did you think we were going to take you somewhere and dump your bodies?”

  “I wasn’t sure. You and Dixie Lou are enemies, and I didn’t know what you’d do.”

  “You took the wrong side,” Lori snapped. “Wendy, we’re not going to harm you. When we gave you our word, we meant it. Unlike your inglorious Chairwoman.”

  As the van rolled through the nighttime city streets, Rea stuffed a gag in Zepeda’s mouth and secured it with a scarf tied around her face. She did the same to the other two.

  In half an hour, Lori and her loyal friends drove the prisoners to a dark alley four blocks from the Vatican. Removing each of them from the van, they placed them gently on the pavement, lying on their sides.

  “In a few minutes we’ll call someone to come and get you,” Lori said, as she stuffed hundred dollar bills into each of their pockets. Wendy, if you’re so loyal to Dixie Lou, go back to her.”

  “And good riddance,” Fujiko said.

  As Lori climbed into the front passenger seat, she heard a man shout something in Italian.

  “He said to halt,” Rea said, jumping in the back of the van and closing the door. “He’s wearing a uniform—looks like police or a security guard.”

  Fujiko leaped into the driver’s seat, and backed the van through the alley, toward the street.

  Since it was a warm evening, they had the windows open. Lori heard more shouts in Italian, and through the windshield she saw two men running toward them, with guns drawn.

  “They’re threatening to shoot,” Rea said. To Lori’s shock, the stocky brunette unholstered her handgun and was about to lean out the side window with it.

  “No shooting!” Lori said.

  As they reached the street, Fujiko spun the van around and pressed hard against the dashboard-mounted accelerator. The van screeched out into the street, throwing Lori against the side door. No shots were fired.

  “Well, I guess that saves us the price of a phone call,” Fujiko said.

  Lori and Rea didn’t laugh at the comment until they pulled into the garage of their apartment building.

  * * *

  Spring arrived a few days early in Washington, DC, with cherry blossoms budding on neatly trimmed trees all over the city. Gentle breezes wafted the delicate, pleasing scents of flowers through the air, mingling with the fragrance of the Rose Garden. It was an overcast day.

  Deep in thought, President Markwether walked along one of the garden paths, his hands clasped behind his back, looking down. In one of the raised flower beds a gardener knelt on loamy soil, using a trowel at the base of a Princess Diana rose bush, one of the First Lady’s favorites. Sometimes she even worked out there herself, since it calmed her to immerse her hands in the earth. The President couldn’t relate to any of that. He didn’t like to get his hands dirty, in any sense of the phrase.

  Problems. There were so many of them in his position, and they had an irritating way of piling up at the same time. Now his brother was heading into danger, having taken a flight to Rome that morning. Zack’s daughter, if he really had one, was at risk as well. It was hard for the President to imagine his bachelor brother with a child, and even more difficult to imagine him caring about one born out of wedlock. Over the years, Zack had been with many women, and only rarely did a relationship last more than a few months. He must be maturing, at long last.

  He hoped Zack stayed safe, and the young woman, too. He wished he could do something to help them. It was frustrating having to wait, not being able to use the vast powers of his office. Why hadn’t his advisers, or the Pope’s, seen this coming?

  * * *

  Using her walker, lifting it and scraping it across the hardwood floor, Mrs. Bonham made her way to the front door, where her prized bird-song door chime had just warbled. Holding onto her walker, she stood sideways at the peephole and peered through. The magnifying lens of the viewer showed two men in suits on her doorstep. Nice looking young fellows. They wouldn’t harm her. Still, in the pocket of her house dress she felt the reassuring heaviness of a small caliber pistol. She was not entirely defenseless.

  Opening the door part way, she looked throug
h the narrow opening, squinting in sunlight.

  “Mrs. Bonham?” the shorter of the pair inquired. He held a wallet open, displaying his identification. She couldn’t quite make out what it said. He snapped the wallet shut, slipped it back into the vest pocket of his suit coat.

  “Yes.” She offered her sweetest smile, the one she always used when handing fudge or cookies to someone.

  “I understand you’re a friend of Sylvester Tertullian?”

  “Oh yes. Fine young man. I knew his mother, you know. Poor, sweet soul.”

  “We got your name from a computer file. You haven’t been answering your phone.”

  “I don’t always hear it ring. What can I do for you?”

  “It seems that Mr. Tertullian is missing.”

  “I hope nothing’s happened to him.” Her eyes brightened. “But if you haven’t found a body, maybe he’s all right.”

  “When was the last time you saw him, ma’am?”

  “A long time. I’m not sure. I’m old, and my memory isn’t what it used to be.” She heard something fall in the other room.

  “Just my cat,” she said. “I’ll have to see what mischief she’s gotten into. If that’s all, would you excuse me, please?”

  “Of course.” He handed her a business card, added, “Please contact us if he turns up.”

  After their departure, Mrs. Bonham scuttled into the guest bedroom, on the main floor of her tidy little house. She found Styx hanging off the side of the bed, struggling at the end of his heavy chain. The duct tape she had placed over his mouth remained in place, and he was grunting angrily.

  “You’ll have to get out of that yourself,” she said. “I’m just a fragile old lady.”

  His eyes sparkled with rage. Styx put one foot on the sideboard of the bed, lifted a shoulder onto the night-stand and rolled back onto the bed, where he lay on his backside, breathing through his nose with difficulty.

  Leaning over him, she pulled the tape from his face with a hard jerk designed for maximum pain, then ripped the tape off his mouth. “I don’t want to kill you,” she insisted, “but I will if you’re not nice.”

  “What would you do with my body?”

  “I’d drag you into the garage and cut you up into bite-size pieces—for my kitty.”

  “Your little cat is going to eat me? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I have a big freezer, silly, and lots of plastic bags to keep everything neat. As for your bones, I used to be a chemist, so I just might have some acid around here someplace. Would you like me to look?”

  “You run a real house of horrors here. How many bodies are buried under the porch steps?”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea. Would you dig the hole for me if I give you extra fudge tonight?”

  “Don’t play games with me.”

  “And don’t play them with me. For years you’ve been acting like Mr. Upstanding Citizen, when in reality you were ordering your BOI henchmen to kill innocent women.”

  “The women you speak of were not innocent. They were the sworn enemies of God.”

  “That’s not the way I hear it. You’ve been a monster, Sylvester. The things I’ve learned about you—” She sighed. “Too nasty for a sweet old lady to speak of. Still, I knew your mother, and she would want me to watch out for you.”

  “She would appreciate it,” Styx said.

  Chapter 25

  United Women of the World, founded with such lofty ideals, might have accomplished so much more for women if its leadership had only remained rational.

  —From a confidential White House report

  Three days passed, and it was early morning.

  The Cabinet Room of the White House overflowed with faces familiar to President Markwether, most of them male. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, the President of France, the Premier of Russia, and five other world leaders, along with the Supreme NATO Commander and the entire US Cabinet. Most looked bleary eyed, and took large gulps of strong coffee to awaken their minds. Throughout the capital city, cherry trees were in full blossom, splashes of cheerful pink that contrasted with the somber moods of the people in this room.

  The dignitaries were silent as they watched two wall-mounted VR-TV sets on opposite ends of the large room. Dixie Lou Jackson, dubbed “the Black Priestess” by news announcers, was presenting arguments, legal and moral, for her shocking takeover of the Vatican. For nearly an hour she’d been citing evidence of misdeeds against women committed by the Roman Catholic Church, which she listed at the very top of organizations that were committing offenses against women. Finally she paused and looked to one side, toward a dozen nuns who filed into the room and stood behind her.

  “Look at these women,” she said, as the camera panned over the plain, serene faces. “For centuries, virtually all the clerical and housekeeping duties of the Vatican have been performed by nuns, while slovenly men ruled—the Pope, his cardinals, other male officials. From the top down—not just the Vatican, but secular governments and corporations, too—it’s been this way since time immemorial. Doesn’t that sound familiar, ladies? Isn’t it this way everywhere? Aren’t you fed up with it?” Her Southern drawl became more pronounced, and she added, “Massah man, we ain’t gonna carry yo’ water no mo’, we ain’t gonna change yo’ dirty sheets, we ain’t gonna cook yo’ meals.”

  With a sigh of disgust, President Markwether touched a button on the table, turning off the sets. “These women are out of control.”

  With his brother headed into the dangerous situation in Rome, he was worried. The President’s thoughts drifted back, to games of pool he and Zack had played in the White House game room, and the important talks they’d had, long into the night. The two had always been close, remaining in touch no matter where they were. Whenever they traveled far from one another, there were usually postcards, one or two a week. But in this case, he wasn’t sure what to expect. It was not a vacation, by any stretch of the imagination.

  The British Prime Minister, Livingston Bramble, cleared his throat, hawked and swallowed something foul. A paunchy man with huge, quivering jowls, he said in a basso voice, “This is intolerable. The blasted worldwide web is spreading their message like the plague, moving faster than we can counter it. I think we should shut the whole thing down.”

  “We can’t do that,” Markwether protested. “It would only make matters worse.”

  “I heartily disagree,” Bramble said. “Look at public opinion polls. The UWW is over the thirty percent approval mark, more than a ten point jump in only a few days. We thought the Vatican takeover would backfire against them, but instead it’s boosted their credibility. The mad women are multiplying like flies. They have discussion groups on the web, even computer war games in which mythical female armies annihilate male armies.”

  “Maybe not so mythical,” NATO Commander Kenneth Selkirk said, from his chair beside Markwether. A gray-mustachioed man with a strong Scottish brogue, Selkirk spoke in an agitated voice. “For at least fifteen years the UWW has been trying to achieve nuclear capability. We’ve known about it, but haven’t taken enough action against them.”

  “Don’t blame my government,” Bramble said.

  “We’re all at fault,” admitted Nicholas Prodinsky, the Premier of Russia. He glared at the President of France, Antoine Villerny. “You French, too, and the Australians.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” the French President protested, vehemently, and then went into a diatribe, reeling off a number of high level witnesses who supposedly would support his assertion. A man with widely set eyes and thinning blond hair, he made hammering motions with one hand for emphasis.

  “In any event,” Prodinsky said, “as long as the BOI was superior in firepower, the women weren’t considered much of a threat. In hindsight this was an error, the consequences of which we need to deal with now. Following the publication of the Holy Women’s Bible and the takeover of the Vatican, the UWW has made disturbing military advances, in addition to their gains in public opin
ion. Bolstering the forces they already had arrayed around the world, they have been infiltrating other military and paramilitary organizations, taking control by subtle means. It happened in Italy, when General Pucci’s wife not only persuaded him to withdraw troops from Rome but subsequently induced three more Italian generals to make equally foolish blunders.”

  One of the few women present, US Treasury Secretary Tillie Armbruster, said, “Women do not always need to fire shots in order to achieve their ends.”

  “How true.” NATO Commander Selkirk touched a button in front of him, and the television screens went back on, showing estimates of UWW military strength in various regions of the world, which he described for those present. Due to successful cloaking procedures instituted by the troublesome women, NATO could only make estimates of the UWW’s war materiel, based on intelligence reports. “I estimate that they have the military capability of a small nation now,” Selkirk said.

  “We have a real problem here,” President Markwether said, in what may have been the understatement of all time.

  * * *

  In the Oval Office, President Markwether stood and shook hands with two BOI men in dark blue suits.

  “Thank you for granting us your valuable time,” said the shorter of the pair—Vice Minister Tommy Lee Chang—as he took a seat in one of the chairs on the blue-and-gold carpet bearing the Presidential seal.

  “Any sign of the Acting Minister?” Markwether asked.

  Chang hesitated, since the United States had no authority over the BOI. “Nothing yet,” he said, presently. “Tertullian had to consult with someone important, that’s all we know.”

  “It’s suspicious that he hasn’t surfaced. Have his bank accounts been checked?”

  Chang nodded. “No unusual activity.” After a moment he added, “With your permission, Mr. President, your time is precious, so may we turn to another subject?”