Beyond Eden
Page 16
He stopped at the foot of the staircase. There was an electric light switch on the wall, but he didn’t flip it. Enough light filtered down from the kitchen that once her eyes adjusted, Geri could see well enough.
Against one wall stood two large, modern professional washing machines and two large dryers. Against the opposite wall ran a long stone trough. A small, steady stream of water ran into it from above.
“The laundry,” she said softly.
The monk nodded. “The thousand-year-old laundry,” he whispered in return. “This is the room Arsenios Skinouris so labored over in the plans. The water there comes from a natural spring. It’s always flowing, always moving.”
Geri looked at it and dipped her hand into it. “It’s cold,” she said with a shiver.
“‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to drink from the river of life and may enter the city by the gates.’”
He headed across the darkened room, toward a wooden door, its top rounded into an arch. She followed him across. He stopped in front of it. She found she could hardly make out his face in the shadows.
“I do not know why you have been called to be here,” he said. “It may be you have either wisdom or some sort of resources, either spiritual or material, that is needed at this time. I don’t know. You will see if the Lord speaks to you. All I know is that I am to bring you here.”
With that, he opened the ancient door. Outside the door, in iron brackets on the wall, were two torches, the kind Geri had seen in paintings from the Middle Ages. He lifted one out of its holder. The base was nearly a yard long. She didn’t know what was on top, but it leapt to flame with the touch of a lighter that he’d produced from beneath his cassock.
“Come,” he said.
She stepped into the dark tunnel, and he closed the door firmly behind them.
February 26, 2006, 10:36 a.m.
Tranholmen Island
Stockholm, Sweden
* * *
Whoa! This is so cool, thought Eric as he wandered down the path through the deep woods. He wished he’d been able to explore it weeks before.
An hour earlier, he’d dug through his dresser, layering long underwear, a T-shirt, and two sweaters underneath his ski bib overalls. Over the top went a hooded parka and Moon Boots. The finishing touch was the thickest pair of gloves he could find. The resulting effect was that he moved more like a robot than a teenage boy but felt warm and toasty as he walked on this crisp, clear morning.
Eric gave himself an hour to explore the estate. Any more and he risked being found out. So he was trying to make the most of his time and move out smartly in spite of his extra clothes. He had already discovered a path that led to the waterfront where an empty dock looked forbidding in the icy water. From there the path disappeared into the woods, winding away from the shore through groves of birch mixed with thick clumps of evergreen.
Each birch grove was bright and cheery as the sun shone down through bare tree branches. The occasional stand of evergreen, however, provided a contrast of shadows and scented air. The path, while not straight, was well-worn and easy to follow. Eric had no concern about losing his way as he explored this new world.
The time passed quickly, and just as his hour was almost up and he was ready to turn back, Eric unexpectedly came to a dead end against a high chain-link gate. He couldn’t see through the gate, for thick green canvas covered the fencing. To the right and left, evenly spaced spruce bushes stood like sentries in front of tall chain-link fencing.
What’s a fence like this doing in the middle of my island? he thought. Noting the tightly wound razor wire along the top of the 12-foot-high enclosure, he was stymied about what would require that sort of security.
Since he could not see through the gate, he tried to push between two of the bushes. It was hard work, as the thick branches scratched at his face, but he managed to push enough aside to reach the fence, where he discovered there was no canvas covering. As he leaned forward to peek into the enclosure, Eric was shocked to find himself face-to-face with a young man who was, he guessed, only a few years older than himself.
“Vad heter du?” Eric asked the teenager.
The young man behind the fence seemed every bit as shocked as Eric.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you said,” replied the young man in English.
Eric easily switched to English. “I said, who are you? What’s your name?”
The boy wore a parka and a dark ski hat. The coat was unzipped, and underneath he saw a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Rock’n’Roll.” He had dark skin and intelligent eyes. He seemed to be American, at least to speak with an American accent. He looked back over his shoulder as if afraid someone might see him talking to the fence. “I’m Daniel. Daniel Derry. Who are you?”
“Eric Carlson. What are you doing inside this fence? Is it some sort of reform school or something?”
“No, I’ve been kidnapped. We’ve been kidnapped. I think there are five of us. We’re prisoners here.” Daniel turned slightly sideways, and Eric could see that he was holding a little kid, bundled tightly against the cold.
What was he talking about? How could they have been kidnapped?
“No way!”
“Yes, way. And, look, I’ve got to sit with my back against the fence and talk without looking at you. If the guards see me talking with you, it could be dangerous for both of us.”
“Wow,” said Eric as he pulled his head back slightly so that it could not be seen. Was this guy just messing with him? Sometimes older kids did that, making up stories to see who would fall for them. Eric was never fooled by these stories, but this one was almost too crazy to make up!
As Daniel slid to the ground, he put the toddler down on the snowy ground. She just sat, with a plunk. He crossed his arms on top of his knees and put his head down, as if resting. “Where are we?” His voice was muffled under his arms.
“Tranholmen Island.”
“Where is that? I didn’t recognize the language you were speaking.”
“You mean you don’t even know what country you’re in?”
“I was kidnapped in Virginia, United States, knocked out, and woke up here a couple of weeks ago.”
“Virginia? Wow. Now you’re in Sweden, on an island in the Lilla Värtan, not far north of Stockholm. The estate where I live is about two hundred meters back that way through the woods, but we just moved here a few months ago, and I didn’t even know this compound existed until now. Are you being held for ransom?”
“I don’t think so. They are doing some weird medical experiments. There haven’t been any pictures or phone calls or stuff you expect with a ransom demand. And there are three or four others also being held, but they don’t let us talk to each other. The thing that really worries me is the guards don’t cover their faces at all, like they’re not worried about us I.D.’ing them. That tells me one thing… when the experiment is done, so are we.” His voice fell. “And I think that time’s come.”
“Seriously?” Eric stared at the huddled figure sitting against the fence. The toddler leaned against him, hugging his leg. She looked up at him with large dark eyes. Could this be true? Could these children be captives?
Eric’s quiet, controlled life was suddenly spinning. He had to break this down and think rationally—but there didn’t seem to be any rational way to think about this.
The fact was he liked Daniel. Thought he could have even been a friend, and friends had been few and far between in Eric’s short span of years. He was not about to lose that possibility before it ever had a chance to develop. “I’ll try to help. I’m not exactly strong, I don’t have any weapons or anything like that, but there has to be something I can do.”
“Eric,” Daniel said. “You don’t need to be strong. You just need to be our person on the outside. Did you ever see that old movie The Great Escape about a bunch of POWs making a break for it? Getting outside is only half the battle. Knowing where you
are and how to find your way out of enemy territory is the other half. You’re the one who knows how to get us away from this place.”
“I can find out,” Eric said softly.
“That would be great. But you’ll need to be fast—and you’ll need to be careful. If they catch you, you might get locked up with us, or hurt or something. So don’t tell anyone about this. I have a plan that will get us into this yard, but we’ll need to get through the fence and, after that, find the quickest way to the mainland and the police. Do you think you can help me with that?”
“I’m on it. I have some ideas already.”
“I think I can be back out in this yard around four p.m. Can we meet then?”
“I’ll be here.” Eric leaned farther back into the bushes as the door from the building opened and a burly man in some sort of lab coat stepped out, motioning for Daniel to come in. “Don’t give up,” whispered Eric. “I’ve got your back.”
He watched Daniel’s shoulders straighten as he picked up the little baby and headed for the open door and the return to his cell.
February 26, 2006, 10:43 a.m.
Monastery of St. John
Chora, Patmos
* * *
They padded quietly down the old stone passage. It was dry and cool. Every now and then they passed another bracket on the dark stone wall, but none of them contained torches. They came to one sharp turn and then another. It seemed they were walking in the dark for a very long time. When another tunnel branched off to the right, Geri started to turn down it, but Brother Timothy put his hand on her arm and guided her straight ahead, to what looked like a dead end. As they got closer, the torchlight revealed the outline of a door in the rock. Geri remembered that the whole monastery had been built to be purposely labyrinthine.
The monk produced a large old-fashioned iron key and inserted it into a lock she hadn’t noticed, even when looking at the door.
It swung open. He stepped inside the room and flipped on a light switch. Seeing her surprise, he laughed. “This room is just below the museum. Fortunately, they ran electricity down. I still don’t have a computer hookup, as in the upstairs library, but the light is very handy.”
He stepped back, allowing her to enter. She gave a small gasp of delight.
Before her was an ancient library. A large wooden table groaned under stacks of papers and manuscripts; old dark wood shelves lined the walls. On one wall, the manuscripts were boxed and neatly labeled. On the wall across, they still burst forth from piles, wooden boxes, and metal chests.
“You can see how Brother Stefanos, the librarian, needs help,” said Brother Timothy. “It will take decades to sort through everything that is here.”
Geri nodded wordlessly.
“Come over. There are some things I want you to see. But first, if you don’t mind—” He pulled a couple of disposable gloves from a large box and took two for himself. “We don’t want to get any oils on the parchments,” he said.
She put them on and stepped over in front of where he stood.
On the polished wooden table sat a small stack of long parchments. Geri saw they were floor plans of the monastery. “These are some of the papers that Arsenios Skinouris drafted for Father Christodoulos, many centuries ago.”
Geri looked at them as Brother Timothy brought each to the top of the stack before her. In fact, they showed the current layout of the monastery: refectory, kitchen, church, chapel, walkways, and courtyards. On the second level were the monks’ cells and offices and the large public library.
Then he brought out the sketch of the tunnels they were now in. Instead of small notations, labels, and measurements, in the laundry room was a verse in the same handwriting as the rest of the notations. The words were in Greek, but Brother Timothy translated as she read:
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to drink from the river of life and may enter the city by the gates.
“I had to ask myself, why does he keep writing that? What did he mean? Was it only an allusion to keeping your soul pure? But if so, why write it on the plans for the laundry?”
Geri shook her head.
“I wanted you to see this. I wanted you to feel the original parchment, to hold it in your hands. Now come.”
They went back out of the library, locking it again behind them. Then, to her surprise, Brother Timothy retraced their steps back along the inky blackness of the stone hallways until they stood in the laundry once again. She noticed that he hadn’t doused the torch, even though the daylight filtered down from above.
He put his fingers to his mouth, requesting her quiet.
Then he went to the long stone trough along the far wall, where the spring water still ran. Together they stood. His head was slightly hung, as if in prayer.
Then he stooped, dipped his cupped hands into the water of the trough, and brought them up. He stood tall and raised his hands above Geri and then let the cold droplets pour onto her head. A new baptism.
“Amen,” he said.
“Amen,” she answered.
He put his foot onto what seemed to be some sort of ancient stone built into the wall at the end of the trough.
It wasn’t a stone at all. It was a lever. And as he stepped on it, the closest end of the long trough slid sideways in a groove. And there, between the ancient laundry and the wall, was a dark hole.
“I’ll go first,” whispered Brother Timothy, and he put his foot down into the hole and kept stepping down, until he disappeared below into the dark.
February 26, 2006, 10:51 a.m.
Tranholmen Island
Stockholm, Sweden
* * *
Daniel shrugged off his parka awkwardly, trying to keep a strong grip on the baby as he removed his outdoor clothing. Lab Coat Guy stood by, arm held out and snapping his fingers as he impatiently waited for the young man to hand him the coat.
A second guard, sitting in the lab kitchenette with his feet propped up on the table, smirked as he observed his co-worker’s frustration.
Spying an open pack of Trident Splash gum on the counter, Daniel asked politely, “May I please have a piece of gum?”
“Forget it!” said Lab Coat Guy with a nasty snarl. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth already. You were lucky the doc agreed to let you go outside. Get moving!” And in his typical fashion he gave the boy a shove down the hall. Daniel, who had now come to expect this behavior, managed to keep his balance so as not to drop the toddler.
“Here, kid,” said the other guard, who seemed in an unusually upbeat mood. He grabbed the pack of gum off the counter and flung it in Daniel’s direction. The boy reached up with his free hand, snagged the package expertly, and quickly stuffed it into his pocket before anyone decided to take it back.
“Oh, come on!” whined Lab Coat Guy. “That was my gum.”
“Give the kid a break,” said the other man. “You have a lot more where that came from.”
Daniel continued to move slowly toward his cell, not wanting to be caught in the middle of the argument. Lab Coat Guy stomped up behind him, opened the door, and pushed him in, flicking the bolt lock shut from the outside.
Daniel set the baby on the bed and immediately pulled out the gum to examine the pack. Four pieces, what a score! He’d hoped for one, maybe two at the most. But this was perfect.
Sensing his excitement, the little girl clapped and giggled, “Nayal! Nayal!”
Daniel smiled and grabbed the baby up into his arms as he danced around the room. Then he stopped, holding the baby up so they were face-to-face, and whispered to her conspiratorially.
“Now, my little partner in crime, we’re ready to put together the final pieces of this escape. So let’s get to it!”
He set the baby back down on the bed and picked up the fork from the table. Then, stepping up and straddling his young charge on the bed, he reached up to begin tapping out a new message on the hot-water pipe.
The infant reached out and grabbe
d a handful of Daniel’s pant cuff, contentedly leaning her head against his leg as he tapped out a new message to his fellow captives.
February 26, 2006, 10:59 a.m.
Monastery of St. John
Chora, Patmos
* * *
Jaime sat in the empty courtyard between the refectory and the kitchen, surreptitiously listening to Geri and Brother Timothy and following Geri’s position on her handheld. She needed to know just who this Constantine/Brother Timothy was and what he was up to. He’d seemed harmless enough when she and Geri had arrived at the lower entrance to the monastery, and Geri had introduced the two of them. But this all seemed like a wild-goose chase—one that had little to do with finding Britta Sunmark. Unless she was somehow here on Patmos, perhaps even near the monastery?
How much responsibility did Jaime have for Geri, the woman she’d just met? It didn’t seem that she was in extreme physical danger, and Geri had willingly gotten herself involved in whatever this was.
A chilly breeze blew, and Jaime heard the chanting that signaled the end of the Sunday service in the main chapel.
She had to decide. Once service was out, there was no way she could follow Geri.
“Where are you? I can’t see you, it’s so dark,” Geri’s voice said in her ear.
“One more foot down, and you can grasp the railing,” Brother Timothy replied.
Oh, drat, thought Jaime.
As the two kitchen helpers brought another load of butter, olive oil, and condiments past her through the courtyard, she heard the opening of the church doors down around the corner.
She made her decision, slipped quickly up the steps into the ancient, now-industrial kitchen, walked straight to the back, and ducked down the open staircase to the darkened laundry below. She sighed again to herself as she flattened herself out of sight against the cold stone wall and attempted to catch her breath.