The Fellowship bc-2

by William Tyree

  In a professional sense, Lang’s career arc was practically unrivaled. Like Pope Benedict himself, Lang had risen from the Hitler Youth and the ashes of a failed Thousand Year Reich to lead the Jesuits, one of the world’s most influential and long-running religious orders, before stepping down to run Vatican Intelligence.

  But just because Lang had headed up “God’s Marines” didn’t necessarily mean he was involved with a modern-day incarnation of the Black Order. But one thing was for sure. If he had asked Callahan to find Wolf, he was somehow connected.

  The question was, was Lang’s mission to seek and destroy, or to assist?

  As important as finding the answer to that question was, Carver knew that he had to be careful in handling Callahan. It was too early to reveal that he knew about Wolf and Lang’s association, and certainly premature to reveal anything further about Preston, Gish, Borst and the others.

  But there was one burning question that had to be answered before all others. He picked up his phone and dialed Father Callahan.

  The priest answered on the first ring. He heard the faint pitch of a teakettle simmering in the background.

  “I was hoping you’d get in touch,” Callahan began. “How’s our fair city treating you?”

  “Fine, thank you. But this isn’t a personal call. I wanted to update you on that name you gave me. Sebastian Wolf?”

  “Ah, yes. What’d you find out?”

  “We checked out that address,” Carver continued, knowing he had to give the priest something. “I can see why you’re having trouble tracking the fellow down. The estate is completely deserted.”

  He heard the disappointment in Callahan’s voice. “Surely you’re not giving up, though. Anyone moving out of a place that big is sure to leave a few breadcrumbs.”

  “Don’t worry. You know how tenacious I am. But in the meantime, I’ve got a question for you, Father. Was anything stolen from the Vatican recently?”

  “Stolen?” the priest repeated. “You mean from the Vatican Museums?”

  “No. Something from the red zones,” Carver said, meaning non-public areas of Vatican City.

  “Come to think of it, yes.”

  The kettle whistle grew louder. “Would you mind moving that off the burner?” Carver asked.

  “Sorry.” The racket faded before Callahan spoke again. “As to your question, as a matter of fact, a painting was stolen from the Royal Palace.”

  “What sort of painting?”

  “An obscure work by…hold on a minute…” It sounded as if he was shuffling through newspapers. “Ah yes. Benvenuto Tisi.”

  “When?”

  “September 21st. As it was explained to me, the pope was away for his last gasp of vacation at Castel Gandolfo, and of course most of the Swiss Guard was away with him, so security was relatively light at the palace. The working theory is that the thieves came and went through a laundry truck, but word is that they’re not entirely sure. Obviously, security in the palace has been heightened massively ever since. Never seen it so high, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’ll bet. I take it the investigators were not Italian police?”

  “Indeed. Internal Vatican investigation. The Swiss Guard apartments are within the city walls, and the Rome police have no jurisdiction here.”

  Carver let forth a grunt of skepticism.

  The priest sipped his tea audibly. “Something not sitting right with you?”

  Even at face value, the story was implausible. Tisi, also known as Il Garofalo, had been among the most prolific Renaissance painters. According to historians, he had worked constantly, and had lived to be very old. During his lifetime, just about every church in Italy was said to have possessed at least one of his paintings.

  But unlike the elite artists such as Rafael, Garofalo was without a signature piece. His work was often criticized for being frigid, both in expression and color. If the thieves had wanted a Garofalo, or several, they could have gotten them in hundreds of places where security was relatively light. Even with the pope away on summer retreat, the palace remained one of the most heavily fortified places in the world.

  Carver did not doubt that there had been a robbery that had triggered such a massive increase in security. But he was willing to bet that what had been taken was far more valuable than a painting by a second-tier Renaissance artist. If his theory was right, Sebastian Wolf had finally completed the mission Heinrich Himmler had sent him on in 1943. He had found the ossuary.

  Haborview Trauma Center

  Seattle

  This time, Ellis woke. Really woke. She had been in and out of sleep for the past 36 hours. The back of her head was impossibly heavy and sore. She sat up, reached around and probed her skull gingerly. Based on the size of her headache, she expected to feel an appendage the size of a grapefruit. But her fingertips found only a cushioned bandage that was sore to the touch.

  “The swelling’s way down,” a voice said. She looked up and saw a nurse at the foot of the bed. A Latino guy with a handsome face.

  Her right side stung. She winced, shutting her eyes as the memory of the Taser prongs lancing her skin came flooding forth. The nurse was suddenly at her side, lifting the gown to take a look. The scabbed-over wounds resembled the bite marks of some enormous snake. “I can give you something for the pain,” the nurse said.

  Ellis started to turn and was immediately thwarted by crushing lower back pain. She now remembered being hit. And she remembered the man with the beard. The flaming beard. Had his face seriously been on fire? She didn’t know. But he had hit her with something big. A plank, maybe. She couldn’t remember what.

  “Easy,” the nurse said. “It might not feel like it right now, but you’re lucky. Your mama must’ve fed you plenty of milk when you were a kid, cuz you’ve got no broken bones.”

  “I don’t feel lucky,” Ellis moaned.

  “Shhh. Your boss is still sleeping.”

  “Boss?”

  The nurse motioned to the second bed. “He’s been snoozing over there for about an hour now, thank God. He’s been asking us all kinds of questions, driving the staff crazy”

  Ellis swiveled her neck slowly until she could see the second bed. The visitor was asleep on his back, snoring lightly. Wrinkled gray suit. Paunch-belly. Curly black head of hair. Salt-and-pepper goatee.

  “Julian,” she said in recognition.

  Palazzo Della Rovere

  The inbound call on Carver’s phone appeared as IDENTITY BLOCKED for less than a second, then transformed as the DNI cloud database unscrambled it. The call was coming from SIS Headquarters in London.

  Carver sighed. It had been days since he had heard anything from Legoland. Maybe they had finally found something useful.

  He answered provisionally, requesting, as a security precaution, video chat prior to accepting audio. Carver was surprised when not one, but three faces popped up on the phone. The DNI’s facial recognition software was slow to respond. It had to sync with its database of intelligence profiles, but it did, gradually, confirm the identity of each of the three faces onscreen: Sam Prichard, SIS Chief Brice Carlisle and the stunning Seven Mansfield.

  “Is it my birthday?” Carver said. “I don’t like surprise parties.”

  “Apologies for the gang bang,” Carlisle replied dryly. “Unfortunately, I had no choice but to call Director Speers a short while ago to alert him about another sad chapter in this saga. He suggested we notify you straight away.”

  “I supposed I’ll have to fly to London for the juicy details?”

  The comment raised eyebrows, but Carver didn’t regret it. He was still pissed about the waste — both in time and budget — incurred in flying to London because of Sir Brice’s paranoia. There was nothing worse than abandoning an already cooling blood trail for the sake of bureaucracy.

  Prichard and Seven held their breath until Carlisle spoke. “Now that you’ve got that bit off your chest, Agent Carver, would you mind turning on the BBC?”

  Carv
er walked to the suite’s master bedroom and switched on the television. He turned to BBC World and was immediately faced with a red ticker sliding across the bottom of the screen.

  UN ENVOY SUK KENYATTA MURDERED IN GENEVA

  Kenyatta was a former Kenyan prime minister and UN secretary general. He was not quite a household name in the States, but that was only because most Americans didn’t follow international politics. Outside the U.S., Kenyatta had more name recognition than Sir Gish, Senator Preston and under-secretary-general Borst put together. He had been in the international news a great deal lately, as he had been appointed the UN envoy in charge of negotiating peace in central Africa.

  Carver turned the TV volume down. “What happened?”

  “We only learned about this 45 minutes ago,” Carlisle replied. “All we know is that he was abducted from his car around lunchtime, and was found hanging, having been rope-tortured like the other victims, in his Geneva hotel. A piece of octagonal-shaped, striped fabric was stuffed into his mouth.”

  Sebastian Wolf had seen to it that his new religion was stocked to the rafters with influential scientists and politicians.

  And so too will the world’s great leaders join the Shepherd in Fellowship, so that they may be in place when the time comes to usher in the new Rule of Light. And those leaders were now paying the ultimate price for membership.

  “What was Kenyatta doing in Europe?” Carver asked.

  “Geneva had been selected as neutral territory for negotiations. You can imagine how this will derail talks now. Each side will blame the other for his death.”

  A global war. Without state. Without end. Carver had seen Brother Melfi’s handwritten proclamation in the evidence files Speers had uploaded from Seattle. The prophecy was coming true. Borst and Kenyatta did not even represent individual nations. They represented the United Nations.

  “We’re dispatching a unit to investigate the crime scene,” Carlisle continued.

  “Why bother?” Carver asked, although he was venting more than making a recommendation. “We know that Kenyatta was connected to Sebastian Wolf. They wouldn’t have targeted him otherwise.”

  Judging by the puzzled faces onscreen, Carver realized the extent of the information gap that had been created in the past few days. There was so much to explain.

  “I’ve got a lot of stuff to catch you up on,” Carver continued. “For now, I feel confident in saying that the Black Order has returned, and that they are targeting senior members of the Fellowship World Initiative.”

  “Hold it,” Prichard said. “In London, you said the Black Order had been dissolved centuries ago.”

  “Which was consistent with historical records,” Carver agreed with appreciation in his voice. If he had been forced to fly to London to discuss something that could have been done remotely, at least Prichard had bothered to listen. “But we are witnessing the work of a highly organized, talented and sustained effort that is obviously well-funded and enjoys considerable reach. Only an organization with the maturity and impeccable intelligence of the Black Order could have known the secret relationship shared by Gish, Preston, Vera Borst and Suk Kenyatta.”

  Carlisle looked uncomfortable. “If I understand you correctly, you’re saying the Vatican is behind this?”

  Carver shook his head. “No. That would be like saying that the government of Saudi Arabia endorsed Al Qaeda because a few terrorists once lived there.”

  “Certain conspiracy theorists have said as much.”

  “And they were wrong about that. Did the Black Order once exist to defend and preserve the Catholic Church and the interests of the pope? Yes. But this level of extreme sadism and brutality would never be tolerated by the Holy See, at least not in its modern form. Odds are that the Black Order is today an autonomous order with no official ties to the Vatican.”

  Carlisle exhaled frustration. “Considering the escalation of violence, I suggested to Director Speers that our governments collaborate in earnest without further delay. He was in full agreement, and has already gathered the necessary approvals. The only question is where.”

  Carver was in no position to refuse. He needed the help. But this time, MI6 was going to have to come to him.

  *

  Carver spent the next hour bringing Nico up to speed. Until now, he had kept his asset at arm’s length from the big picture. Carver had disclosed that some very important people had been killed in a very cruel manner, and that more killings were possible unless they were able to identify and locate the organization behind it. Now he provided background on why these things were taking place.

  He paced the hardwood floor of their suite as he talked, stopping occasionally to hydrate and stretch. When at last he had laid out all that he had gleaned from Drucker’s manuscript, the classified documents Speers had sent, and the crime scene details from Seattle, London and D.C., he noted something he hadn’t yet seen in Nico’s expression — panic.

  “You okay?” Carver asked.

  “How would anyone be okay after hearing all that?” Nico said. “This is epic! Who knows how high this goes? Is the Chinese premier in the Fellowship? How about the Queen of England?”

  Carver straightened up. “If Drucker’s org chart is any indication, I think the answers to those questions are no and no.”

  The wiry hacker stood up, using both hands to pull absentmindedly at his hair. “But you said yourself that Drucker had been exiled from the organization for several years. His org chart is out of date.”

  “We can’t worry about that now. The Black Order began killing the moment the ossuary was taken from the Vatican. We have no choice but to help them find it.”

  Nico’s eyes grew wide. “Help the Black Order? They’re terrorists!”

  “They may be evil, but they’re not terrorists.”

  “Oh come on! You said yourself that they killed a senator!”

  “A terror group would have settled for any congressman. It would have also sought publicity. The Black Order’s goals appear to be very defined. For now, they exist to repossess and safeguard the ossuary. If we can return it to the Vatican, then we have a chance at restoring security.”

  “I can’t believe you’re defending them.”

  Carver looked Nico directly in the eyes. “Believe me, Senator Preston’s killers will be brought to justice. Leave that to me. But the Black Order could be further radicalized if we can’t find the ossuary in time.”

  “In time for what?”

  Carver pulled his tablet up off the table and tapped to open a document that Arunus Roth had sent him. “It’s time that I shared this with you.” He handed it to Nico, who was immediately lost in dozens of rows of financials.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “The old accounting books of LifeEmberz, Adrian Zhu’s company. Early on, the company began experimenting with the extraction of mitochondrial DNA from exhumed bodies, some of which were hundreds or thousands of years old, then trying to clone offspring from it using stem cells. Highly controversial, obviously. A process that they were later rumored to have perfected after the company moved its offices to China.”

  “So?”

  “Remember the two bodies we saw in the Rome morgue? They were Black Order operatives sent to kill Adrian Zhu.”

  “Because of something in the company financials?”

  “No. Just listen. Until today, I believed Zhu might be working with Sebastian Wolf, but I had nothing to go on other than the octagon found on the gunmen and a strong hunch. Then I went back over the LifeEmberz files that the government seized after the company fled the U.S. Early on, LifeEmberz received a substantial seed investment, paid in cash. The company had originally told the IRS that it had been an anonymous gift. If you’ll look at the initials on the balance sheet, however, the source is marked FWI, which they originally explained as standing for ‘From Wise Investors’. After a second look, I think we know what FWI stands for.”

  “Fellowship…World…Initiative.”

>   Carver nodded. “There was also a matching cash withdrawal from one of the Fellowship’s accounts.”

  “Wait, Wolf was behind Zhu’s research from the beginning?”

  “That’s right. And when the technology was perfected, he wanted to own it. That meant making Zhu a convert.”

  Nico collapsed in his chair at the realization. “He’s trying to reincarnate Christ.”

  Carver took the tablet, pulled up the prophecy from Drucker’s manuscript, and read. “And when I am reborn to the world, the knowledge hoarders shall be exposed as bearers of false idols.” He looked at Nico. “Not reincarnated, Nico, but born.”

  “This is crazy. It’s worse than crazy.”

  “People think Scientology is crazy too, but look how many powerful people are drawn to it?” He stood, looking down at the prophecy, then to Nico. “Well, now you understand the stakes.”

  “And what if we can’t find the ossuary in time?”

  Carver went to the window and rested his shoulder against the frame as he looked out. “Then the Black Order will be the least of our worries.”

  Somewhere Over The Northwest

  The Cessna Citation X leveled off at 43,000 feet, flying at a speed just shy of Mach 1. At this rate they would be back in D.C. in less than two hours. Ellis did not feel the speed. At her request, Speers had ordered the cabin lights switched off for the duration of the trip. Her eyes were unnaturally sensitive to light. A normal symptom of the concussion, the doctor had explained as he had begged her to remain under his care for another night.

  Half-circles, nearly dark as the bruises on her side and back, sat beneath her eyes. She was just as happy that Carver was still in Europe. The thought of facing him like this was humiliating. She hoped big sunglasses were in style this year, because she was going to be wearing them for at least a week.

  She reached into her bag and retrieved an energy drink that she had purchased at the hospital gift shop. She could easily sleep, but she was sick of that. She wanted nothing more than to clear the cobwebs from her mind. To puzzle the pieces together.