by Vincent Czyz
Drew waited. He tried to breathe without breathing. He was sure Raymond could hear the air rasping in his lungs, the heart thumping his chest, the acid percolating in his stomach.
“Gary!” Raymond’s voice was as shrill as metal tearing under stress.
Blades of ice sliced through him; the Sicarii was directly opposite him on the other side of the wall.
Padding softly across boards, dirt, and exposed stone, Drew negotiated a zigzag of passages that finally brought him to a spacious chamber.
“Buradayim.” I’m here. Kadir’s voice was a harsh whisper.
“We have to keep going west …”
“How we are knowing which fucking way is the west?” Kadir hissed.
“Follow me.”
There was a half circle of an opening just large enough for them to crawl through. It was protected by an iron grate.
“Push! Hurry!”
The rusty grate squeaked open and Kadir crawled through. Dropping down on his stomach, Drew waddled elbow to elbow, his body imitating a lizard. He closed the tiny gate from the other side and shoved an iron rod through a set of iron loops. “That’s it.”
“But there is no lock.”
“It ought to slow them down just enough.” Drew flashed a circle of light on a box in a corner of the room. “Go get yourself a flashlight.”
“Cok akilli!” Very clever! Digging through the box, Kadir’s glee suddenly soured. “Salak! Hich silah yok!” Idiot! No weapons!
“I’m sorry, Kadir. No more guns.”
“But they will kill to us!”
“No they won’t.” He had packed a pair of small flashlights, flares, two cell phones, and two cans of pepper spray. “I’ve got one more surprise for them.”
“Already they are here.” Kadir’s voice was a barely audible whisper.
Drew heard the Sicarii in the adjacent chamber. He clicked off his penlight.
A cigarette lighter cast elongated shadows of the bars on the stone floor.
Crouching down, Drew approached the opening from an oblique angle.
Strahan looked up just in time to get hit by a jet of pepper spray. He fell back with a cry, and Drew sprinted out of the chamber.
Kadir was waiting for him in a corridor.
“This way!” Drew didn’t slow.
The beams of their flashlights shuddered and jerked as they ran through the brick-and-marble undergirding of Constantine’s city. Drew stopped to consult the floor where he’d left a barely perceptible arrow scratched in the floor. Drops of sweat splattered at his feet.
Kadir pointed. “Look … there is light.”
Flickering crimson turned a small doorway into an infernal mouth.
“There’s a stairway just ahead that leads up to the street.”
The low arch was composed of flat bricks, edge-on and arrayed to suggest short, thick rays of light. Ducking down, Drew followed Kadir through what might have been a forgotten gate to hell.
They entered an enormous chamber lit by sizzling flares. Drew recognized a row of arched openings, each large enough to allow a chariot through, as entrances to the stalls where vendors had once sold to the crowds that had thronged Constantinople’s hippodrome.
“You made it!” Nathan was grinning. “Both of you.” Nathan’s skin seemed a variety of stone in the ruddy light of the flares.
Josh was a few feet behind him, his face flushed crimson.
Both men were dressed in commando black.
The victory grin on Drew’s face melted as Josh raised an automatic pistol, pulled the slide, and aimed it at the back of Nathan’s head.
10: 12
TRIAL BY COMBAT
“DON’T TURN AROUND. Don’t even inhale.”
Zafer’s warning rang in Drew’s head: How hard can it be to infiltrate a church?
“I’m sorry, Nathan, but I don’t have any choice. This scroll is more important than you … me … all of us.”
Kadir hurled his flashlight. Even from about fifteen feet away, his aim was good enough to make Josh duck. The shot went astray.
Nathan whirled around with a back-fist.
Josh blocked it with his right arm, but the gun was also in his right hand.
Nathan’s hand slid up toward Josh’s wrist and locked on. Stepping around him, Nathan hammered his ribs. Still gripping his wrist, he pivoted and brought his left armpit down over Josh’s right arm, trapping it. Twisting Josh’s wrist and pressuring down on the elbow with his weight, he forced Josh to his knees with a cry. Twisting again, this time at the trunk, he extracted another groan of pain.
The pistol clattered to the floor.
Without releasing his hold, Nathan kicked the pistol away. “It’s over, Josh.”
“Not yet.” Josh struggled to free himself, but Nathan cranked the hold tighter, and Josh’s cheek smacked the floor.
“I’ll break your elbow if I have to.”
Josh’s left hand came up with a can of pepper spray, but Nathan made good on his threat, bringing all of his weight to bear on the elbow.
Josh shrieked, and the can of pepper spray did a brief, end-to-end tap dance on the stone. Joshed writhed in pain.
“Drew! Kadir!”
Drew grabbed Josh below the knees and held down his legs. Kadir concentrated on the uninjured arm. Nathan, patting Josh down, came up with a wicked-looking knife and a tiny pistol.
Drew and Kadir let him go.
Josh lay on his back, his breathing racked, his ruined arm curled against his chest. “Too bad … Nathan,” he wheezed, his face half grimace, half maniacal grin. “You’ve got my weapons …” His breathing was rapid and shallow. “But you can’t … use them.”
“I can.” Kadir, his short legs planted wide and his arms straight out, held the pistol Josh had dropped. He fired four times.
One of the bullets caught Josh under the jaw and destroyed the top of his skull.
“That is for Zafer.”
Two more shots rang out. Kadir fell. Josh’s pistol hit the floor with a metallic echo.
For the second time, Nathan did the unexpected. He fired twice with Josh’s .25 automatic, hitting stone both times but forcing the shadowy assassin back into in the archway from which he had emerged.
“I see you have given up your Ebionite oath.” The English was accented by French.
“I see you’ve never known the meaning of the word Christian,” Nathan answered.
Drew sprinted to Kadir. A bullet had entered through his back and come out the chest. Drew stripped off his jacket and shirt. He covered the wound with his shirt and pressed down.
“Go ahead, Raymond …” Drew called. “Shoot me! In two days the scroll will go to the Turkish Antiquities Police by courier, and a group e-mail will be sent out to every contact Professor Cutherton had. This city will look like it’s holding another ecclesiastical council.”
“Drew, you can’t.” Jesse’s voice was a melancholy echo.
“Go ahead, kill us, and see what happens.”
“You are bloofing.”
“You think I’m bluffing?” Drew stood up, his bare torso unnaturally red in the light of the flare. “Go ahead, Raymie, shoot.”
“Drew!”
Drew ignored Nathan, his eyes on the low doorway from which Raymond had shot Kadir. He thumped his chest with a fist. “Go ahead and shoot!”
“Dreeeeew! Get down!”
“Zafer’s dead. Kadir’s dying. I don’t care anymore. As long as you lose, Raymond, I don’t give a fuck.” He hammered his chest again. “C’mon!” he snarled. “If there’s a God, I have nothing to worry about. But you! You’re going straight to hell!”
“Goddammit, Drew, get down!”
“Un moment, mon ami. Kadir can still be saved.”
“You’re right. I’m calling an ambulance.” Drew reached into his pocket and dialed 112.
“Yes, call them,” Raymond said soothingly. “They will never find us down here. You will have to bring him up. Call … and then we will settl
e this.” He came out of the doorway with his hands up, his pistol pointed at the ceiling.
Drew finished with the Turkish dispatcher and put away the cell phone.
Raymond knelt down and put the pistol on the floor. He took out his knife and put it down next to the gun. He began to unbutton his shirt. He looked at Nathan. “I know you won’t shoot an unarmed man.”
“Kill him,” Kadir whispered. “Kill him, Nathan.”
“You and I, Ebionite, we will settle this. Trial by combat. We will let God decide. Eef I win, the scroll is ours. All of you go free. As God is my witness, I swear this. Eef you win, the scroll is yours, and still all of you go free. Either way, there is no more loss of life. Agreed?”
Drew shook his head. “I don’t believe him.”
“Why does no one shoot him?” Kadir moaned.
“Look.” Raymond held his arms out, and pulled up the legs of his pants to show he had nothing hidden in his socks. “I am at your mercy. Nathan can kill me now if he chooses. Or you. You can pick up the pistol Kadir dropped eef the Ebionite doesn’t have the nerve for killing. By my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I swear, eef Nathan defeats me, we will let you go. It ees the old way. The honorable way. The champion of one army fights the champion of another. Slaughter is averted. The will of God is revealed.”
“It is stupid way,” Kadir coughed out.
Nathan worked his way out of the flak jacket he was wearing and peeled off a black pull-over.
The two men, stripped to the waist, approached each other warily, each in more or less a boxer’s stance. Raymond’s upper arm was bandaged, and ugly splotches defaced his left side.
They circled each other patiently, each trying to read something in the other’s face or in the position of his body.
The Frenchman was taller by several inches, his muscles wire-taut, his pale torso without any visible fat. A long scar marred one pectoral.
Nathan was stockier, his muscles less defined, but his body equally trim.
Drew tore the cap off another flare and tossed it onto the floor.
Strahan, rubbing his swollen eyes and blinking rapidly, emerged from the arched doorway.
Drew grabbed Josh’s pistol and aimed it at the Sicarii. “HANDS!”
Strahan complied. “I can’t even see.” He turned to Jesse. “Throw him your purse.”
She tossed the leather bag over to him.
Drew opened it up and took out her Walther; it was right next to Bastard Prince of T’orrh. He reached around and tucked the weapon in the waistband of his pants.
“Okay?” Strahan asked. “Feel better? Now we’re perfectly matched. You have a pistol, I have a pistol. Only mine is in its holster and yours is in your hand. And I can’t see.”
Drew nodded. “Losing side gives up its weapons. Agreed?”
Strahan rubbed an eye. “Agreed.”
Drew kicked his shirt toward Jesse. “Would you mind using that to slow the bleeding?” He tipped his head toward Kadir.
Jesse picked up the shirt and knelt beside Kadir.
“Gyavur,” he growled.
“I don’t know that that means, but I know it isn’t good.” She folded Drew’s shirt into a rough square and pressed down on the wound.
Raymond stepped in with a jab. Nathan slipped to the side and let go with a kick at Raymond’s ribs. Raymond brought an elbow across his flank and blocked it.
A long leg whipped out so fast Drew almost missed it. Nathan stepped back and parried. Raymond pressed the attack and somehow one of his lashing kicks caught Nathan in the temple.
Drew had never seen anyone break through Nathan’s defenses before.
Nathan rolled with the blow as Raymond followed up with an overhand right. Nathan evaded the punch, and countered with a hook that landed flush on Raymond’s jaw. At close quarters now, Nathan followed with a palm heel. Raymond blocked the palm heel and launched his own. Nathan took it on a shoulder.
Then began a graceful choreography of short blows—palm heels, elbows, forearm chops, knee strikes—all of which were expertly blocked or slipped by both men. In the space of perhaps thirty seconds, Drew lost count.
It was a head-butt that split open the flesh just over Nathan’s right eye.
Nathan was actually bleeding. Drew had come to think of him as invincible, but fear opened a vacuum that sucked at his stomach. Would he honor an oath made to murderers? To Zafer’s killers? To fanatics who were going to bury the greatest biblical find in history? Was saving their three lives worth it?
Deal with the Devil and you become one yourself. Where had he heard that?
A rivulet of blood poured into Nathan’s right eye, broke jaggedly, and streaked the side of his face.
Raymond took advantage of the handicap. Circling to that side, he threw most of his strikes with his singed left arm and left leg. A punch landed over Nathan’s eye and droplets of blood lit by the flare flew like ruby chips.
Drew stared in disbelief. I’m not giving up the scroll! he swore silently. He wasn’t handing over anything to Zafer’s murderers. You have to find a way to win, Nathan. He tried to reach the ex-cop telepathically. You have to.
The two men were grappling now. They went down hard on the stone floor, but Raymond seemed to have taken the brunt of the fall. It was hard to see in the crimson light exactly what was happening, but Raymond had writhed out from underneath Nathan and was gaining leverage.
Nathan caught Raymond’s ankle in the crook of a bent elbow, jammed a forearm into the knee, and torqued the leg violently.
Something snapped.
Raymond’s shriek was chilling.
Nathan whipped an elbow into the Sicarii’s face. The wet crunch Drew heard might have been Raymond’s nose breaking.
Raymond rolled away in agony.
“It’s over, Raymond.”
Moaning piteously, Raymond flopped end over end, his eyes squeezed shut.
Drew breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t until Raymond flipped over twice more—slowly, almost as if for dramatic effect—that Drew realized how close the Sicarii was to his pistol.
“NATHAN!” Drew raised the Glock.
Raymond sat up, pistol in his hand.
A series of shots rang out, and Raymond’s chest exploded in four different places. He fell back with his arms wide.
Strahan stepped forward, his automatic still trained on Raymond. He kicked Raymond’s 9 mm away and then, dropping to his knees, put his pistol on the floor and slid it over to Nathan. “Gary Strahan, ex-FBI.” He laced the fingers of both hands behind his head. “I’m on your side.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Drew didn’t lower the Glock.
“The Bureau has been keeping tabs on fanatical religious groups of all kinds since 9/11, but field work in Rome and Jerusalem is a little out of our jurisdiction. Especially if you try infiltrating churches instead of mosques. I resigned from the agency. I guess I’m what you’d call a free agent. The Knights of Malta hired me.”
“Well you waited till the last fuckin’ minute, didn’t you?”
“Sorry, Drew. That’s just how it worked out. Now if you don’t mind, I’m outta here … I’m not real big on the idea of being arrested in Turkey. Keep the Glock.”
Drew motioned with the muzzle of the pistol for Strahan to get up. “You know the way out?”
“I’ll manage.”
Jesse was sobbing into her hands.
“I’m so sorry …” She was looking at Raymond’s body. “I never meant …” She looked up at Drew, her face bloodied by the flare. She coughed into another fit of crying.
“You’re an accomplice, but you didn’t shoot anybody.”
“Yes I did.” She nodded frantically. “I’m the one. I killed Cutherton.”
10: 13
CONFESSIONS
“NO.” DREW SHOOK HIS HEAD. “You couldn’t have.” His face felt as though it had been injected with Novocain.
“I shot him, Drew. Me.”
“I don�
�t want to hear it.” His mind was a tar pit, everything hopelessly mired in it. “I can’t handle it right now. I can’t.” He led the way up a flight of stone steps. “We’re going to wait for the ambulance.” He wore his jean jacket, but had no shirt on underneath.
“You’re not so innocent either, Drew.” Jesse followed him up the stairs. “You helped kill my mother. You and Cutherton.”
“Not now, Jess.” Drew kept climbing. “Your smugness. That’s why she was so unprofessional that day. You were so sure of yourself, she couldn’t stand it. It should have been over when you graduated, but it wasn’t. Do you remember a student in our class named Lisa? Lisa Dent?”
Drew didn’t answer. At the top of the stairs was a modern door. Drew ran his fingers along the top of the lintel until he felt a key. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, and flipped a light switch. Fluorescent tubes overhead flickered sleepily in a corridor.
“The quiet type? Methodical, diligent?” Jesse was right behind him. “You inspired her.”
Drew was surprised he had inspired anyone, but his face was still numb, expressionless.
“She spent the next two years digging up the lies of the saints, the deceptions of the Popes, the contradictions in the Bible, the flaws in my mother’s books. It led to a much more serious incident. The university forced my mother into retirement.”
“Lisa’s at Stanford now.”
“You knew?”
“I saw her byline once or twice. I didn’t know about what happened with your mother.”
Their footsteps echoed softly.
“Where the hell are we?”
“In the basement of a high school.” Drew pointed to a window in a door. Desks in a state of disarray were visible through the glass.
Drew took Jesse’s hand and led them up another staircase. They let go of each other’s hand at the same time.
Drew leaned into the cross-bar of a steel door.
The night air carried a dry chill. They were in a square just west of the Blue Mosque. Drew strode briskly toward it. He didn’t want to look at Jesse.
She trotted to keep up. “After my mother was forced into retirement, she spent most of her time finishing the book she’d been working on for nearly twenty years. Cutherton, I’m sure you know, ripped it apart in a review that amounted to a personal attack.”