by Al Ruksenas
The bird on the statue cocked its head one way, then another.
Below, Sherwyck’s eyes narrowed. He stared intently ahead and repeated, but this time softly aloud. “Elohim, Elohim, Eloah Va‐Dath…”
Vice President Mansfield turned to him.
“How’s that again, Victor?”
Sherwyck did not respond. He intoned just a little bit louder and turned his head to the Vice President so no others around them could hear. He repeated more intently in challenge to the prayers Reverend Rand was reading from the pulpit. “Elohim, Elohim, Eloah Va‐Dath,” Sherwyck picked up the cadence, but at a barely audible pitch. “Elohim, El Adonai. El Tzabaoth, Shaddai. Tetragrammaton. Iod. El Elohim, Shaddai.”
The Vice President kept staring at the mumbling Victor Sherwyck. He turned to the pew behind him to see if anyone else was hearing this gibberish. Everyone’s eyes seemed fixed on Reverend Rand at the pulpit. Vice President Mansfield turned his head towards a side aisle where a Secret Service agent was sitting. The agent instinctively returned his gaze and noticed the quizzical look on the Vice President’s face.
Before either could communicate, the marble bracket supporting the statue failed, causing it to teeter forward and fall below at a diagonal. The statue’s feet hit the cathedral floor, shattering. In microseconds the rest of the saint’s sculpted likeness brushed past Victor Sherwyck, splintered the backrest of the pew in front of him, and as the rest of the statue shattered, it clipped Vice President Louis Mansfield’s head just enough to kill him.
In the moments it took for everyone to realize what had happened, Victor Sherwyck sat triumphantly amid the rubble, gloating that even in this house of God, this place he feared, the prayers of all those assembled were too perfunctory to overcome the challenge of his Prince. His cause, he concluded with a satisfying smirk, was still much greater.
While Secret Service agents formed a cordon around their now dead charge, Sherwyck glanced quickly at the shattered statue before he, himself, was shunted away with other dignitaries. It was John, The Evangelist, whose sheared marble face stared serenely from the rubble on the cathedral floor.
“How fitting,” Sherwyck muttered cynically, daring anyone to hear him in the confusion. “The author of the Apocalypse.”
The President’s detail several pews ahead was already spiriting the Chief Executive away past Reverend Rand at the pulpit and through the sacristy of the Cathedral to his waiting motorcade.
Other security services were hurrying their own dignitaries out of the cathedral even as Reverend Rand raised his arms and pleaded above the din. “In God’s name. Please! Everyone stay calm! There’s been a terrible accident! Please!” The Reverend was not sure himself of what exactly had happened.
Due to the uncertainty of why the statue fell and that eleven more were perched above, the funeral service was stopped. It would either have to be delayed or continue as a private family service in one of the smaller alcoves in the church. Family and close friends huddled around the Reverend and urged him to continue at a side altar. A larger memorial would have to be rescheduled at a later date.
Chapter 31
"It's the Vice President, sir! A falling statue hit his head! We don’t know of other casualties! Most of it landed in the aisle!”
George Brandon, the White House chief of staff, was nervously repeating incoming information as the Presidential motorcade rushed from the Cathedral southward on Wisconsin Avenue.
“Is he dead or alive?” the President demanded.
“I’m afraid it was a fatal injury, sir,” Brandon replied, trying to soften the finality of the question.
“The Vice President? Good God! I don’t believe it!”
Buildings along the sidewalk seemed a blur as the limousine sped behind its wailing escort. “Where are we going?”
“Andrews!” a secret service agent replied from his jump seat. “It’s safer on Air Force One, Mr. President! Until we get a handle on this!”
“No! Return to the White House! We can’t act like it’s some national catastrophe. It was an accident. We don’t want panic, like we’re under attack, or something. We need calm. It was an accident— wasn’t it?”
“It looks like it, sir. But we can’t take any chances.”
“I know, I know. Return to the White House. We can hold off an army there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Prepare statements. Condolences to Lou’s family. And the Stacks for the tragic interruption of Ron’s funeral. Assurances that everything is stable under the Constitution. And we’re investigating an unusual and tragic accident.”
The President paused for a thoughtful, long moment. His five vehicle entourage sped along the cityscape with the White House grounds looming in the near distance.
“Why do I keep repeating that we’re investigating an unusual and tragic accident? This is the third time now! The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and now the Vice President of the United States! No one will believe it! And, frankly, I don’t blame them!”
“That’s all we can say right now, Mr. President,” George Brandon explained. “I don’t think we want to give official rein to wild speculation. I’m sure a lot of people will spin conspiracies around this, but we can’t give them fuel for their fire.”
“These can’t be coincidences!” the President declared. “I don’t care how random and accidental they seem!”
“We are investigating, sir,” Brandon assured. “The Omega Group is on top of it.”
“Find out every detail, every word, every sound involved in these…these incidents! I don’t believe they’re random anymore! And all this on top of Jeannie McConnell vanishing!”
“There’s no logical way to tie these together, Mr. President.”
“Try something illogical!”
Brandon was not sure if the President was serious or venting his frustration with cynical humor.
No more was said as the motorcade sped onto the White House grounds and snaked into an underground garage.
His senior advisers were already gathered when the President appeared at the Oval Office.
“So, what in the hell is going on?” the President declared to no one in particular. He plopped into his leather chair and leaned back, waiting for any kind of answer.
“It’s another freak accident,” Stanford Howard, the national security adviser ventured.
“You can’t have too many freak accidents!” the President scoffed. “That’s why they call them ‘freak’. They’re unusual and—I daresay— rare. We’ve got too many senior officials in our government suddenly dying from ‘freak accidents’.”
“We’ll have an explanation, sir,” Paul McCallister offered. “The Omega Group is investigating everything.”
“Well then, explain to me this: How is it that House Speaker McConnell is suddenly next in line for the Presidency and her daughter just happens to be missing?”
“It’s an unusual coincidence, sir,” was all that McCallister could muster, reflecting the bewilderment of the other advisers in the room.
“Does that mean I’m the final target for the terrorists who will then blackmail the next President with her daughter? Challenge her maternal instincts?”
“It is a curious scenario,” Stanford Howard posited. “It’s just as curious as the other one. Only it’s not as funny as when we joked about it with the Vice President.”
“What do you mean?”
“At our last meeting we told him he was the only one between you and Philip Taylor in the chain of nuclear command.”
“What?” The Presidents stood up and started pacing the room.
“All the accidents that occurred involved men in the chain of nuclear command,” Howard explained. “Ron Stack, the Secretary of Defense—Benjamin Starr, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff— and now the Vice President.”
The President stopped pacing and turned to Howard.
“In case of some calamity—heaven forbid—sh
ould something happen to you, Philip Taylor would have control over the nuclear button.”
The President stared at Howard. “I never wanted Taylor in that position!”
His advisers said nothing.
He knew they agreed with him, but remembered that his friend Victor Sherwyck had persuaded him otherwise. Victor Sherwyck, who had last seen Jeannie McConnell before she disappeared. A vague unease came over the President.
“Cancel my public appearances before I get choked by some damn ‘welcome’ sign!” he scoffed. “And find out what the hell is going on around here!”
Chapter 32
"Caine?" General Bradley’s voice sounded urgent over his secure line.
“Yes, sir.” The Colonel had just dropped off Laura Mitchell for her afternoon seminar.
“There’s been a freak accident at the Cathedral. I’m afraid this time it’s the Vice President.”
Caine felt adrenalin surge through his body, and Laura’s words through his mind. The Cathedral was on the axis she described.
“Where are you?”
“I’m leaving the campus of GW, sir.”
“Taking courses, again, huh?” General Bradley said with dark humor. “Looking for a more placid lifestyle?”
“If only I could, sir.”
“I’m on my way from the Cathedral. Meet me at the Army and Navy Club. It’s close for both of us. I already called Colonel Jones.”
Caine acknowledged and sped to Farragut Square, the location of the exclusive membership facility catering to military personnel and distinguished civilians.
He parked his roadster and made a cell phone call. Laura Mitchell answered from her seminar class.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Yes, but it’s important. I know why you’re calling. We just heard about the Vice President. Poor soul.” She didn’t mind that her students were hearing her conversation.
“I was afraid something would happen at the Cathedral,” Laura said. “My uncle’s theory is proving right.”
“I’m on assignment,” Caine replied without acknowledging. “But I need to see you.”
“Can you come tomorrow to my seminar?” she asked expectantly. “It’s about omens, no less. How Napoleon lost his empire.”
“That sounds like what I need to hear.” Caine replied. “I’m thinking about you.”
“I’m thinking about you too,” she said more softly so her students wouldn’t hear.
Professor Mitchell ended the call, put her phone on the seminar table and looked to her students. “I’m sorry. Where were we?”
The students wanted to know more about her uncle’s theories.
***
Caine hurried to the second floor main dining room. General Bradley and Colonel Jones had arrived ahead of him and were settling into a far corner table overlooking the Square. The twenty‐foot ceiling framed by rich wood coving, chandelier lights, wood paneled walls, an ornate clock at the far end of the hall attached to a wall size marble mantle and traditional furniture gave it an unmistakably formal air. The Colonel could not enter until an attendant gave him a tie that did not quite match his blue shirt and gray sports jacket. No one thought to ask if he was armed.
He knotted the tie reluctantly as he approached his fellow‐officers, both of whom were dressed in the uniform of the day.
“Details are sparse,” General Bradley said as Colonel Caine sat down opposite him and nodded to Colonel Jones.
“It looks like one of the statues let loose from its perch on top of a column. Vice President Mansfield was right under it.”
As he was talking a waiter approached. “We’re sorry gentlemen. Due to the latest news about the Vice President, the governing board has
requested that we close today out of respect. He was a member here.”
The officers looked at him with an understanding demeanor.
“We weren’t going to dine,” General Bradley replied. “We need a few minutes for some urgent business.”
“Certainly, gentlemen. A few minutes.” The waiter continued on to some nearby tables.
“It’s just as well,” the general said. “I don’t want someone to overhear what I’m about to tell you.”
Caine and Jones pulled their chairs closer to the table and leaned forward.
“Another odd thing happened during the service,” General Bradley said in a hushed tone. “A bird flew into the Cathedral. It flew around like it was lost. At first I thought it was no big deal. Then it landed on the statue.”
General Bradley looked at each of them. “Shall I go on?” he asked expectantly.
“The statue came loose from its pedestal and fell.” Colonel Jones finished.
“Now the obvious explanation,” General Bradley went on, “is that the base was degrading and the weight of the bird was all that was necessary for it to finally give way.”
“Or it was just a simple coincidence,” Colonel Jones offered.
“But we’re reluctant to buy into it, right, sir?” Colonel Caine anticipated.
“Reluctant,” the General agreed. “I’m thinking of those weird little anomalies surrounding the other incidents you told me about. Birds, the dogs that attacked you in that firefight in Beirut, and those unusual hoof prints around General Starr’s body. Cloven hooves. We still haven’t figured that out.”
“Familiars,” Caine said blankly.
He related to the officers his conversations with Laura Mitchell— her students drawing parallels with Grigori Rasputin in revolutionary Russia and Father Pierre Dumas in revolutionary France, the dog at her door, meeting her uncle Jonas—his ordeals in the Gulag, the mysterious cabal within the Soviet secret police and Mitchell’s pentagram scenario.
“That pentagram, at least coincidentally, seems to tie in with the locations and details surrounding the accidents. It’s unusual that they occurred in such a quick sequence and involved officials directly linked with the succession of power in our government.”
“What details?” his general asked.
“Like you said, sir. The bird on the statue, the cloven hooves around General Starr.”
“And the bird on the girder that let loose on Secretary Stack’s car,” added Colonel Jones.
“All resulting in Speaker McConnell ascending to Chief Executive if anything now happened to the President,” Colonel Caine said.
“And it’s her daughter we’re looking for,” General Bradley stressed.
“She’d be ripe for blackmail!” Bradley said loudly, then quickly looked around as if to catch his words. The dining hall was empty, except for an attendant waiting patiently by the entrance.
“That’s why it is terrorists who have her,” General Bradley declared. “Hammad in Beirut was misleading you.”
“With due respect, sir, I don’t agree,” Colonel Caine responded. “Arie and I were attacked in the ocean, so we wouldn’t make our rendezvous with Hammad. I think somebody—somebody here—was stalling for time. You, yourself, suspect Senator Dunne somehow betrayed our mission.”
“Mustafa Ali Hammad was helpful, willingly or not,” Colonel Caine emphasized.
Garrison Jones, his fellow commando at the scene, slowly nodded his head in agreement.
“We were trying to figure out who the attackers were and mentioned some gibberish the bogies were humming in their boat when they tried to sink us,” Caine said.
“Hammad immediately linked it to some devil‐loving cult from the desert,” Colonel Jones affirmed.
“Too many incidental and unrelated factors seem to point in a certain direction,” Caine said.
General Bradley nodded his head slowly, as if coming to a mental agreement with Caine’s explanation.
“Now, maybe, Senator Dunne’s bad, but I don’t think that he would see any future in tying in with terrorist networks. They’re dust‐eating criminal vagabonds. They’ll never have a state to rule. The world won’t stand for it.”
“Civilized world,” Colonel Jones emphasized.
“Traditional adversaries, sir. The Chinese. They are communists. The Russians, a lot of their leaders still act like communists. They’re actively working for world hegemony—directly or indirectly. They could offer a traitor better conditions than living in a cave.”