“Walter? You still there? Can I at least have your full attention?”
He returned to present time. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
“I need a press strategy, and I’m counting on you. We need to keep as many details to ourselves as we can, but at this point we don’t know how much has been leaked. We might even have Interpol looking over our shoulders, and I really don’t need that.”
“Some of the victims might be foreigners. We could use Interpol’s help.”
“Pure speculation, Walter. Let’s keep to what we know. The Dutch victim. The message I read in the papers this morning is clear: one identified victim, the others unknown. Let’s keep it at that as far as the papers are concerned.”
“Right,” Eekhaut said.
“Found anything on Basten yet?”
“The poor lad had no family as far as we know and almost no friends. We have to dig deeper. From what I understand he might be associated with the Church of the Supreme Purification.”
“Go to their headquarters and get some questions answered. Dig as deep as you can.”
“You want me to find out who leaked?”
“Not enough staff, Walter. And too many people involved. And it’s too late anyway. The press might not be our main concern now.”
“I noticed you added De Vries and Siegel to the team.”
“Yes. And take along Prinsen. He seems a bit absentminded lately.”
“You know why, Chief?”
“I’m not his mother. Don’t want to be his mother either. And what about you? I can count on you?”
“Linda is on her way back,” he said.
“She is?”
He told her what he knew about her aborted mission.
“Too bad,” she said. “But you’ll have her back in no time.”
22
THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE Church of the Supreme Purification wasn’t a fortress or castle or some sort of underground lair or even a temple. It wasn’t anything like that at all. It consisted of a narrow, neat, nondescript semi-Victorian house on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, along one of the canals, with similar houses and a few restaurants in the neighborhood. The area had narrow sidewalks, twisted trees, badly parked bicycles typical of this part of the city, and basement lodgings. A staircase led to the front door. This wasn’t a secret location by any means: the bronze plaque on the door announced the existence of the church quite clearly, if discreetly. The bronze hadn’t been polished in a long time.
Prinsen took off his glove and pressed the call button.
The plaque stated simply: CHURCH OF THE SUPREME PURIFICATION. No mention of business hours or rites or consultations. Nothing to indicate this was anything different than any of the few score other religious organizations in the city. No reference to secret rituals, no inkling of potentially thousands of past victims, nothing to remind people of the impending apocalypse. However nefarious the plans made inside this building—still an assumption the police couldn’t prove—the entryway looked quite respectable, even dull.
Never had any arrests been made over possible connections between the church and the disasters Eekhaut had heard of. At no point had the church been charged with conspiracy, arson, or murder, nor had any of its members. No news about satanic rituals or collective murder had ever made headlines. It was as if all the rumors about the church were nothing more than myths invented by the church’s enemies.
The woman who came to the door didn’t look like a serial killer or an arsonist either. She might have been sixty, was heavily built, and sounded severely asthmatic. Maybe she had climbed up from a deep, underground cavern where the church’s secrets and skeletons were kept hidden. Which Eekhaut deemed unlikely, unless the church had direct access to hell.
“Yes, gentlemen,” she said, brightly, despite her shortness of breath. “What can I do for you?”
Eekhaut showed her his warrant card. “Security services, ma’am,” he announced. “Chief Inspector Eekhaut and Inspector Prinsen.” He had a new Dutch police ID, giving him authority on Dutch soil. “We’ve been announced, haven’t we?”
“Ah, of course you were. Come in, please. It’s cold out there, isn’t it? Too cold, even for this time of the year. And after such a miserable summer.” She stepped back and let the two officers in, carefully closing the door behind them. “Please, gentlemen, to your left. There’s a parlor. We rarely use it these days. Parlors are so out of fashion, aren’t they? I’m making tea. Will you join me?”
Not waiting for a reply, she disappeared across the hallway. Prinsen stepped into the room and took off his coat, hanging it over a chair. The parlor was small, and its furniture belonged to another era when Victorians needed parlors to entertain guests. Cabinets and deep armchairs and cushions aplenty and severely threadbare oriental rugs, in deep blues and reds, on the parquet floor. Eekhaut noted the absence of religious symbols. No crosses, statues of the Buddha, no Stars of David, nothing. Not even a portrait of a great leader.
After a short while, the woman returned. She placed a large tray with elegant cups, saucers, a teapot, cookies, sugar, and milk on a table in the middle of the room.
“I am Johanna Simson,” the old lady said, pleasantly, “currently leading the church in the Netherlands. Ah, the pope would be angry if he heard us talk about a church, but then we aren’t competing with any other religion. We are not even an exclusive religion. Our belief fits in easily with existing doctrines, Christian as much as Islam. Sugar or milk?”
The tea procedure took a few moments. The brew itself was strong and exotic, nothing like Eekhaut had ever had before. Was that cinnamon?
“Ms. Simson,” he said, “we need to ask you a few questions regarding someone we assume to be a member of your church. Adriaan Basten. And we have some questions concerning your organization in general.”
“Ah,” she said. “Adriaan. He is, indeed, a member. And of course proud of it, although discreet. Aren’t we all? For obvious reasons, we keep our membership list secret from the outside world unless we’re obliged to divulge it. By law, for instance. There is no reason our many current friends should be tainted with the dark past of our ancestors. Neither do we want people to focus too much on the revelations about the End.”
“In 2020, I believe?” Eekhaut said.
“Or thereabouts. It probably is a more or less symbolic date. Anyway, you’re familiar with our teachings and with some of the vicious attacks on our organization by people who believe we’re capable of mass killings. We have always denied any involvement, and nothing was ever proven, but still we are burdened by these accusations. Given this, our members prefer privacy and silence.”
“We currently have no opinion on any of that, ma’am,” Eekhaut stated carefully. “We haven’t come to talk about the prophecies or the past. The thing is, we have bad news for you. Adriaan Basten has been murdered.”
She gave him a look, suddenly distant and cold, as if he had offended some private god of hers. “What does this mean, sir? Murdered? I knew he had disappeared.”
“I’m afraid we can only confirm his demise,” Eekhaut said. “He died under suspicious circumstances. That’s why we’re here.” She hung her head, but he continued. “He was killed in a ritual. Along with six other people. We found them in the Belgian Ardennes. All in accordance with the tradition of your church. Former tradition, if you will.”
“You mean—?”
“Yes. They were all burned alive.”
Ms. Simson drank her tea, focusing on it rather than on the two police officers. Her hand was firm. Eekhaut understood she had to process the information about Basten. She showed no emotion. He wondered if this was a bad or good sign.
“Adriaan,” she said.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.”
She deposited her cup on the table carefully. “Mr. Eekhaut,” she said. “Our church has had a violent past. I will not deny that, as long as I’m not making an official statement. Previous generations managed to cover up m
any heinous crimes, to which none of us will admit. Crimes against humanity, it would be called today. All this goes back, well, a century or more. These people, previous generations, assumed their eternal salvation depended on performing certain rituals. Rituals that also ensured the survival of our church.”
“How,” Prinsen rejoined, “can people ever assume killing other people would ensure their salvation, ma’am?”
Simson tilted her head toward him. “Because, young man, faith is a very powerful force. Today, this is less obvious than it used to be. We live in a secular age. God is dead, and if not, He is forgotten. People believe only in material salvation. Stuff. Things. There is no spiritual sphere for them to believe in. Even the ones that still flock to the churches of their choice don’t believe everything that is preached there, a small minority notwithstanding. In earlier times people died for what they believed in.”
“But the Inquisition is long past, ma’am,” Prinsen said dryly. “So are the Crusades.”
Ms. Simson smiled indulgently. “We don’t have to go back that far, young man. The Nazis murdered millions because they believed in their own superiority.”
“That was on social and racist grounds, not religious.”
“That hardly makes any difference. Belief systems need not be religious to be dangerous. Fascism and communism were belief systems without a god but with a strict set of rules and a central doctrine. Even today, we’re reminded daily of the violence originating from radical religious zeal. It has always been rather easy to convince less than bright people they should follow leaders and commit crimes in their name.”
“That’s what happened within your church?”
“It is the tradition of empires, including spiritual empires, Inspector. And yes, that’s been our own tradition, but I cannot make any official statements concerning this facet of our organization. I’m sure you appreciate that.”
“You promise eternal salvation, don’t you?” Eekhaut said.
“We believe people can and will be saved whenever the End comes, yes.”
“That’s not exactly the same,” Eekhaut said.
“No,” Ms. Simson admitted, “that’s correct.”
“And you would have been persecuted for your beliefs.”
“Let me again take you back in time. As far as the earlier Christian leaders were concerned, Gnosticism was a dangerous aberration of the real faith. All religions had their schisms, their cults and sects. Christianity never was united, and never will be. Are you familiar with the Gnosis, Chief Inspector?”
“I might have read a book or two on the subject once,” Eekhaut admitted.
“For Christians, Gnosticism was an evil aberration. Its origins date from long before the birth of Christ. There’s a long tradition that precedes Gnosticism. Zoroastrianism, Chaldean astrology, Hellenistic philosophy, mainly Egyptian mythology, but also the Jewish apocalyptic thought. That’s what we inherited, Chief Inspector. We are basically Gnostics. For the Gnostics, and therefore for our church, God is a kind of spiritual father figure, but He exists outside the cosmos. That cosmos, the world in which we live, is intrinsically bad, but it’s not His creation. On the contrary, the universe and all creatures were created by another hostile entity, which the Gnostics, and we, call the Demiurge. That Demiurge is assisted in his pernicious work by a whole hierarchy of dark creatures, the Archons. In this way, the Demiurge is an evil and dark supernatural entity, while the real God resides outside the universe, where He reigns over the kingdom of light.
“And as in Gnosticism, this explains the malice in the world and why God cannot or will not intervene.
“As it is, man is a fallen creature, condemned to the material world where the Demiurge reigns. This is the God of the Old Testament, a vengeful, cruel, suspicious, and distrustful God. Man cannot escape this universe, not even by believing in the true God or by doing good. He can only escape by the mastery of a transcendent wisdom, the Gnosis, through which he can discover the intentions of the real God.”
“That’s quite an undertaking for a simple man.”
“It is. Many have tried to find redemption this way; many have failed.”
“And for your church, redemption consisted of burning people.”
“I will not admit to that, as I already told you. Anyway, we left that behind us. The tradition, however, dates from pre-Christian times.”
“Which in recent times remained largely unnoticed.”
“People usually see us as charlatans. Our obsession with the apocalypse is utterly alien to them. The true depth of our fate, such as it still is, eludes them. That makes us go unnoticed.”
“No more killing,” he said.
“Not anymore, not for a long while. It all radically changed two decades ago. We are preparing ourselves for the salvation of the soul, as a matter of inner conviction.”
“But the tradition proved to be strong. It survived.”
“Not with us.”
“No,” Eekhaut said. “Not with you. A radical sect claimed the tradition for itself.”
“We have no control over the new radicals.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Eekhaut said. “And they insist on calling themselves the Society of Fire.”
“They are deluded in following the old ways. They have only cruelty in their hearts. They’re drunk on power. It will be their downfall.”
“It seems your friend Adriaan Basten was a recent victim of theirs.”
Ms. Simson said nothing.
“We need you to help us identify them,” Eekhaut said.
“There’s only one name I can give you: Baphomet.”
“Baphomet? And who might he — or perhaps she—be?”
“Their leader. The inspiration of the Society of Fire. The Devil incarnate, even. A dangerous man. He was once one of us when we all were younger. Already a dangerous man in those days. Driven by very selfish motives.”
“And what is his real name?” Prinsen interjected.
Ms. Simson glanced at him, as though remembering why he was here. “I have no idea. I’m sorry. We never identified ourselves by our real names. I use mine these days, because there’s no longer any reason for anonymity. But Baphomet . . .”
“Why do you call him the Devil incarnate?” Eekhaut wanted to know.
“Because, Chief Inspector, he is willing to sacrifice all of us if it serves him and his cult. All of us. You know what that means, don’t you? What he really wants is for the world to end. Nothing less. Oh, he will have to settle for less, but even then, his plans might cause many victims.”
“Can’t say that went well,” Prinsen said to Eekhaut as they stood on the sidewalk again.
“Not really,” Eekhaut said. “Let’s get out of here. She might be watching us. Those people give me the creeps.”
“Suppose it’s all true? The Demiurge, the apocalypse. A creator who is probably Satan. An absent god.”
“Don’t let me catch you believing this sort of nonsense, Nick. I’ll have you locked up.”
“I’m not saying I believe any of that, but just like you, it creeps me out.”
“I’m thirsty. Can’t face another world’s end without a Leffe beer first.”
Prinsen said nothing. They walked down the street, passing a kosher charcuterie on one street corner and a Lebanese bakery on the other. They stepped into a nearby pub that looked narrower than Eekhaut’s hallway but had a room in the back with framed pictures of how Amsterdam must have been when people first started making pictures. The place was almost empty, save for two elderly couples sitting at the bar. Eekhaut and Prinsen took a table and ordered. There was no Leffe, so Eekhaut got a local, dark beer that tasted somewhat sour. But at least it was beer.
“They’ve always been popular, these predictions of doom,” he said, wiping some froth off his upper lip. “Nostradamus, Malthus. And modern equivalents. Club of Rome. It’s a sort of porn, really. End-of-the-world porn. And there’s a lot of people who would just welcome the end of it all,
mostly because they cannot get whatever their little hearts want.”
“Baphomet,” Prinsen said, his thoughts elsewhere.
“Ah, Baphomet. Yes, that’s something new. Gives our opponent a name. Quite a name at that.”
“It will be a problem getting an arrest warrant for that name.”
“Come on, Nick. Don’t be negative. We learned a few things. He’s a man. He’s probably over fifty. He might be powerful, even in real life. We may be looking for hidden patterns here.”
“Why do you assume he’s over fifty?”
“Because he was one of the bunch that separated from the church two decades ago. You don’t do that sort of potentially dangerous thing when you’re only thirty. He has to be a figure of some importance, being so successful in his role as anti-messiah.”
Prinsen gazed at the passing pedestrians in the street. “She told us nothing about Basten.”
“Basten was probably a minor figure. One of theirs, yes, but not important. But then he got entangled in a web of intrigue, and it cost him his life. There’s a war going on between these two cults, Nick. The society tore themselves away from the original group and wants to purify its members the old-fashioned way. They kill several adversaries, leave them behind in the Ardennes, unconcerned whether they’d be found. Ms. Simson might have lost more adherents than just Basten. But she will not admit that much.”
“We can’t blame her for being a true believer,” Prinsen said. “And all that involves.”
“She might regret it when she finds herself in Basten’s place.”
“Maybe we should keep an eye on her?” Prinsen suggested. “Offer her protection?”
“We don’t have the staff, Nick. Anyway, how many people do we have on that list?”
“What list?”
“The one of people who recently went missing.”
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