Pentecost (16 page)

 
“We can get through the biggest one there,” Jake said, pointing upwards. “It looks like the gates of Hell. How appropriate.”

 
The door started to rattle as the team of men slammed into it, using one of the pews as a battering ram. Morgan was certain they would move onto explosives next.

 
Jake indicated the window with his gun.
 

“As soon as we’re out, we need to split up and meet back at the plane. Are you good with that?”

 
“It’s easier for me to get lost in the crowd. I’m more worried about you.”

 
Jake laughed. Morgan noticed that the crinkles around his eyes made his corkscrew scar dance.

 
“Time to go.”

 
“I think you’re enjoying this just a little too much,” Morgan said, as Jake raised his gun and shot several times at the stained glass window’s bottom panel. Jumping up onto the altar, he used a candlestick to smash the final shards of glass and helped Morgan up through the hole. She used her robe as a cushion against the broken glass and dropped the short distance onto the ground outside. The commotion in the church had caused a crowd to gather, but they were mainly looking curiously at the pair as Jake jumped down beside her.
 

 
“See you at the plane,” Morgan’s smile was masked but her eyes were shining. Despite all the problems they were facing, she had to admit there was an up side. It had been too long since she had felt this alive. Perhaps she had discarded the adrenalin rush of combat in haste when she had left the military. An explosion burst behind them, and they ran off in opposite directions into the crowd. It wouldn’t be long before the men started to track them through the souk.

Morgan ran a little way and then slowed, ducking into an alleyway to pull the burqa over herself properly. She emerged and entered a fabric shop where she blended in with the other women shopping. She breathed deeply in relief knowing that the men pursuing her could not risk stopping any women on the streets to search them. This was a strict Muslim city and they would be punished for harassment. Soon she was confident the danger had passed and she went slowly back to the plane, hoping Jake wasn’t in too much trouble.

***

Jake slipped into the crowd but people were turning and staring at him, some pointed and soon several of the men were charging after him. The bazaar seemed the best place for him to hide so he kept turning corner after corner, doubling back towards the church. He heard shouting behind him and ducked into a barber’s shop that clung to the side of the souk.
 

A man was being shaved and several cut-throat razors lay on a side table. Jake pulled out a pile of US dollar notes and shoved them at the barber, picking up a razor and ducking out the back of the shop. The barber shrugged and pocketed the cash. It was not his business what this man wanted with a razor in the narrow streets of the market. Jake waited outside the back door of the barber’s shop, knowing that they would come after him. He was tense and ready, stilling his breathing and focusing on what he must do next.

 
He heard voices in the shop, angry shouting. The barber must have pointed out the back as the noise grew closer. There were two men at least. They must have split up, but he was still outnumbered. Jake tensed, ready to strike. At least he had surprise in his favor.
 

One man came out, then a second, both striding away from him into the alley behind the shop. They clearly didn’t expect him to be waiting for them. He grabbed the second man from behind and sliced across his throat with the razor. The man didn’t even have time to scream. Blood spurted over Jake’s arm and as the body dropped he shoved it into the back of the first man, ripping the gun from his hand and firing it into his body. It was done in less than thirty seconds.

 
Jake’s breath came heavily and fast. He slowed it purposefully, calming the adrenaline rush. He had not killed in a while, but his pent up anger and knowledge of what these men would have done to him and Morgan had left him no choice. There was too much at stake here to let them live, and he knew they would not have stopped for him. The frantic shouting of the barber was enough to get him moving again.
 

He ran down the alley away from the bodies and back towards the plane. Marietti would have some cleaning up to do, as his prints would be on the razor and people had seen his face. Luckily ARKANE had connections that made these issues go away. They also
 
provided a priest for confession if team members needed it. Jake didn’t. He had made his peace with death a long time ago, when he had identified the bodies of his butchered family in Walkerville, near Johannesburg. South Africa was a mess of politics and religion wasn’t the only thing that could spark attempted genocide. After he had revenged their deaths with a silent bloody rampage, he’d needed an outlet for his violence. His mother’s British passport enabled him to join the British military and he soon rose through the ranks until the fateful night he had encountered Marietti. So Jake didn’t shy from killing if the mission demanded it, and he didn’t need to talk about it afterwards. Life was brutal and there were no prizes except to stay alive.

Tucson, Arizona, USA
 
May 21, 11.09am

 
Joseph Everett was reading Eusebius’ ‘On the Martyrs’ in his study. He punctuated the passages by pacing back and forth as he considered his plan. After the death of the homeless man, he had taken the stone to Michael and put it around his brother’s neck. He thought he had seen a glimmer of fire in the dead eyes but there was no change. He was disappointed and desperate for an answer. Now he was scouring these ancient texts for clues as to how the deaths of the saints might transform the stones to instruments of healing and power.

 
As he read, he noted the inventive ways they had of killing people in those early centuries. In the face of such horrific death people became even more fanatic for their faith. Emotion stirred up by the murder of martyrs seemed to be what sustained the growth of the Church. Perhaps blood and violence were the price to pay for vibrant faith? He knew that people valued something more when the price was high. For those willing to give up their lives for their beliefs, it must have been a heady time. He stopped pacing as the implication of his thoughts hit him. Maybe he needed to remind Morgan just what was at stake here, how high the cost could be if she didn’t bring him the stones. He speed dialed a number on his phone.

 
“Take the woman out to the desert but leave the child.”

 
He made another call to his property manager.

 
“Start the fire in the kiln, I’ll be needing it later. We’re driving out now. See you in a few hours.”

 
Joseph’s fascination with flames went back for many years, a pyromania that fed his soul. It was creation in destruction, leaving a path for new life in the wake of old. The sense of power was intoxicating, that a tiny spark could grow to consume whole cities and it was the elemental spirit of fire that he craved. The fires of Hell were nothing to a pure soul and the Christian iconography had those pure in heart walk through the fires unharmed. He loved the story in the book of Daniel where the faithful walk in the furnace with the angels and then emerge, triumphant and unscathed. He had devoured the details of mass cremation of the bodies at Auschwitz; the Nazis had been experts on disposal of physical evidence and so he had learned how fire could be used to hide dark deeds. Joseph had started with arson as a young man but the risk of prosecution soon became too great as his business and political ambitions grew, so he had found sublimation for his pyromania in pottery and kilns. It was a socially acceptable way in which he could indulge his visceral need for flame, his own addiction. The physical act of feeding the fire, the colors that danced in the kiln, were an alchemy that he ached for, a fiery transformation of matter to his desire. Over the years, he had found that the kiln could be used for other purposes than just firing pots.

***

 
Joseph headed out in his four wheel drive to the desert scrubland south west of Tucson. The kiln was on his desert property giving him the privacy to indulge himself out here. It was far away from the city and desolate enough that no one would even want to trespass here. The land was technically owned by one of his subsidiary businesses, buried in shell companies so it couldn’t be traced back to him.
 

As he drove, Joseph thought of Michael in the hospital, listless in his bed. Then he shook his head as if to clear the thoughts - he shouldn’t focus on the past, but on the future. The search for the stones energized him now, as if a part of his mind clung to a primitive belief, desperate that the power of God in the stones would heal them both. Joseph smiled, his mirrored sunglasses flashing in the harsh Arizona sun. He had faith in business and money but increasingly in an ancient power. Not a personal Jesus but a primal energy that lifted the dead from the ground, brought fire and wind to earth on Pentecost and burned the early Church into the consciousness of millennia. He would call this power back to earth soon enough.
 

 
Out in the desert, Joseph pulled up to the basic hut that was a few hundred meters from the kiln. Another car waited by the hut where two of his men sat in the air conditioned interior with the woman, Faye. She was tied, her hands behind her back and a gag over her mouth. The men got out as Joseph approached.
 

 
“Take the rest of the wood to the kiln and stoke it up,” he said. “I need it burning at its hottest today. I have a special firing to do.”

 
The men moved away and Joseph opened the door where Faye sat restrained. She was shaking but her eyes were defiant.

 
“Oh, my dear, what you will experience today,” Joseph said, reaching towards her. She turned her head away, the only motion she could manage in her constrained state. He moved his hand swiftly into her hair and pulled it savagely back, exposing her throat. Leaning close, he whispered, “And your sister is going to watch.”
 

Laughing, he let go and walked away from the car, leaving her to sit in the heat while he joined the men by the kiln. It was the size of a large cupboard with shelves for pots, but with room for a person in the middle of the space to make it easier to stack the shelves. There was a thick glass window in the door so the pots could be watched. It took hours to build the temperature high enough for firing but at that point, the flames would burn blue and bright. It was almost ready now.

 
Joseph set up a video camera at the front of the kiln, turned it on and then motioned for one of the men to bring Faye. She struggled and kicked, screaming into her gag. The man ended up throwing her over his shoulder and carried her, kicking all the way. They finally got her tied to a chair, facing the door of the kiln. Tears ran down her cheeks. She was shaking with terror.

 
Joseph bent down to her.

“This is what happens if your sister doesn’t bring the stones to me by Pentecost.”

 
He pulled his gun and whipped around quickly, using it to smash the face of the man who had carried her over. The man was knocked to his knees, briefly stunned and he shook his head, trying to clear it as blood poured from his nose. Joseph laughed and turned to kick the man, his boot connecting with a thud and the man fell back, his face confused.
 

“What …?” he tried to ask what was going on but Joseph was on him, his heavy desert boots audibly breaking the man’s ribs as he rolled over to protect himself. Faye could see a mania in Joseph now as he called to the other man.
 

“You, help me.”
 

Together they opened the door of the kiln and threw the overpowered man in. The flames roared as they sucked in the oxygen from the air and a surge of dry heat washed over Faye as she watched in horror. The man’s brief screams were terrible as the heat immediately caught his body. Through the window she could see that he seemed to dance in the blue fire before falling to his knees. Finally he curled up on the floor as the flames consumed him.

 
Faye had shut her eyes, but Joseph forced her face towards the blaze. He spoke into the camera, his voice low and mesmerizing, hypnotized by the sight.

 
“Watch how he burns, Faye. There are demons in the flames, you can see their shapes dancing, and they draw you in. You want to caress them, to capture their essence between your fingers, but they will destroy you if you get too close.”

 
He leaned in closer now, his breath hot on her face with the flames burning behind.

 
“Yet we are still drawn to it, enraptured by its beguiling dance and sensuous nature. We love to be naked with it, warmth dancing on our skin, candle wax dripping, burning but hurting in a deeply pleasurable way. Imagine what it would be like to feel the lick of that tiny tongue of flame along your skin, Faye. It looks so gentle, like it would tickle you. But that blue orange dancer is pain and death, its caress the last pleasure you would feel in this life.”

 
With these words, he licked the side of her face. He held her chin steady, his tongue darting around her jaw line and swirling into her ear. Faye squirmed and tried to evade his wet tongue, the overwhelming heat from the kiln seeming to burn through her. He wound his fingers through her hair and held her in a tight grip again, the tears running down her face soaking the gag that choked her.