Sacred Flesh (19 page)

“Okay, we’ll go about finding this hidden sample and destroy the damn thing. Where did he say he hid it?” Eric asks.

“He wrote it down on this little map,” he hands him a small piece of paper.

Frowning his eyebrows, “This is it, the name of the town?”

“Yeah, in a small church there,” Roland says.

“Sleep, you need your sleep Jim,” his wife says standing next to the bed.

“I’ve been ill before this is nothing new.”

“You’re not a young man anymore. You push yourself too hard, never happy with what you accomplish.”

“You don’t understand. There’s always so much more work to do,” Jim says.

“Yes, that may be true but what good is any of it if you work yourself to death? Besides, you’re supposed to be retired and all you do is work. I doubt that you’ve let yourself relax in years,” she tells him.

“I’m nowhere close to death. I can tell. And I can’t help it. I’ve been driving myself so hard for so long I don’t really know any other way.”

“No one said you were close to death I just wish you would allow yourself some breathing room, give yourself a break.”

Jim lays his head back on the pillow. “My boys have gone off. I wish I could go with them. It was wrong of me not to get in touch with them sooner. They are my sons after all and all I did for twenty one years was try to forget about them and the whole deal with the
Elite
. I missed so much with them. Maybe when all this is settled they can stay with us for awhile. It would be nice to get to know them a little.”

“They’ll be fine. You worry too much. They are young, strong, and smart. They can take care of themselves.” she says.

“I hope I’ve done the right thing. I couldn’t let them hurt each other. They had to know the truth,” he winces in pain.

“What’s wrong Jim?” she says standing over him.

“Nothing, I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, so you’re getting married. I just wish I knew more about him,” he says to his daughter. Thinking how much she reminds him of her mother with her long tan hair, her bright sunny smile that could light up even the darkest room, how he loved that about her mother, even when business was down she could always pick him up, she’s tall too just like her mother was, and determined, nothing would stop her or get in her way until that afternoon she came home from the doctor’s office with the news.

“He’s a nice guy Dad, really he is.”

“Where did you meet him again?”He asks while sitting at the kitchen table clutching his morning cup of coffee.

“In London, when I was an exchange student there my junior year of college,” she answers arms crossed, standing up against the counter, having finished her cup.

“I thought you wanted to be a doctor. How are you going to keep that dream alive and a marriage too?”

“Other people have done it we will too”

“It just worries me that you go overseas for a year of school and come home with a husband. It’s all too fast.”

Not knowing what to say she begins walking around the kitchen until she suddenly stops at the counter top island.

“What’s this Dad?”

“That? Some old box I found underneath the church I was rewiring. I thought it strange someone would put a box down there, there’s no money in it. I don’t know what that thing in it is. I don’t think it’s worth anything I was going to throw it away.”

Opening it she peers inside for a moment then carefully closes it.

“Can I have it?” She asks.

“Sure, honey why do you want it?”

“I don’t know. Might be an antique,” she says while slipping the box into her small black purse.

“Man, it’s like a freak show in there,” Roland says while plopping down into the passenger seat of the car.

“Supercenter retail establishments have a way of attracting all the red necks in a twenty mile radius,” Eric says from the driver’s seat having stopped playing with the radio buttons.

“More like fifty miles,” Roland observes.

“Did you get my cheese nips?” Eric asks.

“Yeah, they were on sale too,” Roland hands him the bag.

“Alright!”

“Now, where is that church?” Roland asks.

“According to the map about a mile down this street,” he says pointing.

“Great, we’re almost there but how are we going to pull this off?”

“Well, I don’t think we can just walk in and ask if they’ve seen a small brown metal box lying around,” Eric says munching his snack.

“No, and we can’t tell them it’s hidden they’ll want to know the whole story which could be a problem.”

“So what do we do?”

“We case the place. Check it out inside and out.”

“Dunbar, I mean our father I guess I should say, said he thinks it’s hidden in the floor,” Eric says.

“Under the floor thirteen and a half paces east of the Altar, isn’t that what he told us?” Roland asks.

“Piece of cake,” Eric says.

“Or wafer.”

“But we can’t just tear up the floor,” Eric says

“We’ll have to get in at night, get into the crawl space,” Roland observes.

“How?”

“Easy, we break in.”

It was there on her dresser placed casually among the hair brush, comb, and some loose change. It looked old, devoid of attention or care when he first saw it. He knew instantly what it was, his heart raced when he saw it, but he couldn’t set off any alarms with her. He couldn’t just grab it and take off back to London and the buyers. No, that would be way too obvious. Suddenly, he notices his hands shaking and his heart pounding. We were right it was hidden in this little town where Dunbar put it years ago. I didn’t have to look very far, didn’t have to dig up that old church in hopes that it might be there. I can’t believe it fell into my hands like this. Now to convince her to return to London with me and make sure that the box comes along with us. I’ll set it up with the buyers while she’s out shopping. She’ll never know. He turns frantically upon hearing her car pulling into the driveway.

As she pulls up and turns the engine off she looks up to the second story bedroom window silently thinking: he’s probably seen it by now.

“I’m glad we stopped for something to eat I need more then snacks and we really need to figure this out before we go much further,” Roland says as they sit in a booth at the local family restaurant.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Eric says while looking over the menu.

“I told you I was hungry. What, you want me to buy your lunch?”

“No, I didn’t mean that, I mean going out and looking for the sample,” Eric tells him.

“It’s the only way. He said for sure that it’s here. We have to do this and get it over with.”

“How can we trust his information? He doesn’t even remember if this is the Sacred Sample or his own DNA sample.”

“We don’t have much of a choice. He said he hide something in there,” Roland says.

“What are we looking for exactly?”

“A small brown metal box shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“So small and yet causing so much trouble,” Eric says.

“It’s the little things in life that prove the most troublesome,” Roland says.

“I don’t know about you but I find this whole affair to be a pain. Look what they have put us through, neither of us has had a normal life, they robbed us of that and for what? To fulfill their goofy religious ideology,” Eric says.

“I know what you mean. I’ve never felt that my life was my own it always seemed like it belonged to The Church and nothing else, no one has ever asked me how I felt about any of this. I mean really if it were up to me and they made me Pope I would be really tempted to just disband the whole church.”

“What are you crazy? You’d never get away with that,” Eric says.

“I’m serious, what could they do? Once I’m in, I’m in. I’m the man. I got the robe I got the big hat. They have to do what I say. I could tell them to stop all this nonsense and if they really want to follow God then really think about what that means and do it instead of pretending to do it.”

“What are you saying? You don’t believe in God?” Eric asks him.

“I’m just saying what I feel or maybe it’s what I know. I believe there is something out there, something actively at work in the universe, so yes I believe in God but I don’t believe in religion,” Roland says.

“I don’t know what to believe. I mean if faith is real then why is it so hard to put a finger on it?” Eric says.

“It wouldn’t be faith if you could prove or disprove it.”

“I read a lot, all kinds of stuff, I guess I want to know more than what they are always telling me. Some books I’ve read talk about how science says there may be other dimensions, maybe up to eleven of them. There may be particles we don’t even know about. Some believe there may even be other universes. All that stuff could be real, it’s just information we just haven’t figured them out yet.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, what if faith belongs to one of those other dimensions and what we feel in this one is faith just leaking through?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever thought of it that way but I guess it could be possible.”

“Not to change the subject but it’s dark now. I guess we should get going. You have everything?”

“Pick axe, shovel, flashlights, wire cutters.”

“And this,” he hands him a small piece of paper.

“A map?”

“A rough map drawn from an old memory.”

“Okay, good enough, let’s do this”

“I’m so happy we’re here,” she says standing in their London hotel room arms wrapped around him and a wide smile on her face.

“I told you you would be. It’s good to get away isn’t it?”

“I remember when we meet here last year.”

“Last year wow! I can’t believe how time flies by, I’m thinking maybe we can jolt over to Paris for a weekend.”

“What really?” she says.

“Sure, listen I have to do some official business stuff with the university and then -.”

“Business? I didn’t know you had business stuff to do,” she says.

“Yes, it’s boring stuff, but it won’t take long then later we can go out and do something together.”

“Okay.” She kisses him and walks out the door of their hotel room. He waits a minute pacing across the room a few times then picks up the phone and punches in some numbers.

“Okay, if you’re ready it’s here. Yes, I’m sure; very well, if our pervious arrangements are still valid then I’ll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes.” He hangs up and begins thinking to himself. All that money! I should get out of town. I won’t be able to explain the money to her but what if I told her? Told her everything just leave out the part about using her. Twenty minutes I could go down now and wait. He gathers a few things, grabs the box from the bedroom and slips it into his jacket pocket. This should be easy enough. He steps out into the hallway locking the door behind him and begins walking toward the elevator. Standing there waiting for it to open his minds nervously wanders.

“Mr. Winham.”

Suddenly he realizes two large men are standing on both sides of him.

“Why don’t we take the stairs?” The one on his right smiles as he firmly places his hand on Winham’s arm.

“I don’t see anything,” Eric yells up to Roland while carefully moving around the crawl space of the church.

“Turn on the flashlight. You’ll never see anything without the light, a few more feet should be about the exact location,” Roland tells him.

“There’s nothing here. But it does look like someone’s been down here recently,” Eric says.

“What do you mean?” Roland asks.

“There’s freshly moved dirt like someone has just been working and crawling around. The wiring looks brand new, someone definitely has been down here recently but I don’t see anything that looks like a small metal brown box,” Eric says.

“Come back up, hurry!” Roland tells him.

Eric crawls out covered in dust and dirt, sneezing loudly.

“God bless you,” says a voice out of the darkness.

“Thank you,” he says instantly while still resting on his knees, looking up to see the figure approaching they both stare in shock.

“I see you boys found your way in.”

“Sorry Father,” they respond in unison.

“We know who you are.”

“That’s great, than who the hell are you?”

He pulls out a badge and shows him, “Now sit down.” He motions to the chair in the plain exam room with just a table and two chairs.

“Detectives? What do you want with me?”

“I think you already know the answer to that don’t you.”