Sullivan Saga 2: Sullivan's Wrath (3 page)

“Then you can fly it yourself.”

“I run the whole shipping operation, Frank. I can’t leave on such short notice.”

Allen paused for a moment. He couldn’t forfeit his own ship to Edaline; he couldn’t let Liz down. But he couldn’t let Rick and Kate down either. He owed them too much. “Dale, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but charges have been brought against Kate and Rick.”

“Kate, too?”

“Unfortunately. We had thought her father’s friends would have been able to do something for her, but that didn’t happen.”

“Damn. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So you see why they need to get off the planet ASAP. I offered to give up my ship to Edaline, but Rick refused. He said my mission is too important.”

Hammond sighed. “All right, I’ll try to get my assistant up to speed. He’s a good man, he should be able to handle things as long as there are no emergencies.”

“Thanks, Dale. Keep this conversation between us, would you? Kate and Rick can’t know I told you why they need to get to Faris. Besides, I’m sure they’ll tell you once they’re on the ship and out of harm’s way.”

“Got it, Frank. I’ll let you know as soon as everything has been arranged.”

“Thanks, Dale. I’ll wait for your call.”

KATE STEPPED OUT of the bedroom where Sullivan was packing his bags. She walked down the hallway and stopped in front of a door. She took a breath, put her hand on the knob and opened it.

As soon as she stepped inside, she was flooded with memories of her father. His study was infused with his presence. The scent of his cigars still lingered in the air. She’d had the room cleaned up after he’d died but had not allowed anything to be moved. This was the first time she’d entered it herself.

Kate closed her eyes and imagined that he was sitting in the leather chair at the center of the room. She could see the cigar in the ashtray, a glass of Scotch on the table beside him. He looked up as he heard her come in.

Kate opened her eyes and studied the empty chair, his chair. There was still a depression in the cushion where he had sat for long hours reading. She walked around the room, running her hands along the spines of the antique books that he’d loved so much. She wondered how many of them had been left unread when he’d been killed by the bounty hunter Harvey. She wondered which of them he’d looked forward to reading as soon as he’d finished dealing with business-related matters.

She spotted a book on the table beside his chair. She walked over to it, sat in the chair and picked up the book. It wasn’t a particularly old book. In fact, it was part of a series that her father had specially commissioned. But the contents of the book were ancient. She ran her hand across the embossed lettering on the front:
Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius. One of his favorite books.

Kate opened the book and found that many of the pages had been bookmarked with slender strips of paper. She flipped to one of them and read the passage her father had marked:

And you will give yourself relief if you commit every act of your life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy and self-love and discontent, with the portion which has been given to you.

She thought of her father’s last act. He had been opening a box containing a gift for her when he was attacked and killed by Harvey. His very last act was for her.

She wiped her eyes and closed the book. She got up from the chair, glanced around and found the spot where
Meditations
belonged on the shelf. The volumes he’d had made were all bound in matching leather with gold embossing on the covers and gilded page edges. They were printings of the words of the ancient Stoic philosophers: Zeno, Seneca, Epictetus, Aurelius. The first she remembered her father talking about quite a bit. Zeno’s
Republic
had been believed lost for twenty-four centuries until excavations in the late twenty-first century uncovered the remnants of a private library in the city of Herculaneum. As in the nearby Villa of the Papyri, which had been excavated in the middle of the eighteenth century, over a thousand carbonized scrolls had been found. But in the three centuries between the two discoveries, the method by which the charred scrolls could be carefully unwrapped and stabilized by an adhesive coating had been perfected. The only obstacle was the Italian government, who sought to preserve the site by not allowing further excavation.

A change in that policy, combined with the development of both less-invasive excavation and more reliable stabilization techniques, finally allowed the buried sections of Herculaneum to once again see the light of day. The most remarkable discovery was a scroll containing Zeno’s
Republic
which, until that time, had only existed in fragments quoted by other writers. Ninety percent of the text was recovered, and as one of the founding documents of the philosophy, it quickly became a crucial component of any collection of Stoic texts.

Kate’s father had told her about this discovery when she was a girl and had, to show her the value of the discovery, read selections to her. Despite her father’s enthusiasm, she had never had an interest in Stoic thought herself and hadn’t read any of those texts for years.

Now, with her father gone, she got the sensation that by reading some of these books again, she could bring him back, if only for a moment. She’d make a point to upload them to her tablet before they left for Faris.

Kate was about to place the Marcus Aurelius in its slot but instead withdrew the rest of the leather-bound set and placed it in her hand next to
Meditations
. She did not only want to read the words her father had loved, she wanted to read the very volumes he had treasured. She moved back toward the entrance, took one final look around the study then stepped through and closed the door behind her.

IT WAS MORNING. Brother Peter had slept fitfully and had woken up several more times. Still, he dutifully got up when his alarm went off, kneeled by the side of his bed and said his prayers.

He quickly showered then dressed and made his way down to the dining room. His monastic brothers were gathering around the table as he entered.

Those brothers who were on meal duty silently brought in the food and placed the dishes in the center of the table. After they had taken their seats, the leader of the community, Father Curtis, led them in the Lord’s Prayer of thanksgiving. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

“Amen,” repeated Peter with his brothers.

As he silently took his meal, Peter glanced over the faces around him. He wanted to tell someone about his vision but was afraid they would dismiss it. He himself could not be sure that he had actually seen something, that it had not been the result of his imagination. He knew the brain could play such tricks.

His eyes settled on Brother Mark. Mark was a relative newcomer to the monastery and had been there only six months, but already Peter felt close to him. They had both grown up in Milwaukee and shared a passion for chess. Peter decided that he would speak to Brother Mark over their evening game of chess and see what he thought of the vision.

Peter realized that he had been eating slowly and that the other brothers were waiting for him to finish. He hurriedly finished his scrambled eggs then set his fork down on his plate.

Father Curtis smiled. He led them in another prayer then those assigned to meal duty collected the plates and carried them to the kitchen.

Peter glanced at the clock over the door to the dining room. Today was his once-monthly—aside from Sundays—day of rest. The intent was for him to spend the working hours in silent meditation or study.

Peter left the dining room and went straight for the library. He always enjoyed the smell of the ancient books lining the shelves. There were a hundred Bibles, in different languages and translations, as well as row upon row of teachings from all of the major Christian denominations and histories of church movements and individuals who’d had a profound impact on Christianity. There was also a section containing the holy books of most of the other world religions.

Peter walked past all these and made his way to the back of the library. He sat down in front of a screen; it was much easier to find what he was looking for on the computer rather than searching through those fragile and—in some cases—valuable volumes.

The computers in the monastery library had access to the Stellar Assembly Database, that collection of files that contained nearly the entire accumulated knowledge of humanity, but Peter would need special permission to access it. The files he had free access to had been collected and approved of by the founders of the Cenobian community. Occasionally, Father Curtis would go through the most recent additions to the Stellar Assembly Database and add those files that he felt were acceptable and relevant. But Peter didn’t have any doubt that what he was looking for would be accessible.

He typed the word “visions” into the search function—the computers in the library were not enabled with voice recognition so as to not disturb others who were engaged in study—and glanced over the results. Throughout the history of Christianity, visions had been common. The Bible itself was filled with such accounts.

Peter read through discussions of Ezekiel’s visions, the apocalyptic visions of Daniel, Constantine’s vision of the Chi-Rho during the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. This was not what he was looking for.

Peter put his hands back on the keyboard and typed in “visions of Christ.” Many of the early Catholic saints, he read, had reported visions of Jesus. In almost every case, Peter read that a vision of Christ was a sign that an individual was chosen by God to deliver a message to humanity. It was an indication that he or she was blessed.

Peter smiled. Surely, with his erotic dreams, he couldn’t be such a person. The vision had to have been his imagination. Still, Peter bowed his head. “Dear Lord,” he whispered, “if my vision was real, please give me a sign so I might know it. And if so, please help me to understand what it is I must do.”

RICK SULLIVAN PRESSED on the accelerator. As he’d anticipated, the car behind him matched his speed. He expected the lights to start flashing any moment, but they didn’t.

Sullivan slowed his vehicle. The road out to the industrial area outside of the city wasn’t busy, and as he slowed down past the speed limit, the car behind him did as well. If they weren’t following him, they’d have passed.

Why didn’t they just flash their lights and pull him over? Sullivan sped up again. Of course. They didn’t have a reason to. Their vehicle’s cameras would record everything. No, they’d have to apprehend him on foot, where cameras couldn’t contradict their story.

Luck was on their side. Outside of the city proper, surveillance cameras were a lot less prevalent. Of course, that was one of the reasons Sullivan had hidden his weapons stash in an unused warehouse in that area.

Now, with Bureau agents tailing him, he couldn’t get to his warehouse. Then they’d definitely have something to arrest him for. He hated leaving without a weapon, but he supposed Faris was safe enough. He could always acquire one after he arrived.

But now he had to find a way to shake the agents. If he began speeding or driving recklessly, they’d have him dead to rights.

The area around the city gave way to rolling, lightly wooded hills. As the elevation increased, the hills became steeper and more jagged, the woods thicker.

Sullivan kept driving out past the industrial area, into the hills. He took out his tablet and brought up a map. He used it to find a narrow, winding road through the foothills and pulled off onto it.

As he’d hoped, the road turned to gravel, then dirt, and began twisting its way up the side of the mountain range. Sullivan increased the distance between him and his pursuers, accelerating to dangerous speeds as he disappeared around each curve before slowing back down as the other car came back into view.

He managed to get two curves ahead of them, and as he rounded the next one, he slammed on the brakes, dove from the vehicle and jumped over the guard railing. He began skidding down the side of the hill, grabbing small trees and bushes to slow his descent. Above him, he heard a collision and the sound of shattering glass. The anti-collision technology in the agents’ vehicle hadn’t had time to react once it rounded the sharp curve and came into view of Sullivan’s stopped car.

Sullivan hooked his arm around a tree and looked behind him, up the hill. The two agents were out of their car and looking at him over the guard rail. He slid the rest of the way to the road below and began running along it.

He had gone less than a hundred meters when he heard a gun go off behind him. He didn’t think they’d actually be shooting at him. He took a gamble and guessed that they’d fired off a warning shot to try and get him to stop running. He kept going. They’d call in backup if he got too far ahead and gave them a reason to slow their pursuit, so he knew he’d have to turn and face them eventually, but he wanted to get himself into a better position.

Sullivan glanced behind him. Both of the agents were now on the road and running after him. Sullivan rounded a curve and stopped, pressing himself against the cliff. Maybe they’d fall for the same trick twice. He could hear their footfalls approaching fast.

Just as he expected them to come around the corner, he leapt out from concealment and rushed the man in the lead. He fell hard as Sullivan caught him in the chest with his shoulder. Not stopping to let them respond, Sullivan used his momentum to swing his arm around and clip the other agent on the side of the jaw with his fist.

The agent staggered back but kept his footing. He reached for his gun, but Sullivan was on him again, knocking the gun down the side of the hill as it came out of its holster.