The Cleric's Vault (31 page)

Chapter 56

Cuenca, Ecuador

Angela
Weaver strutted out to the SUV that was sitting in front of the church.
 
The three others waited behind it. She
climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

“Where
is Agent Collack,” one of her mercenaries asked.

“He
is staying here,” she answered coldly.
 
The man didn’t say anything else.
 
She added, “I’m in charge now.
 
We need to get over to the other church, and we need to be there five
minutes ago.”
 
Her face was
contorted in frustration.

She
stepped on the gas and pulled away from the scene.
 
The other SUVs with her followed suit, their drivers unaware
of where they were headed.
 

“What
about the woman who left the group earlier?” she asked as the vehicle sped
along.
 

“Our
tail lost her but we know the area she’s in,” he wasn’t happy to report the bad
news.

Angela
looked thoughtful.
 
“Do we know
where she was going?”

“No.
 
Nor why.”
 
The driver watched for her reaction out of the corner of his
eye.

“Send
unit three over to help out.
 
We
need to find her.
 
She could become
a useful bargaining chip at some point.”

The driver touched his earpiece and gave the order into the
microphone.
 
Immediately, the third
SUV in line turned off down a side street.

*****

Hunter
Carlson waited patiently, crouched behind a large tree just outside Iglesia de
Maria Auxiliadora.
 
He’d made his
way to the church on a hunch.
 
Even
though the cathedral he’d visited earlier was much more prominent, it had been
the wrong place.
 
Fortunately, he’d
been asking around earlier in the day and knew where another church was
nearby.
 
It was the only one that
made sense.
 
Now, it appeared that
Sean Wyatt had left a few guys to watch the cars he explored the church.
 
One of the men had slipped into an SUV
and had been there for several minutes.
 
For the attack to work, Hunter needed both guards out in the open.

If
he went after the man in the car, any noise at all would alert him and give him
a chance to let the other guard know something was wrong.
 
He decided his original plan was best
and continued to wait.
 
The
annoying laugh of the other man on the cell phone boomed through the square as
he continued to carry on a conversation in Spanish that was apparently quite
humorous.
 
It was mind numbing to
Carlson how men like these two were considered to be worth anything more than
minimum wage.
 
He knew, however,
bodyguards were usually well paid in many circumstances.
 
He quickly banished the thoughts so he
could concentrate on the task at hand.
 
The sound of the door slamming to the sport utility signaled that his
mark was back on the street, in the open.

*****

The
four men stared at the odd, stone tree for a few silent moments.
 

“So
what does it mean?” Will asked, breaking the silence.

Tommy
scratched his head before responding.
 
“I’m not entirely sure.”
 

Sean
noticed something above where the two trunks came together.
 
Carved into the stone bark was
Revelation 22:14.

“Do
you know what that verse says?” he asked his friend while he pointed to the
engraving.
 

“Not
off the top of my head, no,” Tommy shook his head.

Sean
pulled out his smart phone and quickly typed in a few words into his Google
app.
 
A light breeze passed through
the area again, carrying with it the scent of the city mixed with the familiar
smell of rain.
 
The wind picked up
slightly and was joined by a few raindrops.
 
A few seconds later, he was reading an information page
about the verse written in the stone tree.
 
“It says, ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they
may have the right to the tree of life and go through the gates of the
city.”
 
A few more raindrops began
to spatter the ground and the sculpture.
 
The breeze whipped up again, stronger than before.
 
“What do you think it means,
Schultzie?”

“May
I suggest we figure this out inside?” Mauricio interrupted.

The
others nodded and jogged across the courtyard to the doors they’d come through
a few minutes before.
 
Once they
were inside the shelter of the church, the rain started pouring in earnest
almost instantly.
 
The men brushed
the water off their arms as they looked around, once again in the entryway of
the church.

“Wash
their robes,” Tommy muttered under his breath, still trying to figure out the
meaning of the text.
 
He put his
hand to his mouth, focusing on the thinly carpeted floor.

“What
robes?” Mauricio asked.
 
“Priest’s
robes?
 
Where do they keep priest’s
robes?”

“Those
would be in an office somewhere in the building,” Sean answered.
 
The expression on his face showed that
the gears in his mind had started turning.

Tommy
shook his head slowly.
 
“I don’t
think we’re looking for robes,” he contradicted the thought.
 

“No?”
Mauricio questioned.

“No.
 
The verse said that those who wash their
robes will have the right to enter the gates.
 
There are two parts to the riddle there, but the robes are
not one of them.
 
The verse is
referring to common people.
 
So the
robes are a figure of speech.
 
It
could be any clothes a common person would wear.
 
It wouldn’t even have to be clothes.
 
The act of washing is the important
part.”

“So
what are we looking for, then?” Sean asked.

Tommy
stared beyond where his friend was standing, towards the entrance of the
sanctuary.
 
Beneath the arched
doorway and to the left, a large baptismal font made of stone sat on the floor
just in front of the threshold.
 
Strange engravings surrounded the outside of the container’s lip.
 
Beneath the odd symbols, pictures of
people were carved into the stone.
 
They were in a line as if they were waiting for something.
 
Tommy walked past his comrades to get a
better view of the front of the object.
 
As he got closer, his suspicions were confirmed.
 
The others watched him as he went over
to the large bowl and got down on one knee.
 
He traced a shape with his finger.
 
The men joined him, looking at the engraving from behind
where he knelt.
 
“Baptism,” he
whispered.
 
“All the people here,”
he pointed to the line of patrons on the stone, “they are waiting for
baptism.
 
Baptism makes the sinner
clean.
 
And gives them the right
to,” he pointed to another, familiar shape in the stone, “The Tree of Life.”

*****

The
gun’s sights followed the first guard.
 
Hunter’s finger tightened slightly on the trigger.
 
He would have only a second to take out
the other guard as soon as he dropped the first.
 

Raindrops
started pattering the leaves in the tree overhead.
 
A large gust of wind rolled through the plaza.
 
Carlson could see the guard on the
other side of the SUV through the tinted windows.
 
The man was about to clear the back end of it and would be
in the open.
 
The other guy on his
cell phone would only hear a muffled pop from the sound suppressor and in his
confusion would be an easy target.
 

Suddenly,
the rain picked up as if a faucet in the sky had been turned on.
 
The guard he was targeting stopped
moving and looked up.
 
Then, he
turned back around and got in the front passenger side of the truck.
 

The
other man did the same, effectively ruining Hunter’s plans.
 
He didn’t have a clear shot.
 
But maybe the storm would be to his
advantage.
 
He could take out one
man in the rear vehicle; then take out the other.
 
With the noise of the pouring rain falling on trucks, they
wouldn’t hear anything.
 
Plus the
guard in the front SUV was still on his cell phone.
 
Hunter decided to make the best of the situation and
scurried quickly over to the rear of the second SUV, careful to stay low as he
moved.
 

*****

Tommy’s
theory made sense, Sean thought as he ran his finger along the rim of the
baptismal font.
 
He still had a
question, though.
 
“What do these
symbols mean?” he asked.

His
friend stood from his kneeling position.
 

“I
have no idea.
 
They look similar to
some of the things we saw from the pictures of Crespi’s collection.”
 
He took out his smart phone and started
taking pictures of the object.
 

“What
are you doing?” Will wondered.

“We
may need to investigate this further at some point.”
 
Schultz took a few more pictures then placed the phone back
in his front pocket.

“Now
what do we do?” Mauricio asked.

The
rain was coming down hard outside, evidenced by the deep sound of it impacting
the roof overhead.
 
The low droll
echoed through the hallway and throughout the sanctuary.

This
time, Sean got down on one knee and started looking at the floor surrounding
the font.
 
He didn’t notice
anything out of the ordinary.
 
“It
isn’t bolted down or anything,” he stated after a minute of investigation.

“You
think we need to move it?” Will asked.

Sean
tilted his head and shrugged.
 
“I
mean, yeah.
 
We’ll move it
back.”
 
He smiled as he said
it.
 

Mauricio
was already on task, stepping over to one side of the container and rolling up
his sleeves.
 
The other three
joined in, with Sean and Will on the opposite side of Mauricio and Tommy,
pulling it while the other two pushed.
 
All four men strained against the weight of the object.
 
The stone font turned out to be much
heavier than at first suspected.
 
Mauricio leaned on the container, pushing hard with his shoulder against
the edge.
 

“I
suppose,” Sean strained to talk through clenched teeth as he pulled, “it would
be out of the question to take the holy water out?”

“Probably,”
Tommy answered sarcastically as he continued to push with all his
strength.
 
The heavy stone basin
started to move slightly, sliding on the smooth carpet surface.
 

“Keep
pushing guys, we almost have it,” Sean announced.

A
deep rumble echoed through the floor beneath them as they moved the
object.
 

After
a few more seconds of heaving, Tommy looked down and saw an opening where the
base of the container had been.
 
It
was a small, round hole about six inches in diameter.
 
He and the others stopped heaving as they all noticed the
same strange cavity in the floor.
 

Tommy
got down on his hands and knees and tried to peer into the dark space.
 

“See
anything?” Sean asked as he and the others crowded around the little area.

Schultz
said nothing.
 
Instead, he reached
his hand into the opening.
 
The
others silently watched, mesmerized by the moment, the sound of the rain the
only noise filling the facility.
 
Tommy’s arm was into the hole up to his elbow and he was feeling around
for something.

“Is
there anything in there?”
 
Will
asked, eagerly.

This
time Schultz nodded.
 
A second
later he pulled his hand out.
 
Firmly gripped within it was a simple wooden cylinder, about six inches
long and two inches in diameter.
 
The surface of the caramel colored, round container was smooth; there
appeared to be a cap on one end.
 
Tommy inspected the piece thoroughly before looking again at what had
first caught his eye on the lid of the cylinder.
 
Some numbers and letters had been burned into the top
reading, “II Kings 5:10.”