The Sixth Station (46 page)

“How…?”

“Not to worry. It’s only one room but it’s better than sleeping in the car.”

“You bet. I feel like I haven’t showered in three years.”

As she turned the car around she began peppering me with questions about what Sister Grethe had to say. I had the impression that it was a mere formality on her part and that she already knew everything we’d said.

“You were listening in somehow, weren’t you?”

“Of course. She’s quite insane. And violent. I couldn’t let you be alone with her. God only knows what she’s capable of. Well, I take that back. We know what she’s capable of. Dr. Frankenstein in Carmelite clothing.”

“But I thought you now believed that ben Yusef—”

She cut me off as we rounded a particularly sharp curve on the mountain road. “I believe it, yes, but that doesn’t mean she had the right to create a human clone—no matter whose DNA it was. What they did was monstrous. But what
I
did on orders from the CIA—and I know this to be true now—was monstrous as well. Now I have no choice but to try to help you save the life of the Son of the Son—do I?”

“You do, yes, but it seems that I don’t. Have a choice in the matter, I mean. So, if I haven’t said it before, I want you to know that I appreciate that you are here for me. For Him. For whoever.”

As we made the next severe curve on the one-lane mountain road in the dark, we barely escaped a brush fire that was starting up on the hill right next to the road.

“I hope Sister Grethe is all right,” I said, getting my breath back. “I think we should turn around and force her to come with us.”

“She’ll be fine. She knows these hills and woods better than a tracking dog. If she senses danger, I’m sure she’s fully prepared.”

“Why would you think such a thing? I mean, she’s an old lady.”

“Because I’m an old lady, too. We were both soldiers on different sides of the same war, and she’s about the toughest lady I’ve ever come across.”

“I thought you never met—”

“We never have. But when you’re on opposite sides of a conflict, you had better know not only exactly how your enemy thinks, feels, and moves, you had better for damned sure know exactly what she looks like—no matter what disguises she puts on.”

Truly, I was still an infant in this grown-up game that had been going on for at least two thousand years. Who was my enemy? And what disguises were they wearing? Oh, right, no disguise. Just a naked muscular body on a man at least fifteen years my senior.

Moron!

“I wonder how Grethe would feel if she knew you were on her side now.”

“She’d never believe it. And that’s why I don’t want her to know I’m here. If she saw me, I’m afraid her delicate mental state would tip over into a full psychotic episode. You’d never get your hands on the source blood.”

As we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, she turned off the car. We could hear explosions and gunfire in the distant hills.

“I appreciate your putting your life in danger like this.”

“This isn’t an entirely selfless act on my part,” she responded. “As I indicated back in Rhinecliff, I truly do not want to die with this horrible sin on my soul. I’d forever be remembered as a modern-day equivalent of one of the execution squad that killed Jesus. There were four soldiers at Jesus’ Crucifixion, just like on the modern executive committee, but ultimately? I was the one in charge of the Infant’s elimination.”

The word
elimination
again. Why doesn’t she just say
assassination
, for God’s sake?

We took our few belongings and walked to the aluminum front doors, which were locked. The light of the vending machine was all that illuminated the tiny lobby.

We rang the bell, and eventually a beleaguered-looking woman in a maid’s uniform unlocked the door, opened it just enough for us to enter, and closed and locked it right behind us.

She said nothing, asked for no identification nor even payment, and led us to a room on the same floor.

The accommodations consisted of a small room with only two narrow beds fit for monks, a dresser, and a small bathroom. I was so achingly tired, however, that it felt like the Plaza Athénée in Paris. Maureen let me use the bathroom first, and I climbed under the shower and was done in two minutes. I had to make it quick—the whole country was blowing up and shutting down around us—and the water had only been lukewarm. I knew there wouldn’t have been enough water for two if I hadn’t made it quick.

I pulled on a T-shirt and clean underpants, and fell into one of the beds as Maureen took her turn in the bathroom. When I heard her turn on the shower, I sunk into the pillow.

Without warning, great gushing sobs escaped from my throat. I was crying for myself. I was crying, dammit, for Pantera as well.

This is too much for me. I can’t do this—I can’t even save one man, let alone the frigging world. Hell, my mere presence has caused the death of two men I care deeply about.

That was immediately followed by my rational side taking over from the emotional mess side of me.

Right. One got you into this mess, and one SOB took horrible advantage of you and stole the only proof there is on earth from you.

I didn’t want Maureen to hear me crying, so as soon as the water shut off in the bathroom, I forced my own personal waterworks to shut down as well. I fell into a deep and, for once, dreamless sleep. In fact, I was so deeply asleep that I didn’t even stir until I felt Maureen gently shaking me awake.

She was already done up in her fake nun’s habit. Damn if she didn’t look like she’d sent it out to be cleaned and pressed overnight.

“What time is it?”

“It’s nearly six thirty. I believe you are to meet the sister at church this morning?”

“Yes. Oh, right. You were listening in.” She made no indication that she’d even heard me, which I know she did.

“Are you coming to church with me?”

“Yes, but I will sit in the back. Just another anonymous nun.”

“I hope Grethe is all right. I’m really worried. I can smell the fires.” With that, I got up and opened the shutters a bit and could see wildfires all over the hills.

“As I said, she’s fine. She entered the church at five. Before sunrise.”

I didn’t bother to ask her how she knew this, because it would have been a waste of my breath and of her time.

“You’d better hurry, my dear.”

I kept the same white T-shirt on, scrambled back into my jeans, threw on my leather jacket and boots, and grabbed my red bag.

“Coming?”

“I’ll follow in a few minutes. Please be careful not to look around the church for me, or they might suspect you’ve brought along a cohort.”

“They?”

“Well, whoever.
She.
I don’t want to tip your delicate balance with her.”

I opened the door to leave, and turned back. “I don’t know what I’ll find out, aside from the fact that I’ve seen a relic, but if the nun can somehow prove what she says is true, I will make sure the whole world knows the truth, and knows it ten minutes after I do.”

“Eleven. I come first.”

I walked out into the beautiful spring day and heard the sound of gunfire and explosions around the area surrounding Manoppello. They sounded much closer than they had the night before. The hills were not just ablaze; they had become a war zone.

The whole world is coming undone. Has everyone gone crazy because ben Yusef might get a pass?

I climbed the steps to the church and tried a door. I was shocked to see that it was not just open, but that the church was fairly full and that the 7:00
A.M.
mass had already begun. I was also more than shocked to see such a beautiful lush interior. The inside structure totally belied the façade.

Rows of plain, wooden pews sat upon a decorative marble floor leading up to an altar with three marble steps. On the first tier of the altar was the same white altar cloth covering it as I’d seen in the House of the Virgin. Behind the altar in the apse, however, was something I’d never seen in a church. Two rows of steps with banisters—almost like a bridge—converged at the center around an elaborate marble-pillared tower. It was topped by a cross not dissimilar to the Occitan Cross that I’d seen all over the Languedoc area in France. The tower reached nearly to the ceiling.

An arch was carved out of the center of the tower and topped with marble rococo angels. Inside of that arch sat an elaborate gold frame with a crown and a cross on its top. But with the sunlight hitting the frame, it looked like it held nothing but blank gauze.

Has the Veil been moved?

I refocused my eyes to the parishioners themselves—townsfolk, nuns, and monks. I saw Grethe’s brown habit from the back.

This whole town was deserted last night. Where the heck did all these people come from?

Even from the back, I knew it was Grethe because she was praying at the top of her lungs, letting out screeches and “ululu” sounds every so often. Apparently the locals were used to her, because no one even turned around to see who was making such a fuss.

But she wasn’t the only one who was visibly upset. In fact, many of the congregants were crying, albeit in a more controlled manner.

As soon as mass ended and the church began emptying out, Grethe turned around, and I thought that she must have had a vision, because her expression turned to pure terror. She pointed her finger toward the back of the church and began screaming, “They will kill Him. Save the Lord!” Then on a dime, she turned back around and ran up to the altar, screaming in German.

As she ran toward the altar, a rotund brown-robed monk bounded up the altar’s staircase and grabbed the heavy gilded frame off its pedestal. Holding it tightly to his chest, he ran down the stairs and disappeared through a door in an archway. The metallic sound of the lock resonated loudly within the perfect acoustics of the church.

The old lady was going to steal the frame!

I followed Grethe as she frantically ran after him, yelling over and over,
“Jesus! Retten Sie Ihre Sohn! Jesus! Retten Sie Ihre Sohn!”

When she finally reached the locked door, instead of pounding on it, as I had fully expected, she turned around and spied me through the edge of her veil.

“Come, come. Hurry now, we must keep out the devil!”

She reached into her habit and pulled out a big ring of keys and quickly unlocked the door and slammed it behind us. I could hear footsteps on the other side of the door frantically running this way and that.

“It is Satan,” she said now calmly, as though this were an everyday visitor, and began humming some hymn or other.

I followed her as she scurried up a long metal staircase to the second floor. A door at the top opened onto what looked like a reliquary museum. Along the walls were letters, photos, military medals, and many, many old braids of human hair behind glass showcases.

I followed her to the end of the long corridor, and we stopped before a wooden door. She unlocked the door, and we entered a room entirely lit by candles except for one old metal, dimly lit small chandelier way up on the ceiling.

This small room was again adorned with what looked like bizarre relics—more human hair braids, a human femur behind a glass case, a shelf with human skulls, and many worn, ancient-looking books and bits of papyrus.

At the front of the room six monks were lying prostrate on prayer rugs on the floor before a tiny altar. A door at the back of the room opened, and the rotund monk entered carrying the very elaborate gold frame. Now I could see, without the sunlight hitting it, that there was indeed something inside it. That gauzy fabric I’d seen did have an image imprinted upon it after all. The face, though quite transparent, was that of the same bearded man I’d seen in the transparency, but now he appeared, oddly enough, to be smiling.

This looks like a joke. A cosmic joke.

It measured maybe seven or so inches by ten, and was stretched between two framed panes of glass.

As I looked at it, I could see the wavy horizontal threads, but otherwise, the fabric was so thin and transparent that I could see the monk’s hand holding the image right through the other side.

The effigy itself was the same long-haired man with a broken nose, a bloodstained or bruised forehead, and swollen cheek. Upon closer inspection, he looked uncannily like the photos of the torture victims in the current wars.

The contrasting shades of brown on the man’s face in this dim candlelight made the bruises look almost fresh. But again, it was his eyes that captured me. They seemed to be looking directly at me—almost as though they were content despite his injuries.

What the hell?

I had to photograph this image. But I couldn’t imagine that they’d let me. So I gingerly took out Sadowski’s phone and gestured for permission. Not only did the monk allow it, he seemed to encourage me to take many photos, which of course I did. But this time, I made sure to check that the global tracking was off.

As swiftly as he’d granted permission, the monk grabbed the phone from my hand and started scrolling through the pictures I’d shot. As he did, tears started running down his face, and he passed the phone around to the other monks, who also began to weep.

He handed me back the phone and told me to scroll, which I did. I didn’t start crying myself, but I knew why they had. What I saw couldn’t be—could it?

Every single photo of that same image held a totally different expression. In one, the image was slightly smiling, with his lips closed and his eyes heavily hooded. In the next, he appeared to be screaming, with his mouth wide open, his teeth bared, his eyes open in terror. In yet another, he bore a calm demeanor, as though he were a man at total peace. This last one was almost expressionless—yet the face was the same face as in the transparency I’d gotten from Badde.

But how could these photos all be so very different? They were taken in rapid succession without any difference in lighting or angle. It was triple what I’d seen changing in the transparencies.