What was true was that the Grail had banged around the Middle East for quite a while capstone of the Great Pyramid, cornerstone of the Temple of Solomon, that sort of thing. Back during the Crusades we'd been given the keeping of it. We never could hide the fact that there was a Grail, or that it was holy, but for a long time we tried to get people to go looking for dinnerware. Then someone talked. Somewhere, somehow, there was a leak. And blunders, like I said, never go away.
So far, though, everything looked all peachy-keen and peaceful at the United Nations. The room, the mural, the big chunk of polished rock. I pulled out a little pocket compass. Yep, that was still a lodestone over there.
One more test. I opened the little gold case in my pants pocket and slipped out a consecrated Host. I palmed it, then walked past the Grail on my way out of the room. My hand brushed the polished stone as I went by. Then I was out of the room, heading for the main doors and the street.
I raised my hand to straighten my hair, and as my hand passed my lips, I took the Host. Then I knew there was something really, desperately wrong. No taste of blood.
Hosts bleed when they touch the Holy Grail. Don't ask me how; I'm not enough of a mystic to answer. But I do know why Godhood in the presence of Itself makes for interesting physical manifestations.
There was a stone back there in the meditation room. But either it wasn't the real Grail, or it wasn't holy anymore.
Whoever did this was far more powerful than I'd imagined. They either had to smuggle a six-and-a-half-ton block of rock into the UN, and smuggle another six-and-a-half-ton block of rock out of there without anyone noticing, or they had to defile something that had never been defiled not even on Friday the 13th, when some men with real power and knowledge had given it their best shot and come away with nothing but their own sins to show for the effort.
I had to report back. Prester John needed to know about this as soon as possible.
That was when they hit me, just as I stepped out onto the street. I felt a light impact on the side of my neck, like a mosquito. I slapped at it by reflex, but before my hand got there, my knees were already buckling. Two men moved in on either side of me, supporting me. My eyes were open, and I could see and remember, but my arms and legs weren't responding anymore.
"Come on," the man on my right said. "You're going for a little ride."
They walked me across the plaza, three men holding hands. No one looked twice. You see some funny things in New York.
They put me in the back of a limo. Another man was behind the wheel, waiting for them. The door shut and we pulled away from the curb. The guy on my right pushed my head down so I wasn't visible from outside, which meant I couldn't see where they were taking me, either.
We crossed a bridge I could hear it humming in the tires then slowed to join other traffic. I pulled inside myself and looked for where the poison was in my body. It was potent, but there couldn't be much of it. I could handle not-much.
With enough concentration some people can slow their heartbeat down to where doctors can't detect it. Other people can slow their breathing to where they can make a coffinful of air last a week. I concentrated on finding all the molecules of poison in my bloodstream and making Maxwell's Demon shunt them off to somewhere harmless.
Little finger of my left hand, say. Let it concentrate there and not get out.
The car was slowing again. Stopping. Too soon. I hadn't gotten all the poison localized yet.
They pulled me out of the backseat. We were on a dock, probably on Long Island. No one else was in sight. I could see now what was going to happen: Into the water, the current carries me away, I'm too weak to swim, I drown. The poison is too dilute, or it breaks down, or its masked by the by-products of decomposition and the toxicological examination doesn't find it at the autopsy.
They weren't asking any questions. Instead, we went out to the end of the pier, them walking and me being walked. Two of them held me out over the water while the third the one who'd been the driver spoke.
"We do not slay thee. Thy blood is not on us. We desire no earthly thing: Go to God with all ye possess. Sink ye or swim ye, thou art nothing more to us."
A roaring sounded in my ears, and I was falling forward. Water, cold and salt, rushed into my nose and mouth.
Human bodies float in salt water. Concentrate on moving the poison. Give me enough control that I can float on my back I was sinking. The light was growing dim. I concentrated on lowering my need for oxygen, lowering my heartbeat, lowering everything.
Move the poison. Don't use air. Float.
Then it was working. I could feel strength and control return to my arms and legs. I was deep underwater. I opened my eyes and looked around. I saw shadow and pilings not too far away: the bottom of the pier.
Swim that way slowly keep the poison in the left little finger. Don't use air. Then float up.
I didn't dare gasp for breath when I got to the surface. For all I knew, my assailants were still up there waiting. Slowly, quietly, I allowed my lungs to empty, then fill again. I hooked my left arm around the nearest piling, then reached down with my right hand and undid a shoelace. I hoped I wouldn't lose the shoe.
Using the lace, I tied a tourniquet around my left little finger now the drug couldn't get out and reached down again to my belt. The buckle hid a small push-dagger, made of carbonite so metal detectors wouldn't pick it up. Don't let the material fool you; it's hard and sharp. I cut the end of my little finger, held the knife between my teeth, and squeezed out the poisoned blood. The blood came out thick and dark, trailing away in the water like a streamer of red. Then I unloosed the tourniquet and it was time to go.
The foot of the pier was set in a cement wall about seven feet high, but the wall was old and crumbling. I got a fingerhold, then a foothold. At last I was out of the water. I crawled up until I was lying on top of the wall, under the decking of the pier. Anyone looking for me would have to be in the water to see me. I stayed there, waiting and listening, for a hundred heartbeats, then two hundred, and heard nothing but waves lapping up against the wall.
A sound. A board creaked on the dock. They'd left someone behind, all right someone waiting like I was, only not so quietly.
But those cowboys had been a little slack. Either they'd trusted their drug too much, or else it was really important to their ritual that I keep all my possessions. The end result was the same; I hadn't been searched. When I reached a hand down to my pocket, the Tarnkappe was still where I'd stuffed it when I'd gotten done with Max Lang.
A visit to Lang looked like it was in the cards. Later. There were other things to do first.
I put on the Kappe, then crawled out of my hiding place and up onto the shore. There he was, out on the pier: a man in a business suit, carrying a Ruger mini-14 at high port. I sat on the shore, hoping I'd dry out enough so that water drops splashing on the pavement wouldn't give me away. Or chattering teeth the sun was heading down and it was going to get cold pretty soon for a man in wet clothes.
Whatever those lads had hit me with, it'd left me with the beginning of a king-of-hell headache. I ignored the discomfort and concentrated on the man on the pier. Who was he? I'd never seen him before.