“Nurse!” Carrie cried, not knowing what else to do. “Nurse, what’s happening?”
By the time the blonde nurse reached the bedside his writhing had progressed to agonized thrashing. Smoke streamed from his now blackened skin and collected in a dark, roiling cloud above the bed as he tore the respirator tube from his throat and belched a stream of black smoke with a hoarse, breathy scream.
The nurse gasped. “Oh, my God!”
At that instant he burst into flame.
The nurse screamed and Carrie reeled away, raising her arm to shield her face from the heat.
He was burning! Dear sweet Jesus, the whole bed was engulfed in a mass of flame!
No...not the bed. Carrie saw now that the bed wasn’t burning. Neither was his hospital gown. Nor the sheets.
Just him.
The CCU dissolved into chaos. Screams, shouts, white-clad bodies darting here and there, shouting into phones, brandishing fire extinguishers, dousing the bed with foam, with white jets of carbon dioxide, but the flames burned on unabated, crisping his skin, boiling his eyes in their sockets, peeling the blackened flesh from his bones, and still he moved and writhed and kicked and thrashed, still alive within the consuming flames.
Still alive...still burning...
And then when it seemed that there was nothing left of him but his skeleton and a crisp blackened membrane stretched across his bones, he stiffened and arched his body until only his heels and the back of his head touched the mattress. He remained like that for what seemed an eternity, exhaling his last smoky breath in a prolonged, quavering ululation, then he collapsed.
And with his collapse, the flames snuffed out.
All was quiet except for the long high-pitched squeal of his flat-lined cardiac monitor. The nurses and orderlies crowded around the bed, covering their mouths and noses as they gaped at the blackened, immolated thing that had once been Walter Ferris, lying stiff and twisted in his unmarred, unscorched hospital gown.
Sick with the horror of it, Carrie staggered back, fighting to maintain her grip on consciousness. She turned and stumbled toward the swinging doors, the voices of the CCU staff echoing above the howl of the monitor...
“Christ, what happened?”...”An oxygen fire?”...”Naw, look at the bed—not even scorched!”...”What happened to the smoke alarms? How come they never went off?”...”Damnedest thing I ever seen!”...
Out in the hall Carrie stepped aside to let the hospital’s emergency crew pass. She leaned against the wall and retched.
She’d come here to forgive him...she had forgiven him.
Apparently someone else had not.
Archdiocese to Close St. Joe’s
The Cardinal has announced that the Archdiocese of New York will temporarily close St. Joseph’s Church until the Diocese and Vatican officials have had time to evaluate the phenomena surrounding the relic displayed on the altar of the Lower Manhattan church.
“Let’s just call it a cooling-off period,” the Cardinal declared at a news conference yesterday. “In the present climate of crowds, hysteria, and conflicting claims of right of ownership, clear, reasoned, dispassionate judgment is quite nearly impossible.”
St. Joseph’s parishioners will be instructed to attend services at St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery until their own church is reopened.
The city has announced it will clear the area around St. Joseph’s in order to allow Church investigative teams to do their work without interference.
(The New York
Post
)
Emilio stood back and watched the police herd the Mary-hunters from the street in front of St. Joseph’s. The hordes of the faithful were reluctant to go and protested vociferously. Some protested with more than their voices, crying that they had driven thousands of miles to be healed and weren’t about to be turned away now.
But they were indeed turned away. And some of those who would not leave voluntarily were either dragged away or driven away in the backs of paddy wagons.
By whatever means necessary, the entire block was cleared by nightfall. The church doors were locked and a police cordon was set up across each end of the street.
Emilio shook his head in admiration. He didn’t know how he had done it, but he saw the Senador’s hand in all this. There were still roadblocks before him, but the Senador had cleared the major obstacle between Emilio and the relic.
The rest was up to him.
Already he had a plan.
IN THE PACIFIC
20o N, 128o W
The storm continues to gain in size and strength as it races along its northeasterly course. It now stretches one hundred and fifty miles across as its cumulonimbus crown reaches to forty thousand feet.
The spinning core of its heart increases its speed, and the entire storm moves with it. The swirling mass of violent weather is aimed toward northern Mexico.
TWENTY-ONE
Manhattan
Decker honked and yelled and edged the D’Agostino’s truck through the crowd until it nosed up against one of the light blue “Police Line” horses that blocked access to the street ahead. Beyond the barrier the pavement stretched dark and empty in front of St. Joseph’s, illuminated in patches by the streetlamps. An island of calm in a sea of frustrated Mary-hunters.
“You know what to say?” Emilio said.
Decker nodded. “Got it memorized.”
He jammed some gum into his mouth and slid out from behind the wheel as one of the cops approached.
Emilio watched from his spot in the middle of the front seat. Molinari slouched to his right, trying to look casual with his elbow protruding from the open passenger window. Emilio was keeping a decidedly low profile at this point in their little mission. Decker and Mol sported extra facial hair, glasses, and nostril dilators to distort their appearances, but Emilio had gone to the greatest length to disguise himself. He’d added a thick black beard to augment his mustache, a shaggy wig, and a Navy blue knitted watch cap pulled low over his forehead, almost to his eyebrows. He was often caught in the background when the Senador was photographed leaving his office or his car, and he didn’t want the slightest risk of being identified later.
“Street’s closed, buddy,” the cop said. “You gotta go down to—”
“Gotta delivery here,” Decker said, chewing noisily on the gum as he fished a slip of paper from his pocket. “The rect’ry.”
“Yeah? Nobody told me about that.”
“We deliver alla time, man. Youse guys maya shut down da choich, but dem priests still gotta eat, know’m sayin’?”
As the cop stared at Decker, Emilio winced and closed his eyes. He heard Mol groan softly. Decker was laying it on too thick.
The cop pulled a flashlight from his belt. “Let’s have a look at what you’re deliverin’. You wouldn’t be the first Mary-hunters tried to sneak by us tonight.”
Emilio nodded as Mol nudged him. They’d done this right. This was no fake D’Agostino’s truck. This was the real thing. They’d hijacked it just as it left the store. The driver was bound, gagged and unconscious in the trunk of a car Mol had stolen this afternoon. The back of the panel truck was loaded with grocery bags, all scheduled for delivery elsewhere, but Emilio had changed the addresses on half a dozen of them to read “St. Joseph’s rectory.”
Emilio heard the rear doors open, heard the rustle of paper as a few of the bags were inspected, then heard the door slam closed.
Seconds later, Decker was slipping back behind the wheel as the cop slid the barrier aside and waved them through.
“‘Choich?’“ Mol said, leaning forward and staring at Decker. “‘Choich?’“
Decker shrugged, grinning. “What can I say? I’m a Method actor.”
Mol laughed and grabbed his crotch. “Method this!”