Emilio let them blow off a little steam. They were in—past the guard house, so to speak—but they still had a long way to go.
Decker gave a friendly wave to the cop standing on the sidewalk in front of the church as he drove past, and backed the truck into the alley on the far side of the rectory. Mol and Emilio got out, opened the rear of the trunk, grabbed some bags, and left the doors open as they approached the rectory’s side door with loaded arms.
A middle-aged woman opened the door.
“A gift for Father Dan from one of his parishioners,” Emilio said. “Is he in?”
Emilio knew he was in—he’d confirmed that with a phone call.
“Why, yes,” the woman said. She let them into the foyer, then turned and called up the stairs behind her. “Father Dan! Someone here to see you!”
By the time she turned back again, Mol had put his grocery bags down and had a pistol pointing at her face.
“Not a word, or we’ll shoot Father Dan. Understand?”
Eyes wide, jaw trembling, utterly terrified, she nodded.
“Anyone else in the house besides Father Dan?” Mol said.
She shook her head.
“Good.” Mol smiled. “Now, let’s find a nice little closet so we can lock you up where you won’t get hurt.
Emilio had his own automatic—a silenced Llama compact 9mm—ready and waiting for Father Dan when he came down the stairs.
“Hello,” the priest said. “What—”
And then he saw the pistol.
“Let’s go to church, shall we, Father?” Emilio said.
The young priest looked bewildered. “But there are police all over—”
“The tunnel, Father Dan. We’ll use the tunnel.”
The priest shook his head. “Tunnel? I don’t know what you’re—”
Emilio jabbed the silencer tip against his ribs. “I’ll shoot your housekeeper in the face.”
“All right!” Father Dan said, blanching. “All right. It’s this way.”
“That’s better.
Mol rejoined them then, and gave Emilio a thumbs-up sign. The housekeeper was safely locked away. She’d keep quiet to protect her precious priest from being shot while the priest was leading them to the church in order to keep his housekeeper from being shot.
Wasn’t brotherly love wonderful?
But repeated reminders never hurt. Emilio had worked this one out and memorized it: “No heroics, please, Father. We’re not here to hurt anyone, but we’re quite willing to do so without hesitation if the need arises. Remember that.”
‡
Why are all these things happening, Mother?
Carrie sat in the front pew, staring at the Virgin where she lay upon the altar.
She could not get the sight of her father—now that he was dead, had died so horribly, it seemed all right to call him that—out of her head. The flames, the oily smoke, the smell, the obscene sizzle of burning human flesh haunted her dreams and her waking hours, stealing her appetite, chasing her sleep. That had been no ordinary fire. Only the man had burned, nothing else.
Did I do that, Mother? Did you? Or was that the work of Someone Else’s hand?
And now the church was closed, the sick and lame turned away, the building sealed, the street blocked off. What next? Tomorrow these aisles would be crowded with investigators from the Archdiocese and the Vatican, trailed by nosy, disrespectful bureaucrats from City Hall and Albany, from Washington and Israel, all poking, prodding, examining.
They’ll be interrogating me about how you got here. I won’t tell them a thing. It’s not me I’m worried about, Mother. It’s you. They’ll treat you like a thing—an it. They may even decide you belong back in Israel. What’ll I do then, Mother?
Carrie felt tears begin to well in her eyes. She willed them away.
There’s a plan, isn’t there, Mother? There has to be. I just have to have faith and—
She heard a noise in the vestibule and turned. She smiled when she saw Dan leading two other strange-looking men up the aisle, but he did not return her smile. He looked pale and grim.
And then she saw the pistols.
She shot to her feet. “Dan? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was as tight as his features. “They came into the rectory and—”
“What we want is very simple,” the bigger, bearded one said. He stopped a dozen feet or so down the aisle from Carrie and let Dan continue toward her. He gestured toward the altar with his pistol. “We want that.”
Carrie was stunned for a few seconds, unable, unwilling to believe what she’d just heard.
“Want her for what?” she managed to say.
“No time for chatter, Sister. Here’s how we’ll do this. You two will carry her back through the tunnel to the rectory, and we’ll take her from there. No tricks, no games, no heroics, and no one gets hurt.” He gestured with his pistol at Dan. “You take the head and she’ll take the feet. Let’s move.”
“No!” Carrie said.
The bearded man snapped his head back in surprise. Obviously he hadn’t expected that.
Neither had Carrie. The word had erupted from her with little or no forethought, propelled by fear, by anger, by outrage that anyone could even think of stealing the Virgin from the sanctuary of a church.
She faced him defiantly.
“Get out of here.”
He stared at her for a heartbeat or two, then pointed his gun at Dan.
“You cause me any trouble and I’ll shoot your priest friend.”
“No, you won’t. There’s a cop outside that door. All I have to do is scream once and he’ll be in here, and that will be the end of you. Get out now. I’ll give you a chance to run, then I’m going to open the front doors and call the police inside.”
“I’m not kidding, lady,” the big one said through his teeth. “Get up there and do what you’re told.”
“Carrie, please,” she heard Dan say from her left. “It’s okay. They can’t get past the cops with her anyway. So just do as he says.”
Dan might be right, but Carrie wasn’t going to let these creeps get their filthy hands on the Virgin for even a few seconds.
“Get out now or I scream.”
The shorter one looked about nervously, as if he wanted to take her up on the offer, but the bearded one stood firm. His eyes narrowed as he raised his pistol and aimed it at her chest. His voice was low and menacing.
“No me jodas.”
He wouldn’t dare, she thought. He’s got to be bluffing.
“All right,” she said. “I gave you your chance.”
Still they didn’t move, so she filled her lungs and—
She saw the flash at the tip of the silencer, saw the pistol buck, heard a sound like phut!, felt an impact against her chest, tried to start her scream but she was punched backward and didn’t seem to have any air to scream with. And then she was falling. Darkness rimmed her vision as a distant roaring surged closer, filling her ears, bringing with it more darkness, an all-encompassing darkness...
‡
Nara, Japan
As the first rays of the sun crest the horizon and light the flared eaves of the Todaiji temple, the largest wood structure in the world, it begins to dissolve, to melt into the air. And as the sun rises farther, the temple further dissolves. Finally the sun strikes the bronze surface of the Daibutsu. The bronze of the Buddha seems to glow for a moment, then it too dissolves.
In a manner of minutes, nothing of the Todaiji or its Buddha remains.
‡
Manhattan
Emilio stood frozen with his automatic still pointed at where she had been standing as he watched her fall and lay twitching on the marble floor, the red of her life soaking through the front of her habit and pooling around her.
“Christ, Emilio!” Mol gasped beside him.
“Carrie!” the priest cried, dropping to his knees beside her and gripping her limp shoulders. “Oh, God, Carrie!”
I’m sorry, Emilio thought. I’m so sorry!
And that shocked him. Because he’d killed before without the slightest shred of guilt. Anyone who threatened him or stood between him and what he wanted didn’t deserve to live. It had always been that simple. But here, now, in this place, before that old woman’s body on the altar, a new emotion, as unpleasant as it was unfamiliar, was seeping through him.