Authors: Gilliam Ness
“Fra Bartolomeo,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Might you have had the chance to bring along a few things to snack on? Even your Lent rations would seem a feast in this place.”
“I did manage to put together a few items in our haste,” said the old Brother.
He removed his pack and proceeded to place the contents on a table-like boulder. Around it a pair of large rocks had fallen, giving the elders a place to sit. Gabriel and Natasha found perches close by, and soon all were resting.
“I see you found the roast pork,” said Suora, shaking a finger at Fra.
He had spread a tablecloth out and was unwrapping the slab of meat, placing it next to a crusty loaf of bread.
“I know every one of your hiding spots, my darling,” he said. “And you’ll not hide the crackling from me either!” and pulling out another wrapped parcel, he added, “Nor the gravy!”
Natasha clapped her hands in delight, her mouth watering.
“The pantry,” said the Brother proudly to all, “is the domain of the clergy!”
And with a magician’s bow, he produced a bowl of roasted potatoes.
“Dinner for breakfast!” he said, and all gave a cheer.
“And what is dinner,” said the Bishop, producing two bottles from his pack, “without water and wine.”
After a short prayer of thanks, the five of them dined happily under the light of Gabriel’s flare without a worry in the world.
“If faith is good for one thing, my canine friend,” whispered Gabriel to a chewing Shackleton, “it’s for the delusional sense of safety it offers. Anyone else would be trembling with fear, but these guys think they’re on some kind of a holiday picnic.”
Their meal ended when the flare began to burn itself out. Fra and Suora busied themselves packing away the remaining food.
“That was exquisite!” said the old Bishop, rising to his feet and adjusting his vestments. “Excellent foresight, dear Brother.”
Fra bowed to the Bishop and then handed Shackleton another chunk of roast before packing it away. The dog took it gently, looking at him thankfully.
“You are certainly the most charming animal I have ever met,” said Fra to Shackleton, patting the dog’s back awkwardly.
Natasha had just given him a potato, and she bent down and kissed his head.
“Shackleton has saved us twice today,” she said, ruffling his ears. “He is the best dog in town!”
The dog buried his muzzle in her lap and grumbled contentedly.
“Alright guys,” said Gabriel. “I hate to break it up, but we really should be moving.”
The tunnel continued on unchanged, and once the distressed areas had been left behind, it seemed no different to what they had already passed through. Inky blackness, eerie graves, and the unsettling skeletal remains of countless infants. Gabriel calculated that they had already travelled more than a kilometer, and consulting his compass, saw that they were still headed in the same direction. Their pace was slow, but they were making headway. If they did not encounter any more obstacles, the chances were good that they would soon be arriving at the convent.
This being said, all hopes were soon dashed by yet another cave-in, only unlike the previous collapse, this one was most definitely impassable. Whereas the other had been comprised of boulders and loose rubble, the cave-in before them was formed entirely from earth and sand. There was simply no way through.
“It would appear that we have arrived at an impasse,” said the Bishop. “We will hide in the tunnel for as long as our food lasts, and then return to the rectory. Let us pray that the soldiers have gone by then.”
“There’s another option,” said Gabriel, aiming his flashlight in the direction they had come.
Everyone turned to look.
“Not a hundred meters back I saw what looked like a tunnel leading off in another direction.”
“You did?” asked Natasha curtly. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Gabriel took note of her tone.
“Because I didn’t think there was a need, Sergeant.”
He looked over at the Bishop.
“I thought we’d be arriving at the convent at any moment.”
“Well, my son,” said the Bishop, “it would seem there is a need now, would you not say?”
“Most definitely,” said Gabriel. “Let’s go back and take a look.”
The opening was small, low, and crudely cut into the tunnel wall, almost as though the excavators had encountered it by accident. From within there came a draft of slightly warmer air. Gabriel crouched down and entered.
“I’ll just take a quick look,” he said over his shoulder. “Be right back.”
The others stood by the opening, Natasha squatting before it and gazing in. In a moment Gabriel had disappeared past a curve in the passage, the light of his flashlight fading away soon afterwards. All waited expectantly, but Natasha was the most impatient of all. As the minutes passed, she seemed to grow more and more anxious.
“What if he gets lost, Uncle?” she said, biting her lip. “It has already been ten minutes and there is no sign of him.”
“Have faith, Natasha,” he said reassuringly. “Gabriel will be fine.”
Natasha checked herself at once.
“Why do you say that?” she asked sharply. “I do not care what happens to that man. I am only thinking of the three of you.”
She rose to her feet and stepped away from the opening. Something was drawing her to Gabriel despite all her efforts. He was a player, and she wanted nothing to do with him. In the end her concern proved impossible to resist and she made her way back to the opening.
“I am going to take a quick look,” she said, entering. “I will be back in a moment.”
No sooner had she gone in than Gabriel appeared. There was not much room in the tight passage and his face was only inches away from hers. He was smiling dryly.
“Miss me?”
Natasha looked daggers at him.
“What took you so long?”
“I wanted to make sure it was what I thought it was.”
“Well? Was it?”
“Yes, and much more. Back up and I’ll tell you outside.”
The three seniors were greatly relieved to see the two emerge from the dark passage. Gabriel looked delighted.
“OK. I think we can get out this way, but it could take a while.”
“What is it, my son?” asked the Bishop. “Where does it lead?”
“To the catacombs,” said Gabriel. “While those monks were digging their tunnel of love, they happened to bump into one of the largest necropolises in Europe.”
“Good heavens!”exclaimed the old Bishop, his eyes alight with sudden excitement. “
The Catacombs of San Callisto
!”
Amsterdam, North Holland.
Christian Antov walked briskly
through the lobby of an opulent five star hotel. Around him were some of the most powerful people in the world, each of them members of a private organization that would soon be holding its yearly weekend conference. He stopped at the reception desk, only to be immediately greeted by his new personal assistant. She was the youngest daughter of one of his father’s associates, and she made no attempt to mask her innocent worship of him.
“Hello, Mr. Antov,” she said flirtatiously. “Can I help you with anything?”
Christian did nothing to return her smile, but instead looked down at the generous cleavage she seemed to be proffering. Cynthia had been a little girl when he had last seen her three years before, but she had since blossomed into a beautiful young woman.
“How old are you, Cynthia?”
“Seventeen and a half.”
Christian paused, looking straight into her eyes.
“Email me a list of the guests who will be arriving today.”
Christian moved off before the girl could respond, the hint of a cold smile on his lips. He would revisit her invitation in six months. For now he would use her for other purposes.
All things considered, Christian was quite proud of how rapidly he was adapting to his new responsibilities. It was a drastic departure from his decadent life as a New York City artist, but he was enjoying the power tremendously. It had only been two days since he had taken over his father’s position as Chief Head of the Vanderhoff Group Steering Committee, but oddly enough he felt completely at home in the new surroundings; as though he had been born for the position.
Making his way through the lobby, Christian thought back on the previous day, still trying to digest all that he had learned from his uncle, Prince Vladimir Rodchenko. They had met outside the Vanderhoff Group Headquarters earlier that afternoon. It was a palatial residence in the centre of Amsterdam. The old Prince had escorted Christian into the building, leading him through an opulent hall and up a sweeping staircase to his new offices. On the way Christian had been greeted by many staff members, each one offering their respectful condolences with regards to his father.
“Today I will be telling you many things you do not know, Christian,” his uncle Vladimir had said. “Things that will help you understand who you are, and why you were raised as you were.”
Vladimir Rodchenko was the brother of Christian’s late mother; a woman whom Christian could only vaguely remember. He was a brittle and impervious man, with a temper that could suddenly lash out like a whip, and then vanish just as quickly. Being the only relative that he had ever been permitted to meet, Christian was not sure whom he hated more, the Prince or his father.
“This is your new office,” the Prince had said flatly, leading Christian into a luxurious apartment. “Everything here was your father’s. It now belongs to you. All of its contents, along with the position your father held, are a part of your inheritance. It might seem strange to you, Christian, but you have been training for this job all of your life.”
After the Prince had left, Christian had settled into a big leather armchair that resided behind an equally sumptuous desk. In the simple act of leafing through an appointment book, Christian had learned more about his father than he had done in the entirety of his life. His father’s affairs had never been discussed at home, and up until that very day, Christian would have been at a loss to explain exactly what it was that his father did for a living. Simply put, his father had never told him. Nobody had, until now.
Christian made his way into the hotel lounge.
“Orange juice and champagne,” he said to the bartender, sitting down at his private table and lighting another cigarette.
On his notebook computer he could see that the guest list had already arrived.
“Very prompt, Cynthia,” he muttered, scanning the email.
He was soon lost in thought, smiling bitterly at what had always been kept from him. A scene played out from his childhood. He was in his bedroom, its minimal furnishings cold and sterile. With all forms of amusement strictly forbidden to him, not a single toy was visible.
“Your father is a businessman.”
It was his nanny speaking. She was laying out his clothing.
“That is all you need to know,” she said dryly. “The rest is none of your business. You will not be disrespectful.”
Having lost his mother as a child, the Austrian nanny had become Christian’s only means of connection to his mysterious father, and indeed to the entirety of his family. She had been a cold and militant woman, following explicit orders to under no circumstances reveal anything to the boy concerning his relatives. On one occasion Christian had been told that his father worked with his uncles, but he had never been permitted to meet any of them. Prince Vladimir had been the only one; no grandparents, no aunts, no cousins. As a child, Christian had always been kept apart.
A barely audible alarm sounded from Christian’s phone, bringing him back into the present, and reminding him of the Steering Committee meeting he had to attend. He cleared his mind and made ready to be the new chairman. How they expected him to do this he did not know, but he would play along. As the Prince had told him earlier that day, the machine was built and functioning. All that was needed was a steady hand at the wheel.
“All power is based in fear,” muttered Christian, rising from the table. “Fear must be maintained at all costs.”
The words were of course his father’s, but Christian had long ago adopted them as his own, absently hearing them echo in his head more often than not.
As he walked, Christian found himself thinking of his new position, and all the responsibilities it entailed. There would be no person above him, and it seemed natural to him that it should be so. His father, it turned out, had been a leader of leaders, and all his life, Christian had been groomed to be the same. In his possession were the controlling shares of the Vanderhoff Group, arguably the most powerful organization in the world.
Smiling with self-satisfaction, Christian strode arrogantly to his first official meeting as the Chief Head of the Steering Committee. The Vanderhoff Group, he had learned, was named after the hotel where its first meetings had originally been held. What had initially started out as a handful of American, British and German businessmen working to smooth trade relations, had since grown into a group of more than one hundred members, each of which dominated arenas in global business, media, and politics.
The group itself was an unofficial organization, regularly hosting annual conferences in five-star resorts in Europe and North America. This year, the conference would be held here, in the same hotel where it had all begun; a hotel that had long ago been purchased by the founding member of the Vanderhoff Group, Christian’s very own grandfather.
Officially speaking, Christian’s new responsibilities did not extend beyond the role of host and organizer. Unofficially, however, he was the chief administrator of a deeply enmeshed geopolitical agenda, one whose nefarious roots dated back centuries. Plainly said, his father’s Vanderhoff Group was a secret society, one whose primary objective was to centralize economic and political power with the sole aim of forming a single world government, corporately run by their own offices under a mask of a free democracy.
Leaving the lobby, Christian made his way along plushly carpeted hallways until he had arrived at his private boardroom. He entered to find it populated by men, who in their own individual positions of power and social standing, comprised the steering committee. There were twelve of them in total, each one a blood relation, and they sat around a large wooden table engaged in a variety of isolated conversations. Noticing that he had not yet been seen, Christian took the opportunity to scan the faces of the twelve old men who filled the room, amazed at how every one of them bore the same bitter and hardened expression.
“Good morning, gentleman,” he said confidently, walking to his place at the head of the table. “I believe we will be discussing items relevant to a new North American currency in this meeting.”