The Fraternity of the Stone (36 page)

"The CIA was almost disbanded," Drew said. "As a compromise, its powers were severely restricted. And seven hundred members of the covert operations branch were fired."

"Obviously Scalpel didn't want the same scandal. Protecting their careers, its administrators carefully and quietly dismantled the anti-terrorist network. The dismantling took a year from your failed attempt against the Ayatollah."

"Then who the hell tried to kill me? And why?" Drew asked.

"And what made Jake so nervous?" Arlene stared at them.

"Maybe the poison will give us a clue," Drew said. "If we knew the type used to attack the monastery."

Father Stanislaw considered him. "Yes. The bishop told me you'd kept the corpse of the mouse that saved your life. Your pet."

"Stuart Little." Drew had trouble breathing. "I figured the last thing he could do for me was to help me find the answers. With an autopsy, if the poison was distinctive, I might have the information that would lead me to whoever had ordered the attack."

"I wonder. Would you mind? May I see the body?"

"It isn't pretty."

"I expect that by now you know I'm not innocent."

Drew glanced at the eerie red ring, the intersecting sword and Maltese cross. "I got that impression. The fraternity of the stone?"

"That's right."

"You'll have to tell me about it."

"When the time is suitable. And in the meanwhile?"

Drew went to his coat. Remarkably, when he pulled out the plastic bag, the tiny cadaver seemed unusually preserved. It was dry and shrunken, like a mummy.

Father Stanislaw accepted it with reverence. "From tiny creatures..." He glanced from the mouse to Drew. "I've explained that I had the corpses removed from the monastery. Your concern was well founded, the fear of scandal you expressed to the bishop. If the authorities had learned about the attack, their investigation would have led them to discover that one monk had survived. And when they'd dug more deeply, they'd have learned about your background. The Church protecting an international assassin? It wouldn't do. So after our own investigation, we erased the evidence. The corpses were buried in keeping with Carthusian custom. Respectfully, but humbly, without a headstone to identify them. We maintained the privacy that the monks had always wanted. But autopsies were performed. The poison is distinctive. And under the circumstances, appropriate."

Drew waited.

"Monk's hood."

The play on words was blasphemous. "If I ever get my hands on... "

"Patience," Father Stanislaw said. He set the plastic

bag on the dresser and touched his priest's white collar. "I should have put on my vestments."

"For what?"

"Your confession, for that's what this has been. A difficult problem of canon law. I wonder if my oversight makes your confession invalid."

Drew's voice broke. "I don't think so."

"I don't, either. God understands. Is that the end of it? Have you told me everything you think is pertinent? Everything that leads up to the attack on the monastery?"

"Everything I can think of."

"Then bow your head, and complete the ritual."

"Father, I'm heartily sorry for these sins and the sins of all my life."

Father Stanislaw raised his right hand, making the sign of the Cross. The priest prayed in Latin. Drew recognized the petition to God for forgiveness.

Father Stanislaw paused. "To kill another human being is one of the ultimate crimes. Only suicide is greater. But the circumstances moderate your culpability. As does your lifelong ordeal. Make a good act of contrition."

Drew did so.

The priest said, "Go in peace." Then added, his voice suddenly harsh, "But stay right where you are."

Drew glanced up, startled.

"It's time to talk about Yanus."

Drew frowned. "You said that in the chapel at the retreat house. It took me a while to figure it out. Your accent. You mean Janus?"

"The assassin," Arlene interrupted.

Father Stanislaw nodded. "The two-headed god. Who's supposed to be Drew."

*

PART SEVEN

JANUS

THE SINS OF THE PRESENT

Chapter 1.

In Ancient Rome, when an imperial army marched off to war, complex rituals had to be obeyed, lest ill fortune fall upon the venture. One of the most important of these rituals required that the army pass through a ceremonial archway while the favor of the gods - and one in particular, the god of good beginnings - was invoked. There were many such archways throughout the city, and most were not connected to walls or buildings but rather stood freely, as if their lack of practical purpose would emphasize their symbolic function. Likewise, small buildings were sometimes constructed for no other purpose than to provide a suitable setting for a priest or politician to walk into and out from.

The most respected of these buildings was a shrine to the north of the Forum. Simple, rectangular, it had double bronze doors on its east and west side, facing the rising and setting sun, as if to signify that, while the good beginning of a venture was hoped for, so too was a successful end. Like the archway through which Rome's mighty armies marched on their way to battle, this temple too was associated with war. Indeed, so frequently did the empire's generals pass into and out of the double doors facing east and west that by custom the doors were left open. Only when Rome was at peace were the doors closed, an event that happened rarely - during the first seven hundred years of the city's greatness, from the reign of Numa to that of Augustus, only three times.

The god to whom this shrine was dedicated was not, as might be expected, Mars. Instead, the statue that priests, politicians, and generals meditated upon as they passed from one set of doors to the next was that of a greater deity, Janus, whose likeness could easily be distinguished from those of all other gods because he had two faces, one in front, the other in back, peering toward each set of doors, the east and the west, the start and the finish.

When petitioned for success at the start of a day, he was known as Matutinus, from which comes matins, the Roman Catholic Church's word for the first canonical service of the day, just after midnight. But Janus was also petitioned at the start of each week and each month and, in particular, at the start of each year. Appropriately, the first month of the Roman calendar was named in his honor: January.

Janus, the two-faced, staring eternally forward and backward.

Toward the beginning. And the end.

Chapter 2.

"At the start," Father Stanislaw said, "what we had were mostly rumors. Almost a year ago."

"We?" Drew squinted. "Who's we?" He gestured toward Father Stanislaw's ring, the magnificent ruby, the intersecting sword and cross. "The fraternity?"

"Is it necessary to be explicit? A man with your experience... " Father Stanislaw considered him. "It shouldn't surprise you. The Church with its seven hundred million followers is virtually a nation unto itself. Indeed, in the Middle Ages it was a nation, composed of all of Europe, during the Holy Roman Empire. It needs to watch over its interests. Just as all major nations do, it needs an intelligence network."

"Intelligence network?" Drew's voice hardened. "I'm beginning to understand."

"At least, you think you understand. But one stage of explanation at a time. The principal sources of our intelligence are various members of an ambiguous religious order that has come into prominence since you entered the monastery. The order is known as Opus Dei, the great work of God. I describe the order as ambiguous because its members - mostly successful middle-class professionals, doctors, lawyers, business people - continue to pursue their lay vocation despite their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They dress according to the fashions of society, though many retreat at night to cloisters, and all bequeath their possessions to the Church. Their views are conservative. They're fiercely loyal to the Pope. Their membership in Opus Dei is kept a strict secret." "In other words, an invisible order." "Correct. The theory is that they can spread the Church's influence by using its doctrines in their daily business practice. A kind of Catholic fifth column, if you like. Imagine the effect if members of Opus Dei were elected to Congress, or if one became a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. But they aren't merely in America. Opus Dei exists in strength in over eighty countries. One hundred thousand professionals, using their ambition, striving to gain as much secular power as they can, for the sake of the Catholic Church. They are the basis for the Church's intelligence network. And it was from rumors they began to pick up that I first heard about... "

Chapter 3.

A free-lance mercenary, who as if from nowhere appeared abruptly on the European scene and was reputed to be responsible for five assassinations in rapid sequence, all involving Catholic priests. In each case, the priests - politically active, influential, and fiercely opposed to Communist factions in their country's government - had died in ways that at first seemed merely unfortunate. A car accident, for example, a heart attack, a fire.

Widely separated, the deaths would not have attracted notice, but so many in quick succession, and most in Italy, prompted Opus Dei eyebrows to be raised. Powerful members of the order used their influence to make sure that investigations became more thorough. Soon, various factors in each death began to seem suspicious, though not conclusively incriminating. In the case of the car accident, the brakes had failed, and yet the brakes had recently been serviced. In the case of the heart attack, an autopsy on the victim revealed no weakness in his cardiovascular system. In the case of the fire, no one could recall the priest, who'd always been compulsively neat, ever allowing oily rags to accumulate in the rectory's basement.

At the same time, in Geneva, a young woman deeply in love made a frightening discovery. The man with whom she'd been having an affair, a pleasure-giving American, had recently installed a set of bookshelves in her apartment. One of the brackets that held the shelves to the wall had pulled from the plaster, causing the shelves to lean out alarmingly. Because the boyfriend, Thomas Mclntyre, was out of the city on business (what kind of business she didn't know, something to do with imports and exports), she telephoned her brother to come to her apartment and advise her about the shelves.

When the two of them chanced to peer behind the shelves, they noticed a hole in the wall that had not been there before. And exploring further, they discovered a cavity filled with plastic explosives, detonators, automatic weapons, ammunition, and a metal container from which they extracted the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars in various European currencies, along with three passports for Michael McQuane, Robert Malone, and Terence Mulligan. Despite the difference in names, the photographs on each of the passports was identical. It portrayed the face of the woman's boyfriend, Thomas Mclntyre.

After a long, intense, and violent argument, in which the woman defended her lover, threatening never to speak to her brother again if her lover wasn't given the chance to explain, the brother phoned the authorities. Three policemen arrived within the hour. They examined the objects concealed behind the bookshelves and proceeded at once to the apartment of the boyfriend, who - it turned out - had come back from his business trip early and, without informing his lover, was having a party. After the policemen knocked on the door and were with reluctance admitted by one of the guests, they faced a group of drunken revelers in the midst of which a man who resembled the photograph in the various passports agreed to answer questions in the bedroom. Once inside, however, the American pulled a pistol, shot the three policemen, and fled down a fire escape.

One policeman lived to tell the story. Further investigation revealed that the metal container concealed in the wall behind the girlfriend's bookshelves also held a notebook in which addresses in various cities and countries turned out to be those of the five priests who had died.

Chapter 4.

"Reactions so far?" Father Stanislaw asked.

Drew thought about it, troubled. "If this Mclntyre's an assassin, he needs a few lessons in tradecraft. That rickety bookshelf. Panicking in front of the police." He shook his head. "An amateur."

"So it seemed to me. Unless... "

"I don't understand."

"Unless he was putting on an act."

"You think he wanted to expose himself?" Arlene asked, surprised.

"But why?" Drew added.

"To announce himself. To gain a reputation quickly," Father Stanislaw said. "And once he'd been exposed, no doubt deliberately on his part, he suddenly became professional. The authorities did everything possible but couldn't find him, and in rapid succession, three other politically active priests were killed. Then Opus Dei members themselves began to be killed. Corporation executives, publishers, but mostly politicians. And it now was clear, this Thomas Mclntyre, and his various other similar names on other bogus passports, was engaged in systematic terrorism against - "

"- the Catholic Church." Sickened, Drew turned to Arlene. "You told me he'd been killing politicians, but you didn't tell me - "

"- they were in Opus Dei? How could I have known?"

"You couldn't have," Father Stanislaw said. "How could anyone outside the intelligence network of the Church have known? That's the whole point.The members of Opus Dei are a secret."