Paul Christopher - Red Templar

“This dry stuff, as you call it, Father Brennan, is history. Within the walls of the Vatican is every secret ever whispered from lips to ears or written down for the last two thousand years and even farther into the distant past. Almost everyone has heard the aphorism from George Santayana, who said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but very few heed his cautionary warning.” The cardinal paused for a moment, his eyes scanning the stacks. Finally he spoke again.

“Alexander the Great could not conquer Afghanistan, but more than two thousand years later the Russians and the Americans tried and both failed. Napoleon invaded Russia, only to be defeated by winter, but Hitler thought he could do better, for some reason. Mussolini called himself caesar, and instead of being stabbed to death on the Ides of March he was hung upside down on an Esso station sign at the end of April.” Spada shook his head wearily.

“Christ said: ‘He who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.’ But that didn’t stop people from building Pompeii under a volcano, or New Orleans on a swamp, where hurricanes were a yearly event.” The aging cardinal sighed. “History is not just who we were, Father Brennan; history is who we are .”

“That’s all well and good, Your Eminence, but how does history help us with our problem with Kirill the First and all his nefarious pally-wallies in the bloody Kremlin?”

Spada shrugged and closed the book in front of him, then slipped off the white gloves. A young priest came shimmering out of nowhere and gathered up the book on a special neutral-pH plastic tray and scurried off. When he had vanished again the cardinal spoke, his voice angry.

“We barely have a foothold in Russia-less than three-quarters of a million people, only a few thousand more than the Jews. Putin has made the Orthodox metropolitans into political oligarchs, while our churches are stoned and shot at. He’s using the Church as a tool for expansion into foreign territories- our territories. The world has been fooled into thinking that the Russian bear is sleeping peacefully and that today’s problem is the Middle East or China, but it’s not. It was Russia before the Cold War, and it is still Russia. Russia and her schismatic, unholy, image-worshiping Mafia of a religion is still the problem. They have a stranglehold on Europe’s gas and oil, they bring more gold out of the ground than Canada and Africa combined and they still have twenty-two thousand tanks that are designed for the autobahns of Germany and the autoroutes of France and the rest of Europe. The Russian bear has one eye open even when it’s dozing.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” Brennan asked.

“You’ve had a watch on Holliday since Washington; am I right?”

“Yes, not closely, but we’re aware of his movements.”

“And?”

“He was with his niece and her husband in Ethiopia and then vanished into the interior for several weeks. He reappeared in Khartoum nine days ago and flew to Istanbul. He had two others with him, one a Russian named Genrikhovich, a curator of documents at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the other a black man. We don’t know who he is.”

“An African? American?”

“Not unless Africans speak fluent Russian, as this one does.”

“Cuban, perhaps?”

“Could be. Anyway, after they crossed into Bulgaria we seem to have lost track of him.”

“Find Holliday,” said Spada. “We know he is a formidable adversary and he may well be on the trail of Al Husam Min Warda . Find him and we may well find the Sword of the Rose and its secrets.”

“But what secrets are we talking about?”

“The rose is a potent symbol in many religions. To us it is representative of the early Christian martyrs and the Holy Mother. In other religions it is the symbol of silence. In Rome, a rose laid by the doorstep once indicated that there was a secret meeting in progress. There is the symbolism for the five petals-the five wounds of Christ and the five panes in the rose window of a cathedral.” The cardinal paused.

“The fifth sword of the sorrow piercing the Holy Mother’s heart is mentioned in Matthew as the great darkness that fell upon the Earth as Christ was raised upon the cross.” Spada lifted his shoulders wearily. “It could mean a hundred different things or a hundred different places.”

“The book in Arabic gave you no answers?” Brennan asked.

“One,” said the cardinal, his voice thoughtful. “In the Koran there is a verse-‘If you wish to see the glory of God, contemplate a red rose.’” Spada pushed back his chair and stood. “There are also those who say that the rose is the symbol of the prophet’s blood.”

Brennan nodded as though he understood, which Spada knew he did not. The Irishman patted the pockets of his frayed black priest’s jacket, no doubt assuring himself that cigarettes and a lighter were there and ready the moment he stepped outside the library’s ancient doors. He turned away, but the cardinal’s dark, forbidding words stopped him, and Brennan turned to listen.

“Remember this, Thomas Brennan: that while you serve me, remora to the shark, so I in turn serve others much more powerful. More powerful than the Holy Father, more powerful than any president or king.

“Memento puteus, sacerdotis,” Spada said in Latin. “Remember this well, priest.”

More fatuous philosophy, Brennan thought. “I’ll remember, Eminence, if you tell me just what exactly it is that you want me to do.”

“I want you to call the Peseks, for one thing. He’s a Czech who was brought up in the Communist era; he almost certainly speaks Russian. I don’t know about his psychopathic wife and her ghastly hatpin. Whatever the case, Holliday must be dealt with once and for all, and you must bring the Sword of the Rose out of Kirill’s grasp.”

“And Kirill himself?”

“If we are to survive this, Brennan, the Orthodox Church must be shattered to its core, its hegemony over the Russian people destroyed. To kill a serpent you do not cut off the tail, Father Brennan; you lop off the head.”

“‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’” the Irish priest quoted with a smile.

“Why, Thomas,” said the cardinal. “You know your history after all.”

After ten minutes in the outfall vent, Holliday and the others reached a side passage. From the smell of it the narrower, brick-lined tunnel led to the sewers. Holliday stopped, turned and listened. So far there were no sounds of pursuit, but he knew it wouldn’t last. It was more than likely that the OMON squad would have at least one or two Spetsnaz special forces types on board, and those guys were relentless. They’d eventually spot the broken hasp on the vent in the boiler room and they’d come after them like baying hounds after a fox.

There was a rusted grille over the tunnel just like the one at the outfall opening, but Holliday used the monkey wrench and levered it off, tearing the old hasp off completely. It didn’t matter; if the OMON squad got this far, trying to fake them out was a waste of time.

“This way,” said Holliday.

“It smells of. . excrement,” said Genrikhovich, balking and wrinkling his nose. Holliday was suddenly very tired of the Russian. He sighed.

“The outfall almost certainly empties into the river, and they’ll be waiting for you. Personally I couldn’t care less whether you come with us or not. It’s up to you: knee-deep in shit or a bullet in the brain.”