William Tyree - The Fellowship

Borst’s cries masked Ellis’ footfall, but the perp sensed the reverberations an instant before she took to the air. He turned his shoulders and neck just as the edge of Ellis’ right foot plowed into his neck. The blow knocked him into Borst’s suspended torso, snapping his neck back violently. The under-secretary-general swung grotesquely back and forth like a bloody pinata.

The perp collapsed at her feet, legs and arms twitching violently. Ellis was shocked by the effectiveness of the maneuver, fearing that she had killed him after all. “You better not die,” she growled.

Another. Another . The words seemed to pop into her head, as if whispered from angels. Another . She looked up. The words were Borst’s. A warning.

A canoe paddle struck Ellis’ back, felling her head-first into a column of crates filled with tree ornaments. The Beretta flew from her hand. Two dozen silver balls popped loose, breaking into hundreds of tiny shards against the concrete flooring. Ellis tumbled over them, instinctively rolling on her right shoulder so to as avoid eating glass. She rose slowly, just enough to see that the first perp was still where she had left him, twitching beneath Borst, who continued to swing like freshly butchered hog.

The second perp stood several feet away. He wore a black plastic smock that was hooded at the top. A prickly black beard protruded from his face.

He threw down the oar, reached into his pocket and removed a small Taser. Oh hell. The Beard was going to Tase her.

Ellis had once been told that the best defense against a Taser was a firearm. That advice was now of little help, as her Beretta was nowhere in sight. She rolled right across the bed of broken Christmas ornaments, heading for the foosball table. She heard a burst of compressed nitrogen. Two electrical probes crackled toward her at 135 feet per second. They struck her left side, right in the ribs, piercing her shirt and skin. Ellis’ momentum sent her rolling, the wires wrapping around her midsection as her body was flooded by 50,000 volts. Her hands clenched involuntarily. Every muscle in her body seemed to seize and cramp. Her sinuses seemed to actually screech.

As her mind traversed the edge of consciousness, she tried to roll over. Her extremities were unresponsive. She could do nothing but observe as the Beard appeared over her, like some reaper from a dark fairy tale. He tightened the cooling probe wires around her, turned her on her stomach, and began tying her wrists together with some sort of elaborate knot. And now the Beard was talking in some foreign language. The same phrases over and again. Benedictus Dominus Deus meus qui docet manus meas ad proelium digitos meos ad bellum. Deus, refugium meum salvator meus scutum meum et in ipso speravi. Benedictus Dominus Deus meus qui docet manus meas ad proelium digitos meos ad bellum…

Ellis tried to block out the pain and think. Why was the Beard praying? Was he asking God for forgiveness, or was he giving thanks for the latest prey that had fallen into his trap?

She managed to raise her head and get her bearings. She must have been dragged from the place where she had fallen. She was underneath Borst now, right next to the Beard’s fallen companion. The Beard would probably finish Borst off and drag her upstairs, like he had done to her boyfriend. Then it’s my turn, she thought. The strappado.

Carver and Speers would eventually find their way here, she realized. They would find her in a heap on the floor, her body scarred by the telltale signs of the rope torture. And slipped inside her shirt would be an octagon. Just like the one they found on the others. And they would look at the number of wounds on her body and based on that, they would try to deduce how much information she had given up. It was the last thing she could control, she realized. Her life was over, but she could decide to stay strong, to keep her mouth shut until the end.

She spotted the twitching man’s Taser gun, perhaps four feet away now. If only she could get to it.

Mary. Mary. Mary . The voice again. Ghostly, as if blown in from the Puget Sound. Mary . She looked up to see if angels might be hovering overhead. It was the opposite. The motion of Vera Borst’s body had slowed, but the rope still carried her back and forth over the twitching man. She had stopped wailing. Her eyes were open now. She couldn’t seem to move her head, but her eyes were tracking, and they looked deep into Ellis’. Her lips moved, more of a whispering wind than a human voice. They want Mary.

Why did they want Mary?

My daughter. The virgin. They know. It’s her that they want.

A boot struck the back of Ellis’ head. Someone was using her brain as a soccer ball. Roman candles showered her eyelids as the pain flowed through her skull and neck. A sick wetness oozed from her scalp.

She did not fully lose consciousness. The fading electrical shock seemed to have numbed her senses somewhat, but the texture of the rope fiber was unpleasant against the delicate skin of her wrists. A knot rose on the back of her head.

Blinding light suddenly filled the room. She squeezed her eyes shut and still saw nothing but white. A passage to the other side.

But something was burning. Her ears were filled with a screeching that all but drowned out Borst’s soft moans. Ellis flipped onto her side and saw her tormentor. The Beard. Hair and hood alight in flame, pawing at his flaming face.

Rome

With night fallen, Carver’s return walk along the Tiber River was a luxurious indulgence. The Tiber snaked directly through the heart of the city, running under one historic bridge after another. He followed it, peering down narrow streets, admiring the medieval architecture

Ellis still had not returned his call. Don’t think about it, he told himself. She’s fine. She can take care of herself.

As the city geared up for another frenetic evening, the quiet reflection of the moon against the gently flowing river was the perfect antidote to the chaos of the mission. Soon, Castel Sant'Angelo came into view. It had been there all along — perhaps two football fields from the palazzo where they stayed — and yet he found himself truly seeing it for the first time.

What a glorious visual disaster Castel Sant'Angelo was, especially in a city that valued symmetry and architectural integrity. He considered the dome of the Pantheon, masterfully engineered into a near-perfect sphere. And the elliptical balance that Bernini had achieved in designing St. Peter’s Square, complete with the Egyptian obelisk providing a hub for the four rows of Doric columns on its outer perimeter.

And yet here was Sant'Angelo, a monstrosity of ancient architecture, reimagined in multiple phases over nearly two thousand years, having slowly evolved from Hadrian’s tomb into a fortress that was the site of both battles and executions. Even now it remained linked from the Papal Apartments by an elevated passage where popes had sought refuge over the millennia. Sant'Angelo seemed to embody, more than any other structure, everything that Rome was to Carver.

He turned onto Via della Conciliazione, slowing his pace and checking both sides of the streets. The meeting with Callahan had raised his anxiety levels. During Operation Crossbow, the priest had been the perfect contact, having provided both the malware and the means to infiltrate Adrian Zhu’s network. But as much as Callahan’s information had proven that he was a valuable contact, Carver worried that the priest might alert Vatican Intelligence to his presence in the city.

Nothing seemed to be stirring, not even at the street’s lone cafe. The palazzo was up on the left. St Peter’s Cathedral glowed imposingly at the far end of the street, beyond St. Peter’s Square.