William Tyree - The Fellowship

“Well I hope force was really justified, because in addition to the burned face, fractured vertebrae and broken ribs, I had to remove what was left of his right eye.”

“We need to talk to him. Is he awake?”

The doc stiffened. “Did you hear what I just said? Your people really jacked him up. He’ll be lucky to make it through the day.”

Speers’ phone rang. He pulled up Eva’s mobile profile on his phone and showed it to the doctor. It was Eva’s official presidential portrait. “Okay, doc. You tell the president we can’t talk to a suspected terrorist.”

“Wait, that’s really her calling? Right now?” The doc put up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Talking is going to be tough, though. His lips are burned off.”

Speers answered the phone as Fordham ushered the doctor out of earshot. “Madam President.”

“It’s been four hours since I had a progress report,” she said. “That’s too long relative to the heat I’m feeling.”

“I’m sorry, Madam President.”

“The prime minister is having second thoughts about keeping this under wraps. I need some good news.”

Speers understood. The longer this crisis went unresolved, the more likely that it would become an international scandal.

“We identified two suspects,” Speers said. “One deceased. The other one’s in bad shape.”

He heard the tension in Eva’s voice ease a bit. “That’s encouraging. So what’s the bad news?”

Speers told her about Vera Borst and Dane Mitchell.

There was a long silence before the president spoke again. “So let me get this straight. Three international leaders, representing three separate bodies of government, have been brutally tortured and killed, thousands of miles apart from each other.”

“Plus the professor,” Speers reminded her. “I understand Dr. Mitchell was a rising name in the bioengineering world.”

He did not tell her the truly terrible news. Captain Zack had called 911, and the local police and paramedics had been on the scene within minutes. The FBI had, of course, asked the first responders to keep the story out of the press, but with this kind of a horror show, these embargoes never lasted long on the local level. There was little they could do short of sequestering everyone involved. Sooner or later, details about the heinous crime were going to hit the press. He would be worried enough about that part for both of them.

*

No one — not even his brothers in Venice — would have recognized Brother Roberto Melfi. Bandages covered his entire face. Two small holes had been carved into the bandages. One, over his nostrils, enabled him to breathe. The other permitted him to see out of his remaining eye.

The monk could only stare up helplessly as a man positioned himself over the eyehole, looking down as if peering into a deep, dark well. He heard the man take the Lord’s name in vain. Melfi forgave him for that. Anyone would have been horrified by his appearance.

“Hello,” he said. “My name is Julian Speers. Blink twice if you understand English.”

Melfi knew English all too well. He also knew that he would not be alive much longer. Even now, his pain had receded, and he felt a certain lightness of being, as if his spirit was separating itself from his flesh. The Lord would take him soon. He felt obligated to use his final moments meaningfully. If only he knew how.

“You are under arrest for the murders of Dane Mitchell and Vera Borst,” Speers said. “Understand?”

He blinked twice.

“Good. Can you tell us anything about the death of Rand Preston?”

Melfi blinked only once.

Speers’ face was suddenly tense. He did not believe him. “Are you telling me that you did not visit the home of Rand Preston in Washington D.C.? Blink twice if you were there.”

Melfi blinked only once.

Speers disappeared from view. Melfi heard him swearing again. He was chatting with someone. Yes, there was someone else in the room. They talked for a moment before Speers appeared again in his tunnel-like field of vision.

“I’ll be honest with you. You killed a Swedish citizen on American soil. The Swedes are going to want you. You know what their prisons are like? It’ll be like being in a hotel. If you tell me what I need to know about the senator, I’ll consider releasing you into their custody.”

Brother Melfi was not motivated by promises of light punishment. He would soon get his reward in heaven. Nevertheless, he blinked twice to show that he understood. Then he focused all his energy on his right hand. With considerable effort, he managed to lift it. He curled his fingers together and moved them slowly up and down, as if he were writing.

Speers said something to the other man in the room. He disappeared from view. Melfi felt someone open his hand and place a pen between his fingers. Then he saw a note pad appear overhead. Speers must have been holding it. It seemed impossibly far away, but with the other man’s help, his writing hand was lifted toward it until the inky tip was pressed against the pad.

He jotted a quick note.

You must stop them.

Speers flipped the notepad over and read it. His face broke into an icy grin. “Stop them? You did a pretty good job of that yourself. Those people are dead.”

Melfi pressed the pen to the paper again.

The others. The world is in danger.

He felt his arm fall to his side. He heard the pen clatter on the linoleum floor. His right eye closed and he felt himself drift. He began to feel inner warmth. Someone lifted up his arm again, placed the pen within his grasp, and guided the hand toward the notepad. He opened his eyes.

“Tell me how,” Speers commanded. “Concentrate. How is the world in danger?”

He wrote again.

False prophets. A global war. Without state. Without end.

He rested his arm for a moment as Speers digested this. His body was depleted. He could scarcely focus. How could he make them understand, when the words did not come to him?

“Why did you kill Vera Borst?” Speers pushed.

Melfi felt a burst of energy. A burst of inspiration. His hand shot back to the paper and he began writing:

They said, “Come, let us build a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they try to do will be impossible for them. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city.

His arm once again fell to his side. The pen once again clattered on the floor. But now Melfi could see Speers with both eyes. How was this possible? He had heard the surgeon say that his right eye had been burned, and he was certain that it was covered with bandages.

He saw Speers flip the pad and devour its contents. “Damn. I think he’s just writing random scripture.”

The machine next to the bed emitted a loud noise. Suddenly Speers was over him. “Hello? Hey! Chad, Get that doctor in here!”

Rome

Carver struggled to keep his emotions in check as he viewed the grisly Seattle crime scene photos. There was a lot of blood. No doubt that some of it belonged to Ellis. What had she been doing there? It was just like her, getting on a plane without telling anyone.

He took a deep breath, flooding his body with fresh oxygen. The truth was that he blamed himself. Maybe if he hadn’t jetted off to South Africa to get Nico, leaving her to fend for herself in London. Maybe if he hadn’t been so vocal about the fact that the team was so thin.

He refocused on the images. Speers had annotated the snap of Vera Borst strung up with her hands tied behind her back: “You were right about the method.”