David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

Tess, Craig thought. It had to be! What had happened? What was wrong?

'The phone!' Craig said. 'Where is it? Is she still on the line?' He hurried toward the hotel's entrance.

'Yes, sir,' the doorman said, following briskly, troubled. 'She insisted that we not hang up.'

Craig pushed open the hotel's front door, lunging in. His eyes struggled to adjust to the shadows after the smoggy sunlight. The check-in desk was directly across from him. Hurrying toward it, Craig fumbled into one of his trouser pockets, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and handed it toward the doorman.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate your - '

'Don't go far. I might need your help. I've got more money.' Craig reached the desk. 'My name is Craig. There's a call for - '

'Definitely.' A clerk straightened, picking up a phone, extending it across the counter.

' Tess ?' Craig's hand cramped around the phone as he pressed it against his ear. 'Where are you? What happened !'

'Thank God, you waited,' she said.

Craig exhaled at the sound of her voice.

'I was worried,' she said, 'that you might have - '

'Left? No way! I promised I'd wait! Answer my question. What happened ?'

'Don't worry. I'm safe. At least, as safe as I can be until you get here.'

'Where?

'Craig, I think I've found out what's been happening, and it makes me even more terrified. I don't have time to explain, and this isn't something we can talk about on the phone. Write down this address.'

Distraught, Craig glanced toward the counter, grabbed a pen and a pad, and frantically printed the information she gave him.

'It's important,' Tess said. 'Get here as fast as you can.'

'Count on it.' Craig tore off the sheet of paper, shoved the phone toward the clerk, and blurted, Thank you.'

In distress, he spun toward the doorman, thrusting twenty dollars at him. 'Get me a taxi. Now .'

In the parking lot across the street from the hotel, the solemn man with a ring in his pocket straightened behind the steering wheel in the replica of the UPS truck.

Again he spoke into the cellular phone. The bait! I see him! The detective! He's outside the hotel again! He's getting into a taxi!'

On the other end of the phone, the chameleon responded with equal intensity. 'Follow him! Alert the other unit! Remain in contact! A team of enforcers is en route from LaGuardia!'

The man behind the steering wheel felt his stomach cramp as he set down the phone.

Enforcers?

He hadn't been told that this mission was considered so desperate. He had the unnerving sense that events were out of control, that brutal forces were converging, that a terrible, ultimate battle was about to begin.

Obeying instructions, he used a two-way radio to alert his other team, then twisted the ignition key, heard the engine rumble, and glanced toward the rear of the truck. There, five men waited, their expressions strained, ignoring him, rechecking their handguns.

The driver, breathing rapidly, stomped the accelerator and sped from the parking lot in pursuit of the taxi.

In the Marriott's lobby, a well-built, tanned, expensively dressed man in his thirties stepped through the entrance and approached the check-in desk, carrying a briefcase.

'Excuse me.' His manner was deferential toward the clerk, his voice smooth but sounding concerned. 'I wonder if you could help me – I had an appointment to meet a man here, but traffic delayed me – Unfortunately, I don't see him anywhere. He must have become impatient and left. I wonder if… Is it possible? Did he leave a message. His name was Craig.'

'As a matter of fact, sir, a man by that name was here, and indeed he was waiting for someone,' the clerk said. 'A minute ago, he received a phone call and left.'

The well-built man looked disappointed. 'My boss… to put it mildly… won't be happy. My promotion's at stake. I had important contracts for Mr Craig to sign. I don't suppose you know where he went.'

'I regret to say no, sir. Mr Craig wrote directions on that pad and tore off the sheet of paper. But he didn't mention where he was going.'

'On that pad, you say?'

'That's correct, sir.'

The well-built man studied the indentations that Craig's strong printing had made on the page beneath the one he'd torn off. 'Did you happen to overhear the name of the person he spoke to?'

'A woman. Her name was Tess, sir.'

'Of course. Well, I thank you for your trouble,' the man said, giving the clerk twenty dollars.

'That's really not necessary, sir.'

'Ah, but it is.' The well-built man tore off the next sheet on the pad, feeling the indentations of Craig's printing. 'If you don't mind.'

'Not at all, sir.'

'Very good.'

As the well-built man walked briskly from the lobby, the clerk glanced with satisfaction at the twenty-dollar bill and thought with interest that in all his years of greeting guests, it was seldom that he'd met anyone who had gray eyes.

In a rush, Tess reentered the study. 'Thanks for letting me use the phone.'

'No need to thank us,' Professor Harding said. 'The main thing is, did you manage to contact the man you were supposed to meet?'

Tess nodded forcefully. 'He'll be here as quickly as he can. I'll feel a lot better when he does. In the meantime…' She spun toward Priscilla. 'The statue. You were about to explain what it meant. Keep talking. Why is Mithras slicing the neck of the bull?'

Priscilla shoved her glasses higher onto her nose and studied the photograph. 'I can understand why you're mystified. Like most depictions of rites sacred to various religions, this object appears incomprehensible. Imagine an aborigine who's spent all his life on a small Pacific island, totally isolated, with no experience of Western customs. Imagine if he were brought to America and taken to a Catholic church. Then imagine his reaction when he saw what hung behind the altar. The statue of Christ on the cross, hands and feet pierced by nails, head crowned with thorns, side slit open, would be an absolute, horrifying mystery.'

'Wait,' Tess said. 'After everything we've discussed, you're telling me you don't know what the statue means?'

'On the contrary, I do know what it means,' Priscilla said. 'What I'm getting at is that without a knowledge of the traditions and symbols of an unfamiliar religion, you can't appreciate why a particular image is important to that religion. But the moment the symbols are given meaning, the image becomes perfectly clear. To me, this statue is as easy to interpret as an image of Christ's crucifixion. Lean closer toward the photograph. Examine the details I point out. I suspect that soon you'll realize how simple they are to interpret.'

' Simple ?' Tess shook her head. 'I really have trouble believing that.'

'Just try to be patient.' Priscilla placed her right index finger on the photograph. 'Why don't we start with the bull?

'Notice that the marble of the statue is white. The bull is white,' Priscilla said. 'After his death, he'll become the moon. Logically, you might expect that the bull would become the sun, given that Mithras is the sun god. But there's a deeper logic. The moon is a version of the sun at night. It illuminates the darkness, and in this case, it represents the god of light in conflict with the opposite god, the evil god, the god of darkness.'

'Okay,' Tess said, 'I see that logic. But what I don't is… Why does the bull have to die?'

'Did you ever read Joseph Campbell? The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology ?'

'In college.'

'Then you ought to know that in almost every religion there's a sacrificial victim. Sometimes the god is the victim. In Christianity, for example, Jesus dies to redeem the world. But often the victim is a substitute for the god. Among the Aztecs and Mayans, they frequently chose a maiden, who gave up her life as a surrogate for, a sacrifice to, the god. The most common method was to cut out her heart.'