David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

Tess breathed with excitement, although her excitement was tinged with fear. 'I disagree.'

Priscilla adjusted her glasses, confused. 'Oh?'

'I think there was a treasure. Not wealth. At least not in the ordinary sense, although it definitely was mysterious.'

Professor Harding leaned forward, propping his hands on his cane. 'I confess you've made me curious. What are you suggesting?'

Tess rubbed her forehead. 'If the heretics feared that their religion was about to be destroyed, if a small group managed to escape' – she darted her eyes toward Priscilla, then Professor Harding – 'what's the one thing those heretics would have considered so important that they wouldn't have dared to leave without it?'

Professor Harding frowned. 'I still don't follow.'

Priscilla's eyes, however, gleamed with fascination.

'The treasure without which the heretics had no meaning,' Tess said. 'Something so valuable that they couldn't allow it to be destroyed and, equally important, desecrated . Something mysterious in the deepest sense of the word. Something so…'

'Sacred,' Priscilla blurted. 'Absolutely.'

'You understand?'

'Yes!' Priscilla gestured emphatically toward the photograph. 'The image of Mithras that stood on their altar! When Constantine converted to Christianity, the Christians destroyed the Mithraic chapels. For all the heretics at Montsegur knew, the scuplture they possessed might have been the only one in existence. If they left it behind, when the crusaders found it…'

Tess anticipated, The crusaders would have smashed it to pieces. The heretics had to protect the statue in order to protect their religion.' In imitation of Priscilla's earlier gesture, Tess jabbed a finger at the photograph. That statue. There's no weathering on its marble. No cracks. It's in perfect condition. A pristine replication of an ancient model. To borrow your words, someone went to a great deal of trouble and expense to reproduce that statue. Why? It makes no sense unless… I think I know the answer. It terrifies me. God, I think that statue's a copy of the one from Montsegur, but I don't think it's the only copy, and I don't think…' Tess stared at Priscilla. 'We've been talking around this possibility all afternoon, so why don't I say it outright? My friend believed in Mithraism. There are others who believe as he did. They're the ones who killed my mother, who killed Brian Hamilton, and who tried to kill me. To stop anyone from knowing about their existence.'

'Fire,' Priscilla interrupted.

' What about it ? Tess struggled to control her shaking.

'You said your friend was killed with fire.'

'And then his apartment was set on fire, and my mother's house was set on fire, and Brian Hamilton died in flames in a freeway accident. Why is fire so - ?'

'It purifies. It symbolizes divine energy. Out of the ashes comes life. Rebirth. Fire was sacred to Mithraism. The sun god. When the torch is held upward, it signifies good.'

'But how can all of this killing be good?'

Priscilla suddenly looked aged again. 'I'm afraid there are two things I haven't told you about Mithraism.'

Apprehensive, Tess waited, trembling.

'First,' Priscilla said, 'followers of Mithras, particularly those in the Albigensian sect, the ones at Montsegur, believed in reincarnation. To them, death was not an ultimate end but merely a beginning of another life, until finally – after many lives – their being was perfected and they went to heaven. In that respect, they believed in the theories of Plato.'

Tess remembered that The Collected Dialogues of Plato was one of the books in Joseph's bedroom. 'Keep going.'

'The point is,' Priscilla said, 'a follower of Mithras was able to kill without guilt because he believed that he wasn't ending someone's life but merely transforming it.'

Tess was appalled. 'You said there were two things. What's the…?'

'Second, followers of Mithras were used to killing. They were trained to kill. Don't forget the statue. The knife. The blood. Roman soldiers converted en masse . Mithraism was a warrior cult. By definition. In their souls, they believed that they were engaged in a cosmic struggle of good against evil.'

'The bastards,' Tess said. 'To defeat what they thought was evil, they'd do anything!'

'I'm afraid that's true.'

'They'd kill anyone , including my mother!' Tess raged. 'The sons of…! When I get the chance – and I'm sure I will because I'm sure they'll come for me again – they'll learn the hard way about the difference between good and evil!'

As the taxi rounded a corner and proceeded along a street of well-maintained, century-old houses near Georgetown, Craig stiffened in the back seat, seeing a black Porsche 911 parked ahead at the curb. Abruptly he leaned forward, pointing urgently. 'There,' he told the driver. 'Where that sportscar…'

'Yeah.' The driver scanned the numbers on houses. 'That's the address you want, all right.'

Craig glanced behind him, checking yet again to make sure he hadn't been followed. There wasn't much traffic. A few cars passed through an intersection back there. A UPS truck turned at the corner but headed in the opposite direction from where the taxi had gone. Halfway down the other block, the truck stopped. A uniformed driver got out, carrying a box toward a house.

Craig had seen several UPS trucks on his way here. They were as commonplace as Federal Express and post office trucks. He had no way to tell if that particular truck had been tailing him. Indeed, contrary to popular misconception, Craig knew that unless you had a team using various cars to help you, or unless your opponent was clumsy, it was almost impossible to spot motorized surveillance, especially if your enemy also had a team and alternated vehicles.

Well, Craig thought with growing unease as the taxi stopped behind the Porsche, I've done what I could. I can't keep cruising around the city. I've got to make a choice. I've got to commit. Tess is waiting for me. She needs my help.

Nervous, Craig paid the driver and left the taxi. While it drove away, he studied the Victorian house, saw colorful, high-stalked flowers along the sides, and wondered what on earth Tess was doing here. In a rush, he approached the front steps.

'Sorry. Wrong address,' the solemn man with a ring in his pocket told the woman whose doorbell he'd just pressed. 'My mistake. This package belongs down the block.'

The woman had curlers in her hair and looked annoyed that she'd been interrupted. Inside the house, a TV gameshow host announced outstanding prizes, his audience applauding.

'Really. My apologies,' the man said. He wore the brown uniform of a UPS delivery man. When he turned to carry the package back to his truck, he heard the woman slam the door behind him.

At the truck, he climbed behind the steering wheel and turned to the five men in back. They had their handguns ready and ignored him, their concentration focused toward the rear window and the taxi pulling away from the Porsche parked in front of a house in the middle of the next block. The tall, rugged detective stood on the sidewalk for a moment, then disappeared past trees and bushes, approaching the house.

'Well, this might be another false rendezvous, but it's my guess that the bait led us to the quarry,' the solemn man said and closed his door. 'Now all we have to do is wait for the vermin.'

'Assuming they followed him as well. But we didn't see any sign of them,' one of the men in the back said.

'Just as we were careful and hope that they didn't see any sign of us,' the man in front said. 'We know, however, that their only chance to find the woman is to follow the detective.'