John Saul - The Devil's Labyrinth

If only he could see her, and talk to her, and tell her what was happening. But of course he couldn’t, not now.

Not tonight.

Not until she woke up.

If she woke up.

Ryan shuddered in the darkness as he thought once more of the nightmare. Of it turning into reality, of finding himself actually clutching a knife and holding it against someone’s throat, of feeling the blade sink into the flesh and slash at the tendons, ripping open the aorta to let human blood flow.

A movement beyond the window distracted him from the vision in his mind, and he peered into the darkness to see a silver car creeping down the street to come to a silent stop in front of the steps of St. Isaac’s. A moment later, a man clad in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a dark jacket ran down the steps and got into the car. Just before pulling the car door closed, the man glanced upward, seeming to look directly at the window from which Ryan was gazing.

Father Sebastian Sloane!

Ryan looked at the clock that hung on the wall above the television.

Almost 3:30.

Was there some sort of emergency? But what kind of emergency would make Father Sebastian leave in such a hurry in the middle of the night?

And not dressed in the cassock he had always worn before?

The car made a U-turn in front of the building, and as it did, the streetlight caught the face of the driver.

Ryan gasped and stepped back.

It couldn’t be! Surely it had only been a trick of the light!

Too late, Ryan peered out the window once more, but by now the car was gone.

The street was empty.

ABDUL WATCHED AS Farrooq unwrapped one of the scarlet cassocks and laid it carefully in his lap. “I have made three,” Farrooq said, then showed Abdul the carefully sewn inserts that held the explosives, the detonation wires that had been snaked through the seam allowances, running first up to the right sleeve, then down the sleeve to the cuff.

Abdul nodded in appreciation of his older brother’s intricate work. “Beautiful,” he murmured, his fingers gently caressing the silken material of the cassock, only to come to rest on the hidden explosives. He could almost feel the energy compressed within the packets hidden in the seams.

“The triggers are here,” Farrooq said, interrupting his brother’s reverie. Abdul ran his fingers lightly over a tiny button in the hem of the sleeve, made all but invisible by the lace trim of the sleeve’s cuff. “It will be for you to decide when they are to be activated,” Farrooq said softly.

Abdul’s eyes met those of his brother. “The altar servers will carry the tall candles, placing them into the holders on the altar. At that moment they will be as close to the Pope as it is possible to be. As soon as they have placed the candles, they will all take a single step back from the altar, at which point each of them will activate a trigger.”

“Praise Allah,” Abdul sighed.

“There are bombs,” Farrooq continued. “Two for each of the servers. Insha-Allah, all six will detonate.” He paused, then smiled. “But we only need one.”

“Fail safe,” Abdul said.

“Fail safe,” Farrooq agreed, “assuming the servers follow through.” He gently lifted the garment, repackaged it, and set it carefully with the others. “Now,” he went on as he took two bottles of water from the small refrigerator, handing one to his brother. “What of our father’s cross?”

Abdul shrugged. “You worry too much. Even if it were to surface, we don’t know that it would mean anything. Nor are we counting on a single server — that is why we have two backups.” Now it was Abdul’s lips that spread into a dark and joyless smile. “What one might call an Un-holy Trinity.”

“Fail safe.” Farrooq raised his bottle to his brother, then drained it of water. “We will not meet again until it is done,” Farrooq said.

Abdul nodded. “For too many centuries we have been persecuted by the Infidels, but at last they will pay for what they have done to our family and our tribe.”

“I do not deserve the honor of this sacred errand,” Farrooq breathed.

“We were chosen,” Abdul said. “Allah knew we would find the strength or He would not have led us to the hiding place.” He hesitated, then looked deeply into his brother’s eyes. “These past years I have finally started to understand what our families went through, pretending to be Christian and renouncing Allah. They were strong men, our fathers, to have separated themselves from all they believed in, in order to save themselves and their children and their children’s children from the Inquisitors.”

“Your sacrifice has been no less than theirs, Paquito, ” Farrooq said softly, laying a gentle hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.

“It is nothing,” Abdul murmured, but the glistening in his eyes told his brother how difficult it had been. A moment later, though, his eyes cleared, and he breathed deeply. “Soon the world shall know the wrath of Allah, and the Church will be no more.”

“ Insha-Allah, ” Farrooq intoned. “God willing.”

“ Insha-Allah, ” Abdul echoed. He stood and grasped his brother in a fierce embrace. “Now,” he went on as he wiped moisture from his eyes. “Let us pray together, for the last time until this deed is done.”

“And then?” Farrooq asked.

“And then I will go put on my priest’s costume and continue the charade for a few more hours.”

“I think this is the happiest day of my life,” said Tom Kelly.

“Mine will be the day the Pope is blown to bits,” replied Father Sebastian Sloane.

† † †

Sebastian Sloane twisted the key in the lock of the lowest drawer of his old oaken bureau, then slid the drawer open on the hardware he himself had installed when he’d decided the contents of the drawer were too important even to trust to a bank vault. The drawer itself on the outside looked no different from the other four the old chest held. But while the others were all made of nothing more than their original dovetailed oak, the bottom drawer was different: perfectly constructed to fit exactly within the dimensions of the drawer were several boxes, each nested in another. Each box served a special purpose: one was fireproof, another waterproof; others provided absolute protection against anything Sloane had been able to imagine: microbes, radiation, nearly anything short of a nuclear explosion. After working the combination locks set into each of the first three lids, he opened the others until he was finally able to lift out the treasure that was both hidden and protected in the drawer’s center. Wrapped in a scrap of an ancient prayer rug was the rosewood box he and his brother had unearthed in the courtyard when he was a child.

For several long moments he gazed silently at the box, barely able to believe that the time had finally come. Everything he had done since the moment he and his older brother had dug the grave for the pet iguana, and found the box with the missing cross and the scroll, was finally culminating in an act of justice that was nearly six centuries overdue.

Since that day, his resolve to avenge the terrible wrong that had been done to his family had steadily grown until it was a furiously burning rage so strong that no force in the world could stop it.

But now, nearly three decades after that first fateful discovery, it would soon be finished.

The gravity of the moment pulled him first to his knees, then fully down until he was prone on the floor for a moment, his arms stretched toward Mecca, offering a prayer of thanks to Allah, who had guided him. Allah, who had heard his prayers and had given the Catholic Church a Pope who was familiar with the ancient rituals. Allah, who had made certain that this Pope understood what he had seen in the video the priest known as Sebastian Sloane had sent through the foolish — but highly malleable — Cardinal Morisco.