John Saul - The Devil's Labyrinth

No! she told herself. Don’t drug it away. That was last night. Today, you have to face it. You did the wrong thing, and drugging yourself against the pain is not going to make things right.

She reached over and dropped the button on her tray table. She had to figure it out — it wasn’t just Tom Kelly. There was something else — something that had happened yesterday, when the room had suddenly been filled with people, and the police were asking her questions, and Father Sebastian—

Father Sebastian!

Tom Kelly had known Father Sebastian — it was Father Sebastian who had helped them get Ryan into St. Isaac’s so quickly. And then yesterday, even in the haze of pain and drugs that had fogged her mind, she’d seen something.

Something in the priest’s eyes.

Something that had made her very careful when she’d told the police about the crucifix, made her deny that she knew anything about it at all.

Something was going on — something to do with that crucifix. Was that why Tom Kelly had wanted to get Ryan into St. Isaac’s?

Her mind swam.

As soon as she got out of the hospital — which would be either today or tomorrow — she would go directly to St. Isaac’s, get Ryan and go away.

Go away where?

Somewhere — anywhere — just so Tom Kelly, or whoever he was, would never find them again.

Teri let out a long sigh and sank back into her pillows.

On the television pinned to the wall high up in the corner of her room, one of the news shows was playing a tape from yesterday, when the Pope’s plane had landed at Logan Airport and immediately taxied to a far corner of the field where it was cordoned off.

Now they cut to this morning at dawn, when the Pope had finally appeared at the top of the stairs leading to the tarmac and a waiting motorcade, stepping through the plane’s door at the exact moment the first rays of the rising sun bathed the plane — and the Pope — in a golden aura.

The image changed again, and a “Live From The Boston Common” message began scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Teri reached for the volume control.

“We’re standing by at the Common right now,” the announcer, a petite brunette, said. “Pope Innocent Fourteenth is expected to arrive at any moment.” The camera panned to the left, and behind her were shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of people packing the park in front of a big stage, completely surrounded and roofed with Plexiglas, with what looked like the entire Boston police force acting as crowd control. “His Holiness will come down from St. Isaac’s Preparatory Academy, along with three of the school’s students whom the Pope has asked to serve with him at this morning’s Mass. In a major break with tradition, we are told that two of the students are girls.”

Teri’s pulse suddenly quickened, and she raised the head of the bed a little higher and brought the small handheld speaker closer to her ear, dialing up the volume as she did so.

“Here comes the motorcade, now,” the announcer said, as three black limousines moved slowly down Spruce Street. “The stage has been set up so that the first glimpse the crowd will get of His Holiness will be when he steps through the backdrop behind the altar onto the stage itself. We’re told this is primarily a security precaution, though it certainly heightens the drama, too. Doesn’t it, Cliff?” she added, turning to a blond man standing next to her.

“It certainly does, Annette,” Cliff Whoever-he-might-be picked up. “From our vantage point, though, we’ll be able to see the Pope disembark from his car, which should happen in just a moment or two.” There was a slight pause, and just as Annette was opening her mouth to fill the silence, Cliff spoke again. “Yes, here are the cars now.”

The door of the first limo opened and a man in a black suit got out, quickly surveyed the area around the small motorcade, and went to the second car.

Holding open its back door, he stood respectfully as the Pope, clad in a white cassock and a brilliantly jeweled surplice, stepped out.

Then the doors of the third limousine opened, and Teri saw Father Sebastian Sloane step out.

He was followed by two girls, one of whom Teri recognized as the girl Ryan had introduced Tom and her to.

Her heart was racing now, and when Ryan himself finally stepped out of the limousine, Teri knew she’d been expecting it. But why?

What was he doing with the Pope?

He hadn’t even been at St. Isaac’s two weeks! Why would they have chosen him to serve at the altar with the Pope? He barely even knew the sequence of the Mass!

She struggled against the pain of her sore muscles and cracked ribs and sat up straight, staring at the television screen in numb disbelief as the three teenagers, all of them dressed in bright red cassocks with white surplices over them, moved toward the Pope, who took their hands and greeted each one warmly.

The camera pulled back to reveal the Pope, a Cardinal, and the three students moving toward the stairs at the back of the stage.

But what about Father Sebastian Sloane?

There! As the camera pulled even farther back, Teri saw the priest at the top of the screen. But he wasn’t moving toward the Pope; instead he had turned the other way, away from the stage, away from the limousines and was now hurrying across Beacon Street, where another man was waiting.

Teri stared at the other man, unable to believe her eyes.

It couldn’t be.

It was impossible.

But it was true.

Tom Kelly greeted Father Sebastian Sloane with a quick pat on the back, then both he and Sloane ducked under the cordon that blocked both Beacon Street and the sidewalk, and vanished into the crowd.

And at the moment they disappeared, Teri knew:

Something horrible was about to happen.

“Call the police!” she shouted. “For God’s sake, someone call the police!” Ignoring the pain wracking her body, she swung her legs off the bed and put her feet on the floor, but her knees buckled when she tried to stand.

She grabbed at the table, which rolled away from her and banged into the wall, then flailed at the IV stand, catching her hand on a tube as she lost her balance.

Both she and the stand crashed to the floor, and white hot pain shot through her elbow. “Help!” she screamed, fighting against the pain that threatened to knock her out. “Somebody — please! Call the police!”

Two nurses rushed in, saw what had happened, and began trying to disentangle her, but Teri brushed them away. “Leave me alone,” she wailed, pointing at the television. “Call the police! Something terrible is going to happen to the Pope!”

As the nurses stared at her uncomprehendingly, Teri curled up on the floor, the pain in her body and her soul too enormous to handle.

It was her fault — whatever was about to happen was all her fault. And not only was it going to happen to the Pope, it was going to happen to Ryan, too.

With a terrible certainty, Teri McIntyre knew that she was about to watch her son die.

RYAN MCINTYRE STEPPED through the curtain onto the stage. Sofia Capelli was two steps ahead of him, Melody Hunt two behind. Once all three of them were in place, the Pope himself would step through the curtain, but even before the appearance of the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, the roar of the crowd was already setting not only the Plexiglas shields to vibrating, but the stage as well. The trembling of the floor beneath his feet, combined with the steadily building wave of noise rising over him, made Ryan step reflexively back; he might have fallen off the stage had Melody not instantly offered her support, steadying him so smoothly that he regained his balance before he’d completely lost it.