Empire of Dust (24 page)

"You cut right through, don't you, Joseph?" Laika said in a biting tone.

"He's right," Tony said, his eyes still hidden. "Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Still, all in all, I'd rather have Jesus."

"Isn't that the title of one of those Baptist hymns?" Joseph said.

"What the hell is it with you?" Laika asked him. "I thought you were the one who bought all this prisoner stuff."

"I buy the possibility that there is a prisoner and that he may be the descendant of the historical Jesus. That's unlikely but possible, and I've admitted that. What I won't admit is that some divine personage, the so-called Son of God, has been walking the earth for two thousand years—wait, make that walking the earth for five hundred and pacing his cell for another
fifteen
hundred." He tapped the decoded message with two fingers. "Frankly, I think this is a wide load of shit."

"It tells us one thing for sure," Laika said, "and that's that those people in New York were after the prisoner to free him. And if it
is
true, it would explain why the Catholic Church is holding him."

"Christ," said Joseph, "he's an apostate or something, a goddamn heretic they're scared of. Or maybe the descendant of Jesus, I don't know—but he's not Jesus!"

"What about the wooden cup McAndrews had?" asked Tony. "Or dare I say the
grail
?"

"It's a first-century wooden cup," Joseph said. "That's all. I admit, I jumped to some conclusions myself about that cup." He smiled. "I'm better now. Listen, that coded message tells us so much, don't you think it's possible it might have been planted for us to find? As a red herring, to throw us off the scent?"

"If they wanted us to find it," said Tony, "why write it in a book code for a book that we didn't have?"

"More than that," Laika added, "would they have sacrificed one of their own people like that to get it into our hands? Weren't there other ways?"

"No ways that wouldn't raise questions. What were they going to do, leave it in an envelope marked 'CIA' when they left after our shootout?"

"The coded message may not have been intended for us in the first place," said Laika. "Maybe it was meant for a . . . new recruit."

"Don't you mean a new
acolyte
?" Joseph said. "If these people believe this stuff, they probably have a whole hierarchy of arcane titles, like the Fifth Level Knight of the Blue Cross."

Tony leaned on the table and glowered at Joseph. "Excuse me, but aren't you the guy who's been having the dreams about the prisoner? Wouldn't you like to finally find out just what the hell . . . or heaven . . . he is?"

"Yes, I would. But I'm not so desperate as to believe irrational—and
impossible
—messages."

"'For God, all things are possible.'"

"Don't quote scripture to me, Tony. I wasn't born yesterday."

"That's enough, Dr. Tompkins," Laika said. "I don't pretend to know if this story is true, but let's find out if it's at least valid. It's time for some Net research, unless you know, Dr. Antonelli, anything about this reference to an 'antipope' in the year 502?"

Tony shook his head. "They didn't cover that in my parochial school."

"Parochial is right," said Joseph. "So are we taking this seriously?"

"Enough to find out whether we should take it seriously, okay?" She turned back toward Tony. What he'd said earlier about Miriam Dominick had stuck in her mind, and now that Tony's main news had been delivered, she wanted to learn more. "You said that Miriam Dominick had another dream? Last night?"

Tony hesitated, then nodded.

"How do you know? Did you talk to her this morning?"

"Yes."

"On the phone, or . . . at closer range?" said Joseph. Laika shot him a look, but Tony responded immediately.

"I spent the night with her. I was there when she had it."

"Aren't there church rules against that?"

Laika pointed a slim finger at Joseph and bared her teeth. "Not a word. Not another goddamn word." Her hot gaze held him until he looked away. Then she glanced back at Tony. "Was that wise?"

"Maybe not. It happened, and I'm not sorry. Besides. . . ." He tapped his head. "I checked her wallet. Got her social security and driver's license numbers. We can run a make on her."

"I thought you already—" Laika's glare cut Joseph dead.

"We will," she said. "What are the numbers?" Tony gave her the numbers from memory. They could all memorize short strings of digits easily. "And what was the dream?" she asked. "If it has some bearing on this, that is."

Tony told her about white doves coming down to a place near two stone towers, and making an outline of an animal with a line running from its mouth to its chest, ending in an arrowhead. "Does that mean anything?" he asked her. "Is it a symbol?"

She nodded. "It's called a heart line. It's sort of wishful thinking, a drawn prayer for a successful hunt."

Joseph spoke again, but now his voice was softer, more contemplative. "A hunt for an animal . . . or maybe a man."

W
hile the three were sitting in the coffee shop, two hundred miles north of Gallup, the young priests and Father Alexander were climbing into the panel truck that held the leaden casket. The old priest looked back at the forbidding container with apprehension, but when he felt and heard nothing, he relaxed a little.

"Don't worry, Father," Father James reassured him, sensing the older man's concern. "He's snug as a bug in a rug in there. Not going to pop out."

Father Alexander forced a smile and nodded.

"Okay, Father," said Father William, who had slipped behind the wheel. "Which way?"

Father Alexander guided them on a circuitous route among the narrow canyons. In some places there was scarcely room for the vehicle to get through, and once they had to get out and move some fallen rocks out of the way. The sides of the canyon rose like straight walls, so steep and high that the canyon floor was in constant shadow except for those rare occasions when the sun was directly overhead.

Father William looked up at the strip of blue above them as he threw the last rock out of their way. "Do these canyons ever get flooded?" he asked.

"Every now and then," said Father Alexander. "Believe me, if they do, you want to see it from up there." He pointed to the rim high above. "Not as often, though, since they put the dam in. Now, if
that
would go—well, I imagine the water would be pretty high in here."

They got back into the truck and continued to drive through the narrow slot canyon until it widened out into a flat-bottomed bowl a hundred feet across. Above them the walls of the canyon broadened and then partially came together again over them, as though the priests were at the bottom of a huge bowl.

In the center of this bowl was a circle of fitted stones thirty feet in diameter, and several inches higher than the floor, and near the middle of that circle was a rectangular opening eight feet long and five wide. The top of a wooden ladder stuck out of the dark hole.

A heavy stone slab lay next to the entrance, and a black sheeting that apparently covered the bottom of the slab extended up for several inches on each side of it. A heavy metal ring was attached to the top of the slab. A thick cable ran upward from it to a small metal crane powered by a gasoline engine. Just outside the stone circle, a large wooden cross had been erected. The upright was twenty feet high and the crosspiece ten feet long.

"The kiva," Father William said, as the priests got out of the truck.

"Yes," said Father Alexander. "An Anasazi ceremonial chamber. Probably built sometime between 1000 and 1100. The priest who tended the mission back in the 1880s found it. He had been told about our prisoner by another priest who had been involved in one of the holdings. The kiva struck him as being an ideal place. A few Indians were with him when he found it, but they were afraid of the structures of their ancient enemies, particularly kivas, steeped as they were in ceremonialism. The priest had the cross put up to mollify them. It was used, for a short time only, for several weeks in the late 1950s."

"That was when you were involved with it," said Father William.

"Yes."

"Why did they move it so quickly?" Father Donald asked.

"There was . . . an incident. A novice died under mysterious circumstances, and it was thought best to move the creature in case it had infected one of its keepers."

"Do you think it had?" asked Father William.

"No. I think it was merely a coincidence. But all those who were suspect are either dead or long gone now, and the four of us have been entrusted. With God's help, we will not fail."

"Amen," muttered one of the priests, and they all crossed themselves.

Then Father Alexander took a flashlight and led the way to the opening. He climbed down the ladder and the others followed. The floor of the kiva was twelve feet deep, and when Father Alexander shone the light around the subterranean chamber, the others could see that it measured thirty feet across, the same as the stone circle above. Every square inch of the room, from the floor to the walls to the ceiling, was a flat black that seemed to suck in the feeble glow of Father Alexander's flashlight.

"Lead, of course," said Father Alexander. "Everything is coated with it, from those pillars, which are set into stone sockets to support the roof, to that stone bench, which, as you can see, encircles the room. The vaults and firepits have been filled in so that the floor is level, and the antechamber there . . ." He pointed to the southern end of the kiva. ". . . sealed off. That was how the Anasazi entered. Even the little
sipapu
's been filled in. No possibility of escape, even of thoughts."

"
'Sipapu?'
" repeated Father James.

"Ridiculous notion," Father Alexander snorted. "It's just a little hole in the floor. But the Pueblo people thought they had come up through it into this world from the underworld. An insane religion." Father Alexander looked around and smiled grimly. "Oh, yes, he'll be cozy and safe enough down here, I suppose. Well, let's get to it."

Father William brought the truck as close as possible to the entrance, and then Father Donald and Father James spread out a large mesh net next to the stone slab. The priests lugged the leaden casket out of the rear of the truck and set it on top of the net, then drew the sides of the net around it. Father Donald unhooked the cable from the ring in the slab and attached it to the reinforced steel rings on the comers of the mesh netting.

Father Alexander started the engine and the crane slowly raised the netting-wrapped casket aloft. He maneuvered it so that it was directly over the hole, and the other priests swung it around so that it would fit through. The old priest carefully lowered it to the floor of the kiva. Then the younger priests descended into the chamber, detached the cable from the netting, and climbed back out as Father Alexander raised the heavy cable.

"There's no way we can let him out?" Father James said. "Just to walk around down there?"

"They do it in some of his prisons," Father Alexander said. "But it requires more complex mechanisms than we have available. Besides, I've never been convinced it'd do him any good. He's not like you and me. He feels no need to stretch his legs. Best to keep him doubly secured, in both kiva and casket. Two strong layers of lead are better than one. He's quite used to the dark, as you might imagine."

Father Alexander looked into the darkness of the kiva and addressed what lay within, uncertain whether it could hear him or not. "Aren't you? Oh yes, a creature of darkness! Why do you not repent? Even you can be redeemed, yes, even you! If you would send your thoughts free of your prison, let it be
that
message that is spoken. That you are heartily sorry for what you have done, and that you will obey the laws of God and the truths of this, our holy church!"

Then he heard it, a series of low laughs, like a string of faraway mortar fire, one after another, deep and thrusting.

He glanced in sudden panic at the other priests, but they were only looking at him, and their faces showed that they'd heard nothing. "Can he hear you, do you think?" Father Donald said, but the old priest heard his words only dimly over the rushing of blood in his ears and the ever growing laughter of the beast in the kiva.

"No," he was able to say, and hoped that they did not notice his voice trembling. "Cover it!"