Covenant Of The Flame Page 31

  Schmidt screamed reflexively.

  At once, another man rammed a funnel into Schmidt's mouth, clamped it firmly between his lips, watched the container being raised toward the funnel, and nodded as foam, slime, sludge, and sewage were poured down Schmidt's throat.

  'Perhaps, in one of your future lives, you'll be more responsible,' the man said. That is, if we're successful, if anyone has a chance for a future life.'

  Later.

  After the corpse was discovered and the autopsy was performed.

  The medical examiner debated about the primary cause of death. In theory, Schmidt had drowned.

  But the chemicals that filled his stomach and swelled his lungs were so toxic that, before he drowned, his vital organs might easily have failed from instant shock.

  TWO

  Craig, you were with me. You heard me talk about Joseph! You saw what was in his bedroom. If the killers followed both of us, to protect their secret, they might come after you!

  Remembering Tess's warning when she'd phoned him at One Police Plaza, Craig squirmed against his seatbelt and directed his troubled eyes toward the smog beyond the window of the Trump Shuttle 727 about to land at Washington National Airport.

  Come after me! he thought.

  Until Tess had mentioned it, that possibility hadn't occurred to him. He recalled - and had meant - what he'd replied. Let the sons of bitches try. The truth was, he would welcome a confrontation. Anything to stop the madness. Anything to save-!

  Keep running, Tess! he thought. Be clever! Don't take chances! Soon. I'll be there soon!

  Prior to leaving One Police Plaza, he'd phoned the security personnel at LaGuardia's Trump Shuttle terminal to alert them that he was a police officer who'd be bringing credentials, that he'd be prepared to fill out all the forms and comply with all the complex procedures, including an interview with the pilot, that allowed him to carry his handgun aboard this plane. On the way to the airport, he and Tony had done their best to make sure they weren't being followed, although in the chaos of noon-hour traffic that was almost impossible.

  Now, concealing his gesture from the passenger next to him, Craig kept his right hand beneath his suitcoat, his fingers clutched around the.38 caliber, Smith and Wesson revolver's handle. Not that it mattered. If there was trouble, it certainly wouldn't happen during the flight. Certainly not shooting. Too dangerous. The bullets would rupture the fuselage and depressurize the cabin, at the risk of causing the jet to crash. All the same, the feel of the weapon gave him confidence.

  As casually as his nerves would allow, Craig glanced around. No passenger seemed to care about him.

  Good, he thought. Just keep control. He strained to reassure himself. You've taken every precaution you could think of. You're in the flow now! You're committed! You've got to go with whatever happens!

  Still, he hadn't noticed the gray-eyed man ten seats behind him, who appeared to nap, thus hiding the color of his eyes, and who, under various names, had bought a ticket for every Trump Shuttle flight from LaGuardia to Washington National Airport since the woman had disappeared last night.

  Not that the gray-eyed man had intended to use all the tickets. Instead he'd waited, unobtrusively watching the terminal's entrance, in case the woman's detective-friend arrived. One of his counterparts had kept a similar watch at the Pan Am shuttle terminal.

  About to give up hope, abruptly seeing his target get out of a police car, the gray-eyed man - pulse speeding - had strolled inside the terminal, passed through the security checkpoint, presented the ticket for his flight, and boarded the jet before the detective did. In that way, he followed the detective paradoxically from in front and almost surely prevented the target from suspecting he had company.

  Yes, the woman had escaped last night. But thanks to the onboard phone, which the gray-eyed man had asked a flight attendant to bring to him, he'd been able, using guarded expressions, to alert additional members of his team that the detective was en route to Washington National Airport, presumably to rendezvous with the quarry.

  The woman.

  She was dangerous. She knew too much.

  So - it had to be assumed - did the determined detective, who showed far too great an interest in the woman.

  When the two came together, they would both be silenced, the photographs would be destroyed, and the covenant would at last again be protected.

  THREE

  'Evil,' Priscilla Harding said.

  The stark word caught Tess's attention.

  She, Priscilla, and Professor Harding had moved from the kitchen to a downstairs study in the Victorian house near Georgetown in Washington. Now that Priscilla's insulin had taken effect and her blood sugar was stabilized by the lunch she'd eaten, the elderly woman seemed ten years younger. Her eyes looked vital. She spoke with strength, although her cadence was slow and deliberate, as if by habit she used the lecture style she'd perfected during her many years as a professor.

  But Tess didn't have time for a lecture. She needed to know about the statue right now. Hurry! She had to meet Craig.

  Priscilla noticed her impatience and sighed. 'Stop looking at your watch. Sit down, Tess, and listen carefully. This isn't something I can condense, and if you're in as much trouble as you described, your life might very well depend on an absolute understanding of what I'm about to tell you.'

  Tess hesitated. Suddenly tired, she obeyed, sinking toward a leather chair. 'I apologize. I know you're trying to help. I'll do my best to. If this is complicated, I'd better not. In fact, I don't dare try to rush you. Tell it your way.'

  Nonetheless Tess felt her muscles ache from tension as she watched Priscilla take several thick books from a shelf and place them on a desk.

  '"Evil",' Tess said. 'You mentioned "evil".'

  Priscilla nodded. 'Evil is the central dilemma in Christian theology.'

  'I'm afraid I. What does that have to do with.?'

  'Think about it. How do you reconcile the existence of evil with the traditional concept of a benign, all-loving, Christian God?'

  Tess frowned in rigid confusion. 'Really, I still don't understand.'

  Priscilla raised an arthritis-swollen, wrinkled hand. 'Just listen. We know that evil exists. We encounter it every day. We hear about it on the radio. On TV. We read about it in the newspapers. Moral evil in the form of crime, cruelty, and corruption. Physical evil in the form of disease. Cancer. Muscular dystrophy. Multiple sclerosis.' Priscilla's voice dropped. 'Diabetes.'

  She hesitated, then sat despondently behind the desk.

  Brooding, Priscilla continued. 'Of course, some deny the existence of, even the concept of, evil. They claim that crime is merely the result of poverty, inadequate parental guidance, or lack of education, et cetera. They place both the causes and the blame on society, or in the case of someone so repugnant as a serial killer, they attribute the killer's violence to insanity. They also refuse to consider that diseases have theological implications. To them, cancer is a biological accident or the consequence of substances in the environment.'

  'But they're not wrong,' Tess said. 'I work for a magazine that tries to protect the environment. Carcinogenic substances are all around us.'

  'Absolutely,' Professor Harding said. 'The poisons are evident. My lilies struggle to blossom. They're not half as brilliant as they used to be.'

  'Richard, if you wouldn't mind.' Priscilla tapped her gnarled fingers on the desk. I'm suddenly, terribly thirsty. I'd appreciate very much if you went to the kitchen and brewed us some tea.'

  'Why, of course.' Professor Harding grasped his cane. 'Any special preference?'

  'Whatever you choose, I'm sure will be fine.'

  'In that case, I think Lemon Lift, dear.'

  'Excellent.'

  As Professor Harding hobbled from the study, Priscilla narrowed her wrinkle-rimmed eyes toward Tess. Alone, the two women faced each other.

  'Carcinogenic substances and so-called biological accidents are exactly my point,' Priscilla said. 'P
hysical evil. Theological evil.'

  Tess shook her head. 'But how can cancer have anything to do with theology?'

  'Pay attention. According to Christianity, a generous loving God made the universe.'

  That's right,' Tess said.

  'So what kind of God would add crime and cancer to that universe? The existence of those evils makes the traditional Christian God seem not at all benign. In fact, it makes Him seem cruel. Perverse. Inconsistent. That's why the Devil was invented.'

  Devil? Tess thought. What the.? This is getting.

  'Lucifer,' Priscilla said. The topmost angel in heaven. The superstar of God's deputies. But the Light-Bearer, as he's sometimes called, wasn't satisfied with being a deputy. No, that powerful angel wanted even more power. He wanted God's power. He thought he could compete. But when he tried, God pushed him down, oh so far down, to the depths, to the newly created fires of hell. And God changed his name from Lucifer to Satan, and Satan in his fury vowed to corrupt God's perfect universe, to introduce evil into the world.'

  'But that part of Christianity always seemed to me a myth,' Tess said.

  'To you. However, the majority of Christians, especially fundamentalists, believe and base their lives on that conception. God and the fallen angel. Satan is a convenient explanation for the spreading evil around us.'

  'You sound like the nun who gave me catechism lessons every Sunday after mass.'

  'Do I?' Priscilla wrinkled her already wrinkled brow. 'Well, I'm about to teach you a different catechism. And it might undermine your faith. As well, I regret to say, it might terrify you.'

  Tess straightened, her muscles cramping as she listened with greater tension.

  'The trouble with using Satan as an explanation for the existence of evil,' Priscilla said, 'is that God can still be accused of perversity. Because God tolerates Satan's evil. Because He allows Satan to oppress us with crime and disease.'

  Tess shook her head once again. The nun who taught me catechism used to say that God decided to condone Satan's evil rather than destroy him - in order to test us. If we overcome the temptation of evil and accept the hardship of disease, we can gain a higher place in heaven.'

  'Now, Tess, really. Do you honestly believe that?'

  'Well. Maybe not. But at least, it's what I was taught.'

  'And this is what I was taught.' Priscilla's tone became bitter. 'Richard and I had a son. Jeremy. Our only child. When he was ten, he died - in excruciating pain - from bone cancer. Thirty years later, I still wake from nightmares of how much he suffered. That sweet, dear, perfect boy never harmed anyone. He didn't have the faintest idea of what sin was.' Priscilla's eyes misted. 'Nonetheless God allowed that vicious disease to torture my son. If Satan is responsible for evil, God is responsible for Satan and ultimately for what happened to Jeremy. I still blame God for what happened to my...' The mist in Priscilla's eyes faded, replaced by a hard determination. 'So I come back to the question I asked you earlier. How can a benign, all-loving God permit evil? The Christian attempt to provide an answer, by inventing a fallen angel, is not at all satisfactory.'

  Priscilla scowled, then continued. 'However, there is another myth that provides a more logical explanation for the existence of evil. Thousands of years before Christ, our ancestors believed in two gods, a good one and a bad one, co-equal, both of them fighting for control of the universe. That version of Satan wasn't a fallen angel but rather a divinity. The virtuous god was independent from and hence couldn't be held responsible for the evil god and the viciousness that the evil god inflicted on us. The earliest evidence we have for this belief comes from the fourth millennium BC in ancient Iraq, specifically in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. That's where tradition tells us the Garden of Eden was supposed to have existed.'

  'The serpent in the garden,' Tess said.

  'Exactly. But that serpent wasn't a fallen angel. He was a symbol of an evil god in combat with a virtuous one.'

  Tess couldn't help staring toward a clock on the wall. Craig. He'd be landing at Washington National Airport soon! He expected her to meet him!

  'Don't look at the clock, Tess. Look at me. Keep paying attention.' Priscilla braced her shoulders with professorial sternness. The concept of opposite but equally powerful gods spread throughout the Mideast. By the time it showed up in ancient Iran, around one thousand BC, the virtuous god had a name. Mithras.'

  Tess jerked straighter. 'Mithras? You mentioned him before.'

  'Yes. The figure in the bas-relief sculpture,' Priscilla said. 'Now do you understand why I had to go into so much detail? The figure killing the bull is not a man. He's a god. Various later religions, Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, also used the concept of equal, competing, good and evil gods. But essentially those gods are versions of Mithras and his evil counterpart. We're talking old, Tess. Very old. That's what I meant when I said that Mithras comes from the roots of history. He's the most ancient notion of a god we have any specific knowledge of, and it's only by chance that.'

  Professor Harding interrupted, supporting himself with his cane while he wheeled in a cart upon which a teapot, cups, and a plate of biscuits were arranged.

  'Thank you, Richard.'

  'I'm pleased to help, dear.'

  'It's only by chance that what?' Tess asked, impatient for Priscilla to continue.

  'Milk, dear?' Professor Harding asked.

  'Just a little.'

  Tess became more impatient, barely able to restrain herself from telling Priscilla to hurry.

  While Professor Harding poured the tea, Priscilla pensively opened one of the books she'd set on the desk, leafed through it, and found the page she wanted. 'Let me describe a religion to you. When you enter its church, you dip your hand in a holy-water basin and make the Sign of the Cross. On the altar, you see a representation of the physical form of your God. During the service, you receive a communion of bread and wine. You believe in baptism, confirmation, salvation through good works, and life after death. The physical form of your deity has his birthday on December twenty-fifth, and his rebirth occurs during the Easter season.'

  Professor Harding wrapped each steaming teacup with a napkin and handed them to Priscilla and Tess. 'Catholicism,' he said.

  'Yes, that would be the logical assumption, Richard. However, with apologies, you're wrong.' Priscilla kept staring at Tess. 'It's Mithraism.'

  'What?' Tess set down the teacup and blinked in surprise. 'But how can there be so many parallels? You said that Mithraism came long before Christianity.'

  'Think about it.' Priscilla lowered and peered over her glasses. 'I'm sure the answer will occur to you.'

  'The only explanation I can. It doesn't seem possible. Christianity borrowed from Mithraism?'

  'So it appears,' Priscilla said. 'For the first three centuries after Christ, while Christianity struggled to survive, Mithraism was a major force in the Roman Empire. Several Roman emperors not only endorsed it but were members. Mithras is sometimes called the sun god, and because of him, Sunday assumed sacred importance for the Romans and eventually for Western culture. Mithras is often pictured with a sun behind his head, and that sun became the halo around the heads of major figures in Christian art. The cross, by the way, is an ancient symbol that represents the sun. Thus believers in Mithras made the Sign of the Cross when they entered their church to worship the sun god.'

  Priscilla turned the book and slid it toward Tess. 'Here's a photograph of an ancient bas-relief depicting a Mithraic communion service. Notice that the pieces of communion bread have a cross etched into them.'

  'Before Christianity?' Tess felt off-balance. 'But this is. All my religious training, everything I took for granted about Catholicism. I feel like I'm sinking.'

  'I warned you.' Priscilla raised her swollen fingers. 'I told you that what I had to say might undermine your faith. I tried to prepare you when I said it might be terrifying. In more ways than one. But I'll get to that.'

  Professor Harding sipped from h
is teacup, sighed in appreciation of the taste, swallowed with pleasure, and interrupted. 'My dear.'

  'Yes, Richard?'

  'When I came in, you said it was only by chance that. What was only by chance?'

  'That's what I want to know,' Tess said.

  'I meant.' Priscilla narrowed her gaze. 'It was only by chance that Mithraism didn't assume the dominance in Western culture that Christianity now has. As I mentioned, in the first three centuries after Christ, several Roman emperors pledged themselves to Mithras. But all of that changed with Constantine. In the year three-twelve, just before Constantine was about to send his army against his major enemy in the famous battle at the Milvian Bridge, Constantine had what he later described as a vision.'