F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (37 page)

           
 
But the nurse hurried off. Carrie thanked God
he was asleep. She'd do what she came here to do and then leave.

           
 
"I forgive you," she said softly.

           
 
Who knew what torment he'd been going through
during Mom's illness? Perhaps something had snapped within him . . . temporary
insanity. There was a good chance he'd never done anything like that before or
since. One aberrant period in an entire life . . . true, that period had
scarred both his children for the rest of their lives, but now, at the end of
his days, it was time for forgiveness. These were words Carrie had thought
she'd never say, but her time with the Virgin had brought a change within her,
a softening. Humans are frail, and there is no sin that cannot be forgiven.

           
 
"I forgive you," she repeated.

           
 
And his eyes opened. Watery blue, struggling
to focus, they narrowed, then widened. He saw her, he knew her. A trembling
hand lifted, grasped her fingers where they clung to the side rail.

           
 
Touch . . . he was touching her again!

           
 
It took everything Carrie had not to snatch
her hand away and run screaming from the CCU. She hung on, quelling the urge to
vomit as he squeezed her fingers in his arthritic grasp.

           
And then he loosened his grip and
his finger began to caress the back of her hand. She felt her intestines writhe
with revulsion but she kept her hand where it was.

           
 
He's half out of his mind, she told herself.
Disoriented . . . doesn't know what he's doing.

           
But then she saw the smile twisting
his lips, and the look in his eyes. No repentance there, no guilt . . . more
like fond memories.

           
 
Carrie pulled her hand away. She wanted to run
but she stood firm. Maybe she was projecting. Wasn't that what they called it
when you saw what you expected to see? Maybe he was just glad to see her and
she was misinterpreting his responses. After all, she hadn't laid eyes on him
in fourteen years . . .

           
 
. . . but a day hadn't passed that his memory
didn't haunt her.

           
 
She couldn't run now. Not after she'd made it
this far. Besides, she'd come here on a mission.

           
 
To give him a chance.

           
 
She glanced around. All the nurses were busy.
She pulled out the Ziploc bag filled with the filed nails from the Virgin and
dipped a finger into the powder. Originally she'd planned to mix it with a few
drops of water and let him drink it, but with all these tubes running in and
out of him, she didn't see how that would be possible. But that citrus swab
looked perfect.

           
 
She pulled it from the plastic cup,
transferred the powder from her fingers to the swab, and then leaned over the
bed.

           
 
He was still looking at her with that . . .
that expression in his eyes. She shuddered and concentrated on his mouth,
slipping the swab through his open lips and running it across his dry tongue
and up and down the inside of his cheeks.

           
 
His smile broadened. His hand reached up to
grab her wrist but she pulled back in time to avoid him.

           
 
"There," she said softly. "I've
done my part. The rest is between you and God."

           
 
He continued to stare at her, grinning
lasciviously. She couldn't stand it anymore. She'd done her duty. No use in
torturing herself any longer.

           
 
"I'm going to go now," she said.
"I never—"

           
 
Suddenly his smile vanished and he began to
writhe in the bed. Carrie heard the beeps of his cardiac monitor increase their
tempo. She glanced up and saw the blips chasing each other across the screen.
She smelled something burning, and when she looked down, black, oily smoke was
seeping out around the edges of his hospital gown. The skin of his arms began
to darken and smoke.

           
 
"Nurse!" Carrie cried, not knowing
what else to do. "Nurse, what's happening?"

           
 
By the time the blond nurse reached the
bedside his writhing had progressed to agonized thrashing. Smoke streamed from
his now blackened skin and collected in a dark, roiling cloud above the bed as
he tore the respirator tube from his throat and belched a steam of black smoke
with a hoarse, breathy scream.

           
 
The nurse gasped. "Oh, my God!"

           
 
At that instant he burst into flame.

           
 
The nurse screamed and Carrie reeled away,
raising her arm to shield her face from the heat. He was burning! Dear sweet
Jesus, the whole bed was engulfed in a mass of flame!

           
 
No . . . not the bed. Carrie saw now that the
bed wasn't burning. Neither was his hospital gown. Nor the sheets.

           
 
Just him.

           
 
The CCU dissolved into chaos. Screams, shouts,
white-clad bodies darting here and there, shouting into phones, brandishing
fire extinguishers, dousing the bed with foam, with white jets of carbon
dioxide, but the flames burned on unabated, crisping his skin, boiling his eyes
in their sockets, peeling the blackened flesh from his bones, and still he
moved and writhed and kicked and thrashed, still alive within the consuming
flames.

           
 
Still alive . . . still burning . . .

           
 
And then when it seemed that there was nothing
left of him but his skeleton and a crisp blackened membrane stretched across
his bones, he stiffened and arched his back until only his heels and the back
of his head touched the mattress. He remained like that for what seemed an
eternity, exhaling his last breath in a prolonged, quavering ululation, then he
collapsed.

           
 
And with his collapse, the flames snuffed out.

           
 
All was quiet except for the long high-pitched
squeal of his flat-lined cardiac monitor. The nurses and orderlies crowded
around the bed, covering their mouths and noses as they gaped at the blackened,
immolated thing that had once been Walter Ferris, lying stiff and twisted in
his unmarred, unscorched hospital gown.

           
 
Sick with the horror of it, Carrie staggered
back, fighting to maintain her grip on consciousness. She turned and stumbled
toward the swinging doors, the voices of the CCU staff echoing above the howl
of the monitor . . .

           
 
"Christ, what happened?" . . .
"An oxygen fire?" . . . "Naw, look at the bed—not even
scorched!" . . . "What happened to the smoke alarms? How come they
never went off?" . . . "Damnedest thing I ever seen!" . . .

           
 
Out in the hall Carrie stepped aside to let
the hospital's emergency crew pass. She leaned against the wall and retched.

           
 
She'd come here to forgive him . . . she
had
forgiven him.

           
 
Apparently someone else had not.

           
ARCHDIOCESE
TO CLOSE ST. JOE'S

           
 
John Cardinal O'Connor has announced that the
Archdiocese of New York will temporarily close
St. Joseph
's Church until the Diocese and
Vatican
officials have time to evaluate the
phenomena surrounding the relic displayed on the altar of the
Lower Manhattan
church.

           
 
"Let's just call it a cooling-off
period," the Cardinal declared at a news conference yesterday. "In
the present climate of crowds, hysteria, and conflicting claims of right of
ownership, clear, reasoned, dispassionate judgment is quite nearly
impossible."

           
 
St. Joseph
's parishioners will he instructed to attend
services at St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery until their own church is reopened.

           
 
The city has announced it will clear the area
around
St.
Joseph
's
in order to allow Church investigative teams to do their work without
interference.

           
 
THE
NEW
YORK
POST

           
 
Emilio stood back and watched the police herd
the Mary-hunters from the street in front of
St. Joseph
's. The hordes of the faithful were
reluctant to go and protested vociferously. Some protested with more than their
voices, crying they had driven thousands of miles to be healed and weren't
about to be turned away now.

           
 
But they were indeed turned away. And some of
those who would not leave voluntarily were either dragged away or driven away
in the backs of paddy wagons.

           
 
By whatever means necessary, the entire block
was cleared by nightfall. The church doors were locked and a police cordon was set
up across each end of the street.

           
 
Emilio shook his head in admiration. He didn't
know how he had done it, but he saw the
senador's
hand in all this. There were still roadblocks before him, but the
senador
had cleared the major obstacle
between Emilio and the relic.

           
 
The rest was up to him.

           
 
Already he had a plan.

IN THE PACIFIC

           
20°
N, 128° W

           
 
The storm continues to gain in size and
strength as it races along its northeasterly course. It now stretches one
hundred and fifty miles across as its cumulonimbus crown reaches to forty thousand
feet.

           
 
The spinning core of its heart increases its
speed, and the entire storm moves with it. The swirling mass of violent weather
is aimed toward northern
Mexico
.

Manhattan

           
 
Decker honked and yelled and edged the
D'Agostino's truck through the crowd until it nosed up against one of the light
blue "Police Line" horses that blocked access to the street ahead.
Beyond the barrier the pavement stretched dark and empty in front of
St. Joseph
's, illuminated in patches by the street
lamps. An island of calm in a sea of frustrated Mary-hunters.

           
 
"You know what to say?" Emilio said.

           
 
Decker nodded. "Got it memorized."

           
 
He jammed some gum into his mouth and slid out
from behind the wheel as one of the cops approached.

           
 
Emilio watched from his spot in the middle of
the front seat. Molinari slouched to his right, trying to look casual with his
elbow protruding from the open passenger window. Emilio was keeping a decidedly
low profile at this point in their little mission. Decker and Mol sported extra
facial hair, glasses, and nostril dilators to distort their appearances, but
Emilio had gone to the greatest length to disguise himself. He'd added a thick
black beard to augment his mustache, a shaggy wig, and a navy-blue knitted
watch cap pulled low over his forehead, almost to his eyebrows. He was often
caught in the background when the
senador
was photographed leaving his office or his car, and he didn't want the
slightest risk of being identified later.

           
 
"Street's closed, buddy," the cop
said. "You gotta go down to—"

           
 
"Gotta delivery here," Decker said,
chewing noisily on the gum as he fished a slip of paper from his pocket.
"The rect'ry."

           
 
"Yeah? Nobody told me about that."

           
 
"We deliver alla time, man. Youse guys
maya shut down da choich, but dem priests still gotta eat, know'm sayin'?"

           
 
As the cop stared at Decker, Emilio winced and
closed his eyes. He heard Mol groan softly. Decker was laying it on thick.
Maybe
too
thick.

           
 
The cop pulled a flashlight from his belt.
"Let's have a look at what you're deliverin'," he said. "You
wouldn't be the first Mary-hunters tried to sneak by us tonight."

           
 
Emilio nodded as Mol nudged him. They'd done
this right. This was no fake D'Agostino's truck. This was the real thing.
They'd hijacked it just as it left the store. The driver was bound, gagged and
unconscious in the trunk of a car Mol had stolen this afternoon. The back of
the panel truck was loaded with grocery bags, all scheduled for delivery
elsewhere, but Emilio had changed the addresses on half a dozen bags; they now
read "
St.
Joseph
's
rectory."

           
 
Emilio heard the rear doors open, heard the
rustle of paper as a few of the bags were inspected, then heard the door slam
closed.

           
 
Seconds later Decker was slipping back behind
the wheel as the cop slid the barrier aside and waved them through.

           
 
"'Choich?'" Mol said, leaning
forward and staring at Decker.
"'Choich?'"

           
 
Decker shrugged, grinning. "What can I
say? I'm a Method actor."

           
 
Mol laughed and grabbed his crotch. "Method
this!"

           
 
Emilio let them blow off a little steam. They
were in—past the guardhouse, so to speak—but they still had a long way to go.

           
 
Decker gave a friendly wave to the cop
standing on the sidewalk in front of the church as he drove past, then backed
the truck into the alley on the far side of the rectory. Mol and Emilio got
out, opened the rear of the trunk, grabbed some bags, and left the doors open
as they approached the rectory's side door with loaded arms.

           
 
A middle-aged woman opened the door.

           
 
"A gift for Father Dan from one of his
parishioners," Emilio said. "Is he in?"

           
 
Emilio knew he was in—he'd confirmed that with
a phone call thirty minutes ago.

           
 
"Why, yes," the woman said. She let
them into the foyer, then turned and called up the stairs behind her.
"Father Dan! Someone here to see you!"

           
By the time she turned back again,
Mol had put his grocery bags down and had a pistol pointing at her face.

           
 
"Not a word," he said, "or
we'll shoot Father Dan. Understand?"

           
 
Eyes wide, jaw trembling, utterly terrified,
she nodded.

           
 
"Anyone else in the house besides Father
Dan?" Mol said.

           
 
She shook her head.

           
 
"Good." Mol smiled. "Now, let's
find a nice little closet so we can lock you up where you won't get hurt."

           
 
Emilio had his own automatic—a silenced Llama
compact 9mm—ready and waiting for Father Dan when he came down the stairs.

           
 
"Hello," the priest said.
"What—"

           
 
And then he saw the pistol.

           
 
"Let's go to church, shall we,
Father?" Emilio said.

           
 
The young priest looked bewildered. "But
there are police all over—"

           
 
"The tunnel, Father Dan. We'll use the
tunnel."

           
 
The priest shook his head. "Tunnel? I
don't know what you're—"

           
 
Emilio jabbed the silencer tip against his
ribs. "I'll shoot your housekeeper in the face."

           
 
"All right!" Father Dan said,
blanching. "All right. It's this way."

           
 
"That's better," Emilio said,
following close behind.

           
 
Mol rejoined them then and gave Emilio a
thumbs-up sign. The housekeeper was safely locked away. She'd keep quiet to
protect her precious priest from being shot while the priest was leading them
to the church in order to keep his housekeeper from being shot.

           
 
Weren't guns wonderful?

           
 
But repeated reminders never hurt. Emilio had
worked this one out and memorized it: "No heroics, please, Father. We're
not here to hurt anyone, but we're quite willing to do so without hesitation if
the need arises. Remember that."

           
 
Why are
all these things happening, Mother?

           
 
Carrie sat in the front pew, staring at the
Virgin where she lay upon the altar.

           
 
She could not get the sight of her father—now
that he was dead, had died so horribly, it seemed all right to call him
that—out of her head. The flames, the oily smoke, the smell, the obscene sizzle
of burning human flesh, haunted her dreams and her waking hours, stealing her
appetite, chasing her sleep. That had been no ordinary fire. Only the man had
burned, nothing else.

           
 
Did I do
that, Mother? Did you? Or was that the work of Someone Else's hand?

           
 
And now the church was closed, the sick and
lame turned away, the building sealed, the street blocked off. What next?
Tomorrow these aisles would be crowded with investigators from the Archdiocese
and the
Vatican
, trailed by nosy, disrespectful bureaucrats from City Hall and
Albany
, from
Washington
and
Israel
, all poking, prodding, examining.

           
 
They'll
be interrogating me about how you got here. I won't tell them a thing. It's not
me I'm worried about, Mother. It's you. They'll treat you like a thing. An
it.
They may even decide you belong back in
Israel
.
What'll I do then, Mother?

           
 
Carrie felt tears begin to well in her eyes.
She willed them away.

           
 
There's
a plan, isn't there, Mother. There has to be. I just have to have faith and
—

           
 
She heard a noise in the vestibule and turned.
She smiled when she saw Dan leading two other strange-looking men up the aisle,
but he did not return her smile. He looked pale and grim.

           
And then she saw the pistols.

           
 
"Dan?" she said, rising.
"What's going on?"

           
 
"I don't know." His voice was as
tight as his features. "They came into the rectory and—"

           
 
"What we want is very simple," the
bigger, bearded one said. He stopped a dozen feet or so down the aisle from
Carrie and let Dan continue toward her. He gestured toward the altar with his
pistol. "We want the lady."

           
 
Carrie was stunned for a few seconds, unable,
unwilling
to believe what she'd just
heard.

           
 
"Want her for what?" she managed to
say.

           
 
"No time for chatter, Sister. Here's how
we'll do this. You two will carry her back through the tunnel to the rectory,
and we'll take her from there. No tricks, no games, no heroics, and no one gets
hurt." He gestured with his pistol at Dan. "You take the head and
she'll take the feet. Let's move."

           
 
"No!" Carrie said.

           
 
The bearded man snapped his head back in
surprise. Obviously he hadn't expected that.

           
 
Neither had Carrie. The word had erupted from
her with little or no forethought, propelled by fear, by anger, by outrage that
anyone could even
think
of stealing
the Virgin from the sanctuary of a church.

           
 
She rose and faced him defiantly.

           
 
"Get out of here."

           
 
He stared at her for a heartbeat or two, then
pointed his gun at Dan.

           
 
"You cause me any trouble and I'll shoot
your priest friend."

           
 
"No, you won't. There's a cop outside
that door. All I have to do is scream once and he'll be in here, and that will
be the end of you. Get out now. I'll give you a chance to run, then I'm going
to open the front doors and call the police inside."

           
 
"I'm not kidding, lady," the big one
said through his teeth. "Get up there and do what you're told."

           
 
"Carrie, please," she heard Dan say
from her left. "It's okay. They can't get past the cops with her anyway.
So just do as he says."

           
 
Dan might be right, but Carrie wasn't going to
let these creeps get their filthy hands on the Virgin for even a few seconds.

           
 
"Get out now or I scream."

           
 
The shorter one looked about nervously, as if
he wanted to take her up on the offer, but the bearded one stood firm. His eyes
narrowed as he raised his pistol and aimed it at her chest. His voice was low
and menacing.