I, Judas the 5th Gospel (10 page)

The X-37 had only been tested on two un-manned drops so far by NASA, and had never been in space. With the
Columbia
disaster, the entire project had been put on delay, but Galbraith had had his people forge ahead with the project using his own funds because he knew it was necessary to complete the Great Commission project.

However, there was a problem with the X-37. By re-fitting it to accept the life-pod and extra maneuvering of fuel and oxygen tanks for multiple space-walks, the trade off was that shielding and avionics had to be scaled back. Thus, even though it was designed as a re-usable orbiter, the model on top of the Ariane rocket did not have the capability to survive re-entry. Also, once the cargo pod was opened so that the occupant could do the first of the space walks that were the entire purpose of this launch, the oxygen would be released into space. Using extra canisters, the pilot would have enough oxygen to make an additional seven space-walks. When the last canister was depleted, the mission was, in the parlance of space, no longer life sustainable. Therefore, this was a one-way mission.

Once the engineers came to this realization, they’d brought the problem to Galbraith. He’d relayed the information to the Brotherhood, which had promptly set about recruiting someone for a mission of the highest urgency in the service to God that would require the ultimate sacrifice in faith.

Since they needed an astronaut, they focused on those who had already gone through NASA’s training, ultimately settling on retired Lieutenant Colonel Peter Forster, who now lay in the special acceleration sling inside the life-pod, inside the X-37, on top of the fifty-two meter high Ariane 5G booster.

As the countdown proceeded to the final seconds, Forster could feel the vibration of the massive rocket engines igniting. He quickly crossed himself. He was dead weight—an insensitive but accurate term—until they were in orbit. The launch was in the control of the ground engineers.

As the last second went by, the rockets roared to maximum thrust and the Ariane lifted. It rose up on a dual tail of fire from the twin side boosters, gaining altitude.

Inside the life-pod, Forster, former Air Force pilot and astronaut in training, was praying, not for himself, but for the success of his mission. He had long ago cast his life to God’s will.

The Xingu River, the Amazon Basin

Angelique stood on edge of the short dirt runway that had been carved out of the jungle near the town of Maria Preta. She’d met many research teams here, but the team she was waiting for now was something altogether different. Before, people always came in search of the hidden treasures of the Amazon—mostly medicinal cures in the form of plants and animals not found anywhere else on the face of the planet. Also, they were coming at two in the morning, so she’d had torches placed around the landing zone.

This team was coming in search of something also hidden in the jungle, but not a treasure. They were coming for the figure that had raised her. For what the Kaiyapo spoke of only in whispers while making the sign to ward off evil.

The Dark One.

The one the Spanish priests had called El Diablo. The Devil.

Angelique had heard many of the stories, but had not known whether or not to believe them. She had seen many strange things in the deep jungle, so she always kept an open mind. The words of the priest this morning bothered her greatly. That she was somehow connected to an El Diablo legend. She knew the priest had not mentioned it lightly.

To not know who her parents were, or how or why she had been abandoned in the jungle at the tender ago of two, had hovered over her all her life. She had no memories before the Kaiyapo. The priest speculated that perhaps her parents had been explorers who’d gotten lost and sent their daughter down the river in a desperate attempt to save her. When she’d traveled to the outside world for the few years necessary to complete her education, she’d told no one of her strange past, because there was nothing to tell. A story with no framework.

Angelique had never been tempted to travel further back up the river, past the Devil’s Fork, a place where two tributaries ran together forming the Xingu. No one with any sense went past the Devil’s Fork. At least no one went past it and came back to talk about what they had encountered. Although there were legends of some who had done so long ago.

She heard helicopters in the distance.

As she waited, she thought of the land and its strange legacy. The first European to travel up the Xingu was a Spaniard in 1543. He named the small village here Maria Preta, superseding whatever name the locals had had for their home for centuries, if not millennia.

The Spaniard was also the one who had named the split in the river, located one hundred and ten kilometers to the west, the Devil’s Fork. The Spaniards had unexpectedly beaten a hasty retreat back down-river, and Maria Preta was the furthest west they established a mission, an unusual reversal for the conquering Spanish. The locals had always avoided going far up-river. They had their own legends, apparently one of which was about her, and about what lay in the dark jungle up-river, near the base of the Andes. However, the Spaniard hadn’t been the last European to try to go that way.

Angelique shielded her eyes as two Brazilian Army helicopters swooped in low over the trees, searchlights blazing. They touched down, spewing out two-dozen armed soldiers. The soldiers raced to form a perimeter, while their officer jogged over to Angelique. The fact that the officer was running told her that he was under severe pressure and was willing to lose face in order to do his job, a rare occurrence in the caste-conscious officer corps.

He stared at her, looked around, and then back at Angelique. “You are the guide?”

Angelique didn’t answer. She could hear more helicopters inbound. The officer and his men weren’t important. The officer seemed to have a different opinion. He moved closer to her, inside that palpable range that put him in her personal space.

“Are you the guide?”

With one smooth movement, Angelique reached over her left shoulder and drew the machete. The razor sharp blade lightly rested on the officer’s neck as his brain was still processing that she had drawn it. “I am the guide. And you are in my way. Have the perimeter around the landing zone secured along with the path to the river.”

“You cannot—” the officer spewed, but quickly stopped as the blade pressed against the artery pulsing in his neck.

“Do it now.”

Without a word, the officer spun about and spat orders at his men. He kicked a private who was a little slow to move, while throwing a dagger glance over his shoulder at Angelique. She was not concerned in the slightest. They would be up-river soon and an angry officer would be the least of her worries.

The first cargo helicopter appeared, blades flaring at the last second, the pilot showing off his skills. It was a private charter, the best company in Brazil, and she recognized the logo. To be expected from the Brotherhood.

The helicopter touched down. The back ramp lowered and five people walked off. Angelique took a deep breath. The Wrath. None of whom she’d ever met. In the lead was a tall black man in the brown robes of the Jesuits. He walked up to her and extended his hand.

“Sister Angelique, I am Father DiSalvo.” He squeezed her hand hard, trying to elicit a sign of pain, but she didn’t give him the pleasure, giving back as hard as she got. He held on for a few seconds too long, then let go. He indicated the other four people. “The rest of our team. Captain Gates will be in charge of our security.”

The American soldier looked haggard, his face rough with strange blisters here and there. He simply nodded at her. He was dressed in faded jungle fatigues, a sub-machinegun held at the ready in one hand, a rucksack on his back. She had seen his like before—a man used to dealing in death. There was something else about him that puzzled her, but she didn’t have time to study him as DiSalvo turned to the tall woman.

“Professor Hyland is an archeologist and historian,” DiSalvo continued.

“Pleased to meet you,” Hyland said.

Angelique returned the woman’s greeting, wondering why they needed either of the skills the woman possessed.

“Doctor Lee will be responsible for the group’s health.”

Lee barely twitched his head to indicate he knew he was being introduced. Angelique nodded in turn. The doctor’s eyes bothered her. Most who had that look never came back out of the jungle. They were consumed with some passion that was greater than their common sense.

“And Reverend Kopec will maintain our communications link,” DiSalvo said, as he introduced the last member of the team.

Kopec smiled at her, the only one who didn’t seem lost in some internal world. He was dressed like Lee and Hyland in fresh khakis, probably outfitted from some catalogue in what the naïve thought was proper jungle attire. He also had a metal briefcase attached to his wrist by a steel cuff and chain.
Curiouser and curiouser
, she thought.

DiSalvo glanced at his watch. “The Brazilians have agreed to prepare our base camp here. We will be briefed on our mission shortly.” He pointed at Angelique. “Come with me and brief me on the route.”

Angelique followed DiSalvo to a tent that had just been set up. Technicians were wiring in computers and communications gear. DiSalvo went to a field table that had an old-fashioned paper map on it. “We’re here. We believe the Dark One is here.” He tapped a spot on the map just above the Devil’s Fork with his finger.

Angelique held back a sigh. The famous finger-map tap. On a map where the scale of the width of a finger meant kilometers in area. “Do you have a specific location, Father?”

“I do, but we can discuss that when we get closer. How long will it take us to get there?”

“We can helicopter in—”

“No. We go by boat. There aren’t helicopter landing zones up there. We did a satellite recon of the area.”

Angelique was surprised. “We would have to rappel in off the helicopter. It would be—”

“No.”

“Might I ask why, Father?”

“How long by boat? We’ve got two zodiacs we can use.”

“Less than a day by boat. But there is the Devil’s Gorge, here.” She used the tip of a pen to point. “The river narrows between two rock cliffs. The water is not negotiable. We would have to hoist the boats through. Difficult, but previous travelers have rigged pulleys along the cliff top. I’ve made it several times. Still, we should arrive tomorrow evening.”

DiSalvo shook his head. “I don’t want to there tomorrow. I want to arrive on the day after.”

“But—”

“There will be protests from the others,” DiSalvo said. “You will support me on this decision. It is the will of God that we arrive on the second day.”

Angelique bowed her head. “As you wish, Father.”

Moheli, off the Coast of Africa

The island is part of Comoros, a country most have never heard of. Comoros is off the southeast coast of Africa and consists of four islands dotting the ocean between the northern tip of the island of Madagascar and the northern border of Mozambique on the African continent. The island called Moheli is the smallest and least known of the four islands, multiplying ignorance with anonymity.

Before the Suez Canal opened, Comoros lay on the main shipping line as wayfarers wound their way around the Cape of Good Hope and north toward the Middle East and the Indian Ocean and back. But the Canal opened in 1869, casting the islands into neglect. Even the French Government, which had held sway there, lost interest, although one of the four islands voted to remain a French territory, a confusing matter of little concern even to the French. The token platoon of Foreign Legionnaires who used to man a lonely outpost on the main island had been pulled out in 2001.

Of course, it was not because of neglect that this force was brought home, but rather the long arm of the Brotherhood. They’d needed a place to build and test the Great Commission. An isolated place. A place they could control. The destitute and isolated island of Moheli fit the bill.

With unlimited funds, the Brotherhood carved a runway out of jungle. It also built an camouflaged complex, invisible from prying eyes, looking like a small hill with jungle growing on the roof. Along the edges of the runway, tucked into camouflaged bunkers also covered with vegetation, were eleven Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, code-named “the Blackjack” by NATO. There were the most modern Russian bombers, which meant they were somewhat old, but capable of carrying a considerable amount of ordnance at two and half times the speed of sound over considerable distances. The Blackjack, much like the American B-1 is a variable-sweep wing heavy bomber, so big it is the world’s largest aircraft designed for combat. There were also four refueling planes, which gave this small air fleet the capability to cover the globe in less than twelve hours.

The planes had been stranded in Ukraine when the Soviet Union disintegrated. When the Russians refused to fork over sufficient funds to buy them back, but also refused to supply spare parts and the mechanical know-how to keep the planes flying, Ukraine supposedly destroyed the bombers to great publicity.

In reality, the Brotherhood stepped in with deep pockets and bought not only the aircraft from Ukraine, but the parts and mechanics and pilots from Russia. The planes disappeared from sight and now rested comfortably in their hardened bunkers, ready to take to the air at a moment’s notice, although it would take more than a moment for all to be ready for them to take off.