The Cathari Treasure (Cameron Kincaid) (19 page)

The door to the confessional was
open.  Cameron thought to let Pepe know he was going into the confessional
and decided not to, fearing that, due to the silence of the cathedral, even the
faintest voice would carry.  He questioned his sanity for entering the
confessional booth to begin with, away from the safety of the open
cathedral.  Pepe had his back though and that was reassuring. 
Cameron stepped into the small wooden booth and fastened the door behind him
with the inside latch.  Immediately a slatted panel behind the wooden
screen separating Cameron from the priest slid open.  Cameron waited for
someone to speak and when no one did, he said, “Forgive me father for
--.”  Cameron was interrupted by the voice from the phone.  “There is
no need for that Mister Kincaid,” said the voice.

“Have it your way.  To whom
am I speaking?”

“That does not matter in the
least.  What does matter is that you seem to have come alone.  Excuse
the pun, but I pray you are not intending a ruse.”  Cameron detected a
subtle French accent, not Canadian French, or French proper, rather some other
dialect.

“I wanted to be sure I had an
exit,” Cameron did not let his voice waiver, “and right at this moment I’m not
overwhelmed with confidence.”

“Our surroundings?”

“You have to admit, this is a
confined space.”

“You are right sir.  Feel
free to step out into the open if it makes you feel better.”

“It will I assure you.”

“Fine then,” said the voice in
an upbeat tone.

Cameron reached for the latch to
the confessional door.

“Not that way Mister Kincaid,”
said the man behind the screen.

The panel behind the little
screen slid shut.  From around the edge of the confessional booth door
came a rapid succession of clicks.  Cameron was sure these were bolts
locking the door in place.  He unfastened the latch and pushed, not moving
the door in the slightest.

“C’mon, what is this?” asked
Cameron.

“What’s going on?” asked Pepe.

Cameron was about to respond
when the panel behind the little screen opened again, this time slowly and only
half way.  Cameron leaned toward the screen.  “If you’re trying to
get on my good side it’s not working,” said Cameron.

Cameron heard the sound of an
aerosol spray through the wooden screen and felt a mist on his face. 
Suddenly Cameron’s eyes were burning.  Pepe spoke again, “Is everything
ok?  Give me a signal.”

Cameron knew better than to try
to talk, to even breathe.  For him to resist the gas was futile in the
closed space of the confessional.  One word and Pepe would have the door
in splinters.  He tried to speak with no success.  The code word was
‘Angel’.  A word they agreed could be subtly slipped into any conversation
Cameron would be having while in the church.  Now any sound would suffice,
a simple ‘help’ or a rapid tap on the wall.  The burning had traveled into
his throat, and he was unable to make a sound.  Cameron decided to alert
Pepe by knocking on the wall.  His arms were weak and the walls were
moving.  The walls of the confessional began to melt and ripple.  He
felt himself falling and placed a hand on the wall in front of him to catch
himself and then his other on the sidewall.  Bracing himself did nothing
to still the spinning box.

Mustering all of his will,
Cameron pushed himself back against the wall.  His tear ducts flowed heavy
and out of his twisted mouth, saliva shot out with each frantic tightening
breath.  For a moment, Cameron’s body seized tight and within his face, he
felt his muscles ripping away.  He could hear Pepe’s voice, nonsense words
echoing and reverberating.  Cameron separated from his body, only a mind
behind eyes floating away from his head, watching the walls spin by as he fell
away from them.  Then the falling became so extreme Cameron could no
longer focus.  Everything went black.

* * *
* *

Quebec

Cameron awoke to total darkness,
his muscles burning from the earlier seizing spasms.  He tried to lift his
hand to his forehead to no avail.  When he jerked at his other hand,
lightning shot up through his arm into his shoulder.  Cameron’s hands were
immovable, bound tight behind his back.

Cameron widened his eyes, still
unable to see.

Cameron’s instinct kicked in to
over ride his disorientation.  He remembered the Rex Mundi, the enemy,
subdued him.  The epiphany that the Rex Mundi wanted him disoriented snapped
him into action.  Cameron had been trained for this and he was not about
to give them the upper hand.  In the Legion, disorientation training began
early, before the elite training.  Every candidate went through dauntless
rigors after selection in Aubagne.  Cameron had gone on to Corsica, home
of the elite of the elite, the Second Foreign Parachute Regiment.  He had
been bound, electrocuted, water boarded, and that was in his first week as a
recruit.

Cameron started by measuring his
breathes to ensure he was getting enough oxygen.  He realized he could
only breathe through his nose.  As Cameron slowly squeezed his jaw tight
he could feel a tug at the base of his skull, the balled knot of a gag tied
tight around his head.

The muscles throughout Cameron’s
body were still on fire from the aerosol gas.  He resisted the temptation
to pull or struggle against his restraints.  Cameron let his body go
limp.  Slowly Cameron identified each of his extremities and their
positions.  Through concentration, Cameron had a good mental picture of
his situation.  He was sitting on a chair, gagged, hooded, and bound by
his hands with no tension on his legs, lap, or waist.

Cameron focused on where he
sensed the bindings were tight, around his crossed wrists, behind his back. 
He determined that the binding on his wrist was what held him to the
chair.  Fingers loose, Cameron sought to touch whatever he could only to
find nothing in their reach.  Unable to untie the bindings with his hands
or maneuver the Opinel knife from his side, he thought of an alternative. 
Cameron knew a way out of being single bound from the back, a simple rookie
maneuver.  All he would need to do is find a way to throw himself back on
his own weight, shattering the chair and maybe an arm, to free the bindings and
allow him to wriggle loose.  Cameron pressed both feet firm, they were
solid, and to fall back could work.

The room smelled like a
barbeque, maybe this was the furnace room.

Cameron tried to gauge his
space, thwacking his head on the wall behind him might slow his fall and only
leave him with a lump.  To his right a drip hit a pool, easily a body
length away.  More important was the faint echo made each and every time a
drop landed in the pool.  Cameron was definitely not in a room as small as
the confessional booth.  He closed his mind off from his body and counted
between the drops.  When Cameron reached five another drip hit the
pool.  The echo circled him, drip, count five, drip, count five, repeated
again and again
until Cameron was confident he was in the
center of the room.  He decided there was plenty of room behind him. 
There may be debris or a hole waiting for him when he fell back.  There
may be a bottomless pit for all he knew.  Cameron would take that risk, to
not try to free himself was against his training and he had no doubt that the
Rex Mundi had no plans of to let him go free.

Applying slight pressure to the
front of his feet, Cameron tried to lift the chair to test whether the chair
was bolted to the floor and could even be tilted back.  The front of the
chair lifted.  He gently lowered the chair back to the floor.  The
chair made a solid thud, perhaps built of wood.  Throwing the chair back
to free him was going to work.  Cameron pulled his body as forward as he
could manage.  Ready to put all of his weight into the thrust back, he
tensed his feet.

 Above Cameron’s head the
voice of the man from the phone boomed through speakers, “I wouldn’t do that
Mister Kincaid.”

Cameron relaxed his feet and
began to sit upright.

“I am glad to see you awake,”
said the voice.

Cameron decided to take his shot
and leaned forward again.

“Really Mister Kincaid!  I
assure you that will not be in your best interest.”

The abruptness in the voice
jarred Cameron.  He sat up again.

“Good, relax for a moment
longer.  I will join you.”

Cameron was not going to
relax.  He had been ready to throw the chair back to set himself free from
his binds.  He knew the man’s exclamation was sincere, whatever was behind
the chair put Cameron’s safety in jeopardy.  Cameron had no doubt that the
man was nowhere near concerned for his future
well-being
. 
The man needed Cameron safe until he told the man where to find Nicole.

Cameron heard a door bolt turn
behind him, followed by a second.  Cameron could even hear the handle
turn.  He knew when the man entered the room, even though he could not
hear the door swing open.  Near his head, he heard a pull chain and then
suddenly there was enough light for him to see through the fabric of his
hood.  He could not make out any shapes, only the bright reflection of the
light off the wall in front of him.

With a sudden motion, the hood
was pulled from Cameron’s head.  Exposure to the naked light overwhelmed
his eyes.  Cameron pulled his eyes tightly closed and then opened them
widely again trying to force them into focus.  The wall in front of him
was warped and moving.  Again, Cameron closed and reopened his eyes.

The man spoke, “Sorry about
that.  It is from the salvia divinorum in the aerosol I used to knock you
out.  It’s an ancient shamanic drug native to the Sierra Mazateca in
Oaxaca, Mexico, where it is still used by the Mazatec, primarily to facilitate
shamanic visions in the context of curing or divination.”  Cameron was
still unable to focus.  The man continued, now standing to the side of
Cameron, “thus its name divinorum, which means ‘of the ghosts’ and should
actually be divinatorum, ‘of the priests’.  Mister Kincaid, you are not
quite snapping out of it.  Peter, would you?”

From behind, Cameron heard a
snap and then felt soft clammy leather as someone wrapped their hand tightly
around his forehead and pulled his head back.  Under his nose came a rush
of ammonia, burning his eyes and sinuses.  Cameron tried to thrash his
head to either side, unable to slip from the grip of the gloved hand.  The
fumes of the ammonia fell away from his face and were replaced by fumes of
something milder.  The pain subsided and the gloved had released
him.  To Cameron’s right the man snapped his fingers once and then
again.  Cameron slowly turned toward the sound.

“That’s right Mister Kincaid,
this way.”

Cameron’s eyes began to focus.

“There you go Mister Kincaid, it
will be only a minute more.  Thank you, Peter.  Now where was I, oh
yes, salvia divinorum.  So, the Mazatec shamans see the plant as an
incarnation of the Virgin Mary, and begin the ritual with an invocation to
Mary, Saint Peter, the Holy Trinity, and other saints.  Of course, in
their rituals, they use only the freshest leaves, and you ingested, well let’s
just say you ingested quite a different concoction, a requirement you see, the
leaves only last ten minutes and how would I ever get you to eat them.” 
The man laughed after he made the comment.  Cameron did not find the words
funny.

* * *
* *

Quebec

Cameron could now for the first
time see the man in front of him quite well.  Whatever they had shoved in
his nose had made him quite lucid.

The man was tall, well groomed,
and had a very kind smile.  Cameron thought the man’s looks were almost
too good, artificial, like a model or an actor.  The man wore all black
with the exception of his white collar.  The man was a priest. 
Cameron’s eyes were drawn to the large garnet set gold ring on the priest’s
second finger.

“There, you are doing
better.  I can see it.  Peter, can you remove our guest’s…
” 
The priest gestured to his mouth.  Cameron felt
the stiff blade of Peter’s knife slide up the side of his head and the pressure
when Peter used the blade to cutaway the gag.  The gag fell away.

“Here, drink this.”  The
priest held a metal cup to Cameron’s lips.  He tilted the offering into
his mouth.  The water contained in the cup poured down Cameron’s throat
and onto his chin and shirt.  Cameron sucked down what he could.

When the priest lowered the cup
Cameron spoke, “You’re a priest.”

“Surprised,” said the priest.

“Not really, you did have me
meet you in a confessional.”

“Well, a lot of priests go
through here.  Its easy to, what’s the word
comme camouflage?”

“Blend?” asked Cameron.

“Yes, that’s it, it’s easy to
blend.”