The Brotherhood of the Rose (10 page)

They came from the dark, surrounding him. For a moment, they reminded him of a gang who'd beaten Chris and himself outside the orphanage years ago. "I'm not in the mood," he said.

The tallest kid grinned. "I'm telling you," Saul said. "Hey, all we want is your money. We won't hurt you. That's a promise."

The others giggled. "Really," Saul said. "Back off." They crowded him and snickered. "But we need," the tall kid said. "Try someone else."

"But who? There's nobody else. You see someone else around?" The tall kid flicked open a switchblade. "You need lessons. You're holding it wrong."

The tall kid frowned. For a moment, he seemed to suspect. Then.he glanced at the others. Pride made him lunge with the knife.

Saul broke their extremities. "Like I said, a mistake." He almost walked away. On impulse, he searched them. Seventy dollars.

,,That seat's reserved," the square-jawed man growled, pointing at the glass of beer on the counter before the bar stool.

Chris shrugged and sat, tapping his fingers to The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. "Your friend won't need it while he's in the men's room."

On a stage in back, a stripper did a slow grind to the rhythm of the country-western tune. "She'll hurt herself," Chris said.

The burly man scowled. "She's not the only one. You a masochist? That your problem?"

"Not me. I discriminate. I have sex only with women."

"I get it." The man wore a flowered shirt hanging loose over his faded jeans. He stubbed out his cigarette, stood, and glared down at Chris. "You want that stool so bad you want me to shove it up---2' "You tried to do that in Saigon once. It didn't work."

"But this is Honolulu. I could take you now."

"I don't have time for you to try." Chris turned to the barman. "Another beer for my friend. I'll have a Coke."

"Not drinking?" the man in the flowered shirt asked. "Not today."

"Bad action?"

"It's not good. You look ridiculous in that shirt."

"A change from the uniform. On R and R, I go nuts for color. You'd be surprised. It attracts the women."

"Tell them you're a major. That'll impress them more than the shirt."

"Uncool."

Chris paid for the drinks. The husky man sipped his beer. "You've been making the rounds of Special Forces bars?"

Chris nodded. "Checking for friends?" Chris nodded. "Who owe you favors?"

Shrugging, Chris glanced at the doorway. "You've got a suspicious nature."

"And you've got the knee ripped out of your pants."

"I had to leave a place in a hurry. I haven't had time to buy another pair."

"You're safe in here. Nobody's going to bother you with several A-teams to back you up."

"But when I step outside... In fact, I'd like to take a trip. Off the islands."

"Any special place?"

"I hoped you'd be my travel agent. As long as it's not the mainland."

The thick-necked man glanced toward the naked stripper. "We fly out of here tomorrow."

"Military transport?"

"The Canal Zone." The man glanced back at Chris. "Okay?"

"You can get me aboard?"

"No problem. A couple guys owe me favors."

"I owe you one now."

"Hey, who keeps score?"

Chris laughed. "I got another problem, though," the major said. "What is it?"

"The guy I'm with who was sitting there. He should've been back by now. He's so damned drunk he must've fallen in or gassed out in the men's room."

A Waylon Jennings record started blaring. The stripper put her clothes back on.

Chris sweated, throwing more dirt to the side. He leaned on his shovel, squinting at the semitropical forest around himsweet-smelling cedars, thorny laurel trees. Bright-colored birds, having adjusted to his presence, fluttered and sang in the boughs. Mosquitoes hovered, never settling on him. He didn't worry about fever since the major, enroute here to Panama, had supplied him with the necessary suppositories. Standard equipment for Special Forces, their chemical was absorbed by the capillaries in his lower intestines, causing the body to emit a subtle, mosquito-repelling odor. Chris had known the chemical was working when his urine turned green.

In the humid sun, he resumed his work, shoveling more dirt to the side, enlarging the hole. He'd borrowed the idea from the "man traps" the Vietcong had dug in the jungle during the war. A deep pit covered by a sheet of metal, with earth and ferns placed on the sheet to disguise it. Carefully balanced, the sheet would tilt down when an unwitting soldier stepped on it, impaling his body on the pungi stakes arranged below. Though Chris would not use stakes, the pit retained its deadly purpose.

He'd been digging throughout the morning, The pit was now seven feet long, three feet wide, and four feet deep. It resembled a grave. "Two more feet down," he told himself, wiping sweat from his forehead, continuing to shovel.

When he finished, he walked from the clearing to the forest, searching among ferns till he found four solid sticks, each four feet in length. He wiped his sweaty forehead again, walked back to the clearing, and eased down into the pit. In contrast with the sun, the pit felt cool. He reached for the sheet of plywood he'd set to the side. The sheet measured seven feet by three, a half-inch thick. He'd struggled through the forest to carry it here. Few people lived in this region. He'd made sure he wasn't followed.

Using the sticks, he supported each corner of the plywood so it covered the pit. Then he crawled from the dark through a burrow he'd dug. In light, he gently covered the plywood with dirt from the hole, dug up ferns, and planted them above the sheet.

Stepping back, he studied the camouflage. The freshlyturned earth was dark, in contrast with the light brown surface ground. By tomorrow, there'd be no difference. Satisfied, he placed a rock across the entrance to the burrow.

He was almost ready. Only one more thing to do. He'd have gone to the dentist first, but in his subsequent groggy condition, he wasn't sure he'd have had the strength to carry the plywood here and dig the hole. He had to arrange things properly. As soon as he came back from the dentist in Panama City, he wouldn't need the suppositories the major had given him. Malaria wouldn't matter.

"Mr. Bartholomew?" the nurse asked Chris. She was Panamanian, attractive, her dark skin stark against her white uniform. "The doctor's last appointment took longer than he expected. You'll have to wait a few more minutes."

Nodding, Chris thanked her. Panama was bilingual: Spanish and English. Chris spoke Spanish in addition to three other languages. Even so, he'd found it easier to use English when he'd come to the dentist two days ago, explaining what he wanted. "But there's no reason to do it," the dentist had said. "You don't need a reason. All you need is this." Chris had taken off his eighteen-karat gold Rolex watch, giving it to the dentist. "It's worth four thousand dollars. There'll be money too, of course. And this." Chris had shown him the precious necklace. "When you're finished."

The dentist's eyes had glinted avariciously. He suddenly frowned. "I won't be part of anything illegal."

"What's illegal for a dentist to take out teeth?"

The dentist shrugged. "I'm eccentric. Humor me," Chris had said. "I'll come back in two days. You'll keep no record of my visit. You won't take X rays."

"Without X rays, I can't guarantee my work. There might be complications."

"It won't matter."

The dentist had frowned. Now Chris sat in the waiting room, staring at cheap wooden chairs and a cracked plastic-covered sofa. There weren't any other patients. A fluorescent light sputtered. He glanced toward the magazines printed in Spanish. Instead of picking one up, he closed his eyes and concentrated.

Soon, he thought. Tonight, before returning to the forest, he'd come back here and destroy the office. After all, despite the dentist's promise, there was always the chance he'd make records and take X rays while Chris was unconscious from the anesthetic. It was important there be no evidence.

He'd return to the forest clearing and begin his fast. Sixty days would probably be how long it took, though once the mosquitoes began to attack him he'd no doubt get malaria, and that would speed the process. Thirty days maybe. Sixty at the most.

He would meditate, praying to God to forgive his sins the countless people he'd killed, not like the Russian whose death had been justified because of the opium, because of Chan, but those whose crime had merely been that they existed. In anguish, he recalled their names, their faces, how most of them had begged for mercy. He'd beg now for mercy toward himself. He'd try to purify himself from shame, the sickness in his soul, the accusation of his emotions.

He would fast till his mind was filled with rapture. As his flesh shrank to his body, he'd hallucinate, his mind floating. For his final conscious act, while ecstasy transported him, he'd crawl down the burrow to his grave. In the dark, he'd kick and pull the sticks that supported the sheet of plywood. It would fall, the earth above it sinking, smothering.

His body would be hidden. Either it would decompose, or else scavenging animals would dig it up. They'd scatter his bones. Probably only his skull would remain intact, but without his teeth, the authorities wouldn't be able to identify him.

That was important. He had to die namelessly, For the sake of Saul and Eliot. They'd no doubt be shocked that he'd violated the sanction. But their embarrassment would be tempered by admiration that he'd never been caught. Of course, they'd wonder where he'd gone. They'd always be puzzled. But puzzlement was better than their grief and shame if they learned he'd committed suicide. He wanted to do this cleanly. He didn't want to be a burden to the two men he was closest to surrogate brother, surrogate father.

Fasting is the only method of suicide permitted by the Catholic Church. All other ways imply despair, a distrust of God's wisdom, an unwillingness to bear the hardships with which God tests his children. An absolute sin, suicide's punishment is eternal damnation in the fires of Hell. But fasting is undertaken for the purpose of penance, meditation, and spiritual ecstasy. It purifies the spirit by denying the body. It brings a soul closer to God.

Considering his sins, it was the only way Chris could think of to go to Heaven. "Mr. Bartholomew, the doctor will see you now," the nurse told Chris.

He nodded, standing, walking through an open door to a room with a dentist's chair. He didn't see the doctor, but behind a closed door, he heard water trickling in a sink. "I'm qualified to administer the anesthetic," the nurse explained.

He sat in the chair. She prepared a hypodermic. "What is it?" Chris asked. "Atropine and Vistaril." He nodded. He'd been concerned that the anesthetic would be Sodium Amytal, the so-called truth serum that reduced a person to an unconscious, almost hypnotized condition in which his will was so impaired he'd answer the most forbidden of questions. "Count backward, please," the nurse said.

When Chris reached ninety-five, his vision began to spin. He thought of the monastery, his six mute years with the Cistercians in which the only communication had been by means of sign language, in which each day had been blessedly the same-meditation and work. He thought of the white robe he'd worn, a white like the swirling in his mind.

If he hadn't been asked to leave, if he weren't thirty-six, one year beyond the age when he could apply for readmission, he could still find solace and redemption there.

Now, with the secular life unacceptable to him and the religious life unavailable to him, he had only one choice remaining-the fast of death, of purification, the journey toward ultimate perfection.

But the swirling in his mind intensified. His mouth felt dry. He struggled to breathe. "It isn't atropine," he murmured. "It's something else."

He fought to escape the dentist's chair. The nurse fought back, hands massive. "No," he mumbled, frantic.

But the swirling whiteness became another kind of whiteness. In the spinning blur, a door came open. A figure in white approached him, floating ghostlike. "No."

The face loomed close-old, wrinkled, gray. Chris gaped. The dentist. It couldn't be. He thrashed. As his mind sank into blackness, it flashed a final lucid thought.

Impossible. The dentist was Eliot.

Book Two

SEARCH AND DESTROY

"MY BLACK PRINCES"

Eliot brooded, his wrinkles deepening as he checked Chris's pulse. Finally nodding, he turned to the nurse. "The doctor's in a bar around the corner." His voice rasped. I suggest you join him."

Wide-eyed, she backed to the door. "One other thing." She froze as he reached beneath the dentist's coat, pulling out an envelope. "Your money. Lock the other door as you go out."

She swallowed, leaving the dentist's office, crossing the waiting room, fleeing.

Eliot listened to the click of the lock. He shut the door between the waiting room and this office, staring at a tray of dental instruments.

Chris slumped in the chair, breathing shallowly, unconscious from Sodium Amytal. The drug repressed inhibitions, allowing an interrogator to obtain information from an unwilling subject. For the subject to answer, though, he couldn't be totally unconscious, rather in a controlled half sleep, unaware of his surroundings but not oblivious to what he was asked. Since the nurse had been ordered to subdue Chris completely, Eliot had to wait for some of the drug to wear off.