Authors: Pamela Hegarty
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1586, when armillary spheres were all the rage,” said Braydon. “That cliff dwelling in Arizona.”
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I went there for Dad,” Christa said. “The sphere is a clue to the location of the Turquoise from the Breastplate.”
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Turquoise?” Daniel said. “Arizona?”
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This Circle of Seven,” Braydon pressed, “that Salvatierra formed to protect the seven stones. Like his letter, the guardianship must pass down through the generations.”
Christa pounded the horn in frustration. “That letter is the first I heard about this Circle of Seven,” she said. “It turns out my mother was a guardian, of the Tear of the Moon Emerald.”
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Families keep secrets better than anyone,” he said. “Where’s your Mom now?”
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She passed,” she said. “Killed in Peru.”
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I’m sorry.”
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Happened a long time ago.”
Time didn’t heal all wounds. He knew that from personal experience. “That Navajo shaman who took you to the cliff dwelling, your father’s friend.”
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I’ve been thinking about that, too, since I translated the letter,” said Christa. “Joseph has got to be in the Circle of Seven. He’s the guardian of the Turquoise, but, like much of history, the details eroded away over the centuries. He doesn’t know where the Turquoise was hidden, only that the Turquoise is somewhere in the cliff dwelling.”
Dubler grabbed the back of Braydon’s seat and strained forward against his shoulder belt. “I don’t know about this Turquoise and Emerald, but I sure as hell can get the diamond and sapphire. Contreras has them. I need to contact him. He trusts me.” Behind those geek glasses, his eyes were round with lust, not fear. Braydon had seen it before and it never ended well.
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That man who died in there,” Christa said, “the poison frog barely touched his cheek.” She visibly shivered. She reached a hand back and clasped it over Daniel’s. “That could have been you.”
Braydon grabbed the steering wheel and yanked to avoid hitting a bike messenger, and to throw Daniel back, out of Christa’s reach. She gripped the wheel with both hands.
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Contreras wouldn’t kill me,” Daniel said, righting himself. “He needs me to restore the Breastplate. To think, we could communicate directly with God.”
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It’s called praying,” said Braydon, “in case they didn’t teach that in theology school.”
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Christa, we’ve got to use Contreras the way he used us, to find the seven stones. Restore the Breastplate of Aaron. Save the people not only of the poison in their bodies but the poison in their spirit.”
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Sounds like you’ve been drinking the Prophet’s Koolaid,” Braydon said.
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I believe him, if that’s what you mean,” said Daniel. “You’re crazy not to. He stole the Kohinoor Diamond and Edward’s Sapphire. He’s a mastermind.”
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Mass murderer, if we don’t stop him,” Braydon said. Christa slammed on the brake for a flock of Japanese tourists crossing the street against the light. The guy in the Mercedes behind them leaned on his horn. “All he’s got is a bad attitude in a custom fit suit.”
He felt Christa scrutinizing him. Call it woman’s intuition, clairvoyance, or just a good guess, but he was not being completely forthright with them and she knew it. “Contreras does have the diamond and sapphire,” she said. “He showed them to us.”
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I’m sure the Prophet told you,” said Braydon. “It all comes down to what you believe. Pull over.” He pointed out a tow zone space blocking a chained-off driveway across the street from the honor guard of flags from countries around the world that surrounded Rockefeller Plaza.
The tinny music from the ice skating rink filtered through the huddles of tourists eyeing the threatening storm. The usually festive air of the plaza was raw with a palpable tension. The gothic spires of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, just half a block away, looked even more out of place than usual.
He hurried towards the cathedral, Christa by his side, Dubler behind, slowing only to keep from being crushed beneath the torrent of yellow cabs flooding down Fifth Avenue. Across the avenue, a mob of tourists surged out of the Cathedral’s main door. One heavy-set man was shaking his Sights of New York map and shouting that he would sue.
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Not exactly leaving the church filled with the grace of God,” Braydon said. “Stay sharp. The poison could be taking effect.” But he couldn’t deny the feeling that always hit him when he came to the Cathedral. No matter what a person believed, or felt about the tremendous resources that were channeled into this massive architectural undertaking, the Cathedral was a reminder of the heights that man can attain.
Every detail beckoned his eye to turn heavenward, from the pointed arches over the massive doors, to the twin spires whose delicate decorations and carvings lent a light, airy feel to the crushing weight of the rock. Surely a species that could create this could follow the precepts of the God who inspired it. Yet, here he was again, trying to stop the evil inspired by the lure of growing closer to that very same God.
Dubler’s spindly grip hooked his elbow. This guy was getting to be like a tarantula on his back. “Saint Patrick’s Cathedral?” the man asked, wrinkling his nose as though he smelled something putrid. Braydon glared at him, hard. Dubler released him and stepped back.
The light changed. As they dashed across Fifth, Christa drew in closer. “You’re Catholic?” she asked.
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I’ve received the usual sacraments,” he said. “Baptism, Communion, Confirmation, Disillusionment.” He mounted the steps to the double, gilt entrance doors nearest Fiftieth Street. He avoided even looking at massive bronze doors at the center of the Cathedral’s Fifth Avenue side. The figures on the doors were American saints, but portraying them in this way was more self-serving than respectful. A man does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, not to be bronzed in perpetuity.
A linebacker of a security guard in an ill-fitting brown jacket shoved out a last determined visitor, a Japanese man who was struggling to keep the three cameras strung around his neck from tangling. The guard turned his focus onto Braydon, Dubler and Christa. “Closing early today,” the man growled. “Security reasons.”
Braydon grabbed the outer handle, tugging the door open against the strength of the guard. “We’re here to see Father O’Malley,” he said. With his free hand, he flashed his badge. “FBI Special Agent Fox.”
The guard shot them a scowl worthy of a guy eager to break the ribs of anyone who dared threaten his quarterback, then opened wide the door. “He’s in the Lady Chapel,” the guard said. “Told me if you showed up that I should leave you alone with him and the Rabbi. Expecting trouble?”
Braydon opened his jacket to reveal the gun in his shoulder holster. “Always,” he said. The guard nodded. He had to be ex-military, probably a grunt. Braydon and Christa sidled past him and entered the octagonal entrance hall of the Cathedral.
Nothing was an afterthought at Saint Patrick’s. The ceiling towered above them reaching into a high dome with dark woodwork stretching the architectural lines of their pointed archways to their natural apex. The ceiling was held aloft by columns tucked into the interior angles of each of the octagonal room’s eight sides. Three interior doors led into the cathedral from the entrance hall.
Dubler’s hand grabbed the door as the guard pulled it closed behind Braydon and Christa. Dubler was yanked forward, but the guard stopped before closing him off entirely. In answer to the man’s questioning look, Braydon said, “He’s with her,” and nodded towards Christa.
The guard grunted and allowed Dubler to pass, bolted the door behind him and stomped through the door to his right to destroy a village somewhere.
Braydon crossed over the threshold into the far end of the massive nave of the Cathedral, the vast expanse and soaring heights above him, the main altar topped with the gilt monstrance at the end of the long aisle before him. The light filtered through the stained glass windows. The ribbed columns and vaults reached for heaven. The sense of symmetry usually inspired a curious but welcome feeling of being uplifted and grounded at the same time. Except something was way off kilter. No people. It drained the cathedral of its life. Even the flickering votive candles to either side of them could not conjure the spirit of humanity. That’s why Mom had loved this place, because it was a gathering place for people, as much as a house of God. Even now, he couldn’t pass without lighting a candle for her. He slipped a prayer for her heavenward and a twenty into the collection box. “The Lady Chapel is at the opposite end of the nave,” he said, “behind the main altar. Follow me.”
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Saint Patrick’s Cathedral,” Christa said, as they hurried down the aisle on the south side of the cathedral. She craned her neck upwards. “Modeled after the great Gothic cathedrals of 14
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century Europe, but only begun in 1858. It always felt lighter, more ethereal to me than most of those that I visited overseas, even those in France. But it always amazed me that those cathedrals were built with the technology and tools of that time. It was a massive undertaking, over a century or more to complete. The bishop who ordered the construction of the cathedral would not live to see its completion.”
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The architecture brings one closer to God,” said Dubler.
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Stones are not a conduit to God,” said Braydon. “Not in the Middle Ages. Not now.”
Dubler threw up his hands in exasperation. “You see, Christa. This man doesn’t believe in restoring the Breastplate. He doesn’t believe in the power of the seven stones.”
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I know enough people have killed in the name of God,” said Braydon. “If restoring this Breastplate is going to save lives, I will do everything in my power to make it right.”
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With the Breastplate, we can speak in the name of God,” said Dubler. “If not their lives, we’ll save their souls.”
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Spoken like a true inquisitor,” said Braydon. They had reached the doors to Fiftieth Street. Several rows of wooden pews faced the altar of the Lady of Guadalupe. “Wait here. My friend, Father O’Malley, takes any opportunity to share light and truth with his flock, but Lux et Veritas he keeps close to his heart.”
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Lux et Veritas,” Christa said. “The inscription on the back of the crucifix, Latin for Light and Truth. This priest, is he a Latin scholar?”
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Not exactly,” answered Braydon. “He’s an old drinking buddy from Yale. That is, until he went over to the dark side and matriculated to the School of Divinity.”
Daniel guffawed. “You went to Yale?”
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Dean’s List five,” Braydon continued, unperturbed. “I’m surprised you didn’t make the connection, Dubler, considering you told me you were an alum. Lux et Veritas is on the Yale logo. That’s what got me thinking of my old friend, Tommy O’Malley, and our all night drunken talks about the meaning of life. Stupid college crap. Except for one thing.”
Raised voices of two men shot down the side aisle from the Lady Chapel. He couldn’t quite make out the words. “Rambitskov shouldn’t be able to find us yet,” he told Christa, “but if someone comes knocking, you come running.”
CHAPTER
45
Braydon ran past the choir screen between him and the main altar. He rounded the corner by the Pieta to the outer edge of The Lady Chapel. It had been two years since Mom died. She had welcomed death, overwhelmed with gratitude for a life well lived. She had met the love of his life in those last days. She was happy for him. She never knew that his partner’s wife had been stolen away.
She’d joke with him that she didn’t come here to pray, she could do that anywhere, but simply to drink in the beauty of the delicate stonework highlighting the pointed arches, the tall stained glass windows, the purity of Mary’s expression as she stood with outstretched arms above the altar. It was a full cross-town block away from the far end of the cathedral’s nave, where they entered from Fifth Avenue, but he cherished the touch of her fragile hand in his, supporting her dwindling weight, as they made that long pilgrimage past the rows of pews to The Lady Chapel, with several rest stops along the way.
Two men stood close by the chapel’s altar. They argued in hushed voices, so intent they hadn’t noticed his presence. O’Malley was still as tall and thin as a sapling, maybe even shed a few pounds. He gave his black cassock no more shape than a clothes tree would. Braydon kidded him that he joined the priesthood to avoid having to choose a wardrobe. The priest’s collar still smacked of sacrilege beneath his ruddy drinker’s cheeks and unkempt red hair. The other guy was short, with dark, curly hair and neatly trimmed beard. He wore a felt hat. Despite his round girth, he gave off the impression of being trim beside O’Malley’s sloppy demeanor.
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A priest and a rabbi go into a cathedral,” Braydon said.
The priest turned to him, quickly strode down the center aisle between the chapel’s wooden pews and clenched Braydon’s hand in his. For a thin guy, he had a powerful grip. “Braydon, my boy,” he said, although the two of them were the same age.
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Tommy,” Braydon acknowledged. He wasn’t about to call him Father.
The priest’s expression turned grave. “You got my phone message.”
Braydon shook his head. “Been busy,” he said.
O’Malley guided Braydon closer to the altar and the man in the dark suit. “This is Rabbi Ezekial Feinstein. Zeke,” he said. “This is my old friend, FBI Agent Braydon Fox, the specialist with the Agency’s Jewelry and Gem Team. He’s the one I called about our--”