For some reason Lori thought of occasions when, as a child, she had wanted to attend Catholic churches in the neighborhoods in which they had lived. Her mother, always an agnostic, hadn’t encouraged Lori’s involvement in organized religion. As a result, the girl had only been able to attend church a few times, and always alone.
Now, with everything that had occurred on this most terrible, horrendous of all nights, the girl was rekindling her interest in spiritual matters. If there truly was a God, she hoped with all the strength and power of her being that the Lord Almighty was a forgiving, loving entity, one that would spare the precious life of her mother.
And Lori Vale prayed, mostly for her mother, but also for knowledge. Who was She-God? What sort of group were these women involved with, and who were their deadly enemies?
Chapter 7
When the fragments of ancient Gnostic manuscripts from Alexandria are placed side by side with the more complete, transcribed she-apostle gospels, they do not conflict in the smallest degree. There is not one scintilla of disagreement. This is truly remarkable, and can only be due to inspiration—and to the authenticity of both sources.
—Report of the Commission on the She-Apostles
In the dimmed light of his underground office, Vice Minister Styx Tertullian studied the virtual-reality television field closely, comparing the female faces he saw in front of him with the holo-photos, and matching them with names on his clip-pad. Still wearing a uniform that was dirt and blood-smeared from the mission he’d led the night before, Tertullian sat in one of two visitors’ chairs. He’d been up all night and had a stubble of beard on his narrow, bespectacled face. His superior, BOI Minister Nelson Culpepper, sat at a massive mahogany desk, glaring at him and muttering angrily.
Six of the photographs on Styx’s clip-pad were of bullet-riddled female bodies. Five were of women who had been taken into custody, two with serious wounds. The attack on the goddess circle had been a military operation with split-second timing. In and out in seven efficient minutes. They had then flown to a public park where they’d abandoned the helicopter and boarded vans—vehicles that were miles away by the time the aircraft’s self-destruct mechanism detonated.
The holo-recording came to an end. The virtual-reality field faded and went off. The office lights grew brighter, and for a moment Styx focused on a large clear plastic bag of articles taken in the raid—purses, scarves, a drawing of a woman standing with Jesus, a gray figurine of another woman with long hair, holding a sword-cross—the symbol of their damnable organization.
“You didn’t get Dixie Lou Jackson!” the overweight Minister said, slamming a thick fist on his desk.
“She is extremely clever, and our time was strictly limited,” Styx said in his high-pitched voice. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. “In the other raid we got Amy Angkor-Billings, though, the Chairwoman—”
“You had nothing to do with that operation. Your Seattle mission was a failure.”
“But Jackson escaped in a van hidden in a side garage. Two of our men were hit and killed by the vehicle, and someone in the van shot two more.”
“All dead?”
Styx hesitated, then: “Regrettably, yes.”
“You shouldn’t have lost any.”
“Satellite surveillance failed at exactly the wrong time, which wasn’t my fault. If the satellite had been working, we would have gotten her for sure.”
“You know I don’t accept excuses, Styx.”
“All right.” He heaved a deep sigh, raising and lowering his shoulders. “Maybe the Dark Angel helped her.”
“Your failures have less to do with Satan than with your own inadequacies. Are you forgetting who we have on our side?”
“No.” Styx hung his head. The Minister was getting worked up, and arguing with him would only make matters worse. Tertullian was one of nine vice ministers, each with a different area of responsibility. Aside from his own Department of Minority Affairs (which included jurisdiction over Bureau matters involving women, homosexuals and racial minorities), the other departments were Doctrine & Faith, Education, Finance, Military Affairs, Media & Publishing, Foreign Policy, Judicial Operations, and Construction & Transport.
Another large area of concern to the Bureau was Political Affairs, but under Culpepper’s watch this was not under the jurisdiction of a vice minister. Instead the Minister handled it himself, using his political contacts in high places to obtain funding. He was a master fund raiser.
“Who has the greater powers, God or Satan?” the Minister asked, revealing his cigarette-stained, yellow teeth. Originally trained in a Catholic seminary, he sometimes sounded like he was conducting Sunday school.
“Why, God, of course.”
“Then you should have the advantage over Jackson, shouldn’t you, since God is on our side! It must mean that the woman is stronger and smarter than you are, for she was able to thwart you.”
Styx didn’t respond. He was thinking instead of what he would do to the prisoners the following morning. A mere woman stronger than he? The Minister was being ludicrous, stretching a point.
“There is another possibility, of course,” Minister Culpepper said, rubbing his fat chin thoughtfully. “You know what it is, don’t you?”
Styx shook his head. He couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was too warm and the lights were too bright. His uniform was sticking to the chair and to his sweaty thighs. He needed a shower.
“What do you suppose that possibility is?” the lumpy man demanded. “Think about it!” He lit a cigarette.
“I am, sir, but I can’t imagine. . . “ He felt his eyeglasses slipping down his nose, from the perspiration.
“You’re in league with the Devil yourself!” Minister Culpepper sprayed spittle with the words. He half rose out of his chair, eyes bulging. “You’re one of his demon-lackeys!”
“No!” Sweat poured from Styx’s brow and ran down the lenses of his glasses, getting in the way of his vision. He adjusted the spectacles again.
“Admit it!”
Exasperated, Styx shook his head. Even though he was Culpepper’s favorite and heir apparent, there were times when he wished he had never gotten involved with the top-secret Bureau of Ideology.
The Minister sat back in his chair, still glaring, his mouth moving rapidly as it discharged invectives like automatic weapons fire, using words that caused Styx to blush in embarrassment. An official in the service of the Lord should not employ such language! For another fifteen minutes Culpepper continued to lambaste his subordinate, finally characterizing him as an incompetent supporter of God and not one of the Devil’s lackeys after all. It was only small comfort to Tertullian.
At times such as this Styx felt victimized, that perhaps he should perform his specialty on the Minister himself, doing to him what he would do to the female prisoners the ensuing morning. These were bad thoughts, of course, and he felt ashamed for them.
Forgive me, Lord
, he thought,
for I am weak.
* * *
On the main floor of the Refectory Building, where monks had eaten simple meals for centuries, women in pale gold uniforms and dun-colored robes took their early evening meals at small, separate tables. Some of the long oak dining tables remained from bygone days, but now they were set up just outside the kitchen, and used as buffet counters.
Councilwoman Bobbi Torrence, a short, heavyset woman, had just sat down alone to eat a huge salad piled high on her plate, with dark greens, black olives, and chunks of feta cheese. From a pocket of her robe she brought out a sword-cross and squeezed it tightly in her hand as she murmured a private prayer: “Thank you, She-God, for the food I am about to enjoy, and for the countless blessings you bestow upon me each day. In the name of holiness, amen.”
As she took her first bite, her gaze wandered up to the high window panes along the western wall of the great hall, through which snowy mountain peaks and pale blue sky could be seen. Long wooden sticks with metal fittings on the ends leaned against the wall, used for opening the windows on warm summer days, allowing the entrance of breezes that blew across the valley. Months remained until they would be needed again.
Suddenly a young woman in a white surplice hurried over to a nearby table where two other councilwomen were eating, and whispered in the ear of one, Deborah Marvel. A slender woman in her fifties with short blonde hair, Deborah set down a coffee cup she had been holding and stood up, with her dinner companion.
Over her head, Deborah lifted a hand, with three of her fingers forming a “W.” It was the sign for an emergency council meeting.
From all around the Refectory, women in robes rose to their feet and streamed out of the building.
* * *
Alone in the passenger compartment of the jet and unable to free herself of the safety restraint, Lori heard Dixie Lou’s voice through the closed door of the forward cabin. The girl picked out some words, enough to know that Dixie Lou was discussing the attack with someone on the radio. She also spoke of switching scramble codes, an apparent security measure to prevent unwanted interception of their communications.
Lori had no watch, and Dixie Lou would not answer her questions. It might be mid-afternoon, since they had been flying in daylight for hours, but Lori wasn’t sure. After a night that didn’t seem to last very long, they had flown over large expanses of snow and ice, and an ice-choked sea. This suggested to her that they might be on a polar route, which could explain the rapid disappearance of the darkness, and the apparent movement of the sun. Only in the past couple of hours had she seen unfrozen lands and towns beneath the clouds.
Lori hoped her mother would survive her injuries, but felt a seeping, deadening realization that told her otherwise. Though she had prayed and prayed for her mother’s recovery, that head wound looked very serious.
She fought back tears, told herself to be strong. Her forehead throbbed with pain. An untouched sandwich lay on the seat beside her. She should be hungry by now, but was too upset to eat.
The looming tragedy involving her mother made Lori think of another loss, the disappearance of her father more than twelve years before, when she was only a small child herself. He had been there one day, but not the next. Her mother said he abandoned his small family, but Lori remembered her mother moving her to another apartment at around the same time. It was all muddy in her memory, but recently she had been wondering if her mother had told the truth. She didn’t want to think badly of her now, though.
But to Lori it had always been a disturbing mystery. Had her father been killed, or was he still alive and out there somewhere at this very moment, thinking about her and wanting to see her again? She hoped for the latter.
Searching her memories as she had done so many times before, she recalled three or four years ago in Seattle, when she’d found an old leather suitcase on a shelf in the garage. Inside were rent receipts for an apartment in Washington, DC, and other papers . . . in her mother’s name. There were also papers showing different names in different cities, details that Lori could not recall afterward.
Catching Lori with the papers, Camilla had grabbed them angrily and burned them in the fireplace. To Lori, the reaction was inexplicable. The suitcase disappeared soon afterward, but she remembered seeing the initials ZM etched on top, by the handle . . . not her mother’s initials, or those of anyone Lori knew. Who had they belonged to? Lori’s father?
Had something happened in Washington, DC that broke up the relationship between her parents? Had her mother moved away, gone back to her maiden name—or taken another one to avoid detection—and hidden their daughter from him? Had they ever actually been married? Her mother had never answered that question, leaving Lori with doubts.
With Lori’s father out of her life, she and her mother had moved a number of times, but the girl couldn’t keep the events in order. She only remembered crying and calling “Daddy” over and over, and her mother shouting that Lori was not allowed to mention his name in her presence again. A rule that the defiant, stubborn girl never followed.
Now a memory fragment came to the troubled teenager, one that was familiar since she had reviewed it so many times before: Daddy wearing aviator-style dark glasses, outside in bright sunlight. Smiling, he had lifted her onto his shoulders, holding her arms tightly around his rough-textured neck while she laughed and giggled. He carried her around piggyback, making her feel taller than he was.
Then she saw the scowling face of her mother, and the fun ended abruptly.
Chapter 8
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
—1 Corinthians 14:34–35,
The New Testament
The sleek black jet banked to the right, and through a starboard window Lori saw the forbidding terrain of a mountainous region below, with craggy, snowy peaks and sheer rock walls that dropped off to winding rivers and wide green plains. The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the landscape. As the jet descended below the highest mountain tops, a barren, rocky valley became apparent, with a narrow ribbon of highway and an arched stone bridge that spanned a ravine. The plane passed over the bridge and set down on a straight section of highway. After the landing, the aircraft taxied onto a side road and came to a stop at the base of a cliff, with the engines still running.
A hatch opened in the passenger compartment floor by the forward bulkhead, and Dixie Lou stood over the hole, looking down. Holding her black transmitter, she pressed buttons on it. Each time she did so, the plane moved a little like a big toy, first forward, then to the right, then back.
“OK,” Dixie Lou said, finally, and she pressed the transmitter once more. The jet engines shut down.
Lori heard men’s voices, coming from beneath the craft.
“Hurry it up,” Dixie Lou said to them, a tone of command. She stepped back from the hatch, and moments later four large men poked their heads through and looked aft toward Lori. The men boarded gingerly, and Lori saw that they were muscular Caucasians of around thirty, in pale gold uniforms that bore green-and-orange shoulder patches with the sword-cross design on them.
“Medical assistance is required, M’Lady?” one of the men inquired, looking at Dixie Lou. He bowed to her.
Dixie Lou pointed toward Lori, and the men moved to her side. Lori saw her slip a handgun into a pocket of her dress. “The girl’s mother is back there,” Dixie Lou added, pointing toward the rear. “On life support.”
Carrying a medical kit, the shortest of the men leaned over the tilt-back seat where Lori sat. He cleaned the injuries to her forehead and temple, causing her to grimace in pain, though he said they appeared to be only superficial. Then he opened a package and removed what looked like a flat white sponge, which he placed against her head. It stuck there, covering the injured areas. Lori felt soothing coolness, but she was a little dizzy. She heard the other men behind her, talking in low tones.
“How are you doing?” the man asked Lori. “A little better?”
Lori nodded.
“That’s good,” he said. “We knights live only to serve.” He smiled, stepped back.
Knights
? The comment intrigued her, but she didn’t ask about it.
She looked back toward the rear compartment, saw her mother lying in the midst of medical equipment, and heard the men say they were preparing to move her. Lori made a sudden move and tried to go back there, but was restrained by the knight with her.
“You can see your mother tomorrow,” Dixie Lou said, as she looked on. “But not now. She needs to get better first.”
“Are you a doctor?” Lori wanted to know, struggling unsuccessfully to free herself from the man’s iron grip. “What qualifies you to say I have to wait?”
“I outrank you.”
“I’m not even in your organization.”
“Just do as I say. I don’t have time to argue with you.”
“What if she dies before tomorrow?”
“She won’t. Her vital signs have stabilized.”
The knight escorted Lori down a metal staircase that took them out of the aircraft and through a rock-lined opening at ground level. Dixie Lou followed, and the three of them reached a metal platform which joined another staircase that led underground, to a second platform. Here Dixie Lou tried to take Lori’s arm, but the girl shook her off and stood on her own. A tubular railing ran along one side, and beyond that was a narrow gauge train track with dark tunnels at either end. Overhead, Lori saw a network of steel girders and struts.
“We’re a mess,” Dixie Lou said, gazing in a small mirror she had brought from her pocket. She wiped dried blood from the cut on her cheek, arranged her braided hair. “We’ll get you a room where you can rest and clean up.”
Dixie Lou handed the mirror to Lori, who accepted it with a scowl and attempted to do something with her own long hair. It wouldn’t settle down, and stuck out at the sides. The medical patch looked silly on her head, but she was feeling a little better, no longer dizzy.
“My mother was shot in the head. How can you say she’s going to make it through the night?”
“Medical science can work miracles now.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Two blocky female guards in pale gold uniforms moved from behind them to the front, and stood on the platform by the tracks. They pointed small electronic devices at the tracks and the platform, casting beams of light that Dixie Lou said were for a security check.
With a low hum, a rail car emerged from one of the tunnels and came to a stop at a platform gate.
Dixie Lou held Lori back while the guards inspected the car. After pronouncing it fit, Lori followed the black woman onboard and they sat side-by-side on a wide seat, with Lori ordered to sit by the window. The gun in Dixie Lou’s pocket pressed hard against Lori’s hip. The guards stepped onto exterior running boards on each side of the car.
“We’re going to spiral up the inside of a mountain,” Dixie Lou said as the rail car got under way with a smooth, metallic whir. “This is an old Greek monastery that’s been converted to our uses. It’s called Monte Konos.”
“Spare me the history lesson,” Lori said. But she thought,
We must be in Greece
.
“You’re too smart to learn anything, eh? Well, people like you wear numbers across their chests. That German Shepherd back at the goddess circle was a retired police dog, and it sniffed drugs in your purse. What did you have in there?”
“Like I said, I had food in the purse earlier, a hamburger and fries. They were in wrappers, but maybe some of it spilled and I didn’t notice.” As the rail car jostled Lori against the stocky woman, she felt intermittent tingling, and a sense of foreboding.
“You think you’re a good liar because you got away with it a few times, but don’t try it around me anymore. I grew up on the streets, girl-child, and I saw a lot better liars than you. I know you had something illegal in that purse.”
“Right, a burger laced with heroine. It’s one of the pictures on the wall at the fast food joint.”
“You have a smart mouth.”
“If you don’t want to hear it, send us back to Seattle.” Lori felt very tired, and angry.
“Get used to this place,” Dixie Lou said, a suggestion with a hard edge. “It’s your home now.”
The rail car entered what looked like a miner’s tunnel hewn from solid rock. In dim light from lamps alongside the tunnel, Lori saw water dripping down the walls, and the air entering the car smelled musty.
“What are you gonna do with that gun in your pocket?” Lori asked. “Shoot me and toss me out in a tunnel?”
“Don’t tempt me. No, I’m grateful to you for killing those soldiers and driving the van, and because of that I’ll give you some leeway. But I warn you, don’t push me too far.”
Lori sensed that this was no idle threat, but she wouldn’t back down to anyone. She was tired of adults making a big deal about a little marijuana. She liked the drug, and beer, too. They relaxed her, buffered her from the pains and cruelties of the world. What harm could there possibly be in that?
“If you’re so grateful, let us go home,” Lori demanded.
“You know too much.”
“What? I don’t know anything. And neither does my mother.”
“Both of you know more than you realize.”
“Well whatever, we won’t talk.”
“I can’t risk it. Besides,
you’re
in danger from attackers now. Here we live with constant high security, but it’s always been that way at Monte Konos. They used to lift monks in and out on baskets that hung off the side of the cliff. They also built secret passageways and stairs honeycombing the mountain.”
Lori stared blankly out the window, listened to the metallic drone of the rail car.
Dixie Lou pointed ahead, waggling a stubby finger. “We’re coming up on the remains of one. Look right and left at the next wall lamp, and you’ll see where our rail tunnel was cut across an old foot path.”
At the lamp, Lori looked, and saw ancient, dark passageways going in either direction. The walls of the tunnels, including the larger one the train passed through, were streaked with black. Curling her upper lip in revulsion, she said, “What is this moldy old dump, anyway? Did you get a deal on the rent out here?”
Dixie Lou spoke calmly in response, but her charcoal eyes flashed anger. “For centuries Monte Konos was a monastery where only men were allowed. We thought it was appropriate for us to do something entirely different here. Besides, this is a very remote place, beyond the prying eyes of the BOI.”
“The BOI?”
“The Bureau of Ideology. An international terrorist organization of men, masquerading as Christians. We prefer to call them the Bureau of Idiots.”
“Your mortal enemies, I presume?”
“The sarcasm in your tone has been duly noted. In case you’re interested, our UWW—United Women of the World—is half a century older than the BOI. We date back to the nineteenth century and the women’s movement led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Our founder was a friend of Stanton’s—Josephine Angkor, ancestor of our current Chairwoman.”
“Why did the BOI commandos attack an undefended goddess circle?”
“The Bureau claims to advance Christian causes, but in reality that translates into benefiting
men
.”
“So it’s the men against the women?”
“Basically, it’s always been that way—and it’s come to a head.” Touching a button on the wall, Dixie Lou lowered all the window shades, blocking the view of tunnel walls.
“You’re just a bunch of male bashers, aren’t you?” For a moment Lori focused on the cut across the black woman’s cheek.
Leaning close and exuding foul breath, Dixie Lou snarled, “Lori Vale. Such a sweet-sounding name for a young troublemaker.”
The rail car continued to spiral up the inside of the mountain. Lori wanted to be anywhere but here. She considered trying to grab the gun that pressed against her hip and breaking free, thinking back to when she almost jumped out of the old Chrysler her mother was driving. Now, as then, she didn’t care if she got hurt; she just wanted to escape.
An orange EMERGENCY STOP button was on the wall not far away. She could lunge for it, bring the rail car to a jolting stop and leap off. But she didn’t know where she would go, and reasoned that any attempt would just cause Dixie Lou to either kill her or put tighter restraints on her. Even more importantly, she didn’t want to risk a reprisal against her mother.
“I’m always edgy when I don’t have a cigarette,” Lori said, but I’m not going to ask
you
for anything.”
“If you’re nice to me, I might be able to get you a couple of packs.” She rubbed one of her oversized gold earrings.
Lori’s eyes burned. “They were in my purse. Not drugs, just cigarettes.”
“Foolish child! What do you think cigarettes are?”
Lori glowered at her, refusing to admit that she had a point.
From the seat beside her, Dixie Lou studied her for several moments, while Lori held her own gaze. “We’ll talk about your attitude tomorrow,” the woman snapped.
Lori shook her head in dismay.
She heard an explosion. A video screen flashed on in front of Dixie Lou, and a female voice reported: “Trouble in Sector Three! Tracks destroyed!”
In the tunnel ahead, Lori saw the orange glow of fire.
Alarms sounded. The rail car jerked to a stop, then backed up at high speed, slowed, and darted into a side tunnel. Another explosion followed, closer this time, and the car rocked.
The car sped through another detour, and abruptly all lights went out as it came to a hard stop. The sound of heavy doors could be heard, closing. Two thumps.
The car was bathed in light as a hatch opened in the ceiling. A stairway snapped down and Dixie Lou led Lori up it. They were in a large, rock-hewn chamber, with low natural light entering through a plexed-in hole at the top. The plex was leaded panes. Female security guards encircled them. They exchanged odd three-finger salutes.
Accompanied by the guards, Dixie Lou led Lori out of the cavern, which narrowed into a tunnel. Their footsteps echoed off the walls of the ancient corridor.
“Monks started carving these passageways nine hundred years ago,” Dixie Lou said, her voice agitated. “Feel the rock floor, rutted from all the feet that have crossed over it.”
With the rubber bottoms of her jogging shoes, Lori felt a rut that curved upward on each side where the walls of the passageway joined the floor. For a moment she thought she heard voices, like the eerie medieval chanting of monks, but soon it passed like a gentle breeze, and she ascribed it to her imagination. Here and there, bright halogen light fixtures had been placed to illuminate the way, modern technology cohabiting with the past.
They reached a rock staircase that led upward, with rutted, chipped steps. In silence, Dixie Lou climbed, followed by the American teenager.
Lori heard the muffled sounds of gunfire, and overheard a guard telling Dixie Lou that her security forces were mopping up the saboteurs.
“We can never relax here,” Dixie Lou said to Lori. “Too many strange occurrences, sabotage attempts against our heat, lights, power. For your own safety don’t go anywhere without an escort. We’ll set something up for you tomorrow.”
“The BOI?” Lori asked.
“Can’t be. If they knew where we were, they’d blow the whole mountain up. No, we think it’s a clandestine men’s rights movement, claiming that we don’t treat our knights well. Totally preposterous!”
“Why are they called knights?”
“Because they serve our needs. The most popular are the stud knights.” Dixie Lou surprised her by laughing, a wicked cachinnation that echoed off the rock walls.