The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 56

ABDUL WATCHED AS Farrooq unwrapped one of the scarlet cassocks and laid it carefully in his lap. “I have made three,” Farrooq said, then showed Abdul the carefully sewn inserts that held the explosives, the detonation wires that had been snaked through the seam allowances, running first up to the right sleeve, then down the sleeve to the cuff.

Abdul nodded in appreciation of his older brother’s intricate work. “Beautiful,” he murmured, his fingers gently caressing the silken material of the cassock, only to come to rest on the hidden explosives. He could almost feel the energy compressed within the packets hidden in the seams.

“The triggers are here,” Farrooq said, interrupting his brother’s reverie. Abdul ran his fingers lightly over a tiny button in the hem of the sleeve, made all but invisible by the lace trim of the sleeve’s cuff. “It will be for you to decide when they are to be activated,” Farrooq said softly.

Abdul’s eyes met those of his brother. “The altar servers will carry the tall candles, placing them into the holders on the altar. At that moment they will be as close to the Pope as it is possible to be. As soon as they have placed the candles, they will all take a single step back from the altar, at which point each of them will activate a trigger.”

“Praise Allah,” Abdul sighed.

“There are bombs,” Farrooq continued. “Two for each of the servers. Insha-Allah, all six will detonate.” He paused, then smiled. “But we only need one.”

“Fail safe,” Abdul said.

“Fail safe,” Farrooq agreed, “assuming the servers follow through.” He gently lifted the garment, repackaged it, and set it carefully with the others. “Now,” he went on as he took two bottles of water from the small refrigerator, handing one to his brother. “What of our father’s cross?”

Abdul shrugged. “You worry too much. Even if it were to surface, we don’t know that it would mean anything. Nor are we counting on a single server — that is why we have two backups.” Now it was Abdul’s lips that spread into a dark and joyless smile. “What one might call an Un-holy Trinity.”

“Fail safe.” Farrooq raised his bottle to his brother, then drained it of water. “We will not meet again until it is done,” Farrooq said.

Abdul nodded. “For too many centuries we have been persecuted by the Infidels, but at last they will pay for what they have done to our family and our tribe.”

“I do not deserve the honor of this sacred errand,” Farrooq breathed.

“We were chosen,” Abdul said. “Allah knew we would find the strength or He would not have led us to the hiding place.” He hesitated, then looked deeply into his brother’s eyes. “These past years I have finally started to understand what our families went through, pretending to be Christian and renouncing Allah. They were strong men, our fathers, to have separated themselves from all they believed in, in order to save themselves and their children and their children’s children from the Inquisitors.”

“Your sacrifice has been no less than theirs, Paquito,” Farrooq said softly, laying a gentle hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.

“It is nothing,” Abdul murmured, but the glistening in his eyes told his brother how difficult it had been. A moment later, though, his eyes cleared, and he breathed deeply. “Soon the world shall know the wrath of Allah, and the Church will be no more.”

“Insha-Allah,” Farrooq intoned. “God willing.”

“Insha-Allah,” Abdul echoed. He stood and grasped his brother in a fierce embrace. “Now,” he went on as he wiped moisture from his eyes. “Let us pray together, for the last time until this deed is done.”

“And then?” Farrooq asked.

“And then I will go put on my priest’s costume and continue the charade for a few more hours.”

“I think this is the happiest day of my life,” said Tom Kelly.

“Mine will be the day the Pope is blown to bits,” replied Father Sebastian Sloane.

† † †

Sebastian Sloane twisted the key in the lock of the lowest drawer of his old oaken bureau, then slid the drawer open on the hardware he himself had installed when he’d decided the contents of the drawer were too important even to trust to a bank vault. The drawer itself on the outside looked no different from the other four the old chest held. But while the others were all made of nothing more than their original dovetailed oak, the bottom drawer was different: perfectly constructed to fit exactly within the dimensions of the drawer were several boxes, each nested in another. Each box served a special purpose: one was fireproof, another waterproof; others provided absolute protection against anything Sloane had been able to imagine: microbes, radiation, nearly anything short of a nuclear explosion. After working the combination locks set into each of the first three lids, he opened the others until he was finally able to lift out the treasure that was both hidden and protected in the drawer’s center. Wrapped in a scrap of an ancient prayer rug was the rosewood box he and his brother had unearthed in the courtyard when he was a child.

For several long moments he gazed silently at the box, barely able to believe that the time had finally come. Everything he had done since the moment he and his older brother had dug the grave for the pet iguana, and found the box with the missing cross and the scroll, was finally culminating in an act of justice that was nearly six centuries overdue.

Since that day, his resolve to avenge the terrible wrong that had been done to his family had steadily grown until it was a furiously burning rage so strong that no force in the world could stop it.

But now, nearly three decades after that first fateful discovery, it would soon be finished.

The gravity of the moment pulled him first to his knees, then fully down until he was prone on the floor for a moment, his arms stretched toward Mecca, offering a prayer of thanks to Allah, who had guided him. Allah, who had heard his prayers and had given the Catholic Church a Pope who was familiar with the ancient rituals. Allah, who had made certain that this Pope understood what he had seen in the video the priest known as Sebastian Sloane had sent through the foolish — but highly malleable — Cardinal Morisco.

Now it was Allah who was about to deliver the Pope to him, to Abdul Kahadija, the name the man called Father Sebastian Sloane had taken when he discovered the truth about his family’s history and had returned to his forefather’s true Islamic faith, throwing off the heresies of the Roman Church as he’d thrown off the Spanish name he’d grown up with.

Paquito, his brother had called him a little while ago. But never again.

Soon their vengeance would be complete, and their hated Christian names would never cross either of their lips again. But even in his fury, in his lust for the vengeance the Church had so richly earned, he would see that the Pope received a good death.

A righteous death, at the hands of the very ritual the Catholic Church used to exterminate Muslims from Spain so long ago.

Used to exterminate his family, to tear them from the faith that had sustained them for a hundred generations!

What could be more righteous than that?

Fresh strength flowed through Abdul Kahadija, setting his whole being aquiver with energy, and he raised his hands to Allah in praise and worship. Then, when his trembling ceased, he stood, gathered his materials into a cloth bag, and left the room that was little more than a monastic cell, clad once more in the black cassock that belonged to Father Sebastian Sloane.

† † †

It was no more than a quarter-hour later that Sebastian Sloane placed his cloth bag on the cold floor next to the stone sarcophagus that held Jeffrey Holmes’s corpse. Removing a handful of candles from his bag, he placed them in a wide circle around the sarcophagus, and lit them slowly, whispering a prayer from the ancient ritual before igniting each wick. Only when all the candles were lit did he turn off his flashlight and put it back in the bag. Then he withdrew the precious scroll, wrapped now in a large square of emerald green silk.

Next came the single piece of chalk he would need.

By the flickering light of the unsteady candles, Sebastian carefully surveyed the uneven stone floor, visualizing how best he could expand the drawing of the labyrinth contained within the ancient scroll to fit the floor around the sarcophagus. Yet even as he gazed at the space around the stone coffin, he knew it couldn’t be “best.” No, “best” wouldn’t do.

The labyrinth had to be perfect.

Yet from one angle, the room didn’t seem big enough to hold the complexity of the pattern, while from another angle, the space seemed far too big.

Yet it had to be done, and it had to be perfect.

The labyrinth had three entrances and three paths, and though all three paths found the same destination, all moved in different directions, twisting and turning as they led toward their goal, yet never connecting, never intersecting.

Where even to begin?

Trust in Allah, he told himself. Let the hand of Allah be your guide.

The chalk began to vibrate in his fingers, and a moment later he was on his hands and knees. As if of its own volition, the chalk began making marks on the floor. The lines encircling Jeffrey Holmes’s tomb were all evenly curved; those that radiated out were perfectly straight. As he worked, the man in the priest’s garb found himself moving first one way around the sarcophagus, then the other, moving out a little with the completion of each circle. At first he saw nothing but a jumble of lines, but slowly a pattern began to emerge.

He worked faster, not feeling the cold hardness of the stone floor beneath his hands and knees, utterly unaware of how much time might be passing.

As the labyrinth took shape, the entire room grew darker as if filling with a shadow, though the shadow had no visible source. The candles burned steadily, but it seemed as if their light was being swallowed by the gathering shadow. The cavernous, high-ceilinged chamber grew close, the air thin and difficult to breathe.

Yet Sebastian’s arm raced over the stones, detailing the path the servers would tread to complete the ritual he’d begun with each of them in the preceding days. His arm moved faster and faster, jerked this way and that by an invisible force. Though the stick of chalk had worn away, the drawing continued, as he tore off the skin and meat of his knuckles until it was completed in his own blood.

Still, the room filled with the strange shadow, and the atmosphere grew heavier and heavier until finally Sebastian Sloane lay prostrate on the floor.

The weight in the chamber grew so heavy that his very breath rasped, and the pressure on his lungs threatened to collapse them inside his body.

What if he did not survive the preparation?

Please. Without me, this cannot be completed.

And then it was finished.

After seven complete revolutions had been made around the coffin, the pressure in the room eased, and the deep shadow suddenly vanished.

As if startled out of a reverie, Sebastian hesitated for a moment, then rose slowly to his feet and looked down at the diagram that had been traced on the floor.

Though he knew it was perfect, he still compared it to the labyrinth laid out in the ancient scroll.

They were alike in every detail. But beyond that, he could feel something — some presence — in the chamber that had not been there before.

All was ready.

Only the children were missing….