The Cleric's Vault (28 page)

“We
see him,” James Collack answered before his team leader could finish asking the
question.”

Angela
looked over at him, puzzled.
 
“Who
is it?” she asked.
 

They’d
been sitting behind a dumpster, out of clear line-of-site for almost an hour.
 
The stranger walking from the bar to
the front of the church was the first movement they’d seen in a while, save for
the occasional cab that would pull up and take away another of the bar’s
patrons.

“Sit
tight,” James ordered the team leader.

They
watched as the man strolled casually to the large doorway and disappeared
inside.

“Must
need a late night confession,” Angela joked.

Still,
James wasn’t so sure.
 
What was
taking Wyatt’s group so long?
 
And
who were the men that had driven them there and then pulled guns on them?
 

“We’re
giving it fifteen more minutes and then we’re going in,” he said finally.
 

Angela
nodded, though in her mind she was becoming more and more tired of her
partner’s weakness.

*****

Hunter
lowered his jacket slightly once he was inside the building.
 
Iglesia de San Blas was one of the
religious crowned jewels of Ecuador and beholding it in person was extremely
impressive even for someone with no historical background.
 
It wasn’t as dramatic or elegant as
some of the European cathedrals he’s seen in his travels but for South America,
it was definitely spectacular.
 
The
musty smell of old stone and religion filled his nostrils, like so many of the
old churches he’d visited in the past.
 
Something, though, was missing.
 
The group of men who’d come in previously were nowhere to be found.

He
walked quickly to the confessionals that were located off to the side near the
center of the building but a quick check revealed them to be empty.
 
Looking in the presbytery in the front,
as well as a few side rooms, also proved futile.
 
Finally, he made his way over to a doorway to the left of
the pulpit area and opened it.
 
The
door revealed a narrow hallway that extended down the length of the building,
which most likely contained the priest’s quarters, church offices, and
maintenance rooms.
 
He decided to
go to the right first since that direction was closer to the end of the
facility.
 
If there was nothing
there he would make his way back to the front and hope he could figure out
where they’d gone.
 

A
few doors on the left, one marked “Prayer Chamber” and another “Treasury
Office,” were locked.
 
The lone
door on the right, though, was unlocked.
 
Upon opening it, Hunter noticed that it was essentially just a big
storage closet.
 
He flicked a light
on and took a quick inventory of the room.
 
A candelabra sat nearby, an old desk, and a bookshelf with a
sparse collection of books.
 
Satisfied there was nothing of note in the room, he began to turn off
the light switch when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
 
On the smooth, stone floor in front of
the bookcase, there was a slightly discolored line.
 
It wasn’t so distinct that many people would notice but he
was different than most people.
 
Keen observation of settings had been a trait that had saved his hide on
more than one occasion.
 
He stepped
back into the room and eased the door shut, creeping over to the heavy-looking
bookcase.
 
As he neared it, he
knelt down onto one knee and ran a finger over the thin, curving line.
 
The realization hit him.
 
Something had scraped the stone.

*****

Outside
the church, The Prophet’s team was getting anxious, especially its two leaders.

“I
say we go in,” Angela stared hard at James while she spoke.

“We
were told to sit and wait,” he replied sternly, with a glare that was equally
as steadfast.

“We’ve
waited long enough,” she stated as she stood from her hiding place.
 

Before
he could stop her, she was already talking into the microphone.
 
“Team, we are moving in.
 
Units two and three cover the rear
entrance.
 
Unit’s one and four,
take the front with us.
 
We will
meet in the middle.”
 
Within
seconds, the square was flooded with agents, all sprinting hard towards the
building from four different angles.
 

Upon
reaching the front door, Weaver and Collack placed their backs against the cool
stone pillars next to the center door.
 
The other assets assumed similar positions near the other doors.
 
Angela took the lead and opened the
center door first, leading with her weapon, checking left and right and up
above.
 
“Clear,” she
announced.
 

The
other units followed into the cavernous building.
 
They were greeted with a cool, damp air.
 
The cathedral, however, was empty.
 
The group hustled down the aisles,
checking in corners and between pews as they moved.
 
A few moments later, the units that had come from the rear
of the building appeared at the Presbytery.
 

“Nothing
up here, boss,” a familiar voice said through the earpiece.

Confused,
the agents continued to look around.
 
One man in the center, lowered his weapon held out his hands as if their
targets had just vanished.
 
When he
spoke, it was the voice from the radio communication.

“Where’d
they go?”

“Nothing
in the back of the church?” Angela was furious.

“Nothin,
boss,” he answered.

“And
you were covering the rear of the cathedral the whole time?”

“The
whole time,” he didn’t like her tone.
 
“If anyone had left out the back of this old building, we would have
noticed.
 
Plus, the back door was
locked.
 
We had to smash it to get
in.”

James
looked at his partner, confused.
 
He was used to things being easy.
 
During their time together, they’d completed many missions, killed many
people, and always done it in a timely and simple fashion.
 
The whole affair was starting to get
under his skin.
 
“They couldn’t
have just vanished!” he yelled.
 
“Teams one and two, search every room and office in the rear of the
building.
 
Teams three and four,
check all the confessionals and chambers in the front.”

“But
sir, some of the priests live in a few of those rooms,” a young man said to
James’ left.

Angela
looked over at him with disdain and raised her weapon.
 
She squeezed the trigger and fired one
bullet into the man’s forehead.
 
The muffled pop echoed off of the stone walls and arches.
 
Smoke lingered in the still air of the
church.
 
The body collapsed to the
stone floor between some pews.
 
“Anyone else have a problem?” She asked, angrily.
 
No one said anything.

“Good,
if the priests give you a hard time, tell them you are with the police and are
looking for a fugitive that killed one of our agents.
 
Understood?”
 
Everyone in the room nodded and began dispersing to their assigned
areas.

A
pool of blood had started forming around the head of the man Angela had just
killed.
 
James’ eyes were
wide.
  
She was getting out of
control.

James
watched as several of the men ran down the aisles and disappeared down a side
hall.
 
After a few minutes, one of
them returned.
 
“There’s no one in
here except the head priest,” a man in a black, skin-tight outfit stepped up
and informed Agent Collack.
 

The
team had been searching the church for fifteen minutes, giving it a thorough
investigation.
 
But it had yielded
nothing.

“They
couldn’t have just up and vanished,” Angela was infuriated.

Clearly,
the man reporting the bad news was becoming less and less comfortable.
 
One angry boss was bad enough.
 

“We’ll
keep searching, sir,” he said and began to slink away.

“No,”
Angela halted the agent and extended her hand.
 
“Bring the priest to me.”

Chapter 53

Cuenca, Ecuador

Sean
stared at the unspectacular structure, half amazed, half disappointed.
 
“It’s not what you expected, eh?”
Mauricio chuckled and slapped his friend on the back.

The
entrance was beneath a dramatic, triangle of large beams, founded in stone at
the base.
 
Stretching out to each
side, most of the building looked flat and boxlike.
 
It was painted a dull yellow.
 
The main sanctuary rose up behind the entrance from a point
that extended out in both directions like the shape of an eye.
 
A statue of The Virgin Mary stood guard
over top of the center doorway, set into a corner shaped pillar.

Mauricio
noticed their confusion and decided to explain the scene before them.
 
“The original church was destroyed by
an act of arson in 1962.
 
Up until
that point, the church housed a spectacular museum of artifacts from many
corners of the world.
 
Padre Crespi
had been collecting them for many years.
 
Sadly, most of the relics were destroyed.
 
“Some believe that a group of radical locals thought the
museum was an abomination and therefore wanted to destroy it.”

“Why
would a bunch of old trinkets be an abomination?” Will asked.

Mauricio
turned to him and continued, “Many of the artifacts in the collection are
believed to show that the ancient civilizations of this planet had far greater
technologies than we first believed.
 
After learning about Crespi’s museum, Erich Von Daniken wrote a book
about the collection in which he postulates that the gods of ancient times were
actually aliens and that those aliens gave us technologies to help us in the
beginning of time.
 
It was because
of a fear of theories like Von Daniken’s that caused some people to feel like
the museum should be destroyed, lest it be considered blasphemous.”
 
He paused for a moment.
 
“There were other theories as
well.
 
Some of them followed along
the same lines, though the source of the crime was a little more sinister.”

“What
do you mean, more sinister?”
 
Sean
wondered aloud.

“It
could never be proven but one rumor is that the Vatican itself ordered the
church be destroyed.
 
Again, they
were concerned with the idea that God was some kind of alien and that he gave
ancient people technologies that were completely unexplainable by modern
science or religion.
 
They felt it
would fly in the face of doctrine and would lead many people to question their
legitimacy.”

Tommy
raised an eyebrow.
 
“What do you
think it was?”

“Me?”
Delgado laughed as he started walking towards the entrance of the large
facility.
 
“I don’t really look too
much into such things.”
 
He stopped
and turned around to face the group, his men stayed behind with the cars.
 
“But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a
combination of both.”

*****

Adriana
had run for nearly a mile through the city streets of Cuenca and the man
following her was still keeping up.
 
She knew he was trying to stay hidden in the shadows but a few times he
had bumped into something near a building that made enough of a noise for her
to know someone was behind her.

Apparently,
he was in pretty good shape.
 
She
assumed that the team watching Mauricio’s caravan would send someone after her,
so she wasn’t exactly surprised that someone was following her.
 
Still, she had to lose him.

Up
ahead, the street opened into a small intersection with a fountain at the
center of a roundabout.
  
Almost there
, she thought.
 
As soon as she reached the corner at
the edge of the plaza, she darted right, sprinting hard down the narrow street
lined with dark shops and small businesses.
 
Without even thinking, she turned right again into a shadowy
alleyway.
 
Up ahead was her
destination.
 
She prayed the door
was open like it was supposed to be.
 
She reached the threshold and in one motion twisted the doorknob and
pushed.
 
The door opened easily as
Adriana pushed into it.
 
With one
motion she tucked in behind it and eased it shut as quickly and quietly as
possible.
 
She locked it as it went
flush against the frame.
 
She
squatted down on one knee, waiting for her pursuer to attempt to enter at any
given moment.
 
A few harrowing
minutes went by like hours.
 
Finally, satisfied that whoever was following her had lost her trail,
she stood slowly and took a deep breath.
 

The
room she was in was lit only by the moonlight shining in through draped
windows.
 
Shelves lined the walls,
filled with books.
 
A leather sofa
sat behind where she stood.
 
Towards
the front of the shop, a large window was covered with dark, drawn curtains,
protecting the place from the view of the street.
 
An unlit floor lamp stood nearby.
 
The smell of old paper and dust filled the cool air.
 
Just like she remembered.

A
gruff, Spanish accent broke the silence of her hiding place.
 
“Were you followed?”

She
was hardly startled, only barely turning her head around to see where it had
come from.
 
“Yes, but I lost him.”

“Are
you sure,” An orange glow illuminated a black-bearded face with dark, stern
eyes then died away as the pipe was lowered.

“If
I hadn’t, he would be breaking down the door right now.”

The
man seemed satisfied with the answer.
 
“It is good to see you again,” he said, a puff of gray smoke encircled
the shadowed figure as he exhaled.

She
turned around to fully face him.
 

“It
has been too long,” he continued.
 

“I
know,” she paused thoughtfully.
 
“I
wasn’t sure it was safe to come.”

The
man stepped across the room, walking with a slight limp.
 
He wore a large fedora accompanied by a
brown leather jacket and a pair of green trousers.
 
The heavy boots on his feet were anything but quiet on the
ancient planks of the wooden floor.
 
Each step caused it to creak slightly under his weight.
 
“It is always safe for you to come,
Ija.”

Adriana
smiled as a tear formed in a corner of one eye and she stepped towards the
older man.
 
The two embraced in a
firm hug, squeezing tight.
 
“Gracias, Pappa.”