The Messiah Code (40 page)

She shrugged. "Much of what she said was hard to be

lieve. But many things--good and bad--happened around her."

"What sorts of things?"

"Well, at the end, when she was older, awful things. She claimed Father Angelo, a senior priest, raped her. I thought she was lying until Sister Delphine committed suicide and the priest..." She trailed off.

"What happened to the priest?"

"He died badly."

"Was Maria responsible for his death?"

The ex-nun shrugged, clearly not shocked by the question.

"You said there were some good things that happened around her," he tried, not holding out much hope.

"Oh, yes. They happened when she was very young. There were many stories--so fantastic that at the time I was sure they were lies--devilish lies--" Her eyes glazed over as her mind wandered back to the past. "
La grande tombee
," she whispered to herself. Her eyes focused on him again. "It was a clear night in June, and I was awakened by a noise outside on the drive. I rushed outside and saw four of the younger girls--the oldest eight, the youngest about seven--screaming outside the front door. The girls were forbidden to go outside their dormitories at night, so they were punished. Maria claimed she shouldn't be punished because she had only gone outside to help the other girls. Did you see the large turret on the roof of the orphanage?"

Tom nodded.

"Well, Maria claimed that the other girls had fallen off the roof balcony. And she had rushed down to help them. Of course the other girls said they weren't even up on the balcony. That was completely out of bounds. And when I checked the girls, they had no injuries. If they had fallen from that height they would have been killed."

"So?" asked Tom, utterly absorbed.

A shake of the head. "So I punished Maria even more than the others, for lying. It was much later that one of the other girls admitted she had gone up on the balcony on a

dare. And the janitor found a gap in the rotten board through which they could have fallen."

"So you think Maria was telling the truth after all? That she made them better?"

A shrug. "That wasn't the only incident. There were many others. It was the same with the bees."

"The bees?"

Clemenza Leforget poured herself some more wine. "One afternoon the girls went on a trip to Corse. When they got back Maria and Valerie were sent to me for disturbing a nest of wild bees. Apparently they had walked off to a nearby stream and Maria had thrown stones at the nest. The local farmer had been furious because the bees had disturbed his sheep. Maria claimed that Valerie had been attacked by the bees and covered in hundreds of stings. But she had made her better."

"What did Valerie say?"

"She backed up Maria's story, but I thought that was just to make me feel sorry for her and avoid the punishment. And I was angry with them both for being so stupid. Valerie was allergic to bee stings, you see. According to the doctors, just one sting could kill her. I had Valerie checked, of course, and not surprisingly, he couldn't find any evidence of even one sting. The girl had either never been stung, or Maria had somehow neutralized all the poison. You can guess which option I chose to believe. But there was one strange thing which at the time I refused to take notice of."

"What was that?"

"The doctor claimed that not only could Valerie not have been stung by a bee but she no longer had an allergy. She had somehow been cured."

Tom said nothing for a while. He just looked closely at the woman opposite him. "Why didn't you believe her?"

"I hated her. Maria was so beautiful, and clever. She lacked humility. She needed to be taught a lesson. And when she began to claim she could heal people it was too much; it was blasphemy."

"Are there any other stories?"

"Yes, many. And there is one that I definitely know to

be genuine--whatever I chose to believe at the time. Maria was often punished by being locked in the cellars. She was terrified of the dark, and once, when she was very young, she held on to the nun who was punishing her and begged not to be sent to the lock-away. Maria said she would do anything if the nun didn't send her away. Of course the nun didn't believe her, but for once felt compassion and sent her off to bed unpunished. Afterward, perhaps a week later, the nun who had had diabetes all her life went for a routine checkup and was told she was cured."

"And you're sure it was Maria who cured her?"

"Positive."

"How can you be so sure?"

Clemenza grimaced. "I was the nun."

"And yet you
still
didn't believe her?"

"No. I couldn't. I didn't want to. I just put it down to coincidence." She wrung her hands. "But if I had believed her then, I could have protected her from Father Angelo. And perhaps even nurtured her gift." She suddenly fixed him with a pained stare. "Do you know where she is now?"

Since Clemenza clearly had no idea of Maria's predicament, he decided not to burden her with the information. "Yes," he said.

"One day I will ask for her forgiveness."

Tom paused and found himself appraising the woman opposite. Even if she was unbalanced, why would she tell a complete stranger these fantastic stories unless they were true? He hadn't even told her he wanted to know whether Maria could heal or not.

"How do you believe Maria did these acts of healing?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"But what do you
think
?"

A shrug. "I'm not a doctor, and I'm no longer a nun, but I've been thinking about this for the last twenty years. I have a simple theory. I think Maria had a gift from God. A gift she could pass on to others. It was almost like she had a good disease that she could make other people catch from her."

Tom smiled as he looked into the woman's eyes.

"Does that sound foolish?" she asked.

"Not to me it doesn't. Not at all. But why did you use the past tense? You said she
had
this gift."

Mother Clemenza smiled sadly, and poured him some more wine. "I think it was because I always punished her for telling 'lies' about what she did. But as far as I'm aware she didn't perform one other act of healing after the bee sting incident--after her eighth birthday. I doubt she even remembers what she once could do."

T
hat night Bob Cooke turned in his sleep. In his dreams he wasn't in his apartment in North Boston, but back in California, and the surf was big. He loved his science, and working with the great Tom Carter, but however exciting or important it was, there were times when he wished he could give it all up and ride the waves again.

The noise woke him just as he was about to paddle out for the last big one. Yeah, he thought, in his groggy half-asleep state, come August he'd go back and catch up with the gang. Maybe do some hot-dogging.

That noise again.

Was someone downstairs? It sounded as if it was coming from the kitchen. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the noise stopped.

"Hey, Dawn! Did you hear that?" he whispered to the woman next to him.

"What?" she said sleepily, turning into him and pushing that cute butt of hers into his crotch.

"Thought I heard something."

She moved her soft buttocks against him, and then snaked her hand behind her to grip his hardening penis.

"I didn't hear anything," she murmured. "But I sure as hell felt something."

"It was probably nothing," he said, enjoying the feel of her hand on him.

"Don't be so tough on yourself," she said, gripping him. "It doesn't feel like nothing to me."

He laughed in the dark. "I meant the noise."

"Noise?" she groaned. "If you use this thing like you're supposed to, I'll give you noise."

He closed his eyes while she maneuvered him inside her, and then moved his hips to her rhythm. Okay, he admitted, as he allowed her to roll him over on his back and mount him, brushing her breasts over his face. There were some things better than science and surfing.

Half an hour later both their bodies were entwined and asleep. Perhaps if they had stayed awake just another ten minutes they would have smelled the gas coming from the carefully cut pipe in the kitchen downstairs. And been able to dismantle the simple match, sandpaper, and spring contraption expertly rigged up beside it.

N
ora Lutz put the last piece of toast on the tray, next to the pot of imported Scottish marmalade her mother liked. Then she poured out a cup of tea--milk first naturally; her mother wouldn't drink it any other way since her trip to England in '78. Finally she placed the bowl of bran-rich cereal with its small jug of cold milk in the remaining corner. Once the breakfast tray was organized to her satisfaction, she left the kitchen of her twostory apartment in Charlestown and, stepping past two of the cats, made her way up the well-trodden stairs to her mother's room.

There was a time when she resented her mother's sickness. But that was years ago, when she was in her thirties, when she still had a life to sacrifice. Now, forty-five, her whole existence outside of her mother revolved around her work at GENIUS. Being put on Cana had been a godsend--an important project that had placed all her gripes into context. And it didn't matter that her mother didn't understand or appreciate what she did. Carter and the others valued her contribution and that's what counted. Cana, and all it promised, was her escape from the claustrophobic demands and

emotional blackmail of the woman she loved dearly, but sometimes wished would quietly pass away.

She was coming to the fifth step, so she paused a second, preparing to mouth the words her mother would usually call out about now. "Nora, is breakfast ready yet?" Without fail the words would come just after she began her climb.

But she heard nothing. No demands, no pleas, or complaints. Not even any sound of movement. Only silence.

It wasn't till she reached the bend in the stairs that she felt compelled to call out herself. "Mom, breakfast's coming. I've made the tea, just like you like it. Okay?"

Silence.

"Mom?"

Unconsciously she began to quicken her step. She couldn't remember the last time her mother had overslept. Suddenly she thought the worst, and instantly regretted the times she had thought of her mother's death. On the landing she called again. "Mom, are you all right? Talk to me and stop fooling." Still nothing. She was now almost jogging, and the tea had spilled onto the toast and cereal. Her mother wouldn't like that, she thought, as she elbowed the door open.

"Mom, wake up!"

Then she dropped the tray, and put her hands to her mouth. She wanted to scream, but was too terrified.

It wasn't just her mother's twisted body lying motionless, a pillow over her head, that provoked Nora's reaction. It was also the dark-haired man with smoky green eyes who suddenly appeared beside her, holding her hands over her mouth, before plunging a syringe into her arm.

M
oments later in the Back Bay area of town, Jasmine Washington reached for her car keys and bent down to where Larry sat drinking orange juice on the sunny terrace. She kissed him and said, "I'll see you tonight."

Larry put his copy of
Variety
down on the table, returned her kiss, and said, "Have a good day at the office. And give my love to Holly."

"I will."

She kissed him one more time, and then went down to the carport. Above her she heard Larry call: "When will you be back?"

"Shouldn't be late."

"What you wanna eat?"

She climbed into her 325i, pulled back the soft top, and started the engine. She backed the car onto the road, into the morning sunshine, then looked up at Larry, leaning over the terrace. She blew him a kiss, gunned the engine and shouted, "Surprise me!" then screeched off with a whoop.

Perhaps if Larry hadn't called down and diverted her attention she might have noticed the slick pool of liquid in the carport beneath where her BMW had been parked. The liquid that Larry would later discover was brake fluid.

A
fter her night of despair Maria Benariac had told herself to accept the inevitable. Within a couple of days she had control over her fears again. There would be no reprieve, no divine intervention, no grand plan put in place to allow her to finish the scientist. She knew that now and had forced herself to come to terms with it.

She ate her breakfast slowly from the plain white plate, trying to extract every last pleasurable sensation from the textures and flavors of the eggs and hash browns.

When the approaching click-clack of the guard's heels disturbed her breakfast, she looked up, annoyed. And when the heavyset woman appeared outside the bars of her cell Maria frowned at her. "I haven't finished yet," she said. "I haven't even had half my time yet..."

The woman eyed her carefully. "Relax, Preacher woman, your food's going nowhere. Just came to tell you you've got a visitor."

Maria groaned. Hugo Myers was taking his professionalism too far. She thought he wasn't going to visit anymore. After all, if there wasn't any chance of an appeal then there wasn't much point seeing her lawyer. "Do you know what my brilliant attorney wants?" she asked, not expecting an answer.

"Attorney?" The guard laughed. "Your visitor's no lawyer. He's about as different from a lawyer as you can get. Hell, he wants to be your spiritual adviser."

M
aria Benariac felt a tiny flower of excitement bloom in her stomach as the two guards led her, manacled, from the cell on Tier B of death row down the white-tiled corridor, past the execution chamber to the interview rooms.