Chapter Eleven

I

Back in his apartment, Mancini sat trembling as a medical team dressed the wounds in his hands. His feet already sported thick dressings, and a broad bandage wrapped around his midriff held a wad of gauze and cotton wool against the deep laceration just beneath his ribs on his left side. A few feet away, Daniel sat watching quietly.

The paramedics finished administering their treatment and left. The door closed and Daniel rolled his wheelchair over to the small couch where Mancini sat. Reaching for one of the old priest’s hands, Daniel studied the faint patch of blood just about visible within the dressing over Mancini’s palm.

“Little more than three hundred cases of the stigmata since St Francis of Assisi nearly eight centuries ago.”

Daniel looked up and smiled. “You belong to a very privileged fellowship, my friend.”

Mancini grasped Daniel’s own hand. “Ah, but less than two hundred and fifty popes in two millennia,” he countered. “Now that’s privileged.”

They laughed, but both fell silent again almost immediately, sensitive to the deep sanctity of the moment, and of all that had led to it.

Mancini sighed. “God forgive me, I used to be so skeptical. Tongues, stigmata, all of it. I told myself that I was testing the spirits as the New Testament admonishes. But really, I was testing everything by the rule of reason, convinced of some rational cause behind such manifestations.”

“And in some instances, there are such causes,” Daniel reminded Mancini. “Just as long as we are not blind to the genuine thing when it appears.”

“And is this genuine?”

“Oh, I think you already know the answer to that, Edward,” Daniel smiled. “The Holy Ghost has been poured out on all flesh - has been for two thousand years. Some of us just need a little reminder of that fact now and again, that’s all.”

Daniel began to chuckle again until his body shook, as his characteristic humour rose to the surface. “You’re becoming quite the apostle, you do realize that? Freed from a locked prison like Saint Peter, and now blessed with the stigmata like Saint Paul! What next? Up in a fiery chariot like Elijah?”

Mancini laughed too, but as before his mirth was short-lived and he shook his head.

“Love, Daniel,” he whispered. “Such love. That’s what I feel. Love like I’ve never known. For you, for everyone - the whole world.”

Tears, never very far away, brimmed once more in Mancini’s eyes. “So I guess I must be on my Apostle John phase,” he smiled.

Daniel nodded and fixed his old friend with a new sobriety in his expression. “Now it is I who must seek God’s forgiveness,” he began somberly. “For daring to make light of the anointing you have plainly received from him today.”

Despite the solemnity, Daniel could barely contain his excitement. “Edward! You carry the marks of the Lord Jesus on your body! A sign that you are truly, totally crucified with him. A sign that now - now Edward! - you are ready. Cleansed and holy for the Master’s use.”

Daniel dropped his gaze for a moment, then took a deep breath before continuing. “Things have changed so much, Edward. The procedures, the protocols we were once bound to follow, all impossible to implement as we once would have.

Only a handful of us escaped Vatican City, myself and a few advisers and secretaries. The collegiate we would once have convened to decide such matters can no longer be assembled for obvious reasons. I do not know how many of the cardinals of Mother Church even survive.

“But I am sure,” Daniel said slowly after a pause, “certain in fact, that the same Spirit which spoke to you today would have directed any such official conclave to the same decision which I myself have arrived at. The Church is crying out for guidance, Edward. For leadership and prophecy straight from the throne of God. And above all, for love.”

Mancini felt his old heart thumping hard against his sore ribs as he listened, then stared, wide-eyed, in shock as Daniel began to remove the Fisherman’s Ring from his finger. He could not move as Daniel took the gold circlet and very slowly slipped it on to the third finger of Mancini’s right hand.

“Holy Father,” Daniel whispered, pressing his lips to the sacred band. “You are the true Vicar of Jesus Christ.”

II

A single shot from a silenced pistol took out the first soldier cleanly and efficiently. And before his comrade had time to react, a second bullet struck him in the centre of his forehead, killing him instantly.

Holstering her gun, Maryam ran after Jennifer as she sprinted from cover. The prisoner had fallen to the cold forest floor, hugging her knees and crying softly, her face hidden by the curtain of her lank brown hair.

“It’s okay, darling.” Jennifer stooped, tried to comfort her. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

The girl was far younger than Jennifer had realised. Fourteen, fifteen years of age. Dear God, she had nieces no older. And the girl’s distress did nothing to allay the rage Jennifer felt on her behalf.

“Look after her,” she rasped to Maryam, who saw Jennifer’s determined grip on her assault rifle and frowned.

“Major - “ she hissed, but Jennifer cut her short with a hard glare.

“What?” she demanded curtly, and after a moment.

Maryam just sighed and shook her head. “Do it quickly, if you must,” was all she admonished.

Jennifer was gripping the Kalashnikov so tightly that her knuckles showed white as she strode towards the tree line. Blind and deaf to anything except her determination to avenge this unnamed girl whose innocence had been so cruelly stolen from her. The two soldiers pacing up and down beside the prison truck looked up, startled, as Jennifer stepped from the cover of the trees with no hesitation.

“You sick bastards,” she murmured grimly as she pulled the trigger.

III

Pope?

Mancini felt breathless. Everything was happening so fast. Only days before, he had been just another priest in the heart of France. And now....

The wounds in his hands and feet were beginning to pain him greatly. He sat up and fumbled for the lamp at his bedside. The bulb winked into life and Mancini picked up the Bible lying next to the lamp on the table. With some awkwardness because of the thick bandages around his hands, he opened the Bible up at the place he had marked and read a hundred times since the events of that morning.

‘From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of the Lord Jesus branded on my body....’

The sense of humility kindled within him by these words of St Paul - that he should be similarly elected to bear the marks of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice - overwhelmed Mancini. He could barely take it in. But was it really the sign that Daniel had understood it to be? Mancini needed to be certain.

“Speak to me, Jesus,” he whispered, eyes raised to the stark ceiling, yet looking beyond it in faith to the heavens.

He dropped his gaze back to the Bible as an inexplicable draught caressed his face in answer to his petition. The pages of his Bible ruffled and started to flip backwards, leaf by leaf, halting with impossible abruptness at a page of Matthew’s Gospel. Only then did the unaccountable breath of warm air cease.

A single line was underscored on the page; one which Mancini had marked years ago, the basis for his countless lectures on the divine provenance of papal authority. A single line which could not have been a clearer response to his request for heavenly confirmation of this new calling:

‘I will give to you the keys of the kingdom....’

These few simple words caused the old priest’s heart to seemingly leap and sink in equal measure. The honour he felt at being God’s chosen vessel at this critical point in history was countered by his abiding sense of utter unworthiness.

He shivered suddenly as a second breath of air filled the small room. Not warm or comforting like the first. This time, the peculiar draught harboured a distinct menace.

“And just who are you, old man?”

Mancini jumped and looked up sharply at the sibilant voice of the unseen questioner. At first he saw no one. But as he squinted beyond the circle of light cast by his lamp, he could make out a dark figure standing motionless in the far corner of the room. Mancini shivered again. The draught had gone, but the threatening atmosphere it had ushered into his room remained. A distinctly unpleasant odour hung in the cold air, like the scent of a desecrated grave.

“Who are you?” Mancini challenged, trying to keep his voice steady.

But the sinister figure said nothing.

IV

Jennifer ran to the back of the lorry and tried her best to calm the prisoners. The short burst of gunfire had left many of them close to hysteria, with distraught women hugging their menfolk and children, certain that the hour of their martyrdom had arrived. They recoiled and screamed as Jennifer appeared and unbolted the tailgate. Even when she laid her rifle down on the ground, they remained unconvinced that she was anyone other than their executioner.

“Quiet!”

Even Jennifer jumped at Maryam’s stern command, and a hush descended on the horde of terrified people squashed together in the lorry. Maryam stared back at them, unblinking.

“Hear, O Israel,” she said, softly now. “The Lord our God is One.”

Jennifer looked on, nonplussed, with not the slightest clue as to the significance of the words. But their effect on the occupants of the prison lorry was remarkable. Faces lit up immediately, and the prisoners closest to Maryam reached out to clutch her hands.

“The Lord our God is One,” they responded. “Praise his holy name!”

“You are safe now,” Maryam assured them. Then she turned to Jennifer. “We must move. When these prisoners fail to arrive at Station Twelve, the alarm is bound to be raised.”

Jennifer nodded firmly. “Any suggestions?”

“My people,” Maryam replied. She made her intentions known to the prisoners and re-secured the tailgate. “Come,” she said to Jennifer, marching round to the front of the wagon, the engine of which was still turning over with a low growl. “You can drive.”

V

They took all the back roads, if they could even be called that; barely discernible tracks cutting indistinct routes through the winter countryside.

After about twenty minutes driving to Maryam’s directions, Jennifer brought the lorry to a halt at the mouth of a cave that Maryam insisted was there even though Jennifer could see nothing except half-dead foliage and branches. The freedom fighter instructed her to drive forward despite appearances, and sure enough, as Jennifer warily pressed her foot to the accelerator, the lorry rolled forward into the dark maw of a high cavern. Through the wing mirror, Jennifer saw a camouflage net swing back into place, to once again hide the sanctuary from view.

“Neat trick,” she murmured as Maryam told her to switch off the engine and they both climbed from the cab and into the cold, dank air of the cave. Water dripped from its high ceiling, playing out a regular melody on the canvas of the covered wagon.

“Wait here,” Maryam ordered and disappeared into the darkness. Jennifer strained to see her, but could make out nothing beyond a few feet, where what little of the grey light filtering through the camouflage net finally lost its influence. She thought she could hear voices, a low and urgent exchange some way off; then came the sound of returning footsteps and Maryam emerged from the bowels of the cave. Behind her, a sallow glow began to seep along the throat of the broad passage to the sound of other voices and footsteps. Jennifer watched as several more figures hurried forward; their appearances, down to the assault rifles slung over their shoulders, much like Maryam’s. They each greeted Jennifer with a brief nod before moving round to the rear of the lorry to help their unexpected guests disembark.

Ten minutes later, the thirty-five former prisoners stood shivering in the damp gloom. Apprehension had returned to the faces of many of them, and children again whimpered and pressed close to their mothers. Jennifer felt a surge of pity. She could only imagine the horrors these people had witnessed to reduce them to this state of fear.

But Maryam again spoke to them kindly and the group seemed to relax. They formed themselves into a line and began to shuffle off into the depths of the cave, escorted by Maryam’s accomplices. Maryam waited until they had passed and then brought up the rear with Jennifer.

“Welcome to Zoar, Major Sheridan,” she said.”Temporary headquarters of Cell Seventeen of The Sword of Shem.”