One by one the trucks struggled up the steep road in the predawn light of Salonika. Each went a bit faster at the top; the drivers were anxious to return to the darkness of the descending country road cut out of the surrounding forests.
Yet each of the five drivers in the five trucks had to control his anxiety. None could allow his foot to slip from a brake or press an accelerator beyond a certain point; eyes had to be squinted, sharpening the focus, alert for a sudden stop or an unexpected curve in the darkness.
For it was darkness. No headlights were turned on; the column traveled with only the gray light of the Grecian night, low-flying clouds filtering the spill of the Grecian moon.
The journey was an exercise in discipline. And discipline was not foreign to these drivers, or to the riders beside the drivers.
Each was a priest. A monk. From the Order of Xenope, the harshest monastic brotherhood under the control of the Patriarchate of Constantine. Blind obedience coexisted with self-reliance; they were disciplined to the instant of death.
In the lead truck, the young bearded priest removed his cassock, under which were the clothes of a laborer, a heavy shirt and trousers of thick fabric. He rolled up the cassock and placed it in the well behind the high-backed seat, shoving it down between odd items of canvas and cloth. He spoke to the robed driver beside him.
“It’s no more than a half mile now. The stretch of track parallels the road for about three hundred feet. In the open; it will be sufficient.”
“The train will be there?” asked the middle-aged, powerfully built monk, narrowing his eyes in the darkness.
“Yes. Four freight cars, a single engineer. No stokers. No other men.”
“You’ll be using a shovel, then,” said the older priest, smiling but with no humor in his eyes.
“I’ll be using the shovel,” replied the younger man simply. “Where’s the weapon?”
“In the glove compartment.”
The priest in the laborer’s clothes reached forward and released the catch on the compartment panel. It fell open. He put his hand inside the recess and withdrew a heavy, large-calibered pistol. Deftly, the priest sprung the magazine out of the handle, checked the ammunition, and cracked the thick steel back into the chamber. The metallic sound had a finality to it.
“A powerful instrument. Italian, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” answered the older priest without comment, only the sadness in his voice.
“That’s appropriate. And, I suppose, a blessing.” The younger man shoved the weapon into his belt. “You’ll call his family?”
“I’ve been so ordered—” It was obvious that the driver wanted to say something more, but he controlled himself. Silently he gripped the wheel more firmly than necessary.
For a moment the moonlight broke through the night clouds, illuminating the road cut out of the forest.
“I used to play here as a child,” said the younger man. “I would run through the woods and get wet in the streams … then I would dry off in the mountain caves and pretend I had visions. I was happy in these hills. The Lord God wanted me to see them again. He is merciful. And kind.”
The moon disappeared. There was darkness once more.
The trucks entered a sweeping curve to the west; the woods thinned out and in the distance, barely visible, were the outlines of telegraph poles, black shafts silhouetted against gray night. The road straightened and widened and became one with a clearing that stretched perhaps a hundred yards from forest to forest. A flat, barren area imposed on the myriad hills and woodlands. In the center of the clearing, its hulk obscured by the darkness beyond, was a train.
Immobile but not without movement. From the engine came curls of smoke spiraling up into the night.
“In the old days,” said the young priest, “the farmers would herd their sheep and cart their produce here. There was always a great deal of confusion, my father told me. Fights broke out constantly over what belonged to whom. They were amusing stories.… There he is!”
The beam of a flashlight shot out from the black. It circled twice and then remained stationary, the white shaft directed now at the last freight car. The priest in laborer’s clothes unclipped a pencil light from his shirt pocket, held it forward and pressed the button for precisely two seconds. The reflection off the truck’s windshield briefly illuminated the small enclosure. The younger man’s eyes were drawn swiftly to the face of his brother monk. He saw that his companion had bitten his lip; a rivulet of blood trickled down his chin, matting itself in the close-cropped gray beard.
There was no reason to comment on it.
“Pull up to the third car. The others will turn around and start unloading.”
“I know,” said the driver simply. He swung the wheel gently to the right and headed toward the third freight car.
The engineer, in overalls and a goatskin cap, approached the truck as the young priest opened the door and jumped to the ground. The two men looked at each other and then embraced.
“You look different without your cassock, Petride. I’d forgotten how you looked—”
“Oh, come now. Four years out of twenty-seven is hardly the better part.”
“We don’t see you often enough. Everyone in the family remarks about it.” The engineer removed his large, calloused hands from the priest’s shoulders. The moon broke through the clouds again; the spill lighted the trainman’s face. It was a strong face, nearer fifty than forty, filled with the lines of a man constantly exposing his skin to the wind and the sun.
“How’s mother, Annaxas?”
“Well. A little weaker with each month of age, but alert.”
“Pregnant again and not laughing this time. She scolds me.”
“She should. You’re a lustful old dog, my brother. But better to serve the church, I rejoice to say.” The priest laughed.
“I’ll tell her you said that,” said the engineer, smiling.
There was a moment of silence before the young man replied. “Yes. You tell her.” He turned to the activity taking place at the freight cars. The loading doors had been opened and lanterns hung inside, shedding their muted light sufficiently for packing, but not bright enough to be obvious outside. The figures of robed priests began walking swiftly back and forth between the trucks and the doors, carrying crates, boxes of heavy cardboard framed with wood. Prominently displayed on each crate was the crucifix and thorns of the Order of Xenope.
“The food?” inquired the engineer.
“Yes,” answered his brother. “Fruits, vegetables, dried meats, grain. The border patrols will be satisfied.”
“Then where?” It was not necessary to be clearer.
“This vehicle. In the middle section of the carriage, beneath tobacco nets. You have the lookouts posted?”
“On the tracks and the road; both directions for over a mile. Don’t worry. Before daybreak on a Sunday morning, only you priests and novices have work to do and places to go.”
The young priest glanced over at the fourth freight car. The work was progressing rapidly; the crates were being stacked inside. All those hours of practice were showing their value. The monk who was his driver stopped briefly by the muted light of the loading door, a carton in his hands. He exchanged looks with the younger man, then forced his attention away, back to the carton which he swung up into the well of the freight car.
Father Petride turned to his brother. “When you picked up the train, did you speak with anyone?”
“Only the dispatcher. Naturally. We had black tea together.”
“What did he say?”
“Words I wouldn’t offend you with, for the most part. His papers said the cars were to be loaded by the fathers of Xenope in the outlying yards. He didn’t ask any questions.”
Father Petride looked over at the second freight car, on his right. In minutes all would be completed; they would be ready for the third car. “Who prepared the engine?”
“Fuel crews and mechanics. Yesterday afternoon. The orders said it was a standby; that’s normal. Equipment breaks down all the time. We are laughed at in Italy.… Naturally, I checked everything myself several hours ago.”
“Would the dispatcher have any reason to telephone the freight yards? Where supposedly we are loading the cars?”
“He was asleep, or practically so, before I left his tower. The morning schedule won’t start—” the engineer looked up at the gray black sky “—for at least another hour. He’d have no reason to call anyone, unless the wireless reported an accident.”
“The wires were shorted out; water in a terminal box,” said the priest quickly, as if talking to himself.
“Why?”
“In case you did have problems. You spoke to no one else?”
“Not even a drifter. I checked the cars to make sure none were inside.”
“You’ve studied our schedule by now. What do you think?”
The trainman whistled softly, shaking his head. “I think I’m astounded, my brother. Can so much be … so arranged?”
“The arrangements are taken care of. What about the time? That’s the important factor.”
“If there are no track failures the speed can be maintained. The Slav border police at Bitola are hungry for bribes; and a Greek freight at Banja Luka is fair game. We’ll have no trouble at Sarajevo or Zagreb; they look for larger fish than food for the religious.”
“The time, not the bribes.”
“They are time. One haggles.”
“Only if not haggling would seem suspicious. Can we reach Monfalcone in three nights?”
“If your arrangements are successful, yes. If we lose time we could make it up during the daylight hours.”
“Only as a last resort. We travel at night.”
“You’re obstinate.”
“We’re cautious.” Again the priest looked away. Freight cars one and two were secure, the fourth would be loaded and packed before the minute was up. He turned back to his brother. “Does the family think you’re taking a freight to Corinth?”
“Yes. To Navpaktos. To the shipyards on the straits of Patrai. They don’t expect me back for the better part of a week.”
“There are strikes at Patrai. The unions are angry. If you were a few days longer, they’d understand.”
Annaxas looked closely at his brother. He seemed startled at the young priest’s worldly knowledge. There was a hesitancy in his reply. “They’d understand. Your sister-in-law would understand.”
“Good.” The monks had gathered by Petride’s truck, watching him, waiting for instructions. “I’ll join you at the engine shortly.”
“All right,” said the trainman as he walked away, glancing at the priests.
Father Petride removed the pencil light from his shirt pocket and in the darkness approached the other monks at the truck. He searched out the powerfully built man who was his driver. The monk understood and stepped away from the others, joining Petride at the side of the vehicle.
“This is the last time we speak,” said the young priest.
“May the blessings of God—”
“Please,” interrupted Petride. “There’s no time. Just commit to memory each move we make here tonight. Everything. It must be duplicated exactly.”
“It will be. The same roads, the same orders or trucks, the same drivers, identical papers across the borders to Monfalcone. Nothing will change, except one of us will be missing.”
“That’s the will of God. For the glory of God. It’s a privilege beyond my worth.”
There were two master padlocks on the truck’s panel. Petride had one key; his driver held the other. Together they approached the locks and inserted the keys. The irons sprung; the locks were lifted out of the steel hasps, the hasps slapped up, and the doors opened. A lantern was hung high on the edge of the panel.
Inside were the crates with the symbols of the crucifix and thorns stenciled on the sides between the strips of wood. The monks began to remove them, maneuvering like dancers—robes flowing in the eerie light. They carried the cartons to the loading door of the third freight car. Two men leaped up into the heavy-beamed deck of the car and started stacking the boxes at the south end.
Several minutes later half the truck was empty. In the center of the van, separated from the surrounding cartons, was a single crate draped in black cloth. It was somewhat larger than the cases of produce and not rectangular in shape. Instead, it was a perfect cube: three feet in height, three in width, and three in depth.
The priests gathered in a semicircle in front of the open panels of the truck. Shafts of filtered white moonlight mingled with the yellow spill of the lantern. The combined effect of the strange admixture of light, the cavernous truck, and the robed figures made Father Petride think of a catacomb, deep in the earth, housing the true relics of the cross.
The reality was not much different. Except that what lay sealed inside the iron vault—for that was what it was—was infinitely more meaningful than the petrified wood of the crucifixion.
Several of the monks had closed their eyes in prayer; others were staring, transfixed by the presence of the holy thing, their thoughts suspended, their faith drawing sustenance from what they believed was within the tomblike chest—itself a catafalque.
Petride watched them, feeling apart from them, and that was how it should be. His mind wandered back to what seemed only hours ago, but was in reality six weeks. He had been ordered out of the fields and taken to the white concrete rooms of the Elder of Xenope. He was ushered into the presence of that most holy father; there was one other priest with the old prelate, no one else.
“Petride Dakakos,” the holy man had begun, sitting behind his thick wooden table, “you have been chosen above all others here at Xenope for the most demanding task of your existence. For the glory of God and the preservation of Christian sanity.”
The second priest had been introduced. He was an ascetic-looking man with wide, penetrating eyes. He spoke slowly, precisely. “We are the custodians of a vault, a sarcophagus, if you will, that has remained sealed in a tomb deep in the earth for over fifteen hundred years. Within that vault are documents that would rend the Christian world apart, so devastating are their writings. They are the ultimate proof of our most sacred beliefs, yet their exposure would set religion against religion, sect against sect, entire peoples against one another. In a holy war.… The German conflict is spreading. The vault must be taken out of Greece, for its existence has been rumored for decades. The search for it would be as thorough as a hunt for microbes. Arrangements have been made to remove it where none will find it. I should say, most of the arrangements. You are the final component.”
The journey had been explained. The arrangements. In all their glory. And fear.
“You will be in contact with only one man. Savarone Fontini-Cristi, a great padrone of northern Italy, who lives in the vast estates of Campo di Fiori. I, myself, have traveled there and spoken with him. He’s an extraordinary man, of unparalleled integrity and utter commitment to free men.”
“He is of the Roman church?” Petride had asked incredulously.
“He is of no church, yet all churches. He is a powerful force for men who care to think for themselves. He is the friend of the Order of Xenope. It is he who will conceal the vault … You and he alone. And then you … but we will get to that; you are the most privileged of men.”
“I thank my God.”
“As well you should, my son,” said the holy father of Xenope, staring at him.
“We understand you have a brother. An engineer for the railroads.”
“I do.”
“Do you trust him?”
“With my life. He’s the finest man I know.”
“You shall look into the eyes of the Lord,” said the holy father, “and you will not waver. In His eyes you will find perfect grace.”
“I thank my God,” said Petride once again.
He shook his head and blinked his eyes, forcing the reflections out of his mind. The priests by the truck were still standing immobile; the hum of whispered chants came from rapidly moving lips in the darkness.
There was no time for meditation or prayer. There was no time for anything but swift movement—to carry out the commands of the Order of Xenope. Petride gently parted the priests in front of him and jumped up into the truck. He knew why he had been chosen. He was capable of such harshness; the holy father of Xenope had made that clear to him.
There was a time for such men as himself.
God forgive him.
“Come,” he said quietly to those on the ground. “I’ll need help.”
The monks nearest the truck looked uncertainly at one another. Then, one by one, five men climbed into the van.
Petride removed the black drape that covered the vault. Underneath, the holy receptacle was encased in the heavy cardboard, wood framing, and the stenciled symbols of Xenope; identical except for size and shape to all the other crates. But the casing was the only similarity. It required six strong backs, pushing and pulling, to nudge it to the edge of the van and onto the freight car.
The moment it was in place, the dancelike activity resumed. Petride remained in the freight car, arranging the crates so that they concealed the holy thing, obscuring it as one among so many. Nothing unusual, nothing to catch the eye.
The freight car was filled. Petride pulled the doors shut and inserted the iron padlock. He looked at the radium dial of his wristwatch; it had all taken eight minutes and thirty seconds.
It had to be, he supposed, yet still it annoyed him: His fellow priests knelt on the ground. A young man—younger than he, a powerful Serbo-Croat barely out of his novitiate—could not help himself. As the tears rolled down his cheek, the young priest began the chant of Nicaea. The others picked it up and Petride knelt also, in his laborer’s clothes, and listened to the holy words.
But not speaking them. There was no time! Couldn’t they understand?
What was happening to him? In order to take his mind off the holy whispers, he put his hand inside his shirt and checked the leather pouch that was strapped to his chest. Inside that flat, uncomfortable dispatch case were the orders that would lead him across hundreds of miles of uncertainty. Twenty-seven separate pages of paper. The pouch was secure; the straps cut into his skin.
The prayer over, the priests of Xenope rose silently. Petride stood in front of them and each in turn approached him and embraced him and held him in love. The last was his driver, his dearest friend in the order. The tears that filled the rims of his eyes and rolled down his strong face said everything there was to say.
The monks raced back to the trucks; Petride ran to the front of the train and climbed up into the pilot’s cabin. He nodded to his brother who began to pull levers and turn wheels. Grinding shrieks of metal against metal filled the night.
In minutes the freight was traveling at high speed. The journey had begun. The journey for the glory of one Almighty God.
Petride held on to an iron bar that protruded from the iron wall. He closed his eyes and let the hammering vibrations and rushing wind numb his thoughts. His fears.
And then he opened his eyes—briefly—and saw his brother leaning out the window, his massive right hand on the throttle, his stare directed to the tracks ahead.
Annaxas the Strong, everyone called him. But Annaxas was more than strong; he was good, When their father had died, it was Annaxas who had gone out to the yards—a huge boy of thirteen—and worked the long, hard hours that exhausted grown men. The money Annaxas brought home kept them all together, made it possible for his brothers and sisters to get what schooling they could. And one brother got more. Not for the family, but for the glory of God.
The Lord God tested men. As He was testing now.
Petride bowed his head and the words seared through his brain and out of his mouth in a whisper that could not be heard.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, Teacher, Son of God, Only begotten of the Father. God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten not made.…
They reached the sidings at Edhessa; a switch was thrown by unseen, unauthorized hands, and the freight from Salonika plunged into the northern darkness. The Yugoslav border police at Bitola were as anxious for Greek news as they were for Greek bribes. The northern conflict was spreading rapidly, the armies of Hitler were maniacs; the Balkans were next to fall, everyone said so. And the unstable Italians were filling the piazzas, listening to the screams of war mouthed by the insane Mussolini and his strutting fascisti. The talk everywhere was of invasion.
The Slavs accepted several crates of fruit—Xenope fruit was the best in Greece—and wished Annaxas better fortune than they believed he would have, especially since he traveled north.
They sped through the second night north into Mitrovica. The Order of Xenope had done its work; a track was cleared on which no train was scheduled and the freight from Salonika proceeded east to Sarajevo, where a man came out of the shadows and spoke to Petride.
“In twelve minutes the track will be shifted. You will head north to Banja Luka. During the day you’ll stay in the yards. They’re very crowded. You’ll be contacted at nightfall.”
In the crowded freight yards at Banja Luka, at precisely quarter past six in the evening, a man came to them dressed in overalls. “You’ve done well,” he said to Petride. “According to the dispatcher’s flagging schedules, you don’t exist.”
At six thirty-five a signal was given; another switch was thrown, and the train from Salonika entered the tracks for Zagreb.
At midnight, in the quiet yards of Zagreb, another man, emerging from other shadows, gave Petride a long manila envelope. “These are papers signed by Il Duce’s Ministro di Viaggio. They say your freight is part of the Venice Ferrovia. It is Mussolini’s pride; no one stops it for anything. You will hold at the Sezana depot and pick up the Ferrovia out of Trieste. You’ll have no trouble with the Monfalcone border patrols.”
Three hours later they waited on the Sezana track, the huge locomotive idling. Sitting on the steps, Petride watched Annaxas manipulate the valves and levers.
“You’re remarkable,” he said, meaning the compliment sincerely.
“It’s a small talent,” replied Annaxas. “It takes no schooling, just doing it over and over.”
“I think it’s a remarkable talent. I could never do it.”
His brother looked down at him; the glow of the coals washed over his large face, with the wide-set eyes, so firm and strong and gentle. He was a bull of a man, this brother. A decent man. “You could do anything,” said Annaxas awkwardly. “You have the head for thoughts and words far beyond mine.”
“That’s nonsense,” laughed Petride. “There was a time when you’d slap my backside and tell me to tend to my chores with more brains.”
“You were young; that was many years ago. You tended to your books, you did that. You were better than the freight yards; you got out of them.”
“Only because of you, my brother.”
“Rest, Petride. We must both rest.”
They had nothing in common any longer, and the reason they had nothing was because of Annaxas’s goodness and generosity. The older brother had provided the means for the younger to escape, to grow beyond he who provided … until there was nothing in common. What made the reality unbearable was that Annaxas the Strong understood the chasm between them now. In Bitola and Banja Luka he had also insisted they rest, not talk. They would get little sleep once they crossed the borders at Monfalcone. In Italy there would be no sleep at all.
The Lord God tested.
In the silence between them, in the open cabin, the black sky above, the dark ground below, the incessant straining of the engine’s fires filling the night outside, Petride felt an odd suspension of thought and feeling. Thinking and feeling once-removed, as though he were examining another’s experiences from some isolated perch, looking down through a glass. And he began to consider the man he would meet in the Italian Alps. The man who had provided the Order of Xenope with the complicated schedules of transportation through northern Italy. The expanding circles within circles that led inexorably across the Swiss borders in a way that was untraceable.
Savarone Fontini-Cristi was his name. His estate was called Campo di Fiori. The Elders of Xenope said the Fontini-Cristis were the most powerful family in Italy north of Venice. Quite possibly the richest north of Rome. The power and the wealth certainly were borne out by the twenty-seven separate papers in the leather pouch strapped so securely around his chest. Who but an extraordinarily influential man could provide them? And how did the Elders reach him? Through what means? And why would a man named Fontini-Cristi, whose origins had to be of the Roman Church, deliver such assistance to the Order of Xenope?
The answers to these questions were not within his province, but nevertheless the questions burned. He knew what lay sealed in the vault of iron in the third freight car. It was more than what his brother priests believed.
Far more.
The Elders had told him so he would understand. It was the holiest of compelling motives that would allow him to look into the eyes of God without doubt or hesitation. And he needed that assurance.
Unconsciously, he put his hand under the coarse shirt and felt the pouch. A rash had formed around the straps; he could feel the swelling and the rough, abrasive surface of his skin. It would be infected soon. But not before the twenty-seven papers did their work. Then it did not matter.
Suddenly, a half mile away on the northern track, the Venice Ferrovia could be seen speeding out of Trieste. The Sezana contact raced out of the control tower and ordered them to proceed without delay.
Annaxas fired up and throttled the idling locomotive as rapidly as possible and they plunged north behind the Ferrovia toward Monfalcone.
The guards at the border accepted the manila envelope and gave it to their superior officer. The officer shouted at the top of his lungs for the silent Annaxas to fire up quickly. Proceed! The freight was part of the Ferrovia! The engineer was not to delay!
The madness began at Legnago, when Petride gave the dispatcher the first of Fontini-Cristi’s papers. The man blanched and became the most obsequious of public servants. The young priest could see the dispatcher searching his eyes, trying to unearth the level of authority Petride represented.
For the strategy devised by Fontini-Cristi was brilliant. Its strength was in its simplicity, its power over men based in fear—the threat of instant retaliation from the state.
The Greek freight was not a Greek freight at all. It was one of the highly secretive investigating trains sent out by Rome’s Ministry of Transportation, the inspectors general of the Italian rail system. Such trains roamed the tracks throughout the country, manned by officials ordered to examine and evaluate all rail operations and submit reports that some said were read by Mussolini himself.
The world made jokes about Il Duce’s railroads, but behind the humor was respect. The Italian rail system was the finest in Europe. It maintained its excellence by the time-honored method of the fascist state: secret efficiency ratings compiled by unknown investigators. A man’s livelihood—or absence of it—depended on the judgments of the esaminatori. Retentions, advancements, and dismissals were often the results of a few brief moments of observation. It stood to reason that when an esaminatore revealed himself, absolute cooperation and confidentiality were given.
The freight from Salonika was now an Italian train with the covert imprimatur of Rome as its shield. Its movements were subject only to the authorizations contained in the papers supplied the dispatchers. And the orders within those authorizations were bizarre enough to have come from the convoluted machinations of Il Duce himself.
The circuitous route began. The towns and villages fled by—San Giorgio, Latisana, Motta di Levenza—as the freight from Salonika entered tracks behind Italian boxcars and passenger trains. Treviso, Montebelluna, and Valdagno, west to Malcesine on the Lago di Garda; across the large expanse of water on the sluggish freight boat and immediately north to Breno and Passo della Presolana.
There was only frightened cooperation. Everywhere.
When they reached Como the circling stopped and the dash began. They sped north on the land route and swung south to Lugano, following the tracks on the Swiss borders south and west again to Santa Maria Maggiore, crossing into Switzerland at Saas Fee, where the freight from Salonika resumed its identity, with one minor alteration.
This was determined by the twenty-second authorization in Petride’s pouch. Fontini-Cristi had once again provided the simple explanation: The Swiss International Aid Commission at Geneva had granted permission for the Eastern church to cross borders and supply its retreat on the outskirts of Val de Gressoney. What was implied was that the borders would soon be closed to such supply trains. The war was gaining a terrible momentum; soon there would be no trains whatever from the Balkans or Greece.
From Saas Fee the freight rolled south into the yards at Zermatt. It was night; they would wait for the yards to close operations and a man who would come to them and confirm that another switch had been thrown. They would make the incursion south into the Italian Alps of Champoluc.
At ten minutes to nine a trainman appeared in the distance, coming out of the shadows across the Zermatt freight yard. He ran the last several hundred feet and raised his voice.
“Hurry! The rails are clear for Champoluc. There’s no time to waste! The switch is tied to a master line; it could be spotted. Get out of here!”
Once more Annaxas went about the business of releasing the enormous pressures built up in the fires of the iron fuselage, and once again the train plunged into the darkness.
The signal would come in the mountains, high near an Alpine pass. No one knew just where.
Only Savarone Fontini-Cristi.
A light snow was falling, adding its thin layer to the alabaster cover on the moonlit ground. They passed through tunnels carved out of rock, swinging westward around the ledges of the mountains, the steep gorges menacingly beneath them on their right. It was so much colder. Petride had not expected that; he had not thought about temperatures. The snow and the ice; there was ice on the tracks.
Every mile they traveled seemed like ten, every minute that passed could have been an hour. The young priest peered through the windshield, seeing the beam of the train’s searchlight reflecting off the falling snow. He leaned out; he could see only the giant trees that rose up in the darkness.
Where was he? Where was the Italian padrone, Fontini-Cristi? Perhaps he had changed his mind. O merciful God, that could not be! He could not allow himself to think such thoughts. What they carried in that holy vault would plunge the world into chaos. The Italian knew that; the Patriarchate had total confidence in the padrone.…
Petride’s head was aching, his temples pounded. He sat on the steps of the tender; he had to control himself. He looked at the radium dial of his watch. Merciful God! They’d traveled too far! In a half hour they’d be out of the mountains!
“There is your signal!” shouted Annaxas.
Petride leaped to his feet and leaned over the side, his pulse wild, his hands trembling as he gripped the roof ladder. Down the track no more than a quarter of a mile, a lantern was being raised and lowered, its light flickering through the thin sheets of snow.
Annaxas braked the locomotive. The belching engine drew out its roars like the subsiding giant furnace it was. In the snow-lit, moonlit distance, aided by the beam of the locomotive’s single headlight, Petride saw a man standing next to an odd-shaped vehicle in a small clearing at the side of the rails. The man was dressed in heavy clothing, collar and cap of fur. The vehicle was both a truck and not a truck. Its rear wheels were much larger than those in front, as though belonging to a tractor. Yet the hood beyond the windshield was not a truck’s hood, or a tractor’s, thought the priest. It resembled something else.
What was it?
Then he knew and he could not help but smile. He had seen hundreds of such pieces of equipment during the past four days. In front of the strange vehicle’s hood was a vertically controlled cargo platform.
Fontini-Cristi was as resourceful as the monks in the Order of Xenope. But then the pouch strapped to his chest had told him that.
“You are the priest of Xenope?” Savarone Fontini-Cristi’s voice was deep, aristocratic, and very used to authority. He was a tall man and slender beneath the Alpine clothing, with large, penetrating eyes recessed in the aquiline features of his face. And he was a much older man than Petride thought he would be.
“I am, signore,” said Petride, climbing down into the snow.
“You’re very young. The holy men have given you an awesome responsibility.”
“I speak the language. I know that what I do is right.”
The padrone stared at him. “I’m sure you do. What else is left for you?”
“Don’t you believe it?”
The padrone replied simply. “I believe in only one thing, my young father. There is but a single war that must be fought. There can be no divisions among those who battle the fascist. That is the extent of what I believe.” Fontini-Cristi looked up abruptly at the train. “Come. There’s no time to waste. We must return before daybreak. There are clothes for you in the tractor. Get them. I’ll instruct the engineer.”
“He doesn’t speak Italian.”
“I speak Greek. Hurry!”
The freight car was lined up with the tractor. Laterally operated chains were placed around the holy vault, and the heavy iron receptacle encased in strips of wood was pulled, groaning under the tension, out onto the platform. It was secured by the chains in front; taut straps buckled over the top.
Savarone Fontini-Cristi tested the harnessing on all sides. He was satisfied; he stood back, the beam of his flashlight illuminating the monastic symbols stenciled on the encasement.
“So after fifteen hundred years it comes out of the earth. Only to be returned to the earth,” said Fontini-Cristi quietly. “Earth and fire and sea. I should have chosen the last two, my young priest. Fire or the sea.”
“That is not the will of God.”
“I’m glad your communication is so direct. You holy men never cease to amaze me with your sense of the absolute.” Fontini-Cristi turned to Annaxas and spoke fluently now in Greek. “Pull up so that I may clear the tracks. There’s a narrow trail on the other side of the woods. We’ll be back before dawn.”
Annaxas nodded. He was uncomfortable in the presence of such a man as Fontini-Cristi. “Yes, Your Excellency.”
“I’m no such thing. And you’re a fine engineer.”
“Thank you.” Annaxas, embarrassed, walked toward the engine.
“That man is your brother?” asked Fontini-Cristi softly of Petride.
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t know?”
The young priest shook his head.
“You’ll need your God then.” The Italian turned swiftly and started for the driver’s side of the enclosed tractor. “Come, Father. We have work to do. This machine was built for the avalanche. It will take our cargo where no human being could carry it.”
Petride climbed into the seat. Fontini-Cristi started the powerful engine and expertly shifted gears. The platform in front of the hood was lowered, permitting visibility, and the vehicle lunged forward, vibrating across the tracks into the Alpine forest.
The priest of Xenope sat back and closed his eyes in prayer. Fontini-Cristi maneuvered the powerful machine through the rising woods toward the upper trails of the Champoluc mountains.
“I have two sons older than you,” said Fontini-Cristi after a while. And then he added, “I’m taking you to the grave of a Jew. I think it’s appropriate.”
They returned to the Alpine clearing as the black sky was turning gray. Fontini-Cristi stared at Petride as the young priest climbed out of the strange machine. “You know where I live. My house is your house.”
“We all reside in the house of the Lord, signore.”
“So be it. Good-bye, my young friend.”
“Good-bye. May God go with you.”
“If He chooses.”
The Italian pushed the gearshift into place and drove quickly down the barely visible road below the tracks. Petride understood. Fontini-Cristi could not lose a minute now. Every hour he was away from his estate would add to the questions that might be asked. There were many in Italy who considered the Fontini-Cristis to be enemies of the state.
They were watched. All of them.
The young priest ran through the snow toward the engine. And his brother.
Dawn came over the waters of Lago Maggiore. They were on the Stresa freight barge; the twenty-sixth authorization in the pouch was their passport. Petride wondered what would greet them in Milan, although he realized that it did not really matter.
Nothing mattered now. The journey was coming to an end.
The holy thing was in its resting place. Not to be unearthed for years; perhaps to be buried for a millennium. There was no way to tell.
They sped southeast on the main track through Varese into Castiglione. They did not wait for nightfall … nothing mattered now. On the outskirts of Varese, Petride saw a roadsign in the bright Italian sunlight.
CAMPO DI FIORI. 20 KIL.
God had chosen a man from Campo di Fiori. The holy secret now belonged to Fontini-Cristi.
The countryside rushed by; the air was clear and cold and exhilarating. The skyline of Milan came into view. The haze of factory smoke intruded on God’s sky and lay suspended like a flat, gray tarpaulin above the horizon. The freight slowed and entered the tracks of the depot sidings. They held at a stop until a disinterested spedizioniere in the uniform of the state railroads pointed to a curve in the rails where a green disc snapped up in front of a red one. It was the signal to enter the Milan yards.
“We’re here!” shouted Annaxas. “A day’s rest, then home! I must say you people are remarkable!”
“Yes,” said Petride simply. “We’re remarkable.”
The priest looked at his brother. The sounds of the freight yard were music to Annaxas; he sang a Greek song, his whole upper body swaying rhythmically to the sharp, fast beats of the melody.
It was strange, the song Annaxas sang. It was not a song of the railroads; it belonged to the sea. A chanty that was a favorite of the fishermen of Thermaïkós. There was something appropriate, thought Petride, about such a song at such a moment.
The sea was God’s source of life. It was from the sea that He created earth.
I believe in one God … maker of all things.…
The priest of Xenope removed the large Italian pistol from under his shirt. He took two steps forward, toward his beloved brother, and raised the barrel of the weapon. It was inches from the base of Annaxas’s skull.
… both visible and invisible … and in one Lord, Jesus Christ … only begotten of the Father.…
He pulled the trigger.
The explosion filled the cabin. Blood and flesh and things most terrible flew through the air and matted onto glass and metal.
… substance of the Father … God of God … light of light … very God of very God.…
The priest of Xenope closed his eyes and shouted in exaltation as he held the weapon against his own temple.
“… begotten, not made! I will look into the eyes of the Lord and I shall not waver!”
He fired.