CHAPTER 62
Ryan Air’s flight to Frankfurt was a cheerful confusion, an efficient no-frills operation that felt a little like a traveling holiday camp. When it touched down, the passengers broke into spontaneous applause. A bizarre response, thought Thomas, wondering if they did things like that before 9/11. Not in America. But here? Probably. And looking around him he thought that the applause wasn’t relief so much as appreciation for the pilot expressed by a short-lived community for whom the journey was a bit of an adventure.
No one stopped him in Frankfurt. If an alarm had been raised about his departure, it was slow in spreading, and as the Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo tucked its wheels up, Thomas finally began to relax. The flight was thinly populated and he could stretch out and get some sleep. It was all behind him, at last, and for a few hours he would not think about what had happened or what he would find when he touched down.
Such willful oblivion lasted no more than five minutes, shattered by a voice beside him, a low, ironically conversational tone that he knew at once.
“If it isn’t the globe-trotting, atheist archaeologist!”
Thomas, who had been staring blankly out the window, turned in disbelief.
It was Jim. He was wearing an olive-colored woolen sweater and jeans without dog collar or crucifix, but the priest’s wry smile was the same as ever.
“What the hell are you doing here?” said Thomas.
“Language, my son,” said Jim with mock horror, as he dropped into the seat beside him.
“Seriously,” said Thomas. “What on earth . . . ?”
“Never been to Japan,” said the priest, plucking the in-flight magazine from the seat pouch and thumbing through it as if nothing could be more ordinary. “Been saving my meager wages for years waiting for something exciting and expensive to come along. But like most priests, your brother notwithstanding, adventure on the high seas isn’t exactly part of the daily routine. So, ‘Jim,’ I says to myself. ‘If you want excitement or— for that matter—just a change from sick visits to the environs of Chicagoland, you have to make it happen yourself, take the bull by the horns and . . . ’ ”
“Enough,” said Thomas.
“You sent me your itinerary,” the priest answered. “I took it as an invitation.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Apparently,” said Jim. “But like I said, I’d never been to Japan. And it sounded like you could use some company. Maybe some help too.” Jim didn’t look at him, his eyes still on the glossy pages of some article about beaches in Tahiti.
“Why didn’t you fly direct from O’Hare?” said Thomas. “Why fly to Frankfurt?”
“Cheaper,” said Jim. “I counted out the dusty shekels I kept in a jar under the bed and found that the private plane serving champagne all the way was a bit rich for my clerical blood. Hopping from airport to airport saves a pile, and allows us to get reacquainted along the way. With your itinerary in hand, and thanks to the beneficence of the good people at Japan Airlines, I was able to book a seat beside you all the way. Can’t say fairer than that, can you now?”
“I guess not,” said Thomas, smiling, trying to keep the wariness from his face.
“Brilliant,” said Jim. “Drink? Normally it would be a bit early, but I really have no idea what time it is anymore. In fact, I couldn’t swear to what day it is. Ironic, eh? It’s like I’ve had a few already.”
Thomas smiled again, trying not to like him too much. He couldn’t afford to lower his guard. Vesuvius had taught him that. But there could be no harm in a little drink. He flagged down a flight attendant and requested a couple of miniature whiskys: Jack Daniels, as it turned out.
“So, you going to fill me in or what?” said Jim.
Thomas hesitated only a second and then started telling him what had happened in Italy. Part of him was cautious and watchful throughout, looking for a telltale response from the priest, and that same part sifted the material as it came to mind, prepared to hold back anything that seemed too revelatory. But in the end, he told Jim everything, because either he really was an innocent looking to help and knew nothing, or he already knew. In either case Thomas found, somewhat depressingly, that he had discovered little that might truly unsettle his enemies.
The Irish priest was a good audience, asked appropriate questions, responded with shock at the right points, and fell into a puzzled silence at the end.
“I don’t know if Ed died because of his research into this ‘new’ symbol,” said Thomas, “though I can’t imagine that anyone would think that worth killing for. But there are these other goons trying to stop me from asking questions. There are the planted weapons in my home in Chicago, and there are the deaths of Satoh and Pietro. Ed died for a reason, and someone is spending a lot of time and money to see that I don’t find out what that reason was.”
“And you think you’ll find the answer in Japan?” said Jim.
“It’s where he went after Italy,” Thomas said with a shrug, “and there’s the story of the Herculaneum cross and this weird tomb find that suggests that Italian missionaries went to eighth-century Japan. My gut says it’s all connected, but how . . .”
He opened his hands in a gesture of casual bafflement, as if he were releasing a bird.
“You’re going to see your wife?”
“Ex.”
“Right,” said Jim.
“Maybe.” Thomas shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I’m making this up as I go.”
“Might be a good opportunity to—you know—reconnect. Bury the hatchet.”
“Ah,” Thomas replied, “the Catholic priest as marriage counselor. I always got a real kick out of that; after all, who better than the celibate clergy who deny women a place in their world to advise couples on how to keep their marriages strong? Classic.”
“Who says the church has no sense of humor?” said Jim, grinning.
“Is there anything new on the weapons they found at my place?”
“Nothing in the press except a few speculations that the trail has gone cold,” said Jim. “I spoke to the DHS agent again, Kaplan, and he said that tests were moving unusually slowly.”
“I don’t understand why they haven’t tried to reach me,” said Thomas.
“Assuming they haven’t,” said Jim.
“What do you mean?”
“These guys who have been after you seem to have a lot of information, a lot of resources. You don’t think they could be . . . ?”
“Government?” said Thomas, incredulous. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if they are . . .” said Thomas, pausing, trying to find the words.
“Then we’re one step from a primal anarchy without law or justice or apple pie?” said Jim.
“Something like that.”
“Welcome to the world, mate,” said Jim.
“You have Ed’s subversive edge,” said Thomas. “I still can’t get used to that in a priest.”
“Because we’re supposed to be so . . . orthodox? Religion being the opiate of the masses and all that?”
“I guess.”
“Some of us believe in a socially activist church,” said Jim.
“That’s how you get involved in evictions?”
Jim flinched. “Who told you about that?”
“Why don’t you tell me about it yourself?” said Thomas.
Jim blinked, and then said, with careful emphasis, “I’ve never been to Japan. I wonder what it will be like.”
He went back to his magazine.