Chapter Twenty-one

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MOST PRIVATE To: The Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Defense of the Faith From: The Chancellor for the Inquiry in North America Your Eminence: Of course we understand and respect the position of His Holiness and of the Hidden Collegium. In no way will this office violate the provisions against execution and torture promulgated in Contra Poenam Ultimam. But we also apprehend what is hidden between the lines of your memorandum, that we are to act exactly according to the statutes you cite, which granted the Holy Office its original authority. Be assured that we will do so with all vigor. May God have mercy on our souls. Yours in Christ & for the Defense of the Faith, Brian Conlon (Msgr.) Document Class: Extraordinary, destroy after reading, Swiss Guards courier Destination: Paolo Cardinal Impelliteri, the Hidden Collegium, Prefecturate for the Defense of the Faith, Vatican City Chapter Five MIKE WATCHED Terry Quist open a Baby Ruth, stuff it into his mouth, and toss the wrapper to the floor. The poor guy. He always gobbled food when he was tense. Or scared. Mike eased his friend into telling his story. "You still write the blotter, don't you?" "That and the bus plunges at the bottom of the pages— '158 die in Surinam bus plunge' typa junk. I'll never get anywhere on the Times. I'm more of a National Tattler kind of a guy." "So What're you doin' here? Go plunge a bus." "I've got serious business with you. You wanna hear my story or not? I might have a line on your raped girl." "Anything about Patricia Murray I want to hear. Are you lookin' for pay, or what?" "Come on, man. By rights I ought to be back at the shop doin' my investigative reporter bit. But I'm here because I'm a coward. I want to stay alive. Just one thing, though, before I lay what I've got on the table. It's very weird. I want you to suspend disbelief." "No." "Please remember we been friends since I taught you to smoke in fifth grade." "Fourth." "I forget. Anyway, you promise me that you will check this one out, no matter how wild it sounds." "You're settin' yourself up for a putdown. You been takin' rides on a UFO or Somethin'?" "I wish I had. I'd be better off gettin' fucked over by little green men than by the Night Church." He fell silent. His hands, Mike noticed, were gripping the edge of the desk so tightly there was a flush beneath his fingernails. "Keep goin, buddy." "Just that I have reason to believe from the nature of the crime that your lady was hurt in a religious service." "The priest in that parish is a good friend of mine." "You're dealing here with something much bigger than any single priest or parish. The way I see it, this thing is gigantic. World wide. A festering, deadly cancer hidden in the Catholic Church, rotting it from within. And evil, Mike, God is my witness. Unbelievably evil." "Something as big as that fools around with rape? This is lone pervert stuff." "I said you wouldn't believe me." "I didn't pass judgment yet. Keep convincin' me. You're doin' a wonderful job so far." "I'll bet." "You are. I'm takin' you seriously." "It's got a congregation that meets at Holy Spirit. Ah, come on, Mike, I see you smilin'! I'm telling you
something big." Mike had smiled just a little, to test Terry's resolve. Terry's reaction meant that he, at least, believed the story he was telling. "Prove Somethin'." "What do you want proved?" "Anything. Any part of it." "The constant whine of the cop to the reporter: do my work, I can't do it myself. Okay, I got onto this through a guy named Alexander Parker, lives across the street from Holy Spirit. This guy is not connected with the media. He started comin' in to the Idle Hour about a week or so ago. He hears I'm a reporter and he tells me he's got a story." Mike nodded. "He tells me how he goes home late a lot. Night person, he says. And every Sunday and Thursday night he's noticed Somethin' funny. It's not that big a deal, just slightly more people around than usual. One night, he's in his apartment. It's quiet, see, and he hears this real low noise. Like music, but so low he more feels it than hears it. He thinks maybe it comes from the church. So he goes over there." "Ought to be on the force." "He tries the door, but it's locked. So he listens. He hears people moving around inside, like lots of people just walking around and around in the church. Every so often a baby screams and gets stifled. That spooks him a little, and he goes home. He watches. Along about four-thirty he's been asleep, and all of a sudden he sees people leaving." "He's asleep and he sees the people?" "Will you cut it out! He wakes up and he sees the people. Clumps of two and three, like. He counts three hundred people leaving over the space of half an hour. In the small hours of the goddamn mornin'. He can't figure it." "So he runs off and tells New York's most brilliant reporter." "He lets it sort of slip out. Like he was trying to lead me on. He tells me they're dangerously crazy. Something about a disease they're gonna spread. Something about a new species—the anti-man. He asks me, almost begs me, to write it up. 'Tell the world,' he says. 'Warn them.' " "So?" "So doesn't that sound pretty damn dangerous?" "Hell, I'm all for it. Anti or not, a new species'll probably do a better job than we have." "You don't understand, do you, you jerk? You're sittin' there straight as a razor and all the time laughing at me. It's what they plan to do after the new race gets going. The rest of us—they're gonna just kill us. All of us." "Lotta work." "Not for people with the kind of weapon they have. A disease has been developed. When they release it everybody dies." "Including the new race—and the Night Church?" "Hell, no. Everybody except them. They all get vaccinated." "Your friend found out a lot. I mean, considering he just watched these people from across the street. Supposedly." "I thought about that. I think Alex is more than he seems. He told me, 'You're a reporter, get your story and publish it.' " "So you're here." "I'm afraid for my life! This is bigger than me. I can't get the story and stay alive." "How can I identify these people?" "Well, most of 'em are in Holy Spirit Church in the middle of the night. Go over and pick 'em up." "And hit 'em with a trespass misdemeanor? That'd just tell 'em to get cautious." "Find their labs or whatever. They must have storage facilities for their disease bacteria, not to mention delivery systems. It can't be simple to infect the whole world. There's got to be plenty of evidence of what they're planning." "This sounds like some kind of crazy science, not a church," "Well, maybe that's accurate. Religion and science mix and a monster is born." "You still haven't given me anything to go on." "Hell, Mike—" "You bring me a load of crap like this and you'd better have some tangible evidence to go with it. Something J can goddamn well put my hands on. Come on, Terry. I'm a busy man." "So talk to Alex Parker! Do your goddamn job, follow the lead."
Page 2 and 3: PRAY FOR HER. PRAY FOR HER UNBORN B
Page 4 and 5: shoulder, then slipped around the s
Page 6 and 7: a new life, with new hopes and new
Page 8 and 9: name. As gingerly as a frightened l
Page 10 and 11: had to start somewhere. Although sh
Page 12 and 13: professor of psychology at NYU, but
Page 14 and 15: So she had met Mr. Apple. Now she s
Page 16 and 17: sweet-smelling cloth was pressed ag
Page 18 and 19: Harry's familiar morning exhaustion
Page 20 and 21: "Anoint?" The kid had assumed he wa
Page 22 and 23: "Well, yes, that's right, Mike." "S
Page 24 and 25: "Hell, I'd know in a second you did
Page 26 and 27: going through a file cabinet. "Out,
Page 28 and 29: awful sense of evil within, was sti
Page 32 and 33: Terry's tone made Mike want to slug
Page 34 and 35: above all, the dark gargoyled uglin
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Page 38 and 39: Seeking the edge of the future, we
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Page 44 and 45: Jonathan was touched. In all his li
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Page 48 and 49: Sure. Look at this bunch, scrubbed
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Page 66 and 67: JONATHAN HAD HOPED that their journ
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Page 72 and 73: When Gottlieb told me that her para
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Destination: Paolo Cardinal Impelli
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drink before he could speak. "You w
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She closed her eyes, nodded her hea
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from her head she didn't change. Sh
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the graph paper, ripped it off the
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Strange mementoes themselves were o
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Mike read: "He will bear the appear
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honey, I'd like to get you in my ar
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of thing, it was a raging, furious
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"Leave us alone, Mary. Don't you da
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it happen. It was late afternoon be
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espect for the Night Church. Best t
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"Relax, Mike, she's as committed as
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The van slowed, turned another corn
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He was a dried-up, incredibly ancie
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creating a teaching machine for you
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Chapter Twenty-one PATRICIA LAY IN
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We may be mutated in a thousand dif
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He wasn't here for evidence. There
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the hell down here! Come on, Harry,
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had been waved and shouted, "Rememb
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whether or not I love Christ enough
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words as truly as a tonic in his bl
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lessed Michael the Archangel, to bl
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This had never been intended as a w
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father and mother and cleave unto a
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penetrated deep into Jonathan's sku
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"He didn't" hurt me. He wanted to b
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Chapter Twenty-one

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