"V" is for Veronica

Far past where the visitors can go, Veronica and Francis knell before Padre Dubious in their own private Mass celebration. The two receive looks of envy and confusion from patrons and visitors alike. What makes these two so special that they can worship at the main alter and be blessed by the Cardinal himself? Little did they know that Francis and Veronica had contributed millions to this Cathedral and even more to its charitable, organizations. The two normally take the leisurely walk back, but today, Francis is feeling ill. Thinking it may have been her cooking, Veronica hails a cab to quickly take him home. Francis is now running a temperature of 108 and sweating profusely. In an attempt to cool him down, Veronica puts a cold rag on his head and holds his hand sitting by his side. She quickly realizes something is just not right. She makes two phone calls, one to the paramedics and one to Archie Carlisle. The paramedics arrive in three minutes of the call followed shortly by Archie.

By the time the medics put Francis onto a stretcher and load him in the vehicle, he is on life support. Confused as to what has made her husband so sick, so quickly, Veronica sits beside him and begins to weep.

Archie is stunned by her outward emotional expression. He has known the two of them for years and never seen Veronica cry, ever.

When they arrive at the Hospital, the medics rush Francis to the Emergency room, leaving behind Veronica and Archie in the waiting area.

Three hours latter, a Doctor grimly walks down the hall, looking at Veronica. When she makes eye contact with him, she breaks down, knowing what the news is, instantly becoming inconsolable, weeping uncontrollable, in a bent over position.

There is nothing Archie could say or do. He just, sighed and waited for Veronica to calm down.

A peace comes over her as he sits up and crosses her legs and breathing deeply.

"Are you okay?" Archie asks.

"My husband of 36 years just died. What do you think?"

She pauses and sighs as she stands up heading to the door.

"Veronica, wait." Archie shouts.

She turns to him and calmly orders. "I want an autopsy."

"Ronnie..."

"Now Archie. I will be at our place waiting for the results."

The penthouse was about fifteen blocks away from the hospital, but she decides to walk, to think. What could have caused his death? She was with him for the majority of the day, what? Think Ronnie, think. She says to herself.

Walking up the Champs-Élysées, past the many shops, cafés, the chatty people, the cars, everything during this think time, seems to go in slow motion past her. It appears that she was invisible to the world. The street lights, the taillights of cars, the ambient light around her, fuses together creating a hypnotizing psychedelic rainbow color. She stops to sit at a bench by the Arc de Triomphe. Thinking, more deeply, she comes to one conclusion, Francis has been poisoned.

She stands hailing a taxi. "100 Rue Washington." Getting in, she softly tells the driver.

The driver has her there in les than two minutes; she pays and goes into the building.

She undresses and walks into the washroom to takes a shower. After she dries off, she dresses in a black pair of jeans, and pulls over her body a black turtle neck shirt. She walks into her closet and picks up a black pair of Timberland boots. She sits on her bed, puts them on and ties them tightly up. She sighs and holds her head in her hands and begins to cry.

After collecting herself, she walks back into the closet and taps the right corner floor board with her right foot. The wall is pushed back and swiftly slides to the left, revealing a hidden room with the tools of her profession.

On the wall is a rack of guns. She walks over to the rack and picks up a Berretta and then places it on a small table in the middle of the room. On the same rack, she takes a silencer that fits. She slowly turns and reaches for a shoulder holster. She puts it on and takes the Berretta and slides it in and locks it. She reaches for black leather jacket and puts it on and then pulls her long hair back into a pony tail.

Reaching for a belt that can hold another five round, she puts it on, knowing that she will not need the added ammunition, but just in case. Finally, she takes a ten inch hunting knife and clips it on her belt. Taking a deep breath, she walks out and taps the same spot on the floor board again, and the room becomes sealed.

Sitting on a couch in her living room area, she stares at the Eiffel tower, as the cool evening breeze blows the silk curtains in and out. She reflects back on the years she's had with Francis, causing her to cry. Anger and rage begin to swells up in her. She knows who killed her husband; she just needs to know, why? He was poisoned, she knows that. The only things he had to eat this day, was her omelet, a wafer and wine. She knows she did not poison him, so the only one or ones that could have done this was the Priest and the Cardinal. If these two men of god did the work of the devil...then the angel of death will be paying them a visit tonight.

Behind her, she hears the front door unlock. She slowly gets up and walks out on the balcony. Knowing who it is, she doesn't turn around. She hears Archie walking up behind her.

"What type of poison?" She asks.

"Cyanide."

She slowly turns and holds her head down and then raises it up and looks at him. "Who uses cyanide to kill someone?"

He says nothing to her.

"Who was it Archie? I know you know. I know he was here working on something, his death must be connected to what he was working on. Who killed my husband?"

"Ronnie, please, lets us handle it."

"WHO? I know it was someone in the church. The sun will be down in one and a half hours. Thirty minutes after that, the doors of the church will be lock. If you do not tell me who is responsible for the death of my husband, I will slaughter everyone in the there and then kill myself."

Archie bites his bottom lip and sighs and then takes a hard swallow. "Mortelli and Dubious."

"The Cardinal and the Priest?" She asks calmly.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They are agents working for a group of people that do business with the Chinese. They have been selling the names of agents to the highest bidder. The real Cardinal and Priest were found dead, a few months ago."

She walks past Archie and sits heavily on the coach. "So...my husband was killed for money."

"Yes."

She nods her head, allowing the information to process. "How much?"

"A little over a million."

She holds her head down and begins to exhale in and out; rage begins to flow through her veins. Her eyes become red and tear filled as she looks back up at Archie.

"This apartment holds art, worth over three hundred million dollars." She points to a Renoir on the wall closet to them. "That painting is worth over one million dollars. That painting is worth MORE THAN MY HUSBANDS LIFE?"

She begins to cry again, uncontrollably. After wiping her tears she asks. "Who else is involved?"

"We know that information is being passed on to them from sources inside our agency."

She closes her eyes, trying to calm her self. "Who, in our agency?"

"Johnny Stiles."

With her eyes still closed and in a clam tone she asks. "Why does he think he can get away with this?"

"I don't know. I guess when your back is against the wall; you do and think dumb things."

"What are you going to do with him?"

"That, we are still trying to figure out."

"Who's we?"

Archie curses to himself. He couldn't tell her just yet that Francis is alive, that the paramedics gave him the antidote to the poison in the van, but his slip up, indicated to Veronica, that Archie and someone else knew about this. Archie forgot how sharp she is.

"The higher ups, management."

She looks at him, seeing his lie, knowing they, Archie and Francis, were "The Higher Ups." Whatever the case was, she is now hell bent on avenging her husband's death.

Archie witnessed something that no one had witnessed before; the transformation of this normally, calm, collected woman, turning into a cold blooded assassin. He watched in silence as her blood boiled, as rage pumped through her heart, as her mind began to work out the meticulous details.

"How? How are you going to do this Ronnie?"

She coldly glances over at him. "You weren't with our unit, before Paris was liberated. We used that Cathedral as a base, and... the dungeons to extract information from the Nazi spies. There are things down in those caverns that would make Satan himself shiver."

"Yes, but how are you going to get in if the doors are lock?"

"Through the tomb of St. Germaine, there is a secrete passage that leads to the west alter."

Veronica sits saying nothing, for the next thirty minutes. Archie watched mesmerized. He had never, before today, seen her cry, before today he had never seen her filed with so much hatred and rage. Of course he knew what she was capable of doing, she was after all a finely tuned killing machine; he just never witnessed her alter ego.

She slowly Veronica walks down the Champs-Élysées. As the sun begins to set, the hot summer air drops ten degrees. Out of the corner of her right eye, she sees lights flickering on, illuminating instantly the famous iron structure in the world. Up ahead, two blocks away, there are three tour buses unloading, giddy American high school seniors all looking anxiously, waiting to be let loose to explore on their own, the Paris night. A group of young boys from the buses, stand on the corner, gawking at a woman of the night, who has just stepped out of a café, with her newly acquired gentleman.

Veronica stops, when passing the Louvre and stares at the glass pyramid, which has a somewhat calming effect on her. A few minutes later, she is standing on the corner of the Pont Notre Dame, the bridge that will take her to the killing grounds.

Walking up to the tomb of St. Germaine, Veronica turns a stone rose, that opens a dark, haunting stairwell, leading down. When she gets half way down, the tomb closes behind, encasing her in an unnatural darkness. She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a lighter, and flicks it on, giving her a limited depth of field. She knew this passage very well, when she was younger, she and the rest of the resistance during the Nazi occupation, used this passage to go in and out undetected, by the SS.

When she walks about three hundred yard in the ghostly tunnel, covered by cob webs, centuries of dust, dirt, and neglect, the lighters light hits upon a familiar sight; a set of steps leading upward.

The statue of St. Dennis slides to the right, revealing a hidden niche that Veronica, walks out of. She walks, about three hundred feet to the confessional booth and rings the bell. A few minutes later, the Cardinal sits on the other side of the screen.

"My, child, how did you get in here, the doors are lock?"

"The portal of the Last Judgment was jarred opened Father."

"Have you come to confess your sins, my child?"

"Yes, of past and future."

The Cardinal hesitates. "How do you know what sins you will procure in the future? Only god can know this."

"I know too, father."

"When, was the last time you have confessed your sins openly, my child?"

Veronica reaches into her jacket pulling out the Berretta. She screws on slowly, the silencer and pulls the hammer allowing it to click back, giving a unique and distinguishable sound; a sound that even if one never shot a gun, would know. The Cardinal looks up and slowly turns his head to his left, with wide eyes.

"Father. I have never confessed my sins."

A flash goes off and the Cardinal falls to the floor of the booth. Veronica stands up and pushes the door open. She walks down the vacant aisles and follows the black and white marble flooring to the rectory.

There are many doors leading to many rooms, where her next target could be, but she knows where he is.

Walking up to the door of the library, Veronica stops. She puts her ear to the door, and immediately recognizes the sound. The low tones, the giggles, the sound of two people in love, trying to be inconspicuous as possible, the sounds that were made when her and her husband were together with a intrusive five year old is running around the house.

She steps back and with one swift kick at the door with her Timberland boot, the door opens and with deadly accuracy, one shot from the barrel of the Berretta hits the forehead of the priests lover. She falls to the floor.

Shocked and mortified the Priest, holds up his shaking hands and looks at Veronica.

"There are two things I hate in this world; people who kill for money and hypocrites, and you are both."

Veronica walks over to him and presses the barrel of the gun to his forehead. "Who hired you to kill my husband?"

The Priest stops shaken and looks up at Veronica. "What gives you the right to come into this house of god and kill a servant of his?"

"Are you serious? You in all your hypocritical glory, have the nerve to counsel me father? What gives you the right to kill my husband?"

"You and your husband, contract killers for the Government, you are nothing but a well paid thug."

"That may be so, but our killings made the world a better place. Who hired you? Who in our agency tipped you that we would be here?"

"You will not get any answer from me. You can kill me. I leave my life in the hands of god."

"Your faith is sickening. Stand up!"

With the barrel of the gun inches away from his head, Father Dubious stands. Veronica walks over to the book shelf and scans the selections.

"Now. Where is that book? Oh yes here it is, how fitting, Dante's inferno."

She pulls the book down and the wall next to it slowly slides open. The Priest month drops at seeing the secret passage.

Veronica turns with gun still pointed at the Priests head. She gestures for him to stand and moves to the side of the door.

"Now, down to a place that not even god can hear you scream."

The Priest is speechless. He moves down the steps with the Grim reaper behind him. Three feet into the vault, Veronica turns a knob and the passage is sealed. She flips a switch and a row of incandescent lights flicker on.

"Walk."

When father Dubious gets to the bottom of the stairs, he turns to her and screams. "You will burn in hell!"

"I am already there father. Walk."

She pushes him into a dark room. Turning to her left, she flicks a switch and a dim light turns on.

"If you answer me, you will go to be judged by your maker in peace. Who hired you?"

"I will never give you the answer."

"Your choice."

She walks over to a covered table and whips the dusty cover off revealing a piece of medieval torture technology, the sight of which makes the Priest shakes violently.

"One last time, who hired you?"

He looks over at her. "Please have mercy on my soul."

"Are you asking me, or god?"

He says nothing.

"Very well."

She points the gun to his knee and shots. He falls to the floor screaming in agony. Veronica slides him closer to the torture rack, all the while he struggles.

She stands over him and hits him in the head with the barrel of the gun, knocking him out.

Twenty minutes later, he wakens with his arms and legs tied to the rack. Veronica walks over to a skeleton hanging on some shackles attached to the wall.

"You see this man, or what used to be a man? He was an SS Corporal, his nick name was the Iron man, because of the way he fought the Allies during the war." She looks at him closer and touches his chin. "That was before I got a hold of him. I guess he wasn't made of iron after all. Who hired you Padre?"

"You will kill me if I don't tell you. You will kill me if I do tell you."

"True, but if you do, I will make things a whole lot easier for you. Who?"

He says nothing

She walks over to the right side of the table and clicks the wheel once. The Priest screams. She leans over and bits his right earlobe and then whispers in his ear.

"Do you feel that? That is your muscles contracting. The next click will be your muscles pulling. After that your muscles will tear, then you ligaments, until you are torn, limb to limb. Messy. Shall I click again?"

He says nothing. She turns the wheel another click.

"Who?"

"Stiles...John Stiles."

Veronica looks up and closes her eyes. She shakes her head and walks to the door.

"Wait. You said...you would do this quickly."

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned."

Veronica shoots a leaver at the bottom of the table, freeing a ten ton weight. She walks out and turns the light off. As she closes the iron door, the priest screams as the rack slowly pulls at him.

As she walks down the dark halls of the dungeon, tears roll down her face, reflectig back on her life.

Approaching a set of stairs that leads to a mausoleum, Veronica feels an eerie sense that someone or something is watching her. She takes out the gun and flicks the lighter. She turns slowly and surrounding her are Stone statues, watching her with piercing, judging eyes. She drops her head and feels something for the first time...a conscience, guilt.

"What was I to do? They killed my Frankie." She asks, as if the statues would give her some kind of response.

Falling to her knees she feels an almost instant, sense of comfort comes over her. She relaxes, and closes her eyes curling up into a fetal position on the floor.

A beam of the morning sun's light rests on Veronica face waking her. She takes a deep breath and stands, coughing from the dust on the floor. The tomb and the statues of saints and patrons of the early church are revealed.

Veronica brushes herself off and looks around her, sighing as she walks over to an iron door leading to the garden. Before leaving, she looks back pausing for a long moment.

"Forgive me."

Walking through the garden she passes a crowed that has convened at the doors of the Cathedral, shocked and appalled that someone would have the gall tom kill two people of god. The local police have barricaded the area as the two bodies were carried out. Veronica could over hear conversation of people, talking about how they heard the Cardinal may have been responsible. Veronica slowly drops her head and another feeling comes upon her that she has never felt before, remorse. A sanctioned kill was nothing new to her, but this was the very first time, that those at the end of her gun, were beloved by spiritual people.

"What have I done?" She says in low tone.

"Don't feel too bad Ronnie. They were the bad guys."

Veronica turns and looks at Archie. "I want out. I don't ever want to see you again."

"Before you decide that, I need you to come with me."

Reluctantly she follows Archie past the police and media, into the church. There are around fifty people going over the scene inside, taking pictures, and interviewing workers of the church. Flood lights shining on dark corners of the alter looking for a clue as to who could have done this. Archie turns and looks at Veronica and grins. "You don't leave much to investigate."

He walks her to a set of steps leading down into a grotto. They both walk down and he point to a room at the end of a hall, where she hears voices. She turns to look at Archie.

"Open the door."

She opens the door and sees Francis sitting at a table talking to a man. The conversation stops as she looks at him with fire in her eyes. She sits down, and pulls the gun from the holster and lays it on the table. She looks at Francis and moves away from him as he moves closer to her

"You have five minutes to explain, to me why you are still alive."

"I needed to die Ronnie, in order to flush out a mole. It had to be done to protect you and our daughter."

"You couldn't tell me that?"