Chosen Ch. 05

I'm a Navy sailor, not a master spy. My paperwork had Fermin Ramos on it and I didn't have the slightest idea how to get paperwork that said anything else. I was taking on a crazy amount of risk.

The trip to Haiti had been chancy, but the weather had cooperated and the small fiberglass hulled sailboat, pushed along by a motor as long as the fuel had held out, had done what I'd hoped it would do – avoid notice. I had the sense to reserve a little fuel for docking – I'm passably competent with a sail boat but no expert, and landing at a pier in strong wind is not easy. I didn't want to damage the boat, seeing as it was not mine.

I left one hundred dollars in a baggie attached to the throttle. Odds weren't great that either the boat or the cash would find their way back to the original owner – Haiti is a poor country and known for theft – but my conscience didn't know what else to do.

Another fifty dollars attracted the attention of a taxi – more accurately one of the blindingly colorful tap-tap buses that scour Haiti looking for anything wanting to be taken anywhere. I discovered that my skill at Spanish was almost useless here – Haitian borrows more from French than anything – but I managed to get across that I needed to be at the Port Au Prince airport. The driver nodded. Then I made the universal hand motion for driving and a thumbs up, the universal pantomime for sleep and a thumbs down. He nodded no and made a thumbs down. I'd apparently overestimated the poverty here; he wasn't giving up sleep for fifty dollars.

I offered another thirty. He hesitated, and then got on the 1970s style two way radio in the cab. A few minutes of swift conversation passed, and he gave me the thumbs up.

I climbed into the back of the little passenger space and he took off. There was no room to stand – there was barely room to sit - and the roads were rough. I was jostled and had to brace myself to keep my head from banging into the low ceiling.

He stopped once after thirty minutes to pick someone up; they went in the tiny cab in front with him. A driver for the nighttime, I realized.

He found smoother road and I slept, hard. The boat trip had not allowed much sleep.

When I woke, there were three other passengers in the back, all locals. (White people without significant knowledge of Haitian culture are generally advised to avoid taking tap-taps.)

The biggest of the locals was very curious about me. When he saw I was awake, he took out and slowly unfolded a knife. The other two completely ignored us.

"You missionary?" The accent was thick but understandable. It didn't matter, because the knife spoke clearly.

My knowledge of Haiti was scarce, but I knew that the Haitian people have one of two views on white missionaries. Most love them; they are rich people (by Haitian standards, almost everyone else is) bringing badly needed aid. But it was still okay to steal from them, because they were so very rich. The other view was from vodou practitioners. They hated the missionaries; violence wasn't unheard of and kidnapping for ransom was nearly a national pastime with them. The Navy had been clear about it – if you don't have family in Haiti, don't go there.

I didn't know enough to know what I was facing, but the knife set the tone. I was at the very least going to be robbed.

I had the bell in the duffle bag at my feet. It occurred to me that I could unwrap it and hand it to him. He'd certainly ring it, and my problem would be solved.

I started to bend towards my bag. But something in me suddenly rebelled at the idea.

I would not kill him. Not that way at least.

I nodded assent to his question, and he shifted his grip on the knife, which told me as much as I ever needed to know. My fist shot forward without warning and my other hand engaged his wrist, slamming his knife hand against the tap-tap's low ceiling.

His head snapped back against the wall of the tap-tap and the knife clattered from his hand. He'd probably expected a turn-the-other-cheek attitude instead of a Navy response. I got the knife before he could recover, folded it and put it in my shirt pocket.

He shook his head and snarled. But before he could try anything stupid, one of the other passengers opened a knife and pressed it against his ribs. "Out," he said.

My assailant banged on the metal wall twice, the signal for the driver to stop. He got out with a helpful push from the other two passengers. Once we were underway again, I flung the knife out the back.

Apparently not keeping the knife got me points with the other knife-wielding passenger. "You go to Port Au Prince?" he said, in very rough English.

I nodded yes.

"Long drive. You sleep," he said. "I make sure you get there. Bondye beni."

+++

My missing paperwork for the entrance to Haiti didn't even raise an eyebrow at the airport. I got an email off to "Alan", my contact in New York, and was in the air forty minutes later. This didn't mean I was home and dry – if I was going to be apprehended for dereliction of duty (and by now they had to know I'd deserted) it would be at the airport in New York, not here.

I slept again – for real this time – on the flight.

My arrival in New York was utterly anti-climactic. No nice Navy personnel, no unusual questions... I met my contact in the arrival lounge, handed him the package, and he handed me an envelope with a small pile of hundred dollar bills. I hadn't lost money on the trip.

He excused himself – he had a flight to catch.

I shrugged and got a taxi to the nearest naval base, the Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey. I'd been gone for four days but the Navy could only prove I was derelict for three of them, which meant I'd only be busted in rank, perhaps not imprisoned. Maybe.

Just over an hour and a half later I was dropped off at the gate, and I showed my id to the guard. "Reporting in," I said grimly. They'd have my name; by now every naval base in the world did.

The guard did a brief check. "Head down to the FFSC. Down the road on your left. Enjoy the hike."

"That's it?"

He looked at my insignia. "What the hell, you expected a limo? Get out of here."

I hiked, befuddled.

I checked in at the orientation center. I was told my transfer had gone through just a few hours before I arrived and they hadn't expected me so soon, but the paperwork was in order and they'd have lodging opened up for me within an hour. "You're not here long," he said. "Just six months. So the accommodations will be a little less than your rank usually gets you. We're crowded these days."

I just stared at him.

"Oh," he said. "And... Sorry to hear about your parents. I hope they pull through."

"Thanks," I said, woodenly. My parents were fine and I certainly hadn't requested a transfer. Had Michael arranged this – somehow? But that wasn't possible. Arranging transfers took time and transferring out of Guantanamo was a big deal. And he hadn't even known when I was arriving; I'd had no interest in leaving a paper trail with Navy personnel.

"Enjoy your stay," he said. He handed me a base map with my future lodgings circled.

I nodded and hiked out again. When I settled I sent Michael an email, asking if he'd arranged all this.

He replied immediately. He knew nothing about it and swore blind that he'd mentioned my proposed travel to no one but Alan.

I looked around at my new accommodations, and shivered a little. My reckless journey had turned wreckless. There'd be no hearing, no fuss...

Bondye beni, my Haitian all-volunteer guard had said, on the bus. On a whim I opened a translation page, and got the spelling right on the second try.

God bless.

I shivered a little harder.

***

"Mister... Laurel. We'd like a word." A badge got flashed.

I looked around the airport arrival lounge. There was no compelling reason for security to have taken an interest in me at this time. The flight to Spain had gone smoothly. My paperwork was in order, however dishonest it was.

"What? I'm sorry, but what is this about?" There were two of them, both armed. I wasn't going anywhere they didn't want me to go.

"Apologies, Mister... Laurel." The other said. His Spanish accent turned the vowels rich. "We require you to follow us please."

I had the candle in my carry-on. I'd finally learned the secret of travelling with it – if I ignored women, if I showed the self-control of a saint and meditated on purer things, the candle could be carried extinguished, without turning me into a lusting animal. It was not an easy thing to do, and it brought home to me just how much of a woman watcher I'd become. One of the stewardesses on the plane had inadvertently become my own personal demon on the flight.

The last thing I wanted now more interaction with people. Being pure was exhausting, and Spanish airports, like everything else in Spain, were full of attractive women. I wanted to get to a hotel room, alone.

One of the guards unholstered his gun, and gestured with it. That's just bad manners anywhere, but it got his point across.

"Not without an explanation," I said, politely but firmly. I had to know what I was dealing with. They were both airport security, which meant they were fully authorized to arrest, and Spain was a little less permissive than the US when it came to rights of the accused.

It wasn't a country I would have returned to anytime soon, if it wasn't for the somehow-urgent business I was involved in.

"You are accused of being accessory to a crime. Come quietly. Now."

Accessory to a crime? I was generally the primary perpetrator - that's how I earned my commissions. That probably meant this was about the heist six years ago, in England... someone had died in that heist and it was not a set of charges I wanted to face. But it was almost impossible that anyone had me on that.

I raised an eyebrow at him. He was a clichéd tough cop - mirrored glasses, a face that was principally there to support a jutting jaw, and lips that had never in his lifetime smiled. My experience with these sorts suggested he was everything his face indicated. A raised eyebrow was as far as I'd go with him.

"Yes, officer. I'm sure this is some kind of mixup."

He gestured again and I walked, bag slung over my shoulder. An unmarked door opened to his key, and he waited for me to enter. Not a conversationalist.

Three men were inside the small room – two obvious officer types at a table, and to my surprise, a priest. Worse, a priest whose face I recognized, from his papers on Spanish history.

The two officers escorted me in and looked prepared to settle, but one of the officers in front of me looked up. "Martinez, Alandro, thank you... back to patrolling for you. This is CNI business now."

The door closed behind me. The officers smiled pleasantly at me. I smiled awkwardly back, just another confused but honest traveler.

CNI was the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, the Spanish CIA. I didn't understand how they could be involved in anything I'd ever done, but clearly they were, which meant I was in an impossible amount of trouble.

"Mister Alan Saint Laurent. Please have a seat."

"Ah, no, I see the confusion now," I said, and pointed a thumb at my chest. "Alvin Santiago Laurel. Something about the last name... people get it wrong all the time."

"Please have a seat and do not waste our time."

I was screwed. I had the bell and the candle and here was a priest with the background needed to identify them as antiquities. There was an outstanding warrant for my arrest in Spain for Alan Saint Laurent, antiquities thief. Between the two there was no way I'd be able to convince anyone I wasn't a man in need of an extended interaction with the Spanish judicial system.

I sat, smiling pleasantly. The priest appeared to be meditating. The officers sat back; one pushed a folder my way as he did. Warrant for arrest, my picture, some photographs of artifacts I'd trafficked in. They had more on me than I'd thought.

"It will make for a long stay in Spain," he said.

"You won't make any of it stick," I replied, calmly.

"They will," said the priest, looking up at me abruptly. He had piercing grey eyes and thick grey hair, and in his sudden intensity he looked a lot less like the academic theologian I vaguely knew him as. "Don't be a fool, Mister Saint Laurent. This is the end of the road... unless you cooperate."

"Cooperate?"

He leaned forward, hands coming together, fingers steepling. "Where is the book, Senor Alan Saint Laurent."

+++

So much, I thought, for being the only one alive who knew about the bell, book and candle.

"I honestly do not know," I told the priest. "You are Doctor Jose Estrella, aren't you? If anyone knew I'd hoped it would be you."

"You know," he said. "You must. You would not have returned to Spain risking conviction if you didn't have two and know where the third was. Your plan was to recover and leave before you were noticed."

"If I knew where the book was, Father, I would not have come myself. I'd have sent someone to recover it and bring it to me."

"Don't Father me," he said. "You're not anything like a practicing Catholic, and if you were, you'd be up for excommunication yourself, for your many crimes against the church."

"Theft gets you excommunicated these days? Standards have slipped."

"Theft of the Genevieve relics justifies a heavier hand."

"That wasn't me," I lied. Well, not lied. Exaggerated. I hadn't done the snatch, but I'd organized and fenced. "But excommunicate away. It's not really an effective threat against me."

He closed his eyes. "Don't be a child. Your disdain for the faith isn't in doubt. We're not bargaining, I'm just trying to impress on you how seriously we take this. When the candle went missing we knew who and we suspected why. When it didn't show up on the market, we knew the why for certain. You're collecting a set."

"Theft of a candle? Sorry, no idea about that." If he thought I'd somehow forgotten about the two curiously silent officers in the room, he was mistaken.

He sighed, eyes still closed. "Officers, please go. Don't go far."

They departed. I raised an eyebrow at him. He opened his eyes and raised one back.

"The confessional is open," he said, a bit wearily.

"You don't have that much time today," I said. "But if this conversation can actually be covered by confessional privilege..."

"There's no part of the faith you're afraid to twist to your advantage, is there, Saint Laurent."

"Not really. Oddly I have respect for the institution as a whole, but you and I know that most relics are historically invalid. The only value is in cash. I'm just accessing trapped economic potential."

"And damaging the faith of some. Symbols don't have to be historically valid to be effective."

"Faith that fragile is no concern of mine. So about that confessional privilege..."

"Sí, granted. You've already figured out that to the church, recovery of the candle and bell are more important than having you prosecuted. Which is saying something. Confess all, my wayward son."

I opened my shoulder bag and took out a thin box. The flip of a catch, a twist of my wrist, and I had the candle unrolled from the silk I'd wrapped it in. "You'll find it anyway. So yes, I have the bell and candle... Speaking as one historian to another, if you touch that I'll punch you in the face," I added pleasantly.

"I have no desire to touch it, knowing what I know about it. Desire for women is a burden I'm still hoping to get beyond."

I eyed his grey hair critically. His face turned sour. "I'm not as old as I look. And on that topic... at least one legend states the candle causes accelerated aging in those who, ah, use it. So take a good look at me; you could see it in a mirror tomorrow."

I rolled the candle back up again. "I don't know where the book is. And that I will swear before God. The bell was found in the Caribbean. The book could be anywhere in the world. I came here to research where it came from, hoping to learn where it went to. So now what? I'm of no use to you. You take the candle and bell and turn me over to the police? Or the CNI?"

"The two that just left aren't officers. Just actors. We knew you were coming and we just freed you from airport security."

I stared at him. "You impersonated the CNI? A priest condones this?"

"Consider it an act of mercy. You'd have gotten at least twenty years if we hadn't intervened. You have an ethical problem with this?"

"No. In fact I suddenly feel like we can do business. So what do I get, instead of twenty years?"

"My help. In exchange for which, the set of... artifacts is returned to the church and buried again, as was meant to be."

I shook my head. "No. Whatever these artifacts are, whatever this is about, I intend to see it through."

"By which you mean sell them to the church, or the highest bidder."

I hesitated. "No."

"No, señor?"

I paused, gathering my thoughts. He waited.

"No. Understand me, I'm everything you think I am. I've stolen for years. I'd sell Jesus's crown of thorns if I could find it. But this... the candle and the bell both have... what else can you call it? Power. Suddenly the things I made light of, there is something more to them than I thought. I need to understand. What's behind these items? What makes them powerful? Not God, given what this candle does, but something. All my life I thought I was dealing in historical frauds and trinkets. Maybe I wasn't."

"You mostly were. We have some idea what thefts you've been involved in, though we can't prove most of it. Not much had true historical relevance. Your recent gem heist... The Blessed Mary never owned that gem. We've been trying to quash that rumor for about three hundred years. But the book, bell and candle are different. Not perhaps sacred, but they are still real in their power. Real, and dangerous. And they must be buried again, separated, lost."

"Why? What happens otherwise?"

"I don't know. I think no one living does. But the notes we have are very, very clear. They must remain separate, but intact."

"And your notes are from...?"

"An anonymous Dominican priest in 1398, somewhere around Cordoba. He gave the bell to a lay priest with instructions to bring it to the coast and get it on a ship. Tradition said it went to Africa and it was hoped it was lost there."

"You're being very helpful," I said. "So now for the big question. How did these three objects gain their powers?"

"We don't know," Jose said. "Records were destroyed. I've collected as much as I think can be found. From the questions you've been asking local historians, you're edging towards the same knowledge, or at least you're on the same path I took."

"I've gotten nowhere," I said honestly. "A story of magic. Two churches burned, clearly in an attempt to destroy records that someone in the church was protecting and someone else wanted lost. Priests sworn to secrecy and refusing to talk, one even under torture. And this is over fifty years, it is not some minor scandal being covered up, it is something that scared a generation of priests. And then, silence. The problem, whatever it was, was solved. By sending the bell and presumably the book far away, and hiding the candle in a church where it could never be found. But what there is no trace of, is the event when these three ordinary church items become extraordinary."

He looked at me, somberly. "You care very much about this."

"Care? Alan Saint Laurent cares for nothing and no one. But I have to understand. You and I know the biggest secret in the world – there is such a thing as magic."

He shook his head. "Not like that. Not spells and invoking demons and things like that. This is nothing like that."