The Brotherhood of the Rose (36 page)

But Chris... Saul's throat ached... Chris had been different. His conditioning had failed. The killing at last had tormented him. He must have gone through hell trying to satisfy Eliot and deny his conscience. Even the monastery couldn't save him.

Tears streamed down Saul's face, their unaccustomed warmth shocking. His eyes stung, swollen. He hadn't cried since he'd been a five-year-old at Franklin. He clung to Erika, weeping.

At last his own conditioning failed. Anger aggravated sorrow, grief fed rage till something broke in him, a lifetime's restraint letting loose so grim a resolve its power frightened him. He'd never experienced anything like it, a surging need that for all its pain promised utter satisfaction. "You bastard." He gritted his teeth. "For those candy bars, you'll pay." The hate in his voice astonished him. "That's right." Erika's voice shook. "Put the blame where it belongs. Not on you. On Eliot. He caused it. He and Landish and those other sonsofbitches."

Nodding, Saul raged. In fury, he understood. He had to get revenge for Chris.

The sharp knock startled him. A key scraped in the lock.

He swung to the opening door as Orlik's ferret face appeared with a guard. "Our agreement was fifteen minutes,"

"I'm ready." Saul seethed, impatient. "Set it up."

"I already have. You leave right now, though Erika remains, of course. As my insurance."

"If she's harmed."

"Please." Orlik looked offended. "I'm a gentleman as much as a professional."

"Insurance?" Erika frowned. :"If you prefer, an added incentive." "What you don't understand," Saul said, "is I've got all the incentive I need."

"To do it your way," Orlik said. "But I want you to do it mine. When my enemy looks for someone to blame, it has to be you, not me." His eyes gleamed. "I hope you've recovered from the sedative."

"Why?"

"You're about to accomplish an amazing escape."

Saul scrambled to the top of the ridge, catching his breath as he scanned the twilit landscape. Behind him, mist filled the valley. Ahead, thick fir trees beckoned. Smelling their resin, he charged among them, hearing the bay of dogs on his trail. They'd been louder since he'd crossed the meadow back there. He'd tried to find a stream and race along it, hiding his scent, but luck had failed. Sweat stuck his shirt to his chest.

The dogs sounded louder. Orlik had predicted correctly. Against the dogs, Saul's best choice was north toward the wooden high ground. He hoped to find a cliff the dogs couldn't climb, a chasm they couldn't jump across. But again his luck had failed him.

Evening made the forest damp, His sweat felt slick as he scrambled through the undergrowth. The dogs barked closer. Passing an open swath to his right, he saw the dots of lights in a town, but he couldn't risk heading there. Orders would have been received, sentinels posted. His best route was farther north, through the territory he liked best-the high hills and the forest. He loved the smell of the loam he raced across.

Thick brambles tore his clothes. Dense branches raked his skin. Despite the swelling stings, he felt exhilarated. Adrenaline spurred his senses. As if he'd struggled through a maze, he rejoiced in release. He triumphed.

Except for the dogs. They crashed through the bushes, relentless, closer. Leaping a deadfall, he charged up a shadowy slope, hearing forest animals skitter away as if they sensed an imminent kill. He chose a game trail to his left, rounding a boulder, scrambling toward a plain.

And found himself in the graveyard Orlik had predicted. Headstones jutted before him, silhouetted against the gloaming. Marble angels spread their wings. Cherubs mourned. Against the dying sunset, mist created halos. Everything seemed preordained. He darted among the graves. A wreath and then a single blossom caught his attention. He heard the scratch of claws behind him. He turned to face the undergrowth and reached in his pocket. Orlik had told him not to use it unnecessarily.

Now it was. He screwed off the cap and poured the pungent cloying chemical on a newly filled-in mound. At once he darted past a hedge and disappeared in the gathering night. The flowers smelled of funerals.

But not for him, he thought. And not for the guards he'd slammed with the heel of his palm at Orlik's chateau, holding back. Though his enemies, they'd live. And Orlik would get what he wanted, a convincing escape without the sacrifice of his men.

Behind, he heard the anguished howl of the dogs, their nostrils tortured, useless. They'd scrape at their faces till the smell of blood obscured the chemical. But they wouldn't chase him any longer.

There'd be a funeral all right. Not his, but soon, he thought, anticipating. He was too much in love with hate to squander it, The car was hidden where Orlik had said it would be-ir the shadows behind a boarded-up service station on a secondary road outside Lyon. A three-year-old Renault, its gray inconspicuous, blending with the night. Saul approached it warily, checking the road and the trees around the station before he crept from bushes toward the side away from the road. He'd taken a French MAB 9-nim pistol from one of the guards at Orlik's chiteau. Aiming it, he peered through the window toward the back floor. Seeing no one, he opened the car and found-as Orlik had promised keys beneath the front mat. He checked to make sure the car had not been booby-trapped, using matches he found on the dash, scanning the engine, then crawling underneath to inspect the suspension. He opened the trunk, where he found the clothes and equipment Orlik had guaranteed he'd supply. Though Saul had other sources, money and identification he'd hidden years before in various countries, he was reassured by Orlik's adherence to their bargain. For certain he intended to make good on his own.

Even so, he was bothered that Orlik hadn't released Erika, though he understood the logic. Orlik had put himself under suspicion by allowing Saul to escape. It would be more believable if Erika hadn't escaped as well. She'd be a way of forcing Saul to do things as Orlik wanted. But he couldn't subdue the suspicion Orlik had another motive. What if when this was over Orlik planned to use her to lure Saul back, then kill them both and present them as trophies, absolving himself from responsibility for what Saul had done?

The complexities were quicksand, sucking him deep. But this he knew--Orlik wouldn't betray them till his purpose was achieved. In the meantime, Saul's direction was clear before him, extremely simple.

Chris was dead. There would be hell to pay. He started the Renault. It idled easily, sounding recently tuned, its gas tank full.

He drove to the road"his headlights gleaming through the dark. He chose a lane, then another, watching for pursuit lights in his mirror. Seeing none, he turned onto the next main road and, obeying the limit, headed west.

Orlik had chosen his targets, five, the descendants of the original Abelard group. But Orlik hadn't stipulated who came first.

He planned to abandon this car as quickly as he could. Despite his search, he might have missed a transmitter beeping his location to a surveillance team staying far enough back to hide their lights. They didn't matter.

Nothing did. Except revenge. It gave him pleasure to think the skills his father had taught him would be the weapons he'd used to destroy him.

Hey, old man, I'm coming. He clenched the steering wheel so hard his knuckles ached. And sometime in the night, Chris sat beside him, face gaunt, eyes dead, grinning as if they were kids again, about to start another adventure.

The best kind. Getting even.

"What? Excuse me? I didn't hear what you said." Eliot slowly roused himself. He sat at the desk in his study, peering up as if he'd been concentrating on important papers, though there were none and the lamps were off and the drapes were closed. He squinted at the open door, at a husky man outlined by the light from the hall.

The man had his legs spread, his arms slightly away from his sides. He was tall, his face square.

Eliot frowned. For an instant he didn't recognize the manor rather he feared he did. It looked like Chris.

Had Chris survived and come for him? Impossible. Landish had guaranteed Chris was... Dark against the light, the shape looked... Dead? Impossible. Then was it Saul who, having slipped in? past the guards around the house, was now confronting him?

Not yet. Too soon. But the explanation disturbed him, for he realized the figure reminded him now only of Chris and Saul, but all the others, nine pairs, eighteen orphans, all his foster sons. He told himself he'd loved them. Didn't his throat ache when he thought of them?

Wasn't his grief a proof he hadn't acted callously? His pain in sacrificing them had made his mission more heroic.

Fifteen now were dead, though-maybe another if Saul became too eager. Saul wasn't likely to, however. The pattern seemed predetermined. I've never believed in luck, he thought. Or fate. I put my faith in skill. But as he studied the figure in the doorway, he experienced a momentary hallucination, all his dead children superimposed on one another. He shivered. He'd chosen their cryptonyms from Greek and roman mythology, indulging his love of complexity, but now he recalled something else from that mythology-the Furies. The avenging Shades.

He cleared his throat, repeating, "I didn't hear what you said."

"Are you all right?" Pollux stepped forward. "What makes you think I wouldn't be?"

"I heard you talking in here."

Troubled, Eliot didn't remember having done so. Pollux continued, "I couldn't figure who you'd be talking to. For sure, nobody got past me. Then I thought of the phone, but where I stood in the hall I could see it was still on the hook. "I'm fine. I must be... thinking out loud, I suppose. No need to worry."

"Can I bring you anything)"

"No, I guess not." "I could heat up some cocoa."

Nostalgic, Eliot smiled. "When you and Castor were young and you came to visit, I used to bring cocoa to you. Remember? Just before you went to sleep."

"How could I forget?"

"Our positions have been reversed it seems. And do you plan to take care of your father in his old age?"

"For you? You know I'd do anything."

Eliot nodded, in pain from emotion. Fifteen others had given everything. "I know. I'm fine. I just need time to myself. I love you. Have you eaten?"

"Soon."

"Make sure you do. And your brother?"

"He's down the hall, watching the back."

"I'll join you shortly. We'll talk about the old days."

Pollux departed. Leaning back exhausted, Eliot fondly remembered the summer of '54 when he had taken Castor and Pollux to... was it Yellowstone Park? Too many years had passed too quickly. His recollection sometimes failed him. Perhaps it had been the Grand Canyon. No. That had been in '56. Castor hadwith a shudder, he realized how horribly wrong he was. His mind recoiled with dismay. Not Castor and Pollux. No, dear God, it had been another pair, and he almost wept because he couldn't remember who. Chris and Saul perhaps. His Furies crowded closer. His mouth filled with bile.

He'd left the office in midafternoon as soon as his assistant had brought the news. "Romulus escaped? But everything was arranged, the trap confirmed! The KGB claimed they had him!"

"And the woman. Yes."

The assistant spoke reluctantly. "But he got away."

"How?"

"They caught him near Lyon. He broke from a chateau where he'd been taken to be executed."

"They were supposed to kill him on the spot!"

"It seems they wanted to interrogate him first."

"That wasn't the agreement! How much damage did he do? How many guards did he kill?"

"None. The escape was clean."

It troubled him. "But they killed the woman?"

"No, they're questioning her to find out where he went." He shook his head. "It's wrong."

"But they claim-"

"It's wrong. They lie. It's a trick."

"But why?"

"Someone let him go."

"I don't see what the motive would be."

"Isn't it obvious? To come for me." The assistant narrowed his eyes.

And that was when Eliot, realizing his assistant thought he was paranoid, had left the building, taking Castor and Pollux with him. Since then, he'd been sitting in his shadowy den, protected for now by guards around the house and his two remaining faithful sons in here.

But he couldn't continue like this forever. He couldn't merely wait. Despite the Shades that haunted him, he didn't believe in fate. I've always depended on skill, he thought. And wile I taught him. I can out-guess him. What would I do if I were Saul?

The moment he knew what question to ask, the answer came all at once. Thrilling, it gave him another chance. But only if he acted quickly.

He had to get through to Landish. Saul would savor revenge, making stops along the way, increasing the terror.

Landisti'll be his first target. We can set up a trap.

Again he felt he'd been here before, seeming to see not only Franklin but the walls of Andrew Sage's estate as well, Everything was coming together. Eliot had used the school to pervert him. One of the consequences was the Paradigm job. Understanding, he grimly delighted in his sense of heading back to where it all began. When he'd blown up Sage's estate, he'd felt nothing. There'd been a job to do. He'd done it for Eliot. But everything was different now. For the first time, he looked forward to a kill. Comparing the walls of Sage's estate with Landish's estate, he realized the change in himself. He wanted to kill, and it pleased him that the method he'd chosen was the method he'd used to kill Sage. He savored the irony, using Eliot's tactics against him. I told you, Landish, how I d punish you if you lied. Dammit, my brother's dead. Imagining the walls of Franklin School, he felt his eyes burn, swollen with tears.