The Dead Saint (4 page)

On Thursday morning the sun rose in a spectacle of mauve and mango, lilac and lapis. The colors changed like a dance of veils. Lynn watched the performance through the semicircle of east windows in her study, a small room nestled in the second-story turret. Favorite books and photos of loved ones lined the shelves. Last night's envelope from the limo ride rested on her lap, still sealed, enticing her toward a strange new doorway.

One that might slam closed and lock behind you, Lynn.

She willed her mind to ignore Ivy and the envelope's distraction and began the day in her favorite way—silently centering herself, trying to stay grounded in a slippery society. A challenge any day but especially today, for the sun rose on a scarier world than yesterday. Just
yesterday?

She poured a cup of green tea from the calico pot, the steam rising aromatically. She watched the small stream hit her blue teacup with a dainty splash. She'd chosen blue because Luwuh, an eighth-century Chinese poet, considered it the ideal color as it lent additional greenness to the tea. And he should know—famous for formulating the Code of Tea in
Chaking.
She took a sip and set the teacup on the glass-topped coffee table beside the white roses. They were her favorite flowers because they bloomed in the midst of thorns and offered a fragrance almost holy.

The table doubled as a display case for vanity. It held her certificates and mementos, her writings regarding the church, trinkets symbolizing honors. She'd left an empty space, book-sized, in the corner. A silly thing to do, but it symbolized her secret dream: writing a novel. Someday, when she had time. She'd completed the first and only word:
Secrets.
The display case was a private vanity since no one else saw it, but vanity nonetheless. Vanity, she thought, my worst habit of the heart. Some would say sin, but she'd deleted
sin
from her vocabulary. Sin led to guilt and guilt led to dysfunction. A habit, on the other hand, could be changed. It left room for hope.

As always, she focused for a few minutes on precious Lyndie at sixteen, the final photograph of their only child, whose smile brought the light of dawn. Taken from them yet always with them. Each morning at sunrise she held Lyndie in her heart while the silence played a symphony of cherished memories. Each year on Lyndie's birthday she added another candle to an imaginary cake and tried to add another year to her image, wondering what she would be like at this new age, nineteen now. Sometimes Lynn felt tossed about in an eternal sea of grief. Occasionally, she was strong enough to let the celebration of Lyndie's life overshadow the agony of its brevity. Evagrius, the wise fourth-century analyst of the human soul, came to mind this morning as he often did in these circumstances. She understood what he meant when he said that despair is rooted in the sacrifice of the past life for the present one.

She poured a second cup of tea, recalling Luwuh's words: The first cup moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my loneliness. She sank back into the white wicker settee, curled up her legs on the dawn-colored cushions, and faced the envelope left by Vice President Parker. She'd been too drained to deal with it after Bubba left late last night. The envelope appeared harmless. No return address in gold ink. No presidential seal. No addressee in fancy script. No watermark of fine paper. It reminded her of the common envelopes at Walgreen's.

She picked it up. An ordinary item with an extraordinary impact. It seemed to generate its own heat, like an omen. "Oh, Lyndie." Her monologues with her precious daughter were common in this snug space so filled with her presence. "I dread opening it."

Rightly so, Lynn. It could lead you down an irreversible path to things you don't want to know and places you don't want to go.

Sometimes Ivy irritated her. Sometimes she offered wisdom, like now. But Lynn's curiosity won. As always. Inch by inch, her faltering hands unsealed the envelope. Fine splits tore along the flap demonstrating that this common envelope was not common at all, for it showed any attempt to open it. She heard the sound of her breathing and the pumping of her heart. Done!

She looked inside. "No white powder, Lyndie. No anthrax." Just another plain envelope, also unaddressed. She opened it also and found two items: a third envelope and a folded piece of paper. She knew without knowing that it would launch her into a new space. Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the brief note. It was handwritten in caps in an unnatural style.

Thank You in Advance for Delivering

This Letter To My Friend Marsh (With Nato)

At The Frankfurt International Airport When

You Change Planes For Vienna.

Nothing in it appeared clandestine. Nothing aroused suspicion. A common note without a signature. All she had to do was watch for a man named Marsh during their Frankfurt layover and give him the envelope. Simple enough. She was so relieved she almost felt disappointed.

How will you recognize this Marsh with NATO in a crowded airport, Lynn?

A worrisome question. She read the note again, recalling the Vice President's knowledge of her itinerary. How did they know it? What else do they know? She imagined a surveillance camera aimed at her windows and fought the impulse to pull the drapes. She decided to destroy the note like a good spy in a John le Carré novel.

She tore it into tiny slivers and flushed them down the toilet, watching them swirl away to the sewer. My first act as a courier, she thought, feeling sneaky instead of patriotic. She didn't like the feeling. Secrets make us sick.

"Well, Lyndie, how is that for being overdramatic!" She visualized her daughter smiling and wagging her head.

Her cell phone rang. She jumped like a criminal caught destroying evidence. "Hello."

"Bishop Lynn, this is Bubba." He skipped the customary Southern detour through preliminaries. "I've been thinking about something and have a favor to ask."

"Name it, you have it."

"Do you have any time this morning?"

Her photographic memory pictured her calendar. She could adjust her schedule until eleven. "Sure, Bubba, but I have to be at a meeting at eleven."

"Is nine too soon?"

"That's fine."

"Shall I come by?"

You know where you need to meet him, Lynn.

Against every instinct to the contrary, she named the place. His question. Her answer. Silence. Reluctant agreement.

Before she went downstairs, she hid President Benedict's envelope in a drawer like a good courier.

How do you know it's really from the President, Lynn?

The midmorning sun streamed through the open, gray-toned drapes and fell across the tidy surface of the Patriot's desk. He thought about his Platinum Rule of zero tolerance as he listened again to the recent phone conversation on President Benedict's secure line.
Secure!
Within a month of her election, his elite on the inside, code-named Lone Star, had provided him access to
all
of her communications. He smiled to himself, then frowned. Stealing another's privacy was a grave matter. Grave but necessary.

The President of the United States was the most powerful person in the world and therefore, he thought, the most dangerous. Unfortunately the power of this POTUS, like all the others, exceeded her judgment. He hadn't known what to expect from the first woman to hold that office, but it surprised him to find her to be less compliant than her predecessors. She discounted the basic principle of career politics: The top priority is reelection. Mind the money. It gave her unprecedented freedom from lobbyists and nonprofit foundations like his. She seemed willing to sacrifice the pragmatism of self-interest for the idealism of the common good. Her naiveté or altruism—he had yet to decide which—complicated his life, and he didn't like it. Or her. But, of course, he wouldn't show it.

What troubled him most at the moment, however, was finding Darwish's surreptitious report, if it existed. Over the years the Patriot had supplemented his D. C. contacts with a cadre of a dozen international specialists. World-class in their fields—and in their pay. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Snipers. Bomb experts. Investigators. Tech prodigies. He founded his elite system on three immutable precautions: One, no one was permitted to know the Patriot's identity nor the identity or codename of anyone else in the cadre. Two, no one had access to more than one piece of the puzzle in any operation. Three, they were never given related assignments where their paths might cross. Since they knew nothing, they could reveal nothing. He also used totally separate and untraceable communication with each member of the elite team. Sometimes, as with the Darwish information, these essential precautions forced him to step outside his cadre and deal with less able people, even unsavory men like Cabrioni. Unpleasant but necessary.

Cabrioni's best man had beaten the FBI to Darwish's apartment and had searched it thoroughly.
Neat and complete,
Cabrioni had reported on the secure phone message. No computer. No flash drives. No names. No dates. Nothing. As clean as my daddy's liquor cabinet after Mama cleared it out when he died—God rest his soul.

Was Cabrioni lying? He wouldn't dare.
No one
betrayed the Patriot. Zero tolerance. He smiled. His exaggerated reputation gave him power beyond his means. Swiveling his chair toward the credenza, he rubbed his fingers across the cool bronze bust of John F. Kennedy. Many citizens continued to wonder whether the New Orleans Mafia was connected to JFK's assassination. That was understandable. How could a misfit with a twelve-dollar rifle from a mail-order catalogue take down the President of the United States! A Mafia conspiracy seemed more reasonable. He suspected that the Society of St. Sava knew the truth and guarded the secret both carefully and advantageously.

He also suspected that Elias Darwish was a member of St. Sava, his football career merely a cover. The Patriot's search for verification produced nothing. Yet the lack of proof itself was proof enough. Even the CIA had been unable to link anyone with St. Sava or, for that matter, find any concrete evidence of its existence. Invisibility was the trademark of the ancient secret society.

The bust of Kennedy faced toward Ronald Reagan's, appropriate pieces for the presidential décor of his office. They perched on tall stands at opposite ends of the credenza. A
fleur-de-lis
was carved on the front of each upper panel. The stands looked identical. But when he rubbed his thumb across the
fleur-de-lis
on JFK's stand, the panel dropped into the base, revealing bins for secure phones and SIM cards, passports, foreign cash, and a small secure laptop and flash drives.

His mind turned again to Darwish's information. Though nothing had been found, the existence of a report continued to haunt him. Someone wanted it! Had Darwish memorized the information, fearful of recording it? Fearful of the risk of someone finding evidence that he was more than a football player? Had he planned to deliver it personally? If so, he was a fool! A dead fool stopped in time.

An unwelcome question rose from his viscera and throbbed through his blood. Could Elias Darwish have been innocent? Unthinkable! He shook
off
the question and returned to the matter at hand.

He listened once more to the President's call to the Secretary of Defense. It seemed innocuous. Her request for a personal favor was not noteworthy. Neither was her desire to protect Lynn Peterson, a bishop in Benedict's denomination who was headed into harm's way in the Balkans. Nor was her specific request for Major Marshall Manetti, because, as she explained in her overheard words, He's a practicing Catholic and likely to be both respectful and comfortable around a bishop. He listened carefully for strain in her voice and found none.

But why did she use the secure line to make the call?

He intended to find out. But it would have to wait. Right now he had to prepare his strategy for the afternoon meeting. With a sigh he automatically straightened his red tie and faced the public side of his divided world. This afternoon he would don his charming public persona and join the Inner Circle at the Oval Office.

Lynn arrived before Bubba at Café du Monde. It was essential to return to Jackson Square. The sooner, the better. They had refused to let Katrina's tantrum force them from New Orleans, and no sniper's bullet would chase them from the Quarter!

The aura of déjà vu enshrouded her. She glanced at the corner backed by the fence where the mime had stood yesterday. Chilled despite the heat, she shuddered and locked her arms together across her chest. Her eyes carefully avoided the pavement where Elie fell.

Today was like every day in the Quarter. Nothing was different.
Everything
was different.

Cy Bill Bergeron, a mounted policeman, rode down St. Peter. He was another Katrina hero and one of the NOPD's most respected officers. He cut a dashing figure, wearing a black uniform from head to toe, sitting tall on his dark, shiny Percheron. Strong and agile like his rider, Ebony stood seventeen hands and weighed nearly a ton. Centuries ago his breed was ridden by knights in combat, and Lynn could visualize both Cy Bill and Ebony charging forth in chain mail. They knew how to put on a show just crossing the street. She wished he'd been patrolling Jackson Square yesterday morning. If anyone could have prevented the shooting, it was Cy Bill astride Ebony. At the very least, the mime wouldn't have escaped.

She saw Bubba in the distance, walking down Decatur like yesterday. But not like yesterday at all. He walked alone, head down, shoulders sagging. She knew that each painful step took far more courage than any feat on the football field. Cy Bill turned Ebony up Decatur toward the linebacker. He dismounted, leading his horse, and walked along beside Bubba. Folks need company on painful journeys.

"Hello, Bishop Lynn."

Lynn turned to the petite server, a porcelain doll in her white apron and cap with CAFE DU MONDE in green letters. "Good morning, Yoo-Sei."

She smiled and turned her head, pointing to the barrette Lynn had brought to her from her native Seoul. The hand-painted hibiscus looked lovely fastened around her long dark hair. "This is my favorite," she said in careful English.

"I'm glad you like it. I appreciated your teaching me those tricky Korean inflections before we went." Lynn smiled at her. "A friend's help makes all the difference."

"
Café au lait
and
beignets?"

"Please."

"Make it two," said Bubba.

"How about three, Cy Bill?" Lynn asked. "Can you join us?"

"You know I'd love to. But I have to keep moving." Ebony came to attention as he remounted, his eyes looking into their souls. "I'm glad to see you both back in the Quarter." Touching the brim of his black hat, he nodded and moved on, the horseshoes clicking sharply along the street.

Bubba folded like an accordion into the chrome chair, shrinking it to child size.

Yoo-Sei's dark eyes grew large as she recognized the Saints star linebacker. "Please, Mr. Bubba Broussard, would you sign a napkin for me?"

"My pleasure." His haggard face and downcast eyes contradicted his smile.

Holding the autographed napkin as proudly as an Oscar, she hurried off for the order.

After passable Southern niceties, Bubba came to the point. "Before we get to the favor I mentioned, I want to thank you again for inviting me for coffee last night."

"We're always happy to see you, Bubba."

"When I got home, I had the strangest feeling that someone had been there."

"Oh, Bubba! You didn't need that. Not yesterday."

"Nothing was missing, and nothing specifically seemed disturbed. But . . ." He brushed his palm across his head. "I don't know."

"It wasn't quite right? I know that feeling."

"I wondered if the Feds searched my condo while detaining me. Or if someone was there connected to Elie's . . ." He lowered his eyes and shook his head, leaving the word unsaid.

An unrushed silence followed.

She didn't break it. He would say more when he was ready.

"Now, about that favor, Bishop Lynn." He opened his hand and revealed a medal.

She remembered the chain split by the bullet and the shiny object she'd seen Bubba pick up.

"Elie never took this off. I knew he'd reach for it first thing when he became conscious. And I'd be there with it, right beside him."

Yoo-Sei brought their order. Bubba closed his hand.

Lynn moved the napkin holder from the center of the small table to give her room and thanked her, "
Kamsahamnida."
To simplify remembering the courtesy, she thought of it as two words—
kamsa hamnida.

"Good accent, Bishop Lynn." She flashed a shy, admiring glance toward Bubba and turned away.

He opened his large palm again. The medal rested there as cherished as an infant in a cradle. For a moment they stared at it in silence, poignantly aware of Elie's presence in his absence. Two gemstones formed a pair of linked crescents like waning moons in the center of a silver circle. They slightly overlapped, one above the other. At first glance the gemstones looked sea green, but a closer view showed tones of mottled green and blue streaked with white. The unique medal drew her like a portent, triggering something in the mist of memory.

A man in opaque sunglasses caught her eye as he passed by their table. He carried a newspaper and black canvas bag to the corner table at the back. His navy T-shirt and jeans blended in with the relaxed camaraderie of the crowd. His demeanor drew her attention, not his clothes. He exuded intimidation. His brow was creased in a permanent frown, and his thin lips drew a tight line above his square jaw. Lynn's trusted yellow flag waved. Automatically she clicked a mental picture and filed it under
C
for caution.