The Soul Collectors (32 page)

She wiped at her eyes and cheeks, the napkins coming away black, and caught Keats watching her in the rear-view mirror.

‘You okay?’ he asked in that soft and soothing Southern drawl.

‘Never better.’

‘Anything I can do to help?’

‘No.’
Unfortunately
, she added privately. ‘But thank you.’

‘Toss everything on the floor back there. When you’re through cleaning up, I have a leather writing pad you can use. Pen’s clipped inside, a real nice one too, so don’t go losing it on me.’

Ronald Ross answered his home phone on the fourth ring. He sounded like he had been asleep.

‘I just got your message,’ she said. ‘Sorry if I woke you.’

‘I dozed off on the couch. You did me a favour.’ A grunt and then he cleared his throat. On the other end of the line she could hear the click of his heels echoing across a floor. ‘I made some notes on this symbol you sent me. I assume it’s connected to a case you’re working on.’

‘You assume correctly. I can’t give you specifics.’

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘What do you know about Gnosticism?’

Darby thought about it for a moment, looking out of the side window at the surrounding traffic, and again wondered if she was being followed and watched.

‘It’s something to do with pre-Christianity, I think.’

‘Okay,’ Ross said, like he had expected this. ‘Let me start with a simple definition. Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word
gnosis
, which means “knowledge”. The religion dates all the way back to early Jewish and Christian sects, and its doctrine, simply put, is that there are two gods. The first is a lower, imperfect god, called the Demiurge, who created the material world. The second, the Supreme God of Truth or the Supreme Father God, is a transcendent god and does not care about human affairs. The Demiurge believes he is supreme despite his imperfect creations – the world, mankind. The Demiurge employs servants, called Archons, who roam the world, enacting their own will.’

Darby finished writing in her quick shorthand, then said, ‘Which is?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You mean the Archons are nihilists?’

‘No. Archons provide their own order. Their own laws and justice. They are capable of mercy, but by and large they are jealous, wrathful creatures possessed by a singular will and capable of great destruction. The symbol you sent me, it’s a bastardized version of a Gnostic baptismal cross developed centuries ago by a medieval group who had roots in Gnosticism. Those twelve spikes? Each one represents an Archon. The circle is a representation of earth.’

She thought about Charlie Rizzo’s odd-looking black medieval tunic. ‘What’s the name of this group?’

‘It doesn’t have a specific name. But this group believed that symbol represents one who is basically a slave to an Archon.’

‘Is Gnosticism an actual religion or is it a cult?’

‘An actual religion,’ Ross said. ‘It was essentially wiped out by the end of the fifth century. What we know about it comes from the Gnostic library discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the forties, and then, in 1970, the discovery of the Gospel of Judas in El Minya. It’s a Gnostic gospel written by Jesus’s Gnostic followers, and the pieces that have been recovered claim to be a documented conversation between Judas Iscariot and Jesus. Judas is believed to be the only disciple who was taught the one, true Gospel, by Jesus.

‘Now, according to the canonical Gospels of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – we know that Judas betrayed Jesus. The Gospel of Judas claims that Judas was acting on the orders of Jesus, which, taken from the Gnostic point of view, makes sense. Jesus wanted to be released from his spiritual prison, and Judas acted as the catalyst. So you have –’

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Darby said. ‘I appreciate the history lesson, Professor, but I need something along the lines of evidence. Something that can lead back to this group or cult or whatever they are.’

‘I understand. The short answer is no, I don’t have anything to give you other than historical background on Gnosticism. But I can tell you more about this symbol you found. I know you can’t get into specifics of the case, but let me ask you this: the person who bore this symbol, did he murder someone?’

‘As far as I can tell, no. The man was a husband and father.’

Tell her, Daddy
, Charlie Rizzo had said.
Tell her what you did.

She wrote on her pad:
Mark Rizzo alias?

‘Historically speaking,’ Ross said, ‘Archons crave power and destruction. They’re not sent here to do God’s work but rather to fulfil their own needs and desires. Archons want the world to bend to their will. They achieve that through inflicting both physical and psychological pain and suffering. Through the destruction of one’s soul. Forgive the cliché, but think of them as monsters masquerading as human beings.’

Darby finished writing and looked up, reminded of Jack Casey. Then she saw, a few blocks away, the medical examiner’s office.

‘I have to go, Professor Ross. Can I call you back?’

‘You can, but there’s no need. That’s about all the information I have at the moment, anyway. I can send you my notes if you’d like.’

‘That would be great.’ She gave him her private email address. ‘I appreciate your taking the time to do this.’

‘If I can be of any further assistance, don’t hesitate to contact me. You have my numbers? I left them on the voicemail message.’

‘I have them. And I may take you up on your offer. In fact, I may have an associate of mine call you. Keep your cell phone handy.’

Darby hung up as the SUV came to a sudden stop in front of two Secret Service agents, one black, the other white, both tall and young and looking like they could bench press a car.

‘They’ll take you in and bring you back out when you’re done,’ Keats said.

The black guy opened her door and his partner reached inside and gripped her arm. She left the pad on the backseat, not wanting to carry it with her, and with the two men flanking her jogged to the building’s front doors.

Dr Ellis wasn’t happy about being summoned back to work at such an hour. He stormed across the lobby and without a hello or nod swiped his laminated ID across the keycard reader to let her in, the agents sticking close.

Walking through the halls, she called Sergey.

‘You got a pen?’ she asked when he picked up.

‘Always do.’ He sounded exhausted. ‘What’s up?’

She gave him Ross’s name and cell number. ‘He’s a professor at Harvard’s Divinity School. I just got off the phone with him. He has information on that symbol I found tattooed on Mark Rizzo’s lip. I want you to bring him in on this.’

‘I already have someone at Langley. Cryptography’s working on it right now.’

‘Then have them coordinate with Ross. This is the guy’s area of expertise. Trust me, we need him.’

‘Okay, fine. Where are you?’

‘At the ME’s office. I’ll explain everything when I get there.’

Darby hung up and ducked into the locker room. She dressed quickly.

The black agent followed her inside the autopsy suite. His partner stood guard outside with his back to the door, watching the hall.

Until you find the people who belong to this group or cult
, a voice whispered in the back of her head,
this is how you’re going to spend the rest of your life
.

Ellis wheeled out John Smith’s body, the cadaverous skin covered with frost.

Darby turned to the agent and said, ‘Hit those lights, would you?’

The exit wound had destroyed most of John Smith’s face. Using alcohol swabs, Darby cleaned the blood away from what was left of the man’s lips and examined the tissue. She didn’t find any trace of the symbol.

She decided to examine the rest of the body.

The symbol had been tattooed on his chest, just above his dead heart.

65

Darby saw the big, familiar sign welcoming her to Boston’s Logan Airport. A moment later Keats accessed a private gate leading to a brightly lit stretch of tarmac holding a small fleet of private planes – a couple of jumbo jets used to shuttle around rocks stars but mostly smaller, sleeker models.

The Lincoln Navigator came to a stop and she saw a new pair of Secret Service agents dressed in heavy winter coats standing guard at the bottom of a set of portable metal steps leading up to the main door of the biggest plane here – a Boeing 747, she guessed, given its size and shape. There were no markings or printed words on the side of the plane, nothing to indicate what kind of aircraft it was.

Keats asked her to stay in the car for a moment. He got out and jogged over to the other two agents to have a private conversation.

What had happened back at the hotel was painfully fresh in her mind but she had managed to tuck it away by keeping busy. Focused. Now, waiting alone in the warm silence of the car, the wind roaring outside, wanting to blow everything clean, her thoughts flashed to Coop and she wondered if he was waiting for her to return or if he had said
screw it
and left to catch a flight back to London. She pictured him inside the airport talking to Amanda what’s-her-name, making plans for when he returned in between exchanges of ‘I miss you’ and ‘I love you’.

Keats came back and opened her door, and when she stepped out the wind slapped her face, which thrust Coop into the back of her mind (but not too far back; she could still see his face, and his anger, and hear him say: ‘I was the one who waited for you.’). Keats didn’t hand her off to the agents. He took the metal staircase and she followed, the railing cold beneath her hand and the wind whistling past her ears.

She stepped inside a semi-dark cabin. Two men dressed in white were fast asleep in the first rows of seats, paramedic kits resting on the floor near their soft-soled white shoes. The remaining four rows of leather seats were empty, and another Secret Service agent stood in front of a closed door that, on an ordinary plane, would separate the first-class passengers from the commercial herd.

But this plane wasn’t ordinary. The door, made of heavy steel, had a magnetic lock that required a code.

Keats punched in the code, and, as he held open the door for her, he said, ‘Sergey’s on the lower deck. Go straight down and you’ll see a set of stairs to your left. Take them all the way down. I’ll join you in a bit.’

Darby thanked him and stepped into a luxury cabin worthy of the president’s private plane, Air Force One. The first section, with beige carpeting and soft lighting coming from several lamps, had comfortable leather chairs and seats. They were empty, as was the leather chair bolted to the floor behind a nicely sized executive mahogany desk. Thick pale curtains covered part of the plane’s windows. The others had blinds, all drawn, and on one she saw a presidential seal.

Maybe this
was
Air Force One. Not the current one the president used but possibly a retired model that had been appropriated by the Bureau. Made sense. She remembered Sergey saying the plane stored lab equipment and a place this size could certainly accommodate a full-sized forensic lab.

The next part of the plane appeared to be a conference room. More empty leather sofas and chairs; more empty desks, only these were much smaller than the one in the previous room. A flat-screen TV hung on one wall, tuned to CNN. Anderson Cooper’s lips were moving but no sound came from the speakers.

Making her way to the back, the warm air smelling of coffee and stale food, she wondered if Casey, Sergey and the others slept here. Probably, as the plane clearly served as the base of operations. The place was packed with high-tech equipment, secured phones and computers, video-conferencing monitors.

Darby passed what she guessed had to be the ‘presidential bathroom’ – gold fixtures and a roomy shower. She turned on the light and stepped inside to examine her face in the mirror, saw blotches of mascara. She ran the hot water and scrubbed her face with soap and several paper towels.

A high-pitched scream came from somewhere deep in the plane.

66

Darby straightened, water dripping down her face as she listened to a young woman crying and pleading for help.

Darby grabbed the hanging towel and quickly dried her face. A final check in the mirror and then she moved out, heading down the aisle on her far left.

The young voice screamed a single word:

‘
Daddy.
’

Jack Casey sat in the gloom, his back to her and his attention focused on a flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall across from his chair. The film playing on the screen had been recorded by a video camera equipped with night vision; his daughter, Sarah, was bathed in a green ambient glow of light. She wore the same clothes as those in the photographs – jeans and a white tee smeared with her blood – and she stood shaking and crying behind some sort of prison cube made of Lucite or Plexiglas.

She wasn’t in danger of suffocating – several holes had been drilled through the walls for air – but she was in danger of being bitten by the dozens of eight-legged creatures crawling above her.

The spiders moved and scattered across a separate rectangular cube mounted against the ceiling. The people who had captured her had installed a sliding bottom, one operated by a lever situated outside the young girl’s clear cell. A scarred, grimy hand clutched the lever. With a flick of the wrist, the ceiling – well out of the girl’s reach – would disappear and drop the venomous spiders down on her.

Darby’s mind filled with images of Mark Rizzo’s body. Saw the necrotic bite on the man’s forearm caused by a Brown Recluse. She saw at least one on the screen, and another one that Perkins had identified as a Tunnel Web.
Their bite is
extremely
painful
, Dr Perkins had said.
Their venom carries atraxotoxin, which disrupts neurotransmitters. The victim experiences muscle twitching, severe nausea and vomiting
.

Sarah Casey pounded on the clear plastic, screaming at her father. Her right little finger was gone, severed above the knuckle.
There’s going to be no way to attach it
, Darby thought, approaching the empty chair next to the profiler. Too much time had passed, for one, and, given the blackened stump on the swollen right hand, she suspected, with a nauseating intensity, that the wound had been crudely cauterized with something like a blowtorch to stem the bleeding. If it had, the nerves had already been damaged.