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He stared
again, then shrugged resignedly. "All right. This is your show. We'll do
it your way." He stepped closer and kissed her forehead. "But I do
need to get out of this room . . . stretch my legs . . . maybe cross the river
and grab a pint. I'll be back soon."

Before Carrie
could think of anything to say, he was out the door and she was alone in the
room.

Well, not
completely alone. The Virgin was here. She knelt beside the crate and rested
her head on its lid. For one shocking, nerve-rattling moment she thought she
heard a heartbeat, then she realized it was her own.

"Don't
worry, Mother Mary," she whispered to the crate. "I won't leave you
alone here. You've given me comfort through the years when I needed it, now
I'll stand by you." She patted the lid of the crate. "Till death do
us part."

The Judean Wilderness

"Why?"

Kesev stood
atop the
tav
rock with the thieves' rope knotted around his neck and
screamed out at the clear, pitiless night sky. "Why do You torment me like
this? When will You be satisfied?
Have I not been punished enough?"

But no reply
came from on high, just
Sharav's
ceaseless susurrance, whispering in his
ears.
Not that he'd expected an answer. All his countless entreaties down
through the years had been ignored. Why should this one be any different?

The Lord
tormented him. Kesev was not cut out to be a
Job. He was a fighter, not a victim. And so the Lord took extra
pains to beleaguer him.

Not that he was
without fault in this. If he had been at his post when the errant SCUD had
crashed below, he could have chased off the Bedouin boys when they wandered
into the canyon, and hidden the scrolls before the government investigative
teams arrived.

And then the
Mother would still be safely tucked away in the Resting Place instead of . . .
where?

Where was she?

Gone. Gone from
Israel. Kesev had exhausted all his contacts and what limited use he dared make
of his Shin Bet resources, but she had slipped through his fingers. He'd sensed
the Mother's slow withdrawal from their homeland. He didn't know how, or in
which direction she'd been taken, but he knew in the core of his being that she
was gone.

He also knew it
was inevitable that soon she would be revealed to the world and made a
spectacle of, a sensational object of scientific research and religious
controversy. Why else would someone steal her away?

The Lord would
not stand for that. The Lord would rain his wrath down upon the earth.

Perhaps that
was the meaning behind all this. Perhaps the theft of the Mother was the event
that would precipitate the Final Days. Perhaps . . .

Kesev sighed.
It didn't matter. He'd failed in his task and now there was no need for him to
prolong the agony of this life any longer. Since his usefulness on earth was at
an end, surely the Lord would let him end his time on earth as well. He would
not see the Final Days, and certainly he did not deserve to see the Second
Coming. He did not even deserve to see tomorrow.

He checked once
more to make sure the rope was securely tied around the half-sunk boulder about
thirty feet back. Then he stepped to the edge of the tav and looked down at his
Jeep parked below. He'd left plenty of slack, enough to allow him to fall
within a dozen feet of the
ground.
The end would be quick, painless. If he was especially lucky, the force of the
final jolt might even decapitate him.

Without a
prayer, without a good-bye, without a single regret, Kesev stepped off the edge
and into space.

He kept his
eyes open and made no sound as he hurtled feet first toward the ground. He had
no fear, only grim anticipation and . . . hope.

Cork City, Ireland

Monsignor
Vincenzo Riccio wandered through the thick, humid air near Cork City's
waterfront. He'd wandered off St. Patrick's Street and was looking for a place
to have a drink. His doctors had all warned him against alcohol but right now
he didn't care. He'd had a long day of crushing people's hopes and fervor, and
he needed something. Something Holy Mother Church could not provide. He needed
a different kind of communion.

All the pubs on
St. Patrick were crowded and he didn't feel like standing. He wanted a place to
rest his feet. He spotted a pair of lighted windows set in dark green wood,
jim cashman's
read the sign, and there
was a Guinness harp over the slate where the dinner menu was scrawled in chalk.

Vincenzo peeked
inside the open door and saw empty seats.

Bono!
He'd found his place.

He made his way
to the bar and squeezed into a space between two of the drinkers--a space that
would have been too narrow for him just a year ago.

Amazing what
cancer can do for the figure.

The bartender
was pouring for someone else so Vincenzo took a look around. A small place,
this Jim Cashman's-- hardwood floor and paneling, a small bar tucked in the
corner, half a dozen tables arrayed about the perimeter, a cold fireplace, and
two TVs playing the same rugby match.

None of Cashman's dozen or so patrons paid him any attention. And
why should they? He wasn't wearing his
collar. He'd left that and his cassock back in his hotel
room; that left a thin, sallow, balding, gray-haired man in his fifties dressed
in a white shirt and black trousers. Nothing at all priestly about him.

He turned to
the solitary drinker to his left, a plump, red-faced fellow in a tour bus
driver's outfit, sipping from a glass of rich dark liquid.

"May I ask
what you're drinking, sir?"

The fellow
stared at him a moment, as if to be sure this stranger with the funny accent
was really speaking to him, then cleared his throat.

"Tis
stout. Murphy's stout. Made right here in Cork City."

"Oh, yes.
I passed the brewery on the way in."

Michael had
driven him through the gauntlet of huge gleaming silver tanks towering over
both sides of the road on the north end of town, and he remembered wondering
who in the world drank all that brew.

Vincenzo said,
"I tried a bottle of Guinness once, but didn't care for it very
much."

The driver made
a face. "What? From a bottle? You've never had stout till you've drunk it
straight from the tap as God intended."

"Which
would you recommend for a beginner, then?"

"I like
Murphy's."

"What
about Guinness?"

"It's
good, but it's got a bit more bite. Start with a Murph."

Vincenzo
slapped his hand on the bar. "Murphy's it is!" He signaled the
barkeep. "A pint of
Murphy's, if you would be so kind, and another for my
adviser here."

When the pints
arrived, Vincenzo brushed off the driver's thanks and turned to find a seat.

"Stout's food, you know," the driver called after him as
Vincenzo carried his glass to a corner table. "A couple of those and you
can skip a meal."

Good, he
thought. I can use a little extra nourishment.

He'd lost
another two pounds this week. The tumors in his liver must be working overtime.

"Good for
what ails you too," the driver added. "Cures all ills."

"Does it
now? I'll hold you to that, my good man."

He took a sip
of the Murphy's and liked it. Liked it a lot. Rich and malty, with a pleasant
aftertaste. Much better than that bottle of Guinness he'd once had in Rome. One
could almost believe it might cure all ills.

Vincenzo smiled
to himself. Now wouldn't
that
be a miracle.

He looked at
the faces around Jim Cashman's and they reminded him of the faces he'd seen in
Cashelbanagh, only these weren't stricken with the bitter disappointment and
accusation he'd left there.

It's not my
fault your miracle was nothing more than a leaky roof.

A young
sandy-haired fellow came in and ordered a pint of Smithwick's ale, then sat
alone at the table next to Vincenzo's and stared disconsolately at the rugby
game. He looked about as cheerful as the people Vincenzo had left at
Cashelbanagh.

"Is your
team losing?" Vincenzo said.

The man turned
and offered a wan smile. "I'm American. Don't know the first thing about
rugby." He extended his hand. "Dan Fitzpatrick. And I can guess by
your accent that you're about as far from home as I am."

Vincenzo shook
it and offered his own name--sans the religious title. No sense in putting the
fellow off. "I happen to be on my way to America. I'm leaving for New York
tomorrow."

"Really?
That's where my . . . home is. Business or pleasure?"

"Neither,
really." Vincenzo didn't want to get into his medical history so he
shifted the subject.
"I guess something other than rugby must be giving you
such a long face."

He wanted to
kick himself for saying that. It sounded too much like prying. But Dan seemed
eager to talk.

"You could
say that," he said with a disarming grin. "Woman trouble."

"Ah,"
Vincenzo said, and left it at that. What did he know about women?

"A unique
and wonderful woman," Dan went on, sipping his ale, "with a unique
and wonderful problem."

"Oh?"
Through decades of hearing confessions, Vincenzo had become the Michelangelo of
the monosyllable.

"Yeah. The
woman I love is looking for a miracle."

"Aren't we
all?"
Myself most of all.

"Not all
of us. Trouble is, mine really thinks she's going to find one, and she seems to
be forgetting the real world while she's looking for it."

"And you
don't think she'll find it?"

"Miracles
are sucker bait."

"As much
as I hate to say it"--Vincenzo sighed--"I fear there is some truth in
that. Although I prefer to think of the believers not as suckers, but as
seekers. I saw a village full of seekers today."

Vincenzo went
on to relate an abbreviated version of his stop in Cashelbanagh earlier today.
When he finished he found the younger man staring at him in shock.

"You're a
priest!"
Dan said.

"Why, yes.
A monsignor, to be exact."

"That's
great!" he snapped, quaffing the rest of his ale. "And you're going
to New York? Just
great\
That really caps my day! No offense, but I hope
we don't run into each other."

Without another
word he rose and strode from Jim Cashman's pub, leaving Vincenzo Riccio to
wonder what he had said or done to precipitate such a hasty departure. Perhaps
Dan Fitzpatrick was an atheist.

It was after a
second pint of Murphy's that Vincenzo decided he'd brooded enough about
miracles and unfriendly Americans. He pushed himself to his feet and ambled
into the night.

It was cool out
on the street. A thick fog had rolled up from the sea along the River Lee, only
a block away, and was infiltrating the city. Vincenzo was about to turn toward
St. Patrick Street and make his way back to his hotel
when he saw her.

She stood not
two dozen feet away, staring at him. At least he thought she was staring at
him. He couldn't tell for sure because the cowled robe she wore pulled up
around her head cast her face in shadow, but he could feel her eyes upon him.

His first
thought was that she might be a prostitute, but he immediately dismissed that
because there was nothing the least bit provocative about her manner, and that
robe was anything but erotic.

He wanted to
turn away but he could not take his eyes off her. And then it was she who
turned and began to walk away.

Vincenzo was
compelled to follow her through the swirling fog that filled the open plaza
leading to the river. Strange . . . the lights that lined the quay silhouetted
her figure ahead of him but didn't cast her shadow. Who was she? And how did
she move so smoothly? She seemed to glide through the fog . . . toward the
river . . . to its edge . . .