Shadow Ritual (8 page)

The gray-haired man sitting next to him smiled and patted his shoulder. His steely eyes were bright. “Patience. I assure you it is no longer in use, and I have set it aside for a rather special purpose. You will see, but first, let’s talk about what has brought us together. We now have the Tebah Stone, or at least it is in good hands. Sol should pick it up in Paris shortly. Unfortunately, the Rome operation was a failure. We don’t have the documents.”

Nobody reacted. Finally, a thin balding man with light brown eyes spoke up. “That’s regrettable. I remind you that we need three things to solve this mystery. The first has always been in our possession. The second is engraved on that Jewish stone, and the third, which you failed to get, remains in enemy hands. And now they will be on guard. The murders in Jerusalem and Rome bear our signature. That was your idea.”

“We will get them. I’ve already given the orders.”

“He’s right,” the short man chimed in. “I told you this operation could be dangerous and draw attention to us. What for? You and Sol have been leading us on a ghost hunt. Don’t forget that our enemies are powerful and have a sprawling network.”

“Enough. Let me remind you that the ritual surrounding their deaths fulfills a promise made by our ancestors.”

“I still think we are losing our focus with this folklore. We have more important goals. This is a minor operation.”

The man with the buzz cut glanced at the chapel, stood up, and softened his tone. “You’re right. I don’t know what came over me. The weather is excellent. Let’s not argue. I suggest we go commune in the chapel.”

The others stared at him, as if he had gone mad. He burst out laughing.

“Come with me. Let’s enter the house of Christ and his mother. It was once called the Chapel of Our Mother of the Passion.”

The group walked over to the chapel. The man with the buzz cut unlocked the door and opened it. The smell of wet stone and something indefinable struck them. The gray-haired man flipped a small switch, and three lights went on.

The inside of the church was simple, with whitewashed walls and restored stained-glass windows. A large wooden crucifix with Jesus wearing a crown of thorns reigned over the altar. It would have been a classic religious setting, were it not for the metal structure planted in front of the altar, a sarcophagus over six feet tall and shaped like a woman. Her body had generous breasts and hips, and flowing hair graced her serene face. The group immediately recognized what it was.

“The Iron Maiden!” they exclaimed, almost in unison.

Their guide led them to the strange object.

“Yes, my friends. One of our companions found this in the cellar of a castle near Munich. It was built in the fifteenth century and has been fully restored.”

A man with a British accent interrupted. “I saw something like that in a horror movie. I thought the filmmaker made it up.”

“Not at all. The maiden dates from medieval times in Germany, when Sainte Vehme’s courts were responsible for executing bad Christians and criminals. The jurisdiction behaved like a secret society with strange rites, a remnant of which stands before you.”

He pressed a hidden button on the side of the sarcophagus. With a click, the front, with the woman’s face and body, opened slowly, revealing rows of iron spikes.

“Amazing, isn’t it? The judges would place the sentenced soul in the sarcophagus and shut it, and the spikes would pierce the victim in precise places, including his vital organs. As you can see, two of the spikes are positioned to penetrate the eyes. The name ‘Iron Maiden’ pays homage to the Virgin Mother. These were very religious people.”

“Ingenious.”

“Does someone want to try it, just to see?”

They tittered. As hardened as they were to other people’s pain, they were sensitive when it came to their own.

The leader turned to the red-faced man. “You, perhaps?”

“No, thank you. I think I’ll pass. Let’s get out of this dreary place.”

“I don’t think we will. At least you won’t.”

There was the sound of footsteps in the entryway. Two strongmen appeared. In a matter of seconds, they swooped down on the small man, immobilizing his arms. He seemed tiny next to the square-jawed giants.

“Are you out of your mind? Let me go!”

“Shut up.”

The leader’s voice rang out. “Sol checked the accounts for our activities in northern Europe. You cooked Orden’s books, and you’ve been stealing from us.”

“That’s not true.”

“Quiet. You embezzled more than a million euros. What for? To build a villa in Andalusia! That was a big mistake!”

The accused tried to fight back but was helpless.

“Put him in the maiden.”

“No!” the man shouted, still trying to free himself from the clutches of the giants. One of the strongmen struck him in the head with a club and shoved him into the metallic structure, partially closing the front. The spikes were just inches from him.

“Please, have pity on me. I’ll give it all back. I have a family. Children.”

“Now, now. You know full well that to enter our order you abjure pity and compassion. At least try to die like a man of the Thule. Fear is foreign to us.”

The man’s sobs bounced off the wooden crucifix—Christ suffering for humanity—and filled the chapel.

The man with the buzz cut and steel-colored eyes pressed another button camouflaged in the maiden’s eye. The whirr of a small motor resonated.

“I added a motorized system with a timer to control the speed. If I set it at ten, your agony will last ten minutes. It can go as long as two hours.”

“I’ll give the money back.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve only tested this contraption on a few guinea pigs. Weight and height also play a role. Perfection is not of this world.”

The front closed a bit more, and the iron stakes tickled the victim’s eyes, stomach, knees, and genitals.

“I am too kind. I set it for a mere fifteen minutes. Adieu, my friend,” the man said, turning to the others and adding, “How about lunch? An excellent meal awaits us.”

18

Marcas’s phone rang as soon as he entered the terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

“Zewinski here. I need to see you right away.”

“I’m not your subordinate,” Marcas said, ready to hang up. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“These don’t come from me. They come from the ministry, so you’re out of luck.”

“Then meet me at the Bibliothèque François Mitterand in an hour,” Marcas said. As much as that woman irritated him, he couldn’t shake Sophie Dawes’s murder.

“Why there? Is that one of your Freemason haunts?”

“I just like the place. The cafeteria is good for private conversations.”

“Hey, didn’t President Mitterand get himself elected with the help of his Freemason connections and appoint some of your brothers to his cabinet?”

“So they say, but he distanced himself later. You know how good he was at calculated ambiguity.” Why was he even discussing this with her? “In an hour,” he concluded, ending the call.

If only she knew how much he hated influence peddling, even though he’d applied to be a Freemason in 1990 as much out of opportunism as curiosity. He was still a rookie cop when Freemasons in high places singled him out. After a dinner with quite a bit of drinking, a superior officer asked him if he wanted to be a Freemason, as if it were like joining a tennis club. Marcas didn’t know how to answer at first but quickly realized that it was idiotic to refuse the invitation.

Freemasons had been numerous in the French police system since World War II, and as one climbed the ranks, the number of brothers rose.

A month after the invitation was extended, three people he didn’t know came to see him—at his apartment—to discuss his commitment. They asked questions about his lifestyle and tastes and tried to dissuade him from joining the Masons.

A month after that, Marcas was summoned to a Freemason temple in the fifteenth arrondissement. He waited in a small black room full of alchemical symbols, where he meditated and wrote a philosophical testament. Then, blindfolded and stripped of some of his clothing, he underwent tests symbolizing a perilous journey across water, air, and fire to finally reach the light, the crucial moment of rebirth.

There was nothing really secret about the rite, and anyone could read about it in one of the thousands of books about freemasonry. But Marcas understood on this night that going through the ritual had added a new dimension to his being and had changed him. He had felt something indescribable, as though he were frozen in a moment of eternity. It was hard to articulate. This wasn’t magic. It was an alternative awareness that he had never before experienced.

After his initiation, Marcas met the other brothers in the lodge, none of whom held influential positions. He was almost disappointed: no well-known politicians, no emblematic judges, no celebrities. Just ordinary people: cops like him, teachers, some business owners, a handful of craftsmen, a few retired academics, and a cook who had received some attention for getting a Michelin star.

But Marcas applied himself and rose from apprentice to fellow craft and master mason.

When he was preparing for the police chief’s exam, he was invited to join a group of a hundred or so police officials from different lodges. Marcas never knew if being one of them had earned him points, but he did build a solid network of connections.

That was history. He didn’t need to explain any of it to the snide Embassy Security Chief Jade Zewinski.

A chilly rain had started falling, and precipitation always threatened to transform the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s outdoor plaza into an ersatz skating rink. It was because of the hardwood decking the building’s architect had insisted on. The unintended consequence was a high incidence of slips, falls, sprains, and breaks. Shortly after the library opened, some anti-slip decking strips were added to partially mitigate the problem. Still, Marcas almost lost his footing on an unprotected set of steps. He grabbed the railing. Righting himself, he continued toward the library. The wind had picked up, and the towers—shaped like books for those with an active imagination—were standing like fortresses against the sheets of rain.

He pulled his raincoat tighter. The large yet frail tropical trees that adorned the immense central patio were whipping back and forth in the wind, tugging the lines that moored them. Finally reaching the entryway, he saw that the escalator, as usual, wasn’t working.

A small group of people was waiting patiently as two bored-looking guards inspected their bags. A dozen or so umbrellas were the only bright spots of colors in this metal and dark-wood interior.

Marcas made his way up a floor, crossing the metal footbridge that led to the library cafeteria. He pushed open a heavy door and scanned the large room. Four students were huddled around their notebooks and whispering. A Japanese couple who looked like tourists were people-watching, and an elderly woman was reading an antiques magazine. No Zewinski yet. Marcas ordered a coffee and sat down.

He was fiddling with a brochure advertising vacations in Cuba and Santo Domingo with seductive photos of palm trees and white sand beaches when he heard a coat rustling. He looked up and saw Special Agent Zewinski walking purposefully toward him—tall, blonde, chiseled features, determined eyes. She was a shrew, he thought, but a damned good-looking shrew.

She sat down across from him without taking off her coat.

“Hey,
brother
.”

Marcas tightened his jaw. Her tone pissed him off, just as it had in Rome. He started to get up to leave, but she reached for his arm.

“Wait, I was just joking. You Freemasons have no sense of humor. I won’t do it again.”

She brought her hands together to give him the
namaste
sign. Marcas settled into his chair again.

“It might surprise you that I do have a sense of humor. But I don’t think it’s necessary to make a joke at someone else’s expense. That said, maybe you can tell me why I’m here.”

Her face became serious, and the look in her eyes darkened. For the first time, he noted their color: light brown speckled with green.

“I know why Sophie was killed.”

19

Marcas ordered another coffee and folded his hands on the table. Some more students had sat down at a nearby table and were staring at Jade.

She lowered her voice. “Someone’s after a bunch of damned papers that belong to your Freemason buddies. Sophie told me she was on an assignment for the Grand Orient. She was taking the documents to Jerusalem. She didn’t tell me what they were—some big historical deal apparently. She asked me to put them in the embassy safe.”

“So she was being careful with some historical documents. How do you know her killer wanted them?”

“She was all paranoid about them, making sure that I put them under lock and key, and then, after she was murdered, I went to her hotel room to pick up her personal effects, and someone had sacked the place.”

“Do you have the papers?”

“Of course. I brought them back to Paris with me.”

So that was why Zewinski wanted to see him. She had his attention now. Historical masonic documents in the hands of the profane could be dangerous.

“Have you read them?”

“I didn’t understand a thing. You’d have to be a historian or a member of your cult to understand that crap. It’s something about rituals, geometric constructions, and Bible references. I’d say the papers date back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century.”

“You should return them to their rightful owners. They are the only ones who can explain why someone would kill for them.”

Jade glared at him. “I know what I have to do, but for now, they are evidence in a murder investigation that doesn’t exist. They’ll get back to your friends in due time.”

“So, why are you telling me this?”

Zewinski ran her hands through her hair and waited a minute. “You don’t know it yet, but we’ll be working together after all. There was a meeting at the Interior Ministry earlier today, and we’ve been officially assigned to this entirely unofficial case.”