Angels of Wrath

PROLOGUE

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been about ten years since my last confession.”

Father Tim Casey jerked upright in the confessional and turned toward the plastic window shielding the penitent’s face. The shadow was as recognizable as the voice. “Ah, faith, and it’s a wonder the good Lord himself doesn’t come down from the cross right now and strike you dead for yer sins, Ferg,” he said. “A true wonder.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be making the sign of the cross right about now?”

“Don’t be jokin’ about a thing like this. You’re a good Catholic lad now, or were, upon a time.”

“Never,” said Bob Ferguson, shifting his weight on the kneeler in the confessional. “But I did go to Catholic school. One of the priests there taught me a confession has to be heard.”

“Oh, all right then. Tell me your sins. Leave out the venial ones; I expect they’re legion.”

“Alphabetical order?”

“Here you have me believing you’re serious,” said the priest, “and then you’re committing sacrilege. There’ll be no mercy for you at St. Peter’s gate. He’ll be adding ten years to your stay in purgatory for riding me today.”

“I’m serious. What order do you want?”

“Any order will do.” The door on the other side of the confessional opened, and Father Casey recognized the faithful sighs of Mrs. DeGarmo, an eighty-two-year-old widow who came every Saturday to confess the misdeeds of her youth. The wooden walls of the confessional were thin, and Ferguson’s voice carried a good distance; Father Casey decided he would have to seek a change of venue. “I’ll tell you what now, Ferg, it might be better for you to hold your peace and wait for me until regular hours end. Then we can speak at our leisure, as seriously as you want.”

“How about Murph’s?”

“I was thinking about the side altar, lad.”

“I’m buyin’.”

“Faith, if temptation isn’t everywhere, even in the confessional,” said Father Casey.

“Not up to it?”

“I’ve the five o’clock this evening.”

“It’s only two.”

“All right then,” said the priest. “Given that I haven’t had lunch and you were a decent student once. A half hour.”

Casey started to close the window.

“Hang on,” said Ferguson. “What’s my penance?”

“I haven’t heard your confession yet. Surely I taught you there’s no advance credit.”

“What if I die before you hear my confession?”

“Your time isn’t that short,” said the priest. “Ah, all right. Say three Our Fathers and Two Glory-Be’s, and we’ll consider it a down payment. May the Good Lord have mercy on your soul — and on mine.”

When the phone rang, the man sitting on the couch waited until the seventh ring to answer, even though he had been waiting for the call all day.

“Yes,” he said, his tone flat, neither asking nor answering.

“When?” said the caller.

“Three days.”

“Too soon.”

“We cannot control the timing,” said the man, struggling to keep his tone neutral.

“Next week is not good.”

The man closed his eyes, conjuring the vision that reassured him: angels with golden trumpets raced above the clouds, light raining down on the earth. Fire burned in the sky, and from each corner of the earth came an angel.

“It is already in motion,” he said calmly.

“Very well.”

“Very well,” echoed the man, hanging up the phone.

There was no God.

Aaron Ravid stared at the folded photo of his wife and son, dead nearly eighteen months. They’d been on a bus in a Jerusalem suburb when an Islamic suicide bomber from the West Bank detonated herself, killing five and wounding eight others. Ironically, three of the dead had been Muslims, including Ravid’s wife.

For Ravid, the attack was the final sign that the faith he’d been born into was empty at its core, a tradition rather than a religion. God did not exist, for if He did, He would not take the lives of innocents. God could only be an invention of man: a way to justify murder, and wrath, and unspeakable crimes.

Ravid lay the photograph on the table and turned his attention back to the reason he had pulled it out from his wallet. At the lower right-hand corner of the page in the Sunday newspaper sat a small advertisement, boxed with a double rule. It asked an outrageous price for an old clunker of a car, and gave a number Ravid knew to be disconnected. Few people on the island would have use for the old VW featured in the ad, and most likely no one would bother to try the number. But that was all right; the ad’s real purpose was to summon Ravid to Tel Aviv, to meet with his Mossad control.

It had been more than a year since he had been in Israel, and longer than that since he had spoken to his superiors. Immediately after the attack, his supervisor had told him to rest, and until today he did not believe that he would ever be called back. A small but decent sum appeared in a bank account each month, providing for his simple needs.

Ravid reconsidered the meeting. He had not been told to rest. He had been told he was not needed and would not be needed.

“You will not be called upon,” Tischler said when they met in the secure room. He said it quietly and quickly, without even offering condolences as a prelude. No agent, especially one groomed to walk among the enemy as Ravid had been, could be relied on once his emotions were “exposed.”

A curious way to put it, Ravid thought then, especially as his cover as a Palestinian intellectual had been maintained. But it proved apt. The deaths of his family had torn the skin from his face, leaving his blood vessels and bones open to the air. The Mossad would not take chances unnecessarily, and a man who had suffered as Aaron Ravid had suffered was an unnecessary risk.

Ravid had been planted at great effort and expense in Syria, where at the time of his family’s murder he had a job as a university professor occasionally used by the Syrian government and the Palestinian Authority as a low-level diplomat. Ravid regularly met with members of the Syrian intelligence service and the so-called political arm of Hamas. (They were all murderers at heart, but Ravid brushed shoulders primarily with men who used their brains and mouths rather than their hands to kill.)

More to protect the people who had helped him than to maintain his cover, Ravid had returned to Syria after the meeting with his Mossad supervisors. There he finished out the semester, lecturing for several weeks on Islamic history, before applying for an unpaid sabbatical. This was readily granted; his colleagues at the school knew that he was a “committed Muslim” and would spend the time furthering the cause.

Such a man might have good reason to disappear for a year or even more, but the day Ravid left Syria he expected never to return. He believed his days as an undercover agent for Israel were over. The nerve that had once been a taut steel wire binding his chest had melted under the fire of his grief. His courage turned to liquid and evaporated.

He fled to Corsica, an island where he knew no one and no one knew him. For many months, he drank to survive. Now he simply drank: vodka in the morning, vodka in the afternoon, vodka in the evening.

Ravid stared at the advertisement. If they were calling him this way rather than simply dispatching a low-level messenger to Corsica, there could only be one reason: they needed him in Syria again. The message implicit in the ad was that he must assume the identity of Fazel al-Qiam once more.

Ravid began to laugh. The sound bounced off the stones of the eighteenth-century house, strange and foreign; it seemed to belong to someone else.

Yes, it must. Aaron Ravid was no longer capable of laughter.

If they wanted him back as Fazel al-Qiam, it would only be for something critically important. An assassination, perhaps, or something even greater.

Revenge?

Not for him. To avenge his wife’s death alone would take something colossal. And to avenge his son’s… there was no possibility. It could not be measured. Wipe out Mecca, destroy Medina, wipe Islam off the face of the earth. Would that suffice?

If he still believed in God, perhaps it would. But the belief now was as foreign as the sound of his laughter, still ringing in his ears.

Ravid reached for the vodka bottle on the table. As he did, the newspaper caught against his arm and pushed against the bottle, knocking it over. Vodka lapped out onto the floor. As he reached to right it, anger seized him and he took the bottle and threw it against the wall. The stench of alcohol stung the air.

“I will leave today,” Ravid said, rising, his mind already sorting through the arrangements he would need to make.

Ferguson waved from his chair at the far end of the bar as Father Casey came in through the side door. The priest was not unknown here, especially on Saturday afternoon during the college football season, and it took him a few minutes to make it over to Ferg, who was about half way through a Guinness. Casey’s collar, bald head, and priestly demeanor made him seem like sixty or older, but the priest was barely in his forties. He had been fresh from Ireland and the seminary when he met Ferguson at the Catholic prep school twelve years before. Casey had taught Ferguson about Plato and Aristotle, coached him in lacrosse, and shared a thought or two about the lamentable degradation of penmanship since the introduction of the computer; the most important lessons were of a deeper nature and were ongoing.

“Notre Dame is getting squashed,” Ferguson said, pointing at the television as the priest sat down. “Quarterback can’t throw to save his life.”

“Aye, and didn’t I tell you to go to the school? You would’ve had all the records. You’d be in the NFL by now.”

“And you’d be on the sideline, right?” Ferguson had sprouted a few more inches from the seventy he’d stood as the prep school’s quarterback, but his frame remained on the trim side, and he would have been small even for a college quarterback. More important, he would have been bored most of the week. “I ordered some chicken wings,” he told the priest. “Extra hot.”

“Ah, you know I can’t eat them, Ferg, much as I’d like.”

“Yeah, I know. I got you some bread and a beer.”

“Well, thank you for that.” Father Casey turned and nodded at the barmaid, who was pouring a Guinness for him.

“And a filler-upper for me,” said Ferguson.

The priest said a quick prayer when the beer arrived, blessing himself before drinking.

“One of life’s small pleasures God gave man,” said Father Casey, sipping at the light head that topped the dark beer. He’d made the excuse before. “So how are you, Ferg?”

“Not bad today. Yourself?”

“Better than to be expected, thank the Lord.”

“Your hair’s growing back,” said Ferguson, gesturing at the priest’s head.

“Not so you’d notice.” Father Casey ran his hand over his bald pate. “I’m used to it now. I’ve been thinking on it. It’s not bad for a priest to lose his hair. It makes him look distinguished.”

“You were always distinguished.”

“Ah, as if it would’ve helped me with the likes of you and your friends. A hard crew you were, Ferguson. A hard crew: good hoys all ol’ you and pistol fast. Too much for me.”

“You were a good teacher. The students were the problem,” said Ferguson. But Casey was right about his teaching abilities, at least those required in high school. He’d seen the light after a few years and found a berth as a parish priest. Still, Ferguson and the other young men had found the young priest a relief from the Sisters of Charity and the ancient Jesuit priests who held most of the positions at the school.

“It’s the ladies I feel sorry for,” said Casey. “You see them with their kerchiefs. A hard thing, I think. Especially with the wee ones gaping at you all day. But we get through it. The good Lord tests us, but we get through it. You know how it goes.”

Ferguson did know. Both men had cancer, thyroid cancer in Ferguson’s case, which had metastasized beyond his thyroid and spread to his lymph nodes before being detected. The treatment of choice in his case was removal and radiation. He’d already done both, and in fact had reached the point where further radiation would have doubtful effect; the prognosis was hopeful or not, depending on which doctor was comparing his case history to which set of statistics.

Casey’s disease, pancreatic cancer, was much more virulent than Ferguson’s, and, unlike his, a death sentence without potential for remission. The priest would not be hearing earthly confessions six months from now.

“Before I forget — the Youth Soccer League,” said Ferguson, pulling a folded envelope from his pocket. “Covers the shortfall. You can end the season.

“You are a saint, Ferg, a true saint.”

“I thought you said I was a sinner.”

“A man can be both, and sure as I’m sitting here, you’re proof of that.”

Ferguson laughed. Lunch arrived. Casey ate less than a quarter of his plain piece of bread.

“Do you remember Ryan Dabson?” said Father Casey after the plates were cleared.

“Sure.”

“Working for IBM now.”

“Oh, there’s a surprise,” said Ferg, mocking his old classmate.

“I still remember pulling him off of you one practice.”

“I’m sure it was the other way around,” said Ferguson.

“It might have been,” said the priest, “but you wouldn’t want to fight him now. You’d be giving away a hundred pounds,” warned Casey, who had no idea what Ferguson did, except that he worked for the government. Casey began talking about Dabson, now married and with a little one on the way. The priest had the tone of a proud father, and in Dabson’s case, he had every right; he’d surely influenced Dabson more than his biological father, who’d left his mother when Ryan was three. Dabson had attended school with the help of a well-off aunt; when her funds ran low, Casey had arranged a scholarship.

“He’s planning a trip to Dublin in a few months. Tried to get me to go,” added Casey.

“You ought to,” said Ferguson.

“What? To Ireland? Heft the country for good when I came here, Ferg. I’ll not go back there now, not even to die.” He fell silent but only for a moment. “I’ll tell ya the place I’d look to go, if I had the chance: Jerusalem.”

“Jerusalem?”

“Aye. The Holy Land. Before I shake the mortal coil, to trod where Christ did. Aye, that I would give half my soul to the devil for.”

“So go.”

“Priests aren’t rolling in dough, Ferguson. Not at all.”

“Your order won’t send you?”

“It’s not the sort of thing I’d ask them to do,” said Casey. “It would be an abuse of privilege.”

“Take that money,” said Ferg, pointing at the envelope.

The priest’s face blanched. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Ferguson.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant a rich parishioner might find a way to contribute.”

“If it’s the present company you’re speaking of, you’re not a parishioner.”

“Relax.”

“And you claim not to be rich. If I thought you were, son, I would have been asking you to support the basketball team as well. Now there you would do so much good for some boys who didn’t have the choices you had yourself in life.”

“Not lacrosse?”

“Can’t trust the kids with sticks these days.”

Ferguson sipped his beer. Today was his last day off, and his last in the States. It was likely that the CIA agent wouldn’t be back for a long time, which meant it could well be the last time he saw Case, as the kids used to call him. “Why would you want to go to Jerusalem?”

“‘Tis the Holy City, Ferg. The place of our good Lord’s passion. A special place.”

“Sure, if you’re a fanatic. The whole Middle East is wall-to-wall with crazies.”

“Religion is not fanaticism, Ferguson. We’ve had this discussion before. I thought you’d have been paying attention. Belief is not the fault of God; you can’t be blaming God for man’s sins. No, sir. Your terrorism is not God’s fault. It’s blasphemy to say that. A great sin.”

“I was just saying it’s an interesting place.”

“It’s a place I’d like to go. Better there than Ireland, of that I’m sure.” As a young man, he had seen bad times in Ireland — mother murdered and his father convicted of it — but even he couldn’t say why that had turned him inward God. The Lord hadn’t appeared to him on a cloud or spoken to him in darkened room, but he had just as surely been called.

“Jerusalem, huh?” said Ferg, checking his watch.

“Don’t get any funny ideas into your head now, son.”

“That’s all that’s in there, funny ideas.” Ferguson rose, then pointed at the pocket the priest had put the envelope into. “Make sure there’s no name in the bulletin connected with that.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” said the priest. “You’re a blackguard as far as I’m concerned, no truer blackguard in all Christendom.” He smiled and gave Ferguson his hand. “Thanks, lad. A lot of kids will be better for it.”

“I doubt it. But you don’t.” Ferguson took a pair of twenties from his pocket and dropped them on the table. “So do you want the mortal sins by category, or can I just hop around?”