At the Outpost of Fate

CHAPTER 5 — LEAP OF FAITH

As a man of faith, Father Nathan Hobbs did not require even a split second to question the wisdom of leaping out the window in pursuit of the straw-haired burglar. Yet, it was not his trust in God or the power of miracles that emboldened him to jump from more than seventy floors up, but rather his implicit faith in the perpetrator; in his previous dealings with this woman, he had come to appreciate that she left nothing to chance. He did not know exactly what means of escape she had waiting beyond the shattered window, but he knew it was there and knew with equal certainty that this would be his only chance to capture both the woman and her prize.

The only thing he could clearly see through the rush of air against his eyes was a smear of gold — the woman’s hair — only a few yards away and falling at an angle. He focused on this whipping streamer, pulling his extremities in against his body to reduce resistance and shot forward like an arrow. As the gap between them closed, he fell into a pocket of null air created by her passage through the atmosphere that sucked him in like a vacuum. The pressure against his eyeballs diminished and he opened his eyes wide just in time to see the woman pull something from her bulky backpack. The object immediately swelled into a small white balloon that was caught in the wind and pulled both up and ahead of her.

A pilot chute, thought Hobbs and he knew what would happen next. He tucked his chin down to eke out a little bit more speed and in the split second that it took for the drogue to yank the main parachute from the pack, Hobbs reached his target. He had braced himself for the impact, but the actual force of the collision was lessened by their freefall. Nevertheless, the woman’s head snapped back violently as he hit and for a moment he feared that he had killed her. The notion prompted no particular reaction; horrible though the thought was, Hobbs imagined the world would be no poorer without her. It was a fleeting thought, overridden by the imperative of survival. Like an octopus pouncing on its prey, Hobbs wrapped his arms and legs around the woman. One hand snaked over her shoulder and the other threaded under her armpit, tight against her ribcage and the two came together in a ferocious handclasp over her bosom. It was all he had time for.

The main parachute blossomed overhead with a loud pop and Hobbs felt the woman’s inert form jerk violently in his grasp. Had his hold been any less fierce, he would have been shaken loose and left to plummet to his death. Yet the parachute alone in no way guaranteed his survival.

The hurricane winds instantly caught the canopy; an eighty-knot blast that tore into the chute, pulling the lines taut against its human anchors and stretching the silk at its seams. For just a moment, Hobbs wondered if his trust in the burglar's foresight was not wholly misplaced. Parachute jumping was inherently dangerous, but from the relatively low altitude of a man-made structure — even the tallest one ever built — that risk was amplified almost out of all proportion. Add to that virtually suicidal combination the violent unpredictability of a hurricane and it was a recipe for certain doom. The thief must surely have known this; she was bold, but not suicidal. How then, Hobbs wondered in some faintly lit corner of his adrenaline-charged brain, had she planned to pull this one out of the fire? He reckoned he had only a few seconds to find the answer to that question before all hope was lost.

The parachute canopy was unlike anything he had ever seen; instead of the typical, capacious round dome, the chute was a small square of silk anchored at the corners. He followed the lines to their source, not the small pack attached to the small of the thief’s back, but rather to the suspender-like harness straps that ran over her shoulders. That was when he saw the handles and knew intuitively what their function was. But before he could even think about how to make use of the complicated control system, everything changed.

The chute abruptly folded in half, snagged on something protruding from one of the Empire State Building’s shorter siblings and its function altered from aerial braking device to something more akin to a grappling hook. Hobbs and his senseless captive suddenly became a pendulum weight at the end of a fixed line and were whipped around at breakneck speed into the side of the skyscraper.

Hobbs had one desperate thought in the instant before impact: The Staff!

His hand dropped to the burglar’s leg, to the deep pocket where he had seen her stow the relic after liberating it from the secure display case. There was no time to extract it from the folds of her garment, barely even time to grip it through the fabric and form a single, mental image….

The crash was equivalent to being hit by a speeding bus. There was a crunch, barely audible over the howling wind, of glass and concrete crumbling beneath the force of the collision and then the two figures at the end of the line bounced away only to be slammed back again and again. It was an impact that no living creature could have survived.

Hobbs opened his eyes warily, wondering if his first glimpse would be the kingdom of Heaven. The noise of the wind had abated and he could no longer feel the driving rain on his face, but the tactile sensations — the damp, rough feel of his clothes against his skin and the ache in his extremities from the battle with the thief — were still traveling between his nerves and brain. His eyes verified the reality.

Still alive, he thought. I guess it worked.

Although research on the artifact had only just begun, Hobbs and his companions had learned a few of the Staff’s remarkable properties, one of which was a unique and as yet incomprehensible ability to tap into the Earth’s electromagnetic field and transform it into a bubble of protective energy — what the science fiction pulp writers liked to call a ‘force field.’ The shield was normally nothing more dramatic that a faint crackle of static electricity around a body, but when exposed to the energy of another object, in this case the kinetic energy of their impact with the building, it became all but impervious, absorbing the bone-breaking impact and cushioning the figures within. The Staff and the technology that empowered it were subject to only one minor weakness: water.

Because it was essentially an electrical phenomenon, the force field generated by the relic shorted out in the presence of water. A mere splash of water could cause the shield to fail and deliver a nasty jolt to anyone inside; total immersion would almost certainly prove fatal.

Hobbs' euphoria at having survived the initial crash evaporated as quickly as the droplets of rain that now sizzled against the thin corona of energy mere inches from his body. Thus far, he had not felt the sting of electrical shocks on his skin, but how long that would last was anyone’s guess. As long as he was exposed to the elements, Hobbs was in constant peril; he had to get out of the storm and fast.

From this vantage, the building on which they had become ensnared was indistinguishable from all the others. Hobbs could see the spires of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings above neighboring rooftops, but everything else was generic glass and stone. One thing was certain, however. They were still more than thirty stories above the ground. While their impact had left a distinct outline of spider web fractures in the exterior of the building, it had not been sufficient to afford entry into the edifice. Hobbs enumerated his options; there weren’t many, but he still had one enormous advantage.

In addition to providing its wielder with a nearly invincible envelope of energy, the Staff could also levitate those within its protective bubble, but only if so directed. Hobbs had not thought to use it for that purpose, but now, as he and the burglar dangled at the end the parachute line, he imagined himself floating and immediately began to rise. A flick of a thought caused a tiny violet arc of electricity to slice through the entangled cords, freeing them from the chute and allowing them to fly unencumbered in the night.

With altitude, the storm’s fury increased exponentially, but strangely the assault of precipitation on the force field diminished. High above the ground, the fat drops of rain were either suspended as vapor or congealed into ice crystals, neither of which were quite as reactive as liquid water. Savoring the momentary respite from danger, Hobbs spared a thought for the bigger picture.

The instincts which had prompted him to regard Professor Pendleton’s strange summons as a possible diversion and threat to the Staff were now tingling once more. He had come to the secret laboratory in the Empire State Building thinking only to secure the relic and bring it along to that rendezvous. That he had caught the burglar red-handed seemed serendipitous on the surface, but he sensed that he had only exposed the tip of the iceberg. He was now certain that the theft of the Staff had only been one prong of a multi-faceted attack. The meeting with Pendleton then, was almost certainly a trap.

A trap that Molly, Hurricane, and Dodge are all rushing headlong into.

His decision was made. He fixed his attention on the dark void of Central Park and immediately began moving toward it. The trip took only a few minutes and, following a bracing passage through the downpour that culminated in a spectacular and mildly painful dance of sparks against the force field, he settled onto the roof the American Museum of Natural History. Relieved to be on relatively solid ground, he let the unconscious form of the blond burglar slump onto the slick gravel. The energy bubble dispersed as soon as he let go.

For the first time since intercepting her in midair, Hobbs checked to see if she was still alive. Her skin, though damp and clammy, did not have the gray pallor of the recently dead and when he put his face close to her mouth, he could feel her breath. With a slightly disappointed frown, he hefted her onto his shoulder, as one might a sack of potatoes and headed for the access door.

As the door clicked shut behind him, shutting out the howl of the hurricane, Hobbs felt as though a tombstone had been moved into place, sealing him in a crypt of darkness. He took a deep breath and willed himself into a state of preternatural calm. To an uninitiated observer, he might simply have been praying, but Father Nathan Hobbs’ knowledge and skills extended far beyond what was taught in seminary.

For a moment, all he could hear in the darkness was his own heart thumping in his chest, but soon other sounds began to emerge from the aural tableau. He heard the burglar’s slow breath sounds, but that was only the beginning. His vision too began to penetrate the shadows cloaking the stairwell and with cat-like stealth Hobbs began descending into the heart of the museum.

With each successive floor, the flow of barely audible noise grew into a cascade. By the time he reached the main floor, he had drawn a mental map of the museum, marked with all the places where he was able to distinguish the sounds of movement, breathing and heartbeats — strangely, there was very little whispering. He could only make out… Molly!

He quickened his pace, rushing through the exhibits and connecting hallways as if he knew every inch of the place by heart. He paused at one information desk long enough to obtain a flashlight. He didn’t need the additional illumination, but reckoned it would serve as a beacon to guide his friends to him; if as he feared the other bodies moving through the museum were hostile, then Molly and the others would certainly be operating from a defensive posture.

He kept his eyes closed as he switched on the lamp, mindful of not blinding himself with the sudden glare. Squinting through barely opened eyelids, he pushed onward into a large hall filled with taxidermies and sculpted likenesses of fish and other sea creatures. He swept the beam to and fro, but the whispering had ceased, making it difficult to pinpoint their exact location. Cautiously, he advanced a step, but a sound of footsteps from behind caught his attention. Their unknown enemy was closing in.

He did a swift about face and was heading back toward the entrance to the exhibit when a shriek erupted from the darkness. "Here! They’re right here!"

Hurley twisted in the awkward space, hastily clapping a hand over Pendleton’s mouth, but the damage was already done. Molly gasped as the flashlight beam swung around and stabbed into the crevice where they were hiding.

"Oww," snarled Hurley, abruptly wrenching his hand away from the professor’s mouth. Pendleton’s teeth were bloody, but the stain was not his own; he had bitten Hurricane, tearing a chunk of flesh from the big man’s palm.

"Here!" screamed the archaeologist, fighting his captor’s embrace. "They’re here. Help me!"

Despite his earlier fatigue, Pendleton now seemed like a berserker. With a strength that seemed impossible for such a bookish man, he broke from Hurricane’s grasp and squirmed past Molly.

Hurley’s response was unequivocal. Launching himself from the place of concealment, he pounced on Pendleton, wrestling him to the floor and with what seemed like an act of pure savagery, twisted his head violently around. There was a sickening crack as the man’s vertebrae separated and then silence. Hurricane sprang to his feet, ready to meet the newly arrived enemy with similar prejudice, but a familiar voice cut through the blinding extremes of light and darkness. "Hurricane! It’s me!"

Molly recognized the voice instantly and rushed from the recess behind the display case. "Dad!"

Hurley’s fury was instantly sublimated into horror and guilt as he stared down at Pendleton’s lifeless corpse. "My God. I’ve killed him."

"He was one of them." The priest gripped his friend’s shoulder and it was only then that the big man realized Hobbs was carrying another body over his shoulder.

"Who, Padre? Who the Hell are they?"

"I don’t know yet, but they hit the lab."

Molly, likewise confused, noticed the one detail about the form slumped over her father’s shoulder that had escaped Hurricane’s notice. "Who’s your date, Dad?"

Her half-hearted quip failed to lighten the mood. "Long story," answered the priest, tersely. "I’ll tell you all about it, but by now, every one of them in the museum knows where we are. We’ve got to get moving?"

"What about Dodge?"

Hobbs and Hurley both stopped short. It was the big man that finally answered. "If they didn’t already get him, then the best thing we can do for him is to get moving. Draw them off."

"I agree," concurred Hobbs. "Something tells me they are going to be a lot more interested in getting the Staff back than in chasing after Dodge."

"The Staff?" Hurley shook his head. "Never mind. You’re right. There are a bunch of them, but it’s like they’re…"

"Zombies," Molly whispered. "Like in that movie."

Since setting foot in urban America, Molly had developed a love for the cinema, often taking in an afternoon matinee with Dodge in tow. One of the first films they had seen was "White Zombie" with Bela Lugosi.

Hurricane nodded. "That’s exactly it. The lights are on, but no one’s home."

Hobbs considered this. "If they are zombies, then someone will be guiding their hand, a houngan or momba giving them orders."

Hurley didn’t ask his old friend for an explanation of the strange terms. "What’s our plan? How do we get past these guys? They’ll be watching the exits and I don’t think we can all crowd into my car."

"I didn’t drive," confessed Hobbs.

"What about the truck?" Molly exclaimed. "It's the last place they'd expect us to go."

Hobbs threw a questioning glance at Hurley who gave a nod. "They tried to shanghai us onto a truck down on the loading dock. I doubt they left anyone to guard it and even if they did—" He held up one of his enormous pistols.

"And I can drive," piped Molly.

"Like there was ever any question," the priest murmured. "Lead on."

No longer encumbered by the duplicitous Professor Pendleton, the trio moved quickly and stealthily back into the maze of hallways, retracing their steps. Eschewing the flashlight, the two former soldiers used their remarkable night vision and hearing to avoid contact with the roaming mob. The only exception came when they encountered a lone sentry left behind to guard the stairway descending to the storage area, but Hurricane stealthily crept up on the man, rendering him unconscious before he could sound the alarm.

The truck was exactly where they remembered it, as was the body of the guard Hurley had been forced to shoot. Hobbs seemed not to notice, sparing his old friend any questions or recriminations and instead carried his still unmoving captive into the cargo area of the vehicle where he at last laid her down. "I'll stay with her. You two drive."

"Where should we…" Hurricane's inquiry died with a strangled noise as he got his first good look at the burglar. "That's—"

"Yes, it is. There's a lot more going on here than we know. Whoever is behind this knows all about us; knows our habits and haunts and all the other intimate details of our lives. We need to go somewhere they won't think to look." Hobbs steepled his fingers under his chin and closed his eyes meditatively. "There are some secret rooms under the Hibernian Hall at Old Saint Pat's."

"Good enough. We can hole up there until we make contact with Dodge." Hurley steered Molly toward the steps leading down to the street level. It took her only a few minutes to familiarize herself with the truck's controls, after which she turned the engine over and roared off into the night, leaving the museum and all of its madness behind.

Molly had never been to Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral, the seat of the New York archdiocese from 1815 to 1879, but her father gave them all a quick thumbnail sketch of its rather colorful history as they cleared the cobwebs from an old forgotten monk's cell under an adjoining meeting hall.

Situated in Little Italy on the edge of the Bowery, Saint Pat's as the locals called it, was New York's first cathedral and burial ground for several of the city’s noteworthy Catholics. One of the buildings in the compound had served as a hospital during the Revolutionary War and another — the Hibernian Hall under which their current refuge was located — had served as a base of operations for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a group of laymen who had taken up arms in defense of the cathedral during anti-Papist riots in 1835. Although its glory had been somewhat overshadowed by the construction of the new cathedral bearing the same name, Old Saint Pat’s remained a historic treasure for the city. For the tired trio, plus one prisoner, that covertly entered the property under cover of storm and darkness however, it was not the splendor of the cathedral building that drew them in, but rather its dark forgotten recesses.

The blonde burglar, who had stirred at some point during their cross-town journey, now sat bound and gagged in a chair in a corner of the room. Molly had immediately observed that beneath the stringy mop of flaxen hair and mask of bruises, the woman was exceptionally beautiful and she instantly felt defensive. Curiously, the woman’s sapphire eyes were devoid of any anger toward her captives.

"So who is she?" Molly asked after Hobbs concluded his historical narrative.

The priest stared at the bound woman as if considering how best to answer, but the Hurley chimed in. "That is the infamous ‘Fallen Angel’ cat burglar, also known as Jocasta Palmer."

Hobbs sighed. "Well, they’ve never proved that, but after tonight I’ve little doubt." He quickly outlined the events that had led to his arrival at the museum.

"Okay, so she’s a professional thief, but how is that you two seem to know her so well?" Molly’s tone was unusually confrontational and even she wasn’t quite sure why.

Hurricane chuckled mirthlessly. "Funny thing. It’s been almost fifteen years, but I still remember our last tussle with Miss Palmer like it was yesterday. It left a rather bad taste in my mouth."

It was Hobbs turn to laugh, a crack in his usually dour façade. "Yes, the taste of fish eggs."

"We ran afoul of one of her schemes in Paris. She was trying to snatch a Faberge egg from an exiled Russian nobleman. One thing led to another and we wound up buried in caviar."

Molly gave the blonde woman another long hard look and did some quick arithmetic. "Fifteen years, you said? She must have been a kid at the time. Or does she bathe in the blood of newborns to maintain her youthful appearance?"

Hurley’s laughter was more heartfelt this time. "I think you’ve hit on her secret, girl."

"It doesn’t look as though she remembers it quite as well as you do."

"I wondered about that," Hobbs confessed. "And I think you’ve hit on it, Mol. She’s under the same influence as those poor souls at the museum."

"She’s a zombie?"

"Well, not in the traditional sense, but I think that she and all the others are definitely not in control of their actions. Which begs the question- Who is in control?"

"An operation this sophisticated… Do you think there’s a foreign power behind it all?"

"When you consider the layers of secrecy we’ve built up around our discovery, I’d say it would almost have to be the work of an enemy nation. Still, to have so completely taken control of so many people suggests something…uncanny." Hobbs continued to stare at Jocasta, regarding her as one might an enigmatic sculpture. "I’ll wager she can tell us, if I can find a way to break through."

"We’ll leave you to it then." Hurley abruptly stood. "Come along, Molly girl."

"What?" The priest’s fiery-haired daughter stood also, but she placed her hands on her hips in a defiant posture. "I’m not moving until someone tells me what’s going on."

"Molly, it’s not something I can explain."

"Trust me," Hurricane added, gently offering his hand. "You don’t want to be in here when he does his little trick. It’s not something I care to ever see again."

Molly held her ground a moment longer, but the big man’s admission reached through her bravado. Anything that could rattle Hurley’s cage was something to be avoided at all costs by mere ordinary mortals. "Well, okay. But you better tell me all about it."

Hobbs watched as they exited the cramped room, idly wondering what sort of outrageous tale his old friend would foist on the girl and then took a seat to gather his thoughts. Hurley’s statement had been an outright falsehood; he had never witnessed what Hobbs was about to do. No one had. It was a process that required complete isolation; the presence of another individual in close proximity would have completely thwarted his efforts. That being said, there was very little about the ritual that could be considered theatric — at least outwardly. What happened on the battlefield of the unconscious mind was another story entirely.

He placed his chair directly in front of Jocasta and loosened her gag. He sat down and peered into her sparkling blue eyes. She returned the gaze, but there was no willfulness behind the stare; she seemed merely to be waiting. "Well, Miss Palmer, I must say I’m pleased to see you like this. I don’t suppose you’d care to save us both some trouble and confess your sins."

No reply.

"I thought not." He fixed his attention on her eyes and as he did, the rest of the room seemed to dissolve into a gray fog. The matched orbs seemed to move together, forming a single eye in the center of her forehead; a swirling vortex into which Hobbs, disembodied, was drawn.

Only then did Jocasta seem to realize that she was under attack. She began thrashing against her bonds, even struggling to break free of his hypnotic gaze, but she was too late. Hobbs was no longer looking at her physical eyes, but rather into what Eastern mystics called the ajna, the "Third Eye." If as some claimed, the eyes were the window to the soul, then the ajna chakra was the front door and Hobbs had just walked in and taken off his coat.

He was instantly deluged by waves of light and color, a chaotic mosaic that represented the sum total of everything Jocasta Palmer saw, heard, felt and thought. The experience was not altogether pleasant. Although he did not realize it, a low wail escaped his lips as her stimulus flooded into his own mind.

Just as each person’s appearance was distinctive in spite of a basic commonality of physical anatomy, so too every person on the planet experienced thought and sensation according to a specific pattern, much the same way that a radio broadcast could only be understood if the receiving unit was tuned to the correct frequency. Hobbs did not attempt to find Jocasta’s unique "frequency;" most of it was just background noise. He was looking for something specific — something that did not belong. Through no effort on his part, it found him.

It began as a dark spot, like the pupil of an eye, unaffected by the swirling lights and colors of the gyre, but soon grew to planetary proportions, eclipsing everything else. Hobbs steered his consciousness toward it, but then was overcome with a trepidation he had never before experienced. He tried to turn, to flee before the swelling darkness, but it was too late. The shadow swallowed him whole….

"My goodness," exclaimed a man seated across the aisle. "We’re descending."

Hobbs struggled to comprehend where he was and the significance of the comment. His surroundings were familiar; the orderly rows of seats and small porthole windows were all things he had seen before. I’m on an airplane, he thought.

"Are you quite certain?" The voice, also quite familiar but this time from his almost forgotten past, had issued from his own lips.

The man that had initially spoken continued peering through the window. "Absolutely. I can see the ocean. I hope nothing is wrong with the plane."

For several minutes, the passenger compartment was abuzz with similar speculations, but Hobbs tuned them out as his grasp of the situation resolved. He comprehended that he was experiencing Jocasta’s last memory; the last thing that had happened to her before her mind was enslaved. Though limited by the prison of her flesh, he caught a few glimpses of his fellow passengers and was not surprised to see among them Professor Augustus Pendleton.

Jocasta paid close attention to the report given by some of the men who had elected to go forward and inquire of the captain, but Hobbs discounted their explanation. They had been assured that the stop was routine, but Hobbs knew better. This was where it had all started.

The plane splashed down with deceptive grace and cruised along in the gently rolling sea for a few more minutes. Jocasta, along with her shipmates, peered intently through the portholes, curious to see if they were going to put in on some waypoint island or rendezvous with an oceangoing vessel; it turned out to be the latter.

"That’s a U-boat!" exclaimed the man that had first noticed the change in course.

His observation was met with typical skepticism by most of the passengers, but if Jocasta had a response, she did not verbalize it. For his part, Hobbs had no trouble verifying the statement; the dark conning tower and deck of a submarine loomed about a hundred yards off the plane’s starboard wingtip. It was different than the unterseeboots which had roamed the Atlantic like a pack of hungry wolves during the Great War — more refined and with less superstructure — but certainly the offspring of that first generation of stealthy warships. The boat flew no flags and the men that swarmed over her still awash decks wore generic yellow rain slickers, but Hobbs felt quite certain he was looking at the product of Teutonic engineering; the German Kriegsmarine had been experimenting with new U-boat design and something told him this was the result.

Several of the crewmen deployed a motorized skiff which bounced across the swells toward the plane, but disappeared from Hobbs’ line of sight as they closed the gap. A general air of apprehension settled over the passengers that only deepened when a figure appeared at the front of the cabin, gazing down the aisle. Hobbs did not recognize the man, but his steward’s uniform and the passengers’ unquestioning acceptance of his credentials served to identify his role.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry about this brief delay, but we’ve had to put in for a routine customs inquiry. I’m afraid I’ll need you all to bring your passports down to the lounge."

Hobbs knew better, but to his surprise, the passengers seemed relieved by the news; hungry for any explanation, this obvious deception was much more palatable than the bitter truth. They were being hijacked. One by one the passengers filed out of the cabin and went like lambs to the slaughter.

Hobbs could sense Jocasta’s anxiety as she moved along the queue, but her concerns were those of a criminal who fears the long awaited reckoning. She kept a brave face as the steward called her forward and admitted her into the plane’s small lounge. Only then did she give way to terror.

Hobbs ignored her cries, focusing instead on the garishly masked gang that waited beyond the door. They wore hooded cassocks, like monks, but each cowl was filled with the visage of a grinning skull. Two of them gripped her arms and dragged her forward to the figure who seemed to be the leader. The leering death’s head leaned close.

"Ah, Miss Palmer. I’m pleased you decided to take the job. But there’s been a slight change of plans.”

Jocasta flinched as a fourth masked man holding a large silver syringe emerged from behind the others. Hobbs caught a glimpse of the needle, a bloated crystal droplet glistening on its tip, before the pain surged through his borrowed body and darkness closed in once more…

He stood on a landscape of crushed cinders, scattered beneath a blazing crimson sun. He was no longer in Jocasta’s body and knew this only because she stood nearby, chained like a sacrifice to an upright wooden post. When she saw him, her eyes grew wide in terror and a hoarse scream escaped her lips. Despite his long-standing ire toward her, Hobbs felt a pang of sympathy; God only knows what she’s been through, he thought.

"Hush child," he whispered. "It’s over. I’m setting you free."

But his words did not comfort her and as he drew closer, her fear seemed to multiply exponentially. She shrank back against the stake, pulling at the iron shackles around her wrist until blood began to stream down her arms. Ignoring the outcry, Hobbs focused on his stated purpose. With a swipe of his hand, he broke the chains, releasing her from the bonds imposed by her skull-faced captor.

Jocasta fell back onto the ashes, but hastily scrambled to her feet and fled before him. There was no gratitude for the gift of her freedom, no understanding of his benevolence, only abject horror, but now at least Hobbs understood why. He stared in disbelief at the hand he had used to break the chains — not a thing of flesh, but a misshapen claw of bone that gleamed a deathly orange beneath the bloody sun….

Hobbs fell back in his chair as if struck by a physical blow. His eyes stung from the rivulets of sweat that had dripped down from his forehead. A few inches away, Jocasta Palmer, likewise soaked in perspiration, sagged exhausted against the ropes that held her. After a moment, she raised her head. "Father Hobbs, fancy meeting you here."

He looked up, his earlier sympathy gone. "Miss Palmer."

She regarded him with practiced coolness. "Care to explain why you have me tied up here? And for that matter where ‘here’ is?"

"Don’t you remember?"

"Remember?" The sapphire eyes narrowed as she searched her mind and her unruffled expression cracked a bit. "I don’t…we were flying from Bermuda; that’s the last thing I remember."

Hobbs sighed. "I see. So you’ve no memory of what happened after that? Of the skull men from the submarine?"

"Skull men." It wasn’t a question. "They drugged me."

"I think they did a lot more to you than that. You and everyone on that flight."

A weary look replaced her confident calm. "Dare I ask how you came to be mixed up in this? Are you and Zane still fighting the good fight?"

Hobbs winced. He had almost forgotten the brief romance between Jocasta and his superior officer, Captain Zane Falcon prior to the caviar incident and wasn’t sure which stung more: the fact that Falcon had been sleeping with the enemy, so to speak or the tragic fate that had subsequently befallen the man he had so come to admire.

"After a fashion," he answered. "But right now, I’m more interested in what you’ve been up to."

"My dear Father Hobbs, a lady never tells."

"You can tell me anything; I’m a priest." He offered a patronizing smile. "Why were you on that flight, Jocasta? The villain behind all this made sure you would be there because he wanted your unique skills to steal something very important. The job that you were coming here to do was a setup. Who were you working for?"

"I don’t work for anyone," she answered haughtily, but her defiance was half-hearted. "However, I was approached by a man and offered a particularly large finder’s fee for recovering some family heirlooms that had been brought to America by mistake."

"What was his name?"

"He was a kraut fellow, about your age. Schadel was the name."

"Schadel? Are you certain?"

"Quite. Easy to remember because he seemed such a shady character. Of course, it was probably an alias. No one uses their Christian name in this business."

"I don’t wonder." Hobbs leaned back in his chair, pondering the villain’s chosen nom de guerre, but a knock at the door interrupted his musings. He opened it to find Hurley and Molly waiting eagerly on the threshold.

"Everything all right in there, Padre? We were a little worried when things got quiet."

Before Hobbs could answer, a lilting voice called from inside the room. "Brian, is that you, love?"

Hurley’s face twisted with rage, but Hobbs hastily pushed him back into the hallway and closed the door behind him. "Same old Jocasta," he explained. "Which is actually a good thing, believe it or not. This is much worse than we could have believed, Hurricane."

"That’s hard to imagine. What could be worse than what we just went through?"

"The end of the world."

Hurley blanched. "Oh, yes. Well, I can see where that would…"

"Every religion — every culture that has ever existed on this planet — has a prophecy regarding the end. For some, it’s the herald of a golden age, but for most…" He shook his head. "In the book of Revelation, it was foretold that Death would ride like a horseman, killing a fourth of the Earth with war and plague."

"Ancient superstitions," scoffed Hurley unconvincingly. "How many times have people predicted the end of the world, but it’s still here."

Hobbs drew in a sharp breath. "There was another prophecy, one not quite so ancient. Not quite fifty years ago, a psychic medium in London had a vision of the birth of the figure many believe will bring about the end of the world — a boy called the Child of Skulls. The vision was so terrifying that it killed her."

Hurley’s remained doubtful, but the priest pressed on. "That child would be a man now, in his forties. I only bring this up because of what Jocasta just told me. She and all the other zombies — if that’s what you want to call them — were on a flight from Bermuda that was intercepted by a German U-boat. The hijackers wore skull masks to hide their identities. They took control of an entire plane full of people in less than a day; that's something beyond drugs, beyond hypnosis. Moreover, the man that originally hired her gave the name Schadel, which is German for ‘skull.’"

"I don’t know, Padre. It’s a stretch."

"Is it? You know as well as I what Hitler wants. World domination. What would happen if he got his hands on the Staff and the technology at the Outpost?"

"The end of the world," breathed Molly.

"That's what's at stake."

"I'm not saying I believe any of this," Hurley intoned. "But there's no arguing that we're up against someone big and bad and that just gets my fur up. Who is this Skull guy, anyway?"

"I'm hoping Jocasta can help us figure that out."

The big man scowled. "That's not in her nature."

"Perhaps not. But if she refuses to actively help us, we can always explore other ways to get the information we need."

Molly recoiled at the thought, but said nothing. She knew too well that sometimes, desperate measures were required to solve desperate problems.

"Well, then let's give her a chance." Hurricane thrust open the door to the cell and marched inside. He stopped so abruptly that Hobbs crashed into his broad back.

"Hellfire! She's gone."

Hobbs pushed past, his heart in his throat, but no amount of wishing could alter the simple truth of Hurley's outburst. Where Jocasta Palmer had sat a few minutes earlier, there was only an empty chair and loops of rope coiled like vipers on the floor. One of the narrow windows had been forced open, allowing wind and drizzle to permeate the musty room; a small portal through which to escape, but not too small for the lithe cat burglar.

"God damn her!" Hobbs raged.

Molly was doubly stunned. Losing their captive was bad enough, but she had never seen her adopted father lose his temper like this. The priest flew into a rage to rival Hurricane's most frightening outburst, prompting the big man to ultimately grip Hobbs' shoulders. "Padre, get control of yourself."

Hobbs, beet-red with uncontrolled wrath, shook in his friend's grasp, a man possessed. "You don't understand Brian," he rasped, barely able to get the words out. "She has the Staff!”