Pandora's Curse

ROTTERDAM, HOLLAND

Amid the rusting tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships, the Sea Empress gleamed like a new Rolls Royce parked in a junkyard. Her upperworks were snowy white, trimmed with black and gold, with twin raked funnels topped by aerodynamic wings not much smaller than those on a private jet. She was longer than most of the ships around her, and her eight-story superstructure towered above every vessel in the busy port. Designed as a catamaran, her two hulls were nearly a thousand feet in length and each had a ninety-foot beam. The cavernous gap between them was used to lower any number of watercraft, from two-hundred-passenger lighters to glass-bottomed excursion boats to Jet Skis.

She could comfortably accommodate four thousand passengers as well as her full-time staff of three thousand. Her list of world records for a cruise liner included everything from number of restaurants — thirty-nine — to casino square footage to having a four-hole pitch-and-putt golf course. Her cost too was a world record likely to hold for years — $1.7 billion.

Despite the ascetic beliefs of many of those who would be sailing on her, few could help but be awed by the sight of her snugged against a concrete pier. The Sea Empress was a high expression of the beauty mankind was capable of creating.

Because of the tight security surrounding the Universal Convocation, the quay was quiet except for the guards posted all along the length of the ship. Harbor patrol boats buzzed along her starboard side, and overhead military helicopters kept the roving media choppers at a safe distance. So far there hadn’t been a single credible threat against the ship or her passengers, but with so much world attention focused on the greatest religious meeting in history, the authorities were taking no chances. After lengthy interrogations, her crew had been sequestered aboard for the past week, and she was searched daily with bomb-sniffing dogs.

Getting the ship ready and secure had been a massive operation, and now that the passengers were embarking, those in charge of security had redoubled their vigilance. Each passenger, from the pope down to the lowliest secretary, was escorted through unobtrusive metal detectors calibrated to allow nothing bulkier than religious medals to pass through. The latest generation of chemical-sniffing devices was also used to detect the most minute amount of gunpowder. Even if someone sneaked a ceramic pistol past the metal detectors, traces of gunpowder from the bullets would be picked up on these machines.

It had been agreed earlier that only the pope’s Swiss Guard would be allowed to carry weapons on the Sea Empress. There had been some difficulty with the thirty Sikhs attending the convocation since their tradition demanded each carry a small knife at all times. The pope had gladly given them permission to maintain the practice.

Neils Vanderhoff was a guard at a manifest checkpoint assigned to verify each of the lesser-known passengers against a master list, authenticating their identity with a computer database of photographs compiled from six different sources. The pictures dated back at least a year before the Convocation’s announcement to prevent terrorists from using carefully built false legends to slip aboard.

In front of him now was a tall, middle-aged man wearing a shiny suit that cost more money than Vanderhoff made in three months. His face was deeply tanned and smooth, and he had the whitest teeth the Dutchman had ever seen. He sported a diamond-encrusted Rolex and an elaborate ruby pinky ring. While his hair was thinning and silver at the sides, on top it was as dense and jet black as a sable’s pelt. Neils wondered why the man spent so much on his wardrobe, teeth bleaching, and jewelry yet wore such an obvious toupee.

Clutching his elbow was a sight Vanderhoff would never forget. The man’s wife might have been pretty once, but her fight against time had been a long, bloody campaign that had left the battlefield in ruins. She wasn’t that much younger than her husband but her face had been so frequently lifted that it was as tight as the head on a snare drum. She looked like a poorly cast wax model of herself. Behind black false lashes, her eyes bulged from one too many tucks. Her makeup was as overvibrant as that applied to a corpse by a color-blind mortician. Above her eyes were thick slashes of blue and yellow, her cheeks were so rouged they looked sunburned, and her collagen-puffed lips had been troweled over with layers of frost white. Her big hair was brass blond and piled six inches high. She had maintained her figure, or possibly had it maintained for her, but still her hips and backside strained against a skirt sized for a woman fifteen pounds lighter. Her breasts were silicone fantasies that threatened to spill over the top of her lamé blouse.

In her arms was a nervous Pekingese that yapped continuously. The woman made no move to quiet her rodent-size dog.

She popped a piece of chewing gum as her husband passed over their passports. Tommy Joe and Lorna Farquar from Nashville, Tennessee, USA. As if Neils couldn’t tell they were Americans. He stared at the caricatures slack-jawed.

“I know what you’re thinking, son.” Tommy Joe’s enormous teeth flashed like a mirror pointed at the sun, and he spoke as if addressing a crowd of ten thousand. “You’ve seen my ministry on television, and you can’t believe you’ve gotten a chance to meet me.”

“Honey, they don’t carry our show in Europe, ’cause they don’t talk American here.” Lorna Farquar had a little-girl voice with an adult’s ignorance. “Do they, Pookie? They haven’t been saved yet. No, they haven’t.” The Pekingese’s whine was deeper than its mistress’s.

“Sure they do, Lorna. It’s on satellite feed, don’t you remember?”

“I’m sure I don’t,” she simpered, her eyelashes tangling like fighting spiders when she blinked up at him.

Neils Vanderhoff shook off his amused incredulity and typed their names into his workstation. Instantly a series of pictures appeared on the screen, mostly publicity shots of the couple at a blue satin altar adorned with the words MIRACLES OF JESUS CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES. He noted wryly that Mrs. Farquar’s bosom had been noticeably smaller last year.

Craning her head to see what the customs man had chuckled at, Lorna wailed, “Oh, sweet Jesus! Those pictures are from before I had my titties done.”

“There, there, dear.” Tommy Joe patted her hand.

Vanderhoff checked to see the most recent entry stamps on their passports as per his orders. He was on the lookout for any suspicious travel since the Convocation had been announced. The Farquars’ passports had numerous stamps to Caribbean islands but nothing in the past six months. He handed them back without a word, praying they would move on without braying at him again.

The next person in line was a large man traveling alone, and by the dark robes he wore, heavy silver cross hanging from a chain around his neck, and his full beard, Neils recognized him as a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The priest must have heard the exchange, so Vanderhoff gave him a conspiratorial smile. The black-robed figure didn’t change his stony expression. He handed over a Russian passport.

Feeling rebuffed, the customs agent noted that Father Anatoly Vatutin had been in Germany before coming to Holland for the Convocation. He punched up the name, comparing the fierce-eyed cleric in front of him to photographs taken a few years earlier at an Eastern Rites meeting in Istanbul. Vatutin had more gray in his beard and hair now but time had not softened his hawkish features. Giving back the passport, Vanderhoff felt a chill when the intense priest nodded in acknowledgment.

Anatoly Vatutin slid his passport back into his battered shoulder bag and hurried along the corridor. Before reaching the exit, he passed the obnoxious television minister, who had stopped so his trashy wife could let her dog lift its leg against a wall. A dark puddle formed on the carpet, and the woman scooped up the Pekingese before its feet became soiled. The thought that these people worshipped the same god he did made Vatutin wince.

Unlike many who had preceded him, Father Vatutin did not pause when he got his first look at the luxury liner. He paid scant attention to the guards either. Head down and cheap shoes clomping, he moved across the pier toward one of four embarkation points, his expression one of anxious determination. The sun soaking into his black clothes was only partially responsible for the sweat that caught in his beard and trickled down his flanks.

He presented his ticket to a uniformed woman at the top of the gangway, not returning the cheery greeting. “You are in cabin E429, Father Vatutin,” the assistant cruise director said in passable Russian. “That’s on the starboard hull. Go straight into the ship, and when you reach the first atrium, you’ll see a broad hallway to your right. That’s the Champs Elysées, one of four main throughways connecting the two hulls. When you reach the atrium on the other hull, another attendant will direct you to the elevator bank closest to your cabin.”

“Spesiva,” Vatutin grunted, clutching at his shoulder bag as if afraid the bubbly attendant would take it.

He moved quickly through the ship, pausing for a flicker of a second to gaze upward when he reached the lofty, glass-crowned atrium that was the centerpiece of each side of the vessel. The balconies ringing the upper floors dripped with flowering plants, reminding Vatutin of an artist’s rendition of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. He found the long corridor called Champs Elysées, then threaded through clusters of people conversing in excited bursts. He noted that the men outnumbered the women by a factor of fifty.

At the next atrium, he again presented his ticket and was directed to an elevator bank near the stern of the vessel, where he took one of the cars downward to the lowest of passenger decks. While his Spartan cabin had a small porthole, it presented a shadowy view of the channel between the hulls. The cabin pulsed with the vibration of the Sea Empress’s engines. He paid no attention to the view or the vibration. His heavy antique wooden chest had already been delivered and sat in the middle of the tiny room, taking up so much space that Vatutin had to tuck his legs under the bed to face it. He checked the lock carefully, relieved to see that it hadn’t been tampered with. He had no idea what kind of scrutiny the luggage was given, and he had been concerned that if the contents had been examined, he wouldn’t have a ready explanation for what lay within.

He used a brass key on the lock and lifted the lid. The case was a clever disguise, meant to look solid and heavy when in fact it was made of wood veneer over an aluminum shell that weighed just ten pounds. It was what was at the bottom of the trunk that gave it such weight.

Below the few items of clothing and toiletries that Vatutin needed for the two-week cruise were a pair of gloves, a hood, a type of smock, and a specially designed metal flask. The gloves almost looked like medieval chain mail except they were crafted of tightly woven gold thread and weren’t yet a hundred years old. Each one weighed three pounds. He knew from experience that they were clumsy and awkward to wear and even harder to work with.

Next to them was a long hood similarly fashioned of gold thread. Two eyeholes were woven into the mesh, and over them, a special flap could be drawn down to completely cover the eyes if necessary. Fortunately for Vatutin, the cowl’s original owner had had a larger than normal head, so he could slip on the hood without difficulty. He set the glittering gloves and hood aside and strained to withdraw the last item of clothing. This was a recent addition to Vatutin’s collection because the original smock had long since disappeared.

This one weighed almost ninety pounds. It was composed of lead-impregnated cloth with hundreds of small lead plates sewn in place to form a solid shield extending from the waist to the throat. The sleeves were banded with lead rings of various sizes that allowed limited movement at the shoulder and elbow.

Anatoly Vatutin wished that the Brotherhood could have afforded to assemble the garment out of gold, like the original, but they no longer had anywhere near that kind of money. As it was, if they failed in the next two weeks, the Brotherhood would not have the funds to continue their work.

A high-strength stainless-steel flask was left at the bottom of the trunk. Though it was the same size as the trunk and about a foot tall, only half its volume was filled. Its liquid contents had been smuggled at tremendous cost from the Chernobyl nuclear plant before its closure. He looked at it with dread before lowering the smock back into the chest and replacing the gloves and hood. He had just started a prayer of thanks that his secret was still safe when there was a knock on his cabin door.

His heart slammed against his ribs. Oh, God, no! It had to be the Swiss Guards coming to question him. Either he had been betrayed or they had X-rayed the trunk. Not now that I am so close, he cried silently to God. Please, this is your work I am doing.

Frantic, he threw his other clothes into the trunk, slammed the lid, and turned the lock again. “Moment, please,” he croaked in English.

“Father Vatutin?” a man called from the other side of the door. “I am from the purser’s office. Please open the door.”

“I am on the toilet,” Vatutin improvised, eyeing the porthole as a possible escape route. It was much too small, of course. Trapped, he resigned himself to trust in God to see him through. “I am coming.”

On the way to the door, he had the presence of mind to reach into the closet-size bathroom to flush the toilet, maintaining his thin veil of deception. If there was only one of them outside the door, Vatutin wondered if he could kill him. For what he needed to do on this trip, taking the life of a purser was a small price. He had the element of surprise, and even without a weapon, he was formidable at six foot three inches tall and two hundred thirty pounds. He composed himself, wiping sweat from his face. The door swung smoothly and standing in the corridor was an innocent-looking young man wearing a white uniform and holding a bunch of flowers.

“Father Vatutin, these are compliments of the cruise line.” He smiled and offered the flowers to a befuddled Vatutin. “When the sailing arrangements were made, your bishop, Bishop Olkranszy, assured us that you wouldn’t mind being on the lowest deck. However we felt brightening your cabin with flowers was the least we could do.”

“The cabin is fine,” Vatutin stammered, his relief immeasurable. They knew nothing! “Perhaps you can give the flowers to the person in the next cabin.”

“We have them for all guests staying on the inside of E deck, Father,” the young man said and smiled again.

“Ah, thank you, then.” Vatutin closed the door, leaning his back against it as he tried to slow his breathing. He wished he had brought along something to settle his stomach. He wanted to vomit.

Get hold of yourself, Anatoly, he thought. He felt like he was having a heart attack. No one knows why you are really here.

He knew he would not relax until he took possession of the icon being presented to Bishop Olkranszy by the Vatican and confirmed what lay hidden behind its golden cover. Anatoly gave little thought to his own death if he mishandled the relic just as long as he accomplished his mission. It was little wonder that knowing the secret of Satan’s Fist had driven the Brotherhood’s founder insane. Grigori Efymovich had handled dozens of such icons while Vatutin was responsible for only one. It would be days before he received the icon, and the tension was already tearing him apart.