The Omega Factor(110)





Nick was running on adrenaline.

He was exactly where he’d found himself so many times over the past few years. No backup. No partner. No team. No nothing, including no guarantees of the future.

Just the way he liked it.

At least all the cards from all the players were on the table. Everyone knew where everyone else stood.

He’d retreated off to the side of the opening that expanded inward to form the rock church. The maidens were still sitting in the pews. Rice had vanished behind the raised altar. Hard to see where.

But he told himself to be patient.

They’d have to come this way at some point.





Claire climbed back out through the entrance and emerged from the hatch on the other side. Fuentes and Rice were already out, but she’d lingered a moment to switch off the lights, taking one last look around, and saying a prayer. May God and the Virgin forgive her. Nearly two thousand years ago a group of women had created a holy tomb from this cave in the mountains. They’d buried Mary, whom they believed to be the Mother of God. A woman who’d traveled to the region with John, the man Christ himself, from the cross, had entrusted his mother’s care to. There she’d lived and died. Other women had protected her tomb, some, like Sister Rachel, even giving their lives. Now it would all be destroyed. Hers would be the last eyes that would see, intact, the Blessed Virgin’s final resting place.

What had she done?

She stood.

“Please step back over here,” Fuentes said.

She did.

Fuentes nodded and Rice pointed a controller at the devotional and pressed a button. The radio signal shot through the opening and activated the detonators. Explosions could be heard through the open hatch, rock crashing down as the ancient cave beyond collapsed onto itself. The ground and walls vibrated from the impacts. A cloud of limestone dust poured from the portal. She stepped to one side, reached down, and closed the panel with the fleur-de-lys. Debris continued to fall on the other side with muted thuds.

In an instant, the tomb of the Blessed Virgin was no more.





Nick heard the muffled boom. Then the rumbles. He spied inside the church, seeing Fuentes, Rice, and Sister Claire standing on the far side of the altar. The maidens in the pews had not moved.

Something had been destroyed.

The tomb? What else.

That meant Fuentes and Rice would be leaving.

He counted nineteen maidens, including Sister Claire, each of whom was worthy of respect.

21–1.

Not good odds.





Chapter 73



Kelsey stared across the chapter hall at Friar Dwight, who sat on one of the benches with Sister Ellen keeping guard.

“I never knew people like him existed within the church,” she said to the abbess.

“Unfortunately, the Vatican has not survived over the centuries without men like him. The Dominicans and the church are two monolithic objects. One unstoppable, the other unmovable. Both have always done what was needed to be done. That friar is just the latest incarnation of a long line of sinners.”

Dwight did not seem to appreciate the insult, but said nothing.

“The Blessed Virgin was always intended to magnify God within each of us,” the abbess said. “On that point, the men who created her were clever. What they feared was that with her being just a human mother, that would make her unworthy of special veneration. But to the other extreme, where Mary became a heavenly idol so far removed from us, that was just as problematic. In her simplest form Mary was the full manifestation of a daughter of God, made in his image and likeness, as we all are. A woman who gave birth to Christ. Who lived and died and was buried. That should have been enough. But it wasn’t.”

She realized that the maidens who’d rebelled were likewise made in his image. As was she. All handmaids of the Lord.

“Am I being called?” she asked.

“I believe you are.”

Sister Isabel reentered the hall and stepped over to where they sat. “The tomb has been destroyed. There were explosions.”

The abbess crossed herself. “May God forgive them.” Then the older woman stood and pointed at the friar. “Bring him.”

Sister Ellen used the gun to escort Dwight from the room and they all headed for the main foyer. There, the oak doors were opened.

“Get out of this house,” the abbess said to Dwight. “And never return.”

The Dominican did not hesitate and fled out the open doorway.

“Wait,” the abbess called out.

And Sister Ellen tossed the gun outside.

“Take that, too,” the abbess said. “We have no need of it.”

The friar retrieved the weapon and ran off.

“What are you doing?” Kelsey asked. “Nick is unarmed.”

The abbess said nothing.

Sister Ellen closed and locked the oak doors.





Fuentes felt satisfied.

The tomb was gone. The bones collected. The maidens silenced. All was good except for Vilamur, who would have to be dealt with, but that should not be a problem. The archbishop wanted to be a cardinal, and he needed a few more of those, especially the kind with unquestioned loyalty. So an arrangement would have to be forged, but one that took into account the insubordination from earlier. Perhaps there would be no Curial appointment, or certainly not one of any standing.