The Omega Factor(15)

A strained silence descended as Tallard surely weighed his options. The truth? Or another lie? This demon had surely for so long denied who and what he was that reality no longer mattered. His psyche was convinced either that he never did anything wrong, or that whatever he’d done had been wholly consensual. Never mind his victims were innocent children who worshiped him as the embodiment of all that was sacred and good, something predators like this bastard used to maximum advantage.

“It. Was. Not. Me,” Tallard said.

Six.

He shrugged, a gesture that signaled disdain and dismissal. “Then we shall proceed and, hopefully, extract the truth.”

Andre reached down into the vinyl bag he’d brought from the car and removed a set of iron prongs. Bernat moved toward Tallard’s head and wrenched the neck upward, forcing the man’s mouth open. Inquisitors who’d worked their madness in Spain christened the tool a bostezo. Ironic, since the word meant “yawn.” Tallard struggled as Andre forced the prongs into the mouth and pried the jaw open with a solid grip on the iron handles. From his pocket Bernat removed three long strips of linen, which he shoved to the back of the mouth, causing the priest to gag. Andre maintained his hold on the iron handles, keeping the mouth from closing, making swallowing impossible. Modern applications used a towel over the face soaked with water to cause the victim to feel like they were drowning.

Inquisitors were far crueler.

He lifted the pitcher and poured a small amount of water onto the linen strips. Eight hundred years ago a jar would have been suspended above the victim, the water allowed to slowly trickle onto the cloth, which maintained a nearly constant sense of drowning.

Tallard choked on the water that found his throat, struggling to breathe.

He kept easing the liquid into the open mouth and onto the cloth.

More gasps.

He stopped. “Have you anything to say? Indicate with your head yes or no.”

The stubborn fool never moved. He resumed pouring. The sensation had to be excruciating, but he felt nothing for this monster. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult. Tallard tried to cough and choke out the water but the prongs made that impossible.

Finally, the man broke.

And nodded his head over and over.

That had not taken long.

He stopped the pour, slid the linens out, and motioned for Andre to withdraw the prongs.

“All right,” Tallard said, swallowing and breathing hard. “All right. I will tell you…everything.”

“If you don’t, then the next application will be far worse, with no letting up.”

Tallard nodded in understanding.

He set the water pitcher down and motioned. Andre produced his phone and activated its video recorder. They listened for fifteen minutes as this man, ordained by Holy Orders, supposedly part of an unbroken line back to the twelve apostles, described how he sexually abused boy after boy, Andre included.

Bernat raised his hand. Andre switched off the recorder. “I can’t listen to any more.”

“I did what you asked. I confessed.”

Now for the most important question. “Have you told anyone this before?”

Tallard hesitated, and Bernat sensed that he had. To make the point clear, he reached for the pitcher.

“No. No. Please. No more. Yes. I told the archbishop.”

There it was. Exactly what he’d come for.

The Most Reverend Gerard Vilamur.

“Archbishop Vilamur knows all of this?” he asked.

Tallard nodded. “Everything.”

“For how long?”

“Several years.”

Just as he’d suspected.

“I want you to say that again, slowly.” He motioned and Andre tapped the recorder back on. Tallard repeated what he’d said about the archbishop.

Andre tapped the screen, stopping the video.

Bernat’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He stepped back and checked the display, which revealed a text marked with a red exclamation point.

Not good.

He opened and read the message from the curator of the cathedral in Ghent. The Just Judges panel has been destroyed in a fire. Total loss. It was a deliberate act of vandalism. Perpetrator escaped, police are in pursuit.

He was shocked and a multitude of questions were raised by the startling information. Thankfully, his job here was finished, so he stepped back and motioned for Andre to gather their things, including the water pitcher. No evidence could be left behind.

He headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Tallard said. “You can’t leave me here like this.”

“Not to worry.”

He stepped outside with Andre and closed the door. The man from earlier, and one other, waited near their car.

Both walked over and he nodded.

They disappeared inside the house.

He and Andre stood in silence.

“It’s good that we don’t kill,” he said in a low voice. “That we do not fall to their level. Not then. Not now. Not ever. But it is also good that those two men don’t believe as we do.”

Andre nodded. Ever so slightly. Then a wisp of a smile formed at the corner of the younger man’s lips. Smug. Self-contained. As if nothing was more important than their success.

And nothing was.





Chapter 8



Nick pushed through the iron gate in front of the convent and quickly worked his way around to the rear of the building. Knocking on the front door had not seemed like a smart play. The convent sat at the end of the block on a corner lot dotted with tall trees. Lights illuminated the red-brick walls and he was mindful of the many windows, but all of their shades were drawn, and what lights did burn were heavily filtered. The structure itself was elegant, the pinnacles and fleurons on the window gables definitely Old World. He wasn’t sure what he planned to do. This was a convent, after all. But some serious felonies had occurred, a woman was surely dead, and one of the participants in all those crimes had fled here.