The Omega Factor(23)
Which was now back in play.
Time had taught her how to live and work among a collective with little privacy, pooled resources, no intimacy, and a total setting aside of all personal needs for the good of others. Most initiates, like herself years ago, had led meaningful but uneventful lives. Suddenly finding yourself confined inside a closed space, with strangers of varying nationalities and ages, could definitely be overwhelming. Most adapted. Some never did and left before taking their final vows. A lack of personal choice was not for everyone. But she’d found a certain degree of freedom in submission. Decisions and concerns that had once been part of her everyday life no longer mattered. You had to give up something to get something. And, for her, what she’d gained was a great inner peace.
Daily life for most of the maidens was a combination of prayer and routine. Everyone had a role. Some cleaned rooms. Others worked the gardens, or cooked meals, or washed clothes. A few rose to administrative duties, keeping the books, paying bills, answering correspondence. All participated in the convent’s social calling of working with the poor, the disadvantaged, the sick, and the mentally ill. All also served as guardians. Some in the field, the rest at the motherhouse. Individual desires were cast aside for a singular higher principle.
Veritas Vita.
The truth, the life.
Which, for them, carried a great meaning.
The responsibility for making all of that happen lay squarely within each individual maiden, as Sister Rachel had unselfishly proven. To be sure that no one ever faltered, once a year each maiden drafted a statement, expressing a clear desire to continue with the order. If that wasn’t possible, any of the women could freely move to another convent or return to secular life.
Their choice. Always.
Which she liked.
Sister Rachel had only recently composed her statement and elegantly explained an unwavering devotion and a deep desire to continue serving. Rachel was young, not even forty years old, with twenty to twenty-five more years ahead of her before retirement. The Maidens of Saint-Michael had always stamped an end point on service. Sixty was the preferred age, though some had continued to sixty-five. The current abbess was sixty-four and there was already talk of who would succeed her. That person would be chosen by the maidens, in a vote, which had to be unanimous. Many had already approached Claire privately and said she would have their support. But she wondered if that loyalty would survive what had happened here on this horrible night.
She entered the convent’s main church, where the fourteen older maidens and the two remaining from her contingent had gathered. Sister Ellen sported a purple bruise to the right side of her face. Claire walked down the center aisle and stood before the main altar. She was not the senior woman present but based on the situation, she was the on-site leader for the designated operation. That gave her command. She explained all of what had happened, leaving nothing out. Everyone assumed the risk, so everyone was entitled to complete information.
“We are surely being tested,” she said when finished. “The panel has been destroyed, but those high-definition images are just as threatening. We will have to retrieve that laptop computer.” She paused. “I’m not sure how I was tracked here. But I was. So I accept full responsibility for the failures that have occurred.”
“We cannot abandon Sister Rachel,” one of the older women said. “It is not our way.”
“We will deal with that,” she said. “But not now. There is something more pressing. We must prepare.”
“For what?” one of the women asked.
“More visitors.”
Chapter 14
Nick retraced his route from the earlier chase, ending back at the quay overlooking the river. The police cars were still there, as was the woman’s body, sheathed by a plastic tarp. People had gathered and were kept back by uniformed officers. He approached one, flashed his credentials again, and asked for access.
Which was denied.
Instead, the uniform radioed to someone and a few moments later a man—stockily built, with a heavily jowled face, high brow line, and wide mouth—approached. He introduced himself as Inspector Zeekers of the Federal Police. More specifically from the General Directorate of Judicial Police, the main investigative arm. The fact that it was the Federal Police here, not the locals, spoke volumes.
“I am curious,” Zeekers said, “what is the United Nations’ involvement?”
“An art treasure was just destroyed. That always interests us.”
“It was a copy. Of little value.”
“That it was. But the fact that someone went to a lot of trouble to destroy a copy raises questions.”
“And you just happened to be nearby?”
“I was here, in town, visiting the restorer who was working on the panel.”
“How utterly…fortuitous.”
“That’s the way I look at it. Can I see the body?”
The man shook his head. “This is a local matter. Not an international incident.”
He’d encountered this type of resistance before. Law enforcement all across the globe possessed one thing in common. Like bears and their dens, they guarded their territory. But part of UN membership came with jurisdictional concessions. One of those, laid out with specificity in Section 9, Part C, Paragraph (f), was the unconditional acceptance of UN assistance with the “loss, theft, or destruction of a cultural work risen to the level of world recognition.” He’d invoked those words so much that he knew them by heart, along with the correct citation from the member-state agreement.