The Omega Factor(97)
Was a red hat worth it?
Damn right it was.
But he was becoming concerned about Fuentes’s promise to silence the maidens. What exactly did that mean? Shooting them? And these women were not without a punch of their own. One of them had just fired an arrow into a man’s thigh. He understood Fuentes’s need to establish an aura of dominance, but he resented the subordination that had been forced upon him. True, he’d broken his vows and violated the Tenth Commandment. But he never killed anybody, though he had allowed Fuentes to deal with Bernat de Foix. At the moment, though, he found himself on a massif, fifteen hundred meters up in the Pyrénées, with guns and arrows. Fuentes stood with eyes devoid of expression, casting an impersonal gaze like the glare of a predatory cat. None of which boded well. Sister Deal was clearly scared, but she was staying remarkably composed. He felt for her, but there was nothing he could do. This was all up to the maidens. Would they fight or concede?
He heard a sound and turned back to see the double oak doors part on their iron hinges and the abbess standing in the open doorway.
Thank God.
Nick was breathing fast, unsure as to what to do next. Maybe that gun he’d left in the helicopter would have been a good thing after all? He hadn’t thought a weapon necessary. After all, he’d been headed to a convent. But he’d also never anticipated that Kelsey would be here. He’d believed the prioress on the phone last night when she said Kelsey was safe and he’d assumed that he could deal with things here. Bad mistake.
Labelle seemed anxious too.
“We’ll let them get inside, then follow,” he whispered.
“We can take them now,” Labelle said.
“That woman, who had the gun to her head. She’s special to me. I can’t risk her life.”
“I want Vilamur.”
“And what are you going to do with him when you get him?”
“Make him tell me where Bernat de Foix is.”
He knew that caution, rather than speed, was the best course. Let this play out and get into position to make a move when it made sense. The advantage was that none of the interlopers knew they were there.
The man with the gun at Kelsey’s head told one of the other Dominicans to take the injured friar back down for medical attention. That left only Dwight and Rice, along with Vilamur and the other man, the one who seemed in charge. Kelsey and her captor started walking toward the other five maidens being held at gunpoint. One Dominican helped the injured man up and they started to leave back through the gate, the arrow still protruding at the thigh.
“Let them go,” he whispered to Labelle. “The odds are getting better.”
They remained in their hiding place, off the road, as the two slowly passed, the one with the arrow hobbling along with an arm draped around the other. The rest of the group advanced toward the abbey. Rice retrieved the gun that the injured man had lost. They all entered through the main doors, which were slammed shut after them.
“I recently was shown a truth,” Labelle said. “One I’ve come to deeply believe in. Part of that truth is a pledge of no violence.”
“Sounds like a good philosophy.”
Labelle’s eyes found his. “It is my life. Now. But I want Vilamur to tell me what happened to Bernat de Foix. I will do what’s necessary to get that information.”
Which really did not involve Nick or his mission. To this point the archbishop of Toulouse had not been a player. So he stared into the hard liquid eyes and said, “How about you help me out, and I’ll help you?”
Labelle nodded.
And they both headed for the abbey.
Chapter 64
Fuentes was conscious that one error, one small omission, even a single piece of bad luck and the next step would be a desperate measure.
And those he could not afford.
Mistakes always bred more mistakes.
The arrow attack was not a mistake, but it was definitely a miscalculation, an underestimation of his opponent. And he would not repeat either of those fallacies.
He stood in a spacious entrance foyer, tall and lit from above with round arched windows. A hefty wrought-iron chandelier hung unlit. Wood-paneled walls exuded an oiled satiny glow. Framed art hung all around, mostly oil on canvas, pastoral scenes of the surrounding mountains, the varnish darkened with age and infested with fine spiderwebs of cracks. Four routes led out. One a stairway up, the other three blocked by closed doors, normal for a convent where access into the inner bowels stayed restricted.
All three doors opened and a maiden stood in each.
Friars Dwight and Rice kept their guns pointed at the five from the cemetery and Fuentes kept his trained on Sister Deal. His attention remained on the women in the doorways and the abbess, mindful that these people were just as determined as he.
“I have come on behalf of His Holiness to resolve a matter of long standing,” he said.
“And what would that be?” the abbess calmly asked, a less-than-welcoming expression on her round face.
He told himself that les Vautours’ success had always lay in deception, cleverness, diversions, and false trails. So don’t go that way. “Where is the maiden who shot the friar?”
“That would be me.”
And a woman descended the staircase, turned on the landing, and made her way to ground level.