"For what? In your place, I'd be climbing the walls. Count on me. I'll do everything I can to help." Saul smiled in gratitude. Five minutes later, three men arrived.

One was slight and wore glasses. He pursed his lips when he saw the priest's battered face. He checked the priest's vital signs, then turned to Gallagher. "It's safe to move him." Gallagher nodded. The two other men stepped forward. Both were well built. "Where do we take him? Back to the shop or--?"

"Can you do it here?" Gallagher asked. "In another room in the hotel?"

"Sooner or later we'll have to take a skull X-ray, but I didn't see any swelling behind his eyes, so I'm probably being overcautious. His blood pressure checks out. Yes, I guess I can do it here in the hotel."

"I already phoned down for a reservation. They had a room at the end of this floor." Gallagher motioned to one of the well-built men. "Go down and check in. Bring the key." Ten minutes later, the team was ready to leave with the priest. "I'll need some equipment from the van," the man who wore glasses said. "Whatever you want," Gallagher said, "you get."

They checked the hallway outside. It was empty. The wellbuilt men braced the priest between them. Holding his arms around their necks, they walked him down the hall. The man who wore glasses followed. No one saw them. Gallagher turned from where he'd been watching at Saul's open doorway. "Remember, get some rest. I'll phone when he's ready."

Saul leaned against a wall, his knees weak from exhaustion. "I'll be waiting." He locked the door.

16.

The bathroom door came open. "You," Arlene told Saul, "are going to take

Gallagher's advice. I'm calling for room service."

"She thinks she's Florence Nightingale. She gets mean when her patients don't let her help," Drew said. Saul smiled. Fatigue made him slump toward a chair. Arlene picked up the phone. "My friend here seldom eats meat,"

she told Saul. "How about scrambled eggs, rolls, and coffee?"

"I'm too tense already," Saul said. "No coffee."

"Milk," Drew said, "and fruit. Lots of fruit." Arlene made the call to room service. Saul watched her. She was tall and lithe, reminding him of Erika. But there the similarity ended. Arlene's hair wasn't as dark and long. Her face, though beautiful, was more oval. Her skin, though tanned, wasn't naturally swarthy as Erika's was. The big difference was in the eyes. Arlene's were green while Erika's were brown. Erika. To distract himself, he shifted his attention toward Drew and again was reminded of Chris. "You still haven't told me whether you're really a priest."

"No." Drew sounded wistful. "I was once a brother, though." The reference caught Saul by surprise. "Brother? You mean like--?"

"I'm a Roman Catholic. I used to be a monk." Sam strained to sound casual. "I had an extremely close friend, a foster brother you might say, who was Roman Catholic. Irish."

"I'm Scottish."

"My friend joined a Cistercian monastery and stayed there for six years," Saul said.

"Really? That's quite a coincidence."

"Oh?" Saul's nerves quivered.

"How's that?"

"I was in the monastery almost as long. But I was a Carthusian."

"Yes, my friend told me about the Carthusians. He said his own coder, the Cistercians, were tough. They didn't speak. They believed in hard physical labor. But the Carthusians-- they each lived alone in a cell, hermits for life, totally solitary--he said the Carthusians were the toughest."

"I enjoyed the peace. What was your friend's name?"

"Chris?"

"Why did he leave the order?"

"He had nightmares about things he'd been forced to do before he joined the order. In fact, those things were what made him join the order in the first place."

"Things?" Saul told him. Drew flinched. His shock was palpable. "You can't understand unless you know that Chris and I were orphans. The institution where we lived was modeled after the military. From when we were kids, we were taught to be warriors. A man officially adopted us.

His name was Eliot. He took us on trips. He gave us candy. He made us love him." Saul had difficulty continuing. "It turned out he worked for the government, and his motive for becoming our foster father was to recruit us into intelligence work. After we went through extensive training, he sent us out on missions. The U. S. doesn't officially condone assassination, of course, but that's what we did just the same.

We thought our missions were government-sanctioned, supposedly for a just cause. As it happened, we weren't working for the government but for Eliot himself. We loved him so much we'd do anything for him. So he told us to kill. For his own reasons. Chris broke down from the stress of what we were doing. To atone for me things he'd done, he entered the monastery. But his nightmares kept haunting him, and he retreated even more from the world. He lapsed into trances. The condition's called catatonic schizophrenia. Meditative paralysis. The

Cistercians insisted on each monk contributing equally to the labor of the monastery, but Chris's trances kept him from working. The order had to ask him to leave."

"He must have felt torn apart."

"Oh, believe me, he did. But he's at peace now."

"How?"

"He was killed," Saul said. Drew's eyes narrowed. "Stabbed to death--because Eliot eventually turned against us. To protect his secrets, he betrayed us. I evened the score for Chris, though."

"How?"

"I killed Eliot... And you?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," Drew said. "Why did you leave the

Carthusians?"

"A hit team took out the monastery." Saul blinked in amazement

17.

Beside him. Drew felt Arlene tense in astonishment at his candor.

"Took out the monastery?" Saul asked. "I'm an orphan, too. My parents were killed when I was tea," Drew said. "In Tokyo. My father worked for the U. S. State Department there. In 1960, he and my mother were blown up by terrorists. The authorities never found whoever was responsible. I was only ten, but I made a vow that one day I'd track them down or, if I couldn't find them, I'd punish whoever was like the people who'd murdered my parents. I was sent to America to live with my uncle." Bitterness distorted his voice. "That didn't work out too well. So my father's best friend adopted me. His name was Ray. He worked for the State Department, the same as my father had, and he took me all over the world on his assignments. Wherever we went, he made sure I learned the martial art of that country. I still intended to keep me vow I'd made--to revenge my parents--so Ray recruited me into a secret State Department antiterrorist group called Scalpel. I was trained to be an assassin. For ten years I killed."

"Ten years? What made you stop? Why did you enter the monastery?" The same reason as your friend. I had nightmares. In 1979,1 was sent on a mission that ended with the death of an innocent man and woman. I blew them up, just as my parents had been blown up. Their son saw it happen just as I'd seen it happen to mine."

"This man and woman, you say they were innocent? You made a mistake?"

"No. Scalpel wanted them killed for political reasons. But I couldn't justify what I'd done. I'd become a version of the people who'd murdered my parents. I'd turned into the scum I was hunting. I was my enemy. I had a... breakdown, I guess you'd call it I was so desperate to redeem myself, to punish myself for my sins, that I became a

Carthusian. For almost six years, through penance and prayer, I achieved a measure of peace."

"And that's when the hit team took out the monastery?"