Comes a Horseman Read online

  “And he got the ball rolling by having Santo Mucci killed?”

  “Oh no, not having it done. He himself assassinated the man. Otherwise, the murder would not have aligned with the Antichrist prophecy. Scaramuzzi would not have received credit for it.”

  “Prophecy points,” Brady said.

  Ambrosi nodded enthusiastically. “Lots of them. It’s what took him out of the category of potential candidate and made him a serious contender. As far as I can gather, the Watchers had not voted at that point. There was only strong interest. Within three months of the assassination, as it became apparent that the wheels he set in motion would favor him politically, he garnered seven votes. He was in.”

  “Wasn’t Santo Mucci assassinated in Israel?”

  “At the Italian Embassy building in Tel Aviv. Scaramuzzi had been setting up a base of operations in Jerusalem, where he knew eventually he would be. You see, prophecy says Antichrist will have a strong relationship with Israel, appearing to be its ally. What better way to establish those relationships than as ambassador? Not much is known about Scaramuzzi prior to this time. But I believe he was recruiting followers, workers to do all the various legwork someone with his ambitions requires. When he became the Watchers’ best hope, he got access to their vast roster of . . . uh, craftsmen.”

  “The spies, thieves, and assassins you mentioned before?” Ambrosi’s tale was convoluted and densely popu lated. Brady wanted to be sure he didn’t miss anything or make the wrong assumptions.

  “Among others, yes. Scaramuzzi’s head of security is a vicious man named Arjan Vos. Former Israeli army general. Former Mossad agent. A brutal man, as well as a highly skilled killer. I believe he trained Scaramuzzi to commit the assassination. The Asia House, in which several embassies in Tel Aviv are located, was the perfect location. Not far from Scaramuzzi’s secret headquarters. And far from his public headquarters, where I’m sure he had alibis arranged should something go wrong. And Vos would have known the building well, having been once assigned to that district as a Mossad agent.”

  Brady noticed the temperature had dropped since the sun’s passing. He looked around and did not see any registers or radiator and wondered how the room was heated. He imagined it in winter, the old man hunched over an ancient scroll, a threadbare blanket draped over his shoulders and back, breath pluming from his mouth. Reading words a thousand years old about a man who would usher in the end of the human race, a man who at that moment could be plotting death to the strains of Vivaldi. An icy finger ran up his back.

  Alicia leaned her rear back against the desk. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “You mentioned three ways he could strengthen his position?”

  “There is also the discovery of new prophecy—keep studying prophetic writings until you find something that resembles an event that has already occurred in your life. A near-drowning, the death of a sibling. Roll it out, let the theologians confirm it, and your credibility goes up a notch or two. The canon of Antichrist prophecy grows with every serious candidate.”

  Brady shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

  The old man shrugged. He wiggled his fingers in his shirt pocket and absently kept them there as it dawned on him that he’d have to roll his next smoke. Shuffling to the crescent table and the humidor, he said, “Lastly, you could select an unfulfilled prophecy and intentionally fulfill it. There is a vigorous debate about whether prophecy fulfilled in this matter counts. No prophet has ever said that foreknowledge invalidates the vision. It is what it is. However, knowing that someone set out to fulfill prophecy just feels wrong, does it not? For this reason, candidates usually deny having foreknowledge of any recently fulfilled prophecies.”

  Brady was amazed that the control of so much wealth and power could rely on the murky logic and tenuous conclusions that seemed to govern prophecy. Something about it disturbed him on a fundamental level.

  Ambrosi slammed the volume closed. He caught Brady’s eye, then Alicia’s. He held up his hands as if holding a beach ball to his chest, which he shook as he spoke.

  “You must understand your adversary. Scaramuzzi possesses no moral conscience. He is under intense pressure. And his resources are virtually unlimited. He may not be Antichrist, but he is a beast. A volatile, violent, unpredictable beast.”

  He dropped the ball and intertwined his fingers over his chest, positioned for prayer. An invisible hand of sadness gripped his face. Everything about him frowned. “My apologies for what I am about to say, but you must know. I do not think you stand a chance in a face-off with him. Whether your battle is one of wits or wills or weapons, he is stronger. He is motivated.”

  “So are we,” said Brady firmly.

  Ambrosi nodded, but he did not look convinced.

  “Father Randall,” Alicia said. “How does he fit into this?”

  Ambrosi let out a long breath. “Father Randall travels frequently. He acquires documents of importance to the Church for the Archives. He also corroborates details within our records with other documents wherever they may be found. For the past four years, only half the time he’s away is he where he claims to be going. The other half is spent with Scaramuzzi, as his head theologian. He provides prophetic writings, documented answers to questions Scaramuzzi or the Watchers have . . . whatever they need. And he works with the Watchers’ theologians to arrive at equitable solutions to debated points of prophecy. He uses our Archives, much of which is unavailable to anybody else.”

  “And you let him?” Alicia asked.

  “He is unaware of my awareness. Just as he is unaware of certain taps on his phone line and computer.” He winked. “If it got out that he was even unknowingly leaking intelligence about Scaramuzzi, the Watchers, and the prophecies that interest them at any given time, my information flow would end, and Father Randall’s head would arrive in a box at the Vatican post office.”

  He looked tired. His gaze grew distant, and he rubbed his cheeks. Then he snapped out of the thought that had occupied him and said, “Now, let’s get you a notepad. There’s more you should know.”

  “Like . . . ?” Brady asked. He really didn’t want to hear any more about prophecies or nutcases with delusions of grandeur.

  “Like where to find your prey. What he looks like. And—if it’s something that interests you—whom to see in Israel for a firearm.”

  “Now you’re talking,” piped Alicia.

  66

  They talked long into the evening. At nine the door opened, admitting a stooped old woman with a tray of food and a decanter of wine for Ambrosi. Her eyes went wide when she saw Brady and Alicia. Ambrosi introduced her as Sister Abigail and asked her to fetch two more dinners for his guests. She took the cardinal’s food away and thirty minutes later returned with plates of roast beef, baked potatoes, steamed baby carrots, muffins, and more wine. The aroma alone could have kept a dying man alive. Brady realized he was famished, and he could almost hear Alicia’s stomach growling. Ambrosi made room for their meals at his desk and turned two crates on their sides for chairs.

  During dinner, which Alicia raved on about to Brady’s mumbled agreement, Ambrosi would not speak of Scaramuzzi, the Watchers, or Antichrist. Nor would he answer their questions regarding these subjects. He broke into a discourse of the marvelous things he was blessed to hold and read as prefect of the Vatican’s Secret Archives: a bound volume of a handwritten original transcript of the trial of Galileo; a Hebrew codex describing a voyage by the Queen of Sheba to “an enchanted land of abundance and beauty called Sypanso”—probably Japan; seventeen letters from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, in which the king’s professions of love rivaled King Solomon’s in florid verse and sheer steaminess.

  “A few years later, Henry’s affection shifted to Jane Seymour, so he had poor Anne beheaded,” he said. He took a draft of the Bordeaux and shrugged, as if to say, What are you going to do?

  Eventually Ambrosi got around to inquiring about their salvation. He smiled broadly when Brady described hi
s late wife’s faith since childhood and how she had gently coaxed him into the fold, how he had become a staunch believer. Brady explained that C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity had attacked and conquered his doubts on the level they were strongest, intellectually. After that he’d become involved in their church, eventually becoming a deacon. He attended Sunday school, a midweek men’s Bible study, and could usually be found with a book about Christian living in hand. He didn’t mention that all this had ended with Karen’s death.

  “You realize, don’t you, that your wife did not ‘coax’ you into the fold?” Ambrosi said around a mouthful of muffin. “She may have been a catalyst in ways we cannot explain, but it was the Holy Spirit that brought you to Jesus.”

  Brady nodded. He wasn’t willing to get into a theological debate with the old man. Once, he would have agreed with his point. What he thought now was that everything good that had happened to him since meeting Karen was Karen’s doing. He had enjoyed the peace, good friends, and intellectual stimulation that had come from attending church and worshiping together with his family. Even the theological basis of that lifestyle—that God was loving and took care of His children—had proved to be false. It had been Karen who created what they had. Karen, not the Holy Spirit. Try telling that to a man of the cloth.

  To Brady’s surprise, Old Man Ambrosi smiled even more broadly when Alicia boldly proclaimed her agnosticism.

  “Child, you will hear His call someday,” he predicted. “Your uncertainty gives you a great advantage over those who believe themselves saved when they are not. So many people think they know God, when their relationship is with some false deity of man’s devising. Sadly, they close their minds, thinking they are already home.”

  THEY STAYED in Vatican City that night, sleeping in Cardinal Ambrosi’s apartment. It was a suite of large, richly appointed rooms, with plenty of space for guests. He told them they were the first “fresh blood” in the place since his sister had died seven years earlier.

  Brady ambled around the living room, den, and library, marveling at the heavy, intricately crafted furniture. He didn’t know priceless antique furniture from flea market knockoffs, but he would bet these were not from Wal-Mart. Each wall contained at least one classical painting in a gilded frame, illuminated perfectly by a brass picture light above it. Most were from the low and high Renaissance and were undoubtedly masterful reproductions: he recognized Raphael’s The School of Athens and a Titian or Rubens—who could tell the difference? On a coffee table he found a mug of what looked like cold coffee; an ashtray filled with butts and ashes; and an eclectic assortment of publications, from the National Catholic Reporter to TV Guide. He nudged the stack to reveal the supermarket tabloids the National Enquirer, the Star, and one of like ilk called Cronaca Vera. He smiled, inexplicably relieved to see signs of humanity in this museumesque environment.

  Strolling back into the living room, where Alicia and Ambrosi were conversing quietly in front of a lit fireplace, the cerise liquid in their wineglasses sparkling like rubies, his attention turned to two paintings hanging together over an ornate sideboard. These were decidedly different from the others; there was no sense of peace or philosophical musings about them, nothing sublime. The painting on the left depicted a man on a horse charging toward something. His beard flowed back behind him; his muscular arm held a sword up high. Above him, a figure, maybe an angel, unfurled a scroll. Beneath him, another horse and rider raged toward the unseen battle. This other rider appeared to be bursting from flames. The painting’s hues of gray and gold gave it a stark quality that made Brady think of a dream coming to life—no, a nightmare becoming reality.

  The second piece was more realistically rendered, in the chiaroscuro style that brought near-photographic precision to Renaissance paintings. It showed a battle—a slaughter, really: four warriors on horseback, hacking at and trampling cowering men, women, and children. The central rider was a black demon, wielding lightning bolts. Behind them, phantasmic creatures pushed forward with impatient bloodlust.

  The first painting made Brady uneasy; the second made his heart ache.

  Alicia and Ambrosi stepped up beside him, one on each side. They observed the paintings in silence, as they might have watched a brewing storm from a mountaintop.

  After several minutes, Ambrosi said, “They’re both called Rider on a Pale Horse. This one”—he raised his glass to the gray-and-gold horseman—“is William Blake’s. That one, Benjamin West’s. From the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Revelation 6: ‘And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.’

  “This is Antichrist,” Ambrosi continued. “He has a crown because he is seen as a great ruler. He rides a white horse because the world hails him as a great peacemaker, a Christlike figure. But he is also an archer because he means to conquer mankind. He leads the other horsemen: war on a red horse, famine and pestilence on a black horse, and death on a pale horse. ‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.’”

  Silence moved in on them again. The paintings seemed to grow larger under their gaze, clearer and more vivid. Brady noticed in Benjamin West’s rendition a lion running with the horses, snapping at a falling victim. He thought of the Viking’s dogs.

  “Scaramuzzi believes he is the rider of the white horse,” Ambrosi said. “In fact, he rides the pale horse. He is not Antichrist, but death.” He paused a moment. “I had these replicas made to remind me for whom I watch. And that the monsters who come in his stead are nearly as destructive, certainly as evil, as he will be.”

  Alicia shivered visibly. “They’re awful,” she said of the paintings. She glanced around. “Here, in such a lovely setting.”

  “I want no respite from the reality of Antichrist or his harbingers . . . except in prayer. As long as he, or they, walk the earth, there can be no true rest. I feel his presence in my tower; I feel it in my home.”

  Alicia turned to him. “But what do you do? Only watch? Record his activities?”

  He smiled coyly. “We do what we can.”

  “But what is that? What can you do?”

  “Help people like you, for one thing. Impart my knowledge. I realize it does not feel like it to you, but there are people in the world who attempt to disrupt and stop the Watchers’ efforts and the Antichrist candidates when they appear. They continually hound media outlets to investigate, with scant results. They have, at times, even sent their own assassins. Often, they come to people like me for intelligence, to understand their adversaries. Unfortunately, those of us who oppose Antichrist are outnumbered and underfinanced.”

  “So people have come before us,” Brady said, shaking his head in dismay. “We have no chance of stopping them on our own.”

  Ambrosi reached out and gripped his shoulder.

  “There is always hope,” he said.

  THEIR LUGGAGE, what little they had, was stored in a locker at da Vinci airport, so Ambrosi gave them robes and took the clothes they were wearing. In the morning, the clothes were hanging in the bathroom, wrapped in a dry cleaner’s clear plastic bags.

  Over fruit, rolls, and orange juice on the apartment’s terrace, Ambrosi chattered pleasantly. He told them that the restoration of Sandro Botticelli’s frescoes on the Sistine’s walls had been botched the previous year by the use of an inferior varnish. Now, a dark glazing threatened to obliterate the masterpieces. He was particularly excited about an acquisition for the Archives he would be brokering in the next few weeks—the death warrant issued by the Court of Rouen that allowed rabble to burn Joan of Arc at the stake in 1431, ostensibly for wearing masculine clothing.

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sp; Brady marveled at Ambrosi’s ability to direct their thoughts away from the tasks of the day.

  “IT’S SO beautiful,” Alicia observed.

  The evening before, she had used the terminal in Ambrosi’s study to reserve seats on the first flight of the morning out of Rome to Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport. Now the three of them had come outside to wait for a cab.

  The building that provided the housing needs of Ambrosi and several dozen of his fellow ranking Church officials had once been a papal palace. A fountain as spectacular as Brady had ever seen splashed and gurgled beside them. It depicted Samson, his mouth stretched in a cry to heaven, pushing over the pillars to which he was chained. Standing behind him was a winged angel touching one of the crumbling pillars with a sword, implying angelic assistance in Samson’s final act, which brought the roof down on three thousand Philistines. Water sluiced from the top of Samson’s head and ran through grooves in his long locks of hair, making them appear to shimmer and cascade into a pool at his feet. His blinded eyes gazed at a white dawn breaking over the Vatican walls. In the bleached-blue sky, a smattering of cumulus clouds moved sluggishly under the weight of platinum linings. The air was crisp and just a little chilly. The trees and bushes and lawns were green, wet from an early morning sprinkling.

  Alicia turned to Ambrosi.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

  “Stay alive,” he said, staring hard into her eyes.

  She hugged him.

  He extended his hand to Brady and said, “Don’t be impulsive. Be smart. If it gets too hot, get out of there. Live to fight another day.” He pulled a small card from his pants pocket and handed it to Brady. “As promised, a . . . friendly firearms dealer in Israel.”

  A white van with a taxi light on its roof came around a building and curved onto a wide cobblestone drive toward them.