Chapter 7
When the fragments of ancient Gnostic manuscripts from Alexandria are placed side by side with the more complete, transcribed she-apostle gospels, they do not conflict in the smallest degree. There is not one scintilla of disagreement. This is truly remarkable, and can only be due to inspiration—and to the authenticity of both sources.
—Report of the Commission on the She-Apostles
In the dimmed light of his underground office, Vice Minister Styx Tertullian studied the virtual-reality television field closely, comparing the female faces he saw in front of him with the holo-photos, and matching them with names on his clip-pad. Still wearing a uniform that was dirt and blood-smeared from the mission he’d led the night before, Tertullian sat in one of two visitors’ chairs. He’d been up all night and had a stubble of beard on his narrow, bespectacled face. His superior, BOI Minister Nelson Culpepper, sat at a massive mahogany desk, glaring at him and muttering angrily.
Six of the photographs on Styx’s clip-pad were of bullet-riddled female bodies. Five were of women who had been taken into custody, two with serious wounds. The attack on the goddess circle had been a military operation with split-second timing. In and out in seven efficient minutes. They had then flown to a public park where they’d abandoned the helicopter and boarded vans—vehicles that were miles away by the time the aircraft’s self-destruct mechanism detonated.
The holo-recording came to an end. The virtual-reality field faded and went off. The office lights grew brighter, and for a moment Styx focused on a large clear plastic bag of articles taken in the raid—purses, scarves, a drawing of a woman standing with Jesus, a gray figurine of another woman with long hair, holding a sword-cross—the symbol of their damnable organization.
“You didn’t get Dixie Lou Jackson!” the overweight Minister said, slamming a thick fist on his desk.
“She is extremely clever, and our time was strictly limited,” Styx said in his high-pitched voice. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. “In the other raid we got Amy Angkor-Billings, though, the Chairwoman—”
“You had nothing to do with that operation. Your Seattle mission was a failure.”
“But Jackson escaped in a van hidden in a side garage. Two of our men were hit and killed by the vehicle, and someone in the van shot two more.”
“All dead?”
Styx hesitated, then: “Regrettably, yes.”
“You shouldn’t have lost any.”
“Satellite surveillance failed at exactly the wrong time, which wasn’t my fault. If the satellite had been working, we would have gotten her for sure.”
“You know I don’t accept excuses, Styx.”
“All right.” He heaved a deep sigh, raising and lowering his shoulders. “Maybe the Dark Angel helped her.”
“Your failures have less to do with Satan than with your own inadequacies. Are you forgetting who we have on our side?”
“No.” Styx hung his head. The Minister was getting worked up, and arguing with him would only make matters worse. Tertullian was one of nine vice ministers, each with a different area of responsibility. Aside from his own Department of Minority Affairs (which included jurisdiction over Bureau matters involving women, homosexuals and racial minorities), the other departments were Doctrine & Faith, Education, Finance, Military Affairs, Media & Publishing, Foreign Policy, Judicial Operations, and Construction & Transport.
Another large area of concern to the Bureau was Political Affairs, but under Culpepper’s watch this was not under the jurisdiction of a vice minister. Instead the Minister handled it himself, using his political contacts in high places to obtain funding. He was a master fund raiser.
“Who has the greater powers, God or Satan?” the Minister asked, revealing his cigarette-stained, yellow teeth. Originally trained in a Catholic seminary, he sometimes sounded like he was conducting Sunday school.
“Why, God, of course.”
“Then you should have the advantage over Jackson, shouldn’t you, since God is on our side! It must mean that the woman is stronger and smarter than you are, for she was able to thwart you.”
Styx didn’t respond. He was thinking instead of what he would do to the prisoners the following morning. A mere woman stronger than he? The Minister was being ludicrous, stretching a point.
“There is another possibility, of course,” Minister Culpepper said, rubbing his fat chin thoughtfully. “You know what it is, don’t you?”
Styx shook his head. He couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was too warm and the lights were too bright. His uniform was sticking to the chair and to his sweaty thighs. He needed a shower.
“What do you suppose that possibility is?” the lumpy man demanded. “Think about it!” He lit a cigarette.
“I am, sir, but I can’t imagine. . . “ He felt his eyeglasses slipping down his nose, from the perspiration.
“You’re in league with the Devil yourself!” Minister Culpepper sprayed spittle with the words. He half rose out of his chair, eyes bulging. “You’re one of his demon-lackeys!”
“No!” Sweat poured from Styx’s brow and ran down the lenses of his glasses, getting in the way of his vision. He adjusted the spectacles again.
“Admit it!”
Exasperated, Styx shook his head. Even though he was Culpepper’s favorite and heir apparent, there were times when he wished he had never gotten involved with the top-secret Bureau of Ideology.
The Minister sat back in his chair, still glaring, his mouth moving rapidly as it discharged invectives like automatic weapons fire, using words that caused Styx to blush in embarrassment. An official in the service of the Lord should not employ such language! For another fifteen minutes Culpepper continued to lambaste his subordinate, finally characterizing him as an incompetent supporter of God and not one of the Devil’s lackeys after all. It was only small comfort to Tertullian.
At times such as this Styx felt victimized, that perhaps he should perform his specialty on the Minister himself, doing to him what he would do to the female prisoners the ensuing morning. These were bad thoughts, of course, and he felt ashamed for them.
Forgive me, Lord, he thought, for I am weak.
* * *
On the main floor of the Refectory Building, where monks had eaten simple meals for centuries, women in pale gold uniforms and dun-colored robes took their early evening meals at small, separate tables. Some of the long oak dining tables remained from bygone days, but now they were set up just outside the kitchen, and used as buffet counters.
Councilwoman Bobbi Torrence, a short, heavyset woman, had just sat down alone to eat a huge salad piled high on her plate, with dark greens, black olives, and chunks of feta cheese. From a pocket of her robe she brought out a sword-cross and squeezed it tightly in her hand as she murmured a private prayer: “Thank you, She-God, for the food I am about to enjoy, and for the countless blessings you bestow upon me each day. In the name of holiness, amen.”
As she took her first bite, her gaze wandered up to the high window panes along the western wall of the great hall, through which snowy mountain peaks and pale blue sky could be seen. Long wooden sticks with metal fittings on the ends leaned against the wall, used for opening the windows on warm summer days, allowing the entrance of breezes that blew across the valley. Months remained until they would be needed again.
Suddenly a young woman in a white surplice hurried over to a nearby table where two other councilwomen were eating, and whispered in the ear of one, Deborah Marvel. A slender woman in her fifties with short blonde hair, Deborah set down a coffee cup she had been holding and stood up, with her dinner companion.
Over her head, Deborah lifted a hand, with three of her fingers forming a “W.” It was the sign for an emergency council meeting.
From all around the Refectory, women in robes rose to their feet and streamed out of the building.
* * *
Alone in the passenger compartment of the jet and unable to free herself of the safety restraint, Lori heard Dixie Lou’s voice through the closed door of the forward cabin. The girl picked out some words, enough to know that Dixie Lou was discussing the attack with someone on the radio. She also spoke of switching scramble codes, an apparent security measure to prevent unwanted interception of their communications.
Lori had no watch, and Dixie Lou would not answer her questions. It might be mid-afternoon, since they had been flying in daylight for hours, but Lori wasn’t sure. After a night that didn’t seem to last very long, they had flown over large expanses of snow and ice, and an ice-choked sea. This suggested to her that they might be on a polar route, which could explain the rapid disappearance of the darkness, and the apparent movement of the sun. Only in the past couple of hours had she seen unfrozen lands and towns beneath the clouds.
Lori hoped her mother would survive her injuries, but felt a seeping, deadening realization that told her otherwise. Though she had prayed and prayed for her mother’s recovery, that head wound looked very serious.
She fought back tears, told herself to be strong. Her forehead throbbed with pain. An untouched sandwich lay on the seat beside her. She should be hungry by now, but was too upset to eat.
The looming tragedy involving her mother made Lori think of another loss, the disappearance of her father more than twelve years before, when she was only a small child herself. He had been there one day, but not the next. Her mother said he abandoned his small family, but Lori remembered her mother moving her to another apartment at around the same time. It was all muddy in her memory, but recently she had been wondering if her mother had told the truth. She didn’t want to think badly of her now, though.
But to Lori it had always been a disturbing mystery. Had her father been killed, or was he still alive and out there somewhere at this very moment, thinking about her and wanting to see her again? She hoped for the latter.
Searching her memories as she had done so many times before, she recalled three or four years ago in Seattle, when she’d found an old leather suitcase on a shelf in the garage. Inside were rent receipts for an apartment in Washington, DC, and other papers . . . in her mother’s name. There were also papers showing different names in different cities, details that Lori could not recall afterward.
Catching Lori with the papers, Camilla had grabbed them angrily and burned them in the fireplace. To Lori, the reaction was inexplicable. The suitcase disappeared soon afterward, but she remembered seeing the initials ZM etched on top, by the handle . . . not her mother’s initials, or those of anyone Lori knew. Who had they belonged to? Lori’s father?
Had something happened in Washington, DC that broke up the relationship between her parents? Had her mother moved away, gone back to her maiden name—or taken another one to avoid detection—and hidden their daughter from him? Had they ever actually been married? Her mother had never answered that question, leaving Lori with doubts.
With Lori’s father out of her life, she and her mother had moved a number of times, but the girl couldn’t keep the events in order. She only remembered crying and calling “Daddy” over and over, and her mother shouting that Lori was not allowed to mention his name in her presence again. A rule that the defiant, stubborn girl never followed.
Now a memory fragment came to the troubled teenager, one that was familiar since she had reviewed it so many times before: Daddy wearing aviator-style dark glasses, outside in bright sunlight. Smiling, he had lifted her onto his shoulders, holding her arms tightly around his rough-textured neck while she laughed and giggled. He carried her around piggyback, making her feel taller than he was.
Then she saw the scowling face of her mother, and the fun ended abruptly.