The pilot gave Monk a thumbs-up. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
With the matter settled, they all took off across the sand to rejoin Duncan. Jada moved into the larger man’s shadow. He gave her a wink of reassurance—which surprisingly worked to calm her.
That, and perhaps the assault rifle in his hands.
A lone stranger hopped out of the passenger seat of the Land Rover to greet them. He was her height with shaggy dark hair, likely about her same age, too, dressed in traditional-looking Kazakh attire, consisting of wide trousers, a long shirt, and a sleeveless sheepskin jacket. He came to them empty-handed, but he lifted his arm, exposing a leather cuff around his left wrist.
A sharp whistle from him drew a screeched response.
A dark shape swooped into view overhead and plummeted into a steep dive. Just before striking the Kazakh man, a bird with huge wings swooped wide, braking to a stop. Sharp talons found the leather cuff, and the tall falcon came to a fluttering rest, tucking its wings. Tiny dark eyes stared at the newcomers with suspicion—until the man placed a small leather hood over the bird’s head.
The stranger faced them, offering the monsignor a respectful nod of greeting. “Father Josip has shown me pictures of his dear friend, the monsignor Verona. Please be welcome.” He spoke flawless English, with a prominent British accent. “I am Sanjar, and my feathered companion of foul temper is Heru.”
Vigor smiled. “The Egyptian variant on the Greek name Horus.”
“Indeed. The falcon-headed god of the sky.” Sanjar headed toward the ship. “Please follow me. Father Josip will be very happy to see you.”
He led the group toward the door cut through the ship’s hull. To the left, the Land Rover sped away, swinging around the stern and vanishing out of view.
Vigor craned his neck to look up at the tall derelict ship. “Father Josip has been living in here all this time?”
“Not in here, but under here.”
Sanjar ducked into the dark interior of the ship.
Jada followed Duncan, finding herself in the cavernous hold of the ship. The vessel’s interior had fared no better than its outside. Over the passing decades, the elements had worked deep into the ship, wreaking great damage, turning the hold into a rotted-out cathedral of rust and ruin.
To the far right, she spotted the Land Rover parked in its makeshift garage, sheltered from the elements.
“This way.” Sanjar motioned to the left, to an open staircase, its rails dripping with rivulets of corrosion. He clicked on a flashlight and led the way down.
As they progressed deeper, the steel treads underfoot abruptly changed to rock. Through a rent in the ship’s bottom, a steep passage delved downward, dug through the sandstone, leading to a vast maze burrowed beneath the decaying behemoth. Dark tunnels branched off from the main passageway, revealing a warren of rooms and additional passageways and crawlways.
It looked like an entire village could have been housed down here.
“Who built all this?” Duncan asked Sanjar.
“First, drug smugglers back in the early seventies, then it was expanded by militant forces during the late eighties, and it was mostly abandoned after Kazakhstan declared independence in the nineties. Once discovered, Father Josip made it his base camp, where he could work undisturbed and out of the public eye.”
A glow rose up from below. As they neared it, Sanjar clicked off his flashlight and returned it to his pocket. The falcon on his wrist stirred with a ruffle of feathers.
Moments later, they reached what appeared to be the lowest level. The stairs emptied into a large man-made cavern, as big as a basketball court. Other halls burrowed out from here, but there was no need to go any farther.
The main room looked like a cross between a medieval library and the mad nest of a hoarder. Rows of bookcases strained under the weight of their volumes. Desks lay buried under mounds of papers and notebooks, along with bits of broken pottery, even a few dusty bones. Additionally, charts and maps had been nailed to the wall, some torn in half, others marked over so heavily with a thick scrawl as to be indiscernible. Then there were the chalked diagrams spanning another section of the walls, with arrows connecting and dividing, as if someone were engineering a giant Rube Goldberg machine.
In the center of the chaos stood the clear master of this domain.
He was dressed similarly to Sanjar, but with the addition of a Roman collar. Over the years, the sun and wind had weathered the priest’s skin to a burnished brown, while also bleaching his hair white. His cheeks and chin were scruffy with several days’ worth of beard.
He looked much older than Vigor—though Jada knew the man was actually a decade younger.
Still, despite his aged countenance, a pair of eyes blazed brightly as he turned toward them. But Jada wondered: Was that shine brilliance or madness?
5:58 P.M.
Vigor could not hide his shock at the state of his colleague.
“Josip?”
“Vigor, my friend!” Josip waded through stacked books on the floor, his thin arms raised in greeting, tears beginning to brim. “You came!”
“How could I not?”
When Josip reached him, they hugged. His friend clung to him, repeatedly squeezing his shoulders as if to test that he was real. In turn, Vigor felt the thinness of his colleague’s frame, thinking Josip’s years in this harsh desert had almost mummified him. But Vigor suspected it was obsession more than anything that had burned his friend to skin and bone.
Sadly, such had been the case in the past, too.
Early in his seminary years, Josip Tarasco had suffered his first psychotic break. He had been found naked atop the roof of the school, claiming he could hear the voice of God in the stars, explaining he needed to remove his clothes so the starlight could bathe him more fully, drawing him closer to the Lord.
Shortly after that, he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a manic condition of deep lows and blazing highs. Lithium and other antidepressants helped stabilize the severity of those emotional swings, but never entirely. On the positive side, that same condition seemed to stoke a fire of genius in the man, a brilliance born out of that streak of madness.
Still, lapses of his mental status did occur, expressed as bouts of obsessive compulsion, tics of behavior, and, in rare moments, full psychotic breaks. So Vigor was not entirely surprised when Josip suddenly vanished off the face of the earth ten years ago.
But what about now . . . ?
As they ended their embrace, Vigor searched Josip’s face.
His friend noted the attention. “I know what you’re thinking, Vigor, but I am in my right mind.” He glanced around the chamber, running a hand through his hair. “Perhaps a bit compulsive at the moment, I will admit that, but stress was always my enemy. And considering the timetable we’re all under, I must accept and utilize every unique gift God has given me.”