Crucified Page 4

  "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church . . ."

  So says Christ to the first pope of Rome in the Gospel of Matthew, back when Peter was the leader of his twelve disciples. Today, the words are inscribed in Latin around the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, and thanks to Constantine, Christ's biblical prophesy has literal meaning.

  The Legionary of Christ's eyes slid down from the cross atop Michelangelo's magnificent dome to the church below.

  Hugging its flank was the Square of the First Christian Martyrs, at the center of which had stood Caligula's obelisk, close to the spot where St. Peter was crucified. The Arch of Bells between the church and the colonnade swept eastward into St. Peter's Square, which was dotted with worshippers splashing to Mass through gusting gray rain. The twin arms of the colonnade resembled shepherds' crooks. They ran parallel from the facade of the basilica, then bulged around the obelisk at the hub of the huge circle to give the plaza its keyhole shape.

  "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven . . '.'

  So Christ also says to Peter.

  Across the square from the Holy Office, the papal apartments were dark. The pope was in St. Peter's Basilica for Mass. In his troubled mind, the priest imagined the rite.

  Directly beneath the cross surmounting the dome soared the twisted columns of Bernini's bronze canopy over the altar.

  There, the pope raised the Host. The present-day basilica—begun by Pope Julius II in 1506, and completed 120 years I.iter—stood on the footprint of Constantine's church, which was itself constructed over the cemetery and the Trophy of Gaius, preserving the grave of St. Peter. Between the pope at the altar and the bones of Christ's apostle in the shrine sixteen feet beneath his shoes ran a succession of 265 popes.

  And from the beginning, centuries before the reign of Constantine, St. Peter's faithful had battled heretics.

  "Get thee behind me, Satan . . '.'

  "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it'.'

  Now, as he watched black clouds churn above the Vatican, the priest wondered how any believer could reject the Roman Catholic Church as the center of the Christian world. It was Peter who led the disciples after Christ ascended to heaven. He organized the election of Mathias as the twelfth disciple, in place of Judas, and turned all the disciples into apostles at the feast of Pentecost. He took the teachings of Christ to the capital city of their oppressors and passed them on through the Gospel of Mark, the record of his faithful companion. He "stretched out his hands" in crucifixion, just as Christ foretold, and became the "rock" upon which Constantine built the basilica. He was first among the apostles, and he passed that divine primacy down through the Vatican's popes so the rite of the Eucharist could provide the keys to heaven. The authority of the Roman Catholic Church was traceable from the current pope back without a break in the chain to Peter, and through him, to the son of God.

  Amen.

  Anyone who threatened that was a heretic.

  Thus the Holy Office in which the Legionary worked.

  A sudden flash of lightning took the priest by surprise. It must have cracked behind the building, out of sight, for all he saw was a burst of brilliant blue intensity. As the Vatican turned dark from a downpour of black rain, the Legionary glimpsed the netherworld on which it was built. The field of blood that once had soaked the Circus of Nero spread beneath the Palace of the Holy Office, and he could hear the wailing of Christian martyrs as they were burned, eaten alive, or nailed to wooden crosses. Below that, he gazed into the mouth of hell, a gobbling, fanged maw gorged with unre-deemed sinners boiling in oil and broiling in flames.

  Was the Last Judgment upon him?

  Had time run out?

  The priest could smell brimstone and the stench of burning human flesh.

  Turning from the window, he found himself locked in battle with Satan, for instead of St. Peter, the demon riding the black Mass crucifix was the Devil himself. Never had a creature as foul as this plagued his imagination, for the monster seemed to be a great red dragon with seven horned heads. Its seven mouths flicked snake tongues from shark teeth surrounded by slimy black lips. Its filthy fingers were crooked claws and its feet were hoofs, and behind it lashed a cruddy tail forked with spikes.

  Blasphemy . . .

  Perversion . . .

  Abomination! he thought.

  The priest fumbled for the crucifix on his chest, his only defense against insanity.

  But then he heard the snick of a key slipping into the lock, and the biblical vision of doomsday swiftly retreated into the subconscious pit of his mind. Gazing toward the door, the possessed priest was quite himself again, for there was the most influential person in his life, the churchman who'd recruited him into the Legion of Christ.

  "How goes the work?" asked the Secret Cardinal.

  "Slowly, Father."

  "You've been secreted away in here how long?"

  "Two years."

  "That's too long to wallow in the muck of the antichrists' blackest heresies," said the older priest, twenty years his senior.

  "We have a crusade for you to undertake. This threat could be the worst in the history of our faith."

  The Secret Cardinal held out the copy of the British newspaper given to him by the Art Historian to the Secret Archives of the Vatican yesterday in New York.

  "What is your will, Father?" asked the Legionary of Christ, taking the paper in his hand. For his mentor to take him away from this, it must be for a reason of dire consequence.

  The Secret Cardinal touched the photo of Sgt. Mick Balsdon. "Find this man and have him tell you what he knows."

  "Forcefully?"

  "If necessary. On my authority."

  From the pocket of a suit that belied his status, the elder priest withdrew a ring and slipped it on his finger. Holding out his hand for the baciamano, he said, "This secret will remain between you, me, and God. Because the Inquisition no longer 'exists,' I'm the Secret Cardinal of the Inquisition.

  I hereby appoint you my Inquisitor, with all the holy power that entails."

  Bowing, the Legionary kissed the ring depicting the crucifixion of Christ. Because the Devil was in him, hiding from sight, the band burned his lips.

  WARRIORS OF THE NIGHT

  YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND, 1941

  "Is there someone here named Hannah?"

  "That's me," replied one of the card players basking in the sun. "What do you want?"

  "My name's Mick Balsdon. The notice board says we're crewed up."

  "You lucky son of a bitch." The pilot slapped down a card before he stood up and shook hands. "Balsdon, huh? I'll call you Balls. That's what I want in a crew."

  "Do I call you Skipper?"

  "Call me Wrath. As in the wrath of God."

  "Who dubbed you that?"

  "No one yet. But the Nazis will."

  "If I'm so lucky, how come you left your crew up to the luck of the draw?"

  The sandy-haired pilot plunked his peaked cap down on his head at a rakish angle. He tapped the flying brevet sewn to the chest of his uniform. "Size me up," he challenged. "What do you think? Am I a good pilot?"

  "Damned if I know."

  "They say there's more to choosing a pilot than there is to choosing a wife. A bird-brained wife can still make you happy, but a bird-brained pilot is sure to get you killed. When we're in the thick of it over Germany and the first flak explodes in the black of night, can you tell from eyeing me what I'll do?

  Sure, I'll play the game every pilot's taught to play: change altitude, course, and speed to throw off the next burst. But will I stupidly balance the pattern with a symmetrical jog to the other side, so the Huns will be able to predict where we'll be and blast us out the sky? Or will I veer to a spot selected ran-domly, so you can watch the next shell explode where we would have been had I balanced it out? You don't know, do you?"

  "Uh-uh," said Balsdon.

&
nbsp; "Meet Ack-Ack DuBoulay, our arse-end Charlie." The pilot crooked his thumb at the player across the card table.

  "DuBoulay, like double A, as in 'ack-ack.' Get it?"

  "Dick DuBoulay," the rear gunner said, offering Balsdon his hand. He was a lanky fellow, all sinew and bone, with tousled blond forelocks on his brow. "Welcome aboard."

  Ack-Ack, the navigator thought.

  Anti-aircraft gun.

  "So again we're in the thick of it, pounding our first target, and in zooms a night fighter blasting at our tail. Can you tell by looking at him how Ack-Ack will react? Sure, he's got that gunner's wing on his chest, but you don't know his scores at gunnery school. In the face of a horrific hail of incoming cannon shells, with the odds against him, will he quash his fear and hurl back well-aimed fire? Or will he freeze and take us down with him?"

  "Russian roulette."

  "And what about you?" The pilot flicked his middle finger at the twelve-feather halfwing brevet on Balsdon's chest. "Are you skilled at analyzing navigational problems under fire?"

  "What do you think?"

  Hannah shrugged. "I won't know till we're shot full of holes.

  Nor would it help if I'd taken RAF Admin up on its offer to stroll around in a hangar and crew up like blind man's buff. 'I like your brand of smokes. Want to fly with me?' Or, 'You look like a boozer. I quaff, too.' The way I see it, chaps, life's a gamble. The odds are one in six against surviving a thirty-ops tour. They're one in forty against surviving two tours. If our number comes up, our number comes up. I'd rather gamble for money with the blokes fate assigns me. So pull up a chair. Balls.

  You may deal the cards. Once the rest seek us out, we'll find a pub and I'll buy the crew its first round."

  "The ace of clubs," Balsdon said, holding up the card the pilot had slapped down. "Good name for a bomber."

  DuBoulay grinned.

  Hannah winked. "The Ace of Clubs it is."

  + + +

  What a weird way to fight a war.

  From that operational training unit in Kinloss, Scotland, Wrath's crew-—as they came to be called—were posted to a squadron down near York. Going to war had always meant shipping out or marching off to far-flung lands, not to return till the job was done. Rot in the trenches. That was war. But in Bomber Command, the men went to war for a few hours, returning at dawn to a near-normal life. A day at the pub, at the cinema, seeing family and friends, then these warriors of the night were outward bound again. What a clean, comfortable way to engage in battle, but the psychological stress accumulated with each op.

  Bleak House—named for the Dickens novel—was their new home. It was a prefab Nissen hut on the squadron's airfield.

  Sixteen feet wide by twenty-four feet long, the hut had a low ceiling and a concrete slab for a floor. All seven crewmen were sergeants, so they roomed together in double-deck bunks, snoring on lumpy mattresses stuffed with excelsior.

  "I feel like the princess and the pea," grumbled Hugh "Ox"

  Oxley. The flight engineer was a ruddy-faced mechanic who could drink anyone into a coffin.

  "Don't pee on me," said Russ "Nelson" Trafalgar, stretched out on the bunk beneath him. The bomb-aimer had been a professional athlete before the war.

  "Want to switch beds?" Ack-Ack growled from the bunk farthest away from the small coal-burning stove. The stove radiated just enough heat to keep those within five feet of it warm. Crewmen relegated to the ends of the hut were forced to sleep under their overcoats and several blankets to survive the cold, damp nights. Coal was rationed and never lasted until dawn, so the airmen honed "midnight requisitioning"—illegal raids on the coal yard—to an art.

  "Goodnight, ladies," groused Wrath. "If I don't get my sleep, I'll nod off in the cockpit."

  Wrong thing to say to this motley crew.

  "Good night, ladies," Ox's bass voice filled the dark.

  "Good night, ladies," Nelson's baritone chimed in.

  "Good night, ladies," Ack-Ack's tenor topped off the mix.

  "We're going to leave you now." The barbershop chorus sang itself to sleep.

  Come morning, the room reeked of body odor and stale cigarettes. The first man up stoked the stove, then put a record on the gramophone. Glenn Miller's "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)." "Chattanooga Choo-Choo." The Mills Brothers' "I'll Be Around." Or one of the jazz discs that the crew had purchased from the personal effects of a squadron leader blown to bits over Nuremberg.

  Bleak House was rendered a little less bleak by a poster on one wall. It showed an RAF pilot as handsome as Errol Flynn flying a combat mission over Hitler's Germany. Off to the side, a vampire in a Messerschmitt launched a cowardly attack on our hero, swooping down from the blazing ball of high noon. The poster warned, "Beware of the Hun in the Sun!"

  Since Bomber Command no longer struck by day, one of the crew had added, "Und Be Vatching Also, Kinder, fur das Goon in the Moon!"

  "Torture time, lads," announced the early riser.

  The latrines, showers, and washstands huddled together in a building at the center of several huts. From the yelps of those inside, it was clear there was no hot water today. The ordeal of breakfast was worse. In the mess hall, the men got powdered eggs and chalky milk and the ever-present mystery meat called Spam. "Ham that failed its physical," gagged Monty "De Count"

  Christie, the gunner who manned the dorsal turret atop the Ace of Clubs.

  The best thing about going on a mission?

  The preflight meal was eggs, sausage, beans, and fried bread.

  Breakfast done, it was time to play roulette. Every morning at ten, the wing commander received a call from Group HQ, and every morning Wrath walked over to hear if there would be a war on that night.

  + + +

  "A Yank?" the pilot had moaned, back when they'd first crewed up. "How can that be? The Yanks still haven't figured out if Hitler's villain enough for them to join the war."

  "I hear he volunteered to fly with the RCAF. Canada attached him to the RAF," said Balls.

  "His name?"

  "Swetman. Earl Swetman."

  "He'll be Sweaty. What's his trade?"

  "Wireless operator."

  "He'll think he's a radioman."

  "Give him a chance, Skipper. He doesn't have to be here.

  Surely, that's in his favor."

  Wrath sucked on his pipe, then blew out a pair of perfectly round smoke rings.

  "Mark my words, chaps. He'll be garrulous and pushy. He'll natter on about how everything's bigger in Texas. Nothing will please him. Our beer will be flat—not bubbly like Schlitz back home. His knickers will twist when he finds his bollocks don't have their own latrine. He'll have too much money, and he'll lord it over us. In the end, to keep our sanity, we'll have to shoot him ourselves and save the Nazis the trouble."

  "Shall we bet?"

  "A crown says he's a prat," declared Wrath.

  Sweaty, however, had proved that pessimistic prophet wrong. The Yank was a freckle-faced carrot top who fit in from the start. So much so that you'd think the RAF grew up around him. Within a week of arriving in Yorkshire, he knew every pub and club for miles around Bleak House, and those who rationed the beer all knew—and liked—him. A pub crawl with Sweaty was a raucous affair. Publicans lost track of how many pints they served his group. He could spin a yarn that clung judiciously to the truth, or line-shoot the best duff gen around. Want to play cards? Sweaty could hold his own at friendly and cutthroat alike. Sit him at a piano and the place the men leapt onto the backs of their mates, until finally one of the human pyramids collapsed.

  Another time, they piled the furniture in the center of the room to act as a scaffold for Sweaty, who'd covered his bare feet in soot. Slowly, he was carried aloft until a trail of charred footprints staggered up from the fireplace, across the ceiling, and down the far wall to the door.

  One night, Balsdon returned from leave to the sound of unbridled revelry in the lounge. Sweaty was leading a boisterous crowd
of flyboys in a round of "Bang, Bang, Lulu." The men were naked except for black ties around their necks. Beer sloshed from pint glasses waved high as they trod on a carpet of clothes. One of the merrymakers spotted Balsdon at the door.

  "Get him!" he yelled, forcing the navigator to turn and run for his life, hotly pursued by a mob of birthday-suit hangmen jerking up their ties like gallows ropes.

  Hurrah for Sweaty.

  He got Wrath's men through the crushing stress.

  All but one.

  WITCHHUNT

  Her wrists tied behind her back, the suspected witch hung naked and shaved of all body hair from a ceiling beam in the dark York dungeon. He knew what they were searching for, these Dominican monks of the Catholic Church, as they meticulously examined her belly for the Devil's mark. He had read the unexpurgated version of Malleus Maleficarum—The Hammer of Witches—back in his locked room at the Vatican.

  Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer, also Dominican monks, wrote that theological encyclopedia in 1486 to tell witch hunters how to spot women guilty of copulating with the Devil, holding black "sabbats," thwarting the birth of babies, and instigating misfortunes like hailstorms, crop failures, illness, and insanity. The Dominicans in this dungeon were probing the heretic for her "witch's tit," a third nipple used to suckle demons. They might find it in a wart, a mole, or a birthmark.

  The test would be if the tit was insensitive to the jab of a "witch prickle" dagger.

  Alone down here, with just the company of the waxwork figures, the Legionary was lost in the realm of the heretical books that had possessed his mind for the past two years.