dom. "The real you, Mister Stavers, this professional

  mercenary and pitiless killer, this paragon of death and

  murder, the man whose very name strikes fear into

  hearts hither and yon, well, the real you behind all this

  reality, and it is' real, and you are literally all these

  things, once meant everything, but no longer. "

  "You've lost your marbles, Rebecca," he said, almost

  sadly, gentle now because he'd decided her fate. I

  knew you were too good to be-"

  "Not even a fart in a windstorm," she smirked.

  "What?"

  "A quitter isn't worth a fart in a windstorm. You

  make as much noise in the real world, now, as two

  snowflakes kissing ass in the arctic night." She raise

  her brows in self-reflection. "That isn't half-bad," she

  complimented herself. She felt giddy with her sense of

  inner freedom. "Almost poetic, in fact, " she added.

  The needle had gone in. She saw it in his face, the

  sudden flicking back and forth of his eyes, and like the

  true sharp-fanged vixen, she darted into the soft under-

  belly of his ego.

  "You're so fucking bored you no longer have any real

  goals , she said scornfully. "The man who should have

  it all has lost the ability to define the only challenge left

  to him. In short, Stavers, you're so damned bored

  because of that doodad hanging around your neck, be-

  cause you believe you're all-powerful, some form of

  piss-ant deity, and you doD't know what to do with

  yourself All that talent! All those things that make uou

  the exceptional man! Right down the damned toilet

  because you're bored with winning and you don't know

  where to go or really what to do with yourself."

  She hurled her coffee mug from the table in sudden

  frustration- It clattered on the floor and bounced from

  the wall. They waited as the rattling noise subsided.

  11 Did you ever stop to think that your, call it psyche,

  all your power, and that glitter around your neck, never

  warns you of any danger to you? Ever think of thatP"

  Sarcasm hung almost visibly between them. "It's really

  amazing. isn't it? If that diamond has all that incredible

  158

  Martin Caidin

  power, then why doesn't it sound an alarin, ring a bell,

  jump up and down and clap hands when someone's

  trying to kill you? It doesD't do that, does it? You

  asshole, you carne through that crazy scene at LaGuardia

  and that fucked-up dogfight in the air because of prepa-

  ration' skill, dedication, courage and all those things on

  your part and the same from your men. Thatfancy glop

  on your chest didn't have a thing to do with your

  surviving all that." She took a deep breath as she ran

  on. "You, and your men, that was your strength." She

  smiled.

  "Consider this, Mister Stavers. If you're out walking

  in those snowy hills of yours, a man concealed a mile

  away from vou with a telescopic sight can blow out your

  brains and you'll never know what hit you. One finger

  squeeze and there goes good old Staver's brains and guts

  and glory messing up the snow."

  She was on her feet now, hands balled into fists,

  knuckles hard against the table, leaning forward. "You're

  scared, Stavers, Scared silly! You're scared because you're

  forty-two years old and you don't have enough time left

  to do what you really want most of all. To be wor-

  shipped. You're watc@ing the years pile up behind you

  and you'd like to be immortal and you don't know how.

  You poor dumb pimple on God's ass, do vou think I

  don't know about the thirteen wornen you ve made

  pregnant so you'll have sotnething to leave after you I re

  Q)

  gorie- There's Yvette and Ricki and Sarah and Alicia,

  and all the others, scattered in diFerent countries around

  the world, all provided for and protected and all that

  bullshit, and it doesn't matter one little bit because

  they'll never really know you and so they don't matter

  one way or the other. Except maybe when you're lying

  to yourself about how important all that is. Ws not. f It

  just doesn't matter. What does matter is what you do.

  What you do now. And instead of doing, you spend all

  your time going through some twisted psychological

  cl

  thumb-sucking!"

  She almost fell back into her chair, nearly breathless,

  perspiration beading her face, soaking her clothes. "You

  can be the. richest, the most newerful man in the. wnrld

  DARK MESSIAH

  159

  and it doesn't mean shit." She sighed. "It's incredible

  how long it takes men like you to understand that the

  kind of power they want is a prison. You're always a

  target. You're always the score for the professional killer,

  the hired hit man. Always. Day and night, no matter

  where you go, the world becomes a lethal video arcade

  and everybody's gunning for you. Suddenly the money

  isn't worth anything and you'd trade all your power to

  be just free enough to mix in openly with the rest of the

  world. "

  His face had turned almost a dark red. It was a

  miracle he hadn't yielded to his violent temper and

  primal instincts and killed her with a single blow to her

  skull with one of his rock-hard fists. She gambled that

  she was getting through, slicing somewhere into that

  jellied mass of the brain so that she could touch the

  mind within.

  "You are alive," he said slowly, forcing the words

  through clenched teeth, "only because of one thing.

  No," he corrected himself -T@ree things. Do you know

  what they are, Rebecca?"

  "Yes, I do," she said, to his astonishment. "At least, I

  think I do."

  "Tell me what they are, Rebecca."

  She locked her gaze with his. "Up yours. It works

  only if you tell me."

  "All right." He clenched his two hands together,

  fingers interlocked, resting on the table before hirn.

  "First, everything you say is true. "

  He studied her carefully. "Funny. I expected your

  jaw to drop. I expected surprise, amazement-"

  "Try a deep inner joy, Stavers. God, don't stop now!"'

  "That's the first of the three. The second is that I

  know, now, that you're going to tell ine the truth about

  this diamond. Or whatever you call it."

  "Close," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  "Very close. I won't tell you. I intend to show you."

  He nodded slowlv.

  "What's the third, Stavers?"

  He smiled. And in that instant, as his facial muscles

  rAnxed as the tension went awav as if a switch had

  160 Martin Caidin

  been thrown, she knew she had never, not for an in-

  stant, been in any danger from this man. Never.

  "Oh, that's easy, Rebecca. You see, I've known for

  some time that you are more than three hundred years

  Old. -

  PART Two

  Chapter 14

  "Take off your hat," Stavers told Skip Marden. "And

  you will always remove everything from your head

  except your hair whenever you enter a church again. "

  Marden took Stavers' admonition with open disbelief

  Clad in timber gear with a heavy lumberman's jacket,

  laced boots and heavy trousers tucked into his brogans

  he was almost a full-scale edition of the mythical Paul

  Bunyan. Beneath the huge jacket lie carried his usual

  complement of weapons. He stopped at the steps to the

  church, one foot on the first step, and looked for help

  from Rebecca Weinstein.

  "It's all right, Skip. just stuff your hat into a pocket if

  you like," she told him.

  "I don't get it, Doc," Marden gestured at the huge,

  old stone building, as grim and forbidding as any for-

  tress. "So it's a church, So what? I mean, Doug bought

  the goddamned thing. it aint just any church. It's our

  church!" fie studied the huge building, the largest

  structure by far in Black Rock, sitting astride Highway

  10 in Utah, a shitty town memorable only for the fact

  that to the west soared the Manti-La Sal National For-

  est. North on the battered highway you ran into the

  nothina town of Hiawatha, and if you went in the other

  direction you reached the nonAriving metropolis of

  soninolent Castle Dale. Head east and you had dirt and

  clay roads in barren country; bleak Tavaputs plateaus,

  the nasty heights of Roan Cliffs, and the abject lonely

  misery of appropriately named Desolation CaDvon.

  "just go along with the script," Weinstein urged

  163

  164

  Mar-tin Caidin

  Marden. They climbed the steps together. Another world

  awaited them as they entered the newly-named Church

  o t e Ascension. The land outside was remote, rough-

  hewn, isolated, fringe communities far beyond the tem-

  pled strongholds of Provos, Salt Lake City, Ogden,

  Brigham City and the other centers of Mormon country.

  "Jesus," Marden said softly, Arches soared above him.

  Great sheets of stained glass showered multihued glows

  through the structure. Sunlight danced on dust in visi-

  ble pillars, and from loudspeakers scattered through the

  building organ music flowed about them.

  "An appropriate comment," Weinstein said, smiling.

  They walked to a side aisle, their presence noted briefly

  by worshippers scattered amidst the long rows of pews.

  A priest opened a door, beckoning them to hurry to

  join Doug Stavers. The door closed, but Marden re-

  fused to be hurried. An eyebrow raised slightly, the

  only visible sign that he had already judged the true

  fortress-like nature of this building. That door was wood

  only on its exterior; a sheet of armored steel lay sand-

  wiched between the wood. The bolts to secure the door

  would stop anything short of a bulldozer. Marden's

  interest heightened and he began to smile. This was

  more like it!

  The visits to seven other churches in the past few

  days had driven Marden almost to distraction, They

  were all named the Church of the Ascension. They

  were all in remote locations with each church scattered

  in a different state. And every one of them had a new

  landing strip, or, an old strip lengthened and hardpacked

  to accommodate the weight of a heavy jet like the Skua,

  or a big turboprop of the Beech Starship class. Therein

  lay another similarity that snagged Marden's basically

  suspicious nature.

  Not a single airstrip was paved. That seemed stupid;

  why land these multimillion dollar machines on dirt or

  clay rather than macadam or concrete? Then he walked

  across the first "primitive strip" and he understood.

  The surface beneath him bad been prepared by a ge-

  nius. It bore the weight of any aircraft as well as a

  Daved surface. Rnt kpi,,a 4 li f - _J- ;+ -A-4."A

  DARK MESSIAH

  165

  heat in the same manner as the countryside. At night,

  infrared scanning of the countryside by high-flying re-

  connaissance aircraft, and satellites, would fail to "see"

  an airstrip that offered no telltale thermal signature. At

  each strip the jet or turboprop disappeared within a

  large, ramshackle-appearing barn. Tractors and pickup

  trucks moved through the area, mixmg with cropdusters

  and helicopters, the movement of all the vehicles and

  aircraft scrubbing away any signature of the powerful

  jet machines. It was the ultimate camouflage. You did

  everything right out in the open for all the world to see

  and what you saw was everyday ordinary. And the jets

  kept flying in and out whether or not Doug Stavers was

  aboard.

  Skip Marden failed to understand the whirlwind tour

  they followed across the country. Nonstop travel by

  aircraft and helicopter and large vans. People whom

  Marden had never seen or knew about met in brief,

  taut sessions with Stavers and Weinstein, and then

  vanished on affairs to be pursued under Stavers' orders.

  What at first had piqued Marden's interest, and then

  baffled him to the point of surliness, was the command-

  ing interest in the churches. It made no sense to him.

  Of course, he grumbled to himself, no one had to

  explain anything to him. He bad one assignment only in

  the world.

  Cover the back of Doug Stavers. Cover it with all his

  guile and cunning, courage and expertise with weap-

  ons, and above all his animal-like sensitivity to danger;

  the latter was as much experience and finely-honed

  observation as arty sixth sense. But there was a difffier-

  ence now. The doctor. Rebecca Weinstein was with

  Stavers day and night. They were more than doctor-

  patient. They were far more than lovers. And if they

  wanted to hump each other day and night that was their

  own affair. Not that they had much time to perform

  acrobatics in the sack. Not the way they kept on the go,

  a hammering roller-coaster journey throughout the

  country.

  Something was up. Something very big @vas up. Ex-

  citement trembled beneath the surface. For this, Marden

  166

  Martin Caidin

  felt a combination of enormous relief and no small

  pleasure. Ever since he'd come into possession of the

  fabled yellow diamond, Stavers' life had gone downhill.

  He dumped on himself with petty pleasures. Often he

  snarled like a wounded bear when there was no appar-

  ent reason for such antagonism. None of this affected

  Marden except for his total dedication to the well-being

  of one Doug Stavers. But you couldn't fight ghosts and

  surliness. A man with Stavers' incredible skills and

  talents, his relentless crush of any opposition to what he

  sought or wanted, needed morethan stuffing his salami

  between the legs of a nonstop procession of young quiff.

  That grows old quickly. There'd got to be a challenge,

  and Doug Stavers didn't know what the hell to do with

  himself.

  Until Rebecca Weinstein came on the scene. And

  even then her presence didn't bring Stavers back up to

  snuff. It didn't light his fire. He wasn't acting on his

  own; he was reacting to an extraordinary wave of at-

  tempts against his life. Marden regarded Weinstein as a

  magnet for lethal trouble. It seemed to home in on her

  like a controlled missile. Missile, hell; it was a complete

  barrage! That attack at Butler Terminal in New York.

  Shit, that would never have happened unless Boesch,

  who ran the whole operation, hadn't felt both the pres-

  sures of time and a squeeze from the people who fi-

  nanced his worldwide terror attacks. You pay the piper

  when he plays a tune on his flute, and it wasn't too

  tough to figure that Boesch was a direct line down from

  he old guard of Nazi leaders who had tucked neatly in

  ed with a power group inside the Vatican, a rotten

  love affair stemming from the rare opportunities offered

  by a Europe festooned in the madness of the second

  world war. They'd been after Doug Stavers for a long

  time but it had always been little more than a casual

  affair. Doug was a thorn in their side but little more.

  Doug didn't care what they did with one another or

  what global racketeering they commanded, iust so long

  as they didn't mess with hirn. All that changed when

  Doug went after the 'great yellow diamond in a world-

  soarmina hysteria of intrivue- murderand Nondv on-l,@f

  DARK MESSIAH

  167

  Even after Doug had what they referred to almost in

  hoarse whispers as The Messiah Stone, or simply the

  Godstone, the pressure increased, but not to any extent

  they couldn't handle.

  Then Rebecca Weinstein carne on stage. From the

  first moment he saw her, moved close to her, Marden

  knew they'd opened a Pandora's Box. it was a gut

  feeling as subtle as a kick to the nuts; cerebral compre-

  hension didn't have shit to do with it, Marden recog-

  nized the honed killing instinct of any animal. This

  woman-and Marden wasn't surprise(i when he learned

  she was a medical doctor; a surgeon-had all that sleek

  power beneath her beauty. Her voice; Jesus, but she

  could do incredible thinas with her voice! That British

  accent, the crisp cool, the breath of a breeze blowing

  downwirid of an iceberg. She could cut through sur-

  rounding bedlam with that voice. Especially to Marden

  with his recognition of that mysterious strength of hers

 

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