The Morning Star

By Michael Wenberg

Fisherman Nick Savitch pops in to see his friends the nuns at a monastery on an island in remote Alaska, only to find them all dead ... except for a mysterious ageless woman with striking green eyes and a young girl willing to go to any lengths to protect her. It turns out some of the scariest folks on earth are after the woman also known as the Morning Star, and their chase takes them from islands in the Gulf of Alaska to the heavily guarded confines of a Moscow hospital. This story has got all the historical intrigue of The DaVinci Code (without the deep detours into church history) and all the fast-paced action of a Jack Reacher story--only with richer, more interesting characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Wenberg
• Release date: Aug 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215242124

Michael Wenberg

MICHAEL WENBERG is the author of the ebook, "The Last Eagle," a World War II adventure story, as well as ten ebooks for children, "Henri the Clown," "Stinky Dog," "The Tiger Wind," "The Boy Who Hated Flowers," "Captain Lewis's Dog," "Dognapped," "Oops," "Melba's Slide Trombone," "Tubby the Forgotten Tugboat", two young adult novels, "Stringz" (2010, Westside Books) and "Seattle Blues" (2009, Westside Books), and the picture book, "Elizabeth's Song" (2002, Beyond Words Publishing). "Stringz" and "Seattle Blues" are Flamingnet Top Choice Award winners. "Stringz" was selected to the Pennsylvania School Librarian's Top 40 List for 2010. "Seattle Blues" was picked a best book of the year by the Bank Street School of Education in 2009. A highly regarded speaker in schools, Wenberg uses his trombone-playing to introduce children to his stories, reading, writing, and music. Wenberg lives with his wife, Sandy, in Kingston, Washington, a small village on Washington state's Puget Sound. Wenberg has attended Seattle Pacific University and Eastern Washington University and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Gonzaga University. When he's not writing, spending time with his family, or playing his trombone, you can find him open water rowing, hiking, mountain biking, or sitting on his porch drinking a beer, depending on the season.

Book preview

Father Daniel Rostoff sat in a well-worn recliner parked in front of a wood stove creaking with heat in his office at the back of the church. He was sipping cheap cognac and reading a three-day old copy of the Anchorage Daily News, his elbows resting on his rather pronounced belly. He’d been exiled to Nooksack nearly 27 years earlier by his bishop at the time as punishment for committing some political slight or theological faux pas. He could no longer recall the exact details and they long ago had quit mattering. As he liked to tell anyone willing to listen, exile was the best thing that ever happened to him. He loved Nooksack, loved the villagers, and perhaps almost important as loving God, loved Alaska.

When the chime on his computer announced the arrival of a bird in the pigeon loft on the roof of the church, he was tempted to ignore it. He wasn’t expecting any messages from St. Herman’s. Not today, anyway. It was too soon. It was also cold, and it had been a long day. He’d spent the afternoon listening to confessions, and the morning dealing with a man who didn’t seem to understand that beating his 16-year-old son bruised and bloody, however much he might deserve it, was not only a sin, but against the law. The fact that the man was the village’s police chief didn’t help matters.

The simple sensor that one of the tech savvy teens in his parish had set up for him could be fooled. A gust of wind could sometimes set it off. If that was the case, nothing to worry about. On the other hand, it could be triggered by raccoons looking for an easy meal.

When the chime rang a second time, Father Daniel sighed, put down his paper and his drink, and slipped into his Birkenstocks. He stepped out the back door, and immediately regretted not pulling on an extra sweater. Wind gusts were moaning beneath the eaves. He could hear the surf thundering in the distance. He could smell snow in the air. Flakes would be along soon enough. A storm was coming.

Some Alaskans hated winter. The long nights. The dark. The bitter cold and snow that took forever to go away.

He was an exception.

Despite connections to the outside world through satellite TV and the Internet, and the noise of the snow machines that in winter displaced the 4-wheelers, he liked it when the village slipped into an older time, when winter ruled, and the rhythms of life were dictated by the season of cold and darkness. He found himself longing for it during the warmer, bug-filled summers. Fortunately, summers were short-lived this far north.

He ducked his head into the breeze, stumbled up the outside stairs, muttering under his breath for forgetting his flashlight.

Git, he yelled as he approached the pigeon loft just in case the sensor had been fooled by a varmint after all. He even barked a few times for good measure though the second bark evoked a heavy bout of coughing.

He squinted into the darkness, saw a furtive movement, and then relaxed. No varmint, after all. Just a solitary pigeon.

There, there, he said, picking up the bird, recognizing it by its markings as Rudi. Back already?

He removed the small container around the bird’s leg, slipped Rudi safely into the cage, and double-checked to make sure there was food and water. They shouldn’t have used you again so soon. It’s borderline pigeon cruelty. He flipped it around. Cruelty to pigeons. He rather liked that. He wondered how he could work it into his next homily.

The priest made his way carefully down the stairs. Snowflakes were now darting around the light above the backdoor to his office like summertime bugs. For a moment, he thought he’d locked the door by mistake, but then the reluctant latch gave way and let him into the warmth inside. While he was up, he added to his cognac, and then with a heavy sigh, settled back into his chair.

He might not move again the rest of the night, except to toddle down the hall to the bathroom. Damned prostate. The parsonage was right next door, but since his wife had died a year earlier after a long bout with cancer, he spent most evenings in his office. He slept in the chair. He found he dreamed better when he slept upright. And he loved to dream. In his dreams his wife was alive and beautiful, and he was still a young man with a flat stomach, a firm handshake, and a lifetime of adventure awaiting them.

He reached for the paper, and then realized he hadn’t bothered to check out the message. He smiled to himself, wondering what chess move Katerina had in mind. Maybe that was it. She couldn’t wait to defeat him.

He’d met her for the first time six or seven years earlier. She was newly appointed to her post as abbess at St. Herman’s and, as she put it, just visiting the neighborhood, even though the monastery was located on an island in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska, 100 miles from Nooksack as a pigeon flew.

His wife had offered coffee, but the abbess had glanced at her watch, noting that since it was already after four in the afternoon, perhaps something stronger might be in order, hmmm?

He suggested cognac.

She wrinkled her nose.

Vodka?

She smiled.

He didn’t know much about the Sisterhood of St. Helena, but he figured any nun who drank vodka couldn’t be all bad. He’d taken to her immediately.

More importantly, so had his wife. She was never wrong about people.

While they were sipping vodka, Father Daniel learned that the abbess’s visit wasn’t entirely neighborly. She asked him if he liked pigeons.

Filthy creatures, Father Daniel snorted. Why do you ask?

The abbess explained that the Sisterhood still used carrier pigeons from time to time to carry messages.

Seems a little extreme, his wife commented.

There are practical considerations, the abbess replied.

Hard to hack a bird, Father Daniel said with a nod.

The abbess chuckled. Exactly. We've been using carrier pigeons for hundreds of years. Early on, it was a way to keep far-flung monasteries and churches connected. As new technologies were introduced, like everyone else we took advantage of them. But we have never completely abandoned the use of birds for—how should I put it?—sensitive communications. And now that privacy is just an illusion, low-tech has become one of the best techniques used by anyone wishing to defeat high-tech snoopers.

So, what deep dark secrets are you hiding? Father Daniel joked, his smile fading when the abbess just stared at him.

He was saved by his wife. So, why are you here? she asked.

The abbess shrugged. We're establishing a small monastery near Anchorage. Too far for our pigeons to fly directly between there and St. Herman's. We need a rest stop in between. Nooksack and your parish is in a perfect location.

I wish we could help, Father Daniel had said with a shake of his head, but I’m afraid it's impossible.

He remembered the way the abbess’s eyes glinted. Please explain, she said. It wasn’t a request.

What’s the opposite of a green thumb?

The abbess sipped her vodka and waited for him to answer his own question.

Well, except for dogs, let’s just say I have a black thumb when it comes to animals. They don’t like me, and I don’t like them. Give me a turtle, and I’ll either kill it from, oh God, who knows what. Just because. Or I’ll turn it into a vicious, man-killing reptile. Think of a slow-moving wolverine with a shell on its back. I’m just no good with animals.

By the time he was done, the glint was gone from Sister Katerina’s eyes and she was laughing. I think we’d be able to teach you how to take care of. . .what did you call them? Filthy creatures? And, of course, we wouldn’t expect you to do it out of the kindness of your heart. The Sisterhood’s typical stipend for this is a monthly payment of $1,500.

Before Father Daniel could respond, his wife said, I’m sure my husband can learn to love and care for pigeons. She then gave him a look that dared him to disagree.

He knew better than to ignore it or her. Would you like to look around? I’m sure we have a number of good locations for a pigeon barn.

You’ll need to learn the language, the abbess said. Consider this your first lesson. Carrier pigeons live in a loft. She tossed back the rest of her drink and motioned with her hand. Lead the way.

A few weeks later, the loft was installed by two nuns from the Sisterhood, arriving in Nooksack via charter helicopter and bringing along everything they needed. They were polite enough, but it was clear from the start that they were there to do a job. They even brought their own food, and other than asking for directions to the toilet, they remained tight-lipped when he tried to engage them in friendly conversation. After a couple failed attempts, he gave up. Before they left, they gave him a satellite phone and a charger.

Looks expensive, he said.

Only use it in an emergency, said the nun who handed him the phone. She had dark eyes and a face pockmarked with acne scars. Turn it on and it will dial a number automatically. It only works with that number. Any questions?

Makes me feel a bit like James Bond, he laughed. The nuns didn’t seem amused. And what, may I ask, constitutes an emergency?

The nun stared at him for a moment with an intensity that made him finally look away. You’ll know, she said.

Since then, there were annual visits from other nuns from the Sisterhood—they stayed just long enough to check on the birds and always declined his invitations to stay longer—and once a year, the abbess would visit and spend an afternoon. The satellite phone was replaced every year with what Father Daniel assumed was a newer model.

Father Daniel had quickly discovered that he didn’t have a black thumb, at least when it came to pigeons. In fact, he’d grown rather fond of the filthy little critters. After the death of his wife, they’d helped fill, in a small way, the void that she’d left behind. Unlike his parishioners, they had no sins to confess and needed nothing more from him other than the basics: food, water, and shelter.

At first, there were only sporadic messages between Anchorage and St. Herman’s. Father Daniel had dutifully sent them along, curious about the contents, but not bothering to snoop any further after examining the first message and discovering it was sealed in such a way that an attempt at tampering would be obvious. He wondered what required such secrecy, but the monthly deposit into the parish’s bank account kept him from asking questions. He couldn’t imagine that the nuns were up to something nefarious. And if they were, he didn’t want to know about it. There was enough evil in Nooksack and the rest of the world. He didn’t need to go looking for more.

During one of the abbess’s annual visits, they discovered that they shared a mutual love of chess. It was the abbess’s idea that they begin playing games remotely, using the carrier pigeons to carry their moves back and forth. The birds can use the exercise, she’d said. Once a week, a bird would arrive from St. Herman’s with the abbess’s move. He would send a bird back a few days later with his response.

He was fairly certain he knew what move the abbess had decided to make. Queen to Rook 5. It was her best option. But he wondered why she'd sent the bird back so quickly. They weren’t in any hurry. It was only a game.

He picked off the tape, pulled out the message, and settled his reading glasses on his nose. He paused when he was done, took a deep breath, and read it a second time. His hands were trembling. A light sheen of sweat covered his forehead. The absurdity of his next thought almost brought a hysterical giggle to his lips.

Where had he stashed the Sisterhood’s damn phone?

Three

Nick Savitch felt his boat stagger, winced as that was followed by the sharp sound of glass clinking against glass, and then watched the bow disappear into a cloud of spray.

He wasn’t worried about his ArrowCat. It was designed by one of the best foul-weather boat builders in the world. Twin hulls for stability and an always-reliable pair of 250-horsepower Yamaha outboards meant it could handle the kind of severe weather conditions that would chase other boats of greater length and size into safe harbors. The current conditions—blowing snow, 25 knot gusts, and 7-foot swells—were just another mild October day in the Gulf of Alaska.

Nick loved this time of year, when the Gulf became the playground of some of the most ferocious weather on the planet, with storms generating low pressure equivalent to what you’d find in the middle of a hurricane. The resulting witch’s brew was comparable to Category 3 tropical storms and came with sustained winds reaching 70 mph and even higher gusts. The icing on the cake were 100-foot waves.

After listening to NOAA's marine weather forecast, Nick knew that today's blow would be over in a few hours. NOAA predicted a break for a day, and then temperatures would plummet as a precursor to the arrival of the season's first serious storm.

If their computer models were wrong and the weather turned filthy before they expected, he knew plenty of small bays and inlets he could duck into for shelter.

What really worried him at the moment was the fate of the case of vodka clinking ominously on the deck near his feet.

When it came to vodka, the abbess wasn’t particular. But Nick was. He also knew that tomorrow was her birthday. He wasn’t certain of her age. He also wasn’t brave enough to ask. On impulse, he had decided to surprise her with a case of Beluga, a fine vodka produced by the Mariinsk Distillery located in the heart of Siberia.

Of course, she wouldn’t smack his knuckles with a ruler if a delivered a case that was shy a bottle or two. But Nick didn’t want to disappoint her, not just because she was his friend and it was her birthday, but because she was a nun. Not disappointing a nun was one of those rusty habits he still carried thanks to his Russian Orthodox upbringing.

Nick peered through the rain streaked windscreen at a churning, gunmetal gray sea. Clouds of the same color were so low it was hard to tell where the water ended and the sky began. For the moment, it wasn’t snowing. There was a dark smear on the horizon. He didn’t need the GPS to confirm it as St. Herman’s Island.

He’d planned to be on his way earlier in the day, but when his last clients of the season, a pair of software executives from Seattle were stuck at the Kodiak Airport because of mechanical problems with their plane and offered to buy him a drink, he’d decided to hang around. He was in no hurry. The abbess had no idea he was even planning to show up. He figured what the hell.

Unlike some of his clients, he actually liked these guys.

It hadn’t started out that way.

When Nick picked them up five days earlier, he’d groaned as soon as he spotted them heading his way. Their booking agent said they were experienced fishermen. Brand-new brightly colored outdoor gear from Filson, Orvis, or REI said otherwise. During the short drive to his boat, they’d complained about their flight, fretted about their luggage, and fussed with their smartphones in the half-distracted way of people who were rarely disconnected from the pacifying effects of their electronic devices.

They gave him shocked looks when he told them there was no Internet where they were going.

A day. Two max, he thought. That’s all it would take before they’d be begging him to bring them back to Kodiak.

He was used to clients falling short of his ideal. That bar had been set long ago by the retired wise guys who spent a week at his fishing camp every August. They’d started coming up when his grandfather owned the place and liked Nick well enough to continue when he inherited it. They fished for two or three days without needing much help from him, and then spent the rest of their time, eating, drinking, and mooning the battered fishing trawler crawling with Feds and cameras that always showed up a day or two after they did. In the evening, they entertained themselves with the kinds of stories that Nick could have turned into a New York Times best seller.

Not that he ever considered doing anything that foolish.

The software guys turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Instead of flipping out when they discovered that their assorted smart devices didn’t work, they acted like liberated prisoners. Freedom, even from the tyranny of electronic devices, can be a heady thing. They loved the fishing, actually knew their way around a rod and a reel, raved about the food, and when they realized Nick could care less that they were gay, swore they’d tell all their friends about his place.

That sounded all right to Nick. Word of mouth was always the best advertising. He also agreed with his grandfather who had said there were only two kinds of people in the world: those who fished . . . and everyone else.

Nick held the wheel with a light touch and adjusted the boat’s heading towards the center of the smear. He’d visited the monastery and fished these waters long enough to know that’s where the narrow entrance to the island’s small bay was located.

His knees flexed slightly as the deck bucked beneath his feet. The vodka bottles continued to chime like miniature church bells. The protected water of St. Herman’s was still five minutes away. Three if he went faster.

He nudged the throttles forward.

At first glance, Nick looked like a typical Alaska native, not someone born and raised in Huntington Beach, California. He wore a battered Seattle Mariners baseball cap, a Filson oil cloth jacket that had been his grandfather’s favorite, and faded Levi's tucked into Xtratuf rubber boots. His weathered face was a series of angles, softened by a short beard flecked with gray.

Nick was in his mid-forties, lanky tall, and carried himself with the coiled grace of an ex-athlete who still had decent knees. He’d once played professional football, but that had been years earlier, and it wasn’t something he talked about. It had been an exciting life, and he felt lucky he’d gotten out before he’d been permanently damaged. That wasn’t the case with many of his ex-teammates.

Before the NFL, he’d spent eight years in the Navy, repaying Uncle Sam for his free education courtesy of the U.S. Naval Academy. At the Academy, he’d excelled on and off the field, graduating 13th in his class while receiving All-American honors as a tight end his junior and senior year.

After graduation, he’d spent most of his time in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there, he’d had the chance to learn and apply all sorts of interesting skills that had very little use if you didn’t happen to live in a war zone, or an area controlled by a gang of sociopaths. He’d also picked up two Purple Heart medals and a Silver Star.

That was a time he also didn’t talk about.

A few months after he left the navy, he happened to run into one of his former coaches from the academy. He’d always liked the guy. His ex-coach had moved up in the world. He was now a special teams coach with the pro football team in Seattle. Before they parted, the coach invited Nick to one of the team’s upcoming offseason workouts. Nick figured the guy was just trying to be nice to a vet, but when the time came, and he happened to be in Seattle, he decided to go. He ended up running routes and catching passes from some smart ass who looked all of sixteen-years-old. He also helped out by hiking balls during a punting drill. As it turned out, the team was looking for a new long snapper. In addition to playing tight end at the academy, Nick had been the team’s long snapper. He was surprised as anyone when he received a formal invite from his ex-coach to the team's rookie camp. He didn’t have anything better to do, so he went.

He made the team.

Even more surprising, he ended up playing five years. He also got married during that time. Divorced a year later. Six months after his divorce was finalized, his ex-wife married the lawyer who had handled the divorce for her. He hoped she was happy. The only thing that rankled was the thought that his money had helped pay for their wedding.

A few months after his divorce, his grandfather had died and, in his will, tossed him a lifeline. He left Nick his guide business, fishing camp, and fifty acres on an island in the Gulf of Alaska.

The gift came with three requirements. First, Nick couldn’t sell out immediately. He had to keep it for at least ten years. Second, he had to live there and run it personally. Third, he had to retain as the camp’s manager, Ellen Cooper, who along with her son, Max, called the camp home. If Nick decided to sell the place after 10 years, Ellen and Max would get half of the money.

At first, Nick had been offended by the last stipulation, but as his grandfather’s lawyer explained, the old man was just being careful. Circumstance could change a man in surprising ways. The Navy and the NFL had certainly changed Nick from the boy and the young man his grandfather had known.

But getting rid of Ellen and Max?

Growing up, he’d spent every summer at the fishing camp, his parents (eventually divorced parents) happy to make their hard-to-handle son somebody else’s problem for a while. It was either that or Ritalin. Ellen and Max had been there from the start. She became more of a mother to him than his own mother. And Max became the brother he never had. When Nick was old enough to realize that Max was different he learned that Max had something doctors called Down’s Syndrome. It didn’t change a thing. At the time, Nick considered Down’s about as significant as red hair or freckles. When he finally noticed that Max really was different, it didn’t matter. Max was his brother. He’d do anything for him. Still would.

Nick hadn’t looked back.

As the ArrowCat cruised past the two rocky points that marked the entrance to the bay, Nick eased back the throttle. The air was suddenly filled with an explosion of thick wet snowflakes. For a moment it was as if Nick and his boat were inside of a snow globe. Then they were out the other side, and just as quickly, the flurry was gone. Ahead and to his right was a tall stand of ancient Sitka spruce, crowding right up to the edge of the rock-strewn beach. Their branches were flocked with white, like gigantic Christmas trees ready for more decorations. Directly in front bobbed a square dock sitting high above the water on Styrofoam floats, the battered runabout the nuns used for fishing moored to the left side. The dock itself was attached by a gangplank to the beach. To his left, the beach narrowed, and the island rose quickly, the edges dropping away to expose a sheer vertical face of black, crumbling rock that continued around the north end of the island like some ancient buttress. From his boat, Nick could just see the roof top of the monastery, set back from the edge of the cliff.

The most peaceful place on earth. That’s how Nick had always thought of the island. And that’s why it took him a moment to recognize the object floating in the water next to the dock. It was so out of place, his mind immediately rejected as false what his eyes were seeing. It had to be something else. It just had to be. A blanket of sea kelp and sun-bleached driftwood. That’s all it was. But then kelp morphed into a long skirt, moving gently with the pulse of the waves, and the driftwood became arms and legs.

In a flurry of motion, Nick shut off the engines, grabbed his gaff hook, and vaulted over the side of the boat onto the dock. He snagged a free line and whipped it around a cleat before the boat drifted past the dock, and then, using the gaff hook, he reached out, snagged a bit of the nun’s sweater and pulled her body close enough to get his hands under her shoulders. He lifted her out of the water and laid her on her back. Her lips were gray. She wasn’t breathing. He brushed wet hair away from her face, and then gave up any thought of trying CPR. There was a ragged entry wound in the middle of her forehead just below her hairline. He reached behind her head and felt mush where there should have bone. The back of her head was gone, vaporized by a bullet’s exit. The woman he’d known as Sister Magdalena had been dead before she hit the water.

Four

It was snowing again, big thick wet flakes spinning and twirling wildly as if stirred by a wind that couldn’t quite make up its mind. Crows were trading insults nearby. The surf pounding the rocks at the entrance to the bay was a muted roar.

All as it should be.

Normal.

Except for one thing . . . the dead nun at his feet.

And just like that the habits of civilized living vanished and his old training took over, automatically smothering any emotion, walling off his shock and rage. But instead of bumfuck Afghanistan or Iraq, where violent death was something to yawn about, he was 30 miles from home.

Nick scanned the shoreline. He had never been caught naked in public, but he imagined it had to feel something like this, standing near the end of the dock, completely exposed.

Whoever had killed Sister Magdalena could still be out there. He would be set up above the beach in the trees. That’s what Nick would have done. 200 yards away, give or take, and eyeing Nick through his scope.

For an experienced hunter, a kill shot at that distance wouldn’t be difficult.

For a pro it would be as easy as picking his teeth.

Nick had a sudden feeling that Sister Magdalena might just be the beginning.

If the shooter was still there, Nick knew he could be just a breath or two away from joining the nun. He wondered what the shooter was waiting for. A gentle three-pound pull on the trigger. The butt of the rifle would buck against his shoulder. The head filling the scope—Nick's head—would dissolve into red mist.

At least it would be quick.

Nick had seen dead bodies before. He’d also seen what happened when a projectile weighing no more than a couple of pennies, rocketing at two-thousand miles per hour, collided with a human skull. The results looked pretty much like the back of Sister Magdalena’s head.

Nick took a ragged breath and closed his eyes. He tried to ignore the itch behind his right ear, and the bead of sweat trickling down his spine. He realized that the old lock box where he’d stuffed all those memories and emotions from his time in the first Gulf War wasn’t as impregnable as he thought.

He waited a moment longer, wishing the shooter would get it over with but hoping he’d moved on because he wanted to stay alive long enough to hunt him down.

He opened his eyes.

Nothing had changed. The dead woman was still lying at his feet. And it looked like he wouldn’t be joining her, at least not right away.

He made sure his boat was secure. He flipped the bumpers in place. He tried the radio, but all he got was a blast of static. He had a satellite phone stashed . . . somewhere. Looking for it would take time he didn’t have. He took his grandfather’s pistol, a classic 1911 Colt .45 caliber automatic, from a drawer in the galley. His Navy sidearm had been a Sig Sauer 226, but he liked the Colt even though it was heavier and kicked like a startled mule. If he hit something it wouldn’t get up. It would have to do. He shoved two extra clips into his coat pocket and trotted off the dock.

He planned to head straight towards the monastery. He changed his mind when he noticed footsteps in the snow, following a path towards the south end of the island. He hurried along as silently as he could in his rubber boots, holding the pistol out in front of him, ready to fire, his eyes moving constantly. He paused long enough to pocket a couple of brass cartridges he noticed gleaming next to a moss-covered stump. He’d examine them later. He paused again when he came across a woman’s shoe, listening all the while.

It was eerily quiet.

At the edge of the woods, where the trees and brush ended and the beach began, he found the body of another nun wearing only one shoe lying face down in the brush. The back of her jacket was a bloody mess. He placed two fingers at the base of her neck. No pulse. He hadn’t expected one. Her skin was still warm. She hadn’t been dead long.

The beach was deserted, but the band of snow-covered sand in front of him had been churned up by more footsteps than he had time to count. He scanned to the left and right, but there was no place to go or hide. Rocky headlands, too steep for anyone but a mountain goat to climb, jutted out into the ragged surf. Even a few hours earlier, when the tide was lower, someone on foot wouldn’t have been able to make it around them.

A group of people had crossed here. But then what? The shallow beach and rocks made it tough to land a boat. Tough but not impossible. Who were they? Nuns fleeing for their lives? Nick had assumed one rogue gunman. Maybe he was wrong?

He retraced his steps. Moving quickly, less careful now. At the edge of the woods, just before the trees began to thin and give way to bushes, he discovered the body of a third nun, a white five-gallon bucket overturned beside her, enough clams for a good thick chowder lying scattered across the snow. Her throat was cut. Her long skirt was hiked up, her pale legs displayed in an obscene parody. He pulled down her skirt and moved on, leaving the woods and crossing the snow covered pasture in front of the monastery at a slow trot.

The monastery was a sprawling, U-shaped, three-story wood and stone structure, wrapped around a cobblestone courtyard that was protected by a gate on the south. There was a small, onion-dome-capped chapel located adjacent to the east wing of the building. Nick ignored that and concentrated on the main building.

He slowed as he approached the gate and then came to a complete stop, shocked by what was stuck in the ground, wondering if it was some trauma-inspired illusion, a ghost of a memory from half a world away. Flapping listlessly from the top of a pole was a flag called the Black Banner of Islam. The white Arabic writing at the top of the flag was the first half of an Islamic phrase known as the shahada: There is no God but Allah. The white circle at the flag’s center contained the second part of the shahada: Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

Nick had seen identical flags during his time in the Middle East, on the tops of shattered buildings or hanging below blackened holes that had once been windows. It was the flag of many of the world’s most heinous terrorist organizations, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda among the more infamous.

There was no hesitation in his next move. He grabbed the flag pole and broke it over his knee, flinging the remnants aside, and then stiff-armed his way through the gate and stepped into the courtyard.

The monastery walls inside the courtyard were tagged with jihadist graffiti, bright red lettering complete with drip marks extolling the supremacy of Allah, the rightness of the martyr’s cause, and other similar bullshit. It was the poetic screed of a bunch of losers with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades. Nick barely noticed any of it. His attention was focused on the row of headless bodies lying in bloody, compacted snow in front of the monastery’s main door. The nun’s heads were loosely piled off to one side like pumpkins in a field.

Nick dropped to his knees, turned his head to one side, and vomited.

He wasn’t sure how long he knelt there, staring at nothing.

What finally brought him back to the moment was the wet cold on his face. It was snowing again.

Nick wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and got stiffly to his feet. He thought again about returning to his boat. There was nothing he could do here. The chances of finding anyone alive were slim to none. But the ornately carved front door was slightly ajar. That was enough of an invitation. He’d check the building for any survivors. Then return to his boat and try to find his damn sat phone or make another attempt at radioing for help. After that, he’d make sure Ellen and Max were safe.

Nick exhaled through his mouth and stepped inside the monastery.

After the first few empty rooms, he moved quickly, not bothering with caution. Except for another body in the pantry, the first floor was deserted. Every room showed evidence of being searched. Doors and drawers flung open, clothes, supplies, books—all the kinds of things you’d find stacked and stocked away—strewn everywhere, furniture and mattresses overturned, even holes in some of the walls.

What were they looking for?

It was the same story on the second floor, but with one difference. He found three cigarette butts ground into the carpet in a room with windows overlooking the courtyard. The killers had enjoyed a smoke, while they watched what happened to the nuns below.

Up until that moment Nick had been operating on autopilot, numb to the death of the innocents and the desecration of this place. But as he stared at the cigarettes, he began began shaking with the kind of rage that he knew only one way to satisfy.

On the third floor, he came across a ragged hole in the upper panel of the door that opened onto stairs that led up to the roof. He could tell from the shape of the hole that it had been made by a shotgun blast. Maybe the shotgun he’d given the abbess for Christmas the year before had found some use and she was by some miracle still alive.

Katerina, it’s me, Nick. Don’t shoot, he yelled, taking the steps two at a time. He hesitated at the top, a quick peek out the open doorway just in case she was waiting there, ready to blow someone’s head off.

She was lying on her back a few feet away, her gray robe dusted white. Her eyes were open and gazing up at the falling snow. Her face was still warm enough to melt any snowflakes. She’d taken a bullet beneath her chin.

Nick knelt beside her, closed her eyes with his hand, resting it for just a moment on her forehead. I'm sorry, he whispered. I should have been here.

He stood slowly and took in the rest of the roof with a glance. He slipped the .45 into his coat pocket. They were all dead. Even the pigeon loft was empty, the cage doors wagging in the cold wind like the tongues of tired dogs.

Goddamn it, he yelled, lashing out with the kind of round-house kick that would have made his Israeli Krav Magda instructors proud. His target was a nearby aluminum garbage can. It flew half a dozen feet, landing on its side, spilling pigeon shit and a green plastic tarp onto the rooftop.

That's when he heard something he didn’t expect. Please don’t kill me, the tarp cried.

Five

You’re positive?

The big man with the gleaming bald head wiped a smear of blood from his brow and waved a sheet of paper in the air. I had her draw it out.

Any of them still alive?

The big man held his hand up to his mouth like a naughty child and smiled. Oops.

Marcus St. James pushed away from the black, glass-topped desk that occupied the center of his operations center and stood. He looked completely unruffled. His slacks still fresh, every blonde hair on his head perfectly in place, the skin on his tan face smooth and unlined. But appearance belied how he felt. He’d been working 20-hour days for the past few weeks, ever since he’d agreed to this contract. He wasn’t in the mood for his brother’s antics.

Care what I do with the bodies? his brother asked.

No.

Crab food it is then.

St. James sighed.

Just trying to lighten things up a wee bit. Won’t do any good if you croak from over work.

"Harry, if you