hall toward the rear of the monastery.
He made one stop - to examine another cell. The sharp, nauseating stench as he budged the door open told him everything. But he pushed the door farther and stared at the grotesquely misshapen body of a monk.
So the team had left the monastery as they'd found it, closing each door on the ultimate secret, not bothering to dispose of the dead - no time to do so - but at least perversely respectful of their victims.
That too didn't matter. Regardless of their peculiar ethics - Drew himself had once been faithful to such ethics - there would be hell to pay.
Chapter 22.
At the rear of the monastery, he faced the exit that led to the vegetable garden. Thunder shuddered through the thick wooden door.
He reconsidered his decisions. The obvious way to leave the monastery was out the front of the lodge, then down the dirt road through the forest to the paved country road at the bottom of this hill. Granted, he'd seen the approach to the monastery only for a brief time six years ago when he'd been driven here. But he remembered that country road and the town - what had its name been? Quentin? - ten miles or so to the south. Still, if leaving through the front toward the road was the obvious route, precisely for that reason he had to take a different direction. Because, although the team had apparently fled from the area, there was a chance -a strong one - that a man had been left behind to watch the monastery from a distance, in case Drew was still on the premises. Their suspicion would be that Drew had escaped and alerted the police. But what if the police didn't arrive? The death team would have to conclude that Drew had not escaped. They'd risk returning for one more search. All the more reason for Drew to get out of here.
But not out the front, not by a route that a spotter would pay close attention to. Okay, out the back. Even so, given the quality of the team's professional conduct, Drew had to make other assumptions.
First, the spotter would not ignore the other exits from the cloister. He'd stay a careful distance away, choosing a location that gave him a confident view of the entire complex. Only one location allowed for such a vantage point: in back of the cloister, on the wooded hill that rose above this one.
Second assumption. The spotter would be equipped for night surveillance, using either an infrared scope, which projected an invisible beam, or a Starlite scope, which magnified whatever minuscule light was available. Because this storm would obscure the stars, an infrared scope was the better choice.
Drew studied his robe. Usually white, it was now a dingy gray from the cobwebs, dust, and insulation in the attic. But even if the robe were caked with coal dust, he knew that it could still be seen through a night scope. Unless, Drew thought, and remembered the lightning.
He glanced above him, toward the bulb that glowed in the corridor's ceiling. The moment he opened the door, the spotter would be attracted by the new illumination. There wasn't any light switch in the hallway - Drew assumed that the switch was on a master panel in a custodial room he'd never been shown - so he reached up, tall enough to wrap his scapular around the bulb and unscrew it. As an added precaution, he went farther along the corridor and unscrewed two other bulbs, surrounding himself in darkness. Because the hallway had no windows, a spotter couldn't know what had happened.
He returned to the door, took a long breath, exhaled, and twisted the latch. He pulled the door open slowly, trying to avoid an obvious change in this section of the cloister. As he pulled, he stood out of sight behind it.
At last it was fully open. He waited, flexing his shoulders. Timing was everything now, because both infrared and Starlite scopes had a common weakness: sudden illumination blinded the observer. The temporary sightlessness that Drew had experienced in his sleeping quarters when he used the lightning to help
He made one stop - to examine another cell. The sharp, nauseating stench as he budged the door open told him everything. But he pushed the door farther and stared at the grotesquely misshapen body of a monk.
So the team had left the monastery as they'd found it, closing each door on the ultimate secret, not bothering to dispose of the dead - no time to do so - but at least perversely respectful of their victims.
That too didn't matter. Regardless of their peculiar ethics - Drew himself had once been faithful to such ethics - there would be hell to pay.
Chapter 22.
At the rear of the monastery, he faced the exit that led to the vegetable garden. Thunder shuddered through the thick wooden door.
He reconsidered his decisions. The obvious way to leave the monastery was out the front of the lodge, then down the dirt road through the forest to the paved country road at the bottom of this hill. Granted, he'd seen the approach to the monastery only for a brief time six years ago when he'd been driven here. But he remembered that country road and the town - what had its name been? Quentin? - ten miles or so to the south. Still, if leaving through the front toward the road was the obvious route, precisely for that reason he had to take a different direction. Because, although the team had apparently fled from the area, there was a chance -a strong one - that a man had been left behind to watch the monastery from a distance, in case Drew was still on the premises. Their suspicion would be that Drew had escaped and alerted the police. But what if the police didn't arrive? The death team would have to conclude that Drew had not escaped. They'd risk returning for one more search. All the more reason for Drew to get out of here.
But not out the front, not by a route that a spotter would pay close attention to. Okay, out the back. Even so, given the quality of the team's professional conduct, Drew had to make other assumptions.
First, the spotter would not ignore the other exits from the cloister. He'd stay a careful distance away, choosing a location that gave him a confident view of the entire complex. Only one location allowed for such a vantage point: in back of the cloister, on the wooded hill that rose above this one.
Second assumption. The spotter would be equipped for night surveillance, using either an infrared scope, which projected an invisible beam, or a Starlite scope, which magnified whatever minuscule light was available. Because this storm would obscure the stars, an infrared scope was the better choice.
Drew studied his robe. Usually white, it was now a dingy gray from the cobwebs, dust, and insulation in the attic. But even if the robe were caked with coal dust, he knew that it could still be seen through a night scope. Unless, Drew thought, and remembered the lightning.
He glanced above him, toward the bulb that glowed in the corridor's ceiling. The moment he opened the door, the spotter would be attracted by the new illumination. There wasn't any light switch in the hallway - Drew assumed that the switch was on a master panel in a custodial room he'd never been shown - so he reached up, tall enough to wrap his scapular around the bulb and unscrew it. As an added precaution, he went farther along the corridor and unscrewed two other bulbs, surrounding himself in darkness. Because the hallway had no windows, a spotter couldn't know what had happened.
He returned to the door, took a long breath, exhaled, and twisted the latch. He pulled the door open slowly, trying to avoid an obvious change in this section of the cloister. As he pulled, he stood out of sight behind it.
At last it was fully open. He waited, flexing his shoulders. Timing was everything now, because both infrared and Starlite scopes had a common weakness: sudden illumination blinded the observer. The temporary sightlessness that Drew had experienced in his sleeping quarters when he used the lightning to help
Similar Books
