Griff erupted.
Ignoring the heavy ache in his chest, he blocked the attack, sending the vase to the flagstone floor, where it shattered. Bartholomew turned to run, but Griff snatched ahold of his hood. He had not fought anyone since high school, but he hadn’t felt such fury in at least that long. He twisted Bartholomew’s arm behind his back and lifted it toward his shoulderblade. Then he used his knee to propel the man with force against the stone wall at the rear of the foyer. He had never had any martial arts training, but every anger-driven move seemed natural.
With Bartholomew’s arm still pinned to his back, Griff applied his forearm to the nape of the man’s neck, pressing his face flush against the wall. Then, leaning in close so he could be heard at a whisper, Griff growled into Bartholomew’s ear.
“Is there anybody else here?”
“Yes … yes, there is,” Bartholomew managed.
The self-proclaimed minister was breathless and shaking. With thoughts of Melvin, Griff lifted the man’s arm even higher up his back. Numbed by adrenaline, the pain in his own damaged ribs was barely noticeable.
Bartholomew’s arm was reaching the snapping point.
“No … more,” he cried. “I’m alone! I’m alone! Please, let go of my arm! It’s going to break!”
Griff relaxed his grip slightly. The letup in pressure was enough for Bartholomew, who countered with surprising quickness and unexpected strength. He twisted his body hard to the right, breaking free of Griff’s hold on his wrist. Then he ducked and turned, separating himself from Griff entirely. Without hesitating, he dashed through a set of French doors into the chapel, and headed toward the back of the mission.
Griff, now short of breath, but hardly short of determination, cursed his stupidity and drove on after the man. There was a fire door on the far side of the chapel, and Bartholomew was now just a few feet away from it. But there was no way Griff was going to let him get there. He left his feet and dove at the back of Bartholomew’s legs, buckling the man’s knees and sending him skidding across the hardwood floor, knocking the chairs about like bowling pins.
Air exploded from the brother’s lungs, but in seconds he was on his feet again, charging toward the fire door. On all fours, Griff caught him by the ankles, pulled him to the floor, and wrestled him to his back. Then, straddling his chest, Griff punched him in the face—once, then again. Blood burst from Bartholomew’s nose, and his body went limp.
Painfully, Griff worked himself to his feet, then grabbed a box of tissues off a windowsill and tossed it down to the man.
“Tell me about Sylvia Chen,” he said, breathing heavily.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Bartholomew, my best friend was just murdered because of her. Mess with me about this, and I swear I’ll punch your teeth in. I’m that angry.”
Griff cocked his arm again, and his adversary flinched.
“Okay … I knew her.”
Bartholomew remained on his back.
“What did she want with you?”
“She … she promised she could help me cure drug addiction. She told me her system would work. And … and she said she’d pay me to cooperate with her.”
“What exactly did you do?” Griff said, as he hoisted Bartholomew off the floor by the shoulders of his robe. “I said, what did you do?”
“We tested something she was working on,” he said. Tears began to stream down his red, swollen face. “I’m not a bad person. I wanted to help. She was a scientist and she said that she had a treatment she wanted to try out on … on some of my tougher clients. She said that together we could save many addicts from their misery.”
The man was weeping piteously now, but Griff would not make the same mistake by lowering his guard.
“Did you supply her with people?”
Griff was shaking with anger.
“I … I did.”
“Where did she conduct these experiments? Tell me, dammit!”
“Let me go,” Bartholomew said in a shaky voice, “and I’ll do better than tell you.”
“How’s that?”
“I’ll show you,” he said.
CHAPTER 57
Griff kept Bartholomew’s arm pinned tightly against his back and followed closely behind him.
“I’m not going to run again,” Bartholomew pleaded. “Promise. I shouldn’t have run in the first place. You … you surprised me is all. Please, you’re really hurting me.”
“And I’m not taking any more chances.”
Bartholomew fell silent and led Griff through a pair of dimly lit corridors and down a small flight of stairs that ended at a heavy oak door. The surrounding walls were concrete bricks, painted gray and in need of cleaning.
“You’ll need to let go of my arm if you want me to take you downstairs.”
“I’ll let go,” Griff said, “but you need to know that you are in even more of a fix than usual.”
“How’s that?”
“You and Sylvia Chen are partly responsible for the sickness and death that are going on at the Capitol. She’s dead. Murdered. Try my patience now, and I won’t hesitate to hurt you, and I’m willing to bet that nobody will do anything but cheer.”
With difficulty, Bartholomew looked over his shoulder. He appeared genuinely surprised.
“You’re talking about the president?” he asked.
Griff tried to read through the man’s words. Did he have any idea whether or not the president was involved with what Sylvia Chen had done at the Certain Path Mission? It seemed almost certain that the answer was no. Allaire, at least in terms of this aspect of Chen’s work, was probably innocent. From now on, Griff decided, if he needed the man’s help, he would seek it out. He would also, as soon as possible, share his growing suspicions with the president regarding Paul Rappaport.
“Those experiments you helped Chen with had nothing to do with drug addiction,” Griff said. “It was part of a biological research program that I was involved in. I’m a scientist—a virologist just like Chen. The virus we were developing, that you helped her try out on people here, is what the terrorists released during the State of the Union Address.”
“Oh, God. I heard on the news that it was just some sort of flu, not anything—”
“You know that it’s lethal, don’t you?… Don’t you?”
The cleric bowed his head. Then he began to cry.
“I’ve done such terrible things,” he said. “Such terrible things…”
His voice trailed off and his body was racked with each sob. Griff had to remind himself that Brother Xavier Bartholomew was, in all likelihood, a sociopath, capable of turning on emotion like he would a faucet.
“If you cooperate and tell me everything I want to know, I promise to speak up on your behalf. Understood?”
Bartholomew nodded dispiritedly. Griff let go of him and took a cautious step backward, ready to react. Shaking the feeling back into his arm, the man withdrew a black string necklace that was tucked inside his robe. Dangling from it was a large, antique metal key that looked straight from the set of a horror movie. He unlocked the heavy door with a clank that resonated off the walls. Then, after a hard tug on its ornate handle, the door creaked open.
The passageway behind the door was a spiral stone staircase that was dimly lit by a light glowing from
