daylight of the Antarctic’s austral summer had already wreaked havoc on her body clock, but there were still too many questions that needed to be answered.
“Gracie, come on,” Dalton replied. “He’s talking about Father Jerome.”
“So?”
“Are you kidding me? The guy’s a living saint. He’s not gonna fake something like this. That’d be like—I don’t know—like saying the Dalai Lama’s a liar.”
Father Jerome wasn’t technically a living saint. There was no such thing, since dying was a prerequisite to receiving the honor of sainthood, at least as far as the Vatican was concerned. But he was pretty much a shoo-in for beatification, if not canonization, at some point in the future.
In his case, though, the term
He’d begun his life in 1949 as Alvaro Suarez, the son of a humble farming couple in the foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains in northern Spain. His youth was far from cosseted. His father died when he was five, leaving his mother with the unenviable task of providing for six children in a Spain that was still under Franco’s iron fist and recovering from years of war. Raised a Catholic, the young Alvaro—the youngest of his siblings—showed a great resilience and generosity of character, especially during a harsh winter when a viral epidemic almost took away his mother and two of his sisters. He credited his faith with giving him the strength to forge ahead despite overwhelming odds, and with helping his mother and sisters pull through, and their salvation further solidified his bond with the Church. Throughout his youth, he was also particularly drawn to the stories of missionaries, of selfless souls doing the work of God in the less fortunate corners of the planet, and by the time he was in his teens, he knew he would devote his life to the Church. Having narrowly escaped becoming one himself, he chose to concentrate on helping orphans and abandoned children. He left home at seventeen and began his journey, joining a seminary in Andalusia before crossing into Africa, where he soon founded the first of many missions. En route, he took his first vows a few months short of his twenty-second birthday, choosing the name of Jerome after Jerome Emiliani, a sixteenth-century Italian priest and the patron saint of orphans. The modern Jerome’s hospices and orphanages were now scattered across the globe. His army of volunteers had turned around the lives of thousands of the world’s poorest children. His charitable work, as it turned out, had even outshone that of the historic figure who inspired him.
Forget the technicalities. The man was indeed a living saint, and Dalton’s point was hard to ignore. Provided what the monk had told Gracie really did involve Father Jerome.
“Yeah, but that wasn’t Father Jerome on the phone, was it? We don’t even know if the caller was really calling from Egypt, much less from the monastery,” she argued.
“Well, we do know Father Jerome is really there,” Finch pointed out.
The reports they’d pulled up after the call confirmed that Father Jerome was indeed in Egypt. He’d fallen ill while working at one of his missions there, close to the border with Sudan, a little over a year ago. After his recovery, he’d pulled back from active duty—he was just shy of sixty now—only going so far as to say he needed to take some time for himself, “to get closer to God,” in his own words. He’d subsequently retreated entirely from public view. Crucially, a couple of brief wire reports did have him traveling north and seeking out the seclusion of the monasteries of Wadi Natrun.
“And how could he actually have drawn what we saw? I mean, how would you draw it?” Gracie argued.
“We need to get a copy of that tape,” Dalton suggested.
Before ending his call, Brother Ameen had offered them a tantalizing piece of corroboration. A British film crew, working for the BBC, had visited the monastery several months earlier. They’d spent a few days there, filming part of a multi-episode documentary that compared the dogmatic approach to faith in Western churches with the more mystical approaches found farther east. They’d managed to get a quick peek inside the cave and shot some footage there, before being turned away by Father Jerome. Brother Ameen assured Gracie it included footage of the priest’s handiwork across its ceiling and walls.
It was proof that Gracie desperately needed to see. The problem was, getting hold of it would most likely alert the filmmakers to its significance—something they didn’t seem to have clicked to, so far—and Gracie could lose the lead on the story. A story that was still virtually exclusively hers.
She let herself sink into the sofa and heaved a sigh of frustration as she pondered Dalton’s suggestion. “No,” she decided, “not yet. We can’t risk it.”
She looked over at Finch, who nodded. After a moment, he said, “So what do you want to do?”
Gracie felt the air around her resonating with expectation. Warring sensations were tugging her in opposite directions, but, deep down, she knew that she’d already made the decision before she’d put down the phone.
With a conviction that surprised her, she said, “I have to go there.” Her eyes danced from Finch to Dalton and back, hoping to find some support.
“I want to believe him,” she explained. “I mean, look, none of this makes sense, right? But what if it’s all real? Can you imagine? If what he’s saying is true . . . Jesus.” She sprang to her feet, pacing around now, gesturing with her arms, her decision somehow liberating her, unleashing a surge of energy that was intoxicating. “I don’t know how this happened, I don’t know what’s really going on here, but, like it or not, we’re part of it, we’re caught up in something . . . exceptional. And the story’s not here anymore. It’s in Egypt. It’s in that monastery. And that’s where I need to be.” She fixed on them fervently. “I mean, what are we gonna do? We can’t stay on this ship forever. We sure as hell can’t go home, not while this thing isn’t resolved.” She paused, studying them, willing a reaction out of them, then she reiterated, “The story’s in Egypt.”
Finch looked thoughtfully at Dalton, turned back to her, and, after an uncertain, so-pregnant-it-must-be- triplets pause, he smiled.
“Let’s do it. Even if it means disappointing the kids. Again.” Finch had two under-tens, a son and a daughter. And although he was divorced, he was still friends with his ex-wife and had been planning to spend Christmas Day with them.
Gracie acknowledged Finch’s comment with a sheepish, clenched expression. She knew it would be tough on him. She didn’t have that problem. She was single and wasn’t seeing anyone special. She wasn’t a huge fan of the end-of-year holidays anyway. As a kid, she’d hated them, especially after her mom died. The cold weather, the short days, the passing of another year, one less year of life—it all felt morbid and sad to her. She turned to Dalton. He nodded, his expression pensive but supportive. He was in too.
Gracie beamed back. “Great.”
“I’ll go talk to the captain,” Finch said. “See how quickly he can get us choppered off this ship. You guys start packing.”
A lesser producer would have debated the point to death before covering his ass by getting his news director’s approval. Finch was rock solid, and right now, Gracie was hugely grateful to have him in her corner. He looked at her, as if reading the thoughts written across her face, gave her a nod of unflinching support, then left the room.
She crossed over to the window again and looked out. The shelf was still disintegrating, but the sign was long gone. In her mind’s eye, she saw it again, and as she relived the shock and awe it had generated in her, in everyone on that ship, a shiver of doubt crept into her.
Her back still to Dalton, she asked, “What do you think? Are we making the right call here?”
He joined her at the window. She glanced over at him, and thought she’d rarely seen him wearing such a solemn expression.
“We’re talking about Father Jerome,” he said, his voice lacking any traces of uncertainty. “If you’re not going to believe him . . . who are you going to believe?”
Chapter 20
Boston, Massachusetts
Matt guided the Mustang back onto the expressway and headed north, toward the city.
