The Artifact Read online

  Andrea’s voice sounded maudlin in the darkness. “I can’t remember the last time anybody tucked me in with a platonic kiss. Someone who didn’t have some ulterior motive.”

  “Think hard,” he said. “I’m sure all male heterosexuals aren’t unconscionable beasts.”

  “No, just chauvinistic opportunists.”

  Andy’s tone took on a reflective note as she related her first sexual experience at the age of twelve, seduced by her mother’s brother. “Not a nice story,” she added. “But when you’re living it, that young and naïve, it just seems natural, like one step after another.”

  Neither of them spoke for quite a while. Sammy did not know how to respond to her awkward confession, and she seemed embarrassed at having revealed one of her deepest secrets.

  He finally broke the silence. “Realizing I was gay was a shocker. I was thirteen, but this was the 1980’s, everybody was coming out. Well, not everybody. Barney Frank in Congress, Rock Hudson supposedly, Robert Preston. I didn’t even get it at first. Guys ogling the first girls in class to grow tits, constantly talking about getting laid, passing Playboy around to get off on. What was all the excitement? Until a bunch of us had a circle jerk in the woods behind the football field. Christ, I couldn’t take my eyes off those cocks. Confused? Scared and lonely, ashamed, guilty... you name it, I felt it. Mainly denial. When the other kids started dating, bragging about getting a feel, telling me I should ask Julie Whatsis out, ‘cause she’d let you finger her pussy. Man, I thought about tossing a rope over a pipe in the cellar.”

  He took a deep breath, not having intended to swap deep personal secrets, but now became caught up in his own history and the surprising emotional release that came with it. “So I dated the nice girls. The ones who refrained from sex, allowing little more than a good night kiss or a few minutes of heavy necking after a movie. I had no interest in kissing girls or feeling their firm, sometimes not-so-little breasts against my chest. I guess they sensed my lack of interest, if not the reason for it, because few of them accepted my invitations to date a third or fourth time.”

  “Geeze, Sammy, a hunk like you? I’d have gone down on you like a runaway elevator!”

  Sammy laughed. “Well, that’s what happened. I wasn’t exactly unpopular. Played football, basketball. MASCO was a big regional high school north of Boston, so there were lots of opportunities. Girls in class, the hallway, cafeteria. This really stacked blonde from Boxford actually asked me to a party, gave me my first blow job in a bedroom closet.”

  Andy looked across at his profile in the dim glow filtering through the curtains from the lights in the parking area three stories below. “But no conversion.”

  “Oh, I enjoyed the hell out of it. But all I could think was, ‘I’m queer, I’m queer!”

  “Because you liked getting head?”

  “Because my mind was filled with the image of Tom Johnson’s lanky body in the showers, soaping his balls, a big grin on his face, pointing his long, half-tumescent cock right at me. My own growing erection was confirmation and I hated myself for it. I never had a serious lover ‘til college. My parents were kind of half-baked Catholics, church once a month, Christmas, Easter. Dad went ballistic when I told them I wanted to be a priest. He still works as a manufacturer’s rep for a line of industrial pumps, made pretty good bucks over the years. Argued that nobody cared that much about religion any more, and I’d be wasting my life trying to change everyone’s bad habits. People go to church on Sunday, then cheat, steal, screw the world the rest of the week.

  “I could tell Mom didn’t like the idea either, but didn’t say much because of the parochial school myth that the mother of a priest went directly to heaven, automatically passing ‘go,’ purgatory and hell.”

  “What did you hope to gain by hiding out in the priesthood?”

  “Anonymity, a rationale for my not dating, getting married, celibacy. Getting away from the temptations posed by my ‘sickness,’ as Jerry Farwell calls it. Not succumbing to the degrading, illicit sexual acts performed between two men.”

  “Oh, Sammy.”

  “The heavy hand of moral society. So, I went into a junior seminary right after high school. Dad was so pissed he didn’t come to graduation. Mom drove me to St. Paul’s campus the next week, bawling her eyes out, me standing beside the car with my suitcase looking up at that forbidding massive structure of chiseled blocks of red stone capped by a mansard roof and turrets.”

  “Sounds like you’d been sentenced to life.”

  “That’s just what it felt like.”

  “Put your troubles in the hands of God.”

  “God didn’t have anything to do with it, except making me gay in the first place. I was trying to escape from what I was but I brought it right along with me, of course.”

  “How long did that prison last?”

  “Until I realized half of the inmates were just as queer as I was.”

  Her tone was incredulous. “Half?”

  “Well, between students and faculty, a hell of a lot more than the general population, I can tell you that.”

  Andrea burst out laughing and Sammy joined her, ending up like a couple of giggling kids after lights out at summer camp.

  “With your macho Marine Corps history, I never suspected you were so religious. Catholic, no less, with all those ancient rituals.”

  “The Marines was another escape. A confused kid still in denial, thinking that joining the tough guys would ‘cure’ me.”

  “Like the priesthood.”

  “The opposite for me. The Corps made me see that I couldn’t change, realized I’d go balmy if I tried. Flying combat missions in Kuwait proved that being gay didn’t preclude being a good jarhead, either.”

  “Or a pretty formidable opponent for straights in the ring.”

  “I don’t box to punch out straights.”

  “Just teasing. Have homophobes ever attacked you to their surprise and regret?”

  “Couple of times. I started nights at CCNY after my discharge and uh, wasn’t dating anyone regular, so... I used to hit the gay bars, all male workout clubs, the so-called public baths, massage parlors. Until I met Brian. He got beat up pretty badly once.”

  She heard the catch in his voice when he mentioned his former lover. Their silence lasted several minutes. Then Andy spoke softly. “You really loved that man, didn’t you?”

  Sammy did not reply for so long that Andy thought she had intruded too far into his personal life. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I did. Though my feelings seem to have evolved a bit since....”

  “What do you mean?”

  She heard a deep breath from the double bed beside her. “He was an addict, immature. Cheated. We’d argue, he’d plead and promise, then go right out and pick up some one-nighter next week. I threw him out half a dozen times. He’d come back with some god-awful ridiculous present, like some contrite puppy, laughing and joking. But the last time he did it I was adamant. Until he confessed he had AIDs. We were always careful, so thank God he didn’t give it to me.”

  “Then you took leave from NNC to help him through his last months.”

  “I never want to go through anything like that again. I think some piece inside me died right along with him.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Albuquerque, NM

  October 2004

  Sammy extracted the master key from the lock and stood behind Andrea’s wheelchair, a few feet inside the threshold of the tiny room, as the stout door with glassed rectangular viewing port closed behind them. Plain gray curtains had been drawn across a single window, a silhouette of vertical bars evident behind the thin cloth. On the left wall, a familiar color print of the bearded Jesus hung over a narrow cot on which a brown wool blanket had been made up with military precision. Beyond the bed a floor lamp emitting the only light stood next to an armchair covered in olive corduroy with matching ottoman. Directly opposite them a small desk with reading lamp and straight-back chair occupied the rear wall next to a boo
kcase crammed with faded, hardback spines, framed holy pictures tacked to the wall above it. The right wall contained a bathroom with no door, a bureau, clothes closet and prie dieu beneath a wooden crucifix.

  In the center of the room, a frail man with eyes closed and arms stretched to the ceiling was standing behind a card table covered by a white cloth with purple stains that held a paper cup, a loaf of pita bread on a paper plate, an unlit candle and a thick tome opened to a page marked by a red ribbon. He wore a white, mock turtleneck under an ankle-length black cassock buttoned down the front, threadbare at hem, collar and elbows, the belt of a red terrycloth bathrobe around his neck, which gave the impression of the vestments of a Catholic or Episcopal priest.

  David had assured him that Mitchell was no danger to anyone but himself. The intruders exchanged questioning looks as they assessed the calm, purposeful manner of the man whose likeness was indisputably that in the photo Sam had procured online of George Mitchell.

  The ex-airborne lieutenant continued reading from the book, mumbling unintelligibly as they stood waiting for him to acknowledge them. Finally, he looked up. “You are late.” If they hadn’t known he was still in his early thirties, they would have guessed his age at fifty or sixty. A red scar ran down the left side of his skull from crown to jaw where neither his thick head of unruly gray hair, nor full beard would grow. The right side of his face a mass of healed third-degree burns that had taken his ear and right eyelid. The backs of his hands clasped before him were similarly scarred.

  He shifted his gaze suddenly to address Sammy: “My regular acolyte has not shown up again, so you will have to assist me.” He closed his eyes, and raised his face to the ceiling. “Dominus vobiscum.”

  Sammy answered automatically. “Et cum spiritu tuo.”

  “Requiescant in pace.

  “Amen.”

  “Placeat tibi sancta Trinitas, obsequium servitutis meae....”

  “What the hell is this?” Andrea whispered.

  “He’s saying the old Tridentine Mass for the dead.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I think we’d better humor him. Why don’t you sit tight while I see how much Latin I remember.”

  Sammy moved to the side of the table while Mitchell continued speaking with arms outstretched, “Initium sancti Evangelii secundum Hannah.”

  “Gloria tibi, Domine,” Sammy replied.

  Mitchell read the gospel from the book in English while Andrea drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair until Sammy scowled at her.

  “...gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre, plenum gratiae et veritatis.”

  “Deo gratias,” Sammy responded.

  Andrea waited until Mitchell had organized his paraphernalia on the card table, took the belt of the robe from around his neck, kissed it and hung it in the closet.

  “If this is a scam,” she whispered to Sammy, “it’s a damned good one.”

  Mitchell sat on the edge of his cot as Sammy turned the wooden chair at the desk around to straddle it backwards.

  The ex-paratrooper looked from one to the other, an unconscious but gruesome smile on his disfigured countenance. “Now, my children, how may I help you?”

  “Lieutenant Mitchell...,” Andrea began

  “Please,” Mitchell interrupted. “Just ‘Father’ will be fine.”

  “Father,” she continued, “you’ve been staying in hospitals like this for several months with the help of Major Geoff and General Callaghan, isn’t that correct?”

  Mitchell frowned, trying to remember. “Army people? I don’t deserve a medal for that.”

  Andrea took off the black-rimmed glasses and beret, shaking her hair out from under it, running her fingers through the gray streak. “Do you watch the news on television? Do you know who I am?”

  “The Lord Jesus cares little about who you are or your past transgressions. He embraces all sinners as He will me.”

  “You served in the 82nd Airborne Falcon Division during the Iraq War, didn’t you?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “Oh, no, no, no, you are mistaken about that. My parish is the world, not just one part of it.”

  “I’m a television news reporter who can tell millions of people your story and get you out of here a very wealthy man.”

  “Jesus does not want your money. All He wants is your love.”

  Andrea shifted her weight in the chair. “You led a reconnaissance patrol out into the desert to intercept Saddam Hussein and found a cache of ancient treasure that you and several others smuggled back into the United States, isn’t that true, Lieutenant Mitchell? Father?”

  Mitchell screwed up his face. “Mitchell? Mitchell? He died a long time ago.”

  “How did he die?”

  Tears formed in Mitchell’s eyes. “His soul was damned to Hell.”

  “But how did he die?” Andrea persisted.

  The words barely choked up from his throat. “Horrible, horrible.”

  “Please tell us about it,” Andrea said.

  Tears began streaming down his cheeks into his beard, the words almost inaudible. “No, I cannot.”

  “Then tell us what happened on that last patrol when...Mitchell died.”

  Mitchell had been shaking his head back and forth, staring at the floor. When he looked up, the pain and anguish in his face was palpable. “I killed him.”

  “How, Father? What happened?”

  Mitchell was silent for several moments, his eyes seeming to reflect inwards. “Gannon, our forward scout, sprained an ankle in the jump. She wasn’t even supposed to be there, but we needed a medic, and she volunteered at the last minute. Just before the windstorm, a trooper thought he spotted movement against a dune to the north. I didn’t want a firefight at dusk, and we needed to find a depression or wadi to make cover. I deployed the rest of the squad behind and close beside the Hummer trying to pick up insurgents or Nomads through the blinding sand.”

  Mitchell pressed his chin to his chest and wrapped his arms around his scrawny body, shoulders heaving in remorseful agony and guilt for several moments. Sammy placed a hand on the man’s knee until the troubled soldier lifted his head and continued as though there had been no hiatus in his recitation.

  “With Gannon sitting behind me almost in tears, the sweeper between his knees, we had no forward scout searching for mines or IEDs. I was just about to pull a man off the machinegun team to scout ahead, when she grabbed the sweeper and ran out ahead of the vehicle, oblivious or ignoring my orders to come back. She might have understood the general principal s of operating the device, but stopped a couple of times to adjust it, like she wasn’t satisfied with its readings. I climbed out of the Hummer, running toward her, when….”

  A soft groan escaped from Mitchell’s lips, his fists beating against his thighs, his body rocking back and forth in indescribable anguish. Then he stood and moved to the window, grabbing the bars with both hands through the thin curtains, pounding his head against the metal restraints.

  Andrea asked, “She? Who was she?” Sammy stepped over behind Mitchell, placed both hands on his shoulders, leading him gently back to the cot. The man was weeping silently now, wiping his leaking nose on his sleeve, his breath drawn in ragged gasps as Sammy lowered him down on the mattress, sitting beside him, an arm clasped around Mitchell’s shoulders.

  Sammy looked at Andrea. “Enough,” he told her. “Whatever he’s done or knows, this is a very sick man. The story we want is probably buried so deep in his mind that he may never be able to face the reality of it.”

  “Are you some kind of amateur shrink, now?”

  Sammy’s expression was grim. “Don’t push him.”

  She glared back at him. “Father, can you tell me who else was on that patrol with you?”

  Mitchell seemed to have composed himself, allowing a little smile to form on his lips. “I killed them all. Our sacrifice to the demanding God of the Old Testament.” He slipped out of Sammy’s loose embrace and stood, reaching his arms out high above him, his
eyes suddenly wild and wide, straining at the ceiling as though he had the power to bore straight up through the roof to confront his Maker. When he spoke, his voice was loud enough to arrest His attention.

  “A God who even demanded the death of His only begotten Son. They, too, will rise again as the Lord Jesus Himself, at whose bidding reclaimed the life of the dead Lazarus from his eternal rest to live again and walk among us. Resurrected!”

  Mitchell lowered his arms, eyes and voice to address them in a normal tone. “They will rise and walk the earth again just as I do, in the name of Jesus.”

  Sammy seemed rattled from the outburst, but Andrea continued probing. “Who will rise again, Father?”

  Mitchell looked around the tiny room, then settled his gaze and lopsided smile on Andrea. “I did.”

  “Who else will rise?” she persisted.

  “Some will not rise,” he answered, getting to his feet and moving again to the single window his gaze attempting to penetrate the drab curtain. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in blood; it is raised in innocence.”

  “The treasure your men dug out of the sand,” Andrea persisted, “the men who killed the nomads. What were their names?”

  “They will perish at the hands of the righteous, never to rise, yea, even to the end of the earth, cursed to perdition for all eternity.”

  Mitchell spun from the window, his expression furious, shaking a fist in the air. “Every one! Yet she will rise!”

  “Who?” Sammy asked hesitantly, unsure how to phrase his question, afraid that the wrong words would send the poor man back to his biblical ranting. “Who will rise?”

  Mitchell flung an outstretched arm at Andrea. “They will be cast into the lower depths amid the agony and gnashing of teeth for all eternity.” The horrible visage of the deranged ex-soldier blazed with hate. “Emissaries of Satan, wicked agents of the anti-Christ.”

  Andrea assumed her most persuasive tone despite the shiver that ran up her spine, her professional voice an amalgam of innocent curiosity and concern. “Why won’t they rise?”