Innocent Blood(41)

Erin gave him a smile that warmed him to his toes. “The events match the biblical passage. More important, it points to someone whom we could actually hope to find.”

“The boy,” Rhun said, sounding unconvinced. “I spoke to him atop that mountain that day. He seemed like just an ordinary child. In shock, grief-stricken after the death of his mother and father. And he was born of the flesh. How could he be an angel?”

“Remember, Christ was also born of the flesh,” Cardinal Bernard countered. “This boy seems like a fine starting point to begin our search.”

Jordan nodded. “So where is he? Does anybody know? The last I recall, he was being evacuated off that mountaintop by helicopter, by the Israeli army. They were taking him to one of their hospitals. It shouldn’t be hard to track him from there.”

“It will be harder than you think,” Bernard said, suddenly looking worried.

That was never a good thing.



12:05 P.M.

“Why would it be harder?” Erin asked, sensing she wasn’t going to like the answer.

Bernard sighed regretfully. “Because he is no longer in the custody of the Israelis.”

“Then where is he?” she asked.

Instead of answering, the cardinal turned to Brother Leopold. The German monk had remained silent near the back of the car. “Leopold, you are the most skilled with computers. My laptop is with my luggage. Father Ambrose has my passwords. I need to access my files at the Vatican. Can you help me?”

Leopold nodded. “I can certainly try.”

The monk rushed out of the dining car and headed into the galley.

Bernard turned back to the others. “We were keeping tabs on the boy, staying in contact with the Israelis who were studying him at a military hospital. His name is Thomas Bolar. The medical staff was trying to discover how he had survived the poison gas. And then—”

Leopold burst back into the car, returning with a simple black laptop in hand. He crossed to them, set it on the table, and booted it up. Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, Leopold typed with the speed only a Sanguinist could manage. His fingers were a blur across the keyboard, accessing the Internet, punching in passwords, connecting to a Vatican server.

Bernard looked over his shoulder, directing him every now and again.

Erin found it odd to watch these ancient men in priestly garb engaging with modern technology. It seemed like Sanguinists should be haunting churches and graveyards, not surfing the Internet. But Leopold seemed to know what he was doing. In a few minutes, he had a window open on the screen containing a grainy gray video.

Erin crowded closer to see, as did everyone else.

Only the countess hung back. From her uneasy expression, such technology must unnerve her. She had not lived through the long years like the others so that she could assimilate the changes over time. Erin wondered what it must be like to be thrust from the sixteenth century into the twenty-first. She had to hand it to the woman. As far as Erin could tell, the countess seemed to be taking it in stride, showing a surprising resilience and toughness. Erin needed to be mindful of that in her dealings with her in the future.

For now, she kept her attention fixed to the laptop.

“This is surveillance video taken from the Israeli medical facility,” Bernard said. “You should watch this, then I’ll explain more.”

On the screen, a boy sat in a hospital bed. He was dressed in a thin hospital gown, tied in the back. As they watched, the boy wiped tears from his eyes, then got up and dragged his IV pole to the window. He leaned his head against the glass and looked out into the night.

Erin felt for the boy—both his parents had died in his arms, and now he was trapped alone in a military hospital. She was glad that Rhun had taken time to spend a few minutes talking to the child, comforting him, before everything went to hell.

Suddenly, another small figure stood next to the boy at the window. The newcomer’s face was turned away from the camera. He had appeared out of nowhere, as if someone had cut out a piece of the video.

The stranger wore a dark suit coat and slacks. Thomas shrank back from him, clearly afraid. In a move too fast to follow, a knife flashed under the lights. The boy clutched his throat, blood gushing out, drenching his hospital robe.

Erin’s shoulders inched up, but she didn’t look away from the screen. Jordan pulled her closer to his side, supporting her. He must have seen his share of bloodshed and the murder of children in Afghanistan and knew how hard it was to watch such cruelty.

On the screen, Thomas stumbled away from the stranger. He yanked off a trail of wires attached to his chest. Lights flashed on the bedside machines. An alarm. The kid was trying to call for help.