Chapter 19: Pride and Punishment

Father Bernard looked up from his sheath of papers to see an elderly man standing before his desk, a man in casual clothing such as a rancher might wear. Such attire was not uncommon for this midwestern region, but it was exceptionally unusual to find one dressed so casually in his private office, especially one who was both uninvited and unannounced.

"How ... Who are ... Sir! Who are you, and how did you get into my office? No one is permitted in here without prior appointment! Miss Brookings! MISS BROOKINGS! Come here, immediately!"

Father Bernard punched at his intercomm buttons, raising his voice to get the attention of his personal assistant in the outer office. After all, as the senior Priest of one of the oldest, largest, and most prominent cathedrals in the midwest, he was entitled to certain formalities. There was something ominous, threatening in the aura of this stern-faced old man who had materialized in his private sanctuary.

"She will not hear you. Her mind is focused elsewhere. We will remain undisturbed until my message has been delivered."

"What message? Who are you to confront me in my own chambers? Begone with you, this moment! Perhaps you can reach the street before the police arrive!" Father Bernard snatched up his telephone handset and stabbed a thick finger into the rotary dial, hurriedly forcing it to spin "0" for an operator.

"If you will calm yourself and listen, I believe you'll hear no dial tone in that telephone."

Father Bernard stabbed his forefinger down on the telephone cradle, repeatedly pushing and releasing the switch plunger. Nothing, not even switch clicks, came through the earpiece. It was totally silent. He felt his heartbeat and his breathing rise to uncomfortable rates, dangerously high for a portly man who exercised little. He piously ignored his physician's warnings of unhealthy cardiac symptoms during his last physical.

Father Bernard began to sweat. He frantically loosened his tight collar, the immaculate badge of his priestly office. He tried to slow his gasping breathing. He glanced again at the closed doorway to his office, then at the window overlooking the great courtyard outside. The door was sealed, the courtyard empty. He briefly considered lunging for the door but the tall stranger, an imposing figure despite his apparent age, stood between himself and any hope of escape. Father Bernard was not a brave man; he was certainly not brave where physical confrontation was possible.

"How dare you! You will spend many miserable years in jail for this assault, you ... you ... invader! How dare you attack my assistant, cut my phone lines ... I'll have the police in here and you'll rot in jail! You will rot in Hell for attacking His Holy Church!"

The slightest smile twitched briefly on the old man's face.

"I suggest you sit down. No one is coming, and you will go nowhere until we are finished here. My message will take some time, so you had best make yourself comfortable."

Father Bernard returned the telephone handset to his ear, and hearing nothing but his own erratic, thumping pulse, he slammed it down onto the telephone base. Glancing again at the doorway, then the window and seeing that nothing had changed, he slumped heavily into his chair. His sweating hands gripped the ornately carved ends of the leather-padded arm rests. Beads of sweat gathered on his temples and trickled downward, running under his loosened clerical collar.

"Very well, damn you! Say your piece and then get out of my office! But I warn you, there's nothing you can say that I wish to hear, and nothing you can ask that has any chance of being granted! Ah! Threats? Are you here to make threats against me? Against the Holy Church? Little good it will do you, old man. You have no idea what you have started here. It will be the end of you, I assure you! Well, speak, damn you! Let's have it out of you!"

Mike stood impassively, waiting for the fat, sweating man to run out of breath and bravado. Clearly the priest was half terrified. Never before had he been challenged so ominously on his own ground, in a fortress-like setting that virtually no power in the nation could assault. The priest had come to consider his position, his sanctuary, as impregnable.

The priest waited for some response. His face was fully flushed, red with anger and fear, his temples wet and throbbing, eyes nervously scanning about but always returning to confront the intruder.

Mike was perfectly centered in the priest's vision at the edge of his huge desk. He stood tall, ramrod straight, as fixed and stern as a staring eagle. His eyes focused on the priest and bored into him. Whatever he saw in the priest's mind or soul, no emotion touched Mike's face. Several long moments ticked slowly away while he stared at the sweating, squirming man in the chair.

"Look into my eyes!"

The command was barely audible in the office but it rang like the clap of doom in the priest's head. Instantly his focus locked onto the stranger's eyes and remained there. Not even tears came. His was an unblinking stare, frozen, unable to break away.

"Now see what you have done!"

Father Bernard saw dimly before him the naked body of a small child. The apparition grew and formed in his sight while everything else dimmed, darkened, receded, until all he could see was the slender, nude form of a young girl standing alone, turned away from him, her shoulders hunched in sobbing misery.

He could not look away. He was forced to witness her grief increasing to the edge of hysteria. She turned, her head swiveled to face him and Father Bernard knew her tear-streaked face, his latest victim, the Jacobs child. He recoiled with apprehension and sudden fear; this was leading somewhere he did not want to go.

She stared directly into his eyes. Her grieving stopped, her face grew still, no sound came from her lips. Her eyes accused him. He saw her accusation of betrayal, a foul banner stained with his guilt. His heart beat more rapidly, his breathing came in shallow gasps.

Her face ... what is happening to her face? It is changing, shifting, becoming another face? What is this face? Horror seized him. She rose above him and became the Madonna, holiness upon her face, her body clothed in a fine linen drape. Her arms held a child! My God in Heaven ... the child! No, not the boy child. It is the Jacobs child, her small, abused body cradled in the Madonna's arms!

He looked to the face of the Madonna and saw in her eyes the certitude of his damnation. The truth of his hideous crimes lay reflected in her accusing stare. He then knew himself judged and banished to a hell of eternal remorse.

"Oh, God, no ... noooo... he shrieked, but nothing issued from his screaming mouth. No sound came from his heaving throat.

She vanished; the child vanished. Nothing remained in his sight but the motionless figure of the tall stranger.