voyeur in an alternate world where everything was the opposite of what it should be. Birth, vibrancy, hope, life, love, beautyâhe dwelt in the exact converse of these. Most days, his view of his job fell somewhere between.
With a sigh, Brady lifted the binder. It came to him that it was lighter than it ought to be, that somehow it should bear the weight of the lost lives it represented. Drawing it close to his chest, making sure its contents were hidden from the woman (the newspaper was wall enough on the other side), he cracked it open.
12
Under Jerusalem
L uco Scaramuzzi took a deep breath and tried not to visualize the people on the opposite side of the massive conference table as a big pile of corpses. As much as heâd like to facilitate that vision, he needed them. He needed their money, their power. For now.
Bare bulbs over their chairs in the dark room made their faces appear disembodied, hovering above the tableâs edge like Halloween masks hung from fishing line. It was an altogether eerie sight, which perfectly complemented both the locale and the business at hand.
They occupied an octagonal chamber sixty feet below the streets of the Christian Quarter in Jerusalemâs Old City. The room was part of an underground complex that had been appropriated and modified by various occupying governments for three millennia. For the last few hundred years, it had remained sealed off and forgotten by the surface world. Then, twenty-three years ago, workers broke through a wall in the basement of the Latin Seminary and Patriarchate, revealing an ancient water tunnel. This tunnel sloped down into a vast labyrinth of tunnels, catacombs, caverns, and rooms. Situated just inside the Old City wall between Jaffa Gate and New Gate, the discovery was well away from the famous Hasmonean Tunnels, Tsidkiyahu Cave, and Jerusalemâs other known subterranean structures. No one suspected its existence, and the quick thinking of a man who was at the time the rector of the school ensured its secrecy. He made some calls, collected a handsome finderâs fee, and granted to what he thought of as an organizzazione oscura âa shadowy organizationâexclusive access to the entrance. The workers were paid off (though one tale had them all murdered). New workmen installed an iron door at the threshold and constructed a separate basement entrance and walls that gave an element of privacy to those who entered and left the regions below.
Like Luco. And the twelve men and women he faced across the table.
Around them, columns dimly caught slivers of light along their fluted lengths; they stood at regular intervals along the perimeter and marked out the roomâs dimensions. Eighty feet across, it resembled the ancient tomb of a king more than the barracks it had once been. The surface of its stone walls had crumbled, forming a concave ramp of sediment between floor and wall. The columns supported capitals and entablature whose ornate carvings of vines and faces had worn into bumps and grooves more closely approximating scar tissue. Stone beams arched up to meet at the apex of a high domed ceiling, now invisible in the gloom.
The bulbs had been strung from pillar to opposing pillar. They cast a faint illumination on the flawlessly constructed cherrywood table, which seemed as incongruous with its surroundings as a Krugerrand in the hand of a junkie.
Luco was seated in one of twenty matching chairs widely spaced around the table. The eight men and four women seated opposite him constituted the governing body of an organization euphemistically called the Watchers. Its actual name was ancient and heavy on the tongue; few said it, or even knew it, in this age. Most of these directors had followed their fathers or mothers into their current positions, both here and in the wider world. A few had been recruited to combat attrition through barrenness, disloyalty, political or financial misfortune, or premature death leaving
With a sigh, Brady lifted the binder. It came to him that it was lighter than it ought to be, that somehow it should bear the weight of the lost lives it represented. Drawing it close to his chest, making sure its contents were hidden from the woman (the newspaper was wall enough on the other side), he cracked it open.
12
Under Jerusalem
L uco Scaramuzzi took a deep breath and tried not to visualize the people on the opposite side of the massive conference table as a big pile of corpses. As much as heâd like to facilitate that vision, he needed them. He needed their money, their power. For now.
Bare bulbs over their chairs in the dark room made their faces appear disembodied, hovering above the tableâs edge like Halloween masks hung from fishing line. It was an altogether eerie sight, which perfectly complemented both the locale and the business at hand.
They occupied an octagonal chamber sixty feet below the streets of the Christian Quarter in Jerusalemâs Old City. The room was part of an underground complex that had been appropriated and modified by various occupying governments for three millennia. For the last few hundred years, it had remained sealed off and forgotten by the surface world. Then, twenty-three years ago, workers broke through a wall in the basement of the Latin Seminary and Patriarchate, revealing an ancient water tunnel. This tunnel sloped down into a vast labyrinth of tunnels, catacombs, caverns, and rooms. Situated just inside the Old City wall between Jaffa Gate and New Gate, the discovery was well away from the famous Hasmonean Tunnels, Tsidkiyahu Cave, and Jerusalemâs other known subterranean structures. No one suspected its existence, and the quick thinking of a man who was at the time the rector of the school ensured its secrecy. He made some calls, collected a handsome finderâs fee, and granted to what he thought of as an organizzazione oscura âa shadowy organizationâexclusive access to the entrance. The workers were paid off (though one tale had them all murdered). New workmen installed an iron door at the threshold and constructed a separate basement entrance and walls that gave an element of privacy to those who entered and left the regions below.
Like Luco. And the twelve men and women he faced across the table.
Around them, columns dimly caught slivers of light along their fluted lengths; they stood at regular intervals along the perimeter and marked out the roomâs dimensions. Eighty feet across, it resembled the ancient tomb of a king more than the barracks it had once been. The surface of its stone walls had crumbled, forming a concave ramp of sediment between floor and wall. The columns supported capitals and entablature whose ornate carvings of vines and faces had worn into bumps and grooves more closely approximating scar tissue. Stone beams arched up to meet at the apex of a high domed ceiling, now invisible in the gloom.
The bulbs had been strung from pillar to opposing pillar. They cast a faint illumination on the flawlessly constructed cherrywood table, which seemed as incongruous with its surroundings as a Krugerrand in the hand of a junkie.
Luco was seated in one of twenty matching chairs widely spaced around the table. The eight men and four women seated opposite him constituted the governing body of an organization euphemistically called the Watchers. Its actual name was ancient and heavy on the tongue; few said it, or even knew it, in this age. Most of these directors had followed their fathers or mothers into their current positions, both here and in the wider world. A few had been recruited to combat attrition through barrenness, disloyalty, political or financial misfortune, or premature death leaving
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