The Quest: A Novel

monastery had sustained him, not only for all those years in his cell, but also for the hours he walked with a mortal wound on his way back to where he had experienced something so remarkable—or miraculous—that he had to return to that place, even as he was dying. He never made it back, but he had made it as far as the ruined spa, which was not even there when he had last been that way. And what he had found in the spa were three people who themselves were trying to find something. Trying to find the war. And Father Armano had asked them—or asked Vivian—
Dov’è la strada
? Where is the road?
    Indeed, where is the road? There are many roads.
    The jungle became thicker, and the stream became more narrow, and they could see smaller streams feeding into it from the higher ground. They also noticed more clusters of palm trees. None of them doubted that the black monastery was ahead, and that they were walking toward it. It was just a matter of hours, or maybe days, but it was sitting there, still hidden from the eyes of men, still unwelcoming to visitors, yet hopefully ready to receive them with a basket made of reeds.
    The sun was setting ahead of them, and the few patches of sunlight were becoming dimmer. It was harder to see more than twenty or thirty feet ahead, but the stream guided them.
    The jungle looked somehow different, Purcell thought, and it was more than the changing light that made it seem altered. Purcell noticed date palms and breadfruit trees, and trees that bore fleshy fruit, and other trees that he thought bore nuts, and black African violets covered the ground. This was tended land, a tropical garden such as Purcell had seen in Southeast Asia, barely distinguishable from the untamed jungle. He said, “The monastery is just ahead.”
    Vivian, who was in the lead now, said, “I know.”
    The stream bent sharply to their right, and they followed it for a minute, but then Vivian stepped out of the stream and walked between two towering palms.
    Purcell and Mercado joined her.
    To their front, about thirty feet away, rising above a twenty-foot-high thicket of bamboo, was a black wall.
    Vivian stared up at the glossy stone. She said simply, “We are here.”

Chapter 55
    P urcell had no image in his mind of what the wall would look like, and he saw now that the black stones were the size and shape of brick, laid without mortar, piece by piece, until the wall reached about forty feet, the height of a four-story building.
    The sun had sunk lower, and the east side of the monastery where they were standing was in dark shadow, but there was a sheen to the wall, and the bamboo thicket and surrounding palms seemed to be captured in the stone.
    None of them seemed to know what to do or say next, but they all understood, Purcell thought, that the road that had taken them here was strewn with betrayals and death—but also with acts of courage and caring, and memories that would last them a lifetime—no matter how short or long that was.
    Mercado asked, “Do you think anyone is here?”
    Vivian replied, “Let’s find out.”
    They pushed their way through the thicket of bamboo to a narrow path that ran along the base of the wall and they went to their right.
    They walked along the wall for about two hundred yards to the corner and turned along the north side, then around to the west, and to the south side of the long wall, then back to where they had started. As Father Armano had said, the monastery was built in the style of the Dark Ages, without an opening. But sitting on the ground now was a large basket attached to a thick rope.
    Purcell was about to ask if they were sure they wanted to climb into the basket, expecting some hesitation or discussion, but Vivian threw her revolver on the ground and stepped into it without a word. Mercado dropped his AK-47 and followed. They both looked at him. Purcell said, “Maybe we want… a potential survivor.”
    Vivian said to him, “That is your decision, Frank.”
    Mercado said, “Don’t wait for us too long.”
    Purcell hesitated again, then threw his Uzi on the ground and climbed into the basket, and held on to the rope that Vivian and Mercado were holding.
    The basket began to rise.
    They didn’t bother to look at the top of the wall—there would be no one there.
    The basket came to a halt, and they were now able to see the roof of the church that Father Armano had described.
    They climbed over the parapet onto a wooden walkway that surrounded the