The midnight air over the southern tip of the Manhattan harbor was frozen solid, cut open by a sudden, unnatural stillness that seemed to paralyze the rhythmic crashing of the waves. At Pier 11, a heavy Vatican diplomatic vessel, bearing the sovereign seal of the Holy See, drifted silently through the thick New York fog to dock at the restricted military transit line. It filed no human customs manifests, entirely masked by high-level ecclesiastical immunities that even the federal agencies in Washington could not question.
From the primary iron deck of the ship stepped Father Thomas, the supreme high-executioner of The Holy Inquisition of the Sacred Cross. Clad in ancient, black woolen vestments that concealed his specialized Kevlar sub-armor, his cold grey eyes locked onto the distant, d
