Midnight Trust by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

As they approached the cathedral, a priest opened the front doors. Before they stepped in, a man with an M16A4 and a Leupold Mark 4 scope stepped out. He offered them a pleasant nod before continuing on his way—just a friendly neighborhood sniper. He carried the rifle with the ease of deep familiarity. Chad knew his guess had been right: come up with a solution fast—or die even faster. But he’d thought it was a final desperate play.

He’d shot Silva in the chest because his diving roll had already twisted him too far to get an angle on the man’s head.

Tanya was the one who’d taken it to the next level by not shooting Daniela.

The cathedral’s shadow was like a cool curtain across the already warm sun, inviting them to climb the broad stone steps.

Inside, the cathedral was a wonder.

Great white pillars rose to a midlevel golden collar. Soaring high above that, the great arches of the long nave crisscrossed like a golden web over the white stonework. Though the direct sun had yet to brush the outside, the windows shone with blue, gold, and clear glass, making the church seem too bright to be possible. The only remaining interior light was a small lamp behind the altar.

The entire altar wall of the cathedral, rather than continuing the form of the arches, was made up of the solid stone of the cliff’s face itself. The lamp shown on an image of the Mother Mary and the infant Jesus wearing mighty crowns of gold as Saints Francis and Dominic worshipped at their feet. The fact that the two saints had lived twelve hundred years after the shiningly Hispanic Mother Mary was the sort of thing that the Catholic Church was so good at ignoring. He was down with that—the little details were often best ignored.

Now he sat at the back of the pews, Tanya beside him and Silva across the aisle, while la Capitana confessed her sins to the priest. Chad had only tried that once or twice, mostly to see just what it took to shock the clergy. Once he made up a bunch of crap and the priest had practically yawned in his face through the little screen. The second time, he’d given the litany of a life on the Street—poor old guy had looked visibly shaken for days afterward. Chad had always felt a little bad about that.

How did la Capitana’s priest take her confessions? Amoral sins weren’t erased by a couple of Hail Marys and a spell as a missionary to darkest Detroit.

“Anything you want to be confessing?” Chad whispered to Tanya.

At her unexpected silence, he turned to look at her. She startled him sometimes. When she was quiet like this, it seemed that he was with a different woman entirely. The sarcastic, funny, all-the-way-to-the-bone warrior was familiar. That’s who was still front-and-center when they were snarled up in each other’s arms. It had been easy to imagine her expression in the darkness under the topiary—fiercely still herself.

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