Contract With God Read Online Free PDF Page B

speed up the process.
    OK, old man. I get the message. Let’s get down to business.
    Orville pressed the remote to bring up the next page. It showed a priest with a thin, craggy face. He was balding and whatever hair he had left had been cut very short. Orville began speaking to the darkness before him.
    ‘John Anthony Fowler, alias Father Anthony Fowler, alias Tony Brent. Born 16 December 1951 in Boston, Massachusetts. Green eyes, roughly 175 pounds. Freelance agent for the CIA and a total mystery. Solving this mystery took two months of research carried out by ten of my best investigators, who worked exclusively on this job, as well as a considerable amount of cash in order to grease the palms of some well-placed sources. That explains in large part the three million dollars it cost to produce this report, Mr Kayn.’
    The screen changed again, this time displaying a family photo: a well-dressed couple in the garden of what looked like an expensive home. At their side, an attractive, dark-haired boy about eleven years old. The father’s hand seemed to be squeezing the boy’s shoulder and all three wore tense smiles.
    ‘The only son of Marcus Abernathy Fowler, business magnate and owner of Infinity Pharmaceuticals. Today it’s a multimillion-dollar biotechnology company. After his parents died in a suspicious automobile accident in 1984, Anthony Fowler sold the company, along with the rest of their assets, and donated everything to charity. He held on to his parents’ mansion in Beacon Hill, renting it out to a couple with children. But he kept the top floor for himself, and had it converted into an apartment containing some furniture and a whole bunch of philosophy books. He stays there every once in a while, whenever he’s in Boston.’
    The next image showed a younger version of the same woman, this time on a college campus and dressed in a graduation gown.
    ‘Daphne Brent was an expert chemist who worked at Infinity Pharmaceuticals until the owner took a liking to her and they got married. When she fell pregnant, Marcus turned her into a housewife overnight. That’s all we know about Fowler’s family, except that young Anthony went to Stanford instead of attending Boston College like his father.’
    Next slide: young Anthony, looking not much older than a teenager, with a serious expression on his face, standing beneath a banner that read ‘1971’.
    ‘He graduated magna cum laude at the age of twenty with a degree in Psychology. The youngest in his class. That photo was taken a month before classes ended. On the last day of the term, he collected his things and walked into the university recruitment offices. He wanted to go to Vietnam.’
    An image appeared on the screen of a worn yellowed form that had been filled out by hand.
    ‘This is a photograph of his AFQT, his Armed Forces Qualifying Test. Fowler scored ninety-eight out of one hundred. The sergeant was so impressed that he immediately sent him to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas where he went through basic training, followed by advanced parachute regiment instruction for a Special Ops unit that retrieved downed pilots behind enemy lines. While at Lackland, he learned guerrilla tactics and became a helicopter pilot. After a year and a half of combat, he returned home a lieutenant. Among his medals is a Purple Heart and an Air Force Cross. In the report you’ll find details of the actions that earned him those medals.’
    A snapshot of several men in uniform at an airfield. At the centre stood Fowler dressed as a priest.
    ‘After Vietnam, Fowler entered a Catholic seminary and was ordained in 1977. He was assigned as military chaplain to Spangdahlem Air Force Base in Germany, where he was recruited by the CIA. With his language skills it’s easy to see why they wanted him: Fowler speaks eleven languages fluently and can get along in fifteen others. But the Company is not the only outfit that recruited him.’
    Another photo of Fowler, in Rome, with