Destiny

ONE-HUNDRED-SEVEN

Ten minutes later the fisherman pulled his boat up to the side of a concrete walkway, a wall near it covered with green ivy. He slowed the engine approaching the dock. “Como il suo italiano è?”

“Not very good,” Marcus said. “How is your English?”

The man smiled. “It’s fine. There is a cleat to tie the rope.”

“I see it.” Marcus stepped from the boat and extended a hand to Alicia.

She got out of the boat and turned back to the fisherman. “Thank you for pulling us out of the river.”

He smiled. “You are very welcome.”

Alicia looked at him a long moment. Never had she looked into eyes as kind as this man’s eyes. She felt vulnerable but safe.

Marcus said, “Thank you. We need to find a hotel.”

“Why was that man shooting at you?”

“Because we found information that’s very damaging to the people he works for.”

“What will you do with this information?”

“Give it to the world.” Marcus pulled his phone and flash drive from his wet pants. “These may be ruined.”

The man smiled. “Perhaps not. Many say the waters of the Tiber are blessed. If you are in need of a safe haven I know of one.”

“Where?”

“It is on the island of Panarea near Sicily. There is a small house on a center hill north of the town. It has been in my family for many generations. No one is physically there now. You may use it. The door is always unlocked.”

Marcus nodded. “Why are you doing this? You don’t even know us.”

The man glanced across the river and then up to Marcus and Alicia. He smiled. “What is there to know that I do not recognize?”

Alicia asked, “Who are you?”

The sound of police helicopters and the wail of sirens came from near the Vatican. The fisherman said, “You both must leave now..”

Marcus nodded. “Thanks.” He turned to Alicia. “There are some steps by the wall.”

Alicia wanted to say something to the fisherman, but was at an odd loss for words. She simply stared at him for a few seconds and then continued with Marcus down the walk to the long set of concrete steps leading up to the inner city. They climbed the steps and turned back to the river. The boat bobbled in the current, still tied to the dock, but the fisherman was nowhere to be seen.

Marcus and Alicia ran up to an intersection and caught a city bus. They paid the fare and took a seat in the back of the bus, tourists and Italian workers watching them in their wet clothes.

Once the bus pulled away from the curb, Alicia glanced through the back window toward the river. “Paul, that man who pulled us from the water, he seemed so at peace. I felt like…I don’t know…”

They were quiet a minute, the Roman Coliseum to their right out the window. Marcus finally said, “They won’t stop until they’re stopped.”

“I know,” Alicia whispered.

“Once we get the last of the information on the website, once we incinerate the Spear of Destiny…maybe things will change for the better…for the world.”

“Only if the world wants to change itself.”

“I have to upload information, including the image of the text on the scroll Daniel wrote and sealed. We’ll trace the connections from William Chaloner in Isaac Newton’s day to Andrew Chaloner in the thirties and forties. And we’ll expose Jonathon Carlson today and the Circle of 13 tied to World War II up through the Kennedy assassinations, the Israeli prime minister murders, to the prophecies of the Middle East and the rest of the world. We’ll explain the connection to the year 2024.”

Alicia shook her head. “But we don’t know for certain 2024 is the year.”

“Maybe we never will, or maybe we will before this is done.”

“Let’s find some dry clothes, a laptop or a tablet.”

“We need something else.”

“What?”

“Some kind of disguises. They’ll be watching every terminal. We have to change our appearances a lot.”

Andrew Jenkins drove down Via della Rotonda and whipped his car into the parking lot of the Hotel Abruizzi. He parked and began making a series of calls to his contacts in Rome. To the last one he said, “I want people at every ticket counter at the airport, train and bus terminals. You catch these two, and you’ll have more money than the Pope.”

“I understand the urgency,” said the voice of a man.

Jenkins disconnected and called Jonathon Carlson. “I’d found them, on a bridge over the Tiber River in Rome. I was bringing them into our custody when they escaped by—”

“By what? An act of God?” Carlson shouted.

“They jumped off the damn bridge! Right in the middle of the river. I had to shoot a cop who was in the vicinity.”

“You had them in your grasp and you lost them? You lost the flash drive? The spear, too? You know what’s next don’t you? Russia will send their own to retrieve what Marcus is carrying. That revelation310 website already has more than fifty million views in one day. Find that bastard and the woman with him. Don’t fail us again, Jenkins.”

Deep in the heart of the Kremlin, in a safe room, the Russian picked up a secure line and punched a phone number to which only he had access. The man who answered the line spoke with an Arabic accent. In Russian, Heydar Kazim said, “Yes?”

“We have another job for you.”

“What is it?”

“You, no doubt, know of the current situation with that revelation310.org website and the Circle of 13. My credibility has been severely compromised, too. The two Americans, Paul Marcus and Alicia Quincy, are believed to be somewhere in Rome. I want them dead. Send visual proof. You must bring me the flash drive Marcus carries, and you must find it before he uploads the other things he implied were there. Also, we think he still is carrying the Spear of Destiny. Stalin almost had his hands on it after the war. The Motherland would be better today had he acquired it. Bring the spear directly to me.”

“What is the bounty?”

“Two hundred million Euro.”

“You will have it within forty-eight hours.” The assassin disconnected. He quickly broke down his Giat rifle. He placed each part into a specially designed carrying case, left his apartment in Venice, and slipped quietly into the cool December evening.

It was dark when the Arabic couple arrived at the train terminal and paid cash for two tickets. The woman wore a veil over her face, just beneath her eyes. She looked as if she was just days from giving birth. The husband, a man with a full beard and walking with stooped shoulders, held his wife by her forearm, approaching the steps leading to the railcar.

The conductor came up to them. “Per favore, mi ha lasciato l’aiuta.” He helped the pregnant woman up the two steps. Her husband nodded to the conductor and said, “Molti ringraziamenti.”

The couple entered the Euro-Italian liner and walked two cars forward toward their assigned seats. They moved down the aisle in the railcar, which was about half filled with commuters and tourists bound for the first stop, Naples.

The man helped his wife sit slowly in her seat and then sat beside her. She opened a Suduko book and began working a puzzle. Her husband unfolded a copy of the La Repubblica, spread it neatly on his lap, and started reading. After they were settled in, when Marcus could feel no one was looking, he whispered to Alicia, “They have a dining car on this train. Maybe we can eat, and I can use a table to work.”

Thunder and lightning cracked and rain began to fall. Alicia looked out the window. She could see one person approaching the ticket booth before rain obscured her view.

Three minutes before the train left the terminal station in Rome, a man bought a ticket. Walking under his umbrella, he boarded the last railcar, and Andrew Jenkins took his seat in the rear of the car as the train pulled out of the station.