Destiny

ONE-HUNDRED-FOURTEEN

Marcus sat in the front seat beside John, Alicia in the back. John said, “I’m in deep shit.”

Alicia said, “No you’re not. Tell the police we held a gun on you. You had no choice.”

Marcus lowered the car’s visor. “We have to find a helicopter.”

John glanced in his rearview mirror, his vision obscured because of the dozens of cracks that ran through the safety glass from the point of the bullet’s impact. “I know a place. We have to catch the A20. The place is north of Catania. They have a couple of helicopters. They do sightseeing tours, flying tourists around Etna and other places.”

“Great. That’s where we need to go.”

John pulled onto the A20 and headed south. “I don’t know if they’re doing the flights now because the volcano erupted recently. It’s always smoking, but a few days ago, there was some fire and lava flow. Geologists are saying Etna is too dangerous, too unpredictable to get very close. I’m almost afraid to ask, but why do you want to go there?”

Marcus was quiet a moment. “We’re following some instructions.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not completely sure.”

“But you know that you need a chopper to fly over Etna. So, what the hell are you going to look for up there?”

“I don’t know, John. We have no choice, really. We have to drop something in it.”

“In Etna? You’re dropping something in the freaking volcano?”

“Yeah.”

“Hail Mary.” He made the sign of the cross. “Who’s the guy chasing you? Why’s he trying to kill you?”

“He’s a contract assassin. I imagine he’s taking orders from some people we’ve pissed off, people who spent lifetimes — generations pillaging others for personal wealth and power.”

“Look at that!” Alicia stared out her side window. “Paul, the volcano, it has a huge smoke ring rising out of it.”

Marcus turned to his right and watched in disbelief at the large, white ring rising from its mouth and floating skyward.

John said, “I’ve lived here most of my life. I’ve never seen a smoke ring like that come out of the volcano. It’s like those skywriters, a perfect circle.”

Marcus watched the ring drift from the summit of the mountain toward the east, the ring growing wide and slowly dissipating, soon only a faint trace of the circle against the blue backdrop. The Circle of 13, he thought…gone. All of the information was now online, the secret brotherhood exposed for who and what they are.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, John constantly checking his mirrors. He touched a gold crucifix hanging from his neck. “Another hour, we’ll be there. I don’t know how or why you two picked me out of all those people on the ferry with cars. Even though my car’s all shot up, this is history. I’m part of it. Maybe it’s all for a reason.”

Alicia smiled. “You said you grew up near here.”

“About thirty kilometers south from here. The town is Cantina. It is beautiful.”

“Are your parents there?”

“I don’t know. I grew up in a Catholic orphanage. Those people were and are my family. The took care of me. One day I want to build orphanages in Sicily and run them like big families, because that’s all the family some kids have…and it gives them something to return to. That’s where I was going today. It’s Sister Josephine’s sixtieth birthday.”

Heydar Kazim drove far enough behind the black Fiat to prevent him from being spotted. He heard a short buzz indicating a text came across his phone. Kazim picked it up and read the screen: You failed on one of two tasks. Marcus uploaded the information. Severe damage is occurring. Find the spear! If not, you will die slowly from the inside out!”

The network news anchorman took his seat behind the news desk at studios in New York City. He listened in his earpiece and the producer said, “Stand by Brian…three…two…one…you’re up.”

“We interrupt programming to report enormous repercussions around the world today by new information uploaded to revelation310.org, a website that made international news when Nobel Prize winner, Paul Marcus, gave his much talked about acceptance speech. The president held a news conference earlier and said the justice department is indicting and plans to prosecute Jonathon Carlson and six of the alleged members of a group called the Circle of 13. The justice department is requesting international prosecution for the remaining members, those living and working in other nations. The information Marcus added today provides evidence of a vast network of dummy corporations laundering billions of dollars. Those companies are reported to have ties to ownership of legitimate companies run by some members of the secret group. The information Marcus added to the site, if accurate, points to something that is not a conspiracy but rather a carefully orchestrated series of events that literally changed the course of history. These range from the deaths of President John Kennedy and his son, who Marcus says was assassinated, along with two Israeli prime ministers by people within the Circle of 13. These disclosures are connected to the stockpile of hidden fortunes by three current American and British oil and banking companies who allegedly made tens of millions from financing the buildup of Nazi Germany.”

A hush fell over the lunch crowd dining in a Boston tavern where they watched the newscast on a wide-screen TV. “Turn it up!” shouted one businessman, opening his phone to make a call.

The news anchorman continued. “The U.S. Senate has voted by a two-thirds margin, to expel Senator Wyatt Dirkson for his involvement with Carlson and the Kinsley Group. This is the second Senate expulsion since the Civil War. Senator Dirkson admitted his role, but says he’s a victim of entrapment and blackmail. Perhaps the biggest part of this story is information Paul Marcus left on the website. We learned today that Marcus, who worked, at one time, with the National Security Agency, was a top cryptographer — a code breaker before turning to medical research. Marcus had been analyzing information that connects passages from the Bible to information brought forth in recently discovered papers from Isaac Newton’s biblical research three hundred years ago. Newton reportedly indicated earth could end in 2060. But Paul Marcus, with the aid of today’s super computers and his cryptography skills, says it might be closer to 2024. At this point, Marcus vanished right after his Nobel speech. It’s assumed he’s in hiding somewhere and alive because of the latest information uploaded to the website he’d created. That new information was uploaded just a little while ago — today. Authorities are looking for Marcus and the woman he’s traveling with, Alicia Quincy, also a NSA computer expert. FBI director, Robert Edwards, said the bureau is searching for the couple to take them into protective custody. It’s speculated that hired assassins are in pursuit of the couple in retaliation for exposing the Circle of 13 and their accomplices, all of whom are now under indictment for those revelations.”

From neighborhood bars to boardrooms, people around the globe watched the stories unfold on televisions and websites. Facebook, Twitter and a dozens of the world’s most trafficked social networks were on fire with tens of millions of people exchanging comments and speculating as to what the information on the website really meant.

Bold headlines in print and digital formats read: 2024 the Real Apocalypse? Are Isaac Newton and Paul Marcus Wrong? Doomsday Countdown?

John drove the car from the main road, through a series of back roads and pulled into the open lot where two helicopters sat with Mount Etna in the background, white smoke billowing from its summit.

Marcus touched the spear in his jacket pocket, and felt a palpitation from the beaded scar across his chest.