Destiny

TWELVE

Under a cloudless, blue October morning sky, Paul Marcus walked to his barn to feed the horses. Buddy stopped for a moment, sniffing tracks a raccoon had left during the night. In the chill of the air, Marcus could smell wood smoke from his neighbor’s chimney a quarter mile away. It was Sunday, and beyond the chirping of a cardinal, he heard bells from the Shiloh Methodist Church in the distance. His mind shifted to the cemetery behind the old church where he had buried his wife and daughter.

Dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt and a denim jacket, Marcus turned his collar up in the cool air, and continued walking through yellow leaves dusted soft white from last night’s frost.

Buddy followed him into the barn where he watered and fed the horses. Within a minute, the sun crept over the valley, the shafts coming horizontal through the open barn doors, illuminating the bales of hay and stalls with a crimson glow.

“Good morning ladies,” Marcus said, opening the stalls. “How’s everybody doing? Ready for some pasture time?” He led the horses to the door. They trotted off, Buddy giving chase for a moment, turning his head back toward Marcus as he ran. “No, Buddy! It’s too early for a game of tag. Let the girls have some quiet Sunday morning time.” Buddy stopped and padded back toward the barn, his eyes bright from the short chase.

Marcus took an ax from the barn and began splitting wood against a round piece of the heart of pine. He split the first log into two parts, tossed them on a woodpile next to the fence, and was raising the ax over his shoulders when Buddy growled. The dog’s keen eyes had picked up movement down at the end of the long drive.

“What’s got your attention, boy?” Marcus looked in the direction. A blue Honda car came up the drive, leaves scattering, acorns popping. A cardinal stopped its morning song and the church bells faded into the background. Marcus could see that a woman was behind the wheel.

Alicia Quincy parked under a large oak near the house and got out of her car. Buddy ran in the direction of the parked car. Marcus walked toward her, ax still in his hands. She smiled and petted Buddy while he sniffed her black jeans. She wore a thick-weave, beige sweater, her dark chestnut hair pinned up, minimal makeup. The crisp air gave a brushstroke of light pink to her high cheekbones. “Good morning,” she said, smiling. “Do you usually greet a woman with an ax?”

Marcus smiled and set the ax against a tree. “I was chopping firewood.”

“I’ve always loved border collies. What’s his name?”

“Buddy.”

Alicia petted Buddy on his neck and shoulders. She looked up at Marcus. “I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing out here on a Sunday morning.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“I remembered all the years you worked at the agency before going to Hughes to help Tiffany. I know how damn hard you worked. I can’t forget the funerals for Jennifer and Tiffany. Just down the road, I passed the cemetery behind the church and remembered it was a day like this, the leaves changing, winter approaching.”

Marcus said nothing for a few seconds. “Why’d you come out here, Alicia?”

“Maybe because I didn’t like the way our conversation ended in the parking garage, or maybe because I didn’t sleep well last night. I wanted to start over, if possible, and not have suspicions between us. It’s important to me.”

Marcus nodded and smiled. “Okay. No problem.”

She smiled and took in the property, her eyes drifting to the horses in the pasture. “This is a lovely home. I recall you telling me your grandfather had bought it years ago.”

“But he kept it in better shape than I’m doing. Barn needs a new coat of paint.”

“When you make coffee, do you boil it on the stove in one of those tin coffee pots, you know, the blue ones with the white spots on them?” She grinned.

“It’s a drip machine. Would you like a cup? I just put on a pot.”

“I’d love a cup.”

“Please, come in.”

“Can we drink it out here on the porch?”

“Sure.” She followed him inside and into the kitchen where Marcus poured steaming coffee into two large ceramic mugs.

“Your home is warm, comfortable.”

“Jen did all that. I haven’t touched a thing since…since she was killed.”

“We’ve all followed the case. No arrests yet, right?”

“Not even any suspects, so I’m told. How do you take your coffee?”

“A little cream and a touch of sugar.”

He fixed the coffee and handed a cup to Alicia. He could smell her perfume, the trace of a flowery shampoo lingering in her thick hair. He felt something stir deep inside his chest. “Let’s sit on the porch,” he said, walking to the front door.

Alicia followed him, stopping to look at a framed picture hanging on the wall. The image was of Marcus, Jennifer and Tiffany on a ski trip, mountains of snow in the background. Alicia blinked a few times, exhaling a deep breath, wrapping both hands around the cup.

“That was our last vacation together — Telluride.”

“Such a beautiful family.”

They stepped on the porch and sat in large, white wicker chairs with plump cushions on the back and seat. Buddy lay down on the oak wood porch. A blue jay fluttered from the trees, chirping, as a robin hunted for insects in the grass, which was still coated silvery white from frost.

A breeze puffed across the yard, scattering leaves and making music with the wind chimes on the porch. Alicia looked at the chimes and smiled. “If you decide to accept the Nobel Prize, it’d look good on that mantle inside, above the fireplace.”

Marcus sipped his coffee. He watched a red leaf flutter from an elm tree. “You sure Secretary Hanover didn’t send you out here?”

Alicia shook her head and laughed. “No, she did not, and no one from the agency asked me to come here either. Although I’m sure Bill Gray would love for you to come back to your old job. You mentioned Secretary Hanover, I want to ask you something.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Do you remember me telling you about my sister, Dianne?”

“I remember her picture on your desk at work. I remember that her husband was one of the people killed when the jet crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.”

Alicia looked down at her coffee cup before raising her eyes up to Marcus. “About two months ago, her only child, my niece Brandi, was hiking in the eastern border region of Turkey. She and her boyfriend, Adam, were there working for the Peace Corps, teaching school in the area. Iranian border guards arrested them for allegedly crossing into Iran. Paul, they’re holding them as U.S. spies. They’re just kids, both barely twenty.”

“I heard about the arrests. I didn’t make the connection because of the difference in last names. What’s being done to free them?”

“They’ve become poker chips in an international game. Tehran wants the U.S. to release four people we’re holding in exchange for the release of Brandi and Adam. It’s going nowhere.” Alicia pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “My sister…Dianne went through hell after the death of her husband. Now, it’s this horrible kidnapping, and that’s what it really is, a damn kidnapping. Dianne is at the breaking point. I can’t imagine what Brandi and Adam are experiencing.”

“It wouldn’t be smart for Iran to hurt them or treat them inhumanely.”

“What’s smart in this crazy world anymore, Paul? The Iranians could falsely convict them and issue the death penalty. We’re desperate. Maybe you could do something.”

“Me? What could I do?”

“I’d read that the daughter of Ali Assimi, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has a heart condition maybe similar to what affected Tiffany. Maybe you could look into it and offer some advice.”

“Alicia, I’m not a doctor. I managed to figure a way to help doctors prevent ventricular arrhythmia in some hearts by subjecting the heart to intense electromagnetic impulses that help the heart regulate itself. This can provide a new option to the practice of ablation surgery, which destroys tissue in the heart muscle to regulate the electrical circuit.”

“Since you know Secretary Hanover, maybe you could ask her to try to expedite their release.”

“I’m not sure how much pull I have.”

“She and the president want you to accept the Nobel Prize. That’s a lot of pull.”

He looked at her a moment, the sound of church bells coming up through the valley. “I’ll speak with Secretary Hanover.”

Alicia smiled. “Thank you. I’ve been thinking about the stuff you mentioned concerning your contact from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the newly discovered notes from Isaac Newton. This could be a tremendous opportunity for you, Paul. What if Newton left behind something?”

“What do you mean?”

“I did a little research on the man, Sir Isaac.”

“Find anything new?”

“For starters, he definitely had a most beautiful mind. Three hundred years later, we’re still using his math to fly rockets and satellites. He was a hybrid kind of scientist. Apparently, the science stuff was the least of his interests, the theological material, the why we’re here, the living a life of meaning, kind of thing was what drove him and pushed his buttons. Not well known, eh? But he thought the answers were in the Bible, and it’s believed he wrote more than a million words on the subject.”

“Maybe he has a condensed version somewhere on one piece of paper.”

Alicia smiled. “After a little digging, I found that Newton was very interested in a supreme knowledge or absolute knowledge.”

“Does it exist? Can absolute in anything be demonstrated?”

“Newton researched the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Babylonians, and people like Copernicus, da Vinci, Plato and Archimedes — looking for some kind of secret or handed-down ancient knowledge, maybe to help him understand or research the Bible. What if he found something?”

“Then why don’t we know about it? He left us calculus, the theory of gravity and motion. Why wouldn’t he have left that, too?”

“Maybe he found something too frightening or too large for the world to fully grasp. The theory of destiny certainly would be a bigger concept than gravity to comprehend. He could have taken it to his grave, or like you say, left it on a slip of paper. Maybe he needed more time to prove it. But unless we know what to look for, the world might never have an answer.”

“A million words can create quite a haystack.”

Alicia scratched Buddy behind the ear. “Go search for the needle in the haystack. I have a feeling that if anyone on earth can find it…it’s you.”

“What I care deeply about finding is the man who killed my family.”

Alicia was silent.

Marcus looked out across his property, the breeze tinkling the wind chimes, an unseen rustle in the trees, his eyes filled with thought. “Now that you’ve told me about Brandi and Adam, I’d like to see them set free before some sadistic Iranian court sentences them. Alicia, if I go to the Middle East, I may need someone like you…no, I may need you to help. Your computer skills, your research, your hacking talents are uncanny. We may be in for some cyber archeology, digging into places no one since Isaac Newton has ever looked.”

Alicia turned her body toward Marcus. “I’ll help where I can.”

The next day Marcus placed a call to Bill Gray and asked, “Are you on a secured line?”

“Yes, Paul. What’s going on?”

“When you drove to my place, you said there’s been chatter about me. I’m willing to travel to the Middle East on the agency’s behalf to see what the interest is all about. I’ll be bait, and I’ll have the perfect cover. But I’ll only do it if Secretary Hanover and the President work to immediately free Alicia Quincy’s niece and her boyfriend from an Iranian prison.”

Gray said nothing for a moment, his breathing perceptible in Marcus’s ear. Then Gray said, “Why the sudden interest on Alicia’s niece and boyfriend?”

“Because, right now, it seems like the right thing to do.”

“Your intentions are in a good place, but, and please don’t take this personally, you’re not a field agent. They could eat you alive over there.”

“Yes or no, Bill?”

“We won’t negotiate overtly. It sets a bad precedent. But we’ll use every resource behind the scenes to free them.”

“Okay.”

“Are you certain about this? Paul, you sure as hell know there’s a big difference in code breaking behind the remote safety of a computer compared to face-to-face mind games with the enemy. You haven’t been trained in-”

“Sometimes the most efficient engagement in the art of war is done with a Trojan horse.”

“All right, it’s your ass on a very dangerous international line. We’ll deny your existence should the shit hit the fan. If you’re discovered, you’re alone.”

“This agreement stays between us. Alicia’s not to know.”