Destiny

FORTY-FOUR

The next morning Marcus stopped at the hotel’s front desk before heading to the university. He wrote a note to Layla Koury. Marcus printed her name on an envelope, placed the note inside and got the clerk’s attention. “Would you leave this for Miss Koury? Layla Koury.”

“Certainly sir. Do you know her room number?”

“No, I don’t.”

The clerk smiled and tapped his computer keyboard, his eyes on the screen. “No problem, sir. However, that guest, Miss Koury, may have already checked out. Her bill was pre-paid. No receipt requested. She hasn’t been by the desk yet. Perhaps she will, if she is still on the property. In the meantime, I will send a message to her room phone and leave your envelope here, should she come to the desk.”

“Thank you.” Marcus turned and headed for the front door. Walking by a parked taxi, he recognized the gold hoop earring. He recognized the man’s face. Marcus leaned toward the open window of the cab where the driver was listening to a soccer game on the radio. “Who’s winning?”

The cabbie looked up through bloodshot eyes. “Not my team, that’s for sure.”

Marcus smiled. “Maybe one day the Americans will have a contender.”

The man chewed on a worn toothpick and grinned. “I believe it is not possible.”

“Two nights ago you dropped off an attractive woman. She had a lot of suitcases and bags. It was around eleven at night.”

“I remember. It’s not because of her beauty. I pick up many beautiful women in my taxi. I remember her because she had me sit in the side car park lot with her for one hour. Of course, my meter was running.”

“Why’d she have you wait with her?”

“She said she was waiting for someone.” The driver grinned. “Maybe that someone was you, eh? When she saw you come up the street, she had me quickly pull to the hotel door and begin to unload her stuff.”

Marcus said nothing.

“Crazy woman. Now that she found you, my new football friend, I hope she was worth it.”

Marcus nodded, stood straight and walked to his car. Pulling out of the lot, he headed for the Cafez coffee house.

Marcus worked on decoding in the coffee house for more than two hours when Bahir entered. “How are you feeling?” Marcus asked.

Bahir grinned and lifted the palms of his hands in the air. “Much better, thank you. When you get to my age, the common cold is like coming out of surgery. Everything hurts.”

“Earlier you said I wasn’t asking the right questions.”

Bahir smiled with his eyes.

“You mentioned the spear used to stab Jesus at the time of his death. What’s more, you quoted a line that’s the title from a poem written by General George Patton, Through a Glass, Darkly, and it alludes to the damn spear. What’s this mean?”

Bahir lowered his body slowly, back straight, into a plastic chair and slid the chair closer to the table. He looked around the coffee shop and dropped his voice. “Some call it the Spear of Destiny or Holy Lance.”

“Why?”

“It has been said, prophesied perhaps, that whoever has the spear, if he understands its secrets, its power for good or evil, he has the destiny of the world in his or her hands. This would make it one of the most valuable artifacts on the face of earth.”

“Does this spear still exist?”

“I am not sure it can be destroyed, no easier than evil can cease to exist. Some of the world’s greatest leaders and some of its most ruthless dictators owned the lance. Among these men are Constantine, Charlemagne, Otto, Frederick Barbarossa, and Adolf Hitler. Charlemagne is said to have carried the spear through forty-five victorious battles, but died not long after he, by chance, dropped it from his horse. It is said that whoever has possession of this lance is near unconquerable. However, should the owner lose or sell the spear, he or she will quickly perish.”

Marcus leaned closer to Bahir. “If Hitler had possession of it, what happened to the spear after his death?”

“If he lost the spear, possibly it attributed to his death.”

“Then who would have it today?”

“I do not know this.”

Marcus felt his stomach churn. He looked up from the laptop screen into the old man’s thoughtful face. “Why is this happening? Why’s it happening to me?”

“We all have a destiny. Perhaps you are aligned to fulfill a prophecy.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Aligned by whom? I came here to examine the work of Isaac Newton in reference to his research on the Bible. Now, all of this — the spear, the death of an American president’s son, which now looks like he may have been murdered. I dream about the assassination of a guy I never knew existed and then read about it in the news a few days later, so he was alive when I had the dream. Then I see decrypted data that indicates someone is going to assassinate the prime minister. I can find things about other people, but I still don’t know who killed my family.”

“Perhaps you will in time.”

Marcus stared at the laptop. “I’ve found something else that makes no sense to me.”

“What is it?”

“Do you sell wine in this coffee house?”

“No, why do you ask that?”

“Because, after I read this to you, we may want a drink.”