Destiny

SIXTY-FIVE

Marcus rented a Peugeot, pulled onto the A16 and drove to the coastal French town of Calais. He paid the fee at the terminal entrance and steered the Peugeot inside the train-car of the Chunnel. Thirty-five minutes later he arrived in Folkestone, England. After clearing customs, he punched the coordinates into the GPS and followed the vocal directions through the outskirts of London toward the village of Wallingford.

A winding road led him through farm fields that had been plowed under after a recent harvest. Sheep and cattle dotted the pastures, and smoke from farmhouse chimneys meandered in the still, crisp morning sky.

“Your destination is ahead on the right,” came the last direction from the GPS. Marcus stopped the car in front of a small, white cobblestone home with a faded picket fence around most of the yard. He got out of the car and quietly closed the door. The sound of a cow mooing came from somewhere behind the home. A song thrush warbled from a pine thicket in an adjacent pasture. Marcus stepped to the front door and knocked. A dog barked inside, and he could hear someone shuffling around.

The door opened slightly, the face of an old man peering from behind the tarnished brass chain. His snow-white hair was uncombed, faced deeply lined with a slight drooping of his left eyelid. Near the floor, a small dog poked its nose out of the opening and sniffed. Marcus smiled, looked at the old man and said, “Hello, Mr. Tower.”

“Who are you?” His accent had a slight British tone.

“My name’s Paul Marcus. I’m from Virginia. My grandmother lives in an assisted living center, and it’s the same place where an old colleague of yours now lives. Larry Foster sends his regards.”

Tower snorted and cocked his head. “I don’t know anybody named Foster.”

“It’s been a long time. But some things people don’t forget. Things like tragedies in the war, the loss of friends, the loss of innocence…and the killing of General Patton.”

Tower stared through the opening in the door, his sea blue eyes dimming for a moment in the past and then igniting as they focused on the present. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

“I’m doing some research. I won’t be long. May I come in?”

The old man started to close the door. Marcus shoved his foot in the opening. “Please, Mr. Tower. I have to speak with you.”

“What if I have a pistol in my hand? I could shoot you where you stand.”

“I have no doubt that you could. But from what I understand, your killings were justified. We were at war. You had a code of honor, and I’m willing to bet after all these years…you still do.”

The old man said nothing for a few seconds. “Give me a second.” He eased the door shut. Marcus could hear him coughing, the coughs long and deep. A half minute later he removed the chain from the lock and opened the door. “I expected one day somebody like you’d come knocking. Decades went by and no one ever did. Finally, I figured I’d die and take the wounds to my grave. Now here you are. Come in, I have nothing to lose. Not now. Hell no, not anymore.”

The little dog, a terrier, sniffed Marcus’s shoes and followed him to a leather couch. Tower said, “I was just pouring a cup of tea. Would you like to join me?”

“Thank you.”

“Please, have a seat. I’ll bring the cups.”

Marcus sat on the couch and looked around the living room. The home smelled of old newspapers and brewed tea. There was only one photograph. It was of a woman, a brunette. She was standing near some cliffs overlooking the sea, her wavy hair windblown. She had a strong resemblance to a young Elizabeth Taylor.

“That was Annie,” Tower said, shuffling back to the living room, a cup of steaming tea in either hand. “She was my wife.” He handed Marcus the tea and then sat down in a worn, brown leather chair across from him.

Marcus reached for the cup. “Where was the picture taken?”

“Ireland. The Cliffs of Moher. Annie loved it there. She loved the hills and the sea. She was a big city girl, New York, who fell in love with the country. Ireland became her favorite place. We went there a lot until she died. That’s been fifteen years ago.” The old man stopped, his mouth turned down, and he looked away from her photograph.

Marcus lifted his cup of tea and held it a moment. Tower said, “I didn’t put poison in it.”

“I don’t believe you would have.” Marcus sipped the hot tea.

“Why are you here?” Tower coughed, a raspy sound rattling in his lungs.

“The truth.”

“I often wondered what that ever really meant.”

“Why?”

“Maybe it was from war wounds…wounds to my head. My psyche, I guess.” He grunted. “What truth are you looking for?”

“General Patton. I have reason to believe his death was planned.”

“Are you writing a book or something?”

“No.”

“Then why do you want to unearth old ghosts? Tell me why you’re here.”

“I’ve been researching the Bible, plugging in ancient text and looking for syntax, patterns of language correlated with dates and geometric measurements of space and time. These things show a relationship to the design of a long ago destroyed building, to a theory of mathematics and to knowledge that began in a time that only a few people could recognize and appreciate.”

The old man looked straight at Marcus, holding his gaze for a few seconds. A grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed. “What’s that have to do with me?”

“Because, in other forms — in other manifestations, I believe the reason Patton died still exists today, and it may be part of the sum, or part of the reason others died and may die. I want to find a way to prevent that.”

Tower stared at Marcus, his senses looking for the slightest hint of deception. He sipped his tea, placed the cup and saucer on the table in front of him and leaned back in his chair, his eyes shifting to a picture window overlooking a pasture. “At first I thought it was something that the very top down said had to be done for the security of the nation. They called it a justified pulling of a bad weed in the garden of evil. I don’t buy it anymore. He was killed because, as I was told, Patton had lost his mind and was a great danger to America.”

“Who told you that?”

There was a knock at the door. Tower looked at his watch. “Come in, Liz.”

A woman in her late twenties, dressed as a nurse, entered and smiled. Her crimson hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She carried a canvas bag and a notebook. “Liz, this is Paul Marcus. He’s visiting me from Virginia.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said.

Marcus smiled. “It’s good to meet you. Am I interrupting anything?”

The woman turned her head to Tower, deferring the answer to him. He chuckled. “Elizabeth and her colleagues have become my best and only friends these last few weeks. You see, Mr. Marcus, I’m dying. Maybe you’re interrupting death. That’s okay, though. If I make it until the end of next month, I’ll have outlived the doctor’s prediction by a year. But right now, speaking with you, I feel that at this moment, I’m more alive than I’ve been in a long time.”