Destiny

SEVENTY-TWO

An hour later, Marcus and Alicia ordered breakfast at the Café Beaubourg on Rue Saint Martin. Alicia sipped her coffee. “Paul, the assassination, it was like you predicted. Not in the Lincoln Memorial, but here in Paris in the shadow of the UNESCO building, an organization that is the very foundation for world peace. And now, the death of Gisele Fournier. Who’s behind this?”

“I don’t know. Gisele was going to bring me the letter or a copy of the letter her grandfather had written to Mother Pascalina, Pope Pius’s assistant. I believe the letter was coded, and I don’t know what was said in the last paragraph. Gisele said it was written in a language that wasn’t familiar to her.” Marcus stirred his coffee. “Before the prime minister’s assassination, security at the UNESCO headquarters was heavy. Metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs, helicopters, dozens of cops and agents, and those were the ones you could see. Still, the assassin got off two shots, and he did it from an office on the third floor of the building. Inspector Juneau and the French DGSE interrogated me for three hours.”

“You’re the one person who tried to warn people that this may happen.”

A waiter brought two plates of omelets, sliced tomatoes, croissants with butter and fruit, and refilled their coffee cups before exiting.

Marcus said, “I’m only the messenger. But whoever heard of a whistleblower blowing a whistle before the event has happened? That’s what the authorities — police can’t grasp — reporting or predicting a murder before it happens. Even Secretary Hanover can’t get her head around it. By the way, she did tell me the talks to free Brandi and Adam are at a standstill. I feel bad telling you that.”

Alicia held her coffee cup in two hands and looked at the steam for a moment, her eyes filled with reflection. “I’m so fearful for them, Paul, and I feel helpless. My sister is holding news conferences, doing whatever she can to keep Brandi and Adam’s faces in the news and on the minds of people.”

“We’ll find something, Alicia, which will get Iran’s attention to release them. I’m not sure what, yet, but we will. Let’s go back to the Vatican for a moment. Did you find anything about a connection to the Roman Catholic Church during the underground flight of Nazi war criminals?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t the Vatican. It was a Catholic bishop tossed out of the Vatican. Pope Pius XII had a very difficult time with an Austrian bishop who was a Nazi sympathizer and a devout follower of Hitler. This man’s name was Alois Hudal. He apparently had been extraordinary as a member of the Roman Catholic Church. He was known as a master communicator and an excellent writer, too. He’s believed to have helped engineer the escape of some of the most notorious Nazis, including Josef Mengele — the Angel of Death, and Klaus Barbie. Paul, it’s almost like Hudal had a Faustian pact with the devil. Klaus Barbie was directly responsible for the deaths of 14,000 people. One of those deaths included a member of the French Resistance, a man named Jean Moulin. Barbie is believed to have personally beaten Moulin to death while he was strapped in a chair nailed to the floor.”

“French Resistance…Philippe Fournier was a member of the Resistance, too.”

“Maybe there’s our connection. Before Pope Pius tossed Hudal out of the Vatican, the Pope had been dealing with the plight of eight million Russian Catholics under the Stalin regime. If he’d come down publicly against Stalin, many of these Russian Catholics would have been sent to the gulags. The Pope had seen first-hand what Nazi Germany had done. What if, after Hitler’s fall and Patton’s death, Pope Pius had tried to keep the Spear of Destiny from getting into the hands of Stalin?”

“James Tower told me Fournier was authorized by someone to buy the spear. Gisele said her grandfather, Philippe, had been in Rome shortly after the war…and she mentioned that he saw a statue on the bridge leading to the Castel Sant’Angelo. The statue resembled the face of the weeping angel in the Garden of Peace at the UNESCO headquarters. But the statue on the bridge in Rome was carrying a lance…a spear.”

Alicia raised an eyebrow. “Could the real spear be there, in Rome, today?”

“Did you do a search to find the gothic cathedral closest to the mission of the Catholic Church?”

“That took some digging and vetting because most of it is subjective, a popularity vote in the twenty-first century might give Notre Dame the number one spot. But during the eleventh century that wasn’t the case. The old cathedral in Chartres, an hour south of Paris, aligned well with the Roman Catholic Church because Chartres was called the Virgin Mary’s seat on earth. Aside from Christ himself, Mary is iconic with the Catholic Church.”

Marcus said nothing for a few seconds.

“Paul, what are you thinking?”

“I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of Philippe Fournier after he bought the spear from James Tower. Did he originally go to Rome to deliver the spear to the Pope, or did he receive payment from the Pope to buy the spear and hide it somewhere else?”

“Remember, I found four locations for the spear, or alleged Spears of Destiny, and one was in the Vatican.”

“Yes, but those are publicly known. With four out there, it would be difficult to steal all four. What a brilliant plan!”

“What?”

“What if they, the Catholic Church, made replicas of the original spear, scattering them in guarded museums and in the Vatican, and, all the while, they had the original hidden somewhere?”

“Where?”

Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know. Did you find any more information about the Circle of 13?”

Alicia blew a strand of hair from over her eye. “I’ve had to hack my way into information. At one time, I only needed a name and social security number to pull up every document ever written about someone from birth to obit. These guys or their watchers are like phantoms. Officially, of course, the Circle of 13 doesn’t exist. But in reality, they’re a members-only, billionaire’s club that’s far beyond anything or any person connected to secret societies, like the Bilderberger Council, Skull and Bones, Freemasons, Illuminati, Council of Nine or some of the others. From what I’ve been able to piece together, the Circle of 13, undoubtedly, represents the most powerful people on the face of the earth. There are only thirteen members at any given time. It’s believed they can create or decide things that affect, directly or indirectly, every person in the world. They make the decisions as to when wars will start, how long they’ll last, and what nations will be involved. Part of all this is the supply chain, the financial infrastructure of wars, which means who will lend money to support the war efforts and rebuild the countries involved after the last poor nineteen-year-old soldier is buried.”

“Who are they?”

“I’ve cross-referenced everything at my immediate disposal. Through a lot of sifting, following rumors and innuendos that sometimes lead to more sturdy bridges, I’m getting a short profile only because they can’t completely hide the money trails since the money moves electronically. Those trails, of course, leave fingerprints. This secret group is believed to run the central banks of Europe, our biggest banks and even our own Federal Reserve System. Paul, this gives them the leverage to choose discount rates, money-inventory amounts, control derivative and hedge funds, even the price of gold and the countries granted access to loans. Since they have controlling ownership in major banks, they have the power to set interest rates, creating billions of dollars for themselves.”

Marcus stirred his coffee and sat quiet for a moment. “If you run commerce, the banking systems, and have all of the power over mortgages and credit cards, you control the very core — the lifeline of people desperate to hang onto a job, a home, and a way of life. Any group, such as the rising middle class, could be wiped out or knocked down several notches if they became too financially powerful.”

“That leads to people reaching breaking points. Ready to accept whatever rations the gatekeepers hand them in exchange for their services and civil obedience.”

“That was one of the reasons we cut the umbilical cord to the king of England. We declared that the creator had given us certain unalienable rights, such as liberty and the pursuit of happiness and a good dose of self-governance.”

Alicia lowered her voice. “These secretive billionaires decide who will run for the heads of state offices around the world. They own huge industrial and high tech companies, providing them the power to set wages. They ignore or bend governance regulatory laws because they have politicians who write the soft laws in favor of the polluting and often abusing business paradigms these companies create. To spin a public relations campaign for their hidden agendas, they have majority stakes in global news media companies. Meaning they can twist politics, economic news and events to sway the public to follow their way of thinking.”

“If you own the media, you can create artificial events that stoke fear in the hearts of the people…essentially wearing them down like a fighter trapped in a corner and getting hit repeatedly in the head. Do you have leads — names of people suspected to belong to this group?”

“Jonathon Carlson and Alexander Van Airedale are two suspected to belong to the group or have ties to it. Carlson is CEO of Integrated Security Corporation. Van Airedale heads UDT, a multinational company that does contract work around the globe, anything from roads, bridges, pipelines to power plants. His company is believed to have been associated with the German giant, Siemens, when they were caught and fined a record one-point-two-billion dollars for bribery schemes.”

“That’s quite a toll to pay for violation of international securities laws.”

Alicia shook her head. “They didn’t think they’d get caught. It’s the same mindset that fueled the greed on Wall Street with the banks. With billions to be won or lost, these ruthless people plan ahead for years, setting strategy and people in place.”

“Maybe John Kennedy Junior would not have fit in their plans.”

“Maybe.”

“If General Patton was assassinated and, if JFK Junior, his wife and sister-in-law were all murdered…are the incidents related? We know a lot of this began with the Nazi buildup through the end of the war and into the Nuremberg Trials. James Tower believes David Marcus’s death could have been in retaliation to his involvement in the trials. Industry tycoons like Fritz Thyssen played a role in financing Hitler’s rise. They had ties to American investment firms and banks that could launder Nazi money. The European Union evolved from the economic rebirth of Germany. Philippe Fournier learned of the players at that meeting in Strasbourg, Germany, when the Red House proposal was revealed. James Tower called it a one-hundred-year plan. If it began in 1933, it won’t be too long before they may achieve their goals.”

“How can they be stopped?” Alicia pushed her plate away.

“If someone can find a way to expose them, these thirteen might fall like the Berlin Wall fell years ago…brought down by the people. But it won’t be easy.”

“What do we do next?”

“We go to an ancient cathedral in France.”

“If you’re suggesting Chartres, what exactly are we searching for?”

“Maybe the tunic worn by Mary, Jesus’ mother at the time of his birth, and possibly the spear that entered his body at the time of his death.”