God's Lions - The Dark Ruin (39 page)

“Can they shoot a fighter down?”

“It’s possible given the fact that most air defense systems are controlled by computers. It depends on the individual country, but unless they’ve deactivated their weapons systems, the computers can still order their weapons to fire on any incoming aircraft. They can also interfere with the targeting and navigational capability of our aircraft, but like I said, they only seem interested in watching for now. We’ll try a test flight tonight and see what happens. They might be able to monitor the flight, but they can’t read a handwritten message carried by a pilot.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lev said. “Can you have a plane standing by? I’ll have the message driven to the base.”

Zamir looked distracted as he waved his hand in the air. “Whatever you need, Professor.”

Lev dropped the remainder of his cigar in an empty coffee cup as he studied his friend. Something else was obviously bothering him. “What’s on your mind, my friend?”

“I just keep thinking about old man Acerbi, Lev,” Zamir answered. “What if everything he told us about his son is true ... and we did nothing to help him stop it?”

Glancing down through the tall windows of her Madrid apartment, Evita Vargas stuffed the map Julian Wehling had given her down into her backpack as she watched a growing crowd gathering in front of the market across the street. All across town frightened-looking people were rushing to buy food from shelves that were rapidly emptying in the few stores that still remained open, and in the next few hours Evita knew that things were only going to get worse.

At the moment all she could think of was getting out of town, but first she had to contact Mendoza. All morning long she had been trying to call him, but the cell phones still weren’t working.
He had to be at CNI headquarters.
With public transportation closed down, that meant she had to walk ten blocks through mobs of panicked people.

Looking out across the surrounding rooftops, she could see smoke rising in different parts of the city, a sure sign that rioting had already begun. Somehow she had to reach Mendoza and talk him into fleeing the city with her, because in a situation like this a city was the worst place to be trapped in. Once people realized that there was no longer any food in the stores and that their cash had become worthless, their animal natures would kick in and they would begin to turn on one another.

Tossing her long black hair over her shoulders, she took a final look around her apartment and reached for the doorknob just as someone knocked on the door.
Mendoza
! Always erring on the side of caution, she reached into her purse and removed the little .22 caliber Beretta as she peered through the peep hole.

Standing in the hallway outside, Javier Mendoza was looking down at his watch. Evita smiled and jerked the door open. “Javier! Thank God you came! You don’t know how relieved I am to see you. I thought I was going to have to walk all the way to CNI headquarters to find you.”

“I just came from there. Everyone is leaving. In a few hours the authorities are going to lose control of the situation and mobs will begin taking over the city. Come on, I have a car downstairs, but I don’t know how long it will be there if someone discovers it has a full tank of gas.”

“Where are you planning on going?”

“Anywhere but here. I’m not sure yet.”

“I know exactly where we can go,” Evita said. Pulling the map from her backpack, she handed it to Mendoza.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a map. Julian Wehling gave it to me.”

“Who?”

“The man I asked you to do a background check on ... remember?”

“Oh yeah ... him. You must be pretty special, Evita, because he’s the real deal. You were speaking to Cathar royalty.”

“I know. That’s why we need to follow the map he gave me. It points the way to a Cathar stronghold in the Languedoc region of southern France.”

“You’re kidding! How long have you known about this?”

“Since the day I asked you to check up on him. He told me we should go there when things started to collapse. It’s almost as if he knew this was going to happen.”

“He probably did. After all, he’s one of the Perfecti.” Mendoza paused as he studied the map. “I hate to say it, Evita, but guys like Wehling are kind of spooky.”

“Spooky or not, that’s where we’re headed, Javier. Now, let’s get moving, because in a few hours the roads will become too clogged for travel.”

In the late afternoon of their second day hiding in plain sight, Pope Michael, Leo, and Eduardo Acerbi had settled into their rooms on the third floor of the Hotel Amalfi, but not all was well. Since their arrival, Eduardo had remained bed-ridden, racked by sudden fevers that came and went. The young Jesuit physician who had been summoned by Francois had pumped fluids and antibiotics into the old man, but still he lingered in a semi-conscious state, refusing to go to the hospital. Staring up into the doctor’s eyes, he just kept repeating that he only wanted to remain alive long enough to make a two-day journey to Turkey before he died. But despite his pleas, the doctor was forced to tell him that he would never survive a trip of even one day.

Sitting at his bedside, Leo and Pope Michael recited a few simple prayers for a man they had come to admire. Every now and then Eduardo would stir, repeating over and over that he had to get to Turkey before it was too late.

“I wish there was some way we could contact Evita,” Leo said, thumbing his rosary. “As a Cathar, she could tell us what his spiritual needs are right now.”

The pope reached out and made the sign of the cross on the old man’s forehead before opening a window to let some fresh air into the room. “I have heard it said that in some religions, when a person is dying, the windows must be left open so that their soul can escape its earthly bounds after they pass over.” The pope smiled as he felt the breeze on his face. “Even though Eduardo’s not a Catholic, I offered him the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick yesterday. He refused it of course, as I knew he would. According to his Cathar beliefs, he should be receiving the Cathar rite of consolamentum right now. They believe in the transmigration of souls, and should he die, he may be at the stage of piety where he can go into the light and never have to return to this earth again.”

“You never fail to amaze me, Your Holiness,” Leo said. “How is it that you seem to know so much about other religions?”

“As the spiritual leader over a billion souls, Cardinal, it is my responsibility to know all that I can about the religions of others. It is only through our understanding of one another that we will have any chance at all of achieving some kind of peace among the religions of the world.”

It was no wonder this man had been chosen by the College of Cardinals to be the spiritual leader of the Church, Leo thought, for in a few simple words he had captured the very essence of his papacy.

Looking back into the room, Pope Michael saw that Eduardo was sleeping peacefully. “Let’s give him some time, Leopold. Hopefully the medicine the doctor gave him will do its work.”

Quietly, the two men stepped through the door and padded down the hallway to the pope’s room. The summer rainstorms of the past few days had finally moved on, so they decided to venture out onto the terrace to enjoy some sunshine and wine while they silently contemplated their next move.

Leaning back in his wicker chair, Pope Michael’s eyes drifted across the street to the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica. “So near ... yet so far away, eh Leopold? I wonder what’s going on behind those walls right now.”

“Bishop Morelli informed me this morning that Vespa is maintaining contact with Cardinal Acone. He believes the cardinal is waiting for something, but exactly what remains a mystery. Maybe now would be a good time to return, Your Holiness. Francois assures me that he and his men can protect you.”

“Is that what you think, Leopold? Do you think I’m afraid to go back for fear that something may happen to me?”

“No, I’ve known you too long to think that, Marcus. You’ve never seemed afraid of anything. I was merely suggesting that we might do more good if we were back on the inside instead of sitting here sipping wine on the outside staring at the walls.”

“You don’t know how close I came to walking back through the gate this morning, Cardinal, but we have to be patient. I believe there’s some kind of timetable to all of this, and soon Acone will be forced to show his hand. Sooner or later he’s going to have to pull the trigger, and that’s when I’ll pay him a little surprise visit.”

A knock on the door prompted Leo to set his glass down and move back into the room. Peering through the peep hole out into the hallway, he could see the distorted image of Francois Leander, his nose inches away from the door. Quickly Leo ushered him into the room and closed the door behind him. “Francois ... you look a little out of breath. What’s up?”

“I just received a visitor, Cardinal ... a pilot from the Israeli Air Force.” Leander handed Leo a sealed envelope. “He told me to give you this and that you should read it right away.”

“Why don’t you join us on the terrace,” Leo said, eyeing the envelope. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

“Thank you, Cardinal. That would be most welcome.”

While Francois settled into a chair next to the pope, Leo tore the envelope open and pulled out two folded sheets of paper. “It looks like Lev Wasserman’s team has uncovered something new encoded in Exodus, Your Holiness. Here, have a look.”

Taking the first page, the pope quickly spotted the words
dark star
and
final transition
circled in red. Below them, also circled in red, was the word
Antichrist
. Crowding in next to the pope, Leo and Francois began reading over his shoulder as he came to the last phrase on the page.
The serpent from Asia will ascend to the throne of Saint Peter following the transition.

“The serpent from Asia?” Francois said out loud. “What does that mean, Your Holiness?”

“It’s probably referring to modern day Turkey, which means that Cardinal Acone will become the next pope. What’s today’s date?”

Francois’ voice began to break slightly as he spoke. “August the fifth, Your Holiness.”

“And when was Adrian born?”

“August the sixth,” Leo responded.

The pope gently laid the paper on the table and looked across the way into Vatican City as he repeated the words again. “
The serpent from Asia will ascend to the throne of Saint Peter following the transition.
That must be a reference to Adrian’s transition into the Antichrist, and evidently Acone will become the next pope sometime following the event. The code also mentioned the dark star again, which means the transition is somehow connected to it.”

The pope looked at Leo with a renewed sense of vigor. “We don’t have much time, Leopold. We must find a way to observe the dark star, especially on the 6th. If I’m right, Adrian’s transition will be announced tomorrow by an event in the heavens, and the dark star is the key.”

“I’ll get to work on it right away, Your Holiness. The Jesuits run the Vatican observatory, and Morelli and I can drive up there tonight.”

“Good. We must keep our eyes on that star.” The pope looked down at the second page in Leo’s hands. “What’s that?”

“An intelligence report from Danny Zamir. It seems the Turkish authorities are watching the hills outside Orencik in Turkey, but so far nothing has happened. Also, Team 5 apparently went on a little fact-finding mission to Iraq and discovered some kind of monster computer hidden beneath Acerbi’s compound in Babylon. They’re calling it a quantum computer, and according to them it’s the most powerful computer in existence. Apparently, the technology used to build the thing was all just theory up until now. They also discovered something else ... a computer disk made from sapphire and platinum, and they claim it’s thousands of years old.”

Pope Michael sat up in his chair and let out a low whistle. “It’s all beginning to fit. I believe the mystery of how the Antichrist plans to take over the world has just been solved.”

A knock on the door caused everyone in the room to jump. Pulling his gun from under his coat, Francois moved to the door and peered into the hallway. “It’s the innkeeper.”

The pope waved his hand. “Let him in.”

Entering the room with his head held low, Arnolfo wiped his reddened eyes. “Please, Your Holiness ... you must come quickly. Mr. Acerbi has just passed away.”

Adrian Acerbi was following behind the thing that had once been his mother as they walked through the tall brown grass that covered the hills outside Orencik. Every now and then the thing would turn and look back at him with his mother’s gaze before continuing over the next hill, until finally they reached the edge of the blackened crater.

All morning long Adrian had tried to think of ways to escape, but he was surrounded by troops in the middle of a barren landscape with nowhere to hide. Other than the sound of shuffling footsteps and the occasional grunts from the soldiers, the silence in the hills was absolute as they made their way down into the crater under a cloudless sky interrupted only by the occasional spinning cloud of orange-colored dust kicked up by the sudden gusts of hot wind.

Half walking and half sliding down into the crater, Adrian was prodded by a soldier who looked at the boy with a mixture of curiosity and loathing. It was obvious to him that none of these men wanted to be here, tasked with babysitting a sixteen-year-old boy and his mother, nor did they understand why they had been ordered to escort them out into the hot, dusty hills surrounding an isolated village in the Turkish countryside. All they had been told by their commander was that they were to guard the boy and his mother with their lives and await further orders once they reached their objective.

As soon as they had all descended to the bottom of the crater, the men stared up in awe at the towering stone blocks positioned on top of a raised area in the very center of the crater. Walking over jagged rocks and tufts of brown grass that poked up through the cracked dry crust beneath their feet, the men were puzzled by the existence of such an ancient structure situated in the middle of an obvious volcanic crater.
Who had built it—and why?