The Thieves of Faith (64 page)

Michael ran for his father but fell to a sudden stop as Kadrim scrambled up and grabbed Stephen by the throat, thrusting his Magnum pistol into Stephen’s side. Michael continued to move toward them when Kadrim fired two warning shots into the ceiling, freezing Michael in his tracks.

The main lights failed, the salon fell into darkness, the ship blending into the night. And then the emergency lights flashed on, intermittently flickering. Julian stood up and staggered across the angled floor, stumbling until he grabbed hold of a wall lamp.

“What are you waiting for?” Julian screamed at Kadrim. “Kill him now!”

As the explosions shook him from his position, Captain Bertram instantly knew they were under attack. The sound of the breached hull was unmistakable. He didn’t need to check to know the ship only had minutes before it was lost forever. He tried the radio but all that came back was static; he hit the distress button to send out an automatic mayday, but the emergency signal was jammed. He hit the Klaxon alarm, signaling all to abandon ship. He opened the central drawer in the helm, withdrew his pistol, and headed out of the bridge.

Simon was racing down the lowermost hall when he was knocked from his feet by the concussive force of the blast. He struggled to his feet when the next explosions rocked the ship, actually lifting it up several feet in the water.

And the sea was instantly there, raging in as if from a burst dam. Simon charged down the hall ahead of the mounting wave and caught the stair rail as the water nearly carried him away; he pulled himself up the stairs as the waters began their rise. Six stories he scaled, taking stairs three at a time. The emergency lighting provided minimal illumination at best. No guards impeded his way; he had ensured their inability to protect through either trapping them or removing them from this world.

Simon hit the uppermost level of the ship and came down the cantilevered hallway, struggling to maintain his footing on the angled floor, working his way toward the salon. Seeing the shadows, hearing Julian’s and Michael’s voices, he clung tight to the wall and peered around the corner to see Michael and his father held at bay by a large guard, his gun fixed on Stephen.

Simon slowly raised his pistol and drew a bead on the guard’s head. He steadied himself against the listing ship, wedging himself against the wall, and gently pulled the trigger.

The guard’s head exploded, his gun haphazardly firing into the wall as he tumbled backward, dead. Simon turned the pistol on Julian and for the first time looked at the man. Polished and handsome, charismatic and refined; the perfect facade for a man who was the antithesis of everything that Simon had fought for. Who was the manifestation of everything he fought against; who wrapped himself in a cloak of God to conceal his true self, to hide the devil within. A man who killed without remorse, who promised Heaven for a dollar, who took the life of his own mother, watching with glee as the light left her eyes. And Simon saw something else.

And it was that moment of anger, however short it was, that cost him. For as he aimed the gun and momentarily paused in contemplative rage, in a moment of recognition, a gun rammed his spine and quickly pulled back. Simon glanced over his shoulder to see the ship’s captain standing a safe distance behind—the man wasn’t as foolish as his engineer—obviously trained for pirate-like situations such as these. Simon knew that any move would be met with death, and he wasn’t prepared to die knowing that Julian was still alive and the box yet to be destroyed.

The captain forced Simon into the room and stripped him of his pistol.

“Sir, this ship is going down within three minutes,” Captain Bertram said to Julian as he handed him Simon’s gun. “We have to get to a lifeboat.”

“Where is everyone else?” Julian asked.

“Dead,” the captain said, his eyes indicating Simon.

Julian stared at the dark-haired man and walked toward him.

Julian and Simon stood face-to-face, staring at each other, examining, thinking, and contemplating.

“Who are you?” Julian asked.

Simon smiled.

Julian looked closer; it was a moment before the emotions began to wash over his face as a realization arose in the back of his mind.

“Do you see it?” Simon asked, their identical blue eyes boring into one another. But for their coloring, they could have been twins born sixteen years apart. “Hello, brother,” Simon said with a deadly smile.

“Brother?” Julian laughed. But his mirth slowly faded as he looked into Simon’s eyes and saw the truth. Julian’s lungs struggled for air. “How…?”

“I never even knew you existed until four months ago, until Genevieve told me the truth about her son. Did you know she could never have children?”

Julian took a second, temporarily lost in the moment as the ship continued to sink. He stood there, his arms at his sides, the gun dangling in his left hand.

“Sir,” the captain said to Julian.

Julian ignored him as he continued to stare at his brother.

“Sir,” the captain shouted, panic filling his voice. “If we don’t get off the ship now, we are going to die.”

“Let me relieve you of that worry.” Without looking the captain’s way, Julian raised his pistol and shot the captain in the face.

“Why are you here?” Julian asked as he continued to look at Simon, studying his face, realizing the resemblance but for their coloring and years.

“
Nascentes morimur
—from the moment we are born, we die.”

“You’re here to pray for me?”

“No, to kill you,” Simon said without a single hint of emotion. In a tone very familiar to Julian.

Julian laughed, a hearty laugh, rich and full…and deadly. “Of course,” he bellowed, the humor breaking him out of his familial trance. “You are my brother.”

The ship listed harder to the right, the superstructure deeply moaning as it was twisted and torn apart by the merciless sea.

Julian stepped back, his focus back on the topic at hand. He leaned down, picking up the golden box from where it lay next to the wall, enthralled to be in the position of such power of a true axis mundi. And as he looked at it closer, he noted the lock and its modified appearance.

Julian stared at the box, at the keyhole that was filled in. “What have you done?”

“That box will never be opened again,” Michael said.

“Open it.”

“Can’t,” Michael said.

“OPEN IT!” Julian screamed as he thrust the barrel of the gun into Michael’s temple, pushing it into him as hard as he could.

“I don’t have the key,” he said calmly.

“Yes, you do. You must. She had to give you the key.”

“No, it is with Genevieve. You killed her, remember?”

Julian looked at Michael and, without a word, without a threat, he turned the gun on Stephen and fired, hitting him in the leg, sending Stephen tumbling to the ship’s deck.

“Open it,” Julian said softly.

Michael turned to his father, who lay there clutching his leg, rolling about in pain. He shook his head. “No, Michael. Don’t do it.”

The gun exploded again, hitting Stephen in his good shoulder.

“Open the box,” Julian whispered.

Stephen closed his eyes, his shoulder already red with blood. He continued to shake his head.

“I can’t,” Michael said honestly, his heart breaking as he watched the slow execution of the father he never got to know.

“Open the box,” Julian whispered even softer. He raised the gun again and fired, this time hitting Stephen in the upper right chest.

But Michael didn’t move, his heart feeling as if it were he who had been shot.

Julian ran up to Stephen, who could barely move and laid the gun against his head. “OPEN THE BOX!!!!” Julian screamed, losing it completely.

Michael watched in horror as Stephen lay there riddled with bullets, clinging to life. His eyes at half-mast as he looked Michael’s way. Their eyes locking in a shared unspoken moment.

“I’m sorry,” Michael whispered.

And Julian pulled the trigger of Simon’s gun. Michael jumped in fright, feeling as if he was the executioner of his father.

But much to everyone’s surprise the gun didn’t fire, its cartridge empty.

And then rage overcame Michael. He charged Julian, hitting him hard, smashing him against the wall, the box falling to the ground at their feet. Michael pummeled him, driving his fist into his body, fracturing ribs with every blow. Julian fought back but it was useless. The anger, the fury welled up in Michael at the man before him. And Julian collapsed. But Michael did not stop; he grabbed the empty gun, leapt upon the man and raised the butt of the weapon high above, coiling his arm, ready to deliver the death blow. And as he arced down, his fury, his pain poured into the blow, he was stopped before taking the man’s life. Simon stood there holding his arm, preventing him from killing his brother.

Michael looked up at Simon. “Don’t you dare stop me…”

Simon shook his head and gently took the gun out of Michael’s hand, tossing it aside.

“Michael,” he said quietly. “Go help your father.”

Michael reluctantly stood. He raced to his dad’s side as the water poured in the room. The ship was more than three-quarters gone. The ocean waves lapped over the aft deck, spilling in.

Simon stared down at his brother, at his battered and bloodied face, and felt nothing but revulsion.

“Thank you,” Julian whispered through swollen, torn lips.

Simon grabbed the mooring line and tied Julian’s feet. “There is a reason Genevieve kept your true lineage secret from the both of us. She knew me, she was always afraid of what I might do to you. You…” He paused. “You may be my brother, but know this…that will not stop me from what I am about to do.”

“You can’t kill me.”

Simon smiled as he looped the rope up behind Julian’s back, securing a noose around his neck. Simon flipped Julian over and tied his hands together in front of his body, leaving the preacher bound on the teak deck of the ship. Simon rose, picked up the other end of the one-hundred-and-fifty-foot rope and tied it securely to the deck rail, leashing his brother to his beloved ship.

“If you are somehow blessed, if the box was able to impart life, if you somehow can overcome your injuries and find eternity on earth.” Simon paused and smiled. “Well, then you will spend your eternity contemplating it from the deepest depths of the ocean, from a world of eternal darkness, where you will be utterly alone, where your body will be crushed, where your lungs shall cry for one more breath…a world where no one can hear you scream. I hope you do not die. I hope you do find your eternity.”

God’s Whisper
was sinking, faster now. Water rushing through the hallway, lapping over the uppermost rail, the waters beginning to churn around Michael as he leaned over his dying father.

Stephen looked up at Michael, fighting to hide the pain. “OK, that hurt.”

“Don’t move.” Michael grabbed his satchel, using the shoulder strap to tourniquet his leg. He checked the chest wound but couldn’t tell if any organs were hit. “We’ve got to get off this boat.”

Simon ran over to them.

“Find Paul,” Michael said. “We need to get Stephen out of here.” And he looked at the golden box that lay on the floor beside them. “And bury that thing in the ship.”

Simon raced into the large galley; he searched the drawer and found a roll of tin foil and quickly wrapped the gold box, covering it completely. He took the case and shoved it in the lower oven, locking it in as the ocean water rushed in around him. Simon struggled against the chest-high current before diving under and swimming out of the flooded room. He had to find Busch and he had to find the boat. For if he didn’t, they would all surely die out in the middle of the Mediterranean, well away from the shipping lanes, no one having any idea where they had gone.

The stern, the last section of
God’s Whisper,
was all that remained visible above the surface before it began its two-mile journey to the darkest depths of the Mediterranean.

Michael slogged through waist-deep water, his dad floating alongside on cushions from the couch.

Julian frantically pulled at the rope about his leg with his bound hands, clawing, yanking, anything he could to prevent the inevitable. He had fought his whole life to live, and now…

Michael passed him by and grabbed the rail, he held his father and they both began to float as the deck continued to sink. They floated out into the open sea, watching as the ship continued down. Julian floated out alongside them, his eyes crying for mercy.

And then the salon disappeared: all that remained visible of the nearly four-hundred-foot yacht was its stern rail and the one hundred and fifty feet of nylon cord that floated on the surface. Michael looked over as Julian frantically struggled to keep his head above water, only postponing the inevitable. He kicked and twisted, doing everything in his power to free himself, but it was a useless effort.

The stern rail vanished and the ship was gone, a froth of bubbles boiling up around them. The rope attached to Julian began to glide away, diving under the small waves, like a snake into the grass. Julian stared in horror as the line disappeared; fifty feet left, forty feet, and then, quicker, twenty, ten. And without fanfare, without a sound, Julian was silently yanked under, pulled to the deepest depths of the ocean with his shattered ship. The golden box, Albero della Vita, the Tree of Life, hidden within, to be lost for all eternity. Julian would be buried forever with the object of his life’s obsession.

The depth was two and a half miles, far deeper than any reasonable salvage mission. They had maintained radio silence since leaving Corsica under Julian’s direct orders. No distress warning was ever issued. The ship would truly be lost and its owner along with it, leaving behind nothing but a mystery, wiping Julian Zivera from the face of the earth.