by Scott Baker
‘The Society have been involved in this project for more years than the Vatican. When I was approached, I had very clear instructions from the Holy Father, but—’
‘May God rest his soul,’ David cut in.
‘Yes,’ Giovanni smiled, ‘exactly. It was when I heard about what we were trying to achieve that I realised there was nothing worth more. And now, finally, thanks to you, we have the ability to see what all the fuss was about. We have the ability to watch an interview with Christ himself.’ A tear threatened to burst free from Giovanni’s eye. ‘Now all we need is to find the disc! And before Le Clerque does. His motives, as I have mentioned, do not comfort me.’
‘Then you’re sure it exists?’ David asked.
‘Ah, my dear boy, again we run on faith, but I believe it exists,’ Giovanni replied. He watched Shaun, who was deathly quiet and looked pained. ‘There is something troubling you?’ he asked quietly.
Slowly Shaun began to shake his head, as if struggling with something. Finally he spoke. ‘I’m sorry, Father, it’s just … I don’t believe like you believe. I just don’t believe in Jesus, in God, in any of that stuff. I know it’s your whole life and everything, but I just don’t believe in a God that can be so cruel, that can let so many bad things happen. I just can’t understand that.’
Giovanni nodded slowly, as if accepting an argument he had heard a thousand times before. He knew not to push the point.
‘I understand what you are saying,’ he said. ‘I too do not always understand the way in which the Almighty works, but I know that the limitation is mine. It is I who do not understand in the same way a dog does not understand where or why its master goes away every day, needing to work to pay for the food he comes home to provide. Understanding changes. Knowledge changes, but things are the way they are. The world was always round, but men were killed for claiming so because the people did not understand. It is the understanding that changes, not the thing. I cannot answer that for you; it is not my place to. Each of us must come to our own conclusion.’
This did not make Shaun feel any better. Lauren was dead, and it was all because of some shared superstition. Shaun could not accept it. He would not accept it. He hated Giovanni then. He hated all of his kind. Their pompous knowing smiles, their gentle understanding nods, he hated all of them, all the religions, all their followers. Because of them, he was alone and Lauren was dead. If there were a God, why didn’t he do something for Shaun for once? Why didn’t he bring back Lauren …
‘Things are not always what they seem.’ Giovanni was still speaking. ‘We arranged for the discs to be laid in certain places in which they could survive the centuries and remain undiscovered. The Society chose those locations, but for the Christ interview, for the disc of our Lord, we were told there would be a map.’
Shaun sank down in his seat. He was tired of all this. He was tired of running and tired of the stress and he missed his wife – their nightly conversations, the feel of her hand in his as she gently fell into sleep. It hurt him like a bodily bruise. Even the thought of Masonville High provided some comfort. How far away that seemed right now.
Still, even if he did not believe in God and faith and religion, there were millions who did, and so he knew that there were many who would kill for this, as he had seen on the freeway and at the motel.
‘Gentlemen,’ Giovanni said after a moment, looking at his watch, ‘I have an appointment at three o’clock with the Holy Father and I must hurry back.’ He rubbed his face, running his fingers down his nose. ‘But I will be done by four. I hope I might visit you again at that time?’
Shaun nodded, and David sat back like a kid who had to wait until he got home from church on Christmas morning before he was allowed to open his presents.
‘When I return I will bring with me some things that will be of interest to you, I’m sure,’ the priest said as he rose and walked to the door. He turned and gripped each of the men by the shoulders, planting a kiss on both cheeks. Then he paused and stood in the open doorway.
‘I do not suppose I might take the unit to my meeting with the Holy Father now?’ he asked. David was taken aback, but Shaun spoke before he had a chance to respond.
‘I’m sorry, Father, the unit stays with us at all times. I’m sure you understand.’
‘Yes … yes I do,’ the Italian sighed and nodded. ‘And you understand that I had to ask.’
‘We understand. We’ll see you back here just after four, then?’
‘Yes, four o’clock, gentlemen.’
With that, Vincenso Giovanni, the man in charge of one of the world’s foremost secret intelligence agencies, turned and walked down the long hotel corridor. Shaun closed the door behind him.
For many moments the two men did not speak. Then with a sigh they sat, each alone with his thoughts. A considerable amount of time passed, and Shaun grew more and more nervous, but it was David who spoke first.
‘You didn’t tell him about the diary,’ he started.
‘We have to get out of here,’ Shaun replied.
‘Get out? What do you mean? He’s coming back here,’ David countered.
‘We have to get out of this room. I have a bad feeling about this. I’m not sure our friend is all he seems to be; there’s something he wasn’t telling us. Did you see how he brushed his finger across his nose when he said he was meeting the Pope? That means he’s lying.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I watch a lot of TV. C’mon David, just get out of this room is all I’m saying. We can tell him where to find us. I’ve just got the feeling that this thing is a whole lot bigger than we thought.’
‘Well, time machines, interviews with Napoleon and Jesus – it’s pretty much the biggest thing that’s ever happened,’ David said.
‘Yeah, but I just don’t think we’re safe in this—’
An enormous explosion cut into Shaun’s comment and the men instinctively ducked at the sound. Glass sprayed the room.
‘That came from the hotel car park!’ David said, racing to the shattered window. He looked out from their third-storey window onto a mass of black smoke where a once-white Alfa Romeo spewed flames into the air. Shaun joined him as, in horror, they watched Giovanni roll out of the car onto the tarmac in death throes, his body a writhing mass of bubbling skin and fire.
‘Shit!’ Shaun yelled, then bolted for the door. David quickly packed the glasses back in with the player, then followed, suitcase in hand.
By the time David arrived at the burning car, sirens were already wailing. Shaun was crouched down next to the disfigured but still breathing figure of Giovanni. Smoke still rose from his clothing and his red-raw skin weeped fluid from its burst blisters. He made no sound. His pain looked absolute, the air seeming to sting every sensation as it whispered past. Shaun tried to reassure him, to calm him but felt incredibly helpless.
As an ambulance came screaming around the corner and the milling crowd parted, David watched. In an extreme surge of will and strength, the dying man lifted his hand and grabbed Shaun by the collar, pulling him down. David was having trouble getting through the thickening crowd to where the flaming wreckage was, but he could see that the old man was trying to say something to Shaun. It was only a few short moments before Shaun was being ushered away from the burning car and the Jesuit priest was covered in a special plastic wrap and loaded into the back of the ambulance.
When Shaun finally walked over to David, his eyes were hard and aggressive.
‘What did he say?’ David asked. For a moment Shaun didn’t answer.
‘We have to leave Rome,’ he replied, and walked away.
‘He knew about the diary,’ Shaun said once he was sure there was no one in the nearby seats who may have taken an interest. He had bought first-class tickets this time, thanks to his newly overflowing bank account. He knew they would be followed – whoever had attacked Giovanni wouldn’t waste time. Shaun and David only hoped that the fact that they hadn’t decided where they were
heading meant their moves could not easily be anticipated.
‘You told him about the diary?’ David asked.
‘No, I didn’t tell him. He knew. When he was lying there, he pulled me down to him and said: “Read. Read till the end.” We both understood what he was talking about.’
‘Then, do you mind telling me why you bought ten open tickets all over Europe and the Middle East?’ David continued.
‘Because that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We need to move, but there’s no telling where we should go. That is, until we track down this Society for World Historical Accuracy or this mysterious Facility.’ Shaun held up the diary, wound the binding string, and laid it on the tray table in front of them both. ‘The answers are in here, I’m certain. Giovanni knew we had it, but he didn’t say a word. What does that tell you?’
David stared at him blankly.
‘He didn’t want us to know,’ Shaun answered himself. ‘He probably assumed that if we knew that he had information about the diary, it would have caused problems for our negotiation. He knew that Lauren was killed by people looking for that same diary. He probably had some inkling as to who they were.’
‘So, you think Giovanni had a connection to the people who are chasing you?’
‘That’s what I think. But maybe not a happy connection. I think he really was trying to help us and they found out about it. Right now, the only way we can solve this is by getting through the rest of what’s written. Maybe we’ll find the map. This little tour we’re taking will give us the chance to do that.’ Shaun flipped the book open and buried his head. David reached forward to his first-class ‘environment’ panel and switched on his reading light. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them and looked down.
CHAPTER 42
We travelled south for a week. Miles’s guide, not much more than a boy, steered us clear of the likely places the Romans would search for us. Malbool thought they would not search for more than a few days, but I suspected otherwise. Miles had given us horses and food, while describing how he had been given instructions to be at this place, at this time, the night after he saw me fight in the Royåle. It was a huge victory for him, after living so long to complete the mission, that it had happened exactly as he was told it would.
Leaving him, I carried a strange sense of inevitability as we rode through the night, our guide and me on our own horses and Malbool balancing Mishca asleep in front of him. When we finally came over a rise to look down on a shipping port, our guide spoke.
‘There is a merchant vessel here that you can take to Jerusalem. If they ask for a bounty, pay them with this,’ the guide said, pulling a large leather pouch from his saddlebag. I loosened the drawstring and nearly fell off my mount as the gold twinkled in the moonlight.
‘What’s this?’ I asked in amazement.
‘My master has been keeping this fortune for you for a long time. He says it’s to guarantee your safe passage. He says that you are on a mission to change the course of the world.’
These past few days our guide had treated us with what I took for mistrust but now realised was actually a nervous fear.
‘Exactly what has your master said about us?’ I asked.
The boy’s eyes quivered a little, then he looked away. ‘He said you would come. No one believed him. They all thought he was going mad in his age, but he said that it was prophecy, that you were the chosen one.’
‘Ha!’ I laughed. ‘Chosen one indeed!’ Then I stopped, realising my boisterous laughter did nothing to bolster the boy’s confidence. I took the pouch and shook the guide’s delicate hand.
‘Tell your master that he has helped to save the world. Tell him that every year he waited for me was not a waste, that I won’t let him down, and that I will return for him before his years are through.’
The guide nodded. ‘He says that you must, for there is more he has to tell you. The merchant’s name is Zachariah. He has chartered a boat already, and it sails at first light today. If you’d come last year, you would have been waiting a week!’
‘It’s all about timing, isn’t it?’ I said, motioning for Malbool to wake Mishca. It amazed me how readily the boy was willing to accept the extraordinary events that were taking place. Children, it seems, are still discovering everything, so the boundaries of their worlds are not set. They can still believe.
The guide spun his horse and began the long return journey north. Malbool, Mishca and I stood atop the hill, bathed in moonlight, staring down at the sea. The last frontier before Jerusalem.
‘We are looking for Zachariah,’ I said in a hushed voice to a man setting up a stall for the morning’s market. He eyed me up and down, then shook his head. It had been the same story for the past hour, and I was getting nervous. No one seemed to know who we were talking about, and we had exhausted every vessel along the dock.
‘What I don’t get,’ Shaun whispered to David as they hunched over the text while the rest of the cabin slept, ‘is why, if this whole mission is so important, The Society didn’t send more people back to help him out.’
David looked up at Shaun. He had already finished the page and was busy scrunching a cloth napkin with his left hand. He studied Shaun for a second silently, then motioned down to the diary with his eyes. Shaun continued to read.
‘Graeme.’
The voice came from behind me. I turned, to look into the familiar eyes of a man I had once known, though he was easily ten years older than when I had seen him last.
‘Hamza?’ I stared in disbelief.
The man, shorter than me and with the warm olive skin of his Jordanian lineage, smiled back.
‘Zachariah,’ the Arab corrected me. ‘I’m an Israelite now – you’d be amazed what passes for a Jew these days!’ Again he smiled his broad smile, exaggerated now by a small goatee of gold and grey. His teeth showed a decade of neglect, but still beamed the same warmth they always had. Back in The Facility, Hamza, Officer X2, was my closest friend. I could not hold back from an embrace.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, bewildered. Hamza did not say anything, but he held out his forearm. Small, but clearly visible, was a scar that took the shape of a word: VOMIT.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Who is your assignment?’
Hamza smiled again. ‘You.’
He pointed to a moderate boat just down the port from us. ‘Come, we have a long journey ahead of us, and not much time. You can ask all your questions on the way.’
‘Why not much time? I’m fairly sure the Romans would have stopped looking for us by now, and Delissio is dead.’
‘Ah! Then somebody got his shot in?’
‘How did you know that?’
Ignoring the question, Hamza looked again at me, his forehead crinkling with concern. ‘Graeme, I’m not talking about the Romans. I’m talking about your assignment. It’s a three-day journey to Jerusalem, and two nights from now Joshua Ben Jacob will sit down to dinner with twelve of his most esteemed colleagues and break bread. I don’t need to tell you what happens the next day. We must hurry.’
Shaun moved to turn the page, but David held his hand down. ‘Are you telling me everything?’ he asked.
‘What are you talking about? You’re the only person I’ve been able to tell anything.’
‘Level with me, man, c’mon. Have you read this thing already?’
‘David, what? You know I haven’t.’
‘Well, you just seem to know an awful lot about what’s coming: the arrow through the back, the antibiotics, sending more people back to help him. Right after you say it, it happens. I don’t want to be taken for a ride here. Just tell me if you’re after the unit; I’m sick of all this deception.’
‘If I knew what was coming, would I tell you? Would I give you a running commentary? Seriously. I know that we’re in the middle of something huge and that we both have something everyone else seems to want – this diary and your video device. I know that Lauren died for
this, and I’m not going to let that be for nothing. I don’t want your player.’
David slowly removed his hand from the book, and the two men eyed each other warily. David started, ‘Look, to be honest, this is frustrating as hell. No offence, man, but my grandmother reads faster than you. Why don’t you keep going for a bit, then I’ll catch up?’
Shaun didn’t understand. ‘What? You don’t want to know what happens?’
‘Of course I do, but there’s something I have to do. I should have done it a while ago.’ With that, David pulled out a pen and the complimentary airline notebook, and began to write. After a couple of seconds, he looked back up at Shaun. ‘Seriously, go ahead, I’ll catch up.’
Shaun shrugged and returned to Graeme Fontéyne on the boat to Jerusalem.
CHAPTER 43
The first two days of the voyage passed without incident, save for Malbool’s bout of seasickness and Mishca’s excitement at learning to climb the mast. The seas were calm and the crew, all four of them, seemed content to do their bit and leave us alone. The vessel was called The Jewel of the Sea and carried a variety of goods bound for Jerusalem, mostly silk and weapons. I was deep in conversation and finally enjoying the company of a familiar and friendly face.
‘So, the whole time your mission was to collect me at that port?’ I asked.
‘Well, I was given a few subsidiary tasks, of course. I took a bunch of scrolls from the Essenes and hid them away near the Dead Sea, but basically that was all just to pass the time. I had a few years to wait – they sent me back a little earlier than I expected.’
‘So, the mark on your arm?’ I pressed.
‘Yeah, funny, just before I was about to go back, literally as I stood on the transporter platform naked, the professor himself approached me, handed me a capsule and told me to swallow it. He said that you must get your interview or millions will die. I had to make sure of it. Then the guards came and held out my arm and cut me. Can you believe that? They cut me right there on the platform. I guess they wanted the pain to be fresh when I arrived, because when I did … well, I’m sure you know how it feels.’