Lynne
I found a church not far from the hotel and went there in the evening while Connor was out. You can’t throw a rock in Rome without hitting a church. I entered the sanctuary and took a seat in one of the pews.
Christmas was ten days away and I had no idea where we would be on that day. I wondered if we would still be alive on Christmas morning. I touched my abdomen. It’s going to be all right, I thought, defiant. It has to be. It took you a long time to find your way here. I’m not going to let that long trip be for nothing. No one is going to take you away from us.
I closed my eyes and started to pray. When I opened them again, there was an elderly woman seated next to me. The woman smiled and patted my hand. “It will be all right, signora,” she said softly.
“It shows, huh?” I asked.
“In Christ’s church you will find sanctuary,” the woman said. “You will be safe here.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Your husband, do you love him?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.” How did she know….
“Then you must forgive him.”
I was startled by the woman’s statement. “How do you know—?” Impossible. She can’t possibly know what we’ve been dealing with….
“You must forgive him. You must be the wife he needs, and he will be the husband you need,” the woman continued. “Go with him. Do not be afraid to love him.”
Do not be afraid to love him. The words echoed in my mind. Do not be afraid to love him.
The woman looked at me, a look of kindness, of knowing my secrets somehow. It made me increasingly nervous. “Go with him. Have faith. God will see you through the storm.”
I stood up. “I don’t know how you know me, but….”
“Trust your Father. Go to Christ’s church.”
I got to my feet and rushed out of the church. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. The woman had not threatened me. She’d offered only encouragement. Still, the fact that she seemed to know so much—too much—instilled a sudden feeling of paranoia in me. Walking back to the hotel in a falling snow, I was convinced everyone I saw on the street was following me.
This isn’t me, I thought. I’ve never been like this before. Dear God, help us.
“Do not be afraid to love him, Lynne.”
“I do love him,” I said aloud. “Loving him has me running for my life, for my baby’s life. What else has he kept from me?”
“You are his wife. You will go with him.”
“Where else could I go?”
“Do not be afraid to love him….”
46
Connor
The town of Subiaco is seventy kilometers east of Rome, situated high on a hill overlooking the Aniene Valley. It is home to the San Benedetto Monastery—whose abbey is built, literally, into the cliffs.
The sun was setting over that monastery when I found what I was looking for.
I’d been out all day, scouting potential locations for the accident. It had to be an isolated spot, a place where there was little likelihood of being interrupted by passing motorists. The terrain had to be rugged, and there would have to be a ravine, something deep enough to guarantee total destruction of the vehicle when I ran it off the road. This had to be an accident no one could possibly survive. If I calculated carefully, the gas tank would explode on impact.
I made a mental note: Buy petrol. Water coolers, at least three.
Now, on a deserted road above the cliffs, I parked the rental car and got out. I stood there for a long time, looking about. I saw nothing. No signs of life. Finally satisfied, I walked down a hundred yards, where the narrow road took a sharp turn. There was a guardrail, but it was old and rusted. I grabbed it with both hands and shook it hard, putting as much pressure on it as I could.
The vehicle will gain momentum rolling down the hill, I mentally estimated. The weight of the vehicle, the speed…this will work.
I walked back to the rental car, turning the collar of my coat up to block the cold winter wind. Once I was in the car, I took out my phone and called Lynne. “I’ll be back there in about an hour,” I told her. “Did you get everything?”
“It’s all packed and ready to go.”
“And you did pay cash?”
“For everything,” she said.
“Did you get the needles and syringes?”
“Yes.”
I drew in a deep breath and exhaled, thinking. “We should be out of here by the end of the week, then.”
I was reluctant to leave her alone, as I had today. She was still angry, still mistrustful. She acknowledged that she still loved me, but I suspected she’d given more than a passing consideration to leaving me. I couldn’t let her do that.
I wouldn’t.
“When we leave here, we’re not taking any of this with us,” I told Lynne. “Luggage, clothing, everything will be left behind. We’re not checking out. We’ll still be guests of this hotel when we die.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I can do this,” she said, sinking into a chair.
“We have to,” I insisted. “I hate having to take you away from everything you know—your family, your work—but we have no choice. These people are killers, Lynne.”
She sat there, looking down at her feet, still shaking her head.
“When you think you can’t go through with it all, ask yourself what matters most to you,” I said sharply.
“My baby,” she answered without hesitation.
“Our baby,” I corrected her. Then I remembered. “I was so stupid. Edward warned me.”
She looked up at me, surprised by the statement. “What do you mean?”
I scratched the back of my neck. “I suggested impregnating you myself back when we were still considering you as a participant in our program,” I said. “He reacted in a way I couldn’t understand. He told me it would be—his exact word—disastrous.”
“But he didn’t tell you why. Had you known all of this, would you have stayed away from me?” she asked.
d you known all of this, would you have stayed away from me?” she asked “I’d like to think I would have,” I started, “but I was gobsmacked by the reality I’d fallen in love. I don’t know. I don’t know that I could have stayed away from you.” I hesitated. “Would you have turned me away if you’d known?”
“I don’t know, either,” she admitted.
I nodded. “That’s good. It’s a start.”
“Where do we go from here?” she asked, seeming to have finally resigned herself to what lay ahead for us.
“First, we stage the accident. Once we’ve convinced the world at large we’re dead, we leave here. We use passports with new identities, and we head east. If anything goes wrong and they discover we’re still alive, Edward will expect us to be traveling first class,” I went on. “With that in mind, we’ll travel like a couple of middle-class tourists. Coach seats, compact rental cars, cheap hotels—”
“I’m used to that,” she reminded me.
“We’ll need luggage—something inexpensive, maybe from a secondhand store,” I went on.
She nodded. “No problem.”
“You’ll have to change your appearance.”
“Me?” she asked. “What about you? They don’t know me, but you….”
“I grew this after I left London,” I said, referring to my hair and beard. “No one there has seen me since. A rinse to make it darker, perhaps.”
“You might want to wear dark glasses, too,” she said. “Your eyes are…distinctive.”
I tried to smile. “That almost sounds like a compliment.”
“So,” she began thoughtfully, “I should get my hair cut and dyed?”
“No. Buy wigs,” I suggested. “Several, different styles and colors. Pay cash for everything.”
Lynne nodded.
I went to the closet brought out the syringes, needles and glass tubes. “What’s that for?” Lynne asked.
“Blood.”
“For what?”
“I’m going to splatter it on everything I discard at the crash site. Crime scene investigators will be looking for DNA evidence, and I don’t intend to disappoint them.” I sat in a chair next to her and applied a rubber tourniquet to my left arm, then attached one of the needles to the syringe. Using my teeth, I tore open a small packet containing an alcohol swab and wiped a patch of skin near the bend of my elbow. I drew blood from myself, filling several tubes, then disposed of the needle.
“Give me your arm,” I told her.
And I started the process again…
“What are you doing?” Lynne asked. She’d awakened to find herself alone in bed. She came looking for me and found me at my computer, working frantically.
“Moving money. My trust fund in London, to be precise,” I explained. “Since I won’t be going back and don’t want Edward to be able to track our movements, I’m moving the money from bank to bank to keep them from following me online. It will end up in a bank, under one of our aliases, in Hong Kong, which is where we’re going when we leave here.”
And I turned my attention back to the computer…
“I’ve got everything you wanted,” Julian Marshall told me.
“Excellent. Meet me tonight for the transfer.” I gave him directions to Subiaco. "I’ll be arriving by seven-thirty.”
“I’ll see you there,” Marshall promised.
After I ended the call, I turned to Lynne. “Make reservations for us under the names Ian and Marissa Campbell on the last available flight to Hong Kong. Have them hold our tickets at the counter. Be ready to leave when I get back—and don’t open that door for anyone, no matter what.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, concerned.
“To cause an accident,” he said. “If I’m not back by midnight, leave without me.”
I mentally reminded myself not to go past the posted speed limit. The last thing I wanted to do now was to call attention to myself.
It was dark and windy when I arrived at my destination. Marshall was already there, waiting in a nondescript black van. I got out of my rental car. “Punctual, I see,” I said as Marshall climbed out of the van.
Marshall looked around. “How do you intend to pull this off?” he asked.
“I’ll release the brake and roll it down that hill. I checked this place out a few days ago—there’s a three-hundred-foot drop off that curve. I have three kegs in the trunk full of petrol. When it hits the bottom of the ravine, it will all explode, and that should cause it to burn to the point at which there will be almost nothing left.”
I released the brake and he and I pushed the car along the road until it gained enough momentum to roll down the hill on its own. As I had anticipated, it crashed through the rotting wood fence along the curve and plunged to the bottom. There was a loud explosion, followed by flames shooting up from the ravine.
“It worked,” Marshall said, watching the fireball engulf the surrounding trees. “There won’t be much left to identify.”
“Exactly.” I picked up a heavy duffel I’d removed from the car and walked over to the edge of the road. I removed my wallet, Lynne’s messenger bag and our cell phones, all stained with the blood I’d drawn. I tossed everything into the ravine.
Marshall came up beside me. “Impressive. You’re going to a great deal of trouble to hide from someone,” he observed.
“Yeah.” I took a thick brown envelope from inside my coat. I gave it to Marshall, who checked the contents, then tucked it into his breast pocket.
“Good doing business with you,” he said, turning to walk away.
I took my gun from my coat pocket and fired a single shot to the back of his head. Marshall fell to the ground face down. “Sorry, old man, but I couldn’t let you live,” I said, kneeling to make sure the other man was indeed dead. “I couldn’t take that chance. You know too much.”
I took Marshall’s van. As I drove away, I saw his body in the rear-view mirror. Beyond that, black smoke billowed up from the ravine. Mentally, I considered all the possible conclusions the authorities might reach when they came upon the scene. How long before it’s discovered?
I wanted it to be found quickly. I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Lynne. “It’s done,” I told her. “Are you ready to leave?”
“Just waiting for you.”
“If anything happens, if I’m not back by midnight, I want you to go on without me,” I said then.
“No.”
“Yes,” I said firmly, careful to stay well below the posted speed limit. “If I’m not there by midnight, it will mean something’s gone wrong, that I’ve been found out. I want to know you’ll be safe. What time is our flight?”
“Two a.m.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s going to be close,” I said. “You did arrange for a car?”
“It’s already here. Parked where you told me to leave it. Everything’s in the trunk.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We barely made it to da Vinci Airport in time to get through security and make our flight. Lynne fell asleep almost immediately after takeoff. She rested her head on my shoulder and slept peacefully. I kissed her forehead and caressed her hand. I’ll make this up to you. We will be free of them. Somehow. Some way.
“Sir?”
The flight attendant was addressing me. “I’m sorry—what?” I asked.
“Would you like a pillow?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And your wife?”
“I don’t want to disturb her, but yes, bring two—and a blanket,” I said. “It’s a bit cool.”
“I’ll be right back.”
When she returned, I tucked one pillow behind my head and put the other on my lap. If she woke, I’d make her more comfortable. I pulled the lightweight blanket up over her shoulders and tucked it around her.
I was exhausted and desperately wanted to sleep, but didn’t dare. I couldn’t, not until I was sure we were safe.
I thought of my mother and what they had done to her. They’d taken a small boy from his mother. They’d murdered her. You took my mum, but you won’t take my wife. You won’t take my child.
You won’t do to my child what you did to me.
47
Lynne
I lay awake in the darkness, trying to make sense of everything that was happening to us. Connor was conceived by in vitro. But a superhuman? No. Perfect? No. None of it added up. Something was missing from the equation.
But what?
Then it hit me.
The prophet shall come forth from the island of the angels….
Ex insula Angelorum. England.
He must find hope before he can give hope to others…
Connor doesn’t believe…
Dear God, is it possible?
I stared at the laptop monitor, looking up as Connor emerged from the bathroom, yawning. After a week of sleepless nights, he’d finally managed to sleep for almost ten hours, but he still looked as though he could barely keep his eyes open.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked. “You should be resting.”
“I’m pregnant, Connor, not terminal.” I continued to stare at the monitor.
“You’re trying to do too much,” he insisted.
“I’m looking for answers.”
“Answers to why my stepfather aligned himself with a cartel of lunatics?” he asked. “It’s a one-word answer. Greed.”
“I don’t think even he knows the whole story,” I said slowly, scrolling down the page I was reading.
He looked at me, confused.
“The papyrus is the key,” I said.
“What’s that to do with any of this?” he asked.
I looked up at him. “I believe you’re the prophet.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “If you want to hear God laugh, tell him that.”
“Have you ever seen angels, Connor?�
� I asked.
He managed a weak smile. “I was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy when I was six years old,” he said. “I had more than my share of weird, out-of-the-ordinary experiences. I not only saw them, I heard them argue with each other, fighting over me. When I was very young, I did have my own guardian angel.”
“Guardian angel?” I asked.
“She said God had sent her to watch over me,” he recalled. “My mother always told me God sent guardian angels to look after us. After she died, this woman appeared to me, a woman who actually looked very much like my mum. She had beautiful, long red hair, green eyes and a lovely, comforting voice. She told me God had a wonderful future planned for me. She gave me hope. Then one day someone at my school saw me talking to her—but they couldn’t see her. They told Dr. Fairfield, the director of the school, and soon I was on drugs for my illness.”
“She didn’t visit you anymore?” I asked.
“She did. I ignored her.”
“The voices drove my mother mad,” Connor recalled. “It got so bad that she couldn’t deal with it. She tried to kill herself. Mum used to let me get in the bath with her when Edward was away on business. One night, I went in to see if she’d let me get in with her. I saw the blood first. There was so much blood, she was so pale. I didn’t know what had happened, but it scared me. The blood was in the water, on the floor.”
“She slit her wrists?” I asked.
He nodded. His voice trembled when he spoke. “I was so frightened. I grabbed her bloodied wrist and begged her to wake up, to talk to me. I started to cry. I don’t know how, exactly, it happened, but the wound began to heal. It healed completely, not even a scar.”
“You healed her,” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “She believed I did.”
“As young as you were, to have that much power—no wonder these people want to control you.” I took his hands in mine. “Connor—you are the prophet!”
Chasing the Wind Page 17