As the man neared to within a half block, Zack could see he walked with a stiff-legged gait that reminded him of those flesh-eating zombies in horror movies. In spite of the heat, a chill ran down his spine as the behemoth steadily came closer. He clucked at himself for getting spooked but nevertheless glanced around nervously to see if anyone else was about. Nobody. The man and he might have been on the moon—or rather the surface of the sun—for all the company they had.
Now the man was only about thirty yards away. He was enormous, pushing seven feet if he was an inch. Zack was six one, but this guy was head and shoulders above him. He was certainly north of three hundred pounds, and, from what Zack could tell, none of it was fat. The man’s hair was long, thin, and a dingy ivory color that with a good washing would probably be white. This must be what a World Federation wrestler looks like walking around in public. A sense of foreboding rolled over Zack, and he began to panic. He told himself to get a grip. For Christ’s sake, it’s the middle of the day in the middle of town. There’s nothing to fear.
Pow! There was a quick flash of dry lightning and the slam of thunder. Zack jumped and, in spite of himself, was genuinely afraid.
The man was only two car lengths away, and Zack could now see his ruined face. If someone had told him the man had gone through the windshield in a head-on car accident and then had had acid poured on his face, Zack would not have disputed it. His internal danger alarms were firing for reasons he could not fully explain. The man was dangerous, and Zack had no help in sight. He could never take this guy; his only hope was to bolt.
Just as Zack turned to run, the monster man rounded on him where the sidewalk intersected the entranceway to one of the many church breakfast kitchens in the area. He was trapped. He dropped his jacket and backed away from the man, slamming against the locked door. His heart pounded, and a cold sweat rolled down his back, chilling him to the bone.
The huge man studied him as if he recognized him. He didn’t say a word but with his big, meaty hand reached into the pocket of his overalls and withdrew a card. The man gazed down at it for a second, as if it were something precious to him. He extended an arm the size of Zack’s leg and handed him the card. Zack’s mouth fell open as he watched the giant turn and continue up the street.
Zack exhaled, not realizing he had been holding his breath. He glanced down at the card and then looked back up the street for the man. He didn’t know if he was safe or if the man was toying with him in some kind of frightening game.
He scooped up his coat and ran to the blind corner, looking up and down the street. There was nothing but yellow haze and the heat radiating off the concrete. The giant had simply vanished. Zack wondered if he had suffered some sort of heatstroke and imagined all of it.
But he could not shake the eerie feeling that this had been real as dirt. He looked at his hand. There was the card. Proof. He held it up and looked at it closely. It shimmered slightly in the odd light. He studied the lone character on it as a single lightning bolt cracked and for a second turned Church Street strobe white.
Now, looking at the card in his hand as he rolled down the highway, he reviewed again the solidary symbol inscribed on the card: “1.”
CHAPTER
3
London, England
It was two in the morning in the grungy, dead-end pub, and she had given last call an hour earlier. The woman, having cleaned the tables and stacked the chairs, totaled the night’s receipts. It was the last thing to do before heading home to her flat and her two little girls. By now they would have been asleep for hours. Thank God her mum lived in the same building and could watch over them.
The large neon sign in the bar’s only window hummed, went out, and suddenly crackled back to life, giving the woman a start. She looked around but sensed nothing except the smell of stale beer and sweat. Her boss had left long ago, leaving her alone to close up. She hadn’t minded when he began doing this sometime back, but in the last couple of years, the neighborhood had become rougher and more hostile. She dreaded the six-block walk home at this hour.
Still, she had to have this job. She had two hungry children to feed, and Rachel, her oldest, started church school in the fall. The woman took double shifts every chance she could to save up money for the private school. In England, only three things mattered: family, money, and education. She had neither of the first two, but she had saved for the third. Her girls would have their chance as long as there was a breath in her body. Her girls would be different.
She paused in her task and thought about the girls’ father, who had abandoned them after losing his job and being unable to find work. The sorry son of a bitch. Failure had broken him. She had no such option. Once again, she told herself how much he had missed and how glad she was that he was gone. The girls were warm, fed, and well loved.
The tavern was located below street level, and patrons had to walk down a flight of steps to enter. It had been an air raid shelter during the war. She felt claustrophobic all of a sudden and hurried to finish up and leave. As she slipped out of her apron, she heard a thump from the stairwell. She spun around. Someone was coming down the stairs. But that’s impossible! She had locked the door and set the dead bolt herself. She began to shudder.
“Who’s there?” she called, her voice cracking.
Silence … but the shape continued down the steps. She could see blue jeans and figured it was a kid. Then there were more figures on the steps.
“What do you want? The bar is closed!” she cried out.
Silence. Now there were at least a half dozen figures, in some kind of loose formation, coming down the staircase. She could see their legs and some of their midsections. All were in jeans or what the kids called cargo pants. As they came farther down the stairs, she could see tattoos. She froze in place, sweating with fear.
The leader, in a leather jacket, reached the bottom step and hopped childlike to the floor. He looked at her with dead, soulless eyes. His cohorts followed behind and spread out right and left. Her heart pounded, and she looked around for some avenue of escape.
“There is none,” said the young man, reading her mind.
She studied the group. This was a pack of wolves. Predators. She thought about her girls, and her heart broke. She straightened, lifted her head, and said, “I’m not afraid of you. You boys take yourselves back up those steps and get out of here.”
The intruders stood rooted where they were.
“Do you want money?” she asked, thinking of the receipts in the cash register.
“No,” said the lead boy, giggling. The pack snickered, and the leader produced a thin knife in his right hand. The rest of the group followed suit and brought out knives or box cutters of their own. They began to circle around her. As they moved, they started a low chant. The drone and intonation made her think of some cultish ritual. It was demonic and rang with pure evil. She could not quite make out the words, but they were calling upon the dark powers, she was sure.
The circle around her moved right and then left. She was trapped. The chanting intensified. The woman was terrified but stood straight—her faith like a rock. She saw the white faces and the hollow eyes. She had been a God-fearing woman all her life, and this was the night she would be called home to him. The chill in the room vanished, and the temperature began to rise. She thought she smelled cinders and incense.
“I will fear no evil though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” she paraphrased.
“Where is your God and Savior, woman?” the leader teased, moving toward her.
“He is here and will overcome all evil—including you!” she responded.
The leader’s eyes turned blood-red, and he and his pack fell upon her, tearing and cutting.
CHAPTER
4
Cloe shook herself awake as the phone rang. She was in her bedroom, but the morning light was faint, so it could not b
e late. She reached for the phone and glanced at the clock; it was a little after six.
“Dr. Lejeune? Cloe? It’s Tony … Father Anton,” the priest’s voice bellowed through the phone line. “I’m sorry to call so early.”
“Yes, Tony, I can hear you now,” replied Cloe. “It’s okay. Where are you?”
“I am in Rome, but that’s unimportant right now,” replied Father Antonio Sigliori, vicar general of Vatican Military Field Operations. He worked directly for the pope. “Cloe, I got your message that you had called for Albert. It was routed to me because the monsignor’s not here. Something terrible has happened. We need to talk.”
“Tony, yes, we do need to talk. I need to see the pope as soon as possible. It’s the journal. I may have discovered something … something important, maybe something critical,” she replied, standing and wiggling into her robe. “We must meet immediately.”
Cloe walked toward the french doors opening onto the side porch of her home and looked out over the river. The sun was rising over the far shore. It illuminated wispy clouds, turning them a bright red. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, her mother would have said. Early February on the river was one of her favorite times, especially when the weather was as mild as it had been for the last few days. In the evenings, she loved to watch the sun set on one side of her home and the moon rise on the other.
What could Tony want? Something “terrible” has happened? She marveled at the coincidence of their mutual desire to communicate.
“Tony, how long before you can get here from Rome?” she asked, turning back to the receiver. “Can you come get me?”
“I’ll be in New Orleans by lunchtime tomorrow,” replied the cleric.
She was now fully alert after Tony’s call, so she decided to work. She made coffee and booted up her laptop at the kitchen table. This time, she researched world events. When she finally saved her work and closed the computer, she was more convinced than ever that she needed to see the new pope.
***
It was only about forty-five minutes to the famed French Quarter restaurant. She bathed and dressed and then studied herself in the full-length mirror. Not bad for midforties, she thought. The jogging and yoga classes were paying off. Then she was off across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, taking her over the twenty-four-mile span of the lake between the North Shore and New Orleans. There was not as much traffic as she had anticipated even though people should have been streaming into the city for various functions ahead of the carnival season, which would start soon. If this were any sign, Mardi Gras would be very light—a big disappointment to the city.
As she drove through the New Orleans central business district, it looked strangely vacant without the usual hustle of people on the streets. Cloe thought of the last time Monsignor Albert Roques had come here to meet her. She had been working on a particularly difficult passage in the journal that detailed a conversation between Jesus and the apostle “Jesus loved,” widely believed to be St. John, author of the last of the gospels. She had summoned the monsignor, and together they had gone to the library at the Ursuline Convent and found the jars, the treasure trove of the Sicarii. She had been working on the journal and the jars ever since.
To facilitate her work on the first two jars, she left her position as second chair in the Ancient Languages Department of the University of Washington and assumed the top position in the new Ancient Languages Department at LSU, only sixty-five miles from her home in Madisonville. Now, as a result of the latest gift from the Sicarii, there were scores of jars and endless challenges.
Even though she now headed the department, her staff at LSU was actually doing the work to keep it running. Cloe was required to spend only a day or two a week in Baton Rouge. Her main duties, in the eyes of the university, were to work on the journal and to catalog the jars. While this sounded ordinary, it was anything but, given the historic nature of the find. She had added staff in New Orleans at the library in the Ursuline Convent to assist her. There had already been enormous discoveries from their work, and there were surely more to come. The authentication of the journal as being from the time of Christ had thrown religious scholars into a frenzy.
She turned into the parking garage at the Royal Orleans Hotel and waved to Earl the parking attendant. She wasn’t even sure of his last name, but she considered him a friend. Earl might park cars, but he did so much more. He was a travel guide and goodwill ambassador for the city.
“Hi, Earl,” Cloe called as she handed him the keys. “How’s the family?”
“Hey, Dr. Lejeune,” replied Earl. “Everybody’s fine, including our brand-new granddaughter. It’s great to see you back. Will you be here awhile, or should I keep her close?”
“Just lunch,” replied Cloe. “Congratulations on the new arrival. That makes six, doesn’t it?”
“Right you are, Dr. Lejeune! It’s all good,” said Earl as he pulled her sedan up to the nearest spot. “We’ll leave her right here for when you’re ready. Have a nice meal.”
Cloe strode across the beautiful lobby of the old hotel, which was clad in marble and furnished with antiques. A few guests milled about, some checking in or out. She headed down the steps, past the Rib Room and out into the nearly deserted Quarter. A half block later, she stood in front of Antoine’s and pushed her way through the narrow french doors.
The mirrored walls glinted back at her as the maître d’ led her to the large rear dining room where her waiter, Vinny, joined them. Cloe had been there enough times to know the front room was for the tourists and the back room was where the action was. Today it was nearly empty.
As she approached the table, Father Anton jumped up and came around to seat her. Unlike the monsignor, Father Anton dressed in a dark suit, eschewing the traditional cassock. His dark hair was cut close, but that was the only feature that hinted at the soldier behind his Mediterranean good looks. Vinny chatted with them for a few seconds and then rushed off to start the train of delicacies steaming to the table. Cloe never ordered anymore, putting her complete trust in the staff’s choices.
“Hello, Tony,” she said.
“Cloe, it is so good to see you,” replied the warrior cleric, sitting down ramrod straight as always. “It’s been a while.”
Indeed, it had been a little over four years, since she, her son, J.E., and the monsignor had nearly lost their lives but had defeated the Karik’s forces at Masada. Even now, the sounds of gunfire and men screaming troubled her sleep.
There was also Sergio.
It had all started with the Kolektor, the arms merchant turned ancient relic collector who had wanted her father’s jar and had killed him for it. Even though the Kolektor was killed by the Sicarii at Hakeldama, elements of his criminal organization had survived. The Karik, the Kolektor’s successor, had been hell-bent on finding and possessing the cave of sacred jars that contained writings from the time of Christ. If that were not enough, the long-thought dead son of the Kolektor, Michael, turned up seeking the jars as well. While she, J.E., and the monsignor were instrumental in defeating the Karik and the heir as well as bringing down the entirety of the Kolektor’s criminal organization, she knew that without Father Anton and his Swiss guards they would all be dead. He had intervened at precisely the right time and had “saved their bacon,” as her mother used to say.
“Great to see you as well,” she said, sipping a nice light Chardonnay. “Is Sky still your pilot?”
“Absolutely! He can fly anything faster and farther than anybody else,” replied the cleric, smiling as he recited Sky’s personal motto. “We couldn’t do what we do, traveling where we have to go, without him.”
Sky had originally been Michael’s personal pilot. She hadn’t thought about Michael in a while. She didn’t want to think about him at all.
They were seated against one of the walls filled with autographed pictures and caricatures of famous people who
had at various times graced the restaurant. A-list entertainers such as Bob Hope, several presidents, and at least one pope were all represented. Cloe scanned the room. People-watching in New Orleans was the best in the world. But not today, she thought. The surrounding tables were mostly vacant. Vinny laid the three cheese and garlic salad before her as Cloe looked at the priest, wondering how she would explain what she had to say.
“Okay, Tony. Here we are,” she said. “What terrible thing has happened? Why have you come all this way?”
“In a moment,” he said, “but first the holy father directed me to ask about the progress on the translation of the journal and the cataloging of all the jars the Sicarii shipped to Ursuline.”
“Well, the cataloging is proceeding as rapidly as possible. As you know, each jar must be transported to LSU to be carefully opened and the contents indexed. It just takes time,” said Cloe. “As I have said from the very beginning, it is undoubtedly one of the greatest finds of ancient literature, if not the greatest.”
“And the journal?” whispered the priest.
“Slowly,” said Cloe. “There’s the hand-writing problem and the piecing together of the scraps. Much of it is mundane; the daily recitation of events. However, it certainly reinforces the four gospels and provides additional details. There is more information about the various miracles and a little more explanation of some of the parables. Each is absolutely fascinating.”
“Nothing really new?” asked Father Anton.
“No, I can’t agree with that. It adds so much color,” she said. “One really amazing thing is the governance structure. The Apostles acted as a sort of board of directors of the ministry. But, we learn from the journal that there was an inner core, an executive committee, if you will.”
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