God's Lions - House of Acerbi

by John Lyman

  The rapidly warming air brushed Leo’s face as he approached the river Tiber and sped over the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II. Weaving his scooter through the sparse traffic, he looked to his right and spotted the imposing structure of the Castel Sant’ Angelo. He lifted his eyes for just a second, focusing on the ancient castle’s summit and the enormous bronze statue of the Archangel Michael, frozen in the act of sheathing his sword with his right hand. The cardinal murmured a silent prayer. It was the same prayer he always offered when he passed the image of the very angel who had protected him and his friends the year before. Turning his attention back to the street, he quickly swerved to avoid a collision with a slower moving vehicle. Shaking off the momentary rush of adrenaline, he leaned to the left and shot up the Via Della Conciliazione toward the Vatican.

  Whizzing around the outskirts of Saint Peter’s Square, Leo approached two thick arches that served as an entrance into the Vatican from the Via Di Porta Angelica. Speeding through the ancient portal, he brought the scooter to a stop in his personal parking space next to his car.

  Walking out into the sunshine, Leo paused for a moment and peered through Bernini’s columns at the world’s largest church. Conceived by Michelangelo, the immense Renaissance structure was one of the most pictured sites in the world. Between Leo and the church lay the Piazza Di San Pietro, the Square of Saint Peter. For centuries, the stones of the square have covered the ruins of one of ancient Rome’s most notorious sites—the Circus of Nero, where the first organized and state-sponsored martyrdoms of Christians occurred in AD 65. It was also on this spot where, two years later, Saint Peter, along with thousands of other Christians, shared the same fate.

  Walking out into the large square, Leo realized the scene here was also odd. The famous square, usually overflowing with people this time of day, was strangely quiet. In fact, the place looked deserted. On any normal day he would have been besieged by throngs of tourists who wanted their picture taken with the famous cardinal whose face had appeared on the cover of almost every newspaper and magazine in the world for the past year. But today it was as if the whole world was taking a nap, and the Swiss Guards, who were usually forced to come to his rescue when he was swarmed by admiring visitors, stood frozen at their posts with grim-looking expressions clouding their faces.

  “I see you are back, Cardinal,” a familiar voice called out behind him.

  Leo smiled as he turned to see a pudgy, red-headed bishop walking in his direction.

  “Good morning, Anthony.”

  Leo noticed that Bishop Anthony Morelli’s signature smile was absent as he glanced around the square and stopped to catch his breath.

  “Thank God I found you, Leo. I’ve been calling your apartment all morning. You need to come with me ... right away.”

  “What’s up, Anthony?”

  “I’m afraid your normal schedule has been cancelled today, Cardinal. We have an urgent meeting with the pope ... and we’re running late.” Morelli looked around once more before taking Leo by the arm and leading him in the direction of the Apostolic Palace.

  “The Pope?”

  Morelli looked down at the ground and continued leading Leo. “There’s been an incident.”

  “An incident? What kind of incident?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it here, Leo.”

  “Who else is going to be at this meeting?”

  “There will be one other. Now come ... we must hurry.”

  Leo stopped and squinted in the bright sunlight as he raised his head and let his eyes follow the curved outline of Bernini’s colonnade and its 284 columns supporting 162 immense statues of saints. The silent marble images seemed to be studying him, as if they were wondering if this new Prince of the Church would one day join their ranks.

  “I’m not taking another step until I know who’s going to be at this meeting.”

  Morelli turned, exasperation showing on his face.

  “An old friend ... Lev Wasserman. He just arrived from Israel this morning on a private jet. Really, Leo ... we must go.”

  Passing under the colonnade, Morelli avoided a group of nuns walking with their heads down as he led the cardinal across the San Damaso courtyard and passed through the guarded doorway into the Apostolic Palace. From there, two silent men in dark blue suits accompanied them down a side hall until they reached the darkened alcove that concealed the pope’s private elevator.

  Leo folded his arms and looked straight ahead as he waited for the gleaming metal doors to slide open. “This is just a wild guess, Bishop, but since Lev’s involved, I’m thinking this meeting has something to do with the code.”

  The elevator doors slid open and the two men stepped inside.

  Morelli turned to face his friend. “The code is involved ... yes ... but ...”

  “But what, Anthony?”

  “You’re not going to like it, Cardinal.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Sarah Adams awakened to a constant beeping sound that seemed to match the rhythmic beat of her heart. Bags of clear liquid appeared to be floating above her head, while moving shadows could be seen beyond the thin, gossamer-like curtains that separated her from whatever lay beyond.

  When she inhaled, the machine beside her gasped with escaping air, and she was thirsty, desperately thirsty, as if she had been walking in the desert for days without water. Her nose itched, but when she moved to touch her face she found that her hands seemed trapped. They were tied! Her eyes widened with fear as she struggled against the restraints holding her in place. Where in the hell was she!

  A soft, female voice at the foot of her bed called out to the moving figures on the other side of the curtains. “She’s waking up, Doctor.”

  Sarah strained to lift her head, but it was no use. She twisted and turned until finally, the face of a young woman appeared nearby, and she could hear a voice that seemed muted and far away. “It’s ok, Sarah. You’re in the hospital, sweetie. You’ve been very sick.”

  Sarah felt a cool, damp cloth press against her forehead as the nurse wiped away the beads of sweat threatening to roll down into her eyes. Something was pressing against her lips and running down inside her throat, making it impossible for her to talk. Her terror-filled eyes darted about the room, prompting the nurse to move in closer and give Sarah’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “There’s a tube in your throat that goes down into your lungs. You’re on a breathing machine. Don’t try to talk right now ... it will only make your throat hurt worse. Try to relax. Hopefully, we can take the tube out later today if you continue to improve. You’re our miracle girl, Sarah.”

  For the first time, Sarah realized that she wasn’t seeing an entire face, that the nurse’s blue eyes were all that were visible over the top of the yellow surgical mask stretched across her nose. In addition to the mask, her hands were clad in purple-colored surgical gloves, and her light blue scrubs were covered by a yellow paper gown, signaling to Sarah that her caregivers were being cautious—cautious of coming into contact with something—something that had already come into contact with her. Frantically, Sarah tried to think, but she remembered nothing.

  From the other side of the curtains, gowned and gloved medical personnel flowed in and out of her room as a very tired-looking doctor moved to the head of her bed. Her vision blurred in and out of focus, but with some effort, she was able to tell by the way the doctor’s skin crinkled at the corners of his eyes that he seemed to be smiling. Always a good sign when you were looking up from a hospital bed.

  “Good morning, Miss Adams.”

  Sarah could only nod her head as she watched the doctor warm his stethoscope with his gloved hand before gently placing it against her skin. He closed his eyes briefly as he listened to the air rushing in and out of her lungs. The day before he had heard the sounds of rhonchi, the sonorous indication of fluid trapped in the larger airways of the lungs. Today, only the clear rush of air filled the doctor’s ears as he opened his eyes and glanced over at the nurse standing across from him
. “You’re right. Her lungs sound much better today. Let’s plan on weaning her from the ventilator and getting that tube out this afternoon. I think we’ll be able to move her out of ICU to the medical floor tomorrow if all goes well.”

  The doctor then shifted his attention back to Sarah. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal, but you’re getting better. We’ll talk more after you get that tube out of your throat this afternoon.” With that, the doctor stripped off his gloves and yellow gown before stepping outside her room. Sarah could hear him talking in hushed tones to the nurse on the other side of the curtain.

  “That’s one tough girl. Did you know she survived an airplane crash in the Mediterranean last year?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. She was involved with that group that discovered the code in the Bible.”

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “Don’t know. I think she’s a flight attendant or something. She’s still young ... I’d really like to see her make it. Has anyone notified her family?”

  “Her father called. He’s a pilot for a rich oil man in Texas, but all of the airports in New York are closed right now. We’re keeping him informed by phone.”

  The voices faded away as Sarah drifted back to sleep. Outside her room, the doctor crossed the hall, where he would don another yellow gown before seeing his next patient, one not doing as well as Sarah.

  Yellow was the international medical color of isolation. From the yellow isolation cart parked outside Sarah’s ICU room, to the masks and gowns worn by the doctors and nurses, the color yellow was a warning to all who entered that the patient was the repository of something contagious. Beyond the curtains lay an invisible, lethal entity that appeared to be viral in nature, and whatever it was, it was proving to be extremely virulent.

  Forty-eight hours earlier, the color yellow had begun spreading throughout the hallways of every hospital on the island of Manhattan. To the medical staff, this was a clear indication of the arrival of something deadly that had drifted in on the wind and spread throughout the city, and as thousands of New Yorkers began collapsing in the streets, their homes, and their offices, the city’s hospitals had become overwhelmed to the point of being unable to care for them all.

  In only two terror-filled days, thousands had become ill. Some had died almost immediately, while others who had become infected clung to life for only a few short hours before succumbing to this new and horrific microscopic predator. Strangely, it affected only about half of those it came into contact with, but panic still overcame those who, for some reason, had miraculously been left untouched. They found themselves standing on the sidelines watching others die from an invisible airborne pathogen that appeared to be jumping quickly from person to person. No one had a clue as to who would live and who would die. Almost overnight, the strange-behaving epidemic had caused the city to take on the appearance of a metropolitan ghost town as people locked the doors to their apartments and refused to respond to the last cries of their neighbors on the other side of the wall.

  Reacting quickly with pre-set emergency management plans, police, medical, and fire department response teams had placed the city on a total lockdown. Nothing moved in or out, especially on the subway. Those who remained behind were now trapped on an island of fear, with no option other than to remain behind locked doors and pray that the invisible menace now circulating outside their windows would not find its way into their place of refuge.

  Due to the siege-like atmosphere at every hospital in the city, huge triage tents were erected outside the buildings as rings of police security surrounded the area. Only the truly sick were being allowed to enter, forcing the drug seekers, psych cases, and neurotic attention-seekers that usually clogged the hallways of the ER to flee for their lives. Fueled by coffee and adrenaline, the medical staff who had not fallen to the disease themselves continued caring for the critically ill, but due to the rapid onset and lethal nature of the mystery illness, their efforts appeared to be futile in the face of a bizarre pathogen that mysteriously left half of those exposed totally unaffected, while the other half died a horrible death within hours. All, that is, except for one patient—Sarah Adams, who had become infected but somehow survived.

  It usually began with a slight cough, followed by a raging fever and intense body aches. Within hours, the disease progressed to the point where the lungs had filled with fluid, and people who had been feeling fine in the morning were drowning in their own secretions before noon. On the first day, many epidemiologists thought the mystery disease was somehow related to the 1918 flu epidemic that had swept the world and left over fifty million dead, but then the blood began to flow.

  After the initial respiratory phase of the disease had taken hold, blotchy, purplish-red patches began to form in random places around the body. In a matter of hours, they had spread under the skin like dark rivers flowing together across a maroon landscape, until finally the entire body was one great lake of pain. The pain was excruciating. Even the pressure of a single sheet was too much for the victims to bear.

  Mercifully, most became unconscious at this stage of the disease, and then, to the horror of those watching, the skin began to separate as the entire outer layer fell away in sheets revealing liquefied underlying tissue. Blood was flowing from every orifice of the body until soon, the twitching remnants of what had once been a living, breathing, human being was nothing more than the rapidly disintegrating repository of an alien invader, the likes of which the world had never seen before.

  Those not affected huddled and prayed in their apartments, while outside, hundreds of men wearing blue biological protection suits roamed empty streets in an effort to contain and track the origin of the grotesque disease. The blue-suited men swarmed over the city taking samples. They took samples of air, samples of blood, samples of water—they swabbed everything from subway cars to door knobs to family pets, all in an attempt to find anything that might give them a clue as to what kind of pathogen was raging throughout the city and killing thousands.

  Then, forty-eight hours after the horror had descended on New York, as the men in blue continued to sample and swab and collect bodies for disposal, a planned event unknown to them was already taking place. The mystery pathogen was now retreating, disappearing almost as rapidly as it had appeared. Within hours, it would vanish completely without infecting anyone else, leaving behind no trace of its identity or place of origin—for that was the way it had been engineered.

  CHAPTER 6

  The mood inside the papal apartments was somber when Cardinal Leo and Bishop Morelli entered. The old Jesuit secretary led the men to the library, where they found Pope Michael engaged in a serious sounding discussion with a man they both knew well.

  “Ah ... you’ve found him,” the pope said, rising from his chair.

  “Yes, Your Holiness. He was just standing out there in the middle of the square.”

  A distinguished-looking man with a full head of curly gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard rose from his seat and rushed over to take Leo’s hand.

  “Cardinal! It’s good to see you, my friend.”

  “Lev! How are you ... and how’s your beautiful daughter, Ariella?”

  “She said to tell you she sends her love, as do your other friends back in Israel.”

  Leo smiled when he noticed that Professor Lev Wasserman had traded in his usual khaki field shirt and knee-length shorts for a blue dress shirt and a pair of tailored gray slacks—clothes he was definitely not comfortable in. However, this was the Vatican, and shorts were not allowed, even for a world-class mathematician with a doctorate in archaeology.

  “Are any of the others coming to Rome?” Leo asked.

  “I’m afraid not, Cardinal.” Lev turned toward Morelli and raised an eyebrow in his direction. “He doesn’t know yet, does he, Anthony?”

  “He just returned from a sabbatical at my house in the country.”

  Leo’s piercing green eyes scanned the room.

  “I
don’t know what yet?”

  The pope set his wine glass on the table and motioned for the others to follow. “Come, Leopold, I think it’s time we brought you up to speed.”

  The three men followed the pope out of the papal apartments past two Swiss Guards who immediately snapped to attention when they saw Pope Michael heading for his private elevator. Once inside, the group squeezed together in silence as the elevator descended below the palace and stopped. As soon as the doors slid open, they saw a sight very familiar to all of them.

  Beyond the open doors of the elevator lay the crumbling ruins of a section of ancient catacombs that had been hidden beneath the Vatican for almost two-thousand years. For centuries they had been covered over and forgotten until a construction crew, working below the basilica the year before, had accidently crashed through a wall, thus providing Morelli and his team of Vatican archaeologists a window to a sealed off labyrinth that snaked beneath the city. It was down in this area, following clues from a hidden code discovered in the Old Testament by Lev Wasserman, that they had discovered the secret chapel.

  Leo was shocked to find that the pope had direct access to the catacombs from his private elevator in the Apostolic Palace. “I didn’t realize your elevator descended into the catacombs, Your Holiness.”

  “Bishop Morelli had the work done a few months ago. We’re now four stories underground. I got tired of squeezing through holes and crawling down over piles of rubble to reach the chapel. I go there quite often you know ... it’s a very spiritual place to think.”

  Following a path lit by construction lights mounted on tripods, the three men followed along behind the pope until they reached a twisting tunnel that had been dug two thousand years before through the reddish volcanic rock that formed the foundation for the entire city of Rome. After walking up a slight incline, they turned a corner and came face to face with the pinkish limestone wall of the ancient chapel.