Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 6)

by Vincent Zandri

  Da Vinci pulls on his beard, exhales.

  “It’s time I answered your ultimate question,” he says. “Think of this cave as a portal. A place where knowledge is not distributed, like a university, but a place where you are transported directly to the knowledge. From this cave, you are not only able to view both the past and the future, you are able to go there, be a part of it. When I first came to this cave as a young man, I was shown the future and it’s many marvelous, and sometimes frightening, inventions. When I returned, I used my newfound knowledge to attempt to recreate what I witnessed. The tank, the machine gun, the airplane, the diving suit, embryonic research, and so much more.”

  My daughter flashes into my head. Her lying on a hospital bed.

  “I saw the future. Is it real?”

  He nods.

  “The things you saw of the past,” he says, “were they real?”

  My stomach sinks. “Yes, they were real. I saw history in the making. It felt real, like a vivid dream feels real. But, what I saw of the future … my personal future … my daughter’s future, Leonardo. It was tragic and terrible. How can I change it?”

  He stares into me with glowing eyes. Eyes that pull me into his immortal soul.

  He says, “The price of knowledge is a steep one, I’m afraid. We have been gifted with knowing the future, but we have been burdened with fact that we can do nothing to change it.”

  “But, what if I attempted to change the past? What if I pulled Jesus down from the cross, for instance? Or what if I destroyed the Declaration of Independence?”

  He shakes his head. “History and time would find a way to balance itself out. You would be destroyed before you set your actions into motion.”

  A stiff, cold wind blows through the tunnel. The candles flicker. It’s like the ghosts of the dead are passing through this chamber one by one.

  “Listen, my friend,” da Vinci goes on, “during my lifetime, I did my best to educate the people by sending them messages, symbols, riddles … anything I could to pass on what this cave has taught me. I wanted to share the knowledge so that people living in misery could enjoy richer, more productive lives. I believed that knowledge, in the right hands, would be power.”

  “Why not just tell the people what the future will bring them?”

  “Because that would have gotten me burned at the stake, or my bones crushed on the wagon wheel. I had no choice but to encrypt my messages in my paintings.” Reaching out, he pats my satchel. “Remove the art book from your bag. I wish to demonstrate something for you.”

  I pull out the art book. It’s a bit beat up, but still in good shape. He flips through the book to a place that bears a full page rendering of the Mona Lisa. Carefully, he rips the page out of the book. Reaching behind him, he retrieves a square mirror about the size of a dinner plate.

  He sets the Mona Lisa on the stone floor before me, her lovely face beset with the mysterious smile strangely illuminated in the candlelight. He, then, sets the mirror parallel with the image maybe two inches from her left shoulder and arm. What begins to emerge in the candle flame doesn’t just take me by surprise, it causes me to lose my equilibrium.

  “Some might say the messages I attempted to convey in my works of art were subliminal, but they were much more obvious than that. Much more, in your face, as the young people like to say nowadays.” Then, as he shifts the mirror just slightly so that more of the flame shines down upon it, filtering it, I begin to make out the entire image of a man. But then, this is not a man necessarily, but a being that bears an alien-like head, gray/black skin, impossibly thin lips and nose, the eyes insufferably dark and ovular. He’s wearing a cape, or a shawl, over narrow shoulders.

  I swallow something cold and bitter. “Who the hell is that?”

  “It’s the being who created this cave, and many others like it around the world. He is also the being who belongs to a species far, far away from a here. An ancient species that you and I might refer to as, God.”

  “And why would I refer to this creature in the painting of the Mona Lisa as God?”

  Leonardo da Vinci pinches his beard, smiles.

  “Because he is the entity that created you and me,” he says.

  I take a moment to digest everything he’s revealed. That we human beings were not created by God the divine, necessarily, but God the extra-terrestrial. That creatures like the being depicted in the Mona Lisa have created caves, or portals, that serve as knowledge sanctuaries but also double as time machines. That the past is the past and the future is the future and it cannot be altered. That somehow the rule of universal law doesn’t allow for it. This is my new reality. Or maybe, just maybe, this is all some kind of vivid dream cooked up by an over-zealous adventurer who has hit his head against one too many fists and one too many solid objects one too many times. Because, if I were to mention even a word of this to some of my friends who frequent my favorite local bars in Florence or New York I’d be tossed out the door onto my ass.

  Then, a noise.

  Something slapping the stone. A footstep maybe. Followed by several footsteps and then many footsteps.

  I stand up.

  Da Vinci does the same. But in the time it takes him to get to his feet, he is the young da Vinci again. He pulls his sword, and I pull my .45. Together we turn for the entrance to the chamber. It’s then, I feel something far too familiar. A pistol barrel pressed against the back of my neck.

  33

  They must have planned it this way. Mahaz’s men would create a racket outside the chamber while the injured Iranian thug would hide himself among the shadows, only to spring himself when the time was right.

  The three soldiers take their positions against the wall of the circular chamber, AK47s aimed at da Vinci and myself.

  “Drop your weapons,” Mahaz insists.

  I glance down at the bleeding stub where his hand once existed.

  “How’s that wound treating you, Mahaz?” I say. “The gangrene kicked in yet?”

  He slaps the back of my skull with the barrel on his semi-automatic. Once again, I see stars while the pain shoots from the back of my head to the frontal lobes and back again. What’s another blow to the head gonna matter at this point? Chase the punch drunk.

  I shift myself two steps to the side, so I can collect everyone inside my periphery. The soldier, the giant Mahaz, and da Vinci.

  “You, too,” Mahaz says to the master. “The sword.”

  Da Vinci drops it.

  “That weapon you hold in your hand,” the master says. “I invented it.”

  Mahaz laughs, his stub bobbing up and down.

  “You’re just a crazy old man,” he says. “And Mr. Baker is buying your nonsense … how you say? Hook, line, and heavyweight sinker. But, you did lead us here. The cave of the all-knowing.”

  “What can you possibly want with this place?” da Vinci says. “You have no army of your own. No country.”

  “Do you know how much interested parties would be willing to pay for the precise location of this hole in the ground?”

  “Billions, I bet,” I interject. “Nice thinking, Mahaz. Jeez, guess I gotta hand it to ya.” Then, smiling. “Oops, sorry.”

  Once more, he spanks me on the side of the head with the pistol. At this point, I don’t even feel it.

  Da Vinci nods.

  “Well, then,” he says. “I can see that myself and Mr. Baker here are utterly defeated. But, let me ask you something, sir. If it’s the cave of knowledge you seek, don’t you wish to try it out first? Just to make sure this is the one true cave that possesses the ability to see into the past and the future? What if, in the end, this is simply a cave and nothing more? What if, in the end, I am an imposter … a crazy man, like you say … a crazy man playing out a silly charade?”

  Mahaz glances at his three soldiers. Each of them shoot him a look like, da Vinci’s got a point. The big, mustached man pushes me aside with his one good hand, approaches the circular pool.

  “Show
me something, crazy man,” he insists. “Show me the future. Or better yet, show me my future.”

  Da Vinci goes to the pool, extends his long, index finger, dips it into the still clear water. The water illuminates the same way it did when I first entered the room. A full color picture emerges upon its surface. A moving picture. We see a city. A modern city. There are minarets and domed mosques making up the background while modern concrete buildings line both sides of a street filled with angry, screaming people. The crowd is rioting, burning both the American and the Israeli flags—the red, white, and blue and the baby blue and white going up in smoke. Seated on a thrown atop a platform is the Ayatollah Khomeini, the scowl-faced, white-bearded, black-robed supreme leader with both his hands raised above his shoulders as if blessing his angry followers. The noise from the mob fills the chamber and it causes Mahaz to grin from ear to ear, despite a severe wound that is still hemorrhaging, and no doubt throbbing with pain.

  “You see, gentlemen,” Mahaz says, “the future of the world belongs to Iran’s Shiite population … It belongs to Sharia Law. It belongs to Jihad!”

  But then the image begins to fade.

  The rioting crowd disappears and the water’s surface turns to blackness while another image begins to emerge. The image takes on the shape of a gray head with black, almost opaque, ovular eyes, a tiny nose and little lips. The creature is taking shape inside the pool, becoming three dimensional as it begins to rise from the water. It rises up and up, a man-sized creature from out of this world created by the water.

  A terrified Mahaz screams.

  He raises his weapon against the creature, but he’s too slow, too injured. The gray/black alien-like being thrusts out its hand, grabs the Iranian thug by the neck, lifting him off the stone chamber surface, squeezing his throat until his head and skin fill with red blood like a balloon with water.

  The three soldiers plant a bead with their automatic rifles and fire. But the bullets have little or no effect. The being raises his free hand, extends his index finger in the direction of the three. A burst of three separate laser-bolts of white lightening shooting forth, striking them in their faces, melting the skin from the flesh, then flesh from the bone. A beat later, Mahaz’s head bursts in a gush of red spatter.

  The beast then drops the dead body into the pool where it disappears entirely, as if it never existed in the first place. He steps out, goes to the three soldiers, picks each of them up as though their dead weight were truly feather-light, and drops them into the pool, too, where not even their memories can exist.

  The beast then steps back into the pool, but before vanishing into the water he turns to da Vinci while holding out the same hand that killed Mahaz. Da Vinci takes the hand in his. Together, silently, the two beings proceed to communicate with one another. A few beats later, the beast locks his eyes with me. The energy from his stare makes me dizzy, but I find that I am not afraid. Perhaps he can’t communicate directly with me, but I am sure he means me no harm. His arms then positioned at his sides as though standing at attention, the being slowly descends into the pool until he is entirely out of sight.

  It takes a few long moments, but, eventually, I shift my focus back to da Vinci who turns to face me. This time, his face is neither young nor old. Nor does it contain a gray beard. It is, instead, gray skinned, bulbous, thin-lipped, the nose tiny, the eyes big, black, and ovular. It’s difficult to tell, but I swear he is smiling at me.

  “You never were da Vinci, after all,” I say.

  He speaks to me, but not with his mouth. Instead, he is able to speak directly inside my head.

  He says, “I knew it would be easier for you this way. Easier to accept if I became Leonardo.”

  With that, the chamber in the Cave of the All-Knowing goes black and, once more, I feel myself falling sweetly.

  34

  I wake to sound of my name being shouted out. The voice echoes across the lake and against the hills that surround this valley. I lift my head from the ground and immediately feel the sting from the lump on the back of my skull, the result of falling backward directly on top of an exposed rock.

  Looking up, I shake away the cobwebs and make out Deputy Inspector Millen.

  I sit up, slowly, achingly.

  “‘Bout time the cavalry showed up,” I say.

  He turns, issues a hand signal for his crew to stand down. He then takes a knee, resting his gloved hand on my thigh.

  “You hurt?”

  “I don’t think so.” My eyes are glued not on him but on the cave opening that is once more covered over by a stream-fed lake.

  “We found Soleimani and Putin at the bottom of the hill in that wrecked Land Rover, and most of their men on top. You waged one hell of battle.”

  “And Andrea? You found her, too, I assume?”

  He nods, lips pressed tightly together.

  “She was a double agent,” I say. “Sad but true.”

  “I suspected as much,” he says. “Some signs were there. Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “I was just beginning to like her. Hell, maybe even love her.”

  “Tell me,” he says, his gaze shifting out toward the lake, “did you find what you were after?”

  My eyes still locked on the lake, its peacefulness and stillness.

  “I thought finding the cave is what you were after? The reason you are paying me?”

  “That’s just a job description. What I’m wondering is if you found any answers to your questions.”

  I shift my gaze back to him. “How did you know I had questions?”

  He cocks his head. “Just a hunch. You don’t risk your life to take on a job searching for a mythical cave said to possess all the answers unless you have a few questions of your own.”

  Nodding. “I see your point. But aren’t you going to ask me if I found the precise location of the cave?”

  He smiles. “Well, did you?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “What happened in this place seems like one big dream. A dream within a dream, and another dream within that one, if that makes any sense.” Exhaling. Then, “But if you’d really like to know where the cave is, you’re looking at it.”

  “It’s a lake, Chase,” he says. “You know, for fishing, swimming, sailing … “

  “It’s what’s under the lake that counts.”

  He bites down on his lip.

  “Guess it’s time to send in the divers,” he says. Then, helping me up onto my feet. “You’ve done God and country a great service, Mr. Baker. How will we ever repay you?”

  “Just pull out your wallet, Deputy Inspector Millen, and start counting.”

  “How about you send me a bill first.” He laughs, slaps me on the shoulder, and turns to go to his men.

  Before following him, I take one last look at the lake. I see a bird flying over it. A hawk. The hawk approaches, lands on a thick tree branch that hangs over the water’s edge. Its black eyes reflect the fading afternoon sunlight. After a couple of beats, it lets loose with a caw before flapping its wings and taking flight once more, its path directly overhead as it makes its climb up toward the hilltop.

  Turning, I notice the chest pocket on my jacket is not only unbuttoned, but something’s been placed in there. The pocket directly over my heart. Reaching in, I pull out a slip of paper—the same antiquated paper the monk had been using for his notes. And it’s been folded down its center. I open it to reveal a sketch drawn above words written in mirror writing.

  .uoy ot pu si erutuf ehT

  I step back down to the lake, turn the note over so that the words are reflected in the still, glass like surface.

  The future is up to you.

  I peer down at the words and the image drawn so precisely above it. It’s my daughter, Ava. Her hair is long, dark, and parted in the middle. It hangs down both sides of her smooth, olive-colored face like a veil. Her eyes are brown and deep and channel directly to her sweet soul, her cheeks round, her lips full, one corner of her mouth raised u
p slightly like she’s just about to open up with a full smile. She’s wearing a long-sleeved dress and her hands are folded, the right over the left and resting comfortably on the arm of the chair in which she is seated.

  Behind her, on her right-hand side, is a landscape of great beauty. There’s a steep hillside with a stream emerging from it. The stream empties into a small lake.

  That’s when it hits me.

  Opening my satchel, I retrieve the da Vinci art book and the picture of the Mona Lisa which has been stuffed back inside of it. I pull the picture back out, gaze not upon Mona Lisa’s famous face, but, instead, at the painting’s background … the full color depiction of the steep hill and the lake below it. Shifting my position so that I face the hillside with the lake on my direct left, I hold up the painting with my right hand so that I’m able to compare the real-life, real-time landscape to that which Leonardo da Vinci painted more than 600 years ago.

  The landscapes are the same. Identical.

  I’ll be damned, the true location of the da Vinci Cave was under my nose the entire time. Under the world’s nose. The location was depicted on the right-hand side of the mysterious Mona Lisa while on her left, is the being who created not only the cave, but who quite possibly, created us. A being from another world, another time, and another dimension altogether. A being that some, including the Renaissance masters, confused with God. A being who appeared in so many of their works which dealt with the birth of Jesus and his death, and even the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.

  In the end, even Dan Brown got it wrong. The Mona Lisa isn’t full of mysteries and questions. It contains the answers, not the least of which, is our direct connection to the divine.

  I replace the photo of Mona Lisa back into the art book, and shove that back into my satchel. Should I make a point of letting Millen in on my newfound Mona Lisa discovery? My built-in shit detector tells me to leave it alone. The power that resides there is far too much for any one man, or country, or species to handle … much less comprehend. Besides, he’s got a team of divers heading for the lake now. If the divine beings who control the cave want to be found, that’s their business. Something tells me, however, that nothing more than an empty lake bed will be discovered. For better or for worse. But, if you were to ask me, I’d say it’s all for the better.