They arrived back at the industrial park at 7:00. They thanked Asim, and Rei barely resisted giving him a hug. She just grinned at him and said “Thank you so much!” over and over again. The took off their abayas and he threw them into the hidey-hole on his truck, and motored off with one last wave. The Quinns got in the plain white truck from which they’d started their journey.
Gideon sat in the middle next to Abdul, and they drove back through the city to the Hilton. They were filthy, exhausted, and half starved, but elated and still feeling a rush of accomplishment and excitement that hadn’t worn off. Gideon turned on his phone and dialed the captain.
“Hey Mac, it’s Gideon,” he said when the man picked up.
“Oh, thank God!” McMillan said. “We’ve been up all night. I’ve been kicking myself three ways from Sunday for setting this whole gig up. I was sure you’d end up dead or in prison somewhere.”
“We had a close call, but we’re almost at the hotel now, so it’s all good. We’re gonna clean up, get room service and then sleep. I’ll catch up with you mid-afternoon.” He hung up.
They hustled through the hotel lobby, careful not to attract any undo attention. With their backpacks slung over their shoulders, jeans and casual shirts, they hoped they looked like they’d been out for a stroll or for a cup of strong coffee. They endured an elevator ride that seemed endless, exited on their floor and entered their room.
“Oh my gosh!” Rei exploded. “Oh my gosh oh my gosh! I can’t believe we didn’t die. Really. I thought we were going to die.” She danced around the room while Gideon laughed.
“Yeah. I actually did too. It’s one thing to be in the military and get in hairy situations, it’s totally another to be in them with your wife. I didn’t like that… But you did great!” He wrapped her in his arms. He hadn’t liked it at all, and hoped Goa would be a whole lot safer. “I’d better tell Mr. Xavier we’re alive—I’m sure he’s not sleeping either.” He got the iPhone out of his pants pocket and dialed.
They bathed and ate a huge room service breakfast. They climbed into the soft bed gratefully and slept. When they awoke six hours later they were still sore, and Rei had the beginnings of bruises on her shoulder blades from bouncing around in the truck bed. They looked in the hotel directory and discovered a gem: a masseuse. They booked massages for before dinner, and called Mac in his room.
Five minutes later there was a knock at the door and Gideon let the pilot in. He shook Gideon’s hand, but then gave him a quick hug.
“Let’s not do that again, shall we? I aged ten years yesterday and last night. That was awful! So tell me about it—but first, did you find the letter?”
Rei lifted up the metal tube. “Yep. In the dark without a flashlight, even. Gideon was awesome.”
“Abdul and Asim were awesome,” Gideon corrected. “Jack can tell his buddy to hang onto those two. We got stopped by rebels on the way back from the site, and they searched the truck. Abdul said they thought he was smuggling drugs. But they didn’t give us away, and the rig they have worked. It was a bad time, though. We couldn’t move in there, and I wasn’t going to get too many shots off before they had us out and on the ground…” he trailed off, reliving it.
“Yeah. It was bad,” Rei agreed. “So let’s not talk about that part anymore, OK? We’re here, I’m sure Mr. Xavier has wired Abdul his money by now, and we have the letter. Everyone is safe. So why don’t I work on translating it before our massages and dinner?”
The masseuse worked out all the kinks from their confinement, and the hotel served them a superb dinner. Rei chose a decadent chocolate torte for dessert, and enjoyed every minute of it guilt free. Jimmy joined the party after a day at the airport with the plane, and they all retired for an after dinner drink in the bar. Finally they called it a night, and Mac came to their room with them.
“Can I hear what the letter says?” he asked. “I feel like I’m invested in this whole thing now!”
“Can’t see why not,” Gideon answered. “We’re going to need your services awhile longer, I think.”
Rei got out her notebook and read:
My dear son,
If you are reading this letter, you have made it to the location of the Taq-i-Kisra. I am sure that you have been through much to obtain it, and I pray that my Father in Heaven has kept you and anyone who has accompanied you safe through your trials.
The final resting place of the Throne of Solomon is near the great city of Goa, in the East. The Portuguese are well settled there, and you will find all you need to complete your quest once you arrive. It may be that you do not arrive at the right time of the year, so I pray that the rains will not delay you once you arrive.
When you have gotten settled in Goa, you will need to visit the great church there. You will find another, and the last, letter. That letter has instructions for you to follow, and shall lead you to the treasure that I have left for you. I do not believe, nay, I cannot believe, that anyone else will have discovered it by chance. I believe that it is by God’s providence that you will find it, and that by His wisdom you will know what to do with the precious Throne once it has been found.
We continue to pray for you every day, and we count it all joy to have been part of God’s great plan to free this great part of His people’s history. Be safe, my son, and be ever vigilant.
In the name of our mighty Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, your loving father,
Joao Xavier
X
Written in the year of our Lord 1687
“We already knew the end game was Goa. Now we just need to find ‘the great church’, and the last letter. And then, I hope, a treasure map?” Rei said.
“Sure sounds like a treasure map. And he says ‘near’ Goa, which was a lot smaller area in the 1680s than it will be now. For all we know it’ll be in the center of the city!” Gideon said.
Rei had opened her laptop, and was typing. She clicked a few links, and said, “Looks like there are nine churches old enough to be ‘the great church’ in Goa… I’ll have to do some research to figure out if we can narrow down the options. We’ve got the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception—wow, that’s a mouthful! Our Lady of the Mount. Chapel of St. Catherine. Church of St. Francis Xavier. Churches and convents of Saint Monica and Saint Francis Assisi. Our Lady of the Rosary. Church of Saint Catejan. Church of the Carmelites. The Professed House and Born Jesus Church…That’s a weird name. And those aren’t all that are old enough, but probably all that would be potentially called ‘the great church.’ So. Research time.”
“In the morning,” said Gideon. “I’m beat, and we can get a fresh run at it tomorrow. Mac, can you map out our trip to Goa, and let me know how many stops and how long it’ll take? And I’ll need to think about what to do about our Congratio a Achalichus friends, who are bound to be waiting for us. Maybe landing somewhere other than Goa would be our best bet—I’m sure they’re watching the airports.”
“I’m on it,” said Mac. “See you in the morning. Maybe breakfast at 9:00, and we’ll both have something?”
“Yep, see you then.” Gideon closed and locked the door behind him. He turned back to his wife, who as still typing on her computer. “Bed now, love. There’s plenty of time to do your research in the morning.”
She smiled at him, and closed the laptop.
Rei woke at 7:00 and sat quietly at the desk researching the churches in Goa while Gideon slept. It was obviously a crap shoot, and there were a lot more options than in any location the Jesuit had sent them before. He probably hadn’t intended it to be so difficult, but a lot had changed in four centuries, including pet names like ‘the great church.’ She was able to make some logical deductions, and cross a couple of locations off to get a top three, but they wouldn’t know how accurate she was until they got there. And then they would have the monks right on their heels.
They were enjoying their coffee when Mac joined them. He ordered, and brought out a small notebook.
“I�
��ve looked at the airports we can get into, as well as the relative safety of the region we’re in. Which is not very… I think our best bet is to fly from here to Sur Airport in Oman, where we do a quick refuel and then fly to Mumbai. The plane can make that trip over the Indian Ocean, and the weather the next couple of days looks okay for that, although I’d probably like to do it late at night or early in the morning for the smoothest ride. I looked at all the other airports outside of Goa, and turns out Mumbai is as close as anything, so we’re going to have to drive from there if you don’t want to fly into Goa directly.”
“We?” asked Gideon.
“Heck yeah, you don’t think I’m dropping out of this now, without knowing what happens, do you? And you’re gonna need to get out of dodge when this is over—I’m the guy for the job.” He grinned at them. “I was in the Marine Corps, that’s where I got my wings. I’m thinking you could use a little help with these monks of yours, too.”
“Absolutely! That’s great! Thanks, Mac.” Gideon shook his hand across the table.
“OK, so back to the plan. Mumbai is about 580 kilometers from Goa, which they say is eleven and a half hours not counting stops. You never know in those countries, though… Could be a lot longer. It’s not rainy season, at least, so we can be thankful for that. I’d say we fly from here to Oman tomorrow morning. Have lunch, fuel up, rest, and head out tomorrow night to Mumbai. You guys can sleep on the plane, and we can all sleep in the hangar in Mumbai until it’s light. Jimmy’ll stay with the plane, we’ll hire a car, drive part of the way, and find somewhere to stay… So we get to Goa in three days.”
“Three days is a long time,” Rei said. “But the longer those monks wait, the better. Maybe they’ll get bored or careless. And I definitely don’t think we should fly into Goa. I’d be watching the airport if it were me, so I’m sure they are. Of course, Mr. Xavier is so glad we’re not dead, three days won’t seem too bad to him!”
“Did you figure out where we need to go once we get there?” asked Gideon.
Rei took out her by now well worn notebook. “There are a lot of old churches in Goa thanks to the Portuguese… and we obviously hope we don’t have to visit them all. My two best guesses are St. Francis Xavier’s, and the Born Jesus, which houses Francis Xavier’s remains. Father Eduardo was a Jesuit, and Francis Xavier was one of the initial seven men who founded the Jesuit order. When he first arrived in Goa, Father Eduardo was still a Jesuit. So I am guessing that he would have attached himself to one of these two churches. Afterwards, when he was looking to hide a letter, they would have been logical. But the other side of the coin is that people would have known him at whichever one he’d gone to or worked at. So it could be the other Jesuit one… Or neither, just to make sure he didn’t run into someone who might recognize him.”
“Great. That’s not exactly narrowing it down!” Gideon said.
Rei shrugged. “Well, the Church of the Carmelites is probably out because they were Carmelites. But it’s in ruins anyway, so if it was there, we won’t find it now. The Church of Saint Catejan was either not finished yet, or had just been finished when he was there, so I’m ruling that one out as ‘the great church.’” She consulted her notes. “For now I’m leaving out the two with convents. Saint Catherine’s is a chapel, so we can assume it’s not ‘the great church.’ That leaves Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of the Mount. Our Lady of the Mount has been reconstructed twice, but early on. I think that would be our fourth choice.”
“Bottom line?” Gideon asked.
“Saint Francis Xavier. Born Jesus. Immaculate Conception. Top three.” She closed the notebook. “With the caveat that I could be totally wrong.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mumbai, India
Present Day
It was dark when their plane landed in Mumbai, but they could see the lights stretching out on the peninsula and on the skyscrapers in the city. They slept in the plane after all the paperwork had been done, and ate a quick breakfast in the captains’ lounge before getting a taxi to a car hire firm. Mac had decided to land at the smaller Juhu Airport, instead of Chatrapati Shivaji International, so they drove south along the coast and enjoyed the beautiful morning sun on the Indian Ocean.
Captain McMillan rented an SUV in his own name, and they were soon driving through the crowded streets. They went north on National Highway 3 to clear the peninsula, then turned south onto the Mumbai-Pune Road. They merged onto National Highway 4, which was the Pune-Bangalore Highway. The roads were decent, and traffic, outside of the city, moved along at a good pace.
They stopped for lunch in Pune, and enjoyed a veritable feast of local curries, dhal, coconut sauce, rice, na’an, and gooey sweet pastries for dessert. The food made them all sleepy, so Gideon ordered strong black coffee to go, and they piled back into the SUV. Mac consulted his map.
“We can stop in Satara, which is a bit less than halfway to Panaji, or we can go on to Kolaphur, which will leave us only a couple or three hours tomorrow. There are little towns along the way, but those less likely to have some kind of hotel. How’re you feeling?” he asked Gideon, who was behind the wheel.
“I’m ok now that the caffeine has kicked in. That lunch just about put me in a coma! Let’s see how we all feel at the first town, and if we’re all right, I guess we push on. I’d just as soon get there on the early side tomorrow so we can check out at least one of the churches, and find a hotel or guest house or something. I guess we need to figure that out, too…” He settled back in the seat.
They decided to keep driving at Satara, and stopped in the late afternoon at a small inn outside Kolaphur. Having exchanged money in Mumbai, they paid cash for two rooms, which included dinner and breakfast. They bathed and ate, tired from long day of driving. As they slept they could hear the sporadic barking of a dog nearby.
Breakfast was light but delicious, and most importantly included copious amounts of strong coffee. They were back on the road by 8:00. They arrived in Panaji, a town nine kilometers from Old Goa where two of the churches they were visiting were located, at 11:00.
“We’re too early to find a room, wouldn’t you say?” Gideon asked.
“If we want an inn or guest house, we can probably do that now. If we want a hotel, maybe not,” Mac replied.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and it seems like the last thing we want is to go out of our way to advertise that we’re here. I don’t know how sophisticated these guys are, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they can flag our credit cards. Not yours, Mac… At least I don’t think they have your name, although they would have seen you at Great Zimbabwe. Anyway, let’s just assume we have to use cash, and we need to try to be as incognito as we can.”
Rei raised her eyebrows. “Disguises?”
“Maybe not disguises, per se. But you could wear a sari and a headscarf and some big sunglasses, and Mac and I can wear hats and those tunic things the men here wear. That white linen stuff. You know...”
Rei laughed. “Sherwani.”
“How the heck do you know that? You are a repository of useless information, you know that?” he laughed. “OK, so we wear sherwani, and a turban or some kind of hat. We’ll look ridiculous, I’m sure, but at least we won’t stand out completely. They’ll be looking for tourists, so we just need to look untouristy.”
They drove through the streets, and found a nice looking guest house in an upper scale neighborhood. The house was pale pink, with shade trees and a pink wall. The iron gate was open, so they drove into the parking area. There was only one car in the small lot.
“Wait here, I’ll go check it out,” Mac said, and hopped out of the passenger seat.
He was gone for ten minutes, and came back smiling. “Very nice lady! We have two rooms overlooking the back garden. No en suite baths, but we’re the only ones here, so that’s not too bad. She was happy to take cash, and breakfast was included. We can go on in now, and she’ll feed us lunch, too.”
They got their luggage and went in the house. It had obviously been the home of a well to do family, with a gracious, wide tiled hallway, and large arches leading to rooms off either side. The stairway swept up the right wall, and they found their rooms at the end of the hall. They both were large, with high ceilings and tall windows. French doors were opened to a small balcony which overlooked the walled garden. The trickling of a fountain could be heard, although the vegetation hid it from their view. The bathroom, across the hall, had been made from another bedroom, so it was also large, with a claw foot tub and intricately painted tiles. The Quinns took a moment to wash their face and hands, and plug in some of their electronics to charge.
Wandering down the stairs, they followed voices until they found Mac seated on a shaded veranda. He waved to a pot of tea, and they sat.
“I was talking to Mrs. Pandey, and told her that we’d like to buy some native clothes. She thought I was a bit nutty, but I told her we’re doing some research, and wanted to blend in… I don’t know what she really thinks, but she told me where we could go. The shop’s not far from here. I think it’s owned by a relative of hers.”
Mrs. Pandey came out with a tray of food, which she put down in front of them, smiling.
“You please enjoy!” she said, and she left.
The food was simple but full of delicious flavors. Having only had Indian food in London, Rei was already surprised at how many different curries there seemed to be. She wasn’t a huge fan of the very spicy ones, although they were Gideon’s favorite. But homemade na’an, melted butter, and coconut sauce managed to cool her tongue.
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