by John Lyman
Looking back at Demir and the Turkish soldiers, Leo held up his hand. “Uh ... Anthony ... I think you need to back away from there.”
In his haste to explore, Morelli had barely noticed the reddish haze now surrounding him. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know ... but ... The satellite phone attached to Leo’s belt began to buzz. Now what? Keeping his eyes on Morelli, Leo lifted the phone and placed it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Get out of there! Get out of there right now!”
The static on the other end was making it difficult for Leo to hear as he held the phone to his ear. “Who is this?”
“This is Eduardo Acerbi, Cardinal, and you and your friends have only a few minutes to live unless you get out of there right now!”
“Where are you?”
“We don’t have time to talk. I’ll call you back in a few minutes ... now run!” The line suddenly went dead.
Looking back toward the raised area, Leo saw that Morelli’s next few steps would place him right in the center of the space. “Anthony! Stop! Don’t go any farther.”
Morelli froze as he jerked his head back toward Leo. “What is it?”
“We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Now?”
“Yes ... right now!”
“Who was that on the phone?”
“Eduardo Acerbi ... and he knows where we are.”
“Acerbi? That’s impossible! The man just had a stroke.”
“Apparently he’s recovered enough to talk. I recognized the voice. We need to move away from here ... now!”
Turning away from the towering blocks of stone, Morelli’s eyes grew wide as he ran through the reddish haze. Looking at Leo, he jumped from the platform and began to run just as everyone else started clambering back up the sloping sides of the mist-covered crater.
Most soldiers who have seen combat will all agree that time seems to bend in strange ways when an individual is suddenly faced with his or her own mortality, and this was just what Leo and Morelli were experiencing in their slow-motion race up the sides of the crater. Half-way up, they felt a series of tremors in the earth which caused them to look back down over their shoulders. The Dark Ruin was now completely covered in the thick red mist, and as they continued to scramble up the steep rocky sides of the crater, they saw several large boulders break loose from the rim in a heaving cloud of dust before beginning a downward plunge straight for them.
Moving sideways in a frantic, crab-like motion, Leo ducked as one of the tumbling giants flew over his head and crashed down behind him with a thud that rippled the ground in all directions. The Earth heaved once again before suddenly growing quiet, but in the abrupt silence they heard a sound that made the hair stand out on the back of their necks. Growing steadily, they could all hear the muffled sound of laughter. It seemed to be echoing all around them and came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, as if it were trying to pass from one dimension into another like a stranger’s shadowy finger pushing against a gossamer curtain late at night, looking for someone inside. No one present had ever experienced anything like it before, even when they had all battled demons in the Negev Desert. This was something new, and for the first time since they had set out for this place, Leo felt real fear. “Run!”
Reaching the overhanging edge of the crater, the Turkish soldiers swirled around to aim their guns down toward the red mist and whatever lay inside as everyone rolled over the lip of the crater and half ran and half fell down the grassy incline, until finally they came to an out-of-breath stop at the top of the next hill. The sound of laughter had disappeared, replaced instead by the sound of flapping wings.
Leo cocked his head and listened. The sound reminded him of a flock of large birds flying just overhead, but there were no birds anywhere to be seen. Frozen with fear, they continued to listen and watch, spellbound, until finally the flapping stopped and the Earth heaved one last time before all was quiet again. Like steam from a kettle meeting cooler air, the strange happenings of the past few minutes had evaporated just as suddenly as they had begun, and in the quiet aftermath no one had any doubt that a sudden phone call had just saved all of their lives.
For some reason, Leo’s fear also seemed to evaporate. He felt like a twenty-year-old again, energized by what he had just experienced. Whatever lay buried beneath that hill possessed a cosmic malevolence so violent that its presence had triggered an equal and opposite force within him, making him more acutely aware of the forces at play in a celestial realm that was invisible to those who haven’t been invited. Whatever it was, the mere presence of two men of God had set it off before they had even had a chance to make real contact. This was nothing like the entity they had encountered in the Negev Desert or in the Chapel under the Vatican, and Leo knew that whatever it was, it was much, much worse— if there could be such a thing.
Leo’s satellite phone rang once again, jarring everyone’s already frazzled nerves. “Hello?”
“I see you made it out alive, Cardinal. It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Is this really you, Eduardo?”
Leo heard a faint chuckle on the other end of the line. “Yes, Cardinal. I guess you could say I’ve made a miraculous recovery. I’ll explain everything to you when we meet.”
“Where are you?”
“Paris.”
“Paris?”
“Yes, and this call never happened. I’ll explain everything soon. I want you to send two of your most trusted people to meet with me in person. Don’t come yourself ... you’re being watched.”
“Watched?”
“I’ll call you with instructions tonight when you’re safely away from there.” The line suddenly went dead again. Leo looked around and found Colonel Demir sitting among his men, gazing over at the hill they had just retreated from. His men were strangely quiet. The easy banter usually traded back and forth between elite soldiers after the adrenaline rush of potential combat was absent, replaced instead with the quiet introspection that comes to those who’ve been exposed to something they can’t explain.
“Colonel, could you have one of your choppers fly us to our boat in Antioch?”
“Of course, Cardinal.” The colonel rose to his feet and brushed the dirt from his hands as he scanned the sky. “I have three birds in the air circling just out of sight.”
“Good. Would you ask them to meet us at the edge of town?” Leo paused for a moment. “Oh, and Colonel, make sure your people stay away from that hill. Whatever’s over there doesn’t want to be disturbed, and I can promise you your weapons will be useless against it.”
“Our weapons ... useless?” Leo could see the color draining from Demir’s rugged face once again. “What the hell’s over there, Cardinal?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I think it’s safe to say the word hell is most appropriate. No matter what happens, you must keep your men away. Whatever’s over there has probably been there for thousands of years, and it’s very powerful. Somehow it sensed our presence, which means it’s even more dangerous because there’s an intelligence attached to it. We don’t want to rush into anything until we know what we’re facing.”
“What about posting guards?”
“Just stay away for now, Colonel. It’s not going anywhere. I’m not sure of the boundaries, but at this point I think it’s safe to assume that anyone who gets too close to that hill could be in mortal danger.”
With the sweat of fear and exertion staining the collar of his uniform, the colonel swiveled in his knee-high boots and began barking out orders to his men just as an exhausted Lev Wasserman finished climbing the last few feet to the top of the hill and collapsed in the tall grass.
“What now, Leo?”
“I just asked the colonel if he could spare one of his choppers to fly us back to the Carmela. Things are beginning to spin out of control here in Turkey. Our cover is blown and there are threats coming at us from every direction. I believe our best course of action is leave until we ha
ve a better handle on just what it is we’re facing.”
Reaching into his front shirt pocket, Lev produced a half-smoked cigar and lit it with a match. “I agree, Leo. I think I’ve had enough of this place for awhile.”
* *
As soon as the Turkish chopper landed on the dock next to the Carmela, the group onboard scrambled aboard the yacht to decide their next course of action. Crowded together with the rest of the team in the main salon, they all sat drinking coffee, transfixed by Leo’s description of the supernatural events that had occurred in the hills outside Orencik.
Listening to his story, Ariella shivered. “Reminds me of the Negev Desert. Do you think we’ve stumbled onto another site similar to the one we found out there?”
“I don’t think so,” Leo said. “This place seems different somehow.”
“How so?” John asked.
Leo set his cup on the table. “I’m not sure. It’s just different. Think about when you were back on your parent’s ranch in New Mexico, John. You said you used to ride up into the mountains and sit among the ruins of the ancient cliff dwellers. Did you notice any differences?”
“Yeah, all the time. Some were built by different tribes, and the construction was similar, but there were subtle differences in things like the shapes of doorways and the way they laid out the rooms.”
“Exactly. That’s the way I feel about the site in Orencik. It has a different feel about it from the site we discovered in the Negev Desert.”
Walking into the salon, a young crewmember handed a satellite phone to Leo. “Excuse me, Cardinal, but there’s a call for you. The caller said you were expecting it.”
Leo stood with the phone and walked out onto the back deck. After a few moments, Leo returned and resumed his place on a couch facing the others. “That was Eduardo Acerbi. He’s in Paris. He wants to meet with two members of the Bible Code Team in two days, and he specifically requested John and Ariella. He refused to give any other details over the phone except for one ... a meeting place.”
“I think Alon and Moshe would be better choices,” Lev said. “This is a field mission, and John and Ariella aren’t ready yet.”
“He said it has to be them or the meeting is off.”
Lev rose from his seat, his face beet red. “Then it’s off. Since when does Eduardo Acerbi dictate orders to us?”
“Please, Father,” Ariella said. “Let us go. You said the same thing when it was my time to go into the Israeli Army for my mandatory service. I survived then and I’ll survive this now. You have to let us fly from the nest sometime.”
“She’s right, sir,” John said. “We’re all equal members of the same team.”
“Why did he specifically request them, Leo? Did it occur to anyone here that it could be a trap meant to lure us all out in the open for some kind of rescue effort if they become hostages?”
“He doesn’t need to lure us out, Lev. He already knows where we are. He’s afraid of something ... very afraid. I could hear it in his voice. He said he wouldn’t be able to call us again, because after today his calls would no longer be secure ... even with his encrypted software. He specifically told me not to come because I was being watched, as are you. Apparently, the comings and goings of John and Ariella are of no concern to whoever is watching us for the very reason you mentioned earlier. They’re not considered to be field agents.”
“He said we’re being watched?” Lev stood and began to pace. “Who the hell is watching us?”
“I have no idea,” Leo said. “Eduardo hung up before I had a chance to ask.”
The voice of Alex Pappas could be heard up on the bridge shouting orders to release the lines from the dock as the floor beneath their feet shuddered with the startup of the engines two decks below.
“We need to decide now, Lev,” Leo continued. “Eduardo said he has to meet with John and Ariella in two days. After that all bets are off.”
“Why the urgency?”
“Needless to say he was very cryptic, but he kept insisting that they had to arrive in Paris within the next forty-eight hours, because after that it won’t be safe for them to fly.”
“It won’t be safe to fly! What on earth’s going on? I still think I should send Alon and Moshe to meet him.”
Leo gulped the remainder of his coffee. “I agree that Eduardo is a master of subterfuge, but I trust him ... and I have a feeling you do too, Lev.”
“But we’re talking about my only daughter, Cardinal.”
“That’s true, but the man just saved our lives, so I think he deserves some credit.”
Lev walked out onto the back deck and lit a cigar as he watched the deckhands preparing to cast off. After a few moments of staring down at a dock full of people, any of which could be watching them, he walked back into the salon and poured a tall glass of wine. “Have Nava fire up the chopper so she can fly John and Ariella to Istanbul, but I want them to take the train instead of flying to Paris just in case. They should make it in time.”
Lev peered through his cigar smoke at the surprised-looking faces staring back at him. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
As John and Ariella ran down to their stateroom to pack a few things for their trip to Paris, Lev nodded to Alon. “I need to speak with you in private.”
As the two men walked to the railing outside on the main deck, the yacht eased away from the dock and entered the Mediterranean, where Alex Pappas shoved the throttles to full speed and headed for Israel. Up on the top deck, Nava could be seen preparing the chopper for its flight to Istanbul.
CHAPTER 14
PARIS – TWO DAYS LATER
Paris in springtime. It seemed a cruel dichotomy to John and Ariella that the reason for their visit to the city of lights was rooted in darkness. After making the two day train trip from Istanbul into Paris, they were practically sleepwalking when they crowded into an early morning RER subway train for a quick trip into one of the most affluent sections of the city—the 7th arrondissement.
Exiting a crowded metro station filled with well-dressed Parisians, they were immediately assaulted by the sights and smells that drifted from the bustling Rue Cler street market. Continuing on without pausing to eat, they weaved their way along a crowded sidewalk to a wide intersection where five different streets came together in a blur of speeding Paris traffic that flowed with all the determination of a raging river. Across the street lay the famed Champ-de-Mars, the park-like setting that ran from the Seine all the way to the Ecole Militaire, the same French military school Napoleon had attended. From there they could see the lattice-like beams of the Eiffel Tower rising into a cloudless sky. It was a sight that made most newcomers stop and stare for a moment, no matter how worldly they tried to appear.
Standing on tiptoes, Ariella sniffed the warming air. She could see trees everywhere. They lined the boulevards and filled the parks, and spaced along a wide path that separated the cars from the pedestrians, little patches of earth allowed the trees to grow and thrive in an otherwise paved urban environment. Small green leaves had recently repopulated the barren, stick-like branches that had clattered against closed Parisian windows during the darkened months of winter. Their leafy birth had been a visible sign to the city that the seasons were a constant, and that warmth had triumphed over cold once again—a metaphor for life over death as the creeping, green-tinted shade covered Parisian streets everywhere, shielding them from a summer sun that would soon make an appearance and give rise to complaints of heat instead of cold.
Always the philosopher, John watched the mass of humanity walking beneath the verdant canopy, seemingly oblivious to all the new green life sprouting just above their heads. He wondered if trees and humans shared any of the same feelings. Like trees, did humans sometimes lose their leaves? Is that what depression and mental illness were all about? Did people sometimes lose their leaves until some invisible force lifted them from the all-enveloping darkness and welcomed them back into a world filled with promise and light?
&nb
sp; Like most people, he knew there was some correlation between the dreariness of winter and the seeming euphoria of springtime. Like children released to the freedom of a playground, people flooded outdoors in search of uninhibited fun, preferably under a clear blue sky near a body of water where they could escape the buzzing heat of the sun while floating in the cooling embrace of a slow-moving stream.
“Where are we supposed to go?” Ariella asked, shaking John from his philosophic reverie.
“Lev said Eduardo would meet us somewhere on the grounds of the Palais de Chaillot. We’re to go there and wait. Eduardo will find us.”
Ariella stopped to brush the long brown hair out of her eyes. “You do realize that we don’t even know what he looks like. The only pictures we have of him are over forty years old. We should have brought Alon. At least he’s seen him recently.”
“Like Lev said, Eduardo will find us. Come on, Ariella. We’ve only got thirty minutes to get there. After that all bets are off, and I don’t want to face your father if we miss him.”
The two began jogging through the park, crossing gravelly areas crowded with tour buses and souvenir stands, until finally they found themselves passing beneath one of the most famous landmarks in the world. Looking up, the immense size of the Eiffel Tower was almost shocking in its scale as it soared over their heads, but they had little time to admire its beauty as they crossed the Seine on the Pont d’Iena, until finally they found themselves standing in front of the Trocadero fountains, staring up at a massive curved building situated at the top of a small hill surrounded by magnificent gardens.
“Is this it?” Ariella asked.
“Yes,” John said. “That large building is the Palais de Chaillot. There’s a famous terrace up there that would make a perfect place for him to spot us, plus it will give us a better view of the area.”
The two took off walking at a fast pace toward the curved wings of a massive neoclassical building constructed for the 1937 World’s Fair. From the wide expanse of the terrace, one could see over the Trocadero gardens to the Eiffel Tower just across the river. Countless photographs of the tower had been taken from this storied terrace, and John had been right. It provided the best spot for them to see and be seen.