In the yacht’s dining room, Leo and the others sat drinking coffee with glum faces. News of the pathogen’s return had put a damper on a day that had been filled with promise, and none of their attempts to find any new information about the source of the pathogen had proved fruitful.
“I’ve just received another message from the villa,” Lev said, finally breaking the silence. “They’ve received word that other compounds have begun to seal themselves off from the outside world. People are beginning to think this is Armageddon.”
“They may have a point,” Alon said. “I mean, sooner or later this thing is going to land on our own doorstep, and we’d better be prepared.”
Lev rubbed his temples and stared down at the floor. “I believe this plague is part of a much grander plan. If we’re to succeed, we need to step up the pace and start using all of our resources. Right now, the only ace we hold in our hand is the code in the Bible … a code put there by God Himself. I’ve always believed that the real purpose of the code is to authenticate the fact that the Bible was divinely inspired and that it is the true word of God, but there may be other reasons for its existence. God, in His infinite wisdom, left us a code meant to be deciphered now, at this exact point in history. If I’m right, it may also hold the key to this plague.”
John pinched his lips together in thought before finally deciding to join the conversation. “You know, I’ve been thinking, no one really understands the Book of Revelation very well. I mean, it reads just like a code … it probably is a code … and a lot of people have a lot of different interpretations of it. Maybe we are looking at Armageddon.”
Leo frowned. “That dog just doesn’t hunt, John.”
The cardinal’s countrified response not only brought smiles to all the faces around the table, but it also revealed a tough, working-class upbringing that sometimes surfaced when Leo was faced with a difficult problem. As a man who had once fought in the ring and worked in the coal mines beneath the rolling farmland of central Pennsylvania, Leo’s scarred left eyelid and blunted nose revealed a past not always spent in quiet introspection.
Leo had always believed that his scholarship to Georgetown University had been a gift from God, but from the moment he had received it, he had always felt that he had a debt to repay-not to man, but to God. Leo’s method of repayment had been the priesthood, and for the past thirty years he had risen through the ranks of a group of sanctified commandos known as the Jesuits to his present position as a Prince of the Church. He had made the journey from a coal mine in Pennsylvania to the Vatican. From the rough, unpolished upbringing of his youth to the halls of academia as a highly educated professor of history, God had delivered him this far for a reason. Leo was sure of it as he slammed his fist down and glanced around the table at the others.
Everyone was taken aback by the sudden display of emotion from the usually reserved cardinal.
Ariella leaned over and laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Leo … what is it?”
“We’re missing something. I can feel it. The answer is right there, right beyond our grasp. We need quick, honest answers and fresh minds. I was just thinking, this whole thing reminds me of a cave-in we had at the local coal mine in my hometown. When men are trapped underground, miners from all over the country come to help with new equipment and fresh ideas. Now, it seems as if mankind itself has suffered a cave-in of sorts. We’re at the bottom of a deep, dark hole with no light shining in from above. We need light and we need fresh air. I’m calling Morelli … and then I think we should call Mendoza and his team of scientists and ask them to join us. After our discussion last night, I’m convinced they know more than they’re telling us. This is a war, and some of the best people in the world are out there waiting to fight it with us.”
Lev rubbed his beard and leaned back from the table. “If we are going to get more aggressive in our approach, then we need to make it a priority to find out just who or what the real enemy is.”
Lev’s last statement made Leo pause. His Israeli friends, some of the most accomplished tacticians and fighters in the world, lacked a visible enemy. None of them had any idea what they were really up against. The pathogen was an invisible enemy that drifted on the wind, and the lack of something more concrete to target had become a roadblock to people with no experience in fighting a microscopic foe. Leo was about to give them one they could see.
“Listen, everyone. This thing didn’t just spring forth from nature … it has a maker. We need to concentrate on finding him, or them, or whoever. I mean, what’s their goal? There has to be a payoff for them. In fact, that may be the very thing that leads us to them. We’ve got to think outside the box. There are clues all around us, but we aren’t seeing them yet. We need a common denominator, and by some strange twist of fate, I think we might have just found it … the Acerbi Corporation. We’ve got to keep our focus on them. Their logo is an exact match with the image of the stalk of wheat painted on the chapel wall. There’s no way they could have copied it exactly, because it’s been buried underground for two millennia.”
“Excuse me, Cardinal.” Everyone looked up to see a female crewmember standing in the doorway to the dining room. “We just received a call from the Vatican. Bishop Morelli would like to speak with you right away.”
Leo quickly rose from his chair and made his way up to the communications room. “Anthony, I was just telling the others we needed to call you. What’s up?”
After a brief conversation, Leo walked out onto the deck surrounding the bridge. He gazed out across the dark water at the lights rising from the distant shoreline into the hills of the Spanish countryside. The lights were a comforting reminder that people were still in their homes, eating supper and talking to their children. Life was still going on … but for how long? Holding on to the railing, he felt as though the force of gravity no longer applied to him. Any moment now, an invisible switch with his name on it was about to be flipped, and he would float up into a dark void and disappear. Of course, life would still go on for others. People would still go about their daily lives, and the fact that a well-known Catholic Cardinal had suddenly disappeared would only be a side note to their evening discussion around the dinner table as they listened to the TV news in the background.
The yacht’s captain was watching Leo from behind the windows of the wheelhouse. As with most seagoing men, Alex preferred watching the sea to listening to other men’s troubles, but Leo had become a friend, and tonight he had a feeling the cardinal needed someone to talk to. Walking outside, he stood by the rail and lit a cigarette before tossing the match overboard. “What’s wrong, Cardinal?”
“Sarah Adams.”
“Who?”
“Sarah Adams … Daniel’s girlfriend. She was the flight attendant who was in the plane crash with us last year. She was also on the Carmela when we sailed from Israel to Italy.”
“Thin, blond-haired girl?”
“Yes.”
“What about her?”
“She just happens to be the only person in the world who’s contracted the virus and survived.”
“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”
Leo continued staring straight ahead, as if not making eye contact with the captain made the words come easier. “She’s gone missing from her hospital room. They think she’s been kidnapped.”