“Judge Franklin will sign it. His house isn’t far from-”
“Dan, you don’t have time. An FBI agent, Christian Manerou, killed Alexandria. And he killed Sam Spelling, Johnson, Johnson’s wife, and Father Callahan. He knows Spelling’s mother’s address. You’re closer to St. Augustine than I am. Take back-up with you. Go!”
O’Brien called Tucker Houston. “Tucker, FBI managed to pull an address from the sheet of paper under the letter Sam Spelling wrote. It’s his mother’s address in St. Augustine. The knife is probably there.”
“Excellent, Sean! CNN is using Six’s studio to do a live interview with me. I’m getting Charlie William’s name across the nation. It’s now in the hands of the nine justices, or the Governor of Florida. “
“Listen Tucker. I believe an FBI agent, Christian Manerou, killed Alexandria Cole. He had a secret affair going on with her. I suspect he’d cut a deal with Russo. Once Manerou had access to her, he got her strung out on heroin, and when things
Lowe, Tom
The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller)) became testy, he stabbed her and framed Charlie Williams. He’s gone on a killing spree eliminating anyone with a tie to his name.”
“Can you prove this?”
“We’ve collected possible DNA samples from three of the four crime scenes. It’s being processed now. All we need is a sample from Manerou.”
“Is he here in Miami?”
“He was. But one of the agents in the bureau shared Spelling’s mother’s address with Manerou before she knew he was the killer.”
Tucker was silent for a moment. “What are you going to do now?
“I’m going to get to Spelling’s mother’s place before Manerou does.”
“I can’t incriminate this Manerou until I have something solid. But Sean, you’ve given me a lot to throw at Governor Owens.”
“Throw a fast pitch because they strap Charlie to the gurney in eleven hours.”
NINETY
Dave Collins was about to open a bottle of wine when he looked out toward his cockpit and saw O’Brien walking fast with Max under his arm. Through the open sliding-glass doors, Dave said, “Come on in, Sean. Cracking a bottle of cab. A Foxen Canyon, ninety-nine vintage. A good year for Californian cabernet.”
“A bad year for Charlie Williams. But now I know who did do it.”
“Who?”
“An FBI agent. Name’s Christian Manerou.”
“Good Lord, Sean. Every crime talk show in America’s running stories about the case. You must have just spoken with Tucker Houston. With his Texas tie and slight southern drawl, he’s become the darling of CNN. He was just saying how a new development in the case would definitely point towards a killer who used his position to shield the truth. He called it a ‘legal, moral and ethical obligation to seek the truth in William’s case.’ An FBI agent. Who would have thought?”
“It explains why I jumped to conclusions during the original investigation. I wasn’t following a sloppy trail left by Charlie Williams, I was following a well-thought-out trail laid by a man who knows forensics. He probably used a Ziploc bag to collect a few drops of Alexandria’s blood after he killed her. Sprinkled them into the front seat of William’s truck…it was a trail that made it a slam dunk in Charlie William’s face.”
O’Brien told the story as Dave sipped from a glass of cabernet. O’Brien concluded by saying, “If we can find the knife he used, the one that Spelling found and hid, we might find something on it to connect Manerou. The location of Sam Spelling’s written statement lies in the bloody message, or code, Father Callahan left behind.”
Dave sat back in his chair and looked at the fog drifting over the docks like smoke from a smoldering fire. He said, “The name Christian Manerou. Sounds French, could be Greek, and you said he was born on the island of Patmos in the Greek Isles. The same place depicted in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting-St. John on Patmos.” Dave paused, sipped some wine and said, “If we go back to Father Callahan’s hieroglyphics, if we look at them now in light of what we’ve discovered about Bosch, the painting, Omega, and Patmos…that leaves us with one thing…”
“The six-six-six,” said O’Brien.
“Precisely. Can we connect our latest eye-opener, Manerou, to these numbers?”
“You mean is Christian the devil? As oxymoronic as those terms sound…”
Dave wrote Christian Manerou’s name in large block letters on a piece of white paper. He said, “Since we’re talking numbers here…the ancient Greeks used numerology a lot in connection to their alphabet. They gave letters a numerical value. In the case of Omega, the last latter, it had the greatest value, eight hundred. You mentioned an oxymoron, well as we said the other night, today our scientists give Omega the value of one in trying to find the equation to the fate of the universe, but two thousand years ago, the Greeks gave Omega the princely weight of eight hundred.”
O’Brien said, “Alpha was the value of one.”
“Absolutely.” Dave sipped and smiled, his teeth purplish from the dark wine, his eyes alive with discovery. He said, “I’ll go online to find the numerical value of the twenty four letters in the Greek alphabet.” Dave typed, and the Greek alphabet and the story of Greek numerology appeared. “Take a look at this, Sean.” Dave positioned the laptop screen so O’Brien could get a better view. alpha = 1 (A) beta = 2 (B) gama = 3 (G) delta = 4 (D) epsilon = 5 (E) zeta = 6 (Z) eta = 8 (H) theta = 9 (Q) iota = 10 (I) kappa = 20 (K) lamba = 30 (L) mu = 40 (M) nu = 50 (N) xi = 60 (X) omnicron = 70 (O) pi = 80 (P) rho = 100 (R) sigma 200 = (S) tau = 300 (T) upsilon = 400 (Y, U) phi = 500 (Ph) chi = 600 (Ch) psi = 700 (Ps) omega = 800
Dave stared at the screen, his brow furrowing, the light playing off his eyes. He picked up his pencil and began writing. “The numerical value of your first name, Sean, could be S at 200, plus E at 5, plus A at 1, plus N at 50 equals 256. There was always a lot of ancient mysticism with numerology. Some alleged it could be tied with fortune telling, as in Omega, it can be connected to the universe. A Greek philosopher named Pythagoras was convinced the entire cosmos could be expressed with numbers…which brings us to the elusive number six-six-six.” Dave wrote the numbers on the paper. He said, “To this day, many people often those even found high up in the Catholic church, believe six-six-six is synonymous with a guy who killed a lot of Christians-Nero. Nero alone won’t equal six-six-six in value. But the ancient Greek spelling of Nero was Neron. If memory of Greek numerology serves me well, if you add Neron and Caesar together, they total six-six-six.”
O’Brien stared at the name, Christian Manerou, and said, “Dave, look at this.” He wrote out MANEROU in block letters and underlined four letters. “There’s your Nero today: MA NERO U.”
Interesting,” said Dave. Let’s add them up to see of it gets even more interesting.
M = 40
A = 1
N = 50
E = 5
R = 100
O = 70
U = 400 666
Nick Cronus stepped onto Gibraltar with three Greek sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. He carried a six- pack of Bud, one of the six MIA. His dark hair feathered out from a baseball cap, his red swimsuit faded the color of salmon. No shoes. He said, “I smell no spaghetti comin’ from your boat, so I say to myself, tonight would be a good night for grouper, lettuce, tomatoes, feta cheese, Nick’s special sauce, all folded in a warm pita bread sandwiches.”
