CHAPTER 66
One Month Later
Cardinal Leopold Amodeo was awakened early in the morning by the sound of voices outside the cabin. Shuffling from his warm bed, he opened the thick wooden door to find the head of the Mossad looking him straight in the face.
Leo rubbed his eyes. “Good morning, Danny.”
Danny Zamir smiled back. “Good morning yourself, Cardinal.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m no longer a cardinal.” Leo peered over Zamir’s shoulder at several Israeli commandos standing among the trees. “Is this a social visit?”
“We’ve come to take you all home … and by the way, the pope has reinstated you to your former position.”
A sleepy voice called out from inside the cabin. “Who is it, Leo?”
“It’s the Mossad. It appears we’re surrounded.”
Zamir looked through the doorway and saw Evita Vargas curled up in a large chair under a blanket.
“Ask them if they want some coffee.”
“We don’t have time,” Zamir said. “There’s a chopper down on the highway and a plane waiting for us on the runway at the base of the mountain. Where’s Lev?”
“Right behind you.”
Danny swung around to see his old friend, Lev Wasserman, standing behind him holding the stub of a cigar in his hand. “We just heard about Acerbi on the shortwave radio. So it’s all over, eh Danny?”
“Yes. Eduardo finally agreed to take matters into his own hands after we followed two of Rene’s most fanatical supporters to a conference center on the grounds of a resort he owned in the Netherlands. We discovered a hidden stockpile of the virus in a secret vault beneath the building, along with hundreds of pounds of the genetically altered wheat. Once we had the powdered virus in our hands, it was a simple matter of having our scientists bake some croissants with the genetically altered wheat-apparently there was a special procedure involved to prevent the destruction of the delicate DNA. In the end, I believe Eduardo realized that he was the only one who could get close enough to Rene to get the job done, but I could tell it really broke the old guy’s heart.”
“Is there any way we could stop by to speak with him before we leave?” Leo asked. “I’d like to thank him. I’m sure he could use some support right about now. He appeared to be ill the last time we saw him.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Leo. He disappeared three weeks ago.”
CHAPTER 67
The weather had turned frigid by the time Leo arrived outside the Apostolic Palace. Hurrying past the Swiss Guards, he noticed the frenetic activity inside as aides rushed back and forth, squeezing past him without bothering to acknowledge his presence.
“Ah, Cardinal … at last.” Pope Michael rushed to greet Leo and ushered him toward a pair of red wingchairs next to a low coffee table. “How was your flight?”
“Bumpy. It’s good to see you again, Your Holiness. I noticed a lot of people running around downstairs.”
“Please … sit. We have a lot to discuss and time is short.” The pope poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Leo. “What have you heard since you left France?”
“Nothing really, except for the fact that Eduardo Acerbi has disappeared. We only had time to gather a few things before they flew us out and dropped me off here in Rome. Lev and the others flew on to Israel.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re sitting down, Leopold, because we’ve just received word that Eduardo has turned up in the Middle East.”
“The Middle East? What’s he doing there?”
“We’re not sure, but after Rene died, he fled to Turkey with his wife and son.”
Leo almost choked on his wine. “What did you say?”
“I said he fled to Turkey …”
“No, I mean the part about his having a wife and son.”
“I see you’re as surprised as the rest of us.”
“Well yes, considering the fact that he told us his wife died ten years ago and he has another son he failed to tell us about.”
“He lied, or should I say he omitted certain facts.”
The two men were interrupted when the pope’s trusted secretary walked into the room and handed Pope Michael a sheaf of papers.
“Thank you, Enzo. Here, this is what I wanted to show you, Leopold. It’s a copy of Rene’s birth record … his
Leo could hear the blood pounding in his ears as he began to read. He read the page twice before it fell into his lap. “Rene was adopted?”
“Apparently. It seems that, when children are adopted, their original birth records are sealed and they are issued new birth certificates. The names of their birth parents are replaced with the names of their new adoptive parents.”
“Which means that Eduardo was not Rene’s blood father.”
“Exactly, Cardinal, which leaves us with quite a dilemma.”
“I’d say that was an understatement, Your Holiness. All this time we’ve been operating under the false assumption that Rene Acerbi was Eduardo’s only child … his blood child … and now you’re telling me there’s another. How did we miss this?”
“Probably because Eduardo kept it a closely guarded secret. We were all fooled into thinking that Rene was the embodiment of the Antichrist. All of the indicators were there. His seeming invincibility … his efforts to take over the world while appearing to be a savior … even the encoded passages in the Bible code that led us to believe he was the evil one until he died and left us all wondering.”
“So the Cathar woman, Colette, she’s still alive?”
“Very much so.”
Leo had to pause for a moment to think. “I believe we need to look at all the facts again before we rush to judgment, Your Holiness. According to what we know, the Antichrist will be born of a Jackal, so all this talk of a biological son could be irrelevant. If anything, an adopted son like Rene would actually make more sense.”
“Normally, Cardinal, I would agree with you were it not for my increasing belief in the validity of the code. I want to show you something else.” The pope sat next to Leo and spread the rest of his papers out on the table before handing one of them to Leo.
Leo’s face took on a blank expression as he looked at a page filled with astronomical jargon couched in the language of mathematics. “I’m afraid mathematics isn’t one of my strong points, Marcus … I mean, Your Holiness. What am I looking at?”
“It’s a birth announcement.”
“A what?”
“It’s an astronomy report announcing the birth of a new star … a very special star.” The pope pointed midway down the page. “These are the coordinates. It’s sitting right at the edge of our solar system.”
“Another sun?”
“Yes … in a manner of speaking.”
“But that’s impossible … isn’t it? Another sun that close to the earth would be visible to the naked eye.”
“Not if it’s dark.”
“A dark star?”
