rest of the day. Come on. We have something to show you.” The three men slid out of their deck chairs and climbed the exterior stairs to the bridge.
Daniel and Sarah had left the table together after dinner. They made their way up to the railing in front of the bridge and stopped to look skyward at the stars. Along with all his other talents, Daniel was also an amateur astronomer and had taken to giving Sarah a verbal tour of the cosmos. She gently touched his arm as she pointed to a distant star and asked him its name. They stared into each other’s eyes for just a moment before a dawning awareness of the three men standing behind them interrupted the spell.
“There must be something in the water,” Moshe said as he threw his head in their direction. Leo and Lev stifled their laughter before they entered an area behind the bridge and descended the small stairway leading to the ops center. Once inside, Leo had to let his eyes adjust to the darkness in the red light of the room. Realizing that Moshe and the others would need his expertise, Daniel reluctantly excused himself from Sarah and headed inside. She turned away to face the sea with the picture of Daniel’s face still in her mind before descending to the deck below to join the others.
Inside the communications center, the yacht’s executive officer was at his console, scanning cell phone and satellite transmissions on shore with the help of a large mainframe computer capable of breaking encrypted codes. In front of a bank of computer screens, Daniel resumed a project he had been working on before supper. He had been absorbed with searching for encoded messages in the Bible all day, and his brief respite with Sarah was the only free time he had allowed himself.
Moshe stood next to the female communications officer and studied the lighted image of the Italian coast. He looked at Leo and noticed the puzzled look on his face as he listened to all the radio chatter. “We’re trying to pick up any cell phone or radio traffic about the yacht’s arrival in the area,” Moshe explained. “If it looks like we’re going to have a reception committee, then we’ll have to alter our plans.”
Lev had been uncharacteristically quiet since they entered the operations center. “Daniel found something encrypted in the Bible this morning that you might find interesting, Father.”
Was this going to be
Lev ran his hands through his hair and looked over the row of computer screens. “Can you bring it up on the main screen again, Daniel?”
The multicolored screen came alive with green letters forming a matrix. Circled in red were the words,
Daniel turned in his seat and faced him. “The first part apparently confirms what we already knew. You and John must be the ones who will take the book to the chapel. However, the reference to the Antichrist took us by surprise. This is the first time we’ve ever seen his name encoded anywhere in the Bible. Of course he’s mentioned openly in Revelation … in the New Testament, but we’ve never seen it encoded before … except …”
“Except what, Daniel?” Leo asked.
“Except in the section of the Devil’s Bible we deciphered.”
Leo stared at the words on the screen. “That would make sense in Satan’s book, but this was found in God’s Bible. This is an enigma if I ever saw one.”
“It’s a mystery to us too,” Lev said. “This is the message I knew would keep you awake all day if you saw it. For now, all we can do is keep searching through the Bible and pray we can find something else that will help clarify that statement.”
A primeval fear was rising within the Jesuit warrior. Was it possible that the Antichrist was alive and now living in the world of men? The forces at work against them seemed to be multiplying by the hour. As disturbing as this last revelation was, Leo had to force himself to put this latest puzzle aside and concentrate on the mission at hand. “Can you all show me how you develop one of your scenarios?”
“Sure, Father,” Lev said. “Moshe, punch up the one we discussed before dinner.”
The large screen before them changed to display all of the towns and roads between the harbor at Maratea and Rome.
“As you can see, there are several main roads leading from this harbor toward Rome. This will work nicely in our plan because it allows us to pick and choose the best routes and vehicles for the trip to the city. Then we look at all the possible ways someone could spot you or ambush you on the road. We try to put ourselves in the other guy’s head. A plan of action is developed for every conceivable threat, and an offensive and defensive scenario develops from all the pieces. Moshe has just finished running an especially intriguing scenario that I think holds the best chance of success against a force that, for all practical purposes, we know nothing about. If you don’t mind, we’d like to work on it some more and eliminate some of the bugs before we present the final version to you at the 5:00 AM briefing.”
“That’s fine by me, Lev. I’m just a simple priest, and the closest I’ve been to an operation like this is watching a program about military planning on the History Channel.”
“You’re much more than a simple priest, Leo. This is a spiritual mission run like a military campaign, and you’re the ultimate general. You have to realize that you could be the hope of the world, and there are dark forces out there that are well aware of your presence and what you’re doing. We can only assist you in the earthly fights, but you’re the one who must defeat the invisible ones that will come at you and John.”
The yacht rolled slightly, giving Leo an excuse to grab the edge of the console to steady himself. After a few awkward seconds of not knowing what to say next, he excused himself and walked out into the hallway and down to the main deck. He made his way forward to the bow and stopped to gaze out across the dark water at the lights along the coast.
Being at sea must be a lot like being in outer space, he thought. Everyone onboard is separated from terra firma on a self-contained vessel cast upon a great void, traveling from one point of land to another, unable to survive outside the warm enclosure of their ship in the middle of an unyielding sea. The crew onboard could safely venture out of their craft in port, but at sea, the boat was their whole world.
Leo imagined that, if only they could just keep on sailing right by the coast and never touch land, maybe the book would remain out of the hands of those who would use it to work their evil against the world, a world that was already so saturated with hate that all it needed was the strike of a cosmic match against the fuel of intolerance that had formed like a puddle of gasoline across the globe.
Father Leo stood at the railing. He felt the salt spray in his face and the cooling breeze blow through his hair. The wind ballooned his half-buttoned shirt away from his chest as he closed his eyes and wondered how a small, insignificant priest could possibly accomplish anything against such odds.
Chapter 36
The Carmela was still miles from the harbor as dawn approached. It was 4:00 AM, and the night crew had awakened everyone onboard. This was, after all, not a luxury cruise, although it had seemed like one at times. Lev and his staff had done everything in their power to make life a little easier for those who would soon be going ashore in the final dash to Rome. They would all be facing a terrifying enemy as they made their way to the city-and some might not return.
The chefs had set up a breakfast buffet in the main salon for the large group who filtered in and gathered on sofas and chairs with plates of food on their laps and steaming cups of coffee in their hands. A large screen in the front of the room came alive with images from Daniel’s computer as he readied the presentation. Alon stood against the back wall and dimmed the lights so that Moshe could go over the scenario he had been working on almost all night long. The old former general had fallen into bed and slept for only two hours before his 4:00 AM wakeup call.
Moshe stood and walked over next to the screen. He was barefoot, wearing baggy white shorts and an
