God's Lions - House of Acerbi (17 page)

Looking up at the wall-mounted TV above her head, Sarah saw a female newsperson talking to the camera. Slowly rising from her bed, Sarah crept to her window and peered down at the street below. It was full of large white vans with satellite dishes aimed at the heavens, and a small crowd had gathered around police barriers set up around the front of the building. Climbing back into bed, Sarah grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

“According to our sources, the sole survivor of the virus is inside this hospital.” The camera panned away from the news woman to show the outside of the hospital.

Sarah let out a gasp.

“Hospital officials here have refused to release the name of the patient, but sources have informed us that she is a young woman in her twenties who hails from Long Island.”

Sarah sat up in the bed.
They were talking about her!
She was on the news, national news, and soon, word of her identity was bound to get out. Things were spinning out of control. Not only was she a prisoner, but she was now at the center of a huge news story that was about to propel her picture onto every TV screen and newspaper in America.

If only she could call Daniel. He must be frantic by now.

The sound of a metal cart rolling down the hallway and stopping outside her door caused her heart to race. She waited for the door to open but nothing happened.
God only knows what they are planning to do to me next,
she thought to herself. She had become a specimen—a specimen that, unlike a poor lab rat, was totally aware that she was about to be probed and prodded again against her will in the name of science. There was no way they were going to release her now.
This was insane
! S
he had to get out!

She watched a bird circle outside her window and land on the ledge before pecking at the glass and flying away again.
If only it was that easy for her.

Sarah jumped when, without a knock, the door to her room suddenly opened.

Stepping from the shadow of the doorway, she saw a short, dark-haired man wearing a white lab coat. Without hesitating, he pushed a wheelchair up next to her bed.

“Sarah Adams?”

Sarah stared at the man defiantly and refused to answer.

The man tried to smile. “You need to come with me. Do you need any help getting into the wheelchair?”

“I’m not going anywhere for any more tests. I’ve already told every doctor and nurse who’s come into this room that I want to go home.”

The man moved toward the bed while looking over his shoulder. Turning around, he brought his face level with hers. His attempt at a smile had been abandoned. “I’ve been sent to take you out of here ... out of the hospital.”

“Are you one of those creeps from the CDC? I overheard two of their doctors talking in the hall this morning. They were talking about taking me to some kind of special lab at a military base on the outskirts of Washington. They called it
Sam Rid
 ... or something like that.”

“USAMRID. It’s an acronym for the army’s biological warfare center. Believe me, you don’t want to go there.”

“Who are you?”

“If it’s any consolation, I can tell you that I’m definitely not a soldier, my dear. I’m from the Vatican. Now, we must hurry, because the guard outside your door who just left to answer a phone call from his headquarters will be back very soon when he discovers there is no such call.”

Smoke from the grill stung Leo’s eyes as he stepped out onto the top deck behind the yacht’s bridge. There, lounging around a small hot tub-sized pool next to an outdoor grill, sat the entire Bible Code Team, minus Daniel.

“Father ... I mean ...Cardinal Leo!” A fit-looking man in his late fifties rushed up to embrace Leo. It was Moshe Ze′ev, the former Israeli Defense Force General and current chief of security for the Bible Code Team. With his tanned, shaved head and signature handlebar moustache that twirled up at the ends, he was wearing a pair of lime green shorts and a bright orange fly fishing shirt.

Although Moshe possessed one of the brightest military minds Leo had ever encountered, he smiled at the fact that the man was obviously color blind, a trait Leo had noted on more than one occasion.

“It’s good to see you too, old friend. How’s your lovely wife?”

Leo was hoping Moshe’s wife was onboard. Hadar Ze´ev was one of Israel’s most famous chefs and had been responsible for all of the delicious meals he had enjoyed the last time he had sailed onboard the yacht.

“She’s cooking for the crew tonight. Alon decided to barbecue for you.”

“Oh ... great.”

A spasm of coughing erupted behind Leo. He turned to see Alon Lavi waving his hands in front of his face in an effort to clear the dense smoke rolling up from the grill. With short black hair shaved to the skin on both sides of his head, the former Israeli Special Forces Captain towered above everyone else and had the build of a professional weight lifter. In short, he resembled a linebacker in the NFL. He was also Moshe’s second-in-command of security and was a formidable foe to anyone who was foolish enough to threaten him or those he loved.

“I see you’re still working on your cooking skills, Alon.”

“Ah, Leo ... sorry I can’t shake your hand right now.” Flames shot from the overheated grill and licked at the blackened carcasses of objects that had once been thick, juicy steaks.

“I think they’re done, Alon,” Leo said, squinting in the smoke. “I kinda like mine rare.”

Alon grinned through the haze. “Just a few more minutes and they’ll be perfect.”

A feminine giggle erupted from the darkness next to the railing. “He’s hopeless, Leo,” Rising from one of the blue-cushioned lounge chairs, Nava walked under the tiny white lights strung over the deck and gave Leo a kiss on both cheeks. “I’ll put some more steaks on when he’s done. I like mine rare too.”

Nava was Alon’s fiancée as well as the pilot of the small blue helicopter that sat cloaked in darkness behind them on the yacht’s small landing pad. The petite brunette pilot had recently resigned her commission as the commander of a helicopter squadron in the Israeli Defense Force and was now a full-time member of the Bible Code Team.

“As you can see, Leo,” Lev said, “everyone is here except for Daniel. He’s using every connection we have to get through to Sarah, but he’s been met by a brick wall of silence from the Americans.”

“I heard she’s doing better.”

“That’s what they’re saying on the news.”

“Where’s John and Ariella?”

“Down in their cabin catching some sleep. They were in the command center all night making sure there were no reports of the virus around Portofino before the yacht dropped anchor.”

“It’s really good to see all of you again, especially now,” Leo said, standing upwind of the smoke. “I only wish I was here under different circumstances, but I’m afraid we’re facing a threat that is just as monstrous as the one we all battled last year. This invisible enemy is unlike anything man has ever encountered before, and I don’t have to tell you that we’re all going to have to be at the top of our game in the days ahead.”

The others sobered noticeably.

Lev shoved a bottle of cold water into Leo’s hand. “Why don’t we go down into the command center and call Daniel. I’d like to see if he’s uncovered anything new in the past few hours.”

Alon forked a piece of meat off the grill and clunked it down on his plate. “Sure you don’t want one of these before you go, Leo? The char on the outside is what makes them taste so good.”

Leo eyed the smoking object on Alon’s plate. It resembled the remains from a napalm attack. “No thanks, Alon. I think I’ll wait for Nava’s version.”

“Suit yourself, Cardinal. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

To Leo, this was like a homecoming. These people were like family to him, and he actually felt more comfortable among this tight-knit band of Israeli Christians than he did with some of his more pious contemporaries back at the Vatican. He had missed the camaraderie he had shared with them the year before, and it made him wonder now why he hadn’t spent his short sabbatical with them in Israel instead of at Morelli’s country house all by himself.

Leo followed Lev back into the bridge and descended a steep set of stairs to a narrow hallway that led to the yacht’s communications center. Stopping in front of a thick steel door, Lev punched in a code on a wall-mounted keypad and the door slid open to reveal a darkened room that looked more like a combat information center on a naval warship.

Above a row of computer screens that highlighted the people sitting in front of them in a bluish glow, two six-foot-high screens at the front of the room displayed digital maps and satellite images of the Spanish coast. Everyone in the room was so absorbed in their work that they were oblivious to the two men standing behind them in the back of the room.

At one of the computer stations, they could see a split-screen display of a satellite link between the communications room they were standing in and the command center back in Israel. Hunched over his computer console beneath the villa, Daniel Meir sat staring back at them. His long brown hair and a short beard highlighted his intellectual features, and as he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up on his forehead to rub his bloodshot eyes, he caught sight of Leo standing next to Lev. “Leo ... how long have you been on the boat?”

“I came on board in Portofino ... right before we put to sea.”

“You guys have already left Italy?” Daniel yawned. Time usually became irrelevant to him when he was working on something important, and they could all tell from the drawn expression on his face that he probably hadn’t slept for days despite their dire warnings about the effect it was having on his health.

“When’s the last time you took a break or had something to eat?” Lev asked.

“I’m heading for bed right now ... I’m starting to see double. What time is it where you are?”

Lev glanced at his watch. “It’s almost eight o’clock.”

“Morning or night?”

“Night.”

Daniel put his glasses back on and ran his hands through his hair. “I was just finishing up a long sequence scan using our new Bible Code software. I think I’ve found something interesting.” He hit a button on his console and a page from Genesis flashed onto one of the large screens. Circled in red at the top of the page was the phrase
a plague for some
, followed by the number
5771.
Then, below that, the name
Orsini
was spelled out vertically next to three letters—
DNA
.

“Interesting,” Lev said.

Daniel stroked his beard as he stared at the screen. “Yes ... very. I’m pretty sure the phrase
a plague for some
refers to the two biological incidents, but I couldn’t figure out the number. I decided to take a long bike ride around the compound, and when I was trying to remember what day it was, it finally dawned on me that the number 5771 corresponds to the current year using the Hebrew calendar ... the calendar that would have been used when the Bible was written. After I did some quick math, I found that the biblical year of 5771 equates with the Gregorian calendar year of 2011. That leaves us with the name
Orsini,
the cardinal who just died, and the three letters ...
DNA
. I don’t know if it’s just because I haven’t had enough sleep, but these last two things have me stumped. It’s driving me crazy but I’ve got to take a break. Any ideas?”

Taking a seat in front of the console, Lev peered into screen that mirrored the same data Daniel was looking at. “The three letters that spell out DNA refer to the way the pathogen chooses its victims.”

Daniel blinked at his screen. “Am I missing something, Professor?”

“The virus was engineered. I’m sending you something.”

Lev scanned the paper Morelli had given them into the computer. Daniel’s fatigue appeared to evaporate as he read the classified document that had just flashed onto his screen. “These shaded blocks ... they’re like a map of the virus’s DNA makeup. This pathogen was designed to target a specific DNA sequence.”

“Exactly,” Lev said, leaning back in his chair.

Daniel rubbed his eyes again. “Now it’s starting to make sense. Where did you get this?”

“Can’t say.”

“Hmmm. At least now we have the key to a very mysterious lock. Can you give me any information on this cardinal who just died in a plane crash, or how he might be related to the virus?”

Lev leaned forward and stared up at Daniel’s face on the large screen. “That, my boy, is why we’re on our way to Spain.”

Scrunched down in a wheelchair, Sarah pulled the blanket up close to her face as the man pushed her past the nurse’s station and into a waiting elevator. Once on the ground floor, they followed a long hallway until they came to a service door that opened onto a back alley behind the hospital. Fortunately for them, the crowds seemed focused on the main entrance to the building. Looking up and down the alley, the man extended a hand and guided her from the wheelchair into the back of a black Lincoln Town Car that sat idling by the door.

After sliding in beside her, he motioned to the driver and the car sped away through the maze of traffic that had already returned to the streets of Manhattan in the wake of the epidemic. Sarah blinked in the sunlight as they passed a street filled with news crews huddled in front of their satellite vans waiting for something to happen. “Is all of this because of me?”

“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid it is.” The man removed his white coat and shoved it under the seat in front of him.

Sarah felt slightly disoriented. She had been growing stronger every day, but the virus had taken a toll on her body. With the sudden exposure to bright sunlight, combined with the motion of the vehicle, her head began to spin. A wave of nausea brought beads of sweat to her forehead, forcing her to grab the armrest and brace her head against the back seat of the car.

As if in a dream, she looked over at the man with heavy black eyebrows sitting beside her. He was talking quietly on his cell phone.
Did he say he was from the Vatican?
Sarah tried to shake off the nausea by focusing her attention outside. She watched as they sped up a freeway ramp and joined the flow of traffic on an expressway that led away from the island of Manhattan.