The Venice Code (11 page)

“I say we destroy it, leave it here to be found, and then there’s no reason to pursue us,” said Giuseppe, sheathing his sword.

Marco’s head bobbed in agreement. “That’s a good idea.”

“But it isn’t what the Khan wanted,” replied his uncle. “We must obey his wishes.”

Marco frowned. “Then we must move forward, and quickly. We will be safe in Khanbalig.”

“You may be safe there, but the moment you set foot outside its walls, you will be pursued once again,” said Roberto, his eyes filled with hate.

Giuseppe turned to Marco. “You could be in hiding for years. Decades!”

“If that is God’s will, then so be it,” replied Marco. “We have rid a city of its false idol and freed a people to worship the true God once again. When this idol is safely hidden away, it matters not what happens to us. Should we die, we die. But the idol will never disturb another soul again.”

“You will spend the rest of your lives in exile for your actions today.”

They all turned toward Roberto.

“Do we need him for anything?” asked Marco’s uncle.

Marco shrugged. “I can’t think of anything.”

His father plunged his sword into Roberto’s belly, twisting the blade. “Neither can I.”

Unknown Location

Present day, one day after the kidnapping

Grant Jackson lay on a cot, his left hand cuffed to the frame, his right free to pull at it uselessly. He had woken here several hours before and determined that “here” was a basement of some type, it seemingly old, the beams over his head solid wood that clearly showed its age, and if he knew his home renovation shows from television, they hadn’t made them like that in decades, if not nearly a century.

No laminated beams here.

The musty smell and tiny windows set high in the walls had him thinking a century old home, perhaps even a farmhouse. His head had pounded for the first couple of hours, now it was a dull ache that had him closing his eyes and massaging his temples with his free hand. No one had come to check on him yet, but he had heard muffled voices and footsteps overhead the entire time.

He wasn’t alone.

And with his hand cuffed, the windows tiny, and the only set of stairs probably leading directly into the room where his captors were, there was no hope of escape.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

He had debated this for much of the past hour after his racing heart had settled and he could begin to think clearly.
Don’t panic!
had become his mantra, something he repeated over and over every time he felt a twinge of fear begin to settle in again. He knew he had to keep a cool head if he were to survive this.

Survive!

What were their intentions? They had killed his security detail, so he knew they had no qualms about murder. He was still alive, so this wasn’t an assassination attempt, though why anyone would want to assassinate him was beyond him. Then again, why anyone would want to kidnap him was equally so.

What would Dad have done?

Asking this question was how he solved most problems where the answer wasn’t immediately evident. The outcome however wasn’t always to his satisfaction, either he misjudged what his father would have done, or he was naïve enough to think his father had never been wrong.

He got himself assassinated by his best friend. How on the ball could he have been?

He mentally kicked himself for insulting his father. He knew Darbinger wasn’t himself, the brain tumor having affected him to the point he didn’t even know who was who, the doctors saying he most likely was suffering from extreme paranoia, in the end thinking everyone around him was an enemy. He had cried tears of sorrow and anger when they concluded that Darbinger most likely had acted in what he thought was self-defense, Grant’s father his final victim.

The state funeral had been impressive, the outpouring of emotion from the country moving to say the least, but none of it was any comfort to him. He had lost his father in a most violent and unexpected way, decades before he expected it to happen, and it had crushed him. He had hated Lesley Darbinger with every fiber of his being, even shunning Nora, Darbinger’s wife, when she had tried to see him to apologize for her husband’s actions.

He felt guilty about that now, but had never made amends. Perhaps if he made it out of this nightmare he now found himself in, he’d do so. It was obvious Darbinger wasn’t in control. There was nothing he could have done since he had no clue about the tumor and the effect it was having on him.

It wasn’t his fault.

But if it wasn’t his fault, then his father died for nothing.

The thought of a useless death for the greatest man he had ever known pissed him off even more.

“Hey! What the hell do you want with me?” he screamed in fury, in frustration, in desperation. He wasn’t sure if it was what his father would have done, but he was certain the man wouldn’t have lain there feeling sorry for himself. He would have confronted his captors, even if it meant his death.

But probably would have done it more eloquently.

He heard chairs scrape and footsteps, then a door creaked open at the top of the stairs. A light switch was flipped and several bulbs began to burn brilliantly, no moronic mercury-laden overpriced compact fluorescents here. He sometimes wondered whether or not the powers that be who banned the incandescent light bulb realized that millions of CFLs would end up in landfills and in the future contaminate our water supplies with mercury leading to birth defects and mental handicaps. But of course that was the worst case scenario—which never happens.

Two men descended the stairs, their faces uncovered, and to his surprise, both smiling—not sneers, but genuine smiles.

And they appeared unarmed.

The first approached him with a key in hand.

“Here, let me get those off you,” he said as he bent over and unlocked the cuffs. Grant’s mind immediately began to run through his options, all involving him miraculously incapacitating the two unarmed men, when a third man walked down the steps, an occupied holster evident on his hip.

His options suddenly boiled down to one.

Do nothing.

The cuffs were removed and he swung his legs off the cot, sitting upright.

“There, that must be better,” said the man. “It was necessary so you didn’t hurt yourself when you woke up.” He motioned toward the stairs. “Now how about we all go upstairs and have a little chat. Get to know each other, so to speak.”

To say Grant was confused would be an understatement. None of it made any sense. These men had killed his escort, shot him with something, obviously not a bullet, kidnapped him against his will, handcuffed him in a basement, and now wanted to be friends?

The third man climbed the stairs, the man who had done the talking motioning for Grant to follow. He warily complied, certain something sinister awaited him at the top—perhaps a bullet or a beating. He cleared the steps and entered a kitchen with a small dining area. A fourth man was sitting eating a Subway foot long. He smiled, waving at him with one hand as he took a sip from his large fountain drink. Grant waved back, half-heartedly, his confusion growing.

The third man led them into a living area and he pointed at what appeared to be the most comfortable chair available, some sort of La-Z-Boy. He sat, sinking into the soft cushions as the diner emerged from the kitchen with a large drink and a still bagged Subway sandwich and handed it to him.

“Eat up, I’m sure you’re starving,” he said. “I got you a ham with just lettuce, tomatoes and mayo, just to be safe since I wasn’t sure what you’d like. And a Diet Coke.”

Grant took the drink and sandwich, still uncertain as to what was going on. He put the drink on an end table to his left, the sandwich on his lap.

“What the hell is going on here?” he finally asked. “Who are you?”

The first man smiled. “We’re friends of your father.”

Grant’s jaw dropped as almost every muscle in his body slackened. He reached for the drink blindly, sipping the ice cold liquid as his eyes darted about the faces in the room.

“Bullshit.”

The first man laughed. “You’re a lot like your father, you know that?” He pointed at his chest. “My name’s Mitch Reynolds.” He pointed at the second man. “That’s Chuck Holder”—he nodded toward the third man with the gun—“that cheery fellow is Ben Cowan and finally, your waiter is Chip Schneller.”

“Pleased to meet ya!” said Chip with a wave. “Don’t be afraid of that sandwich, it won’t bite.”

Grant nodded, looking down at the still bagged meal. His stomach grumbled.

To hell with it. If they poisoned it, then they mean to kill me anyway.

He pulled the sandwich out, unwrapped it and tore the two halves apart. He took a bite and chewed as the others looked on, his eyes still wandering the room. He noted the curtains were all closed, the furniture mostly dated if not worthy of an antique shop, the walls plaster with deep cove molding usually only seen in older homes.

Definitely very old.

His stomach growled again in appreciation as he swallowed his first bite, and after a few more, he began to feel his old self.

“How do you know my father?” he asked between chews.

“Tell me,” said Mitch, “did your father ever mention the Triarii?”

“Tree what?”

“Triarii. It’s Latin.”

Grant took a drag on his drink, shaking his head. “Never heard of it.”

“That’s too bad. It would have made this a lot easier,” replied Mitch. “What I’m about to tell you will probably sound like BS to you, but I assure you, it’s all true, and your father believed in it deeply.”

“Okay.”

“Have you ever heard of the crystal skulls?”

“Sure, who hasn’t? Indiana Jones, Stargate SG-1 before that. They’ve got some in museums, don’t they? But they’re all fake. Carved in the nineteenth century.”

“That’s what the Triarii want you to believe.”

“Huh?”

“Almost two thousand years ago a crystal skull was found near the site of the crucifixion in ancient Judea.”

“You mean where Jesus was nailed to the cross?”

“Exactly. It was shortly after his death that it was found. It was brought to the Roman Emperor Nero as a gift. Nero became obsessed with the skull and convinced it was speaking to him, filling his nights with torment and his days with whispered warnings of doom to the empire. To rid himself of the torture, he ordered his finest legion, the Thirteenth, to take the crystal skull as far from Rome as possible.

“The legion made their way north, to Britannia, the farthest outpost of the empire. Along the way they encountered several bands of barbarians and the first and second lines of the Thirteenth were mostly wiped out. By the time they reached Britain, all that remained was the third line, their most experienced troops, the Triarii. They settled in Britain, keeping the skull hidden, and over the next thousand years integrated into their adopted country, but never forgetting their duty, a duty handed down generation to generation.

“In time a second skull was found in ancient Greece. Word of it reached the Triarii, who at this point had spread out around the known world, and it was immediately taken back to Britain where it too was protected. Then in 1212 a third skull arrived in Britain. When it was placed with the other two, it began to hum, then after a few hours a massive explosion wiped out most of London, burning over half of it to the ground, killing thousands.”

“I call bullshit on that.”

“It’s well documented. It’s the original Great Fire of London. Look it up if you want to—it’s part of history. Once we realized the danger of having these skulls together, we made it our mission to keep any two skulls apart.”

“What does any of this crap have to do with my father?”

“Your father was a member of our organization, and some time ago he stole the Mitchell-Hedges skull that was at the Smithsonian.”

“I’ve heard of it. Didn’t know it was stolen.”

“Nobody at the Smithsonian knows it was. What they have is a fake.”

Grant swallowed his last bite. “So my Dad was a thief. Wonderful.”

“No, your Dad was a patriot. He believed, like we do, that our technology is advanced enough now to harness the power of the skulls. He wanted to join three of them together, and if able to do so safely, harness the power of all the skulls.”

“How many are there?”

“Twelve, possibly thirteen.”

“Lucky thirteen.”

Mitch smiled, nodding. “Yes indeed. The twelfth skull was discovered in Peru a few of years ago while your father was president. He ordered its capture and sent in the Delta Force. Unfortunately things didn’t go as planned, and the international incident blamed on Lesley Darbinger was actually your father’s doing.”

“You’re hardly winning me over to your side,” muttered Grant, sucking on his drink.

“Perhaps this will. Lesley Darbinger did not have a brain tumor. He was perfectly healthy, perfectly sane when he shot your father in cold blood, under orders from the Triarii.”

Grant stopped sucking on his drink. “Come again? I thought
you
were Triarii.”

“We are, but we’re what you might call an offshoot. A breakaway group. The Triarii like to call us the Deniers, but we prefer to call ourselves the True Believers. We believe in the power of the skulls, and we believe it is time that this power was harnessed.”

Grant shook his head in disbelief.

I’ve been kidnapped by a bunch of wackos!

Crystal skulls with magic powers? It was complete and utter nonsense. And there was no way his father was part of this bullshit organization either.

“I can tell you don’t believe me,” observed Mitch as he removed his watch. He held up his bare wrist, revealing a small tattoo. Grant gasped, immediately recognizing it. He had seen the exact same tattoo years ago on his father. He had asked him about it and his father had brushed it off as a stupid fraternity dare during Rush Week. Mitch smiled. “I see you recognize it.”

Grant nodded.

“Where have you seen it before?”