John Lyman - The Secret Chapel

While the turbines continued to whine, Nava climbed out of her armored seat in the cockpit and stepped out onto the dock. Her long black ponytail hung from the back of her helmet and swished back and forth as she walked over to speak with Alon. After a quick embrace and a few words, she waved in the direction of the helicopter and turned to board the yacht with Alon, leaving Gabriella to take control of the Blackhawk. Alone now, Gabriella lifted the chopper into the air, where she would remain overhead until the boat was safely out of the harbor.

Leo and Lev made their way up an interior stairway of the yacht to the darkened bridge. Only the red battle lighting and the greenish glow from the radar display highlighted the men’s faces as they conferred with the captain and scanned the periphery of the harbor. Besides the helicopter overhead, several of Moshe’s most experienced men, armed with sniper rifles and night-vision goggles, had been secretly placed in concealed positions around the harbor to avoid any surprises.

Leo poured himself a cup of coffee from a pot nearby and settled into a raised seat next to the captain’s chair. He took a sip from the steaming cup while brushing the long gray-streaked hair from his face and peering out on the reflections from the yacht’s lights on the water.

The priest’s hands were still shaking slightly from the encounter with the SUV on the highway. “I don’t like this newest development. Those were real people with real guns out there on the highway behind us, not supernatural beings. There is more to this than meets the eye. Not only are we threatened with invisible satanic forces, but we’re also forced to deal with what appears to be a very organized effort by some very mortal individuals who want to obtain the Devil’s Bible for their own reasons.”

Lev pulled on a dark blue windbreaker with the yacht’s logo embroidered on the front. “I don’t like it either. At least we can fight humans with conventional weapons, but the fact that someone knows what we have and wants to possess it at any cost is another factor we have to consider. I’m beginning to wonder if Jeb Carlton’s jet was brought down by supernatural forces or if it was sabotaged by the same people who came after us tonight.”

“I don’t think the plane was taken out by sabotage,” Leo said. “They would have risked losing the book in the crash. Why don’t we put Moshe to work on this and see what he can come up with? He has the kind of connections most security agencies can only dream about. If anyone can find out who the people chasing us are working for, he can.”

“He’s already on it,” Lev said. “He just talked to the Israeli police who are on the scene back on the highway going through the wreckage of that SUV. They’re looking to see who it belonged to and trying to ID the bodies inside. He’s also made some calls to Rome. Some friends of ours are already starting to scout around. I’m sorry to say this, Father, but Moshe doesn’t much trust the Vatican, especially since we found those two Swiss Guards spying on the villa.”

“I can’t blame him. I’m having some doubts myself.”

Lev winced when he told Leo that one of his men distrusted the Vatican. He admired this priest and considered him a part of his family, but he had also seen the passage in the Bible code that spoke of dark forces within the Church working against them.

The yacht’s captain was outside on the deck in front of the bridge, smoking and watching the activities of the crew on the deck below. His name was Alex Pappas, a Greek who carried himself with the pride of thousands of years of Greek sailors who had plied these waters before him. In his mid-thirties, he was considered young for a ship’s captain. His short black hair provided a stark contrast to his spotless white uniform, while his hazel eyes reflected the color of the sea he had lived on for almost his entire life. His father had been the captain of the yacht, Christina, the yacht that once belonged to Aristotle Onassis.

He flicked the remainder of his lit cigarette overboard and gave the order to release the lines connecting the yacht to the dock. The crew began drawing in the thick nylon rope and coiled it on the deck as Camp ran back and forth, barking at the dockhands on the concrete wharf below.

The captain entered the bridge and took his place at the controls. With the flick of a toggle switch on a hand controller, he increased the RPM of the engines and the bow and stern thrusters came to life, slowly pushing the large boat away from the dock. With the boat now moving toward the center of the harbor, the huge brass propellers under the stern began to spin, driving the massive blue and white yacht out of the marina.

Moving past the breakwater protecting the harbor, the captain kept the boat centered in the channel until they passed the end of the jetty and entered the Mediterranean Sea, where he ordered the helmsman to increase the speed, pushing the bow higher as it slipped through the waves into deeper water.

Only the lights from distant ships far out at sea punctuated the darkness before them as the boat headed west across the open ocean toward Europe and the Italian coast. No one onboard knew what awaited them in the current climate of world events, nor could they imagine what forces might already be at work to keep them from making their destination. Despite the fact that they were now moving away from land, everyone onboard remained on high alert for any hint of an attack against them or their boat.

Wearing only a thin black polo shirt and white shorts, Leo shivered in the chill from the wind as he descended the stairs from the bridge. He was making good on his promise to take every precaution and walked the entire length of the boat, blessing the decks with holy water and praying for their safe passage across the sea. Although he was surrounded by the best Israeli-trained security men and women in the world, he recognized that the fate of those onboard this ship remained in God’s hands, for only He knew what truly lay ahead for them all.

John and Ariella were standing side by side on the yacht’s rear deck, watching the lights from the shore recede. They marveled at the phosphorescent glow given off by the plankton stirred up in the ship’s wake. The moon was rising in the distance as the two lovers held each other tightly. They kissed unashamedly in full view of both Leo and Lev, who sat with Moshe at a table on the rear deck. John and Ariella felt they had nothing to hide now.

Leo had come to know John as a fine man who had honestly looked at the priesthood for his life’s vocation, but it had become obvious that God had called on him to marry and start a family with Ariella instead. The priest drank his coffee in silence. He enjoyed seeing how happy these two were in each other’s presence. There was no need to ask if John would be withdrawing his application from Jesuit seminary, when and if they returned to America.

The hiss of water passing along the hull provided a backdrop for what was so far turning out to be an uneventful cruise. Leo had volunteered to give John a break from watching over the backpack containing the book and kept it next to him on the teak wood deck below his chair. He eyed it with revulsion and wondered why the entities hadn’t shown themselves since they had left port. Leo felt a chill as he remembered the reddish smoke in the plane’s cabin just before the jet had crashed into the sea. Like any confrontation, the wait could sometimes be worse than the event itself.

The priest leaned back in his chair and stared up into the star-filled sky. The quiet isolation of the sea, along with the rhythmic hum of the motors as the yacht pushed through the open water, began to lull him into a mood of complacent introspection.