John Lyman - House of Acerbi

“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 original birth record.”

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?”

“Exactly, Cardinal. Up until now their presence was just theoretical. Dark stars were thought to have existed early on in the history of the universe, before conventional stars were able to form, but it appears that astronomers have discovered one right in our own cosmic neighborhood. From what I’ve been able to learn, these massive dark objects are practically invisible, because no visible light can escape from their surface. However, this one has been emitting vast amounts of gamma rays, so for now the astronomers in Hawaii who discovered it are classifying it as a star in the Newtonian sense. Nothing like it has ever been seen before.”

“Something about this seems familiar. When did this thing show up?”

“It appeared this year … on the sixth of August.” The pope handed Leo another sheet of paper. “Now, Cardinal, I want you to read this. It’s a copy of the encoded material you received from Daniel when you were busy in Mexico. I believe you need to read it again.”

Looking down at the page from Genesis, Leo saw the encoded name Eduardo Acerbi at the top of the page crossed diagonally by the phrase Father of the Evil One . Below that was the word that had taken their breath away … Antichrist . Then, at the bottom of the page, the phrase dark star jumped out at him, and running diagonally across it, he saw the phrase it will appear in the child’s sixteenth year .

“Have you checked to see when Acerbi’s son was born?”

“Danny Zamir had two of his men drive into Foix and ask around. Evidently, Eduardo made sure there was no record of the child’s birth, but according to a local woman who knew his mother, he was born on August 6 th… sixteen years ago.”

Leo felt the room sway.

“Personally, I was a little surprised that a man Eduardo’s age had a son that young.” The pope stood just as his secretary entered the room and cleared his throat. “They’re ready, Your Holiness.”

“Good. I’ll be right there. Come Leopold, walk with me. I’ve called a meeting of all the cardinals, which includes you.”

Gathering his thoughts, Leo followed the pope through the tall doors and down a winding staircase to a long hallway that led to the Sistine Chapel.

“You said Eduardo was in Turkey?” Leo asked as they walked.

“He was. He’s in Iraq now. Turns out it wasn’t as difficult to find him as we first thought when he went missing. He’s keeping a low profile, but he’s not hiding. After all, he’s a hero. He’s the man who saved the world from falling into the hands of a madman.”

“How did he end up in Iraq?”

“From what we can tell he and his family traveled overland from France to Istanbul. They stayed in Turkey for two weeks, where they made daily excursions to an ancient temple that was unearthed last year.”

“A temple?”

“Yes … and not just any temple. Supposedly, this particular temple is almost twelve-thousand years old. The locals in the area told us there was a team of archaeologists with him and that they appeared to be looking for something at the site.”

“Strange that they would head straight for the Fertile Crescent … to an area that’s considered to be the birthplace of the world’s three monotheistic religions. Does anyone know what they were looking for?”

“Not a clue, but they either found it or gave up looking, because they suddenly packed up and left. They popped up a few days ago in Iraq … in a house near the ancient city of Babylon. From what Lev told me, the house is actually more of a fortress. Eduardo was able to reclaim his family’s fortune, and like Rene, he’s surrounded himself and his family with a small army of security people. Morelli tried to contact him, but he’s refusing to talk to us or anyone else.”