“Sure,” Alicia said, glancing at Marcus, giving him the camera.
The man backed up and stood next to the statue of the angel with the lance. He smiled. “When you focus the camera you need to focus on this.” The man opened his coat and displayed a pistol strapped to a holster. Then he wrapped his hand around the pistol grip. “Now, Mr. Marcus and Miss Quincy, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to walk back across the bridge, and we’ll get in my car. From there we’re going to a private room where you will remove the encryption on the revelation310.org website and you will give me the flash drive in your pocket along with that spear point. I bet the spear point looks like the spear the lovely lady above me is carrying. Too bad she isn’t on your side. Now, move.”
Marcus glanced up at the statue of Saint Michael high above the fortress. Then he looked directly at the man. “When did you breach?”
“Pardon me?”
“Breach. You know, crossed the line from working for the U.S. Government to working against it. When did you go from protecting the constitution to working for those hell-bent on destroying it? Hello, Andy Jenkins.”
The man said nothing for a moment. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t. You do fit the profile, though. Right age. Slight limp from your left leg. You sold out the people of Israel, America, and much of the world, for that matter. Tell me Jenkins, was it you who personally took down Kennedy’s plane, or did you sit back on the sidelines and call the shots. Or did you and your cronies have a cigar and a scotch after one of your assassins did it?”
“Shut up and start walking.”
Marcus and Alicia turned and started toward the far side of the bridge, Jenkins, hand inside his jacket, following right behind them. When they were in the center of the bridge, Marcus gripped the camera in his right hand. Without hesitation, he turned and threw the camera directly at Jenkins’s head. The impact caught him on the lower jaw, dazing him for a second.
It was enough time for Marcus to grab Alicia by the hand. “Jump!” He tossed her over the railing and followed right behind her. Within two seconds they splashed into the Tiber River.
Jenkins leaned over the railing, firing two shots. The bullets cut through the water right between Marcus and Alicia. “Dive!” Marcus ordered. They dove down, two more bullets slicing through the water.
A police officer, coming from the side of the bridge closest to the Castel Sant’Angelo, drew his pistol and ran toward Jenkins. Jenkins fired, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The impact knocked him to the ground. Jenkins turned and jogged off the bridge, limping, glancing back over his shoulder to see where Marcus and Alicia had surfaced.
A fisherman in a small boat was coming under the bridge just as they popped to the surface. Marcus waved down the fisherman. The man in the boat cut the engine and leaned over, extending a hand to lift Alicia from the river. Marcus followed, flopping into the center of the boat. “Go!” Marcus said. “Go! Bullets!”
“Andiamo rapidamente!” shouted the fisherman. He leaned back and gunned the engine. He had unkept brown hair, dark eyes and a tanned, raw-boned face. He looked at Marcus and Alicia and smiled. Within seconds the boat was moving on plane down the Tiber River, cutting a V across the dark and ancient waters.
ONE-HUNDRED-SEVEN
Ten minutes later the fisherman pulled his boat up to the side of a concrete walkway, a wall near it covered with green ivy. He slowed the engine approaching the dock. “Como il suo italiano è?”
“Not very good,” Marcus said. “How is your English?”
The man smiled. “It’s fine. There is a cleat to tie the rope.”
“I see it.” Marcus stepped from the boat and extended a hand to Alicia.
She got out of the boat and turned back to the fisherman. “Thank you for pulling us out of the river.”
He smiled. “You are very welcome.”
Alicia looked at him a long moment. Never had she looked into eyes as kind as this man’s eyes. She felt vulnerable but safe.
Marcus said, “Thank you. We need to find a hotel.”
“Why was that man shooting at you?”
“Because we found information that’s very damaging to the people he works for.”
“What will you do with this information?”
“Give it to the world.” Marcus pulled his phone and flash drive from his wet pants. “These may be ruined.”
The man smiled. “Perhaps not. Many say the waters of the Tiber are blessed. If you are in need of a safe haven I know of one.”
“Where?”
“It is on the island of Panarea near Sicily. There is a small house on a center hill north of the town. It has been in my family for many generations. No one is physically there now. You may use it. The door is always unlocked.”
Marcus nodded. “Why are you doing this? You don’t even know us.”
The man glanced across the river and then up to Marcus and Alicia. He smiled. “What is there to know that I do not recognize?”
Alicia asked, “Who are you?”
The sound of police helicopters and the wail of sirens came from near the Vatican. The fisherman said, “You both must leave now..”
Marcus nodded. “Thanks.” He turned to Alicia. “There are some steps by the wall.”
Alicia wanted to say something to the fisherman, but was at an odd loss for words. She simply stared at him for a few seconds and then continued with Marcus down the walk to the long set of concrete steps leading up to the inner city. They climbed the steps and turned back to the river. The boat bobbled in the current, still tied to the dock, but the fisherman was nowhere to be seen.
Marcus and Alicia ran up to an intersection and caught a city bus. They paid the fare and took a seat in the back of the bus, tourists and Italian workers watching them in their wet clothes.
Once the bus pulled away from the curb, Alicia glanced through the back window toward the river. “Paul, that man who pulled us from the water, he seemed so at peace. I felt like…I don’t know…”
They were quiet a minute, the Roman Coliseum to their right out the window. Marcus finally said, “They won’t stop until they’re stopped.”
“I know,” Alicia whispered.
“Once we get the last of the information on the website, once we incinerate the Spear of Destiny…maybe things will change for the better…for the world.”
“Only if the world wants to change itself.”
“I have to upload information, including the image of the text on the scroll Daniel wrote and sealed. We’ll trace the connections from William Chaloner in Isaac Newton’s day to Andrew Chaloner in the thirties and forties. And we’ll expose Jonathon Carlson today and the Circle of 13 tied to World War II up through the Kennedy assassinations, the Israeli prime minister murders, to the prophecies of the Middle East and the rest of the world. We’ll explain the connection to the year 2024.”
Alicia shook her head. “But we don’t know for certain 2024 is the year.”
“Maybe we never will, or maybe we will before this is done.”
“Let’s find some dry clothes, a laptop or a tablet.”
“We need something else.”
“What?”
“Some kind of disguises. They’ll be watching every terminal. We have to change our appearances a lot.”
Andrew Jenkins drove down Via della Rotonda and whipped his car into the parking lot of the Hotel Abruizzi. He parked and began making a series of calls to his contacts in Rome. To the last one he said, “I want people at every ticket counter at the airport, train and bus terminals. You catch these two, and you’ll have more money than the Pope.”