Indisputable Proof

by Gary Williams

  Still in a sprint, Tolen quickly closed on the plane. In one fluid motion, he retrieved his Springfield from its holster. He had given Reba explicit directions to stay with the plane, and she always kept the interior lights on while on the ground.

  Tolen reached the stairs, galloping up them in an instant. He was filled with an overwhelming sense of alarm as he knifed into the dark cabin, gun aimed ahead, primed for movement. The airfield lights cast a murky view inside, and he could see the cabin door ahead was open, yet there was no sign of life in the cockpit.

  “Reba, where are you?” he called out.

  In the shadows, he raced past the rows of seats, reached the cockpit, and flicked the master switch on the lighting control panel. The inside of the plane burst with light. Tolen returned to the cabin.

  “Reba Zee!” he called out worriedly.

  No response.

  He looked to the bathroom door. It was closed. He slowly approached it, wary of an ambush. He turned the handle of the thin door, and it opened outward without any help. Tolen stepped back, gun raised. Reba Zee slumped out of the bathroom and onto the cabin floor, landing on her back with a thud, her head lolling toward him. The front of her unruly gray hair was smattered with wet blood where the center of her forehead had been pierced by a lone bullet hole. A trickle of blood had rolled down her nose and chin, effectively dividing her face in half. One eye was closed. The other pale eye stared up at him, eerily, as if she were giving him one last knowing wink.

  There had been no attempt to emulate an Apostle-style death. Just cold-blooded murder.

  Dazed, Tolen took several steps back and plopped into one of the passenger seats, never breaking his eyes away from Reba Zee’s lifeless body. He absently laid the pistol in the seat beside him, his head spinning.

  Tolen looked at the locker. It was partially ajar. It was a foregone conclusion at this point, but he nevertheless moved lackadaisically over to it, not even bothering to pick his gun up from the seat. Sure enough, the stone jar was missing. He returned to his seat where he slumped into a fog of confusion and despair.

  The chirping of his cell phone brought his thoughts back into some semblance of order. The caller ID number was not familiar, but it was a local number.

  “Hello.”

  “Who is this, please?” The man spoke in broken English.

  “Who is asking?” Tolen countered.

  “This is Hellenic Officer Nestor Bouboulis.”

  Tolen stiffened. The Hellenic police were the national police force of Greece. It was CIA protocol not to divulge association with the U.S. agency, especially when on assignment outside American borders. At the moment, Tolen was not even comfortable giving his name. He feared somehow that the police had already connected him with the murder of the French woman.

  “I ask again, who is this?” the man pressed.

  “This is Samuel Tolen,” he said, reluctantly. “What can I do for you, Officer?” The only security cameras in the hotel had been in the lobby, and Tolen had skillfully avoided them as he had exited. Jade’s room, where Claudia Denoit hung on the wall, had been paid for by Diaz’s credit card. Tolen was mystified as to how the local police had found him so quickly.

  “Mr. Tolen, we need to speak with you. What is your location on the isle?”

  “What is this regarding, Officer Bouboulis? I have urgent business to attend to.”

  “Do you know a Spanish Inspector named Pascal Diaz with the…,” Bouboulis paused, “Cuerpo Nacional de Policia?” The man continued without allowing Tolen a chance to answer. “It’s a silly question. Well of course you do,” he added with a disingenuous chuckle.

  “Yes, we’re working together.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Officer, I have a right to know why you’re asking me these questions.”

  There was a moment of dead air. “We found his body at the base of the Monastery of St. John. His face had been smashed in by rocks until he was unconscious, and then he was pushed from the steeple where he fell to his death.”

  Damn, like the Apostle Matthew: thrown from a steeple and, when he survived the fall, beaten to death with stones. They had the order wrong but had still achieved the same grim result.

  Bouboulis continued. “We found his cell phone. You were the last person who called him. I ask again. What is your location on the isle?”

  Tolen remained silent.

  “This is not a request you can deny,” Bouboulis’ tone grew aggressive. “Another body was just found at the hotel where you have been staying. Where are you?”

  Tolen disconnected and turned his cell phone off, tossing it in the chair to the side where it clinked against his pistol.

  He stood, found a white blanket in one of the side seats, and used it to cover Reba Zee. Tolen returned to the seat where he hung his head, tired and exhausted. In the last twelve hours, things had gone from bad to abysmal. He had nearly died in the explosion in Javier Diaz’s basement. He had uncovered Jade’s connection to Simon Anat’s reward offer and, through sundry facts, revealed her deception and partnership with Nicklaus Kappel, billionaire Simon Anat’s assistant.

  Jade. The thought of her pained him. He had trusted her. More than that, it had become personal. He had been drawn to her, only to discover it had all been an act. He felt betrayed. There was now no doubt in his mind Jade had solved the clue and that she was on her way with Kappel to retrieve the cache of Jesus’ artifacts at this very moment.

  To compound matters, his pilot and friend, Reba Zee, had been murdered, as had his international partner, Pascal Diaz. Now, the Greek authorities wanted him for questioning in the homicide of Diaz. By association, he was their prime suspect, and to top it off, he still had no idea who had the Sudarium. If it was not returned to the Cathedral de San Salvador in Oviedo, Spain, in the morning, untold numbers of innocent Americans would die at the hands of terrorists seeking retribution.

  The whole situation had turned impossibly dire. Tolen wondered if his own personal agenda had a hand in subverting the mission from the start, and he could not help but feel he had allowed things to go woefully off track.

  Willing himself to action, Tolen removed a piece of paper from his pocket where he had scribbled the text from the Patmos jar upon it. He read it aloud:

  Of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, only the Son is charged with holding the contents on high where the ancients knew no god but themselves in the desert. Travel from the north. As David faced the lion, you will face the lion incarnate. Aim at the one on the left and dig at his right foot. There you will gain entry to the Holiest of Highs. The third jar marks the end of your journey, but all three will be needed.

  He still had no idea what the message meant. Tolen had never felt so defeated in his entire life.

  ****

  Eleven-year-old Sam sat in the middle of a small Jon boat, fiddling with his shoestrings. His father was in the back, next to the 20-horsepower hand-tiller-driven Mercury motor. It was an early spring morning, and the sun had barely begun to crest the horizon. The air was calm, the water placid, mirroring the dark morning sky, which was interspersed with a red and yellow hue to the east. The familiar smell of the river—rugged but not unpleasant—draped the still air. The occasional calls of whippoorwills and bobwhites originated from unseen places along the bank. As usual, the morning was picturesque and tranquil.

  Sam watched as Jaspar Tolen pitched his lure in a weed bed of eel grass and slowly wound it back in, ever patient, waiting for a largemouth bass to strike. Once near the boat, the man would lift the lure and cast again: pitch, wind, lift—over and over; not going too quickly, and never stopping. Jaspar held his gaze on the reflective surface of the water. To Sam, his father’s concentration was epic.

  Sam felt a deep sadness. His mother had passed away from a rare blood disease sev
en months before, and he missed her terribly. Some days were better than others. Today was not a good day, even though he loved to fish with his father and had looked forward to the outing. For some reason, the morning had brought a myriad of hurtful memories of his mother. Now, his rod lay propped against the gunwale with the lure dangling a foot over the water’s surface.

  Jaspar Tolen spoke in a hushed tone, “Hey, Sam, you know how many fish you’ll catch with your bait out of the water?”

  Sam looked up at his father. He tried to force a smile. “I’ve caught just as many as you have: none.”

  “So you’re quittin’?”

  “No, just taking a rest.” A question was perched on the tip of his tongue; something he had wanted to ask his father for seven months, but the time had never seemed right. For some reason, he blurted it out without much thought. “Why did God take Mom from us? What did we do wrong?”

  Jaspar Tolen’s expression turned poignant. “Ah, Sam, we didn’t do anything wrong. It just happened. There are no explanations; only manmade reasons and excuses, but none of them matter. He took her, and now He’s caring for her. There is a plan to everything. We still get to hold her in our memories. You can never let the death of a loved one kill your spirit to live. It’s human nature to mourn and remember, but it’s just as important that we move on.” His father offered a warm smile. “Your mother wants you to enjoy life, son, so fish. Catch a big one, and I’ll cook it for dinner.”

  The words settled over Tolen like a comforting blanket. For the first time, he knew his father’s compassion would hold them together.

  “Hey, Sam…” Jaspar’s eyes lit up, and his voice escalated. It was odd for the man’s tone to be so loud. He made it a rule only to speak in low voices when on the water so as not to scare the fish away. “Hand me that can o’ pickles.”

  “What?” Sam said, not understanding. There were no pickles in the boat. What is he talking about?

  “Can o’ pickles,” Jaspar Tolen repeated. He smiled.

  Suddenly it was dark. Sam could barely make out his father even though they were only several feet apart. Confusion reigned. “What’s happening?”

  “I’ve got to go now. It’s been time for me to go.”

  “Wait! Father, where are you going?”

  Tolen’s eyes flew open. He awoke to the bright light of the airplane cabin, breathing heavily as he lay inclined in the seat. A single thought ran through his mind: What happened to the fish?

  Samuel Tolen had had this same dream many times since his youth. The frequency had slowed down in his adult years, but still it replayed every now and then, although this was the first time he had the dream since his father had lapsed into a coma. Because it was a remembrance of a real-life event, like watching a home movie, the events and imagery had always been the same. Yet, this time, and this time only, the ending had changed. This was the first time Jaspar Tolen had asked the bizarre question about a can of pickles, and the landscape had faded to black. Normally, the ending followed the true event: Sam had picked up his rod, and on his first cast hooked a 6½-pound black bass. After a dutiful battle, he had landed the trophy fish to their mutual elation. It was a day Tolen would never forget; one firmly etched in his consciousness not only for the thrill of the catch but for the answer his father had given him about his mother’s death.

  Tolen sat up and looked at his watch. It was approaching 11 p.m. He was stunned he had fallen asleep in the first place, but thankfully it had only been for an hour. Thoughts of the dream left him stupefied and wondering why it had been different this time. He recalled the exact words his father had said to him in the dream: ‘Hand me that can o’ pickles.’

  Can o’ pickles? It made no sense.

  Tolen shook away the vision. He looked at his cell phone sitting in the seat beside him. If the local police were monitoring his phone, there was a chance they might be able to triangulate his position. Still, he had to chance it. He picked it up, turned it on, and called Tiffany Bar.

  “Tolen, where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour.”

  “Reba Zee is dead, as is Inspector Pascal Diaz.”

  There was an audible gasp on the other end of the line. “Oh my god,” her words were filled with shock and bewilderment.

  “I need you to stay focused, Bar,” Tolen instructed her with compassionate authority. “What have you got for me?”

  “Um…I can’t believe...,” Bar started off track, her emotions bleeding through the phone.

  “Come on, Tiffany,” he gently prodded, “what do you have?”

  “Uh…yeah…Dr. Jade Mollur.”

  “What about her?”

  Bar released a long, stabilizing exhale. Slowly, her words gained strength. “She…was with Dr. Cherrigan in Switzerland.”

  “You’ve already confirmed that information to me.”

  “Yes…no,” she sounded momentarily confused, “there’s more. The night they were there, she phoned him late. The cell tower she called from was 57 miles away from the town where Simon Anat’s estate is located. Although they arrived together, they were in different locations that evening.

  “Also, I correlated the phone calls from Nicklaus Kappel to Dr. Cherrigan’s hotel room in Costa Rica. The calls were made when Dr. Mollur was away, out of the country.

  “Lastly, and this may be big, we found a hidden file on Aaron Conin’s laboratory PC.”

  “Related to the Sudarium?” Tolen asked hopefully.

  “Two years ago, Javier Diaz had a paternity suit filed against him by an American woman who had traveled to Europe. Javier, it appears, came to the U.S. and paid Aaron Conin to fudge the results so he wouldn’t have to pay child support.”

  “Interesting.”

  “You’ll find this even more interesting.”

  After she explained, Tolen felt renewed. “Bar, where is Vakind?”

  “He’s in a lock-down meeting with President Fane and Homeland Security. They’re monitoring for terrorist activity.”

  “Get on the next plane to Oviedo, Spain. You don’t need to notify Vakind. I’ll deal with him.”

  “By myself?” she asked, sounding reluctant.

  “Yes.” Tolen took the next few minutes to explain what he needed Bar to do.

  When they hung up, he took some consolation in knowing Jade was innocent. Equally disheartening was the realization she was now a victim. The most likely scenario was that she had been taken against her will to help find the last stone jar and the cache of Jesus’ objects, but she would only be kept alive as long as she was useful. On the phone with Analyst Bar, Tolen had made a decision, which was a calculated gamble. He had sent Bar after the Sudarium, while he went after Jade.

  The only way to save Jade was to solve the clue from the second stone jar. Again he focused on the text. Seconds turned into minutes; minutes into an hour. It was now approaching midnight. Tolen was wracking his brain to unravel the clue, and he finally decided to close his eyes and lean back into the jet cabin chair, attempting to relax and let his mind flow. Immediately, he thought back to the dream from earlier. What did pickles have to do with fishing? Pickles don’t even come in cans. Still, there was something familiar about the phrase. “Can o’ pickles…can o’ pickles…can o’ pickles,” Tolen repeated out loud. He recognized the phrase, yet he did not. With his eyes still closed, he said the words aloud, faster this time, “Can o’ pickles…can o’ pickles…can o’ pickles…can o’ pickles.”

  He paused, suddenly understanding. “Can-o-pic! Canopic!”

  He reread the Patmos jar text just to be sure. The clue, with its vague words, fell into place with precision. He pulled out a map and, to his elation, confirmed he had solved it.

  He now knew exactly where Kappel and Jade were heading.

  CHAPTER 45
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  September 14. Friday – 1:36 a.m. Isle of Patmos, Greece (12:36 a.m. Oviedo, Spain)

  8 hours 24 minutes until the start of the Feast of the Cross

  Tolen rose, closed the exterior door, and went into the cockpit. He had learned to fly on smaller planes and, although he had relieved Reba Zee on long trips once they were airborne, he had never piloted the Learjet through take off. His understanding was that the basics were the same for all planes.

  He buckled into the seat and reviewed the instrument panel. Then he gazed outside. The tarmac ahead at the moment was quiet. The runway lights were on, streaking off into the distance. Even at this late hour, there were aircrafts still landing, mostly Cessnas and other small planes coming in after nighttime tours of the island.

  Kappel had several hours’ head start so there was no time to waste. He checked the fuel gauge and found it at three-quarters, which would be enough for him to get where he was going. He reached over to turn the radio on but refrained. Takeoff from the airfield would be unannounced. No need to hear the chatter of an excited air traffic controller once they realized what he was doing. Tolen checked the avionics, adjusted several of the settings, and hit the ignition.

  Complete silence.

  It was a deflating moment. He realized the plane had been sabotaged to prevent him from following them. He unbuckled and quickly made his way through the cabin, opened the exterior door, lowered the stairs, and exited the plane. In the distance, he saw the lights of a small plane arcing in for a landing on the adjacent runway.

  Earlier, he had been too preoccupied to notice it, but now he detected the heavy smell of engine oil. He looked to the rear, at the cone of the Pratt & Whitney engine to that side, and saw fluid had gushed from the turbine, pooling on the tarmac. Whatever damage had been done, it was beyond a quick repair.