Plague of Coins (The Judas Chronicles #1)

by Aiden James

  “Well, you just made it in time, William!”

  Larisa Jones stood by the nurse station, just down the hall from Beatrice’s room. She beamed when she saw the bouquet I carried and shook her head knowingly.

  “Boy, if you’re bringing those for your grandmother, I can only imagine the kind of things you do for a girlfriend!”

  “Grandma’s favorites and a get well card,” I said, sheepishly, shrugging my shoulders.

  Really, I hate the imagery that pops in my head when Nurse Jones looks at me as she did right then. It makes me feel like some juvenile pervert preying on the elderly. If she only knew the truth.

  It’s one of those moments when I try to flash my focus to fifty years from now, when in all likelihood the Nursing Home and the people working there will be long gone. Of course, that likely meant all of those closest to me would have long disappeared, as well. Keep in mind that I also like this lady named Larisa. She always makes me smile.

  “Beatrice is going to love the flowers when she sees them, but she’s probably still resting, William,” said Larisa. “She’s had a good day, though, and seemed a little more coherent for a little while after your dad visited her this morning.”

  “He told me that she seems a little better,” I said. “I hope she continues to get better....”

  I couldn’t finish my words, as the thought of her imminent passing seized my heart and soul like nothing else—other than my boy’s near-death encounters when we were in Iran.

  “You better get on in there, William.” She glanced at her wristwatch and then at the clock across from the nurse station. “I’ll go ahead and allow you to stay in there for forty-five minutes or so, since I know you like to read to her.”

  She walked down the corridor with me to my wife’s room and then gently opened the door. I told her ‘thank you’, and slid into the room. I thought Larisa might close the door behind me right away, but she snuck into the room and quietly pulled out a vase and filled it with water from a water pitcher on the nightstand closest to my wife. Afterward, she tiptoed out, offering me a shy but warm smile as she closed the door behind her.

  I held the card that contained my latest love letter to my wife as I watched her breathe. So frail...though not as near death’s door as she had been when I last saw her, a little over a week before. Her breathing was more rhythmic than I remembered—which is always a key thing in determining how close the elderly are to moving on from this world and into the next.

  That’s good…. I may have a few more weeks...maybe even a couple of months with her....

  “Hello, my love.... I have returned to you as I promised,” I whispered sweetly.

  I brought the chair I favor over to her bedside, and pulled it up as close to her as possible. Then I read the contents of my letter to her, telling her again how much I regretted ever leaving her so long ago, and how I also regretted not revealing myself to her when she was still of sound mind and body. I finished my discourse with a promise always to love her, as the only woman who ever touched my soul, and that I would always protect and care for Alistair, our beloved son.

  Of course, she said nothing, although her breathing deepened a few times during my reading of the last love letter I ever intended to write to her. My closure and maybe the very thing her soul needed to cross over to the other side—to finally break the heaviest tie to those on earth. Alistair had made his peace months before, so it was really just me hanging on to the fantasy that Beatrice might somehow recover and stay with us a few more years.

  Since I still had about twenty minutes left, I picked up Pride and Prejudice and began reading where I last left off. It’s a novel I never tire of, and I’ve come to believe that’s the case because it has always been one of her favorites. When it was time to leave, I set the book down on her dresser and placed the card holding my letter on the side of the nightstand closest to her head. Honestly, I didn’t care if anyone read it and discovered that the young man visiting her was her husband—or, at least believed he is her husband.

  Sometimes a change of scenery brings a fresh perspective to problems at home. I guess this was my way of letting her go. I fully expected a deluge of tears to engulf me all the way back home to my townhouse. And then I’d deal with my grief for as many weeks, months, and years as it would take.

  “I will always love you, Beatrice,” I whispered after bending down close to her ear. “You will always be the one....”

  Unlike the last time I did this, I didn’t detect movement behind her eyelids. She seemed to be sleeping soundly. A moment between dreams, perhaps? I would’ve liked to think she was resting in the Lord’s bosom, the thing so many theologians and clergy talk about. At least if she did pass this way, she’d be at her best. The sunken darkness around her eyes had lifted.

  As a parting gesture, I reached for her left hand. I noticed her fingers were wrapped around something small and glass-like. Something that glowed.

  I gasped.

  I couldn’t help myself, and though alarmed at first, the realization and myriad possibilities of what this could mean flooded my awareness. Even the army of liver spots on her hand had faded since Alistair placed the crystal in it that morning.

  “Hello, William,” said Beatrice.

  Her voice was still weak...but not shaky. Was she even awake—at least fully awake? Hard to say for sure, especially since less than a minute after she spoke she snored softly. But when she said my name, it came with a sense of knowing. It reminded me of how it used to be when we were in Scotland, and she had something dear to her heart to discuss...or had a bone to pick with me.

  I reclaimed my chair and brought it up to her bedside. I don’t know what I’ll tell Nurse Larisa when she returns to kick me out of here. In the meantime, I intend to stay put and wait for my wife—the love of my life—to fully awaken.

  Will she deliver a long-overdue tongue lashing for faking my death and leaving her and Alistair to fend for themselves so many decades ago? Or, will this be a reconciliation that is equally suffered for?

  Maddening questions, both of them.

  Just like me, everyone will have to wait for what’s next.

  The End

  Available now:

  Reign of Coins

  The Judas Chronicles, Book Two

  (Please read on for a sample)

  As I’m sure that most of you can imagine, I enjoyed a restless night, with almost no sleep. Not that the lack of sleep is normally an issue for me, as often I can go days on end without an extended rest period. But, whenever alcohol is involved, I actually do get tired enough to close my eyes for a ‘power nap’. Often, I get some great inspiration that way.

  Not that night. At least not right away….

  Instead, all of the possible mishaps related to my blown cover flitted before my mind’s eye as I lay in my bed, listening to Alistair’s light snores from his bedroom in our suite. It may sound strange, but I have always drawn comfort from his snoring, as I also did long ago from Beatrice. It’s as if a part of me is ever fearful that they could die at any moment, and a terror far greater than a violent death in my presence would be to find either one cold and lifeless in their beds the next morning.

  I tried to think about positive things, like the fact Alistair and I could now spend more leisure time together. Not long after he left his post at Georgetown, I decided to leave the Smithsonian. Granted, my coin research efforts would be impacted by the lack of field notes and artifacts to which only an archivist (or someone higher in the Institute) would have access. But, knowing my days of prowling in the bowels of the famed museum were numbered, this past February I began diligently transferring files from the archives to a small zip drive I carried with me. Once I figured out how to skirt around the Institute’s security clearances, I carefully focused my efforts on gathering all pertinent information regarding the last thirteen potential hot spots for where my final eight coins likely lay hidden.

  Of course, since we were presently in one of these
places, my mood quickly spiraled down into despair. Looking for the coin that I was certain had traveled down through time and into the Cheung family’s possession was like searching for a needle in a haystack. I was clueless as to where to look next, now that the famed Cheung coin collection carried only untainted shekels.

  Making matters worse was the intrusion into my personal mental space of Kaslow’s smug grin. My mind had drifted back to Caracas again…. I pictured him clearly as he watched me from less than fifty feet away. I had just finished replacing duplicate documents for the ones I lifted from a Belarus diplomat’s apartment in the city’s outskirts, and had stepped outside the building. While it isn’t unusual for those working covertly for their governments to sometimes catch a glimpse of one another in the field, it is very unusual to engage someone directly. Not unless it is with the intent to capture, interrogate, and dispose of such a person.

  Even from a safe distance, I could see a contemptuous leer upon his face—like he not only was letting me know that he knew what I had been up to inside the apartment, but that he intended to obliterate my efforts with glee. That recognition saved my existence as William Barrow, since I didn’t immediately see the rocket launcher Kaslow carried. But I sensed it. Sensed it lucidly in my mind’s eye, and quickly determined where I needed to dive for cover.

  In my Royal Garden bed, I now watched myself turning my head in horror toward the explosion behind me, as all five units in the 1920s building were destroyed. Several innocent people died, and I heard the screams of a woman and her child…and could do nothing for them. But innocent people always die when Viktor Kaslow is around. When I looked again to where he had stood, he’d already left the area, and the sound of a sedan speeding away was the only evidence he left behind.

  Unfortunately for me, my mind will forever carry the image of the late morning sunshine and raindrops from an earlier downpour dripping from the leaves of cecropia trees and a large palm near the building’s burning remains. That image, and of course, Kaslow’s youthful mug leering at me.

  Kaslow’s presence in my world had changed everything, as I’ve mentioned before. While staring into the darkness above my bed, I considered how easy life could be if Beatrice, Alistair, and I lived someplace else—maybe on a deserted island in the South Pacific. Of course, the reality that my beloved wife and son couldn’t manage without modern comforts nixed that fantasy in its infancy.

  What about someplace that came with modern comforts and utilities? A place that was far, far away from America and hopefully out of reach from Kaslow’s homicidal radar.

  Australia? The Philippines, maybe? Or…New Zealand?

  New Zealand sounded intriguing, and I had visited both islands on a regular basis back in the early 1900s. This wonderful country offered nearly every climate and terrain I loved, and the people were strong and kind to strangers. I started making the arrangements to relocate my family to this wonderful country in my mind. I even added special accommodations in my fantasy world for Larissa Jones to come along as Beatrice’s private nurse and companion.

  But, what about Alistair and his girl, Amy Golden Eagle—who would probably not go anywhere without her brother, Jeremy? That made five people and counting….

  It was while thinking about this shit that I somehow drifted off to sleep. Normally, when I do rest in this manner, my consciousness moves through a narrow corridor where I am completely surrounded by thick darkness. The corridor seems endless, and along both sides of the corridor I sense souls of the dead…watching me, and speaking in whispers too faint to decipher.

  Of course, none of this is likely real—I don’t see dead people. But…it does mark the place where my dreams start. Like everyone else on the planet, I nearly always dream when I sleep. That night was no exception. Most of the time my dreams are peaceful—despite the heavy burden of guilt I have carried since my ultimate betrayal of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem two millennia ago.

  I am, however, occasionally visited by nightmares. That night, I thought such an event was happening. Loud explosions erupted all around me, and clouds of falling soil fell upon my head. I soon determined that I was crouching inside some sort of cave room that was approximately fifty feet wide, but less than five feet in height. It was quite dim, with the only illumination coming from a hole in the center of the room. Through this entrance, an assembly line of Chinese men dressed in silk changpaos moved up and down a pair of thatched wooden ladders while carrying small steamer chests into the cave from above. The jingle of metal on metal and small stones when each chest was stacked along a rear wall in the room made it obvious to me that items of incredible value were being transported there.

  The explosions would come and go, with the men ducking in panic and peering anxiously up toward the lighted opening. One of the men suddenly called anxiously to the others from above the entrance, and then machine gun fire sprayed into the hole, sending the bullet-riddled body of the man tumbling down upon his terrified companions. They all scurried away into the cavern’s shadows, carrying what they could.

  Roughly a dozen more men descended into the cave, and these were attired differently than the first group. I recognized the black boots and dark blue pants from what the Japanese infantry wore during World War II. But, I had never been this close to them—even when I enlisted with the U.S. armed forces in the Pacific. These soldiers were no more than eight feet away from where I was crouched.

  As the soldiers crept into the cave, they fired shots in every direction. Death screams from direct hits accompanied the flashes of bright light from each expended round. Even so, I heard the sound of survivors moving deeper into the cave, as if the subterranean shadows would save them. Perhaps such a tactic worked for some, since the soldiers seemed reluctant to venture after them, and instead fired multiple rounds from their automatic weapons in every direction again. Of course, none of the shots hit me, since I was a mere voyeur in spirit.

  A lantern that had been turned down exploded when a bullet hit it, in one corner of the cave room, roughly thirty feet away to my right. Suddenly, that entire section of the room was brightly illuminated from fire as the lantern’s fuel landed on several larger chests that immediately ignited. Nearly a dozen similar chests were stacked against a wall behind these other chests. One of the Chinese men moved over to them, where the nearest chest was propped open slightly. I caught a glimpse of a metal armor vest in the firelight, along with something faint…but glowing blue.

  Holy shit, it’s my coin!

  I tried to get closer to it, as the Japanese infantrymen opened fire on the defenseless man. Like so many nocturnal travels, I couldn’t move quickly. Meanwhile, the man tried desperately to close the lid to the chest, as if it were direly important to do so. He did manage to pull it mostly shut, and then he slid down the side of the chest, slumping dead from a bullet that pierced his heart from behind.

  I tried to get close enough to verify that the coin bore the eagle and Caesar’s profile. But, it was as if an invisible force prevented me from drawing any nearer to the chest. All at once, the world around me grew dark and I was pulled back into my hotel room. I cursed silently at the lost opportunity to mentally take notes on the cave’s physical details and the chest’s other glowing contents. Contents that were apparently important enough for the Chinese man to sacrifice his life to protect.

  The dream might’ve been some sort of prophetic gift from one of The Almighty’s merciful angels. It’s happened to me before. But, where in the hell was the place I saw? It definitely was a cave, and it had to be somewhere in southern China. Someplace where the Chinese people had tried to hide their treasured possessions before the Japanese army could pillage the region. I had read accounts of what happened during the Battle of Hong Kong, which was the Japanese invasion that came within hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

  Think, William…where is this place?

  The vision’s images that seemed completely real had already begun to fade. I fought to hang on to the textures
that embraced my senses. Things like the earthen smell, the panicked voices of the men about to die, and other sounds besides gunshots and explosions.

  I had heard gulls screeching nearby and the crash of water.

  The frigging thing must be buried in one of the islands here!!

  It was either in a cave within Hong Kong proper itself, or on one of the surrounding islands. In some ways, this was almost as bad as the prospect of my coin being buried under the city’s sprawling skyline. Either way, I had no idea on where to begin looking. And, what if the Japanese had plundered the cave in my vision, once the gunfire cleared and the bodies quit moving?

  For a moment my blood ran cold. But, then the part of me that clings to divine inspiration told my heart the soldiers I saw hadn’t taken my coin. My heart told me that for whatever reason the cave was left alone and my coin waited for me to come claim it. My left hand began to tremble, and I knew in that instant that I would find my prize—beyond any doubt. Provided, of course, that Viktor Kaslow didn’t take me out of the present lifetime first.

  I now had renewed inspiration to remain in Hong Kong.

  Alistair would be so pleased…and Roderick, not so much.

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