Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 6)

by Vincent Zandri

  When he returns, I’m tossed into the front passenger seat of the Defender, my chest and arms taped to the bucket seat-back. He doesn’t bother with taping my ankles together or gagging me. On the console sits the da Vinci map. While Soleimani gets behind the wheel, Putin and Jolly Green Giant get in back with Andrea seated between them.

  “Like one big happy family,” I say.

  That little wisecrack invites a backhand from the General. I feel a sting in my upper left, lip, and sense the faint, metallic taste of blood. If only my hands were free, I’d yank on his beard and call the Ayatollah a pussy.

  Starting up the Defender, he throws the floor-mounted shift into first, pulls ahead, going downhill toward a stream that forms a long, narrow valley. A valley that must have been very familiar to the young da Vinci.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I catch Andrea placing her hand on Putin’s left leg, squeezing it. She’s got this smile on her face that tells me she’s looking forward not to uncovering what will arguably be one of the most important archaeological finds of the past five hundred years, but to being filthy rich. Beside her sits the mustached Jolly Green Giant who, with his near perpetual sneer, is anything but.

  The Defender bucks and bounces. I taste the blood on my tongue and feel the pressure of the duct tape against my chest as we continue to descend at a thirty-degree angle. I know I should keep my mouth shut but, me being me, I can’t help but raise a couple of questions.

  “So, tell me, Andrea,” I say, “how long have you been a double agent … a mole?”

  “Who says I’m a double agent?” she smirks. “Maybe my allegiance has always been to the present company riding in this vehicle.”

  “Because I’ve known women like you all my life,” I say. “You go where the money is. You seek it, smell it, taste it, feel it in your sex like you would Putin’s tiny little appendage.” He thrusts his fist into the seat back, jolting me forward. “Sorry about that Boris, or whatever your name is. No disrespect.”

  “You would do very well to keep the mouth closed, da?” he says in his heavy Russian accent. “After we find cave, we must make decision to let you live or make you die slow painful death. Right now, I am voting for very slow, very painful death. Very, very slow, very, very painful, excruciating death. The death of a thousand little knife wounds. You like?”

  “Spoken like a true Soviet,” I say. Then, shifting my partial gaze back to Andrea. “You know, the way you made love to me, baby. Made love all night long. The way you climaxed like that. How many times was it? Four, five times in a single night? Screaming from the top of your lungs. I really thought for sure, you’d fallen for me. Hard.”

  Soleimani snickers, his face now wearing a broad smile.

  “Enough!” Putin barks, once more punching the seat back so that I feel his fist against my spine. “She is doing the fake out with you, Chase Baker, for business sake.” He turns to Andrea. “Is that not right, my love? You do the fake out with the Chase Baker for the business. You, what do you call it, Fake one for the team, da?”

  I laugh. “It’s take one for the team, asshole. Take, with a T. If you’re gonna say it, say it right.”

  Soleimani backhands me yet again. More blood in the mouth.

  “Mahaz, gag the prisoner,” he says.

  Jolly Green Giant/Mahaz tears a piece of duct tape from the roll in his lap, leans forward, wraps it around my mouth. So much for conversation.

  We come to the stream and drive into it. We’re only about fifty or so feet away from a tree-covered hill that might double as a small mountain. Soleimani shoves the shift into neutral, takes hold of the map, holds it up to the windshield so that it gets the daylight. I’m struggling against the tape that binds me, methodically thrusting one shoulder out, then the other, repeating the process over and over again, stretching the tape by just a fraction of a millimeter with each movement. Trying to do this without catching the attention of Mahaz … or Putin … or even Andrea … is a bit of a trick in itself. But this isn’t the first time I’ve been bound with duct tape. I’m hoping it won’t be the last.

  In the side-view mirror, I spot the two trucks filled with Soleimani’s and Putin’s soldiers-for-hire close on our tail. Soleimani studies the map within the map to decide which direction to take next in search of the cave. He whispers to himself while he stares at it intently. Listening closely, I discover he’s spelling the mirrored letters written on the old parchment over the indicated location of the cave.

  “A, T, I…”

  Eventually, he takes on a smile, having discovered the word Divinità. He taps the location on the map with his index finger. Then, a honk from the horn on the pickup behind us. Then another honk from the one behind that.

  “Why are we not moving?” Putin says.

  “Yes,” Andrea follows up, “while we’re young.”

  I fight the duct tape as best I can. Out the corner of my left eye, I catch Mahaz’s stone face, his eyes glued to me, not like he wishes to guard me, but to eat me, bones, blood and all.

  Another honk of the horn.

  Soleimani slaps the map back down onto the center console.

  “That is enough,” he insists. Then, turning to eye Putin. “Your men go no further. It is what we agreed upon. The fewer eyes on the location of the cave, the more secure it will be. That was our agreement.”

  I’m able to make out the Russian’s face in the side-view mirror. He presses his thin lips together.

  “They are my support staff,” he says, in his understated, low-toned voice. “My protection, da? I am very rich and powerful man who requires the constant protection. Like the Donald Trump, da?”

  The Iranian General runs a hand through his neatly groomed gray beard.

  “They also have eyes and they will not see the location of the cave,” he says. “It is forbidden.” Reaching, he draws his sidearm, points it at Putin’s face, thumbs back the hammer. “Do you understand me, Russian Donald Trump loving prick?”

  In the mirror, I see the blood rush to Putin’s face.

  “Please,” Andrea says, “let’s not argue, okay? We agree, General. The support staff stays behind, waits for us here.”

  Putin nods.

  “Da,” he agrees. But I sense he can’t wait for the chance to do away with his Iranian partner to claim the cave for himself and mother Russia. That is, if the cave exists at all.

  I might not be able to free myself from the tape that binds me to the seat, but I am generating enough saliva to compromise the glue on the tape that covers my mouth. Already, I can feel one end of the tape separating from my skin.

  Soleimani turns, opens the door, steps out. In the rear view, I watch him wade through the stream, the water covering his shin-high combat booted feet. He stops at the first pickup truck, where he speaks something to the driver. The driver nods. I glance down at the map, my left hand pressed against my side, entirely immobile and useless because of the tape that binds my torso to the seatback. No matter how much I struggle, I just can’t get free.

  The general returns, hops back in.

  “We go now,” he says, throwing the shift into drive. “Up that hill, down the other side into a small valley. That is where we will find the cave.”

  In my head, I can’t help but think that no cave will be there. Regardless of the map within the map. These woods have been walked by thousands of men and women since the death of da Vinci. Surely, someone would have found it by now. But then, if nothing else, da Vinci was a master of deception. If a cave is indeed there, it will not be readily visible. It will either be hidden or, perhaps, not there at all. Maybe only a clue to the location of the true cave will be found at the site. Not that I have a choice but to go along for the ride and observe.

  The hillside directly before us is heavily wooded with tall pines and scrub brush. It’s also steep, the angle close to forty-five degrees. Soleimani makes sure the Defender is shifted into four-wheel drive as he begins the climb, the engine stressing and straining against th
e severe upward angle. I keep licking the tape, biting at it, diluting the glue, the opposite side now peeling away.

  Coming from the backseat, Andrea makes a kind of moan. She grabs hold of Putin’s arm. She doesn’t like the feel of being pressed back against her seat, the truck feeling as though at any second the front end is going to lift off the surface of the hillside and tumble end over end, all the way back down.

  “It’s too damned steep!” she finally barks.

  “You shut your mouth, woman,” Soleimani insists, leaning forward. “In my country, a woman with as big a mouth as yours, is stoned to death … in public.” He’s trying to defy gravity while downshifting the gears, attempting almost desperately to maintain traction even as the hillside grows steeper, the earth beneath the big tires moist and loose.

  “We are going to tip, da?” Putin points out, voice agitated, fear-filled. “We tip, we die. Our bodies crushed. Da? Da?”

  “Shut up, the both of you!” the general insists, while the engine stresses, strains, the rpms revving. He’s depressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, the tires now slipping and spitting gravel, losing their connection with the severely angled hillside. The front end, that also bears the weight of the big engine block, begins to buck out and away from the hill, like it wants to go over.

  “Allah, help us,” he begins to pray under his breath. “Allah have mercy.”

  I spit the tape away from my mouth.

  “Allah wants you dead, asshole!” I shout.

  He turns to me, spits at me. I pull my head back at the right moment, so that the wad misses me, slaps the window. If the general wasn’t desperately clutching the wheel and the gear shift, he’d no doubt turn, grab hold of my throat.

  “You will die for that remark!” he screams.

  “We’re already dead, jerk,” I say, not without a laugh. “Big bad Allah wants it that way. You’re a sinner, General. Just like your buddy, Putin, back there. You’re both murderers in search of something so powerful you can’t possibly comprehend it, even if it were to stare you in the face.”

  “Shut up!” he screams. “I demand you to shut the fuck up. Now!”

  The truck is bucking, tires spinning, the feeling of losing all control filling the vehicle. It’s like riding in an airplane that’s about to stall. Andrea screams. Mahaz thrusts his arms forward, grabs hold of Soleimani’s head, like he’s using it to keep himself from falling. Putin grabs my seat-back for the very same reason. And then, directly before us, having emerged from the wooded hillside, is a man.

  He’s dressed in the long brown robe of the ascetic Monk, the hood covering his entire head so that his face is hidden by shadow. It looks like we’re about to plow right into him.

  Soleimani panics, screams, lets go of the wheel while the gear shift pulls out from its floor mount. The steering wheel spins sharply to the right. That’s when the front end of the Defender lifts off the face of the hillside, and we fall engine over ass, head over heels.

  27

  Initially, we tumble front end over back end. But then, its weight having quickly shifted, the Defender enters into a side over side roll, the non-seat-belted bodies in the 4X4 slapping and punching the metal walls and roof of the vehicle like rag dolls. I’m strapped securely against the seatback with my duct tape restraint—protected against the violent collision of vehicle against rock and hard ground. But that doesn’t mean my skull won’t be crushed like an egg should we land on the roof. The crunch of metal is only outweighed by the screams and groans and cries. Blood spatters as we roll and so does the spit and vomit.

  Then, just like that, we stop falling.

  We’re right side up, having landed on all four wheels, the roof smashed in so severely I can’t lift my head all the way. But, at least, my head is intact. Glancing to my left, I can’t say the same for Soleimani. The bones in the general’s face are crushed. It resembles a plastic doll head that someone has punched in with their fist, his jaw is now concave and pressed against the back of his skull. He tries mouthing words to me, but I can tell he no longer possesses a working voice box. One of his eyeballs has been poked out entirely, and the other one is filled with blood red where the whites should be. He stares at me with the one eye while attempting to lift his arms. But the crushed and snapped bones in his forearms are poking out of the skin. He can’t lift them no matter how much he tries. After a few seconds, his mouth stops moving, a heavy breath is exhaled from his lungs and I know he’s on his way to meet Allah … or the devil … or both.

  I gaze over my shoulder into the back.

  Mahaz is no longer there. Or, if he is there, he is nowhere to be seen … but Andrea is She’s lying on top of Putin, a jagged gash from her forehead down across her cheek and over her lips. Her two front teeth are missing and her once perfect nose is now collapsed and pressed onto her face like a lump of soft clay. It looks like she isn’t breathing. Like she’s dead.

  Putin doesn’t appear to be breathing either. Remarkably, he is seated in the same upright position he was in prior to the accident, as if he wasn’t affected by the fall at all. But my guess is that his back, or his neck, or all of the above, are broken.

  I smell smoke. And where there’s smoke, there’s a big bad burning problem.

  I have to get the hell out of here. I shove and push myself against the tape. It’s now budging, the accident having torn some of it. The smoke is getting thicker, blacker, the interior of the vehicle getting hot. I make out flames down by my feet—flames that are spreading to the driver’s side, lighting up the general’s clothing.

  Using all my strength, I try lifting with my left arm. It tears through the tape. Reaching, I grab Soleimani’s military issue fighting knife from his belt, cut away the rest of the tape. I then pull his semi-automatic from its holster, grab hold of the da Vinci map and the sketch book beneath it. Thrusting my shoulder into the door, it not only opens, but falls away from its broken hinges. I jump out just as the flames spread to the passenger side seat.

  I’m just about to run when I hear, “Chase, don’t leave me.” The words painful and desperate.

  “Andrea,” I whisper.

  She’s alive …

  The fire spreads to the back. Putin’s clothing now catches fire.

  “Chase,” she screams, “I’m burning.” Her words are tortured, full of agony.

  Shoving the pistol into my shoulder holster, the book and the map into my satchel, I go back to the Defender. But the fire is too hot. The heat slaps me in the face, nearly knocks me onto my backside. Looking down, I see the puddle of liquid forming at my feet. It’s pouring out of the damaged fuel line beneath the vehicle.

  “Gasoline,” I whisper, as if I need to say it aloud to believe it.

  “Andrea, please forgive me,” I whisper as I turn and run only seconds before the Defender bursts into a ball of flames.

  28

  The explosion knocks me onto my chest and face.

  Pieces of metal and human body rain down around me. Fragments of the scattered wreckage and remains are lit on fire. It’s a grisly sight. Tears in my eyes, I stand and face the hill. Turning away from a woman I could have loved for life, I climb, on my way to the da Vinci cave.

  Here’s what I know: The soldiers who occupied the two pickup trucks will come after me once they realize I didn’t go up in flames with the Defender. My guess is they are already on my tail. Their desire to get to me will have little to do with being loyal to the General or Putin, but it will have everything to do with personal gain. They will want to locate the cave as much as their previous employers … as much as I do.

  I climb the steep hillside, along the fresh tracks dug out by the Defender’s heavy wheels. The tall trees provide a canopy against the sun, but the darkness of the woods makes me feel even more lonely than I already am. In my head, I see the monk who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The same monk I’ve been seeing off and on for more than twenty-four hours. How is it possible he was able to simply appear out of thin a
ir?

  My head is spinning and, to be honest, my heart is breaking. Sure, Andrea betrayed me, used me, stabbed me in the back where it hurts the most, but since my wife and I split up—and she went on to marry a successful investment banker in New York City—I have not been one to easily love. I’ve had my share of women, more than my share of trouble and flings, but damned if I don’t have trouble finding that elusive true love. And, for a very brief time, I thought I’d unearthed it with Andrea Gallo. For her to die like she did is simply too painful to contemplate; it’s too gut wrenching to know I was useless when it came to recusing her. She died in pain and afraid, and that’s the worst way anyone of us can go, regardless of our sins to the world, to God, or to ourselves.

  The hike is taking my breath away, my pulse pounding in my temples, my heart hammering against my ribs. The more I climb, the more this hill feels like a mountain, its grade so steep it nearly qualifies for a Class 5 climb. At some points, I’m forced to hike on all fours or risk tumbling backward, just like the Land Rover Defender did farther down the hill.

  What I’m most regretting is a lack of water. I wasn’t prepared for a hike of this uphill extreme. But, as if God is reading my mind, I spot a small package blocking my path. It’s a bottle of water and, along with it, a folded note.

  For an extended moment or two, I suck air and stare disbelievingly at the package set on the small, flat outcropping of rock.

  “How is this possible?” I whisper to myself.

  I pick the note up, unfold it.

  .hturt rof knirD

  I’m exhausted, thirsty, desperate. But, I do my best to decipher the script in my mind. It takes a few slow beats, but eventually I recognize it as “Drink for truth.” The man in the robe … the monk … how is it possible he is not only following me, but guiding me? He is not like a mortal man at all, but an apparition. Maybe the note, the water, the robed man who appeared before the speeding Defender, is all a figment of my imagination. What’s not a figment is the wrecked vehicle at the bottom of the hill, the lives it destroyed, and my position on this small mountain in the middle of the Italian wilderness.