God's Lions - House of Acerbi (52 page)

They made a quick check for laser trip beams and other traps before moving cautiously down the long corridor, passing several locked doors and an intersecting corridor that seemed to disappear into infinity in both directions.
Acerbi could be anywhere!

Moving farther into the maze, they were surprised by two of Acerbi’s men who charged from behind one of the doors and began firing their weapons. Acerbi’s men were immediately dropped by the advancing Israelis, who were by now becoming spooked by the immense size of the vast underground labyrinth they had just entered.

Suddenly, the lead commando raised his hand and pointed down to the floor. Beneath a thick glass lid that was sealed shut, a large C4 explosive charge was wired to a timer with a red blinking light, and it was counting down.

“Run!”

The commandos turned and began running back the way they had come until they came to a doorway that had been locked but now stood open. Beyond the door was an empty room that contained another blinking red light on top of an explosive charge.
The entire place was wired to blow!
Time seemed to slow as the men began to run again. Up ahead, they could see the stairway they had descended, but it seemed like they would never reach it in their dream-like race. In their minds, they were already imagining the blast that would soon tear them apart.
Run!
The stairway was just up ahead, but their boots felt like they were made of lead
. Safety was only a few hundred yards away!

The men practically flung themselves toward the stairs and willed themselves upward and out through the open doorway. They kept running. They were desperately trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Acerbi’s underground web when a huge explosion ripped the ground beneath their feet, hurling them forward through the air. The earth around them moved in a visual wave that carried a wall of sound and shock outward from the center of the explosion and littered the surrounding desert with falling dirt and burning debris.

The stunned soldiers lay on the ground, coughing in the thick dust before finally lifting themselves up, each man looking into the eyes of the others as they stood among the dwindling remnants of the swirling maelstrom. Listening to the staccato bursts of surprised shouts coming over their radios, it was obvious that the other teams in the area had been equally stunned by the huge explosion.

In the distance, sporadic gunfire continued to echo across the ranch until finally, an eerie silence began to settle over the desert. Looking back at the smoke coming from the gaping hole in the ground, the Israeli soldiers who had just narrowly escaped death were beginning to feel that something wasn’t quite right. The way in which events had unfolded seemed strange to them, but stranger still was a feeling that Acerbi’s actions had been planned. It was as though he had never intended to win—that he had staged the entire thing just to lure them in close so that they could witness an orgy of self-destruction—but for what possible reason? Shaking the dust from their clothes, they walked to the edge of the giant crater and peered down into what was left of an immense underground web of interconnecting tunnels. If Acerbi was still down there, he was no longer among the living.

By now, the rising sun cast a pale orange light over the desert. Sitting in the sand next to the crashed helicopter, Lev Wasserman watched the smoke of battle drift over the ranch, and as the sun crept higher, they could see hundreds of bodies littering the desert floor between the tall hill and the highway. It reminded him of a painting he had once seen in San Antonio, Texas, at the Alamo, where bodies from both sides lay frozen in death around the front door of the old mission church.

It appeared that Acerbi’s remaining forces were now fleeing across the desert behind the Mexican drug dealers, who had wisely jumped into their SUVs and sped away the moment they saw the first F-15 streak by overhead.

Standing next to Lev, Ben keyed his radio and called the teams in the field. “Any sign of Acerbi?”

“No one’s seen him since he disappeared underground in the area that exploded,” the Team 5 leader radioed back. “Unless he got out somehow, he’s finished.”

Leo and Lev exchanged glances.
It couldn’t be that easy ... could it?
The worn phrase of having nine lives came to mind, but no one wanted to be the first to say it.

“Any prisoners?”

“Just one ... a female. She was lying next to the hangar. It looks like she’s the only survivor. The others inside weren’t so lucky.”

A knot began to form in Lev’s stomach as he took the radio from Ben. “Did you say others?”

“Yes, sir ... looks like civilians. As near as we can tell, there were about forty to fifty of them in there, but the condition of the bodies makes it kind of hard to tell.”

Lev looked at Ben with an expression of total disbelief.
What the hell was Acerbi up to?

“Tell your men to bring the woman to us. We need to speak to her ... now.”

“Will do, Professor.”

 * * 

Ten miles north of the ranch, a leather-clad figure riding a blood-red Ducati racing motorcycle leaned into the wind as he raced up highway 45 toward the city of Juarez. Behind the dark visor of the full-faced helmet, Rene Acerbi was smiling.

He threw his black-gloved fist into the air in a victory salute as his own muffled laugh echoed around the inside of the helmet. Everything had come off perfectly after he had lured the others to his secluded ranch. They had come like bees to nectar. All along he had been worried that the elite group of wealthy men and women who had been a part of his plan from the beginning would one day turn on him and challenge his leadership for a world that was rightfully his. His solution to that potential problem had been a simple one, at least for a man like Rene Acerbi. Now they were all dead, a challenge to no one, and his biggest threat, the Catholic Cardinal and his Israeli friends, would be blamed for their deaths after news leaked out about their vicious military assault against a group of unarmed civilians who had gathered inside a hangar in Mexico for an event that would be labeled by the press as an innocent business conference.

In a few hours he would be boarding a private jet in El Paso, Texas for his flight back to his chateau in France, where he would ascend to the throne of a global empire the likes of which the world had never before seen. He would be glorified by the masses as the one who had saved the world from a viral catastrophe—their savior, for he had left no witnesses to tell them otherwise.

Soon after his return, he would travel to Rome, where he would exact his family’s revenge by abolishing the Catholic Church. A plan seven hundred years in the making would finally come to pass, and soon thereafter, Vatican City would be nothing more than an interesting museum to the superstitions of the past. The world truly would be his oyster. Life was good.

It was just past midnight when the Boeing C-17 descended over the tops of the tall pine trees and touched down on the remote forest airstrip near the town of Foix. A sleepy-eyed Evita Vargas clung to Leo’s arm as they followed Diaz and Mendoza down the ramp at the back of the aircraft to a row of rental cars lined up alongside the runway.

Limping behind them with a cast on one arm, Alon had his other arm draped around Nava’s shoulder as they walked next to John and Ariella past Lev at the back of the plane.

Standing next to him, Ben Zamir watched the professor light his last Cuban cigar. “Are you sure you’ll be alright here, Professor?”

“We’ll be fine, Ben ... as long as our location remains a secret. We’re all international fugitives now, so I probably won’t be seeing you again anytime soon.”

“I’m sorry for the way things turned out. My father said to tell you his people are working twenty-four hours a day to prove to the world that Acerbi orchestrated everything and that he’s the one behind the virus, but until then, you’ve got to lay low.”

“Danny is a good friend to have at a time like this. What’s the latest word on Acerbi? Was he on that big jet that took off during the attack?”

“No, he’s back at his chateau playing the part of the hero. It’s a good thing that fighter pilot held off, because that plane was full of Mexican families who lived in the area. It appears that Acerbi was treating them to a vacation in Cancun and had timed their departure to coincide with the attack he knew was coming. He must have loaded them all onboard and then ordered the pilots to wait for his permission to leave. As soon as the attack was underway, he gave the go ahead for them to take off. Apparently, he was counting on us to shoot them down thinking he was onboard, thus causing an even greater international outcry against us. It would have been disastrous.”

“What happened to them?”

“They landed in Cancun only to find that no reservations had been made for them at local hotels. Acerbi never planned on them arriving, something we are bringing to the attention of anyone who will listen as proof of his intentions.”

“And the American business woman ... Dana Waters ... what happened to her? She had some pretty interesting things to say about Acerbi when we questioned her the night of the attack.”

“She’s in Israel, a guest of the Mossad. We’re keeping her existence a closely guarded secret. We’re pretty sure Acerbi believes that she died with the others in the hangar explosion, and we want him to keep thinking that. Understandably, she’s having a hard time trusting anyone, but I heard she started opening up to one of our female operatives after we offered her immunity. From what we’ve gathered, she knows all the inner workings of his organization. Apparently they had been friends since childhood. That kind of betrayal creates the worst kind of enemies. It looks like his plan wasn’t so perfect after all. I only wish we could take you all back to Israel with us.”

“You and I both know Israel is the first place they’ll come looking for us. We’ll be safe here. Mendoza and his Cathar friends have made arrangements for us to stay in some old cabins that were built in the Pyrenees during World War II. The French Resistance used them to hide downed Allied airmen from the Nazis during the war.”

“Don’t tell me anything else, Professor. Operational security, remember.” Ben winked.

“If I can’t trust Danny Zamir’s son, then who can I trust?” Lev laughed and clapped the young soldier on the shoulder. “Tell your father that I said hello and that I’ll be seeing him again someday soon. We’ll defeat this Acerbi guy somehow ... even if it’s the last thing I do.”

Ben turned and walked back up into the aircraft. He was waving as the ramp lifted into place and the big jet trundled into position before its shrieking engines pushed it down the runway and into a dark sky.

The little group shivered in the early morning darkness as they stood beside the cars.

“Has anyone spoken with Eduardo?” Mendoza asked.

“No, I didn’t think it would be a good idea,” Lev said. “I’m still not sure about him.”

“I hate to say it, Professor, but you’re probably right. When you think about it, we can’t afford to trust anyone right now. If they find us we’ll be locked away, and Acerbi’s people would undoubtedly be the ones holding the key. I have a feeling none of us would live long in jail.”

Mendoza turned to Leo. “What about your friend Morelli?”

“I used the satellite phone to speak with him before we left the states. He said that, publicly, I’ve been stripped of my title. I’m no longer a cardinal, but at least the pope is refusing to excommunicate me until a full investigation is completed. For now, it appears that I’m even cut off from my own church.”

Evita saw the lines of sadness etching Leo’s face. Here was a man who had always done the right thing at great cost to his personal life, and now he was being shunned and degraded by his own church. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

Ariella watched her father standing alone, staring off into the distance at the dark outlines of the mountains ringing their position. She was acutely aware that Lev was probably the one who was suffering the most. Cut off from his homeland and his beloved seaside villa, he was unable to sit by his wife’s gravesite every evening, something he had done every day for the past ten years when he was home. Behind her large brown eyes, a fire burned deep inside. Why had God deserted them? Weren’t they supposed to be the chosen—his lions—sent by Him to destroy this monster Acerbi?

“Let’s get moving,” Mendoza said. “The cabins are in a remote location, and we have to get there before the sun comes up.”

Slowly, the group spread out and divided themselves among the rental cars before heading up a nearby mountain road. An hour later, they turned off onto a little-used dirt road covered in moss that wound its way up a steep hillside beneath a grove of giant pines until they came to a clearing overlooking an isolated mountain gorge. There, in the middle of a peaceful glen, invisible to the outside world, they saw three rustic cabins built from thick logs. They had just arrived at their new home.

Their next few weeks would be spent going about the daily routine of cooking, cleaning, chopping wood—even making rudimentary tools from raw materials. Their lives had taken on a comfortable routine broken only by occasional forays deep into the forest to hunt for deer or fish for trout. Without the ability to use even a radio for communication, they had taken a giant step back in time to a simpler place, where the hours of the day were spent in idle talk around a fireplace instead of sitting in front of a computer screen that held the promise of instant response from a frantic world.

This must have been the way the Cathars had lived
, Leo thought,
after they had been persecuted by the Church and were in hiding from the evil men of the material world who had descended on their lands in search of even greater wealth.
Apparently, life really hadn’t changed all that much in the past seven-hundred years. The only difference, it seemed, was that mankind had found quicker, more efficient means of killing large numbers of people, while employing more subtle ways for governments dominated by the rich to rob from the poor. The robbing and pillaging once conducted on horseback by men brandishing swords was now conducted in corporate boardrooms by men armed with nothing more fearsome than a Smartphone.