God's Lions - House of Acerbi (54 page)

Rene coughed as the fine dust entered his nostrils and settled over the table. “You might want to think about hiring a housekeeper to do some cleaning around here.” Rene glanced around the room at all the shelves of books with a look of disgust.

“You know, Father, people who once knew you have told me that you were one of the smartest men who ever lived. Now, here you sit, surrounded by all of this knowledge, making tea and staring out a window. What a waste.”

Rene threw the uneaten half of his croissant on the plate and stood. “I believe our little meeting here is at an end. I’ve seen all I need to see, and it sickens me.” He paused for a moment as he looked down at his father. “Aren’t you the least curious why I agreed to come?”

Eduardo glanced up without answering.

“I only came here because I thought it was possible you might still be some kind of a threat. What a joke. You had quite a reputation for cunning in your day, but I can see now that a creature as pathetic as you is no threat to anyone, much less someone like me.”

Eduardo stood and extended a frail hand. “Good bye, son. May God watch over you for the rest of your days.”

A look of surprise crossed Rene’s face as he glanced down at his father’s tremulous outstretched hand and laughed. “Good bye, old man. Enjoy the so-called light you so desperately seek, because the only light you will see upon your death is the light of fire as you burn in hell with the rest of your kind.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the afterlife, my son.”

“You misunderstood. I said I didn’t believe in heaven, Father.”

With those final words, Rene turned and walked down the stairs and out of his father’s house.

Outside, a security man held the door of the SUV as Acerbi settled into the back seat. “Should we take care of him now, sir?”

“No. It’s obvious the old man is dying. There will be fewer questions if we let nature take its course.”

“Of course.” The security man closed the door and waved to the others to return to their vehicles.

Alone now in his upstairs library, Eduardo Acerbi stood at the window and watched the line of black SUVs pull out onto the highway before driving away through the long shadows that had finally covered the road. Slowly, he walked back across the room and lifted the box of croissants from the table before throwing them in a red trash bag concealed inside a special container behind the kitchen counter. When he was done, he picked up the phone and dialed a number. He waited. Within seconds of the call, blue flashing lights surrounded his house as dozens of vehicles carrying men in blue biohazard suits descended on the area from every direction and began to swarm over the property.

Eduardo Acerbi was now sitting in the middle of a hot zone—one he himself had just created. The so-called
dust
he had shaken from his napkin into his son’s face had held enough viral material to infect thousands. He sat back and listened to the heavy footsteps of the men in blue suits running up the stairs, but he had no fear of the deadly virus that was now dancing on the currents of air all around him, for unlike Rene, the old man had not eaten one of the croissants made from his son’s genetically altered wheat.

Three days after the meeting with his father in the village of Foix, Rene Acerbi had gone to bed early with a cold. In the middle of the night, he had awakened with a throbbing headache and a high fever.

Damn! What a time to get sick.
He had an appointment in the morning, one that was too important to reschedule. Struggling from his bed, he could feel his sweat-soaked pajamas sticking to his body, and by the time he had reached the bathroom, he was doubled over with fits of coughing so violent that they made his ribs hurt.

Turning on the light, he looked in the mirror and jumped back. His face was covered in blotchy, purplish-red patches. Pulling up the sleeves of his pajamas, he saw that his arms were also covered with the same reddish blotches. A sudden shiver made him grit his teeth as he grabbed the bathroom counter to brace himself against another round of coughing that caused spots to drift before his eyes.
No—it couldn’t be—could it?
The stockpiles of the pathogen had been safely locked away, and he had taken every precaution to avoid contamination in the lab, yet the symptoms were all there—the purple splotches were a hallmark of the virus.
What else could it be?

Acerbi coughed again, releasing a torrent of blood that flew from his mouth and splattered against the mirror. He let out a piercing scream and threw open the bathroom door before stumbling back into his room and out into the hall.

A security man standing on the stairs at the end of the hall heard his screams and ran to help, but he stopped and drew back in fear when he saw the dark splotches covering Acerbi’s face. Rene continued down the hallway, his vision becoming dimmer as he felt his way, leaving a trail of bloody handprints along the wall. By now, several of the household staff had been alerted to his plight, and lights began to come on in rooms all over the chateau.

Awakened by the frightened security man, Emilio flew from his room, his bathrobe flowing out behind him as he ran through the chateau. He had almost reached the second floor when he looked up and froze. Standing above him, leaning against a blood-spattered railing, was Rene Acerbi. Emilio recoiled when he saw the blood-red eyes staring back at him. A yellowish froth was oozing from the corner of Acerbi’s mouth, and his breathing now came in sporadic, rasping gasps that trailed off in a horrible bubbling noise that wracked him once again with a wave of coughing that spewed blood-tinged mucus into the air.

With visions of the invisible pathogen floating all around him, Emilio began to back away. He fully expected Acerbi to scream at him to stop, but instead, the grotesque thing hovering over him only gasped and bubbled and stared out into space with unseeing eyes before falling straight ahead onto the hard marble stairs with a sickening thud before rolling all the way down to the first floor with all the grace of a leaky plastic bag filled with the bloody day-old remains of a butchered carcass.

Emilio turned and ran past a screaming female servant, tearing across the grand foyer until he reached the chateau’s thick wooden front doors. He pulled with all his strength, flinging one of the doors inward, then stopped, frozen in place by yet another frightening sight. A blue monster was staring straight at him.
Was this a dream ... a nightmare?
Yes, of course, he was still asleep. He had to wake up. The blue monster reached out and jerked him outside into the arms of another blue monster.

Emilio began to feel weak, his vision growing dim with fear as he felt the monsters leading him away into the night, where there were lights—lots and lots of flashing blue lights. Looking around, the defrocked priest slowly began to realize that he wasn’t dreaming after all. He could feel himself being pressed against a van. He was being handcuffed. The blue monsters were men wearing blue biohazard suits, like the one he had worn the day Acerbi had shown him the pathogen. He could hear the hiss of air from their self-contained breathing apparatus as they shoved him inside the van and closed the door.

Unbeknownst to those inside the chateau, they were now surrounded by a multi-national military force, including a biohazard team from the World Health Organization, the one organization that, surprisingly, Acerbi had failed to infiltrate.

Standing on the road outside the main gate leading to the chateau, Danny Zamir looked on as his men assisted in rounding up the core members of Acerbi’s inner circle. News trucks bristling with satellite dishes were already arriving, and soon the world would know the real truth about Rene Acerbi and his plan for world domination led by a cadre of the privileged elite.

Naturally, there would be the predicted shock among people the world over when they first heard the news of the death of Rene Acerbi, a man who had ironically just died from the same virus his company had supposedly developed a vaccine for. Acerbi had been looked upon by the people of the world as a hero, but as soon as those same people learned the truth about him, their grief would turn to rage.

In the next twenty-four hours, Acerbi’s people would begin to turn on each other in a dog-eat-dog race to claim ignorance and blame others. Soon, government officials, followed by reporters, would be swarming outside his labs after sources inside began to reveal the true facts behind the horror that had been unleashed on the world by Rene Acerbi and his power hungry associates.

In a matter of weeks, the extent of Acerbi’s influence inside governments around the world would begin to surface. Countless high-ranking government officials would be exposed, and their embedded accomplices would be quickly arrested.

Other insiders would try desperately to make a deal with authorities by naming names, and as soon as the names of those involved were leaked to the press, mobs would surround their homes and deliver their own brand of justice before the police or military could arrive to arrest them.

The era of Rene Acerbi was over, and a plan seven hundred years in the making would now be nothing more than fodder for countless books and movies about one of the most diabolical schemes to ever cross the threshold of human imagination.

One Month Later

Cardinal Leopold Amodeo was awakened early in the morning by the sound of voices outside the cabin. Shuffling from his warm bed, he opened the thick wooden door to find the head of the Mossad looking him straight in the face.

Leo rubbed his eyes. “Good morning, Danny.”

Danny Zamir smiled back. “Good morning yourself, Cardinal.”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m no longer a cardinal.” Leo peered over Zamir’s shoulder at several Israeli commandos standing among the trees. “Is this a social visit?”

“We’ve come to take you all home ... and by the way, the pope has reinstated you to your former position.”

A sleepy voice called out from inside the cabin. “Who is it, Leo?”

“It’s the Mossad. It appears we’re surrounded.”

Zamir looked through the doorway and saw Evita Vargas curled up in a large chair under a blanket.

“Ask them if they want some coffee.”

“We don’t have time,” Zamir said. “There’s a chopper down on the highway and a plane waiting for us on the runway at the base of the mountain. Where’s Lev?”

“Right behind you.”

Danny swung around to see his old friend, Lev Wasserman, standing behind him holding the stub of a cigar in his hand. “We just heard about Acerbi on the shortwave radio. So it’s all over, eh Danny?”

“Yes. Eduardo finally agreed to take matters into his own hands after we followed two of Rene’s most fanatical supporters to a conference center on the grounds of a resort he owned in the Netherlands. We discovered a hidden stockpile of the virus in a secret vault beneath the building, along with hundreds of pounds of the genetically altered wheat. Once we had the powdered virus in our hands, it was a simple matter of having our scientists bake some croissants with the genetically altered wheat—apparently there was a special procedure involved to prevent the destruction of the delicate DNA. In the end, I believe Eduardo realized that he was the only one who could get close enough to Rene to get the job done, but I could tell it really broke the old guy’s heart.”

“Is there any way we could stop by to speak with him before we leave?” Leo asked. “I’d like to thank him. I’m sure he could use some support right about now. He appeared to be ill the last time we saw him.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Leo. He disappeared three weeks ago.”

The weather had turned frigid by the time Leo arrived outside the Apostolic Palace. Hurrying past the Swiss Guards, he noticed the frenetic activity inside as aides rushed back and forth, squeezing past him without bothering to acknowledge his presence.
Something was going on.
Making his way up to the papal apartments, he tossed his coat on a chair inside the reception area and strode down the long marble hallway to the pope’s library.

“Ah, Cardinal ... at last.” Pope Michael rushed to greet Leo and ushered him toward a pair of red wingchairs next to a low coffee table. “How was your flight?”

“Bumpy. It’s good to see you again, Your Holiness. I noticed a lot of people running around downstairs.”

“Please ... sit. We have a lot to discuss and time is short.” The pope poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Leo. “What have you heard since you left France?”

“Nothing really, except for the fact that Eduardo Acerbi has disappeared. We only had time to gather a few things before they flew us out and dropped me off here in Rome. Lev and the others flew on to Israel.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re sitting down, Leopold, because we’ve just received word that Eduardo has turned up in the Middle East.”

“The Middle East? What’s he doing there?”

“We’re not sure, but after Rene died, he fled to Turkey with his wife and son.”

Leo almost choked on his wine. “What did you say?”

“I said he fled to Turkey ...”

“No, I mean the part about his having a wife and son.”

“I see you’re as surprised as the rest of us.”

“Well yes, considering the fact that he told us his wife died ten years ago and he has another son he failed to tell us about.”

“He lied, or should I say he omitted certain facts.”

The two men were interrupted when the pope’s trusted secretary walked into the room and handed Pope Michael a sheaf of papers.

“Thank you, Enzo. Here, this is what I wanted to show you, Leopold. It’s a copy of Rene’s birth record ... his
original
birth record.”

Leo could hear the blood pounding in his ears as he began to read. He read the page twice before it fell into his lap. “Rene was adopted?”

“Apparently. It seems that, when children are adopted, their original birth records are sealed and they are issued new birth certificates. The names of their birth parents are replaced with the names of their new adoptive parents.”

“Which means that Eduardo was not Rene’s blood father.”