The Columbus Code (42 page)

He helped her to her feet and turned toward the door. Tejada stood there, the gun still in his grasp, the barrel trained on them.

“I appreciate you saving my daughter,” Winters said. “But I can take her from here.”

Tejada stared at them a moment, his eyes fixed on Maria. “I have something to tell you,” he said finally.

“I don't want to hear it,” Maria retorted.

Tejada smiled. “For a while I thought I was capable of love. Do you think that is true, Maria?”

“I think you
were
capable of love, Tejada,” she said. “But now you have given in to evil.”

Tejada lowered his head as if in thought. While he was distracted, Maria took Louis' pistol from her waistband and handed it to her father. He slipped his fingers around the grip and waited.

“Then this is it,” Tejada said, raising the pistol to fire. “I am sorry it has come to this.”

Suddenly, the deafening report of Louis' pistol—the flash—the look of surprise on Tejada's face—all happened in such rapid succession Maria could barely move as Winters shoved her toward the door.

“Is he—” she gasped. “Did you—”

“Come on.” Winters pulled her after him. “We have to get out of here.”

Maria looked down at Tejada, who was writhing on the floor, helpless for perhaps the first time in his life. And yet there was the gun, just within his reach on the concrete.

“Dad!” she screamed.

Tejada's fingers closed over the pistol. Winters flung Maria aside and turned to shoot. “Run, Maria!” he said.

But before she could move, a hulking form came to life at the table. With a heave Louis dropped on top of Tejada and pinned him in place.

The sun crept into the room that overlooked El Masnou, like fingers strangling the darkness. Tejada went to the window and cursed it beneath his breath. He knew now why Abaddon had spent so much of his time in the shadows. There was too much to accuse him in the light. Perhaps if he remained here he would come to believe as the old man had that the truth lay in the dark.

He moved to the chair in the middle of the room and turned it slowly in a circular motion, facing each of the cushions arranged on the floor. All were just as the Brotherhood had left them that day Abaddon had passed his power down to Tejada.

Now, so much had changed.

Molina was dead. Snowden had been found hanging in his office, a chair lying on its side beneath him. The rest of the board had scattered when the news began to spread that Catalonia Financial was behind the attempted bombing of Wall Street. As for Abaddon himself, Tejada was not convinced he died naturally in his sleep. Abaddon seldom slept, and the vial of aconite he kept was empty.

Tejada turned to the old man's self-appointed throne. “You did it to give me no choice, wily one. And here I always thought I had one.” He smiled slyly. “But you knew that. As you knew everything.”

Almost.

He looked again at the circle of cushions lying at his feet. Abaddon was wrong. The choice remained. It was true that Catalonia could regain its footing under another name—as it had done so many times through the centuries. The journal had gone back underground, and he now knew where to look for it. As long as he lived, the Brotherhood could have life and achieve its purpose.

But one choice remained—to prove Maria Winters wrong. To look to the root of goodness inside himself and see if it had indeed been choked out. It was there before him as clear as the shaft of sunlight that shot insistently through the window, undaunted by his wish for darkness. He could take it. He could follow where it led.

Outside, he heard the toll of bells as they rang in the church tower, beckoning to the people of El Masnou, calling them to worship. But they had no idea that the Antichrist stood above them.

He must choose, and he must choose now. There could be no reluctance in embracing the role. It must be all, or it must be nothing.

Tejada walked to the window and leaned out. Nothing did not mean chasing after a self that might still exist at the root of him. It meant . . . nothing. It meant allowing himself to drop from this window, against the rocks that beckoned below.

“Lord Tejada?”

Tejada stopped breathing.

Heavy footsteps resounded in the room. Tejada held up his hand. “A moment, Louis,” he said. The steps stopped. Tejada closed his eyes and let himself see her one more time. The outrageous hair. The bright, intelligent eyes. The smile that illuminated the soul he'd forgotten he had.

She was the only one who knew him. Only she could know . . . the evil had cut to the root of the good. And so, it must be the truth.

Slowly he turned from the window. Louis sat on the cushion just to the right of the chair, waiting. Louis, who had kept him from killing her.

Tejada took his seat and looked down at his brother.

“
Nos comprometemos nuestras vidas y nuestras fortunas con el maestro
,” Louis said.

Winters ended the call and rested the phone against his cheek. Maria crossed the hotel room and sank into the nondescript chair across from him.

“So,” she said. “When are you going back to Spain?”

“Not until the Service is done with me.” He gave her a thin smile. “With us.”

Maria pushed a hand through her hair. “How many times can they ask us the same questions?”

“You have no idea,” Winters said shaking his head. Then he looked up with a sarcastic grin. “You don't like being quarantined here with me? How often do you get to stay in a suite like this, huh?”

“I'd just like it to be my choice.” Her eyes softened. “But no, it isn't that bad. We haven't talked to each other this much since—”

“Uh-oh,” Winters said, cutting her off. “I hear it coming. ‘Dad, we need to talk.'”

“What else do we have to do?”

“I could teach you to play poker.”

“I know how to play poker,” she groused. “I'm serious, Dad. We need to talk about what you're going to do.”

Winters knew she was right. Although she was feisty and smiling again, back to doing that thing with her hair, she had circles under
her eyes and when she thought he wasn't watching, her gaze drifted off and her mouth trembled before she tightened it back in line.

They'd talked about everything from her mother to her sense of betrayal by Snowden to her longing for her friend Austin, whom she still couldn't find. She'd poured out her grief over the girl Elena, and her anger at Ben—whom he knew was undergoing questioning that made theirs pale by comparison.

But she never mentioned Tejada. He'd seen the sparks that flew between them even when guns were drawn. Winters had watched her struggle that day to answer his question—was he capable of love? She had at the very least been on the verge of love with him, but she wouldn't talk about it. He wanted to tell her she would discover the kind of relationship he was finding with Sophia—but they hadn't talked about her yet, either. Where they were was here, with Maria staring at him with her wide brown eyes, waiting for the answer to a question he hadn't heard.

“Hello?” she said. “You with me or what?”

“Hit me with that again.”

“What are we going to do after this?”

Winters rubbed his chin. “You're not talking about jobs.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I'm talking about the journal—the prophecies—all of that. And about Sophia.”

“We've got you hooked too.”

“How can I not be? I'm Columbus' descendant too.”

Winters motioned for her to go on.

“Sophia told me what that guy in Jerusalem said to you.”

“Jacob Hirsch.”

“I don't think you can ignore that, not after all that's happened. You didn't kill Tejada and I know he's not done. I saw it in his eyes as we were leaving.”

Winters nodded. He could almost feel the knot in her throat.

“So you can't be done either,” Maria continued. “Hirsch told you that deciphering the message of the prophecy is your task and now we know it's true.”

Winters felt a thickness in his own throat. “‘We'?”

“Yeah.” She curved toward him. “Do you know how close I came to letting myself get pulled into that evil? And that's just me—one individual. Thousands of people could have been killed if you hadn't stopped it. This is our destiny.”

In another time, a former place, Winters would have told his daughter she was being a drama queen. But these weren't the hyped-up ideals of a teenage girl. This was a woman, a passionate woman, his grown daughter who was confronting him with the truth.

Just as she had tried to confront Tejada.

“We might have the key to unlock the code,” he said to her. “Hirsch says it's buried in the journal.”

Maria spread her hand on her chest. “And not just the journal, Dad. I think it's buried in us. But are you in?” Winters looked into those wide brown eyes, where he saw her mother, and where he saw himself. And where he saw the truth. Slowly he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I'm all in.”

First, I want to thank you, the reader, for picking up
The Columbus Code
and taking the time to read it. With so many other things vying for your attention, it is an honor that you dedicated time to read this novel.

A huge thank you to Worthy Publishing for seeing the spark in this novel and getting it out to readers. A special thank you to Worthy's CEO, Byron Williamson, for leading such a wonderful team of people, and Jeana Ledbetter for her dedicated support and guidance on this project.

This book would still be editorial chaos if it were not for the keen eye and guiding hand of Kyle Olund, the executive editor on this book. Thank you for making this final product the best it could be.

I am thankful for my agent, Ted Squires, and his passion and vigor for getting this book to Worthy. He has a gift for seeing potential, and I am appreciative to him for seeing potential in me.

Thank you to Doug Preudhomme for taking this novel to the next level of exposure with your marketing expertise.

My deepest gratitude and sincere thanks Joe Hilley, for his amazing gifts and talents, and to my executive assistant, Lanelle Shaw-Young, both of whom work diligently to help me accomplish my vision. Thank you to Arlen Young for his invaluable help.

Above all, I thank my wife, Carolyn, and family. They are the light that keeps me going. It would take an entire book to list all the things my wife does for me and what my family means to me.

MIKE EVANS is a #1
New York Times
best-selling author with more than 25 million copies in print, including
Christopher Columbus, Secret Jew
. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas.