“What’s her name?”

  “Caroline.”

  “Is it serious?”

  Spencer shrugged. “Could be. I don’t know. I don’t think it’ll work out.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She’s from Glasgow.”

  Reading cocked an eyebrow. “Glasgow? How’d you meet her?”

  “She was in town a few weeks ago. I met her at a bar. We hit it off. We went out a few times while she was here and then have kept in touch since. She wants me to come up and visit her this weekend.”

  “I think you should.”

  Spencer gave him a look. “If you think I’m leaving town after what happened this morning, they should be checking you for brain damage, not heart damage.”

  “I’ll be fine. You heard the doctors. Besides, you have to go back to work tomorrow regardless.”

  “I’ve got vacation time built up.”

  Reading dismissed the idea. “I don’t want you wasting those days on me. Waste them on a girl.”

  Another message appeared on Spencer’s phone.

  “Do you kids even talk anymore?”

  “Huh?”

  “Talk, you know, like use your mouths to make sounds, and your ears to listen to sounds?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. It’s just inefficient.”

  “Are you kidding me? In one minute, I can have a conversation with somebody that would take you and your friend half an hour to do by text. Where did you get this idea that it’s more efficient?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And when it comes to matters of the heart, nothing beats hearing the voice of the woman you love. Call her.”

  Spencer shifted in his seat. “You think I should?”

  “Absolutely.” Reading jerked his chin toward the door. “Go, call her. Talk to her for a minimum of five minutes. You’ll be amazed at how much your relationship progresses.”

  Spencer pushed to his feet. “I think I’m going to. Thanks, Dad.” He left the room, leaving Reading alone with his thoughts, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. He was depressed. He had felt helpless this morning, and even though he was sure things would be fine in the end, it showed just how vulnerable he was all alone.

  An alarm sounded and staff rushed past his door. The loud warning sound stopped, replaced by a heart monitor beeping rapidly then flatlining. The distinct thump of a defibrillator had him flinching, and he glanced over at his own monitor, staring at the numbers, attempting to make sense of everything it showed him as the staff in the next room continued the battle to save someone’s life. And what was remarkable about it all was how unlike the portrayal on television it was. There was no shouting, no panic, just calm. Orders given, results reported.

  Another jolt failed to restart a stranger’s heart, and Reading’s mind raced. Who was it? A man, a woman? Elderly, young? Did they have a history of heart problems, or did this come out of the blue? Did they have family here, or were they all alone?

  And was this his future?

  He wasn’t a very religious man. In fact, he didn’t consider himself religious at all. He wasn’t sure what he believed. He liked to think there was something, but how could anyone be sure? He didn’t have time for organized religion. That was just something created by man. Was there a God? Was there a Jesus? He didn’t know, and he didn’t really care, or at least he hadn’t. There are no atheists in foxholes, and right now he was in one, right next to someone losing the battle.

  He thought of his family. His parents were gone. He had no siblings. He was divorced, and all he had was his son whom he rarely saw. They were reestablishing their relationship, torn apart by his horrid ex-wife telling lies about him. Things were dramatically better than they were just a couple of years ago, and he was so proud that his son had followed him into policing. But here the boy was at a hospital, attending to his father rather than out on the job advancing his career. And worse, he was passing up the opportunity at a relationship because he was concerned about his father’s health.

  His son needed his space to become the man Reading knew he could be. And worrying about his old man would just get in the way of that. But wasn’t that what family was all about? He sighed, closing his eyes as his chest tightened, the horror next door continuing, the staff refusing to give up. It had him thinking that it must be somebody who wasn’t supposed to die now, somebody young, somebody who was supposed to have a full life ahead of them, not an old man like him already in the winter of life.

  Yet he had friends that he wanted to spend time with that often needed his help. Unfortunately, most of his friends were on the other side of the Atlantic. His best friend for years, his partner, Martin Chaney, was dead, and he had left everyone from Scotland Yard behind. He had kept in touch for the first few months, but as people rotated in and out, as they had new experiences together that he wasn’t part of, he quickly felt like the outsider and stopped joining them for drinks at the pub after work, and they had stopped calling to invite him. Those days were behind him and so were those people. And Interpol was different. There just wasn’t the camaraderie there. He hated to admit it, but he was happiest when he was with Jim and Laura.

  He felt like a bad father for thinking it.

  He blasted air through his closed mouth, puffing out his lips. He wasn’t sure how much time he had left. At the moment, he was feeling very mortal, not only from what had happened this morning to himself, but from what was happening to the stranger next door. He might have a year left. He might have twenty years left. And he didn’t want to waste it. Perhaps it was time to embrace his friends’ offer. They had built him a suite in their new home with the offer for him to stay there as often as he wanted or to simply move there. They were rich, incredibly rich, ridiculously generous to a fault. And if they were willing, he should accept their offer while he could.

  What was it Laura had said to him recently? “Retire and we’ll pay your pension.” If he did move to the States and live with his friends, he had no doubt they would pay for him to fly back and visit his son whenever he wanted, and pay for his son to visit him. It would allow him to spend time with his friends, enjoy life, and get out of the way of his son who had his own life to live.

  The sounds from the room next door stopped, the battle over, a life lost, and tears flowed. What dreams had gone unfulfilled? Who had been left behind?

  And were they in a better place?

  Oh God, let it be real.

  25 |

  North of Rome, The Papal States AD 1239

  Sir Ricardo had cleared the city limits hours ago atop a fine steed, fully equipped for several days’ ride, though his journey would take much longer. He was anticipating two weeks, assuming the weather cooperated, and he ran into no trouble along the way. The slim leather folio handed over by the monk was slung over his neck and tucked inside his cloak, pressed against his chest. He was dying to know its contents, but he had sworn an oath. What document it contained was none of his concern. It wasn’t the mission. The mission was to deliver it, unopened, to Padua.

  This was the first time he would be traveling to Padua where the Holy Roman Emperor held court. The Templars were aligned with the pope, and he wasn’t certain how welcome he would be if he arrived wearing the markings of the Order, but if he attempted to enter the court as a mere messenger, he was quite certain he would never fulfill his mission. The mysterious man had insisted the document be delivered directly into the hands of the leader of the Electoral College meeting in Padua, and while a Templar might be expected to achieve such a thing anywhere else, it was an entirely different matter when it came to the emperor’s palace.

  But that was a problem for another day. For now, he had a long journey ahead, one he expected to be boring without his usual complement of brothers. Serving the Order, serving the Church, serving God, brought him a difficult-to-explain joy. He had been lost before he swore the oath of poverty and rid himself of all his worldly goods, giving himself completely to the brotherhood.

  Being a member of the nobility had been misery. It was all politics and power struggles laden with salacious gossip. While that life had been adored by his late mother and father, he had hated it. Then when his wife had died giving birth, he had used his grief as an excuse to escape a life that held no meaning to him. He had seen things most mortals could only imagine and had been blessed to visit Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the lands spoken of in the Holy Bible.

  And if he died today, he would die a content man.

  He figured he still had a good ten years of service in him. Templars that lived past their prime were given less taxing jobs. Today, he was a messenger. In a decade he might be in charge of a commandery somewhere. A job behind a desk. Nothing but paperwork day in and day out. It held no appeal to him, even less than the life he had left behind. He had always assumed he would die fighting the Saracens, defending an innocent, some worthy death long before this. But here he stood, decades later, still alive to do God’s bidding. He must have a plan for him. What that was, he had no clue, though somehow he doubted it was this mission that he had been kept alive for.

  Several galloping horses behind him had him turning in his saddle. Half a dozen Templar messengers raced toward him, and he was about to hail them when he caught himself. He wasn’t in uniform and he was traveling incognito. Interacting with Templars, even if mere messengers, could draw undue attention. They blasted past him, two splitting off at an intersection ahead, and it had him wondering what was amiss.

  Messengers always traveled at high speed. That wasn’t what had drawn his attention. It was the fact there were six of them together. Typically, when a message needed to be dispatched, it was handed to the next available messenger who then left immediately. The only time he had ever seen something like he had witnessed today was when there was a bulk dispatch, the same message sent to multiple locations.

  Something urgent was afoot.

  He pressed his hand against his chest, the document suddenly heavy. Could the urgent business involve him and this document? And if it did, and the Order was so concerned, did it mean he was on the wrong side of good? He wasn’t exactly certain what to do, though he couldn’t risk his mission simply because he had witnessed six messengers carrying dispatches that might have nothing to do with him. Yet if it did, was it to find him to warn him of something, or to warn others that if they found him, he should be stopped?

  He continued forward, bracing against the chill, the hour still early, the sun’s warmth yet to be noticed by his skin. He had some thinking to do, and fortunately, he had the time to do it.

  26 |

  Discovery Site North of Sipicciano, Italy Present Day

  While there as guests of the expedition, if it could be called that, Acton was never one to sit back and watch others work. He tapped in the stake holding in place his corner of the tarp covering the site, then tossed the mallet to Laura who secured her corner. He tightened a loose tie then stepped back and stretched. The site was now covered by a tarp suspended eight feet overhead, protecting it from the elements, which included the bright sun baking down on them.

  The immediate area was taped off, and despite the discovery being deep into the trees near a highway rest stop, a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered. It didn’t bother him. What was happening here wasn’t a secret. This was Italy, a civilized, peaceful country, so he didn’t expect the crowd to become unruly. He had been at several digs during his career in Third World countries where the local populations were so desperate, if they thought there was something of value, they could quickly overrun the site and loot it.

  There were two squad cars at the rest stop and four officers providing crowd control around the dig, but so far, everyone simply seemed curious as to what was going on. Anything to get people excited about archaeology was fine by him. This field didn’t pay well. It could mean a lot of time on your hands and knees digging in the dirt. It was usually a career path that when announced at the kitchen table with Mom and Dad resulted in disappointed reactions. Fortunately, his parents had supported his choice, though insisted he say aloud that he understood he wasn’t training to become Indiana Jones.

  Boy were they wrong.

  Laura joined him, taking his hand. “This is exciting, isn’t it?”

  He agreed, giving her hand a squeeze. “There’s just something about this. We already know what’s in the hole. We already know what we’ll find. It’s the fact we might be able to prove something thought not to exist actually did that has me almost giddy.”

  Tommy and Mai joined them, having finished helping set up a large tent where the find would be initially examined. “This is so exciting!” gushed Mai, hopping up and down. “I can’t wait to see it. How do you guys feel about it? I mean, it challenges your entire belief system.”

  Acton shrugged. “I’ve never really been one for organized religion. And remember, this is one man’s opinion, and everyone’s entitled to their opinions.” He waved a hand at the leader of the expedition. “Why don’t you ask Father Esposito?”

  “Ask me what?” asked the man, walking over.

  “Miss Trinh was wondering how we felt knowing the nature of the document we’re about to retrieve.”

  “Oh, you mean with respect to it challenging my beliefs?”

  “Yes. As a Buddhist, I have no skin in the game, I think is the way Americans say it.” She glanced over at Tommy who gave her a reassuring nod. “But I have to assume your beliefs are strong considering where you work. Does it make you uncomfortable?”

  “Not at all. I have faith, and my beliefs can’t be challenged by a document written by a man who was a known skeptic. There are more people alive on this planet that don’t share my beliefs than do and that doesn’t bother me. Being threatened by other people’s beliefs or going to war because someone doesn’t believe the same thing you do is ridiculous and should be something relegated to the past. Unfortunately, as we all know, some simply can’t accept that others don’t share their beliefs.

  “What people seem to forget is that all religions are a variation on a theme. Monotheistic religions, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, believe in a single god, a single all-powerful being. Polytheists believe in multiple gods, but they all believe that there’s something greater than us, something bigger than the individual, something more to life than this mere brief existence we have on this planet. Everyone is just looking for meaning.”

  “What about atheists?”

  Esposito smirked. “I’m hardly qualified to comment, but I would think atheism is a belief in itself. If there is no God, if there is no afterlife and you’re comfortable with that, then isn’t that a belief in itself? Doesn’t that make mankind its own god? We’re answerable to ourselves and our community. We do the right thing because it’s what’s best for everyone, as opposed to what we think God would want us to do. Like someone once said, we don’t all have to believe in the same thing, but we all have to believe in something. So, I guess to answer your question, I’m excited to see what we’re about to see because it could fill in a big gap in the history of the Church, but I’m quite certain at the end of the day, none of us will feel any different than we did when we woke up this morning. Now, Professor Acton, Professor Palmer, the two of you have the most experience here by far. I hope it’s not too much of an imposition to ask that you retrieve the document.”

  Acton exchanged a grin with Laura. “Just try to stop us.”

  Davide Levi elbowed his best friend, Salamone, then pointed. “Look, they’re going in.”

  He held up his phone, recording everything. This was the most exciting thing he had ever seen. There was a body in the hole covered by the newly erected temporary shelter, and on that body could be a document 800 years old that questioned his Jewish faith, in fact, challenged the validity of the beliefs of billions. He didn’t care about the implications. As far as he was concerned, there were none. He had his beliefs, and most in the world disagreed with them. In fact, most in the world discriminated against him for those beliefs.

  He glanced around. With the exception of him and his friends, there wasn’t a yamaka in sight. There was a time when he would remove it, too self-conscious to risk the stares, and things were far worse now in Italy than they had been when he was a child. The influx of Muslims during the refugee crisis had made things far more dangerous for the Jewish community. Italians were predominantly Roman Catholic and accustomed to seeing Jews among them. Yes, there was antisemitism, but it was relatively rare. Now, with thousands upon thousands of refugees bringing the Muslim population to almost three million, raised to hate people like him, unaccustomed to seeing Jews walking among them, life was difficult.

  But now he wore the yamaka, not only with pride, but as a symbol of defiance. He was sick and tired of being made uncomfortable in his own country. His family had been here for generations and he wasn’t letting ignorance and bigotry change the way he lived or worshipped.

  “She’s hot!” Zaccaria zoomed in on the woman now climbing down a ladder.

  Davide eyed his friend. “She’s like twice your age. She could be your mother.”

  Zaccaria shrugged. “My mother doesn’t look like that.”

  Salamone snorted. “Otherwise, apparently you’d want to mount her.”

  Zaccaria punched Salamone in the shoulder. “You’re sick.”

  “I don’t know. I think you’re the sick one.”

  “Hey, all I said was she was hot. You’re the one who brought mothers into it.”

  Davide held up a finger. “Actually, I think that was me.”

  “Then you’re the sick one.” Zaccaria grinned. “But since we’re on the subject, your mother is hot.”

  It was Zaccaria’s turn to get punched. He rubbed his shoulder. “So, how are things between your mom and dad?”

  Salamone snickered and Zaccaria dodged another punch when one of the police officers sauntered over. “Settle down, boys.”

 

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