Unearthly Power (12 page)

“I’m sorry, professor. You no longer have any say in this venture. You have made your choice and I have my instructions.” Marcel looked at Finley and nodded his head. There were two muffled sounds as Finley fired twice into his back causing him to fall to the deck. In the excitement of the moment the professor had failed to see the weapon in his hand when he first returned.

Marcel stepped over him and Finley turned to follow as they moved to the front of the boat. He walked into the wheelhouse, took out his own gun and fired a round into the radio. He removed the keys from the ignition and tossed them into the water. Satisfied, he left. Back outside, they saw the running lights from their transport ship. It had been staying far enough out of sight so as not to give away their position. Once temporarily secured to the other boat, they transported the crate, the rest of their gear and the two unconscious women onto their high speed cabin cruiser.

The skies had given way to broken rays of sunlight as t
he cloud cover, once an ugly gray veil suspended just out of reach, was now finally clearing up. But they paid little attention to that as there was nothing else for them to do here. When the last member of their team arrived, indicating they had twenty minutes to put as much distance between them and the other boat as possible, they detached their lines and sped away under the cover of the lingering darkness. 

             
A
s soon as he heard the other boat move away, Professor James opened his eyes and began pulling himself across the deck with every ounce of strength he could muster. Having never been shot before, he automatically assumed the experience was instantly terminal. After he had fallen, he felt the immediate pain from the impact of the bullets. It was a combination of pain and numbness as he could no longer move certain parts of his body. As time passed, he assumed his body protected itself through the effects of shock as the pain itself was not incapacitating. His left leg felt completely numb and his breathing was limited to short gasps of air. His arms seemed fine and so he used them to drag himself to the galley where the only other passengers on board were now. It was a distance of no more than twenty feet, but it seemed as though it was much more.

His body was drenched in sweat from the effort, and on more than one occasion he felt the sensation of shooting pain spread throughout his body as one or both of the bullets pressed against nerves from the movement. When he reached the doorway, he lifted himself over the small lip on the bottom of the frame until he was inside the room. This movement elicited another agonizing spasm to surge through his body. He cried out but no one heard him. When the pain subsided he moved to where Sean was sitting hunched over the table. No matter how hard he shook his arm he would not respond. In a sense of desperation, Professor James pulled Sean out of his chair and onto the floor. Sean remained unconscious as the professor took a moment to regain his strength. He rolled Sean onto his back and began slapping him in the face and yelling at the same time.

“Wake up! Get up!” he said as he alternately hit one side of his face and then the other. “Captain Rylan, wake up!”

After a series of endless blows, Sean slowly came out of his stupor. “Wha . . .?”

“Get up now! Wake up! They have my daughter. They took your sister!”

That last statement did more to bring him to his senses than anything else. “Who took Dee?” he asked as he tried to shake his head clear from the heavy fog that clouded his mind.

“Marcel. He and his men left. They took the girls with them. If we don’t get out of here we will die!”

“What are you talking about?” Sean asked, listening to the man on the floor next to him, as he looked around the rest of the room to get his bearings.

“There’s no time,” he said before he gave in to a fit of coughing, “We need to go. If we stay, we die.”

Sean looked at the professor as if seeing him for the first time, saw blood on his hands, and then recognized Alex passed out on the table up above them. He struggled to his feet and fought off a wave of dizziness. When that was under control he heard the professor say, “Do you have a life boat? I didn’t see any on board. Marcel said something about explosives. We need to leave now!”

Though
Sean heard every last word he still struggled to process the information. He knew something was terribly wrong and vaguely felt that he needed to do something soon. He decided to do as he was told until he could figure it out for himself. He half-walked and half-staggered into the wheelhouse. He saw the damaged radio and noticed that the keys were gone. He turned to go back through the passageway to the rear of the boat. The professor was still calling out to him but he wasn’t paying attention to what was being said. He remembered something being mentioned about a lifeboat, so he went to one of the large equipment lockers and removed a deflated rubber raft. The weight of it almost caused him to sink to the deck as he maneuvered it to the side of the boat. He spun it around to find the inflation cord and pushed it over the side. By the time it hit the water the cord triggered the Co2 charge and the raft was soon fully inflated. He tied off the end of the cord he held in his hand and stumbled back to the galley.

The professor had moved himself back out into the passageway by this time. He reached over and helped him to his feet hoping they would both remain upright as they fought against their weaknesses and the movement of the boat itself. When they reached the rail, Sean opened the section they had fabricated to allow the submersible to be brought on board. It was only a few feet to the raft. When he judged the motion of the waves to be at their lowest point between the two, he pushed the professor in. He heard him suppress a scream and then moan as he landed face down in the small craft. Sean ignored it as he turned to get Alex.

His strength was improving, but it was necessary for him to focus on keeping the nausea he was experiencing under control. He slid next to Alex’s side and moved the chair so that he could lift him in a fireman’s carry. It was easier this way and he soon had him in position to toss him over the side as he had done with the professor. When he looked down, he saw that Professor James had righted himself in the small raft and decided to lower Alex more gently so as not to add further injury to either of them. He lowered him to the side and swung his legs over the water. Once they held to the inside of the raft, he slid the rest of his body in as gently as he could while being at least marginally aided by the professor. As he was about to lower himself into the raft the professor said, “No. You need to get the staff. Also, I have a satellite communicator in my room under my pillow. Get them both.”

Thinking the old man was out of his mind, Sean stood there and stared in disbelief.
             

Knowing he had to say something more Professor James added, “If you want to see your sister again, get them both.
At least get the staff. Trust me.”

Not being able to formulate a logical argument, Sean turned and walked back toward the staterooms. He went into his first and picked up the wooden rod.
As soon as he did he felt the strange energy that seemed to flow through it. His mind cleared and his body felt rejuvenated. Having no time to dwell on this he then turned toward the professor’s room. He found the satellite phone, or communicator, as the professor called it, and then turned to leave. He stopped for a moment as he saw the remnants of Tori’s clothing on her side of the room. He could still smell her scent linger in the air. He brushed the thought aside and left. When he made it back to the raft he saw one small plastic paddle next to the equipment locker. He decided it was enough and lowered himself into the boat with everything he gathered in hand.

“Hurry, I think they said they had twenty minutes to get away from here. I don’t know how much of that time is left,” Professor James said with a weakened voice.

With renewed strength, Sean placed the phone and wooden rod on the inside of the raft next to his leg. He undid the line that held them to the boat and started to paddle away. He alternated his strokes to keep from going in a circle. It seemed to both him and the professor that they were making little to no headway, as if they were moving in slow motion. Sean could see fear mixed with pain in the professor’s eyes.

Once he relaxed from his flow of adrenaline, Sean started to judge the rhythm of the shallow waves and used
it to his advantage in putting distance between them and the boat. Without warning, the Cantankerous II, the center of what was tied to much of his professional and personal relationships with his best friend and sister, disappeared in a bright explosion as the shock waves reached out to rock their small craft, nearly capsizing it in the process. Two smaller sympathetic explosions followed, but they were soon muted by the water rushing in to fully consume the vessel.        

Sean quit rowing and laid his head back as the exhaustion of the previous ten minutes overwhelmed him. When he opened his eyes they were focused on the professor. He sat there with his eyes half closed and looked as if he had no energy. Sean noticed the blood stains on his hands earlier, but saw no wounds to indicate where it had come from. He assumed that whatever had happened to him and Alex also happened to the professor. They had obviously been drugged. That thought presented more questions than answers,
why
being the most significant.

“What the hell is going on, Professor?”

At the question he opened his eyes to return the stare that was cast upon him. There was no longer any reason for subterfuge. “It’s a long story. One that goes back long before any of us was born.” He began before being interrupted.

“How about skip
ping to the part about what just happened on the boat and where Dee and Tori are?”

Kirby James did hi
s best to put on a slight smile, not in happiness, but as the only one present who had the whole story; the story that no more than two people knew. “Indulge me. I think we will be out here for a while and someone needs to hear this. Trust me. It is only with this knowledge that you will be able to save your sister and my daughter.”

Realizing that there was literally nothing else they could do at the moment he said, “Okay, tell me the story.”

He paused as if in deciding where he should start. Once it was settled in his mind he began. “You may have heard stories about the Knights Templar. While there are many embellishments about the scope of their activities, they actually existed in name only for approximately two centuries. Similar unnamed organizations existed before them, while others took up the cause following their demise down until this day. In both instances, distrust between the organizations, the heads of the Church and the heads of State led to recriminations, imprisonments, and changes in leadership, whether in government or in the Church. Since these organizations were born from the Church, that was where their first loyalty rested—unless, of course, they perceived the Church leaders themselves as a threat. They were kept on a very tight leash as time went on, with money playing a significant role in that control.

“One of the offshoots of this tradition was called The Order of Christ. They originated in Portugal in the early thirteen hundreds. The reason I mention that particular group is because it is what brought us to you and then brought us here.”

He looked to see that he still had Sean’s attention and paused to take a much needed breath before continuing. The pain was becoming more bearable as he was held in place between the side of the raft and the unconscious Alex. “When General Titus sacked the city of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. he also destroyed the Temple. Before he did it, however, the Roman Legions removed all of its treasures. One of the treasures was the Ark of the Covenant.”

“I’ve heard of it.” Sean said.

The professor smiled and said, “While different historical accounts relay different versions of what actually happened to the ark, it was in fact taken under guard to Rome by people who would eventually comprise the religious orders I mentioned before. They did this with the blessing of the Roman Emperor. This ark, and many other religious relics and treasures obtained through various conquests, remained under the control of the Roman Empire until the birth of the Roman Catholic Church. During the time of the Northern Renaissance in the mid-fourteen hundreds, the influence of challenges to the ecclesiastical structure of the Church were beginning to build momentum, eventually leading to the events of the Reformation. During this time of challenge, loyalists to the Church smuggled the ark out of Rome in fear of it falling into the wrong hands. I doubt that their fears were justified, but apparently there were enough highly placed officials within their organization who were able to accomplish just that. They transported the ark to Portugal where it remained under the protection of the Order of Christ for approximately thirty-seven years.

“A corrupt Bishop falsely claimed authority to relocate the ark once again. He enlisted members of the Order to steal the ark and place it on a ship he claimed was destined for Rome. That ship was not going to Rome. It was an unregistered ship carrying whores, stolen treasure and as i
ts last and most valuable cargo, the Ark of the Covenant. The ship was named the Ay Papi. It joined up with three other ships in the Canary Islands heading west in 1492.”

“Columbus?” Sean asked. “You mean Columbus brought the Ark of the Covenant to America? What for? Why would this Bishop, whoever he was, want to
risk sending it god knows where?”