Its current trajectory was now along a glancing course through the upper atmosphere, where that longer path should wear away much of its kinetic energy. There also remained a high probability it would explode, but rather than casting its stellar debris across the Eastern Seaboard, it would rain down upon the Atlantic Ocean.
Or so they all hoped.
Painter searched Jada’s face for any sign of misgiving, any doubt in her calculations and projections, but all he read there was joy.
Then Jada turned away from the skies.
Another figure came running down the street, waving to them. She was a tall black woman in tennis shoes, jeans, and a heavy jacket, unzipped and flapping in her haste to join them.
Painter smiled, recognizing the appropriateness of this latecomer to the party. She truly should be here.
1:11 A.M.
“Momma!” Jada said, hugging her mother. “You made it!”
“Wouldn’t miss it!” she said, huffing heavily, clearly having run most of the length of the Mall to make it in time.
Jada took her mother’s hand, leaning against her.
They both stared up at the night sky, as they had so many times in the past, sprawled on a blanket watching the Perseid or Leonid meteor showers. It was those moments that had made her want to explore those stars, to be a part of them. Jada wouldn’t be who she was without her mother’s inspiration.
Fingers squeezed lovingly upon hers, full of pride and joy.
“Here it comes,” Jada whispered.
Mother and daughter held tight.
From the east, a roar rose and a massive fireball streaked into view, burning across the world, trailing streams of light and energy, shedding the very forces of the universe. It ripped past overhead, hushing the crowd with its fiery course—then came the sonic boom of its passage, sounding like the earth cracking. People fell to the ground, windows shattered throughout the city, car alarms wailed.
Jada kept to her feet next to her mother, both smiling, watching the flaming star rush to the east—where at the horizon, it exploded in a blinding flash, casting fiery rockets farther out, vanishing into the distance.
A second boom echoed back to them.
Then the night returned to darkness, leaving the comet blazing in the skies. As they watched, a scatter of a hundred falling stars winked and zipped, the last hurrah from the heavens.
The crowed cheered and applauded.
Jada found herself doing the same, her mother cheering just as loudly, tears shining in her eyes at the wonder of it all.
A line from Carl Sagan struck Jada then.
We are star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
It never felt truer than this moment.
34
November 25, 11:28 A.M. EST
Washington, D.C.
Duncan sat on the stool with his shirt on his lap.
The tattoo needle blazed fire across the back of his arm, where his triceps formed a hard horseshoe. The fiery pain was appropriate considering the subject matter being inked upon his flesh.
It was a tiny comet, ablaze with fire and trailing a long curved tail. The design had a slightly Asian flare to it, not unlike what was sculpted in gold back at Lake Baikal, hanging above the Chinese king as he offered St. Thomas his cross.
A bevy of archaeologists and religious scholars were scouring that cave on Olkhon Island. Word was still being kept under wraps from the general public due to the sheer volume of gold inside, not to mention the twelve bejeweled crowns from Genghis Khan’s conquests. Duncan expected the site would eventually become a new mecca for St. Thomas Christians—for all Christians, and likely those of Mongol descent, too.
Vigor would be proud, Duncan thought.
More than saving the world with his sacrifice, Vigor had likely renewed the faith and wonder of millions.
Clyde straightened from his work, wiping a bloody cloth across his latest addition to the tapestry that was Duncan’s body. “Looks good.”
Twisting to check in the mirror, Duncan examined the angry, colorful welting and passed his own judgment. “Looks fantastic!”
Clyde shrugged, humble. “I had practice with the first.”
His friend waved to a neighboring stool, where Jada sat.
She shifted to bring her bare arm next to his, comparing her artwork to the fresh one on his arm. They looked an exact match, a shared mark of their adventure together.
Only this was her first tattoo, the first strokes on a blank canvas.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She smiled up at him. “I love it.”
And from the look in her eye, maybe it wasn’t just the tattoo.
Adorned with their new art, the two headed out of the warehouse and back into the midday sunshine. Out in the parking lot, his black Mustang Cobra R shone like a polished piece of shadow. His muscle car remained a symbol of his past, haunted by the memories of his younger brother, Billy, a blurry mix of sorrow and joy—and also of responsibility.
I lived, and he died.
Duncan had always felt he needed to live for the both of them, for all his friends whose lives had been cut short.
After opening the passenger door for Jada, Duncan slipped behind the wheel. He touched the knob of the gearshift—only to have soft fingers land lightly on the back of his hand. He glanced over to see Jada’s eyes shining at him, full of unspoken possibilities.
He remembered her story in the mountains, of entangled fates, of the prospect that death is just the collapsing of a life’s potential in this one time stream, and that another door could open, allowing consciousness to flow forward in a new direction.
If so, maybe I don’t have to live all those lives . . .
He leaned over and kissed her, recognizing in the heat of that moment that by attempting to live so many lives, he was failing to live his own.
“How fast can this car go?” she mumbled as their lips parted. A mischievous eyebrow lifted.
He matched it with a smile, curved just as devilishly.
He shifted into gear, punched the accelerator, and rocketed away. The car roared down the bright streets, no longer chased by the ghosts of the past but drawn forward by the promise of the future.
For in this world, one life was enough for any man.
4:44 P.M.
“Thanks for the lift,” Gray said, shouldering his overnight bag as he climbed out of the SUV.
Kowalski lifted an arm in acknowledgment. Puffing on a cigar, he leaned over. “She was a great gal,” he said, unusually serious and sincere. “She won’t be forgotten. Or her uncle.”
“Thanks,” Gray said and pushed the door closed.
Kowalski tapped his horn good-bye and jammed back into traffic, coming close to sideswiping a bus.
Gray crossed to his apartment complex and headed across its grounds, frosted with new snow, making everything look pristine, untouched, hiding the messiness of life beneath that white blanket.
He had flown back an hour ago from the funeral services in Italy, where Vigor’s body had been given full honors at a ceremony in St. Peter’s. Likewise, Rachel’s services were attended by the uniformed and marshaled forces of the Carabinieri. Her casket had been covered in the flag of Italy. Blasts of rifles had saluted at her graveside.
Still, Gray found no joy, no peace.
They were his friends—and he would miss them dearly.
He climbed the steps up to his empty apartment. Seichan was still in Hong Kong, slowly building some kind of relationship with her mother. They had found Ju-long’s pregnant wife imprisoned on an island off Hong Kong, safe and unharmed. They had freed her, and according to Seichan, the woman had returned to Portugal.
On Macau, Guan-yin had filled with brutal efficiency the power vacuum left behind by Ju-long’s passing. She was well on her way to becoming the new Boss of Macau. Using that position, she and Seichan were already taking steps to better the lives of women on the peninsula and across Southeast Asia, starti
ng with the prostitution rings, holding them to stricter, more humane standards.
He suspected these early efforts were a small means of repairing the fence between mother and daughter. By lifting the burdens of other women who shared their same hard plight, they were helping themselves, as if repairing the present could dull the pain of their brutal pasts, to allow room for them to find each other again.
But it wasn’t the only way.
Seichan had taken it upon herself to help the lost children of Mongolia, those homeless boys and girls who had fallen through the steamy cracks of a city struggling into the new world. He knew by rescuing them, she was rescuing that child of the past who had no one.
While in Mongolia, she had also checked on Khaidu. The young Mongolian girl was out of the hospital, her belly healing from the arrow wound. Seichan found her at her family’s yurt, training with a young falcon—a high-spirited bird with gold feathers and black eyes.
Khaidu had named the bird Sanjar.
We each mourn and honor in our own way, he thought.
Gray reached his apartment door and found it unlocked.
Tensing, he slowly turned the knob and edged the door open. The place was dark. Nothing seemed amiss. He stepped cautiously inside.
Did I forget to lock the door before I left?
As he rounded past the kitchen, he caught a whiff of jasmine in the air. He saw a flickering light from under his closed bedroom door. He crossed and pushed it open.
Seichan had set out candles. She must have returned early from Hong Kong, perhaps sensing he could use company.
She lay stretched on his bed, on her side, up on an elbow, her long naked legs dark against the white sheets. The silhouetted curves of her sleek body formed a sigil of invitation. But there was no accompanying sly smile, no tease to her manner, only a subtle reminder that they both lived and should never take that for granted.
Seichan had told him what she had overheard at the inn back at Khuzhir, about Vigor’s terminal cancer, of the final words an uncle and niece were able to share. In this moment, he remembered Vigor’s most important lesson about life.
. . . do not waste that gift, do not set it on a shelf for some future use; grab it with both hands . . .
Gray stalked forward, shedding clothes with every step, ripping what resisted, until he stood equally naked before her.
In that moment, with every fiber of his being, he knew the fundamental truth about life.
Live it now . . . who knows what will come tomorrow?
TAILS
For now we see through a glass, darkly.
—CORINTHIANS 13:12
November 26, 10:17 A.M. CET
Rome, Italy
Rachel waited outside the exam room for her uncle to finish meeting with his physician. Vigor had only come to the hospital upon her firm insistence, especially as she had no sound basis for demanding this battery of tests.
The door finally cracked open. She heard her uncle laugh, shake the doctor’s hand, and come out.
“Well, I hope that satisfies you,” Vigor said to her. “Clean bill of health.”
“And the full-body MRI results?”
“Besides some arthritis in my hips and lower back, nothing.” Vigor scooped an arm around her waist and headed toward the exit. “For a man in such good health in his sixties, the doctor said I should expect to live to a hundred.”
Rachel could tell he was joking, but she also noted a flicker at the edge of his eyes, like he was trying to remember something.
“What?” she asked.
“I know you insisted on this cancer screening—”
She sighed loudly enough to cut him off. “Sorry. Ever since coming back from Olkhon Island, I just had this bad feeling, like you were sick or something.” She shook her head. “I’m just being silly.”
“That’s just it; as I was lying there with that machine clacking loudly around me, I was almost sure you were right, too.”
“Only because of my insistence.”
“Maybe . . .” He sounded unconvinced and stopped before they reached the hospital doors. “I have to tell you something, Rachel. Back when I placed that crystal Eye atop the cross of St. Thomas, I felt this tearing inside me, like my very being was being ripped out . . . or split apart. It felt like I was riding a fountain of white light. I was sure I was dead. Then in a blink I was back, and there were Gray, Duncan, and Jada bursting inside to check on me.”
Rachel squeezed his hand. “And I’m glad you were safe.”
He stared down at her. “For just a moment then, as I turned to face them, I was overwhelmed with grief, like I’d lost you.”
“But I was fine,” she said—okay, just barely.
She again pictured that silver coin flipping in the air, bouncing across the wood planks of the floor, of Pak placing his boot on it. She had been furious at Seichan for telling him where Gray and the others had gone.
Then Pak had lifted his boot, revealing the backside of the coin.
Tails.
Pak had such a disappointed look on his face. She was suddenly sure in that moment, if it had come up heads, he would have killed her.
“I survived,” Rachel said.
“Well, I know that because you came running in after the others a minute or so later.” He headed back with her toward the door. “But it makes me wonder why we both had premonitions of doom for the other. I mean, I could have had cancer, I suppose. If some cell in my body flipped the wrong switch—up instead of down—I could very well be riddled with tumors.”
“Heads or tails,” Rachel mumbled.
Vigor smiled at her. “So much of life and death is random chance.”
“That’s disheartening.”
“Not if you trust who is flipping the coins.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
He pressed his point. “There are a thousand paths into the future, forks after forks in the road ahead. Who knows, if one road closes, maybe another opens in another universe . . . and your soul, your consciousness, leaps over to continue that journey ever forward, always finding the right path.”
Still, Rachel considered those paths left behind, of possibilities that would be gone forever. A flicker of sadness pierced through her, as though she had lost dear friends.
“You see,” Vigor said, drawing her attention back. “There’s always a path forward.”
“To where?” she asked.
Vigor pushed open the door, blinding her with the brightness of the new day. “Everywhere.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE TO READERS: TRUTH OR FICTION
Time to separate the wheat from the chaff. As in previous books, I thought I’d attempt to divide the book into its blacks and whites. Though, to be honest, there are many gray areas in this novel that tread the line so finely between fact and fiction, between reality and speculation, that you can safely argue both sides of that equation. So let’s go walking that line and see where we end up.
First, history is already a pretty frayed tapestry of truths, but what do we know with relative certainty?
Attila the Hun. In AD 452, Attila was about to sack Rome when Pope Leo the Great rode out with a small entourage, met the leader of the Huns, and somehow dissuaded him from attacking. How? One speculation is that Attila’s forces were already facing disease and threats from other fronts, so he opted to save face, decamp, and leave. Another is that the pontiff played off Attila’s superstitious fears and stoked his concerns about Alaric’s Curse, as described in this book. Yet, others believe the pope did indeed give Attila enough gold and treasure to buy him off.
No matter the reason, he called off his plan, Attila would die the next year, just as he was planning to return to Italy and attack Rome. His death was by nosebleed and did occur on his wedding night, after marrying a young princess named Ildiko. Some theories state Ildiko poisoned her new husband; others that he simply died of chronic alcoholism, exasperated by a night of carousing after his wedding. No one really knows what happened to Ildi
ko after she was discovered at her dead husband’s bedside.
As to his lost grave, it is said he was buried in a triple coffin of iron, silver, and gold, along with most of his vast treasure. The entourage who buried Attila were all killed. Most believe a river (likely the Tizsa in Hungary) was diverted, his tomb buried in the mud, and the river returned to its normal course. Which brings us again back to the Tizsa River for the . . .
Hungarian Witch Trials. The story of Boszorkánysziget, or Witch Island, is true. The island is located near the town of Szeged, where in July of 1728, a dozen witches (men and women) were burned. Over four hundred people were condemned to this fate during the height of the hysteria. Drought—with resultant famine and disease—is considered to be a major instigator for this panic, although, as described in this book, some of those deaths were politically or personally motivated. Nothing like a scourge of witches to get rid of an enemy.
Genghis Khan. Most of the details in this book regarding the Mongolian overlord are true. He was born with the name Temujin (and probably the more accurate spelling of his title is Chinggis Khaan, but I chose to use the more common spelling of Genghis Khan for clarity). And his official clan title was indeed Borjigin, meaning the Master of the Blue Wolf. That name is now one of the most common names in Mongolia, as is Temujin.
On a genetic note, it’s also amazingly true that one out of two hundred men in the world is related genetically to Genghis (and that rises to one out of ten in Mongolia), as defined by twenty-five unique markers making up Haplogroup C-M217. So it seems multiple wives and conquering countries does leave its mark—at least, genetically.
And speaking of his offspring: In the Vatican Archives, there truly is a letter from Genghis Khan’s grandson (Grand Khan Guyuk) to Pope Innocent IV, dated back in 1246, warning the pontiff not to visit the capital of his empire or there would be dire consequences.
From the standpoint of advancements, the Mongol Empire was ahead of its time, by discouraging torture, advocating paper money, developing a postal system, and allowing an unprecedented religious tolerance. The Nestorians did have a church in the capital city, and these early Christians were said to have a significant influence on Genghis Khan.