The Ezekiel Code Read online

  GARY VAL TENUTA

  THE EZEKIEL CODE

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1: Turning Point

  Part 2: Revelation

  Part 3: Countdown

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  December 15, 1999

  Frank McClintock paced the floor and watched the clock as he waited for Professor Alan Kline to arrive. He’s late, McClintock thought to himself. He’s never late for anything. May- be I better call him. As he reached for the phone the doorbell rang. He moved quickly across the room and opened the door. “Alan! Glad you could make it. Come on in.”

  “For crying out loud,” the professor complained, trying to shake off the chill. “You know I hate driving in the snow. Why couldn’t you just tell me about whatever it is over the phone?

  And when the hell did you get back? I thought you were planning to stay in France for another week.”

  McClintock took Kline’s coat and laid it over the back of the couch. “I got back yesterday. I could have told you on the phone but there’s something I wanted you to see. Sit down here by the fire and make yourself comfortable. I’ll get us some coffee.”

  “Great,” Kline said. “I’ll take a drop of whiskey in mine if you’ve got it.”

  McClintock laughed. “Of course. How could I forget?”

  “What’d you want me to see?” Kline asked, seating himself in one of the pair of antique wingback chairs in front of the fireplace.

  “It’s on the coffee table there in front of you.” McClintock answered from the kitchen. The professor looked down. A document folder was lying on the small coffee table in front of him. He put on his reading glasses, opened the folder and took out the fragile sheet of parchment. It was yellowed with age and the writing was faded but legible. He was studying it when McClintock returned from the kitchen with two cups of hot coffee, each spiked with a touch of whiskey.

  McClintock settled into the other wingback chair facing the professor. He sipped his coffee quietly, letting the professor absorb the content of the parchment. After a few moments Kline removed his glasses and leaned back. He looked at McClintock. “Is this what I think it is?” he asked, completely astonished.

  “Yup,” McClintock replied with a slight grin.

  “So the story is true?”

  McClintock nodded. “I believe it is.”

  “Where the hell did you get this? I know you told me you thought it existed but I was beginning to think the whole strange story was a crock.”

  “Well,” McClintock started, “you remember the reason I went to France was to meet with that other researcher that I’d been corresponding with by email?”

  “Yes. Jacques somebody.”

  “Yes! Jacques de Pereille. He claimed to be related to Raimon de Pereille but hardly anyone believed him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kline said, shaking his head. “You’ll have to refresh my memory.”

  McClintock set his coffee down and leaned forward in the chair. “Raimon de Pereille,” he explained, “was the lord of Montségur!”

  “Montsegur?” Kline asked, not yet remembering this part of the long, complex story. For the past several months McClintock had been pursuing what he suspected to be the facts behind an old myth. It was a story so unlikely that Professor Kline doubted any of it could be true. Whenever McClintock would discover some tidbit of information about the story he would call Kline and tell him what he’d learned. But now Kline’s skepticism was being seriously challenged by the evidence he was holding in his own hands.

  “Monteégur was a huge castle,” McClintock explained. “The last refuge for the Cathars back in the Middle Ages during the so-called Holy Inquisition. They were being hunted down and slaughtered like animals.”

  “Oh, right. Yes,” Kline said. “I remember now.”

  McClintock sat back in his chair. “Anyway, like I said, this guy, Jacques, claimed to be related to the Lord of Montségur.”

  “And you believe he is?”

  McClintock shrugged. “Well, I can’t say for certain but I’m damn sure about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s the one who gave me what you’re holding in your hands right now.”

  Kline looked surprised. “He gave you this? He just handed it over to you? Why? Why would he do that?”

  “Well, it wasn’t quite like that. Not exactly, anyway.”

  Kline looked concerned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, here’s what happened. I had a conversation with Jacques at a little cafe the previous day. He confided in me that he had what he believed to be the real thing in his possession. He said he’d show it to me if I wanted to come to his home the next day. Well, I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not but I wasn’t going to pass it up, just in case. And then he told me he thought some kind of an agent from the Vatican had been following him around for the past week or so. Well, that struck me as a bit of a stretch and I just sort of brushed it off. I figured maybe Jacques was just getting paranoid. You know, having a little flight of fancy that was maybe getting out of hand.”

  “The Vatican!” Kline scoffed. “Does seem a bit extreme.”

  “Exactly my reaction. It was just a little too extreme. Like I said, I just brushed it off at the time. But when I got to his home the next day I found the door wide open and the place had obviously been ransacked. Furniture turned over, drawers pulled out, stuff all over the place. A real mess. I called out for Jacques but there was no answer.”

  “My god. So what’d you do?”

  “The first thing that went through my mind was what he’d told me about someone following him around. I figured if that was true - I mean if that’s what this was all about - then they were probably looking for that parchment. Fortunately Jacques told me where he’d hidden it.”

  “I’m amazed he would tell anyone something like that,” Kline said. “Why would he do that?”

  McClintock nodded. “Yes, well, I think the reason he told me was because he trusted me and figured if anything should happen to him at least maybe I could get to it before anyone else did. He’d simply hidden it inside the backing of a cheap painting that hung on the wall in his bedroom. So I rushed into the bedroom and sure enough the painting was hanging there, apparently untouched. I grabbed it from the wall and tore off the backing and there was the parchment just like he said. I shoved it under my coat and turned to get the hell out of there. That’s when I saw Jacques on the floor. He was on the other side of the bed, laying in a pool of blood with a bullet hole in his head.”

  Kline sat straight up. “Dead?”

  “As a doornail.”

  “Jesus! Could it have been a suicide?”

  McClintock shook his head. “I doubt it. There was no gun anywhere to be seen.”

  “He was murdered?”

  “That’s the way it looked to me.”

  “Good Lord,” Kline mumbled under his breath.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you go to the police?”

  McClintock shook his head. “No, man. I was scared. I just got the hell out of there.”

  Kline looked seriously concerned now. “If this is all true, you could be in real danger.”

  McClintock nodded. “I know.”

  “Who else knows you have this?” Kline asked, laying the old parchment back on the table.

  “Nobody. Just you.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Good,” Kline replied, somewhat relieved. “If I were you I’d get rid of the damn thing and just forget about it.”

  McClintock swirled the coffee around in his cup a few times and looked up at his friend. “I can’t,” he said. “I’ve come so fa
r. I’m this close. I can’t let it go now. You know what I mean?”

  Kline shook his head. “I figured as much,” he said, getting up and walking over to the couch to get his coat. “Look, I gotta go. Got an early morning class and I promised the students an energetic lecture they’d be crazy to miss. But please, call me later tomorrow, will you? We need to talk about this. Seriously.”

  “All right,” McClintock agreed, seeing his friend to the door.

  A light snow was still falling as Kline made his way across the yard toward the street. Suddenly a black van pulled out from the curb in front of the house. The driver seemed to be in a hurry as the van fishtailed down the icy street.

  Kline turned to look back toward the house. McClintock was still standing in the open doorway. Kline hollered, “Who was that?”

  McClintock shrugged it off. “I don’t know. Vatican spooks?” he joked. Kline didn’t laugh. “You call me tomorrow!”

  “Don’t worry!” McClintock assured him with a wave as he closed the door against the cold night.

  But the professor was indeed worried. He shivered. A bullet hole in the head - even if it’s someone else’s head - should make a person worry. The next day he waited for McClintock’s call but it never came. Ever.

  Part 1: Turning Point

  1

  October, 2005

  Once in a while, as we go about our daily routines, something happens that just doesn’t fit the program, something so out of the ordinary that it stops us in our tracks and makes us wonder. For Zeke Banyon, this was going to be one of those days. There was a heavy mist in the air, typical for late Fall in Seattle. Out in the suburbs the fallen leaves covered the lawns. But here, in the lower end of the downtown streets by the waterfront, there were no leaves and no lawns. This was the world of old bricks and mortar, concrete and cement.

  Down on First Avenue the homeless were seeking shelter. The Seattle Gospel Mission - a shelter for the homeless - had taken in just about as many as could be accommodated as one wet and bedraggled soul after another straggled in through the door. Zeke Banyon - who once studied for the priesthood - now managed the establishment. A few of the people who frequented the shelter knew about his short stint as a seminary student and insisted on calling him Father Banyon. In truth, he was just an ordinary man who eventually earned a degree in social work and had a gift for carpentry and wood carving. He handcarved a little sign to hang in the window of the shelter’s weathered entrance door. One side read:

  C’MON INN!

  On this day that side of the sign had just about done its job. The other side read: SORRY, NO ROOM AT THE INN

  As evening settled in he was just about to turn the NO ROOM side toward the street when the door burst open. At first he thought it was the wind and maybe it was, but it blew in one more customer; an old black gentleman bundled up in a moth-eaten Navy peacoat. He carried a tattered guitar case in one hand and in the other hand he toted a plastic bag containing an extra pair of socks, a ball of string, and a transistor radio. They called him Old Tom. Old Tom was a bit of a fixture on the streets around town, playing music on the corner by the Farmer’s Market where passersby would typically drop a pittance of change into his guitar case. Once in a while a dollar bill would appear. On a good day he could make five dollars. Maybe six. Zeke Banyon had often been one of those passersby. Sometimes one or two of those dollars in Old Tom’s guitar case were from Banyon’s own pocket.

  “Evenin’, Father” Tom said with a voice that sounded like he gargled with gravel. “Got room for one more?”

  “Hey, Tom. Sure. On one condition.”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  Banyon nodded toward the guitar case.

  “What?” Tom said. “I gotta leave it outside?”

  Banyon laughed. “Hell no! Get that thing out of the case and play us a tune. If it’s any good maybe I’ll let you stay for a meal.”

  Tom looked relieved. Grinning under the dripping brim of a dirty old Seattle Mariner baseball cap, he replied, “Thanks, Father. Anything special you wanna hear?”

  Shutting the old wooden door against the persistent wind, Banyon rubbed his clean-shaven chin and thought a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “How about Just A Closer Walk With Thee?”

  He was joking, of course, since he was pretty sure that wasn’t exactly Tom’s type of music. Tom was a blues-man, plain an’ simple, as Tom liked to say about himself.

  “You got it, Father,” was Tom’s reply.

  Thinking Tom was just putting him on, Banyon laughed and headed toward the kitchen. There he busied himself, helping a couple of the volunteers who were preparing the soup of the day and slicing the few loaves of bread donated by a local supermarket. Suddenly he heard the sweet slow sound of a true blues-man’s guitar and the gravely voice of a man who’d seen it all. Banyon couldn’t believe his ears. It was the most soulful rendition of Just A Clo- ser Walk With Thee he’d ever heard. Man, he thought to himself, they don’t play it like that in church. But the moment was interrupted by the sound of a woman’s voice calling his name.

  “Father Banyon?” came the voice again.

  He dropped what he was doing and hurried out to see who it was. He found her standing just inside the front door. Judging from her appearance he doubted she was another homeless person. The attractive young lady was nicely dressed in new blue denim pants with a matching blue parka zipped snuggly up to the neck. She folded her umbrella and brushed her blond, wind-swept hair out of her face. He thought she looked somewhat familiar but he wasn’t sure why. He was certain he’d never actually met her before.

  “Yes?” he said. “I’m Banyon. Can I help you?”

  “I’m Angela Martin,” she said, but she could see it didn’t ring a bell. “Angela Martin. From the college? I talked with you on the phone a few days ago about working here part time. You said I should come see you today.”

  “Oh! Yes, I remember. I’m sorry. I get so busy around here. Come in. I have an office in the back. Let me take your coat and umbrella”.

  The office was not much more than a converted storage room with a desk, a bookshelf and a typewriter. It was the typewriter that first drew her attention.

  “Wow,” she grinned. “A typewriter!”

  “What’s so unusual about that?” he asked.

  “Well, I…” she hesitated. “I just haven’t seen one of those in a long time. Everybody uses computers now.”

  Banyon laughed. “Yeah, well you know. I’m just a bit out of touch with the modern age I guess. Have a seat, Miss…”

  “Martin. But call me Angela. Or Angel if you like. People call me Angel all the time.”

  Then she smiled. “But seeing as how you’re a priest, you can probably tell I’m no angel!”

  Settling himself down in the chair behind his desk, he feigned a rather devilish grin and looked around as if to make sure no one was listening to their conversation. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he said. Leaning slightly toward her over the top of his desk - which was covered with a pile of papers and books - he whispered, “I’m not really a priest either.”

  Angela wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. It was the last thing she expected him to say.

  “Excuse me?” she said, eyebrows raised.

  He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked.

  The question caught her off guard. “What? No, of course not. In fact I was just going to ask you the same thing.”

  He smiled and held the pack out to her. “Have one of mine?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” She pulled a cigarette from the pack and looked at it. “Menthol?” She chuckled. “Candy cigarettes. Haven’t had one of these in years.”

  Banyon produced an ashtray from beneath the stack of papers in front of him and set it on the desk. He offered a match but she had already fished a lighter from her purse.

  “So,” she said, picking up the conversation, “were you kidding about not really being a pri
est? I mean, you are Father Banyon, aren’t you?”

  Banyon studied his lighted cigarette, rolling it between his fingers. “I almost became Father Banyon. Now I’m just plain ol’ Zeke Banyon.”

  “Zeke?”

  “Short for Ezekiel. But, come on, who wants to be called Ezekiel? You think I didn’t get teased about that when I was a kid? Hah! Of course it didn’t help any that I was in Catholic school to boot. When my mother was pregnant with me my dad said if the baby was a boy, he liked Rick for a name. Now that would have been just great with me!”

  “So Ezekiel was your mother’s idea and she won the name-thebaby contest?”

  Banyon laughed. “Something like that. Actually, what happened was my mom liked the name Rick just fine until the night before I was born.”

  “What happened?”

  Banyon couldn’t believe the conversation had gotten this far with a complete stranger, let alone that he was about to tell her something he’d told only three or four close friends in his entire life. Oh, what the hell. She’s smoking one of my cigarettes. We’re practically old fri- ends. “Well,” he began, “it’s kind of weird.” He took a drag from his cigarette. “The night before I was born she dreamed she saw me as a grown man and someone was calling me Ezekiel. When she woke up the next morning she kept obsessing about the dream. So anyway…”

  he hesitated for a moment, looking a little embarrassed, “…being a good Catholic and all, she convinced herself it was some kind of a divine message - or something - and insisted that if the baby turned out to be a boy it had to be named Ezekiel. Dad wasn’t real thrilled with the name but, as usual, he gave in to mom’s desire.”

  Angela found that amusing but she was still puzzled about his background. “So, I don’t get it. You mean you used to be a priest but now you’re not?”

  “Oh, it’s kind of a long story and not all that interesting really. But how about you? Tell me something about yourself. Married? Kids?”

  “I was married,” she said, lowering her eyes for a moment. “My husband died a few years ago from a heart attack. It was totally out of the blue. Completely unexpected. We had no children.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Banyon said.