Secure in the knowledge that his doomsday device was armed and ready to indiscriminately destroy both his own reputation and that of the Donatello, should anything happen to him, Milly agreed to dinner in Gianni’s suite. The elder Donatello greeted them with polite indifference. He was fretful. His daughter had not confided to him her plan for the evening. He did not yet know that she had already asked room service to cancel the dinner. The two men serving drinks he saw were not hotel staff. There was nothing in the room to give him even a forlorn hope that all would turn out well. That Milly and Abelard seemed unconcerned also left him but little comfort. His bowels were responding to the stress with sharp cramps.
A light knock at the door signaled Dona Maria’s arrival. As she and the two men entered Abelard sensed that all was not as it should be. His instinct told him to prepare for battle. His prescience was soon validated. The new arrivals, as well as the two men who had been serving promptly drew large caliber weapons that it was evident they would not hesitate to use, particularly in view of the silencer attachments.
“That’s him, father,” Dona Maria said, with no more emotion than she might have shown choosing a detergent. “I have seen the scars and,” she added very quickly, “I did not shame you.” Then she nodded to the man standing behind Milly. With a deft movement he manacled Milly’s hands behind his back.
“Abelard, you will come with us and, Milly, I’m afraid we will have to take you for the proverbial ‘ride’,” she said, without a hint of regret. At that she nodded to another man who then pulled a syringe from under the white cloth on the serving tray.
“Dona Maria,” Milly said, with a calm that belied his unambiguously precarious circumstances, “there is a briefcase containing a small computer which will begin to wirelessly transmit, in just under one hour from now, everything I know about you and your organization. Only I have the combination to the briefcase and the code to deactivate the transmitter. It would be best for all if you would put an immediate stop to this nonsense and let us be on our way.”
The thin smile slowly forming on Dona Maria’s sumptuous mouth left Milly a little less reassured about his position. He became positively downcast when Dona Maria nodded to the man at the bedroom door, who opened it to reveal a bloodied Shakespeare standing unsteadily and holding the remnants of a briefcase which looked suspiciously like the one he had just been describing. The wobbly security chief was guarded by a fifth thug.
“I knew about your doomsday device, Milly. Did you imagine that any private security firm could operate in Florence without our complicity, if not actual participation,” she ended with a flashing display of flawless teeth?
“To show that there are no hard feelings, Milly, I’ve instructed Angelo to make it so that you won’t feel anything at all, not even concern.”
Standing next to the syringe man, at his right, and a very surprised Gianni at his left, his hands over his head, Abelard was alert to every movement in the room.
“What is this all about, Dona Maria,” Gianni said, in a voice quaking with anger and surprise. All eyes turned to him, giving Abelard the opening for which he was waiting. Slipping his hand behind his head and sliding it beneath the collar and into his jacket, his fingers coiled around the cool ribbed steel shaft, and in a swift circular motion he cut the syringe man’s throat. At the same time, he grabbed Gianni with his left hand and pulled him to his chest. The first shot intended for Abelard instantly killed the old man, stunning the gunmen into a momentary paralysis, long enough for Abelard to throw the knife and embed it in the shooter’s heart. The dead gunman had not yet fallen to the floor as Abelard leapt at the remaining two thugs and Dona Maria, dragging Milly along with him. There was a heap of bodies as Dona Maria and her men fell to the floor with Abelard on top. The guns had been thrown, by the shock, across the large room, one landing at Shakespeare’s feet. He had by then collected enough of his wits to seize the weapon and use it to hammer his own jailor into oblivion.
“I’m flattered that you would again go to so much trouble to have me all to yourself,” Abelard whispered to Dona Maria, as he lay on top of her, “but you must learn to be gentler.” He then landed a blow to her jaw, knocking her unconscious. The two surviving thugs on the floor were still groggy, their heads having quite vigorously smashed against the unyielding Italian marble. Abelard had pulled the knife from the dead man’s chest and was about to put an end to the two half-conscious thugs when Milly laid a hand on his shoulder and with a shake of his head counseled Abelard not to murder them. Blood would squirt from the wounds and it might be awkward, he pointed out, to be walking through a hotel with large red stains on his clothes. Also, Milly was the product of a social evolution which permitted all sorts of excesses, but seemed to have made taboo the slaughter of the wounded. Abelard, though, was mentally still in the Middle Ages, where enemies had to be unambiguously incapacitated; ergo, killed. On this occasion he decided to follow Milly’s advice and only temporarily incapacitate them, picking up a heavy Inuit soapstone sculpture to shatter their jaws and put them to sleep.
“We had better hurry Milly,” he said, with astonishing serenity. Followed by Shakespeare, they then bounded out of the room and down the hall to Abelard’s suite, where he immediately telephoned the concierge to come up and collect their bags. They were checking out. The drive to the airport passed in complete silence, and not until they were in the air did Milly say a word.
“Why’d you save my life,” Milly asked, his eyes closed, savouring the sting and warmth as he swiftly emptied his second shot of very old Armagnac? Pathetic, Milly would have thought, had another so mistreated a libation from his favourite brandy producing region. ‘Sip, don’t gulp’, would have been his silent admonishment. But these were extraordinary circumstances and they demanded extraordinary transgressions. He had been in tight situations before, but never in such danger or dead center such practically fictional levels of violence. The second double drink had sufficiently dulled the overwhelming urge that had exploded in his brain to throw Abelard from the soaring jet. He blamed only him for the almost fatal circumstances in which he had found himself. Had he come clean earlier, trusted him with the full story, none of these terrifying events would ever have taken place. The alcohol had worked its magic and he knew he could now rely on good sense to guide the conversation he inevitably must have with Abelard.
“I don’t know, Milly, I’ve been asking myself the same question,” he answered, looking at the wild honey brown liquid swirling around inside his own snifter. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to Milly. “I can recall only three occasions when I have intervened to save someone else’s life and you do not fit into any of the categories that would move me to that.”
“It’s perhaps because you need a friend, an ally in whatever it is you are caught up.”
“No Milly, at present I cannot see what you could possibly do to help me. My best bet would have been to let them dispose of you and to wait for the odds to improve in my favour; six to one was a little steep, even for me. My guess, and it will have to do, is that I acted as I did because I owed you more than one. You have been generous to Felicity; you have given me status and wealth; and you did not fuss about my dodgy background, until now. That is all I can tell you.”
“As it stands, if you choose not to reveal your secrets the trail I have been following has now run cold. I have little doubt that the tale you fed me about finding a cross at an archeological dig is entirely fabricated. The Donatello are obviously a depleted resource. What recourse do I have? I guess I could press my niece. She is, after all, the one who seems to have plucked you from obscurity. She has drawn quite substantially on my resources, which as you probably know I have given without the least accounting. Perhaps the time has come for me to ask her help. What do you think?”
Abelard wondered why it had taken so long for it to come to this. He knew that if matters got out of hand, Milly would eventually go to Felicity. So, why didn’t he just let Dona Maria take care of this
problem? Again, no clear explanation for his uncharacteristic behaviour. Besides the debt he felt he owed to Milly, he had a strong hunch that it also had much to do with the episode at Pharma.
“You won’t believe me Milly,” he sighed, “Felicity never has. Though she can verify what I’m about to tell you.”
“For Felicity, logic always trumps intuition, no matter how beguiling the tale. Try me.”
“I am Abelard de Buch, fourth and last son of the Captal de Buch, powerful Gascon baron and loyal ally to the Black Prince……,” Abelard began, and went on until interrupted by the attendant who came to tell them they were about to land and would they be kind enough to strap in. Milly just stared at her, as in a daze. He had sat dumbfounded, listening to this most unexpected account for the better part of two hours.
“Is that what Dona Maria meant when she said ‘it’s him’?” Milly finally found his voice in the limousine whisking them to the VBI offices.
“I’m not really sure about that. I have never actually spoken to The Society, at least not recently. They may simply be interested in the rest of King John’s treasure, of which the jeweled cross was a part. My guess is that the Malvue boys sold the cross to a dealer in Sarlat who is part of The Society’s network. He must have recognized the artifact for what it is and contacted The Society.”
“What do you mean by ‘recently’?”
“As with everything I say, Felicity may turn out to be right that they spring from false memories and are only placeholders for the real ones, if and when those ever return.” Abelard thought it best to keep Milly guessing, even though he himself had very little doubt as to the veracity of his memories. It used to be that he had no doubt at all, but Felicity and the years had somewhat eroded his certainty. “I recall, quite vividly, that I had visited the Donatello in 1358, well known traffickers in looted treasure. Although many at the time preferred to barter their treasure for what they judged to be at least equivalent value in things they needed, I was looking for something more portable and easily divisible. I was negotiating with Dante Donatello and with him was a helpful clerk named Francesco. They were advising me to exchange my loot for either Venetian Liras or Florentine Florins, both widely circulated gold coins at the time. Nothing was concluded but I had something to think about and I planned to return in a year or two if I would by then decide to take their advice. However, as you now know, I never made it back, falling instead into a very long sleep.”
Nothing more was said during the ride to the VBI offices. Milly’s head was alive with heightened neural activity. He cared little for the treasure. What mattered most was the astounding possibility that someone could stay alive for so long. That alone was sufficient for Milly’s mind to begin the process of resourceful validation. The allure of immortality made his normally incisive brain porous, from which skepticism freely leaked away. That someone would be asleep for over 650 years is already beyond belief. But that Milly would ignore Abelard’s repeated lying showed just how far desire had come to trump good sense. Loathe as he was to risk poking holes in his fairytale, Milly did think to inquire about the treasure.
“I’m intrigued, Abelard, with the treasure you described. Why have you not yet tried to recover and monetize it? You could be fabulously rich and if there is one thing I am sure about you it is that money counts in a very big way. Do you even remember where it is?”
“I have not yet had an opportunity to reclaim it.” He didn’t bother raising with Milly the strange prospect that wealth may have also lost the singular visceral importance it had always had in his life.
“What do you mean?”
“I prefer not to discuss that with you or anyone else. Would you give me the passwords to your bank and investment accounts? I expect not.”
That piece of incredibly flimsy evidence - Abelard does not want to talk about it and therefore knows where it is - confirmed to Milly’s fevered mind that he was at the threshold of discovering Ponce de Leone’s proverbial fountain of youth.
“One final question, Abelard, if it’s all the same to you,” Milly asked solicitously, but did not bother waiting for Abelard’s agreement, “do you know why you were able to stay alive so long?”
“Not a clue. Might have been something in the slime where Felicity found me sleeping.”
Vivisection, Milly pondered, may be his last recourse. It would be messy and troublesome but if that is the only way then so be it. Before, though, he would talk with Oliver. He had been there at the find and could perhaps have something that would obviate the need to dismember alive Abelard.
“Let’s not allow any of this to derail our lives,” Milly’s concerned parent tone suddenly dismissing the excited questioning of moments earlier. “We’ve a company to run. Your brilliant ‘junk food, to fat, to self-help books and depression, to pharmaceutical solutions’ for example. That is the best scheme I’ve heard in years. Keep up the good work. Let’s talk again before the week’s out.” Abelard took the cue, leaving the lord to his thoughts.
Abelard did not bother letting Milly know that he had quite another future in mind. He would have to be mad to trust in him; well beyond insane to ignore The Society who would without doubt soon regroup and mount a massive manhunt. He also thought it very likely that Milly and The Society would eventually find it in their mutual self-interest to turn the hunt for Abelard into a joint venture. He would have to put Plan B into effect. As with Plan A, Plan B was barely yet a work-in-progress; little more than a broad, mostly sketchy outline; collect the sample which Oliver had taken from the cave, now stored at the VBI Pharma lab in Italy; then drive to France and dig up his treasure. The last part he was hoping was more than a false memory. Even if it turned out that he was not the same Abelard de Buch who lived 650 years ago, he reckoned that his memories, however they got into his brain, had already been right on with the Donatello and might just be good enough for the treasure.
Most of the details still had to be filled in. Getting the sample should be fairly easy if he moved quickly, before Milly could deny him access to VBI facilities, which he would surely do as soon as he realized that he could no longer contact him. It was getting to the treasure that would be his first difficult problem. It would require substantially more financial resources than he had available and Felicity would most assuredly by then be cut off by a cautious Milly. These were difficulties he would deal with as they came up. For now, he must arrange to flee. But first he had better get in touch with Oliver.
“Oliver, Milly might contact you,” he began to leave a message at the beep. “If he does, it would be best not to talk about the sample or its whereabouts. I’ll explain later.”
*