S7: Holy War

Miles choked on his coffee and Jess flamed red, before I grinned. "Then again, it might have been sounds of passion from two people in love. Let's go with that. I hate mice."

We went to the vineyard, acres of grapes on rolling hills, the leaves shining after an early rain. He showed me the labs, the holding rooms, large casks stacked almost endlessly on racks. He took us to the tasting rooms, where his uncle and sister were pulling samples, and we tasted a few. Most were quite pleasing, but a couple I didn't care for. Apparently I didn't like dry wines.

It wasn't until we walked the fields that he truly looked happy.

"Let me guess, you're the farmer in this operation, right?"

His smile was his answer. "Yes. Celeste and I are cross trained in all aspects of the operation, but her degree and inclination runs to the inside of the business. She'll bury herself in the lab for hours, testing and analyzing. That hill over there is one of her experiences, bringing in peat and mushroom compost to replace chemical fertilizers. Her first vintage will be released this year, and tastings have gone extremely well. Most of our stuff is casked in French oak, but hers is in specially made casks of oak from our property. That was my one contribution to the experiment."

"My uncle watches the inner workings, and I work the land. We know have four different varieties of grape, each producing a distinctive taste. These vines are my babies, until my real ones come along."

Jess colored a little, and I figured I'd be paying for another wedding soon. I got Miles alone a few hours later, and gently probed him on his intentions. He told me enough that I told him not to pick the ring until he talked to me first. I explained I had a good relationship with a top flight jeweler in Tel Aviv, and could get him the same deal I got for Jack, giving him his number and telling him to call, and Jack would explain.

I did a guest lecture at my old university, that turned into an event so large it had to be held in the campus auditorium. I talked about our luck in getting to translate the scrolls and books, and what we had learned in general so far. The question and answer session was fun, even if there were hard questions.

"Do you really think that you held in your hands a letter written by Jesus Himself?"

"I couldn't tell you. I can only tell you what I transcribe. There is a strong argument that Jesus was illiterate, but it talks in the Bible of Him in synagogue reading from the Book Of Isiah, and most Hebrew boys of the time were taught at least the basics."

"What do you think of the letters from Mary Magdalene? If it is her, of course."

" Even if it isn't her, I think they echo a common complaint through the history of mankind. She's disturbed because she can't break in to the 'boy's club' that the Apostles were. Remember, it was a much more male dominated society than it is now, and still today, many women can't break the 'glass ceiling'." It went on for a bit, and I enjoyed the give and take for the most part, until I told them this would be the last question.

A man of Middle Eastern appearance stepped up to the microphone, holding a paper. "Is this true?"

"Is what true?"

He held the paper higher, and the closed circuit television system in the auditorium zoomed in on it. I felt the earth crumble beneath my feet.

It was a newspaper run by Al-jazeera, in English. The headline read: INTERNATIONAL THIEVES AND TERRORISTS REVEALED. BEHOLD THE INFAMOUS GANG CALLED S7!

It was all seven of us, in pictures made to look like mug shots. I read the article later and had to say it was pretty accurate up to a point. After the bare facts, it veered into some pretty wild accusations, that would have had us operating for at least a dozen years, with claims we had raided holy sites we had never been to.

Of course, I had no comment and got off the stage as quick as decently possible. I called Maddy immediately. She was beyond pissed.

"Seems our buddy Bob did a little horsetrading, and shared a little information he wasn't entitled to. The intelligence community is up in arms, and his name is mud to us. I see an early retirement for him. He thinks you'll seek protection now, and he can do what he wants."

"You tell my ol' buddy Bob to come and see me, and we'll discuss who needs protection. I'd love to show him my collection of weapons, especially the Makarovs."

"Pete!," she said sharply, "calm down. We'll figure something out."

I called Jo and cancelled the family dinner we'd planned. She was upset that I'd cancelled, but even more upset over the reason why. "Are we in danger?"

"I doubt it, Jo. We were separated and later divorced while all this was going on, and our parting wasn't pleasant, at least on paper. I'll make sure you guys are safe. If it gets bad, and a total stranger comes up to you and says, say, "I hear you make a really good apple galette", you'll know he's from me, and you need to do what he says. Understand? Just in case, ask him if he thinks it has too much cinnamon in it, and if he, or she, says there's no such thing as too much cinnamon, they're on the level."

There was a little humor in her voice when she answered. "Really? Our lives might be in danger and you're thinking of my pies?"

"They were damn good pies, Jo. And it's not all that I miss. Be safe, and watch out for the kids. All this is probably for nothing, I'm just being paranoid more than likely, but better safe than sorry."

The next day I got a delivery. An apple galette. I opened it and inhaled deeply, pleasant memories of when the kids were small and I'd come home to one of the rare times Jo would be home before me, the smell of the apples and cinnamon permeating through the house bouncing around in my head.

...

I came home to discover we'd all moved. Teddy had put us in a series of connecting apartments, sitting high on a hill. After we settled in he took me to the side.

"These apartments were built on top of an old monastery. Underneath your feet is a series of interconnected tunnels with several exits. The doors are behind the master closet walls, cleverly built to slide open. If it gets bad, if they come after you, this is your way out. Tell no one, understand?"

I did. We all spent a little time familiarizing ourselves with the tunnels. My favorite exit was into a drain tunnel that emerged four hundred yards from the apartments, in a small wood, allowing you to go in any direction under cover.

We got a new set of neighbors when Anatoli's wife, realizing when the article came out she and her children might be in real danger because of her location, fled to England and called Teddy. He brought them to us, and we welcomed them. Her son Josef was ten, and his sister Tatiana was twelve. None of us could reasonably pronounce her name but me, so they called her Mrs. Baranov. She just laughed and told us to call her Sasha.

They integrated slowly, but I think the fact that we adopted her kids helped a lot. They bonded with the children of Moshe and Ruth, another boy and girl set roughly the same age. Sherry and Fatima treated them like nieces and nephews, getting especially close to Tati. That left Josef with me, and remembering Josh, I took him out, often with Moshe and his son Adam, hiking the highlands, boating, exploring castles and ruins. Adam was in a soccer league, and Josef was a fine goalie in his home country. His nickname was 'glue', because the ball just seemed to stick to him every time the opponents tried to score. Three games in he was given a shot, and the old goalie took a field position. Both boys were happy, the first goalie didn't like the position, much preferring being a fielder.

Our whole group would make a point to be at every game we could, shouting encouragement in a mix of languages, just for fun.

Three months went by, and Polly was in her last days of pregnancy. Jo had shown up two weeks ago. Jack told me she was in town, so I wasn't really surprised when she showed up at my door.

"Hello, Jo."

"HI Ja..I mean Pete. Surprised to see me?"

I motioned her in, got her a drink. "Not really. Jack told me when you arrived. I'd been meaning to call but things have been a little hectic."

She grinned. "You always were one for understatement. How are things, really?"

"Well, let's see. I have two terrorist groups offering a million dollar bounty for my head. The Catholic Church isn't quite that bad, but I'm pretty sure they don't love me. We've got the government of three countries demanding we give what we brought out back, and we weren't even in one of those countries. And you probably haven't heard this, but we have a group who are suing us for DNA samples from the Jesus letter. We use gloves, always, but damn, that letter has been handled off and on for an estimated two thousand years. There could be hundreds of DNA markers on them, Even if they sort them out, how will they determine which marker belongs to the Son of God? Even them, are they going to test for descendants? How, and more importantly who would they test? Rumor has it they want to test all the royalty of Europe and the Middle East, and all the Popes entombed in the Vatican, as well as the living ones past and present, and the mega-rich of the world.

To give you a short answer Jo, my life is kind of a mess right now. I'm not even sure it's a good idea to be around my family, but I don't think all the terrorists in the world could keep me from the birth of our first grandchild. I'm sure it's a girl, I can just feel it. What do you think?"

"Oh, it's definitely a boy. Either way, we'll know soon enough." She relaxed, and we drank a brandy or two and caught up with what was going on in our lives.

She was a senior partner in her firm, but said some surprising things about her career. "I'm staying with the firm for two more years, then I'm retiring. You left me in good shape financially, and even though you never cared to know, I have a pretty hefty retirement fund. My parachute won't be golden when I go, but it will be pretty high quality silver."

"I'm surprised you'd give that up after all the years it took you to attain it. What are you going to do, start your own firm?"

"I'm joining a pro bono company that works largely with Amnesty International. Most of the lawyers are part time, so I'm to be managing partner when the old one retires, right before I join them. It comes with a modest salary that I'm going to refuse. I'll have more than enough to live on comfortably for the rest of my life, so I don't need the money, they can plow it back into the agency, so we can help more people."

I was truly surprised. All she'd even wanted professionally was hers now, and she wanted to give it up? "Why?"

She blushed and hung her head a little.

"Doing pro bono work was always part of my dreams, I just let it go while I chased success. The companies I worked for discouraged things like that, because it took focus away from working to make them richer. I guess I learned first hand how it was to have your dreams taken away by someone who thinks their agenda is more important."

I frowned a little, and started to speak. She held up her hand. "I'm sorry honey, I know it's a weak comparison. The only good thing that came out of our divorce was forcing me to look at myself unfiltered. You were a lot more right than you can imagine about what I had become. I was a self centered, entitled bitch who molded her world to her specifications, with you and in business. It took the shock of you divorcing me to see that. I realized that even though I was satisfied, I wasn't really happy, and hadn't been since I was that idealistic sophomore in college, ready to make the world a better place, and desperately in love with you."

"Jo, I..." She held up her hand.

"Please let me finish. When I apologized to you at the wedding, I was truly sorry. But it's taken the last couple of years of true self inspection to really understand the hurt I caused you. It's too late for me to do anything about you, but I can fix the rest of my life. So, the minute I qualify to get the severance I need, I'm through with the corporate world, and I'm going to go try to get some of my soul back. I just wanted you to know, honey, that I'm not a completely lost cause."

I really didn't know what to say. Was the Jo I fell in love still in there some where? Or was she still the same manipulative bitch underneath, pushing my buttons to herd me along in the direction she desired? A bit of anger surged forward but I pushed it down. If she wanted to ride the byways of England naked while singing in Greek, it wouldn't be my concern. I wasn't bulletproof, but her actions had me develop a pretty thick hide.

Jo, perceptive as ever, saw the look and sighed.

"I don't expect you to believe me, but it doesn't matter. We gave up, I, gave up on that expectation a few years back. All I can ask is that you judge me by my actions in the future. Now, let's talk about something else we know is going to happen. Miles and Jess. You know he's here with her, and it's all she can do to keep his attention on Polly and Jack. She's afraid if she turns her back he'll be through the tunnel, headed for French wine country."

"Teddy has some good friends in the Bordeaux region. Maybe he can arrange a private tour."

"You would be his hero, but wait until after the baby comes." She yawned, and rose.

"I have to say I really enjoyed the evening. But I'm still adjusting to the time difference, and find myself very tired. Would you call me a cab?"

I looked at the mantle clock, surprised to see it was almost three in the morning.

"I'll be hard to get a cab this time of night, Jo. Why not stay?"

A parade of emotions went across her face, including embarrassment. "I couldn't possibly. What would the children think?"

"All sorts of lewd and lascivious things, none of which would be true. I'm offering you a bed, Jo, not a bed with me in it. You're wobbling now from the brandies and exhaustion. Come on, I'll show you the guest room."

"I don't have anything to sleep in," she protested weakly.

"Sleep nude. It never bothered you while we were together. I can give you a shirt, if you want."

In short order she had changed into my biggest soccer tee, asleep almost before her head hit the pillow. I stayed up for a bit, thinking about the past. I checked on her before I slept, and she was smiling on her sleep.

...

The smells of apples and cinnamon woke me the next morning. I stumbled out to find Jo in the kitchen, bustling happily. She gave me a big kiss on the cheek, thanking me for letting her stay.

"Breakfast is in the oven, warming. I'm surprised you have such a well stocked kitchen. I'm making the galette as a thank you. Now let me work and enjoy breakfast."

I ate, enjoying something that I didn't have to cook for a change, while she finished her pies. Jo was still in my tee, and when she bent over to place the pies in the oven the shirt rode dangerously high on her thighs.

"Are you wearing panties?"

It came out before I thought, and I flamed red.

She turned, grinning at my embarrassment. "No, and as you can plainly see, I'm not wearing a bra either. It feel so good to let the girls free for a change. You don't mind, do you? If you get a flash, well, it's not like you haven't seen it all before. In fact, if memory serves me, you used to enjoy it."

I grinned. "Yes I did. Even now, at our age, you still turn heads."

She flushed at the compliment, before smiling. "And you've become more handsome. You've acquired, I don't know, an air of confidence, and when you're truly angry, your eyes tell everyone in the room that they're looking at a truly dangerous man. It makes the men nervous and the women antsy. How come I never saw that while we were married?'

"Probably because it wasn't there until after we parted. Life changed me Jo, and I can't put the genie back in the bottle. It doesn't mean I don't still love my family and friends as deeply, it just means I'm more aware of how tenuous life can be. How easily things can go wrong and cause pain. And I'm not just talking about you and I, more about my life after us."

Tears welled up and she moved to hug me, then hesitated. I took the decision away from her by opening my arms. She held me so tightly it was as if she was afraid I'd disappear if she let go, crying quietly into my shoulder. Finally she shook herself and stepped back.

"Pete, I..."

"Shh. It felt really nice. Don't over think here. I'm glad you're here, Jo, really. I just don't want you to..."

She put her fingers to my lips. "Don't say any more. I know. Now, I have just enough time for a shower before the pies are done. Lots to do today. Sherry, Fatima, and Ruth have organized a baby shower, along with Pollys' friends. Wanna come?"

"Let me think about that no. I'm taking Jack and Miles to the club, with Moshe and Teddy, to toast the husband. I'll try to see he's in reasonable shape when we return him."

She grinned as she walked out of the kitchen. I was refilling my coffee mug when she called out to me. I turned to see her naked and grinning. She tossed the jersey to me.

"Thanks for the loan of the shirt, Pete, It was really comfortable." She turned slowly, and I watched as her hips swayed slowly as she sauntered away. I looked down, and it was no surprise to see my robe tented. Damn, she was still hot!

...

We had a lot of fun waiting for the baby. I'd taken two weeks of vacation, and woke up at four in the morning to someone beating on my door. The security lights had already come on, and the camera showed it was Jo and Josh. They rushed in when I opened the door.

"Let's go! Jack just called, her water broke and they're on the way to the hospital!"

I threw a pair of jeans and loafers on, struggling into a shirt as we went out the door. Miles and Jess were with Jack, along with two of the girls Polly worked with. Missing Jess, she had bonded with them.

We were in time, but just barely. Forty minutes later the nurse came out. "Congratulations! You're all relatives with a brand new baby girl. You'll be able to see her in about an hour."

Jack came to us, still crying. He was hugged to within an inch of his life, while he babbled happily the whole time. We all trooped down to the nursery, where we oohed and ahhed over her. I felt something and looked down. Jo had locked down on my hand while the tears flowed. It just seemed the right thing to do, so I held her. The waterworks really started then.

She finally gathered herself enough to step back, and my mother took her place, soaking the other side of my shirt. Marie was standing, alone,in a sea of hugging so I pulled her into my other side, which surprised her no end. But she soon surrendered to the emotions in her heart, and hugged me back, adding to the soaking Jo had given me. I was gonna have to change shirts.

When they had finally cried their eyes out, they both stepped back. Jo was standing there with her mouth hanging over, as were the kids. What the hell, if there was ever a time to bury the hatchet, it was now.

Jo reclaimed her spot murmuring into my chest. I lifted her face and looked in her eyes, asking what she said.

"I said I'm such a fool, and still a fool for you. Thank you, Pete, for being who you are."

I didn't know what to say, so I stepped back and asked if anyone wanted breakfast. The younger ones were starved, so we all went except Jack and Jo. They wanted to be there at feeding time, to hold the baby. Josh told them we'd bring them something, and off we went.

We ate like starved dogs, apparently high emotion causes quite the appetite. The conversation was all over the place, but it kept coming back to the baby.

Jess was looking at Miles like he was the last double cheesburger at a weight loss convention. When the ladies did their joint migration to the facilities, Miles opened up. "I called Jack about the ring, and he hooked me up with the jeweler. I can't believe what I'm getting for nothing. I can never repay you."