Montaro Caine (39 page)

As Colette spoke, the dynamics in the room seemed to shift. Herman Freich and Kritzman Fritzbrauner appeared surprised, much the way Colette had looked surprised when reading the words contained in Luther’s letter. As Colette looked through her gathering tears at Montaro Caine, she recognized what it was that drew her to him, not so much a physical attraction but a quality of his that had been missing from her life, one she longed to embody—a truth, an honesty, the same sort of quality she saw manifested by some of the others who were in the room with her—the Walkers, the Mozelles, Anna Hilburn, Carrie Pittman, and Matthew Perch.

“Do you know what my destiny is, my purpose?” Colette asked Perch.

“I do not,” said Perch. “But I, like Luther, believe that if you look hard enough within yourself, you may find your answer there.” Kritzman Fritzbrauner saw his daughter’s tears and he immediately understood her turmoil—Montaro had spoken truthfully, he thought, for turmoil and tranquillity could indeed live in the same house. A deep understanding passed between the man and his daughter, an understanding that did not need words to make itself known. Fritzbrauner turned from his daughter and spoke directly to Franklyn. “We hear what you are saying—in more ways than you might think,” he said. “You and your wife have honorable values; we all recognize that. We do understand.” He then nodded to Julius Hargrove as if relaying some signal. Hargrove leaned forward, focused on Franklyn, and said, speaking in the spirit of conciliation, “Our wants and needs may be different, Franklyn, but they are not necessarily incompatible. I sincerely believe that we can resolve this issue in a manner acceptable to both sides. Our position on Montaro’s proposal for a foundation is that we will remain flexible as long as joint ownership continues to be a viable possibility. As long as it can work its way through the channels of honest give-and-take, your foundation will have our blessing, but not our participation, not yet. That decision will ultimately be up to you.”

Franklyn nodded and considered. Hargrove’s answer was a good one, and yet, he sensed, not quite good enough. Holding the two remaining letters in his hands, Franklyn hesitated, gazed around the table, then opened the letter that bore his name. “Your destiny and that of your wife and child are written,” he read aloud. “And so they will remain. What will be will be. Matthew Perch will be gone soon, and so will I. Mr. Perch’s obligations await him elsewhere. In my case, my days are done, and my final sleep is near.” Franklyn then opened the last letter, which was addressed to his wife. He handed it to her and she read its one brief line aloud. “Only you and the universe know for sure what the destiny of your son will be.”

Franklyn took his letter and his wife’s, folded them, and slipped
them into a pocket of his jacket. Then he spoke, as if the contents of Luther’s letters had revealed all that he needed to know. “I believe that by now, we have all had enough time to consider our situation,” said Franklyn. “And I think we all agree that despite the financial transactions that have taken place, the coins rightfully belong to my wife and me. At the same time, it is clear by now that they really belong to no one but themselves. If we can put them to use for the greater good of humanity, and if they don’t first whisk themselves away to some place where perhaps they will be needed or appreciated more, that is what my wife and I believe we must do. Kritzman, Roland—I am truly sorry about your financial loss; Cordiss and Victor took you for a ride. They took us for a ride, too, and Howard and Anna and Carrie Pittman as well. But your loss has no bearing on the decisions we must make now. It is true that my wife and I could use even a small part of the money you have offered us—especially now that we have a son. But we have been presented with a unique opportunity. If we have been chosen for some higher purpose, surely we must have faith that we will find ways to take care of our more mundane needs.

“My child is only one week old,” he continued. “Leaving him a planet with no investment in its future would be a betrayal. Here I am, almost thirty years older than my son. Yes, I am fairly well educated, reasonably well informed. Yes, I try as hard as I can to stay abreast of what makes the world go around. My wife and I want future generations to remember we were once a part of an historic moment in time and that we made the right decision.

“Whitney and I have no intention of taking your money, my friends. If your sole object is ownership, then there will be no need for any further discussion. But I trust Montaro, and I hope you will be able to join us in discovering the next step in this extraordinary journey. What lies ahead is a mystery.

“But,” Franklyn concluded. “If there is anyone who can enlighten us about these mysteries, he is with us in this room.” He turned to Matthew Perch. “Before you leave, Mr. Perch, would you be willing to share some of your wisdom with us?”

Perch looked at Franklyn, then upon the faces of each and every
person in the room with the same intense understanding with which he had studied the faces of Hattie Sinclair and Elsen Mozelle many years before. Then Perch spoke. “The places I will go, you cannot,” he said. “If you could, you would not. Your destiny is not mine. Your home is here. And your home is endangered. Consequently, so are you. Without this home, you or perhaps your children or grandchildren will die. Clearly, your destiny now rests in your own hands. But as Franklyn and Montaro have both told you, the seeds of a solution are already in your hands. The longer you do not act, the weaker the better self in each of you becomes, and the harder your struggle grows against the relentless pulls of greed, selfishness, and the addictive lust for power, which breeds wars and indifference to the sufferings of fellow human beings. Montaro is correct—science and education are the seeds that will blossom into the answers you seek. If you succeed, one day your efforts will have helped to forge new worlds in far-off civilizations in the distant reaches of our galaxy.

“It is not my place to tell you how to preserve the wisdom embodied in the coins, and perhaps the wisdom is not to be found in the coins, but in yourselves—you, after all, must learn how to use the knowledge and experience that lies within them. The man who has been handed that wisdom, in the form of a spaceship carved for him by a young boy, is here with us. Follow him and you will know how to proceed.”

With this last statement, Perch’s eyes focused on Montaro Caine.

Caine nodded and smiled. He felt both gratitude and a sense of responsibility, for he understood the faith and trust that both Matthew Perch and the Walkers were placing in him. He shook hands with Franklyn, then with Whitney. He smiled as he regarded the baby, still asleep in his carriage. He approached Hargrove’s table, where he noticed that Colette’s eyes were still moist. He offered his hand to her and she surprised him by giving him a warm embrace. Montaro turned to thank Perch and wish him well, but the man had already disappeared into the New York night.

T
HE BABY WAS HEALTHY—EIGHT AND A HALF POUNDS, WITH HIS
mother’s trusting brown eyes and just a hint of his father’s suspicious smile. His parents had named him Luther John Walker—a tribute to the strange, gifted orphan who had helped to bring them together. Now, a boy named Luther John would have a last name and would grow up knowing who his parents were. Luther John Walker’s hearing had been checked, his breathing was normal, and he already knew how to nurse from his mother. As he lay in Whitney Walker’s arms, the boy’s little fists were clenched tightly, but nothing was inside them.

Matthew Perch stood in the conference room of Howard Mozelle’s clinic, the two coins still in his pocket wrapped in gauze. Mozelle had just given Whitney and her baby one last checkup before their trip back home to Georgia and was handing Franklyn a list of pediatricians in Atlanta. Anna Hilburn was finishing the day’s paperwork and preparing to shut down the office for the evening. Still seated around Mozelle’s conference table were Elsen, Montaro, Kritzman, Colette, and also Julius Hargrove and Gordon Whitcombe.

This would probably be the last time that all of these people would be gathered together in the same room. Later that night, Franklyn, Whitney, and their baby—with Dr. Mozelle’s permission—would be
flying back home to Atlanta on a private jet provided by Caine. In the morning, Kritzman and Colette would board a plane to Buenos Aires to see Colette’s mother, after which they would travel back home to Switzerland. Montaro was due back home in Westport. And soon, Matthew Perch would be leaving too, although his destination was unknown to the others.

The details had not yet been worked out, but the basic framework for an arrangement had been agreed upon by all parties—the coins would be entrusted to a foundation whose board would include Montaro, the Walkers, the Mozelles, Kritzman Fritzbrauner and his daughter, as well as Richard Davis, Verna Fontaine, and Roland Gabler. Tom Lund would help to oversee the foundation’s finances. Fitzer Corporation would provide the seed money for the foundation’s initial endeavors. On Montaro’s insistence, his friend Larry Buchanan would serve on the foundation board as well. However, if the foundation decided to develop and exploit the knowledge contained within the coins, the money gained from any endeavor would be used to support science and education. The agreement had not been easy to reach—Roland Gabler and Verna Fontaine had both argued that board members should receive greater compensation for their participation; Julius Hargrove had advised his clients to take more time before arriving at their decision. But Fritzbrauner had been firm and, eventually, everyone had come around to his idea of accepting the agreement both for the good of humanity and for that of their own egos. For Davis and Gabler, especially, the idea of being remembered for generations to come as men who had helped to develop the properties of the coins ultimately proved to be more important than the idea of owning the coins or profiting from them.

Now, with an open hand and a solemn expression, Perch passed the gauze-wrapped package to Franklyn, who passed it to his wife.

“Here,” Perch said. “Here are the objects that brought all of us together.”

Whitney gently unfolded the layers of gauze. As she stared at the coins for the first time, her lips quivered, and her eyes moistened. She made as if to speak but remained silent. She passed the coins to her husband, who likewise remained speechless as his tears began to flow.
The Walkers couldn’t say for certain what impressed them more—the beauty of the craftsmanship that had gone into the smattering of stars that appeared on the faces of each coin, the fact that two and a half decades ago their hands had been as small as their son’s were now and had clutched these very coins, or the understanding that these coins had brought the two of them together. Whitney handed the coins to Colette, while her father peered over her shoulder.

As father and daughter looked at the coins, they knew that in addition to the mystical tale of their arrival, the coins had demonstrated other great powers; they had brought Kritzman and Colette closer together. Colette looked to Matthew Perch, who nodded at the Walkers, and Colette handed the coins back to Franklyn.

“We’re entrusting these to you,” Franklyn said to Montaro.

But as Franklyn held his hand out to Montaro, Perch shook his head. “Keep them with you,” he told Franklyn. “They will find their proper destination when it is time.” Franklyn covered the coins with the gauze and placed them in his pocket. Perch nodded his approval.

Matthew Perch seemed as though he was getting ready to leave. He was gazing at the office door, or perhaps through that door to the world that lay beyond it. But before he could leave, Kritzman Fritzbrauner spoke.

“May I offer just a few words of thanks before you go, Mr. Perch?” Fritzbrauner asked.

Perch nodded.

“I don’t really know who you are, or where you come from,” said Fritzbrauner. “We met only a few days ago. But from what I’ve seen of you, I’m glad to have met you. You’re a gentleman, the likes of which I’ve seldom seen. Somehow, you have taught me more about myself than just about anyone else ever has.

“Who are we?” Fritzbrauner asked, looking around as if to search the faces of the others in the room. “Who am I? I have always thought that I was hot stuff. I now realize I’m not.” He pointed a finger at Perch. “You are hot stuff,” he said. “That old black man Luther, he was hot stuff. He took with him to his grave a history of two worlds—one we know, the other so technologically advanced that we still can’t
comprehend it. What he knows will lie with him forever. What remains is still contained in the carving he made for Montaro.

“I admit that at first I didn’t get it,” Fritzbrauner said. “It’s taken me this long to sense that something monumental has been happening. It’s all around us, right in front of us. You, Mr. Perch, have opened my eyes. Being here with you feels like the beginning of the end of a monstrous darkness. I agree with Montaro. If we can all work together, despite our egos and our greed, despite whatever faults we might have, we may be able to see our way through the darkness to the light. Our journey may often feel like the steps of a baby being led to a place it does not understand. But if our choices are good and our motives are pure, we may trust that we will be led to the right place.”

He reached for his daughter’s hand and grasped it tightly. Colette smiled, and Matthew Perch offered a slight smile as well. Perch then gently placed a hand on Fritzbrauner’s shoulder.

“You are right, of course,” Perch said. “You do not know all the answers you seek to know yet; you shouldn’t expect to. But you are beginning to ask the right questions, and that is what is most important. Too often, questions take the shape of one’s doubts, and those doubts strive to weaken the better selves inside of us. Only by the constant strengthening of our better selves can we win against those doubts. There are doorways everywhere, leading everywhere. Let your better selves guide you and, who knows, one day, somewhere in a place far away, in this world or another, we may meet again.”

Matthew Perch then turned to Montaro. “Allow me to tell you that, in my opinion, your company will heal and revitalize itself until it stands, once again, as strong as ever it did,” he said. “Mind you, this will not happen without challenges, both for yourself and for your family. But if you trust your instincts, if you trust the paths that your father and grandfather and those before them made for you, you will see your way through.”