Excerpts from The Medici Quest
From Chapter 3
“The time has come for me to pass on a secret that I have kept for several years,” the elder Medici began. “Only one other knew of the secret, but that man passed on from this earth. I will soon join him.”
Cosimo paused to take a few labored breaths, trying to gain strength for what he understood would be a long—and perhaps his final—conversation.
He began his story with the visit of Poggio Bracciolini to the Medici Chapel on a cool evening six years earlier. Cosimo spoke of the letter from Sultan Mehmed and of the single page of the manuscript that served as confirmation of Mehmed’s claims. He admitted that he never showed the documents to Pope Pius II, choosing to keep the news to himself until a solution was found.
“I often prayed for Mehmed to fall in one of his many crusades,” Cosimo admitted. “Or that I would find an artifact that would entice him to exchange the holy manuscripts. To my great disappointment, neither opportunity came about. The Sultan dismissed even my attempts to pay a large sum for the sacred writings.
“I still hold out hope and will beseech the Lord until my dying breath that the manuscripts can someday be saved and returned to Christendom. Tonight I am passing on that hope and challenge to you.”
Piero and Lorenzo had not spoken throughout Cosimo’s discourse. They remained silent as the great man gathered his fleeting strength for a final revelation.
“I have hidden the documents I received from Mehmed and devised a code to direct others to their location in future years. The seven books you see on my shelf are the start. Once I tell you the secret, you will be able to find the documents, if needed. You will also know the process to add more clues in the future if additional information is revealed.”
“What is the code, grandfather?” Lorenzo asked, without hesitation.
Cosimo described his unique method for recording the secret information and the process of decoding the clues. Then he looked straight at his grandson.
“I trust you Lorenzo to pursue the manuscripts in the Sultan’s possession with a fervor sparked by the power of the Lord. If you do not find success, pass on the secret to the most trustworthy member of the Medici line before your final days.”
From Chapter 25
The look of confusion on her face soon turned back into terror when Ethan leaned his body back toward the open cargo door, pulling Chloe with him. His last sight before he and Chloe plummeted out of the plane was The Seeker. The criminal’s face appeared contorted into a mask of rage.
The deafening noise of the plane’s engine and the rushing wind disappeared; at least for a few seconds until their bodies neared terminal velocity and the force of the air whistling by their faces made it impossible to communicate verbally. Ethan could tell Chloe was near hysteria—as anybody would be that just got pulled out of an airplane without a parachute—but he barely heard her screams. Chloe’s frenzied state made it difficult for him to keep a grip on both her and the parachute. He had to get the parachute straps over both shoulders and hooked in tightly before there would be any chance to pull the cord. He also couldn’t let go of Chloe. Though they would fall at roughly the same rate, Ethan knew if they became separated, it would be tough to reconnect. The added factor of having unprotected eyes against the rushing wind made it difficult to see what he needed to do.
There was another very important issue: time.
Ethan estimated that the plane had been flying at between eight and ten thousand feet of altitude. It took about ten seconds for a person to freefall the first thousand feet, but just five seconds for every successive thousand feet. His experience in the 173rd Airborne Brigade taught him that pulling a parachute at around three thousand feet is very safe. Getting as low as a thousand feet could be dangerous. A very experienced skydiver might wait until five hundred feet, but that’s not something Ethan wanted to try.
Some hurried math in his head told Ethan that he had less than forty-five seconds to get strapped in, wrap his arms and legs around Chloe, and pull the cord.
They both turned and tumbled through the sky, the vertical and rotational forces fighting against any normal human motion. His eyes squinting against the rushing air, Ethan struggled to get the parachute straps completely in place. He switched his hands holding onto Chloe and then slipped his second arm through a flapping strap. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, now he had to buckle the straps across his body, something that took two hands.
Six thousand feet.
With no time to spare, he circled his legs around Chloe’s twisting torso and let go of his grip on her arm. He managed to get one buckle connected before their somersaulting forces pulled Chloe away. Ethan reached out a hand, succeeding in entwining his fingers with hers. The grip was not strong, but he used every ounce of his remaining strength to pull her closer. She looked into Ethan's eyes with fear, but also an inkling of hope. As he stretched out his other hand, their initial grip broke and Chloe spun away, arms and legs flailing as she fell.
The dream Ethan had so many times now played out in real life. A person in need was in his grasp and he couldn’t hold on. This can’t happen. Lord, I need your strength.
Four thousand feet.
Beyond panicked, Ethan found the focus to buckle the parachute straps before going after Chloe. He hurriedly balanced himself into the neutral freefall body position: belly down, back in a relaxed arch with hips pushed forward into the wind, arms and legs spread out evenly, and chin up. Once his own body was steady, he saw Chloe still spinning erratically to his left and below his current position.
