(Read Chapter One, Chapter Two, and Chapter Three to get up to speed with the story)
Max picked up the airline ticket again. He scanned it and quickly noted, with a growing sense of dread, that this was only a one way ticket. And it was dated January 3rd. That gave him less that 12 days to figure out what was going on. He looked around the café and realized he was alone, spare a janitor that was slowly mopping the floor beyond the glass doors. As left the Cathedral atrium and walked back to his car, the winter sun was low in the sky, angling its fiery rays across his face.
He briefly considered returning to the church, hunting down Sister Mary, refusing to leave until she provided him with answers, but he was tired and vaguely ashamed. Such an odd combination of feelings, he realized. He pondered, why shame? Where was that coming from? Was it his lack of a formal, normalized faith in God, and a head on confrontation of such from a gentle servant like Sister Mary? Was it for a failure of some sort on his part, in some moment of the past - a demonstration of one of Gandhi's sins, somehow? He sat in the drivers seat and thought, watching the sun setting across the lawn.
He pulled out his iPhone, and opened the Twitter app. He paused, trying to condense his growing anger into 140 characters. He typed:
"@Brunelleschi You are a coward.. top of the dome, Santa Maria del Fiore, 1/4, noon"
Max hit the tweet button and released his missive to the ether. As he sat pondering his fate by the steering wheel, he was surprised to get an incoming tweet notification. He read the message, from @AveMaria: "マックス、仕事に行く時間。 、すぐにマリアあなたを参照してください。" He racked his brain, reaching back far into the depths of history, trying to remember the Japanese he once studied. And who was this Maria? Some stoolie for Brunelleschi? "Great," Max thought. "Another mystery."
He was getting tired of all the guessing games and was looking forward to finding out more, filling in the holes, making some sense of all this. All of his wondering, the sense of the unknown, filled him with a vague sense of dread. He didn't like where this was heading, but he recognized that he was now committed and had to see things through. Take the next step.
As he was sitting there pondering imponderables, he noticed a bike messenger approaching his car. The messenger did not seem to be searching, but instead was looking right at him as he rode closer. Finally, the messenger pulled up along side the driver's side and tapped on the window. Max rolled it down and the messenger said, "Are you Max Johnson?" "Yes," Max replied, a bit astonished. "Package for you, sir. Sign here." Max took the digital clipboard and scrawled his name with the stylus before handing it back. The messenger reached into his backpack, pulled out a box, and handed it to him. "Have a great day," the messenger said, and pedaled off into the sunset.
Max immediately recognized the Aztec sun logo as he gently shook the box. There was some heft to this one, maybe it held a thick book? Max searched around for something to cut the packing tape with and, finding nothing more suitable, resorted to using his keys to pierce the tape. Smooth packing foam filled the box entirely, and he pulled off the top piece. Gazing into the box, he gasped at what he saw carefully wedged into the foam cutout - a pistol. He looked around, certain he must be being watched, but saw nobody. He reached into the foam and pulled out the pistol, turning it over in his hands, he recognized it as a Glock 9 millimeter. Safety on, he flicked the switch to release the clip and saw that it was fully loaded with hollow point, armor piercing bullets. Sliding the barrel back slightly, he noted that there was one already in the chamber too. As if a gun wasn't enough, apparently maximum ammo was too. Max thought he remembered something about Glocks being made of composite materials, and thus wouldn't set off metal detectors. He thought the bullet casings probably had enough metal in them to be detected, though.
Nestled in the foam under where the gun laid, was the expected note. This one was neatly typed, not handwritten. It simply said, "Keep this with you at all times." His dread increased.
He returned to twitter and typed @AveMaria: あなたも臆病者である - 私はあなたが誰であるか気にしない。、ドーム、サンタ·マリア·デル·フィオーレ、1/17、正午の上部を表示.
He looked at the Glock in his lap. He opened his glove box, placed the gun inside and closed it, thinking to himself, "Bring it."
How was Anna involved in this mystery? He racked his brain for what seemed like the thousandth time. Churches, Italy, Japan, dome, samurai, sister, buddies, sacrifice, betrayal, Kokopelli, @Brunellesci, @AveMaria, plane ticket, time to go to work... What did it all mean? He was the single point that connected them all so far, but someone else knew everything as well. What did they want from him? Why were all these references to his past coming up now? There was only one way to find out, he had to use the ticket. He had to go to Florence and trust the explanation would become clear there. That @Brunellesci would meet him on the dome. It's the only way he could find out more about this mystery, he made up his mind and headed home to start packing.
As he was driving down Interstate 10, past downtown Los Angeles, his mind kept drifting through the possibilities. He was abruptly disturbed from his reverie by something ramming into the back of his Evo. "Holy crap", he thought. He looked in his rear view mirror to see a black Mercury sedan pulling back with two men in dark suits and sunglasses in the front seat. The car paused briefly, then began to accelerate towards his rear bumper again. He quickly downshifted and punched the gas and his Evo leapt forward, pulling away from the sedan. Traffic was unusually light and he wove his way through the cars, trying to get away from the Mercury, but it kept pace with him. As he swerved to the right to go around a slow Honda, the sedan put on a burst of speed and pulled out to the left, into the service lane, passing slower cars in the fast lane. The Merc was gaining ground on him and finally pulled back into the lane alongside his Evo. He glanced to the left in time to see the Merc's window roll down and the tip of a gun pointed at him. Just as the gun erupted, belching bullets in his direction, he slammed on his brakes causing the sedan to pass him and the bullets miss.
Max quickly reached into his glove box to retrieve the Glock. He then slipped his Evo into the blind spot of the Merc, reached out the window with the gun, and opened fire on the men in the sedan. The Glock barked as bullets spewed from it's mouth, peppering the Mercury sedan's windows and doors with holes. He thought he must have gotten lucky with one of the shots since the sedan immediately pulled away and slowed down dramatically. He tossed the Glock on the passenger seat and sped off down the freeway, heart and mind racing, keeping an eye on his rear-view mirror to make sure no more mysterious sedans snuck up on him.