Since every level of electronic reproduction has failed I decided to send the first letter to my artist friend Mia in Chicago. She’s an amazing artist and I felt a little weird asking her to replicate a family crest but I had no other choice. Since she’d been following my blog she was aware of the problems I’ve had copying it. She had become intrigued at the appearance of the crest and agreed to redraw it for no other reason than to get a look at the image.
Happy with the outcome of the conversation, I folded the letter and mailed it to Chicago. Three days later the letter returned across the front of the envelope in red type two inches tall were the words, “YOUR EYES ONLY.” The more this continues the weirder it gets.
I talked to a friend of mine named Mike who works for the Post Office and showed him the envelope. He said they have machines that will print things on envelopes in the font used but to his knowledge this isn’t one of the limited things they are capable of printing. We talked about it for a while and many theories were bandied about: hackers, government agency, illuminati; we went pretty out there. In the end Mike took the envelope and decide to ask his supervisor about it. He called me a few minutes ago to say his supervisor was just as stumped as he was and that she’d look into it.
That’s where I’m at. I’m posting the newest letter because I’m hoping someone will notice something about them or recognize some landmark. This one should be fairly easy to come across, there is an event described that should have at least made the news in Italy. So, if anyone sees something they recognize, please let me know.
Dearest Mother,
I regret to inform you of a series of troubling developments since my last letter. As you may recall I had been attacked by four men outside my rental cottage. At the time I believed it to be muggers, some locals out to grab a bit of quick cash from the wealthy tourist. I fear I was wrong. The next morning when we sojourned to the hospital to interrogate the three that we had captured we came upon a police investigation.
In the middle of the night someone had entered the hospital and executed all of the men. Quite professionally to, each man had been shot three times the first two bullets were fired into the chest and the final blow was delivered to the head. I believe the term is execution style.
No one is certain how the killer entered the rooms as there were police officers posted in the corridor the entire night. Lucia is worried that one of them may have been bribed, apparently there is some small problem with corruption in this area. Her team asked some questions and gathered evidence for nearly seven hours.
While they were occupied the rest of the team continued talking to Doctor Cavallaro’s associates. During this time we met a few of his personal acquaintances and peers at the institute. The most interesting conversation Christina and I had was with a young woman named Rosa. I will attempt to recreate the conversation from memory to help give the full effect of the meeting.
Rosa, “I’m not certain I can help.”
Christina, “Anything you remember could be helpful. How do you know Doctor Cavallaro?”
Rosa, “Essentially, I’m a fact checker. Most of the profs here give me papers to go through and double check their findings against the ISDB.”
Me, “I’m sorry, what is the ISDB?”
Rosa, “International Scientific Data Base. It’s an online resource where various colleges and research institutions collect and share their papers and studies. It was set up a few years ago to help people check their work against someone else’s. This way they can see if anything they’re working on is redoing existing work or following a parallel line of study.”
Me, “Interesting.”
Rosa, “Not really, but thank you.”
Christina, “So, you did this research for Doctor Cavallaro?”
Rosa, “He was one of the profs I worked with.”
Me, “How many do you help?”
Rosa, “I’m currently only assigned to four, but it’s been up to nine a couple of times.”
Christina, “Do you have any idea what Doctor Cavallaro was working on?”
Rosa, “I don’t know what his specific project was, only what he had me checking up on.” At this point she took out a laptop and began checking her notes. “Lets see, there was a lot of stuff on algae, but that was about six months ago. There was some work on the effects of potassium on the human body. In the last month or I got several requests about metabolism. Then there are three or four requests about fuel cells.”
Christina, “Fuel cells, seems a bit odd for a Biochemist.”
Rosa, “Honestly, it happens a lot. They’ll hit on an idea about how one thing might effect another and then run with it. I had a nuclear based study ask to check into the effects of peanut butter on the human digestive system.”
Christina, “so you don’t know what he was specifically working on?”
Rosa, “no sorry.”
Christina, “Did he ever mention anything in passing to you about something that was bothering him?”
Rosa, “I’ve never met him. All of our correspondence was done by email.”
Christina, “You never met. Not even once?”
Rosa, “Not that I can think of, though to be honest I couldn’t even tell you what he looked like. So, I suppose it’s possible we met at a mixer or fund raiser and just didn’t realize.”
At this point we showed her the Doctor’s photo, she indicated she didn’t recognize him and we thanked her for her time. We left her our contact information, and bid her good day.
I’ll be honest I’m not sure why this particular conversation stuck out in my mind. I’ve been thinking on it the last few days and Don’t have a valid reason for my continued unease. I’ve mentioned my concerns to Lucia and she asked me for my opinion on what we spoke on. After seeing my notes she offered to look into it if I wanted her to but she didn’t see anything that jumped off the page at her.
After a few more days on interviews we were beginning to run out of people to talk with. At this point we’d spoken to local business, grocer‘s, and his neighbors. We’d even spoken to the men that collected the trash. Lucia was hitting a dead end on the investigation into who had killed those three men, and Giorgio’s men who are searching for Maria and Schuler have stopped contacting us.
Mother, I’m quickly editing in the end of this letter as time is rushed. Please excuse my use of some phrases as I needed to change the end before mailing it to you.
Earlier today we were contacted by Rosa, she wished to meet with us. We were to go to a café near the institute and find her there. It was a lovely place. From a distance it had a rustic charm, there were tables set out on the sidewalk to form a communal area where one could bask in the sun and enjoy their drink. This was made even more appealing by the view of the large square and it’s massive fountain. Every table had a lovely floral cloth draped over it and a small pot with two or three flowers that were the same colors as the covering. I heard music coming from inside, a lone voice raised in beautiful alto was joined by two or three stringed instruments. As Christina, Giorgio, and myself approached the café, Rosa saw us and gave a pleasant wave. I matched her gesture and we approached.
As we crossed the square a black sedan pulled around the corner. One of the back windows slid down and I felt Giorgio shoving me to the ground. I looked up to see a long barrel protruding from the rear window and the sound of gunfire destroyed the beauty of the scene. Rosa and the other patrons were shredded by bullets in a matter of seconds. Giorgio had drawn his weapon and was opening fire, I could make out flashes of light as the bullets deflected off the hood and windshield of the sedan. Small black orb lobbed out the window and bounced along the cobblestones toward the center of the café’s sidewalk tables. The grenade went off, hurling tables and bodies in every direction.
Screams filled the air as panicked people all around us took off in different direction trying to escape. Still there were those valiant few who ran into the explosion to look for survivors.
The sedan started to pull away and Giorgio hauled me to my feet dragging me back towards Franco and the car. Franco had already been moving driving towards us powering open the doors. We piled in, all of us except Christina. When the Sedan pulled away she began running after it.
The sedan turned down an alley and I saw as Christina jumped up grabbed a nearby fence and hauled herself up onto a small stone wall. She then ran down the wall and leapt across to the roof of a nearby shop. As the sedan vanished from view we saw her running across the roof and leaping to another building. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, she did spend almost a year running parkour in Paris.
Franco drove off after the sedan. Their driver was good, ours was amazing, Franco matched their speed, and kept a close tail on the men in the other car as they raced down closed alleys, tore across open lots, or shot down the wrong side of the street. All the while we would occasionally see Christina as she would pop up on top of buildings either leaping from one to another or when she would get a chance to stop moving and fire a few shots into the sedan itself. When he could, Giorgio would lean out the window of our vehicle and fire on the sedan.
We eventually hit an open section where Franco could get next to the sedan. As our cars bounced off one another he slid forward just a bit then suddenly braked, timing it so that when they tried to swerve into us he was now near the rear of their car. He took advantage of the move to plow into their rear quarter panel spinning their vehicle sideways.
He accelerated into the sedan now fully pressed up against the side of the car he drove them forward. The driver side widows explode as the men inside began shooting wildly at our car. Franco ducked down and lost control of our car. Everything started to spin and I could feel us rising up in a series of rocky jerks, as if we were running over a series of speed bumps.
Suddenly, the car stopped. Giorgio leapt out gun drawn ready to take some sort of appropriately violent action. After a second I registered Christina’s presence, she was dragging Franco out of the front seat where he had been knocked unconscious. I felt Giorgio’s hands grasp my collar and haul me from the car. Then I was being carried away. The explosion happened a few seconds later and the force of it knocked all of us to the ground.
I woke up maybe twenty minutes ago in the hospital. I was informed by Lucia as she grabbed my clothes and hurried me out the back of the building that we are all to be arrested. We were being charged for the murders of Rosa, Doctor Cavallaro, seven other people who died in the café, and two John Doe’s fitting the description of Giorgio‘s men we‘d sent after Maria. The car we had been following was full of police officers who, according to the official report, were trying to stop us before we ran them into a statue of the pope, destroying it and their car in an explosion.
Lucia’s team were recalled by Italian intelligence, and she was told to remain here to act as a witness and facilitate our capture. She came and informed us of what was happening before they left. We are leaving the city., Christina thinks it’s for the best. We’ve decided to see if we can find out what happened to Giorgio’s men and what became of Maria and Schuler.
We’re dividing into three teams, Franco and Antonio are one team, Giorgio will be heading out with a man from his security team named Cutter. I will be traveling with Christina and Lucia. We all have a portion of the list and are hoping to discover what happened to Giorgio’s men and Doctor Cavallaro’s daughter.
I’m sorry to give you such bad news in this fashion. I’m safe, I suffered little real damage from the explosion and will be fine. I will attempt to keep writing every week but am uncertain when or if I will be able to do so.
As always, my love.
Your youngest son
J. P. Nussbaum
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