The Messiah Secret

by James Becker

  7

  ‘Where did this come from?’ JJ Donovan asked, pointing at his system display.

  Jesse McLeod barely glanced at the screen. He knew exactly which of the twenty or so search results his boss would be most interested in.

  ‘The on-line version of a local newspaper.’

  ‘Not encrypted or protected, then?’

  McLeod shook his head. ‘Nah. It’s a town news-sheet – you know, births, deaths, marriages, all that sort of stuff, strictly local news. It’s entirely open-source and terminally boring if you don’t know any of the names, and pretty boring even if you do. The whole thing’s a waste of time and in my opinion a total misuse of space on the web.’

  He paused for a second or two, then again voiced a suggestion he’d made to Donovan a couple of times before. ‘Look, JJ, I know what keywords you gave me, but it was a real broad search and I’ve still got no idea what you’re looking for. If you could tell me why this stuff’s so important, I’d be able to get you more targeted results.’

  Donovan shook his head. ‘Right now, I don’t even know if it is important. It’s just an idea I’ve got, a possibility of something that could change everything. But I’ll tell you this. If I am right about what I’m looking for, it could be the single most significant discovery in the history of science. After this, nothing would ever be the same again.’

  McLeod was thoughtful as he rode the elevator back down to the computer suite on the first floor. It sounded like Donovan had flipped, and that was a real worry. The company ran so well because Donovan was a genius when it came to genetic manipulation. If he’d lost the plot, it was definitely time to start thinking about finding employment somewhere else. When he got back to his office, he thought, he’d put out a few feelers, just in case.

  And he also needed to make a call, because JJ Donovan wasn’t the only person he was working for. And his other contact would be a lot more interested in the story he had to tell him.

  8

  It was late afternoon before Mayhew finally led Angela into the kitchen at Carfax Hall. Like the rest of the house, it was constructed and equipped on a grand, albeit late nineteenth-century, scale. A huge oblong solid-wood table sat squarely in the centre of the floor, most of its surface covered with china and ceramics of various types.

  A Victorian cooking range, traces of wood or coal ash visible in the fire grate, was built into one wall, and old steel and copper pans and cooking utensils hung from hooks in the walls on either side of it. Incongruously, on the counter-top to the right of the range stood a grubby white microwave oven, and next to that an electric kettle, about half a dozen modern mugs in different colours, a jar of instant coffee, a box of tea bags and an open bag of sugar. Below the counter-top, an ancient fridge emitted a constant clattering and wheezing noise.

  Clustered around a cleared area at one end of the table were the other four members of the assessment team, steaming mugs in front of them. Angela had met them all individually as she and Richard Mayhew had walked around the property, and she knew them all by sight from her work at the British Museum.

  Angela and Mayhew made themselves coffee, Mayhew adding milk from a one-litre plastic carton he took from the elderly fridge, then sat down.

  ‘You’ve inspected this old pile, then, Angela,’ said David Hughes, a thin, balding and bespectacled expert on English furniture. ‘What do you think?’

  Angela shrugged. ‘Mainly, I think it’s a shame. If Bartholomew had spent less of his time and effort chasing rainbows and collecting antiques that he just locked away, and a bit more money keeping the place properly maintained and repaired, this would still be a great estate. As it is, I guess that as soon as the dust has settled Oliver’s heirs will bring in the bulldozers, flatten the house and outbuildings and a modern housing estate will spring up.’

  ‘They might find getting planning permission difficult though,’ Mayhew said. ‘This is firmly in the green belt, I understand.’

  ‘Seen any decent china yet?’ Hughes asked.

  Angela shook her head. ‘I’ll make a start first thing tomorrow morning. Is this everything?’ she asked, pointing at the cluttered table.

  ‘That’s most of it, yes. There are a few trunks and boxes we’ve got to check up in the attics, and we’ve only had a quick look around the cellars, but it doesn’t look as if there’s anything much down there.’

  ‘Is there anything else you need before you start work, Angela?’ Mayhew asked.

  ‘Yes. I might just as well pack the stuff away as soon as I’ve looked at it, so can somebody find me a couple of crates or boxes, one for the good stuff and the other for the rest? Oh, and tape and bubble-wrap to protect the bits of china?’

  ‘There are about half a dozen tea chests in one of the attics,’ Hughes said, ‘and we brought a couple of rolls of bubble-wrap with us. I’ll bring everything you need in the morning.’

  ‘Right, people,’ Richard Mayhew said, glancing at his watch, ‘let’s call it a day.’

  Silence had fallen over Carfax Hall.

  About ten minutes after Richard Mayhew turned the key in the lock on the front door, a faint scraping sound became audible in one of the attic rooms, a pile of cardboard boxes was moved slowly to one side and a grubby, sweat-lined face peered out from behind it.

  The man listened intently for about thirty seconds, then stepped forward. His casual clothes – jeans and a T-shirt – were covered in dust and cobwebs, and his limbs were cramped from remaining in the same position for the previous three hours, ever since he’d sneaked in through the front door and crept up into the attic to hide.

  The man made his way down the main stairs to the ground floor and walked into the huge reception room on one side of the front hall. He strode across to the closest of the tall windows and cautiously looked out, checking that there were no cars left on the gravel parking area.

  Then he nodded, pulled a nylon bag out of his pocket and opened it on the floor near the door. He walked over to the closest packing case and started pulling out the contents, his movements urgent, but careful and concentrated. The room was enormous and the number of boxes and packing cases huge.

  Within fifteen minutes he’d selected about a dozen high-value silver objects and placed them in his bag. Ten minutes later he climbed out of a ground-floor window at the back of the house, and walked unhurriedly over to the boundary fence on one side of the property, where he’d parked his car earlier that afternoon.

  With any luck, he thought, he could probably repeat the operation three or four times that night, and then do the same thing tomorrow. If he picked his prizes carefully, he’d be able to make a tidy sum from their sale. It wouldn’t be anything like as much as that devious old bastard Oliver had promised him the last time they’d talked, but it would be a big help to his bank balance.

  But the antiques he was stealing were only a part of the story. The big prize, the thing he’d really like to get his hands on, was a few words written on a tattered piece of parchment. He’d never seen it, or even met Bartholomew – the old man had died several years before he was born – but Oliver had always been going on about it, back in the days when he’d been a welcome guest at Carfax Hall. He knew that Bartholomew had been incredibly secretive about the relic, but it had to be somewhere in the house.

  Once he’d stashed his acquisitions in the car, he’d start searching in all the places that Oliver might have missed – and there were plenty of them.

  He reached his car, popped open the boot and carefully placed his prizes inside it. He pressed the lid closed carefully, making as little noise as he could, locked it and then headed back towards the old house.

  ‘Up yours, Oliver, you mean old bastard,’ he muttered, as he climbed over the boundary fence again. It was a still, clear moonlit night, and the house and its belongings were all his.

  9

  Jesse McLeod looked across the table at the man sitting opposite him.

  Killian had worried him from the momen
t they first met. It wasn’t the man’s general appearance he found intimidating, just his eyes – black, dead eyes, seemingly able to pick apart your very soul and lay bare your thoughts. And there was a kind of suppressed energy about him, like a tightly coiled spring, that always seemed about to explode into sudden violence, probably extreme violence.

  But McLeod knew he had something Killian wanted, and this gave him a powerful lever to use in his negotiations. He didn’t see why Killian would baulk at the fairly modest payment he had in mind. And the consequences of him not paying up were real serious. McLeod knew that Killian would realize this.

  ‘I want it now,’ Killian growled, referring to the information McLeod had accessed.

  ‘I can give it to you right here, on a memory stick,’ McLeod suggested.

  ‘You have it with you? On your laptop?’

  McLeod nodded. ‘It’s right here,’ he confirmed, patting the leather bag beside his chair. ‘There’s just the matter of payment to discuss.’

  Killian’s face clouded. ‘I’ve been paying you a retainer for two years. Why do you think this information entitles you to more?’

  ‘I think when you see it you’ll realize why it’s so important.’ McLeod was choosing his words with enormous care. ‘It’s directly related to the previous data I gave you – that stuff about the “treasure of the world” – you remember? That article in the magazine about the old guy in England, and how he thought he’d finally worked out where the treasure had to be hidden?’

  Killian stared at McLeod for a few seconds, then nodded for him to continue.

  ‘I found a report in a county newspaper. It seems somebody croaked that old man, whipped him until his heart gave out. That means somebody must have read that article, and maybe they’re looking for the same thing as you.’

  Killian still said nothing.

  ‘There was one detail in the story that I thought was real interesting, so I did a little more digging. I hacked into the local police database and checked out the forensic reports and a bunch of other stuff. I downloaded it all, and there’s a couple of details there I think you need to see.’

  ‘OK,’ Killian said slowly. ‘Let me have it and then we’ll talk figures.’

  McLeod nodded and pulled a small laptop computer from his bag. He switched it on, and a few minutes later extracted a slim memory stick from the USB port on the side and put it on the table in front of him.

  ‘That’s it?’ Killian asked.

  ‘Yep. That’s the whole thing. It seems like the old man didn’t die too quietly. The forensic examiners found quite a lot of blood in his mouth – blood that wasn’t his own, I mean, and traces of flesh. The investigating officers guessed he might have bitten his attacker. They’ve got samples of that blood and tissue and they’re just waiting for the DNA analysis results to come back from their labs, which will give them a DNA profile of the killer.’

  He let his gaze rest for a few seconds on the bandage wound around Killian’s head, and the heavily padded area over the man’s left ear, then switched his attention back to the screen of his laptop.

  ‘You told anyone else about this?’ Killian demanded.

  McLeod shook his head. ‘No, but a guy has to take precautions, if you know what I mean. So there’s more than one copy of what you got there – just in case that data gets lost or corrupted, that kind of thing.’ He leaned back in his chair, trying to look relaxed and in control. ‘So how does fifty grand sound for the data and all the copies?’ It was, he thought, a reasonable enough figure.

  Killian’s smile didn’t get anywhere near his eyes. ‘Like about fifty grand too much, McLeod. I’ve got a much cheaper, and a whole lot more permanent, solution.’

  He pulled a small semi-automatic pistol out of his jacket pocket, the weapon made ugly by the bulbous suppressor attached to the end of the barrel.

  McLeod’s eyes bulged in terror, and he strained backwards in his seat. ‘Hey, man, don’t do this,’ he said, his voice shrill with panic. ‘I’ll deliver everything to you. You can have it all for free.’

  ‘You should have stuck to computers,’ Killian said, his eyes dark, his face expressionless. ‘You’d never make a blackmailer in a million years. You’re just an amateur, and not even a good one.’

  ‘But the other copies of the data – if I don’t make contact, my friends will—’

  ‘I’ll risk it, McLeod, and if your friends come knocking I’ll kill them too. This isn’t about the money. This is about security, about sealing loose ends. I have to make sure you won’t talk to anyone else about this.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise,’ McLeod said, standing up.

  ‘I know you won’t.’

  The report of the pistol was little more than a cough, but McLeod’s body was flung backwards by the impact of the shot. His chair toppled over and he crashed to the floor, limbs splayed, his mouth opening and closing, his eyelids flickering.

  Killian stood up and walked around the table to where his victim lay. The shot had taken McLeod almost in the centre of his chest, probably just missing his heart, but it was still a fatal wound.

  Taking careful aim, he fired again. The bullet smashed into the left side of McLeod’s chest and bored straight through his heart. His body twitched once, then lay still.

  Killian slipped the pistol back into his jacket pocket, and almost without thinking he touched his forehead lightly and then his chest three times, making the sign of the cross. He bent down and emptied the dead man’s pockets, then he turned away, picking up McLeod’s computer bag and the memory stick.

  He had a lot to do, and now the clock was ticking.

  10

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  JJ Donovan shivered, and not just from the chill of the mortuary. Lying motionless on the table in front of him was a sheeted figure, only the head and face visible.

  ‘For the record, sir, can you please identify him?’

  ‘His name is . . .’ Donovan paused and swallowed. ‘His name was Jesse McLeod. He worked for me. At NoJoGen.’

  ‘And that’s what, sir? Again for the record.’

  ‘NotJustGenetics Incorporated. It’s my company, here in Monterey. Why did you call me? He’s not a relative of mine. He just works – worked – for me.’

  ‘A business card bearing your company details was found in his possession. Calling you seemed a good place to start to try to get an ID on him.’

  Donovan looked down at the face of the man he’d worked with for more than a decade.

  ‘How did it happen?’ he asked the police sergeant. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘A couple of guys in a patrol car spotted his body on a vacant corner lot in downtown Monterey. It looks as if he was mugged, because his wallet is missing.’

  ‘Did he have a bag with him? A computer bag, I mean?’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘No. Apart from a comb and a handkerchief, the only thing we found was the card. No bag, no wallet, no phone, no keys, even.’

  ‘But Jesse lived down near Carmel, and spent most of his spare time on the beach. If he went out in the evening, he normally stayed in Carmel because he didn’t much like Monterey. So what was he doing there?’ Donovan scratched his head. It was all too much to take in.

  ‘I can’t help you there, sir. What we seem to have is a mugging that went wrong, and the only unusual thing about it is the weapon used.’ The sergeant pointed down, at the sheeted corpse. ‘This body has two small-calibre bullet wounds in the chest. We won’t know for sure until the doc does the autopsy, but it looks like he was hit by a couple of point two-fives, maybe even twenty-twos. Most of the bad boys around here use thirty-eights or bigger. A twenty-two isn’t your usual mugger’s pistol of choice. It’s not a serious weapon.’

  ‘Maybe that’s all the criminal could find,’ Donovan suggested.

  ‘Maybe. Sometimes, a small-calibre gun could mean a professional hit, because with a suppressor fitted the weapon’s pretty near silent, but it doesn’t l
ook like that was the case here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because a pro would go for a head shot every time. And this guy was shot in the chest.’

  ‘You said you didn’t find any keys on him either,’ Donovan said. ‘Could you do me a favour and send a car out to Carmel to check his apartment? He had a lot of expensive electronic equipment out there, and some of it belonged to my company. If the mugger took his keys, he might have burgled his home as well.’

  ‘We’ll do that today, sir, if you can give us the address. And do you know who his next of kin is?’

  ‘His parents live somewhere in Utah, I think,’ Donovan said, writing down the address of McLeod’s apartment in Carmel, together with his own mobile number. He passed them to the sergeant. ‘I’m going back to the office. Call me if you find anything.’

  Donovan climbed back into his Porsche, started the engine – and just sat there, staring through the windscreen at the street ahead of him. So much had happened in such a short space of time. Two weeks earlier, McLeod had come to him with the first, tantalizing snippet of information. He’d found a report in a monthly magazine published in an English county called Suffolk about someone who was trying to raise money to fund an expedition to the Middle East to search for a lost treasure, a relic he’d referred to as the ‘treasure of the world’. The old man had been following some clues originally found by his father and, according to the magazine, he finally believed he had worked out where he should start his search.

  That single expression – the ‘treasure of the world’ – had electrified Donovan, because he’d seen it before, in an entirely different context, and he believed he knew exactly what it referred to. That was why he’d turned to Jesse McLeod. If anyone could locate any other references to the man or his quest, he could.

  And then there had been the report of the Englishman’s brutal death. Now McLeod was also dead; murdered in a way that didn’t seem to make sense. McLeod had clearly been murdered: Donovan was certain of that. This was no mugging.