The Sacred Vault

by Andy McDermott

  ‘That’s still ten years of chaos.’

  ‘Better ten than a hundred.’ He stepped closer to her. ‘I am not a passive man, Dr Wilde. I rose from the slums by seeing opportunities and taking them, changing the world around me to my advantage. This will be the ultimate opportunity, and I must take it, for the good of all humanity. I will end the Kali Yuga - but I will also guide the beginning of the Satya Yuga.’

  ‘The downfall of civilisation as a business opportunity, huh?’

  ‘More a guiding hand. I have been assembling resources worldwide - people with vital skills, stockpiles of food and shelter, secure data archives in remote locations like Mongolia and Greenland, a satellite communications infrastructure that will be unaffected by wars on the ground. They will all be put to use to help those in need following the collapse.’

  Nina narrowed her eyes. ‘With strings attached, I’m guessing.’ ‘The world must learn that Shiva is the one true lord of creation. Which is why I hired Urbano Fernandez. Some of the items he obtained for me were for their protection; they are irreplaceable cultural treasures that would surely be stolen or destroyed during the chaos.’

  ‘And they’ll just happen to be in your private collection for “safekeeping” while all this is going on, right?’

  ‘But,’ he went on, ignoring her, ‘the others will provide me with leverage in places where the word of Shiva might not be heard.’ ‘Places like Saudi Arabia,’ she realised. ‘If there’s a global collapse, nobody’ll be paying for their oil - and they don’t have a hell of a lot of other resources. So then you tell them, “If you want help, if you want the Black Stone back, I want something in return.” ’

  ‘Correct. Money may not be much use after the collapse, but influence will be. Having power over the Saudis gives me influence over Islam, power over the Italians gives me influence over Roman Catholicism, and so on. I will use it to spread the word of Shiva - the true, uncorrupted word that waits inside the Vault.’

  ‘Sounds kinda far-fetched, if you ask me,’ Nina scoffed. ‘You won’t turn over centuries of belief and tradition with blackmail.’

  ‘People will do anything when they are hungry and desperate. When one god has failed them and another offers them hope, will they take it? I think so.’

  Nina slowly circled him, Tandon shadowing her. ‘So how are you planning on bringing all this about? I don’t see how a search engine can be a harbinger of the apocalypse.’

  ‘Then you are short-sighted, Dr Wilde. Qexia will play a vital part.’

  She could tell that he was itching to impress her with his cleverness; the question was, how much would his ego let slip? She injected a disbelieving, faintly mocking note into her voice. ‘You’re going to end the world with search results? How?’

  He raised his hands, the virtual keyboard appearing on the screens. Some commands, and the walls lit up with numerous pages from news sites around the globe. ‘People choose sources of information not because they trust them to be impartial, but because they reflect their own view of the world. Their biases - their passions, if you like.’ He regarded the screens. ‘All these pages are about a terrorist bombing in Mumbai two weeks ago. As you can see, it was covered by dozens of news agencies in different countries, each of which had its own interpretation of events.’

  ‘That’s hardly news, if you’ll excuse the pun.’

  More commands. ‘When people want information about a subject, they turn to a search engine. Like Qexia. Now, these are the results a Hindu living in India would see when they searched for information about the bombing.’

  A ‘cloud’ of results appeared, the ones Qexia deemed most relevant dominating the centre, others smaller on the periphery. Nina examined the central cluster; they blamed Pakistani-backed Islamic militants for the attack. ‘Okay, but apart from looking prettier, I don’t see how that’s any different from what you’d get on Google.’

  ‘Then see what the same search would give to a Muslim in Pakistan.’ He typed again. The search cloud reloaded . . . with considerably different results.

  ‘These . . . these are all accusing the Indian government of lying,’ Nina saw. ‘Blaming the Pakistanis for something they weren’t involved in.’ The larger implications struck her. ‘This is stirring up tensions between India and Pakistan.’

  Khoil nodded. ‘As I told you, Qexia learns about its users. As they provide it with more information, it builds up a better picture of their beliefs. It was designed to target advertising more precisely . . . but it has other uses.’

  ‘You’re fixing the search results,’ said Nina accusingly. ‘You’re lying to them.’

  ‘Not at all. It gives them what they expect to find - feeding their biases. Inflaming their passions. All sources of information throughout history have filtered their results to favour a particular point of view. I am doing the same, for the most noble of reasons.’

  ‘Noble?’ Nina snapped. ‘You think bringing down modern society and causing God knows how many millions of deaths is noble?’

  ‘If it is for a greater purpose, then yes.’

  ‘And how were you planning on doing this?’ She waved a hand at the screens. ‘Inflaming passions, starting a war, yeah . . . but between who?’ As soon as she spoke, she realised that Khoil might have already answered the question: he had chosen the subject of his demonstration without hesitation, as if it had already been on his mind. India and Pakistan were nuclear-armed enemies, on the edge of open conflict for decades. Had his urge to show off his technology, his intellectual superiority, tipped his hand?

  However, he proved unwilling to elaborate. ‘You will find out soon. As will the rest of the world. But that is not why I brought you to me. Come this way.’ Khoil exited the dome, Tandon pushing her after him.

  He rounded the framework supporting the screens and led her to one side of the room. A desk held several pieces of high-tech equipment, but Nina’s attention was caught by something obsolete. A glass display case contained a small computer of a type she didn’t recognise, but from its styling - and time-scuffed condition - it appeared to be of 1980s vintage.

  Khoil noticed her looking at it. ‘My first computer,’ he said. ‘A Spectrum Plus. Everything I have achieved with Qexia began with that.’ Something approaching warmth entered his voice. ‘As a boy, I made money for my family by repairing and selling broken devices we found on the dump - radios, tape players, and so on. I could not believe that somebody had thrown away a computer! The only thing wrong with it was the power supply, and once I repaired it we were going to sell it . . . but I decided to experiment with it first. I wrote some simple programs - and, as the saying goes, I caught the bug.’

  ‘Your humble beginnings,’ Nina said dismissively. Under other circumstances a rags-to-riches story might have been interesting, but she was in no mood to indulge Khoil’s nostalgia.

  His tone chilled once more. ‘Indeed. Now, come here.’ Tandon shoved her to the desk. ‘Hold out your right arm.’

  Suspiciously, Nina regarded the machine Khoil was adjusting. It resembled a lathe, only where she would have expected to find a cutting tool, there was a highly polished prism. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A laser scanner. Your palmprint is needed to remove the Talonor Codex from the United Nations’ vault.’ He indicated the machine beside it: a rapid prototyper, identical to the one Zec had delivered to Eddie. ‘Using the pattern from the scanner, this will create an exact duplicate of your hand - one good enough to fool the security system.’

  Nina shook her head and folded her arms tightly. ‘No way are you getting my palmprint.’

  ‘One way or another, your hand will be sent to New York. It is up to you whether it is a copy . . . or the original.’

  Tandon’s expression suggested he would be more than happy to make it the latter. Reluctantly, Nina held out her arm. Khoil positioned it over the scanner, then tapped a control. The prism began to spin, so rapidly that it became a ghostly blur. A bright blue laser light shone from the bod
y of the scanner, the needle-thin beam spread into a flickering grid by the prism. The pattern moved smoothly over the length of Nina’s hand. A bleep from the machine, and the light vanished, the prism stopping with a click.

  Khoil checked a reading, appearing satisfied. ‘Your palmprint has been recorded. Now we have everything we need.’

  Nina pulled her hand away. ‘Except the Codex. And without that, you’ve got nothing.’

  ‘That,’ said Khoil, ‘is entirely up to your husband.’

  12

  New York City

  Eddie waited in a corner of the spacious marble lobby of the

  Delacourt hotel, watching the doors to 44th Street. He could see a small but excited crowd through the glass, hotel staff keeping back anyone who had no legitimate business in the building.

  Almost eight p.m. The tide would reach its highest point at 8.14, and he still needed Lola’s go-ahead before the operation could begin. Matt would have to work fast.

  Someone pushed through the throng outside, and was briefly quizzed by a doorman before coming in: Zec, dressed in a heavy overcoat and seeming irritated at having his entry challenged. He spotted Eddie and sat next to him. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, indicating the bustle outside.

  ‘Paparazzi,’ said Eddie disinterestedly. ‘Some celebrity’s in the hotel.’ He gave the Bosnian a sour look. ‘You got the thing?’

  Zec handed him a small memory card. ‘Your wife’s handprint. Put it in the prototyper, and the machine will do the rest. Just remember to wait until it cools to body temperature before putting it on the scanner.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I was also told to remind you what will happen to your wife if you do not bring me the Codex.’

  ‘I’m not fucking deaf,’ Eddie growled, aware the statement might not be entirely truthful. ‘You already told me.’

  ‘Just doing my job.’

  ‘Your wife and son know about your job?’ Zec was unprepared for the question, and looked sharply at him. ‘Think your wife’d approve of you threatening to kill mine? Kid proud of Daddy the murderer?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Zec snapped. ‘The only people I have killed are legitimate mission targets. Civilian casualties were not my fault.’

  ‘Well, that makes it all better, dunnit?’ Eddie regarded him sourly. ‘No way Hugo would have worked with you if you’d told him that. But who needs morals when you’ve got money, right?’ The accusation appeared to sting the Bosnian, which gave Eddie a moment of gratification. ‘Now, I want to talk to Nina.’

  ‘I thought you might.’ Zec made a call. ‘Mr Khoil? Chase wants to speak to his wife.’ He listened to the reply, then handed the phone to Eddie.

  ‘Mr Chase,’ said Khoil. ‘I hope you are ready to bring me the Codex. Otherwise, you know what will hap—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, spare me the fucking threats,’ Eddie snapped. ‘I already had them from your errand boy. Where’s Nina?’

  ‘She is here with me.’

  A pause, a hollow echo down the line, then Nina spoke. ‘Eddie? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine - what about you?’

  For a moment, it seemed that she hadn’t heard him. ‘Eddie? Are you there - oh, thank God. Yeah, I’m okay. Look, Eddie, you can’t go through with this. I know part of what the Khoils are planning. They—’

  ‘Enough,’ said Khoil. The faint echoing effect disappeared. ‘Mr Chase, it is time to bring me the Codex. Do so, and your wife will be returned to you unharmed.’ With that, the line fell silent.

  Eddie returned the phone to Zec, using all his willpower not to say out loud the thought dominating his mind: Khoil was lying. Nina wasn’t with him, the delay of the satellite connection proving she was still in India. The moment Khoil - who from the instant response on his side of the call clearly was in the States, eager to take personal delivery of the Talonor Codex - got what he wanted, she would be killed.

  And so would the man who obtained the Codex for him, Eddie knew. But all he could do for now was play his part - and hope that Plan B worked.

  His phone trilled. ‘Lola?’

  ‘Everything’s ready,’ said Lola. ‘You remember the locker numbers?’

  ‘Burned into my mind.’

  ‘Okay. Good luck.’ She rang off.

  Eddie stood, picking up a large black leather briefcase with gleaming steel trim. ‘That was the go-signal,’ he told Zec. ‘I’ll meet you back here when I’m done.’

  ‘With the Codex.’

  ‘Obviously with the fucking Codex. You just be ready with Nina.’ He headed for the doors, glancing back at Zec . . . then past him, to a couch. Dressed in a suit, reading a newspaper, Mac briefly looked up at him. At his feet was another black briefcase.

  Eddie stepped outside, feeling the bite of the December cold as he pushed through the crowd and walked to the end of 44th Street. The United Nations complex rose on the other side of First Avenue, a towering grid of lights against the dark sky.

  He raised his phone again. ‘Matt? It’s Eddie. I’m ready.’

  ‘Roger that, mate,’ said the Australian. ‘We’re in the pipe, five by five.’

  On the far side of the UN, a boat bobbed in the East River. Radi Bashir shivered in his thick coat as he gazed nervously at the glowing glass slab of the Secretariat Building. He didn’t know what the rules were regarding boating off Manhattan, but he was sure they were breaking them by dropping anchor in the busy waterway. Any official attention they attracted would undoubtedly be magnified when it was realised that all three of the boat’s occupants were foreign nationals . . . and two of them were Arabs.

  Karima popped up through the hatch to the lower deck. ‘Eddie just called. He’s going in.’ She ducked back. With a last look round for any boats that might belong to the NYPD’s Harbor Unit, Rad climbed down after her.

  Matt Trulli had set up shop in the small cabin, two laptop computers and a complex remote control unit crammed on to a little table and secured with duct tape. A porthole was open, cold air coming through it; below it was a large spool of fibre-optic cable, the slender but strong glass thread running out through the window. The spool was connected to one of the laptops - and the other end of the line to the Remotely Operated Vehicle currently picking its way through a water pipe beneath the river’s western bank.

  ‘All right, you little beaut,’ Matt muttered, using two joysticks to guide the ROV. ‘Go on in there . . .’ On the laptop’s screen, a view from one of the robot’s cameras revealed a fat, plastic-sheathed cable disappearing into the darkness of the circular channel. The spool slowly turned, the robot’s fibre-optic control cable feeding out as it moved forward.

  The ground under Manhattan was criss-crossed by myriad networks of underground conduits, from subway tunnels to steam pipes to the city’s telecommunications backbone. This particular system, originally constructed in the early twentieth century to provide the city’s fire hydrants with a supply of water straight from the river, had been out of use for almost a quarter of a century, superseded by more powerful pumping systems - until an enterprising telecoms company realised they were the perfect way to spread the hundreds of miles of fibre-optic lines needed to meet the city’s ever-growing demand for broadband without having to dig up half the streets in Manhattan.

  The cables had been installed entirely by robots, designed to crawl through the narrow, flooded confines. Matt’s machine was following their tracks . . . but considerably more quickly. Servo was a metre-long, vaguely snake-like construct, made from three tubular sections linked by universal joints: a flexible torpedo able to bend and twist through narrow underwater spaces. The rearmost segment housed the propeller and steering vanes, the middle one the battery pack, while the front section contained cameras, lights and a folded manipulator arm.

  Matt glanced at the other laptop, which displayed a graphic of the pipeline system overlaid on a plan of the United Nations. A blinking cursor showed Servo’s position, not far from the outline of the Secretariat Building. ‘What’s the time?’ he asked. />
  ‘Eight oh four,’ Karima told him.

  ‘Christ, we’ve only got ten minutes to high tide. Pick up the pace, Servo!’ he told the screen as he thumbed the throttle wheel on one joystick. The fibre-optic spool turned faster.

  Eddie reached the IHA offices. ‘Working late, Lola?’ he said in what he hoped was a casual tone. There were still a few staff around even this late; the IHA was full of people who could lose all track of time poring over some piece of ancient junk, his own wife one of the worst offenders. He couldn’t go to the vault until his friends completed their work, so this was the least suspicious place to wait.

  ‘Yes, just finishing some paperwork,’ Lola replied; then she lowered her voice. ‘I used Nina’s security code to give you access to the lockers. Just use your own ID when you get down there - it’s all in the system. As far as the guards will know, Nina’s given you authorisation to open them.’

  ‘They won’t check and find that she’s not here?’

  ‘But she is here,’ said Lola with exaggerated innocence as she tapped her keyboard. ‘The computer says she’s had one of the conference rooms booked all day. And computers are never wrong, right?’

  Eddie grinned. ‘Thanks, Lola.’ Still carrying the heavy case, he went into Nina’s office.

  He checked his watch. 8.10. Come on, Matt!

  Karima watched the map intently as the cursor crept across it, painfully slowly. Servo was now beneath the Secretariat Building, but the old pipeline system branched and turned as it progressed inland, the ROV needing to follow a convoluted route to its destination.

  She looked at the view on the other laptop. The pipe divided ahead, one leg continuing straight on while the other made a ninety-degree turn. ‘Which way?’ Matt asked.