by Gregg Loomis
"Hello?"
At least the quality had improved. The voice on the other end could have come from across the room rather than an ocean.
"Francis! It's your favorite heretic!"
Pause.
"Lang?"
"You don't recognize my voice?"
"Of course I do," the priest snapped. "You're just not among the people I'd expect to be calling at seven in the morning, ante lucem."
"Qui male odit lucem. That's because it's noon here. Surely I didn't wake you up."
"Obviously not, since you called my office, not my cell phone, hopefully for some other purpose than to announce the time of day, wherever you are."
Lang was about to quote Virgil again until he noticed a young cherub-faced and uniformed nanny giving him an odd look over the long handlebars of the pram she was pushing. "It's all right, dearie. I always practice my Latin on the phone."
She retreated at a pace that might have exceeded the baby carriage's safety limits.
"What?" Francis said. "Unis dementia..."
"... Dementes efficit multos," Lang finished. "Insanity is catching. But I didn't call just to chat. I've got some questions about the Bible."
"You apostates always have questions about the Bible. That's why you're infidels," Francis said dryly.
It was an old and good-natured barb.
"The Ark," Lang began, "tell me about it."
"Noah's?"
"Of the Covenant."
The cockney-accented voice of the operator interrupted to request more coins.
"The Ark of the Covenant," Francis mused after the additional deposit was made. "Just what endeavor has sparked this interest?"
"I'll tell you about it when I get home. Do we know where it is?"
Francis snorted. "We pretty well know where it's not, Indiana Jones notwithstanding. That tale, as you recall, had it located in Africa. There are those who believe that Solomon gave it to his son by the Queen of Sheba, Menyelek, who took it to what's now Ethiopia. There's a sect of Ethiopian Jews who claim to have it."
"But you don't believe that."
"Just a minute." There was the sound of something being moved. Lang could visualize his friend dragging one of his biblical reference books to the center of his desk. "No. Solomon himself tells us he sat a place for the Ark in the Temple, One Kings eight: twenty-one. The Old Testament mentions it a number of times after Solomon, particularly its being hidden from Nebuchadnezzar when his Babylonians invaded. Then reference to it simply stops. Where it is now is anyone's guess. Some make a strong case the Templars found it under the temple in
Jerusalem and carried it back to Europe. There's something to that."
Lang shifted the receiver to the other ear. From his own experience he knew the former organization of religious knights had at least one biblical treasure. "Oh?"
"Chartres was one of the several Gothic cathedrals in France begun fairly close to one another in time, sixty years. Notre Dame, Chartres, Reims, Amiens. All associated with the Templars."
"So, the Ark might be in one of those?"
"Not so easy. All have been associated with the Templars. Where else but from the East could have come the knowledge to build something so spectacular? Flying buttresses, thinly ribbed vaulted ceilings towering hundreds of feet high. The world, or at least the Western world, had never seen anything like it. For that matter, no one at the time had the skill to do that sort of building."
"I don't take your point." Lang was getting uncomfortable. Standing at a pay phone was not conducive to changing to more relaxed positions.
"Perhaps I'm straying a bit, celeritas."
"Promptness would be appreciated. Truth is, Francis, I'm standing out on a public street."
"But why would you ...? Oh, I get it. Anyway, all of these Gothic cathedrals are associated in one way or another with the Templars: the skills, the knowledge, whatever. Most important, no one had a clue as to how to build what, by the standards of the day, must have seemed to defy gravity. That power had to come from somewhere. This becomes significant when you consider Chartres has the last known contemporary reference to the Ark."
Lang forgot his physical discomfort. "And that is...?"
"On a north column there's a small stone carving showing the Ark being moved. Underneath is a Latin inscription, Hie amittitur archa fedris."
Lang ran a hand across his face, unconscious of the gesture. "I'm not sure I know what that means. Something about something being let go or sent. Must be some sort of medieval corruption of the language."
"That, plus centuries of accumulation of grime, erosion from the weather, and perhaps help from French revolutionaries chipping away at the words. I'd put it at, 'Here the Ark is sent forth or yielded up.'"
"Sent to where?"
"That, my friend, is the problem. To Scotland when the Templars perhaps fled there? To the Languedoc region of France when it was a Templar stronghold?"
Lang turned around, looking for anyone showing an interest in him. He was well familiar with the Languedoc and its connection to the medieval monastic order of Templars. Too familiar. "Okay, so much for the Ark. Do you know anything about a sort of powder connected with it somehow, a very peculiar white powder that melts into a strange, almost self-illuminating glass?"
There was a pause.
"Funny you should ask right after we spoke of Gothic cathedrals. If you look at the few parts of the stained- glass windows original to those places, sections that haven't fallen out or been destroyed by wars over the centuries, you'll see what's called 'Gothic glass,' a sort of iridescent glass in which every color seems to glow. It was made during the hundred years or so after the cathedrals were begun; then it disappeared. The process for making it seems to have disappeared also. One wonders if that beautiful glass was the same as mentioned in Revelations."
"Glass in Revelations?"
"Just a... Ah! Here it is: 'And the city was pure gold like unto clear glass....' Revelations twenty-one: eighteen. Frequently the Book of Revelations is difficult to comprehend."
Gold like unto glass. The writer of the last book in the Bible understood something Dr. Werbel at Georgia Tech did not. Neither did Lang. The two, glass and gold, had been connected in antiquity. But how?
"Lang? Lang? You still there?"
Francis's voice brought his attention back to the conversation. "Does Revelations mention the Ark?"
"Not that I know of. As I said, references stop fairly abruptly about the time of the Babylonian invasion. What's this all about?" Francis asked. "I don't for a minute think a heathen like you has suddenly become interested in the Bible preparatory to seeing the truth."
"I'll tell you when I get home," Lang promised and hung up.
He could imagine his friend's frustration at having his mind picked and not being told why. But then, weren't Christians taught to forgive?
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hotel Stafford
St. James
London
An Hour Later
The telltale was missing.
Either the hotel's housekeeping staff had already made its daily visit or Lang had an uninvited visitor. He stepped back from the door and reached behind his back to grip the butt of the SIG Sauer as though to make certain it had not somehow escaped.
This was one of those situations that simply had no safe solution. If anyone were in the room, the sound of the key in the lock would give them all the advance warning needed. Kicking in the door and entering with gun blazing worked great in action films but left a lot to explain, particularly if the room turned out to be empty. Besides, real doors tended to be somewhat less destruction-prone than the plywood of the movies.
He took his cell phone from his pocket. Reading the number from his room key, he called the hotel, requesting that room service deliver an early lunch. With the aplomb of the better British hotels, no one inquired why he was using an outside line to make such a request.
Lang backed down the short hall and waited
, watching the door to his room.
Within fifteen minutes a liveried waiter was balancing a tray as he hurried from the opposite end of the hall.
Lang waited until he knocked, announcing himself as room service. By the time he was knocking again Lang was beside him, key in the lock and his other hand again resting on the concealed weapon. Arguably, any occupant of the room would not realize Lang had returned.
Gently pushing the young waiter aside from a potential line of fire, Lang eased the door open.
The room was empty.
The maid had not yet been there.
Lang took the linen-draped tray, thanked the lad, and handed him a five-pound note.
The lunch was typically British: attractively cut, nicely served, and without an iota of taste or flavor. Who but the English would put butter on a ham sandwich? As he munched what was at least fresh bread, Lang tried to remember exactly where he had placed things: Was his shave kit exactly where he had left it? Were the shirts in the dresser in the same order?
He stopped, staring at an upholstered chair. The chintz of the seat didn't match the back. He stepped to the chair, removed the cushion, and gave it a ninety-degree turn so its design was now aligned with the back. He was certain he would have noticed the aberrant pattern.
Whoever "they" were, they had found him.
But how?
And exactly what were they looking for?
He had paid cash on arrival, only slightly raising the eyebrows of a front-desk crew well adjusted to the idiosyncratic behavior of the hotel's guests. Perhaps an unspotted tail. Or...
The thought made him uncomfortable. This hotel had been his choice, what, three or four times in the last several years? In the past he had paid with the foundation's credit card. If someone's computer had traced that card number, it would have revealed where he stayed when in London.
Like it or not, the Information Age was privacy's funeral notice no matter how many people were fruitlessly trying to revive the corpse, an effort not unlike unscrambling an egg.
In fifteen minutes Lang was on the street, suitcase rattling along behind him like some dutiful animal. He visited a number of shops before reaching the block occupied by Fortnum & Mason. He entered, took an elevator as far as it went, took another halfway down, and walked the rest of the way to street level, exiting opposite where he had entered and hailing a roaming cab.
In London, as in most large cities, the traffic made it difficult to spot a following vehicle.
Lang directed the taxi to Knightsbridge in Kensington and from there to the Marble Arch Hotel. He was not surprised there was no doorman to greet him. Inside a lobby that was as dreary as the exterior, he waited while a platoon of Japanese tourists formed ranks behind their leader and sallied forth into the world of the gaijin, snapping pictures at every step.
A tired clerk took Lang's money in exchange for a key and explained that, on a cash basis, all room service requests would have to be paid for upon delivery. He made no offer to have someone show Lang to his room, nor was he ashamed to explain that there would be no refund were Lang to vacate before the next morning.
Named for a London landmark nearby, the Marble Arch had the worn-at-the-elbows look of a destination for tourists on a budget, traveling salesmen on commission, or a spouse on a lark. Lang's view was of a brick building perhaps five feet distant, but the room was clean and utilitarian.
He didn't intend to be there long, anyway.
He consulted a phone book and left the hotel. At the entrance he paused for a full minute, as though uncertain where he was going. He could see no one loitering in doorways, and there were few store windows to attract shoppers. A stroll around the block revealed a dark- skinned woman haggling with a greengrocer, a young mother walking twins, and a liveried chauffeur sneaking a quick smoke as he listlessly wiped the hood of a vintage Bentley free of imaginary spots.
Lang assumed he was alone.
A walk up to Knights Bridge Road took him past the part of Hyde Park known as Speakers' Corner, once the site of public executions, where the condemned were allowed to speak their minds, adding to the general entertainment before mounting the thirteen steps of the gallows. The gibbet was long gone, but the tradition of radical and unpopular speech lingered. Two men, both unshaven with long hair, were shouting at unconcerned passersby.
A block farther and he turned into a building flying the Union Jack. A small sign outside announced its function as a library. Inside, Lang stopped to whisper to an elderly man, who pointed him to the computer room.
Seated in front of the latest equipment, Lang called up Google and typed in alchemy, the quasi-scientific quest of a method of turning base metals into silver and gold. He was overpowered by the number of references. He was going to be here a little longer than he had planned.
Five hours later he only reluctantly left his machine at the prodding of the same old gentleman, this time announcing the closing of the facility for the day. Once back on the street, Lang stretched his arms and arched his back, surprised at how quickly the afternoon had retreated.
What he had thought to be simply misinformed medieval science was more, much more.
First, the practice of alchemy had its origins somewhere before Aristotle, a philosophy by which the soul or being of man could be enriched, life prolonged, and enlightenment achieved. He had tried to hurry through the purely ideological theories to spend more with the scientific.
Medieval scientists, or "philosophers," as they were called, had included no small number of charlatans, as the practice might suggest. It had, though, attracted some of the more serious minds of the time, including Roger Bacon, and Isaac Newton of falling-apple fame. Also Robert Boyle, whose observations, Lang was informed, were viable today and dealt with volume of gases. Lang was unsure what kinds, but unlikely those generated by Rachel's cooking and Mexican restaurants.
In Sir Isaac's time, the prevailing theory had been that all matter was composed of a combination of the four basic elements: fire, water, air, and earth. By correctly altering the proportions of these elements in, say, lead, gold would result.
There were scraps of writing from alchemists that seemed possibly relevant: John French, in his 1651 The Art of Distillation, described fire that would keep more than a thousand years unless its container were opened. What containers? Like the ones in Lewis's and Yadish's laboratories? Under definitions in one article, comminution Was "reduction of a substance to powder by means of heat."
There were also bibliographies numbering hundreds of volumes, books Lang would never have time to read in a lifetime, let alone before his pursuers caught up with him. He settled for four names of people who maintained Web sites concerning alchemy. He discarded the first two upon browsing their sites and finding one published a small magazine on Wiccans and alchemy. He could do without witchcraft, although his subject was only marginally more distant from the black arts. The second described himself as "sorcerer extraordinaire." Lang passed for the same reason. The third site had not been updated in over a year, and Lang's query to the e-mail address was undeliverable. The fourth, a Dr. Heimlich Shaffer in Vienna, displayed a more comforting curriculum vitae as an archeological chemist, whatever that was.
Outside the library, Lang tried the phone number given by the Web site and understood most of a message recorded in German that said he should leave a message. Lang decided against it, wondering if Wiccans and warlocks used answering devices or if astral impulse sufficed.
Once back at the hotel he called Jacob and listened to a very normal request that he leave a number. If the professor in Vienna was going to be any help, having all the facts possible was going to be necessary: Templar cathedrals, a new, or unknown, version of Exodus... Were they related, and if so, how would two scientists seeking a new energy source an ocean apart come up with the same powder that levitated and became glass and gold? The answer, if there was one, might lead him to who was trying to end the energy project and kill him in the process.
He had no other means of ending a chase that had already become deadly.
* * *
The Book of Jereb
Chapter Four
1. And Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, died from the fire from the Ark, for they had made to carry the Ark without wooden staves nor breastplates of gold, nor had they removed their shoes and washed their feet.
2. But the Levites carried the Ark ahead of the Israelites and into the Lands of the Moabites and Ammonites and Amorites, who fled before its power and were slain by the commandment of the one God.
3. But Moses did not cross the River Jordan but looked across into the land of the Canaanites and anointed Joshua to lead the people.
4. And Joshua sent forth the Levites with the Ark to Jericho, wearing gold breastplates and rings and having washed their feet but leaving sandals behind with the rest of the people.
5. Seven priests went before the Levites, blowing trumpets each day for six days. Upon the seventh day they marched seven times around the city. There came forth from the Ark lightning, which destroyed the walls of Jericho. And the children of Israel slew the people thereof, sparing only the family of Rahab the harlot, for she had given aid to the Israelites.
6. Then Joshua led the Israelites farther into the land of the Canaanites and unto the mount of Abraham to place upon it a throne of the House of Judah to rule over the Israelites.
5
TWENTY-NINE
Schwechat International Airport
Vienna
Three Days Later
The Vienna airport terminal is small compared to those in London, Paris, or Rome. Rather than overpowering architecture, gently curving sides of shining blue glass give passengers the sense of being embraced upon arrival.