by Brett King
“The work of della Rovere, I presume. Looks like Voynich B symbols.”
She glanced at him, absorbing the deep grooves in his forehead. A web of wrinkles flared around his eyes. Wurm’s face brought to mind a Rembrandt painting of an imposing old man with a beard, hands clasped before him, lost in introspection.
“It’s a warning. A cautionary message for whoever finds the relic. It claims the Radix can be dangerous, especially when combined with certain ingredients.”
“You’re talking about the Scintilla,” Cori added.
The napping cat rolled on her leg, making a deep humming sound.
“You mentioned it earlier,” Jordan said. “What’s the Scintilla?”
“It means ‘little spark,’” Wurm explained. “Think of it as a recipe that creates the perfect medicine. Alone, the ingredients do nothing. Add the Radix and ordinary ingredients transform into a consecrated ointment called a chrism. If you know the Scintilla’s ingredient list, you can use the Radix to create two chrisms. The White Chrism can heal, the black can kill.”
“Kill how?”
“Before falling into della Rovere’s hands, the Radix was once used for destructive purposes. A skeptical knight in the fourteenth century tested the Black Chrism.”
“Using the Radix?”
“A sliver,” Wurm nodded. “According to legend, the knight traveled to Central Asia and mixed a compound to create the Black Chrism. He fed it to gutter rats. Didn’t harm them. Later, trading ships transported the infected rodents west to the Mediterranean Sea. The vector-borne plague caused a pandemic in Europe, killing twenty to thirty million people.”
“The Black Death,” Jordan whispered. “Are you serious?”
“That’s what the legend says. Together, the Radix and Scintilla can deliver the greatest good or the greatest evil. Della Rovere possessed the recipe, written by the original authors. He wished he’d had the Scintilla before his wife died.”
“The story is that he killed her,” Brynstone said.
“He did, while attempting to save her. She had been bitten by a zanzara. That’s Italian for ‘mosquito.’ Like many malaria victims, she vomited and suffered chills. Della Rovere immersed her in ice water to reduce the fever. In desperation, he bled her, a common practice five hundred years ago. He’d been without sleep for five days, caring for her.”
“He overbled her?” Cori asked.
“Afraid so. After mourning her death, he joined the priesthood. Of course, Cesare Borgia wanted the chrism to heal his syphilis. The disease had disfigured his face. Borgia wore a variety of masks to hide the scars.”
“Borgia’s father also had syphilis,” Brynstone added.
“Can’t believe the pope had sex,” Jordan said. “Not to mention syphilis.”
“At times, certain church leaders were more licentious than the sinners they condemned,” Wurm answered. “Their moral lapses disturbed many of the faithful, including della Rovere.”
“Did syphilis kill the pope?”
“In August 1503, Cesare Borgia and his father contracted malaria from zanzare. Pope Alexander VI never recovered. Ironically, the new pope was the late della Rovere’s uncle. Giuliano della Rovere was one of Borgia’s greatest rivals. He became Pope Julius II. You know, the guy who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling.”
“You said Raphael della Rovere had the Scintilla?” Cori asked.
“He was the last known person to possess both the Radix and the Scintilla. First, he stuffed the Radix inside Zanchetti’s mummy. As Borgia’s militia approached the Italian village of Navelli, he escaped with the formula. The Scintilla was missing when Borgia tracked him down. Borgia’s descendents have been searching for it ever since.”
“The Radix is useless without the Scintilla?” Jordan asked.
“Not useless,” Brynstone said. “I’ve seen its power. Over time, it can regenerate necrotic tissue in a mummy.”
Washington, D.C.
8:09 A.M.
Dillon Armstrong was undergoing another round of surgery. More than anything, the president wanted to visit his brother. Sequestered in PEOC, Armstrong resolved instead to confront General Delgado. He remained seated as the man marched into the briefing room. Armstrong steeled himself, ready to go toe-to-toe with DIRNSA.
“Sorry to hear about your brother,” Delgado said. “We have not detected chatter suggesting terrorist factions were involved with the car bomb. Rest assured, we’re doing all we can to determine the cause of your brother’s tragedy.”
“Appreciate that, General,” Armstrong said as the Service agents left them alone. “Give me an update on John Brynstone.”
“He paid a visit to my home just after oh-four-hundred hours. He injected me with a BT-17 toxin.”
“Are you serious?”
“Under pressure, he admitted he’d lied about the whole thing. Thought he could bully me into sharing classified information.” Delgado cleared his throat. “I believe John Brynstone is a rogue agent.”
“That’s an abrupt turnaround. Earlier, you regarded him as a son.”
“Not anymore. He went dark without authorization. He broke into my home, then threatened me.”
Armstrong frowned. He trusted Brynstone’s claim that Delgado had lied to instigate a mission. Brynstone almost had a sixth sense when it came to collecting intelligence data. He could cut through technical sources and find answers. Star agents like Brynstone had restored credibility to the intelligence community.
“Let me be clear, Mr. President. Even though the SCS is a joint organization, Brynstone is one of my men. As soon as we track him, I’m sending a TAC team to apprehend him.”
Armstrong gave a stone-cold stare. “He stays in the field. That’s an order, General.”
“With all due respect, sir, I don’t—”
“What’s the real reason you want Brynstone? Is it because he knows you fabricated a link between the World Islamic Brotherhood and Ambassador Zaki? You designed false intel that has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with getting your hands on the Radix.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Brynstone. I called on an untraceable line, so your NSA wiretap boys can’t search it.”
Delgado shook his head. “He’s playing you for a fool.”
“I believe you’re the one doing that.” Armstrong rapped his fist on the table. “You falsified connections between the Saudi ambassador and terrorists. You compromised relations with a foreign government for personal gain. Clean up this mess. And do it quietly.”
“It’s more complicated than my wanting a relic. I’m trying to accomplish something that surpasses politics. I need Brynstone to hand over the Radix.”
“This Radix sounds like a lot more than just a relic. What makes it important?”
“Perhaps it’s best if you don’t ask that question, Mr. President.”
“Perhaps it’s best if you don’t abuse your position, Jim. You can’t manipulate me.”
“Really? J. Edgar Hoover manipulated every president from Coolidge to Nixon, and they named the FBI building after him.” Delgado headed for the door before calling, “Merry Christmas, Mr. President.”
New Jersey
8:20 A.M.
Christmas morning arrived without a dawn. A fitful sun lurked behind iron gray clouds as Brynstone drove the Escalade across a joyless stretch of Highway 202, making their way to the airport. Jordan tapped away on her computer. From the backseat, Cori studied the landscape. With bandaged fingers interlaced on his chest, Wurm snoozed beside her. Banshee was tucked beside him, a clump of black fur.
Brynstone felt an easy camaraderie with them. Jordan was a tough-minded pragmatist, smart and dependable. Both bright, Wurm and Cori had bonded over the shared terror of confronting the Borgias. Maybe some haunting synchronicity had bound all their fates together.
He wasn’t a man given to introspection, but there was little he could do to escape it now. He couldn’t say what
his three friends might discover in Switzerland. Right now, he focused on a flight to California to spend time with his family. He had tried contacting Kaylyn, but she was ignoring his calls. He sensed his marriage slipping away.
“Hear that?” Jordan asked. “Someone’s calling you.”
He snapped open his cell and found a call from Kaylyn. He was anxious to tell her he’d booked a flight out of Newark. His jaw tightened when he saw Kaylyn’s face on the phone’s screen. A hand pressed a knife beneath her chin.
“John,” she said, her eyes wide with terror. “Come to LA. Now.”
“Kaylyn, who’s doing this?” He pulled onto the shoulder, then slammed the brakes.
“He’ll call in a few hours and tell you where to meet.” A tear streamed down her cheek and dripped onto the blade. “Hurry, John. He has Shay too.” The screen went black.
He couldn’t believe what he had seen. His mind raced, dizzy with colliding thoughts. Who had kidnapped his wife and daughter? And how could he get them back?
Cori leaned in from the backseat. “What happened, John?”
“Someone abducted my wife,” he said in a low voice. “And my daughter.”
“Think it was the Borgias?” Jordan asked.
“Don’t know,” he answered, pulling back onto the interstate. “I need to find out.”
“Anything I can do?” Cori asked in a wavering voice.
“Go to Switzerland with Edgar and Jordan. Find the Scintilla.”
His LAX flight didn’t leave until two. He needed an earlier departure. He grabbed the phone and called the one person who could help. Alex Armstrong picked up after the first ring.
“Mr. President, I’m sorry to bother you.”
Jordan’s head snapped around, looking at him.
“Good to hear from you, Dr. Brynstone. I spoke to General Delgado. He said you visited his home. Sounds like you had a rather animated discussion.”
“That’s one way of putting it. I have a problem, sir. Any chance I could ask a favor?”
“Name it.”
“I need a flight to LA. Immediately. I’m taking Edgar Wurm and Jordan Rayne to Newark International, but the flights are all late times. They’re headed to Switzerland with a research associate. Hopefully, they can find a missing link to the Radix’s power.”
“I can help,” Armstrong answered. “But skip Newark. Dillon and I share ownership of several private aircraft at Teterboro Airport. It’s a Jersey airfield about fifteen miles northeast of Newark. I’ll have a crew ready when you arrive.”
“I owe you, Mr. President,” he said, heading north.
“I need to warn you. Delgado plans to send a TAC team to bring you in. You know too much for his liking, Dr. Brynstone.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Near Teterboro, New Jersey
8:56 A.M.
Streaks of amber slashed the cold morning sky over the New Jersey Turnpike. Cori stared out the window, thinking over the tragedy that had befallen Brynstone’s wife and child. She knew it had to be tearing John up inside, but he gave no hint of it. A state trooper in a white Crown Victoria pulled alongside the Escalade. Tinted windows prevented the officer from seeing her, but Cori scrunched in her chair. Banshee watched her, puzzled.
Her whole world had turned upside down in the last twelve hours. She believed she could convince authorities that she hadn’t killed Mack Shaw and Perez, but John had advised her to wait until they returned from Europe. She peeked out the window again. The trooper was still there. A refinery in the distance brought to mind an old Bruce Springsteen song. Like the fugitive in “State Trooper,” Cori prayed she wouldn’t get pulled over on the Jersey Turnpike.
Brynstone headed for the exit ramp. She sighed when the officer didn’t follow.
“You look troubled,” Jordan said.
She forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
Jordan returned to her laptop. Cori looked forward to getting to know the woman on the flight to Switzerland. She wished her mother could’ve met Jordan Rayne and John Brynstone. Would they succeed where Ariel Cassidy had failed?
She listened as Jordan took an incoming call from a microbiologist named Bill Nosaka. She put him on speaker. “Billy, did you analyze the soft-tissue sample I delivered?”
“That’s why I’m calling,” Nosaka said. “You got your holidays mixed up, Jordan. It’s Christmas, not April Fool’s Day.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You asked me to analyze a sample from a Renaissance mummy, but the one you delivered shows no sign of microbiological destruction. No spore-forming bacteria.”
“You’re sure?”
“Without a doubt, Jordan,” Nosaka answered. “I need to do further testing, but I can assure you this sample is not from a desiccated corpse. Especially not five-hundred-year-old mummy tissue.”
“Thanks, Billy,” Jordan said. “Sorry to drag you into the lab during the holidays.”
After he hung up, Brynstone said, “Nosaka couldn’t tell that Zanchetti’s tissue sample was five centuries old. Even locked in a stone box, the Radix regenerated necrotic tissue.”
Wurm tugged at his beard. “Imagine its power when you mix it with the Scintilla.”
Teterboro
9:04 A.M.
Not far from Manhattan, Teterboro Airport was built in Bergen County as a reliever airport for northern New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area. But it was better known for attracting private and corporate aircraft, inspiring its nickname, the Heathrow of Bizjets.
After arriving at Teterboro, Jordan offered to buy a shirt so Wurm could dump the bloodstained one he was wearing. Brynstone parked at the Aviation Hall of Fame located on the airport grounds. As Jordan closed her computer, Wurm jumped out, then opened the door for her. He smiled, watching her walk into the building. He moved up front, riding shotgun.
“I want you to see this before you leave for Switzerland,” Brynstone said, facing them. He pulled a stone box from his pocket. Wurm leaned closer.
“My God,” he whispered. “The cista mystica.”
Cori craned her neck from the backseat. The carving on the lid looked familiar. She reached for the necklace from her mother and stared at it. The plant engraved on the box matched the one on her locket.
Brynstone lifted the lid. Inside the box, an airtight vial contained a green stalk the size of a lipstick tube. He held up the vial. A blackish purple bloom crowned the tip of the Radix.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, marveling at a plant species that had turned extinct two thousand years ago. “It’s beautiful. Still alive after so many centuries.”
“I’ve waited a lifetime for this moment,” Wurm said, taking the vial. He cradled it inside his large hand and ran his finger along the glass. “Do you realize the authority contained in this little stalk? It holds supremacy beyond words. The Keeper of the Radix could well become the most powerful person in the world.”
“That’s why I couldn’t give it to Delgado.” Brynstone removed another vial from his pocket. It contained a different stalk, lighter green in color and less vibrant. “Remember this, Edgar? It’s the replica you made.”
“A decent facsimile. The design is based on della Rovere’s drawings in the Voynich manuscript. I created this mock-up so John would have an idea how it might look.”
“Once you’ve seen the Radix, you know it’s impossible to fake it. Still, it helps that no one has seen the root in five hundred years.”
He placed the counterfeit root in the box, then slid it inside his pocket.
“Too bad Jordan isn’t here.”
“She saw the actual Radix,” Brynstone answered. “I showed it to her when we flew back from Colorado.”
“What will you do with it?” Cori asked.
“I’m giving the Radix to you.”
“Oh, John,” she said. “We’re not ready.”
“Take it. The Radix belongs with the Scintilla.”
Wurm unscrewed the lid
. The stalk slid out onto his palm.
Cori’s eyes closed as the fragrance played sweet in her nostrils. A mesmerizing scent, potent but soothing. Like nothing she’d smelled before.
“How many great people dreamed about holding this?” Wurm wondered. “Galen obsessed over it. Paracelsus would’ve sacrificed everything to serve as Keeper of the Radix. Avicenna and Averroës both dreamed of studying its legendary powers. Isaac Newton might have abandoned physics and optics to make the Radix the centerpiece of his alchemical studies. Descartes hungered for it, believing it would bring glory to his beloved Catholicism. And long before his conversion, Augustine busted a man’s nose who said the Radix didn’t exist.”
“Did da Vinci know about it?” Cori asked.
“Like others, Leonardo kept his obsession with the Radix a secret,” Wurm answered. “He learned about it in 1472 when he joined the Company of Saint Luke, a guild of artists, apothecaries, and physicians. Sometime around 1483, he began searching for it. Leonardo was still obsessing over the Radix in 1502 when he told Cesare Borgia about it.”
“Never understood how da Vinci could work for a guy like that,” Brynstone said.
“Borgia could seduce even a Renaissance genius. Remember, he was the model for Machiavelli’s The Prince. He was an expert at combining the cunning of the fox with the violence of the lion.”
“Sounds like everything Borgia learned, he picked up from his old man,” Brynstone said.
“You remember Mario Puzo?” Wurm asked. “The guy who wrote The Godfather? He called the Borgias the original crime family. He regarded Pope Alexander VI as the greatest Mafia don of them all.”
She nodded. “Now Borgia’s descendants are carrying on the family tradition.”
Wurm studied the root. “I hold what da Vinci could possess only in his formidable imagination. When I think of the things that could be accomplished…,” his voice trailed. He placed the Radix in the vial, capped it, and shook his head. “I can’t, John. I’m sorry.”