The Voynich Cypher

by Russell Blake

  When they reached the corner of the building, they peeked around and confirmed that Frederick and the car were still there, waiting patiently for their return. The street was empty, with only a few streetlights glowing in the darkness. Steven followed Natalie to within a few yards of the passenger door, when he abruptly stopped and grabbed her arm. A man’s leg protruded from the bushes to their right, part of the church’s hedges.

  What the hell was going on? Steven spun Natalie towards him and held his fingers to his lips before moving to the vegetation. A quick inspection revealed Frederick’s body lying twisted in the dirt, the telltale marks of stab wounds on his torso, his white shirt and black jacket gleaming with blood.

  Steven reached into the bushes to confirm there was no pulse, then jerked Frederick’s weapon free of the shoulder holster – a Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol. Steven guessed by the still-wet blood he’d been killed no more than ten minutes earlier. Beyond him, in the space near the rear of the building, another man lay in a pool of his own fluids, also clearly dead.

  Natalie was reaching for the car door when Steven hissed at her, “No. We’ve been blown. Leave the car. We’ve got to get out of here; it could be rigged.”

  He grabbed her hand and they set off at a run, away from the church and the death that had suddenly surrounded them. The empty street gave no hint of pursuit, but still they ran like the devil himself was behind them.

  CHAPTER 19

  Diego Luca answered the strident ring of the cell phone without needing to ask who was calling. Only one person had the number of this new telephone, and that person was Colonel Gabriel Synthe. He stabbed the phone into active mode, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he noted the time displayed on his bedside clock. One forty-five in the morning.

  “Yes?”

  “There’s been a development. I thought you’d want to know,” Synthe reported.

  “A development?”

  “We installed a tracking device last night on the target’s car once we pinpointed them from the girl’s wire records – at a villa near Florence – and went on full alert when she left and drove to Rome today. We don’t know why she did, but we were following the car, which was our only lead. It arrived at the Basilica of Saint Clemente a little less than an hour ago. That seemed irregular, so I had two of my contractors dispatched to establish in-person surveillance.”

  Luca took this in. “Yes, yes. And…?”

  “The woman and her new companion entered the basilica at one, and the driver remained outside.”

  “They went into the basilica? That’s impossible. It’s closed at night.”

  Luca knew this particular church well. It was only a few miles from Vatican City, where he had resided much of his life and where he even now had been roused from his sleep.

  “Closed or not, they disappeared into the church. Fifteen minutes later, all hell broke loose.”

  “Damn it, man. Spit it out. What happened?” Luca demanded.

  “Two men approached the target’s vehicle and killed the driver. When they saw the murder, my men took action,” Synthe finished.

  “Took action?”

  “They shot one of the assailants dead, and they believe they wounded a second, but he got away on a motorcycle. They pursued him for several kilometers, but he managed to give them the slip in the smaller streets.”

  “Are you telling me that the Basilica of Saint Clemente has become a bloodbath?”

  “The street outside certainly is,” Synthe confirmed.

  Luca absorbed this. “What was the girl doing in the church?”

  “That’s something I could use your assistance with. I assume you have considerable sway in Rome. It would help a great deal if you could see whether there was security footage from inside. Right now, we’re dead in the water. We’ve lost track of the girl, and we don’t yet know who else is involved, but whoever it is has no compunction about killing.”

  “I’ll deal with the security cameras. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something. Are you still in Israel?”

  “No. I’m en route to Rome now. I should be in town within two hours,” Synthe replied.

  “Do you have any leads for re-establishing surveillance on the girl?” Luca demanded.

  “I have men watching the spots the car visited several times before they hit the church. Two different hotels. Those are our best hope. But I don’t have to tell you that a hit team showing up at a Roman church in the dead of night moves this situation into a new and critical phase. And obviously, they’ll now be on full alert, as will the girl. This is quickly spinning out of control.”

  “Let me remind you, Colonel, that the overwhelming priority is to recover the Scroll. There is no higher calling. Having said that, I cannot condone killing for any reason,” Luca stressed.

  “Even if the men involved are butchering those who can lead us to the Scroll?” Synthe fired back.

  Luca exhaled a long, pained sigh. “It would seem that providence is testing us. I’m not saying that your contractors acted inappropriately under the circumstances. But I want to stress that I do not want any more killing. There is always another way.”

  “Perhaps. But if an armed assassin points a gun at our only lead, there may be more bloodshed. I respect your moral stance, but in field work, sometimes ethics aren’t consistent with reality.”

  Synthe couldn’t believe this idiot was taking some religious-based turn-the-other-cheek stance in light of the stakes, with very real killers using lethal force within spitting distance of a sacred place. What was he expecting Synthe to do, shame the killers into behaving? Embarrass them into stopping the slaughter? Synthe barely controlled his anger at the arrogantly superior tone Luca was using. He didn’t have time for this shit.

  Synthe decided to enlighten him. “Look. I’m running this operation because I have decades of experience. Sometimes field work calls for difficult decisions to be made in short time periods. To find the Scroll, we need the girl alive. If someone appears ready to kill her, it’s either stop the killers with whatever force is necessary, or watch our only chance of recovering it vaporize. At which point we have no idea whose hands it falls into, or for what purposes it will be used.”

  “I…I understand. I just don’t like it.”

  “It would really help if I understood what the Scroll contained,” Synthe said.

  “That isn’t mine to impart. Even I don’t know. But it is the most important secret the church has,” Luca assured him.

  “Fine. Then you can expect it to get messier. Because I can guarantee you that the men who killed the driver aren’t playing by any morally-constrained rules.” Synthe exhaled in frustration. “I’m wasting time. If we run into another situation where deadly force is necessary, should I use it, or shall I instruct my men to watch helplessly as the killers butcher the girl?” Synthe demanded.

  Luca paused for a long time. “In the end, if you must use force to defend yourself or the girl from armed assailants who have demonstrated that they intend to kill, then you must do what you must. However, I’d prefer to avoid it if at all possible,” Luca said.

  Synthe smiled. They were all the same. The politicians and the desk jockeys always wanted to avoid blood on their hands, but couldn’t achieve their ends without it. This pious ass was no different. He could hide behind the cross and his cassock, but in the end he would do what he had to in order to get his way. It was the history of the world. The pacifists always needed someone like Synthe around when it got ugly and would quickly distance themselves when the emergency was over.

  “I understand. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to work. We’re knee deep in this, and it’s not going to fix itself,” Synthe snapped. “Call me as soon as you have information on any surveillance footage from the church. It might help if we knew what they did inside.”

  Luca hung up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he considered this latest development. The game had obviously changed to one of overt violence, and he
was torn. Colonel Synthe was the ideal man for the job if bloodshed was involved, he had no doubt, but how far could Luca allow things to progress before he called off Synthe’s dogs? They were now in water far deeper than ever before, and his heart knew that they had crossed an important line, even if the killing had been in defense. There had to be another way.

  The biggest problem they faced was that they couldn’t be sure that the girl even had the Scroll or knew anything about it. Her movements had been suspicious, but for every possibly nefarious explanation there was also an innocent one – although he couldn’t think of a lot of reasons for her to be in the basilica at night – but still, the reasons were speculation at this point. As it was, they had lots of guesswork but precious little solid fact. The only thing Luca could be certain of was that someone was trying to kill her, and that he was now in the thick of it. A place he didn’t want to be.

  Luca began making the calls that would result in his getting the security footage, assuming there was any, by morning. Any chance of sleeping had gone since the ringing of the phone.

  Sia Amieri sat on one of the two chairs in his hotel room, a small plastic case on the bed in front of him. He held the towel against the crease where the bullet had torn through his side, goring through the fatty flesh of his waist and taking some of the muscle beneath with it. The wound was painful, but hardly life-threatening. He’d been through far worse.

  Amieri unscrewed a tiny, single serving bottle of Finlandia vodka he’d found in the mini bar and poured it on the wound, wincing as the alcohol burned the bacteria away. He’d threaded the needle of the hotel sewing kit with dental floss, an old trick from his operational days. It was far stronger than thread and wouldn’t bio-degrade, making for perfect stitching material. Fishing line would have been better, but he didn’t have any, so he’d make do with floss.

  The bleeding had slowed to an ooze. Steeling himself for the ordeal to come, he put a washrag in his mouth to bite on and started sewing the wound shut. It had been a while since he’d had to do so, but it all came back to him as the needle punctured the ragged edge of the tear. Like riding a bicycle. His eyes streamed from the pain as he pulled the floss through and began closing the wound, but he continued on, machine-like. There was no point in delaying the inevitable, and the sooner he was done, the sooner he could get back out and deal with the girl.

  Five minutes later he spat the rag onto the floor and moved to the bathroom to rinse the blood from his hands. He’d need to change his shirt and pants and get some water and fruit juice to replenish his fluids. He’d lost a fair amount of blood, but was no worse for wear. Which was lucky. Two inches to the left and it would have been a different story.

  The attack on Amieri had come as a shock. He’d lost his local contact in the shooting, all of which had been with silenced weapons, telling him he was dealing with professional adversaries. Which could only mean one of two things – either the girl had pulled in some sort of pro help via unknown channels, or the Order was on the ground and willing to engage in a lethal manner. In the end, it wouldn’t make any difference – Sia Amieri was an unstoppable force of nature. And he wouldn’t be surprised again.

  He powered up his cell phone and called Dr. Frank.

  “Speak,” Frank’s distinctive voice answered.

  “I lost my associate here to gunfire, but eliminated the driver,” Amieri said dispassionately.

  “And the girl?”

  “I was ambushed by unknown assailants. I took a bullet and had to take evasive action,” Amieri explained.

  “I see. And I repeat my question. What about the girl?”

  “I lost her. For now.”

  Silence on the line radiated disapproval more than any scolding could have. He’d failed his master yet again.

  “What will you do to find her?” Frank demanded.

  “It’s a given that as soon as Cross contacts his office, we’ll hear about it. That’s just a matter of time. He had to run without any time to take precautions, so he’ll need to stay in touch with them. I’ll await the inevitable,” Amieri said.

  “I’m not so sure.” Frank shifted gears. “Do we know if they found anything in the church?” he asked.

  “We have to presume it’s the clue that Cross’s decrypted document pointed to.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. We don’t know if he’s seen the Scroll, but if he has, and this parchment is related, which we have to assume it is, then we now have no idea if he’s cracked the code or not. We need to do better than we’ve been doing.”

  Frank had his own cryptologist on call in Russia who had made short work of the data the office had sent to Cross, which Frank had gotten shortly after Cross had received it. The Russian had tried Latin as one of the possible languages right off the bat because of the age of the document, and from there he’d come to the same conclusions Cross had – although in addition to immediately putting the Basilica of Saint Clemente under twenty-four hour surveillance, Frank had also dispatched a team to a second possible location in France, just in case.

  But now they knew Rome was the right call, and they’d have to stay on top of Cross to keep track of Twain’s daughter’s whereabouts. If Frank had ever had any doubt about Cross’s involvement with the girl, this ended it; he had to assume that there was only one reason she’d sought him out – to decrypt the Scroll. Frank silently cursed his luck so far. If he’d been just an hour or two earlier, he could have been ahead of this instead of reacting to events.

  Amieri winced as he splashed more alcohol on the sutured gunshot wound. “I won’t disappoint you again. Just tell me where to go, and I’ll get them.”

  “I know you will, my son, I know you will. Leave your phone on. I’ll be in touch as soon as we have more information,” Frank said soothingly before disconnecting.

  Frank reclined in his leather executive chair and glared through the window of his home-based office at the London night skyline. Thank God he’d had the presence of mind to get some assets moving in Florence when he’d figured out that Twain’s daughter had flown the coop in the States. It had been a reasonable assumption that she might seek Cross out, given the obvious respect her father had for his progress on the Voynich – the letter and a few notes Amieri had photographed made clear that the Professor believed he was a significant new talent. Cross had been a question mark until Frank’s men in Florence had placed him with the girl in the internet café. It could only mean one thing.

  Frank had been late to that party, but because of the steps he’d taken, he would know whenever Cross contacted his staff back in Florence, which he’d have to do sooner or later, following his abrupt departure. There had been no signs of anything at his apartment, leading Frank to conclude that the contact with the girl was recently established.

  Frank had the sensation of events accelerating. Perhaps it wasn’t terrible that Cross was in the picture. His parchment had likely provided a missing puzzle piece they’d never suspected, and it would hopefully save them time once Frank got his hands on the Scroll. He suspected that, even without it, he could eventually decode the Scroll if he put a team on just that and spent whatever it cost to have them do nothing else, but if he could save the expense and effort…

  So much the better.

  He glanced around his richly appointed suite and spotted the bottle of eighteen-year-old scotch on the marble bar. Why not? He’d never been closer to solving the ultimate ecclesiastic mystery. It was now almost a foregone conclusion, as the noose tightened on Cross and the girl. They were now running, alone, their driver dead, with Amieri and presumably the Order in hot pursuit. Besides which, it would help him sleep. Maybe a double just to be safe.

  Frank poured three fingers into a crystal tumbler and sipped the amber spirit, savoring the rich smoky taste as it burned its way down his throat. He felt a quickening and smiled to himself. Years of research were about to pay huge dividends.

  It was just a matter of time until the trap was sprung and he had the
Scroll’s secret in his possession. Which would make him the most powerful man in the world if the whispered rumors were even close to being true.

  CHAPTER 20

  Steven slowed the pace once he and Natalie were two blocks away from the church. Other than a few random drunken pedestrians they were the only ones on the long streets, lined with four and five story centuries-old residential buildings. They hadn’t spoken a word since they’d bolted. After walking one more block, they hailed a taxi and told him to take them to the Roma Termini – the main train station. Even at two in the morning it was sure to have plenty of traffic, and Steven hoped it would be easy to find someplace to sit and collect themselves and digest what had just happened.

  He’d expected Natalie to be in shock, but she remained calm and was barely winded from the sprint. Once in the back of the taxi, she adjusted her wig and, in a hushed whisper, asked Steven what had happened. Steven told her that Frederick had been murdered – stabbed to death, with his presumed assailant dead only feet from where he’d fallen. She nodded, no change in her expression.

  “What do you think happened?” she asked in a monotone.

  He regarded her cautiously. “Obviously, somehow, we were tracked. But I have no idea how. Regardless, you have me officially convinced that we’re in deep shit.”

  “Glad it finally dawned on you.”

  “After this, I’m a believer,” Steven observed.

  Natalie stared without focus through the taxi window as they rolled along the late-night downtown streets. She frowned. “I’d say we have a real problem now. Rome’s a big place, but not big enough.”

  “I know.”

  Natalie went silent, obviously upset over Frederick, and Steven let her be. She needed to deal with it in her own way, and his mind was racing over the ramifications of the attack, as well as on the ancient message they’d found. They sat quietly, lost in their respective thoughts for the duration of the trip. Even at the late hour, traffic was stop and go, thanks to the late night party crowd, exacerbated by an accident that brought their thoroughfare to a standstill.