“I’m afraid that part of the operation is well above my pay grade, Commissioner. But yes, it does seem that our board of directors has many friends in high places.”
The commissioner’s voice took on a conspiratorial tone.
“I’m certainly not interested in questioning the powers that be. They say leave you alone, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Commissioner, I appreciate the call,” said Crowe.
“My pleasure. Please give Mr. Giovanni my regards.”
As Crowe hung up the phone, a program discreetly inserted into the Millennium Tower’s security system disabled the detectors arrayed at the east entrance to the Millennium Tower’s parking garage. The detectors remained off for three minutes as a white van entered the parking garage, and then silently switched back on.
Eighty-three
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
“No, there’s a security camera up that way. Take the next left. We’ll circle around,” said Quiz.
So far, everything had gone according to plan. Madison, Grace, and Quiz had covertly entered the Millennium Tower’s subbasement through a maintenance access in the parking structure. But security cameras were plentiful, and avoiding the Triad security guards making their rounds through the facility tested their nerves and will.
Quiz, his face creased with nervous tension, guided Madison and Grace through the maze of tunnels. After several wrong turns, Quiz finally navigated a circuitous route that he hoped avoided the hidden security cameras placed throughout the subbasement.
It felt as though several hours had passed when the trio finally emerged in a hallway adjacent to the Triad Genomics server farm.
“We can use one of the terminals in the server farm to access the security server.”
Quiz led them to a recessed computer terminal hidden among the towering black servers. The machinery gave off considerable heat, and oscillating fans streamed cool air down the alleys between the rows of equipment. The odor of hot plastic and circuitry hung in the air.
Quiz took a seat at the workstation and began typing.
“I can pull up Dr. Ambergris’ data files from here. If that disk does contain an encryption key, I can run an algorithm on the intron sequences Ambergris was analyzing.”
“Meaning?” asked Grace.
“Meaning that with a little help from the Cray-2 supercomputers that drive Triad Genomics’ genetic sequencers, we should be able to translate the Genesis Code.”
Dante Giovanni stood in front of the large window in his corner office, staring silently at the Manhattan skyline. Morning mist lingered over the green expanse of Central Park. He looked at the Rolex on his left wrist.
A cup of Earl Grey tea sat half-empty on the conference table. Giovanni absently toyed with the silver cufflinks at his wrist. The cellular phone in the breast pocket of his Armani suit chirped.
“Yes.”
“Sir, the face-recognition protocol just acquired your targets. The hidden security cameras in the subbasement picked up Dr. Madison and Grace Nguyen headed through the subbasement toward the Triad Genomics server farm and the gene sequencers.”
Giovanni shifted the phone to his other ear.
“And Quiz was with them?”
“Yes, sir. As you suggested he would be.”
“Loop the recording of the video feed to my terminal.” Giovanni opened a new window on his desktop computer.
“Streaming video now,” said the voice on the phone. The grainy digital video clearly showed the faces of Quiz, Madison, and Nguyen.
Giovanni sighed. “Very well. And you’ve told no one else?”
“No, sir. Your instructions were quite clear. I’ve alerted only you. And I am the only security officer monitoring the face-recognition protocol at this time.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
Giovanni started to press the end key on his cellular phone. Then he put the phone back to his ear.
“Mr. McLain?”
“Yes, sir?” asked the security officer.
“Purge the data from the face-recognition protocol and the cameras in the subbasement for the past thirty minutes. Then shut off the feed from the cameras below the second floor.”
“Yes, sir. Purging now.”
“And Mr. McLain? When you’ve finished, I want you to leave the building and walk six blocks west. Wait at the corner until you receive further instructions.”
Or until all hell breaks loose.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Just follow my instructions.”
“Yes, sir.”
Giovanni ended the call and slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket. Then he walked to his oversized mahogany desk and unlocked the bottom drawer. He pulled open the drawer, retrieved a .38 revolver, and stuck the weapon in his belt in the small of his back, concealing it beneath his jacket.
It’s time.
Giovanni adjusted his jacket, drained the last of his lukewarm tea, and headed toward the elevators.
Crowe leaned back in the spartan wooden chair behind his desk. With his eyes closed, he sat pefectly still, feeling the rise and fall of his chest with each breath. He imagined the oxygen filling his lungs and flowing into his bloodstream, feeding each cell in his body as his heart pumped the oxygenated blood through his veins and arteries.
The phone on his desk rang.
Crowe sat motionless.
The phone rang agan. And then a third time.
Crowe opened his eyes, leaned forward, and grabbed the receiver.
“Yes.”
“Sir, we just got a hit on the tap on Mr. Giovanni’s cellular phone.”
Crowe rubbed the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger.
“Play it back.”
Crowe listened intently to the playback of Giovanni’s last call.
“Got it,” he said. “Alert me immediately if he receives any other calls.”
“Very well, sir.”
“And don’t leave your station. For any reason. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Crowe checked the magazine of his 9mm, then replaced the gun in his shoulder holster. He adjusted his jacket, spit once on the floor, and headed toward the elevators.
Eighty-four
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
“Okay, I’ve found the data files with the intron sequences,” said Quiz. He looked up toward a large flat-screen display on the adjacent wall.
“Let me put it up there on the screen.”
Quiz clicked several keys, and the plasma display sprang to life, showing line after line of genetic code, streaming endlessly across the screen.
G T A C C A T A T G C G C A T A T A C A C G A C A T T A C A G C T G T A C T A G C C A T A T A C A C G A C A T C A T A T G C G C A T A T A G T A C T A G C C A T A T A T T T C A G G A C C A A A G T A T A C A C G C A T A T G C G C A T A T A G T A C T A G C A T A T A T T C C A T A T C A C C A C A T C A T A T G C G C A T A G T A C T A G C C A T G T G A C C A T G
“Let me have the disk.”
Madison removed the disk from his pocket and handed it to Quiz, who promptly inserted it into one of six DVD-ROM drives at the workstation.
“This will take a minute.”
“Okay,” said Madison. “It’s time to make the call.”
He dialed three digits into his cellular phone.
“Nine-one-one emergency,” said a voice after the second ring.
“Listen to me carefully,” he began. “There is a bomb in the Millennium Tower…”
Eighty-five
63rd Floor, Petronas Towers
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tanaka absently drummed his fingers on the desk as he studied a report from the Order’s top geneticist. He was not pleased. He did not look up as his personal valet entered the room carrying a covered dinner tray. The aroma of lobster tails wafted through the air.
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“Wine this evening, sir?” asked the valet, placing the tray on Tanaka’s desk. He folded a white linen napkin and placed it on the desktop.
“Red. Caymus Cabernet, Special Select.”
“Very good, sir,” said the valet, bowing deeply at the waist. He placed a sterling silver fork and knife on the crisp linen napkin.
Tanaka pressed a button beneath his desk. A significant section of the west wall of his office slid open to reveal a private wine cellar. Rows of fine wines were lined up side by side in floor-to-ceiling oak racks.
The valet selected the appropriate wine and gingerly lifted it from its cradle. He peeled the foil from the neck of the bottle, exposing the cork beneath.
“Late night tonight, sir?” asked the valet.
“Perhaps.”
The valet removed a corkscrew from a pocket of the small apron tied at his waist.
As he placed the tip of the corkscrew against the soft cork, his shirtsleeve slid up his forearm, revealing a small tattoo of two intertwined serpents.
Eighty-six
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
“I’m feeding the data from the disk into an encryption algorithm. In a minute, we’ll be able to run the program on Ambergris’ intron sequence.”
“We’re running out of time,” said Madison. “How much longer is this going to take? We have to find out what the Genesis Code says.”
Behind them, a voice echoed from the darkened recesses of the server farm.
“I’ll tell you what it says.”
Madison spun around, searching for the source of the voice.
“Who’s there?”
Grace and Quiz scanned the room, searching for a figure hidden among the rows of servers and gene sequencers.
Dr. Joshua Ambergris stepped out from the shadows.
Eighty-seven
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
Christian was stunned at the apparent resurrection of his former mentor.
“Dr. Ambergris?”
Grace was speechless. Her hands covered her mouth in shock. Quiz stared at Ambergris as if he had risen from the dead.
Dante Giovanni stepped from the shadows to stand by Dr. Ambergris’ side.
“This will take quite a bit of explanation,” said Giovanni.
Grace snapped out of her momentary shock at seeing Ambergris alive. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Tears streamed down her face.
“I’m sorry, so sorry, for what you must have suffered as a result of my charade,” said Ambergris. “But I believe you will forgive me once I make it clear to you what was at stake.”
Madison stepped forward and grasped Ambergris’ outstretched hand.
“Christian. So good to see you,” his former mentor said.
Ambergris turned to Quiz.
“And Mr. Quiz, it seems we owe you a debt of gratitude as well.”
Madison, Grace, and Quiz all began to speak at once.
“How did you—”
“You were both in on this—”
“Why did you have to—”
Dr. Ambergris held up a shaky hand.
“Please. I will explain everything. But I think you will understand better if I first share with you the secret of the Genesis Code.”
Eighty-eight
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
Zoovas stood at the urinal, humming quietly to himself. When Sergeant Peters walked into the men’s room, the humming stopped.
“What the hell…”
The worried look on her face stopped him midsentence.
“Zoovas, we have a problem. I just got a call from the 911 center. A bomb threat to the Millennium Tower was phoned in a couple of minutes ago.”
“Yeah, we’ve had four of those so far today. Crackpots and hoaxers. What’s the big deal?”
“This one is different. The caller said to contact you directly. He identified himself as Dr. Christian Madison.”
Holy Jesus.
“We can’t find Omar Crowe,” said Peters. “But he did designate you as liaison to the NYPD. Somebody has to make a decision. You’ve got to make the call.”
Zoovas didn’t hesitate.
“If I lose my job, so be it.”
He grabbed his radio and keyed in a three-digit code.
“Security,” said the voice on the radio.
“This is Zoovas. We have a credible threat of a bomb in the Millennium Tower. I’m ordering an immediate evacuation of the entire building. Implement evacuation protocols immediately.”
The voice hesitated.
“Yes, sir.”
Two seconds later, all security officers were ordered to begin implementing evacuation protocols. Two minutes later, red emergency lights throughout the building began to blink. A voice was broadcast throughout the Millennium Tower.
“Attention, please. May I have your attention, please. All persons in the Millennium Tower are asked to proceed immediately to the emergency exits at the stairwells located near the center of each floor. Security officers are positioned throughout the building to provide assistance and to direct you to the nearest exit. There is no immediate threat to your safety, but we ask that you proceed in a safe and orderly manner to the nearest emergency exit.”
Eighty-nine
Subbasement, Level C
Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York
The room was silent with anticipation. All eyes were on Dr. Ambergris.
“That disk does, in fact, contain the encryption key for the Genesis Code. After considerable trial and error, I was successful in translating the code,” said Ambergris.
“The code was based on a substitution cipher? Gematria? With Mayan hieroglyphs?” asked Madison.
“Yes,” said Ambergris. “My father’s research, his life’s work, started me down the right path. The key to translating the code was hidden in the text of the Popul Vuh. But I’ve discovered that the key was also hidden in the Hebrew alphabet by ancient Jewish scholars. The encryption cipher can be found in the text of the Sepher Yetzirah. Either can be used to translate the Genesis Code. And there may be other encryption keys hidden in texts of other ancient civilizations. I suspect there may be similar keys to breaking the Code in Chinese, Hindu, and Assyrian manuscripts.”
“Unbelievable,” said Quiz.
“The intron sequence that I translated tells the story of the origins of the Genesis Code.”
Madison held his breath. The weight of the moment was overwhelming. They were about to learn mankind’s oldest secrets.
“The first section of the Genesis Code says essentially this: An advanced human civilization flourished on the earth in the distant past, hundreds of thousands of years ago, only to be wiped out by a global cataclysm. This lost civilization is the common ancestor of what we consider earth’s most ancient cultures.”
“That explains the remarkable similarities in the mythologies of ancient cultures around the world, the recurrence of astronomically significant numbers and mythological themes,” said Grace.
“Yes. Passed along through oral tradition by the survivors of the cataclysm that destroyed this lost civilization. Before their destruction, they discovered a pattern of global cataclysms that periodically afflict our planet. These worldwide catastrophes coincide with the precession of the equinoxes and the alignment of the earth in relation to other astronomical bodies.”
“So what are you saying?” asked Quiz. “That every couple hundred thousand years, the earth goes through a period of cataclysmic changes? And one of these cataclysms destroyed this lost civilization?”
“Precisely,” said Ambergris. “My speculation is that as the earth revolves through the galaxy, it periodically passes through a region of space that has a devastating impact on the earth. Perhaps it’s a field of t
remendous gravitational pull. I don’t know.”
“They knew it was coming, but had no way to stop it,” said Madison.
“Yes. Our ancient forefathers were powerless to stop the catastrophe, but they devised a way to warn future human civilizations of the pattern of cataclysms.”
“They created the Genesis Code,” said Grace.
“Ingenious, isn’t it? Mankind’s first advanced civilization evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago. They attained a high level of technological achievement and scientific knowledge. Knowing that it would be tens of thousands of years or more before the next cycle of global cataclysm struck, they had to allow for certain possibilities: that when the next cataclysm occurred, mankind could be speaking entirely new languages, or using any sort of numbering system. How could they pass along this knowledge in a way that would be discovered?”
Ambergris paused and pointed to the plasma screen displaying the intron sequence.
“They decided to send us a warning by inserting a coded message into human DNA.”
The intron sequence scrolled across the plasma screen.
“A warning to be discovered when humankind again became advanced enough to find it and read it. A warning that could never be erased or lost, because it was written into the essential structure of our bodies. As long as there are humans, the message will survive.”
“But they couldn’t save themselves.”
“No. Apparently that was beyond their ability. The global cataclysm struck and decimated most of humanity. The disaster was so terrible that most humans perished. Those that did survive were forced to live like animals while the earth recovered over tens of thousands of years.”
“Mankind basically had to start over,” said Madison.
“Humanity lost tens of thousands of years of advancement. We almost didn’t survive at all. Over hundreds of generations, memories of the past faded and knowledge was lost. Society began again from scratch, returning to pagan beliefs and simplistic lives. But there were some who remembered more, who retained some of the advanced techniques and ideas that others had forgotten. This ancient knowledge appears in the mythologies and architectures of ancient cultures, placed there to preserve it for future generations.”
The Genesis Code Page 19