The Babylonian Codex

by C. S. Graham

  In contrast to the profane, sensual world of his Thieves Gallery, Carlyle’s manuscript collection was a sacred undertaking devoted entirely to the early works of the church fathers, from Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch to Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo. Most precious of all was one crumbling papyrus whose secrets had been preserved for centuries by the sands of Mesopotamia. Now, the time was almost right for its truths to be revealed.

  He moved to stand before it for a moment. So deceptively common, it was, the black ink of its ancient lettering fading against the yellowed fibers of the ancient reeds that formed its pages. Yet it held him entranced by the power of its holy presence and its promise of a glorious future.

  Smiling again, he turned and left the private gallery, securing the concealed entrance behind him.

  Emerging into his library, he took a call from his assistant, Casper Nordstrom. “Yes?”

  “You asked for an update,” said Nordstrom. “They still don’t have the girl.” He paused. “I’m not convinced Davenport is telling us everything.”

  Leo went to look out the plate-glass window behind his desk. The night was clear, a full moon throwing a silvery pathway across the frozen surface of the lake. The window was triple glazed, yet the cold still came off the glass in waves. “Do we need to do something about him?”

  “No. He knows they fucked up. I think in the end he can handle it.”

  “Keep me informed,” said Leo. “We have three days to get this mess cleaned up.”

  His gaze still on the lake, Leo reached for one of the hand-rolled Montecristos always kept fresh for him, wherever he might be in the world. He was clipping off the end when the sound of his study door opening brought his head around. A.J. stood in the doorway, her tall, willowy figure clad in clingy red silk, her long fair hair tumbling in artfully tousled waves around her tanned shoulders. “I told you not to disturb me,” he said coldly.

  The faint smile on her lips never slipped. “The Senator has been here for twenty minutes. I know you own him, but it might be a good idea to put in an appearance.”

  Leo flicked open his silver Tiffany’s lighter. “Careful, dear. Your snark is showing. Is that wise?”

  She stood quite still. Daily workouts with her own personal trainer kept her body slim and sinuous, while, thanks to the wonders of Botox, the delicate flesh beside her eyes still showed smooth and unlined. But she was becoming tiresome. Apart from her globe-trotting benevolence and bleeding heart tendencies, she wanted children of her own, and she couldn’t seem to understand why Leo had no desire to add to the expensive brood he’d already accumulated. But then, intelligence wasn’t one of the attributes that tended to attract Leo to a woman.

  “I’m just worried about you,” she said breathily. “You’ve been working so hard lately.”

  Leo lit his cigar and blew out a stream of fragrant smoke. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  She gave him a wide beauty-queen smile and left.

  He stared after her, thoughtful. When this was all over, she would have to go. He puffed on his cigar again, contemplating the pleasures of shopping for her replacement. In his experience, women found power and wealth tremendous aphrodisiacs. Leo already had plenty of both.

  He was about to have a whole lot more.

  Chapter 39

  Washington, D.C.: Saturday 3 February 7:45 P.M. local time

  By the time Jax met up with October, they were forty-five minutes late for their meeting with Matt.

  Emergency vehicles were already descending on the block, their flashing red and blue lights cutting through the night as she slid over so he could drive. “What the hell—”

  “Madeleine Livingston is dead.” Easing out into traffic, he gave Tobie a terse explanation of all that had happened.

  “What exactly are these guys doing?” she asked. “Killing any antiquities dealers who might be able to implicate them?”

  “Looks like it. Here.” He handed her the annotated list of artifacts and big-league collectors. “There’s a netbook with 3G service in the bag on the backseat.”

  “A PC?” she said in a strange voice as she twisted around to rummage through the bag. “I don’t get along with PCs very well.”

  “Just look these guys up and see if you recognize anyone.”

  As they sped up Wisconsin Avenue, she typed their rogue’s gallery of names into Google, one after another. “What a bunch of assholes,” she said as she flipped through images of Gibson, Henderson, and Liebowitz; all turned out to be busts. “Just think of the good someone could do with even a fraction of these guys’ money. The rain forests you could preserve. The medical research you could fund. The schools you could build in Africa. And what do they spend it on? Boats and planes and the destruction of the world’s archaeological sites.”

  He gave a soft laugh. “You might not have noticed, but people with altruistic impulses don’t usually become gazillionaires.”

  “Obviously not. But you’d think—” She sat forward suddenly. “Got him.”

  “Who?”

  She turned the screen toward him. “Leo Carlyle. Ever hear of him? It says he’s in finance.”

  Jax glanced at the image of a stocky, dark-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard and piercing blue eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. The guy perfected the art of moving money from one country to the next to avoid paying taxes on it.”

  She pecked away at the keyboard. “This says he has five kids, ranging in age from eight to twenty-eight, all from his first two wives. None at all by his current and third wife, A.J., a former Miss Colorado.” October paused to look at a picture of A.J., a tall, willowy blond with a heart-shaped face and a surprisingly sweet smile. “Pretty.”

  “What’s the A.J. stand for?”

  “It doesn’t say. But listen to this: ‘Among Leo Carlyle’s many holdings are a London town house overlooking Hyde Park, a villa in the South of France, a penthouse overlooking Central Park in New York, a sprawling ranch outside of Wichita Falls, Texas, and a rustic, twenty-five-thousand-square-foot lodge on Lake Coeur d’Alene in northern Idaho.’ ”

  “Idaho, huh? Any pictures?”

  “I’m looking.” She paused. “Damn.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It just froze. Hang on.” She fiddled with it for a few minutes, then said, “Aha. That’s the house.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned onto Massachusetts Avenue. “See? Your viewing wasn’t a miss. It was just a little off target.”

  “A little?” She looked at Elaine Cox’s list again. “My target’s the present location of the Inanna Vase, and I veer off to an early biblical codex? I think I’d call that more than ‘a little’ off target. And God only knows what date I was seeing.”

  The soaring, illuminated towers of the National Cathedral appeared above the trees. Jax swooped in close to the curb and hit the brakes. “It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we now know at least two of the key players in this. We know they killed the Vice President. We know they’re planning to take over the government of the United States and turn it into a biblical theocracy. They’ve been saying they were going to do this for the last fifty years, only no one’s been listening. Now they’re ready to make their move. Killing Hamilton was the first step.”

  Their gazes met and held. October said, “The question is, What’s next?”

  Tobie thrust her hands deep into the pockets of Jax’s peacoat, her breath billowing out around her in a white cloud as they followed the dark, winding lane that led to the amphitheater. Occasional widely spaced streetlamps cast pools of golden light over the winter-browned grass and brought out a sparkle like scattered diamonds on the icy blacktop. The combination of darkness, plummeting temperatures and a stiff wind had driven most of the lingering tourists off the Cathedral’s exposed promontory; they were alone.

  Turning onto a path that cut through the low plantings of redbud and viburnum, they could see
the bulky figure of a man perched on the edge of one of the open-air theater’s stone-banked terraces. He had his shoulders hunched, his head sunk low against the wind. At the sight of Jax and Tobie, he stood up and stomped his feet. “Damn but it’s cold out here.”

  Jax grinned. “This was your idea.” They turned to walk along the sweeping arc of sandstone and grass, toward the steps that led down to the stage area. “Anything come up?”

  “You mean apart from the fact you’ve been named as a person of interest by the FBI and I had to use some very rusty evasive skills on my way here to make sure no one was following me?” Matt ran a hand down over his wild, bushy beard. “Well, let’s see: I looked into your Noah Bosch. It’s as if he’s dropped off the face of the earth. No one knows where he is.”

  “He’s probably dead. But try putting his name on the watch list, just in case.”

  “On the what?” said Tobie.

  “The watch list. Any time Bosch’s name comes up in an e-mail or cell-phone conversation or any of the other electronic communications the NSA gobbles up, Matt’ll hear about it.”

  Tobie stared at him. “You mean our government does that?”

  “That’s right. Land of the free and home of the watched. It’s supposed to make you feel safe.”

  “It doesn’t. It just makes me feel . . . watched.”

  Matt chuckled. “So what exactly have you two fugitives from justice been up to? And what the hell does any of this have to do with Trinity Hills and Warren Patterson?”

  Jax gave him a quick summary of everything they’d learned so far.

  At the end of it, Matt let out a low whistle. “Leo Carlyle and Warren Patterson? Man, they don’t come much more powerful than those guys. And the problem is, everything we’ve got so far is hearsay and supposition and dead men’s tales. We got nothing that’ll stick. If I try going to the DCI with this, he’ll laugh me out of his office.”

  Tobie said, “I don’t get it. These guys talk openly about throwing out the Constitution and instituting a ‘godly dominion.’ How do they get away with that?”

  “Because until these loony birds actually do something, it’s all legal. And yeah, I know they’re working to plant their people in everything from the military to the Justice Department and the FBI. But this is a free country. They’ve got that right.”

  “But they’re using our tolerance to overthrow everything this country was founded on and institute their intolerance!”

  “Until they do something—”

  “But they did! They killed the Vice President. And that was just the beginning.”

  Matt blew out a long, hard breath. “The thing of it is, Tobie, we can’t prove any of this. Right now, the best doctors in the country are saying Bill Hamilton had a heart attack.”

  “But—” she began, then broke off.

  Matt was right. This was exactly the kind of situation that had caused all the intel agencies to eventually move away from remote viewing. Apart from the fact that RV results were often difficult to interpret or just flat-out wrong, even when a viewer was spot-on, there was simply no way to prove it. Over the course of the past twelve hours she’d found herself doubting the results of her own viewing; how could she expect anyone else to believe it?

  She glanced at Jax. “You’re being very quiet.”

  He gazed across the amphitheater’s natural hollow to the dark, bare branches of the surrounding wood of beech and oak. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Matt and Tobie said together, “What?”

  He swung to face them. “I want October to do another remote viewing.”

  Tobie stared at him. “You what?”

  He turned to Matt. “You’ve seen it done before, right? If I write down the target, can you do the tasking?”

  “Me?” said Matt. “But—”

  “No buts.” Jax glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a nasty feeling we’re running out of time.”

  Chapter 40

  They rented a room at an aging motel in Anacostia, just off Good Hope Road.

  The unit was small, the two double beds taking up most of the floor space. A spindly sign featuring a tipping martini glass with a crooked olive hung above the bar across the street, its red neon light filling the room with a lurid glow. Jax took one step through the door, wrinkled his nose, and said, “Is this place going to work?”

  October peeled off the peacoat and baseball cap and tossed them on one of the beige chenille-covered beds. “As long as they’ve got hot water.” She reached for the bag of deli sandwiches they’d picked up on the way. “Just let me eat something and warm up, and we can start.”

  While she took a steamy shower, Jax tore a sheet from the large notepad they’d bought for October’s sketches. He wrote the target in big black letters, folded the page over and over, and thrust it into the manila envelope they’d also purchased.

  Matt sat on the end of one of the beds and watched him warily. “So what’s the target?”

  Jax sealed the envelope’s flap. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this done, Jax. Maybe it’d be better if you did the tasking.”

  “I can’t. I’m the one who picked the target, remember? If I’m even in the same room with October while she’s doing the viewing, there’s a chance I’ll influence her. The only way we can be sure she’s actually on target is if you two are the only ones in the room and you’re both totally blind to the target.”

  “Where you gonna go?”

  Jax looked up as the old pipes thumped and they heard October turn off the shower. “The bathroom.”

  The bathroom was steamy and warm and close.

  Jax put down the lid on the toilet and tried to get comfortable. From the next room came the sound of Matt clearing his throat as October settled down to relax into her deep meditative state. He’d seen her go through her routine before, sitting quietly, eyes closed, breathing slowed. It didn’t take her long.

  “I’m ready,” she said after a few minutes.

  Jax heard Matt clear his throat again. “Okay, Tobie. The target is written down in this envelope here. Just tell me what you see.”

  There was a pause, during which Jax became aware of the sound of his own breathing. She said, “I get the impression of something black, like a black box. Only there’s no lid. Just . . . seams.”

  Jax sat forward with a start.

  She said, “It’s connected by a thin rope to another object that’s round, like a cylinder. The cylinder is black, too.”

  “Okay,” said Matt. “What else can you tell me?”

  “The box is rectangular. Longer than it is wide, but not very thick.” There was a pause, during which he knew she had begun to sketch. “I don’t think it’s a rope. It’s a wire.”

  “All right, Tobie,” said Matt, although Jax could tell from the puzzlement in his voice that he didn’t have a clue what she was seeing. “Back up a bit so you can describe it better. How big is it?”

  “It’s pretty small. The rectangular part is maybe four by six inches. It’s made small deliberately, to be hidden. The other part is supposed to fit in your hand. It’s not quite twice the size of a can of tomato paste.”

  “Okay. Can you, um, maybe tell me what this black box is made out of?”

  “It’s smooth and hard, like a plastic. But that’s just the outside casing.”

  There was a pause during which Jax could picture Matt fumbling for something to say. It was all Jax could do to stay in the darkened room, his hands folded together and tapping against his clenched lips to keep from calling out the string of questions he wanted Matt to ask.

  Matt said, “Can you describe what’s inside the box and cylinder?”

  “I get the impression of batteries. The box part sends the energy it generates along the wire to the cylinder part.”

  “Can you see inside the cylinder?”

  Another pause. “It’s different. I get the impression here of a bunch of little boards.
Like this.” There was silence while she worked on her sketches. She said, “I think they’re like circuit boards. Then there’s this cone-shaped thing that fills the diameter of the cylinder. It looks sort of like a tiny version of those disk antennas you see for satellite TVs. And there’s this protruding thing in the center.”

  Jax wanted to groan. October was a gifted linguist and a phenomenal remote viewer; but her knowledge of engineering and mechanics and electronics obviously left much to be desired.

  Matt said, “Is there anything else you can tell me about this . . . thing?”

  “I get the feeling it’s a weapon. There’s a button on the cylinder part that you press, and this beamlike thing comes out. Only it’s not exactly a beam, it’s like a frequency. That’s it. An electrical frequency.”

  “An electrical frequency? What kind?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like . . . it feels like a . . . a microwave. That’s what I keep getting. Microwave.”

  “Shit,” whispered Jax, one hand cupped over his mouth.

  In the other room, Matt said, “Anything else, Tobie?”

  “No. That’s about it.”

  Jax went to stand in the doorway to the bedroom. Matt was sitting in the room’s only chair—a straight-backed uncomfortable thing with an orange Naugahyde seat. October was cross-legged on the bed, a scattering of sketches around her. Jax walked over to pick them up.

  Her knowledge of electronics and engineering might be limited, but she was very competent at drawing what she saw. He studied the sketches with a growing sense of disquiet. He’d seen something like this before, only on a much larger scale. A much, much larger scale.

  Someone had obviously discovered how to make it portable.

  “The target,” said Matt. “What was it?”

  Handing October the sketches, Jax retrieved the envelope from the top of the dresser and held it out. After a moment’s hesitation, Matt took it and tore it open.