by C. S. Graham
“And the ruby-eyed snake?” said Tobie.
“According to Dr. Araji, it also appears in the codex.” She kicked off her shoes. “You can walk out on it, if you are careful.”
Slipping off their shoes, they followed her out onto the ancient paving.
She said, “In the early years of the Christian movement, there was no distinction made between Jews and Christians. But the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem proved to be a turning point. After that, those who insisted that Jesus was the Messiah were expelled from the synagogues. It’s one of the main things that led to the Christians having trouble with the Romans. You see, the Jews had a long-standing deal with the emperor, which made them exempt from participating in the Roman civic rituals. As long as the Christians were considered Jews, then they too were protected. But once they became separate, they lost that protection. The Roman thinking was, if Christians weren’t actually Jews, then Christianity couldn’t be seen as part of an ancient religion that needed to be respected; it was just a new—and dangerous—superstition. In general, the Romans were actually very tolerant of religious diversity. As far as they were concerned, you could believe anything you wanted—as long as you did your civic duty by participating in the rituals.”
“So you’re saying—what? That this mosaic dates from the period before the Christians were expelled from the synagogues? And that’s why the inscription from the lost verses of Revelation is here?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps the lost chapter from the codex was part of an earlier Jewish work that is now lost but that was still extant when this mosaic was made. Right now, we just don’t know.”
Tobie hunkered down beside one of the four medallions that formed part of the border design. There was one medallion in each corner, with each medallion framing a different object. This one contained a golden menorah—a standard Jewish menorah, not a Syrian cross. She pivoted to study the other three medallions: a shofar, a sword, and a shield.
“What do the objects in the outer medallions mean?” she asked.
“Dr. Araji said they are also drawn from the Babylonian Codex’s lost chapter. But he refused to send us the other verses.”
Tobie sucked in a deep breath of cold, dank air. “Do you know of anyone else Dr. Araji might have sent some verses to?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
They walked back up to the house in silence. At the terrace, she said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t have helped you more.”
“We appreciate all the information you’ve been able to give us,” said Tobie. “And we apologize for intruding on you at the time of your loss.”
“Here,” said Jax, holding out the Roman coin he still had in his hand.
She shook her head. “Keep it.”
He brushed his thumb across the face of the emperor it bore. “So who is he? Which emperor?”
She gave a crooked smile. “The beast himself. Nero.”
Chapter 57
Noah caught a ride on the back of a motor scooter with a skinny teenager heading back to Marrakech after a visit to his grandmother’s farm.
The kid rode like a maniac, leaning into the hairpin turns and weaving in and out of traffic as the lights of the ancient city drew closer. Normally Noah would have been nervous, riding without a helmet, trusting his life to someone who obviously took his culture’s fatalistic attitude toward life to an extreme. Instead, he had to bite his tongue to keep from urging the kid on faster and faster.
The boy dropped Noah just outside Bab Agnaou, one of the ornately carved medieval gates to the medina. Walking quickly through the dark streets, he found a coffee shop near the Dar Si Said. There, huddled at a table next to the room’s small heater, he logged onto his Hotmail account and sent a furious email zipping through the ether to Linda Lovelace.
You set me up!
The answer came back just minutes later. What are you talking about?
Noah typed, You almost got me killed! I was jumped. Michael Hawkins is dead, and so is my driver.
There was a long pause. Then, I had nothing to do with that, Noah. Either they followed you out there or they came for Michael and you just got in the way. I am sorry about Michael. He was a good man.
Noah typed, I don’t believe you. I think you set me up.
Her reply came zipping back. Don’t be a fool. If I’d wanted you dead, I could have had you killed this morning, in Marrakech.
He thought about it a moment and realized she was right. He typed, I’m sorry. It’s been a bad day. Which was, he figured, the epic understatement of his life.
She answered, Did you get the device?
Noah stared at the screen, a shiver running up his spine. So she knew about the strange, deadly device. Why hadn’t she told him about it? He hesitated, his hands hovering over the keys. Then he typed, No. He realized that sounded kind of bald, so added, Hawkins told me about it.
She wrote, Do you have enough to publish this story?
No, he typed. I need the lost verses from the Babylonian Codex. Can you get them for me?
He sat there for a long time, staring at his small screen, refreshing constantly to make sure he was still connected. Half an hour later, when he was about to give up and go looking for a room for the night, her reply came through.
Meet me in London, tomorrow morning. St. Giles Cripplegate. Nine o’clock.
He sucked in a deep breath. He wanted desperately to ask, Why? Why do you want to meet me again, when you refused to meet me for so long? If you have the codex why didn’t you give it to me today?
But even more than before, the fear of offending her, of driving her away, stopped him. He did a quick online search to be sure he could make it from Marrakech to London in time. It would mean flying, of course, but that was a risk he was going to have to take.
He typed, I’ll be there.
It wasn’t until much later, when Noah was getting ready to board his flight to Madrid and London, that he discovered the torn side pocket on his pack.
He stared at it for a moment in confusion, then remembered catching the pack on a jagged piece of the doorframe as he was scrambling out of the taxi. He tried to remember what he’d stashed in there. Extra batteries for his digital camera. A box of Imodium ID.
His Blackberry.
He’d yanked the battery before he left Davos, knowing that anyone with the right connections to the U.S. intelligence community could use the phone’s GPS system to track him. He hadn’t given it a thought since then.
He rooted through the rest of his pack, just to make certain he hadn’t stuck it someplace else. But the Blackberry was gone.
He clutched the battered, dusty pack to his chest, aware that he was starting to hyperventilate again. He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter, that the phone would have been incinerated along with the car.
But the loss nagged at him, like the phantom pains from a missing limb.
Chapter 58
Soria, Spain: Monday 5 February 7:40 P.M. local time
By the time they reached the airport on the outskirts of Soria, Bubba already had his engines running.
“Another thirty seconds and I’da been outta here,” he said, slamming the door closed behind them.
“Aw, come on Bubba,” said Tobie, carefully taking a seat far away from Bubba’s instrument panel. “You wouldn’t have left without us. Would you?”
“Yes,” said Bubba and Jax together.
Jax waited until they were airborne, then put in a call to Matt. “Hey, Matt—you know that fancy new search engine you’ve been bragging about? Well, here’s some stuff I want you to run through it, along with every angle you’ve got on Carlyle and Patterson and Davenport: lamb, lion, serpent, shepherd, sea, fish, shofar, cross, sword, shield.”
“Slow down, slow down,” said Matt. “What was that last bit?”
“Sword and shield,” repeated Jax.
“What is this shit?”
“It’s from the lost chapter of the Babylonian Codex.”
“You finally got a
copy of it?”
“One verse. Plus hints at what’s in a few more. Put it all through the GIS and see what you come up with.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in the GIS?”
“I don’t.”
Matt chuckled. “Then you’re not going to believe this: I’ve been running a few searches myself and came up with something interesting. At around noon today, A.J. Carlyle—that’s the latest Mrs. Leo Carlyle, by the way—flew from Marrakech to London.”
“So? I understand she’s quite the world traveler.”
“Yeah, but here’s the interesting part: according to Air Moroc, Noah Bosch is as we speak also flying from Morocco to London.”
“Bosch is still alive?” Jax was aware of October looking up at him.
“At the moment. But wait; there’s more. An ex-Special Forces guy by the name of Jason Cavanaugh is flying out of Morocco later tonight, also headed for London. According to our records, this Cavanaugh guy now works for Keefe’s little band of mercenaries.”
“Shit. What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s going on in London.”
Jax looked over at Bubba. “Any chance we can fly to Berlin via London?”
“Nope.”
“But the fate of the universe may hang in the balance.”
“Yeah? Well my contract is definitely hanging in the balance. I’m late getting this shit to Berlin as it is. I can maybe drop you in London after I make my delivery.”
“But—”
Bubba grunted. “If you don’t like the schedule, pick a different airline next time.”
Jax blew out a long breath, stared out the window at the dark, cloud-filled sky, then put in a call to Sean O’Reilly. “Hey, O’Reilly—you back in London?”
There was a pause. O’Reilly said, “What do you want, Jax?”
“There’s a woman who flew into London this afternoon by the name of A. J. Carlyle. Owns a big house overlooking Hyde Park. I need you to set up surveillance on her until I can get there.”
“What, the CIA has a manpower shortage or something?”
“Let’s just say the Company and I aren’t exactly simpatico at the moment.”
“Again?”
“I’ll explain the whole situation when we get on the ground. We should be landing at about four o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Eight,” corrected Bubba.
O’Reilly snorted. “I’m doing this why?”
Jax said, “Thailand. And then there’s always those pictures of you doing the Highland fling in a kilt.”
“Hey. You were there, too.”
“Yeah. But I’ve got a better-looking ass.”
O’Reilly laughed. “I’ll have a car waiting for you at the airstrip.”
Chapter 59
Washington, D.C.: Monday 5 February 2:30 P.M. local time
Duane Davenport whistled as he strode through the bustling corridors of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
By now they knew that Noah Bosch had not, in fact, died in a fiery car crash in the desolate mountains of Morocco. But that was okay, because the asshole would be dead soon enough.
Bosch’s Blackberry had given them access to the journalist’s Hotmail account. From that, they discovered the exact nature of the inside information his mysterious “source” had been feeding him. And they learned that she would be meeting Bosch at nine A.M. in St. Giles Cripplegate in London.
Davenport waited until he reached his office before putting in a call to Brockman. “Status?” he asked.
“Jason and I are booked on the next flight from Marrakech to London. We’ll be there by tomorrow morning.”
Davenport could hear the click-click of her boot heels as she walked rapidly through the tiled airport terminal. He said, “Don’t miss him this time, Brockman.”
“We won’t, sir.” The boot heels went click-click-click. “Any luck yet tracing the identity of this lindalovelace1974?”
Davenport stared down at the snow-snarled traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. He now knew exactly who Noah Bosch’s source was, but the matter was delicate. Very delicate. He said, “We’re still working on it. I’ll keep you posted.”
After he got off the phone with Brockman, he lingered for a moment, watching the red brake lights of the traffic below. Then, smiling faintly to himself, he put in a call to Casper Nordstrom.
“We need to talk. Now.”
Coeur d’Alene Lake, Idaho: Monday 5 February 5:10 P.M. local time
Leo Carlyle stood at the edge of his snow-covered dock looking out over the frozen surface of the lake toward the jagged mountains on the opposite shore. The snows had come late that winter. When Patterson visited the compound in early January to finalize their God-directed response to the election, only the distant peaks had shown a dusting of snow, with the wind churning the open waters of the lake beneath a wolf-colored sky. Now, the ice extended out for nearly a mile.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Casper Nordstrom, standing behind him. The man had flown all the way out from D.C., just to tell Leo what he had to say in person.
Leo snorted. “No, you’re not. You never liked her.”
Nordstrom kept silent. There was no reason, now, to deny it.
The wind coming in off the ice was cruel, stinging Leo’s face and rustling the boughs of the mighty firs on the slope behind him. He knew he and A.J. had been drifting apart—hell, he’d already decided it was time to move on. But who’d have thought the bitch would have the guts—or the brains—to betray him like this?
He felt a deep, powerful welling of anger, and turned to his assistant. “You say Davenport already has two people on their way to London to take care of this journalist?”
“Yes, sir.”
Carlyle nodded and swung away from the lake. “Tell him to take care of her, too.”
Chapter 60
London: Tuesday 6 February 7:30 A.M. local time
Tobie stared out the Gulfstream’s window at the endless urban landscape sprawled beneath a cold gray sky. “Think there’s any chance A. J. Carlyle could be Noah Bosch’s source?”
“Nah,” said Jax, coming to sit beside her. “I doubt she knows what Hubby is up to. Apart from which, even if she did, I can’t see a woman like her caring.”
Tobie swung her head to look at him. “What do you mean, ‘a woman like her’? What’s she like?”
“Beauty queen. Former Miss Colorado.”
“Don’t be a bigot,” said Tobie. “Not all beauty queens are shallow, airheaded narcissists.”
“No?”
“No. And if she’s not his source, then what was she doing in Morocco?”
“Even if she is his source, what was she doing in Morocco? And what the hell are they both doing in London?”
“ . . . with a killer after them?” added Tobie, her gaze drifting back to the neat pattern of streets and rooftops rushing toward them. “I wonder which one this guy Cavanaugh is here for.”
Jax went to slip back into the copilot’s seat. “Maybe both.”
Noah stood at the front of the coffee shop, his gaze on the sandstone facade and soaring west tower of the church across the square.
The coffee shop was warm and sweetly scented with the aroma of freshly baked cinnamon buns. The morning had dawned overcast and misty, the bare trees in the square standing out dark and skeletal against a flat white sky. Surrounded by the ugly modern expanse of the Barbican, the medieval church of St. Giles Cripplegate looked forlorn and out of place, its gracefully arched windows and soaring buttresses a sad reminder of a lost age. The church stood isolated in the midst of a paved expanse of what Noah realized must once have been the old churchyard. Did they move the bodies, he wondered; or just pave right over them?
He’d been watching the church for twenty minutes now. But the only activity he’d seen was a stout matron in a blue wool coat and tightly permed gray hair who marched across the square and went in through the arched door at the base of the tall bell tower.
She stayed for no more than five minutes and then came out again. Glancing at the date on his watch, he realized today was Shrove Tuesday.
Shifting his weight, he took a sip of his coffee and found it cold. He was just setting the cup aside when a black London cab pulled up at the edge of the square and a woman got out.
Noah watched her walk quickly along the side of the nave, toward the west front. She was tall and slender, wearing knee high black leather boots and a black cashmere coat. In place of the veil she’d adopted in Marrakech she wore a giant floppy hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses, but he knew it was her. She cast a nervous glance around, then ducked into the church.
Noah checked his watch. It was ten to nine.
He waited a few minutes, just to make certain no one was following her. Then he darted across the square and went in after her.
She was standing just to the left of the entrance, behind the last row of golden oak pews. She had her head tipped back, her gaze taking in the soaring wooden trusses of the ceiling, the clustered marble pillars that marched along the side aisles. At the sound of the door opening she turned, her body tensing. But at the sight of Noah, she visibly relaxed. She said, “You’re early.”
Noah sucked in a deep breath heavy with the scent of cold stone and incense and beeswax. “I was watching the church. I wanted to make sure you came alone.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I only have your word for it that I wasn’t set up in Telouet.” He studied her face, but the hat threw dark shadows across her smooth-skinned, fine-boned features. He said, “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why you’re doing this. I’m not even sure why I’m here.”
“You’re here for the story.” Her upper lip curled a bit when she said it, and he realized it was with contempt. For him.
Stung, he said, “So why are you here?”
“Me? I’m here to stop Carlyle.”
“Why?”
She tightened her fist around the strap of the elegant little black Prada bag she carried. “Because if these people have their way, they’ll destroy everything that makes America great. I don’t want my children to grow up in a country run by a bunch of intolerant, religious fanatics who think people are poor because Jesus obviously hates them and untrammeled free-market capitalism is a divinely ordained economic system.”