The Crimson Code

by Rachel Lee

  Jefe nodded. He looked at Renate. "I think it's now inarguable that the Brotherhood is up to something. It's not clear, however, whether they're taking advantage of events or instigating them."

  "Instigating?" Lawton asked. "You mean the riots?"

  "We're getting indications they're not spontaneous."

  Both Lawton and Renate responded with silence as they absorbed the news.

  Lawton finally spoke. "How sure are we?"

  "Fairly sure. The problem is tracking down the agitators. The signs of organization are there, buried in the chaos, but that's all we know for sure. Somebody hopes to accomplish something with this civil unrest." Jefe tipped back his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.

  Renate said, "The Brotherhood loves nothing more than a good war."

  Jefe opened his eyes and nodded. "But street violence is different. Civil unrest makes investors nervous. That doesn't help the Brotherhood. They may be funding someone, but I would guess that someone isn't marching precisely to the Brotherhood's tune."

  "Perhaps," Renate said. "At the very least, the message traffic seems to show the Brotherhood pushing for American intervention in Pakistan. Nuclear intervention."

  "Let's hope your friend can track down the recipient," Jefe said to Lawton. "I know I don't need to remind you that we represent the United Nations. Our first and primary purpose is to ensure the safety of all peoples. A nuclear exchange in south Asia will kill a lot of people, but it won't make anyone safer."

  "You'll get no argument here," Lawton said.

  "In the meantime," Jefe said, "I've told Assif to put all his resources into decoding today's traffic."

  "Today's?" Renate asked.

  Jefe looked at her. "They know you're alive. They sent someone to kill you. It didn't work."

  "Which means," Lawton said, "they'll be talking about it. That should tell us who was involved."

  "Then we kill them," Renate said, her gaze flat and unbending.

  "No," Jefe said. "We can't kill our only leads, Renate. We have to find out what they're up to and who they're working with."

  "Fine," she said. "We do it your way. For now."

  * * *

  A short while later, Lawton followed Renate into her office. She sat at her desk and logged on to her computer, ignoring him as if he weren't there. He was used to it and ignored it.

  "I know how you feel," he said.

  "Oh you do, do you?"

  "I most certainly do." He felt a spark of irritation. "Look, Renate, you're not the only person who's had loved ones killed and feels responsible. There are plenty of us out here with that on our consciences." To this day, he could not think of the girl in Los Angeles who had watched her father die, and had blamed him for it, without wanting to rip someone to shreds.

  Her jaw set tighter, and she tapped on her computer keys as if he had vanished.

  "Listen," he said finally. "If you let your anger get in the way, more people are going to die. And this time, it will be your fault."

  Her gaze finally lifted to him, and for an instant the icy cold in her blue eyes gave way to a hunted, haunted expression that triggered an ache in his chest. That was another feeling he couldn't afford, and he almost wished he hadn't confronted her.

  But he also knew what this woman was capable of, and he didn't want her haring off on her own.

  Finally she spoke, once again shielded behind her glacial facade. "Are you going to help me capture the people who killed my family?"

  "Of course," he said. "And most especially the people behind the plot. But we have to keep our eyes on the ball, Renate. This isn't just about your parents. It's about eleven thousand people who died on Black Christmas, not to mention the thousands who will die if Rice decides to use nuclear weapons. They all deserve justice."

  "Fine," she said. "Then let's get to work."

  Cambridge University, 1669

  Isaac Newton sat in the office of his mentor, Isaac Barrow. Barrow held the recently created Lucasian Chair in mathematics and had taken Newton under his wing, though many could not understand why. He had even attempted to gain his pupil attention in the world of mathematics by sending copies of one of Newton's papers to some of the more prominent mathematicians of the day.

  To many, he knew, Newton seemed a rather undistinguished scholar, but largely because he did his best work when on his own. The period of the plague outbreak—when he had been forced back to his home to avoid infection—had proven to be some of the most fertile years of his life.

  Barrow had seen a thirst in the young man, however, a deep and abiding thirst for knowledge, and an unwillingness to be bound by conventional thinking. It was this that had attracted him, since he'd been rather unconventional most of his own life, as well.

  But now he had momentous news for the younger man. "I have decided to give up this chair, Newton."

  The younger man lifted his eyebrows. "Why-ever should you do that, sir?"

  "Because I am weary of it. In my youth, I pledged to study divinity. I think 'tis time I kept my pledge."

  "But, sir…"

  Barrow shook his head. "Do not argue with me, Master Newton. I have made my determination, and I have taken the necessary steps. I have also chosen my successor."

  "I hope you did not choose Phyfe."

  Barrow laughed. "You know me better than that, I should have thought. No, I have named you. When I depart at end of term, you shall replace me."

  "But—"

  Barrow waved an irritated hand. "Enough. I have chosen well. But there is something I must share with you, and I must give you some instruction with before I depart."

  Newton nodded, unconsciously sitting forward in his chair.

  "As a young man, I was considered somewhat troublesome…particularly after a speech I gave on the anniversary of Guy Fawkes Day. It was considered expedient to send me on travels throughout Europe, to report back to Cambridge on the universities over there. You may have heard of that?"

  "That you traveled, yes."

  "Well, I certainly traveled, and in the event I traveled rather more than anyone expected, including myself. My ship, at one point, was attacked and set afire by pirates. Great adventures, Newton. The kind worthy of a book, I daresay. But not necessarily enjoyable while they were happening."

  "Pirates, eh?"

  "Pirates. I escaped with nothing but the clothes on my back and a little something I picked up when I was in Smyrna." Barrow chuckled. "Which is to say I escaped with the only thing that mattered. I intend to pass it on to you. I think you will make far better use of it than I ever could. What do you know of alchemy?"

  "A little. I have looked into hermeticism, as I have into many things."

  "Well, I believe you will want to look into it a bit further now. And I believe you will also begin to unlock some of the mathematical puzzles with which you have struggled."

  Newton edged forward a bit more. Excitement was written all over his face. "Why do you say that?"

  "Because I am about to pass to you an ancient mystery. It is, I believe, a part of the ancient mysteries the Scottish Rite mentions. But I also feel that this may be but one part of a larger puzzle."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "This." Rising, Barrow went to a wall panel. He did something quick with his fingers, and the panel opened to reveal a space behind it. "No one knows this is here but I—and now you," Barrow said. "The man who built it for me died in the plague. Sad story. But it is now our secret, and ours alone."

  Newton rose and went to stand beside him. In the cavity was a small chest of beaten, aged copper. Barrow lifted it out and sagged a little, as if it were heavier than its size indicated. He carried it to the reading table and set it down. A moment later, he released a spring and the top popped open. Inside was a leather-wrapped object.

  "'Tis said to be one of the tablets of Thoth," Barrow said.

  Newton gasped, his entire face lighting with amazement as Barrow pulled aside the wrappings and revealed
an emerald pyramid.

  Carefully Barrow lifted it in his palm and held it toward the window. "Within this stone is a window," Barrow said. "I believe you will be able to understand what you see better than I, which is why I pass it to you. It is said this once belonged to Pythagoras, who got it out of Egypt."

  Newton leaned closer, peering into the depths of the stone. He was the picture of amazement.

  "It is yours now," Barrow said gently, and placed it in the younger man's hand. "Yours to study and learn from. But keep it secret, Isaac. Very secret. It could be worth your life if anyone learns you have it."

  21

  Prague, Czech Republic, Present day

  Kasmir Al-Khalil had been too nervous to eat that morning, yet now he found himself ravenously hungry. Soon, he thought. Soon he would exit the subway train and make his way up the escalator to the car awaiting him at the Invalidovna station. By the time he and his driver arrived back at their safe house, where his sister would have a meal waiting, hundreds would be dying.

  As well they should. Kasmir had been aching for another chance to act again ever since Christmas, when he had destroyed a church full of infidels in Baden-Baden. In the weeks since, hundreds of Muslims had died in wave after wave of reprisals. It was time to strike again, to exact justice for those who felt they could kill with impunity.

  The planning for this operation had been simplicity itself. Indeed, the hand of Allah was clearly visible in the events of the past two weeks, ever since intermediaries had introduced Kasmir to the chemist from Chechnya, who had once been a major in the Red Army. Ricin, a lethal toxin derived from castor beans, could be had, if the price was right. As it turned out, that price had been well within the operating budget for Kasmir's group. Within a week, Kasmir had one hundred milliliters of atomized ricin, a poison so toxic that a droplet the size of the head of a pin was sufficient to kill an adult.

  Now that deadly bottle rested in an open backpack beneath Kasmir's seat. Kasmir had chosen his seat with care. It was directly beneath the speaker that broadcast announcements. That, coupled with the sounds of the train itself, would mask the hiss as the ricin was released into the air. To start the process, Kasmir needed only to pull the string that ran from his backpack to the ring on his middle finger. Then he would exit the train and be safely away before the poison concentration in the air reached toxic levels. If their calculations were correct, that would happen as the train reached the busy Florenc station, where the yellow and red subway lines met, beneath the main bus station in Prague. Kasmir had chosen that site to yield maximum exposure.

  The static-filled speaker burst to life, announcing the Invalidovna stop. Kasmir pulled the string as he rose from his seat, then walked to the exit door and waited. This was the time of greatest danger, he realized. If someone noticed that he was leaving his backpack behind, they might call him back for it. And there would be no way for him to retrieve it without receiving a fatal dose of the toxin. His heart pounded as he counted the seconds until the door opened.

  Ten seconds and Kasmir almost leaped from the train. He walked briskly, forcing himself not to run, so as not to attract attention, and made his way out of the station into the morning sunlight. Only then did he realize he had been holding his breath.

  "How did it go?" his partner asked as he climbed into the car.

  "Fine," Kasmir answered.

  "Praise be to Allah."

  "Yes," Kasmir said. "Praise be to Allah."

  * * *

  For Magda Gross, it had been a very ordinary Tuesday morning. The emergency room at the Kotol Hospital had not been exceptionally busy, and apart from a cardiac case and treating the abrasions of a cyclist who had been struck and fallen in morning traffic, she had spent much of the day reviewing treatment charts for the few patients left from the overnight shift and thinking about how she would tell Stefan Dubcek that she could not marry him.

  Now, as she sat in the hospital cafeteria with her lunch, she considered again whether she should accept his proposal. Stefan was a good man, after all. They were both doctors, so he would understand her demanding work schedule and her dedication. He was kind, if sometimes a bit brusque, and even an adequate dancer. He played the violin, she the cello, and while neither of them had had much time for their music of late, it was still a shared interest and a common topic of conversation. All in all, any woman in her position ought to consider him a perfect catch and leap at the opportunity of marriage.

  And yet, she noted with a pang of self-doubt, somehow the spark just wasn't there. Perhaps it was that he was a neurologist, with all the psychological oddities that so often accompanied that specialty. When they discussed music or medicine, he could be charming. But then there were the long periods when he seemed utterly lost in his own thoughts and she felt utterly alone. Even the sex, after their first novelty-heightened encounters, had become routine. He was an adequate lover. He would make an adequate husband. But did she really want "adequate"?

  She had gone back and forth over these same thoughts for two days, and in the end she kept coming back to the same place: that marriage should be something more than merely good enough. Again and again, she heard the voice of her late father echoing through her mind: Choose the man who makes your heart sing and your life will always be filled with music. Stefan was a good man, but he did not make her heart sing.

  Her heart tearing at that thought, she almost did not notice the insistent buzzing at her belt. She reached down and switched off her pager, knowing already what it meant. Rising to her feet, she left her lunch uneaten and made her way back to the E.R.

  "Forty-six-year-old female presenting with acute respiratory distress," the head nurse said, guiding Magda toward the treatment room. "Non-smoker, no personal or family history of respiratory disorders. Pulse is eighty-five, blood pressure is ninety-five over fifty, temperature thirty-seven-point-two, lips are cyanotic."

  "Thank you," Magda said, quickly scanning the chart as she stepped into the room. "Ivana Navatny? I'm Doctor Gross. When did you start to feel sick?"

  "About an hour ago," the patient said through the clear plastic oxygen mask. "It was as if I could not catch my breath."

  "Was anyone else at work ill?" Magda asked as she looked at the monitor. The woman's face was pale and her lips faintly blue. Magda lifted the woman's hand and saw that the flesh beneath her fingernails was also bluish. The oxygen monitor read ninety-two percent. "Ivana? Was anyone else at work ill?"

  But the woman did not answer. Indeed, she seemed unable to focus her eyes, and beads of sweat had broken out on her forehead. The digital temperature monitor now read thirty-eight-point-seven degrees, well above normal, and the oxygen reading had slipped to eighty-nine percent.

  "Increase oxygen," Magda said, her voice crisp and cool as she tried to make sense of the symptoms. Patient cyanotic. Respiratory distress. Fever. Now the woman's hands began to quake.

  "Doctor Gross," another nurse called from the door of the treatment room.

  "Not now," Magda said.

  "Please," the nurse said. "Another patient just arrived with the same symptoms."

  "Watch her oxygenation," Magda said to the head nurse, indicating Ivana as she herself made for the door. "If it gets worse, we'll need to intubate her. Schedule a chest X-ray. It looks like influenza, but the rapid onset has me concerned."

  Four hours later, with twelve more patients admitted and at least fifty others at other hospitals, Magda grew far more concerned. That evening, when the Prague police discovered the backpack and the empty aerosol bottle within it, the source of the mysterious illness began to become clear. Three days later, after the bottle had been shipped to a laboratory in Paris and examined, the "Prague Flu" would be confirmed as ricin poisoning.

  But that news would come too late for Ivana Navatny and one hundred twelve others, including Magda herself, who had inhaled the toxic particles wafting from her patients' clothes.

  Two days after Ivana Navatny arrived at the E.R., Stefan Du
bcek held Magda's hand as she struggled for her final breaths, her lungs hemorrhaging and kidneys failing.

  And, in those final moments, Magda heard the music.

  22

  Strasbourg, France

  "Mesdames et Messieurs," Soult said, his voice clear and strong, "we find ourselves at a unique moment in the history of mankind. We—who for centuries wasted our youth and our resources making war on one another—now stand united under a single constitution. We need no longer cower under an American umbrella. We need no longer live in the shadow of the American economy. We are many languages, many cultures. And yet we are one people."

  He paused to let that thought resonate in the minds of his audience. He knew it was a message that would sit well with the members of the European Parliament, before whom he had been called to explain why events like Prague could still happen when the Department of Collective Security had redoubled its efforts. A lesser man would have bristled under the implied criticism, but Soult had expected it. In fact, he had planned for it. These hearings gave him the opportunity to address not only the Parliament but also the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who were watching on television. It was for this reason—and not, as some had suggested, a noble offer to fall upon his sword—that he had persuaded Frau Schmidt to put his name forward to be questioned.

  "But the events of these past weeks," he continued, "have left us all deeply scarred. Representatives, there is evil in this world. An evil that destroys cathedrals and murders the faithful. An evil that seeks to sabotage our factories, our banks and our livelihoods. An evil that disperses deadly poisons in our subways and seeks to make us afraid to leave our homes. We have repented for the sins of our ancestors. We have retreated from our empires. We have negotiated. We have bargained. We have opened our doors. And how does this evil respond? With more terrorism."

  Now the members hissed, loudly and continuously. While he could not see through the TV cameras into the faces of those who were watching in their homes, he knew that he would have seen echoed there what he saw before him: righteous anger. That was one half of the equation. Now came the time to add the rest.