by Rachel Lee
“What?” Renate asked.
“We have a bigger problem,” Jefe said. “They will certainly take Lawton’s fingerprints. When they realize he is American, they will send those prints to the FBI.”
Renate gasped as the implication set in. “And as a former agent, of course the FBI has his fingerprints on file. Except that he is supposed to be dead.”
“Miriam Anson,” Jefe said, nodding. He had met her twice when they were at the Bureau, though he had never worked with her. He hoped she would remember him. “You were just on the phone with her. Get her back. Now.”
“I’m on it,” Renate said.
Toulouse, France
Steve Lorenzo shifted in his seat, trying to force himself to concentrate on the pages spread open in his carrel. It was difficult, however, with so much grandeur surrounding him. The Bibliothèque de Toulouse was a library in the grand gothic style, from its gleaming marble floors to the soaring dome above. Seemingly everywhere there was some detail, some niche, to catch and hold the eye and the mind.
“You are tired, Steve,” Miguel said. “You need rest.”
Steve nodded. “Yes, I am. And I will rest. But not yet, my friend. There is much to do.”
Were he not so tired, Steve thought, it would not be nearly so difficult to focus. But his journey from Rome had been a two-day adventure involving three city buses and two subway trains—to shake off the surveillance—then a seven-hour bus ride to Milan, and finally a thirteen-hour train ride to Toulouse. Steve had caught only brief snatches of sleep on the train. He had arrived in Toulouse with his head foggy and throbbing in a way he hadn’t felt since his one and only hangover after an all-night party in college.
Still, he felt too wired to sleep, so he had come directly to the library after finding a room at a tiny but clean inn. Morpheus would claim him tonight, but until then, he felt he must press on. There was so much he needed to learn, and with what he had read in the newspapers during his journey, he was working against a relentless and very threatening clock.
“Are not these same books in the Vatican library?” Miguel asked, pointing to the stack of volumes at Steve’s elbow.
“I’m sure they are,” Steve said. “The Vatican library is one of the finest in the world. But the information I need would be locked away in volumes that could only be viewed with special permission. I would have to make a formal application, and the Vatican librarian would have to investigate my bona fides. I can’t risk that kind of scrutiny at this time, my friend.”
“Why would this information be held secret? These books were on the public shelves here.”
Steve smiled. “The persecution of the Cathars was not a shining moment in the history of the Church.”
“What happened to them?” Miguel asked.
Steve drew a slow breath, trying to gather his thoughts. “The Cathar, or Albigensian, heresy was put down in the thirteenth century. Nearly ten thousand were slaughtered in 1209 when Simon de Montfort led the storming of Béziers. Thirty-five years later, another two hundred followers were thrown into a fire at the castle of Montségur. It was a brutal purge.”
Miguel shook his head in astonishment. “But why?”
“There were religious reasons, of course,” Steve said. “The Inquisition was founded to destroy the Albigensians. They did not believe in the Eucharist, or in the duality of Christ’s nature. They contrasted the loving God of the New Testament and the stern God of the Old, and concluded that the Old Testament God was actually Satan. And, of course, they rejected the papacy.”
Miguel nodded.
“On top of that,” Steve said, “the Cathar theology venerated life. They exhorted their followers to adopt lives of poverty and charity, to share all they had with those in need rather than amassing personal wealth. And they rejected both capital punishment and war, without exception. Teachings like that stood in stark contrast to the excesses of the Church at that point in history.”
“They made the Church look bad,” Miguel said.
Steve nodded. “Sadly, yes. Then there was simple greed. Pope Innocent the Third issued a proclamation that declared all Albigensian property forfeit. That is, anyone who captured Cathar land could keep it for himself. Many of France’s northern nobles saw that as an opportunity to enhance their own holdings by aiding in the slaughter.”
“So all of the Cathars are gone now?” Miguel asked.
“Yes,” Steve said. “The last were killed over seven hundred years ago.”
Miguel leaned forward. “Then why do we search here? Why do you read about them if they are all so long dead?”
“There was another mystery involved,” Steve said. “It was widely believed that the Albigensians venerated the Magdalene as the bride of Christ. And contemporary writers spread rumors of a hidden Cathar treasure. That treasure was never found.”
“Where did it go?”
“The better question, my friend, is what was it?”
Miguel nodded. “So? What was it?”
“No one knows for sure,” Steve said. “There are some modern writers who believe the treasure was documentary evidence that Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala had married. They believe there was no way the few fleeing Cathars could have carried away a hoard of gold or jewels. And of course this fits with pet theories that they advance in their books.”
“You don’t believe this?” Miguel asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Steve said. “But I very much doubt that a document purporting to be a first-century marriage license would have been taken as proof by either side. I’m not even certain such things were documented back then. I doubt it, actually. So, no, I don’t believe that was the Albigensian treasure. In fact, I don’t believe they had a treasure.”
“I don’t understand,” Miguel said. “You say the treasure is why we are here, but you do not believe it existed?”
“Look at it this way,” Steve said. “If you were a French noble, the papal proclamation would play to your greed, yes? If your army captures Cathar land, you get to keep it.”
“Right,” Miguel said.
“But what does that mean to the ordinary French peasant who would serve in that army? He wouldn’t get to keep any land.”
Miguel’s eyes widened as he nodded. “I see. So you make up a story of a treasure and tell the peasants they can keep whatever they find.”
“Exactly,” Steve said. “But you can’t make these things up out of whole cloth. There has to be some basis, some local legend, which the peasants will hear repeated as they marched through Cathar lands to keep their dreams of wealth alive.”
“So we are here to learn the local legends about the treasure?” Miguel said. “A treasure you believe was only legend. This still does not make sense to me.”
“What if the treasure was a codex?” Steve asked.
“Like the one you found in my country?”
“Yes,” Steve said. “But not like that one. I think it was that one.”
“That cannot be,” Miguel said, shaking his head. “Our stories tell of that codex being in my country far longer than that. It was given to us by Kulkulcan.”
Steve nodded. “I doubt the Albigensians ever actually had a codex, but they had stories. Stories passed down for a thousand years, dating from the time when there was a codex in these lands. The codex that Mary of Magdala brought with her when she fled Palestine after the death of Christ. The codex that she gave to her daughter Sarah, and that Sarah gave to her son before he fled across the sea.”
“Kulkulcan?” Miguel said.
Steve nodded. “Yes, exactly. If the Mayan histories are true, it fits.”
“So you are looking for the stories of the codex, passed down to people who never had the codex,” Miguel said. He shook his head and shrugged. “Why are we not looking for the codex itself?”
“The Guardians have told me that the codex was used to murder the German Chancellor,” Steve said. “I am not sure whether to believe them, and they know that. They sent me
here to find the proof for myself. Even if they had not, I wouldn’t go into this blind again. I was sent to Guatemala to look for a document, and it turned out that I had not been sent to find a document at all. Perhaps if I had known what the codex was, and what it could do, I might have made different decisions. Perhaps Paloma might still be alive.”
“Don’t,” Miguel said, reaching across to squeeze Steve’s forearm. Miguel knew that the death of Paloma, the village curandera and previous keeper of the codex, still haunted his friend. “Don’t blame yourself for my mistakes. You did not bring the army down upon my village. I did that. You were not the reason the rebels chased us into the mountains. I was. And you were not the one charged with protecting Paloma. That was my job, and I failed.”
Steve sighed. “You blame yourself too much, as well, my friend. Regardless, I do not wish to go looking for the codex again until I know more about it. The Guardians hint that it can kill a man. To search for it now, knowing so little about it, would be like trying to defuse a bomb while blindfolded.”
“So that is why we are here,” Miguel said. “And you understand these books?”
Steve lifted a shoulder. “Some. It’s been too many years since I studied Latin, and even more since I studied French. But the more I try, the more starts to come back.”
“Are any of the books in Spanish?” Miguel asked. “Perhaps I can help.”
“Yes, one of them,” Steve said, sorting through the stack. “Let me find it. But it’s not modern Spanish.”
“And you didn’t study medieval French, I am sure,” Miguel said, smiling. “So we must both…how would you say? Get up to speed?”
Steve smiled and passed Miguel the book. The library was open for another three hours. They would press on until then. After that…He tried not to think about what lay ahead. Thoughts of sleep would only distract him, and what tomorrow might bring was beyond his control.
For the moment there were these books and the mysteries they held. Mysteries he must understand if he was to play his role in the events unfolding around him.
Jericho,
c. 1200 B.C.E.
Jericho stood before the Hebrews who had fled Egypt so many years before. If the land of Canaan was to be truly theirs, this city must be taken. Everyone who had been part of the original flight had died, including Moses, who had been denied even the sight of this land by the Lord God.
Joshua had been chosen by the Lord himself to replace Moses as leader, and while he was not a weak man, he still trembled at the memory of the day in the tent when the column of fire had spoken first to Moses and then to him, charging him with the sacred duty of bringing these people to the promised land of milk and honey despite their errors.
He bore that charge as a heavy yoke, never letting it slip from his shoulders for even a moment. And the Lord had been proved right, for already among the people there were those who had chosen to worship other gods and disobey the laws that Moses had set down for them, even though they had seen the Ark divide the waters of the Jordan for them.
But just now he had weightier matters on his mind. The Lord had given him orders, and only his faith would maintain him through this day. For though the city of Jericho was virtually besieged by the presence of the Israelites on the plain around it, still the city was barred to them. The Lord had ordered Joshua to destroy the city and place a doom on it, so that never would a city arise here again.
But before that, he must take the city, and for this he also followed the orders he had received, odd as they sounded. For Joshua had long since learned never to doubt the Lord’s word.
He summoned the priests to him and told them, “You must carry the Ark around the walls of the city seven times. And walking before you must go seven priests with rams’ horns. For thus it has been decreed by the Lord.”
Odd indeed. He passed the order among the camp and watched as the people prepared themselves. He warned them to make no noise until he commanded it; then they were to shout.
The priests performed a sacrifice of a white goat and burnt its blood upon the altar in the tent where the Ark was concealed. Joshua felt a twinge of relief that he was not needed in there, for he had seen the power of God and the power of the Ark, and he preferred to purify himself at a distance.
He also knew the contents of the Ark, for Moses had told him. Within it, along with the scroll of the law, were the thummim and urim, small pyramids of emerald and ruby. Only the purest of the priests could safely approach the Ark, because, Moses said, within the Ark the thummim and urim never slept.
Joshua hoped they were not sleeping as his priests marched boldly forward, the Ark shouldered by six of them, led by the seven trumpeters.
As commanded, the priests walked around the walls of the city, blowing the rams’ horns.
Before long, however, Joshua heard the sound of another horn. Deeper, darker. Not like the rams’ horns. It seemed to him to rise from the Ark itself, a sound not unlike what he had heard when he spoke with the Lord in the pillar of smoke and fire.
As the sound intensified, he saw the guards on the city walls begin to collapse. And then…And then, as the rams’ horns blew loudly and the seventh circuit was completed by the priests, he lifted his hand, calling upon all his people to shout. The people obeyed, raising a deafening din until the walls of the city themselves began to shake and tremble and crack.
Before Joshua’s amazed eyes, the city of Jericho began to tumble into ruins. And amidst the din, only he heard the soul-shaking sound of the trumpet from within the Ark.
Joshua, son of Nun, pulled his sword and motioned for his army to follow him. His last order must be carried out now.
“The Lord,” he called to his soldiers, “has doomed this city.”
And that meant only one thing: no man, woman or child would be left alive. Not even the gold and other wealth would leave this spot.
Jericho’s existence would be marked only by blackened, bloody earth and tumbled stones.
For so it was ordered.
13
Washington, D.C.
“A nson,” Miriam said, hesitation in her voice. Her assistant had put the call through to Grant Lawrence’s office, saying only that her friend was calling back. That meant Rome. Grant had ushered her into a private anteroom where she could talk.
“Is this line secure at your end?” the voice said.
“Give me a minute,” Miriam answered.
She pressed a series of buttons, and the line exploded into a deafening squeal for a moment as the voice-scrambler technology sent cues across the line, then quieted as the two systems synchronized.
“I’ll need a new ear now,” the voice said.
“Sorry,” Miriam said. “You wanted secure. So who am I talking to? This isn’t Renate. And how is the weather in Rome?”
“They call me Jefe,” the man said.
“Chief,” Miriam said. “So you’re the boss there.”
“I am. And I need your help.”
“Get in line,” Miriam said. “With all that’s going on in the world, everyone seems to want my help nowadays.”
“This concerns Lawton. He’s been arrested.”
“No,” Miriam said, her heart sinking. “What for?”
“It’s a mistake, I’m sure,” the man said. “But we won’t get a chance to prove that once the German government faxes his fingerprints to the FBI and your people run them. Once the Germans find out they’re holding a dead man…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. Miriam could see how those cards would play out. Lawton’s cover would be blown. There would be no way to mount any legal defense without revealing his role in Office 119, and that would blow the entire organization.
“You need me to change the identification on his fingerprint file,” Miriam said. “We have stock identities for undercover operators. I could swap one in.”
“No can do,” the man said. “We have no way to brief Lawton on a new identity. It would all come unhin
ged.”
She had to concede the point. The stock identities were very detailed and fully documented, so much so that any government agency would find it all but impossible to crack the shell. But agents needed days of intensive study and quizzing to be confident of the details.
“What do you suggest?” she asked.
“Let the print request come back blank,” Jefe said. “Then he can stick to the identity he’s using. There’s no reason his prints would have to be on file.”
“Passport control,” Miriam said, shaking her head. “All new passports have fingerprints on them. He’d have to be on file.”
“Only if he has a U.S. passport,” Jefe said. “And he doesn’t. He’s traveling under an EU passport issued in Italy. His cover identity has dual citizenship—Italian and American—and has been living in Italy for twelve years. We have the Italian side covered. So long as the U.S. fingerprint check comes back clear, they’ll assume he was never fingerprinted.”
“Yes,” Miriam said. “That ought to work. But it’s still risky at this end. I can’t expunge an FBI file and not leave tracks. At the very least, it leaves a big hole in the database. If anyone has a reason to look up Tom Lawton—and people in the Bureau will, even just in following up on his old cases—they’re going to wonder why he’s suddenly gone.”
“You can reinsert him once this blows over,” Jefe said. “What are the odds that anyone will go looking for him in the next couple of weeks?”
“Pretty slim,” Miriam agreed. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Here’s a number where I can be reached,” Jefe said. Miriam copied it down quickly as he continued. “It’s a secure line. Get back to me once you’ve pulled his file. We’ll have time for explanations after I know he’s safe.”
“Yes, of course,” Miriam said. The man’s tone was curt, even peremptory, but she could understand the stress he was under. “I’ll get back to you within the hour.”
She hung up and explained to Grant that she had an urgent task, then went to her office and retrieved a map of Building Seven of the White House complex, lest she get lost en route from her office to the computer center in the basement. She had worked in this building for months and still had a hard time finding her way around. But this was not a job she was going to entrust to whoever picked up the phone downstairs. She wanted to handpick the geek who did this, because she was going to have his balls in a vise if any hint of it leaked.