The Lucifer Genome: A Conspiracy Thriller

by Glen Craney

  “Now,” Jubal taunted him. “Why don’t we go get some popcorn and watch the fireworks.”

  Cas grabbed the crossing board from the floor.

  Jubal motioned for him to drop the board. “Easy there, cowboy.”

  Cas leaned down, as if planning to release the heavy plank.

  Instead, he threw it into the gondola's window.

  Jubal and his two companions dodged shards of flying glass.

  Cas climbed through the open window and scampered onto the cab’s roof.

  Careful to avoid cutting their hands on the jagged remnants of the pane, Jubal and Cohanim stuck their heads out the window. They laughed at him.

  “You planning to jump, Fielding?” Cohanim yelled. “Long way down!”

  Cas looked up. Marly’s climbing gondola was only a hundred yards from the cliffs. He searched the roof. A brakeman’s rod rested in a slot.

  Still reeling from the discovery that Farid had been dead all along, he levered the rod out of its sleeve and rushed to one of the two roller arms that held the cab suspended. He wedged the rod into the cable slot and heaved his chest against it. After several desperate shoves, the slot finally broke—

  The cable slipped out of one of its two tracks. The gondola lurched, now hanging by one metal arm.

  Jubal and Cohanim lost their smirks. They realized that Cas was serious about hurling himself to his death with them.

  “Hold on!” Jubal yelled. “Let’s talk about this!”

  Marly’s gondola now looked to be only thirty seconds away from impact.

  Cas pressed the iron rod into the slot that held the remaining cable arm. “You got five seconds to punch in that code and stop that tram.”

  Cohanim and Jubal turned ashen as their gondola swung violently.

  “Four … three …” Denied a vantage, Cas could only hope that Jubal was now punching in the code.

  Above him, Marly’s gondola suddenly squealed to a halt.

  Cohanim poked his head through the window again. “You satisfied now?”

  Cas lifted his eyes to the cable above him. He shoved his full weight against the rod—the track split open.

  The cab dropped. He leapt and caught the cable.

  Dangling a thousand feet above the rocky ground, he heard the plummeting tram hiss through the haze below him. Seconds later, the car holding Cohanim, Jubal, and their stooge crashed into the foot of the mountain. The screech of metal slamming against rock slowly faded into a deadly stillness.

  He looked up. Marly was sobbing and frantically waving at him through her window. Her gondola swayed just a few feet from where the ancient Romans had once broken through the walls of the Israelite rebels.

  He threw his legs over the cable. He managed to get his belt off and zip-lined to the lift station hundreds of feet below.

  ZAYNAH'S SCREAMS BROKE THE BRITTLE stillness in the stifling gondola.

  Their gondola’s door slid open.

  Cas jumped from the second gondola he had driven up on the parallel cable and flung himself head over heels into Marley’s cab.

  Zaynah howled another series of shrieks.

  Cas stood gawking at the girl giving birth, until Marly burned him with a glare that made him wonder if she might kick him to the desert floor to join Cohanim and Jubal. “Look, I can explain,” he said.

  Marly crouched between the girl’s legs to deliver the child. “Come over here and hold her shoulders!”

  He realized that she wasn’t in the mood to hear about how he had heroically cold-cocked the tram manager and had hot-wired the maintenance tram on the ground to ride it to the top of the mount and save her like Superman. Hey, now there’s a story to tell back at the Fish Tank. He first met Marly as Superman, and now he had returned to—

  “Get over here!”

  “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout ‘birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett!”

  “Shut up and help me for once!”

  He threw himself behind the seat where Zaynah was groaning in agony. He put his hands on the wailing girl’s shoulders, at a loss what to do.

  Marly tore off Zaynah’s drenched cotton skirt and ripped it in half, discovering that girl had rid herself of underwear somewhere along the way. “Oh! My! God!” She gasped as the mother’s spasms pushed out a child.

  The infant’s cry echoed through the tram.

  Cas pressed a hand against Zaynah’s dripping forehead, trying to soothe the girl, who had collapsed in exhaustion.

  Marly wrapped the baby in the remnants of Zaynah’s skirt. “Now help me with the umbilical cord!”

  “What should I do?”

  Marly pointed at his shoes. “I need a string.”

  He yanked off a shoe and quickly pulled out its string. Following her directions, he snatched the umbilical cord and tied it off.

  Marly cradled the infant, easing its cries into silence.

  Cas wiped his hands on his pants legs, stunned at what he had just accomplished. While Marly held the squirming bundle, he moved behind her and grinned at the infant girl, still not quite able to believe that they had managed to birth it. “Wow, talk about a high-wire act.” He sopped Zaynah’s forehead with his sleeve. “You did great,” he told the girl. “She’s got your eyes.”

  The cab jerked dangerously.

  Marly screamed and clutched at Cas with the arm not holding the baby.

  Caught in her embrace, Cas grinned, knowing it was just the wind rocking the cab. “Don’t make me fall for you, Dr. McKinney.”

  “Stop it with the puns.” Marly watched him coo at the baby, amazed how he was turning to putty. “You never cease to amaze me, Agent Fielding.”

  “Agent?” Cas shook his head to reject that old rank. “Unh-unh, no more of that spook mess for me, missy. I’m retired.” He breathed a heavy, satisfied sigh. “Broke, but retired.”

  She looked into his liquid eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Your son. I wish … ”

  He pressed a kiss to her lips to prevent her from saying what she was thinking. Surfacing, he whispered, “He’s with his mother, where he belongs.”

  His mystical turn surprised Marly. “You really believe that?”

  He winked, making a poor attempt to mask his disappointment and sadness at having discovered that Farid was dead, after all. “I never make a decision about the really important stuff until absolutely necessary.”

  Marly looked over at Zaynah, who had passed out on the bench next to them. “Maybe God does work in mysterious ways.”

  Cas trailed her gaze and realized what she was suggesting. “You’d have to sell a lot of rocks to support all four of us.”

  Marly was about to say something else, but raw emotion choked off her words. She saw the baby’s squished lids flicker. When its tiny eyes flashed open, she thought she caught a glimpse of … No, she was a scientist. All of this God cloning and Antichrist nonsense was just that. Shaking her head wearily, she looked down at the baby again and muttered to herself, “Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.”

  Cas roused from his own dark thoughts. “What’d you say?”

  She could never offer him a logical explanation for what she was feeling. Instead, she answered him as best she could, with another verse. “That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.”

  Cas stared at her, wondering whether the strain had pushed her over the edge.

  Feeling his perplexed gaze, she admitted, “I don’t know why that came to me just now.”

  “Was that a poem? What was it from? Maybe I’ve heard of it.”

  She rolled her eyes at his attempt to pretend that he’d ever even cracked a book of poetry. “The Second Coming by Yeats.”

  “Right.” He snapped his fingers. “Didn’t he play tailback for Notre Dame?”

  She laughed. “Let’s go home, falconer, and maybe …”

  “Maybe what?”

  Hanging a thousand feet above the land of miracles, Mar
ly kissed him and whispered, “Now that you understand how chromosomes and shooting stars work”—she smiled at the mysterious child she held—“maybe we should think about building a little lab of our own.”

  Cas brushed away a tear. As wonderful as that sounded, he quickly dismissed the idea as impractical. “I’m too old to start over.”

  She rested her head against his shoulder while she swayed the baby. “I’m not giving up on you just yet, Fielding. If a three-million-year-old rock can become a father, there still might be a second chance for you.”

  About the Authors

  A graduate of Indiana University School of Law and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Glen Craney practiced trial law before joining the Washington press corps to cover national politics and the Iran-contra trial for Congressional Quarterly magazine. The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences awarded him the Nicholl Fellowship prize for best new screenwriting. His debut novel, The Fire and the Light, was named Best New Fiction by the National Indie Excellence Awards and a Finalist/Honorable Mention winner by Foreword Magazine for its Book of the Year in historical fiction. He lives in Malibu, California.

  www.glencraney.com

  A graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, John Jeter has worked as an editor and reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, the San Antonio Express-News, and the St. Petersburg Times. He is the author of two nationally published books, including Rockin’ A Hard Place (Hub City Press, 2012), a memoir of his years owning and managing one of the South’s premier music concert venues. A television series based on the memoir is currently in production. His first novel, The Plunder Room, was published by St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books in 2010. This is his first major collaboration. He lives with his wife in Greenville, South Carolina.

  www.johnjeter.com

  Dear reader: If you enjoyed this book and feel it worthy of a review, we'd be grateful if you would leave your opinion of it for others on Amazon.com or Goodreads. Thank you.

  * * *

  Also By Glen Craney

  The Fire and the Light

  A Novel of the Cathars

  ORDER

  As the 13th century dawns, Cathar heretics in southern France guard an ancient scroll that holds shattering revelations about Jesus Christ. Esclarmonde de Foix, a beloved Occitan countess, must defy Rome to preserve the true path to salvation. Christianity suffers its darkest hour in this epic saga of troubadour love, monastic intrigue, and esoteric mystery set during the first years of the French Inquisition.

  The Virgin of the Wind Rose

  A Christopher Columbus Mystery-Thriller

  ORDER

  While investigating the murder of an American missionary in Ethiopia, State Department lawyer Jaqueline Quartermane discovers an ancient Latin palindrome embedded with a cryptographic time bomb. Separated by half a millennium, two espionage conspiracies dovetail in this breakneck thriller to expose the world’s most explosive secret: The true identity of Christopher Columbus and the explorer’s connection to those now trying to launch the Apocalypse.

  The Yanks Are Starving

  A Novel of the Bonus Army

  ORDER

  Mired in the Great Depression, the United States teeters on the brink of revolution. And as the summer of 1932 approaches, a charismatic hobo leads twenty thousand homeless World War I veterans into the nation’s capital to demand their service compensation. Here is the epic story of political intrigue and betrayal that culminated in the only pitched battle ever fought between two American armies under the same flag.

  The Spider and the Stone

  A Novel of Scotland's Black Douglas

  ORDER

  As the 14th century dawns, the brutal Edward Longshanks of England schemes to steal Scotland. But inspired by a headstrong lass, a frail, dark-skinned boy named James Douglas defies three Plantagenet kings and champions the cause of his wavering friend, Robert the Bruce, leading the armies to the bloody field of Bannockburn. Here is the thrilling saga of star-crossed love and heroic sacrifice that saved Scotland and set the stage for the founding of the United States.

  More information at www.glencraney.com.

  * * *

  Also By John Jeter

  The Plunder Room

  A Novel

  ORDER

  Moments before Edward Duncan dies, the colorful World War II hero leaves a mandate for his grandson Randol--to safeguard the family’s proud Southern legacy. Randol, paralyzed and in a wheelchair after a car accident, buries his grandfather, and learns that his father, a Vietnam veteran, is running an illicit empire with Randol’s half-brother, Jerod. A wise-cracking music critic, Randol already has his hands full with his pot-smoking Goth son. When Jerod brings the gorgeous Annie down South and parks her in their South Carolina home, the family maid Volusia, “quick to ram a bar of soap into any foul mouth,” sizes up Annie in short order. Jerod, his father, and Randol, are blind to what Volusia sees so easily, making it that much harder for Randol to bring the family together and salvage their dignity. A powerfully compelling story about one man’s mission to preserve his family’s ideals of honor and loyalty.

  Rockin’ A Hard Place

  Flats, Sharps and Other Notes From a Misfit Music Club Owner

  ORDER

  John Jeter was a burnt-out journalist living in Florida when his younger brother, who once saved Jeter’s life by donating one of his kidneys, telephoned with life-altering news: he found the perfect spot in Greenville, South Carolina, for the concert hall they always dreamed of opening. This is the story of The Handlebar, an intimate listening room that has presented thousands of artists—John Mayer, Joan Baez, Zac Brown, and Sugarland among them—and hosted a quarter-million fans since its opening in 1994. A promoter’s memoir of a naive plunge into an industry that Hunter S. Thompson once called a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free.

  More information at www.johnjeter.com.

  An Excerpt from

  The Virgin of the Wind Rose

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lalibela, Ethiopia

  January 20, Present Day

  SOPPED IN SWEAT, THE TEN-YEAR-OLD Ethiopian boy prayed to St. Georgis the Dragonslayer for protection as he wormed his way toward the tomb of the first man on Earth.

  Stained with the ancient blood of Satan’s serpents, the tunnel’s gritty red sandstone punished his hands and knees, and though the settling of the night had cooled his mountain village above him, here, sixty meters below the surface, the trapped midday heat could roast a chicken. Faint from hunger, he stopped crawling and brought out a crust of injera bread from his pocket. He chewed the morsel slowly, taking care to muzzle its aroma with the sleeve of his tunic to avoid being swarmed by the bees that hived in the crevices.

  At last, his dizziness eased, and he resumed his quest. Groping blindly on all fours along the narrowing walls, he finally came to the Armory of the Shining Ones, the long notch in the floor where the angels had once stored their lances.

  “Mäqäraräb,” he whispered. Not far now.

  He knew each bend and cranny in this secret passage by memory. Every morning for the past three years, he had accompanied his father, the High Priest of Lalibela, on his ritual inspections of these connected subterranean churches. Marked at birth for God’s service with a blue cross tattooed on his right temple, he had been forbidden to play football or chase tourists for candy. Now he was expected to slave six more years carrying sandals before becoming a deacon. Everyone told him he should be grateful for the honor, but he had no desire to waste his life mumbling incantations. Tomorrow he planned to stow away in the cargo bin of the bus to Addis Ababa, where he would find prosperous construction work and a beautiful girlfriend.

  Before leaving home, however, he craved another escape, one that promised a rare glimpse of Paradise. In a few hours, at dawn, his fellow Lalibelans would celebrate Timkat, the holiest of their many religious festiva
ls. The elders of the monastery had already retired early to their cloisters to prepare with chants. This night, the tenth of Terr, was the only time of the year when Bet Golgota, the underground church of the Crucifixion, was left unguarded. It was his last chance to pierce the veil that shrouded Heaven’s wisdom and delights.

  He came hovering over the yawning trench that protected the entrance to the nave and ran a finger across an inscription on a stone carved in Ge’ez:

  The opening verse of Genesis.

  He kissed the ground that covered the bones of the biblical Adam. Then, he reached up and inserted the stolen key into a lock just beyond the grave.

  After several turns of the rusty tumbler, the pitted door squealed open.

  He slithered inside the trapezoidal cavern and looked up at faded frescoes of martyred saints lit by ambient moonlight from fissures in the ceiling. As the Holy Ones glared down at him in accusation, he climbed to his feet and slowly approached the Selassie Chapel, a sanctuary so sacred that for ages only the head priests had been allowed to enter it. His hands shook slightly as he drew aside a ratty curtain that covered the burial vault of King Lalibela, the monarch who had ruled Ethiopia during the time of the White Knights.

  It was here––in this very vault––where he had spied his father hiding the precious Leaves of Eden. How long he had dreamt of the ecstasy now so near his grasp. He heard a whisper of warning from his soul: He who gazes upon the hidden treasures of Lalibela will be struck blind and mute for eternity.

  That ancient curse gave him pause, but only for a moment. His father and the priests had likely spread such tales to scare off grave robbers. He pushed against the slab, and finally the adhesions of centuries gave way. With a deep breath, he reached blindly into the sarcophagus. His palm brushed the trove.