Table of Contents
About the Author
Title
By the Same Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Author's Note
Prologue
PART ONE The Devil's Book Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
PART TWO Terra Incognita Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
PART THREE The Garden of God Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
PART FOUR The Source Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Michael Cordy worked for ten years in marketing before giving it all up to write. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
www.rbooks.co.uk
THE SOURCE
www.rbooks.co.uk
Also by Michael Cordy
The Messiah Code
The Crime Code
The Lucifer Code
The Venus Conspiracy
For more information on Michael Cordy and his books, see his website at www.michaelcordy.com
THE SOURCE
Michael Cordy
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 9781409080367
Version 1.0
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First published in Great Britain
in 2008 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Michael Cordy 2008
Michael Cordy has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781409080367
Version 1.0
The reproduction of the Voynich Cipher on pages 19, 20, 189, 233 and 234 are by courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
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For Phoebe
Author's Note
The Voynich Cipher Manuscript featured in this novel exists. Every detail of its appearance, unique text, bizarre illustrations and known history is accurately described. The reproduced pages are from the original, which resides in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Despite the best attempts of leading scholars and experts, including the cryptographers of America's vaunted National Security Agency, it has never been deciphered. To this day the Voynich Cipher remains the most mysterious manuscript in the world.
Michael Cordy
London, 2008
Prologue
Rome, 1561
When his eyes scan the small crowd she forces herself not to look away. If he is strong enough to endure this, then she is strong enough to watch.
He hobbles on bandaged feet, charred and broken by the Inquisition's torturers, as the executioner makes him a final offer: recant and be garrotted mercifully before being tied to the stake, or refuse and be burnt alive. His eyes find hers and, defiantly, he shakes his head. She wants to signal her support and her love, but she cannot move. She is mesmerized by what is happening, and in shock from what he has asked her to do.
What she has vowed to do.
The auto de fe is being held at night, in the torchlit courtyard of an anonymous church in the outskirts of Rome. A small group, less than twenty, has gathered round the lone stake. The Holy Mother Church has no desire to publicize this heretic's death – or his heresy. She catches a flash of red in her peripheral vision, but doesn't divert her gaze when the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Prefect Michele Ghislieri, steps forward in his scarlet robes. The Grand Inquisitor has 'relaxed' the heretic to the secular authorities to perform the execution so the Holy Mother Church can abide by its maxim: ecclesia abhorret a sanguine, the Church shrinks from blood. But this is still his show. And with fire there will be no blood.
'Burn his book with him,' the Grand Inquisitor orders. 'Burn the Devil's book with the heretic.' There is a moment of consternation as the executioner and the clerics search him and find nothing. 'Where is it?'
A jolt of fear surges through her but the condemned man stays silent.
'Heretic, surrender the book or face the consequences.'
A bitter laugh. 'What more can you do to me?'
'Burn him,' orders the Inquisitor.
The men drag him to the platform and rope him to the stake. They pile the final bundles of wood around the base, then apply torches. As the
fire catches, she prays he will suffocate before the flames reach his flesh. Clutching the crucifix he gave her, she holds his gaze until the acrid smoke obscures his face. Only then does she allow the tears to come. As the smoke rises into the night sky and his flesh starts to burn – to cook – the sweet, disconcertingly familiar smell sickens her. His screams are mercifully short, but she takes little comfort from that.
When the flames are at their height the Grand Inquisitor and his retinue leave. Then the others dissolve gradually into the night. Alone, she waits until only bone, ash and glowing embers are left. Then she approaches the pyre and collects what she can of his remains. As she bends she feels the manuscript concealed in her robes and hopes this 'Devil's book' is worth his torture and agonizing death. And she prays that it justifies the terrifying vow she made to him before he died.
'In time all will be revealed,' she whispers, as she walks off into the dark night. 'Time reveals all.'
PART ONE
The Devil's Book
1
Switzerland, four and a half centuries later
He felt no fear at first, only sadness that it should end like this. He had made a fortune, amassed a portfolio of properties around the world, learnt several languages and bedded more beautiful women than he could remember, yet it seemed meaningless now. He had lived alone and would die alone, unremarked and unremembered, his body fed to animals or buried under concrete in a building site. It would be as if he had never lived, never existed.
'Kneel in the middle of the plastic sheet.'
As he knelt, hands clasped as if in prayer, he noted the surgical saw, Ziploc plastic bag and roll of duct tape by the killer's right foot. He didn't need to look up at the Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol in the assassin's left hand to know what was coming. He knew the procedure better than anyone: he had invented it. First there would be two bullets to the head. His left hand would be severed and placed in the Ziploc bag, then his body wrapped in the black plastic sheet and sealed with the duct tape. Finally, a vulture squad would be called to dispose of his corpse, and the killer would deliver his severed left hand to the client as proof of death.
'You know who I am?' the killer asked.
He nodded. 'La mano sinistra del diavolo, the left hand of the Devil. The most feared assassin in the world.'
'My real name. Do you know my real identity? Look at me. Look at my face.'
It was now that the fear came – paralysing fear. He couldn't look up. He was too frightened of what he would see.
'Look at me,' the killer ordered. 'Look into the eyes of the man who destroyed your life and damned you to Hell for ever.'
He looked up slowly. His heart seemed to stop in his chest. The killer's face was his own. As he trembled in terror, the din of fierce barking pierced his nightmare and dragged him to consciousness.
Marco Bazin emerged slowly from his medicated sleep and opened his eyes, but the guard dogs outside his house still sounded like the hounds of Hell baying for his soul. Panicked and disoriented, he stared into the gloom. At first he didn't recognize his own bedroom: the clinic had filled it with so much equipment it was more like a hospital room. He wiped sweat from his forehead and scalp. His hair, thick for a man in his late forties, had been his one vanity. The surgeons had said it would grow back but had been less optimistic about purging the disease.
He slowed his breathing and calmed himself. He despised fear. A few short months ago, before he had admitted himself to the exclusive Swiss clinic near his alpine retreat above Davos, he had been the source of fear: la mano sinistra del diavolo. He was renowned for the ruthless efficiency of his kills, and it was said that once a client gave him a name its owner was already dead.
Now he was about to die.
Bazin's hand brushed the crotch of his cotton pyjamas, as if reaching for what they had taken from him. The surgeons wished he had come to them earlier, before the aggressive non-seminoma could spread. They'd told him to watch for several symptoms when this last course of chemotherapy was over. But the cancer was only one of his problems.
As he stared into the dark, listening to the instruments and his breathing, he took stock. He had told no one of his illness and the staff at the clinic had assured him of their total discretion. Yet he knew the whispering must have started. He had turned down three major jobs before he'd entered the clinic, and many other clients had tried to contact him while he had been incommunicado during surgery and chemotherapy. Soon the rumours would harden into conclusions, then actions. Clients would wonder why their calls had gone unanswered; some would suspect he was working for rivals. Enemies would scent blood and seek the opportunity to settle old scores. He may have been a lion once, a king of the jungle, but he was wounded now and the emboldened jackals were circling. If the cancer didn't get him, a bullet would. Either way he was dead.
The dogs barked again and panic surged.
For the first time since his childhood Bazin felt fear. Not of dying – the novelty of that had long worn off – but of what lay beyond death. Since diagnosis and surgery he had been forced to reflect on his life and concluded that, in exchange for losing his soul, killing for a living had yielded nothing of real value – only money and its hollow trappings. A chill ran through him. He reached for the string of wooden rosary beads on the side table – a childhood gift, kept more out of sentiment than faith. He focused on the expensive curtains drawn across the window and imagined the looming mountains beyond. Usually their beauty calmed him but now it intensified his loneliness.
Why were the dogs still barking?
He shook his head, trying to focus his mind, and checked the clock beside his bed. Three sixteen a.m. He heard the night nurse murmuring on the landing outside his room, then another, deeper, voice.
Bazin sat up, dizzy and breathless.
A man – at least one – was here. In his home. In the middle of the night.
It was no surprise that his enemies would come for him when he was weak and defenceless. But how had they found him? No one at the clinic was aware of his profession, and hardly anyone knew the location of this house. But that meant nothing, he realized. Everyone had a price. He considered the people who had tried to hide from him in the past. He had found them. And killed them.
Fear galvanized him. He had to live. He searched the gloom for something with which to defend himself, but the nurses had cleared everything away, except the equipment and medicines to keep him alive. There was nothing here with which to take a life.
He listened as the footsteps approached the closed door, something oddly familiar in their irregularity. Ignoring the pain and fighting the nausea that threatened to overwhelm him, he climbed out of bed. More sweat dripped from his forehead. They dared come for him only because they thought he was weak, half the man he had once been. But he'd show them. He tested the thin string of rosary beads. It snapped. He dropped the beads on the bed, yanked one end of the intravenous tube from the cannula in his wrist, the other from the drip stand, then pulled the tube tight in his hands. He steadied himself, then moved across the room and positioned himself behind the closed door.
It opened slowly and a dagger of light cut across the rug. He no longer felt sick or weak as he focused on eradicating the threat to his life. The intruder stopped in the doorway, as if considering whether to enter. As soon as the man's head appeared Bazin pulled the garrotte round his neck and twisted it.
With cheese-wire Bazin could garrotte a victim in seconds, rupturing the jugular and crushing the windpipe. However, the plastic tubing stretched, and as Bazin struggled to tighten it he noticed the man's clothing – and that he was unarmed. Then he remembered the man's gait – his limp. He yanked the intruder round so they faced each other. As he stared into the man's bulging eyes, Bazin froze. He knew why the man had come under the cover of darkness. Not to kill him, but to protect his own identity from prying eyes. He was embarrassed to be seen coming here. And that shamed Bazin.
He loosened the tubing from the man's n
eck. 'Leo.' He didn't try to disguise his gratitude. 'I can't believe you came.'
The man rubbed his throat. 'You're my half-brother, Marco,' he rasped. 'You said you were dying. Of course I came.' His eyes filled with contempt. 'What do you want from me? What could you possibly want from a priest?'
The Source Page 1