For his part, El Tigre laughed off her threats and called her a very insulting term before shoving her out the door and ordering Jorge to escort her back to La Víbora. Ana screamed obscenities the whole time. Her words echoed through the building until the door to the outside slammed behind her, cutting off the sounds of her very articulate threats. In the end, it all went down like your usual Saturday afternoon quarrel between siblings.
When they were gone, El Tigre spun Zack’s chair forty-five degrees, so his back was now to the door and he was facing the table. The metal legs screeched across the concrete floor causing Zack’s left eyebrow to twitch.
El Tigre’s knife flashed behind Zack, and his hands were free, but only for a moment. Then, his hands were fastened securely with a zip tie in front of him and the slashed ropes that had bound his chest were retied.
Zack had enough mobility to reach the Bible and turn the pages, but even that was a stretch.
“Now, señor.” El Tigre’s scars were more horrific when seen up close, as he sat on the table and put himself face to face with Zack. “Somehow I doubt you have seen this Bible before.”
“Not this particular one. I’ve seen another one.” He looked around the thug’s big head to get a better view of the Bible where it sat. The cloth that had been around it was spread apart now, revealing the aged brown leather cover. A cross was embossed on the front. “This one looks to be in decent shape.”
“I could care less. If you have not seen this book before then, undoubtedly you will need to examine it for some time to discover what secret power it holds.”
“Uh, sure.” Secret power. Like the book was magic or something. “It’s going to take me at least a week to do a proper examination. I’ll have to run some ultraviolet radiation tests to identify inks and other tests to determine the paper’s composition. Then I’ll need to examine each page individually and cross-reference the writing with the copy at the British Library, the Stuttgart copy, and the St. Paul’s Cath—”
“You have thirty minutes.” Standing up from the table, El Tigre pulled it close enough for Zack to reach it from where he was—still tied to the chair. “I will return after that time and I will find that you have an answer for me, or I will slit your throat.”
“Wait, what? If I’m the only guy who can get you what you want, doesn’t it make more sense to keep me alive?”
“Perhaps. But when my sister does not return, I am sure La Víbora will come looking for her.”
Doesn’t return? Did El Tigre order Jorge to kill his sister? Is that why he let her go?
“There will be much fighting and killing,” El Tigre continued. “Not that I mind killing, but there is an excellent chance I will be the one who is killed if she brings enough men. So. Thirty minutes and I leave with the book. Either you will be alive to come with me, or you will be dead. Remember, señor, the book is still worth a lot of money on the black market. That was my original plan, after all.”
How nice to know Ana was going to be double-crossed by her brother no matter what she did. Zack hoped El Tigre was wrong. He hoped that Ana had escaped and was not lying dead with a bullet in her skull.
He was on his own.
“Okay, sure,” he finally said, reaching and sliding the Bible closer. “Delivery in thirty minutes or less. Got it.”
“Americans,” El Tigre chuckled as he left the room. “Always with jokes.”
Chapter 27
Sweat dripped from Zack’s brow and stung his eyes. There was no way he could do this in half an hour!
He wouldn’t even have time to examine all of the pages. If this Bible did hold a secret power, it would be written into the pages somehow. What he wasn’t sure of was what he was looking for. El Tigre and La Cobra might be looking for some secret paranormal power within the covers of this book, but Zack knew better. It was a Bible—the Word of God—it moved people, and it enlightened people, and it gave hope to millions all over the globe. But it could not, did not, have a supernatural power of its own.
Not to mention, it was a forgery.
Well, not exactly a forgery, but a facsimile made to look like the original.
He knew it in the first few minutes he spent looking at the old, water stained pages.
In the mid-1800s, Francis Fry, a wealthy scholar and authority on early English Bibles, used a large part of his fortune collecting and making copies of rare Bibles. In order to generate interest in William Tyndale, in 1862, Fry set out to create a reproduction of the 1526 Tyndale Bible. He replicated the only known copy in existence at the time—a nearly complete edition now owned by the British Library.
Fry made his facsimiles on genuine antique rag paper and they were so exact that novice collectors had difficulty in believing that they were not the originals.
Book forgers loved to use nineteenth and early twentieth century reprints and reproductions for their forgeries. The hard work had already been done. The only thing left to do was remove any modern pages with introduction text, rebind the book with correct material of the period, and then give it some age. The end result was a counterfeit that would fool most collectors.
But Fry used a tracing method to create his facsimile, which was acceptable for a close representation, but not for an exact reproduction.
Zack flipped through the pages. Closer examination of the type and woodcarvings revealed inconsistencies and the assumptions Fry had made while doing his tracings.
This was a Francis Fry facsimile made to look like a William Tyndale original—he was sure of it now.
But Francis Fry never attempted to pass his facsimiles off as originals and included an introduction about William Tyndale in the books front matter.
Zack brought the book to his nose. “Walnut oil,” he said, confirming his suspicion. He could smell a forgery.
Amateur forgers often made the mistake of over aging. They used walnut oil to mimic the wear and smell of ancient books. But this technique was like perfume—a little went a long way. Too much and the fragrance could become overwhelming. Whoever created the forgery had used too much.
Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to try and pass this Fry facsimile off as the real deal.
But none of this made sense.
Had this been the edition of the Bible Father Ferguson had tried to recover?
Did he know it was a forgery?
Was that part of what Father Ferguson would have told Zack if he had gotten there a day earlier as he’d planned? Or would Zack be dead at the hands of a mutilating killer now, too?
Playing the guessing game wasn’t getting him anywhere.
Father Ferguson had valuable information that Zack obviously needed, considering his circumstances. If only he’d gotten there in time to get whatever message Ferguson had planned on giving him . . .
Or had he?
The copy of the title page Sister Grace made with the numbers . . .
It was still in his wallet.
The problem was, his hands were fastened in front. He tried, but he couldn’t get the angle. It was trapped, with no way out, just like he was. Going back in his mind he tried to remember the numbers as he’d seen them. It took him a moment and cost him a headache, but finally they swam into view in his memory.
4,19, 3 . . . No, 4, 19, 4 . . .
What were the other numbers?
There were too many to recall. He needed to see that page.
He had an idea.
It was inelegant, but it could work.
Hoping no one entered the room—Zack unbuttoned his pants, pulled down the fly, and then shimmied them down as far as he could. It took five or six minutes of twisting, but he finally managed to get into the back pocket and remove the folded paper from his wallet.
Hastily fastening his pants, Zack turned to the title page of the book with his bound hands.
It was missing like the British Library copy . . . but something wasn’t right.
“No!” Zack shouted, slamming his hands on the metal table.
The book in front of him was much larger than the printout of the title page. The forger had used one of Francis Fry’s larger quarto collector editions to work from.
This forger didn’t do their research.
Tyndale never printed a complete quarto size in 1525 or 1526. He started in the quarto, but only got as far as Matthew 22 before the first print shop in Cologne, Germany was raided. Tyndale was forced to flee up the Rhine to Worms and in 1526 he completed the printing in a much smaller octavo format.
Zack shook his head.
It was a shame the forger didn’t leave the Fry facsimile intact. Francis Fry only produced twenty-six copies of the quarto editions in 1862, and even though they weren’t perfect reproductions, they regularly sold for ten to twenty thousand dollars.
By removing the Fry’s original front matter, over aging the pages, having it rebound, and trying to pass it off as a real Tyndale, they’d destroyed the book’s value.
It was a hack job at best and practically worthless.
El Tigre would be lucky if he were able to get a few thousand dollars for it.
As Zack continued to flip page after page, he had more questions than he had answers.
Who had the real Tyndale Bible? Was there ever a real Tyndale Bible? Did the numbers correspond to the forgery or a real Tyndale?
He was confident he could figure it out . . . he just needed more time.
The door behind him opened silently, slowly.
Zack braced himself.
He wasn’t looking to die.
Had it been thirty minutes already? So quick?
How time flew when you were about to die.
Stone faced, he turned his head and craned his neck to face his captor.
PART IV
THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
— John 8:32 (TYN)
A phrase that was first introduced into the English language with William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible
Chapter 28
Sister Grace stood in the doorway—her face flush with a mixture of panic and relief. In one hand, she held Zack’s backpack and in the other, his combat knife.
She looked back into the warehouse and then closed the door behind her, making sure it remained unlocked as she did. “We do not have much time,” she whispered. “I am going to cut you free, and then we are going to run like the devil himself chases us. Do you understand?”
Zack nodded, too amazed to even speak. She set his pack down and cut his hands free.
“What are you doing here?” he finally asked.
“Rescuing you, señor.”
“I mean, how did you know I was here?”
“I left early to pick you up in Chicuana Fuego,” she said, cutting the rope that bound his waist and chest. “I saw you drive past in a truck. You were headed in the opposite direction. A woman was driving.”
“That was El Tigre’s sister, Ana.” The sister glanced up momentarily, as if she was going to say something, and then cut his ankle bindings. “So you followed us?” he asked.
Sister Grace stood and shrugged. “I thought you might need my help. What else was I to do?”
“But how did you get past the guards? Did you have to use the knife?”
She looked down at the knife and then at Zack. “Oh, good heavens no! It was in your backpack right outside the door.” She closed the knife blade and handed it to Zack. “Now we really must go.”
Zack took the knife and put it in his front pocket. “But the guards . . . How did you get past the guards?” he pressed. If they were going to make it out safely, he had to know how she made it in without being seen.
“I waited,” she said. “A big man came out first. He drove away with the woman. A few minutes later I saw El Tigre come out. He said something to the men outside and then drove away.” She picked up the Bible and said, “Now, come. We must leave now before El Tigre returns.”
Were their lives worth trying to save a forgery?
He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a fake. He stood and shouldered his backpack. “Tell me about the men outside.”
“There are six of them,” she said, holding the Bible with both hands. “When El Tigre left they started playing football in the field on the other side of the building. I saw my opportunity.”
“Let’s hope they’re still playing football.” Zack opened the door and surveyed the empty building. “Was there anyone else inside?”
“No. There was another room. An office. I thought you might be in there, but nobody was inside.”
Zack led them into the main warehouse. He stopped and turned in a full circle. The building was lined with row after row of pallet racks, filled floor to ceiling with wooden crates. It reminded him of that final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, where that government lackey is shown wheeling a wooden box into an ominous-looking warehouse filled with similar boxes.
El Tigre must have taken over the Azquatels smuggling operation. The real Tyndale Bible had to be here, but where? It could be any one of the hundreds of boxes.
“Why are you stopping?” the sister asked. Her voice laced with urgency.
He knew they had to hurry. His thirty minutes would be up soon, but Zack couldn’t leave without at least checking for the real Bible. People had died for it. “It has to be here somewhere,” he said, more to himself than to Sister Grace.
“What has to be here?”
“The Tyndale Bible,” he answered absently.
“What are you talking about, señor? We have the Bible. We have to leave here now!”
He could hear the panic in her voice. El Tigre could return at any moment. He knew that. “That’s not the real Bible,” he said, turning toward her.
She looked down at the forgery in her hands. “I don’t understand.”
He walked to the first row of shelves. It was as good as any place to start. “I’ll explain later,” he said. “Check on the men outside.”
She peered out of one of the windows on the west side of the building, making sure to stay hidden. “They are still playing football. But we really should go.”
Sister Grace shuffled back to his side, and Zack opened the first crate. “Hmm . . .” he mumbled.
“Are those urns?”
Zack moved to the next row of crates. They were filled with more of the same. “This must be how they smuggle drugs out of the country.”
“In funeral urns?”
“You’d be surprised what people use to smuggle stuff.” He moved to the third row, but it was more of the same. No Bible. “You said something about an office?”
She pointed toward the large metal roll-up door at the north end of the building. Zack moved in between the rows of crates and Sister Grace followed—still clutching the forgery. He checked a few boxes along the way and stopped at the end of the last row, near the building’s main entrance.
A large office was built into the corner of the warehouse next to the roll-up door. He guessed it to be about twenty feet by twenty feet. A good-sized window overlooked the warehouse and he could see the lights in the room were off.
He listened for movement.
The only sounds he heard were the yells of the men outside. He set off toward the room dropping to a crouching walk. The sister mimicked his movement.
They reached the office door, and he inspected the handle. He didn’t expect any internal alarm or electronic lock, but he double-checked anyway. His suspicions were confirmed, and he gingerly tested the handle.
“It’s open,” the sister whispered.
He turned the handle, and the door creaked open.
They slipped inside, and Sister Grace blew out a breath of relief. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen this kind of excitement.”
Zack didn’t want to risk turning the lights on in the room. Luckily, the computer’s screen saver was some ridiculous underwater scene with brightly colored fish. Between t
hat and the light from the window to the warehouse, they had enough light to maneuver around the room with ease.
He stepped over to a couple of file cabinets and began rifling through the contents. He hadn’t expected it to be quite that easy, but chance would have been a fine thing.
Sister Grace sat at the one desk in the room and looked at the forgery. “Tell me about this Bible.”
“It’s a fake.”
“It looks real to me.”
“It’s a facsimile printed in the 1800s made to look like a 1526 original . . . and not a very good one.”
“But why did you have it?”
“El Tigre brought it to me to unlock some magical secret. My guess is he wanted to see if I could spot the fake. Maybe he’s getting into the counterfeiting business. Or maybe his partner tried to double-cross him, and that’s why he killed him.”
“Who else did he kill?”
“I think El Tigre killed the police officer you saw him with the other night.” Zack didn’t find anything in the cabinets and moved over to a set of bookshelves. “The only thing I know for certain is, I’m not sticking around to ask him.”
“So, this is not Father Ferguson’s Bible?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not sure. It could be the Bible he had, and he might have thought it was the real thing, but I don’t think so. The real Tyndale Bible is much smaller.”
“Zack!” Sister Grace shouted using his first name for the first time. He snapped around, ready for action. “Is this it?” she asked.
He relaxed. On the metal desk lay a small open book. Next to the book were several stacks of paper and an ashtray with a cigar in it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me . . . Right out in the open?” He walked over to the desk and picked up the book. A few moments were all he needed before he knew for certain. “This is it.” The Tyndale Bible, hidden in plain sight.
The Tyndale Code: An Action-Packed Christian Fiction Thriller Novella (An Armour of God Thriller Book 1) Page 7
