The Codex

by Douglas Preston

  “None of that’s true,” said Vernon. “He loved us.”

  Philip gave a little snort of derision.

  “You say he was divorced from your mother?”

  “You mean our mothers? He was divorced from two of them, widowed by the other. There were also two other wives he didn’t breed with and any number of girlfriends.”

  Any fights over alimony?” Fenton asked.

  “Naturally,” said Philip. “Alimony, palimony, it never ended.”

  “But he raised you kids himself?”

  Philip paused, then said, “In his own unique way, yes.”

  The words hung in the air. Barnaby wondered just what kind of father he might have been. Better stick to the main thread: He was running out of time. The SOC boys would be here any moment, and then he’d be lucky ever to set foot on the crime scene again.

  “Any woman in his life now?”

  “Only for purposes of mild physical activity in the evening,” said Philip. “She will get nothing, I assure you.”

  Tom broke in. “Do you think our father is okay?”

  “To be honest, I haven’t seen any evidence of a murder here. We didn’t find a body in the house.”

  “Could they have kidnapped him?”

  Barnaby shook his head. “Not likely. Why deal with a hostage?” He glanced at his watch. Five, maybe seven minutes left. Time to ask the question. “Insured?” He made it sound as casual as possible.

  A dark look passed over Philip’s face. “No.”

  Even Barnaby couldn’t hide his surprise. “No?”

  “Last year I tried to arrange for insurance. No one would cover the collection as long as it was kept in this house with this security environment. You can see for yourself how vulnerable the place is.”

  “Why didn’t your father upgrade his security?”

  “Our father was a very difficult man. No one could tell him what to do. He had a lot of guns in the house. I guess he thought he could fight ’em off, Wild West style.”

  Barnaby shuffled through his notes and checked his watch again. He was disturbed. The pieces were not fitting together. He was sure it wasn’t a simple robbery, but without insurance, why rob yourself? Then there was the coincidence of the letter to the sons, calling them in for this meeting at just this moment. He recalled the letter ... a very important matter affecting your future ... very disappointed if you do not come ... There was something suggestive about the wording.

  “What was in the vault?”

  “Don’t tell me they got into the vault, too!” Philip dabbed at his sweating face with a trembling hand. His suit had wilted, and the devastation on his face looked genuine.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, God. It held gemstones, jewelry, South and Central American gold, rare coins and stamps, all extremely valuable.”

  “The burglars seem to have had the combination to the vault as well as keys to everything. Any idea how?”

  “No.”

  “Did your father have anyone he trusted—a lawyer, for example—who might have kept a second set of keys or had the combination to the vault?”

  “He trusted nobody.”

  This was an important point. Barnaby looked at Vernon and Tom. “You agree?”

  They both nodded.

  “Did he have a maid?”

  “He had a woman who came daily.”

  “Gardener?”

  “A full-time man.”

  “Any others?”

  “He employed a full-time cook and a nurse who looked in three days a week.”

  Fenton now interrupted, leaning forward and smiling in that feral way of his. “Mind if I ask you a question, Philip?”

  “If you must.”

  “How come you’re talking about your father in the past tense? You know something we don’t?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Philip exploded. “Who will rid me of this Sherlock Holmes manqué?”

  “Fenton?” murmured Barnaby, casting him a warning glance.

  Fenton looked over and saw Barnaby’s look, and his face fell. “Sorry.”

  Barnaby asked, “Where are they now?”

  “Where are who?”

  “Maid, gardener, cook. This robbery took place two weeks ago. Somebody dismissed the help.”

  Tom said, “The robbery occurred two weeks ago?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But I only got my letter by Federal Express three days ago.”

  This was interesting. “Did any of you notice the sender’s address?”

  “It was some kind of drop-shipping place, like Mail Boxes Etc.,” said Tom.

  Barnaby thought for a moment. “I have to tell you,” he said, “that this so-called robbery has insurance fraud written all over it.”

  “I already explained to you the collection wasn’t insured,” said Philip.

  “You explained it, but I don’t believe it.”

  “I know the art insurance market, Lieutenant—I’m an art historian. This collection was worth about half a billion dollars, and it was just sitting in a house in the country protected by an off-the-shelf security system. Father didn’t even have a dog. I’m telling you, the collection wasn’t insurable.”

  Barnaby looked at Philip for a long time, and then he looked at the other two brothers.

  Philip let out a hiss of air and looked at his watch. “Lieutenant, don’t you think this case is a little big for the Santa Fe Police Department?”

  If it wasn’t insurance fraud, then what was it? This was no damn robbery. A crazy idea began to form, still vague. A truly nutty idea. But it was starting to take shape almost against his will, assembling itself into something like a theory. He glanced at Fenton. Fenton didn’t see it. For all his gifts, Fenton lacked a sense of humor.

  Barnaby then remembered the big-screen television, the VCR, and the videotape lying on the floor. No, not lying: placed on the floor, next to the remote. What was the hand-lettered title? WATCH ME.

  That was it. Like water freezing, it all locked into place. He knew exactly what had happened. Barnaby cleared his throat. “Come with me. The three sons followed him back into the house, into the living room.

  “Have a seat.”

  “What’s this all about?” Philip was getting agitated. Even Fenton was looking at Barnaby quizzically.

  Barnaby picked up the tape and the remote. “We’re going to watch a video.” He flicked on the television set and slid the tape into the VCR.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Philip asked, refusing to sit, his face flushed. The other two stood nearby, confused.

  “You’re blocking the screen,” said Barnaby, settling himself on the sofa. “Have a seat.”

  “This is outrageous—”

  A sudden burst of sound from the video silenced Philip, and then the face of Maxwell Broadbent, larger than life, materialized on the screen. All three sat down.

  His voice, deep and booming, reverberated in the empty room.

  “Greetings from the dead.”

  4

  Tom Broadbent stared at the life-size image of his father slowly coming into focus on the screen. The camera gradually panned back, revealing Maxwell Broadbent seated at the giant desk in his study, holding a few sheets of paper in his large hands. The room had not yet been stripped; the Lippi painting of the Madonna was still on the wall behind him, the bookshelves were still filled with books, and the other paintings and statues were all in their places. Tom shivered: Even his father’s electronic image intimidated him.

  After the greeting his father paused, cleared his throat, and focused his intense blue eyes on the camera. The sheets shook slightly in his hands. He seemed to be laboring under a strong emotion.

  Maxwell Broadbent’s eyes dropped back to the papers, and he began to read:

  Dear Philip, Vernon, and Tom,

  The long and short of it is this: I’ve taken my wealth with me to the grave. I’ve sealed myself and my collection in a tomb. This tomb is hidden somewhere in t
he world, in a place that only I know of.

  He paused, cleared his throat again, looked up briefly with a flash of blue, looked down, and continued reading. His voice took on that slightly pedantic tone that Tom remembered so well from the dinner table.

  For more than a hundred thousand years, human beings have buried themselves with their most valuable possessions. Burying the dead with treasure has a venerable history, starting with the Neanderthals and running through the ancient Egyptians and on down almost to the present day. People buried themselves with their gold, silver, art, books, medicine, furniture, food, slaves, horses, and sometimes even their concubines and wives—anything they thought might he useful in the afterlife. It’s only in the last century or two that human beings stopped interring their remains with grave goods, thus breaking a long tradition.

  It is a tradition I am glad to revive.

  The fact is, almost everything we know of the past comes to us through grave goods. Some have called me a tomb robber. Not so. I’m not a robber, I’m a recycler. I made my fortune on the wealth that foolish people thought they were taking with them to the afterworld. I’ve decided to do just what they did and bury myself with all my worldly goods. The only difference between me and them is that I’m no fool. I know there’s no afterworld where I can enjoy my wealth. Unlike them, I die with no illusions. When you’re dead you’re dead. When you die you’re just a duffel bag of rotting meat, grease, brains, and bones—nothing more.

  I’m taking my wealth to the grave for another reason entirely. A very important reason. A reason that concerns the three of you.

  He paused, looked up. His hands were still shaking slightly, and the muscles in his jaw were flexing.

  “Jesus Christ,” Philip whispered, half rising from his seat, his hands clenched. “I don’t believe this.”

  Maxwell Broadbent raised the papers to read some more, stumbled over the words, hesitated, and then abruptly stood and tossed the papers onto the desk. Screw this, he said, shoving back the chair with a violent motion. What I’ve got to say to you is too important for a damn speech. He came around the desk with several great strides, his enormous presence filling the screen and, by extension, the room where they were sitting. He paced in front of the camera, agitated, stroking his close-cropped beard.

  This isn’t easy. I don’t quite know how to explain this to you three.

  He turned, strode back.

  When I was your age, I had nothing. Nothing. I came to New York from Erie, Pennsylvania, with just thirty-five dollars and my father’s old suit. No family., no friends, no college degree. Nothing. Dad was a good man, but he was a bricklayer. Mom was dead. I was pretty much alone in the world.

  “Not this story again,” moaned Philip.

  It was the fall of 1963. I pounded the pavement until I found a job, a shitty job, washing dishes at Mama Gina’s on East 88th and Lex. A dollar and twenty-five cents an hour.

  Philip was shaking his head. Tom felt numb.

  Broadbent stopped pacing, planted himself in front of the desk, and faced the camera, slightly hunched, glowering at them. I can just see you three now. Philip, you’re no doubt shaking your head sadly, Tom, you’re probably up and swearing. And Vernon, you think I’m just plain nuts. God, I can just see the three of you. I feel sorry for you, I really do. This isn’t easy.

  He resumed his pacing. Gina’s wasn’t far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I went in there one day on a whim, and it changed my life. I spent my last dollar on a membership, and I began going to that museum every day. I fell in love with the place. What a revelation! I’d never seen such beauty, such—He waved his large hand. Christ, but you know all this.

  “We certainly do,” said Philip dryly.

  The point is, I started with nothing. Nada. I worked hard. I had a vision for my life, a goal I read everything I could get my hands on. Schliemann and the discovery of Troy, Howard Carter and King Tut’s tomb, John Lloyd Stephens and the city of Copán, the excavation of the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii. I dreamed of finding treasures like these, digging them up, owning them. I cast around: Where in the world were there lost tombs and temples still to be found? The answer was Central America. There you could still find a lost city. There was still a chance for me.

  Now he paused to open a box on his desk. He withdrew a cigar, trimmed and lit it.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Philip. “The old man’s incorrigible.”

  Broadbent waved out the match, tossed it onto the desk, and grinned. He had beautiful teeth, and they glinted white. I’m going to die anyway, why not enjoy my last few months. Right, Philip? Still smoking that pipe? I’d give it up if I were you.

  He turned and paced, trailing little puffs of blue. Anyway, I saved my money until I had enough to go to Central America. I went there not because I wanted to make money—although that was part of it, I’ll admit—but because I had a passion. And I found it. I found my lost city.

  He spun, turned, paced.

  That was the beginning. That got me started. I dealt in art and antiquities only as a way to finance my collecting. And look:

  He paused, gesturing open-palmed to the unseen collection in the house around him.

  Look. Here’s the result. One of the greatest private collections of art and antiquities in the world. These aren’t just things. Every piece in here has a story, a memory for me. How I first saw it, how I fell in love with it, how I acquired it. Each piece is part of me.

  He seized a jade object on his desk and held it toward the camera.

  Like this Olmec head, which I found in a tomb in Piedra Lumbre. I remember the day ... the heat, the snakes ... and I remember seeing it for the first time, lying there in the dust of the tomb, where it had been for two thousand years.

  Philip snorted. “The joys of theft.”

  He put the piece back down. For two thousand years it had rested there—an object of such exquisite beauty it makes you want to cry. I wish I could tell you my feelings when I saw that flawless jade head just lying there in the dust. It wasn’t created to vegetate in the darkness. I rescued it and brought it back to life.

  His voice cracked with emotion. He paused, cleared his throat, put the head down. Then he fumbled for the back of his chair and sat down, laying his cigar aside in the ashtray. He turned back to face the camera, leaning forward on the desk.

  I’m your father. I’ve watched you three grow up. I know you better than you know yourselves.

  “Not likely,” said Philip.

  As I’ve watched you grow up, I’ve been dismayed to see in you a feeling of entitlement. Privilege. A rich-kid’s syndrome. A feeling that you don’t have to work too hard, study too hard, exert yourselves—because you’re the sons of Maxwell Broadbent. Because someday, without lifting a goddamn finger, you’ll be rich.

  He rose again, restless with energy. Look, I know it’s mostly my fault. I’ve catered to your whims, bought you everything you wanted, sent you to all the best private schools, dragged you around Europe. I felt guilty about the divorces and all that. I wasn’t born to be a married man, I guess. But what have I done? I’ve raised three kids who, instead of living splendid lives, are waiting for their inheritance. Great Expectations redux.

  “Bullshit,” said Vernon angrily.

  Philip, you’re an assistant professor of art history at a junior college on Long Island. Tom? A horse vet in Utah. And Vernon? Well, I don’t even know what you’re doing now, probably living in some ashram somewhere, giving your money to a fraudulent guru.

  “Not true!” said Vernon. “Not true! Go to hell!”

  Tom could say nothing. He felt a nauseous tightening somewhere in his gut.

  And on top of that, the father went on, you three don’t get along. You never learned to cooperate, to be brothers. I started to think: What have I done? What have I done? What kind of father have I been? Have I taught my sons independence? Have I taught them the value of work? Have I taught them self-reliance? Have I taught them to take care of
each other?

  He paused and fairly shouted out, No!

  After all this, after everything, the schools, Europe, the fishing and camping trips, I’ve raised three quasi-failures. Christ, it’s my fault that it ended up this way, but there it is. And then I found out I was dying, and that put me in a panic. How was I going to fix things?

  He paused, turned. He was breathing hard now, and his face was flushed.

  Nothing like having death poke his stinking mug into your face to make you think about things. I had to figure out what to do with my collection. I sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to a museum or some university for a bunch of tweedy-dums to gloat over. And I wasn’t going to let some scummy auction house or dealer get rich from all my hard work, break it up and disperse it to the four corners after I’d spent a lifetime assembling it. Absolutely not.

  He mopped his brow, wadded up the handkerchief in a fist, and gestured at the camera with it.

  I had always planned to leave it to you. But when it came down to it, I realized it would be the very worst thing I could do to you. No way was I going to hand over to you half a billion dollars that you hadn’t earned.

  He went back behind the desk, eased his enormous frame into the chair, and took another cigar from a leather box.

  Look at me, still smoking. Too late now.

  He clipped the end, lit it. The cloud of smoke confused the automatic focus on the camera, and it went blurry, shifting back and forth, trying to find its focus. When the smoke drifted leftward out of the frame, Maxwell Broadbent’s square, handsome face leapt back into focus.

  And then it came to me. It was brilliant. All my life I’d been excavating tombs and dealing in grave goods. I knew all the tricks for hiding tombs, every booby trap, everything. I suddenly realized that I, too, could take it with me. And then I could do something for you that would really be a legacy.