Maze Master

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  Martin now rode in the middle of the boat. He’d taken over the sailing duties, moving the sail as necessary to tack back and forth up the coastline, while Anna sat in the bow across from Micah, hunched over a notebook.

  She was a mystery. Often, both during the day and at night, she cast sudden glances up at the sky, and tucked her head down, apparently concerned about facial recognition software. What had she done? Why, when the world was obviously falling apart, would the U.S. military care about tracking down one woman?

  Anna’s skin had tanned a deep brown, which gave her braided hair more of a reddish tint. For almost two hours, Anna had been shaking her head and murmuring to herself, “Why can’t I figure this out?”

  “Can I help?” Micah asked.

  She propped her notebook on one knee and expelled a breath. When she turned to face him, she squinted against the ocean reflections. “You don’t know ancient Greek, do you?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Do you have any cipher training?”

  “Doesn’t everybody in special ops?”

  Her white teeth flashed in the sunlight. The boat rocked slightly as she slid across the bench to sit beside him, and handed him her notebook. “What do you see there, Captain?”

  He grasped the steno pad and frowned at the alien characters. “Where does this come from? A book?”

  “No, it’s an ancient Greek inscription found on what may have been a two-thousand-year-old ossuary in Egypt.”

  “Can you read me the letters?”

  “Sure: Phi, pi, psi, sigma—a terminal sigma, one used at the end of a word, not in the middle—pi, phi, tau, tau, omega, pi, pi. However, Martin thinks the omega is a spacer, not meant to be part of the sequence. It’s like saying ‘end here,’ new word begins.”

  “So there are really only ten letters?”

  “Probably.”

  Micah studied the symbols, trying to see a pattern, beginning simple with a possible substitution cipher for English letters. Didn’t work. “Why does this inscription matter?”

  Sunlight glistened on her face. “It’s part of a … a maze.”

  “Written as a cipher?”

  “I think so.”

  Micah continued to analyze the letters. “Are they words?”

  “Not in Greek, no. However, if you switched to a specific font on your computer and used a QWERTY keyboard to type in Marham-i-Isa, that’s what the letters would look like in Greek.”

  Incredulous, Micah said, “Let me get this straight. This inscription is maybe two thousand years old, but it can only be deciphered if you know how to type?”

  Anna expelled a breath. “Yes, to the latter. I’m not sure about the former.”

  “What’s the Marham-i-Isa?”

  Anna deliberately did not look at Martin, but Micah could see the professor vehemently shaking his head.

  Martin called, “Don’t drag him into this, Anna.”

  Anna glanced back at Martin, but said, “Historically, the Marham-i-Isa was an ancient healing ointment.”

  Given the empty cities and devastation they’d seen along the entire coastline, the curiously flowing letters took on a new significance. “Why would anyone go to such lengths to hide the name of an old ointment? What does it do?”

  Her hard eyes seemed magnified and made luminous by the soft light glittering from the ocean. After the briefest of inner debates, she said, “According to legend, this is a very special ointment—the ointment that Jesus created to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life.”

  Micah chuckled. “Like Lazarus?”

  “Exactly,” she said without a shred of humor. “In fact, the Marham-i-Isa is also known as the Ointment of the Apostles, because one historical document says the Apostles used it to bring Jesus back to life after the crucifixion.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but I doubt that’s what this inscription is referring to. Instead, I think the words—Marham-i-Isa—are a trick, a deception.” She grimaced at the script. “The sequence has another purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  “Don’t know. Not yet.”

  Micah returned his gaze to the page.

  All around the letters, she had scratched out her attempts to decipher it, but beneath the blue ink, he saw sequence after sequence of numbers. He tapped one of the scratched-out sections. “Your hunch is that the cipher is a numerical system?”

  “No, not really. In fact, I doubt it, but I have to try everything. The Greek alphabet is composed of twenty-four letters. Phi is the twenty-first letter, pi is the sixteenth, psi is the twenty-third, sigma is the eighteenth, etcetera. My hunch is that the numbers are clues that define the shape of the maze.”

  He gestured to the numbers. “My mother loved numerology. She told me that ten was the God number. If there are ten letters that define the shape of the maze, is this about God? A God maze?”

  Martin groaned, but Anna tilted her head to the side, as though debating on how to answer.

  Martin said, “Let’s move on. I have another idea.”

  Anna turned. “I’m listening.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that the letters in the inscription may refer to biblical passages?”

  “Which passages?”

  Martin lifted one hand. “For example, 1 Kings 8:38 talks about knowing every man by the plague of his own heart. Eight divided by 38 is .21. Phi is the twenty-first letter. Here are two other plague references: 2 Samuel 24:15. Divide and you get 1.6. Pi is the sixteenth letter. Luke 21:11 comes out 1.9. Tau is the nineteenth letter.”

  “So you think some of the letters refer to biblical plagues?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  Anna stared down at her notebook for several moments. “That’s exactly the kind of thing he would do. Circles within circles.”

  A strange silence settled over the boat.

  Micah watched her. He’d been wondering something. “When did you leave the air force, Anna?”

  “Three months ago.”

  Micah tilted his head, curious. “Why’d you leave?”

  A seagull floated over the mast, its white feathers ruffling in the breeze.

  “I was tired, Micah. Bone tired.”

  She returned to staring at her notebook.

  Micah looked out at the ocean while he thought. Sunlight reflected from the water with blinding intensity. He knew what it was like to be bone tired.

  Martin said, “I want to throw out another possibility. Ancient Jewish mystics believed that the entire Hebrew alphabet was sacred, but particularly the four letters of the name of God, YHWH. They were considered to be the instrument of creation. Sometimes referred to as the Divine Word.”

  Micah said, “As in the first chapter of the Book of John, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.’”

  “Exactly. There’s a wonderful story that dates to at least the second century, about Rabbi Meir. Meir says that when he was studying with the famed teacher Rabbi Akiba, he used to put vitriol in the ink and told no one.”

  “Vitriol?” Micah asked.

  “Sulfuric acid,” Nadai said. “But when Meir went to Rabbi Ishmael, the rabbi asked him: ‘My son, what is your occupation?’ Meir answered, ‘I am a scribe of the Torah,’ and Ishmael said to him: ‘My son, be careful of your work, for it is the work of God; if you omit a single letter, or write a letter too many, you will destroy the whole world.’”

  Micah said, “I don’t get it. Why?”

  “Every letter of the alphabet was part of God’s recipe for creation. Changing a single letter could cause the whole structure to collapse.”

  Almost as an afterthought, Anna whispered, “A former teacher of mine believed the same thing, though he was working with the letters of DNA.”

  Martin said, “Ah, the legendary madman.”

  Micah shot glances between them. “Madman? I assume you don’t like Anna’s former teacher.”

  “Never met him,” Martin said.

&nbs
p; Just beneath Anna’s cool facade, fear lurked. Micah could see it far back in her eyes, and in the tightness of her jaw muscles. The stakes must be way higher than he’d thought. And Anna was clearly the only one who understood the rules. “What’s your former teacher’s name?”

  “James Hakari.”

  Micah tapped her notebook. “Is he the one who wrote the inscription?”

  Anna’s expression slowly slackened, as though she suddenly understood something. She stared right at Micah, but she wasn’t there. Barely audible, she said, “Maybe phi isn’t a letter. Maybe it’s a turn in the maze defined by the Golden Ratio.”

  Micah frowned. “What’s the Golden Ratio?”

  Anna’s gaze moved, as though thinking about something. “It’s a number often encountered in simple geometric figures like rectangles, triangles, pentagons. It’s a ratio. It equals about 1.618. Hakari used to wear a golden bracelet, crafted in the form of a serpent, coiled around his wrist. He gave each of his best students an identical bracelet, and said it was to remind them of the DNA molecule.”

  “The DNA molecule?”

  “Sure. The molecule is twenty-one angstroms wide and coils like a serpent…” She drew a spiral through the air with her finger and her voice faded as her eyes opened wider. “Twenty-one. My God. Phi isn’t just the twenty-first letter, it’s one full cycle of the double helix, the DNA molecule.” Shock slackened her face. It took three seconds for her to say, “It’s drawn on a double helix.”

  Martin sat up straighter. “That’s the shape of the maze? Are you sure?”

  She pulled the notebook from Micah’s fingers, rose, and moved to the far side of the bow, where she dropped her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes closed. “Oh, James, a double helix?”

  The discussion had ended so abruptly Micah felt a little like she’d just broken up with him. “The maze is drawn on a double helix? What does that mean?”

  “Anna, it can’t be.” Martin shook his head, as though denying her conclusion. “Why would he do that? It would be almost impossible—”

  “The maze is drawn on a double helix?” Micah repeated. “What does that mean?”

  Anna lifted her head. “A double helix is a … a shape. Like a spiral staircase. In this case, the staircase leads into the heart of life itself, DNA. Hakari believed DNA revealed the mind of God.”

  Micah glanced back and forth between them. “So, it is a God maze.”

  Sounding a little exasperated, Martin explained, “Anna’s former teacher believed that the DNA molecule carried truths beyond its physiological function. He thought God hid messages in our DNA.”

  Micah shifted on the bench to look straight across at Anna. “Is that why the military is tracking you? These hidden messages?”

  After several moments of silence, Micah understood that neither of them intended to answer that question. He sighed and leaned back on his elbows, absorbing the warmth of the sun and the endless vista of turquoise water. When he glanced back at Martin Nadai, he found the professor staring worriedly at Anna.

  CHAPTER 27

  Just a dream …

  She knew it was a dream.

  She ran down the twisting alleys of a maze with her heart bursting. I can’t find the way out. The walls were a three-dimensional latticed spiral that seemed to have no beginning or end, and she keep hitting dead ends, having to turn around, run back, start over.

  “James? James, where are you? James, help me!”

  When her legs were finally too weak to run any longer, she fell to her knees in the darkness and begin to sob …

  * * *

  And felt a hand, large but very gentle, comfortingly brush her hair.

  She jerked awake panting, staring at the starlit ocean, fighting to escape the terror that still lived and breathed inside her.

  Martin said, “You’re all right, Anna. Everything’s all right.”

  Despair constricted her throat. She longed to shout at him, to tell him he was a fool to believe that, but the last thing she needed was for him to know that she was floundering on the verge of panic. As he continued to tenderly stroke her hair, she reached up, grasped his hand, and pulled his arm around her like a shield. “Hold me, Martin.”

  “I’ve got you.” He wrapped both arms around her. “I’m right here.”

  CHAPTER 28

  OCTOBER 16. LEIPZIG, GERMANY.

  Flanked by eleven soldiers in protective silver suits, General Garusovsky and Lieutenant Borodino marched down the blasted roadway toward the collapsed ruin beside the river. Each wore his helmet locked down, gloves secured, boots covered. Garusovsky was taking no chances here. The terraced roofs had supported story after story of magnificent gardens, and these had fallen in upon one another, mingling flowers, saplings, and earth with gigantic twisted iron beams. For as far as he could see, all the way to the horizon, colossal heaps of wreckage rose like perverse mountains.

  When he noticed several survivors huddled in the darkness, he slowed down. One of the females, old and gray, rocked an infant in her arms. The other female had four small children clinging to her skirt. Bars of ribs were visible through holes in their threadbare shirts. The wide-eyed children had obviously been ordered not to make a sound. They watched Garusovsky’s entourage pass without a whimper.

  “This is dangerous, General,” Borodino’s voice came through his earphone. “We shouldn’t be here.”

  Garusovsky studied the survivors with slitted eyes. “After Patient Zero was found, this site was quarantined. No one has seen the actual reports of the experiments. We must risk it.”

  When they reached the ruin of the main building that housed the Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Garusovsky said, “Lieutenant Kutuzov, carry on.”

  Kutuzov saluted. “Yes, General.”

  Kutuzov drew his pistol with a gloved hand, and used it to wave his men forward. “Spread out, comrades. You each have a copy of the architectural blueprints. Find the safe in the laboratory. You know what to look for. Make sure you use extreme caution when you bag the reports.”

  The lieutenant led his team forward to scour the toppled girders and crumbled plaster of what had once been the finest genetics research facility on the planet. While they worked, Garusovsky braced his feet and stood quietly at Borodino’s side.

  Borodino watched the team move in and out of the dark vaults like scrambling rodents. In places, the soldiers had to bend low to pass beneath massive cracked pillars that precariously supported literally tons of debris. Kutuzov and four of his best men finally disappeared into the blackness.

  Thirty minutes later, Kutuzov exited the rubble warren carrying a heavy plastic bag of documents.

  He marched directly forward and handed it Garusovsky.

  Garusovsky nodded to him. “Well done, Kutuzov.”

  As Garusovsky turned to leave, the younger Germanic woman began sobbing. Her four children shrieked in response and huddled around her like small filthy animals, clawing at her clothing. The other woman, the old gray-headed one, lifted the infant up to the sky, as though beseeching her deity. When she set the child on the ground again, she traced a cross over its heart, then touched its forehead, breast, and both shoulders, drew a knife from the ground, and quickly slit the child’s throat.

  Garusovsky winced. These women had watched their world die around them, with loved ones falling like insects after a hard frost. The younger woman shoved away the clutching hands of her children and rose to her feet to stand beside the elder. Placing their arms around one another, they tipped their faces to the moon and began chanting, or maybe singing, it was hard to tell, but it had a clear cadence, as though a recitation. Maybe a prayer. When they’d finished, the old woman dragged another child over and slit the screaming girl’s throat.

  Borodino whispered, “That’s heartbreaking.”

  Garusovsky said, “Perhaps, but they must die, Borodino. The world must be cleansed, so that our people can spread around the planet. We will need living space.”


  CHAPTER 29

  HYPOGEUM

  The piece of blue chalk had worn down so that it was barely long enough to hold in his fingers. Gripping it as best he could, he continued drawing on the stone floor inside the bomb shelter, round and round, creating the ancestral spiral, shape by shape, as God had revealed it to him.

  As he drew, he said, “Do you s-see them?”

  Stephen, who stood in the tunnel just outside the bomb shelter, shook his head. “No, Brother. We are still alone. What makes you think anyone will be coming? I told you, the island has been evacuated. There’s no one left to come for us.”

  “You should not have stayed with me.”

  “Brother Andrew Paul commanded me to stay with you. He said we had not been exposed to the disease. He was praying God would keep us both safe if we stayed down here. And he wanted you to continue your work.”

  Grimacing at the last shape he’d drawn, he used his finger to erase a line, then carefully redrew it. The chalk grated on the stone.

  Stephen leaned against the heavy iron door to watch him. “What is that shape, Brother?”

  “An—an octahedron. I’m not very good at drawing three-dimensional figures.”

  Stephen’s gaze went around the spiral drawn on the floor. “Why does it have to be three-dimensional?”

  “The crucibulum. She will understand.”

  “Anna, again?”

  Thinking about her hurt. When he’d loved her, he had not known she was spying on him for the military. Or maybe he had, but he’d forgotten. After the brain trauma, he’d forgotten so much. That last day in America, when Yacob had told him she was an air force officer, it had been devastating. He’d been certain she had helped the government put him in that psychiatric prison.