‘How is the shadow of the True Cross supposed to return to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?’ Olympia asked. ‘The True Cross was destroyed and lost for ever.’
‘I don’t know,’ Lourds answered. ‘I’m only reading what’s here.’ He moved on to a third mosaic.
‘This looks like another picture of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,’ Cleena said, ‘except this one has a weeping woman.’
‘Not a woman,’ Joachim said. ‘Mary, the mother of Jesus.’ Mary’s head was also surrounded by a glowing halo.
‘New Jerusalem Church,’ Lourds said. ‘I’ve been there. They have a fantastic collection of Greek and Slavonic manuscripts. Patriarch Nikon, Nikita Minin, belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. As its seventh patriarch, he instigated a number of reforms. Unfortunately, they ended up splitting the church and incurring disfavour with Tsar Alexius, who until that point had been his best friend and a source of financing.’
‘New Jerusalem Church has been returned to a monastery,’ Joachim said.
Lourds nodded. ‘That happened back in 1990. For a while it was completely shut down. Many of the church’s treasures and icons were lost, but they retain the statue of the Virgin Mary.’
‘What does this inscription say?’ Olympia asked.
‘ “A great friend of the Church will fall, but not before he rises up an echo of the final resting place of our blessed Saviour. When the statue of his blessed Mother weeps, you will know the end of the world is near.” ’
‘Doesn’t exactly sound hopeful, does it?’ Cleena asked.
‘We wouldn’t have been sent here if there was nothing we could do,’ Joachim stated. ‘We all have a purpose in this place.’
The fourth mosaic showed orange trees round a fountain. A church was in the background, but had Islamic architecture instead of Byzantine or Gothic. Lourds knew the church’s long and interesting history because he’d studied there for a time.
‘This church, I’m supposing it’s a church, doesn’t look like the other two,’ Cleena commented.
‘It’s a church,’ Olympia replied. ‘This is the Great Mosque of Cordoba. Also known as the Mezquita.’
‘A mosque isn’t a place where I’d expect to find Christian artefacts.’
‘The two cultures have regularly tramped the same grounds,’ Olympia said. ‘Just as the Hagia Sophia, for a time, became an Islamic church, so did the Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain.’
‘It looks like it’s always been a mosque.’
‘No, it began as a Visigoth church.’
‘I’m not going to pretend I know what that is.’
‘They were the East Germanic tribe of the Goths. Not the vampire wannabes.’
‘That, I had figured.’
‘Just checking. I don’t want to go too fast for you.’
‘I’ll let you know if you do.’
‘Anyway,’ Olympia continued, ‘the Visigoths began the church there in 600 AD. Then the Muslims arrived. Emir Abd ar-Rahman I annexed it and named it in honour of his wife. He began the reconstruction, which lasted for two hundred years.’
‘So who owns it now?’
‘King Ferdinand III of Castile took the church back in 1236 and it eventually became called the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin.’
‘What does the inscription on this one have to say?’
Lourds leaned in for a better look. Then he translated, ‘ “At the church that is a crossroads where the east meets the west and both of those revere the Holy Mother, there will be made a pool. When the waters of the pool run red with blood, the end of the world will be near.” ’
‘And this is supposed to help us?’ Cleena asked. ‘This isn’t even a good pep talk.’
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ Joachim admonished her.
‘You don’t realize how astonishing this is,’ Lourds said. ‘John of Patmos died hundreds of years before the Great Mosque of Cordoba was constructed. Any of the times it was constructed. That he was able to predict it, and even guide the mosaic artists in these renderings so that we can tell what these things are now is incredible.’
Lourds’ mind worried at the information. Nothing in his education had prepared him for something like this. Of course, he hadn’t been prepared for Atlantis either.
‘Working out how that guy knew all this stuff isn’t going to help us now,’ Cleena said.
Joachim said, ‘Now you are the one who should be patient.’
Cleena ignored him. ‘So where is the Joy Scroll?’
Lourds stepped back from the wall and tried to take in the room.
‘If the scroll isn’t here, shouldn’t there be another clue?’
Staring at the mosaics, Lourds felt as though there were something he was missing. He was also certain that it was right in front of him, as plain as the nose on his face. Something about the mosaics. Something in the background. But it wasn’t visible to the casual eye. He took a deep breath and let it out, letting his mind soak up everything in the room. The candle flames wavered only slightly and caused brief shadows to scamper across the mosaic surfaces.
Just as he almost had it, he reached for it and it disappeared, eluded his grasp like fog. The mosaics all had amazing perspectives. They looked three dimensional, just like someone could – Lourds focused, hardly daring to believe what he was thinking. He strode forward and ran his hands over the mosaics.
‘Thomas, what are you doing?’ Olympia asked.
‘It’s got to be here. There’s no reason to hide the scroll any more. This room, this passage, that was the secret. The scroll was hidden here. It still is.’
As his body shifted in front of the mosaics, his shadow drifted across them. And a momentary flicker on the second mosaic caught his eye. It had only been a subtle shifting of shadows. When he tried to touch the spot, his fingers seemed to pass through the mosaic. Once the illusion was broken, he saw how clever the artist had truly been. There in the final resting place of Jesus, Lourds found the hole that contained a cylindrical shape. He smiled both at his own cleverness as well as that of the designer.
He drew a scroll from within the depths. The cylinder was made of carved wood and held only a few words in the language that Lourds had only just learned. When translated, they read: The Joy.
Lourds’ hands trembled with excitement as he opened the cylinder.
Central Business District
King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia
24 March 2010
Anticipation filled Webster as he watched the helicopters descend on the oilfield. The private security team had to have been waiting on a freighter somewhere offshore to get this close.
Saudi forces battled what Webster assumed were Shia forces. The helicopter pilots opened fire with heavy machine guns and killed them all indiscriminately.
‘Do we have someone there?’ Vicky DeAngelo demanded as she watched the attack. ‘You’ve got an international incident taking shape right now and I’m having to watch on WNN News! That is not what I pay you for!’
Webster walked back to Spider. ‘Who’s in the helicopters?’
Spider smiled slyly. ‘Them cowboys belong to Carnahan Oil. They’re the same bunch that settled the labour dispute in those West African companies a few years back.’
Webster remembered the story. Carnahan Oil was known for riding roughshod over Third World countries they did business with. In Africa, the way the oil business generally worked was cutthroat. Once oil was discovered, the politicians – or king – struggled to keep as much money as possible. All the while, they promised to spread the wealth. When the average citizen noticed that the wealth wasn’t being spread, they usually went on strike. Then the king, or politicians, called in the military to break up the strike and get the oil pumping again. Problems started when the military started thinking they were taking all the risks and not getting paid nearly enough. Then a coup took place, and the leaders were replaced by a military dictator who spread the wealth round to his troops.
During the West African debacle, Carnahan Oil had sent in their shock troops. Regretfully they weren’t able to save the king, and shot the oppressive dictator dead in the throne room. They put their own person in charge, spread a little more wealth to the citizens, and cut out the middleman.
Almost overnight, the paradigm for doing oil business in West Africa changed. No longer did the bulk of the profits go to the country that owned the oil. Now it went to those able to extract it.
Across the room, Tristan Hamilton cheered the arrival of the helicopters.
‘Elliott,’ the president called over the phone.
‘I’m here, Mike. As you can tell, the problems over here are multiplying.’
‘You need to get out of there,’ Waggoner said. ‘Once everyone knows Americans are over there pulling this kind of crap, the Saudis and the Shia are going to retaliate.’
‘Not just me, Mike. We’ve got to find a way to get us all home.’
‘All right,’ Waggoner said. ‘Let me get together with the Pentagon and see what they can put together. You stay healthy till I get back to you, do you hear me?’
‘I do. I will.’ Webster looked at the television then at the wall of glass, catching his own flickering reflection in the fires burning in the city. ‘We’ll come through this okay, Mike. You’ll see.’
The president broke the connection and Webster pocketed the sat-phone.
Vicky used the remote control to change channels on the television. Once she had it back on her network, she seemed more relaxed. Her people were more deeply entrenched in the oilfield confrontation than the reporters from WNN News. Webster wouldn’t be surprised if there was another fatality. He was certain Vicky DeAngelo was counting on that.
‘That was the president?’ Vicky asked. She didn’t miss much, especially when she was in hyper mode.
‘It was.’
‘He wants to get you out of here?’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘But you are not going to go?’ Vicky looked up at him.
‘You’re in the news business. You want to tell me how you would present a story about the Vice-President of the United States deserting a country where hundreds of his fellow citizens were left in danger?’
Her smile was cold enough to adorn a morgue. ‘Truth to tell, Mr Vice-President, I’d crucify you.’
‘Now there’s a particularly gruesome death.’ Webster smiled in remembrance.
‘So you’re staying here.’
‘How would you feel if I left you behind?’
‘I’d crucify you twice.’
Webster smiled.
‘I have to admit that I’m somewhat irked at your lack of willingness to be rescued.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you get rescued, I get rescued too. Seems pretty selfish of you to decide we can all die here.’
‘We’re not going to die here.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Because I would.’
Vicky looked at him, new understanding and suspicion dawning in her eyes. ‘Waggoner’s going to do it, isn’t he? He’s going to try to get us out of here.’
‘Are you going to quote me on this?’
‘No.’
‘Then yes. He is going to try to get us out of here.’
‘When?’
‘Soon.’
Vicky looked back through the window at the burning city. ‘Well, he’d better not be late.’
Webster threw an arm round her and pulled her close. No matter how much Vicky DeAngelo liked to pretend she was captain of her own fate, she lived with fear. Everyone on the planet did. Of course, they didn’t know what real fear was. Yet. But when the time came, if they didn’t align themselves with Webster, he intended to show them. At that moment, a bolt of pure cold lanced Webster’s heart. He swayed for a moment and nearly fell. He forced himself to remain on his feet and the feeling went away.
Vicky looked at him with concern. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course.’ Webster smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You would be. You always are.’ Vicky patted his chest.
But he knew what had happened. Someone had found that cursed scroll that John of Patmos had written. He left Vicky and retreated to the corner. He took his sat-phone out of his pocket and called Eckart’s number.
‘You haven’t found them.’
‘Not yet,’ Eckart replied. ‘We will. It’s just a matter of time.’
‘They’ve found the scroll.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know. If I did, I would’ve sent you there first.’ Webster made himself relax and take the edge out of his voice. If they had found the scroll, it meant that Lourds had broken the language the Brotherhood of the Scroll had developed.
One of the languages anyway.
For thousands of years, the plan had been in effect. Even the Brotherhood of the Scroll had been breached in the end. Constantine had been but the beginning. He had helped foster the paranoia inside the Brotherhood, making them aware of how vulnerable their knowledge was. God had created man to be open, to have no secrets. God didn’t have secrets. That was one thing man had not understood. And that was why the serpent was so successful in the Garden of Eden. The serpent had encouraged Adam and Eve to know the things that not even God would have been able to explain to them. The serpent had known, but not even the serpent could have explained God’s ways.
They just were.
All it had taken was the suggestion that there were things God did not want man to know. The rift had started then and had not ended.
‘Find them,’ Webster ordered. ‘And when you do, kill them.’
‘What about professor?’
‘Kill him too. I no longer care to know what he knows. Kill him and bring the scroll to me.’ Webster put the phone back in his pocket.
In all his plans, he had never factored in someone as gifted – or as lucky – as Professor Thomas Lourds. Now the man’s skills were going to earn him nothing more than an early grave.
Passage of Omens
Hagia Sophia Underground
Istanbul, Turkey
25 March 2010
In the steady, golden candlelight, Lourds translated the scroll and read it aloud.
Let it be known that this is the last writing of John, also known as John of Patmos. I am an old man, and I am come willingly to the end of my days. I write now under no threat of coercion only what the Lord my God would have me write.
I came to this island to spend my final days in peace, but I did not find peace. I found only the end of the world. I have seen him, I have seen the Beast, the Devil by all his names, and I have seen his efforts to take the world down before Jesus comes again.
I was there when Jesus returned to us the first time, and I saw myself the holes in his blessed hands and his blessed feet. We were not all believers. It changed me to admit this, but we were not. Even after everything we had seen him do, after we had seen him walk on stormy waters, after we had seen him raise the dead, we could not easily believe he had risen after dying so painfully.
As hard as it had been to watch him die, it was harder still to watch him take his leave of us. And more difficult again to take our leave from each other.
Many of us are dead now. In fact, I believe myself to be the last of his chosen alive, and that won’t last much longer.
You have read my visions of what is to come, of the seven years that will plague those who do not truly believe. But I have not revealed everything that will pass.
There will come a day when the Great Deceiver will rise to power among men. He will pass among you as one of your own and you will know him not. He will have practised to be one of you. He will be born unto woman, but he will be darkly evil. In those End Times you will not recognize evil as surely as you may think. But when you know the Devil, know also that no weapon made by human hand will truly destroy him.
Only one thing is capable of that, and I will
soon give it to you. It is called the Joy Scroll and it has the power to strip away the Great Deceiver’s might that he will have accumulated by the time you read this.
The Joy Scroll has, like the writing that has led you here and given you these secrets been written in another language. Four keys to this language have been hidden in the places in the mosaics. Together, they will give you enough information to decipher the Joy Scroll.
Now, please forgive me for I am very weary and wish only to see my Master in all his Glory. God be with you and reward you with his mercies.
Lourds looked up from the scroll. ‘That’s all there is. Except for the second scroll.’
The second scroll had been wrapped in the first. True to John of Patmos’s words, Lourds hadn’t been able to read the second scroll.
Joachim looked at the wall behind Lourds. ‘These places then.’
Lourds looked at the mosaics as well. ‘These places. And with everyone pursuing us.’
With a smile, Joachim turned to him. ‘Now you will find your faith, Professor Lourds. With all that is arrayed against us, I think we can agree that we will not get through this alone.’
I don’t know if we’re going to get through this alive, much less alone, Lourds thought.
Basilica Cistern
Hagia Sophia Underground
Istanbul, Turkey
25 March 2010
‘How are we supposed to get the Medusa head to turn over?’ Cleena asked.
They stood once more in the huge room filled with stone columns. Every sound they made echoed throughout the building.
‘With this,’ Lourds said. He held up the first scroll and showed them the end. He had been puzzling over it since he’d first seen it. Now he felt certain that it was a key. But where was the keyhole?
‘Here,’ Olympia called. She’d evidently deduced what the rod was going to be used for as well.
Lourds walked round to her on the other side of the Medusa head. She aimed her light at a crevice between a pair of snakes sprouting from the Medusa’s head. Sliding the rod into the crevice, Lourds felt the channel bottom out. He turned the rod and heard tumblers click. The Medusa head vibrated as mechanisms inside slid into place. Four snakes elongated and became a pedestal. Stone ground against stone as the snake legs took the weight of the head and allowed it to flip upside down.
The Lucifer Code Page 34
