‘Is there anything I can do?’ Joachim stood nearby.
‘I’ll get it.’ Perspiration dripped through Cleena’s eyebrows. ‘Sevki, do you have access to the building’s security cameras?’
He sounded distant when he replied. ‘I will. Possibly before you’re through that lock. They’ve got someone inside who has enhanced the cyber security already in place on site.’ He paused, then sounded pleased. ‘This guy is good.’
‘Are you through?’ Cleena popped the first round of locks and went after the second.
‘I’ve never failed you yet.’
‘Maybe we could hold the self-congratulations until the post-mortem.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Cleena realized how unfortunate the term was.
‘Let’s refer to that as a debrief, shall we?’
Cleena ignored him as the last of the electronic locks gave way. Holding her breath, she put her hand on the door and pulled. It opened and she led the way inside with her pistol at the ready. She went up the steps rapidly.
Fear rattled through Lourds as he realized the full extent of the danger he was in. He hadn’t known for certain if Webster would know the difference between the scrolls, but evidently something tied them together.
‘I will not be trifled with,’ Webster roared. ‘I will have that girl killed.’ He took his phone from his pocket.
‘All right.’ Lourds took his hat off with his cuffed hands and reached inside it. He removed the protective plastic bag containing the Joy Scroll from behind the liner. It had amazed him that a document supposed to be powerful enough to save the world could fit behind his hatband.
Webster approached and reached for the package. Something, Lourds wasn’t sure what, stayed his hand. He gestured at Eckart. ‘Seize that scroll.’
Eckart plucked the scroll from Lourds’ zip-tied hands. ‘Do you want to check it?’
‘No.’ Webster wiped his hands on his pants. ‘No. That’s the scroll. I’m convinced of that. Just keep it with you.’
Eckart tucked the document inside his jacket.
‘Now, Professor Lourds,’ Webster said, ‘welcome to the end of the world as you know it. Within the next few minutes, the course of human events will drastically change.’ He looked at Eckart. ‘Bring him along.’ Then he turned and headed for the next room.
With Eckart’s rough hand gripping his neck, Lourds followed Webster.
The next room looked like a view of perdition. Blood smeared the walls and bullet holes had chopped into the fine panelling. A half-dozen dead bodies littered the floor.
Webster waved theatrically. ‘Does it appear convincing enough to you?’ He jostled one of the corpses with a foot. ‘There are a lot of bodies out in the streets waiting to be claimed.’
Not believing what he was seeing, Lourds glanced at the rest of the people in the room. No one seemed surprised or appalled. Lourds didn’t know if it was because of Lucifer’s powers or because the others had invested so heavily in the outcome of Webster’s machinations that they didn’t care.
Reaching down, Webster dabbled his fingers in the fresh blood from one of the dead men, then carefully streaked his face with it. He grinned like a child at Halloween. ‘Effective, yes? Everyone will believe this is my blood.’
Lourds didn’t say anything.
‘Come now, Professor. In your profession, with all the lectures and the attention, you must have developed a sense of the theatrical.’
‘Not this,’ Lourds said. ‘I’ll never develop anything for this except revulsion.’
Webster chuckled and applied blood to the back of one of his hands. ‘The devil is in the details, Professor. Haven’t you ever heard that?’
Lourds remained silent.
‘Now, I’ve got a plea to make. One that will bring American military forces into this country in a way that has never before been seen, and one that will not be tolerated by Prince Khalid or the rest of the Middle East.’ Webster nodded at a woman. ‘Let’s do this.’
A camera crew walked in front of Webster and the lights came on.
Silently, Lourds watched and hoped that Cleena and Joachim were somewhere near.
‘I’m in.’
Cleena stood outside the stairwell door and gazed down the corridors. Guards stood at posts. ‘Good. Now find Lourds for me.’ She held her pistol in both hands.
‘Got him. Two rooms over. Hey, the television news stations just broke for a special news bulletin coming live from Vice-President Webster.’
That, Cleena thought, can’t be good.
She went through the door, raising the pistol and shooting the first man in the face as he tried to bring up his rifle. Joachim and the monks followed.
‘My fellow Americans.’ Webster spoke into the microphone. ‘I come to you in a moment of dire straits. As you know, I came to Saudi Arabia on a peacekeeping mission. Unfortunately, things have gone badly awry here and I haven’t been as successful as I’d hoped.’
Lourds gritted his teeth and bit back a scathing retort that he felt certain wouldn’t be well received.
‘Now I find myself in as much danger as I’d hoped to save you from,’ Webster continued. ‘I’ve attempted – several times – to negotiate some kind of ceasefire, but I believe I’ve reached an impasse.’ He waved his hands to include the dead bodies around him. ‘As you can see, several of the support crews here have given their lives trying to help me.’
As Lourds gazed around the room, he was surprised to see that a few of the television crew were openly weeping. He was certain they’d known none of the dead people.
‘At this point,’ Webster said, ‘I feel I have no recourse other than to ask the president to issue orders that-’
The door burst open as Cleena, Joachim, and the monks filled the room. Automatic gunfire filled the room. Lourds threw himself to the floor and noticed that Eckart did the same. A trio of bullets thudded into Webster’s chest. Surprised, he glanced down and saw blood seeping into his shirt.
Then the room became hell on earth as bullets tore through the air and the monks threw flash-bang grenades into the room. Several of the television cameras became instant casualties of live rounds. The camera crews scrambled for safety.
‘Get Lourds!’ Webster yelled. He was lost somewhere in the haze of smoke and bright lights from the flash-bangs. ‘Get Lourds now!’
Eckart grabbed Lourds and yanked him to his feet. As Webster ran for a door on the other side of the room, Eckart dragged Lourds after him.
More shots rang out.
Desperate, not wanting the scroll to be lost, Lourds dropped and tangled Eckart’s legs in his. Eckart stumbled and fell, falling on top of Lourds in a loose-limbed sprawl. Adrenaline raced through Lourds’ body as he kicked Eckart in the face. Eckart fought back, but one of Lourds’ kicks caught him in the temple and knocked him out cold. Overcoming his surprise, Lourds grappled with the unconscious man and found a combat knife secured to his equipment vest. Holding the knife to cut the plastic cuffs was difficult, but Lourds managed.
Webster saw what was happening and rushed back toward Lourds. ‘No!’ He sounded desperate and near-hysterical.
Lourds took out the Joy Scroll and prayed. As he surveyed the symbols, his mind chugged through the final permutations to the solution of the puzzle. The rings hadn’t all revolved in a stack after all. They had fitted together on an axis forming a cross. Now he’d realized that, the translation – though still incredibly difficult – was at least doable. As he read, the characters on the scroll turned ice blue and the parchment felt freezing.
‘I name you Lucifer,’ Lourds said. ‘I name you defiler and destroyer.’
With an inarticulate cry of rage, Webster burst through the rolling scarlet fog from the flash-bangs and rushed at Lourds. Instinctively, Lourds took a step back, but before the vice-president could close on him, a shimmering force field appeared and held him back. Screaming and frothing at the mouth, Webster battered at the invisible wall.
‘Stop!�
� he roared. ‘Stop!’
Lourds ignored him and continued. ‘I name you false and usurper. I name you deceiver and lord of lies. I name you tempter and vain pride.’
‘Would you like to know where the lost library of Alexandria is?’ Webster pleaded. His eyes looked hollow and yellow, like those of a rabid animal.
Lourds hesitated.
‘I can get you your heart’s desire,’ Webster promised. ‘All these years you’ve searched for the library. I can fix it so you can find those books. Everything you’ve ever wanted. It’s yours just for the asking.’
For a moment Lourds imagined what it might be like to walk the halls of that great library. He’d had a taste of something similar when he’d found lost Atlantis. He’d even saved a few books from that event. Some of them he hadn’t yet translated.
‘I can give Alexandria to you,’ Webster said in a crazed voice.
It was the most temptation Lourds had ever faced. He felt his resolve weakening, then he pushed his desires away. He didn’t want someone to simply hand him the lost library of Alexandria. After all this time of searching for it, he wanted to find it himself. That was what the dream was all about: the search.
‘I name you,’ Lourds continued, focusing on the task at hand, drawn by the solution he’d worked out, ‘so that others may know your falseness, too. Let each man whom you have befriended recognize you as no friend from this moment on. Let those who think they know your love recognize only the manipulation you offer. In the name of Almighty God, I banish you from this disguise you have woven for yourself.’
When he stopped reading, Lourds didn’t know what to expect. Webster still stood before him, but the man looked hammered, totally defeated. Slackness drained the anger and fear from his face. The smoke from the grenades swirled up around Webster and obscured him. Fearful, heart hammering in his chest, Lourds waited for him to come at him through the smoke. Then the scarlet haze cleared, and when it did – Webster had disappeared with it.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ Cleena said as she joined Lourds. ‘You’re going to get shot.’
Holding onto the scroll, Lourds took cover behind a desk. Most of the gunfire had died away.
‘Where is Webster?’ Cleena reloaded her weapon.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he leave?’
‘I read the scroll to him.’
Cleena glanced at him. ‘You translated it?’
‘I did.’
‘And Webster?’
Lourds shook his head. ‘Disappeared.’
Cleena shot a guard who closed on them, then she and Lourds headed back to the door she’d come through.
Slowly at first, afraid the men who hadn’t gone down from Cleena’s sharp-shooting skills would keep on shooting, Lourds crept from the room. Joachim and the monks – all of them amazingly still alive and convinced that it had been an act of God – joined them. They were dazed and unsure of what had happened. No one else had seen Webster disappear.
In minutes Lourds and the others reached the downstairs lobby. Together, they made their way out of the building.
No one followed and the American forces were put on standby.
Epilogue
Vatican City
8 April 2010
Lourds sat in one of the great libraries in the underground network beneath the Vatican. Father Gabriel occupied a comfortable chair across from him. If it hadn’t been for everything that had happened in the last few weeks, it would have felt like the old days when Lourds had studied there.
They watched WNN together.
‘The search for United States Vice-President Elliott Webster continues,’ the news anchor reported. ‘No one knows how or when the vice-president disappeared from the hotel where he’d been a virtual prisoner in Saudi Arabia for the last several weeks.’
‘Do you think they’ll find him?’ Lourds asked.
Father Gabriel shook his head. ‘Not in this world.’
‘What do you think the eventual conclusion will be?’
‘I don’t know. Are you going to write a book about this?’
‘A story without an ending?’ Lourds smiled. ‘Not likely.’
‘Oh, so you think you could sell prospective readers on the possibility that Lucifer, at least temporarily, found a home in the office of the vice-president?’
‘Sure,’ Lourds said, ‘but it has to have an ending.’
‘What kind of ending?’
‘They find Webster’s corpse.’
‘Do you realize you still refer to him as Webster?’
Lourds had noticed that. ‘I feel more comfortable with that name. Maybe saying the other…’ He hesitated.
‘Gives him more strength in our world?’
‘Maybe that.’
‘Superstitious nonsense.’
Lourds chuckled at that. ‘After everything we’ve been through and seen, you can say that?’
‘Definitely. Lucifer has as much power in this world as we choose to give him. No more, no less. We can’t lead him to victory, nor can we push him into defeat.’
‘I have to say in my own defence, he looked pretty defeated the last time I saw him.’
‘No. His fate has already been ordained by God. Satan doesn’t have free will. Just as God knew Lucifer would fall from the heavens, he also knows Lucifer will ultimately be defeated.’
‘That’s a discussion that would take far too long to explore at this point, and I do have things to do.’
Father Gabriel grinned. ‘You have a woman waiting for you?’
‘I do,’ Lourds admitted.
‘Which one?’
‘Both, actually.’
Father Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Not at the same time,’ Lourds said.
‘Thank God you’ve got some morality left.’
‘Though the possibility is certainly of merit and worth investigating.’
Father Gabriel covered his ears. ‘Don’t. I’m an old man and you’ve been like son to me. A wayward son, perhaps, but a son nevertheless. I really can’t bear any further disillusionment.’
Lourds reached into his backpack and took out the Joy Scroll in its wooden cylinder. ‘I’ve talked it over with Joachim. We’re both of the opinion that you would be the best person to offer safekeeping for this.’
‘Should Lucifer rise again.’
‘Exactly.’
Father Gabriel took the cylinder. ‘I shall do my very best.’
‘As I knew you would.’ Lourds plucked his hat from the table. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a picnic lunch to get to. Perhaps a scenic boat ride and a walk in the park for later.’
‘I would think you would want to rest.’
Lourds stood and clapped his hat on his head. Then he smiled. ‘The business you’re in, I’d think you’d know there’s no rest for the wicked.’
‘You’re not wicked.’ Father Gabriel stood and hugged Lourds fiercely. ‘You’re just restless. Now go. I’m sure there are a lot more adventures waiting for you.’
‘I’d like to think I’d had my fill of them.’
‘There’s still the library of Alexandria waiting somewhere.’
Lourds smiled. ‘I know. Maybe one day.’ He gathered his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and took his leave.
***
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The Lucifer Code Page 38
