by Brett King
“That’s the difference,” she said. “I didn’t try to buy it.”
“Nikola is even more cunning and intimidating than his father. He must be unhappy with you.”
“Paskalev is not unhappy,” she answered. “Paskalev is dead.”
McHardy furrowed his brow. “What was his cause of death?”
She shrugged. “Bad karma.”
Satisfied with her answer, the man slid the cheek guard into place beside the facemask. Its curving surface fit perfectly.
“I’m new to stealing Roman relics,” she said. “Care to fill in the blanks about our mutual interest?”
Brynstone studied her. “You first.”
“I like excitement,” Raja admitted. “I take jobs that interest me. I’m a finder of lost things. In all honesty, I don’t need the money; I just enjoy a good challenge.”
His eyes narrowed. “It seems to be a challenge for you to give a straight answer.”
A pretty smile flitted across her face. “We have that in common, don’t we, Dr. Brynstone?”
“Someone hired you to collect this part of the helmet. Who is it?”
“I won’t identify the collector.”
“Do you have any more pieces of the helmet?”
“No,” she lied. “Do you?”
“Just the facemask.”
McHardy pointed to the mask on the table. “This is a central part of the puzzle. So is the cheek guard.”
“You think it’s a puzzle?” Raja asked.
“I know it’s a puzzle.” The man licked his lips. “You haven’t noticed the engraved symbols inside the mask and cheek guard?”
“Some kind of code,” she added. “Couldn’t figure it out.”
“I can figure out anything with time and resources,” said McHardy. “The problem is that we don’t have the complete helmet.”
“How much is missing?”
“Four pieces, I’d estimate.”
“You think the code stretches around the entire helmet?”
“That’s my guess. From what I can decipher, it’s a story or an interlocking series of stories. It’s not just any code. Are you familiar with Linear A?”
They shook their heads. Brynstone looked at her. She liked his cool intensity. She sensed a competitive intelligence. And mystery—there was a great deal of mystery lurking inside the man.
McHardy cleared his throat.
“Linear A is an extinct and unsolved script that was discovered more than a century ago by a British archaeologist named Sir Arthur Evans. He located the legendary ancient city of Knossos on the island of Crete. In the palace of King Minos, Evans discovered thousands of clay tablets with two different linear scripts. Linear A was an undeciphered script that had been used to create the Minoan language. After decades of research, cryptanalysts were able to break Linear B.”
“But Linear A remains a mystery,” Raja guessed.
“Until recently. I’m not a cryptanalyst, but I corresponded years ago with one who taught me how to read the code.”
“And the code on that helmet?” she asked. “Are those symbols Linear A?”
“They are,” McHardy added. “As I said, Linear A is found on clay pottery from the Minoan culture. Later, sea traders brought their pottery to Asia Minor and parts of what today is known as England.”
“How old is that helmet?”
“First century. A soldier in the Roman army would have worn it. At some point, a person identified as the Keeper began a journey recorded inside the helmet and mask. Now, if you’ll provide silence, perhaps I can decipher it.”
“Guess we better let the man work,” Brynstone said, rising from his chair.
“Sure thing,” Raja agreed. “Let’s go be awesome somewhere else.”
They walked the aisle to the galley near the front of the jet. Heading to the refrigerator, he glanced down at her shoes, low-top fashion sneakers with signature red and green stripes along each side.
“What kind of shoes you got there?”
“Gucci.”
He arched an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with Nike or Converse?”
“Not my image.”
“How much you pay for those things?”
“Four hundred and thirty-five dollars.”
Brynstone frowned but let it go, opening the fridge.
“Want something to drink?”
“I’m trying to imagine what Math McHardy keeps in his refrigerator.”
“Mostly soft drinks.”
“Does he have diet?”
He handed her an orange Irn-Bru can. She’d had the Scottish soda before and was happy with the choice. Brynstone opened a cabinet door and found whisky. He debated among the Speyside malts, then chose a Glenlivet bottle.
“You borrowed my phone to call someone,” said Raja.
“My daughter.”
He poured whisky into a tumbler emblazoned with the Scotland national football logo.
“Wanted to call before bedtime. My little princess. Tell her a quick story about Lucy and Lindsey.”
“Who?”
“Two characters we made up. You ever read the Prince and the Pauper? It’s like that. Girls who trade places. One lives in Brooklyn. One lives in Pinktopia.”
She giggled. “You don’t seem like a guy who tells bedtime stories about girls from Pinktopia.”
He shrugged. “I put my twist on it. Lucy doesn’t know it yet, but her dad used to be an intelligence agent. He’s been missing for years. I had a good one planned for tonight. Lucy and Lindsey were supposed to discover a volcano on an island.”
“You didn’t talk to your daughter?”
“No one answered.” He sipped, taking the whisky neat. “Maybe it’s for the best. Because of my stories, Shayna told her teacher she didn’t want to be a princess anymore.”
“Yeah?”
“She said princesses are too helpless. They always get kidnapped.” Brynstone grinned. “My daughter said she wants to be a ninja instead.”
“A ninja?” Raja giggled again. “I totally like this kid.”
“Glad you think it’s funny.” He looked down. “My ex didn’t. She let me know it.”
Raja had noticed he wasn’t wearing a ring.
“When’d you guys divorce?”
“A while back.” His face darkened and he took another swig of his drink. He clearly didn’t want to discuss it, and she decided against pushing him. The silence became awkward, so she turned and raided a cabinet. Finding a box of Jaffa Cakes waiting inside, she pulled out the blue box and waved it with the zeal of a lottery winner.
“Look what I found.”
“What is it?”
“Jaffa Cakes. Want one?”
“Never heard of them.”
“Oh my God. These things are like crack. You Americans have no clue what you’re missing.”
“Thought you were an American.”
“I am. Kind of. I don’t know what I am.” She took a bite and closed her eyes, flashing a look of ecstasy.
“That good, huh?”
She nodded and smiled and scrunched her nose.
“Why cakes? Things look like cookies to me.”
“Well, that’s a big debate,” she said, studying the popular UK snack. “Right up there with the free will–determinism issue.”
“No kidding? Cookie or cake. What side you fall on?”
“Dude, I don’t care. I just eat the crackly chocolate coating, then I suck out the orange jelly stuff like a vampire. Then I munch on the spongy bottom.” She held up the soft drink. “With this and the Jaffa Cakes? I’m headed for an orange-plosion in my mouth in a couple minutes.”
“I’ll stick to whisky.”
“Why are we flying to Prague?” she asked.
“McHardy didn’t tel
l you?”
“No.”
He took another drink. “More than a decade ago, he visited a museum at the Institute for Classical Archaeology at Charles University. Most of the exhibits featured classical sculpture and architecture. The museum staff prefers Greek painted vessels over military armor.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Anyway, McHardy saw a fragment of the Roman helmet. First time he’d seen it. Right side of the skull piece. It had a leather interior to protect the soldier’s head. He could see encrypted characters beneath the leather cover. They let him inspect it, but only for a short time. He didn’t get a chance to decipher the code.”
“Why didn’t he go back to examine it?” she asked before taking a drink, the soda’s barley flavor playing on her tongue.
“Helmet fragment is no longer on public display.”
“That sucks.”
“It’s not even available for scholars to examine.”
“McHardy is a prima donna. Maybe the museum staff didn’t want to deal with his personality.”
“Could you blame them?”
“Not one bit.”
“This collector who hired you,” Brynstone said, shifting the conversation. “Tell me about him.”
She shrugged. Brynstone was persistent, but she decided she didn’t mind.
“He’s a collector of antiquities. His private collection is extensive.”
“What’s his name?”
“Like I said, can’t tell you.”
“I told you about Nessa Griffin. I need to know I can trust you.”
She bit her lip, pausing, then finally answered, “Nicholas Booth.”
“You’ve found more than one piece of the helmet for Booth. Haven’t you?”
The question surprised her. “I already told you—this is my first.”
She was lying, of course, but she sustained eye contact. To her relief, McHardy walked into the galley, interrupting their conversation.
“Come here,” he demanded. “The both of you. And stop drinking my liquor.”
Brynstone followed them back to the midcabin. Hunkered over the table, McHardy fit together the pieces of the helmet, then traced his finger along the engraved surface.
“What’s it say?” Brynstone asked.
“It is a rather meandering parable.” McHardy rubbed his chin. “In part, it tells the story of Saint Lazarus.”
“I’m a lapsed Hindu,” Raja said, “but are you talking about the man Jesus brought back from the dead? That Lazarus?”
“Aye. There were two mentioned in the New Testament, but this refers to Lazarus of Bethany. Also known as Lazarus of the Four Days.”
“Why that name?”
“He was resurrected four days after dying.”
“Go ahead,” Brynstone urged. “What does it say, McHardy?”
“As far as I know, the Gospel doesn’t say a solitary word about Lazarus in his later years. According to some accounts, however, he traveled to Gaul—later known as France—where he became an archbishop. The helmet that we found? Well, it goes beyond what even the apocryphal statements tell us about Lazarus.”
According to one Gnostic legend, McHardy explained, Jesus had used a special medicine known as the White Chrism to bring Lazarus back from the dead. Although a reliquary in France claimed to possess the bones of the saint, the helmet code asserted there was more to the story of Lazarus. It hinted that his fate took a dark turn near the end of his long life. Because additional information was inscribed on a missing helmet piece, the ending wasn’t clear.
“At the end of the day, we don’t have all the answers,” McHardy said. “But, I’ve determined that the facemask contains a coded map.”
“Leading to what?” Raja asked.
“Can’t say.” McHardy pinched the bridge of his nose. “But the person who wrote this code tells an interesting story. It concerns a man named Josephus of Massilia. I thought that the person who had engraved this helmet was the Keeper, but it appears I was wrong.”
“Josephus was the Keeper?”
“Keeper of what?” Raja asked.
“The Radix.”
Brynstone gave McHardy a sharp look. “Edgar Wurm told me that Joseph of Arimathea was the Keeper of the Radix.”
“He was, for a time. Joseph of Arimathea was the father of Josephus,” McHardy explained.
Known as one of Christ’s secret followers, Joseph of Arimathea had been mentioned in all four Gospels. At the time, the man had been a wealthy Palestinian merchant from Jerusalem. He was also a member of the high-ruling council known as the Sanhedrin. According to one source, a physician named Luke had stopped him on his way to a council meeting. Taking him into confidence, Luke had given Joseph of Arimathea several possessions to safeguard during dangerous times for the apostles who followed their controversial leader. Luke had believed that Joseph of Arimathea could be trusted with the Radix and the Scintilla.
According to a popular legend, Joseph of Arimathea had been given the cup used at the Last Supper, making him the first Grail Keeper. At the Crucifixion, he was said to have dipped the last known piece of the Radix in a cruet containing Christ’s blood, preserving it. From that time on, he became the Keeper of the Radix.
After the Crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea opened up his sepulcher and made arrangements to have the body of Jesus of Nazareth laid to rest there. It was suggested that he had worked with Luke and a man named Nicodemus to create a mixture including the Radix to preserve the body of the fallen Christ.
“Joseph of Arimathea was the first Keeper of the Radix,” McHardy said. “After his death, he entrusted the Radix to his son, Josephus of Massilia.”
Around 36 CE, according to one tradition, Joseph of Arimathea had sailed to Gaul, a region of Western Europe during the time of the Roman Empire. Together with his wife, Elyab, Joseph raised sons named Adam and Josephus. For several years, they lived in Marseilles, known as Massilia in the ancient world. Later, Joseph of Arimathea traveled to Britannia, where he was consecrated as the apostle of the British Isles. McHardy told how the travelers settled on a land once called Ineswitrin, later to be known as Glastonbury.
“The Radix was with them the whole time?” Raja asked. “They took it to England?”
“That’s the popular legend. It was said that Joseph hid the Radix somewhere near Glastonbury. It remained buried for ten centuries, but never forgotten as generations of mystery cults kept alive the Radix romance.”
Raja crossed her arms. “So this Josephus guy was the Keeper of the Radix after his dad, Joseph of Arimathea, died. You think the helmet fragments have something to do with the Radix?”
“I have an opinion. I’m not sharing it.”
“Opinion or not, tell us, McHardy.”
“Do you know about the fate of the White Chrism?”
Brynstone nodded. “Years ago, Edgar Wurm and a woman named Cori Cassidy discovered an ancient document called the Scintilla in which was written a formula to create the White Chrism and the Black Chrism.” He frowned. “Only problem is that when they found the Scintilla, the bottom half had been torn away. The vellum contained the formula for the White Chrism. The half with the Black Chrism formula was missing. After Wurm’s death, the Arts and Antiques Unit at Scotland Yard seized the vellum that Wurm and Cassidy had found. The formula was locked away.”
“Until three years ago,” McHardy grumbled, “when a team attacked a transport vehicle carrying the formula for the White Chrism as it was moved from New Scotland Yard to a storage facility.”
“Who would do that?” Raja asked.
Brynstone knew.
“Wish I had an idea,” McHardy sighed. “Many people have an interest in these matters. Centuries ago, the Knights Hospitaller possessed the Radix and the formulae for both chrisms.”
The Hospitaller organization had survived t
o the present day as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Brynstone knew that the Knights of Malta were not involved in the hunt for the Radix, but one of their most powerful members did have an interest. Wurm had claimed that Mark McKibbon, the CIA director, wanted to find the Radix and the chrisms.
“If I understand the helmet code, it’s possible the map leads to the formula for the Black Chrism,” McHardy said. “Several clues seem to lead to specific places.”
“Like what?”
“The code on the facemask mentions something about ‘where the terrible sister soars above the serpent king.’ I have no idea what it means.”
“Can you can figure it out?”
He shrugged. “Not until I see additional pieces of the helmet. That’s why we’re headed to Prague.”
Raja crossed her arms. “Brynstone said there’s a helmet piece at Charles University. Sounds like it’s locked away.”
“That’s why McHardy invited us on his jet,” Brynstone added. “That’s why he’s sharing information. What part do you and I play? We’re breaking into that museum to steal the helmet piece.”
Chapter 23
Near Lynbrook, New York
8:31 p.m.
Dusk closed in hard as Cori stared out the tinted window of the Chevy Suburban. She let her eyes go wide—seeing without seeing—as the vehicle passed a blurring landscape. She was sitting behind the driver, the CIA agent who had tackled her in the hotel room. A red line scored his forehead where she had scratched him. Once in a while, he’d turn his head and the rearview mirror would offer her a look at the slash mark.
She didn’t feel bad about it.
Stephen Angelilli was seated beside her. During the drive, she overheard another agent refer to him as Scarecrow. He was peppering her with questions, but she had some of her own.
“Tell me about Anne Bliss Niess.”
“Don’t know her,” Angelilli said.
“She’s a marriage and family therapist in Manhattan who did some couples counseling with John and Kaylyn Brynstone. Dr. Niess encouraged the Brynstones to test Shayna.”
“Any chance you were reading confidential files at the Resnick house, Ms. Cassidy?”
“Shayna’s a bright kid, but she was the only one to get a full ride in years. I wondered why. Now that I see the CIA’s interest, I think I have the answer. You’re behind the scholarship, aren’t you? Your people worked a deal with the Brandonstein Center, so you could monitor research on Shayna.”
