Not any more. Now the F.B.I. themselves, the ‘experts’, were confirming the child’s existence. It had ceased to be an objectionable man in a strange church throwing suggestions like cheap confetti and had become the most official of organisations. They had unknowingly added immense weight to claims that Jack had previously thought (or at the very least hoped) were ridiculous. They had in no way proved them, but they had pulled the possibility away from the extremes and placed it firmly on Jack’s conscience. He had to accept, albeit reluctantly, that Flight 320 might have been bombed simply because Lara Bernstein was occupying one of its many cheap seats.
Yet cold as it made him feel, Jack could not even offer Flight 320 a second thought, because he had to move his focus. Somewhere in the world, God only knew where, was Jack Bernstein’s grandchild.
A product of a product; a piece of Lara. A piece of Elizabeth.
The last chance he had never dreamed might be his.
MaryBeth tried for a moment to read Jack’s retreating eyes, rubbed her forehead and thought deeply. Both knew that a second meeting with Simon was poised above them; eyeing the situation as a vulture watches carrion. Waiting for Jack to concede defeat.
Questions needed to be asked. And questions needed to be answered. Painful questions.
“So who’s the father?” she asked quietly, knowing that he would be unable to answer. It was rhetorical. A prompt.
“I don’t know,” he said predictably, slowly placing his fingers at either side of his nose and trying to exhale the ever-expanding desperation from within him. Possibilities were dangling precariously like bricks over his head. “There’s got to be one, I suppose. He would be what...? Another member of the group maybe? Worse still, one of the leaders....? I don’t really know.”
It took a moment for the implications of what he had just said to take hold. It would not have been the first time a so-called ‘religious group’ had enticed a disillusioned young female into its fold with the sole aim of seducing her into sleeping with a leading member, claiming all along that she was special in some way; that God had ‘chosen’ her.
Chosen her.
“Oh my God,” he said. The bricks had fallen. Hard and fast. With a sudden jerk sat he bolt upright in his chair, eyes wide.
MaryBeth, still lost in thought, nearly choked on her coffee. “What? What’s the matter?”
He grabbed the mouse and scrolled the movie backward until he found the right segment. Once again he hit ‘PLAY’, only this time the words seemed to echo. They took on a whole new meaning when they were added to the dramatic theory he had suddenly formed:
...probably going to be the last message I send you. Because now I have been chosen and that means that I can no longer be in direct contact with the world outside.
He scrolled the bar again, stopping a few seconds further along the message:
...braham has shown us the way and selected Mary to bring forth a Saviour who would rule...
Jack could not believe he had not seen it before. “She had been ‘chosen’, MaryBeth. Lara had been chosen and ‘Mary’ had been ‘selected’.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” MaryBeth said, sarcastically. “...that Lara was ‘Mary’, and that whoever ‘they’ were, they had somehow brainwashed her into believing that if she bore a child for them, then it would grow up to become... what?... some kind of Saviour?”
She looked right at his face. Almost, but not quite, into his thoughts. “Shit,” she said, lowering her eyes. “You were suggesting what I thought you were suggesting. I hoped you weren’t.”
The silence which followed was ultimately broken by a single beep, piercing the air from the computer behind them. Jack stood and walked around MaryBeth in order to view the screen. The message about the fragment of painting visible in file one was simple: ‘POSSIBLE MATCHES FOUND THREE: CAT.00765221 16%, CAT.02743598 91%, CAT.07562443 32%’ There were three images to which the segment might belong, and one of them had a 91% probability factor attached to it.
Ninety-one percent. About as near-definite as the system might allow.
He asked the computer to recall the image bearing catalogue number ‘02743598’. In an instant it appeared on screen; a crowd of people offering praise to a mother and child set against a backdrop of ancient buildings. One of the male worshippers was wearing robes, once white but now tinged with yellow by the passage of time. His position and shape tallied precisely with the shape that was visible on the original image copied from Lara’s movie file. Behind him, the position of his face also tallying with the original, stood a man in dark robes. Rather than offer praise to the woman and child, this man’s face was turned away from the scene of supposed religious beauty and contorted in a grimace filled with abject disgust.
Jack and MaryBeth both stared at the screen, lost for words. The subject matter and the title under the image seemed to answer every doubt they had previously shared about connecting the images on the postcards to Lara. Rather than assuaging Jack’s fears, however, it only served to accentuate them:
ADORATION OF THE MAGI
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Commissioned March 1491, Unfinished.
An image of the blessed Mary holding baby Jesus, onlookers turning away. Like two of the three postcards it was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci and, at the time she had sent her first message to her father, Jack’s daughter had been seated directly in front of it. Simon may have insinuated it but now it was turning into harsh truth. As surely as she herself had always done, Lara’s recent history was resolutely refusing to conform.
four corners of the earth
Revelation 7:1
He stood like a wax statue by the window, the right side of his body and face illuminated by the mid morning sun as he watched his employees relaxing on the grass surrounding the Lake. Some talked, some studied and others lay frozen in deep thought. The more active among them mindlessly passed frisbees or footballs back and forth. All smiled, and for the briefest of moments so did he.
Despite his current immersion into an arena filled with fear and desperation, Jack was still unable to escape the pride that his gamble of creating an atmosphere of informal fraternity within the campus had paid off so well. Nobody within the company was forced to work set hours, only to consistently produce results. Jack had realised a long time before the company was formed that time spent thinking was often as important, if not more so, as time spent working. To do that effectively, and to encourage the flow of ideas, meant creating the right environment for his team as well as respecting and nurturing individuality.
The design of the buildings within the campus had ensured that every programmer, every developer, and indeed everyone classed as a permanent employee possessed a usefully sized window. From the moment they were recruited their single occupancy office was designated as, and instantly became, ‘their’ space. They could (and did) decorate it how they wished and soundproofing ensured that they could play whatever music got them hot as loud as they wished. Those who chose to spend their thinking and symposium time indoors congregated either within the ground floor coffee shops or had complete conversations via the internal video and email structure. With the sole exception that they must wear shoes in communal areas, there was no dress code for programmers or developers and no designated parking spaces within the campus, not even for Jack himself. His philosophy within the company was based around his philosophy on the computer industry as a whole; the rewards go to those who get there first. Every member of his staff was completely self-regulating, and it was that self-regulation that allowed him to do what he was about to do for the first time ever; temporarily relinquish control.
Seated in an opposing chair and almost enveloped by one of the sweeping curves of Jack’s desk, MaryBeth watched patiently as his shoulders rose and fell with uncharacteristically laboured breaths. She wondered where his thoughts were taking him; figuring as she did that there were so many diverse places he could be now.
He
re, standing helpless in his office, was not one of them.
She felt for him. He was an ill-prepared climber standing at the base of a cloud-tipped mountain, looking up and steeling himself for an unknown task without the clear knowledge of precisely which approach he should take.
“I need you to book me on a flight to Rome,” he said, breaking open the awkward silence. “This evening if possible.”
“Rome?” she said, taken aback. “Why the hell Rome?”
“I spoke to Dave this morning. He’s found this guy who might know of a link between the paintings,” Jack said. He still had his back to her, and as such she could glean no explanations from his face. She could only imagine them. “I want to go and see him.”
“Can’t you just phone him?” she asked. It had seemed like a sensible question. At the time.
Jack did not even bother to shake his head. “Apparently he doesn’t have a phone. Dave tried to get a number before he came to see me. No phone, no fax, no electronic mail. Probably not even a TV for that matter.” He paused, knowing that what he was about to say next was going to sound stupid no matter how he worded it. “He’s a... monk. Some kind of hermit or something.”
MaryBeth laughed more audibly than she had initially intended. “A monk? You’re joshing with me, right?” She stopped laughing. “Jack, have you lost your mind?”
His tone of voice was a shrug. “Probably.”
He turned around and folded his back heavily against the reinforced glass. He did that a lot when faced with a problem and, five storeys up, it always scared the hell out of MaryBeth. She could see in his face that he was deadly serious. He might not have lost his mind just yet, but it had picked up its coat and was definitely on its way out. The only thing that could stop it from bidding Jack a fond farewell now would be his finding of the child.
“Thing is... if he can give me a link between those postcards; why they were included in that pack, then I don’t really care if he’s a monk, a cardinal or the bloody Pope himself. I just...” Silence, kept loud by deep thought. “...need to speak to him.”
“No you don’t.” MaryBeth stood in protest, her tone calculatedly acerbic. “You need to send Dave. That’s what you employ him for.”
Jack pulled away from the glass and walked slowly to his chair. He sank into it as heavily as he had fallen against the glass and pulled it forward, leaning over the desk to face his colleague. For a brief moment the strangest sensation coursed through MaryBeth’s head; the feeling, just for an instant, that he did not really belong there. His fingers curled into a triangle whose apex dissected the dark square of his beard.
He thought for a short while, then nodded and leaned backward as though pushed by an answer.
“You know what, MaryBeth, you’re absolutely right.” He stood away from his chair again and began to pace the room; gathering words from the air around him like ripe fruit. “What I need to do is tell Dave that my daughter didn’t really fall from her favourite horse at all. That she was aboard Flight 320, the one in all the papers, which means that she was intrinsically murdered by Libyan terrorists. Only she wasn’t murdered by Libyan terrorists at all, none of the passengers were, because this man - this ‘Simon’ guy - that I just met in a church in London a few days ago - assures me that it was actually somebody else. But he won’t tell me who, oh no. Instead he’s given me four postcards of famous works of art so that I can work it out for myself. Why? Because he wants me to steal a book from these people. And now I want Dave to visit his hermit friend who’s so very very old, he tells me, that he might actually be dead already, and see if he can tell me who these people are so that I can get on the phone to some of the most advanced intelligence agencies in the world and tell them they’ve arrested the wrong men. All this, by the way, so that I can find a grandchild I never even knew I had....”
MaryBeth hung her head in embarrassment as Jack took an overdue breath. In her own mind she had to admit when he blunted her idea with the tool of reason then he had a point. She had forgotten that Dave was not privy to the truth.
“Okay fine,” she said, “but do you actually have to travel to Rome? I mean, what with the launch and everything it’s hardly what you’d call a good time is it?”
“Time is something I don’t really have a lot of,” Jack said. His face ached and he slowly massaged his cheeks. “Not if I’m going to follow this thing through.”
MaryBeth sighed. “There must be some other way around it?”
Jack smiled. “MaryBeth, I’ve seen you formulate answers for the most complex and/or sensitive questions that journalists and trained negotiators can throw at you, purely by thinking on your feet. I’ve never yet seen you falter. The fact that you are even asking me that question means that the answer is quite probably ‘no, there isn’t’. Wouldn’t you say?”
She sighed again. He was right. Again. “So how long will you need to be gone?”
“After flights, a day perhaps. Two at the most. If the monk’s not there or can’t help I’ll be on the next plane back. If he does know of a link, though, I’m staying put until I get it. I still maintain that there’s no way I’m going back to London until I have at least some idea of exactly what the hell it is I’m up against.”
MaryBeth noted his unease. He wasn’t liking this situation any more than she.
“This monk,” she said, dipping her head and screwing up her face. “He’s nothing to do with the creepy guy in the church is he?”
Jack curled his lip and started to spin the executive toy on his desk. The chrome planets swirled, round and round, over and over, slowly coming to a halt. Why would his mind not do the same? “Yes? No? Maybe?” He shrugged, “Not that I’m aware of. Apparently one of Dave’s Internet buddies was into heresy in a big way and this guy’s name came up a few years back.”
“Heresy?” Here, it seemed, was a word she had not been expecting. “What kind of heresy?”
Jack looked around the room at his orchard of thought. The trees were empty now. Plucked clean. “I don’t know,” he said, “how many kinds are there? It’s something to do with hidden messages in the paintings or something.” His tone of voice indicated that he was rapidly tiring of the games he felt he was being forced to play.
“Hidden messages? And in centuries of study nobody else has picked up on them?” she asked.
Jack shrugged. “It would appear not but, taking into account Lara’s new-found spiritualism, I have no choice but to check it out.”
“I for one don’t like it.” She shrugged back at him. “I’ll book the flight, sure, but for Christ’s sake Jack... do me a favour?”
He rubbed his face again. It still felt as though something was pressing it from the inside. “What’s that?”
“Be careful!”
carried to babylon
Jeremiah 27:22
“...and how long will you be staying in the United States, Mr...” Jobsworth checked the passport again, “...Ermorden?” He looked up, having been made to wait longer than he might have liked for a response.
Zebulun did his best to appear confused, despite the fact that the official had asked him an extremely simple question.
“Zwei Tag,” he replied eventually. Franz Ermorden did not speak good English. Why should he? According to his immaculate red passport this only was his fourth time overseas. That was the thing with the Germans - they were perceived, perhaps unfairly, as very fastidious, very regimented. Somehow a three-year old document that looked brand new raised no eyebrows when the word on the front was ‘Reisepaß’. Which was good; not least when the document was brand new.
Zebulun had forced a look of realisation and held his fingers aloft. Two days.
The man nodded his understanding. “Business or pleasure?”
Again Zebulun feigned a complete lack of comprehension. The wiry man asked a second time but he still looked blank, his palms held out with nothing to offer. Eventually a colleague; a fat, balding man who apparently spoke a little more German tha
n his friend offered some assistance.
“Geschäft oder Vergnügen?” he queried, his officious tone not helped by a derisory attempt at an accent. He too scoured Zebulun’s passport. It was late in their shift and they had obviously had a slow day in terms of busts. Perhaps this strange looking Asianic German might just be bringing something into the country that could up the day’s numbers.
Zebulun smiled as he answered. “Geschäft,” he said.
He smiled. Not least because he had been asked exactly the same question by exactly the same officer not six weeks ago. In English. At that time, however, he had been legitimately passing through Los Angeles customs as Kalifa Halil. It was genuine business then; the annual ArmsExpo. Of course, on that occasion Zebulun had not been wearing a hairpiece that made him look like a receding businessman, so there was little wonder that the man had failed to recognise him this second time around.
The fat man opened Zebulun’s briefcase and took a quick look inside, smoothing his greying moustache. He removed and scoured various innocuous items, but lingered a while over his mobile phone. It was one of the new ‘flick-fones’; infra-red computer link, internet compatible and touch-pad technology. Very expensive. The official had done the same thing with Kalifa Halil’s phone. A very similar model.
An identical model.
Zebulun guessed that the man wanted one of the phones for himself, but that he probably kept hitting a brick wall each time he tried to justify the expense to his kin given what was undoubtedly a meagre salary. Both times he had turned the phone in his hands as though he was in the shop, ready to make a purchase. Both times he had that same reluctant acceptance in his eyes. The one that told him that his place in this world would forever be ‘just browsing’.
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