The Lucifer Code (2010)

by Charles Brokaw

  Concentrating on the script, Lourds barely registered the man’s question. The symbols were deceptively familiar, yet they stubbornly remained just out of his reach. Excitement filled him and drowned the fear and pain in his mind. As a result of all the years he’d been studying linguistics, there were now few languages he couldn’t fluently decipher in their written form. His professors and later colleagues had insisted his brain had been hardwired with code breakers.

  Lourds didn’t think that was true. He loved languages, loved the mystery and beauty of them, and – most of all – he loved to read. So much knowledge was lost in the world because cultures had lost their languages over the years, or gradually changed to that of their conquerors.

  ‘Professor Lourds.’ The leader stepped forward and touched his pistol barrel between Lourds’ eyes. ‘Are you able to read that?’

  Lourds glanced at the man and told him the truth. The professor could lie when he needed to, but that generally involved knowing the person he was lying to well enough to lie believably.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t read it.’

  The man thumbed the hammer back on the pistol and growled in frustration.

  Despite the obvious threat to his life and the man’s displeasure, Lourds was more afraid he wouldn’t get the chance to puzzle out the document than he was of dying. His death was a given thing. Sooner or later,

  And now, perhaps, here was another great mystery to be solved.

  He stared into the man’s blue eyes. ‘I can’t read it,’ Lourds said again. ‘Yet.’

  The pistol shook against his head because the man was so angry. ‘Yet?’ the man repeated.

  ‘Yet,’ Lourds repeated. ‘If you give me some time, I can figure this out. This is what I do, and I do it better than anyone else.’

  Cleena watched the confrontation with a growing unease. Lourds was foolish and didn’t know enough to take care of himself. She’d already seen that. In the SUV and in the alley, he’d obviously been in over his head. But as he had held the book and stared at the page Qayin had indicated, Lourds had changed.

  She was certain he still feared for his life, but there was no way to fake the excitement in his eyes. The passion she saw there was unmistakable. She wouldn’t have believed him capable of it. When she’d read his file, and understood how she was to approach him at the airport, she had guessed he was some rich, privileged snob. Exactly the kind of person she wouldn’t care about. Now, seeing him in his element, Cleena

  His fascination about the book kept him focused on that instead of the danger he was in. Cleena actually felt sorry for him. When Lourds was finished decrypting or translating the document Qayin and his followers had brought him, they would kill him. Whatever secrets they were after, they wouldn’t want anyone else to know about them.

  Cleena realized her situation wasn’t much better than the professor’s. They had contacted her through one of the drops she used, and offered money. In their world, she was just a disposable as the professor. She didn’t understand why they hadn’t already tried to kill her. But, unlike the professor, she had a pistol, and she knew how to use it.

  Keep your calm, girlie, she heard her father say. No one gets out alive who can’t keep a cool head. The best weapon you’ll ever carry is between your ears.

  ‘If just anyone could have read this page,’ Lourds said in a calm, controlled voice, ‘you would’ve already had it deciphered. Am I correct?’

  The silence stretched in the darkness. Three of Qayin’s followers stepped forward menacingly. Two of them grabbed the professor’s arms. The third grabbed him by the neck.

  ‘Careful,’ Lourds said. ‘Don’t hurt the book.’ Even though the men lifted him from his feet, he tried to protect the book.

  Lourds didn’t even try to fight back.

  Surreptitiously, Cleena slid her hand around the pistol butt. In the darkness, with the men gathered so close together, she liked her chances. At least for a moment, she wouldn’t be able to miss her targets. After that, though, things would quickly become dicey.

  Qayin held up a hand to his followers and peered at Lourds. ‘Do you think you can translate this document?’

  Lourds didn’t hesitate and spoke with more confidence under the circumstances than Cleena would have thought possible. ‘I can. If you give me time, I can translate anything.’

  Cleena said, ‘How much time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Linguists and archaeologists worked on the Rosetta Stone for years before they made a breakthrough.’

  Lifting his pistol, Qayin consulted a Rolex on his wrist. ‘You have twenty minutes to make a believer of me, Professor.’

  Cleena expected Lourds to protest over the time frame. There was no way Qayin could seriously expect him to crack whatever was on the page. All Lourds had succeeded in doing was delaying his death for a few minutes.

  But he also bought you some more time to think, girlie, so

  She had twenty minutes.

  And the clock was ticking.

  Catacombs

  Yesilkoy District

  Istanbul, Turkey

  16 March 2010

  Lourds reached for one of the lanterns the men carried. Before the man could react, the professor had it in his hand. He didn’t know the man was reaching for a gun until the barrel was pressed up against his cheek.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lourds asked in disbelief. ‘I need the light if I’m going to be working.’

  The leader waved the man off, but he clearly wasn’t happy about removing the gun. He growled what Lourds believed were curses and walked away.

  ‘My apologies, Professor,’ the leader said. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you made no sudden moves. We lead very dangerous lives. There are people who would kill us on sight.’

  As I recall, your people don’t have any problem responding in kind, Lourds thought but didn’t say it.

  ‘Now we have reached something of an understanding, allow me to introduce myself.’ The man bowed his head slightly but never dropped his gaze

  Lourds’ mind spun as he looked at the page again. ‘A desk, perhaps?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  Now that he had emptied his bladder, Lourds discovered he was starving.

  ‘I suppose asking for a pizza would be out of the question.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Then do you have my backpack?’

  Qayin nodded to another of his followers and the man sprinted away. He returned momentarily with Lourds’ backpack, but when the professor reached for it, the man held it too far away.

  ‘I don’t have any weapons in there,’ Lourds said. ‘I do have a couple of nutrition bars.’

  When the man finished searching the backpack, he handed it over.

  Lourds hunkered down. All the men in Qayin’s gang pointed their lanterns and pistols at him. He could hear safeties click back and pistols cocking. Moving slowly, Lourds reached into the backpack and took out a journal, a pen, two trail bars and a bottle of water. He displayed his treasures for the rest of the group to see.

  ‘I need something to work with,’ Lourds said, ‘and I’m hungry.’

  The pistols and lanterns slowly drew back.

  Lourds stood, hoisted the backpack over one shoulder, and juggled his food, writing utensils, and the

  ‘This wasn’t written on the page.’ Lourds traced his fingers over the symbols on the surface. They felt slightly matted, and the texture told him that a fixative had been applied to the page. ‘This is a rubbing.’

  ‘A child could have told me that.’

  Lourds ignored the sarcasm. ‘Where did you get this? Where was the rubbing taken?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I beg to differ. Knowing where this rubbing came from and when the original carvings were done might help me isolate this language. Establish the root.’

  Qayin hesitated, obviously ill at ease when it came to revealing anything about the book.

  ‘It came from here.’ />
  Lourds took a bite of his trail bar and chewed quickly. ‘By here, you mean Istanbul?’

  Qayin nodded.

  ‘Or do you mean Constantinople?’

  A look of irritation flashed across Qayin’s hard features. ‘This city. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘No, that isn’t all I need to know. Istanbul began as Constantinople, a city with a European history – that’s if you discount the Neolithic settlements and choose to begin with the Greek settlers from Megara. Then the Romans took over. After that, the Ottoman Empire arrived under Mehmed II. This city has constantly been torn between the east and the west, between Christian and Muslim, and marks have been

  ‘You think this is an artificial language?’ the young woman asked.

  Qayin didn’t look happy about her asking questions.

  ‘I don’t recognize this language,’ Lourds said. ‘I know all the languages of this region. But throughout history a number of people have created artificial languages to keep their secrets.’

  ‘Did you think the language that led you to the discovery of Atlantis was artificial?’ the woman asked.

  ‘For a time I had to consider that possibility, yes. As it turned out it wasn’t artificial.’

  ‘Then you could be wrong about this one as well.’

  ‘You should listen to me here. You’re out of your area of expertise.’ Lourds sighed. ‘We’re not kidnapping anyone here now. This field is where I’m expert.’

  ‘The way I hear you, if you don’t understand something, you can always cop out and just say, “This language isn’t real.” ’

  ‘Even an artificial language is real. Star Trek fans insisted that the Klingon language be made real. Tolkien invented languages for his characters, human and non-human. People are always creating languages. It’s one of the things we do that sets us apart from every

  ‘Maybe at your age they didn’t exist.’

  Lourds ignored her snarky attitude and continued. ‘People had to come up with a name for telephones that were fully portable. The term “cordless” had already been taken. So people started calling them “cellular telephones” at first. That quickly became bastardized to “cellphones”, and that gave way to just calling them “cells”. Mention “cell” after 9/11 and many people think of terrorism. However, the cell terminology didn’t take in Britain. Over there, they call them “mobiles”.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. I’m not a child.’

  ‘I have no doubt that you’re aware of it. Your accent tells me you’re acquainted with Ulster. I’d go as far to say that you’ve been in Ireland often. Probably grew up there.’

  From the way her face went blank, Lourds knew he had hit close to home.

  ‘But being aware of language and thinking about it are two different things,’ he continued. ‘Just because you know something doesn’t mean you’ve thought about it. Language was created to express thoughts and ideas, to hand down education and history, to paint pictures of things that could only be imagined. Words have such an ephemeral quality to them because language is so organic that many words quickly pass in and out of usage and disappear. Or the way they are text. Until that function was created for cells, it was never used as a verb. Now when people think of a text, they don’t think of books. They think of electronic messages they receive on their cellphones.’

  ‘Professor,’ Qayin interrupted sharply, ‘you don’t have time to give a lecture.’

  ‘I wanted to make a point. Not only is language geographical, but the time a document was written is also tremendously important.’

  ‘You are running out of time.’

  Lourds fixed the man with his gaze. ‘Fine. Then tell me where this rubbing came from and when it was made.’

  Qayin’s hot, angry gaze held Lourds. All the fear the professor had been holding at bay returned in a gut-twisting rush.

  You’ve just got yourself killed. Lourds tried not to be sick, but his mouth turned dry as cotton.

  After a moment, Qayin said, ‘I’m told that the rubbing was taken from somewhere inside this city. The writing is from early in the second century after the death of Christ.’

  The enormity of the statement settled over Lourds. Almost two thousand years had passed since these words were written. He focused on the rubbing.

  ‘This ought to be some form of Greek language, then,’ he mused out loud. He opened the water bottle and drank as he thought. ‘We’ve done a lot of work with Mycenaean Greek, Ancient Greek and Koine

  ‘It’s Greek?’ Qayin asked.

  Lourds shrugged. ‘Possibly. Some of the characters look familiar, but they’re not quite right. They bear some resemblance to Greek characters, but they’re unique at the same time.’

  ‘Why Greek?’ Cleena asked.

  ‘Because Greek was one of the primary languages in this area at that time: the language of the conquerors, of Alexander the Great. At the time, he ruled almost all the known world. When he put his people in place to hold different lands, they were trained to read and write in Greek. Conquerors build buildings. As a result, the Greek language is still scattered throughout Europe and parts of Asia. There was Latin as well, by then, but these letters don’t look Roman. I’m guessing they’re some form of Greek.’

  Qayin and his followers listened silently.

  ‘When this rubbing was taken, was the inscription new?’ Lourds asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Qayin answered. ‘I was told it was taken soon after.’

  ‘Soon after what?’

  Qayin shook his head. ‘What I know will not help you.’

  ‘I think I’d be the better judge of that.’

  ‘You’re not going to get to know any more. Now you tell me which Greek language this is.’

  ‘This isn’t simply any Greek language,’ Lourds said. AD, then the root language would most likely be Koine Greek. That was in use from the middle of the fourth century BC to the middle of the fourth century AD.’

  ‘Then it is based on this language?’ Qayin asked.

  ‘It could also just as easily be based on the Mycenaean and Ancient Greek languages.’

  ‘Are those so very different?’

  ‘Of course they’re different,’ Lourds answered. ‘The Greeks were a culture of traders. They went everywhere across the known world. They were successful in what they were doing, which made other people want to be like them. The Mycenaean Greek language is the most ancient Greek language we can research. Several clay tablets were found in Knossos and Pylos, and those weren’t translated until 1952. It was pretty dry stuff, too. Mostly inventories and lists, accountants’ work. That language had seven grammatical cases, including the dative, locative and instrumental. Both the latter two grammatical cases fell out of favour when Classical Greek was born, and dative has been dropped from modern Greek.’

  Excitement drummed through Lourds as his mind began grappling with the symbols. He could almost make sense of part of it, not what it said, but how it was put together.

  ‘Was any one favoured more than the other?’ Cleena asked.

  ‘That’s an interesting question.’ For just a moment, Lourds felt a glow of satisfaction. Even here, at gunpoint, he loved being an instructor. There is something definitely wrong with you, my friend. ‘Rome preferred Ancient Greek because they thought it was more pure. Koine Greek was actually a blend of several Greek dialects with Attic, which was the language spoken in Athens. As I’ve mentioned, that language is spread primarily through Alexander the Great’s armies and it was spoken from Egypt to India. Early Christians adopted the Koine Greek language, possibly to differentiate themselves from the Romans and their gods, which were actually made over from the Green pantheon. The Apostles preached in it. That language also became known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek and New Testament Greek because the Apostles wrote the New Testament in that language.’

  ‘The Apostles?’ Qayin asked.

  Lourds nodded absently, still trying to wrap his thoughts rou
nd the language.

  ‘How can you know so much about this and still not be able to read it?’ Cleena asked.

  ‘Religion is a touchy subject.’

  ‘Let me give you another example. Have you ever written down a note, then gone back a few days later and seen it without understanding why you had written it?’

  ‘No.’

  Lourds sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. ‘Well, I have.’ Far more times than I want to remember. ‘Just imagine that you have, and you can’t figure out why you wrote the note in the first place. Now, instead of a few days, let a hundred years go by. Or even one thousand, just to make things interesting. Do you think that someone a few generations, or several generations, removed from the original writer will understand the context of that message even if they’re able to read it?’

  Qayin paused visibly before offering, ‘I will tell you this much, Professor: you are on the right track. I am told that this missive does indeed tie to one of the Apostles.’

  ‘Now, tell me something about that writing that will save your life.’ Qayin’s tone held deadly menace.

  ‘It’s a warning or a command.’

  ‘I grow weary of these oblique answers.’

  Lourds pointed to one of the words. ‘I believe this is the word diamarturomai. That’s Koine Greek. It means “to solemnly charge”. In the New Testament, the Second Book of Timothy, Paul instructs Timothy about the danger of false teaching. Timothy was supposed to focus on the truth of God, and to teach that Satan is a liar and the father of lies.’

  ‘Church lessons?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Religion has always played a major part in the development of language,’ Lourds replied. ‘While merchants focused on sums and subtractions, on material things, language had to be developed to express ideals and manifest desired behaviours. In fact, Second Timothy also warns against churches wrangling over words interpreted from the Bible.’

  ‘Then this is about God’s Truth?’ Qayin asked.

  Glancing up, Lourds saw that he had the man’s full attention. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Then what are you saying?’