The Doomsday Key: A Sigma Force Novel

by James Rollins

  “Aye. That would be like them. If something didn’t mesh with their dogma, it was often destroyed. Look what happened to the Mayan codices, a vast font of ancient knowledge. The Church deemed them to be the devil’s work, and all but a few were burned.”

  Seichan recognized a contradiction and moved closer. “Then why didn’t they just destroy the sarcophagus? Why go to the trouble of scouring it clean?”

  Wallace answered, “If it is a grave marker, they might have respected its interment. The Church, at the time, was not above its own superstitions. They might not have wanted to disturb the bones.”

  Gray voiced his own interpretation. “Or maybe what was stored here had value to them.”

  “Like the Doomsday key,” Rachel said.

  Seichan ignored Rachel’s glance in her direction. She merely crossed her arms.

  Gray bent down and examined the lid. “It looks like it was wax-sealed at one time.” He lifted his hands and rubbed flakes from his fingers. “But somebody broke that seal.”

  “It had to be Father Giovanni,” Rachel said. “Look over here.” She had moved over to the old cross and pointed at the walls to either side.

  Drawn in charcoal were notations and calculations done in a crisp modern hand. It looked like Father Giovanni had measured every dimension of the cross. He’d also drawn a perfect circle around it. More lines crisscrossed it in an unfathomable pattern. To Seichan, it had a vaguely arcane look.

  What was Marco doing here?

  Gray studied the cross. Seichan saw the calculations going on behind his expression. If anyone could find that key, it was this man.

  Gray finally turned away. Seichan suspected that a part of his mind was still working on the mystery of the cross, but he pointed over to the sarcophagus.

  “If Marco broke that seal, let’s see what he discovered.”

  1:03 P.M.

  It took all of them to shift the lid.

  How had Father Giovanni done it on his own? Gray wondered as he braced his feet and shoved. Did he have help? Or did he haul down some tools?

  Still, brute force proved sufficient. With a scrape of stone on stone, they pushed the top askew but kept the lid balanced on the top.

  Gray shone his flashlight down into the interior of the sarcophagus. The hollow space was hewn out of the bluestone block. He had been expecting some moldering bones, but though there was room for a body, the sarcophagus was empty.

  Except for one item.

  A massive book, bound in thick leather, rested in the center. It stretched a foot wide, just as thick, and two feet long. It looked perfectly preserved. Most likely the tome hadn’t been disturbed since it was first closed up and sealed with wax.

  Gray reached for it.

  “Careful,” Wallace warned, his voice hushed. “You don’t want to damage it. We should be wearing gloves.”

  Gray hesitated, sensing the age of the text.

  Despite his words of caution, Wallace waved impatiently at Gray. “What are you waiting for?”

  Swallowing, Gray gingerly placed two fingers on the edge of the book. Surely Father Giovanni had already opened it at least once. As Gray lifted the heavy cover, the book’s binding, likely sinew and long dried, resisted opening.

  “Gently now,” Wallace urged.

  Gray pulled the cover fully open and leaned it against one wall of the stone chest. The first page was blank, but it was transparent enough to see through to the rich colors of the next page.

  Wallace shifted closer. “Dear God …”

  The professor reached down himself and pulled back that first page. “It’s calf vellum,” he said, pinching the paper. But his eyes grew wider as he revealed what lay below.

  Under the beams of their flashlights, the ink on the next page glowed like molten jewels. Dark crimsons, golden yellows, and purples so rich they looked damp. The illustrations on the page were meticulous and dense, depicting stylized human figures tangled with knots and wrapped in intricate scrollwork. In the center of the first page, surrounded and supported by the intensity and force of the artwork, sat a crowned and bearded man on a gold throne.

  It was clearly meant to represent Christ.

  “It’s an illuminated manuscript,” Rachel said, awed by its beauty.

  Wallace turned a few more pages. “It’s a Bible.”

  His finger hovered over the crisp lines of Latin text that ran tightly over the pages. The calligraphy was ornate, with fanciful images folded into the capital letters. The pages’ margins were equally decorated with a riotous mix of mythical animals, winged children, and tangles and tangles of knots.

  “The iconography reminds me of the Book of Kells,” Wallace said. “An illuminated treasure of Ireland that dates back to the eighth century. It was the result of decades of labor by sequestered monks. And that book only covered the four gospels of the New Testament.”

  Wallace’s voice trembled. “I think this book is the entire Bible.” He shook his head. “If so, it’s priceless beyond imagination.”

  “Then why was it left here?” Seichan asked. Even she had drawn closer to see the book.

  Wallace could only shake his head. But he carefully pulled back a few more leaves of the Bible, and an answer appeared.

  The turn of a page revealed a gaping hole in the center of the book. The hole sliced straight through the pages and formed a cubby three inches square and one deep.

  Wallace gasped at the destruction.

  Gray leaned closer. The hole was plainly meant to hold something, to keep it hidden and preserved. Without turning, Gray held his hand out to Rachel. She reached to a pocket inside her coat.

  They all knew what must once have been hidden there.

  A moment later, Rachel placed the leather artifact in Gray’s palm. The satchel looked to be made out of the same leather that bound the book. He held the object over the cubby. It fit perfectly into the hole.

  “Father Giovanni stole the artifact, but left the Bible,” Gray said, picturing the mummified finger inside the pouch. “Why?”

  The one word held many questions.

  Wallace added another. “Why didn’t Marco tell anybody about this?”

  “Maybe he did,” Seichan said coldly. “To be hunted and murdered, he had to have told someone.”

  “She’s right,” Gray realized. “Maybe Marco didn’t reveal all he knew—like the discovery of the Bible—but he told someone enough to get himself killed.”

  “Oh, God …” Wallace suddenly blurted.

  Gray turned to him.

  “About two years ago, Marco contacted me. He needed money to continue his travels. I told him that my sponsor, the Viatus Corporation, might be willing to finance any ancillary research connected to my dig. I gave him my contact’s name. A head researcher there. Magnussen was her name.”

  Seichan stiffened beside Gray, but she remained silent.

  “But I never heard back from Marco after that.” Wallace looked sickened. “I assumed he never bothered. I forgot about it until now. Oh, God, I may have led him directly to his killers.”

  Gray ran the scenario through his head. It made sense. Viatus would have hired Marco, especially if he had proposed looking for a potential counteragent to whatever killed those mummies. How could they say no? But then somewhere along the way, Marco found something that frightened him enough to make a run for Rome, to meet with Vigor Verona, to expose all he knew. His employers must have grown wise to what he was planning and taken him out.

  Wallace held a hand pressed over his mouth, still shocked. With his other hand, he pushed the loose pages back over the hole in the Bible, hiding the book’s violation as if that might lessen his own guilt.

  Rachel spoke as she accepted the satchel back from Gray. “Father Giovanni stole the artifact, but the bigger questions are who left it here to begin with and why?”

  Her words drew them back to the heart of the mystery. Her life depended on discovering those answers.

  “I may be able to answer the
question of who left the Bible,” Wallace said and took a deep breath to steady himself.

  Gray turned to the man, surprised. “Who?”

  “Possibly the owner of the Bible.”

  Wallace pointed back to the book, toward the inside surface of the leather cover. A page of vellum had been glued there.

  Earlier, Gray had been too focused on the book’s contents to note the one page shadowed by the cover. He examined it now. It was as densely illuminated as the rest of the work, but the content centered on a stylized name, possibly the owner of the priceless book.

  Wallace read the name so dramatically illustrated. “Mael Maedoc Ua Morgair.”

  The name meant nothing to Gray. His lack of knowledge must have been plain on his face.

  “You can’t live in these parts without knowing that name,” Wallace explained. “Especially in my profession.”

  “Who is it?”

  “One of the most famous of Irish saints, second only to Saint Patrick. His given name was Mael Maedoc, but Latinized it’s Malachy.”

  “Saint Malachy,” Rachel said, clearly recognizing the name.

  “Who was he?” Gray asked.

  “He was born about the same year as the Doomsday Book was written.” Wallace let the significance of that sink in before he continued. “He started out as the abbot of Bangor but grew to become archbishop. He spent much of his time on pilgrimages.”

  “So he most likely came here?”

  Wallace nodded. “Malachy was an interesting man, kind of a reluctant archbishop. He preferred to travel, mingling with both the pagans and the pious of the region, spreading the word of the gospels. He moved easily between both worlds and eventually brokered a lasting peace between the Church and those who adhered to the old ways.”

  Gray recalled Wallace’s earlier belief that the last of the pagans waged a final war against Christendom, possibly using the bioweapon acquired from the ancients. “Do you think a part of that brokered peace might have been knowledge of the plague and its cure, the proverbial key to the Doomsday Book?”

  “His fingerprints are definitely here.” Wallace gestured toward the book. “Then there’s also the reason Malachy was canonized, why he was considered worthy of being made a saint.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Ah, now there’s the rub,” Wallace said. “Malachy was known throughout his life for the miracle of healing. A long litany of miraculous cures is attributed to this saint.”

  “Just like the history of Bardsey Island,” Gray said.

  “But I also recall another story told about Malachy. From my own bonny Scotland. Malachy came traipsing through Annandale and asked the lord of the land there to spare the life of a pickpocket. The lord agreed, but ended up hanging the thief. Outraged, Malachy cursed him—and not only did the lord die, but so did everyone in his household.”

  Wallace glanced significantly at Gray.

  “Healing and curses,” Gray mumbled.

  “It sounds like Malachy learned something from his new Druid friends, something the Church decided to keep secret out here.”

  Rachel interrupted. “But you skipped over what Malachy was best known for.”

  “Ah, you mean the prophecies,” Wallace said with a roll of his eyes.

  “What prophesies?”

  Rachel answered, “The prophecies of the popes. It’s said that on a pilgrimage to Rome, Malachy fell into a trance and had a vision of all the popes from his time to the end of the world. He dutifully wrote them all down.”

  “Bloody nonsense,” Wallace countered. “The story goes that the Church supposedly found Malachy’s book in their archives some four hundred years after the man died. Likely the book was a forgery.”

  “And some claim it was just a copy of Malachy’s original text. Either way, the descriptions of each pope have over the centuries proved to be oddly accurate. Take the last two popes. Malachy describes John Paul II as De Labore Solis. Or translated, ‘From the toil of the sun.’ He was born during a solar eclipse. And then there’s the current pope, Benedict XVI. Described as De Gloria Olivae. ‘The Glory of the Olive.’ And the symbol for the Benedictine order is the olive branch.”

  Wallace lifted a hand dismissively. “Just people reading too much into cryptic snippets of Latin.”

  Rachel turned to Gray for understanding. “But what’s most disturbing of all is that the current pope is number one hundred and eleven on Malachy’s list. The very next pope—Petrus Romanus—is the last pope, according to the prophecy. That pope will serve when the world comes to an end.”

  “Then we’re all doomed,” Seichan said, voicing as much skepticism as Wallace.

  “Well, I certainly am,” Rachel spat back, silencing her. “Unless we find that damned key.”

  Gray kept silent. He avoided weighing in on the matter. But Rachel was right about one thing. They needed to find that key. As he stood, he contemplated the significance of finding this dead saint’s Bible sitting in a pagan sarcophagus. And more important—

  “Do you think it was Saint Malachy’s finger inside that Bible?” Gray asked.

  “No,” Wallace said firmly. “This sarcophagus is too old. Much too old. My guess is that it dates to the time of Stonehenge. Someone was buried here, but not Malachy.”

  “Then who?” Gray asked.

  Wallace shrugged. “Like I said, possibly some Neolithic royalty. Perhaps that dark pagan queen. Nonetheless, I suspect that finger bone is all that’s left of whoever was first buried here.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “And where’s the rest of the body?” Rachel added.

  “Moved. Probably by the Church. Maybe by Malachy himself. But they left the bone here as was traditional back then. It was a sin to move a body from its resting place unless you left a small piece behind.”

  “A relic of that person,” Rachel said with a nod. “So they can continue to rest in peace. Uncle Vigor talked about that once. It was considered sacrilegious to do otherwise.”

  Gray stared into the sarcophagus. “Malachy used his own Bible to preserve the relic. He must have believed that whoever was buried here was worthy of that honor.”

  Gray also remembered Father Rye’s description of Marco on the day he returned from the island all upset. The young priest had spent the night praying for forgiveness. Was it because he stole the relic, thereby desecrating a grave that had been sanctified by a saint of his own Church? And if so, what possessed him to do that? Why did he think it was so important?

  Rachel raised another question of significance. “Why was the body even moved?”

  Wallace offered one explanation. “Perhaps to keep safe whatever was hidden here. During Malachy’s time, England and Ireland were under constant attack by wave after wave of Viking raiders. The island, with no fortifications, would have been especially vulnerable.”

  Gray nodded. “And if this crypt was where the key was kept, it must be somehow tied to the body interred here. So to preserve the knowledge, both the body and the key had to be moved to a safer location.”

  “But what the hell is this key?” Seichan asked. “What are we even looking for?”

  Gray looked toward the only other clue left to them by Father Giovanni. He moved over to the wall and studied the charcoal notations next to the cross. He laid a hand on the wall. What had Marco been trying to figure out?

  The others gathered behind him.

  He looked up at the Celtic cross. Only now did he realize something. “The cross,” he said, running his fingers down it. “It’s made out of the same stone as the sarcophagus. It even feels scoured like the crypt.”

  Wallace stepped closer. “You’re right.”

  Gray turned to him. “This wasn’t put here by Malachy or some other pious Christian to mark the grave.”

  “It was already here.”

  Gray looked at the cross with new eyes, not seeing it as a Christian symbol but a pagan one. Did it offer some clue to what the key actually was? From the no
tations on the wall, Father Giovanni had been trying to figure something out.

  Needing to know more, Gray pointed his light at the bottom of the cross. “The set of three spirals near the base of the cross. Is there any special significance to them?”

  Wallace moved over to join Gray and Rachel. “It’s called a tri-spiral. But it’s actually not three spirals. Only one. See how the three of them join and blend to form one sinuous pattern. This same triple pattern can be found marked on ancient standing stones across Europe. And like many pagan symbols, the Church appropriated this one, too. To the Celtic people, it represented eternal life. But to the Church, it was the perfect representation for the Holy Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. All entwined together. The three who are one.”

  Gray moved his gaze up to the single spiral that sat in the middle of the cross, like the hub of a wheel.

  He remembered Painter’s original briefing about the symbol. How the pagan cross and spiral were often found together, one overlapping the other. The cross was a symbol for Earth. And the spiral marked the soul’s journey, rising from this world to the next, like a curl of smoke.

  Gray’s attention shifted to Father Giovanni’s markings drawn on the wall. He sensed some meaning behind the notations and lines. He could almost grasp it, but it remained tantalizingly out of reach.

  Stepping closer, Gray put down his flashlight and reached to the circular section on the cross. He ran his fingertips across the scored markings.

  Like spokes on a wheel.

  As the thought popped into his head, he was still staring at the spiral in the center of the cross. He had compared it earlier to a wheel hub. It even looked like it was turning.

  Then suddenly he knew.

  Maybe he had sensed it from the beginning, but he couldn’t get past the Christian symbolism. Now, considering the cross anew and pushing aside preconceptions, he recognized what was nagging at him.

  “It is a wheel,” he realized.

  Reaching more firmly, he grasped the stone circle and turned it counterclockwise, in the direction of the curl of the spiral.

  It moved!

  As he turned the wheel, his eyes shifted to the calculations drawn on the wall. The cross hid a clue about the key, but to unlock it you had to know the proper code. The wheel must act like a combination lock, protecting some hidden vault where the key was once stored.