Jonathan Maberry - Assassin's code

Lilith seemed unable to speak, but she finally croaked out a question. “And the cipher?”

“We hit one last hitch. MindReader was able to translate the first page of the Book of Shadows, which is mostly introductions of Sir Guy LaRoque and Ibrahim al-Asiri and their various titles and political affiliations. Typical diplomatic stuff and not of any use to us because we know who they were.”

“Damn,” growled Violin, and a wave of disappointment began sweeping through the Mothers and Echo Team.

But Circe was not done. “The code is devious; it changes incrementally. MindReader’s pattern search figured this last part out. On the first page of the Book of Shadows, the mathematical error was exactly as described in the Codex. However, on the second page, the error is doubled, then tripled on the third page, and on and on until you get to page ten, then it resets to the first error. With that last piece, we can now calculate the rate of error and use those errors to create a key to crack the ciphertext.” She took a breath. “The Book of Shadows and the Voynich Manuscript are ours.”

“Good God,” murmured Church. “This is brilliant work, Circe.”

“Rudy and Bug did as much as I did,” she said.

“I will thank you personally when I see you,” he said. “Bug, how soon before MindReader deciphers both books?”

“Two hours. Because the books are handwritten, and by more than one person, it has to adjust to variations in the way the coded documents were phrased.”

“Do what you can to speed that up. Call me when you find anything, and I do mean anything.”

He disconnected the call and stood silent, his jaw tight, mind working. Lilith had the same inward-looking expression. Maybe we all did. No one said anything. This was massive news to Church and the Mothers, but I felt like I was on the fringes of it. Maybe it would help Arklight-with or without the help of the DMS-take down the Red Order and the Tariqa, but that seemed to be tomorrow’s battle. I didn’t see how the translation of old books was going to help us find nukes today.

Then Church’s cell rang again. Everyone came to point like a pack of retrievers, but it wasn’t Circe. Church listened for a moment and then said, “Very well.”

He closed the phone and looked at me.

“That was the president,” he said. “The word is given. The mission is a go.”

Arklight Camp

Outskirts of Tehran

June 16, 3:23 a.m.

Church stepped out of the warehouse to make a series of phone calls to get this rolling; the first of which was to Aunt Sallie. She was in the big Tactical Operations Center at the Hangar, which made NORAD look like an Internet cafe.

Bug called us just as Church rejoined me.

“I ran down every priest who chose the name of Nicodemus,” said Bug, “and either MindReader is having a senior moment or there is something mucho freaky about the Vatican database.”

“Why?”

“Well, there is a pretty tightly managed registry of priests. Names, personal data, photographs, the works. This goes back pretty far, to the point where paper records were stored and later scanned; and back past that to written records. All scanned now into their systems. Worldwide there have been a couple of hundred priests who chose that name, and a few for whom that was their birth name. Now here’s the kicker. About once every generation, call it twenty-five to thirty years, there is a record of another priest taking that name. Always from the same place, Verona in northern Italy. The thing is, we have dates of births and dates of deaths of each priest, but when I cross-referenced this with public records in Italy, they don’t match. In fact, there are no records at all of any of those priests. Either these guys lied when they applied to priest school or whatever it’s called, or there’s a conspiracy to hide the true identities of these guys.”

“Swell,” I said. “Another mystery. ’Cause I was just thinking that I wasn’t nearly confused enough.”

“Then buckle up, Joe,” said Bug, “because there’s one more thing that popped up. I added Verona to the general pattern search for this case and guess whose grandfather was born there?”

“Just tell me, Bug.”

“The family name is Verrecchia. But that’s not the name he uses now.”

“What’s the name?”

“Vox.”

“Wait-Hugo Vox’s family comes from the same town as Nicodemus?”

“More than the same town, Joe. Half of the men who adopted Nicodemus as their priest names were born as Verrecchias. Nicodemus and Vox are from the same family.”

Private Villa Near Jamshidiyeh Park

Tehran, Iran

June 16, 3:24 a.m.

Vox looked at his watch and smiled. Time to make the first of his calls.

He took several fast, panting breaths while he punched a speed dial. Charles LaRoque answered on the second ring.

“ Jesus, kid, you got to stop them,” said Vox, putting panic and urgency into his voice in exactly the right amounts.

“Stop who?”

“The Tariqa, who the fuck do you think I’m talking about. That whole thing with Rasouli and the flash drive? That was a smokescreen. It was bullshit to get the authorities looking in the wrong direction. And all the time he’s working out a deal with your pet monsters to shove the Agreement right up your ass.”

“What are you talking about?” LaRoque’s voice was filled with genuine panic.

“I’m talking about doomsday, you stupid fuck. I warned you- begged you-not to tell Rasouli too much before he took the full oath. He’s not the Murshid and never had any intention of being that. You know what he wants? He wants to put a lot of Christian heads on poles. He doesn’t want to keep the Shadow War going. That’s small potatoes for him. He’s ramping up Iran to be a nuclear power. And he’s got a really goddamn good chance of uniting all of Islam against the West. You Red Order clowns think you’ve been keeping the church alive? Rasouli is going to blow Christianity off the planet with a mushroom cloud and remake the world in the name of Allah.”

“That’s ridiculous, Hugo,” said LaRoque with a forced laugh. “Even if Rasouli betrays us, he doesn’t have that kind of power. Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons yet.”

“Iran doesn’t,” Vox said, “but Rasouli does. He arranged to buy decommissioned devices from the black market. The same bombs you tried to buy before 9/11. He has them. ”

“Impossible. We never told him about-”

“He has an inside track to the whole Red Order. You have no secrets left, Charlie. Rasouli has you by the balls.”

“No, you’re wrong. No one in the Order would dare-”

“Don’t you listen? I never said that a Hospitaller betrayed you. What I’m saying is that those bloodsucking dogs you think you have on the leash have been off the leash for a long damn time.”

“What?” LaRoque asked, but now there was doubt in his voice.

“Yeah,” said Vox. “Rasouli has made a deal with your devils.”

Arklight Camp

Outskirts of Tehran

June 16, 3:27 a.m.

“Vox and Nicodemus are related,” I said. “That’s it, I’m going home.”

I expected Church to looked rattled by the news, but he stood there, slowly nodding to himself.

“What?” I asked.

“Pieces are coming together.”

“Making what kind of a picture?”

“I’m not entirely sure yet, but let me ask you this, Captain, do you feel that we’re at war with the Red Order?”

I thought about it. “Actually, even though this thing is tied to them, I… I really don’t see how. We’re at war with someone.”