Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

Up ahead, a section of the passageway wall opened up to reveal a small high space. Iron rungs were attached to one wall. The young man with the light shone the flashlight up into the vertical passageway.

‘All clear,’ he said.

Lourds was third in line and grabbed one of the rusting iron rungs above his head. He settled his backpack, with the book inside, across his shoulders and hoisted himself up. The corroded metal bit into his palms and flaked off as he climbed. A brief glance revealed that the vertical passageway went up some distance. He couldn’t keep watching because rust flakes spilled into his eyes. As he climbed, he felt the steady burn of his abused muscles and longed for bed. And a meal of some kind.

But the mystery of the book chafed at his mind as surely as the rotten iron dug into his hands.

Just when Lourds was about to let the others know he couldn’t go any further, the lead man called a halt to the procession. Metal rasped overhead, then sunlight poured down into the shaft.

Morning? Lourds couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But he had no frame of reference for how long he had been rendered unconscious by the drugs he had been given.

The first man climbed slowly and peered around for a moment, then climbed out of the tunnel. The young man who had done all the talking followed him. Then in short order, Lourds and the girl followed, then the other three men. Lourds stood in a narrow alley that could have been a twin of the one where the helicopter had crashed.

Cleena stood with her pistol in her fist. Somehow she’d made the long climb with the weapon in her hand. The five men watched her uneasily.

‘So how do we handle this?’ she asked.

‘We’re escorting Professor Lourds to his hotel,’ the young man with a goatee said.

‘What about me?’

‘You’re free to go.’

She looked at the five men suspiciously and took a fresh grip on her weapon. ‘What? Just like that?’

‘Yes.’

She smiled. ‘And if I preferred to take the professor with me?’

‘That wouldn’t be acceptable.’

‘I’ve always been told the person with the gun makes the rules.’

Uneasily, Lourds shifted and took a step back from her.

The young man spoke calmly. ‘I assure you, you’re not the only one with a weapon here. You were allowed to come with us because we don’t like to kill, nor would we allow Qayin and his followers to murder you. But our people have fought and died for centuries for the secrets contained within that book.’

Lourds didn’t know if the robed men were armed. He could see no weapons, but the robes concealed a lot. He suddenly felt like a choice meat bone being growled over by two dogs. The thing that most captured his attention was the statement about how long people had been searching for the secret he presently had in his possession. He pulled the backpack’s straps a little tighter.

Then he remembered the other men at the airport.

‘You didn’t try to contact me at the airport yesterday morning, did you?’

‘No, Professor,’ the young man answered.

So there is a third party after me, Lourds realized.

‘Professor?’ Cleena asked. ‘The decision is yours. Do you want to stay with them?’

‘They’ve said that they’re taking me to my hotel room,’ Lourds replied.

‘And you trust them?’

Lourds shrugged. ‘They haven’t kidnapped me.’

An insouciant smile quirked her lips. ‘Yet.’ She paused. ‘I wish you well, professor. It’s been… interesting, but I hope you don’t take offence when I tell you I hope never to see you again.’

‘No offence taken. And I hope you don’t mind that the feeling is mutual.’

Gun in hand, Cleena backed down the alley for one hundred paces. Then she turned and fled, rounding the corner at the end of the alley and disappearing.

‘Professor Lourds,’ the young man prompted, ‘are you ready to go to your hotel now?’

‘Of course. Give me just a second.’ Lourds rummaged in his backpack and took out the pen and paper he’d worked with earlier. He already knew the avenues he wanted to follow with the translation. As he made notes, his fascination grew.

Returning to the hotel proved less clandestine than Lourds would have believed. The group doffed their robes and threw them into a rubbish bin, then escorted him to the other end of the alley and hailed a cab. Only the young man with the goatee accompanied Lourds on the journey. No longer dressed in the robe, he looked like anyone. Like a student, actually, Lourds thought. He wore khaki slacks, loafers and a soccer jersey. He would have been perfectly at home on the greens at Harvard.

Around them, Istanbul had come to life. Pedestrians and tourists filled the streets: some window-shopped or sat at tables in outdoor cafés. Lourds had always loved the city. Istanbul, as Constantinople before it, had a long and exciting history.

The initial settlement had been made in 6500 BC on the Anatolian side of the area. The Fikirtepe mound had revealed artefacts dating from 5500-3500 BC, during the Copper Age. One of the ports, Kadikoy, also known as Chalcedon, had been active during the time of the Phoenicians. The Bosphorus River held the record for the narrowest strait used for international travel. According to ancient Greek myth, the river had been named after Io, one of Zeus’s lovers after the god turned her into an ox to protect her from his jealous wife. Usually Lourds found himself soothed by the presence of so much history around him. Despite the modern additions to the area, it wasn’t hard to imagine the seaport city as it had been during its heyday. The salty sea air wouldn’t have had the taint of diesel, but otherwise it would have smelled much the same.

But Lourds couldn’t relax. He kept expecting an assault from any front.

‘You didn’t mention your name,’ Lourds said.

The young man smiled and shook his head. ‘I cannot. Please forgive me this social inadequacy. I have very strict orders.’

‘Regarding me? Or the book?’

‘They are the same.’

‘Seeing as how I’ve been under the threat of death since I arrived in the city, isn’t there something you can tell me?’

‘Only that many things are coming to a head and danger is loose in the world.’

‘Kind of oblique, don’t you think?’ Lourds asked.

‘In your field of study, you’ve covered a lot of history. Have you ever known a prophecy that was not oblique?’

‘This is about a prophecy?’

‘No. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.’ The young man trailed his fingers through his goatee and looked pained. ‘Honestly, Professor, I wish that I could tell you more.’

‘Besides you, and Qayin’s people, who else knows about this?’

‘Several people know something of the background regarding the book, and the secret it protects. Qayin’s people have had it for a very long time.’

‘How long?’

‘The last three hundred and thirty-seven years.’

‘In this city?’

‘That book,’ the young man said, ‘has never left this city.’

‘Why?’

‘It isn’t permitted.’

Lourds shook his head. ‘I don’t understand. Anyone could leave this city with the book.’

‘Could you?’ The young man smiled with bright interest. ‘I wonder if you could.’

‘Is that a challenge?’

‘The challenge, Professor, is whether you can decipher the book and find what it hides.’

‘I could do that at Harvard,’ Lourds said. ‘In fact, it might be far easier to do it there.’ He paused. ‘Or would you stop me?’

‘Yes. As would Qayin. There are others who seek the book as well. If you stay here, we can protect you to some degree.’

‘Like you did yesterday?’