Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

‘We can’t live like that.’

‘No, Mike, we can’t. Our people can’t live like that. Do you want your children growing up in a country without hope, without a future?’

‘Of course not. I just keep hoping there is some other way.’

‘If there was another way, I’d let you know. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you trust me?’

‘I always have, haven’t I?’

‘Then trust me now.’

Gazing into the window, Webster saw his reflection highlighted by fires burning aboard luxury vessels moored in the marina. Webster didn’t know if the fires had been started by Shia resistance or by Sunni military units seeking to do as much damage to Shia property as possible. In the end, it didn’t really matter. The flames just needed to be fanned.

Webster licked his middle finger and thumb and smoothed his eyebrows into place. ‘Mike? Are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then let’s get this done. Let’s set the hounds loose and let them hunt. We don’t have to get our hands dirty, and we’ll come out of this looking like heroes.’

Across the world, the President of the United States took a deep breath and let it out. Webster listened to the sound and knew he had the man right where he wanted him.

In fact, nearly everything was right where he wanted it.

‘All right,’ Waggoner said. ‘Make your calls.’

‘I will.’ Webster smiled at his reflection. ‘Everything will turn out okay, Mike. I’ll make a believer of you yet.’

‘Call me as soon as you know something,’ Waggoner told him.

‘This will take some time. Keep your chin up. We’re going to win.’ Webster broke the connection then started calling numbers he knew by heart.

Catacombs

Hagia Sophia Underground

Istanbul, Turkey

19 March 2010

The tunnel was only wide enough for them to walk comfortably in single file. Lourds’ head kept knocking against the low stone ceiling. Only the sound of shoes scuffing the stones beneath their feet and their breathing echoed within the tunnel. All else was silent as a crypt – a crypt like the room where the elder monks of the Brotherhood of the Scroll had willingly paid the final price to protect John of Patmos’s secret.

Sometimes, my friend, you are far too imaginative for this profession, Lourds told himself.

Imagination was a necessary component of his work, though. Translating and deciphering ancient and dead languages required someone who could navigate between creative thinking and logic, between fantasy and fact. Either one of those two disciplines could bring him to a basic understanding of a manuscript, but it wasn’t until he was able to combine both that he was at his best.

He flicked his flashlight beam round the tunnel. Shadows shifted like oily ghosts, plunging into the voids left by the lights. The halogen beam easily cut through the darkness and revealed the rough walls. Pickaxe scars showed in the strata, softened over the years by the passage of bodies. He wondered what stories those old scars could tell if they could only speak. The Hagia Sophia had enjoyed – or suffered, depending on one’s point of view – a vigorous history. It had been built on the site of a former pagan temple, a common practice in those days. It had stood for forty-four years before getting burned to the ground by Empress Aelia Eudoxia. The empress had been at odds with John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople at the time. Chrysostom had denounced extravagance regarding women’s clothing choices, and the empress had taken the matter personally.

The second church had lasted one hundred and twenty-eight years before being burned down during the Nika Revolt. It had immediately been rebuilt.

But the tunnels beneath the structure had been maintained and grown more labyrinthine over succeeding generations. Lourds would have loved to have had time to explore thoroughly the tunnels. Even after all these years, there were treasures still to find for someone who was looking.

‘Are there tunnels underneath this whole city?’ Cleena asked. She followed Lourds.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘And cisterns.’

‘What’s a cistern?’

‘A cistern catches and holds rainwater, maybe groundwater if it’s available,’ Lourds replied. ‘The word comes from Latin – cisterna – and the root of that is cista, meaning box. Of course that came from the Greek as did most Latin. The original word was kiste, meaning basket.’

‘Container for water would have done nicely.’

‘You’re welcome. If you get the chance, before you leave Istanbul, you should go see the Yerebatan Sarayi. It’s also known as the Basilica Cistern and Yerebatan Sarnici.’

‘Not exactly here on a sightseeing tour,’ Olympia said from in front of Lourds.

‘Of course,’ Lourds responded.

They hadn’t talked much in the last hour while Joachim had led them through the underground network of tunnels. This prolonged lack of conversation bothered Lourds more than walking around in the dark. Admittedly, tensions ran high. Although Lourds had proved himself, Joachim and the other monks weren’t happy about revealing their secrets to an outsider. Part of it was a pride issue, but Lourds felt some of it was fear. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that the fate of the world could depend on a two-thousand-year-old scroll that might not be translatable.

Or are the final blitherings of a madman, he told himself.

Still, a part of him was – perhaps – a bit afraid. He had never been superstitious. Not exactly. However, he had seen things that had given him pause over the years. He had never expected lost Atlantis to be found again, and especially not to have walked through part of those fabled lands himself.

But he had.

‘So tell me about the cistern,’ Cleena invited.

Ahead of Lourds, Olympia blew out an angry breath and cursed.

Lourds didn’t mind.

‘Today, the cistern is more commonly known as the Basilica Cistern, which was the name first given to it.’ He spoke quietly but his voice still echoed. ‘The Turks called it Yerebatan Sarayi, which means Sunken Palace, and Yerebatan Sarnici, which means Sunken Cistern. In fact, we shouldn’t be far from it. The cistern was constructed near the Hagia Sophia.’

‘Since the cistern’s sunken, I suppose that means it’s underground.’

Lourds negotiated a particularly narrow passage then continued, ‘Exactly. And it ties back to the construction of the church. It was built underneath the Stoa Basilica, a public square everyone used. The emperor allotted the water usage during times of drought, but otherwise people were free to come and go and use as much as they needed.’

‘I guess during times of drought though, the emperor wasn’t so generous.’

‘No, he wasn’t.’

‘Having the cistern so close to the castle meant the emperor’s guards could easily defend it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Constantine sold the idea of the cistern to the people by saying it was for the common good, then took it back if he needed it. Close placement to the castle just made it easier.’

‘I suppose so,’ Lourds said. ‘But it also made the cistern more defensible when the city was under siege. I think that was the original concept. I don’t know that Constantine ever kept the citizens from the water, but the city was sacked and besieged on more than one occasion.’ He did, however, think the comment was indicative of her particular mind set.

‘How big is the cistern?’

‘It’s the largest in Istanbul. As I said, Constantine started the cistern, but Justinian enlarged it after the Nika Riots of 532 AD. It’s almost five hundred feet long, a little over two hundred feet wide and thirty feet deep.’

‘Big swimming pool,’ Cleena commented.