Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

‘Look at this, Thomas.’ Olympia kept turning pages and her fascination grew.

Lourds felt the same way, and his mind was totally captivated by the neat lines of script that crawled across the pages. The volume Olympia held was written in Ancient Greek and detailed a day trip around Patmos Island by a new monk.

‘Can you imagine the wealth of knowledge contained within these pages?’ Olympia asked in hushed tones.

‘I can.’ Lourds glanced over his shoulder at Joachim. ‘Are there any journals here written by John of Patmos?’

‘No.’ Joachim’s voice was short. ‘Professor Lourds, I have to remind you that we came here to find the Joy Scroll. We cannot afford to waste time. You already know others are searching for it as well.’

Frustrated, Lourds swallowed his curiosity. ‘Perhaps there’s something in these books you have missed. If we could find the volumes that were written by the monks during the time of Constantine, maybe we could learn more about the scroll’s location.’

Joachim’s eyes narrowed. ‘Only a short time ago, you told me you could find the scroll’s hiding place by seeing the stone where the rubbing was taken. Was that the truth?’

Reluctantly, Lourds nodded.

‘The stone is over here.’ Joachim directed his flashlight to a corner of the room.

Despite the bright halogen beam, Lourds had a hard time spotting the engraving on the stone. The work was skilled and delicate, done by a true craftsman. If Joachim had not pointed out the stone, if the light had not fallen just so, he would never have noticed it. The curiosity about his hypothesis grew strong enough to draw him from the library shelves, filled with the thoughts of the men who had followed John of Patmos’s final instructions.

The fate of the world, Lourds reminded himself, steeling himself to walk away. In the end, he didn’t think the situation would be anything so weighty, but the possibility of finding a document written by one of Christ’s twelve apostles was a magical elixir that made his blood sing. He crossed the room, took off his backpack and stored it next to the wall, then knelt in front of the stone. He ran his fingers across the engraving. The depth was no more than a fraction of an inch, hardly noticeable. He reached into his backpack and took out a pad of paper and writing utensils. A skilled stonemason had built the wall. The stones were of uneven size, but they’d been carefully mortared together. Lourds ran his hand along the wall and felt the smoothness, noting that the man must have polished the stone. No rough surfaces remained.

‘A lot of time went into the construction of this place,’ he commented.

‘After the brothers took their vows to protect the Joy Scroll, they didn’t leave here.’ Joachim knelt next to Lourds.

‘That’s a hefty price to pay.’

‘I know.’

‘Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do if – when – we find the Joy Scroll?’

‘Protect it.’

‘Even if it means spending the rest of your life locked away from the world in a room like this?’

Joachim didn’t hesitate. ‘Even if that were so.’

Lourds fitted a blank piece of paper over the stone.

‘What are you doing?’ Joachim asked.

‘Taking a rubbing.’ Lourds selected a piece of charcoal from his kit and began gently rubbing it over the paper. The engraving on the stone started coming to life immediately.

‘Why?’

‘To match it against the one in the book. Have you done that?’

Joachim was silent for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I haven’t. We already have a copy of the rubbing and it told us nothing.’

‘Does Qayin know where this stone is?’

‘No, he doesn’t. And if he did, what would it matter?’

Lourds took his fresh rubbing and matched it against the one in the book he’d got from Qayin. ‘Can you hold the book for me?’

Joachim took the book.

‘Hold the book so the page with the rubbing hangs down by itself,’ Lourds instructed. Joachim did so. By that time the others had all come around to watch what he was doing. Lourds folded the new rubbing so that it fitted over the one in the book. Then he held his flashlight behind the papers so that both were illuminated. When he had them lined up, they matched exactly.

He grinned. ‘Looks like the same stone to me.’

‘That wasn’t necessary.’

Lourds rummaged in his backpack for a digital camera. ‘Of course it was. Empirical evidence is always important. Especially when you’re saving the world.’

‘You still don’t believe.’

‘Have you stopped to think that maybe I’m able to read that language because I’m not a believer? I’m not looking for the same things you are. I don’t have preconceived notions about what we’re supposed to find and how we’re supposed to find it. I’ve got a more open mind about what we’re looking for.’

Joachim didn’t say anything.

‘One thing I do believe is that I’m going to get you the answers that you haven’t had in over eight hundred years. Now hold that flashlight on this stone for me.’

‘More empirical evidence?’

‘No,’ Olympia said with a knowing grin, ‘Thomas likes his souvenirs.’

Finished with the camera, Lourds replaced it in the backpack. ‘Now I’m going to need you to use some of that faith you so readily claim to have.’ He took a small pry bar from an outside pocket of the backpack.

‘What are you going to do?’ Joachim demanded.

Lourds pointed with the pry bar. ‘I’m going to take that stone out of the wall.’ Hardly had the words left his mouth than Joachim hit him in the face with a balled fist. Pain exploded in Lourds’ face as he sailed backward.

Deep in the passageway now, Colonel Anthony Eckart stood still and studied the terrain through the night-vision goggles he wore. So far there was still no sign of Lourds or the others. Eckart’s gut clenched and ached in anticipation. He couldn’t wait to meet the redheaded woman close up and personal. The men he had lost at the university had been good men, in no way friends, but good soldiers were hard to come by.

‘Mayfield, do you have a reading on our position?’ Eckart asked.

‘Affirmative, sir. I’ve rerouted the overland support teams to you. They’re almost directly overhead.’

‘Near the church?’

‘That’s affirmative. I’m reading your position under the church now.’

Eckart gazed at the blank walls. ‘What’s under here?’

‘Tunnels. Lots and lots of tunnels. From the maps I’ve been able to download from the geological survey services in the city, it looks like a regular rat’s warren down there.’

‘It is. Do you have any idea where our target is headed?’

‘Negative. Like I said, there are a lot of tunnels down there. On multiple levels as well. Some of them cross over or under without touching any other tunnels.’

Eckart thought about that. Back in the early days of war, tunnels had been important defensive and offensive measures. Tunnels enabled large groups of warriors to either vanish or appear somewhere else on a battlefield. Sappers were specially trained troops that dug under castle walls and other fortifications to tunnel in or bring down the walls. Ammo and supply routes ran underground as well, as did paths for retreating.

‘It’s got to be something to do with the church,’ Mayfield said. ‘That church has had treasures in the past. Maybe there’s something like that hidden down there.’

‘All right,’ Eckart said, ‘the GPS reads us five by five?’

‘Affirmative. And I’m keeping an eye on your back door.’

Eckart sent his point man back into motion. The group moved out like a well-oiled machine.

Only a few minutes later, they came to a fork in the tunnel. Eckart waved one of his men forward. The man used a latent thermographic scanner to pick up the heat signature left by the people they followed. The body temperature of the group had soaked into the rock enough to leave a ghost trail that was just strong enough. If they got too far behind, and the trail was allowed to cool, they would lose them.