Charles Brokaw - The Lucifer Code

‘Who are you working for?’

‘The CIA. You know that.’

‘The scroll Lourds is looking for isn’t something the CIA would be interested in.’

‘The artificial language-’

‘No,’ Cleena said. She levelled the pistol at his knee. ‘Who sent you after Lourds?’ She glanced up at the traffic light. ‘You have until the light changes colour.’

‘Webster,’ Dawson whispered.

‘Webster?’

‘I was here under orders from Vice-President Webster.’

The light changed to green and the car behind Cleena honked impatiently.

‘The American vice-president?’ Sevki sounded in total disbelief.

Cleena knew how he felt. Another honk sounded from the car behind her. She gestured to Dawson.

‘Get out of the car,’ she said. ‘And whatever you do, don’t ever come near my sister or me again.’

‘Don’t worry about that. You won’t see me next time. By the time you realize I’m there, it will already be too late.’ Dawson closed the door and stood at the open window as he pulled his courage together. ‘The only question will be whether I kill your sister before or after I kill you.’

Sevki cursed.

Dawson turned began to walk away.

‘Agent Dawson,’ she said.

He turned to face her, a confident smile twitching his lips. He started to open his mouth to say something, then he saw Cleena point the pistol at him. She squeezed the trigger smoothly and felt the pistol buck in her fist. The bullet caught Dawson below his left eye next to his nostril. Several people near the car recognized the sound of the shot and dived for cover.

‘Oh my God,’ Sevki said. ‘Did you just shoot him?’

‘Yes.’ Cleena dropped her foot on the accelerator and sped through the intersection as Dawson sprawled into the street. ‘I couldn’t let him live. He would’ve done what he said he would do.’

‘Lourds is the target. You should have just stayed low and got out of this. They couldn’t come after you and the professor.’

Cleena made a right turn. Paranoia still thrummed within her as she checked for pursuit. ‘Do you think I can just run?’

‘You can. I can create false identities for you and your sister.’

‘To live where?’

‘Here, for starters.’

Tears burned at the back of Cleena’s eyes as she realized everything that was now at stake. ‘I can’t do that to my sister,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t realize what she’s been through. The home she has now in college? That’s the only home she’s truly known. I can’t take her away from that. Not when she’s so close to starting her life her way.’

‘Then what are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to ride this thing out. See where it goes.’ Cleena made a few sharp turns and parked the car at the side of a shop. She left the keys in the ignition and got out.

‘You’ve seen what you’re up against. What you’re talking about is suicide.’

Cleena strode away forcefully, putting as much distance as she could between the car and herself. ‘We’ve come this far.’

‘You don’t even know if there’s anything to this,’ Sevki protested. ‘Long lost secrets don’t just fall out of the closet.’

‘Sometimes they do. You know that. Part of your business is based on that.’

‘Two thousand years is a long time to keep a secret.’

‘People say the Egyptian pyramids were buried longer than that.’

Sevki sighed.

‘You can have out,’ Cleena said. ‘There’s nothing holding you to this. I needed you to help me find whoever hurt my sister. You did.’

‘Neither one of us has any sense. You know that, don’t you?’

Cleena smiled and her steps felt a little lighter. ‘I didn’t know, but I’d hoped.’

‘Let’s just cross our fingers that the professor is as good as everyone thinks he is.’

‘When the Hagia Sofia was built at the direction of Constantine,’ Lourds said as he smoothed out the maps of the temple Joachim had brought him, ‘several mosaics were built into the walls. They remained there for hundreds of years until the Muslims conquered the city and took over the church.’

Joachim and Olympia crowded in for a closer look. The other monks followed suit until there was scarcely standing room round the conference table.

‘Many of those mosaics were stolen during the Fourth Crusade,’ Joachim said. ‘They were kept in private collections or sold to collectors later.’

Lourds placed his half-empty bottle of beer on one corner of the map to hold down the curling paper. Sweat beads slid down the bottle and stained the paper.

‘They were,’ he agreed. ‘More were damaged during the Muslim renovations. But there are four hidden under the church in passageways. According to the scroll I read, the Joy Scroll can be found using the information in those mosaics.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Joachim said.

‘Why?’ Lourds asked.

‘Because we have been over every inch of those passageways. There are no more hidden passageways that we don’t know about.’

‘If that’s true, then I don’t have a clue where the Joy Scroll will be.’ Lourds returned the monk’s gaze full measure. ‘So how do you want to do this? Either I know what I’m talking about, or I don’t. This is what I translated.’

‘If this passageway was there, we’d have found it.’

‘Not if God didn’t want you to.’

‘That’s sacrilege.’

‘Is it? Either you believe everything is coming together for a reason now – or you don’t. That’s what the Joy Scroll is all about, isn’t it? The omens. The rise of Lucifer in this world.’

‘You’re an outsider. This shouldn’t fall to you.’

‘It wasn’t exactly my choice either,’ Lourds agreed. ‘I had a rather leisurely working vacation planned.’ He tapped the map. ‘But I’m telling you now, on that scroll I read details how to find this passageway. If we go and look, and it’s not there, then I don’t know what to tell you.’ He paused. ‘I’m going there. If for nothing more than to satisfy my curiosity. But I’m also going in the hope of ending this. I don’t have a choice at this point. We’ve nothing to lose.’

‘We’ll go,’ Joachim said, but he clearly wasn’t happy about it.

‘We’ll need supplies.’ Lourds rolled the maps and stuffed them back into a protective cylinder.

‘You’re going to have to forgive my brother, Thomas.’

Lourds stood beside his bed and laced up his hiking boots. Outside the bedroom window, the sun was going down. Golden sunlight filtered into the room but it was on the wane.

‘Joachim is used to doing things his way,’ Olympia went on.

‘I got that.’ Lourds stamped in his boots, making sure that the fit was good. ‘But he can be a tad insufferable when he puts his mind to it.’

‘The biggest problem is that you and he,’ Olympia told him with a smile, ‘are so much alike.’

‘Me and your brother?’ Lourds couldn’t believe it. ‘I hardly think so.’

‘Both of you are wilful, proud and full of self-importance. Neither of you plays well with others. In short – insufferable.’

‘Is any of this supposed to make me feel better?’

Olympia grinned at him. ‘You’re both also intelligent and decisive. And stubborn.’

‘As some of my college students would say, I’m not getting the warm fuzzy out of this.’

Olympia crossed the room and folded Lourds’ collar down. ‘What I’m trying to get at is that the two of you would be better off working together than being at loggerheads. You need to listen to each other. You know more than he does about where the scroll could possibly be and that bothers him. But he has access to those wonderful monastic accounts that he won’t let us see. Not only that, no one has seen them.’ She paused. ‘Feel free to stop me when I start making sense.’