James Rollins - The Eye of God - A Sigma Force Novel

“I want to test something,” Jada said.

For the first time, she wondered if this side excursion to this desolate landscape of blowing sand and landlocked rusted ships might be of value. Normally history held little interest for her, especially all this talk of Attila the Hun and the relics of Genghis Khan. But this mention of an ancient cross carved out of meteoric metal— that piqued her interest.

“According to everything you’ve told us,” she said, waving a hand to Father Josip, “the cross is the key to averting a disaster that is supposed to occur on the date inscribed on the skull.”

He nodded, glancing at a faded celestial calendar on the wall. It looked like it might have come from the time of Copernicus, with stylized constellations and astronomical notations.

“Roughly three days from now,” he confirmed.

“Right.” She glanced to Monk. “And we have confirmation from another source that also suggests a disaster on that date. One connected to the comet in the sky.”

Vigor and Rachel turned to Monk, clearly wanting to know what that confirmation was, but he simply crossed his arms.

The monsignor sighed, obviously irked at the secrecy. “Go on,” he encouraged her. “You said you might know how this cross could save the world.”

“Only a conjecture,” she warned. “But first I want to try something.”

She turned to Duncan.

All other eyes swung toward him too. He straightened from a slouch, his expression wary with surprise and confusion. “What?”

“Could you please unwrap the skull and the book?” she asked. “Place them on the table.”

She waited until he had done so, noting the distaste in his pinched lips as he handled the relics.

“You still feel an energy signature emanating from the objects, yes?”

“It’s there.” He rubbed his fingertips on his pants, as if trying to remove the sensation.

She faced the two priests. “If Genghis found this cross in Attila’s tomb, might he have carried it on his person? Kept it as some talisman on his body.”

Vigor shrugged. “After he read Ildiko’s account of its importance, I think that’s highly likely.”

“Genghis would consider it his duty,” Josip agreed, “to protect it during his life.”

“And maybe afterward,” Vigor added, motioning to the skull and book. He eyed her more closely. “Are you suggesting the cross somehow contaminated his bodily tissues, as if it were radioactive?”

“I don’t think it’s radioactive,” she said, though her hands itched to confirm that by examining the skull with the instruments she had left aboard the helicopter. “But I think the cross was giving off some sort of energy that left its trace on his body, altering his tissues perhaps at the quantum level.”

“What sort of energy would do that?” Rachel asked.

“ Dark energy,” she said, happy to turn the discourse from history to science. “An energy tied to the birth of our universe. And although it makes up seventy percent of all energy left after the Big Bang, we still don’t know what it is, where it comes from, only that it’s a fundamental property of existence. It explains why the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace versus slowing down.”

Vigor lifted an eyebrow. “And you think the cross carries this energy? What, like a battery?”

“Very crudely put, but yes. Possibly. I can’t know for sure without examining it. But such matters are my field of expertise. My theoretical calculations suggest dark energy is the result of virtual particles annihilating one another in the quantum foam that fills all space and time in the universe.”

She read their blank expressions and simplified it. “It is the very fabric of space-time. Dark energy is the driving force behind quantum mechanics, an energy tied to all the fundamental forces in the universe. Electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces, anything that causes an attraction between objects.”

“Like gravity?” Duncan asked.

She touched his shoulder, silently thanking him. “Exactly. Dark energy and gravity are intimately entwined concepts.”

Rachel frowned at Monk, then turned to Jada. With the mind of a true investigator, she went straight for the secret being kept from them. “Again,” she pressed, “not to belabor the point, why do you believe this cross might be giving off dark energy?”

“Because the comet in the sky is doing exactly that.”

As everyone stirred at her answer, Jada glanced at Monk, knowing she had crossed a line. But she thought Rachel deserved an answer. The woman had an analytical mind that she was growing to respect. It was foolish to keep her in the dark.

Monk returned a small shrug, giving Jada some leeway.

She took it and explained. “Or at least the comet’s path was showing tiny gravitational abnormalities in its course that exactly matched my theoretical calculations.”

“And the cross?” Josip asked.

“From your story, you said the cross was sculpted from a falling star. A meteorite.” She pictured the rain of meteors from the video footage in Alaska. “I wonder if that meteorite could have been a piece of that comet, a fragment that fell to the earth when it last passed.”

Rachel considered that possibility, then asked, “When did this comet make its last appearance?”

“Approximately twenty-eight hundred years ago.”

“So about 800 BC.” Rachel turned to Josip. “Does that correlate with anything you’ve learned about the cross?”

He rubbed the scruff on his chin, looking crestfallen. “Ildiko only says the cross came from a star that fell long before St. Thomas arrived in the East.”

That was disappointing. It would have been nice to have definitive confirmation.

Then Josip suddenly sat straighter. “Wait!” He reached and stirred through the parchments left by Ildiko. “Look here!”

7:38 P.M.

As Josip shifted a page to the center of the table, Vigor stood up to get a better view.

His friend tapped an image found in the middle of the parchment.

“According to Ildiko, these three symbols were carved into the boxes holding the skull and the cross.”

Vigor adjusted his reading glasses. Very faintly inscribed, he could make out what appeared to be Chinese writing: a set of three symbols with Latin written below them.

Vigor leaned closer to examine the images and read the Latin aloud. “The first symbol is labeled as two trees .” It did, in fact, look like a pair of trees. “The next is command . And the last, forbidden. ”

Josip touched the last character. “Notice how the first two symbols combine to form this third one. The one meaning forbidden.”

Vigor saw that, but he didn’t understand the significance.

“Read this,” Josip said. “Read what Ildiko wrote under the symbols.”

Those lines were even fainter, but he recognized two Latin verses from the Old Testament, both from the book of Genesis.

He translated the first one aloud. “ ‘ And the Lord God commanded man , saying , Of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , you shall not eat , for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. ’ ”

Vigor read the next line. Similarly, it was a condemnation against eating from another tree—in this second case, the Tree of Life found in the Garden of Eden. “ ‘ Behold , man is become as one of us , to know good and evil : and now , lest he put forth his hand , and take also of the tree of life , and eat , and live forever . . . ’ ”