Back in the snack car, he had to wait five minutes to use the Railfone booth. He slid inside, felt beneath the metal shelf counter and pulled out the envelope with the map inside that he had taped to the underside. Then he called Serena.
NEW YORK CITY
I
N THE PANTHEON
of modern megalithic architecture, China’s new 25-kilometer-long venue for the 2008 Olympic Games—humbly dubbed the “Axis of Human Civilization”—was a sure bet to join America’s interstate highway system, Central America’s Panama Canal, and Europe’s Chunnel as one of the great wonders of the modern world.
But to Serena Serghetti, now standing before the General Assembly, it was an environmental disaster, a state-run catastrophe that was endangering animals, destroying ancient temples, and driving more than a million people from their homes. All because China wanted to show the world that it had come of age.
“Now we have reports of avian influenza—or ‘bird flu’—spreading in the squalor of the countryside where the homeless have been exiled,” she said. “But the government has refused to even acknowledge the threat of a global health pandemic, let alone help the poorest of its own people.”
Naturally, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations didn’t see it that way and seemed visibly annoyed. This morning alone he had been forced to deny accusations that his country actively suppressed free speech and systematically imprisoned and executed people to harvest their organs. Now he had to contend with reports of avian flu just weeks before the Olympic Games in Beijing.
“We beg to differ,” was all he said through a translator. “The industrialization and development of Beijing has created a rising standard of living for our people and better health care.”
“At least allow us to help your needy, Mr. Ambassador.”
Serena cited a report on relief efforts following the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and the 2005 hurricane that wiped out New Orleans, events that also displaced more than a million people.
“As the head of FEMA has stated, some of the world’s problems are just too big for governments,” she said. “But the global church—Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox together—is present in more than a million distribution plants worldwide. For food, shelter, vaccines, relief supplies, and helping hands, there’s a local church on the ground wherever disaster strikes. And we’re ready to help you.”
“I am sure you are, Sister Serghetti, but we can take care of our own people,” said the Chinese ambassador, and further discussion was tabled.
As Serena returned to her seat, she could think of at least one other person who would beg to differ: Conrad Yeats. She had left him for the work of the Church, the very hope of the world she was proclaiming in this chamber. But in Conrad’s mind it was the Church that had denied him her love.
She picked up her bulky but lightweight white earpiece and sat down. Most delegates needed translators from the interpreter booths overhead to follow along. But not Serena, who was fluent in many of the world’s languages. She used the earpiece to pick up messages unobtrusively and write them down. Now a voice in Italian told her that the media room said that “Carlton Yardley” from
The New Atlantis
magazine was there for his scheduled interview with her.
Her heart skipped a beat.
He must have found something
, she thought, although she was embarrassed to realize she didn’t care if he had nothing to show her but his face. His unshaven, stubbled face.
As soon as she could step outside the chamber and into the crowded visitors’ lobby, Serena pulled out her iPhone and called Benito to bring the car out from the private garage. She scanned the cavernous glass atrium. The media line was at the entrance, behind the blue velvet rope. She started walking in that direction when Max Seavers stepped into view, blocking her path to Conrad.
“Serena!” Max said, smiling.
Serena stopped in her tracks.
Before he was tapped by the American president to help with the Department of Defense, Max Seavers had helped her humanitarian efforts in Africa and Asia on a number of occasions by donating vaccines. She couldn’t just blow him off now.
“Déjà vu,
Max. Weren’t we standing here just a few days ago with you showing me some rather unusual photographs? What brings you back?”
“Sounding the alarm here and on Capitol Hill about the coming flu pandemic. What about you? I hear you were telling the Chinese where to stick their new dam.”
Serena couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder toward the media line, where various cameras were set up to catch the comings and goings of dignitaries. She spotted Conrad, and he saw her and motioned.
“I suppose you have an opinion on the new Beijing?” she said as she started walking away from the entrance and toward the delegates lounge.
“A technological marvel,” Max said, keeping pace with her. “You’ve got to give the Chinese credit for that. They’ve left nothing to chance. Even the date of the opening ceremonies on August eighth was chosen because the number 8 represents good fortune to the Chinese.”
“I see: That’s the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the new millennium,” Serena said, pretending to marvel. “And I used to think three sixes in a row was the devil’s number. Tell me, Max, what about the million souls the Olympics are displacing?”
“You mean driving from their homes which had no running water or electricity in the first place?” he said. “Sounds like progress to me.”
Serena glanced sideways at him as she walked. “And the destruction of the ancient temples, their history?”
“Obviously the Chinese don’t care about their ancient temples as much as you do, Serena. That’s because the Chinese are looking to the future. They know that in time some other civilization is going to do the same thing to their Olympic Park that they’re doing to those ancient temples.”
She came to a halt. “I wonder if you’d feel the same way if these temples were the ones about to be destroyed?” She pointed out
toward the Manhattan skyline—away from Conrad in the media area.
Max Seavers followed her finger and smiled. “If it was some act of God—like the tsunami, I’d be devastated. But if it was our government doing the submerging, for the betterment of the country, like the Chinese, then yes. Have you seen this?”
Serena realized he was referring to the nearby display of a model city in the lobby. It was the official Olympic Venue Construction Plan for Beijing. A nameplate read “Axis of Human Civilization.” More PR.
“Impressive, Serena, isn’t it?”
Serena looked at the model of the city’s new Central Axis. The Chinese had successfully constructed a 25-kilometer-long boulevard connecting the new Olympic Park in the north with the Imperial Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in the city center. She noted a stretch of avenue labeled “thousand-year path.”
“It’s certainly audacious, Max,” she said. “This Beijing axis looks like the New Berlin that Hitler never got to build.”
Max chuckled. “Funny you should say that. Because it was designed by Albert Speer Jr., the son of the architect who designed the New Berlin for Hitler’s grandiose empire, the ‘world capital Germania,’ the capital of the so-called Thousand Year Reich.”
Serena said, “You’re joking.”
“No.” Max shook his head. “Charming old man, incredibly gifted. Tried to hire him myself for SeaGen’s corporate headquarters in La Jolla, but the Chinese outbid me.”
Serena stared at the model city. “Is Speer trying to copy his father or outdo him?”
“That’s what the German news magazine
Die Welt
asked when the plan was unveiled,” he said. “But it’s all nonsense, of course. The Chinese insist Speer’s design simply fulfills their own intentions of creating a central axis, and that the idea was laid out in the planning of the imperial capital centuries ago. I think the real point of interest is where the elder Speer found his inspiration for the New Berlin in the first place.”
Serena shrugged. “You’ve got me, Max.”
“Pierre L’Enfant’s design for the National Mall in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “What’s more, Speer maintained that L’Enfant’s plan
was itself based on earlier source maps going back to ancient Egypt and Atlantis. That’s Doctor Yeats’s specialty, isn’t it?”
Serena wasn’t going to bite. Nothing good could come out of lingering here even a moment longer.
“Atlantis?” she asked, giving him a dubious look. “Now don’t get all mystic on me, Max. We need you to keep those vaccines coming.”
With that, she turned and briskly walked away, exhaling slowly. As she approached the media line by the entrance, she was aware of Conrad in the pack. She walked right past him without a glance to the waiting limousine and got in. Benito closed the door, slid behind the wheel and drove away.
F
URIOUS TO SEE SERENA
pressing the flesh with none other than that pseudo-philanthropist-billionaire Max Seavers, and feeling helpless because he couldn’t risk being seen, Conrad walked out of the U.N., weaving between the flagpoles in front until he was far enough away to hail a cab and climb inside.
“Christie’s,” he said as the driver pulled away from the curb and into the lunch-hour traffic. The driver glanced at him in the mirror and asked where Christie lived. “Rockefeller Center. She’s an auction house.”
Conrad didn’t know where else to go until he could reach Serena, and he didn’t want to tell the driver to just “drive.” Worst case, there was a cute assistant curator at Christie’s that he had seen off and on whenever he was in New York. Ironically enough, her name was Kristy. Maybe she could make some sense of the map, or at least its monetary value, and refer him to somebody outside the federal government who could help him decode the text.
Conrad took out the cell phone he had lifted off the body of the assassin aboard the Acela. He had tossed his own phone under the tracks before leaving the platform at Penn Station. The question was whether anybody had found the bodies yet and been sharp enough to start tracking this phone. Probably not. Hopefully not.
He keyed in Serena’s number from memory and listened to it ring on the other end.
The driver’s phone beeped at the same time. “Yeah?” he said.
Conrad heard the cabbie loud and clear—on his phone.
“Yeah?” the cabbie repeated.
A cold shudder passed through Conrad’s body. He stared at the phone’s display and realized he had redialed the last number the assassin called. Conrad looked up at the rearview mirror in time to see the slits of the driver’s eyes widen.
“You’re one of them,” Conrad said and pointed the gun he lifted from the dead Marine at the driver’s head.
Too late Conrad noticed the driver had only one hand on the wheel and ducked as a bullet burst from the front seat and shattered the rear window.
Conrad pumped a bullet into the back of the driver’s seat. The bullet shattered the driver’s spine and he slumped forward onto the steering wheel, his arms loose at his side.
Conrad felt sick to his stomach. He tapped the driver on the back of the head. The man’s head rolled to the side, revealing a trickle of blood running down his neck.
The cab suddenly accelerated wildly.
Conrad lunged over the seat and put his arms over the corpse to reach the steering wheel, but the car was careening out of control.
A flash in the rearview mirror caught his eye and he looked back through the blown-out rear windshield to see an unmarked Ford Explorer with federal plates and red lights coming up from behind. Suddenly Conrad’s shock turned to rage. He wrenched the steering wheel toward the road and the cab shot off.
The federal car gave chase, but Conrad quickly turned the wheel while pulling the brake lever, sliding the cab sideways with a long skid. Then he turned it against the street direction, driving straight toward the Explorer.
The driver of the Explorer didn’t have a chance to remove his seat belt and pull out a gun. And he couldn’t swerve in time before Conrad drove the cab head-on into the black SUV. Conrad’s face slammed into the corpse on impact and bounced back in time for him to see the airbags inflate in the federal car.
He heard sirens closing in a minute later. He staggered out of the cab, his ears still ringing from the crash. Or was that the sound of police sirens growing louder? There was a squeal of brakes. A voice called, “Hey!”
It was Serena calling from the open window of a Mercedes limousine. She kicked open the rear door with the Vatican emblem on it and motioned him inside.
Conrad paused for a second, thunderstruck. She was a vision from heaven. Her lips were moving but he couldn’t hear anything. He dove into the back, the door slamming shut behind him as the limousine peeled away.
“Anything else you want to destroy, Conrad, or are we finished for now?” said Serena as Benito swung them into traffic on First Avenue.
He stared at her, incredulous. In her black Armani suit and white silk blouse, she looked completely unruffled.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Too bad I can’t say the same for that poor Amtrak attendant and Marine the police band says you killed,” she said softly. “Please tell me the Alignment was responsible.”
He stared at her. “You know about the Alignment?”
“If you’re referring to the secret, centuries-old organization of military imperialists, then yes,” she said. “What an amateur you are, Conrad. The Church has been at war with the New World Order for eons. From the way you talk, you’d think you discovered it. Now hand it over so I can at least make sure you found the proper document.”
He produced the map and Serena took it from his hands.
Conrad watched as Serena slowly scanned the map and then flipped it over to study the text. Her hands began to tremble, and Conrad swore he saw what looked like the tiniest pearl of perspiration on her smooth forehead long before she had reached the last paragraph. Conrad had never seen Sister Serena Serghetti, the Vatican’s top linguist, ever break a sweat.
She looked up at Conrad in wonder. “You’re Stargazer.”
“What?”
She pushed a button on the partition to reveal Benito in front. “Benito,” she said. “The jet.”
“Si, signorina.”
Conrad recalled that Benito was a former Swiss Special Forces soldier, a crack marksman, and the only Vatican bodyguard who could keep up with Serena on the slopes at Davos during World Economic
Forums. He hoped the same was true for the streets of New York City.
“What’s going on, Serena?” Conrad asked. “Less than twenty-four hours after you show up on the scene, people die, and my life goes into the crapper.”
“That’s why we have to get you out of here. You’re in grave danger, and so is America and the whole world.”
Suddenly a phone started ringing up front and Conrad jumped. The ringtone sounded familiar. It was an old Elton John song, “Benny and the Jets.” Benito the driver didn’t bother to pick up.
“The jet is fueling up at the airstrip,
signorina,
” Benito said. “If we can reach it.”
They turned a corner and Conrad saw the flashing lights of several blue-and-white police cars blocking the road. A young cop approached the limo, hand on his weapon.
“Alignment?” Conrad asked.
“God knows, these days. Say your prayers.”
Conrad looked at Serena, who crossed one leg over the other and then pulled out a flap revealing a space beneath the rear seat of the limo.
“You’re kidding me, right?” he asked.
“Get under and shut up,” she told him.
“Whatever happened to the missionary position?”
“May God have mercy on your soul, you wanker.” She gave him a final kick inside and pushed the flap back into position behind him.
“Easy does it, Benito.” Her voice sounded muffled to Conrad in the dark. He could feel the car slow to a halt. The squeak of a window lowering came next, then Serena’s voice. “Yes, officer?”
There was a long pause, and Conrad crouched very still in the darkness. Then he heard the young cop clearing his throat. “Sister Serghetti,” he said. “It’s an honor.”
“Is there a problem, Officer O’Donnell?” she said, reading his badge.
Thank God, thought Conrad. An Irish Catholic cop.
“Nothing concerning you, Sister. Looks like terrorists failed at both Penn Station and the United Nations.”
“Is everything OK?”
“Nothing was stolen or destroyed,” the officer told her. “But two federal agents, an Amtrak employee, and a cabbie were killed.”
“I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help? Do you need to search my car?”
Beneath the seat Conrad punched her in the rear.
“No, ma’am. That won’t be necessary. To begin with, you’ve got diplomatic plates and a search would be illegal.”
Conrad heard a shout and then a screech as one of the squad cars reversed and the Mercedes lurched forward as they were waved on through.
“God’s angels watch over you,
signorina,
” said Benito.
No, Benito,
Conrad thought.
She’s the angel.