The Genesis Code (13 page)

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Yale University, originally called the Collegiate School, was founded in 1701 in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson. The fledgling institution was renamed Yale University in 1719, in honor of benefactor Elihu Yale, who made a gift to the university consisting of nine bales of goods, a portrait and arms of King George I, and about four hundred books.

Since that time, Yale has added a few volumes to its collection.

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, its edifice faced with translucent slices of marble to protect the collection from damaging sunlight, is one of the largest buildings in the world devoted entirely to rare books. The library’s central tower and underground stacks now contain over five hundred thousand volumes and several million manuscripts.

A friendly inquiry at Yale’s Department of History revealed that Dr. Georgia Bowman had spent the afternoon engaged in research at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The department receptionist politely suggested that she might still be found there, pondering obscure volumes from the library’s expansive collections, in her usual corner of the fourth-floor reading room.

A short stroll brought Grace and Madison to the center of the Yale campus. As they approached, the Beinecke Library appeared to hover over the granite plain of Beinecke Plaza in proportions of Platonic purity: the structure was exactly twice as deep as it was high, and three times as long. The cool gray granite and white marble of the library contrasted with the warmer stone and red brick of the adjacent Yale Law School and Berkeley College.

“Christian,” said Grace, reaching out and taking Madison’s hand as they neared the revolving door in the library’s facade. “Thank you for what you did back there.”

Grace stopped, turning to face Madison, still holding his hand.

“When Crowe grabbed me, I was so scared. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there. If you hadn’t been there to stop him…”

Her eyes welled up with tears.

“You’re welcome,” said Madison. “I never liked him anyway.”

Grace choked out a laugh, wiping the tears from her eyes with her free hand.

“Hey, it’s the least I could do. You were there for me. Even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time. When Justin…”

The memory breached the walls in his mind, pouring into his consciousness.

Justin was a ghost of a child, lying thin and frail under the starched white sheets of a hospital bed. A tangle of tubes and wires crisscrossed his chest, connecting his dying body with IV bags, monitors, and machines.

The monotonous beep of a heart monitor ticked off the passage of seconds. Christian Madison sat at his bedside, gently holding Justin’s hand.

Madison struggled to find words.

“After Justin was gone, and Kate left, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I never told you how much…how much that time with you meant to me.”

Grace blinked away another tear. “Then why? Why did you run away from me?”

“I don’t know, Grace.”

His face clouded with emotion.

“You never told me why. Never considered my feelings when you ended it,” she said.

“Do we have to do this now?” He closed his eyes. “I don’t think I can do this now.”

Grace looked away, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. She turned her back to Madison and started walking toward the Beinecke Library.

Madison wanted to tell her how he really felt. Wanted to reach out, take her into his arms, and tell her everything would be okay.

Wait. Come back.

But the words wouldn’t come.

The Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland

Housed in the Palais des Nations overlooking Lake Geneva, the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) is the second largest United Nations center after the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Unbeknownst to the UN staffers working on the premises, it also serves as the unofficial headquarters of the Order’s European membership.

The secretary politely excused himself from a meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, exited the Palais des Nations’ E-Building through the first floor’s northern portico, and strolled through the forty-five-hectare Ariana Park toward the Villa le Bocage. Originally converted into office space for use by the United Nations, the nineteenth century villa had been quietly appropriated by the Order to serve as its European base of operations.

The secretary was soon joined by a prominent member of the trade delegation from Italy.

“
Buon giorno,
” said the Italian diplomat.

The secretary inclined his head in greeting.

A cooing peacock strutted across the stone path in front of them, its iridescent emerald tail feathers spread in a display of courtship.

They walked together in silence.

As they neared the villa, the secretary caught sight of the Celestial Sphere, a monument encircled by stands of hundred-year-old cedar trees. Its spherical frame was adorned with sixty-four gilded constellations and 260 silvered stars. A motor hidden in its base turned the sphere in slow revolutions around an axis aligned with the Pole Star.

The secretary and the Italian trade delegate were the last to arrive at the villa. Inside, they joined four other well-known European officials who had also been inducted into the secret ranks of the Order. A luscious fresco depicting
The Triumph of Venus
looked down upon the group as they assembled around a rectangular conference table.

The secretary convened the meeting.

“I trust we are all well aware of the nature of the actions we are taking here today. We have a decision to make. Once this line has been crossed, there can be no turning back.”

A French industrialist folded his hands on the table.

“It is time,” he said. “Under Tanaka’s leadership, the Order has become reckless. His aggressive tactics pose a great threat to our plans. We cannot allow this madness to continue.”

The secretary tipped his head back, staring up at the vaulted marble ceiling.

“Yes,” he sighed. “I fear you are right.”

The deputy consul from Russia banged on the table with a hairy fist. “I, for one, have had enough. It is time for a change in leadership.”

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is, in essence, a box within a box. Contained within thick exterior walls of stone and glass, bronze and marble, a glass-walled tower of books rises upward through the heart of the library. From the mezzanine below, Madison and Grace ascended a stairway that encircled the interior glass walls, spiraling upward through the core of the central tower.

A lone female figure occupied the fourth-floor reading room.

Seated at an oak table between the thick stone of the library’s exterior wall and the transparent panes of the glass book tower, Dr. Georgia Bowman communed with the dead. Immersed in the depths of an ancient Greek text, Bowman was oblivious to her surroundings, unaware that those few students who had occupied the tables around her had abandoned their studies as the afternoon drew to a close, leaving her in sole possession of the room.

The scene brought the words of Henry David Thoreau to Grace’s mind:
To read well—that is, to read true books in a true spirit—is a noble exercise…Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

“Dr. Bowman?” asked Grace. Her voice sounded loud in the silence of the reading room.

“Yes?” she answered, lifting her eyes from the page.

“I’m sorry to interrupt. My name is Grace Nguyen. I’m a geneticist. And this is Dr. Christian Madison.”

Bowman looked around the room before fixing her gaze on the pair of scientists in front of her. Her eyes flitted back and forth between Grace and Madison as she examined their faces.

“We work with Dr. Joshua Ambergris at Triad Genomics,” Grace offered.

Bowman leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest.

“You’re a long way from home, Ms. Nguyen.”

“Dr. Nguyen, actually. But please call me Grace.”

“What do you want, Dr. Nguyen?” asked Bowman.

“Dr. Ambergris suggested that you might be able to answer some questions for us,” offered Madison.

“I find that to be highly unlikely,” said Bowman.

She closed the vellum tome on the table in front of her and removed her reading glasses, placing them gently on the leather cover of the Greek manuscript.

“I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. I will not be able to help you. And I have work to do. You are intruding. Good day.”

“But Dr. Bowman—”

“I said good day, Dr. Nguyen.”

Grace was at a loss for words. She looked over at Madison.

“Let’s go, Grace,” he said. “We’ve taken up enough of Dr. Bowman’s time.

“But—”

Madison took her by the hand and led Grace away from the table.

“Something’s not right here,” he said when they were out of earshot. “We need to try a different approach.”

Madison stopped near the stairway. Looking back toward the reading room, he could still see Dr. Bowman through a gap in the bookshelves lining the interior glass wall. She appeared deep in thought. After a moment, she rose from the table, leaving her glasses and briefcase, and walked toward the restrooms at the far end of the room.

“I have an idea,” said Madison.

He removed the printout of Ambergris’ e-mail from his pocket and unfolded the paper. When the door to the ladies’ restroom closed behind Dr. Bowman, he turned to Grace.

“Wait here,” Madison said.

“But what—”

Grace watched as Madison jogged around the perimeter of the room. When he reached Dr. Bowman’s table in the reading room, Madison laid the printout of Ambergris’ e-mail on top of the book Bowman had been reading.

“Now let’s wait,” Madison said when he returned to their partially hidden vantage point behind the glass-walled stacks.

Three minutes later, Dr. Bowman returned to her table. She noticed the printout immediately, picking it up as she took her seat. Bowman retrieved her reading glasses, perching them precariously toward the end of her nose, and scanned the page.

Her stern expression faded as she studied the grid of numbers.

Her lips silently voiced the words as she read the single line of text beneath the grid.

“This is the beginning of the ancient word.”

Bowman’s eyes darted across the rows and columns of numbers, her brow knitted in concentration. After a moment, she looked up. Her eyes searched the room. Finally, she spotted Madison and Grace watching her through the gap in the bookshelves.

She sighed, and then reluctantly waved them over.

“Where did you get this?” she asked when they reached the table.

“It’s an e-mail from Dr. Ambergris. He sent it to me this morning. At four-thirty
A.M.
”

Bowman gestured to two empty chairs at the table. Grace and Madison took their cue to sit.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

“We believe it’s a Magic Square,” said Madison. “Other than that, we really don’t have a clue.”

“What happened to…” she began. Then she held up a hand. “No, wait. I don’t want to know.”

She thought for a moment. Then, having reached a decision, Dr. Bowman rotated the paper so that the numbers were right-side up to Grace and Madison.

“Magic Squares are very interesting,” said Bowman. She offered neither an apology nor an explanation for her initial behavior.

Grace took a chance. “What can you tell us?”

Dr. Bowman’s expression softened. Madison thought he detected sadness in her face.

“Joshua was quite enamored with Magic Squares,” she said. “Variations and derivations of the Magic Square have been around for thousands of years. The oldest known Magic Square is contained in an ancient Chinese text, the
Yih King
.”

Bowman tapped a finger on the grid of numbers.

“But the architect of this particular Magic Square appears to have an interest not only in ancient China, but in other ancient civilizations as well,” she said.

“We suspected that,” said Madison. “The rows and columns of this Magic Square all total two hundred and sixty. Grace recognized the significance of that total—the number of days in one year of the Mayan calendar.”

“Yes, but I believe the Mayan reference is only part of it,” Bowman said. “And to be precise, two hundred sixty is not the number of days in one year of the Mayan calendar. The Mayan calendar actually used three distinct, parallel dating systems—the Long Count, the Tzolkin, and the Haab. The length of the Tzolkin year was two hundred sixty days and the length of the Haab year was three hundred sixty-five days.”

“Three parallel calendars? That sounds pretty sophisticated for a pre-Columbian culture,” said Madison.

Dr. Bowman leaned back in her chair.

“The Maya were a truly remarkable civilization,” she said. “While Europe was still in the midst of the Dark Ages, the Maya built a remarkable civilization spanning much of southern Mexico and Central America. Let me give you some background.”

Her speech took on the pedantic rhythm of one accustomed to the art of lecture.

“The Maya mapped the heavens and were masters of mathematics. Without metal tools, they constructed vast cities with an amazing degree of architectural perfection.”

“I had no idea they were so advanced,” said Madison.

“Unfortunately, that seems to be a common misconception. There were several sophisticated cultures in Central and South America that predated the arrival of European influence—the Maya, the Aztec, the Inca, and the Olmec, for example.”

“Olmec?” asked Grace.

“Yes. The Mayan civilization followed the Olmec. Mayan priests freely admitted in their writings that much of their scientific and mathematical knowledge came from the Olmec.”

“And where did the Olmec come from?” asked Madison.

“That’s a real enigma,” said Dr. Bowman. “Archaeologists have never been able to find any signs indicating a developmental phase of the Olmec culture. It’s almost as if they appeared one day, fully developed as a society. Their knowledge and technological skills, which should have taken hundreds or thousands of years to develop and evolve, appeared almost overnight.”

Bowman plucked the reading glasses from her nose and laid them on the table.

“According to the admissions of their own sacred writings, the Maya built on the inherited inventions and ideas of the Olmec, developing advanced knowledge of astronomy, calendrical systems, and hieroglyphic writing. They built stone pyramids that rival the biggest Egyptian pyramids, and linked their cities with roads almost as extensive as those of the Roman Empire.”

“Before their civilization collapsed,” countered Madison.

“Yes, the disappearance of the great Mayan empire is one of history’s most intriguing puzzles,” said Bowman. “At the peak of its glory, Mayan civilization suddenly vanished. The Maya abandoned their sacred temples and pyramids. They fled from thriving cities. Modern-day archaeologists can offer no solutions to this ancient puzzle.”

Dr. Bowman looked up from the printout.

“But, as I’m quite sure you must be wondering, what does any of this have to do with solving the mystery of your Magic Square?”

She paused.

“I believe the key to the solution is this,” she said, pointing to the line of text beneath the grid of numbers.

This is the beginning of the ancient word.