The Lucifer Code (25 page)

‘The churches weren’t actual physical buildings. I mean, there
were
structures there, but the reference was inclusive of the Christian communities that lived in those cities. After the treaty, the Christians were ousted and forced to live elsewhere.’ Lourds paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘In the middle of the candlesticks was the Son of Man. He held seven stars supposed to signify the seven angels protecting each of those communities. At the command of Jesus Christ, John wrote to each of those angels, citing what was wrong with them and what they needed to do. And what would happen to them if they didn’t do those things.’

‘Exactly.’ Olympia seemed mollified.

‘In the second vision John saw a door opening up in the sky, which he interpreted to mean the end of the world and the final destruction of Satan here on earth.’

‘That’s all here.’ Olympia tapped the keyboard and an image of a snarling dragon filled the screen. ‘This is how John saw Satan, not as the horned and tailed visage made popular later.’

‘You have the original journals the acolytes wrote?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you know they’re authentic?’

‘There’s not a doubt.’ Olympia pointed at the computer. ‘Everything I’m showing you today exists. It’s all real. We have them.’

Lourds stared at her. ‘I guess my next question is, who’s “we”?’

Cleena stared at the scar-faced man as he started up the stairwell to the second floor. His dead gaze had raked her with brutal intensity then moved on as if she were nothing.

Now there goes a nasty guy who’s looking for someone
. She thought she knew who that someone was.

She turned and rushed for the other stairwell leading up to the second floor. Lourds and his lady friend were at this end of the building on the third floor. Evidently the dead-eyed man didn’t know that.

‘Sevki,’ she called as she caught the railing and hurled herself up the steps. Her motion caught the eye of another man coming down the hallway from the other end to the dead-eyed man.

‘I see him.’ Sevki had hacked into the college security camera system. ‘You should get out of there.’

Cleena was of the same opinion. Over the last couple of days she had managed to get Brigid out of Boston with the aid of some of her business contacts. They had also agreed to keep her little sister at a safe house until Cleena told them everything was finished. Brigid hadn’t been happy about that, but she had been scared enough to go without making too much of a fuss.

The man who had contacted Cleena had phoned on a regular basis, usually every four hours or so, to check in. She had given him reports about Lourds and he had seemed satisfied. The man hadn’t mentioned Brigid’s disappearance and Cleena felt certain he hadn’t noticed.

Despite Sevki’s advice, Cleena continued to fly up the stairs.

‘What are you doing?’ Sevki demanded.

Cleena saved her breath for running.

Sevki cursed vehemently. ‘Come on. Be sensible. It’s time for you to get out of there. That man looks dangerous. So does the one following you.’

The one following me
? Cleena spared a glance over her shoulder and saw that the other man she had spotted was indeed following her.

‘Both of those guys look like Americans,’ Sevki said. ‘They also look like the type of guy the CIA would send in to hit someone.’

Cleena knew that. That was why she was running. ‘They’re after Lourds.’

‘It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.’

‘If they kill him or take him, I’m not going to be able to find out who hurt Brigid and threatened us. I’m not going to let whoever that was escape without getting a chance to even the score.’

‘Having that guy forget about you would be the best-case scenario.’

Holding tightly to the railing, Cleena powered into the third floor hallway. She had familiarized herself with the layout while Lourds was lecturing Olympia Adnan’s class.

‘I’m not going to forget about him,’ Cleena said.

‘You’re going to get yourself killed.’

‘I am if you continue to distract me. All the negativity is killing my confidence.’ Cleena stepped to the first open doorway and entered. The lights were off and the room was in semi-darkness. She stepped behind the door as she heard the man’s foot scuff the top step. For the moment she left her pistol holstered at the back of her waistband. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a lead-filled leather blackjack. Her father had taught her how to use one when she was ten years old.

‘He knows you’re there,’ Sevki told her.

Cleena didn’t reply. If the man hadn’t known where she was, he would have been a fool. Even so, he couldn’t expect what she was about to do. He would count on his gun and his size and dismiss any possibility of her overpowering him. That was going to be a mistake.

She heard him outside the door. He barely made any noise, but shoe leather scraped the floor, and she heard him let out his breath. In the hall the conversations outside the door abruptly quieted. He leaned through the door cautiously. Once his body was inside, Cleena swung the door towards him with all her strength. The door banged against his boot where he had jammed it to keep from getting battered by the door. As quickly as she could, Cleena slammed the blackjack into the frosted glass and shattered the pane. Razor-sharp shards poured over the man. Instinctively, he raised his arms to protect his face from the flying glass. Before he realized what was happening, Cleena reached through the empty door frame and was on him with the blackjack. She swung it viciously, holding nothing back, striking as quickly as she could with enough strength to damage but not kill. Her first blow broke the man’s wrist and sent his pistol spinning from his numbed fingers. She hit him four more times, aiming for his face and head. Blood covered his features as he went down. She hit him once more at the back of the skull to knock him unconscious.

Breathing raggedly, more from the adrenaline rush and physical exertion, Cleena stood over her opponent.

‘Are you all right?’ Sevki asked. The security cameras he had taken over weren’t in all the rooms.

‘I’m fine.’ Cleena dropped the blackjack into her pocket and wiped the man’s blood from her face. She knelt quickly and went through his pockets. ‘Where’s the other guy?’

‘Covering the second floor. Are you robbing that guy?’

Cleena found the man’s wallet and passport, then dropped both into her jacket pocket. ‘Getting his ID. It might be helpful to know who these people are.’

‘It might be helpful for you to get out of there.’

Moving again, Cleena headed for Olympia’s office at the end of the hall.

‘You shouldn’t be planning on making this a hobby,’ Sevki said.

‘They came after me. Do any of those security cameras you’ve hacked into allow you to see the grounds round this building?’

‘Yes.’

‘Check to see how many men out there might match up with the men in here. The guys in here didn’t come alone.’

Sevki cursed. ‘I’d have to be a fly to keep an eye on everything you want me to keep an eye on.’

Cleena halted outside the office. Voices came from inside but they were too low and indistinct to understand. She got the definite impression that Lourds and his lady friend were trying to hide something.

‘One other thing,’ Cleena whispered.

‘Yeah?’ Sevki sounded both distracted and worried, a dangerous combination.

‘If we can’t get out of the building through the exits, see if you can find another way for us to escape.’

‘And why would you try to escape with the professor?’

‘Because he’s got answers to some of what’s wrecked my world. I want to know those answers.’

‘Want some advice?’

‘No.’ Cleena reached behind her and freed the pistol.

‘It sounds to me like whatever hole you stepped into over here, you’re only digging yourself in deeper.’

‘You’re really harshing my mellow, Sevki.’

At that moment, the scar-faced man reached the top of the stairs at the other end of the hallway. He locked eyes with Cleena. She cursed and reached for the doorknob only to find it locked.

‘There’s an organization,’ Olympia told Lourds, ‘a society pledged to secrecy, that protects these documents. That book that you stole from those men in the catacombs was part of those documents.’

‘But Qayin and his people aren’t part of this protective organization?’

‘No.’ Olympia shook her head emphatically. ‘Qayin and his followers are something else. They want the Joy Scroll for their own purposes.’

‘What purposes?’

‘They want the power represented by the Joy Scroll.’

‘What power would that be?’

‘We don’t know for sure. John of Patmos was in ill health when he saw the visions. He was already an old man. Seeing those visions, and dictating what he had seen to the acolytes, exhausted him. He never again climbed from his bed.’

‘So this protective group, I assume, came from the acolytes?’

Olympia nodded. ‘They call themselves the Brotherhood of the Last Scroll of John.’

‘I suppose they had to call themselves something, but that’s not going to fit easily on stationery.’

‘This isn’t humorous. There’s a lot riding on it.’

‘The fate of the world,’ Lourds said, and couldn’t help feeling completely ridiculous when he said it.

‘I asked for permission to bring you here,’ Olympia said softly. ‘There was a lot of resistance to my suggestion, but after you found Atlantis, the Elders were more open to the idea.’

‘If there was a translation involved, I should’ve been your first choice. In fact, you should have told me about this years ago.’

‘The choice was not mine to make. If it weren’t for my brother, they wouldn’t have listened to me at all.’

‘Your brother? Joachim?’ Lourds had never met Olympia’s younger brother. She rarely talked of him and he thought some kind of family rift had existed.

‘Yes.’

‘From the way you’ve never talked about him, I didn’t think the two of you were close.’

‘I couldn’t talk about him.’

‘Because what he was doing was a secret.’

‘This isn’t a joke, Thomas.’

Lourds looked back at the image of the snarling dragon on the computer monitor. For the moment, he struggled to set aside his doubts. After all, he hadn’t been certain about Atlantis either.

‘You choose to believe that books from the Library of Alexandria still exist.’ Olympia gazed into his eyes. ‘I’ve never said anything to dissuade you from your hope of finding those books. But that’s all you have: hope. I have these documents. And you have whatever you found out from that book.’

‘All right. But if all this is so secret and the Brotherhood is so tight-lipped, how did Qayin and his people find out about the Joy Scroll?’

‘Just as there are those who worship God, there are also those who worship Satan.’

‘That’s going too far.’

‘Is it? Think about the name of the man who kidnapped you.’

‘Qayin?’

‘Yes. Did you stop to think where that name came from?’

‘I suspected a mother and father.’ Lourds’ sarcasm deserted him when he realized what she was getting at. ‘Qayin is different in other languages.’

Olympia nodded. ‘In English it can be translated into Cain.’

‘As in, “And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him”? That Cain?’

‘Yes.’

‘You believe that the descendants of Cain are pursuing the Joy Scroll?’ Lourds couldn’t hold back his incredulity.

‘God banished Cain after he murdered his brother,’ Olympia said. ‘And he marked him. Perhaps Cain’s descendants feared the legacy of that mark and chose to follow a path other than one of righteousness because they were already doomed.’

‘Different religions disagree about that mark. Judaism speaks of the mark as one of mercy. God let it be known that anyone who harmed Cain would be punished seven times as much as Cain was. That can be viewed as a preventative measure.’

‘Either way, we believe that name was deliberately chosen.’

‘Why?’

‘Because as long as the Brotherhood has existed, there has also been a Qayin.’

‘Surely you don’t believe it’s been the same individual.’ Although Lourds couldn’t bring himself to believe that might be true, the thought still chilled him.

‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we get the Joy Scroll translated.’

‘Why now? What has made now any different to, say, a few years ago when you and I first met?’

‘Because the Brotherhood doesn’t trust anyone outside its own ranks,’ Olympia told him. ‘It has taken years to persuade them that you are the right person for this. Even then they didn’t want to listen to me. If you hadn’t been abducted by Qayin, if you hadn’t got hold of that book—and been able to translate it—you would’ve been tested.’

‘And if I’d failed?’

‘You would never have learnt about the Joy Scroll, much less been offered a chance to translate it.’

‘What if, after being abducted and shot at, I decided I wanted no part of translating that scroll?’

Olympia grinned at him. ‘I know you enjoy my companionship, but no matter how good we are together, I don’t flatter myself into thinking that I’m the reason you stayed in Istanbul. If you could have found a way to take that book with you out of the country, I think you would have left. If you had felt you could’ve learned enough from a copy of it, you would have copied it and then taken the first jet out of here.’

Lourds knew she had him.

‘All your protests aside? I knew all I had to do was mention I had a manuscript no one else could read. Your vanity alone would have hooked you.’

Lourds resettled his hat on his head. ‘I refuse to believe I’m that predictable.’

‘When it comes to translation conundrums,
everyone
can predict how you will act.’

‘Surely I’m not that transparent.’

‘Yes, you are. It’s just one of the reasons I care for you so much, and one of the reasons I know better than to try to hang on to you.’

Lourds fixed his gaze on the image of the dragon. ‘I’ll want to see the original documents.’

‘Once you prove to the Brotherhood that you translated that book, that won’t be a problem.’