The Lucifer Code (34 page)

Joachim stepped across the room and jammed his hands into his pockets. He looked like the next man in line to visit the headsman’s axe.

Showing as much confidence as he dared, Lourds focused on the stone in the wall. He knelt and set the edge of the pry bar against the mortar.

Cleena watched with growing interest as Lourds managed to break up the mortar around the inscribed stone. Piles of chips gathered steadily on the floor in front of the professor.

‘Can you talk?’ Sevki whispered in her ear.

Masking her mouth with her hand, Cleena whispered, ‘No.’

‘I’ve been picking up the conversation through your earwig. I wish I had a video link to you. This is really cool stuff.’

If you like old things and dark places
, Cleena mused. She was barely keeping the claustrophobic feeling at bay. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to get out of the room.

‘Did you know about any of this?’ Sevki asked.

‘No.’

One of the nearby monks must have heard her talking, because the man turned to look to her. Cleena coughed delicately and patted her chest.

‘Dust,’ she said.

The monk nodded and turned away.

‘Ooops,’ Sevki said. ‘Sorry. I got carried away.’

Most of the mortar lay on the floor at Lourds’ feet. A pool of light from all the flashlights played over the action. Lourds paused and reached into the gaps he’d created to seize the stone.

‘I don’t hear the hammer any more,’ Sevki said. ‘Is the scroll there?’

Cleena ignored him, but she felt the same mixture of excitement and curiosity that coursed through Sevki. For the moment it gave her an edge over being in the enclosed space.

Lourds strained to free the stone but it didn’t budge. He returned to work with the pry bar for a few minutes. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the sound of the bar meeting stone and Lourds’ heavy breathing. Everyone else seemed to be holding theirs. The professor put the bar against the stone above the inscribed stone and used leverage. The resulting crack sounded like a pistol shot inside the room.

‘You know,’ Sevki said, ‘this is the part in a horror movie where the dead rise up to defend their treasure.’

Cleena glanced at the nine graves set under the room’s floor. Nothing moved there.
Thanks for that thought, Sevki. As if being chased by flesh and blood killers isn’t threat enough
.

Lourds put the bar aside, raised one knee to brace against the wall, and grabbed the stone with both hands.

‘Did you get it?’ Olympia asked.

‘I think so. I wasn’t able to reach all the mortar at the back. The stone is longer than I’d thought.’ The muscles in Lourds’ forearms corded with effort.

With a rasping sound the stone came away from the wall. No one spoke. Carefully, Lourds laid it aside and peered into the dark cavity.

‘I need a flashlight, please.’

Olympia handed him hers.

On his stomach, Lourds trained the beam into the hole.

‘What are you doing?’ Joachim asked.

‘Making sure the Elders didn’t leave any nasty surprises behind.’ Lourds moved the beam from side to side, up and down.

‘They wouldn’t do that.’

‘Perhaps not, but if someone beat us to the scroll, they might have. It’s better to be safe than sorry.’ Satisfied, he reached into the hole, but Cleena still saw the tension and wariness tightening his body. His arm sank into the wall much deeper than the area filled by the stone.

‘Did he find it?’ Sevki asked.

Cleena watched Lourds; she didn’t respond.

‘I guess maybe there would be a cheer or something,’ Sevki said. The disappointment weighed his words down.

Then, inexorably, Lourds withdrew his arm from the hole. His hand held a leather tube with a dull grey glob at one end.

Joachim stepped forward immediately. The suddenness of the man’s movement made Cleena reach for the pistol at her back.

‘Did Lourds find the scroll?’ Sevki asked.

As Cleena’s fingers closed around the pistol butt, Joachim extended his hand.

‘May I?’ Joachim asked.

Lourds hesitated.

‘Of course.’ With obvious reluctance, Lourds placed the tube in Joachim’s hand. ‘Please be careful with it.’

Without a word, Joachim took a small pocket knife from his pocket and pushed the tip into the glob.

‘Carefully,’ Lourds said. ‘We don’t know how it’s packed. The scroll could actually be touching the wax seal.’

Once Joachim had cut around the wax seal, he gently pried it from its moorings. Upending the tube, Joachim poured the contents into his palm.

A single roll of what looked like paper slid into his hand. He caught it, then tucked the tube into his back pocket.

Lourds moved closer and Cleena saw by his anxious behaviour that it was everything he could do to keep his hands off the scroll. He took pictures of the scroll, and the sudden flashes from the digital camera made her eyes ache.

‘Do you recognize the seal?’ Lourds asked.

‘Yes,’ Joachim whispered. ‘The impression is from one of the signet rings that belongs to the Brotherhood of the Joy Scroll.’

‘Do you still have the ring?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this is a match?’

Joachim nodded.

‘What is the device?’ Lourds asked. ‘Four horsemen?’

‘Yes. Signifying the end of the world.’

The other members of the Brotherhood closed in and started whispering among themselves. Cleena got the impression that many of them were surprised that the scroll had actually been found, and that it was what they had expected it to be.

‘Let me get a picture of the seal.’ Lourds gestured with his camera.

Joachim presented the scroll while the professor took pictures.

Then everyone took a collective deep breath.

Gently, Joachim slid a thumbnail under the curve of the paper and sliced through the red wax drop that closed the scroll. When he was finished, he unfurled the parchment. He stared at the writing for a long time.

Stepping closer, Cleena peered at the page as well. She didn’t recognize the words, but it was handwritten in beautiful, flowing script. Nine names lined the bottom of the page.

‘What does it say?’ Olympia asked.

Reluctantly, Joachim shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t read it.’ His shoulders sagged a little.

Lourds started to say something, then caught himself and stopped. He licked his lips, his eyes never leaving the scroll, and said, ‘May I?’

Joachim let out a frustrated breath. ‘Of course.’ He handed the scroll to Lourds.

Cleena moved closer to the professor, drawn by the inexorable mystery of the scroll. She wondered what everyone was going to do it if Lourds said he couldn’t read the document either.

Sevki’s voice sounded tense when he spoke. ‘You’ve got problems.’

‘What problems?’ Cleena asked.

‘I don’t think you’re down there alone anymore.’

Stone Goose Apartments

Zeytinburnu District

Istanbul, Turkey

19 March 2010

‘What do you mean, we’re not alone?’

Sevki’s adrenaline spiked as he stared at the computer monitor before him. He had hacked into the security cameras round the Hagia Sophia once he had found out that was where Cleena and the others were heading. It was a reflex move on his part. Hacking into the camera system served two purposes. One, it would give him a visual presence over the area. Two, it was possible he might catch someone else hacking into the system. Either way would provide an early warning system. On the screen, three sports utility vehicles sat along the main road. Though the cameras weren’t of top-shelf quality, they were good enough for him to see the man’s movements. Those movements were deliberate, and the man walked a grid, returning over the same area again and again.

It was obviously something he had been trained for.

‘I think the guys you ran into at the university are back,’ Sevki told her.

‘Where are they?’

‘On the grounds round the church.’

‘Then they’re not down here,’ Cleena said.

Sevki watched as light flickered from a device one of the men held.

‘I wouldn’t want to bet on that,’ he replied. ‘They’re carrying some sort of device and walking a set pattern. It appears to mean they’re tracking something.’

‘Us?’

‘Or another team that’s gone underground.’ Sevki watched the figures for a moment and the sense of unease within him grew. ‘You’ve got the scroll. If you ask me, it’s time for you guys to get out of there.’

Before Cleena could answer, the sound of a deep, powerful explosion rocketed along the earwig transmission frequency.

CHAPTER

20

Crypt of the Elders

Hagia Sophia Underground

Istanbul, Turkey

19 March 2010

L
ourds stared at the open scroll in his hands. The handwriting looked familiar, and he felt certain that it had belonged to one of the scribes who had written in the book Qayin had shown him. When working with written documents rather than inscribed, the writer’s handiwork often showed itself in stylization, size and placement on documents. Knowing that the writer might be the same was worth something. It helped place the timeline of the document. But the bottom line was that Lourds couldn’t read it. Some of the words looked familiar, but the context was wrong and he couldn’t make sense of too many of the words on the vellum. Resigning himself to defeat, Lourds looked up at the anxious faces surrounding him. Before he could say anything, Cleena freed her pistol and the monks nearest her stepped back and spread out.

Then a deafening blast crashed through the room. Immediately, a fusillade of broken rock tumbled down the corkscrew stairway, followed by a dust cloud that pooled into the room.

With the
BOOOOOM
of the explosives echoing around him, Eckart took a fresh grip on his pistol and the small flashlight he held. Dust coated his tongue and caked his nostrils. His breath seized at the back of his throat.

When he played his flashlight over the wall, he saw the charges had destroyed the secret door and fractured the walls on either side. Further down the exposed passage, a jumble of rock half closed the hidden entrance. Eckart peered over his gun sight but saw nothing moving. He waved to his point man and indicated the doorway. At once, the man crouched and followed the steps down. Eckart trailed behind him with his pistol gripped in both hands. The other men fell in behind him.

Only a few steps later, the debris rose enough to close the stairway. Broken rock had tumbled down and been caught to form a day against forward progress.

Eckart cursed the bad luck, then holstered his weapon and put on his gloves.

‘Form a line. We’ve got to clear debris.’

The point man slung his weapon over his shoulder and reached for the first rock. He swung round and handed it to Eckart, who handed it to the next man in line. By the time he turned back, the point man had another rock ready. He listened for noise on the other side of the barrier and wondered if his quarry had got away again, or if the blast had killed them.

When the force of the blast filled the room, Lourds grabbed Olympia and pulled her down with him into a protective embrace. She clung to him as rocks ricocheted from walls. Several of them slammed against Lourds’ back and shoulders and stung sharply.

Choking on the dust, he looked up. Grit stung his eyes and brought tears. For a moment he sat frozen and wondered what he was supposed to do. He thought about how the Elders had perished in that room all those years ago. Primitive fear screamed through his brain at the thought of being buried alive. He had to force himself to be calm. Even with his arms wrapped round Olympia, he hadn’t dropped the scroll.

‘Is everyone all right?’ Joachim asked. Blood leaked from a shallow wound by his left eye.

The other monks answered affirmatively. Behind them, Cleena shoved herself to her feet. She still held the pistol in one hand.

A few loose rocks bounded down the staircase and bounced into the room. Scrabbling noises followed.

‘They’re still up there,’ Lourds said. More rocks tumbled into the room.

‘They’ll dig down to us as soon as they can.’ Joachim turned to Lourds and held out a hand. ‘The scroll, please, Professor.’

Reluctantly, Lourds passed him the scroll. The monk dropped the scroll into the leather tube and blocked it once more with the wax seal.

‘Quickly. We haven’t much time.’ Joachim crossed the floor to the gravesite in the corner opposite to the one that had held the scroll. ‘Professor, your pry bar, if you don’t mind.’

Lourds picked it up from the floor and joined Joachim. The monk hunkered down over the grave and took the bar in one hand.

‘What are you doing?’ Olympia asked. She stood behind her brother.

More rocks shifted in the stairway. Men’s harsh voices could be heard in the room. Occasional shafts of light from flashlight beams splintered through the debris. Lourds knew it wouldn’t take much longer for the men to break through. Then they wouldn’t have a chance.

‘Lessons were learned after the deaths of the Elders.’ Joachim shoved the bar into a gap between the stones. He leaned on it and mortar cracked. One of the polished stones lifted from the floor. ‘An escape route was added from this room when there had not been one before. No longer has the Brotherhood depended solely on secrecy.’

Thank God for that,
Lourds thought.

He and two of the monks helped clear stones as Joachim freed them. They clacked and skidded across the floor. Some of them ricocheted against the loose stones clattering down the stairway. Cleena and Olympia held flashlights on the enlarging hole taking shape in the floor. In seconds they had cleared enough stones to reveal a plain wooden coffin beneath the floor. The stench of mould and mildew invaded the room and warred against the encroaching dust cloud.

‘Brother, forgive me for disturbing your rest,’ Joachim said quietly. Then he reached for a rope handle attached to the coffin. Lourds grasped another while the other two monks grabbed handles as well.