A Treasure Deep (43 page)

“WHICH DOOR?” Jack asked. “I can see half a dozen
doors down this hall.”

Perry and Jack moved away from the elevator
opening. “I don’t know,” Perry admitted. “I’m just guessing that
they’re on this floor. Maybe we should try each door, just turning
the knob. If the knob turns, we move on. I don’t think they would
be in an unlocked room.”

“Makes sense,” Jack said.

They came to the first door and Perry turned
the handle. It moved freely. Slowly, he let it return to its
resting position and moved on. Jack did the same on the other side
of the corridor. As Perry was about to try his third door, he saw a
piece of paper slip out from beneath the door a few feet from where
he was standing. He walked to it and saw an image drawn in crayon:
a picture of him standing in front of a door and Joseph on the
other side. Perry softly called for Jack and showed him the
drawing.

“Bingo,” Jack said. He reached forward and
turned the doorknob. It didn’t budge. “Tight as a drum.”

“We should have started here,” Perry said as
he pointed to an electronic keypad. It was set low so that someone
in a wheel chair could reach it.

“Hindsight is always clearer.”

Perry studied the keypad. “It’s high-end
tech,” he said. “Not only do you need to know the code, but it
reads your fingerprint. We’re not going to crack that.”

“Step aside for a second,” Jack said. He
examined the door, the doorknob, and the frame. He then looked at
the picture he still held in his hand. “Joseph would recognize your
voice, wouldn’t he?”

“He should, and Claire’s with him,” Perry
answered.

“Tell her to move Joseph away from the door.
I’m going to provide a low-tech solution to a high-tech
problem.”

“Claire? It’s Perry, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can, Perry,” came an excited but
muffled reply.

“Move Joseph away from the door,” he said. He
placed his ear to the door and heard Claire talking to her son.

He heard her say, “Okay.”

Perry turned to Jack. “Are you going to do
what I think you’re going to do?”

“It’s a wood door, solid core no doubt, but I
should be able to persuade it to open.” Jack took a step back,
raised his right foot, and let fly a brutal kick. The force of the
kick against the solidly hung door forced Jack back a step. “Give
me a little support here.”

Perry took a position behind his big friend
and placed his shoulder into Jack’s back. “What you do, do quickly.
We’re making enough noise to wake the dead.”

Jack kicked again . . . then again . . . and
again. Perry could feel the force of each blow as the door resisted
Jack’s attempts. “It’s giving,” Jack said. “A couple more ought to
do it.”

“How come it always works the first time in
the movies?”

Jack answered with another kick, and this
time the wood splintered. Perry came to the door and saw that it
gave way at the lock. Shards of wood lay in the carpeted hall.
Perry charged in and was greeted by Claire, who threw her arms
around his neck and began to weep. Joseph stepped forward and laid
his head on Perry’s shoulder. Perry threw one arm around Joseph and
the other around Claire.

The embrace lasted only seconds. “We have to
get you out of here, quickly.”

“Perry, we have company,” Jack said. “Get
them moving.”

Perry turned, but Jack was gone. “Follow me.”
Perry entered the corridor and saw Jack marching toward two people.
One he recognized as the intruder at his site, dressed in yet
another suit. The other was a mahogany-haired woman, dressed in a
beige pant-suit and carrying a small purse.

“To the stairs,” Perry commanded, pointing
away from the approaching duo. He guided Claire out of the room and
down the hall. Alex was coming from the direction of the
elevators.

“We meet again.” The words came from behind
Perry. It was Jack. “We never finished our little chat.” There was
a thud. Perry turned and saw the well-dressed man bounce off one of
the corridor walls. “I’m not napping this time, partner,” Jack
said. “You only get to sucker punch me once.”

Perry could barely believe what he saw next.
The thief had hit the wall hard enough to drop several men, but he
didn’t go down. He straightened himself, unbuttoned his suit coat,
and started for Jack. Perry’s friend remained in the middle of the
hall like a giant defending his horde against thieves. His attacker
was shorter by half a foot, but he seemed unfazed by the mismatch.
He threw a brutal punch, but Jack deflected it, as he did the next
punch. The fists came faster and faster, and to Perry, the man’s
hands seemed to blur.

Jack was backing up now, having more
difficulty fending off the blows that came at him so quickly that
he could mount no offensive of his own. A punch landed hard enough
that the sound of it echoed down the hall. Jack staggered back and
threw a fist of his own, something Perry knew he wouldn’t do unless
he felt his life was in danger. The attempt was not even close. The
well-dressed man moved to the side just enough to avoid being hit
and threw a right hand of his own. It caught Jack in the side.
Another punch followed, connecting with the big man’s jaw. He spun
around and stumbled.

Perry froze for a moment and then started for
his friend.

“No,” Jack shouted but only managed a hoarse
whisper. “Get them out.”

The man stepped forward and threw a blow into
Jack’s back. A kidney shot. Jack dropped to his knees. “Run . . .”
Perry watched helplessly as the impossibly strong man brought a
sweeping backhand to the side of Jack’s head. Jack crashed forward,
landing face down on the carpet.

The man stepped over him and started quickly
toward Perry.

“Get in the stairway and run,” Perry
commanded. “It will lead to the first floor. Go . . . go.”

Perry was not going to wait for the man, nor
was he going try and exchange blows. After seeing how easily he
felled Jack, Perry knew he stood little chance of surviving a
toe-to-toe encounter. The man he faced was stronger and clearly a
trained fighter, but physics was physics.

Perry charged, lowering his head as if to
make an open field tackle on the football field. He saw the man set
himself. At the last instant he changed his course, aiming not for
the assailant’s middle but for his head. Perry dipped his shoulder
and launched himself.

It worked. Perry’s right shoulder landed
squarely on the head of the other man. The force of Perry’s forward
motion sent both men toppling and twisting to the floor, Perry on
his back, the other man face down.

Perry scrambled, not to his feet, but to his
hands and knees. Before the well-dressed fighter could move, Perry
was on top of him, putting his full weight on the man’s chest. It
was a struggle, but Perry got one leg on each side of the other
man’s torso and grabbed at his head. Knowing that where the head
went so went the body, Perry placed both hands on the attacker’s
skull and leaned forward with all his weight, pinning it to the
floor. Since he was on his stomach, the thief could throw no
punches. For the moment he was incapacitated. If Perry could hold
him long enough, Claire and Joseph might escape. He heard the door
at the end of the hall open. Claire had made it to the stairs. He
heard something else.

There was a loud pop, and Perry jerked
reflexively. A startled scream rolled down the hall; then Perry
felt something hot and hard touch the back of his ear—a gun
barrel.

“Come on back, Mrs. Henri, and bring your son
with you. I won’t miss next time.” The barrel was pushed into
Perry’s neck. “As for you, I suggest you get off Alex.”

“THIS IS THE way you’re supposed to use the
elevator,” Alex said.

“It’s cleaner,” Perry replied.

They rode in the elevator car with Jack, who
now walked with a limp and was having trouble straightening up.
Claire and Joseph stood in one corner, the dark-haired woman
standing next to them, gun pointed at Joseph’s side.

“Mind if I ask where the gun came from?”

The pistol was small, just a little larger
than the hand that held it. Perry thought it might be a .25
caliber, one of those dangerous hide-almost-anywhere weapons.

The woman patted the small purse she had hung
over one shoulder. “Got everything I need right here: lipstick,
mace, handgun.”

“Where are you taking us?” Claire asked, her
voice shaking with fear.

“Someone wants to meet your friends.”

“Rutherford Straight,” Perry said.

“You know of my brother?”

“Brother?” Jack said. He was still struggling
to get his full breath. “Well, that explains what a nice girl like
you is doing in a place like this.”

“It’s his building,” Perry explained. “And it
was his company’s jet that flew from Bakersfield to Seattle.”

The elevator doors parted after descending
only one floor. Alex grabbed Perry and shoved him through. He did
the same with Jack. The woman led the other two out. A few moments
later they passed through a door that led to a room with one glass
wall.

Near the window sat a frail-looking man in a
wheelchair. He leaned precipitously to one side, kept from falling
by a strap around his chest. Hearing the door open, he pushed a
lever on the arm of the chair, and it turned in place. His hair was
a mixture of gray and black, and his head bobbed continually.

“You must be Perry Sachs,” the man said. His
voice was thready. A small trickle of drool lined his chin.

“I am,” Perry said. “You are Rutherford
Straight.”

“Guilty as charged. I see you’ve met my
sister and my right-hand man.”

“He’s a pretty good left-hand man too,” Jack
said, rubbing his ribs.

Perry turned his attention to the room beyond
the glass and the sight made him sick. A man in a baggy white suit
and hood with a face shield moved around a bench. On the bench was
the chrysalis. The man was reaching inside the cocoon-like shape
with a pair of tweezers.

“Interesting, isn’t it, Mr. Sachs?”
Rutherford said. “That is quite a find you made. It may change the
world.” The man offered a weak smile that looked more like a
grimace. “Change the world in a way you never imagined.”

“Do you know what that is?” Perry asked. He
made no attempt to conceal his anger.

“Of course I do,” Rutherford said. “I read
the same document as you—”

“The one you stole,” Perry interjected.

“Yes, that would be the one.” Rutherford
seemed unbothered by the accusation. “We’re looking at the linen
wrappings of Christ. Extremely valuable in its own right; more
valuable to me in other ways.”

“What are you doing?” Perry asked, as he
watched the strangely suited man take what looked like a long
Q-Tip, dip it in a small bottle of solution, then rub it on the
linen shell. He focused on the dark blood-stained area.

“Sampling DNA,” Rutherford said. “We would
prefer tissue samples of course, but we take what we can get.

“You want DNA from Jesus?” Perry was
astonished. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” Rutherford asked pointedly.

“It’s two thousand years old,” Perry said.
“Surely it’s not viable.”

“You’d be surprised, Mr. Sachs. DNA has been
harvested from mummies around the world, and many of them are far
older than two millennia. DNA has been taken from ancient insects,
reptiles, humans, and other mammals. This is no different. In fact,
it’s not even much of a challenge. Did you know that DNA testing
was done on two mummies to evaluate whether King Tut was truly of
royal blood? That was DNA over 3,300 years old. That work was
conducted back in 2000.”

“But what can you hope to accomplish?”

“Think, Mr. Sachs, think. What is the one
primary difference between Christianity and other world
faiths?”

“Many things.”

“Pick the one you think is most significant,”
Rutherford urged.

“The resurrection. The fact that Jesus rose
from the dead.”

“Very good, Mr. Sachs. For an architect,
you’re pretty smart.”

“You believe in the resurrection?” Perry
asked, puzzled. “How do you reconcile that with, with? . . .”

“My business practices?” Rutherford
suggested. A gurgle poured from his mouth. It took a moment for
Perry to realize the man was laughing. “There’s nothing spiritual
in all this, Mr. Sachs. I have no time for the mumbo jumbo of
faith. I just happen to believe that an unusual and unexplained
event happened, that’s all.”

“And you want to explain it.”

“I want to capitalize on it, first
personally, then financially.”

“But why?”

“Look at me, Sachs. Take a good look.”
Rutherford’s words were as sharp as his emaciated body would allow.
“I’m a dying man. I die faster than most. I’m also the most
brilliant biologist in the world, and the second most gifted is in
that other room doing what I can no longer do. I want my life back,
Sachs. I want to live and to do my research. I want to walk again.
If I can find out what happened to Jesus, then maybe I can find a
way to defeat this disease.”

“That seems impossible,” Perry said.

“When you have no hope, the impossible looks
pretty good.” Straight turned back to the viewing window. “We will
sample, we will analyze. I’ve developed some techniques that may
allow some DNA replications and transfer. We do things here other
scientists can only dream of. Bioengineering is the current wave,
Mr. Sachs.

“Industry has had its day, as has the
Information Age. The present and the future belong to those who can
manipulate life. Here we make artificial skin for burn victims; we
are close to finishing the development of a technique to grow a new
pancreas.

“Do you know anyone with diabetes, Mr. Sachs?
If you do, then I may be that person’s best friend. We’ve made
crops safer, food last longer, grain grow larger heads, pigs that
produce low-fat meat, and more. Oh, we can also improve the
functionality of humans. You may have noticed that Mr. Olek is
stronger than anyone you’ve ever met?” He turned his wheelchair and
looked at Perry and Jack.