The Judas Strain (24 page)

“It’s from Commander Pierce, sir,” the communications chief said and held out the telephone receiver.

Painter swiveled in his seat.
What the hell?
He took the phone. “Gray? This is Director Crowe. Where are you?”

The voice came faint. “Sir, I don’t have much time, and I have a lot of intel to pass on.”

“I’m listening.”

“First, my parents have been kidnapped by a Guild agent.”

“Amen Nasser. We know. We have a wide sweep already under way.”

Surprised silence followed, then Gray continued. “You also have to reach Monk and Lisa. They’re in danger over in Indonesia.”

“We’re aware. I’m attempting a satellite pass as we speak. If you’re done telling me what I already know, why don’t you start at the beginning?”

Gray took a deep breath and quickly related what had happened since Seichan had crashed back into his life. Painter asked a few questions and pieces began to fit together like a scattered jigsaw. He had already made several realizations while he waited for the NSA to respond. He had already suspected the Guild might be involved with the incident at Christmas Island. Who else had the resources to steal an entire island’s population and vanish away? Gray just confirmed this conjecture and answered why this was all happening, even giving it a name.

The Judas Strain.

An hour ago Painter had summoned Dr. Malcolm Jennings back into Sigma’s R&D offices, hauling him from his bed. On the car ride back to Sigma from the site of the kidnapping, Painter had gone over Lisa’s last conversations. Clearly coerced, it made all her statements suspect. Like claiming the disease that so disconcerted her earlier was now just a false alarm. He had remembered Jennings’s earlier panic about the threat of an environmental meltdown. And the man’s last chilling statement.
We still don’t know for sure what killed the dinosaurs
.

Plainly here was something that might interest the Guild.

Painter had even guessed that Seichan’s sudden appearance and Gray’s disappearance might be related to Indonesia. Two major Guild actions, striking at the same time. Painter was not a fan of coincidences. There had to be a connection. But he never would have guessed who connected it all together.

“Marco Polo?” Painter asked.

Gray finished his story. “The Guild is operating on two fronts. A scientific arm is pursuing the current outbreak, seeking a cure and the source. At the same time—”

Painter cut him off. “A historical arm is following Marco’s path back to the same: a cure and the source.”

It now made a certain awful sense.

“And now Nasser is heading out to Istanbul,” Painter said.

“He’s probably already in the air.”

“I can mobilize resources out there, have assets on the ground in the next couple hours.”

“No. The Guild will know. According to Seichan, Istanbul is one of their major hubs of activity. They’re in all agencies out here. If they realize you’ve activated forces, they’ll know we’ve talked. My parents…you can’t. I’ll have to handle Nasser on my own.”

“But you’ve taken a huge risk as it is, Gray. Sigma’s compromised. I’ll do my best to keep this from leaking any further, but the mole here could—”

“Director, there is no mole in Sigma.”

Painter started. It took him a moment to regroup, to consider this possibility. “Are you certain?” he finally asked.

“Certain enough to stake my parents’ lives on it.”

Painter sat for a moment. He believed Gray. The prickling frustration of dealing with all the interagency squabbling washed away. If there was no mole…

Gray’s voice grew fainter. “I can’t risk staying on the line any longer. I have to go. I’ll do my best to follow this trail, to see where it leads.”

The line went silent for a moment. Painter thought Gray might have cut the connection, but then he returned. “Please, Director, find my folks.”

“I will, Gray. You can be certain of that. And when I do, tell Vigor to expect a call from his niece. It will ring a few times, then hang up. That will be the signal that your parents are safe.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The phone clicked off.

Painter leaned back.

“Sir,” the communications officer interrupted, “we should have feed in another two minutes.”

10:15
A.M.

Istanbul

D
ESPITE THE NEED
to hurry, Gray could not stop his feet from slowing as he approached the western facade of Hagia Sophia, awestruck by its size.

Vigor noted his craned neck. “Impressive, isn’t it.”

There was no denying it.

The monumental Byzantine structure was considered by many to be the Eighth Wonder of the World. Seated atop a hill where once a temple to Apollo had stood, it overlooked the magnificent blue expanse of the Sea of Marmara and much of Istanbul. Its most striking feature, the massive Byzantine dome, glowed like polished copper in the morning sun, climbing twenty stories into the air. Other lower half domes buttressed it to the east and west, while additional cupolas spread out to either side like attendants to a queen, expanding the breadth of the massive structure.

Vigor continued an ongoing history lesson about the place and pointed to the giant archways ahead that led into Hagia Sophia. “The Imperial Doors. It was through those doors that in 537, Emperor Justinian dedicated the church and declared, ‘Oh, Solomon I have surpassed thee.’ And it was through those same doors, during the fourteen-hundreds, that Sultan Mehmed, the conquering Ottoman Turk who had sacked Constantinople, poured soil over his head in a humble act before entering the church. He was so impressed that rather than destroying Hagia Sophia, he converted it into a mosque.”

The monsignor waved an arm to encompass the four towering minarets that now rose at each corner of the grounds.

“And now it’s a museum,” Gray said.

“As of 1935,™ Vigor confirmed, and pointed to the scaffolding on the south side of the structure. “Restoration work has been almost continuous since that date. And not just on the outside. When Sultan Mehmed converted the church to a mosque, he plastered over all the Christian mosaics, as it is against Islamic law to depict human figures. But over the past decades, there’s been a slow and meticulous attempt to restore those priceless Byzantine mosaic murals. At the same time, there’s been an equal desire to preserve the ancient Islamic art from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, impressive sweeps of calligraphy and decorated pulpits. To balance such a project, the restoration work at Hagia Sophia required bringing in experts from all fields of architecture and art. Including consulting the Vatican.”

Vigor led the way across the open plaza toward the arched entrance, following the flow of tourists. “As such, I thought that I might bring someone familiar with restoration, someone who has been consulted by Hagia Sophia’s curators in the past.”

Gray remembered Vigor mentioning that he had sent someone ahead to begin the hunt for the golden needle in a massive Byzantine haystack.

As they reached the doors, Gray noted a bearded giant of a man inside the doorway, blocking the flow of tourists. He stood with his fists on his hips, glowering at everyone. But when he spotted Vigor, he raised an arm in greeting.

Vigor motioned him back into the depths of the church.

Gray followed, anxious to get off the streets, unsure if any of the Guild trackers had reached their location. Until his parents were safe, he didn’t want to rankle Nasser in any way, to make the man question Seichan’s earlier subterfuge.

Passing through the door, Gray glanced back toward the open plaza. He saw no sign of Seichan or Kowalski. Their two parties had separated as soon as they left the hotel. Seichan had purchased a prepaid throwaway cell phone. Gray had memorized her number. It was the only way of contacting her.

“Commander Gray Pierce,” Vigor introduced, “this is my dear friend Balthazar Pinosso, dean of the art history department at the Gregorian University.”

Gray’s hand was swallowed up by Balthazar’s grip. He stood just shy of seven feet.

Vigor continued, “Balthazar was the one who first discovered Seichan’s message in the Tower of Winds and helped me with the angelic translations. He’s also good friends with the museum’s curator here.”

“Lot of good that’ll do,” Balthazar groused in a deep baritone, and led the way into the main church. He waved an arm ahead. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

The man stepped aside and the view opened.

Gray gaped at the sight. Vigor noted his reaction and patted him on the shoulder.

A long barreled vault stretched a vast distance ahead, not unlike entering a train station. Overhead, a series of arches and cupolas climbed to the central main dome. A second-floor colonnade framed both sides. But the most impressive sight was not anything constructed of stone—it was simply the play of light in the space. Windows pierced walls and lined the bottoms of domes, allowing sunlight to reflect off emerald-and-white marble, off gold-encrusted mosaics. The sheer volume of empty space, unsupported by interior pillars, seemed impossible.

In awed silence Gray followed the two men down the long nave.

Reaching the heart of the church, Gray stared up at the scalloped vault of the main dome, twenty stories over his head. Its ribbed surface was decorated with rippling gold-and-purple calligraphy. Around its bottom circumference, forty arched windows allowed in morning sunlight, creating an appearance that the dome was hovering over one’s head.

“It’s like it’s floating up there,” Gray mumbled.

Balthazar joined him. “An architectural optical illusion,” the art historian explained, and pointed up. “See those ribs along the underside of the roof, like the braces on an umbrella? They distribute the weight around the windows down to the flared pendentives seated atop massive foundation piers. Also the roof itself is lighter than it appears, constructed of hollow bricks kilned in Rhodes from the city’s porous clay. It’s a masterpiece of illusion. Stone, light, and air.”

Vigor nodded. “Even Marco Polo was awed, to quote the great man, by ‘the apparent weightlessness of the dome, and the bewildering abundance of direct and indirect lighting effects.’”

Gray understood. It was also strange to know that where he now stood, Marco Polo had also stood, the two men joined across the ages by their mutual wonder at and respect for the ancient builders.

The only blemish to the effect was the wall of black scaffolding along one side that climbed from the marble floor to the top of the dome.

It helped ground Gray in his situation. He checked his watch. Nasser would be arriving before nightfall. They had less than a day to solve this riddle.

If his plan was going to work…

But where to start?

Vigor was asking the same of his friend. “Balthazar, were you able to question the museum staff? Has anyone seen anything like angelic script in here?”

The man rubbed his beard and sighed. “I interviewed the curator, talked to his staff. The curator knows Hagia Sophia from its underground crypts to the tip of its highest dome. He insists nothing like angelic script can be found anywhere. He expressed one thought, though…something you’re not going to like to hear.”

“What?” Vigor asked.

“Remember how much of Hagia Sophia was plastered over from when the church was converted into a mosque. What we may be looking for could be hidden under inches of old plaster. Or it could have been inscribed on plaster that has since been cleaned away.” Balthazar shrugged. “So there’s a very real possibility that what we seek may be gone.”

Gray refused to believe it. While Vigor and Balthazar discussed such matters in more detail, he walked away. He needed to think. He checked his watch again, a reflexive gesture. Nervous and worried. He didn’t even really see the time. He dropped his arm and crossed to the scaffolding. He should never have left his parents alone. His mother’s few words over the phone haunted him.

I’m sorry. Your father. I needed his pills
.

Something must have happened. Gray had refused to take into account his father’s illness, his need for medication. Was his neglect a purposeful blindness, a refusal to accept his father’s true condition? Either way, his recklessness now threatened his parents’ lives.

Gray sank down, cross-legged, and stared up toward the dome. He fought to clear his mind. His worries, fears, and doubts would not serve him. Or them. Taking a deep steadying breath, he exhaled slowly and let the drone of the tourists fade into the background.

He pictured the church as it must have looked back in the sixteen-hundreds. In his mind, he repainted the walls again, whitewashing over the golden mosaics with plaster. He did so with concentrated deliberation. A meditative exercise. If only in his head, the old mosque came alive again. He heard the muezzin calling from the minarets over the ancient city. He pictured the supplicants knelt atop rugs, rising and falling, in faithful prayer.

In such a place, where would the next key be hidden? Where in all this vast space, with its countless anterooms, galleries, and side chapels?

As he sat, Gray spun his view of the church behind his eyes, like a three-dimensional computer model, studying it from all angles. As he did so, his finger absently traced in the plaster dust on the floor. He finally became aware of what he was drawing: the glyph of angelic script, the one inscribed on the back of Marco’s golden passport.