The Tenth Cycle: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

Zacharias hadn’t meant it as a challenge, only an observation that Sarah’s career may not be able to afford to go there, either. But Daniel took it as a gauntlet thrown down in front of him. His chin went up and his eyes took on a stubborn look.

“Oh, I dare, all right. Nothing could stop me. Dr. Zacharias, thank you for the tip.”

“You’re very welcome. I would be most interested in what you discover.”

“May we call on you for help if we get stuck?”

“Certainly, as long as you leave my name out of it. And speaking of my name, about this ‘interview’…”

“It won’t mention any of this, you have my word on it. You’ve been very helpful, sir. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. And I mean that literally,” Zacharias joked.

After he walked away, Sarah turned to Daniel. “I liked him.”

“I did, too, but man, I hope this doesn’t lead us to Atlantis. That would be almost as bad as aliens.”

“What do you have against aliens and unknown civilizations?” she retorted. “It could explain a lot.”

Daniel stared at her, aghast, until he perceived she was joking. Then he answered in kind, “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’m afraid they’ll take my job.”

“There is that.”

It was too early for dinner, and too late for Daniel to return to work, so they decided to head for his apartment and talk some more before having dinner. Daniel had in mind a romantic Italian restaurant, where he intended to hold her hand, ply her with good red wine, and maybe steal a kiss.

Sarah had undergone a radical shift in attitude about the project as she listened to Zacharias’ lecture. Mathematics, although not her field of study, was something she could understand. After all, it figured largely in cracking the hieroglyphics code she used in her dissertation to bring new light onto Egyptian mythology. Without it, her work would have been speculation, but with it and with the help of a savant cryptography student who was scary-smart, she had made translation strides that surpassed the work of the past century. It was indeed brilliant work, if she said so herself. However, it flattered her that Dr. Zacharias knew of it. Now, she justified her intrigue with the project by telling herself that it was a way to stay close to Daniel.

Speaking of Daniel, whose physical attributes occupied more of her thoughts than comfort dictated, she wondered if he was now showering in cold water. He had been in there for a very long time. He was a mystery to her; although he was clearly attracted, he was as circumspect as a Victorian suitor. She would just have to find a way to respond to his tentative advances that would encourage him further. After all, those Victorians could be pretty naughty behind closed doors. The thought alone animated her, and Daniel emerged at that moment to find Sarah blushing.

What’s that all about?
He wondered.

By mutual consent, they tabled the discussion about the pyramid mystery while they ate dinner. Sarah was enchanted with Daniel’s choice of restaurant, a small room with just four tables and no menu. Daniel had discovered it shortly after he arrived in New York, and by now was an old friend of the owner. He had called ahead, telling Luigi that he was bringing a date, and to do him proud. Now Luigi was attempting to do just that, seating them at the most secluded table, but not before parading them through the small dining area so that his other customers could cast admiring glances on the couple.

A lovely couple they made, too. The woman was exquisite, and Luigi had to admit that his wife’s small crush on Daniel had to do with his looks as much as anything else.

Daniel was aware of the stares of the men, though he overlooked those of the women. All his attention was on Sarah, who looked more radiant than ever. She took his breath away. How he would get through a romantic dinner without betraying how much he wanted her was a problem. Fortunately, Luigi helped by bringing out course after course of delicious Italian delicacies that even Daniel hadn’t tasted before.

They started with carciofini e funghetti, which turned out to be an appetizer of artichokes and mushrooms. Luigi insisted on pairing each course with a glass of wine, making Sarah laugh and say it was lucky they’d be walking home to Daniel’s apartment. Daniel lost count of the courses after the first three, and everything was perfect. By the time the dessert came, both were a little tipsy, and it seemed the perfect time for Daniel to take her hand.

Sarah’s eyes softened as she looked at their entwined hands and said, “Daniel, I’ve enjoyed today so much. Thank you for inviting me.”

Encouraged, Daniel stroked the back of Sarah’s hand with his thumb and said, “It’s been my absolute pleasure. I hope we can do more of this.”

If Sarah realized that there was a double meaning when he said ‘this’, she didn’t remark on it, only smiled her remarkable smile and said, “I hope so, too.”

When at last Luigi accepted that they had reached their limit, he boxed up the tiramisu and sent them on their way, first waving off Daniel’s proffered credit card.

“Daniel, my friend, you have earned this meal by bringing your bellissima donna – such a beautiful woman – to my little ristorante. Thank you for letting me gaze upon her lovely face.”

Both proud and protective, the full force of Daniel’s attraction to Sarah hit him in that moment, and he finally admitted what he had been hiding from himself. It wasn’t just a physical attraction, although heaven knew that was there. He could love this woman, if she gave him half a chance. So, that’s why they call it ‘falling in love’! Daniel had the peculiar sensation that he had fallen over a cliff, but was floating in mid-air. With wonder that he hadn’t realized it before, he tucked her hand into his elbow and strolled down the street, keeping his feet firmly on the pavement despite his tendency to float.

The brisk winter air cleared their heads somewhat, but for separate reasons, neither wanted to take up the pyramid discussion again when they got home. Daniel was looking for an opportunity when kissing Sarah would be a natural thing to do. Sarah was thinking about how fond she had grown of Daniel, and what that might mean. She agreed when he suggested they watch a movie before turning in, and they settled together on the sofa, his arm around her, to watch a romantic comedy.

When the movie got to a point where the hero didn’t dare kiss the girl, Daniel said, “Oh, just kiss her already!”

Sarah turned to him and spoke softly, with an enticing smile, “Why don’t you take your own advice?”

Daniel didn’t need a second hint. He tilted her chin with a gentle finger, looked into her eyes long enough to see the invitation there, and dipped his head to taste her lips for the first time. It wouldn’t have surprised him if he had heard an angel choir at that moment. In fact, his ears
were
ringing with some kind of music.

Sarah’s lips were warm, soft and tasted faintly of the wine they had shared earlier. Kissing her was more intoxicating than the wine and he lost himself for a few minutes as he let the kiss linger. When at last it ended, Sarah put her head on his shoulder and they looked again at the TV, although both of them had lost track of the movie. When the movie was over, Daniel asked, “Would you like to go to bed?”

Sarah’s expression betrayed surprise at the directness of the question. What should she answer? Actually, she thought she might like that very much; it had been too long since she had been with her ex-fiancé. But would Daniel think she was too forward if she just said ‘yes’? “Um,”

Daniel realized his mistake when he saw her face. “Oh, hell, Sarah, that came out wrong. I meant, are you ready to turn in? In the guest room?”

Slightly disappointed, but relieved at not having to decide, she laughed. “Oh. Yes, I’m tired.”

Daniel walked her to her door, ventured another kiss to say goodnight, and left her there. As he closed his own bedroom door, he mentally kicked himself. The question was already out there, why had he supplied the answer? What if she wanted…? No, a woman like Sarah needed to be courted. He would have to be satisfied that she had kissed him in return, with every evidence of pleasure. He could wait.

For her part, Sarah was kicking herself for her hesitation. She didn’t get Daniel’s reserve. He gave every evidence of liking her a lot, but he was either the world’s most patient man or he had been raised with the manners of another age. Like Victorian. Maybe her signals weren’t strong enough?

The next morning, Sarah seemed a little shy with him at first, but Daniel maintained his cheer as he put the coffee on to brew and tried unsuccessfully to get a breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs and toast all on the table at the same time. Fortunately, Sarah came to his rescue, buttering toast and pouring orange juice, in a sweetly domestic pas de deux that had them both thinking they could get used to this. But, neither said it.

Back at work, Daniel struggled with a sense of unreality. Since the last time he sat at this desk, his world had shifted profoundly. He was having trouble focusing on his next column, and decided to write up his interview with Dr. Zacharias. Dancing around the Atlantis references was proving more difficult than he thought it would be. The lecture was interesting, but the possibilities of the new information were so enticing that it kept creeping into his narrative. He had been at it for four long hours, with only about two thousand words to show for it, when Owen came by his desk and asked if he was going to lunch.

“Wow, is it noon already?”

“Yeah, man. What’s got you so out of it? Didn’t you even see Alison from the fashion desk parade down the aisle here in a polka-dot dress that didn’t even cover her ass?”

“Hmm?” Daniel’s attention had turned back to his story and he hadn’t heard the question.

“Alison. Ass. And legs down to there.”

“Owen, grow up. Who cares?”

“I care. It made my day! I think she wants me.”

“Good for you. Did you want to get some lunch or not?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Daniel liked Owen, a lot really. He was a good friend, but sometimes his blatant sexual references were just over the top. Daniel hoped they could get through lunch without being arrested. To ward off more of the same, he mentioned Dr. Zacharias’ lecture over a foot-long meatball sub.

“Heard a great lecture on Friday. Dr. Ben Zacharias, do you know of him?”

“Oh, yeah, the ‘math is language’ guy. He’s pretty hot stuff in my field.”

“How so?”

“Well, you know he’s got this theory that the ancient world used mathematics to communicate with us today. Actually, more than a theory, it’s pretty much accepted.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It is among astronomers, anyway. The stars are another thing that’s been pretty constant over the millennia, other than where they are in our sky, of course. But somehow, ancient astronomers were able to predict the movement, and it had to be math that helped them do that. They were more accurate than you’d believe, in spite of their primitive tools.”

“Do you think the ancients actually left messages for us? Or were they just leaving records?”

“I’m not sure there’s agreement on that among scientists. But look, we did the same thing.”

“What do you mean?

“We sent a message, like a message in a bottle. Have you ever heard of one of those washing up on shore? It happens fairly often.”

Now Daniel was a little lost. Who was ‘we’? And what message in a bottle? Owen was in full lecture mode, though, so maybe it would become clear in a minute.

“Some of them travel hundreds of miles, I saw a story about it on TV just last week. People have been doing it for ages, and it’s crazy. The one on TV turned up over a hundred and eighty years after it was thrown in the ocean. Think of the journey it took! It makes me want to get inside a bottle and see where I end up.”

“Suffocated or at the funny farm, no doubt.”

“That’s right, scoff. But you’re the one who brought it up.”

“Me? I still don’t know what you’re talking about, message in a bottle. What did you mean ‘we did the same thing’?”

“Voyager, man. Remember? The space ships we sent out to explore the Universe back in 1977? They put some gold records in the capsules, in case there’s intelligent life out there. Sound recordings and stuff. And pictures of what we look like, you know, I think they put Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man on it, and some math formulas. Even if they can’t figure out anything else, the math has to be universal.”

Daniel had forgotten about this, but now he remembered. There was even more on the phonograph records than Owen was babbling about. As he recalled, they contained information about topics such as our location in the solar system, mathematical definitions, the physical unit definitions we use, our solar system parameters, chemical definitions, our DNA structure, diagrams of male and female human anatomy and cell division, a diagram of conception, a fetus development diagram and much more. And, if he remembered correctly, it was meant not only for intelligent extra-terrestrials, but for future humans as well, should it come back to Earth in the distant future. Like Owen said, a message in a bottle, which might be washed up on the same shore from which it was cast.

Daniel’s excitement had grown as he thought about it, until in an uncharacteristic gesture; he seized Owen’s shoulders and planted a kiss in the middle of his forehead. “Owen, you’re a genius!”

“Jeez, man, get off! Don’t be doing stuff like that in public!”

Lifting his eyebrows, Daniel’s arch reply was, “You’d rather we were in private?”

“NO! Get away from me, you pervert!”

Daniel couldn’t help it, he threw back his head and laughed, drawing stares from their fellow diners. “I owe you one, Owen. You’ve given me a brainstorm.”

“Well, you gave me a heart attack. Settle down, before someone comes after
you
from the funny farm. What brainstorm?”

“You know I’ve been working on the Great Pyramid at Giza, trying to figure out a way to write a story about all the things that can’t be true about how it was constructed, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Dr. Zacharias’ lecture got me thinking about it maybe being a message somehow. You just made it clear, that’s what it has to be – nothing else makes sense.”

Now it was Owen’s turn to be a little confused, but he sensed Daniel was on the right track. His agile mind seized on the name Zacharias now, and the biblical name triggered something else he thought might be helpful.

“Have you ever heard of the Bible code, or the Torah code?”

“No, what’s that?”

“People have been playing around with possible codes in the holy books for a long time, and they’ve found some things that could be messages. They even made a movie about it, The Omega Code.”

“Oh, I saw that, now I remember.”

“Yeah, so some scholars have written about it in peer-reviewed journals, and they claim it couldn’t have happened by chance.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than you could ever find even with the help of a super-computer.”

“Oh, man! Not Shakespeare! Twist anything else around, but leave the bard alone, man, that’s sacred ground.”

Daniel just grinned. He had a lot to research this afternoon, so he could tell Sarah during their regular Skype session. What a wonderful invention, Skype. He didn’t miss her as much as he would have if he couldn’t see that sweet face any time he wanted. But before any of that could happen, he needed to finish his article.

“Are you through stuffing your face?” Daniel asked Owen. “I need to get back.”

~~~

Back at the office, Daniel pounded out the remainder of his story about Zacharias. Satisfied that he had turned in an honest day’s work, he Googled ‘bible code’ and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing down every hint he could find about secret messages, whether from reliable sources or the fringe lunatics. He’d sort it out later.

What he learned was fascinating, beginning with the long tradition of seeking coded messages in the Bible, or the Torah. Even Sir Isaac Newton had believed that such a code existed, but in fact, Jewish priests and Bible scholars from the more distant past had a tradition of seeking interpretation of their world in the holy books. There were even a couple of words to describe the results; exegesis and eisegesis, meaning, respectively, insightful and false interpretations. The thought crossed his mind that it might not be possible to determine for sure which was which, except perhaps with hindsight.

Then there were the factual data, for example, that by selecting every fiftieth letter from the Book of Genesis, you could spell the word Torah. What meaning to attach to such a message was open to interpretation, but many people agreed that it could not have happened by chance, especially in view of the fact that the same exercise practiced in the Book of Exodus produces the same result.

Seeking further enlightenment, Daniel read of the history of such studies, culminating in the 1980s, when a mathematician at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem became interested in the discoveries of an Israeli schoolteacher and brought the power of a computer to bear on the subject. After writing a software program for it, the equidistant letter sequence, or ELS, was employed to find many messages. A group of religious scholars including the mathematician later published findings in the scientific journal Statistical Science with an article that gave strong statistical evidence that information about certain rabbis was coded in the Torah years before those rabbis lived.

Some proponents of the discoveries held that it was extremely unlikely such evidence could have happened by chance, like the word Torah appearing in two separate books of the Bible; others said of course it could, and served up example after example of similar sequences from both Hebrew and English texts.

After that, Daniel learned, controversy arose as to the validity of the method when applied to any other text, holy or not, as the Torah was unique in having been given to mankind directly from God and in exact letter-by-letter sequence in the original Hebrew language.

His head spinning, Daniel took a break at mid-afternoon and pondered whether this was useful to his quest or not. Of course, whatever his thoughts, he would run it past Sarah for her opinion, too. They were a team, after all.

As he mulled over the statistical aspect, Daniel thought of the aphorism attributed to Mark Twain. There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. While he didn’t go that far, Daniel knew it was possible to manipulate statistics to mean just about anything. He needed to know more about the computer software and the statistical methods used. After a cup of coffee and a stale donut he found in the break room, Daniel returned to his task with new questions.

What it all had to do with the potential message in the Great Pyramid was another question altogether. Fascinating as the Bible Code information was, Daniel couldn’t relate it to the math in the pyramid, other than as an ancient example of using mathematical code to send a message across the centuries. But, it was compelling enough to make him read the first book in the Bible Code series all through his bachelor dinner and up until the time to call Sarah. As Daniel set up his laptop for the call, facts and speculation spun in his head like a kaleidoscope.

How could he convey all of this to Sarah in a rational way? It seemed fantastic, and he wasn’t convinced. But every time he tried to shake it off as a man with a fertile imagination taking advantage of some wild statistical coincidence, his mind dredged up a fulfilled prophecy. It reminded him that the same things had happened with Edgar Cayce’s prophesies, too, although some of that could be attributed to vagueness. It was enough to make you wonder, and enough to drive you insane, he decided. Maybe Sarah could straighten him out.

~~~

At nine p.m., their agreed-upon call time, Daniel sent Sarah a text. ‘RUR?’

She sent back ‘RUR?’ After a second, he realized she was asking what he meant.

‘RU ready?’

‘RWA’

Did that mean what he thought it did? ‘RWA?’

‘Ready, willing and able ;).’

Daniel’s eyes widened at the innuendo. Then he roared with laughter. Great. She was ready, willing, able, and three hours away. He sent back, ‘What RU wearing?’

Sarah giggled. This was fun. It took her a minute to think of a reply that would have a double meaning. Then she sent, ‘I’m getting ready for bed, wearing something special just for you.’ And scrambled for her room to find that high-necked, long-sleeved flannel nightgown that kept her warm on cold Rhode Island winter nights. ‘Give me 1 min.’

Daniel had heard of sexting, but he thought that was for teenagers. His heart was pounding in anticipation. He gave her exactly the one minute she asked for, then called.

As always, the moment he saw her face, Daniel’s heart skipped a beat. Her smile short-circuited his brain every time, and he stammered as he greeted her.

“Hi, B-b-beautiful.” Then he noticed what she was wearing. The look on his face was priceless, and her musical laugh rang out to see it. A combination of hope, confusion and disappointment washed over it, before he schooled it to a salacious leer.

“Nice! Sexy nightgown.”

“Nice save, you flatterer. What did you think you were going to see?”

“I take the fifth. Amendment, that is. Although if you do that again, it may need to be a fifth of Jack Daniels.”

“Ha, ha, smarty-pants. How was your day?”

“Better, now that we’re talking. How was yours?”

“Hey, one of my students turned in a brilliant essay today. I may have to change research partners,” she teased.

“Don’t even think it! You’ll give me heart failure.”

“I’m kidding, silly. I’m all yours.” Daniel hoped she meant that in the way he took it. Even in the granny nightgown she looked delectable.

“I got some interesting insight today, can I run it past you?”

“Sure!” Serious now, Sarah listened intently and watched his face over the jerky connection as he told her about his discussion with Owen, and his subsequent research. Daniel tried hard not to sound too gullible as he related the Bible code predictions, and must have succeeded, because she responded as if she took it seriously.