13th Apostle (4 page)

Day Two, late evening
Regent's Park Tube Station
Camden Town, London

Professor Arnold Ludlow struggled up the steps, two heavy suitcases in tow. Sweat from the strain dripped into his eyes, and his back hurt like the dickens. A welcome bit of cool air wafted from the street above. He breathed it in, then with a sigh, renewed his climb.

Sarah would be furious. She had begged him to arrange for a private car from the airport but he had refused. They had not put away enough money in the safe yet, he had protested. If Sabbie should need it…Neither Ludlow nor his wife had allowed themselves to linger on the thought.

“Until there is a comfortable cushion of funds, the tube will suit me fine,” he had concluded. “Besides, the exercise will do me good.”

Sarah had kissed him on the bald spot on his head and had given his shoulders a squeeze. Now, she'd be rubbing his back with her infamous Chapman's Liniment for a week.

“Bloody stuff is made for horses,” he would protest.

“That's what you get for acting like an ass,” she'd be certain to counter.

Ludlow smiled.

He had reached the street and, revived by the cool air, he headed toward Upper Harley Street and the pleasures of home.

The walk was surprisingly invigorating and his apartment house greeted him like an old friend. Perhaps if his back hadn't been hurting him so badly, he might have realized something was wrong. Perhaps he might have become alarmed at seeing the apartment windows dark when he knew Sarah would be wide awake and anxious to hear the details of his trip. In any case, he still would have walked unknowingly into their apartment and into the stark terror that awaited him.

Two strong arms seized his and pulled him into the room, even as he struggled to free the key from the lock. They encircled him, and with one great wrench against his chest, left him breathless and in agony from ribs that splintered and gave way. Ludlow slumped to the floor. The room, suddenly flooded with light, seemed oddly filled with white. Two huge figures towered above him, each in clothes devoid of color and faces devoid of expression.

Only Sarah brought color to the moment, her face, hands, legs, and nightgown, all covered with the sickening brown-red of blood. One eye was swollen shut, and a red trickle ran from her ear, but she was alive.

“Please, take what you want. Take it all,” Ludlow pleaded. “Just leave us alone. We're old. Take whatever you want and go.”

“You know what we want,” the first intruder said softly.

Sarah's sob broke the silence that followed.

While one tormentor held Ludlow's head in place so that he would bear witness to the scene that was to follow, the other walked toward his beloved Sarah. The intruder hesitated for a moment, smiled at Ludlow, then kicked the prone woman full force in the side of the head.

Ludlow heard the crack of her neck as it snapped the life out of her. For a moment, the room was silent, save for a tiny exhale of her last breath.

“No!” Ludlow shrieked. He was on his feet, and his hands found the face of the executioner. Ludlow held him by his hair as one eye yielded its soft viscosity to his death grip. Ludlow's screams of rage drowned out his victim's cries of pain.

The old man heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing. His body did what it had to do and continued grasping and flailing, even as the second intruder pulled him from the first and beat and kicked him until his body could no longer bring muscle and nerve together to move.

“Now give it to us,” the murderer demanded.

“I don't know what you want,” Ludlow mouthed. His chest spasmed with unreleased sobs. “I don't know what you want,” he whispered again.

“The diary, you old piece of shit! Just give us the diary and we'll let you die in peace.”

“The diary?” Ludlow whispered, confused.

Another kick to his back. “Like you didn't know,” his torturer snickered.

Ludlow struggled to clear his thoughts.

That's what this was all about? The diary! No, it couldn't be. It was all too fantastic to imagine.

He had warned DeVris that powerful people had powerful reasons to get control of the diary. DeVris had laughed at him. Sabbie had indulged him his secrecy and had gone along with his emergency preparations, though she had thought him a bit over the top about it. Sarah, too. But none of them had ever considered him anything but paranoid about the whole matter. Even he doubted his own concerns. And, now, son of a bloody bitch, he had been right all along.

Ludlow smiled; a tiny raising of the corners of his mouth, an insignificant movement that echoed a greater victory than any round of cannon fire.

He had what these murderers so desperately wanted, but they had left him with no reason to give it to them. They had taken everything; his Sarah, his desire to live, and his body's ability to continue to endure their abuse. He was dying and he knew it. Yet this, the only thing they really wanted, they would not get.

Day Four, early morning
CyberNet Forensics, Inc., New York City

CyberNet Forensics was one of the top-rated, though not one of the highest-grossing, Internet Investigative Services in the country. While the identities of clients were usually kept pretty hush-hush, all of the company's top cybersleuths, including Gil, knew that their clients were some of the most powerful individuals and agencies in the world.

CyberNet's website claimed their computer programs had helped spot, prosecute, and put an end to more identity theft, online child pornography, money laundering, fraud, and potential terrorist schemes than all the other Internet forensics companies combined. Oddly, though, according to the company's annual financial reports, CyberNet continued to remain in the red.

At least once a month, George, as division supervisor, addressed the company's team of cybersleuths or, as he preferred to call them, his Internet Forensic Specialists. It was always the same old pep talk about how their programs were helping to keep cyberspace safe for the innocent. Most of them no longer listened to the plethora of words and lack of action. George could never explain why, as the accounts grew, budgets shrank. Morale dropped accordingly.

When Gil first came to the company, fresh out of graduate school, it had been a different place entirely; full of excitement and hope. These were the crème de la crème; young men and women, not necessarily tops in their classes but independent in their thinking and dogged in their persistence.

Every one of them was a loner, content to work in some tiny windowless office for days on end, hacking into “unbreakable” data bases and Internet sites, in order to track down a target, find proof of the cyber crime, and present enough solid evidence to back up an arrest and conviction.

“You get paid to break into top secret files?” Lucy asked incredulously on their first date. “Can't you be arrested or something?”

No, he couldn't be arrested. He was registered with the National Securities Administration, the only organization that hired more forensic investigators than CyberNet. And, no, he wasn't being paid the big bucks, such as they were, to break into systems; he was paid to figure out how identity thieves had made their way into the systems and to make sure that no one else could ever do the same.

The truth, however, was that like every other cybersleuth, it was “nailing the target” that Gil loved. Once he had proof positive of a crime and the identity of the perpetrator, the task of making the system secure for the future didn't run anywhere near a close second. It was the very love of the hunt and his dislike for the cleanup that ended up being Gil's salvation.

While looking for a shortcut in order to patch up the FBI's payroll system, he'd written a set of computer instructions designed to sniff out the gaps in the original program. He called his subprograms Dobermans because, once set in motion, they hunted down their prey and pounced on it, holding it at bay until he gave them the okay to obliterate it. A single tap on the return key and the security breach in the system was literally gobbled up.

At the time, George had been beside himself with joy. He predicted that, with Gil's Dobermans in action, the world would be beating a path to CyberNet's door. Which it had, though the money never seemed to find its way beyond George's office on the top floor. Gil looked around at his own small, windowless office.

Well, so much for the Trickle-Down Theory of Economics
.

Gil swiveled to face the largest of his three computer screens and settled back to savor his morning bagel and cream cheese as he perused his e-mail. It was early, George wouldn't be in for a couple of hours, and Gil would have plenty of time to figure out how he was going to play down last Friday's dinner fiasco with Ludlow.

The familiar “You've Got Mail” alert interrupted Gil's final sip of coffee.

Jesus! What's he doing in this early?

Obviously, someone had already informed George of the problem. Nothing but a potentially lost source of income would get the big guy in at this hour.

A piercing alarm proclaimed that Gil's main computer had gone down and the rest were about to follow. He rushed to delete George's message. He was too late. The screens on his two alternate computers and the lights on his Internet server went dark. Gil held his breath as he waited for the whirr that would confirm that the backup system had kicked in. He sighed with relief. The backup system's welcome drone promised that, within a few minutes, everything would be up and running and more than seven terabytes of information would have been saved from oblivion.

Until recently, George's e-mail would have simply meant yet another pain-in-the-ass communication that required Gil's attention. For the past two weeks, however, any incoming e-mail bearing George's screen name sent Gil's computer network crashing.

Gil had warned George that if he continued to refuse to incorporate RSA security codes, they were inviting a major hacking catastrophe. George refused to discuss the matter. Gil offered to brave George's maze of computers to try and tease out the problem. George refused. Finally, they came to a truce. Gil agreed to drop the whole thing with the promise that George would phone, rather than send any e-mail until Gil figured out a workaround. The cease-fire lasted two days. By the third day, the big guy was sending e-mail messages as if there had never been a problem.

Each time an incoming e-mail shut Gil down, George would claim, as if for the first time, that he was doing his best to remember. “After all,” he would add with a shrug and an innocent smile, “I guess I'm just a creature of habit.”

Gil pulled his chair in close to the largest of the monitors and rapidly typed in a series of commands. Line by line, he examined the high-end security program he had designed for himself only days before the trouble had first begun.

What was triggering the goddamn thing to crash? And why, only with George's e-mail?

Even his Dobermans couldn't find the source of the problem. Gil grabbed the phone and dialed George's extension.

“I'm coming. I'm coming,” Gil said as he continued to type. “And for Christ's sake, don't send any more e-mails.”

Gil shook his head. What a waste. A brilliant mind like George's imprisoned in a four-hundred-pound body. With the maturity of a preadolescent, to boot. Nobody at work had ever seen the mountain of a man with a friend or had ever known him to go out socially. George simply shuffled from home to the offices, eating and sitting in front of one computer or another or playing with his latest tech toy. Though George had no one to blame but himself, still, it was a pathetic waste of a life.

Given that he was probably terribly lonely, or maybe because of it, George wasn't half bad to work for. Though he was smart as hell, he wasn't competitive. He spoke his mind when he didn't like the way something was going but, in general, he appreciated Gil's work and told him so quite often. George was okay and just self-conscious enough about his appearance to make him easy to get along with. All you had to do was tell George there had been a noticeable decrease in his ample middle, and he'd beam at you like a happy five year old. Just a big old puppy dog—a greedy but lovable big old puppy dog.

The last computer kicked in and, before George could send yet another e-mail, Gil headed for what could be loosely referred to as George's office.

A few minutes later

The top floor of CyberNet Forensics shuddered with the combined boom of two televisions and a radio. On-screen reporters offered details on the latest disasters against a background of country music.

Since George had come on board, two finance people who had been working in rooms adjacent to his office had been moved to other locations. Another had taken a leave without pay until the company could relocate him to a lower floor, and one of the bookkeepers had just up and quit.

Management had changed the location of George's office twice before exiling him to the far end of the longest hall in the building. George couldn't have been happier. The huge man simply could not bear to work in silence. Even normal levels of noise were not enough. Surrounding himself in the clamor was not a mere idiosyncrasy, it was a necessity. And one that afforded him some extra perks.

“What can I say?” admitted George with a devilish grin, when the last person on the floor finally fled. “It leaves all that extra space just for me.”

Gil approached the office and steeled himself for an even greater rush of sensory overload; a few minutes of audio abuse was all he could endure. He had given up on asking George to turn down the volume. His request always met with George's self-analysis: “News, computers, and country music. Them's all I know, them's all I love.”

Gil knocked and, without waiting, walked in on the all-too-familiar scene of George stuffing his face with food.

This morning, the big guy was polishing off the last of his high-fiber breakfast cereal. It was a daily ritual that never seemed to make any difference in his health, weight, or, as George so often explained in far too much detail, his regularity.

Gil entered. George did his best to rise to his feet. He looked as if he had been caught doing something quite obscene. In the ensuing confusion of dislodging his bulk from his rolling chair, George overturned his plastic bowl and spoon. The remainder of the soggy cereal and a half-opened container of low-fat milk flowed over the jumbled spread of computer printouts that were strewn across his desk amid research reports, memos, graphs, and journals that lay one on top of the other. All became potential blotters for the fast-spreading white liquid. In a half-hearted attempt to contain George's most recent food-spill disaster, Gil reached below the soggiest section of paper and lifting it, turned toward the trashcan. George tripped over himself in an attempt to stop him.

Gil shook his head. “Why do you
do
this?”

“Do what, eat cereal?” George asked. He flashed Gil what was supposed to pass for an endearing smile and attempted to sop up the milk with a single paper napkin.

“I'm serious. This is nuts. You probably have two weeks' worth of downloads here from every crackpot website in the world.”

“I know, but I haven't had time to go over them yet. I spend a lot of time researching this stuff, you know, and some of it could be really important.”

Gil shook his head.

“You might be interested to know I've been saving one of these downloads for you!” George added.

Foraging through the pile, George carefully extracted one set of papers that had not escaped the sludge of cereal and milk.

“It's about your Ludlow job…” George began.

“Look, about Ludlow. I think we ought to…”

George pulled one of the pages free. “Hold on. Where did I see it? Oh, yeah, here it is. Look at this. It's a reprint of a Reuter's news release from a while ago. It says that Ludlow, well, not Ludlow himself, but DeVris, the guy he works with in Israel, has one already.”

“One what?”

“One copper scroll, you putz. It says that they already have a copper scroll. So Ludlow, acting all academic and everything, isn't just looking for this diary to lead him to any old scroll, he's looking for the mate to one that the Museum already has,” George concluded. He rubbed his thumb and index finger together. “And, from what the article says, I would imagine the complete set could turn them a very nice profit.”

Gil shrugged noncommittedly. He had no clue as to what George was talking about. Gingerly, he took the soggy article by its corner and held it high. “Does this mean you'll be raising Ludlow's fee?”

George responded with unusual seriousness. “Maybe, but that's not what I'm saying. There could be a lot at stake here, and you're going to have to act like a professional for once in your life.”

Obviously, Ludlow had been in touch. Better to get it out in the open then. Gil summed up the low points of Friday night's dinner meeting, stumbled over an apology, and explained that he had no problem with another consultant being assigned to the job.

“No such luck, goombah. Got an e-mail from Ludlow just a few minutes ago. He and the translator, what's her name…”

“Sabbie,” Gil said glumly.

“Yeah, Sabbie. Seems like they still want you, though I can't imagine why. Good thing you get by on your wits and good looks and not on your personality. You're the only one for the job, they say.”

“For Christ's sake, George! That makes no sense at all. Sabbie walked out on me and took Ludlow with her.”

George stared blankly.

Hadn't Ludlow told George what happened? Now, that was odd.

“Look, George, just let me wrap up the project I'm working on. It won't take more than a couple of days. That can't make that big of a diff—”

“This afternoon,” George interrupted. “Got you booked on a red eye that'll get you into Tel Aviv mid afternoon. You can head for Jerusalem and the Museum straight from the airport.”

Gil looked to see if the big guy was smiling. He wasn't.

“You gotta be kidding! Pulling me off the project for who knows how long it will take, will send me back to square one. Five months' work shot to hell.”

“Oh, give it up. It'll do you good to not know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. Consider it an adventure.”

George picked up the Reuter's release Gil had laid aside and thrust it back into his face. “This ought to change your mind. Read it.”

“Look, there's no way…” Gil began.

“Read it,” George insisted. “Then tell me what you think.”

BURIED TREASURE:
FOUND AND LOST

Arnold Narin, AP, Jerusalem

Gil finished reading. “Yeah, so?”

“I can't believe you don't get it! Look, right now the Museum has the first scroll in their hands, and Ludlow has the diary that may show them where the second scroll is hidden. If they can get their hands on both of the scrolls at the same time, they should be able to figure out where the treasure is hidden. The problem is, that within a couple of months, the Museum's got to return the first scroll. If you don't help them find the second scroll before they have to return the first, they can pretty much kiss the treasure good-bye.”

George smiled with satisfaction and continued. “They're caught between a rock and a hard place with all their contributors watching. If you can find some hidden message in the diary that leads them to a second scroll, you can just about write your own ticket.”

CyberNet's ticket, you mean.
Still, Gil had to admit it didn't sound half bad.

“You said this Reuters' article is how old?”

“Six months, more or less.”

“Which is it? More or less?” Gil asked.

“Ahah! Got your interest didn't it? Knew it would. Actually, the article's about eight months old. From what I can see, it was written before Ludlow and DeVris got their hands on the diary. Now, with the possibility that the diary might connect The Cave 3 Scroll with a yet-to-be-uncovered second scroll, they must be desperate. I'm telling you, we could get a bundle for this one.”

Shaking his head, Gil smiled at the big lovable manipulator he called boss. He was hooked and George knew it.

“Here are your plane tickets. You've got a red-eye that leaves out of JFK at eleven tonight. Ludlow's still on his way back to London, but I'll nail down the contract by fax within a couple of hours, that is, unless you still want me to pass this whole thing on to one of the other guys, in which case…”

“Shut up and give me something to write on,” Gil muttered, reaching for a pad.

Gil caught George's fleeting look of supreme satisfaction.

Think you know me so well, don't you?

In his eagerness to sell Gil on the idea, George had left out one vital detail. The news article carried none of the banners or pop-up ads that brought those websites revenue. Clearly, George had cooked up the article to sell Gil on the deal.

Gil shook his head. He had no idea why George was trying so hard to pull this one off, but whatever the reason, he was game for it.