The God Machine (27 page)

Basically, he had little to do. He had tried, in the summer of '57, to work with the primary Proprietor, Thomas Penn, and his brother, Richard. But no matter how much he compromised, Franklin simply couldn't accept the Proprietors' demand to be exempt from all taxes. Franklin equated the Assembly in Pennsylvania with Parliament in Great Britain, claiming it had derived identical legislative powers through the royal charter bequeathed to Thomas's father, the great William Penn. The Proprietors, of course, disagreed. But it wasn't until the fall of '58 that they formally replied to his numerous complaints. Snubbing Franklin, they instructed their attorney to write directly to the Pennsylvania Assembly—with a copy to Franklin. They claimed that the instructions to their governors were inviolable, and that the royal charter
“gives power to make laws to the Proprietary.”
In other words, the Assembly had no real authority. Its members could provide
“advice and consent.”
Nothing more.

In protest, writing anonymously in the London
Chronicle—
a standard gambit of Franklin's—he had lambasted the actions of the Penns, calling them contrary to the interests of Britain. But no one had listened.

The truth was, he had failed as a diplomat. He had let his personal animosity toward the Proprietors get in the way of his mission. He had tried, again and again, un successfully, to take Pennsylvania away from the Penns by turning it into a Crown colony, but—in all of its rulings—the Privy Council in London never showed any interest in altering the charter to deprive the Proprietors of their power.

Defiantly, rather than going home, Franklin had begun entertaining the notion of importing his family to England. He embarked on a series of journeys. In America, the French-Indian War was finally coming to an end, with Great Britain and the colonies capturing control of Canada and many of the Caribbean sugar islands belonging to France and to Spain. But in Europe, the Seven Years' War between England and France was still raging. So he had traveled to Scotland instead, where he met and befriended the economist Adam Smith and the philosopher David Hume. Next, he ventured to Holland and Flanders.

In truth, Franklin admitted to himself, he had gone abroad not simply to distract himself from his failures as a diplomat, but because of his faults as a father as well. William, his bastard son, had followed in his father's footsteps by siring an illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin, known as Temple. The boy's mother, like William's own mother, was a woman of the streets. But instead of accepting paternity, as Franklin had done with William, instead of promptly procuring a wife and taking the baby boy home, William had sent the child away to be raised by some surrogate family—in secret. It seemed William had inherited all of Franklin's worst faults, and none of his virtues.

So Franklin had traveled, trying to occupy his mind. And now, returning for the King's coronation, he had been distressed by further bad news. That very morning
a letter had arrived from the Netherlands. His friend Pieter van Musschenbroek, the inventor of the Leyden jar, had died mysteriously during some unnamed experiment. Franklin had recently visited the scientist on the continent—just a few weeks before—and although nearly seventy, van Musschenbroek had seemed perfectly healthy, clearheaded and active. Franklin had sent him a letter about his research on electrical fluids and the Dutch mathematician had responded with remarkable clarity. Musschenbroek's passing was a terrible loss, and quite unexpected.

As he slipped through an alley near Hungerford Lane on his way home to Craven Street, a pair of young ladies approached him. Franklin stepped back, giving them room. One was dressed in a damask court mantua, low-cut and crimson, with an elaborate train. She had round, chestnut brown eyes and a mischievous smile. Franklin bowed as they passed.

“Good evening, ladies,” he said with a grin.

The girl in the red frock let out a small laugh, then he felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

Someone swung him about. He lifted his cane as a figure stepped out of the shadows.

Franklin froze.

That man! With the dark eyes and dark eyebrows. With that wispy black beard, now streaked gray, and long nose. That frock coat. A clergyman's coat.

It had been more than thirty years, but he still looked the same. Franklin lowered his cane. “You?” he said in a whisper, just as the point of a blade nicked his throat.

“W
HAT'S THE MATTER?
W
HAT'S WRONG?”
K
OSTER SAID. HE
spun about, trying to make out some movement in the shadows around him. But the underground temple was empty, preternaturally still.

Sajan took a step closer to him. “I thought I heard something,” she said. “There. You hear that?”

Then Koster heard voices. One was Redding's.

“That's off-limits,” the guard declared. “You can't go down there.”

“Why not?” a man answered. “Other people go down.” He had a slight accent.

“Off-limits,” the guard insisted. A door slammed. Then nothing.

Koster looked over at Sajan. She widened her eyes, staring back at him. They waited a moment longer. Finally, Koster said softly, “Time to go.” She nodded. They started back toward the hole in the wall. Moments later, they had returned to the basement.

It took them about ten minutes to replace the bricks in the wall. Luckily, none had been smashed by the tip
of the pick. By the time they were done, unless someone were actually looking for it, it would be nearly impossible to discern where they'd slipped through the wall.

Koster put the piece of the map they had found, plus the digital camera and the flashlight, back into his shoulder bag. He replaced the tools and they headed upstairs. Redding, the guard from the Carpenters' Company, was standing across the main hall by the concession stand. Sajan thanked him again.

“Anytime, anytime,” he repeated.

Perhaps because they had spent so much time underground, the sun seemed unreasonably bright as they passed through the door, and the sky an almost alien blue. They were about halfway down the front steps of the Hall when Koster spotted a man in the courtyard.

There was something about him, he thought. He looked strangely familiar. And then he remembered. He pulled Sajan to the side.

“Don't look now, but that man, right behind us. Don't turn around!” Koster reached into his bag and removed the digital camera. He snapped a few pictures of the building's façade. “I could swear that I saw him before, in D.C.”

Sajan frowned at him for a moment, confused. Then, in a leisurely fashion, she started to move toward the brick path that led round the Hall. Koster followed. As they walked, he glanced back—for a moment—behind him. The stranger was moving, too. He was coming straight at them. Koster pointed his camera toward the courtyard. The man stopped, turned his head. Deliberately, Koster clicked off a shot, but the man's face was lost in the shadows.

Koster stuffed the camera back in his pocket. He gripped Sajan's hand and led her casually toward the corner of the house. As soon as they were out of sight of the courtyard, Koster quickened his pace. “Come on,” he
urged. They started to run down the narrow brick path. When they came to the rear of the building, another man stepped out of an arbor a few yards away. He was dressed in the same navy windbreaker and impeccable chinos as the guy they had seen at the front. Even his military buzz cut was identical. Koster glanced over his shoulder. The first man had rounded the corner behind them.

Koster squeezed Sajan's hand. Then they veered abruptly right, paralleling the Hall, toward an opening in the fence at the rear of the building. The man from the arbor dashed after them. Koster picked up the pace. They were sprinting as they reached the fence. Sajan squeezed easily through the opening. Koster looked back. The two men had converged, one on either side of the fence. They were only a few yards away now.

Koster charged after Sajan. The path led across a great lawn toward some gardens and a line of brick houses at the end of the block. “The gardens,” Sajan said, glancing over her shoulder. The men were crossing the common. They would soon be upon them.

Koster was panting by the time they reached the old cobbled road that bisected the common. For a moment he considered taking the road, but he knew instinctively that if he and Sajan tried to veer off in either direction, one of their pursuers would surely vector off and thwart their escape. So they continued due south, running along the walkway that led to the gardens off Walnut Street, fenced off by a low-slung brick wall.

Moments later, they slipped through a gate in the wall. There was a great hedge of holly, at least ten feet high, to their right, and a half-hidden gazebo. Beyond that, Koster spotted a colonial garden, made up of four formal quadrants, each anchored by trees. And past that, the street. Koster could see it ahead, just beyond that brick wall. Cars whipped by on Chestnut. They were
almost there! They tore up the pathway, when Sajan inexplicably stopped.

“What is it?” he asked her. Then he, too, noticed a figure standing off to the side. Right there, in the shade of a tree. Koster had to look twice to be sure he was seeing correctly. A nun. A young nun in a long navy blue habit, grey tunic and veil. He tugged Sajan's hand but she seemed anchored in place.

“Come on,” he insisted, trying to lead her away. The gate to the street yawned before them. And she was only a nun, after all. “Come on,” he repeated.

Koster started to move toward the street, hoping Sajan would soon follow, when he looked up and saw the nun's face. She was smiling at him. She shifted into the light and he could finally make out her features. Brown-eyed and brown-skinned, her face was disturbingly beautiful. No, not just beautiful. Somehow erotic and sensual… and predatory. It was then he remembered what Sajan's driver had said after the accident on the way to the airport.
“You'll probably think that I'm crazy. But the driver looked like a nun.”

An unreasonable panic swept through him like a cold blast of air. The nun started toward him. He could not take his eyes off of her. He felt like a rat mesmerized by the dance of a cobra. She started to trot down the path and yet he still couldn't move. She started to run, and the sight of her tearing along seemed so oddly incongruous, so unreal, that she was practically upon him before he woke from his reverie.

The nun lunged through the air, catching him full on the chest with her feet. Koster felt himself spin to the ground. His computer bag slipped from his shoulder, scuttling away like a crab. He rolled and turned over. He leapt to his feet, wheezing. The air had been knocked from his chest. The nun; she was nowhere in sight. Then that sound, like the rush of an insect.

Something flashed by his face. Something curled round his neck.

He reached up to pull it away when he felt the full weight of the nun on his back. Koster stumbled and fell to his knees. He couldn't breathe. Try as he might, though his fingers clawed at the cord round his neck, he simply couldn't dislodge it.

T
HE
K
NIGHT GRIPPED
F
RANKLIN, THE KNIFE AT HIS THROAT
. Franklin, though larger, was powerless in the dark man's embrace. His cane slipped from his grasp.

“The Gospel of Judas?” the Knight said. “Where is it?”

For a moment they struggled. Franklin tried to twist himself free, but each time he moved, the Knight pushed the blade further, deeper into his skin. His neck started to bleed.

“In a safe place,” Franklin said. Then, he laughed. “I fail to see the humor of your predicament,” said the Knight.

“Of course you do,” agreed Franklin. “The problem with relying on the physical realm is that it has such limited boundaries. Muscles fail. Tendons tighten. Bones grow brittle with age. But the mind…” He drifted off. “The mind's limitless.”