The God Machine (36 page)

“T
HE BIDDING WILL START AT TEN MILLION DOLLARS,” SAID
the cadaverous auctioneer with the beady gray eyes. Jack Baker stood at a podium at the head of the hall. They were getting off to a late start, he thought bleakly, as he fussed with his pin mike. While they had expected a full house for this lot, the turnout was nothing less than spectacular. It wasn't every day that a da Vinci came on the market, even if it wasn't a masterpiece.

The first row of the audience was reserved for the press. The majority of the larger media organizations had each sent someone to cover the auction. Behind them, Baker noticed the usual collection of buyers. Some, like Mrs. Spencer of Palm Beach and New York, actually enjoyed these formal proceedings. But she was a vanishing breed. Most of the buyers were just representatives of other collectors. Wealthy art patrons generally preferred to keep their portfolios secret for a variety of reasons, from a desire for privacy to concerns about theft. Three representatives stood off to the side of the room,
their ears glued to telephones. Only they knew the names of their anonymous masters.

“We conclude today,” Baker said, “with lot number one hundred and two. It's listed on page four of your program guide. Offered by the Edison estate, this exquisite study by Leonardo da Vinci was painted on canvas sometime around 1492 in Milan. A precursor of what is sometimes called ‘La Belle Ferronière,’ this remarkable painting is reputedly a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, da Vinci's patron at the time. ‘La Belle Ferronière’ is actually the name used for
two
Renaissance portrait paintings. The first, thought to be of Lucrezia Crivelli, another of the duke's mistresses, is currently in the Louvre. It is sometimes known as ‘Portrait of an Unknown Woman.’ The second, thought to be of Cecilia Gallerani, is more often called ‘Lady with an Ermine.’ Interestingly, while some speculate the ‘Portrait of an Unknown Woman’ in Paris—painted on wood—may not be a da Vinci, there is no doubt that this earlier study on canvas is genuine. And, perhaps even more curious still, the subject of the painting appears to be Cecilia Gallerani, as seen in the ‘Lady with an Ermine.’ Note the door in the background behind her. This was painted over in the final portrait on wood.”

Jack Baker gave a little wave of the hand and the curtains behind him swept open. A portrait appeared on the wall, illuminated by spotlights. A hush fell over the room.

It was fortunate, Baker decided, that each of those bidding today had already studied the canvas at length during an earlier viewing, for the lighting was ghastly and the showroom was packed. There must have been at least two hundred people in attendance. And each had been vetted to make sure they could pay whatever they offered. Sometimes, in the heat of an auction, the
brightest minds seemed to forget themselves. Baker repressed a smile. The last time he had presided over an auction of a da Vinci, Bill Gates had paid more than $30 million for a notebook of sketches. He couldn't wait to begin.

The auction kicked off and the usual low bidders began building the base. These were the kind of people who had no real intention of owning the painting but who wanted the crowing rights of having once bid on a Leonardo da Vinci. Some fund managers. A few Upper East Side dowagers. A sheikh from Kuwait. Within minutes the bid had climbed to more than fourteen million. Then he began to flush out the authentic contenders.

There were three of them. Mr. Chin—who always sat in the rear, just a few feet from the exit—represented a Hong Kong collector, reputed to be a real estate developer but in reality a government official from the mainland with a penchant for boys.

The second, who sat to the right near the front, represented an Austrian bank. Her name was B. Muller. Nobody knew what the
B
stood for. Indeed, no one had ever dared ask her. Ms. Muller had the bearing and build of a pole-vaulter, with one slightly wandering blue eye. She wore a double-breasted charcoal striped suit with what looked like padded shoulders, except that they weren't. Baker had checked. And she always sported a hat, this time with the plume of a woodcock.

And the third bidder, well… He or she was anonymous, nothing but a voice on a telephone. His agent was a cool young professional named Timothy Yeats, who had trained for several years at Christie's in London. It was rumored Yeats boxed on the weekends. He certainly had the build for it. He was supple and lean, and raised his paddle like a championship Ping-Pong player.

A purse of the lips. A pull on the earlobe. A flash of the paddle. People signaled in all kinds of ways. But
in the end, Baker thought, they all had two things in common. They were all acquisitive. No one came here to sit on the sidelines. They all wanted to buy something, to make it their own. And they all had money to burn.

Fifteen. Fifteen-two. Fifteen-two, five. The flotsam and jetsam gave way. Chin took it to $16 million and there was a long, pregnant pause. People started to glance around the room, trying to glimpse another flash of the paddle. Sixteen-five to B. Muller, with a tip of the hat. Sixteen-six to the man on the phone. Sixteen-six, five, Mr. Chin said. Sixteen-six, seven fifty. And so it continued, the curve slowly flattening. The symphony ebbed into chamber music. Then, to a duet. Mr. Chin had reached his plateau, that strange often mercurial line that marked the lip of his avarice. Baker likened it to the distance a predator will run to pull down an antelope. At some point, the expenditure in calories became just too expensive. They quit running. Chin had come to a stop.

Moments later, Baker knew it was over. For the first time in over a year, he saw the telltale signs of B. Muller's decline. First, she leaned back in her chair; generally, she sat straight as a pikestaff. Then, she started to fan herself with her program guide. And finally, with a flourish, she took off her hat. It was like a small flag of truce. She waved it for a second and stared, glassy-eyed, at the portrait.

“Sold to the anonymous bidder on phone number three, for eighteen point two million,” Baker said. He felt flushed and elated. Eighteen million two hundred thousand dollars. This was his personal best on a portrait. Baker turned and looked at the canvas, at the way Cecilia Gallerani looked off to the side. He could have sworn she gave him a wink.

T
HE SUBWAY RIDE BACK TO THE
Î
LE
S
AINT
-L
OUIS SEEMED INTERMINABLE
. Koster and Sajan barely spoke. With the three pieces of the map in their possession, both of them sensed they were nearing the end of their quest.

As soon as they reached the apartment, Koster took out the vellum and laid it out on Emily's scanner. It took him several minutes to make a good digital copy. When he was satisfied, he imported the other two pieces from his camera. Luckily, Emily had PhotoShop. Koster created three layers. He laid them on top of each other. Sajan stood behind him as he worked, watching over his shoulder.

As soon as the images came together, she let out a gasp. Koster knew why. A set of fine lines, which had hitherto seemed independent, now blended with perfect precision—a circle, with a vertical line running through it. “The
phi,”
Koster said. He followed the outline with the tip of his finger:
f
. And the rest of the elements—the circles and rectangles, the squares and that
cobweb of lines—though disparate, had suddenly converged. They were all part of one super-schematic. But try as he might, Koster still couldn't interpret it. He stared at the image. He concentrated. Then he let himself go, trying to pick up the frequency. Nothing.

At first, Koster had hoped the map would truly be that—a map, displaying an actual geographical location. Then, after they had found the first two pieces in Philadelphia and West Wycombe, he had hoped the diagram might be some sort of mathematical puzzle, perhaps revealing geographical coordinates, but it didn't. At least, if it did, he couldn't interpret it. It looked like a maze, and he was trapped in its boundaries.

Koster got up from the desk. He turned on his heels, walked away.

“Where are you going?” Sajan said. “What's the matter?”

“I'm getting the journal. We're going back to square one.” He hooked his thumb at the monitor. “I don't know what that thing means. If it's a map, I don't know how to read it. It doesn't even look like a map. It looks more like some sort of electrical diagram, like the design for some kind of machine.” He vanished into his bedroom, then returned with the journal.

“A machine to do what?” Sajan asked him.

“I don't know. You're the electrical engineer. I was hoping you'd know.”

Sajan started to say something. Then she stopped, bit her lip. She shrugged and looked back at the screen.

“What if we're getting this whole thing wrong?” Koster said, sitting down at the desk. “What if it isn't a map, at least not a traditional one?” He flipped open the journal. “Here,” he said, pointing.
“‘At the soul of the God machine is the gospel. One in three.’
Those are the exact words Franklin uses. I had read them as being symbolic—that the Gospel of Judas serves as a kind of gateway to
God, and the Trinity. But what if it isn't? What if this is some sort of blueprint for an
actual
machine, an electrical one? And here,” he flipped to another section of the journal, “when he conducts his famous kite-flying experiment, he mentions it again:
‘Now, at long last, I am one step closer to the God machine.’
I thought he was just playing Prometheus. Franklin got a lot of heat from the Church after inventing the lightning rod. They accused him of meddling in what they considered to be acts of cosmic divinity.”

“And the
phi?”
Sajan peered at the monitor. “How does that fit?”

Koster shook his head. “I don't know. Franklin only mentions
phi
once, and it's rather obscure. He says the Comte de Saint-Germain claimed he knew the secret to the
‘phi harmonic.’
Whatever that means. But we've seen
phi
all over the place. Freemasons considered it a reflection of the Divine Architect. That's why it was used so extensively in the construction of the Notre Dame cathedrals. And before that in the pyramid at Giza, the Temple of Solomon and the Parthenon, too. It was in the Triple Tau. I used it to decode the coordinates of the temple at Carpenters' Hall. But
phi
is not just in man-made objects. It's also everywhere in nature—in the curve of seashells, the shape of human DNA, the spiral of our galaxy, even.”

“And,” said Sajan, “it's what George Boole was studying when he had his epiphany—that lightbulb going off in his head—that led to his Boolean logic.” She hesitated. “Wait a minute,” she said suddenly. “That light-bulb!” She swept around the desk. She turned on him, laughing, and said, “Now I remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Remember I told you how something was nagging at me? How this thing looked familiar somehow?”

“What about it?”

“I've heard about the
phi
harmonic before. Except that it was called the
phi
frequency.”

“Where?”

“In one of Edison's notebooks.”

“Thomas Edison? The inventor? What did he have to say about it?”

“I don't really remember. It was a long time ago, when I was doing a paper at Princeton. And Edison, in case you didn't know, was a Freemason. He used to live in New Jersey. Menlo Park. And then in West Orange. Not far from where my parents lived when we moved to the States. I went to Edison High School nearby.”

“But what would Edison…” He couldn't finish. “I thought this was a map to the Gospel of Judas. Now, I'm not even sure what we're looking for—some kind of machine, an electrical device.” Koster pointed down at the PC screen. “First, Abraham of El Minya. Then Leonardo da Vinci. Then Ben Franklin. And now Thomas Edison.”

“And Turing and Boole.”

“But what do they all have in common? None of this makes any sense. They all lived hundreds of years apart, in different parts of the world.”

Sajan took a step back from the desk. “I'm going back to the States,” she announced. “There's no point staying here. And I think you should give me the last piece of the map. You've already done quite enough, haven't you? Why risk yourself further?”

“Are you crazy?” Koster folded the vellum and slipped it back in his jacket. “I told you before. I'm the one carrying the map. Why should you be the target?”

“I'm capable of defending myself, probably better than—”

“Don't say it.”

“You know it's true, Joseph. You're just being sexist.”

“I don't care. The map stays with me.” He saved the conjoined schematic back to his camera, then deleted
the file on Emily's PC. “Where are you going?” he asked her. “Back home to the Coast?”

“To West Orange,” she said. “Where Edison lived.”

“What about Homeland Security?”