The Khufu Equation (13 page)

"Thank you for the honor of that recognition," said the pilgrim Sohn. "It's a shame that now the devil enters our souls."

Father Sohn tenderly examined the blade and book. Pressing them to his breast, he pronounced:

"I'll solve this business. You can be sure of that.

"Thank you so much. Now, please make yourself at home. Anything you want is yours."

That night, the pilgrim's conscience, being so frightened and worried, led his body to awaken. Without leaving his bed, he stretched out his hand and turned on the lamp. The professor was there, standing beside the bed. An ominous sign could be seen in his eyes, which were like emeralds of fire. The thing of blue steel, which he held in his hands, made the pilgrim shrivel, and a moment later, having produced the cross and book from under the pillow, he rolled over.

Blood streamed down his cheek, and Father Sohn understood that he had been wounded by the blade. Shock blocked the pain, but the fear intensified.

"You shouldn't have come here, pilgrim," whispered the professor as he walked round the bed.

Krepfol shivered all over. "Truly," he thought, "the beast has taken possession of the professor's body." Earlier, though, his hand had hidden the scabbard of the cross.

The pilgrim could see the Beast in the body of the professor, who had stopped just two steps from him and, with a wave of his hand, opened a deep chasm. The whirling air stream sucked up the pillow and linens in an instant. The lurching lamp reflected the Beast's shadow but then stood still.

"I'll spare you, priest. But only you, of all those who have ever stood in my way." The demonic creature hissed. "I'll leave you alive. Throw the cross and the book into this chasm!"

"Go away, you devil!" shouted the pilgrim, holding forth the blade. The chasm receded into the emptiness, and a shockwave of energy passed over the room. The Beast was now at the window, and Krepfol raised the blade.

"Strike at the heart of evil," his conscious said. "Go straight into the heart of it." But there was a moment of hesitation, too. "If I kill the Beast, I'll kill my friend."

His body was faster than his thoughts. He rushed forward, splitting the air with the blade.

The demonic creature jumped onto the window sill and, carrying away the fireworks of the broken window, vanished into the night. Its threatening snarl went deeper and deeper into the garden with every second. But the pilgrim managed to hear the last words.

"I'll be waiting for you in Hell! Without fail!"

Krepfol touched his blood-stained cheek. Having felt the pain, he realized that he was alive. It was not a dream. He went out to the corridor and entered the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and saw a wound from his right ear to his chin.

Krepfol turned on the water and drew aside the curtain. On the floor of the bath, he saw a mummy, waterless and bloodless, dressed in a housemaid's uniform. Later following the steps of the Beast, he understood that the demonic creature had changed bodies in order to cover its tracks.

Krepfol returned to the room and sat on the bed. He wanted to fall asleep and forget about everything. A certain guilt tore at his heart, and it was clear that, for the first time in his life, he had overestimated his strength. There were so many questions, but he didn't know the answers to them. Suddenly, a sense of helplessness--or perhaps apathy--made him take the blade.

"Tear everything apart and send it to Hell . . . that eternal struggle between good and evil. The ash of life. Shrug off the mortal coil. Even the fever. Now it's all the same. What can I do in this world by myself, when nothing changes?"

He then noticed that something had awakened within himself. In an instant, his body was filled with a flood of energy and an unusual feeling of absolute peace and freedom. The pain, which had moments earlier tormented his flesh, was released, and the wounded skin on his cheek had miraculously regenerated. The pilgrim touched it. The wound had healed over. However, a wide scar could be felt from the ear to the chin. It was a true sign of his meeting with the Beast.

Sohn left the house that night. He knew that the Beast--eternally planting the seeds of hatred and fear in people's lives--had fed on crops and become stronger.

Father Sohn had been tracking the Beast for two days, and now the pilgrim's conscience was filled with visions. He had wandered through Paris, listening to its inner world, until he came across Hank Dickens, who had contacts within the police department. Dickens earned his living through the collection and sale of information, and Father Sohn had opened his soul to the man. To Sohn's great surprise, Hank informed him that half an hour earlier someone had called him from the Seychelles and said that a mummy without any documents had been found on Mae Island. The body wore a shirt embroidered with the name "Michel Arno."

An hour later, the pilgrim was on a plane. He watched the clouds as they passed beneath, and thought about the fact that the Beast had in his hands both Jesus' heart and Mohammad's heart. Still, he was missing the last one.

It meant the Beast was changing its appearance. It meant the Beast was nearing the finish line and the Gates of Sethu beyond. All this indicated that it was high time to gather stones.

Phnom Penh Airport, 3:30 p.m.

Pictures of a man with a white beard were laid out on the grass a hundred meters from the takeoff strip. The air was so wet as to be drinkable, and the conversation of two Khmer nearby was muffled by the roar of engines. One was about twenty-five, and he listened attentively to the aged interlocutor who spoke earnestly about the approaching heat. A wooden prosthetic limb was an arm's distance from the older Khmer.

"We have great problems, Sonny," said Ven Jun, scratching the inflamed stump of leg "All we have for these years may crash down in an instant." He poked a finger at the pictures. "These are from a surveillance camera. Look at them, and remember this man."

"Dad, what are you talking about?" said Chen, licking a blade of grass. "We're wealthy, you are a war veteran with a high post here at the airport. You have good acquaintances throughout the southeast. So, who is this person and what can he do to us?"

"Chen, you don't know all there is to know about your father. In my past, there are things for which I may be imprisoned and no connection would be of help. Even if many red Khmer were rehabilitated after war, I would hardly be on the list."

"What? You killed innocents!?"

"Don't interrupt your father, but listen very carefully. It's a photo of my friend from Russia. Everything began in 1979, when the State finally overthrew Pol Pot and gained independence. The modern Cambodia had not yet emerged, and what was then . . . only devastation and hunger. No family was free of suffering from the red Khmer. I didn't kill anybody, but I was indirectly related to it."

Chen spat out the blade of grass and took up another one. This ritual appeared whenever he got nervous. According to the language of professional psychotherapy, such behaviors as nerve tics or even smoking are called intermediate points and serve certain as lightning rods of accumulated negative energy in commissure.

Ven Jun pulled the blade from his son's mouth.

"Stop putting that stuff in your mouth and just listen to me."

"Sure, Dad," mumbled Chen, hiding another grass blade in his mouth.

Ven showed the pictures again. In three of them, Kreis was standing at the customs terminal. In the fourth picture, an eye with a strange impregnation in the form of an equilateral triangle was looking at Chen.

"The name of this man is Maksim Lezhnev. In 1979, he worked as an interpreter for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We became friends, and eventually he began to bring me gold and jewels for safekeeping. We weighed everything on a butcher's scale. I didn't ask where the goods came from. It was a different time. And in 1981, Maksim was arrested. He was accused of complicity with the associates of Pol Pot. For them he got arms and medicine using gold and jewels. He didn't betray me. He was sentenced to be shot, but he escaped. I haven't seen him since. And now, twenty-five years later, he appears. His appearance is different, though. Only the eye is the same.

Chen, struggling to understand his father, looked intently at the picture but saw nothing special. His father helped.

"Have a look at these equally distant points in his eye. Maksim told me it's a sign of luck and is present at birth. Certainly he was able to change his appearance, but the eyes . . . ."

"And the gold?"

"I hid the gold on neutral territory in jungles. I managed to carry out only one box. Coming back to the secret place, I lost my leg when I stepped on a landmine. The authorities found the rest. If somebody else recognizes Maksim, it'll be the end for me.

"You could've been mistaken. Another man can have such a sign.

Ven nodded, "No."

"There's no mistaking it. Here's the address of the woman he loved." Jun handed his son a piece of paper. "He has nowhere else to go. You'll see that I'm right."

"You want to kill him? But he's your friend!" Chen, still with the blade hidden in his mouth, tied it in a knot.

"No, Chen. You will do it." Pointing with his crutch, Ven Jun made it abundantly clear that no objection would be accepted. "It is time to become grown-up, but first try to find out why he has come. Be careful. This man is very clever, and he won't stand on ceremony with you.

"Okay, Dad," answered Chen sullenly. He got up and walked to his car.

Victoria, Seychelles: 4:03 p.m.

Jeanette had been dreaming for three hours when an alarm clock on the bedside table rang. "Time to awaken, my master. There's a great deal to do." Her conscious wandered back and forth like a net in the wind, momentarily balancing between dreams and reality. A moment later, Jeanette reentered the world of solid matter. A pleasant languor had filled her body with sweet poison, and she was in no hurry to awaken completely. At last, the Creole opened those heavy eyelids and fixed her eyes on the wall. To her disappointment, the colorful dream was gone, whereupon she knew there were troublesome questions to be answered: Andrew's death, the mysterious disappearance of the disc, the incident in the library.

Feminine logic didn't connect all these events into a chain. She perceived only one denominator in each secret event. She would, however, figure it all out. Nobody visits the past without leaving a trace.

Stretching her arms outward over her pillow, Jeanette gazed at the black dot on the wall, gradually immersing her soul's pain and distress into it. Born in memory, Andrew's image came forth like a wave, but then the black dot became larger and absorbed his smile and confident voice. Even the astringent smell of Cuban cigars vanished into thin air.

Jeanette was ready to burst into tears, but protectively her inner awareness caught the wisdom of Andrew's words:

"When you are feeling bad, smile. If you are weak, smile. To be settled within your soul, bravely look fear in the eye and . . . ."

She dried her tears. The lips drew upward at the corners, and the dimples in her cheeks emerged.

"Smile!"

Jeanette put her hand on her belly and repeated the word to herself. "Hello, little baby. I love you!" She realized she had no right to be weak. She would bring up her child alone. After all, it was better that he be strong as a steel rod than be rendered effeminate. But there were too many mysteries in the rabbit hole, and even the most dreadful secrets have a certain attraction. "If I'm in the hole, I won't get out till find out how deep it is. One needs to take the clue in hand and see where it leads." She left the warmth of her bed and went to the bathroom. With a quick shower she washed away the haze of sleep and was thus filled with freshness and life. A soft towel, a blow dryer, comb, makeup: it took just half an hour. Jeanette stepped up to the big mirror, and in reflection she saw a woman more severe than she had expected. Her hair was brushed toward the back of the head, revealing a high forehead, and her eyes were bright. It was just enough war paint to underscore her natural beauty. "That's all," she smiled to herself. "At least I'll get an honorable mention in the Guinness Book. Under ordinary conditions, in thirty minutes a woman is able to do no more than her nails. Jeanette drew a funny mug on the glass and said:

"And you. Smile. I'm about to go on the warpath, and I'll need your help."

She returned to the bedside and phone in its place on the table. Her reflection smiled as it deftly copied her movement through the room. She flipped through the pages of the phone book.

"I won't be able to do it myself. Maybe the police station? No. They'll only direct me to a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist will only prescribe a powder and hand me a booklet about hallucinations during pregnancy. In this case, I'll choose a private agency."

Jeanette's sight stopped at the text in a thick-framed column:

The Blue Coral Agency