The Messiah Code (48 page)

"Karen!" he shouted across the fiery gloom, beckoning frantically with his arms. "Get out of here before the whole goddamned place comes crashing down. Hurry!"

"What about you?" Karen yelled back.

Tom was torn. Ezekiel had now opened the door to the blackness of the vault, and was dragging the inert Maria into it. He guessed the vault with all its precious treasures

would have been designed by the engineers to be safe from their rigged Armageddon. But he couldn't be sure. The idea of Ezekiel escaping made him sick with anger.

"Come on, Tom!" Karen shouted, moving back toward the Great Stairs.

Tom waved her away, yelling as loudly as his empty lungs and bruised ribs would allow. "Don't worry! I'm coming."

Then the first pillar fell in front of him, crashing down onto the altar. He couldn't see Karen anymore, or any of the others. They were lost in the dust and flying splinters of rock. Tom just stood for a moment, miraculously untouched by the debris, seeing his only route to Karen and the Great Stairs closed to him. He saw a section of pillar slide off the shattered altar and roll onto the stone on the other side, sealing the hole through which the Sacred Flame burned, denying the subterranean gas its escape. Concealing its fire.

Retreating into the relative safety of the antechamber, Tom stepped over Brother Bernard's body and moved toward Ezekiel, just as he disappeared into the blackness of the vault with Maria. Then the door to the vault began to close.

Tom's ribs ached, and it hurt to run. But he forced himself into the stale darkness before the door closed on him, wishing he could remember where the light switch was, his only bearings the sound of Maria's body being dragged on the stone floor.

He strained his ears but the only sound he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the hellish destruction being wrought beyond the thick walls in the Sacred Cavern. Feeling to his left and right, he tried to make out shapes he could recall from his last visit. If he remembered correctly, the concealed niche holding the relics of Christ should be at the other end of the vault, directly in front of him, and the huge sword he'd so admired should be on his left. If he could reach that, then despite its weight he would at least have a weapon. Hugging the left-hand shelves, he edged his way along the side of the vault as quietly as possible, his hands blindly feeling parchment, boxes, and metal objects as he went. When he came to the break in the shelves he reached to his left, to the wall against which the sword should be leaning. His searching fingers found nothing but rough, dry stone. Shit! Where was it?

At that moment he felt the first tremor beneath his feet. It wasn't the same vibrating shockwave he'd felt from the falling boulders. More like the rumblings of something beneath the rock floor trying to escape. Dust and debris fell around him, and the objects on the shelves rattled like loose teeth. He fell forward against the wall and banged his knee against steel. The sword.

He reached down and touched its hilt, just as the second tremor rippled its muscles beneath him. Of course, he thought,
the gas
; it must be the gas that fed the Sacred Flame. Denied its escape valve, it was seeking a new opening, some weakness in the rock through which to vent its mounting pressure. With all the rock crashing down in the cavern outside he was sure the gas would find a weak point soon. But he wondered if the Brotherhood's ancient engineers had factored gas pressure into their calculations for keeping their precious Vault of Remembrance safe.

He hefted the sword off the ground and turned his back to the wall, trying to keep his breathing as silent as possible. He had a weapon now. So assuming the engineers did know what they were doing, then he should be relatively safe in this black womb.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, and foul breath on his face. For one terrifying, irrational moment he thought it might be Maria, come back from the dead.

He whirled around, bringing the sword's huge blade level with his waist and felt it hit something; he heard a grunt of pain. He leaned back against the wall so as to support the sword's weight better, holding its blade against whoever still had their hand on his shoulder.

Suddenly he felt the stale breath on his face again, only this time it was accompanied by a cold blade against his neck. Angling the sword he pushed its point against his invisible attacker just as a third tremor, quickly followed by a fourth and fifth, rocked the foundations of the vault.

"I think this is stalemate, Dr. Carter," Ezekiel spat out of the darkness, his unseen face only inches away. "I wonder if your friends got away. I doubt it."

"If they did, they'll be back, and you can say good-bye to your secret Brotherhood. What about your precious Inner Circle? What if you killed them too?"

A small laugh in the dark. "They are expendable.
We
are all expendable. As for the Brotherhood, once Maria awakes, its purpose will have been served. The Final Judgment will come and everything will end. The Brethren will be saved, because we found the New Messiah in time."

"But she's dead," said Tom. "You missed the boat again."

The dagger bit into his flesh; warm blood trickled down his neck. "She will be resurrected," said Ezekiel, his voice thick with hatred. "She has the power."

"No, she hasn't. That's not how the genes work."

A contemptuous laugh. "Liar. As a child she could perform miracles. She cured my ulcer. She has the power."

"Not on herself, she hasn't. I told Maria that on the day of her execution. And from her reaction I think she believed me."

The dagger cut deeper into Tom's flesh and he was powerless to defend himself. He tried to push Ezekiel away with the sword, but it was too heavy. He had to distract him. Allowing the pressure of Ezekiel's own body to hold the sword's weight, Tom moved his right hand off the hilt. Then he reached for the old man's injured left arm, where the second gunshot had hit him.

"I know how the genes work," Tom said softly into the dark, "because I used them to save my daughter." He gently placed his hand on Ezekiel's arm, feeling for the wound. "I injected myself with Christ's genes. So I now possess them too."

Ezekiel tried to pull away as soon as he touched him, but Tom held his arm in a viselike grip. Tom's legs almost buckled with the outflowing of energy and his muscles ached as if they were stretched on the rack, but he could feel Ezekiel's dagger hand shaking against his neck. He knew that Ezekiel could feel the healing power flowing into him.

When Tom finished he slumped back farther against the wall, and as he relaxed his grip Ezekiel pulled away. The heavy sword drooped in Tom's hand, its tip sparking on the stone floor. Seconds later he heard a switch being clicked and the vault was bathed in dazzling light. He turned with squinting eyes and saw Ezekiel by the door to the vault. He stood, legs apart, straddling Maria's body. His ancient face looked pale and now his dark eyes showed fear as well as hatred.

"Maria was right," Ezekiel said. "You are evil, and I should never have negotiated with you. I should have let her kill you."

God, he was tired of this. "She tried to kill me. Remember! Twice. But I'm not the evil one. I've never done anything but try to save lives."

Ezekiel scoffed. "By going against the natural order. By defying God!"

"There is no God. There is no natural order. If there was, then these genes wouldn't be so rare."

Ezekiel laughed then, a loud, manic laugh that had no humor in it. "You still don't understand, do you?" the old man shouted. "You still don't know why we needed to kill you even more than the obvious peddlers of evil we eradicated--the arms dealers, the drug dealers, and the porn merchants. They were weak and only poisoned the world we live in. Whereas your evil genetics threatens to
change it completely
. Even now that you have somehow used your diabolical technology to give yourself the genes of God, you
still
don't understand how dangerous you are."

Another tremor, even more violent than the others, shook the ground, and there was the sound of stone rending below. But Ezekiel ignored it, and carried on: "You have great knowledge, Dr. Carter, some say genius. But it takes more than knowledge to be God. You need
wisdom
. You said that if God existed then these genes wouldn't be so scarce. But that isn't true. Just think about a world in which
everyone
possessed them. A world in which anybody could heal everybody, and no one ever died of natural diseases. Imagine a world where there would be no consequences for any actions we took. A world with such an enormous pop

ulation that instead of a heaven on earth we would create a living hell. No space. No food. No respect for life--or death--and certainly not God. Just a crowded desert of lost souls assured of only one certainty--a long life of suffering."

Still wielding his dagger, Ezekiel slumped to the stone floor beside Maria, and pulled her body onto his lap. He remained oblivious to the now incessant rumblings underfoot. Tom looked to his left and saw the rope and wood ladder hanging from the fissure in the rough rock ceiling. He began to move toward it.

"Tell me, Dr. Carter," continued Ezekiel, "does wanting to save your daughter--one insignificant human in a sea of humanity--give you the right to play God? Does it give you the right to risk creating a hell on earth? She was destined to die, and
should
have died. You had no right to use your intelligence and resources to change that. And that applies to the others you saved with your meddling genetics before Project Cana." Ezekiel paused then, as if weary.

Tom didn't bother to answer him. There was no time. He dropped the heavy sword, grasped the swaying ladder, and pulled himself up. His anger had evaporated. He felt nothing when he looked back at the stooped figure cradling the corpse on his lap in a grotesque parody of the pieta. Except some pity for a misguided, broken old man.

He'd reached the fifth rung of the ladder, halfway inside the fissure, when he heard the first cracking hiss of gas rip through the stone floor beneath him.

He looked up but could see only blackness above. There wasn't much time. He gritted his teeth and kept on climbing. The hand Maria had pierced was aching now, as was his old knee wound from Stockholm. With every rung he climbed, his elbows hit the rough sides of the fissure, bruising and cutting his flesh. But the real pain came from his stretched muscles and joints. Every muscle burned with effort as he inched his way higher and higher.

Rather than abating, the rumblings below him grew louder the farther he climbed.

At last. A glimmer of light above. If he could only keep going.

The sudden explosion beneath him was deafening. Seconds later a rush of hot air rose up, hitting him with such force that it tore him from the ladder, pushing him upward, crashing his head against the walls of rock on either side. Excruciating pain flowed through his whole body, every nerve ending on fire.

Then mercifully the pain stopped, and there was nothing.

M
oments before, Ezekiel De La Croix sat and watched Dr. Carter disappear up the ladder. Despite the urgent tearing of rock beneath him Ezekiel felt a tired calm. The scientist might escape, but once the New Messiah awoke none of this nightmare would matter anymore. Once Maria passed her hands through the Sacred Flame, then the Day of Judgment would come and all the ungodly, not just Dr. Carter, would be punished. But he as Leader of the righteous would be saved.

He shifted Maria's weight on his lap, making his exhausted, aching frame as comfortable as possible. He looked down at her pale, peaceful features, willing those unusual eyes to open. As he caressed her cold forehead, he remembered the first time he'd seen her. She had been so vulnerable then, so bruised by life, so unaware of the greatness of her destiny.

He examined his wounded arm and marveled at the fading injury. Dr. Carter might have been able to unnaturally steal the genes of Christ, but he had been lying about Maria. Maria had been
born
with the genes--they were her birth-right. Despite what the atheist said, Maria would wake. He was convinced of it.

The sudden cracking of rock to his left, followed by a roaring hiss, made him turn his head in fear. Before his eyes he saw a fissure open up in the floor. The crack started by the wall where the tooth and nail of Christ were kept, and moved across the stone floor as if following some preordained route toward him.

"Not yet!" he screamed, watching the fissure lengthen like the shadow of a giant accusing finger.

He shook Maria's body, shouting: "Wake up! Wake up!" Then he threw her off him, and staggered to his feet.

"I can't die yet," he screamed, his body racked with mortal terror. "I'm not ready, we are not ready."

Just as the tip of the shadowy finger reached between his feet he heard an explosion beneath him, an incendiary of rage from the earth's core. Then a ridge of searing flame rushed from the fissure in a vertical sheet of pure white that seemed to reach for heaven itself. Even in his agony and terror, Ezekiel thought the white flame that now consumed him was the most beautiful thing he had seen in his whole life.

F
our weeks later the vintage red Mercedes pulled into the deserted parking lot beneath GENIUS and turned toward the first parking slot. It braked suddenly when the surprised driver realized the space was already taken by a metallic green BMW convertible.

Tom Carter checked his face in the mirror. The superficial burns had now all flaked away, and the tender skin underneath had lost most of its pink complexion. "Cosmetic companies would charge a fortune for a peel like that," Jasmine had joked on his last day in the hospital three weeks ago. He knew he had been unnaturally lucky. According to Karen's people, if the flue had been fractionally more crooked, then the gas explosion would have splattered him against the walls "like roadkill on the freeway." Instead he had been coughed up beside the smallest of the five rocks, landing unconscious but intact on a ridge of mercifully soft sand. The short burst of white flame that accompanied him had even helped alert Karen's team, who had only just crawled to safety themselves. Miraculously only one FBI agent and two of the Jordanian troops had been injured in the escape. Apart from Ezekiel and Bernard the only death had been Brother Helix. He had been lost in the confusion and was now buried in the rock.