Gray and company would be going a different route on the bikes, away from Pyongyang.
But they wouldn’t be going alone.
Guan-yin limped forward, favoring her right leg. Zhuang had an arm around her waist, his sword in the other.
Seichan tensed upon seeing her mother, but now was not the time for a happy family reunion. A resurgence of gunfire made this plain. Still, daughter and mother shared a glance through the smoke, awkward and uncomfortable, obviously needing time to process it all.
Even before the pair could reach them, a bike was brought before the Triad’s leaders. Zhuang slipped his sword into the sheath across his back and took the front. Guan-yin climbed behind him, never taking her eyes off Seichan.
The remaining members of the strike team gathered back at the truck.
With a final shout, the heavy vehicle trundled through the blasted gates, drawing the three bikes in its wake. Once beyond the prison, the group quickly picked up speed. A quarter mile later, a small river road branched off from the main highway.
Seichan swung the bike onto it, followed by the other two.
As the truck continued on toward Pyongyang, the three motorcycles swept through the marshlands bordering the Taedong River. Lit by bright stars and the blaze of a comet, the river flowed all the way to the Yellow Sea, only thirty miles away.
As they sped along, Gray noted Seichan glancing frequently into the rearview mirror. He knew she was studying her mother, but Seichan never slowed, keeping her bike ahead of the others, as if being chased by a ghost through the marshes.
And maybe she was.
The ghost of her mother . . . an apparition now given flesh and form.
But any reconciliation of past and present must come later.
Gray kept his gaze ahead, knowing what they still faced, and it was no simple task. Though they had escaped the prison . . . they still had to escape North Korea.
12
November 18, 7:22 P.M. QYZT
The Aral Sea, Kazakhstan
“I want to test something,” Jada said.
For the first time, she wondered if this side excursion to this desolate landscape of blowing sand and landlocked rusted ships might be of value. Normally history held little interest for her, especially all this talk of Attila the Hun and the relics of Genghis Khan. But this mention of an ancient cross carved out of meteoric metal—that piqued her interest.
“According to everything you’ve told us,” she said, waving a hand to Father Josip, “the cross is the key to averting a disaster that is supposed to occur on the date inscribed on the skull.”
He nodded, glancing at a faded celestial calendar on the wall. It looked like it might have come from the time of Copernicus, with stylized constellations and astronomical notations.
“Roughly three days from now,” he confirmed.
“Right.” She glanced to Monk. “And we have confirmation from another source that also suggests a disaster on that date. One connected to the comet in the sky.”
Vigor and Rachel turned to Monk, clearly wanting to know what that confirmation was, but he simply crossed his arms.
The monsignor sighed, obviously irked at the secrecy. “Go on,” he encouraged her. “You said you might know how this cross could save the world.”
“Only a conjecture,” she warned. “But first I want to try something.”
She turned to Duncan.
All other eyes swung toward him too. He straightened from a slouch, his expression wary with surprise and confusion. “What?”
“Could you please unwrap the skull and the book?” she asked. “Place them on the table.”
She waited until he had done so, noting the distaste in his pinched lips as he handled the relics.
“You still feel an energy signature emanating from the objects, yes?”
“It’s there.” He rubbed his fingertips on his pants, as if trying to remove the sensation.
She faced the two priests. “If Genghis found this cross in Attila’s tomb, might he have carried it on his person? Kept it as some talisman on his body.”
Vigor shrugged. “After he read Ildiko’s account of its importance, I think that’s highly likely.”
“Genghis would consider it his duty,” Josip agreed, “to protect it during his life.”
“And maybe afterward,” Vigor added, motioning to the skull and book. He eyed her more closely. “Are you suggesting the cross somehow contaminated his bodily tissues, as if it were radioactive?”
“I don’t think it’s radioactive,” she said, though her hands itched to confirm that by examining the skull with the instruments she had left aboard the helicopter. “But I think the cross was giving off some sort of energy that left its trace on his body, altering his tissues perhaps at the quantum level.”
“What sort of energy would do that?” Rachel asked.
“Dark energy,” she said, happy to turn the discourse from history to science. “An energy tied to the birth of our universe. And although it makes up seventy percent of all energy left after the Big Bang, we still don’t know what it is, where it comes from, only that it’s a fundamental property of existence. It explains why the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace versus slowing down.”
Vigor lifted an eyebrow. “And you think the cross carries this energy? What, like a battery?”
“Very crudely put, but yes. Possibly. I can’t know for sure without examining it. But such matters are my field of expertise. My theoretical calculations suggest dark energy is the result of virtual particles annihilating one another in the quantum foam that fills all space and time in the universe.”
She read their blank expressions and simplified it. “It is the very fabric of space-time. Dark energy is the driving force behind quantum mechanics, an energy tied to all the fundamental forces in the universe. Electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces, anything that causes an attraction between objects.”
“Like gravity?” Duncan asked.
She touched his shoulder, silently thanking him. “Exactly. Dark energy and gravity are intimately entwined concepts.”
Rachel frowned at Monk, then turned to Jada. With the mind of a true investigator, she went straight for the secret being kept from them. “Again,” she pressed, “not to belabor the point, why do you believe this cross might be giving off dark energy?”
“Because the comet in the sky is doing exactly that.”
As everyone stirred at her answer, Jada glanced at Monk, knowing she had crossed a line. But she thought Rachel deserved an answer. The woman had an analytical mind that she was growing to respect. It was foolish to keep her in the dark.
Monk returned a small shrug, giving Jada some leeway.
She took it and explained. “Or at least the comet’s path was showing tiny gravitational abnormalities in its course that exactly matched my theoretical calculations.”
“And the cross?” Josip asked.
“From your story, you said the cross was sculpted from a falling star. A meteorite.” She pictured the rain of meteors from the video footage in Alaska. “I wonder if that meteorite could have been a piece of that comet, a fragment that fell to the earth when it last passed.”
Rachel considered that possibility, then asked, “When did this comet make its last appearance?”
“Approximately twenty-eight hundred years ago.”
“So about 800 BC.” Rachel turned to Josip. “Does that correlate with anything you’ve learned about the cross?”
He rubbed the scruff on his chin, looking crestfallen. “Ildiko only says the cross came from a star that fell long before St. Thomas arrived in the East.”
That was disappointing. It would have been nice to have definitive confirmation.
Then Josip suddenly sat straighter. “Wait!” He reached and stirred through the parchments left by Ildiko. “Look here!”
7:38 P.M.
As Josip shifted a page to the center of the table, Vigor stood up to get a better view.
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His friend tapped an image found in the middle of the parchment.
“According to Ildiko, these three symbols were carved into the boxes holding the skull and the cross.”
Vigor adjusted his reading glasses. Very faintly inscribed, he could make out what appeared to be Chinese writing: a set of three symbols with Latin written below them.
Vigor leaned closer to examine the images and read the Latin aloud. “The first symbol is labeled as two trees.” It did, in fact, look like a pair of trees. “The next is command. And the last, forbidden.”
Josip touched the last character. “Notice how the first two symbols combine to form this third one. The one meaning forbidden.”
Vigor saw that, but he didn’t understand the significance.
“Read this,” Josip said. “Read what Ildiko wrote under the symbols.”
Those lines were even fainter, but he recognized two Latin verses from the Old Testament, both from the book of Genesis.
He translated the first one aloud. “ ‘And the Lord God commanded man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ ”
Vigor read the next line. Similarly, it was a condemnation against eating from another tree—in this second case, the Tree of Life found in the Garden of Eden. “ ‘Behold, man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever . . .’ ”
Before he could finish, Josip pulled the page back possessively. “The earliest Chinese writing used pictures to represent words or ideas, and it often combined simple symbols to form more complex concepts.”
Vigor glanced over to what Ildiko wrote. “But this seems to imply that the early Chinese knew about the book of Genesis. About the story of two trees that God commanded were forbidden to man.”
“I have other examples of the same.” Josip stood up, rushed to a neighboring desk, and began shifting through the stacks there.
Vigor studied the pages left on the table, wondering at the implication. Could the ancient Chinese have had knowledge of the events described in the book of Genesis? Was this confirmation of these biblical stories? The Chinese language was the oldest continuously written language, going back four millennia or so.
Josip returned. “I only found two, but I have many more examples.”
He placed down his first sheet.
The Chinese symbol for man combined with the character for fruit became the sign for naked. Even Vigor could guess the reference illustrated here.
From Genesis 3:6–7.
He quoted it aloud. “ ‘. . . she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.’ ”
Josip nodded vigorously and slid this page aside and replaced it with another. “And here is one more.”
His friend ran a finger along the illustration. “Here we have early Chinese symbols for alive, dust, and another variant of man. And together they form the character for first.” He looked expectantly toward Vigor.
“From Genesis again,” Vigor said. “A reference to Adam, the first living man God created.”
“Out of dust,” Josip added, tapping the corresponding symbol. “I can show you more.”
He looked ready to do so, the obsession shining in his eyes, but Vigor held up a hand, keeping him on task. “I don’t know if we’re reading too much into this or not, but what does this have to do with Dr. Shaw’s earlier question? About the date that meteorite fell, the one that became St. Thomas’s cross?”
“Ah,” he nodded. “Sorry. You see, the reliquaries of St. Thomas—the boxes, the skull, the cross—were crafted by Nestorian priests out of the East. They were the ones who inscribed those symbols on the boxes.”
“Nestorian?” Jada asked. “I’m not all that familiar with ancient Christian sects.”
Vigor smiled at her. “Nestorianism started in the early fifth century, shortly before the rise of Attila the Hun. It was founded by Nestorius, the patriarch at the time of Constantinople. He created a division in the Church by expressing a simple view that the human and divine persons of Christ were separate. Such a thought was deemed heretical, leading to a schism in the Church. Not that the details are important. But the Nestorian Church spread east after that. Persia, India, Central Asia, even as far as China by the seventh century.”
“Which brings me to my point,” Josip said. “I think the Chinese inscriptions on the reliquary by the Nestorian priests served multiple purposes.”
Vigor eyed him, waiting for him to continue. He seemed momentarily lost, staring off into space for several breaths.
Then Josip resumed as if there had been no pause. He counted off on his fingers. “First, I believe they were confirming that St. Thomas did indeed reach China. Second, I think it’s plain they were trying to imply that the Chinese writing they discovered out in the Far East held some clues to the veracity of the Old Testament, a truth buried in their ancient script. And third, I think they were sharing some hint as to the extreme age of the cross.”
He looked significantly at Jada.
“How so?” she asked.
“Because they paired the cross with a reference to the book of Genesis. I think these Nestorian priests had heard stories of this falling star from the Chinese. They were told about how this meteorite fell in ancient times. And this was their way of venerating the cross’s ancient origin.”
Jada’s lips thinned in thought. “Still, it doesn’t confirm a date that coincides with the last appearance of the comet. I accept that these Nestorian priests believed it was old. Biblically old. But all this is based on conjecture. Until I can examine the cross, I can’t substantiate its connection to the comet.”
Vigor nodded. “Which leaves us with the big question: Where is this cross now?”
7:55 P.M.
Duncan listened to the discussions with half an ear. Instead, as the others talked, he fiddled with the relics sitting on the table. Like picking at a scab, he couldn’t stop testing the strange electrical field emanating from the objects.
“The cross must be in Genghis Khan’s tomb,” Josip insisted. “If we find his tomb, we’ll find the cross.”
“You’re probably right,” the monsignor agreed. “If his bones and bits of his body were laid down like bread crumbs, they were most likely meant to lead to his tomb.”
Duncan ran his hands over the dome of the old skull, his fingertips registering the slippery field. Goose bumps rose along his arms as he considered Jada’s belief that this was dark energy. Since he had a background in physics and electrical engineering, he had viewed Jada’s calculations that had been included in the mission dossier supplied to him. They’d been as elegant and as sexy as the woman who crafted them.
With a chill, he moved the skull aside and shifted his hands to the book.
Vigor paced around the table. “And that’s what you’ve been looking for, Josip. All these years.”
“After finding the relics, I wasn’t in the best state of mind. Shame, fear, paranoia sent me in a spiral. I needed somewhere quiet to think, to find my bearings.”
Duncan didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to sense the priest suffered from some form of chronic mental illness. He was a sack of emotional tics.
“And after dropping off the earth, it was easier to stay here,” he explained. “So I could work in peace. This became my self-imposed exile, my monastery where I could be in seclusion.”
“If you wanted to be alone,” Monk said, “you picked a helluva good spot for it. This is as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get.”
“It wasn’t just the isolation that drew me to the Aral Sea. Maybe at first, but later I realized somewhere in the back of my fevered brain, something was making connections that didn’t fully reach my consciousness until later. Lik
e many times in the past, I’ve found the manic phases of my disease are not without their benefits.”
Ah, he’s bipolar, Duncan realized. He should have picked up on the signs. He had a college friend with the same condition. Not an easy cross to bear.
“What connections did you make?” Vigor asked.
Josip motioned to the relics. “Here we have Genghis’s skull. And from the eye on the gospel’s cover, we know it was bound from the skin of his face and head.”
Reminded of what his fingertips were hovering over, Duncan inwardly cringed. Still, macabre curiosity drew him closer, searching for that eye.
The priest continued, “In other words, the relics came from the neck up on Genghis Khan.”
Vigor mumbled, “You’re right. I didn’t even make that correlation.”
“Sometimes a little bit of madness is a good thing. In my manic phase, I ended up here. Only later did I realize why. That I was supposed to be here.”
“Why?” Vigor pressed.
“I think there are more relics. Not just these two.”
“Like more bread crumbs,” Rachel said.
“In Hungary, Genghis’s son left the relics from his father’s head, marking the westernmost reach of his son’s empire, an empire he had inherited from his father. But why just those objects there? It didn’t feel right. Over time, I came to a different theory, one I think is right. I believe Genghis had instructed his son to turn the entire known world into his grave, to spread his spiritual reach from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other.”
“That sounds like Genghis,” Vigor agreed. “So he had his head set at one end . . .”
“In Hungary, in the tomb of Attila,” Josip said with a nod. “But where next?”
“Here?” Jada asked.
The priest nodded. “The region around the Aral Sea was the westernmost reach of the Mongol Empire during Genghis’s reign. A place of significance. So it seemed a natural place to begin searching.”
Vigor turned, looking around the chamber. “You’ve been exploring for these lost relics all this time?”