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Praise for RACHEL LEE

“A highly complex thriller…deft use of dialogue…”

—Publishers Weekly on Wildcard

“Rachel Lee deserves much acclaim for her exciting tales of romantic suspense.”

—Midwest Book Review

“The Crimson Code is a smart, complex thriller with enough twists to knot your stomach and keep your fingers turning the pages.”

—New York Times bestselling author Alex Kava

“A suspenseful, edge-of-the-seat read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Caught

“With its smartly paced dialogue and seamless interweaving of both canine and human viewpoints, this well-rounded story is sure to be one of Lee’s top-selling titles.”

—Publishers Weekly on Something Deadly

“Rachel Lee is a master of romantic suspense.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

The Crimson Code
Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Leslie Wainger, who has always believed in us and who has helped us grow.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Epilogue

Prologue

Jakarta, Indonesia

Arief Sarwano looked at his children sitting in the pew beside him and smiled. Christmas had been kind to his family this year. The electronics firm that employed him had done well, churning out over two hundred thousand units of CyberJoey, the animatronic baby kangaroo that was the year’s top-selling Christmas gift in Australia. It had been Arief’s project, and he had done much of the design work himself. At that moment, tens of thousands of Australian children were clapping their hands in glee as the plush robot hopped around their Christmas trees and thumped its tail on their floors.

Others might think it absurd that he had poured two years of his life into three pounds of plastic, nylon, silicon and metal that modeled one of the earth’s most recognizable animals in a way calculated to attract the attention of five-to nine-year-old children, not to mention the shopping dollars of those children’s parents. But as Arief saw it, making children smile was a noble vocation.

And, when a project hit big, a profitable one. The success of CyberJoey had meant, not only a promotion and a raise, but also a healthy bonus. That bonus would ensure that his daughter could realize her dream of going to the United States to attend Notre Dame University next fall. She wanted to study medicine, in America, at the Catholic university. Not a Catholic university. The Catholic university, the best in America. He chuckled at the memory of the many times she had chided him on that point.

He looked up at the choir and found her in the alto section, slender and beautiful, her long dark hair falling around a face that each day reminded him more and more of her mother. For an instant, he felt the pang again.

The loss of his wife of twenty years, a victim of cancer, had blighted the past two Christmases. Arief had dealt with that loss by pouring himself into his work. In the past months, however, he had come to think that his wife’s spirit inhabited every CyberJoey. The toy’s eyes had been modeled on hers. And if just one Australian child looked into those eyes and saw love, then Arief’s wife was still alive in that child’s heart.

The Jalan Cathedral was packed, which was no surprise. The noonday Mass on Christmas was always the most crowded. But it was the one Arief had attended for the past twenty years, the continuation of a family tradition that began at seven in the morning with presents and continued through the late-afternoon dinner. His daughter, rather than his wife, would cook that dinner. But the traditions remained alive, and, with them, a sense of hope that one day Arief would feel whole again.

It was that thought which was shattered by the blinding flash, followed immediately by the crushing force of concussion, as the cathedral turned from a doorway to heaven into the depths of hell in the blink of an eye. Arief’s last vision, burned into his retinas, was of his daughter being tossed by an unseen hand through a stained glass window. Then the flames consumed him.

Baden-Baden, Germany

Michael Zeitgenbach could not hear the screams around him. The concussion had shattered his eardrums. In an instant, the still peace of the sunrise Mass had shattered, and in its wake he could feel only the crushing weight of stone on his lower body. His wife, Kirsten, ought to be beside him, somewhere, but the world was black, the air thick with dust and ash.

He ought to be hurting more, he knew. Instead, he could feel only distant pressure from the waist down. As he reached down, trying vainly to push himself free from eight hundred pounds of bloodstained granite, he realized he was going to die. Protruding from his belly was the stem of a chandelier that, seconds earlier, had hung from the ceiling. When he tried to move it, mind-shattering pain exploded through his body. Kirsten, a doctor, would have told him that the metal had pierced his spine.

But Kirsten was not there. She ought to be. They had been sitting together, hand in hand, listening to the traditional Christmas morning readings, when the world had turned upside down in a flash of fire and thunder and darkness. But, reaching around as best he could, he felt no one. No one…except a young girl. Stretching his arm out, he felt the tiny hand.

His niece’s hand. He knew it was her, because the wrist still bore the charm bracelet he had given her that morning. One gift, he had said, then the rest after Mass. The rest would never be given, for her hand was limp in his, and he could find no pulse.

Tears prickled at his eyes as he reached to the other side, above him, anywhere, hoping against hope to spend his last moments touching Kirsten. But it was not to be. She might lie only a meter away, or she might be buried beneath the stone that had crushed his legs. Regardless, he could not find her.

And so he took his niece’s hand once more in his, the limp fingers the last human contact he would carry with him into eternity.

Boston, Massachusetts

Kevin Daugherty worked with the fury of a man possessed. He had felt the rumble through the floor of the firehouse an instant before the thundering boom had shattered the windows around him. Like the other men of his company, he had resented the Christmas Eve shift. He had wished he could be at Midnight Mass with his wife, Mary, and their two children, his parents, brothers, nieces and nephews. Midnight Mass had always been a Daugherty family tradition.

Well, now he was at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Not as a worshipper, but as a fireman. As a son, brother, husband and father, looking for his family. Crouching beneath the wall of water being thrown up by the hose team behind him, he and his partner kicked aside broken glass, and lifted shattered and still burning pews, hoping for any sign of life in the blackened faces.

Kevin’s grandfather had told stories about bomb-shattered buildings in France, back in the early weeks after D-day, and a second cousin in New York had helped to pick through the wreckage of the World Trade Center. A four-year veteran, Kevin had seen his share of burned-out buildings. But nothing could have prepared him for what he saw now.

“Daugherty, you have to get out of there.” His captain’s voice crackled over the radio.

“There may be survivors,” Kevin answered. “My family is in here somewhere. I’ve got to find them.”

“We’re going to lose the building,” the captain said. “You have to get out. Now. That’s an order, Daugherty.”

Kevin shook his head and kicked aside burning missals, clearing a path to the next row of pews, until he felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him. He turned and saw his partner, Gerry O’Brien, eyes wide behind the breathing mask.

“We gotta go, Kev,” Gerry said, pointing upward. “It’s coming down.”

Kevin looked up at the roof section above him, watching it swell and recede as if breathing with the heat of the flames. It would not last another two minutes, he knew. Once a building started to breathe, it gave way. It was basic firefighting training: Get out.

But his wife was here somewhere, along with Kevin Junior and little Becky. He couldn’t just leave them to the merciless fire, leave them to be nothing but charred forms to be pulled out days later, when the embers had cooled enough for rescue teams to pull apart the wreckage. Mary and Kevin Junior and Becky couldn’t be hauled out like so many slabs of barbecue.

“I’m not going,” Kevin said. “I have to find them.”

“Anyone still in here is dead already,” Gerry said. “And we’re gonna be dead, too. We’re pulling out. Now.”

“You go,” Kevin said.

Gerry shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Kev. You stay, I stay. I go, you go. Are you going to kill me, too, along with them?”

And there was the truth of it. Kevin’s partner, and the hose team, wouldn’t abandon him. If he stayed in the inferno, they would die with him. He had no right to heap their families’ grief atop his own. Slowly, slowly, his fingers opened and the fire axe fell from his hands. The bitter tears clouded his vision more than the smoke around him as he shuffled back behind the hose team and began to make his way out.

He could escape the wreckage of the cathedral. He could not escape the wreckage of his heart.

1

Rome, Italy

Renate Bächle had dragged Lawton Caine to Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. How she had gained the coveted tickets to hear the pope serve one of the two most beautiful Masses of the year, she would not say. She had merely given him a look from those icy blue eyes of hers that these days sometimes even held a twinkle. They had twinkled when he asked.

Lawton Caine, formerly Tom Lawton of the FBI, now a dead man with a new identity working for the U.N.’s ultrasecret Office 119, would ordinarily have skipped Mass entirely. He was a lapsed Catholic who liked being lapsed.

But this Midnight Mass…it was unlike any he had ever attended. There was no sense of urgency, no sense that a schedule must be met, no tired children longing for their beds and keeping parents preoccupied.

No, this had been a Mass devoted to true spirituality. Every moment had been treated as if it were the end in itself. Dignitaries from all over the world had shared in the solemnity and celebration, and Tom had walked out of the Basilica feeling as if he had for the very first time come in contact with the core of his Catholic faith. As if for that brief period he had stepped out of time into eternity.

In short, he’d been wowed.

Renate, too, had been wowed. For those moments, she had allowed herself to feel something she hadn’t felt in a long time: vulnerable. She had opened herself to the miracle that the Mass was supposed to be. Of course, that vulnerability couldn’t last long. Vulnerability seemed to be something she had virtually erased from her nature.

But after the Mass, she had mentioned to Lawton that she missed home and the Weihnachtsmärkte, the traditional Christmas markets set up in every German city and town. She let her thoughts drift back to memories of those festive squares, decorated with holiday lights, where carols, laughter and Glühwein flowed in equal measure. To his surprise, she had carried him away with her into the city of Rome, to a small German restaurant that was open all night. There they drank the traditional hot spiced wine, joined in the carols and ate bratwurst that, if it could not take the whole of her back home, could at least take her taste buds there.

Tom, she knew, was missing Miriam Anson and Terry Tyson, friends from his previous life with the American FBI and the closest thing he had to family. She hoped that the restaurant gave him at least some sense of a home.

They left at five in the morning and wandered the darkened streets of Rome, taking in the age of the place, the history that seemed to fill even the air. They spent some time at the Trevi Fountain, shivering in the cool air, receiving a blessing from a passing monsignor who paused to smile at them—probably thinking they were lovers. He made a swift sign of the cross over them, murmuring the Latin words: In nomine Patris, Filii et Spiritu Sancti.

Magical.

“Right about now,” Renate said, “my parents and the rest of my family are sitting in Mass back home.”

She rarely spoke of her family. She, too, was officially dead, as were all of the agents at Office 119. They were a small community of people without country, without family. Save for each other.

Tom reached out and squeezed her hand. She didn’t pull away.

All of a sudden, the magic shattered.

They heard a rumble and saw flames rise into the predawn sky. Almost at the same instant, both their pagers went off, hers with a shrill beeping, his with a demanding buzz.

They exchanged worried looks and hailed the first cab they could find. Renate slammed the door on vulnerability. It was time to work.

“The bombs exploded within minutes of each other,” the man they all called Jefe was saying. In his past life, Tom had known him as John Ortega, a fellow FBI agent. Now his name was unknown and unspoken. He was simply Jefe. Chief. “Midnight Mass in Boston. Early-morning Mass in Baden-Baden, and here in Rome. Noon Mass in Jakarta. All were timed for fifteen minutes after the hour. I guess they didn’t want to miss the late arrivals.”

“Baden-Baden.”

Renate whispered the name. Her face went from rosy to ashen in a single instant.

Jefe paused, his attention drawn from the other agents to Renate. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“My…family,” she said, breaking the unwritten code of silence about such things, a code enforced by the desire to protect loved ones left behind.

Color returned to Renate’s face, but it was not the glow of earlier that morning. Whatever warmth she had felt then was freezing now into a cold, killing resolve.

Tom met her eyes and pressed her shoulder. “Take it easy, Renate. You can’t do a damn thing right now.”

“Yeah,” said the chief. “Besides, the info is still scattered. We don’t know anything for sure yet.”

Renate’s eyes fixed on the chief. “My entire family was at the six o’clock Mass in Baden-Baden.”

From outside, the endless wail of sirens could still be faintly heard.

Intel continued to come in to the office, but it remained sparse for hours. The chaos in each stricken city was such that little information was being sent out of the affected areas. Everyone was too busy dealing with the death and destruction.

A huge rear-projection screen displayed a world map, political boundaries in blue, continents outlined in green. As the morning progressed, red dots appeared by more and more cities, as reports came in.

Large television sets built into another wall were tuned to CNN International, Al Jazeera and other European, Asian and American networks. Pictures of destruction began arriving, but little was actually known.

Eventually the news began to identify other targets: a North Sea drilling rig, a pipeline in Turkey, nuclear weapons assembly plants in New Mexico and Kiev and the computer files of the New York Stock Exchange.

Despite the other targets, the chaotic map soon told a horrifying story. There was no question that the Catholic Church was a primary target of this terrorism. Along with the other targets, a major cathedral had been destroyed in each time zone. The only exception was Baden-Baden, where the target had been a simple family parish in the foothills of the Schwarzwald.

“And Baden-Baden doesn’t fit,” Tom said, looking at the map. “Why two churches in the same time zone? Why not another cathedral? Why not Köln, or Notre Dame in Paris?”

“None of it fits,” Jefe said, reading from a computer screen. “The initial reports say no one was injured in the attacks on economic targets. The workers on that North Sea rig say they were given time to evacuate before the rig was blown. And yet they blow up churches with thousands of innocent worshippers. It doesn’t make sense.”

As he spoke another light winked on, this one in South America. Brazil. Rio.

“Maybe they hit Baden-Baden because there was extra security in Paris and Cologne,” Margarite Renault said, her English accented by her French background. A former member of the Sûreté, she was around forty, with classic Gallic features, dark hair and eyes. “The European nations have beefed up their antiterrorist activities. Maybe Baden-Baden was a target of opportunity.”

Renate could listen no longer. She knew what had been done—and why. There was no reason to dance around the issue. Justice demanded honesty. “It wasn’t a target of opportunity. They murdered my family. They couldn’t find me, so they murdered my family.”

A half hour later, Margarite found Tom in a side cubicle. She lowered her voice so she could not be overheard. “I am worried about Renate. She is always so controlled, but this…” A shrug. “This she cannot control. It has happened. Now she must—how you say?—deal with it.”

Tom nodded slowly. He was more worried about Renate than he wanted to admit. If her entire family had been in the church that had been blown up, he didn’t have to guess how she would react. She was tough and disciplined, but the cold, hard look in her eyes left no doubt where her thoughts were running.

His heart would not allow him to leave her alone in her shock and rage. He entered her office and sat in the chair beside her desk. “Renate.”

She ignored him, tapping away at her keyboard.

“Renate.”

Slowly she looked up. He wanted to see emotion in her eyes. Any emotion, even anger. All he saw was the icy coldness of a lifeless glacier. “I’m working.”

“You’re not working,” he dared to say, then plunged on before she could argue. “You’re looking for revenge.”

Something sparked then in those cold blue eyes. “Don’t I deserve it?”

“You don’t know anything for sure.”

With a swift gesture, she turned her flat-panel monitor toward him. “You see? My family’s kirche. It’s on the list. They are dead.”

He felt his heart crack for her. “Maybe…”

“No maybe. Don’t tell me maybe. I know.” For the briefest instant, a fathomless grief broke through, crumpling her face. Then it was gone, so fast he wasn’t sure he had seen it.

“Just remember our mission,” he said. “Our mission, Renate. Don’t forget who we are. We are not them.”

“They are animals,” she said coldly. “And I am going to kill the ones who hurt my family. I am going to kill them with my own hands.”

“Renate.”

But she had turned away, pulling her monitor back and resuming her online hunt for information.

Oddly, he found himself thinking of Midnight Mass again, and offering a silent prayer that Renate’s family had for some reason not been in that church. But as he turned away and glimpsed the horrific images that were now filling all the TV screens, he decided that God was probably not in a very good mood today. In fact, God was probably not listening at all.

By late afternoon, figures were arriving. None held the mind-numbing counts that had come from the tsunami in the Indian Ocean the previous Christmas, but though the numbers were smaller, the details were just as horrifying. These bombings had not been an act of God. As the acts of men, they were heinous beyond belief, worse even than the Twin Towers in scope. “Black Christmas,” as the networks had begun to call it, would undoubtedly go into the annals of history along with 9/11.

Renate sat at her desk, her demeanor a cloak of ice, as if she had frozen every feeling. Tom checked on her frequently, but she never looked up, choosing instead to keep working at the computer, seeking backdoor information.

They were all doing the same. They all had informants, covert contacts in their old agencies, a collective net cast around the world. Weeks ago they had begun to detect signs that a major terrorist operation was in the works, but they had been unable to pin it down. Equally ominous, no one was claiming responsibility. Usually terrorists were all too eager to step forward and thumb their noses at the world.

Silence reigned. From the dust and the fire came only the cries of victims.

So far, heads of state had been quiet, as if awaiting information before speaking. Only the pope had released a brief message, speaking of martyrdom, grief, consolation and forgiveness.

Forgiveness. Tom doubted that there would be much of that for a while.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Betrayal.

Ahmed Ahsami curled his fists in anger as he watched the reports on three television screens. The BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera were unanimous in their focus on the cathedral bombings, with the other work—the real work, carried out by real soldiers—given only a passing mention. He felt the anger burn in his belly like a white-hot flame.

Betrayed.

He never should have trusted them. Fanatics could not advance the cause of Islam. But he had made a deal with the devil, and the devil would have his due.

Three years of careful planning had been turned to dust, and worse, in the past twelve hours. Three years of arguing, cajoling, convincing his Islamic brothers that they would have to walk a new path if ever they wanted true peace and freedom. Three years of reconnaissance, recruiting, training and more training, to create a network of special operations teams truly worthy of the banner of Allah. Three years directed toward a single goal, a day that would mark forever the ascendance of Islam as a major military and political power.

Betrayed.

On a desk beside him sat a DVD, a DVD the world would never see. It was to have been delivered to the offices of Al Jazeera two hours ago. By now the world would have known the name of Saif Alsharaawi…the Sword of the East. By now the world would have seen the face of Ahmed Ahsami, the face of moderation and determination, every word in his speech carefully crafted.

True justice, true peace, cannot be bought with the blood of innocents…. Islam, like its cousins Christianity and Judaism, deplores the taking of innocent life…. We have shown that we can strike legitimate military and economic targets anywhere, at any time, and that we can do so with justice in our hearts and Allah on our lips…. We ask only that the West leave the Islamic people to govern ourselves, by our own beliefs and our own standards, to pursue our own dreams with the guidance of Allah….

The speech was to have been an olive branch, offered up with the sincerity of a people who had received too much injustice and renounced delivering more. The days of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, of suicide bombings intended to cause the greatest possible loss of life, were past. Islam could not stand with its feet in a pool of blood. If he and his brothers were to win this war of ideas, they would have to do so by complying with the true will of Allah…and the laws of war.

These were the arguments he had made again and again, as he had risen to the top ranks of Saif Alsharaawi. He had personally approved every target, vetting each for military legitimacy. Oil rigs and pipelines, the nuclear weapons plants, the New York Stock Exchange—the heart of Western materialism—all of those, and the other targets he had intended to strike, were selected after careful evaluation.

The forces of Islam could not match the West in terms of nuclear weapons, guided missiles, aircraft or warships. Ahmed knew that and accepted it. Indeed, he had decided to make that mismatch a cornerstone of his planning. For while he might lack high-tech hardware, he could more than match his opponent in special operations forces: carefully selected, highly trained, highly disciplined and highly motivated. They would be Saif Alsharaawi, the Sword of the East, a surgical strike weapon capable of winning military victory without sacrificing political or moral legitimacy.

But he had not had enough strike teams for today’s attacks, and so he had made and forged what was to have been an alliance of mutual gain. And his allies had betrayed him.

Worse, they had betrayed Islam. For as efficient as his teams had been, the bombings of the cathedrals had wiped out any possibility of moderation. And the West would strike back not at his allies, but at Islam. The senseless bombing of churches would accomplish nothing except to continue and intensify the Fourth Crusade already being waged against his people.

Ahmed knew what he had to do. And once his anger had passed, he would find a way to do exactly that.

He would turn their betrayal against them.

Moab, Jordan, 1230 B.C.

“It is time.”

The young Levite, Elezar, looked at Moses with something akin to fear. The youth was not yet old enough to become a priest, so he was still serving Moses and learning the holy ways, as he had been since his twelfth year. Serving a man who spoke with the Lord through the fire and smoke was often unnerving.

But nothing was as unnerving as this announcement, for it meant that Moses was about to die. Elezar could not imagine a world without Moses. Could not imagine that his own revered great-grandfather Eleazar was fit to take Moses’s place. Eleazar was a great priest, true, and could enter the tabernacle that held the terrifying Ark without injury or death but…

Moses was everything to these people, though they often failed to recognize it. They were a stubborn people, difficult to please, often quick to grumble when Moses was not there to steer them. Elezar tried hard not to be that way himself. But now he wanted to cry out to the Lord against the sentence that had been set on Moses.

“Come,” said Moses, picking up a staff and waving the young man to do the same. “We must climb Mount Nebo.”

Leaving the encampment on the plain behind them, they began to climb into the Pisgah Mountains toward Nebo, the highest peak. Elezar half expected to hear the rumble of the Lord’s voice, or see fire atop the peak as his ancestors had seen at Mount Sinai. Which was really not Mount Sinai, but Moses would not tell him where it really was, and none remained among the tribes who could recall, for all who had set out from Egypt with Moses were now dead.

After a long, hot climb, they reached the top of Mount Nebo. Moses spread his arms wide as if to embrace the breathtaking view.

“There, Elezar, you see? There is the land that was promised to the sons of Israel. I will not enter with the tribes, nor will you.”

Elezar stiffened. “But I thought…”

Moses turned to him, his eyes kinder than Elezar had ever seen them.

“Let us sit a while and talk, Elezar.”

Though it was said he was over a hundred and thirty years old, Moses sat with all the ease of a youth like Elezar on the hard, rocky ground. Elezar sat facing him.

“There are things you must understand, Elezar.”

The young man could no longer hold silent. “It is wrong that you cannot enter the Promised Land. It is wrong that you must die for such a small error when so many of our people have made larger ones and lived! Why can you not offer an atonement sacrifice? Why is the Lord being so harsh with you?”

Moses listened to the protests, smiling a little all the while. “My time to leave has come. I am no longer needed here. But I do not want these people to feel abandoned.”

Elezar knitted his brow, sensing there was something behind those words.

“Child, do you know your lineage?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you know the line of your mothers?”

Elezar hesitated. “I know best the line of my fathers.”

“You perhaps do not know then that you are descended from my line, as well. My daughters and their daughters married your fathers many times over. You are a Levite, but you are also mine.”

The news caused a trembling in Elezar, like a leaf disturbed by the wind. “It has not been told to me.”

“It was as I wished it. Until now. There are things you must understand, mysteries you must learn. These mysteries were once the pride of Egypt. They were set down on a sappir gemstone, written by Thoth himself, and discovered by my brother, Pharaoh Akhenaten, when we were but children. We studied the stone throughout our youth. And Akhenaten was the first to fully understand it. Thus he began the worship of the One True God… Aten…our Lord. The stone was once in the Ark. Now…”

Moses opened his leather bag and showed Elezar a polished sapphire pyramid, so small that it fit in the palm of the hand. A blue pyramid that seemed to hold as much depth as the night sky. Elezar gasped, amazed as he thought he saw shapes dancing within the stone. But he could not imagine such a thing, that Moses would steal from God himself.

“Relax, my son,” Moses said, reaching out to pat Elezar’s shoulder. “As I said, this is not the tablet of the law. This is far older. And far too powerful to leave in untrained hands. The Hebrews are a great people, but too stiff-necked for their own good sometimes. A knowledge such as this, in the hands of a people preparing to make war, would be…horrifying. But I have left them the Urim and the Thummim, which will be enough to aid them.”

“What is this power?” Elezar asked. “Is God not the only power that exists?” He felt his world reeling.

“There is only one God, and he is our only God.” Moses opened a small pouch and from it poured a fine white powder. “Manna,” he said. “The Hebrews think it came down from the heavens. In fact, it is a recipe from this stone, and El Shaddai showered it upon us at night as we camped near the foot of the mountain. Eat some, my son, for it will give you long life.”

Gingerly, Elezar reached for the powder, allowing Moses to pour some into his hand. He tasted of it and found it not unpleasant, though not exactly savory. It had the slightest hint of honey to it. The climb had dried his mouth and throat, making swallowing difficult, but he had brought a water skin and was able to wash it down. Moses, too, ate of the powder.

“Now,” said Moses, “the people will think I have died. You will descend the mountain and tell them I have gone to my fathers, and then you shall cleanse yourself as the law requires after touching a corpse. By this they shall believe I am dead and that you have buried me.

“Then, by night, you shall return to me. We must go to the place where your real training can begin. The mysteries must pass down, and you will be their messenger.”

Elezar’s jaw had fallen. “I am to lie?”

“It will not be a lie, for I am returning to my fathers. And as far as my people are concerned, I will be dead and gone. As will you. It will be years before you re-enter the world, Elezar, and when you do, you will be a man much changed, for you will know the secret teachings of El Shaddai.”

El Shaddai. The Lord of the Mountain.

2

Guatemalan Highlands, Present day

Father Steve Lorenzo had no idea of the carnage spreading around the world on that Christmas. His goal in life had become very simple: to keep himself and his flock alive. For the past fourteen months, he and his Quiche companions had wandered these mountains, hunted by both the Guatemalan police and the rebels. His once smooth chin now sported a bushy beard, and he could hardly remember the sensation of a hot bath.

And yet it was Christmas, and most of his friends were still alive to celebrate it.

He had no vestments. His cassock had long since given way to peasant clothing offered to him by his friends, who could hardly spare even that. He wore sandals one of his flock had made from vine and sections of tire rubber.

And never had he felt closer to God.

When life seemed its worst, as it had often since the police attack on the village of these people, he found a deep well of spirituality that reminded him of the early days of Christianity, when to hold faith in Jesus brought persecution and often demanded flight. Those early Christians had possessed little more than his tiny flock of survivors. In this time he lived as the early martyrs had lived, and it refreshed his faith even as it wore him out.

But his little band was well versed in the skills needed to survive in these mountains. The food might not be as reliable, nor always as familiar, as their rich fields of maize and their herds of sheep, but the forest was bountiful in its own right, and his friends knew how to use everything it provided.

This Christmas morning he celebrated Mass yet again on an altar made of fallen trees, with tortillas made of corn flour he had managed to purchase—along with beans—from a village they had passed a few days ago, with the few quetzals remaining in his pockets. The women had made the tortillas, patting them back and forth to flatten the balls of dough with an expertise that came from lifelong experience. They had been lightly cooked on a rock set amidst the burning coals of a fire. A nearly smokeless fire. Steve was still amazed that they could manage that here in the jungle.

He used the chalice and paten given him on his ordination so long ago by family and friends. The years had burnished them, and now when he touched them he remembered the faces of all his loved ones. Yet he was determined that when the time came, he would sell them without regret to keep these people alive.

It had been a long time since he had even thought of the Kulkulcan Codex, or the reason he had been sent to these people. The Church’s concern was so far away now, so remote.

He smiled into the faces of his flock and lifted a tortilla for all to see. Esto es mi cuerpo. This is my body.

This was all that mattered.

Fredricksburg, Virginia

Earlier that morning, FBI agent Miriam Anson was in church with her husband, Terry Tyson, a D.C. homicide detective, when her pager began to vibrate insistently. She had been tempted to ignore it entirely until after the service—this was Christmas, after all—when it started buzzing a second time. She turned to Terry, about to whisper an apology, when she saw he had pulled his own pager off his belt and was looking at the number.

Damn! The word exploded in her head, and she touched Terry’s arm. He looked at her, and she jerked her head toward the rear doors. He nodded and followed her just as the congregation stood up to sing a hymn. Nearly a thousand voices singing “Pass Me Not” followed them out into the frigid morning air.

Fredericksburg, beneath a bright blue sky and a layer of fresh snow clinging to trees and patches of grass, looked beautiful this morning. Picture-postcard perfect, Miriam thought as she grimly pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed. Terry turned his back to her and did the same.

If they were both being paged…

“Anson,” Miriam said into her phone. “Kevin Willis called me.”

Kevin’s voice sounded in her ear a second later. “Come in now,” he said. “Black Crescent.” The current code for terror attack.

All Christmas spirit vanished from Miriam’s heart. “I’m on my way.” She flipped her phone closed and saw Terry turning to her, his dark face creased with consternation.

“I have to go in,” he said.

“Me, too.”

Now, hours later, as she sat through one briefing after another on the growing worldwide horror, Miriam wondered at the hearts of men who could perpetrate such atrocities on this holiest of days.

It would be so easy to give in to hate. But hate would not bring her any closer to justice. It would only push her closer to the very evil she fought.

As the briefing officer presented yet more grim statistics and the anger flashed through her, Miriam reminded herself of the central truth of the Christmas sermon she had heard: God appears in this world in stables, not in mansions or palaces, in the quiet of the human heart and not in a blaze of herald trumpets.

And not in the blinding, crushing explosions of bombs.

No, she couldn’t blame God for this one. Humans had done this all on their own. And if Miriam could help track them down, in the dark, silent corners where they hid…that would be the coming of God in this madness.

Rome, Italy

“I have to go to Baden-Baden,” Renate said to the chief. Lawton Caine, who was in the office, too, looked at her with something between sympathy and concern.

Jefe looked at her as if she were mad. “Are you out of your mind? You know the rules we play by.”

“They murdered my family,” she said tautly.

“I know.” The chief’s voice dropped with sorrow. “But you’ll do no good there now.”

“I have to go.”

“Damn it!” Cursing might be considered extremely impolite by Germans, but for once Jefe didn’t seem to care about cultural sensibilities. “Haven’t you noticed the pattern? Baden-Baden doesn’t fit.” He slapped his open hand against the paper map of the world on the back wall of his office, a map that covered nearly the entire space. “If you’re right, they’re after you!”

Lawton stiffened and straightened. “They think she’s dead.”

She shook her head. “After what happened in Idaho and Montana, they know better. There was absolutely no reason to pick that church in Baden-Baden if they thought I was dead. The grudge is an old one, Law. A very old one. What I did to the Brotherhood…”

The chief compressed his lips tightly. “I’ll have to forbid it. You stay here, Renate, where your skills can actually do some good.” He sighed. Then he ran his fingers impatiently through his dark hair. “Okay,” he said. “Renate, why don’t you tell me who would have the funds to support this attack, apart from the Saudi royal family.”

Renate regarded him stonily. “The Frankfurt Brotherhood.”

“Precisely! So why hit a parish church in Baden-Baden? To get you there. They’re hoping you’ll go to find out what happened to your family. Bookworm shows up again in her hometown. Renate, you nearly exposed them a few years ago. I don’t think they’ve forgotten.”

Renate lowered her head for a moment. Then she looked straight at the chief, her eyes like chips of glacial ice. “I’ll take a job as a dealer at the casino. I’ll change my appearance. My father worked there, and there will be talk. Plenty of it.”

“You’d be recognized within an hour. Renate, we could even give you contact lenses, hair dye and facial implants, and your old friends would still know you. You’re entirely too distinctive.”

“I’m not going to let them get away with this,” she said. “This is not negotiable, Jefe. I’m going to take the Brotherhood down. And I’m going to take out the son of a bitch who planted the bomb in my family’s church. It’s only a matter of how.”

“Then for God’s sake, let’s think about the how,” Lawton said. “He’s right. Going into Baden-Baden would do nothing but sign your own death warrant. Hell, we’re not going to find them in Baden-Baden anyway. You know that.”

“What’s their weakness, Renate?” Jefe asked. “The most you’ll find in Baden-Baden is a hit team waiting for you. A hit team you won’t even be able to trace back to them. So what is their weakness?”

“Money,” she said, instantly. “It’s their power base. It’s the blood running in the veins of the Brotherhood.”

“Well, blood runs back to the heart and the head,” Lawton said. “If we follow the money, we find the people who killed your family.”

“You can’t follow their money,” Jefe said. “They’re all bankers. They can hide money with the best of them. And you don’t even have a thread to pull to get all of it started. Renate, I know how you’re feeling, but the right thing to do is to focus on Black Christmas.”

“Our entire office is focused on Black Christmas,” she said, her voice dripping icy resolve. “The police agencies of the entire world will be working Black Christmas. You can spare me. You know that.”

“And we do have a thread to pull,” Lawton said. “We have Jonathan Morgan. Edward Morgan’s father. Edward was Brotherhood. If he was, his father is.”

Lawton had been on the case when Edward Morgan had masterminded the plan to kill U.S. Senator Grant Lawrence—at the time the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination—as well as financing a training camp for Guatemalan revolutionaries in Idaho. Although Lawrence had survived, he was now out of the presidential picture, seemingly content to be the senior senator from Florida. None of it could be proven in a court of law, however. None of it. That loose end still troubled Lawton more than he could say.

“That still doesn’t explain how you’re going to track their money,” Jefe said.

“Banks have a private Internet,” Renate said. “That’s how they transfer money, and I’ll bet the Brotherhood uses that network for its communications. If we can hack into that network, we can find them.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Jefe asked.

“I’m going to Frankfurt,” Renate said. “I broke in once before. I can do it again.”

“You’re not going alone,” Jefe said. “Lawton, you’re with her. You’ll need a computer guy, too. Take Assif Mondi from information services.”

“We may end up needing more than that,” Lawton said. “Niko Petropolis is available. He just got out of rehab. He took a bullet on that operation in Chechnya, remember?”

“I’ll have to ask the doctor if he’s field ready,” Jefe put in.

“So ask,” Renate said. Her voice was steely with resolve.

“Oh, I will,” Jefe replied. “But first, tell me what you have in mind.”

3

Saint-Arnans-la-Bastide, France

General Jules Soult, formerly of the French Army and now retired, sat in his study, enjoying a Cuban cigar as he looked up at the portrait of his renowned ancestor Marshall Jean Soult. The Marshall had built a great reputation in his service to Napoleon, although after Napoleon’s first exile he had briefly collaborated with the Bourbon king.

Soult pondered that collaboration as the television behind him continued its incessant assault of news about Black Christmas. Collaboration, he deemed, was often necessary for a man to achieve his ultimate goals. No shame therein.

Jules turned his head a fraction and watched the stream of videotape showing the worldwide destruction. He told himself he was sorry for all the lives lost and crossed himself while murmuring a small prayer as he had learned during his Catholic upbringing.

But the truth was that this plan had been his. Well, with a few added directions from his Order, an order that dated back to the Knights Templar. He still didn’t understand why they’d wanted to make that ridiculous detour to the small church in Baden-Baden, but he was a man who followed his instructions—to a point.

He turned back to the portrait of the first famous Soult. They were both military men, and as such they understood that there was a human price for every gain and every loss. Today’s activity was a major gain.

While the world reeled and grieved and hunted Islamic terrorists, his men would be doing their stealthy work in the streets.

Jules Soult was a man who studied history intently. George Santayana had said that those who do not study the past are condemned to repeat it. Soult agreed. One must study history in order to learn where the world’s great leaders had gone wrong and to improve upon plans that had gone awry in the past, one way or another.

Take Hitler, for example. Napoleon had tried to invade Russia and had been defeated by the winter. Hitler had not learned sufficiently from Napoleon’s lesson and had expected too much of his panzers.

Soult was determined not to repeat anyone’s mistakes. There was much to be learned in the historical record. Europe had passed the age where an emperor might be accepted, but it had not passed the day when it would accept a strong, unifying leader.

Soult knew he was that leader. His bloodline traced directly back to the Merovingian rulers of Europe, the blood that every ruler since the first century had carried or married into. He might never wear a crown, but he still believed he could reestablish a dynasty.

Much the way Hitler had. Only he would not make the same mistakes. No, he had studied history, and he knew what to avoid.

Hitler had lacked the gift of Islamic terrorism by which to demonize a people. For all of the long-standing hatred of those whom the bastard Church said had murdered the Christ, the Jews had done nothing to harm their European neighbors. And never again would the people of Europe be led to demonize an innocent race.

But radical Islam…that created an opportunity, one that he intended to exploit to the fullest. He had insinuated himself into the planning of Black Christmas—anonymously, of course—and ordered the bombings of the cathedrals. The original Black Christmas plan would not have served his needs. But what had actually happened would work perfectly.

European Muslims would be his scapegoat, the people against whom he could direct violence and thereby distract the people of Europe from his true aims. Moreover, as they joined in the violence against Muslims, they would become inured to hatred and killing. That coldness of heart would serve him well when the time came to recapture the rightful seat of Merovingian power.

Soon the phone would ring, and like Hitler before him, Soult would be given a free hand to conduct espionage against his enemies. He would hire his Ernst Röhm, create his brownshirts to incite the very violence he was sworn to prevent. Confidence in governments would falter, and when it did, he would step into the void.

That much of Hitler’s plan had been sheer genius. But he would not repeat that madman’s mistakes. No, Soult would do what Hitler could not, nor Napoleon before him. And Black Christmas was the key that had opened the doorway to his future.

He smiled up at the portrait, then took another satisfying puff on his cigar. The ducks were lining up beautifully.

It was a shame so many had died. He would light a candle for them. The Lord would certainly understand, because it was nothing less than the Lord’s birthright that he intended to reclaim.

As if on schedule, the telephone rang. He had been told to expect the call, and he knew who she was and what she wanted even before he picked up the telephone. There were advantages to having connections in the highest and most secret circles of power.

“General Soult,” he said, speaking in accented English.

“Ah, General,” the woman said. “You answer your telephone in English now?”

“I assumed it would be another American reporter asking for an interview,” he lied. “Apparently I was wrong. You are German.”

“Yes,” she said. “My name is Monika Schmidt. I am the director of the European Union—”

“Department of Collective Security,” he cut in. “I have seen you on the news many times today. You have had a very bad few days.”

“We have all had a very bad few days, General,” she said. “Once again, we find that our enemies are more resourceful than we had thought. And that we…”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence. The European news media had been finishing it for her for nearly twenty-four hours. How had the vaunted EUDCS, with its contacts in Interpol and the United States, totally missed the planning for Black Christmas? Frau Schmidt did not have an answer for them, though Soult could easily have supplied it. He had, after all, spent much of his career in French military intelligence. And he had used the skills he had learned there to direct the counterespionage operations for the men who had carried out the attacks.

“These things are always more complex than the public realizes,” he said, trying to affect a tone that mixed professional sympathy with the wisdom of experience. “It takes many years to develop the kinds of contacts that would have provided warning for such an operation.”

“And that is why I call you,” she said. “I have spoken with my superiors and explained to them the need for better human intelligence. You served in Chad and directed the French network in Algiers. You have worked in the Arab community before. You know these people.”

His contacts had not erred. She was, in fact, offering him a position—the very position toward which he had worked for fifteen years.

“Yes,” he said, smiling as he drew on his cigar. “I do. So, Frau Schmidt, how can I be of service to the European Union?”

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Monsignor Giuseppe Veltroni carried many problems on his back as he rode in a taxi through the streets of Riyadh to his appointment. To arrive here within two days of the attacks on so many Catholic churches was to put his neck on a chopping block. The people here cheered the destruction, of course. The “man in the street” did not understand the contributions the Church had made toward peace with and for the Muslim world. The average Saudi seemed all too unaware of how much work the Church had done for the Palestinians.

And this little detour was exceptionally dangerous, since he had deserted the protective phalanx the Saudis had provided for him in his capacity as an official representative of the Vatican. But he could not afford listening ears or spying eyes this afternoon. This afternoon he needed to be one-on-one with a man he had nearly come to trust, a man who seemed to have utterly broken that trust.

Beyond that, he was gravely concerned about the fate of Steve Lorenzo. Months had passed since the Guatemalan police had attacked Dos Ojos in an attempt to arrest a rebel involved in the bombing death of the U.S. ambassador. Since then, nothing had been heard from or about the priest he had sent there to find the Codex.

Monsignor Veltroni had virtually adopted Lorenzo, loved him as a son, and felt deep worry about whatever might happen to him. Except… Steve must be dead, or he would have gone to the bishop in Guatemala City, surely?

Veltroni’s heart ached and he wished there was something he could take back, some decision he could unmake so that Steve would return whole and unharmed. Yet he could not be sure the priest was dead, for no remains had ever been found. Perhaps he was still searching for the Codex?

If so, and if he was still with the survivors of Dos Ojos, Steve had both the Guatemalan police and army after him.

And perhaps someone else. Rumors had surfaced in Veltroni’s extremely sensitive intelligence web that someone called “The Hunter” might be pursuing the Codex, as well. If so…Steve faced more trouble than he could possibly imagine.

With a sigh, Veltroni adjusted his mufti, in this case a djellaba with a hood, so that he might blend in better. Beneath he wore his priestly black and his pectoral cross, but he knew better than to think they would save him from harm here.

The cab pulled up before an almost palatial residence. Ahmed Ahsami, a Saudi visionary, was also a member of the Saudi royal family, one of the more minor princes who could live a comfortable lifestyle but not an excessively lavish one. He was also an important official in the oil ministry. Apparently his lifestyle was comfortable enough that one of his employees stepped forward to pay the cab driver before Veltroni could fumble with the unfamiliar currency.

Then, without a word, he was led along surprisingly cool tiled hallways, past beautiful wall mosaics bright with color and into an interior courtyard, where an extravagant fountain bubbled cheerfully and a riot of green plants grew as if this were their native terrain.

The employee—servant?—motioned him to a padded bench. “Sheik Ahsami will send for you shortly.”

Shortly turned into ten minutes, but then the servant reappeared and motioned for Veltroni to follow. At once he was led into a spacious room that forsook the grandiosity of the rest of the building for a very businesslike aspect. Ahmed Ahsami, dressed casually in chinos and a blue business shirt, at once rose and came to greet him.

“Monsignor! It is good of you to come. And I can assure you that you were not followed. So we speak freely, yes?”

Veltroni’s eyes narrowed. “That is the entire reason I have made this trip, Sheik.”

“Please, call me Ahmed. I think we now have more in common than you believe.”

Before the discussion could proceed, however, in the best tradition of desert tribes a repast was laid before them on a long table. Hospitality first, then business. Veltroni chafed, but knew he would insult Ahmed if he did not partake with enjoyment and a considerable amount of inane chat.

As he sipped the powerful Turkish coffee, Veltroni studied his host. The initial smile had faded into a look of deep thoughts that did not run in pleasant waters. While he spoke the correct words as dinner was consumed, Veltroni could tell this was not a man in a state of silent celebration. When they had finished and retired to Ahmed’s drawing room, Veltroni knew it was upon him to break the ice—or shatter it.

“I needn’t tell you how I feel about the Christmas attacks,” Veltroni said. “The Vatican is justifiably and righteously angry. This was a very dangerous gambit, my friend…whoever did it.”

Ahmed studied him carefully, but Veltroni did not flinch. The accusation hung between them, and the burden lay upon Ahmed to dismiss it. Or to admit to it. Without one or the other, the Stewards could have no further dealing with Ahmed. Promises of peace could not survive acts of malicious brutality.

Finally, Ahmed spoke. “The situation is…complex, Guiseppi. There were acts on Christmas for which I and my men were responsible. There were others in which we were betrayed.”

“I know the answer, but I have to ask. You did not authorize the cathedral bombings?”

Ahmed shook his head. “No, my friend. All the attacks were to be on legitimate military, political and economic targets.”

“Like the oil platforms?” Veltroni asked.

Ahmed drew a breath. “Yes, like those. And as I’m sure you know, none of the workers there were injured. After all, why else did we choose to act on Christmas, a time when most at the intended targets would be safely at home? My teams had explicit instructions. They carried out their orders with professional discipline. Alas, my allies—” he spat out the word with anger “—had other ideas. Now we all lose.”

“Yes,” Veltroni said. “We all lose. I don’t suppose you will tell me about these…allies.”

“One betrayal does not justify another,” Ahmed said. “Even if they have no honor, I must answer to Allah for what I have done and what I will do.”

Veltroni considered that statement. Was there honor in protecting someone who has betrayed you, and who in that betrayal has committed mass murder? Once again, he found himself wishing he knew more of Ahmed’s religion. But Islam, like Christianity, suffered from sectarian schisms that rendered simple analysis impossible. Veltroni had no idea of Ahmed’s personal Islam or the tenets he held most deeply.