A fifty-fifty chance of finding a hidden message in the diary was better than nothing, but not as good as a hundred percent.
Careful, my sweet. That’s what makes gamblers into addicts.
“Okay, show me what you got,” Gil said.
She handed him the printouts. They were fuzzy and too light, barely readable. They looked like second-generation copies of scanned pages that had been posted on the Internet or put through the dishwasher.
“I need something better to work from.”
She reminded him that he already had her translations. Besides, she said, since he didn’t understand Latin anyway, it didn’t seem essential that he work from pristine pages.
“I look for patterns,” he explained. “Even in other languages. So I need the original to look at, too.”
She was immovable. This was all they had. He would have to depend on her.
“Why can’t we work directly from the diary?”
“Not possible,” she answered and indicated that the matter for discussion was closed.
“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” he said with a shrug, “but it’s going to take a lot longer. Let’s try doing it by ear instead. Read it to me.”
At first, the translated sentences made no sense at all. Then, after a few minutes, something seemed to call to him from beyond the words, like a melody he couldn’t quite make out. If he could just …
Gil placed his hands on either side of his head. The ride was about to start. “Read it again,” he said excitedly. “The same first few sentences. Read them over and over. Keep going.”
26th day of January 1097 in the year of our Lord
1–18 1 4 19 I am here with Elias. A poor simple monk living outside Caston within the great city walls of Halcourt near Weymouth Monastery.
27th day of January 1097 in the year of our Lord
5–8 3 1 79 He knows I put lies in this tale and wrongs to ink.
25th day of February 1097 in the year of our Lord
4–12 3 6 9 He angers for I have no fear that one day all shall come to be lost.
3rd day of March 1097 in the year of our Lord
14-2 13 26 7 He rages should I never again fail to try and do so.
For over an hour she reread the same word salad, until they both knew it by heart, backward and forward. She was starting to lose faith, and it showed.
“This is getting us nowhere,” she began. “Why don’t you try decoding it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, substitute letters or whatever you do. Come on, I shouldn’t have to tell you!”
“I told you I don’t do codes,” he said simply. “I look for patterns. Or changes in patterns. Look, if you’re married, a change in patterns tells you that your spouse has been cheating on you. If you’re a bank president, it clues you to the fact that your employee has been embezzling money. If you’re a cybersleuth, it alerts you to a predator trying to lure a child into an abusive relationship. Even terrorists are easy to spot if you know what patterns to look for.”
This diary held a hidden pattern. He could hear it. Loud and clear. It was something he couldn’t explain. He wanted to tell her that you don’t find it by telling your brain where to go, you let it take you. That was the thrill of it. You just went along for the ride and you never knew where you were going to end up. And the pattern was here, calling him like sirens used to call to the sailors of old. The same sailors, Gil reminded himself, who ended up crashing to their death against the rocks.
Bad analogy. Get back to work.
Something was clicking. The words echoed in his mind.
“Read it once more. Quick!”
Without protest, she began again.
“Okay, now slowly,” he said, scrambling for a pen and paper.
Sabbie recited the first few entries.
“Again,” he shouted. “Faster. Faster.”
She read it twice more.
“Son of a bitch. I think we got it!” he announced triumphantly. “Son of a bitch! And it was so damn simple.”
FOURTEEN
A few minutes later
Muslims for World Truth (MWT) Video Production Studios London
News of Ludlow’s death was shocking but not surprising. It made all the sense in the world. Maluka, himself, with the able assistance of Aijaz, had had similar plans for the Professor. Only the presence of two large and very muscular young men, apparently making their way to Ludlow’s apartment a few steps ahead of him and Aijaz, had deterred Maluka from his immediate objective.
As they left, he and Aijaz had spotted two others, dressed in the same white jeans and sweaters as the first two. The second pair waited at the elevator door.
At the time, Maluka considered that the men might have been hired to protect Ludlow and the diary. As far as he knew, no one had intentions of taking the diary by force. And Maluka had known nothing of McCullum’s Angels of Death. Now he knew better.
They had come, they had killed, but, apparently, they had not obtained what they had sought. From all reports he had accessed, official and otherwise, Maluka found no mention of the oven safe or, as per Peterson’s description, the diary within.
The thought that a team of professional killers had failed to persuade the old Professor and his wife to reveal the diary’s location perplexed Maluka. Another thought, however, concerned him more.
While Ludlow had lived, DeVris had been kept within a modicum of restraint. The DeVris-McCullum connection had blossomed with the Professor’s retirement and move to England. Nevertheless, the threat of Ludlow’s ever-watchful eye and his willingness to report any obvious infraction to the Museum administration, had kept DeVris from doing any real and permanent harm.
Now, with Ludlow completely out of the picture, the fate of the diary and the scroll would lie entirely in DeVris’ hands. If, indeed, the scroll proved to bear witness to the existence of Jesus as nothing more than a mortal man, it would matter little to DeVris. Though the manuscript might contain proof of Islam’s most sacred teachings, DeVris was quite likely to simply sell it off to the highest bidder whether their intention was to disclose the manuscript’s sacred message or keep it hidden forever.
“We cannot wait,” Maluka informed Hassan. “Ludlow’s death is a sign from Allah that the time has come for action. Focus on the girl and the American. There will come a time when they will follow the trail dictated by the contents of the diary. We shall let them lead us to the scroll. Then we shall claim that for which our people have waited far too long.”
“What if the scroll bears false witness?” Hassan asked. “Suppose it claims that Jesus was, indeed, the son of God?”
“Then it shall be melted down and returned back to the earth, where it belongs.”
FIFTEEN
A few minutes later
Office of the Translator, Shrine of the Book
“It couldn’t be that simple,” Sabbie said softly.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Gil said. “Look, first disregard all the dates, punctuation, and numbers. They’re meant to misdirect you. Now, read the first two words, skip two words, read two words, and skip the next two. Go ahead.”
26th day of January 1097 in the year of our Lord
1–18