Emerald Read online

  She leaned forward and studied it closely. “Why is it black?”

  “Top-level security clearance.”

  She glanced up at April. “Her, too?”

  “Her, too.”

  For several long seconds Flinders stared at him in silence, trying to decipher the set of his hard-muscled shoulders and the intensity of expression in his eyes. Then she moved her head in a begrudging nod, acknowledging the credentials. But she still didn’t like it. “Back to my question. What do you do?”

  “OSR is basically a think tank of scientists and researchers that researches, investigates, and analyzes anomalous activity of any kind around the world.”

  “You mean like the X-Files?”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. Actually, until the 1980’s there was a ‘Phenomenology’ division that studied UFO’s, the Bermuda Triangle—that kind of thing. But it got phased out when UFO’s turned out to be natural phenomena, or—like Roswell—spy balloons, and no one could find any scientific proof of actual paranormal activity. Now we investigate anything out of the ordinary that pops up—meteorological, astronomical, zoological, archaeological. Especially if it’s related to national security. That’s where April and I come in. We’re the field agents. We get to go out and play with guns.”

  April had had enough talk. She flattened both palms on the table and thrust herself forward at Flinders, her black eyes flashing with impatience. “We know you’re looking for the Emerald Tablet.”

  Taken aback by the ferocity of her tone, Flinders could only stare at her and blink. Finally she found her voice. “You’ve been investigating me?”

  April didn’t answer her. Instead, she asked, “Who were those men who attacked the church?”

  “I don’t know.” Spots of bright red appeared on her cheeks. “What’s all this about? Were you following me? Why were you following me?”

  Scooting his chair closer to her, Skarda cut through the tension with a boyish grin. “For a while now, bits and pieces of intel about the Tablet have been popping up on OSR’s radar screen. We know you have some expertise about it. We were getting ready to make contact with you when the men attacked the church. Why don’t you fill us in with what you know and maybe we can figure out what’s going on.”

  Her cheeks still flushed, Flinders shifted her stare to him. A few seconds passed before she nodded and fumbled out a smile, apparently coming to a decision to trust him. “Okay...” She picked up a slice of bruschetta, munching on it while she took some time to organize her thoughts. “The Emerald Tablet is a set of magical or alchemical texts supposedly inscribed on a rectangular plaque made of emerald or green crystal and ascribed to Djehuty, whom the Greeks called Thoth, an Egyptian deity associated with the moon, magic, astrology, mathematics, and writing. The ancient Egyptians considered him the inventor of writing.”

  “You said ‘supposedly’?”

  She nodded. “Yes. No one’s sure if it exists or even if it ever existed at all. It could be pure myth. Anyway…the Greeks associated Thoth with their god of writing and magic, Hermes, and in time these two deities were syncretized into a new god called Hermes Trismegistus or ‘Thrice-great Hermes’, who became credited with many thousands of magical, astrological, and alchemical texts, called the Hermetica. By the time of the Middle Ages, Christian writers had begun to view him as an actual historical figure, imagining him as a contemporary of Moses who foresaw the coming of Christianity. All sorts of legends got attached to his name: he was the son of Adam and wrote the Tablet in the Garden of Eden; he was Seth, Adam’s second son, and the Tablet he wrote was taken aboard the Ark by Noah; another version has Hermes giving the Tablet to Miriam, the daughter of Moses, who hid it in the Ark of the Covenant. And others have associated him with the legendary city of Atlantis.”

  April frowned in irritation. “So what does this have to do with the attack on the church?”

  “Well…” She took another bite before going on. “The Atlantis connection may be an important consideration. I have my own theories about that which I won’t go into now. There have been persistent stories through the ages—some connected with the myth of Atlantis—that the Tablet gives the location of a source of great power, the power of many suns.” She set down her glass and sat back in her chair. Her voice dropped to a grave whisper. “My parents disappeared looking for the Tablet in the Arctic. They were pursuing a lead that it had become associated with the Nazis and their search for Vril, the energy of the Prima Materia, the ancient alchemical source of all things, derived from the Schwarze Sonne, the Black Sun of Nazi occultism. It was supposed to be a source of great power that Hitler wanted to help the Nazis win the war.” She paused and took a breath. “I’ve been carrying on their quest, as best I can.”

  Trading a glance with Skarda, April got up and carried her wine glass to the balustraded parapet at the edge of the rooftop. For a while she watched a vaporetto ferry cream out a wake on the lagoon below. “So those men were looking for this power source?”

  “Yes. I guess so. It would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

  “Can you make a bomb out of it? Some kind of super weapon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  April shook her head in exasperation.

  Skarda wanted to get Flinders back on track. “Why would they be looking for the Tablet in St. Mark’s?”

  “As I said, I’ve been carrying on my parents’ quest, and that means running down every lead, no matter how slim. It’s what my Dad taught me. Church tradition holds that Mark the Evangelist, the associate of Peter, wrote the gospel associated with his name. Of course, this can’t possibly be true, since the gospels didn’t exist before the middle of the second century CE and the gospel bearing Mark’s name wasn’t attributed to him until then. But according to the Church, Mark next founded the Church of Alexandria in Egypt, and was martyred and buried there. But Alexandria eventually came under Muslim rule and in 828 CE Venetian merchants smuggled out what were believed to be Mark’s bones by hiding them under a layer of pork, which Muslims are forbidden to touch. Whether or not this story is apocryphal is impossible to tell. The relics were then brought to Venice, where a basilica was built to house them. This building was burned down during a rebellion in 976, and rebuilt twice more until the shape of the current St. Mark’s took form in 1063. However, when the new church was being constructed, Mark’s remains couldn’t be found and in 1094 Mark himself was supposed to have revealed the location of his bones by extending his arm from his image on a pillar and pointing to the spot where they were hidden. These were the remains that were supposed to have been sealed in the sarcophagus on the altar.”

  “But the sarcophagus was empty.”

  She nodded. “It was empty. Meaning that the bones never existed or were lost at some time in the history of the Basilica—a situation hard to imagine for such important relics. But that’s not why I was there. Or those men, I think.” Taking a quick sip of wine, she shot them a conspiratorial look. “So here’s the story. When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BCE, becoming Pharaoh, he was supposed to have found the Tablet, then carried it with him on his further conquests in Persia and India. When he died his body was returned to Alexandria and buried there. Over the ages the location of his tomb was lost. But recently new evidence has come to light that theorizes that the bones smuggled back to Venice in 828 were not those of Mark, but of Alexander! And what if the Tablet—so important to Alexander—was buried in the tomb with him?”

  “And smuggled to Venice,” Skarda said.

  April showed her a terse grin. Now they were getting somewhere. “So that’s why they broke open the sarcophagus.”

  “Yes!” Angry color rose in Flinders’ cheeks. “They have no right to destroy an historical artifact like that, religious or not!” The color stained a deeper crimson, now more from self-awareness of her outburst than outrage. “You have to understand…my parents didn’t care about power. I don’t, either. I’m just interested in the importance of
the artifact. To somebody like me, the past is sacred. It shouldn’t be violated like that.”

  April faced Skarda and made an irritated gesture. “She’s too obsessed. Obsessed will get you killed.”

  “I’m not obsessed!” Flinders’ voice was strident. She glared at April. Then her expression softened and her shoulders slumped a little. Her eyes darted to each of their faces. “Look…it’s important to me to finish what my parents started, that’s all. I have to assume they died looking for the Tablet and I think it’s right that I continue their work.”

  Skarda took a few moments to assess her. “The tall man—the leader—recognized you,” he said finally. “Do you know who he is?”

  She recognized the note of accusation in his voice. Her face tightened. “No.”

  Spinning around, April stared at her, her eyes cold.

  Flinders looked up at her with belligerence, then tore her gaze away from the harsh scrutiny of those black eyes. Her head dropped. “No,” she insisted.

  Skarda shot a quick glance at April. A silent communication passed between them. As far as he could discern, Flinders was telling the truth.

  April watched her for a moment and then shrugged. “Maybe they think she can be useful,” she said to Skarda. “She can lead them to the Tablet.”

  “I can also translate it,” Flinders said quietly. “I’m one of the very few people in the world who can. Maybe the only one.”

  “So that’s it,” he said. “This is getting more and more interesting.” He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his thumb over the bowl of his wine glass. “So where does this leave us?”

  Flinders shot him a sharp look. “Us? We’re a team now?”

  A broad grin brightened Skarda’s face. “You’ve just been recruited.”

  “I still don’t know who you are,” she said, shaking her head.

  “As I said, we’re the Good Guys.”

  Pushing herself from her seat, Flinders moved to the balustrade, watching the late afternoon light play over the water. Then she let out a long sigh and turned back. “Okay…I give up. I guess I’ll just have to trust you. But I don’t have any money. I’ve been in Alexandria working on a grant from the University of Chicago. It doesn’t go far. So I can’t afford to go running around all over the place.”

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry about money. We have an expense account.”

  For a long moment she contemplated him with an expression of curiosity, then turned her face up to the sky, shaking her head. “None of this makes any sense.” She let out a clipped, brutal laugh, then dropped her gaze back to her new companions. “Please tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

  “You’re doing the right thing,” he said. Picking up his glass, he drained the last of the wine. “So what’s next on your quest?”

  She took a breath. “Okay...well…tomorrow I’m going to Luxor. One of my colleagues, Dr. Stephen Cowell, found a proto-hieroglyphic papyrus in an undiscovered limestone shaft near the Sphinx. He says I’m the only one in the world who can translate it. I don’t know about that, but maybe there’ll be some clues there. Who knows?” She gave a sheepish chuckle. “Dr. Cowell was lucky. He couldn’t get university funding, but somebody stepped in with a blank check.”

  “Now there’s a coincidence,” he said. “Tomorrow night we’ve been invited to a party on a boat going down the Nile to Luxor. It’s to celebrate Stephen’s Cowell’s find. He’s donating the papyrus to the Luxor Museum.”

  Her eyes went a little wide. “You know Dr. Cowell?”

  Skarda grinned. “OSR funded his project.”

  THREE

  Ostrov Gukera Island, Franz Josef Archipelago, Arctic Ocean

  DR. KSYUSHA MIKHAILOV was sitting in the outhouse when the world exploded around her.

  The international team of global warming scientists had come to Ostrov Gukera almost two weeks ago to drill deep ice cores, searching for the streaky brown stains that signaled the presence of ice algae, a significant link in the Arctic food chain that needs the pack ice to grow and survive. Ostrov Gukera was one of one hundred and ninety-one islands that make up the Franz Josef Archipelago, a lonely scattering of volcanic basalt in the Arctic Ocean, about four-hundred-and-fifty miles south of the North Pole. After the C-130D had flown them into Tikhaya Bay, an unglaciated area on the western shore of the island, they’d trekked over the snow to set up their camp on the opposite shore, where the ocean was thick with drift ice.

  Born in Moscow, Ksyusha had earned her Ph.D. in marine biology from UCLA and had spent the last fifteen years studying the effects of global warming on marine populations all over the world. Since coming to the Arctic, she’d already seen sights that turned her stomach: scores of dead polar bears, beluga whales, walruses, seals, kittiwakes, fulmars, and gulls, all killed by loss of habitat as rising temperatures melted the ice, escalating acidity levels as the ocean absorbed more and more carbon dioxide from the air.

  Human beings were deliberately destroying their own planet.

  The thought made her sick.

  A second explosion rocked her plywood shelter. The image of the gasoline drums for the generators flashed through her mind. Maybe the storm outside had somehow caused them to rupture? With urgent fingers she zipped up the flap of her thermal pants and threw open the door to a wind-driven swirl of dazzling ice crystals. In an instant she took in the horror of the scene outside: the Jamesway huts blown to tatters, balloons of black smoke ripped to shreds by the wind, and bodies flung across the snow in spatters of blood.

  “Get out of here!” It was Hjalmar, a Swedish meteorologist, yelling in Russian and waving his arms at her. Then he was jerked into the air, head over heels, as an orange-red flame blew up the ice under his feet. For a moment Ksyusha stood frozen, staring in disbelief. Then she bolted, her legs pistoning, her heart slamming against her rib cage. What the hell was happening? As she slip-staggered over the ice her brain registered a snow-blurred glimpse of the conning tower of a submarine in the bay, the Zodiac H-733’s on the beach, the stocky man in the black RAB summit jacket with the portable rocket launcher, and the four other men carrying submachine guns fanning out in a V pattern.

  Stumbling, she headed for the shelter of the boulders that had served as a snow wall for the camp. Her breath came in ragged gasps. If she could make it there under the cover of the storm, maybe the attackers wouldn’t find her.

  Then searing hot gas sucked the oxygen out of her lungs as a rocket blast blew her into the air and the world went black.

  ___

  A minute later consciousness leaked into Ksyusha’s brain. Still alive! Fierce needles of pain stabbed at her skull. She lay there, unmoving, playing dead. It was her only chance. She knew she was oozing blood from more than one wound, but that wasn’t important. Staying alive was—outlasting these killers who for no possible reason she could think of had destroyed the camp and murdered all her colleagues and friends. A wave of nausea made her shudder and she moaned against her will.

  A shout raised up behind her. Footsteps crunched over the snow. Ksyusha closed her eyes. Suddenly she was so very tired. With failing strength she twisted her head to see a tall woman looming over her, grinning contentedly, her hood pulled down to expose her bare head. Spicules of ice glinted in her spiked blonde hair and behind her goggles verdigris-colored eyes shone like a cat’s. Ksyusha stared at the apparition, her sight dimming, blurring around the edges of her field of vision. There was something stomach-churning about the skin on the woman’s face, like swollen rubber stretched to the bursting point over the bone. On her temple a vein bulged like a swollen rope.

  “Who are you?” Ksyusha croaked.

  “Name’s Jaz,” the woman said. Testosterone husked her voice.

  The words barely filtered into Ksyusha’s brain.

  Teeth flashing, Jaz raised her rifle with both hands, slashing it downward. “Just like a baby seal.”

  There was an audible crack as the butt crushed the back of Ksyusha’
s skull, slamming her dead face into the drift of snow.

  FOUR

  Gulf of Mexico

  CANDY MAN hadn’t taken a shower in 6.64 days, but he didn’t really care. There was nobody around to tell him what to do or how to smell and that’s just the way he liked it.

  The tension-leg oil rig platform, its flare tower and pedestal cranes bent and twisted by a hurricane and an oil tank explosion, thrust up out of the Gulf like an island plated together out of steel, 30.2 miles off the Florida-Alabama coast. Outside the panoramic windows of the driller’s cabin, which he’d made his command center, the views were magnificent: endless miles of cobalt blue water and a seamless sky, from horizon to horizon. It could have been the surface of the moon, for all he cared. His attention was entirely focused on the sixty-inch Sony LCD monitor cabled to the Cray XK6 supercomputer as his fingers, fat as sausages, tapped on the keyboard like a piano virtuoso playing Rachmaninov.