The Bone Labyrinth (43 page)

Gray shifted closer. “It’s those same mirrored primes multiplied together.”

“The reverend father’s star numbers.” Roland nodded. “Such a discovery seems beyond pure statistical chance, especially given that Father Kircher pursued this a step further. He found out that if you took this same verse, multiplied each
letter’s
value by the number of letters, then divided that figure by the same with the
words’
values, he came up with another number that defies rational explanation.”

Roland handed the journal to Gray so he could double-check the reverend father’s mathematical calculations and the final number circled at the bottom.

Gray’s voice rang with a note of astonishment. “That’s pi.”

“A number that was well known during Father Kircher’s time.”

Lena sat back, speaking softly, almost distracted. “Maria and I studied the history of pi for our dissertation about the roots of intelligence . . . using it as a marker for the evolution of knowledge. The earliest approximations of pi actually go back to the Babylonians.”

Roland took back the journal. “So it appears that not only are those star numbers buried within the first verse of Genesis, so is the numerically significant value of pi.”

Gray reached forward and took the book. He flipped back to the page to the earth’s illustration. He tapped the final calculation written on the bottom:
36.6 Costa Eve
. “As you mentioned, this also rounds up to 37. A number that—if you’re right—seems to connect the sun, moon, and earth together with the precision of a Swiss clockmaker.”

Lena’s face had gone noticeably paler. “It might not just be the
stars
.”

They all turned to her.

“That same number is also buried in our
genetic code
.”

9:12
P
.
M
.

Lena had been fearful of broaching this matter. As soon as she had heard about the significance of the number 37, she had recalled something she had read in an academic journal back in 2014. While she had wanted to dismiss the article as a statistical anomaly, she now began to wonder.

Roland stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

She looked down at her hands. “Nearly all life on the planet uses DNA as its coding material, but there’s a code within that code, one that is beyond mutation and change. It’s the complex set of rules that govern how DNA produces proteins. Recently a biologist and mathematician, working together, discovered a series of perfect symmetries buried in that code. A pattern all based on the multiples of a single prime number.”

“Let me guess,” Gray said. “37?”

She nodded. “I remember one example from the article: how the atomic mass of every amino acid that makes up our bodies—all twenty of them—is a multiple of 37.” Lena gave a small shake of her head. “The odds of this pattern emerging by random chance were calculated to be one out of a decillion, which is 1 followed by 33 zeros.”

“So in other words,
slim
,” Seichan added.

Roland frowned. “You don’t even have to look so
microscopically
to see that connection to our biology. All you have to do is consider the normal temperature of the human body.” He stared across the group. “It’s
37
degrees Celsius.”

Silence settled across the cabin.

Gray finally spoke, his voice hushed. “If all of this is true, we’re talking about a single number that defines everything. Connecting our DNA and our bodies to the very movement of the sun, moon, and earth.”

“But what does it all mean?” Seichan asked.

He shook his head, as much in the dark as everyone else.

“If there are any answers,” Roland said, “they’ll be found here.”

The priest had shifted again to Kircher’s journal, returning to an image he had shown them earlier. It was the section of South America with a labyrinth drawn atop a subterranean lake. It was where Kircher believed Atlantis was hidden. Lena recalled the history of this region, hinting at a lost city buried under the mountains, a place of inexplicable treasures, where ancient libraries stored books of metal and crystal.

Could there truly be such a place?

Seichan echoed this question. “How can you be so certain about all of this?”

Roland pointed to the journal. “Look where we’re headed, at the
latitude
marked on the map.”

Gray leaned closer and read those coordinates aloud. “3.66.”

Roland smiled. “Anyone want to claim that’s random chance?”

The pilot radioed back. “Buckle up, folks. We’re beginning the final approach into Cuenca.”

Lena twisted around and peered out the window. Ahead, the dark forest vanished into a patch of brightly lit homes. She returned her focus to the spread of jungle and the sharp-edged peaks in the distance. Somewhere out there could be hidden the greatest discovery in mankind’s history.

Still, a part of her wished the plane would tip on a wing and head away, knowing all the bloodshed that had led them here, reminding herself that Maria was still in danger.

Lena drew her gaze up to the moon, at the mystery hanging in the night sky. Beyond all the talk of calculations, she remembered Roland’s first comment about how the face of the moon perfectly covered the sun during a total eclipse. It was a symmetry of orbital movements and celestial sizes that defied common sense. Yet it had hung there for millennia, offering up this miracle to whomever dared to look and wonder.

She also recalled Gray’s comment earlier, about how all of this—the sun, the moon, and the earth—seemed designed by a Swiss clockmaker.

A chilling question rose to her mind.

If true, who was that clockmaker?

The jet shook as the landing gear was engaged.

Maybe we’re about to find out
.

10:03
P
.
M
.

Inside the shadowy hangar that neighbored the main airport of Cuenca, Shu Wei stabbed her dagger under the cowering man’s ear, angling the blade up. His mouth opened to scream, but death claimed him before any sound could escape. His body toppled backward, sliding off her knife and collapsing to the concrete floor.

She turned away, wiping the blood from the blade with a rag. She had gained the information she needed from the man. Her targets had flown off in a rented helicopter forty-five minutes ago, heading out into the jungle. The group had left with only a hired pilot, destined for a site deep in the mountains, where they were scheduled to meet with a pair of local guides of the Shuar tribe.

She tugged free an iPad from a pocket inside her jacket. It was the device she had discovered in the smoky university office back in Rome. It belonged to Father Roland Novak. During the flight here, a digital forensics expert had reviewed everything on the unit’s drive. Most of the information pertained to a medieval priest, Athanasius Kircher, including vast volumes of the man’s work. Little of it seemed pertinent to this hunt, except for the image she had viewed from the start. She brought up the screen again.

It was a map of Ecuador, with a specific spot pinpointed on it.

Her target’s rented helicopter was flying to a site near that same location.

She frowned, wishing the group had waited until morning before beginning their jungle search. She had hoped to narrow the gap with them here in Cuenca, to ambush them while they slept.

Still, she had prepared for this eventuality.

She crossed to the ten men assembled near the hangar door. She had handpicked each member of the strike team. They all belonged to the Chengdu Military Region Special Forces, all part of her current unit, code-named
Guˇ
. They had earned that title,
Falcon
, due to the unit’s notorious ability to hunt down and eliminate their targets with the ruthlessness of a true bird of prey.

I will not dishonor that name this night
.

Her second-in-command joined her. Sergeant Major Kwan stood a head taller than her, his limbs thick with muscle, his face crisscrossed with old scars, his dark hair tied in a short tail. Many called him the Black Crow, due to his penchant for taking trophies from those he killed: rings, wedding bands, snips of hair, even a pair of slippers. She had once asked him about this quirk. It wasn’t to glorify the kills, he had told her, but as a measure of honor, respecting the lives of those he took.

Over time, she had grown to trust the man, more than any other. He in turn never showed any resentment of her position, age, or gender, a rare and welcome sentiment.

“The helicopter is fueled,” he said, his voice deceptively soft and quiet for such a rocky countenance. “Engines are being warmed.”

She nodded her approval, staring past the tarmac to the dark mountains.

Then let the hunt begin.

19

May 1, 11:04
A
.
M
. CST

Beijing, China

It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.

Maria clasped tightly to Baako’s hand. Because his wrist was bound in restraints, all she could do was squeeze his fingers. The heat of his skin was feverish. Though his eyes were glazed under a light sedative, he still silently pleaded with her, trying to understand what was happening to him, wondering why she was allowing this to be done to him. Tears rolled down from the corner of his lids. He could move little else with his skull clamped to the operating table by a ring of stainless steel.

An electric shaver glided across his scalp, wielded by one of the nurses.

It had been almost ninety minutes since she and Baako had been delivered to the vivisection lab. The preoperative preparations were interminable, involving a comprehensive physical, multiple blood tests, even an MRI. As the procedures ran on, Major General Lau had finally left with Arnaud, escorting the French paleontologist away to begin his study of the Neanderthal bones stolen from Croatia.