The God Machine (54 page)

The silver blade slashed through the air, barely missing Sajan's cheek.

Sajan grabbed the nun's wrist. She twisted it down with a powerful motion. The nun screamed and let go of her crucifix.

Koster watched helplessly as the two women struggled. They clawed at each other.

Then, Sister Maria seemed to trip on her robes.

Sajan punched her—once, twice—in the face.

The nun's head snapped back. She clung to the railing.

“God forgive me.” Sajan lunged, fingers pressed in a spear thrust, and struck the nun just under the chin, in the jugular notch.

Sister Maria flew backward. There was the sound of metal rending. The railing began to give way. The nun snatched at the air. But there was nothing to hold. She teetered on the lip of the precipice.

Sajan reached out, perhaps changing her mind, as if to grab at the nun's outstretched fingers. Her hand settled instead on Sister Maria's rosary beads. Sister Maria slipped backward, her arms cartwheeling in the air, and the rosary snapped as she fell. She somersaulted back through the beam of a spotlight. She twisted and rolled. Then her body struck the ambulatory with an audible
crack
.

Sajan still clasped the rosary tight in her hand. She watched as the prayer beads slipped from the thread, one by one, as they fell through the air, raining down upon the shattered body below.

Koster struggled to his feet, gasping. He made his way toward Sajan. In the distance they could hear the shrill cry of sirens approaching.

“Come on,” he said. “We need to get out of here.”

“What about Nick?”

“He's already gone to the safe house.”

“How do you know?”

Koster shook his head, shuddering from the pain. “I don't know how I know. I just do. Don't you trust me?”

There were tears in Sajan's eyes. She glanced down at the body on the flagstones below. “Yes, I trust you. Question is…”

Koster reached out and picked up her hand. He squeezed it and said, “With my life.”

I
T TOOK THEM FORTY-ODD MINUTES TO MAKE IT DOWNTOWN
in a taxi, and it was closing on noon when they finally arrived at the chapel on Avenue B. At first they had a hard time locating the place. The chapel was inside an apartment off Fourth Street. Ironically it was part of a soup kitchen run by the Little Brothers of Jesus, a French order founded in the wastes of North Africa by a monk named Charles de Foucauld.

“They're a Catholic order,” said Koster as he recoiled from the plaque on the wall.

“A Catholic chapel is the last place that anyone will be looking for us. Nick was clever in selecting this place. Besides,” said Sajan, “I know the Petits Frères. They have a retreat near Tamanrasset, in Algeria. They're an honorable group, perhaps the most Christ-like of all Catholic orders. We'll have nothing to fear here.”

They rang the bell and entered the building. As they moved through the foyer, a young man in blue jeans with close-cropped black hair came out of his office to
greet them. “May I help you?” he asked politely. “The kitchen is closed. It's early for dinner.”

They must have seemed a dreadful sight. “The chapel?” asked Koster. “This way?” He pointed at the end of the corridor.

The young man looked at the T-shirt wrapped round Koster's stomach, mottled with blood. “Do you need to go to a hospital?” He had a French accent.

“No,” Koster answered, looking down at the floor. The driver on the cab ride downtown had asked the same thing. “No hospitals. We just need to pray.”

The young man shrugged. Then, he pointed over his shoulder, and Koster and Sajan slipped away.

The chapel had once been the living room of a narrow railroad apartment. It was tiny, with barely space for a handful of benches and a small altar at the far end of the room. A simple cross, made of wood, hung from a nail on the wall. A couple of windows looked out onto Fourth Street, the sunlight filtered by shutters.

A man sat in the corner, his face hidden by shadows.

“You made it,” said Koster. He crossed the room quickly. He dropped his hand on the man's shoulder. Robinson didn't move. “Nick?”

“I saw Macalister die.” Robinson swiveled. “I watched him take his last breath.”

“Yes, I know,” Koster said.

“And they raided my temple in Harlem. They must have tracked us by satellite. The temple's been burned to the ground. All those gospels… The God machine… All those years…”

Robinson staggered to his feet. It was then that Koster noticed his arm. The belt Sajan had applied at the cathedral was cinched round his bicep, but the wound was still bleeding. “All gone… Thanks to you,” Nick concluded, as he turned toward Sajan.

Sajan moved through the chapel. The shadows from
the shutters mottled her face. “You know why I did it, Nick. You lied to us. You made us believe you were after the Gospel of Judas, but you just wanted the God machine. I'm sorry Macalister's dead. And I'm sorry they burned all the gospels. But don't try and make me your… your…”

“Judas.”

“I was going to say
scapegoat.”

“You betrayed us,” Robinson said. He pulled out his Glock. “And you broke the Freemasons' code. You know what that means.”

“Yes, Inspector General.”

“Put that gun down,” said Koster.

“Get out of my way, Joseph. She's the one who's responsible for handing over the map. Every piece that she got out of you, with her kisses and lies. How does that make you feel? She
gave
them the God machine.”

“You
gave it to them,” Koster said. “If you hadn't started this, they never would have found anything.”

“I said get out of my way.”

“I didn't do it for money or glory, or under duress.” Sajan shook her head. Despite her look of defiance, Koster could see there were tears in her eyes. “I did it because the God machine… It should have never been built. And I believed Michael Rose when he swore he'd destroy it. I believed him. I had to. It may lead you to God, but… along a false road. What is religion without faith, Nick? What's the
point?”

Robinson leveled his Glock at Sajan and Koster lunged at the gun. He and Robinson crashed to the floor, knocking over the benches.

Sajan screamed.

Koster grabbed at the barrel with both hands as they rolled. Then Robinson managed to slither on top of him, sitting square on his stomach and chest. Koster could feel the cuts in his belly tear open.

They balanced there for a moment. Slowly but surely, the barrel inched closer. Koster heaved, he pressed and he pushed with a gasp. It was now only inches away from his face. Then, Robinson teetered. Koster yanked at the gun with his last ounce of strength, and it skittered out of Robinson's grasp.

“It's over, Nick.” The gun trembled in Koster's hands. “No one's killing anyone. The killing ends now.”

“Over? It's not over, Joseph. There are other gospels still out there. Other clues to the God machine.”

“Savita's right, Nick. The God machine's a dead end.”

Robinson looked up with surprise. “I thought you told me it worked. I thought you said you saw God.”

“Don't you get it?” Koster tossed the gun to the rear of the chapel. “We've turned technology into our god. We worship at our widescreen TVs. Cell phones and wireless systems are not just status symbols; they've become fetishes. We've connected the world through the Internet but no one goes into their backyard to play anymore. We're killing the earth just to sustain all this crap. Creating carbon emissions. Generating nuclear waste. Just to power the grid that supports our electrical addiction. Technology isn't intrinsically bad, but does it have to come at the expense of humanity, the life of the planet we live on? Must it preempt even the spiritual plane? Savita was right, Nick. You don't need a machine, a device to touch God, any more than you need a cathedral to pray, as opposed to someplace like this.” He waved his hand at the chapel.

“I didn't lie when I told you I saw what I saw. I saw… everything. Judas was indeed Jesus Christ's confidant, his best friend, just as the Gospel of Judas revealed. Judas knowingly let himself be vilified for more than two thousand years as his greatest expression of love for his master. God knew Judas was the perfect vehicle to pass down the first piece of the map. The El Minya
schematic. Who better to reach up from the grave with this knowledge than Judas? Who had a more compelling incentive? God knew we would interpret Judas's motive to reveal the God machine as that very human desire for the apostle to clear himself, to set the record straight about his role in Christ's crucifixion.

“All along the Masonic fault line through history,” he continued, “God has passed on this secret knowledge to us, once piece at a time. To Abraham, da Vinci and Franklin; to Turing and Boole; to Tesla and Edison. And now to Savita. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” Robinson struggled to his feet.

“For our technology to advance far enough for it to rival His presence in our lives.”

“I don't understand.”

“We had to fashion the God machine in order to know that it isn't required,” Sajan said. “Is that it?”

Koster nodded.

“Then what Nick did was part of the plan. Completing the God machine was essential.”

“That's the paradox,” Koster said. “Like sin and free will. God gave us a choice. He waited for Mankind to evolve to a point where technology has become like a deity, a god unto itself, like the Demiurge. Then He delivered the last piece of the map. Only once we could build the machine could we learn its true meaning.”

“And what is its true meaning?” Robinson sounded bewildered.

Koster smiled. “The ultimate God machine is the human brain, which God gave us. When it's tuned to the
phi
frequency, through the ritual of prayer, the brain provides direct access to God. The holy spark is within
us
, within each of us, just as the Gnostics proclaimed. No intermediary—no human, such as a priest, no machine—is required. I didn't understand that. Not until I met you.” He turned toward Sajan.

“All those things I said about Nick in his office; I said them to test you, to be sure of your love for me. I should have just accepted your feelings on faith.” Koster hesitated. “Love isn't a mathematical proof. It was only after you betrayed me that I realized none of that mattered. Regardless of what you did, I loved you. Plain and simple. In the same way, you don't need a machine to connect you to God, to open a doorway. You just need to believe.”

“So,” said Sajan. “What you're saying is that it was your love for me that turned you…”

“… as it can turn anyone…”

“… into a God machine.”

“No batteries required,” Koster said with a soft laugh.

“Your love for
me,”
said Sajan. “Let's just be clear about that.” And she smiled her most luminous smile.

“I don't see what's so funny.” Robinson sat on one of the benches. He hung his head in his hands. “Even if what you say is true, the gospels have all been destroyed. Franklin's journal… Priceless documents… Macalister's dead… And, in case you've forgotten, every cop in the city is looking for us.”

“I don't think we need to be concerned about Rose anymore,” Koster told him. “That's why that sniper in the cathedral pulled back. And without Rose, there's no incentive for the government to continue their manhunt. On the contrary, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to try and sweep this whole thing under the rug. It would be another huge embarrassment for the Alder administration if this ever got out. Especially for Vice President Linkletter.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“I saw Pastor Thaddeus Rose when I went through the God machine. He's not talking to his son Michael for a very good reason. He's away on a retreat, all right. A permanent one. Pinned behind drywall, wrapped in
plastic, in the basement of Michael's mansion in the Hollywood Hills. He's been dead for over a week. Apparently, he caught Michael with a teenage parishioner in his office, and things got out of hand.”

“Do you mean that we're free to walk out of here?” asked Sajan. “No one's after us? That's impossible!”

Koster smiled. “We can walk—or, perhaps, I should say hobble—out of here. But I wouldn't exactly say that we're free.”

“What does that mean?”

“There are things that I saw,” Koster told them. “Some were wondrous.” He paused, grasping for words. “I saw my son Zane. And Mariane too. They reached out and touched me, and all of the pain and the guilt I've been carrying around in my heart all these years simply vanished. It was suddenly gone. Like my Asperger syndrome. I saw Maurice and Jean-Claude. They were happy, Savita. I saw Franklin and Franky. And then there were things…” He shook his head. “Terrible things. Things I saw that I'll never forget. The God machine wasn't the only device Franklin built.”

With the utmost of delicacy, Koster leaned over and kissed the cut on Sajan's cheek. “I saw things about you,” he murmured.

“What kind of things?”

“Does a red polka-dot bikini on your twenty-sixth birthday ring a bell?”