The Lucifer Code (14 page)

After Diageo had gone, Accosta limped across the rug towards the bathroom. His private quarters were plain. The most valuable single item was a ceremonial sword, hanging in its scabbard above the bed. He kept this one memento of his years as a captain in the Argentine navy, seeing it as a symbol of the eternal war he fought for the salvation of humanity.

In the bathroom he let the towelling robe fall from his shoulders and removed his undergarments, then stood naked before the mirror. He still looked remarkably fit, considering his age and the battering his body had taken over the years. The most noticeable damage was the scar tissue on his wasted left leg and deformed pelvis, evidence of the injury that had changed his life all those years ago.

He had been a different man then, a young, red-blooded warrior who took God's support for granted. Conquest was all that mattered in battle, in his career and in the pursuit of women. Then the British Harrier jet had sunk his cruiser off the Falklands. He couldn't remember the explosion or being airlifted from the sinking battleship. But although it had happened over thirty years ago he could still recall every detail of the eleven-hour operation in Buenos Aires as surgeons fought to save his life. He had been unconscious throughout but he had seen the surgeons pin together his fractured pelvis from a position above the operating-table. He had wondered whether he would live or die.

When he woke from the operation, he had known his life must take another course. God had singled him out, sparing his soul but damaging his body to shift his focus from the physical to the spiritual and fulfil His grander purpose. He had given Accosta the blessing of suffering so that, in continuous pain, Accosta was perpetually reminded that he was God's envoy on earth.

He limped to the bath and tested the water before climbing in. As he lowered himself and felt the heat seep into his aching bones he comforted himself by thinking of all he had achieved since leaving Rome. In only ten years he had fashioned the Church of the Soul Truth into the single most important ministry on earth.

Still, when he got out of the bath and dried himself he realized that even this phenomenal success was meaningless. He pulled on his nightclothes and reached for the glass of water and tablets on his bedside table, taking each pill in the order Diageo had laid them out, saying a brief prayer as he did so. He hoped that Diageo was right and that God would allow Bradley Soames enough time to succeed with the Soul Project.

As he laid his head on the pillow he switched off the light. In the darkness he saw Mother Giovanna's pegged-open eyes stare at him accusingly and turned his face into the pillow. The Soul Project had to succeed to justify her death - and those of the others. His destiny had to be greater than being God's minister on earth. For his life -and Mother Giovanna's death - to have any purpose, he had to become God's minister on earth and in heaven.

*

Barley Hall

After leaving the Think Tank, Fleming ran down the dark, deserted corridors of Barley Hall to his office where he powered up his computer and accessed the Data Security Provider, using his password to open Brian's restricted files. He scanned the NeuroTranslator database until he saw the folder icon marked Rob Fleming'. He drew a deep breath, touched the folder on screen and opened it, revealing a series of more folders.

Within seconds he had arranged the screen display into two halves, the left showing the pulsing brain-wave patterns of Rob's brain, the right the Quicktime video footage from the cameras in the Think Tank that showed his death. Along the bottom of the screen a clock allowed him to synchronize each action on the video footage with Rob's brain activity.

Distancing himself from what he was witnessing, he replayed the experiment from the beginning, watching the brain-wave signals oscillate as Rob 'talked' for the first time. Each word had a unique signature pattern involving a number of brain waves, and as Fleming scrolled up the left side of the screen he saw nothing unusual.

Until Rob had his seizure.

The right side of the screen showed Frankie applying the defibrillator paddles to Rob's chest. The left side showed Rob's brain waves oscillating wildly, as if in great distress. Then, one by one, they faded away into flat lines, signifying brain death.

Over the next six minutes the brain waves didn't revive. Except one. A wavelength so high up the frequency spectrum that it was almost off the scale. It fluctuated randomly as Rob uttered his final words. It appeared solely responsible for his ability to speak after death. It was different from anything Fleming had seen before. He finger-tapped the screen and a dialogue box appeared. He looked at the title line but there was no name, just one word: 'Unknown'.

Fleming tapped the reverse double arrow on the timeline at the base of the screen, rewinding the Quicktime video to the beginning of the experiment. This time when he scrolled up the left half-screen he noted that the unknown brain signal was at rest until the moment Rob died.

Fleming tried to comprehend what had happened. He replayed the experiment twice more with the sound up so he could hear Rob's computer-assisted speech. All the time he studied the wavelengths, particularly the unknown one at the top of the screen.

Eventually he made two observations. The first was that the new wavelength appeared to enable Rob to speak more fluently after death than he had before, almost as if it was faster at learning to use the NeuroTranslator than all Rob's other brain waves combined. The second observation was that although the wavelength was activated when Rob died it didn't appear on the screen then. Dormant and unnoticed at the top end of the register, it had been in Brian's neural net at the beginning of the experiment.

Fleming couldn't explain the first observation but the reason for the second was obvious: the NeuroTranslator hadn't discovered this mysterious new wavelength in Rob's death. Its neural net had learnt it from an earlier patient and a recent one at that.

Leaning forward, Fleming tapped the screen and went into the NeuroTranslator's list of files. He watched Amber Grant's details appear before him.

On the right side of the screen was the Quicktime recording of her first night in the Think Tank. She was tossing and turning in her sleep when her body suddenly calmed, her eyes opened and she cried out in the voice of a young girl. She was calling her own name repeatedly as if she had lost herself.

Fleming glanced at the left side of the screen and his throat constricted. First, the wavelengths scrambled and oscillated frantically, just as Rob's signals had when he died. Then the screen distorted, the wavelengths flat-lined momentarily as if she was brain-dead, and a unique pulsing signal appeared on the screen at the high end of the frequency spectrum.

Fleming knew without checking that it was the same new wavelength as the one that had allowed Rob to speak after his death. He stared at the screen. Then, with slow, dazed movements, he reached for the on-screen icons, opened tonight's files on Amber and played back the sequence he had just witnessed in the Think Tank.

He watched her sleeping, noting her physiological behaviour as she entered REM. She was struggling as if she was being pulled somewhere she didn't want to go. When she entered the dream state her body slackened. When most people enter REM they go into a state of paralysis, because the pons and medulla at the base of the brain send signals down the spinal cord to inhibit muscle activity and stop them acting out their dreams. Her signals were weak and she opened her eyelids as if searching for something. She talked - in the voice he had heard moments before, that of a young girl.

As he watched the brain waves flicker and die on one side of the screen and saw Amber sleep-talking on the other, he saw himself come into the Think Tank and approach the NeuroTranslator, turning on the speakers. When he heard the unearthly scream played back he studied the single unknown brain wave on the left side of the screen. It flickered in tune with the scream, as if reflecting every agony expressed within it. And all the time he could hear Amber calling her own name.

Fleming understood the human brain better than most men and he wanted more than anything to dismiss this as an anomaly of a troubled psyche, or delayed-memory syndrome. But he couldn't.

He remembered what Amber had told him about her dream of dying and a question nagged at him. What if she had been right? Because she possessed part of the living brain of a dead person, perhaps there was some connection between her living consciousness and that of her dead twin. Perhaps her dream of dying had been a memory of her near-death experience on the operating-table, and the scream he had heard was the death-cry of her mind, articulated through the unknown wavelength. And perhaps the child's voice hadn't come from Amber's consciousness but Ariel's.

Hadn't Amber said something about her and her twin trying to contact each other but being unable to, like two magnets of the same polarity? Fleming leant back in his chair and rubbed his temples. His head felt hot, as if he was running a temperature, and his hands were trembling. He wanted to go to bed and forget about this but the sound remained with him. However he twisted the data in front of him he kept coming back to one possible - impossible - explanation.

Somehow, when Ariel died a trace of her consciousness remained in the living section of Amber's brain that Ariel had shared. Unlike other parts of the human body, brain cells aren't renewed, and a vestigial mental link remained between the twins. A part of Ariel's consciousness seemed to be trying to contact her living sibling, while a part of Amber's had embarked at least twice on the traumatic journey of dying. At some unconscious level, they were seeking a reunion in the no man's land between life and death.

If the hardware connection between the twins was their shared brain tissue, then the software link was the unique and unexplained brain wave. But this wavelength didn't just link Amber and Ariel, it had allowed Rob to communicate. This neural signal, this soul wavelength, might be the universal link between the abstract mind and the physical brain - between life and death.

As he replayed the video of Amber sleep-talking and the scream issuing from the NeuroTranslator speakers, Fleming remembered his dream and Jake's question about heaven. A chill ran down his spine.

There had to be a rational explanation for this. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he jumped when he noticed the figure standing a few feet away from him, staring at his computer screen. The director of Barley Hall was holding two cups of espresso.

'Virginia, what are you doing here?' 'Insomnia's my excuse, Miles. What's yours?' 'How long have you been standing there?' Knight looked at the computer screen again. Her face was white. 'Long enough. What the hell's going on?'

Fleming was glad to unburden himself. 'Take a seat, Virginia. I'm not entirely sure what I have here but there are a few things you need to know.'

*

The Red Ark. 18deg 10' S, 16deg 01' E.

Ninety-two minutes later

Xavier Accosta was fast asleep when there was a sharp rap on the door of his stateroom. He opened his eyes and tried to orient himself. 'What is it?' he barked.

The door opened a crack, spilling a triangle of light on to the jewel-like colours of the worn Chinese rug. Monsignor Diageo pushed his head round the door. 'Your Holiness, forgive me for disturbing you but there's an urgent call.'

'Can't it wait?'

Diageo opened the door further, widening the triangle of light, and stepped into the room. 'No, Your Holiness, it can't.' He was holding a cordless digital phone.

'What time is it?'

'Three thirty, Cape Town time.'

Accosta groaned and took the phone. He didn't recognize the caller's voice at first, but when he did his irritation evaporated and he became instantly alert.

As Accosta listened euphoria rushed through him. He controlled the urge to bombard the caller with questions, although there was so much he wanted to know. He listened patiently, until the caller stopped talking, then asked three questions. After listening intently to the replies, he issued four instructions. Finally he thanked the caller and hung up, returning the phone to the waiting Diageo.

He threw back the bedclothes, sprang up and rushed to the bathroom with virtually no trace of his limp.

'Monsignor Diageo,' he called over his shoulder, 'we have to prepare for the new day. There's much to do. Our Lord's finally provided, and we mustn't disappoint Him.'

*

Barley Hall.

The next morning

Amber woke exhausted. The memory of last night's dream was sinister and seemed more significant than the first. She had the frustrating notion that there was something she should remember, something to do with Ariel. It was as if she could see her sister calling to her through thick distorted glass but couldn't hear what she was saying. As she prepared for the day ahead she looked forward to seeing Miles Fleming again and hoped that the initial analysis from the NeuroTranslator would shed some light on her predicament. She would call Papa Pete in the afternoon.

She was feeling more optimistic when there was a knock on the door and Professor Virginia Knight entered the Think Tank. Her hair was flat and her suit looked as if she had worn it all night. 'Excuse me for disturbing you, Dr Grant, but I have bad news. Your mother's condition has deteriorated. The hospice advises you to return as soon as possible.'

It was the last thing she had been expecting. The shock hit her like a physical blow. Amber had known that her mother was dying but until now she hadn't accepted it. Her phantom headaches and dreams seemed unimportant. She had to go home.