The Messiah Code (18 page)

"Won't that disrupt the other projects?"

"We should be able to handle it. And I really do think this should be kept discreet. I particularly don't want any of our NIH colleagues getting wind of this. We haven't got time to gain ethical approvals."

Jack frowned again. "I suppose so. Christ, if Jazz feels uneasy about this project, then just imagine how they could feel. Plus I don't think our shareholders will necessarily understand either. We'll need a cover story."

Tom had already thought of this. "We could advance the project under the guise of something to do with that evil gene project. You know? That ridiculous thing the President's been trying to get us to help him on."

"You mean the Criminal Gene Project?" offered Jasmine. "The one we've been steering clear of?"

"Yeah, that's the one. If people start to pry, then we could say we had a change of heart and now believe there might be genes that account for good and criminal behavior. And that this is a feasibility study to attempt to answer the question." Tom paused and then stressed, "But this is a cover story we only use if we have to--which we shouldn't."

Jack nodded. "Okay, I'll arrange the cordoning off. And you'll need account codes for funding. What else do you want me to do?"

Tom hesitated. This was going to be the difficult one. "I need your advice on the four or five samples we want from Alex's list." He reached across the table and pulled the papers to him, scanning them for the relevant entries. "The Lanciano Eucharist, the remains at Santiago de Compostela, the bleeding Oleograph at Mirebeau, the shrine of the Holy Blood in Jerusalem--"

"What kind of advice?"

"The how-to-get-hold-of-them kind."

Comprehension dawned on Jack's rugged features. "So I take it then, that you don't plan on asking permission?"

"Not enough time. And there's no guarantee we'd get it if we did. We only need a scraping. No one will miss what we take."

"So you want me to recommend people who can help
liberate
these relics?"

"Yes."

A great buccaneering grin suddenly creased Jack's whole face. Just as Tom had hoped, the ex-FBI man relished the idea of using his old contacts.

"When do you want everything?"

"As soon as possible. It's now the middle of February, so let's say the end of March at the latest." Tom looked around the table. "Okay?" He felt like King Arthur as each in turn nodded, knights of the Round Table preparing to embark on their search for the Holy Grail.

Jack reached across to the manila folder in front of Alex, Tom's Merlin, and slid the folder closer to him. "Project Cana?" Jack said, reading the title on the front. "Is that what we're to call this among ourselves?"

Tom looked to his father. "It's Alex's idea. I don't see why not."

Jack nodded and pushed the folder back. "Okay. But why Cana, Alex?"

"I bet I can guess that," replied Jasmine before Alex could respond. "The wedding at Cana was where the water was turned into wine."

Jack shrugged. "I know that, but so what?"

"It was Christ's
first
miracle," Jasmine explained. "The first of many."

M
aria Benariac sipped her coffee in the smoky cafe on the rue de Castiglione. She glanced at the clock above the bar, where the obese
patron
was trying his luck with an aging blonde. It was almost two in the afternoon. Maria had been watching the clinic across the rain-soaked street for almost three hours now, but still no one had arrived to explain why Dr. Carter had rented the small examination room.

Since Dr. Carter's trip to Sardinia three weeks ago Maria had kept a close eye on him--despite what Brother Bernard had said. It was maddening; when she had last contacted the Champion of the Secondary Imperative to check on what his plans were for the scientist, she had been told in no uncertain terms to stay away from him. When she'd asked why Dr. Carter was being ignored, he had warned her about becoming obsessed with the man.

Obsessed
? She wasn't obsessed, just concerned. Which was just as well, since Bernard Trier didn't seem to care. Her role in the organization was to perform the Righteous Cleansings; that was what she had been trained for. So, if the scientist was deemed a prime candidate for cleansing in Stockholm, why wasn't he anymore? What had changed?

Who was Brother Bernard to tell her who she should or shouldn't stay away from? Just the memory of his officious voice telling her she was "only an operative" was enough to provoke her. It was as if she wasn't a member of the Brotherhood--just hired help to be bossed around. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that when she confirmed her suspicions about Dr. Carter, then the Father and Brother Bernard would be forced to listen.

She had tailed Dr. Carter easily. His discreet police protection amounted to little more than a patrol car keeping an occasional eye on his house, and following him to and from work. But outside the United States he was on his own, apart from Jack Nichols, who had been by his side some of the time. She had already tracked Dr. Carter to Turin, Frankfurt, and now Paris.

"
Encore du cafe
?" The obese patron was suddenly standing over her with a pot of coffee. She looked up and caught him leering at her. The lust in his small beady eyes reminded her of Sly Fontana. It brought back the older memories along with a cold clammy panic. She immediately wished she'd come disguised as a man, and gave him her coldest glare.

"
Non, merci
."

Something in her look must have reached him. He stopped leering, gave a diffident, almost nervous shake of his head, and walked off.

The large black car stopped across the street and the driver got out and opened the far side rear door. Maria ignored the car at first, still disturbed by the memories the barman had raked up. Then she saw the door to the clinic open and the tall figure of Dr. Carter step out into the rain. He was holding an umbrella and an envelope. Maria remembered that he had also held an envelope when he had met the man at the clinic in Turin. Afterward the man had left with the same envelope clutched in his hands. Was it payment? If so, what for?

Maria sat forward in her chair and peered out of the window. She saw Dr. Carter approach the car and lean forward with the umbrella, as if to offer assistance and cover to the passenger. When he stood again and stepped back from the car, Maria saw a small, elderly woman leaning on

his arm. Then he turned and walked toward the clinic door with the old woman hobbling beside him, as if her feet were giving her great pain. Maria felt a tightness in her chest as she realized that her suspicions were indeed confirmed. She raised her miniature Olympus camera and looked through the zoom lens, studying the woman's hands.

She shot off three frames of film, the automatic motor barely troubling the quiet of the cafe.

Yes, she thought, just like the man in Turin, the old woman's hands were covered in thick bandages.

T
om offered the bent old woman some coffee before ushering her into the small private examination room he'd rented from a local doctor friend of Jean Luc. It looked remarkably similar to, if slightly more elegant than, the small white rooms he had rented in all the other European towns he'd visited over the last three weeks. A sink, a flat examination couch, a hard-backed chair, a medicine cabinet, and a white steel table were the only furniture. This particular facility also had a mini-lab in the back.

In his heart he realized that what he was doing stretched the limits of science. There was only the slimmest scientific basis behind Cana--the wildest of hypotheses. But he was in need of a miracle, and as Jasmine had said about going to Lourdes--you had to go where the action was.

He sat Michelle Pickard down on the brown leather couch.

"How long have you had the wounds?" he asked in his stumbling French, as he started to undo the bandages on her hands.

"Seven years. They first appeared when I was sixty-five. When my husband died."

"Do you have them all the time?"

"No, just on Friday to Sunday. They heal on Monday. And from Tuesday to Friday afternoon the wounds disappear."

Tom nodded. The pattern was typical of some of the other stigmata he'd seen, but this didn't particularly en

courage or discourage him. He was only too aware that he was sailing on uncharted seas here, and was determined to keep his natural skepticism in check and just examine the facts before him. He gently took off the last layer of dressings on her hands. The marks were visible on both the palms and the backs of her hands. As usual the blood was fresh and there was no sign of infection or inflammation. But the wounds were deeper and larger than any he'd seen before.

He then revealed the wounds on Michelle Pickard's feet and found them in a similar state--open and glistening with fresh blood. The same with the wound on the woman's side. He winced as he studied the lesions.

"Are they very painful?"

The old woman's small, smiling eyes watched him closely. "It's good. My pain is my comfort."

There was no answer to that. He took a swab from deep within each of her five wounds and placed each swab in its own labeled, sealed glass tube. Then he took a sample of Michelle Pickard's blood from the vein in her arm. He placed this sample in a sixth tube. After asking the old lady some final questions he redressed her wounds. Then when Tom was done he thanked her, made sure the old woman took the envelope containing the payment, and walked her back to the car.

Michelle Pickard seemed disappointed that it had been so quick, as if she wanted to tell him more about her stigmata. But Tom was tired and had heard all the stories before. For now he just wanted the samples. Samples told their own story. Every other stigmata he'd checked so far had yielded nothing of any real interest. Two were obvious fakes, driven by some warped desire for attention and profit to mutilate themselves. The others, including Roberto Zucato in Turin, merely had blood that was genetically unremarkable. Michelle Pickard looked more genuine than most, but it was the samples that counted. They couldn't lie.

After seeing the old woman off, he walked back to the minilab behind the examination room. He began to pack up the samples, keen to move on. He hadn't seen Holly for over a week, and wouldn't see her until after he met Jack in Italy tomorrow. Alex was looking after Holly, and she was used to his being away, but he still missed her. What the hell am I doing here? he asked himself again. And as always he came up with the only reply he could: trying to give Holly a chance.

He looked in his samples bag and reviewed the stigmata samples he had collected over the last few weeks. Almost all the holding compartments were full, so he decided to run a preliminary screen on the six samples of Michelle Pickard's blood. He would then take only the vaguely interesting swabs with him to Italy, and then to Boston.

Using the microscope in the small laboratory, he first tested the blood sample from the old lady's left hand, then the sample from the vein in her arm, the only one not to have come from her wounds. His first thought when he looked at the second blood slide was that he must have made an error. He checked the sample tubes again to make sure he hadn't been looking at the wrong blood. But there had been no mistake.

He frowned and he felt a tremor of excitement. "How strange," he heard himself saying. "How very strange."

T
he next night, as Tom Carter stood on the deck of a forty-foot fishing boat off Italy's Adriatic coast, he still hadn't worked out the mystery of Michelle Pickard's wounds. He'd told Jack about it two hours ago when they'd boarded the boat at Pescara. "It's got to be a scam," had been the ex-FBI man's first reaction before calling up some "friends" to check her out.

The boat lurched and Tom's aching stomach lurched with it. The enigma of Michelle Pickard suddenly seemed very unimportant. He groaned and bent his legs, trying to roll with the swell of the waves as the crew attempted to anchor the large fishing boat as close as possible to the shore. The trip from Pescara had been relatively short, but he wasn't a good traveler--particularly by sea.

He stood next to Jack Nichols, who to Tom's annoyance seemed unperturbed by the motion of the boat. The night was clear and surprisingly mild for early March. Tom could make out the beach ahead, glowing in the moonlight: a pale sliver of silver. As he scanned the shoreline for the two men, the sound and movement of the waves made his empty stomach contract.

He felt Jack Nichols's hand on his shoulder, and heard his friend ask with a chuckle, "You okay? You look pretty green."

"I feel goddamned green." He scowled. Still, at least it took his mind off his nerves. The two men Jack was meant to rendezvous with were already late.

Jack had arranged for the two men, contacts of old, known simply as Dutch and Irish, to visit the selected sites on Alex's list and liberate the necessary items. Even though Tom had given the professional thieves the correct equipment, with instructions on how to store the samples, everything had been done at arm's length with every link back to GENIUS covered up. But since tonight was the final job--the two men should have visited the church at Lanciano by now--he had decided to join Jack to pick up all the samples collected by the two thieves over the last few weeks. It was a risk, but he'd told himself it was necessary to ensure the samples got back safely. He also had to admit that at the time it had sounded exciting. But now, even though Jack was clearly enjoying being out in the field again, Tom wished he'd gone straight home to Holly.