One of the nearby monks must have heard her talking, because the man turned to look to her. Cleena coughed delicately and patted her chest.
‘Dust,’ she said.
The monk nodded and turned away.
‘Ooops,’ Sevki said. ‘Sorry. I got carried away.’
Most of the mortar lay on the floor at Lourds’ feet. A pool of light from all the flashlights played over the action. Lourds paused and reached into the gaps he’d created to seize the stone.
‘I don’t hear the hammer any more,’ Sevki said. ‘Is the scroll there?’
Cleena ignored him, but she felt the same mixture of excitement and curiosity that coursed through Sevki. For the moment it gave her an edge over being in the enclosed space.
Lourds strained to free the stone but it didn’t budge. He returned to work with the pry bar for a few minutes. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the sound of the bar meeting stone and Lourds’ heavy breathing. Everyone else seemed to be holding theirs. The professor put the bar against the stone above the inscribed stone and used leverage. The resulting crack sounded like a pistol shot inside the room.
‘You know,’ Sevki said, ‘this is the part in a horror movie where the dead rise up to defend their treasure.’
Cleena glanced at the nine graves set under the room’s floor. Nothing moved there. Thanks for that thought, Sevki. As if being chased by flesh and blood killers isn’t threat enough.
Lourds put the bar aside, raised one knee to brace against the wall, and grabbed the stone with both hands.
‘Did you get it?’ Olympia asked.
‘I think so. I wasn’t able to reach all the mortar at the back. The stone is longer than I’d thought.’ The muscles in Lourds’ forearms corded with effort.
With a rasping sound the stone came away from the wall. No one spoke. Carefully, Lourds laid it aside and peered into the dark cavity.
‘I need a flashlight, please.’
Olympia handed him hers.
On his stomach, Lourds trained the beam into the hole.
‘What are you doing?’ Joachim asked.
‘Making sure the Elders didn’t leave any nasty surprises behind.’ Lourds moved the beam from side to side, up and down.
‘They wouldn’t do that.’
‘Perhaps not, but if someone beat us to the scroll, they might have. It’s better to be safe than sorry.’ Satisfied, he reached into the hole, but Cleena still saw the tension and wariness tightening his body. His arm sank into the wall much deeper than the area filled by the stone.
‘Did he find it?’ Sevki asked.
Cleena watched Lourds; she didn’t respond.
‘I guess maybe there would be a cheer or something,’ Sevki said. The disappointment weighed his words down.
Then, inexorably, Lourds withdrew his arm from the hole. His hand held a leather tube with a dull grey glob at one end.
Joachim stepped forward immediately. The suddenness of the man’s movement made Cleena reach for the pistol at her back.
‘Did Lourds find the scroll?’ Sevki asked.
As Cleena’s fingers closed around the pistol butt, Joachim extended his hand.
‘May I?’ Joachim asked.
Lourds hesitated.
‘Of course.’ With obvious reluctance, Lourds placed the tube in Joachim’s hand. ‘Please be careful with it.’
Without a word, Joachim took a small pocket knife from his pocket and pushed the tip into the glob.
‘Carefully,’ Lourds said. ‘We don’t know how it’s packed. The scroll could actually be touching the wax seal.’
Once Joachim had cut around the wax seal, he gently pried it from its moorings. Upending the tube, Joachim poured the contents into his palm.
A single roll of what looked like paper slid into his hand. He caught it, then tucked the tube into his back pocket.
Lourds moved closer and Cleena saw by his anxious behaviour that it was everything he could do to keep his hands off the scroll. He took pictures of the scroll, and the sudden flashes from the digital camera made her eyes ache.
‘Do you recognize the seal?’ Lourds asked.
‘Yes,’ Joachim whispered. ‘The impression is from one of the signet rings that belongs to the Brotherhood of the Joy Scroll.’
‘Do you still have the ring?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this is a match?’
Joachim nodded.
‘What is the device?’ Lourds asked. ‘Four horsemen?’
‘Yes. Signifying the end of the world.’
The other members of the Brotherhood closed in and started whispering among themselves. Cleena got the impression that many of them were surprised that the scroll had actually been found, and that it was what they had expected it to be.
‘Let me get a picture of the seal.’ Lourds gestured with his camera.
Joachim presented the scroll while the professor took pictures.
Then everyone took a collective deep breath.
Gently, Joachim slid a thumbnail under the curve of the paper and sliced through the red wax drop that closed the scroll. When he was finished, he unfurled the parchment. He stared at the writing for a long time.
Stepping closer, Cleena peered at the page as well. She didn’t recognize the words, but it was handwritten in beautiful, flowing script. Nine names lined the bottom of the page.
‘What does it say?’ Olympia asked.
Reluctantly, Joachim shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t read it.’ His shoulders sagged a little.
Lourds started to say something, then caught himself and stopped. He licked his lips, his eyes never leaving the scroll, and said, ‘May I?’
Joachim let out a frustrated breath. ‘Of course.’ He handed the scroll to Lourds.
Cleena moved closer to the professor, drawn by the inexorable mystery of the scroll. She wondered what everyone was going to do it if Lourds said he couldn’t read the document either.
Sevki’s voice sounded tense when he spoke. ‘You’ve got problems.’
‘What problems?’ Cleena asked.
‘I don’t think you’re down there alone anymore.’
Stone Goose Apartments
Zeytinburnu District
Istanbul, Turkey
19 March 2010
‘What do you mean, we’re not alone?’
Sevki’s adrenaline spiked as he stared at the computer monitor before him. He had hacked into the security cameras round the Hagia Sophia once he had found out that was where Cleena and the others were heading. It was a reflex move on his part. Hacking into the camera system served two purposes. One, it would give him a visual presence over the area. Two, it was possible he might catch someone else hacking into the system. Either way would provide an early warning system. On the screen, three sports utility vehicles sat along the main road. Though the cameras weren’t of top-shelf quality, they were good enough for him to see the man’s movements. Those movements were deliberate, and the man walked a grid, returning over the same area again and again.
It was obviously something he had been trained for.
‘I think the guys you ran into at the university are back,’ Sevki told her.
‘Where are they?’
‘On the grounds round the church.’
‘Then they’re not down here,’ Cleena said.
Sevki watched as light flickered from a device one of the men held.
‘I wouldn’t want to bet on that,’ he replied. ‘They’re carrying some sort of device and walking a set pattern. It appears to mean they’re tracking something.’
‘Us?’
‘Or another team that’s gone underground.’ Sevki watched the figures for a moment and the sense of unease within him grew. ‘You’ve got the scroll. If you ask me, it’s time for you guys to get out of there.’
Before Cleena could answer, the sound of a deep, powerful explosion rocketed along the earwig transmission frequency.
20
Crypt of the Elders
Hagia Sophia Underground
Istanbul, Turkey
19 March 2010
Lourds stared at the open scroll in his hands. The handwriting looked familiar, and he felt certain that it had belonged to one of the scribes who had written in the book Qayin had shown him. When working with written documents rather than inscribed, the writer’s handiwork often showed itself in stylization, size and placement on documents. Knowing that the writer might be the same was worth something. It helped place the timeline of the document. But the bottom line was that Lourds couldn’t read it. Some of the words looked familiar, but the context was wrong and he couldn’t make sense of too many of the words on the vellum. Resigning himself to defeat, Lourds looked up at the anxious faces surrounding him. Before he could say anything, Cleena freed her pistol and the monks nearest her stepped back and spread out.