The Lucifer Gospel

33

A damson was dressed in white duck trousers, a blue denim shirt, and black Topsiders without socks. He sat on the far side of the boat’s large and lavishly decorated salon in one of the big tan leather club chairs scattered around, a cut crystal tumbler full of single-malt whiskey in one hand and the Lucifer medallion in the other. Beside him, in jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt, was Jean-Baptiste Laval, the supposed expert in Coptic inscriptions. Finn and Hilts, dressed in long fluffy bathrobes with Romans XII embroidered across the right chest, sat together on one of the long low leather couches arranged around the bulkheads. Adamson gestured at the bathrobes with the hand holding the medalion. “You understand the significance of the name, don’t you?” he asked.

Finn spoke before Hilts had time to open his mouth. “Of course,” she said mildly. “It’s from the Bible. Romans twelve, verse nineteen. Vengeance is Mine sayeth the Lord.”

Adamson was impressed. “Very good, Miss Ryan. I had no idea you came from such a religious family.”

“I didn’t. Just a reasonably literate one,” said Finn.

“It’s actually Romans XII the second, to be really accurate,” Adamson said and smiled. “My grandfather owned the first one. A Boeing fifty-foot Bridgedeck. He used to come out to Cay Sal Bank with Joe Kennedy and Cardinal Spellman to bonefish before they went on to Havana.”

“Your grandfather. This would be Schuyler Grand, the wacko radio evangelist?” asked Hilts. Finn wondered how smart it was to overtly provoke a man with a shotgun up against his chair.

“That’s correct, Mr. Hilts.”

“Doesn’t sound like the Schuyler Grand I knew,” the photographer answered.

“That’s the point, Mr. Hilts, you didn’t know him. Few did. He was a very complicated man.”

“He was crazy,” said Hilts flatly.

“He certainly was.” Adamson smiled. “He was crazy as a bedbug, but there was nothing crazy about his patriotism. He believed that America was the greatest nation in the world and that it had been created to lead the rest of the planet away from godless communism and into the light of true democracy.”

“That story’s a little out of date,” said Hilts. “All the people who sang that tune are dead and gone, from Stalin all the way down to Richard Nixon.”

“The names have changed but the enemies haven’t,” Adamson answered. “America is faltering once again and it needs a strong patriotic leader to save it. A man of God. A man for God.”

“Why do I get the idea that man is you?” said Hilts sourly.

“Do you know what a killer culture is, Mr. Hilts, Miss Ryan?”

“Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun. Barbarism as a culture,” offered Finn.

“Osama bin Laden,” said Hilts.

“Most people find the idea abhorrent. They think that a barbarian is simply someone who hasn’t seen the light. But that’s not the case. There are killer cultures all around us but we’re too vain, or isolationist in our thinking, to believe it. There is no way that Islam and Christianity can ever coexist. We are both killer cultures. Cultures who kill their enemies as a way of life. Hitler knew that, but his vision was too shortsighted. If he’d made war only on his true enemy-Communism-he would have captured half the world and lived to a ripe old age. The Prophet said to ‘make slaughter’ on the Infidel and Christian dogma tells us to ’smite the anti-Christ.’ There can be no middle ground. This is a crusade. One way of thinking must win in the end. And we’re losing, except we refuse to recognize that fact. We no longer have the highest standard of living in the world. Workers in Canada and places like Brunei earn better wages. Korea has better longevity statistics. Cuba’s population is more literate. Progress has been turned into a dirty word and our president would rather see us as asexual Puritans. We have turned ourselves into a nation of scapegoat seekers who look for their cultural pleasure in reality shows that are anything but. I intend to put a stop to that and the Lucifer Gospel will help me do it.”

“You’re as crazy as your grandfather,” growled Hilts.

“Why do I get the idea that both of you are crazy?” Finn asked angrily. “There’s a hurricane coming and the two of you are talking politics.”

The broadloom deck beneath her feet was tilting back and forth in long slow swells and the sound of the wind outside seemed louder every second. It was dark enough for the overhead lights to be on in the huge, low-ceilinged room, and rain scratched harshly against the long, teardrop-shaped windows. The whole boat yawed back and forth, turning on its anchor chain, keeping its bow into the wind.

“Don’t worry about the hurricane, Miss Ryan. So far the weather people have it listed as a tropical storm. They haven’t even given it a name. I’m afraid you won’t live through it anyway. As for myself and my companions, this boat is capable of slightly more than fifty miles an hour running ahead of the wind, and run we shall as soon as we’ve disposed of you.”

“So where does he fit in to all of this?” Hilts asked, nodding toward Laval.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” said the Frenchman.

“Brother Laval is a Jesuit,” said Adamson. “Which means that above all he is a logical man. Brother Laval no longer works for the Church. He works for me.”

“So, Laval, I guess that means that money talks and God walks.”

“Very witty, Mr. Hilts,” replied the monk. “Perhaps you should get a job as an action hero.”

“How did you find us?” Finn broke in. “You couldn’t have followed us.”

“We didn’t. We followed your friend, Mr. Simpson.”

“I’d never met him before I came to Cairo,” Finn protested.

“Simpson is the reason we hired you, Miss Ryan,” said Adamson. “Simpson’s been part of this since the beginning.” He laughed. “Since before the beginning really.”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Rumors about a Gospel written by Christ have existed almost from the time of His Crucifixion,” said Adamson. “And rumors like that have always had a political currency. My grandfather was aware of that fact. In the late twenties, when the Vatican was in serious financial trouble, my grandfather, among others, came to their aid. An exchange of information regarding the Lucifer Gospel was made. It’s a very long story and I have neither the time nor the inclination to tell it now, but suffice it to say that eventually governments became involved. Mussolini’s, ours, and the British, who basically held the reins of power in the Middle East at that time.”

“Simpson.”

“Simpson.” Adamson nodded. “The Lucifer Gospel, had it surfaced at that time, could have seriously altered the balance of power immediately prior to World War Two. It could have crippled the Vatican’s newly acquired tax base and it could have brought America into the war at least a year, if not two years, earlier.”

“Water under the bridge,” commented Hilts.

“Not really. When DeVaux reappeared in 1959 with news of the Gospel, the Cold War was at its height. The revelation of the Gospel’s existence and its existence within the United States would have had an enormous impact. Jack Kennedy, should you need reminding, was a Catholic.”

“The Pope killed Kennedy?” Hilts laughed. “That’s a new one!”

“His Catholicism may well have been a contributing factor to his death.”

“You think this lost Gospel is still that important?”

“Our own government thought so, Miss Ryan. DeVaux died for it on the Acosta Star.”

“Kerzner, the Canadian?” said Finn, remembering Lyman Mills’s theory.

“Your father was his control officer, Miss Ryan. Kerzner was CIA. His real name was Joseph Turner. He wasn’t Canadian, of course, but by then DeVaux was an American university professor and the Company’s mandate didn’t include assassinating our own people, as you are well aware, Mr. Hilts. Not back then, at any rate. His job was to find out what DeVaux was selling the bishop, and barring that, to kill both of them, which he did. Now it’s your turn.”

“We didn’t find anything either,” said Finn.

“That remains to be seen,” said Adamson. He took a small sip from his glass. “Not that it matters to you.” A pair of heavyset men in dark clothing appeared at the doorway to the big cabin.

“What are you going to do to us?” asked Finn.

“I’m not going to do anything, Miss Ryan, God is.”

By the time they were taken out onto the rear deck of the yacht, the rain was coming down in ragged torrents and the visibility was nonexistent. The ocean around the boat had been torn to ribbons, a mass of broken, spume-flecked chop and huge rolling waves that vanished in the sodden curtain of rain to break like thunder in the hidden distance. The sky overhead was a black roiling mass of clouds driven to madness.

“The robes, please,” said Adamson. They stripped them off, leaving them in their bathing suits. There was no sign of their dive vests or other equipment. The inflatable had vanished and the float plane was gone. “Follow the sound of the breakers. That’s Cay Lobos,” said Adamson, shouting to make himself heard over the sound of the storm. “ Micah, verse three, chapter three: ‘Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.’ That’s what the coral is going to do to you, and if that’s not enough, the highest point on the island is twelve feet above sea level. During the last half dozen hurricanes in this area the storm surge was twice that. You two are about to have an unfortunate accident.”

“Why are you doing this?” Finn asked, shivering. “You have the medallion. Without it we have no proof of anything. You have what you wanted.”

“I need your silence, just as your father needed DeVaux’s silence and DeVaux needed Pedrazzi’s. The secret of the Lucifer Gospel can’t be shared.” He waved the shotgun in his hands. “Down onto the swim platform, please.” Finn looked over the side. Four steps down, the wide lip of the teak-decked swim platform jutted out from the rear of the yacht. The breaking seas curled over it in long steady sweeps. Beyond that the waves were a tangled hell. Once they went overboard they wouldn’t stand a chance.

“What if we refuse, then what?” asked Hilts.

“Then I’ll do the Lord’s work for him and blow your brains out,” answered Adamson, hefting the shotgun. “The barracuda won’t mind the mess and neither will the sharks. Up to you.” He motioned with the pump gun again. “Over you go.”

Hilts grabbed Finn by the wrist and pulled her toward him. “When we go over don’t try to stick with me and don’t try and help me if you see I’m in trouble. Take care of yourself, forget about anything else.” He turned, gave Adamson the finger and went down onto the platform. Within seconds a roller swept him off his feet and he vanished. Finn went after him and stepped down onto the platform, taking a deep lungful of air as she did so. Instantly she was swallowed by the darkness of the sea.

The first of the huge rollers pulled her down and under in a single, ice-cold moment of absolute terror. As a child she’d once been briefly caught by an undertow in the warm waters off Cancun, but she’d instantly been snatched to safety, plucked out of the water by the strong hand of her ever-vigilant father. There was no one to save her now. The deadly surge grabbed her in its watery fist and pulled her relentlessly toward the bottom.

Finally she broke free of the wave’s terrible grip and gulped in huge gasping lungfuls of air, retching seawater, feeling the tug of the next wave as she was swept forward and down, with barely enough time to take a breath before the deluge swallowed her again. Once more she was pressed down, thrown onto the reef, the rough sand and coral tearing at her skin, and once more, exhausted, she clawed her way to the surface for another retching breath.

A third wave took her, but this time instead of coral there was only sand on the sloping bottom, and she barely had to swim at all before she reached the surface. Her feet stumbled and she threw herself forward with the last of her strength, staggering as the sea sucked back from the shore of the tiny island in a rushing rip current, strong enough to bring her to her knees. She crawled, rose to her feet again and plunged on, knees buckling, in despair because she knew in some distant corner of her mind that another wave as strong as the first could still steal her life away with salvation and survival so tantalizingly near.

She staggered again in the treacherous sand that dragged at her heels and almost toppled her over. She took another step and then another, blinking in the slanting, blinding rain. Ahead, farther up the strip of shining beach, was a darker line of a few trees, fan palms and coconuts, their trunks bent away from the howling wind and the lashing rain, unripe fruit torn away, crashing away in the teeth of the storm like cannonballs. Finn’s breath came in ragged gasps and her legs were like deadweights, but at least she was free of the mad, clutching surf that broke behind her now like crashing thunder.

Struggling higher up the sandy slope she finally reached a point above the wrack and turned back to the sea, sinking down exhausted to her knees. The straps of her one-piece swimsuit were torn. She was still badly frightened, but wept with relief as she stared into the shrieking nightmare of the rising hurricane. She was alive.

Through the rain she could see the heaving broken line of frothing white that marked the reef, but nothing more. True to his word, Adamson had run before the wind and disappeared. Suddenly she felt something touch her shoulder and she turned, screaming. She whirled, heart in her throat. It was Hilts, a gash on his forehead streaming blood, his hair plastered down, grinning like a lunatic. He had survived as well.

“Misery acquaints man with strange bedfellows!” he said, yelling happily into her ear.

“What are you talking about!?”

“Adamson’s not the only one who can quote things!” Hilts yelled. “How about:

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.”

“The Bible?” asked Finn.

“Shakespeare,” said Hilts. “Miss Slynn’s grade-nine English class. The Tempest. Had to learn the whole damn play. First time it’s ever come in handy.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Come on,” he said. “Even Caliban knew to get in out of the storm.”