The Radix Read online

  Sucking in a breath, he swiped a smart card through the metal reader. The library doors glided open. Another wave of anxiety tickled his consciousness. So much could go wrong tonight, but Brynstone sensed he was close to discovering the truth about the Radix legend.

  In the emerald fog of night-vision goggles, Brynstone glanced around the room, wondering where to start. At three thousand square feet, Zaki’s library was bigger than most people’s homes. Along with ancient Egyptian artifacts, the prince collected Arabic and Islamic artwork from the Seljuk period and the Mamluk Empire. Priceless antiquities congregated with sculptures posed on marble pedestals. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves adorned the walls.

  The prophet could be hiding anywhere in here.

  Built into the east wall, a 440-gallon aquarium bathed the room in arctic light. Six lionfish drifted inside the tank, their dorsal spines seething with venom. A blueringed octopus lurked beneath a shelf of purple live rock. Only four inches long, the Australian cephalopod’s bite could kill ten men.

  A twin tank dominated the opposite wall. Shadows darted inside, triggering motion sensors to activate ultraviolet lighting. Like stars spilling across the heavens, scorpions glowed whitish green in the black light. The terrarium seemed to pulsate as the fluorescing creatures scrambled over rocks. Zaki favored lionfish, a killer octopus, and scorpions. Turns out it’s true, Brynstone thought. People do buy pets that match their own personalities.

  Beside an Egyptian sarcophagus, he discovered an object that chilled him. Encased in a glass cube, an Arabic dagger pierced a human skull. He moved a step closer. With a hilt cut from a rhino’s horn, the jambiya’s curved blade was wedged near the coronal suture.

  Brynstone caught his chiseled reflection in the display glass. He squinted, intensity sizzling in his ice blue eyes. He pushed up night-vision goggles onto his thick black hair. Pinching the skin at the bridge of his nose, he closed his eyes. How many years had it been? His mind flashed to a childhood memory of a stormy Nantucket evening when he had rolled his wheelchair into his father’s study. The most terrible night of his life.

  Jordan Rayne’s voice crackled inside his earpiece. “Have you found the prophet?”

  His head snapped around. He blinked as he scolded himself for losing focus.

  “Dr. Brynstone? Do you copy? We have word Zaki has returned to Aspen. Over.”

  Ugliness churned inside his gut. Security languished when diplomatic business called away Ambassador Zaki. That’s why Brynstone had chosen tonight to break into the main residence of Hala Ranch.

  “I thought Zaki was in Washington with the president.”

  “Their meeting turned into a screaming match. Prince Zaki stormed out of the Oval Office,” she answered. “He’s back in Colorado. His Airbus landed at Aspen County Airport.”

  “In this snowstorm?”

  “He’s heading to Hala Ranch in a helicopter. We should abort Operation Overshadow.”

  “I can’t. We’ve come too far. Is Zaki’s State Department security detail with him?”

  “Affirmative,” she answered. “His guards will secure the main residence before Zaki arrives. You can expect company any minute.”

  “Then I better shut up and find the prophet. Brynstone out.”

  He slid on the goggles, then searched the library for an image of a prophet. Find it and he’d discover the passage to the secret chamber.

  The Koran mentioned twenty-five prophets, including Mohammed as well as Jesus, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Solomon. He didn’t expect to find a likeness of Mohammed, given the Islamic ban against portraying his image. But none of the paintings and sculptures here featured anything resembling other prophets. Had he received compromised intelligence about the entrance to Zaki’s secret chamber?

  Outside, a rhythmic sound slashed through the wind.

  His heart slammed in his chest as he peeked out the window. A helicopter roared above the foothill a half mile behind the mansion. Snow swirled around the heliport as a greenish yellow beacon summoned the Agusta Bell 139. The chopper touched down in a halo of floodlights. Zaki was home. His arrival with a State Department security escort would make Brynstone’s escape more challenging. Zaki also traveled with a roster of former British Special Air Service men. Hala Ranch’s security far outnumbered the local sheriff’s department.

  Time was running out to find the prophet. Brynstone felt the dizzy tingle of adrenalin. A challenge like this sharpened his thinking and heightened his vigilance. Made him feel alive.

  He noticed an oil painting depicting a seated woman dressed in lavender robes. A young man kneeled beside the throne, absorbing her wisdom. Painted in the neoclassic style, it clashed with the Islamic artwork. He wondered if the woman was a sibyl. Maybe even the Delphic oracle counseling Oedipus? If so, she might be the prophet who would guide him to Zaki’s secret chamber. No, he decided. It doesn’t make sense. Although Ibn Hazen had suggested that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a prophetess, most Islamic scholars believed that Allah had never chosen a female prophet.

  He jolted at the sound of footsteps. Light sliced beneath the doors. Outside the library, a card activated the swipe reader. As Jordan Rayne had predicted, Zaki’s guards were running a last-minute check throughout the main residence of Hala Ranch.

  He scrambled across the library.

  The door unlocked with a soft click.

  Brynstone opened the standing Egyptian sarcophagus, hoping it was empty.

  Not the best hiding place, he told himself. Still, Scooby-Doo would be proud.

  Chapter Two

  Aspen

  5:06 P.M.

  Brynstone had crammed his body and backpack inside the sarcophagus in Prince Zaki’s library. The lights came on before he’d closed the lid all the way. He froze, not surrendering a breath. Peeking through the inch-wide aperture, he strained to see the guard. Brynstone glanced at the mahogany floor. A smart card rested ten feet from Zaki’s desk. It must’ve fallen from his belt. He cursed himself. On his way in here, he’d taken out a guard named Tareef to get that card. It offered hope of escape without attracting attention.

  The guard’s walkie-talkie crackled in the silence. “This is Imad. Library is clear.”

  Brynstone hushed a sigh of relief.

  Reaching for the light switch, Imad glanced back, casting a final look at the room. Brynstone held his breath, waiting to hear the door close. Nothing. He stiffened. Imad walked toward the desk. Cradling his submachine gun, he picked up the smart card. Speaking into his two-way, he said, “Faysal, tell Tareef I found his card. He dropped it in the library.”

  “I have not seen Tareef.”

  “And why would Tareef’s card be up here? He never patrols the library.” Suspicion playing on his face, the guard hurried toward the desk.

  Brynstone strained to see him.

  “Prince Zaki walks in as we speak,” Faysal growled. “Get down here, Imad.”

  The guard pocketed the card. He flipped off the light, then bolted from the library.

  Brynstone emerged from the sarcophagus and rushed to the spot where Imad had been standing. He made a sweeping glance at the desk. A book of pre-Islamic poetry. A foot-tall sculpture of a praying mantis. Handwritten notes scrawled in a clean dizaani script. A black scorpion trapped inside a Lucite paperweight. Six Arabic journals arranged in a uniform stack.

  He shot another look at the mantis. Perched on greenish bronze hind legs, the statue’s oversized forelegs were folded in prayerful reverence. It came to him in a flash. He remembered that mantis originated from an ancient Greek word meaning “prophet.” Some Arabic cultures believed the mantis bowed in a praying fashion as it faced Mecca. A smile. With a little help from Imad, he had found the prophet. Now he needed to figure out how the mantis would lead him into the secret room.

  As he grabbed the sculpture, he noticed that the mantis’s clawed forelimbs were moveable. He coaxed them apart. As they opened, the statue’s triangular head tilted. The thing moved like a real ma
ntis, the only insect able to peer over its shoulder. The praying mantis turned its creepy gaze toward the terrarium. Moving with a whoosh, the tank glided three feet to the right. Scorpions clambered across the rocky landscape. Their venomous tails jabbed at the air as the terrarium slid away to reveal a metal door.

  Now we’re getting somewhere.

  He hurried to the door. The keypad featured an alphanumeric display, like on a phone. He removed a tracing device from his backpack, then clipped it to the keypad.

  “Work your magic, Jordan,” he whispered. “But make it fast.”

  “I’m on it,” she purred. “I’m bypassing the tamperprotection hierarchy.”

  He trained his gaze on the door. Zaki’s security team was circulating the grounds. The prince would visit his library any minute now. It was his second-favorite room at Hala Ranch.

  “How’s it going, Jordan?” he asked, stripping urgency from his voice.

  “I’m running a rotating algorithm now. Narrowing it down.”

  “I need it now,” he muttered.

  A shadow passed in the hallway, breaking up light from beneath the door.

  “Check the monitor,” she said. “Let me know if it does the trick.”

  A series of numbers appeared on the small screen. He punched the eight-digit PIN into the keypad. The door unlocked. He opened it, then ducked inside the secret chamber. Looking back, he pressed a red button. The terrarium rumbled across the floor, sealing him inside.

  “I’m inside the chamber. Commencing phase two of Operation Overshadow.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks for your help. Brynstone out.”

  Carved into the wall, Arabic letters spelled out the secret chamber’s name: assembly of the dead. The hexagonal room featured thirty marble compartments, each with glass doors, separate humidity sensors, and recessed lighting. Inside the booths, upright mummies guarded the room like battle-hardened sentries. Many in the collection had been stolen from museums and smuggled into this country.

  He passed from one mummy to the next, marveling at their preservation. Some looked gray and paper-thin, with withered faces. Others appeared almost alive, with serene expressions. A diet of old mummy movies had fed his childhood. The ones with Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee had scared the crap out of him, but also inspired his fascination with paleopathology.

  Mummies filled every compartment except one. Prince Zaki’s collection boasted desiccated specimens from different eras and cultures: the ancient Egyptians, the Jivaros, the Sauras, the Alaskan Aleuts, and the Chachapoya cloud people. Bog mummies stood side by side with catacomb mummies and “mound people” recovered from tree coffins going back to Denmark’s Bronze Age. The corpses had been embalmed using everything from sugar, lime, and salt to frankincense, mercury, and alcohol. Zaki even owned a drooping Old West outlaw, preserved with arsenic. He moved past each mummy’s booth until one captured his attention. He caught his breath after reading the Arabic inscription above the glass door.

  ALEXANDER THE GREAT

  He leaned in, taking a look at the corpse mounted on a stainless-steel post. Was this for real?

  Mummified in Babylon, Alexander’s body disappeared around the first century CE. The Macedonian leader’s will had demanded his corpse be submerged in a golden coffin filled with white honey. Outside of a textbook, Brynstone had never seen a “honey mummy.” God knows, he’d always loved the name.

  He hadn’t come here to find Alexander the Great’s mummy, but he couldn’t tear himself away. Alexander’s body was in decent condition. His face was another matter. The nose was missing, thanks to a famous royal blunder. Three centuries after Alexander’s death, Caesar Augustus had inspected the mummy, brushing his hand across the face. Bad idea. Caesar had snapped off Alexander’s nose.

  The noseless mummy posed one of the greatest mysteries in paleopathology. Speculation about Alexander’s passing ranged from malaria to West Nile fever to a poison conspiracy. If Brynstone analyzed the mummy, he could solve the ancient mystery. Not tonight. He needed to find the mummy of Lorenzo Zanchetti. He suspected it held a greater secret.

  He found the Renaissance mummy four compartments down from Alexander the Great. The soft-tissue preservation was the best Brynstone had seen. Friar Zanchetti had eyebrows and eyelids. Even a black curly beard. And he had a nose, more than his Macedonian neighbor could say. The Italian monk appeared asleep, not mummified. Zanchetti looked good for a five-hundred-year-old mummy. Come to think of it, he looked good for a mummy from any period.

  Brynstone pulled a small monitor from his backpack. Using suction backing, he attached the high-resolution screen to the inside wall of the booth. At the monitor’s base, he plugged in an endoscope designed to explore the tissues and organs separating the lungs. The slender probe contained a miniature camera composed of hundreds of ten-micron glass fibers. Using the fiber-optic instrument, he could grab a crystal-clear visual of the mummy’s bodily canals.

  If Brynstone’s painstaking research over the last two years was correct, a priest named Raphael della Rovere had found a curious hiding place for his stolen treasure. Before Cesare Borgia could track him, della Rovere had stashed a priceless relic inside Friar Zanchetti’s corpse.

  According to legend, a small stone box called the cista mystica, or mystic coffin, contained the Radix. He wanted it, but wouldn’t risk unnecessary damage to the mummy. After slipping on latex gloves, he eased two fingers inside the mummy’s shriveled mouth, then inserted the endoscope’s lighted tip. He could search here without leaving a clue Zaki might notice.

  Watching the monitor, he angled the flexible tube into the larynx and down the trachea. He jumped when a spider appeared on the screen. He chuckled in relief. The creature had crawled inside the mummy’s throat and never found its way out. From the look of it, the spider had been trapped inside Zanchetti for two or three centuries.

  He probed farther, but didn’t see anything. Growing impatient, he removed the endoscope from the mouth. That’s when he noticed Zanchetti’s missing finger. The ring finger on the mummy’s left hand had been severed. Did della Rovere intend it as a clue that the cista mystica was lodged near the heart?

  Long before it was known as the ring finger, the third finger on the left hand was called the heart finger. Medieval scholars believed that a special nerve ran from the heart to the third finger. This belief inspired the matrimonial tradition of placing a ring on the third finger because it was connected to the heart, the center of love and fidelity. The tradition persisted, although most people wearing wedding rings had no idea that ancient medicine had inspired the practice.

  A post inside the booth held the mummy upright. Grabbing a scalpel, Brynstone made an incision in the chest as if he were performing laparoscopic surgery. He inserted the endoscope’s glowing tip into the opening, then fed the tube inside the chest cavity. Moving between the ribs, the probe snaked deeper into Zanchetti’s body. Better be right, he thought. No time for mistakes. On the monitor, the edge of a small box came into view. Could it be the cista mystica? Flushed with adrenalin, he rotated the endoscope toward the box.

  The monitor went black.

  He’d lost the image. He knew from experience it could be several things. An internal calibration problem could result in poor image transmission. Or maybe a defect produced by misalignment in the apparent field of view.

  Brynstone removed the endoscope from Zanchetti’s mummified chest and almost dropped it in shock. He rolled back on his feet, breathing and swallowing, ears ringing.

  The endoscope was coated in blood.

  Chapter Three

  Washington, D.C.

  7:10 P.M.

  “We cannot discuss this at the White House,” Deena Riverside whispered to the president’s brother, backing up her words with a glare.

  “I’ll discuss it wherever I damn well please,” Dillon Armstrong answered. “Especially given the substantial amount of money I’m pouring into this deal.”

  “Th
is could be dangerous for us. We have to keep it quiet.”

  She glanced around the Blue Room, making sure no one was within earshot. The French Empire décor and sapphire blue furnishings sparkled with holiday adornment. Near the door to the South Portico, a string quartet played “Silent Night.” Dressed in cocktail attire, the other White House guests were absorbed in conversation.

  “I promise, this will be worth it,” she said. “But you need to be patient.”

  “Patient?” he snorted. “I didn’t become a billionaire by being patient. You know what really bothers me, Deena? We don’t have any guarantees that Pantera can deliver.”

  “It’s a complicated process,” she assured. “Trust me, it will pay off.”

  “It better.” He checked his cell. “I need to take this call. When I get back, I want hard details.”

  Dillon Armstrong stormed across the Blue Room, heading for the Cross Hall. Dressed in a black suit, he looked like a shorter, younger version of the president. Deena had never enjoyed an easy relationship with the man. More than anyone else, he controlled her corporate fate. The pressure was on. If she didn’t close this deal, she could be fired from her chief-executive-officer position.

  President Alexander Armstrong watched the dark-haired child from across the Blue Room. At least half of his fifty guests attending the Christmas Eve party were household names. Didn’t matter. He focused his attention on the little girl in the center of the room.

  Four-year-old Andrea Starr dropped her head back, staring at a crystalline angel dangling from the eighteenfoot Christmas tree. Her small mouth lowered in awe as she pivoted on her leg brace for a better look. Her father, Isaac Starr, was the vice president of the United States. Although Armstrong and Starr had once been political rivals, they had settled their differences before coming to the White House. Armstrong had been with the Starr family on the day Andrea was diagnosed with spastic cerebral palsy.