01 Babylon Rising (15 page)

“See that you don’t. I will be watching.”

THE MAN CALLED
Talon paused in his labors, allowing himself a few seconds to take in the part of Manhattan that lay below him. In fact, there was only a narrow railing and some ropes keeping Talon from dropping down to the street.

He stood ten stories up on the window-washer platform descended from the top of one of the most recognizable structures in the world: the Secretariat Building of the United Nations.

Talon turned back to one of hundreds of windows that made the outside of the U.N.’s tallest building look like a towering wall of glass. There were thirty-nine floors, but Talon had done his calculations carefully and he was interested only in floors five through twelve. That would make enough of a statement for his purposes.

Shane Barrington had come through as instructed and
managed to get Talon some of the security-defying access he needed to carry out his task. He had told Barrington what he wanted and left it up to Barrington, whose many subsidiaries designed communications, security, and utilities systems for thousands of businesses, to figure out how to get him what he required.

Talon had not needed too much because the very boring Mr. Farley had given him endless details about his window-washing routine. And Talon had lifted all of Farley’s personal identification before disposing of his body. Which he did only after relieving Farley as well of the necessary body parts for the fingerprint and retinal scanning he would have to pass through to gain access to the
U.N.

Now, in makeup that transformed him into the late Mr. Farley, and having padded his body to fill out his uniform, which said
EXECUTIVE BUILDING MAINTENANCE
, Talon consulted the paper in his hand. It was a meticulously rendered grid he had drawn for himself of every window of the Secretariat Building. If he could continue to raise and lower himself on the motorized window-cleaning platform at this swift pace, everything would be in place well before zero hour.

MURPHY’S EGO AS
a proud male and a proud professional archaeologist was taking quite a pummeling. “Shari, I have to admit, I’m stumped. For the life of me, I don’t know what’s written here on this tail.”

Shari wished there were something more she could do to help. They had already performed as many dating tests as they were equipped to do in their lab, and she had taken careful digital photos from every angle. They were looking at the enlargements now. “I don’t think I can blow them up any larger, Professor Murphy, or we won’t be able to see anything besides smudges.”

Murphy rubbed his hand through his hair in distracted frustration. “No, whatever tool Dakkuri used to etch this message into the tail, he made it last pretty much intact for all these years, and seeing it is not my problem. I just can’t make
head or your proverbial tail out of this. Because be didn’t have a lot of room, be must have used some kind of ancient shorthand. And I suspect Dakkuri must have been trying to be more than somewhat cryptic beyond that, because he was giving directions for uncovering the next piece of what he believed was his most powerful icon.”

Shari drew a deep breath before saying what had been on her mind for several minutes now. “Umm… Professor Murphy … have you thought about—”

“Don’t even finish the sentence. I know when I’m beat. I’ve got to get Isis McDonald back on the phone.”

“Wow, Professor Murphy, that’s some whopper of a tale … er … story.” Isis McDonald looked back over her hastily scrawled notes and shifted the phone receiver to her other ear just to give her neck a chance to uncramp. “But tempting as it is, I can’t do what you ask.”

“Why not? Look, I know we haven’t met, but you’ve got to know I’m not a crackpot and I usually know my stuff. You backed me up on the scroll and it seems to have been proven right. This is the next step now. I’m closer than anybody has been in thousands of years, presumably, to finding the entire Brazen Serpent.”

“Yes, yes, Professor Murphy. That’s all very well and good, but I’m a philologist for the Parchments of Freedom Foundation, not a starry-eyed, glory-seeking archaeologist, and I’ve got a deskful of my own research I’m behind in. Actually”—she craned her neck to look around her—“it’s more like an office full of things I should have finished months ago.”

“Please, Isis. Believe me, I don’t want to ask for your help, but I can’t wait on this—and I also hate to admit that I’m just not smart enough to figure this out and you are.”

Isis sighed, but, to her surprise, her lips were forming a smile. “Oh, Professor Murphy, I can see how you bull your way to all these breakthroughs. You are skilled in the ancient art of flattery.”

“I am a licensed professional. Will you help me, please?”

“Look, Murphy. Here’s what I’m willing to do. I have to be here for foundation review meetings for the next few days, and you’re a busy man as well. However, the good thing about the foundation is that resources are generally not in short supply. Which is why I need to be here for our review meetings, since you are not the only skilled practitioner of necessary flattery. But I will dispatch my very able, very trustworthy secretary, Fiona, on our foundation jet to pick up your Serpent’s tail and bring it to me.”

“Whoa! That’s very extravagant, but I can’t let this out of my hands. How can I be sure it would be safe?”

“Murphy, you’re there in what I’m sure is a quaint, perfect-little-tiny-town school and I’m sitting here in the world’s largest privately funded historical research center with state-of-the-art systems and security. Who are you kidding?”

Once again, Murphy knew when he was bested. “Point taken, Isis. Before I scurry off with my tail between my legs and lick my wounded small-town pride, let me just say thank you, the Serpent’s tail is yours for as long as you need, and when can Fiona be here?”

Murphy surprised Laura in her office. He was holding a small box.

“Murph, what are you doing here? Did that mean old dean send you here for detention again?”

“Sweetheart, I was sitting and moping in my lab because I had to call Isis McDonald to take the Serpent’s tail because I’m clearly not smart enough to figure it out. Then I realized I was still good for something, so I dug this out and fixed it up. I’ve been meaning to give it to you ever since we got back from Samaria.”

He handed the box over to Laura. She looked as eager as a five-year-old on Christmas morning as she ripped the lid off. “Oh, Murph, it’s the cross formed by those root branches in the cave. I was wondering where it went.”

She held up the now-polished wood to admire it. It was approximately an inch and a half long and a half inch wide. Murphy had drilled a tiny hole through the top, then burnished the finish with a few drops of oil, which brought out the grain and enhanced the color of the wood. At the meeting point was a rounded burl from which the four tendrils of root that formed the cross had grown. It shone like a hardwood gemstone.

“I’ve strung it on my very best leather moccasin lace. No expense has been spared to keep you in jewelry befitting your status, m’lady.” He bowed before her.

Laura bent down and hugged him hard. “Arise, you noble lad. Your queen has greater things in store for you. Come, take me home, let me show you why it is good to be the king.”

PAUL WALLACH WATCHED
as Shari dipped a spoon into the sauce. She took a quick catlike sip, gave a little nod as if to say
Not bad, if I do say so myself
, and went back to stirring the pasta. In the cramped kitchen, the steam made her look flushed, as if she’d been running and hadn’t had time to change. To him the sheen of perspiration somehow made her look even more beautiful.

She turned and caught his abstracted gaze. “Hey.” She frowned. “You’re supposed to be watching closely. How long did I say the pasta had to cook?”

“Five minutes?” he offered. “No—fifteen.”

Her frown stayed in place and her grip on the spoon tightened.

“Oh, I know,” he said. “Trick question. Until it’s, you know, whatever the word is—al dente.”

She brushed a damp strand of dark hair from her forehead and turned back to the steaming pots. “Hmm. I don’t think you’ve been listening to a word I’ve been saying, Paul Wallach. I mean, you’re the one who said he lived on cans of tuna and takeout pizzas and wouldn’t it be great to learn how to cook a meal once in a while that actually tasted of something. I know this isn’t exactly duck à l’orange or anything, but you could show a little more appreciation.”

He quickly put his glass of Coke down on the counter and adopted a sincere expression. “I do appreciate it, Shari, I really do. And it smells incredible. It’s just that I find it hard to concentrate on things that don’t really interest me—”

“You’ll be interested enough in eating it, I bet,” she interrupted.

“Sure, yes, you’re right. What I mean is, I don’t think I’ll ever be any good at it. However hard I try, I don’t think I’m ever going to be a great cook.”

“Just like you’re never going to be the next Bill Gates, right?” she said, glancing quickly over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t upset him.

He sighed. “Exactly. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life trying to be good at things I’m not. Pretending to be interested in stuff I couldn’t give a… give a fig about. I mean, I wanted my dad to be proud of me and all. I didn’t want him to think I was, like, a failure, or whatever. And it turned out he was the failure.”

Shari had promised herself that she would let him talk without interrupting him, but she turned from the stove to face him. “Paul, you can’t think of your father that way. He may have failed at business, but he provided a good life for you for a long time.”

“Yeah, some
good life
. I’m not sure which he was a bigger failure at, business or being there for me.”

“Paul Wallach, let me tell you something I discovered when my parents were killed in a car accident years ago. You can blame them for anything you feel is wrong in your life, you can feel guilty about things that went unresolved while they were alive, but at some point, good or bad, you have to live your own life, whether they’ve given you a good foundation or not, and stop making them an excuse.”

Paul slouched in his chair. “Oh, I keep telling myself things like that. That’s why I pushed myself to go back to college here at Preston, because I didn’t want to just sit and mope about my tough luck. At least my dad gave me the example of working hard. But it’s tough working hard at stuff when your heart’s not in it.”

Shari handed him two steaming plates of spaghetti and red clam sauce, and for a moment he was distracted by the rich, warm smell.

“Wow!” he said. “I mean, really. Wow! You must let me have the recipe sometime,” he added, grinning.

“Ha-ha,” she said, shooing him into the little living room, where she’d set the table. “Sit down and eat. And then you can tell me what it is exactly that your heart
is
in.”

“Thanks,” Paul said, handing Shari a mug of coffee. “And not just for a delicious meal. Thanks for listening to my problems like this. I feel bad taking up your time with this stuff when you could be, I don’t know, doing more exciting things.”

She smiled. “I like helping people, Paul. And I know from
my own experience that someone just listening can be a big help.”

He’d hoped she was going to say something else, something a little more personal. Something that indicated she was interested in him. He wanted to be more than just her good deed for the day. But maybe he was hoping for too much. Or maybe it was just too soon.

“So,” she said, “the first thing you’ve got to do is be honest with yourself. You no longer have to live your life for how your dad feels. If you don’t think you’re cut out for high finance, then find something that does interest you.”

“I think I’ve found a subject I want to study.”

“Great.” She beamed. “What is it?”

He hesitated. Would she think he was faking an interest just to impress her, to worm his way into her affections? He didn’t want to blow everything.

“It’s about as unbusinesslike as I can get. Biblical archaeology,” he said, watching her expression.

She looked steadily at him for a while. Not smiling, but not quite frowning either. As if his sincerity were being weighed in the balance and the scales hadn’t quite come down one way or the other. Finally she said, “I guess you know how I feel about it. I can’t think of anything more fascinating, more worthwhile. And if you want to get into it, well, that’s good. But are you sure you totally understand what it’s all about? I mean, it’s not just about digging up artifacts and finding out where they came from. That’s what regular archaeologists do. It’s about proving the truth of the Bible.”

Paul started to frame an answer, then stopped himself. He did have an answer, at least he thought he did, but he wasn’t
sure he could put it into words. No, he couldn’t claim to be a fully paid-up member of the Christian faith. He wasn’t even sure what it was exactly he believed in. But when he’d seen Murphy’s photos of the ossuary in the lecture hall, when he’d heard him read the inscription, he’d felt something deep inside that he’d never felt before. All he knew for sure was that he wanted more of it.