The God Machine (43 page)

“I don't need any more,” she said with a laugh, but she took the glass anyway. “Aren't you going to change? You'll catch cold.”

“I'm okay,” he replied. They sat down on the sofa in the living room area, nursing their brandies. The loft itself was a long cavernous room divided by a series of sheer cotton curtains. Only the master bedroom and the master and guest bathrooms were blocked off with real walls. The rest Koster had kept open, leveraging the significant footprint. The space had once been a factory building. It was minimally furnished, and the brick walls were practically bare.

Koster watched her in silence as Sajan sipped her
cognac. The robe looked absurdly big on her. He could see the swell of her breasts where the material came together at the top. Suddenly, she turned and looked over at him. With her right hand, she fingered her locket. “I met Irene,” she said softly, “through Nick. Nick's father and the countess were friends. They met during World War II. It was the countess who first introduced me to the Craft. I lived in Europe for a time, as you know, and she and I became friends. Good friends. In truth, she treated me more like a daughter.” Sajan hesitated. “I loved her. I looked up to her. I guess it was only natural then that I requested to join the Grande Lodge. I'd always had a special interest in Gnosticism. As a teenager I was a bit of a rebel, believe it or not, and the Gnostics appealed to my nature. And Freemasonry—the lure of numbers, of secret knowledge passed down—it made so much sense to me. I was always a bit out of place: an Indian in a white man's world; a woman, yet smarter than most of the men who surrounded me. It wasn't always easy for me.” Then she laughed. “You know what I'm talking about.”

“I guess so.”

“Anyway, the Gnostic gospels are used in certain GLF rituals. They're part of a special tradition that spans back through the ages. Before the Knights Templar, the Cathars and the Manicheans. To the birth of Christianity, as it was being influenced by the philosophies of the East, including Buddhist and Hindu traditions. In many Gnostic systems, the various emanations of God, who is also known as the Monad, the One, are called
aeons
. These æons often came in male-female pairs referred to as
syzygies
. The æons constitute the
pleroma
, the so-called region of light.”

“The
pleroma
. That's what Edison mentioned in Theodore's notebook. Tesla said the God machine would facilitate a return to the pleroma.”

“Exactly,” Sajan said. “Two of the most renowned æons were Jesus and Sophia, which means wisdom in Greek. According to the Gnostic tradition, Sophia wanted to create something apart from the pleroma, and without divine assent, gave birth to the Demiurge. She wrapped him up in a cloud and created a throne for him in the heavens. The Demiurge, being isolated and ignorant of his mother, concluded that he and only he existed. He turned his mind to creation, and since he had inherited some of his mother's power, some of her essence became enclosed within the material forms of humanity, within us, and we in turn became trapped within the material universe. The goal of the Gnostic is to awaken this holy spark, thereby permitting a return to the pleroma.”

She took another sip of her cognac. “Since the Demiurge didn't belong to the pleroma, the One emanated two savior æons, Christ and the Holy Spirit, to save Man from the Demiurge. Christ took the form of a human, Jesus, in order to be able to teach Man how to achieve gnosis; that is, how to return to the pleroma.” Sajan paused. “Now you know why, when Nick told me about the Gospel of Judas, I jumped at the chance to locate it.”

“When did you first realize this wasn't about the Gospel? That it was about the schematics, Franklin's map?”

“I had my suspicions from the start. As soon as we found that first piece under Carpenters' Hall. Then, when I saw that second fragment in West Wycombe, I knew. It was obviously not just a map. It was a blueprint for some kind of circuit. An electrical device.”

“Designed to bring you back to the pleroma?”

“It fits the tradition. But as I said, the God machine cannot work.”

“And Nick Robinson? How does he fit? What exactly is your relationship?”

She smiled. “Are you jealous, Joseph? You needn't be.”

“I'm not jealous. I'm just…”

“We were lovers.”

“I knew it.” Koster jumped to his feet. “I knew it from the first time we met.” He started to pace back and forth. “What a fool I've been, what an idiot!”

“It was a long time ago, Joseph. I told you. Nick and I were introduced while I was still going to grad school. We became intimate, but it didn't work out.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. I think his family had issues with my being Indian. Perhaps that isn't quite fair. I really don't know.” She took another sip of her cognac. Then she downed it with a quick flick of the wrist. “The truth is, I didn't love Nick. I loved who he wanted to be. I loved his ambition and drive. And his brain. But… I don't know. It just wasn't there. He introduced me to the Countess Irene. I moved to Europe, met her son. Jean-Claude was everything Nick Robinson wasn't.”

Koster stopped moving about. “Jean-Claude? Your husband? You mean to tell me that…” And then it finally dawned on him.

She nodded.

“My husband was the Countess de Rochambaud's son.”

Koster thought back to that day so many years before when he had first met the countess at the Musée Rodin. She had been pushing a pram with a baby at the time. But, Koster remembered, she had said the child belonged to her daughter. “Was your son born in Algeria?”

“Yes, he was,” Sajan said, with surprise. “How did you know that?”

“Because I met him,” he answered. “When I first met the countess in Paris. I held him right here, in my arms.” He looked down at his hands. Then he dropped them,
embarrassed. “But I thought her daughter's name was Louise?”

“That's what she called me, a nickname she used on occasion. It was her way of poking fun at my Indian name. Savita means
sun
or
Sun-God
in Sanskrit, like King Louis, the Sun King.”

“But why didn't you tell me? Why did you keep all this secret?”

“Nick thought it would be better that way. When he first found Franklin's journal with its reference to the Gospel of Judas, he thought the Church wouldn't rest until the codex was found. With the Knights on our tail, we thought the less you knew, the safer you'd be. I guess, in retrospect, it sounds a little bit silly.”

“And I wouldn't reveal anything if they caught me,” Koster said, “and I talked, is that it? Which I'd undoubtedly do, being the weak-willed idiot that I am.” He kept moving about, waving the glass in his hand. “Nigel Lyman tried to warn me. He told me Nick and the countess were somehow connected, but I wouldn't listen.”

“They were good friends for years, fellow Masons of the thirty-third degree. But something happened between them. They argued—something about the Gospel of Thomas, I think.” Sajan started to say something. Then she stopped. “Neither Irene nor Nick ever said anything about it to me. And they never spoke to each other again. Not after that. I left Europe soon after Jean-Claude and Maurice died. Irene passed away two years later of a heart attack, on December nineteenth, just shy of her ninety-third birthday. I was in Asia on business at the time. I never made it back for the memorial service. The truth is, I didn't really want to go. I'd already had my share of French funerals.”

She reached out with her glass. “Is there more?” she inquired with a thin laugh.

Koster took her glass and went over to the bar to refill
it. As he did so, Sajan removed the towel from her wet hair and draped it over the back of a chair. Koster filled up both glasses. He walked back and gave one to her.

“I don't blame you for not trusting me,” she said, softly.

As Koster sat down beside her, he couldn't help noticing the dark line of her cleavage.

“But I'm not the one you should be worrying about.”

“What do you mean? Who?” Koster said, sitting up.

“I called Nick from England. I told him about that letter from von Neumann to Turing, the one we found on that man in West Wycombe, addressed to Macalister. Nick knew nothing about it. Looks like Macalister may be working on his own.” She took another sip of her cognac.

“Or for somebody else,” Koster said.

“This whole thing…” She shook her head. “I don't know what to believe. I don't know what to think anymore. I'm so sorry you got dragged into this, Joseph. Nick and I thought we could avail ourselves of your knowledge and somehow keep you out of the fray. But we were wrong.
I
was wrong. And I'm terribly sorry. I should have been honest with you from the start. You could have been killed. Can you ever forgive me?”

Koster reached out to touch her but Sajan jumped to her feet. “I think I should go, Joseph.”

“What? Go where?” He was bewildered.

“Anywhere. Away from you. Things are going to get worse before they get better. I can feel it. I don't want you involved in this thing anymore.”

Koster laughed. “But I am involved,” he replied. “It's already too late.”

Sajan tightened the belt around the terry-cloth robe. “No, it's not. Please don't say that.” She started to move toward the rear of the loft. As she passed, Koster stood, grabbed her wrist and swung her in close.

“Don't you get it?” he said. “I love you, Savita.” She struggled but he held her tight in his arms. “I love you. Do you hear me? I can't help it, but I do.”

“Love,” she repeated. She looked at the windows. Thick lines of water bled down the glass. “You play at love, Joseph. You like to be in love. But you don't like to love, Joseph. And worse, you can't stand being loved.”

“That isn't true.”

“Isn't it? The only way you've kept Mariane alive all these years is by making a fetish of your guilt. But it's killing you, Joseph.”

Koster felt the words slice at his heart.
Who died in that basement?
he thought.

“Can you love, Joseph? Did you ever—”

Koster pressed the words from her lips with his kiss. He wrapped his hands round her head, grabbed her hair and drew her in close. Then he reached down, slipped his hands in her robe and it fell to the floor, exposing the curve of her breasts, the dark aureoles, the swell of her buttocks and hips. She struggled for a moment but he wouldn't release her. She started to say something and he pushed her away. She fell to the sofa, tripping over the edge. “Just shut up,” he said. “Just be quiet and kiss me.”

W
HEN
K
OSTER AWOKE, TO THE BLAST OF A THUNDERCLAP, HE
reached out unconsciously and felt for Savita. He was lying in bed, but he was lying alone. He sat up and turned on the light. Savita was gone.

Koster glanced about the room. It was a snug master bedroom, with blue velvet curtains and a queen-sized sleigh bed with white linens. The comforter had been thrown on the floor, and a memory of Savita kneeling down by the bed cascaded within him. They had made love for what seemed like hours, all over the loft, moving gradually from the living room to the kitchen and finally to the bedroom itself, where he lay. He had fallen asleep in her arms, listening to the sound of her heartbeat. He had fallen asleep, feeling totally spent, feeling safer and happier than he had felt in years.

“Savita?” he called out. But nobody answered.

Koster got out of bed. For a moment he was seized by an unreasonable panic. His digital camera! He cast about for his jacket. Then he remembered he had left it on
the living room floor. Franklin's map and the Tesla schematic!

Koster opened his bureau and slipped on a fresh pair of Jockey shorts. He paused for a moment by the door. There. What was that? Something or someone was moving about in the loft. Koster opened the door. It sounded like singing, like chanting. But it wasn't the radio. He moved down the corridor leading out toward the kitchen and powder room. He rounded the corner and stopped.

Savita was kneeling on the carpet in the living room. She was wearing her panties and bra, and one of his white cotton button-down shirts. She had pushed the sofa and easy chairs to the side, drawn back the coffee table. Candles were lit all around her, at each point of the compass. She was saying something but he couldn't quite make out the words.
Who was she talking to?
Koster wondered.

He made his way slowly by the kitchen, past the long granite countertop and into the dining area. Sajan was clearly visible now, despite the sheer cotton curtain that blocked off that part of the loft. She was kneeling on the floor. She was writing on something, a large paper pad. “Savita?” he said, but she didn't look up. She seemed completely oblivious to him. He parted the curtains and stepped into the living room. “Savita? Are you all right?”

Immediately in front of the pad, Koster noticed a printout of the various schematics. Savita was studying it closely. Her eyes seemed to glow in the candlelight, black on black. “What are you doing?” he asked, his heart sinking.
Was she trying to steal it
, he wondered,
as I slept, still warm from the heat of her skin?
His digital camera was hooked up to the PC on his desk.