The God Machine (52 page)

A swarm of teenagers converged on the door. It was some kind of outing, he realized. A school expedition. A bright yellow bus was parked by the curb. Koster pushed in behind them, with Robinson and Macalister on his heels.

The west side of the cathedral was still under construction, and the doors led down a long plywood corridor, built from scaffolding, completely enclosed, running the full length of the nave. Their footsteps echoed as they moved from the narthex toward the heart of the church, and yet the cathedral itself was still out of sight. Only the stones of the floor were exposed.

The corridor was crowded. In addition to the kids from the bus, there were couples and families, and single old ladies. Black and white, Asian, Latino. Harlem had changed since Koster had attended Columbia just down the street. Now, there were doorman buildings on 112th. Just then, the echo of footsteps was replaced by a great blowing of horns. But it was not the melodic campaigning of trumpets; it was the deep gurgling sound of dungchen, the ten-foot horns of Tibet. Koster rounded a corner and the church opened up.

It was an odd mix of high Gothic and a Romanesque chancel, reflecting the fact that two sets of architects had been commissioned to build this cathedral. The original architects were George Heins and C.G Lafarge.
They beat out eighty competitors with their Romanesque-Byzantine design. The first cornerstone of the cathedral had been laid in 1892. It had taken nearly twenty years for just the choir and vaulted dome crossing to be finished, and then, due to the death of Heins, a new architect was selected—Ralph Adams Cram, a Gothic revivalist who had insisted on a French Gothic style for the edifice.

The first services in the nave were held the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor—December 6, 1941—and construction ground to a halt as the U.S. was swept into the war. Work didn't resume again until 1979, by which time skilled stonecutters were hard to find. To continue construction, laborers were imported from Europe. In December 2001, building was halted again following a fire that ravaged the transept.

To this day, the cathedral was only two-thirds complete.
Just like us
, Koster thought. Isn't that what Savita had said? This was her favorite cathedral, she had confessed to him on the Île Saint-Louis, as they had watched the buttresses of Notre Dame unroll in the dawn.
“It may look half built,”
she'd said.
“The skin may be torn. It may not be pretty, or perfect. But the heart is what matters.”

The horns resounded again. Koster looked past the rows and rows of seated parishioners toward the chancel. Behind the pulpit, just up the steps, a pair of saffron-robed Tibetan monks sat behind their dungchen. The cathedral was packed. Soon the religious service would start. Koster could see the teenagers milling about, trying to pick out their seats.

He looked back toward the entrance. The nave was more than six hundred feet long, the length of two football fields, but the scaffolding blocked his view. Above him, the 162-foot-tall dome crossing was so high that it could have accommodated the Statue of Liberty. Though
incomplete, St. John the Divine was still the world's largest Gothic cathedral.

“I don't like the look of that triforium.” Macalister pointed up at the shallow gallery of arches that ran along both sides of the cathedral just under the clerestory. In some parts, the arches were obscured by scaffolding. “You could hide an army in there,” he said uneasily. “I've got a bad feeling about this.”

Robinson laughed. “You say that before every action.”

“You've done this before?” Koster asked.

“Not exactly,” said Robinson. “But the antiquities business can get pretty hairy. Remember Myanmar, Robert?”

“I'm still trying to forget.”

To his left, Koster noticed a large granite pulpit, highly carved, rising out of the floor. The choir featured carved stalls as well, made of oak. Beyond that, in the sanctuary, he spotted a pair of great Shinto vases, pale green, and a pair of giant menorahs. Then the altar beyond. The choir stalls were already jam-packed with choristers wearing red and white robes.

“It's back there, toward the apse,” said Macalister.

They moved around the side of the church, climbing the steps toward the ambulatory. Soon, the apsidal chapels came into view. Just as the Shinto vases and menorahs reflected the cathedral's strong interfaith message, so did the seven chapels that radiated from the ambulatory. Known as the “Chapels of the Tongues,” each was dedicated to one of the seven major New York ethnic groups who had toiled in the cathedral's construction: Scandinavian, German, English, Asian, French, Italian, Hispanic.

When they approached the Chapel of St. Martin of Tours, Robinson came to a halt. The chapel was dedicated to the people of France, Koster knew, named after the Roman soldier who had once stopped to help a
naked beggar lying on the side of the road near the town of Amiens. Martin had divided his cloak with his sword and given half to the beggar. That night, in a vision, he saw Jesus wearing the half cloak he had given away. He heard Jesus say to the angels, “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who has not been baptized. Yet, he has clad me.” Later, Martin was baptized and named Bishop of Tours, and eventually canonized.

Koster remembered this as he moved past the gate and the chapel finally came into view. For some reason, he couldn't get the image of that beggar out of his head. Then he saw Sister Maria and Michael Rose. And, standing between them, Sajan.

Although he recalled with great vividness and no small measure of pain the last times they had met, Koster bore no hard feelings toward Sister Maria. He took her in with surprising dispassion. It was as if she were a distracting equation at the edge of a chalkboard. So, too, Michael Rose. Koster's attention was fixed on Sajan. She looked haggard and frightened, and there was a smear of dried blood on her cheek.

Sister Maria stepped forward, pushing Sajan before her. Rose swept in from the side. Together, they moved slowly toward Koster. When they were only two yards away, they came to a stop.

Koster reached into his jacket and took out the envelope.

“Is that it?” Rose inquired.

“That's it,” Koster answered. He couldn't keep his eyes off Sajan. But she wouldn't look back at him. It was clear she was terrified. He could see her lips tremble. And that blood on her face… They had cut her, right there, on the cheek, just below her right eye.

“The last piece?” Rose demanded

“The last piece,” Koster answered. “Did they hurt you, Savita?”

“How can you be so sure?”

Koster had expected the question. “Because if it weren't, I'd be a pool of gelatinous goo, just like the late Damian Lacey.”

“You tested the God machine? You opened the door?”

Koster nodded.

Michael's eyes narrowed suspiciously. The nun tugged at his sleeve. She said something that Koster couldn't quite hear. Rose looked up with a smile and said, “Sister Maria here is reluctant to part with Sajan until provided with more demonstrable evidence.”

“We had an agreement.” Nick Robinson stepped out of the shadows. “Do you want the schematic or not?” Macalister stood behind him.

“Your father is waiting,” said Koster.

“What? What did you say?” Michael Rose stiffened. He rose up on the tips of his toes.

“How do you think he feels, Michael? Do you think he's proud of you, proud of all you've done? Proud of all you plan to do? Of course, you two don't talk much these days, do you?”

Rose fixed Koster with a venomous gaze. “You're bluffing,” he sneered. “You don't know my father. And besides, he's away on retreat. You still have no proof the last fragment is real.”

“I guess you'll just have to trust me.”

“That was the arrangement,” said Robinson. “And a deal is a deal.”

For a moment, Rose hesitated. Then he nodded and Sister Maria stepped forward. The nun held out her hand, completely expressionless, her face a blank slate. Koster gave her the envelope. Without even looking inside, she spun about and made her way back to Rose.

“Now it's your turn,” Koster told them. “Hand over Savita.”

“I'm afraid,” Michael Rose said, as he collected the envelope, “that your word simply isn't sufficient.”

“In that case,” said Koster, “take me.”

Sajan looked up for the first time. “Don't do it,” she cried.

“I'm the only one who knows the schematic. He needs me.”

“If you go with them,” warned Robinson, “you'll never come back.”

Rose sniggered. “You'd exchange yourself for the Mystery Babylon?”

“Test the final schematic,” challenged Koster. He took a step closer. “If your God machine doesn't work, you can always get rid of me later. Let her go. She's no use to you now.”

“You'd give up your life for this woman? How delicious! How ironic that our search for the Gospel of Judas should be abetted by so exquisite a traitor.”

“You got what you came for,” said Koster. “Let her go.”

“You have no idea, do you?” Rose continued. “I guess she never bothered to tell you. It was your girlfriend here who betrayed you. Go on. Tell him.” He shoved Sajan forward, but she refused to look up. “Right from the beginning, she suspected what those schematics might mean. Back in England. And when she realized that the map didn't lead to the Gospel of Judas, and that Robinson probably knew, when she realized what the God machine
really
was, what did she do? She betrayed you. That's right. Do you think that she came to you—that evening in Paris—to make love to you? She came for the files on your telephone. She didn't want Robinson here building his God machine. And when, at my urging, Archbishop Lacey reached out to her, she was more than happy to help us. Believe me, it didn't require much urging. How do you think we kept tabs on you while you were in Europe? Who do you think told us
about the da Vinci schematic behind the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani? I promised her all the pieces of the map would be destroyed, and with it the God machine. Forever. And they will be… eventually.”

Koster looked at Sajan. She was staring down at the floor, her face pale as the peacock outside. He glanced over at Robinson. “Did you know this?”

“I suspected,” said Robinson.

“You
suspected?”

“That letter to Turing. Savita told you I didn't know anything about it, but she lied.” Robinson shook his head. “I authorized the theft, Joseph. It was my men who stole it. They were about to post the letter to Macalister when the Knights got their hands on it. Savita was desperate. You'd already learned she'd been lying about her role in Freemasonry, her membership in the GLF So she tried to keep you off balance by confessing to what you'd already learned, and by convincing you that Macalister was some sort of spy. I did try to warn you.”

“No, you didn't,” snapped Koster. “You were counting on my affection for Savita to get you the third piece of the map. If you'd told me the truth, I might not have completed the God machine.” Koster looked back at Sajan. “Is this true?”

Savita avoided his gaze.

“Is it true? Tell me, Savita. I just want to hear it come out of your mouth.”

“You already know that it is,” she replied. Finally, she looked up. Tears gleamed in her eyes. “I'm sorry, Joseph. I didn't want to hurt you. Search your heart. You know why I did it. I had to.”

“We're all prisoners of our convictions. Isn't that what you told me?” Koster laughed bitterly. “Well, so am I. This doesn't change anything.” He turned to face Rose.

“You have no intention of destroying the God machine, do you? Do you?”

Rose didn't respond.

“It's taken you too,” Koster added. “Just like da Vinci and Franklin. Just like Nick.” He turned toward Sister Maria. “And you,” he concluded. “Is this what you want?”

“Man has never invented a technology that he didn't exploit… eventually,” the nun answered. “And if the machine is going to be built, I'd prefer it in the hands of
my
Church.”

“You make it sound like an arms race.”

“We
are
fighting a war,” Rose cut in, “whether you choose to believe it or not. Against a world of false faiths. It's the ultimate conflict, for the ultimate goal—the salvation of Man.”

“But the God machine's a false lead,” Koster countered. “Coveting it is the work of something far greater than you. Something dark. Don't you see? It's like… like a drug, Michael.”

Rose visibly stiffened. “Very well, then,” he said. His voice had gone icy. “Since you offered to give yourself up in exchange for the Mystery Babylon, I can only assume that despite her betrayal, you're still partial to her. Love is blind, after all.” He laughed bitterly and looked over at Sister Maria. “Once I know that the God machine works, I may let you go.”

“That wasn't part of the deal,” Robinson said.

Macalister took a step toward Sister Maria. Then he stopped.

“We'll cut a new deal,” Rose continued. “Isn't that what you businessmen do? Although I'm afraid you're in no position to bargain this time. Something tells me it would be prudent to hold onto your lover, Mr. Koster, just in case. You may, after all, be tempted to alter the map. Change the chip—” Rose glanced back at the entrance. He seemed suddenly dumbstruck.

Koster turned. A young priest in black clerical robes and white collar stood outside the gate of the chapel. “I'm sorry,” the priest said, “but you'll have to move on. The service is about to begin.”

As the words left his lips, Koster noticed Macalister start to move on the nun. He was almost upon her when he lurched to a stop. Macalister stared down at his shirt-front. He raked at his chest with his fingers, then staggered.

Robinson reached out to catch him reflexively, when a hole opened up in his forearm. He spiraled back toward the entrance. Sajan screamed. So did the young priest. He stared down in horror as blood gushed out of Robinson's wound. He glanced at Macalister. Then he looked over at Sister Maria. The nun held a gun in her hand. It was tipped with a silencer.

For an instant, they stared at each other. The nun seemed to hesitate. Then the priest fled down the ambulatory.

Sister Maria tore after him. Koster attempted to prevent her from leaving the chapel, but she simply pushed him aside. As Koster fell back, Michael Rose made a dash for the gate. But instead of turning left to follow the nun, he turned right, up the ambulatory.