The god machine, p.12
The God Machine, page 12
“Franklin noticed,” said Koster, “that when he added the numbers in the first row, they equaled fifteen. And when he added the numbers in the first column, they also equaled fifteen. So, he wondered if he could fashion a square where the numbers in any given column or row would add up to fifteen, even diagonally. ‘On any path,’ as Franklin says in his letter to Mme. Helvétius.”
Koster erased the numbers in the box he had drawn. Then he replaced them with new ones. “After a while, he figured out how to do it—the pattern. He called it his ‘magic square.’ See.”
Koster looked up excitedly. “The journal Nick gave to me. The lines in it were clustered in long sets of three.”
Sajan came around the desk and looked over his shoulder. He could smell the scent she was wearing. It was earthy yet delicate, like a whisper of jasmine at midnight. Then it was gone.
“But Franklin's letter,” she said, “the one that he sent to Madame Helvétius—didn't it say, ‘Sums of twelve,’ not fifteen?”
“I know,” answered Koster. “But if you use twelve as the total, it's still the same pattern. The transposition of numbers is identical. You simply start with a zero. ‘To eight from naught.’ Look.” And he drew a new square.
“By corresponding each block of numbers to the letters in Ben Franklin's journal, and by leveraging the same transposition, the lines should start to make sense. Did Nick send you a copy?”
“He said he was afraid to make copies.”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?”
“Who knows? The competition, perhaps. Other publishers.”
“Well, I have the original,” said Koster. “Let me get it.”
He went back to the guest room and retrieved Franklin's journal from his computer bag under his bed. Once again, the music and lighting and temperature toggled as he moved through the house. Even the length of the shag in the carpeting shifted, each nylon strand slithering just under his feet, like synthetic worms. As he left the room, he hesitated for a moment in the doorway. Then, with a sigh, he plucked the small metal pin from his jacket and tossed it back on the bed.
Chapter 19
Present Day
Morgan Hill, California
SAJAN WAS ASKING FLORA TO PREPARE A LIGHT LUNCH WHEN Koster returned to the living room. The housekeeper bustled off and Sajan sat down at the desk, waiting for Koster to join her. As he approached, as he saw her silhouetted against the view of the valley, as he looked into her almond-shaped eyes, he felt a stirring inside him. But that, of course, was absurd. It was just his excitement, he told himself, over unraveling the letter to Mme. Helvétius. It was the Masonic code that compelled him. Nothing more.
He put the journal on the desk and Sajan leaned over to read it. He watched as her eyes scanned the lines, as she flipped through the pages, one by one. He studied the tips of her slender brown fingers. And there was that perfume again.
“In long sets of three,” she exclaimed. “As you said.”
“Except for this reference to the Gospel of Judas.” He showed her the page.
“No, wait. Start at the front. Use the magic square transposition.”
Koster flipped to the front of the volume. He studied the first page. He blocked out the first nine letters in his mind and began flipping them. The one at the top in the center, where the sequence began, he moved down to the lower right box. He worked in this way for a minute or so, following the defined transposition, jotting his transcription on a pad. I… H… A. As he translated each letter, he grew more and more excited. It was starting to form into words. And the words into sentences. He sat back and read what he had.
“‘I have been forced to rend my Map into three, and to hide the three pieces away…’” Koster looked up at Sajan. She was beaming.
“It works,” she said, reaching out suddenly and kissing his cheek.
Koster blushed, pulled away. “I… Thanks to you, I guess. You're the one who made me think of Franklin's magic squares.”
Flora suddenly reappeared with some sandwiches. “Shall I set up the table?” she asked them.
“No, we'll eat here,” they both answered in unison. Then they looked at each other and laughed. Flora set down their sandwiches on the desk.
Koster took one bite of his BLT—one of his predefined preferences—and then got back to work. He took the next block of nine letters. He ran through the same transposition. Slowly but surely, the words tumbled out. He worked in this manner for hours, until the late afternoon. It was nigh onto five when he got up and stretched.
“What do we have so far?” Sajan asked, reappearing beside him. She must have stepped away for a moment without his realizing it.
“It's a little bit convoluted, but the best I can make out is Franklin's talking about the Gospel of Judas. He says it will help ‘open a doorway’ to some higher truth. Sometimes he refers to it as the ‘heart of the God machine.’ I'm not sure. It's confusing. One thing I'm certain, though—there was a robbery in his house in Philadelphia by an agent of a group called the Knights of Malta.”
“The Knights of Malta! You're sure?”
“That's what it says. They're a Catholic order, dating back to the time of the Crusades. The twelfth century. They're some sort of charity now, I believe. You know—running hospitals and homes for the blind. That kind of thing.”
“I know who they are,” Sajan said. “They used to serve as shock troops for the Catholic Church. They did so for hundreds of years. They were soldiers.”
“Well, that was then.”
Sajan didn't reply. Then she added, “What else does it say?”
“It reveals that Franklin apparently created something that he called his ‘Map,’ but that—due to his fear of its discovery by the Knights of Malta, set upon him by the religious right of the time, and the Penn family—Franklin tore the map into three pieces, and hid the three pieces away.”
“Where?”
“According to what I've translated so far, the locations of the three pieces are ‘My three homes’—somewhere in the United States, in France and in England, places where Franklin lived during his career. The journal doesn't identify them specifically, but it does say how to locate the first piece of the map.”
“How?”
“There's a reference to Pierre-Charles L'Enfant, who was a Freemason, and who laid out the governmental center of Washington, D.C., back in 1791. According to Franklin's journal, certain Masonic symbols embedded in the plan of Washington, D.C., reveal the location of the first piece of the map.”
“And the map? What does it lead to?”
“To the hiding place of the Gospel of Judas, I assume. It's not clear. But what else could it be? It says that the Knights were after Franklin's copy of the Gospel of Judas. After him. He must have hidden it someplace, then drawn up his map. And this is where it gets really weird. Since he already knew the location of the gospel, why did he require a map? It says, ‘For those who would follow and extend what Abraham of El Minya, what Leonardo da Vinci and I have begun.’ As if he were afraid that something might happen to him.”
“Who is Abraham of El Minya?” asked Sajan. “And what does Leonardo da Vinci have to do with this?”
“I have no idea. According to Nick, Franklin's version of the Gospel of Judas featured a curious illustration, which Nick called schematic number one. He also said Masonic historians have documented the presence of two similar schematics, one allegedly created by Leonardo da Vinci, schematic number two, and another by Franklin himself, number three. And they're all connected somehow.”
“What are these schematics?”
“Nick didn't know. He called them ‘Masonic curiosities.’”
Sajan reached across her desk and picked up the telephone. She pressed a three-digit code and said, “Ravindra, it's Savita. We need the Hawker immediately. We're going to Washington, D.C.—”
“Tonight?” Koster said, interrupting her.
“We can sleep on the plane. It's quite comfortable. Don't worry, I don't snore. Really, Mr. Koster, I can't just sit here now, not when we know what to look for. Can you?” Then she turned back to the phone. “What's that? Now? Very well.”
“What's wrong?”
“I don't know. Ravindra's on his way over.”
Minutes later, the small Indian pilot appeared in the doorway. He seemed sheepish as he entered the room. “I just don't understand it,” he said. “Mr. Koster,” he added, with a nod.
“Captain,” said Koster.
“She just had her inspection two weeks ago,” the pilot continued as he came up to Sajan. “The avionics were fine.”
“And you're sure it was something intentional,” Sajan said.
“The way it's been rigged, I don't see how it could have been accidental. It's possible, I suppose. Just highly unlikely.”
“What's wrong?” Koster asked.
Sajan turned toward him with a shrug. “We'll have to drive to the airport tomorrow, and fly commercial into Washington, D.C.”
“What happened to your plane?”
“Nothing serious. An avionics malfunction. Nothing that would have caused a major disaster. Just a delay.” Then she smiled, adding, “It would seem, Mr. Koster, that you'll be spending the night after all. I guess I should start calling you Joseph.”
Chapter 20
Present Day
Los Angeles
ARCHBISHOP DAMIAN LACEY STOOD IN THE CONFERENCE room at the heart of the WCC complex in Los Angeles, drinking his second cup of bad coffee, staring at the portrait of Thaddeus Rose on the wall. Senior Pastor Rose had an impressive demeanor, with a broad ready grin, sparkling blue eyes and a well-shaped bald crown whose glow the artist had rendered with unusual aplomb. He was sitting on a low wooden bench against a pale golden wall, with a small wooden crucifix just off to the side and above him. He wore a simple white shirt and gray slacks. Lacey took another sip of his coffee and sighed. Rose looked like a basketball coach at a large university—Notre Dame or Loyola. From his expression, it appeared as if he held the answer to the question just beginning to form on your lips. It was priceless. No wonder the voice of the Heart of the Family had risen from nowhere to become the most powerful Evangelical leader in America.
The archbishop looked down at his watch. It was almost three o'clock. His appointment with Thaddeus Rose had been scheduled for two. Lacey had flown all the way in from Rome through New York, and this Protestant talk-show host couldn't even be bothered to greet him on time. But the journey was necessary he decided. Now was not the time for old squabbles.
He looked back at the portrait. Lacey had initially learned of Thaddeus Rose when the Arizona-based preacher first hit the airways with his Heart of the Family radio show, back in the mid-seventies. It was billed as a simple call-in program with homespun Bible-based advice on family affairs. Correspondents answered letters and phone calls from listeners on a wide range of subjects, from philandering husbands to kids high on drugs. The ministry got more than ten thousand letters a month, an impressive beginning. Interestingly, Thaddeus seldom talked about politics. And it was this that gave his political diatribes strength. He would interrupt some regularly scheduled programming—some show on adolescent angst or teen pregnancy—to do commentary on a piece of extraordinary legislation that he just had to talk about, and because his rants were so rare, they somehow had more credibility. In no time, his mailing list grew to over three million.
In '83 he founded the Heart of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based lobbying group. It sputtered along until Barry Glazier joined the organization six years later. Leveraging the skills he had honed working for Reagan, Glazier set the organization on fire. By the time he left to run for president in 2000, the Council's budget had ballooned to ten million, ostensibly supplanting the Christian Coalition as the premier Christian Right special-interest group in America. And that was just the beginning.
Thaddeus Rose employed an all-or-nothing strategy when it came to politicians. Instead of supporting multiple candidates, like Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition had done, Rose honed in like a missile. There was a lesson to be learned from Reed's fall from favor after supporting the moderate Dole. Rose went to the opposite extreme. He announced that Reed had been ineffectual on key issues like abortion, and he threatened to leave the Republican Party unless his candidates toed the Evangelical line.
Soon, Rose created a series of state-based organizations called the Heart of the Family Policy Councils. They worked hard to elect Republican favorites, including President Alder. In the end, Ohio had been won by only two hundred thousand votes. Evangelical votes. They had pushed Alder over the top. The Heart of the Family Research Council injected over two million dollars into the election, thereby ensuring a constitutional amendment against gay marriage on the ballot. Rose labeled gay marriage their “D-Day.”
The Council for National Policy met in Phoenix in '98, and then a few months later in D.C. The group set up Values Action Teams within Congress, designed to promote key Evangelical issues. But now that another presidential election was looming, the Council was fractured. Most felt the leading Republican candidates weren't sympathetic enough to their issues. Some wanted to rally behind Michael Huckabee, a conservative former governor, but others wondered if he were truly electable. Some favored Mitt Romney, even though he was Mormon and had been a social liberal in the past. If Rudy Giuliani or John McCain got the nod, Evangelicals wouldn't come out at all. It was a difficult time, uncertain and fluid. One quarter of the electorate in 2006 had been Evangelical; now the Democrats were managing to peel many away. It was that damned Values vote against the Republicans for their sordid corruption—the Mark Foley and Tom DeLay scandals.
If the Republicans were to win the White House again, they desperately needed the Evangelical vote. But it was tattered and frayed, due to internal strife. Only Rose could pull it together. Only Rose, with his database of millions of loyal listeners, with his Heart of the Family Policy Councils, could prevent a bold swing to the left. The last thing they needed now was a seismic distraction, something to fragment the Christian community further.
The door to the office burst open and a large man with thinning blond hair barreled into the room. It was Michael Rose, Thaddeus's lieutenant and son. He strode toward the archbishop.
“Your Excellency,” he exclaimed. “It's a pleasure to meet you at last. How was your flight?”
They shook hands. “Uneventful,” replied Lacey. “Is your father…”
“My father's out of town. On retreat. He won't return for some days, I'm afraid. But when we got your message, he empowered me to act in his absence. This is a historic occasion, your Excellency. Our two churches coming together in this way. A minor Camp David, as it were.”
“Indeed. I mean no offense, Pastor Rose, but the things I have to discuss with your father are of an extremely sensitive nature.”
Michael looked down at the archbishop. He smiled thinly, scratched his face. “I find it interesting,” he said finally, with a chill in his voice, “that you're chasing a man who was once instrumental in toppling Archbishop Grabowski from power.”
Lacey took a step back. “Excuse me?”
“You work for the Vatican Bank, do you not? And this Joseph Koster was personally responsible for the political fall of your former employer, Grabowski. Some might consider that a conflict of interest, or at best a… personal distraction.”
Lacey smiled. The man might be manic and strange,the archbishop considered, but Michael Rose was no idiot. “My personal feelings on this issue are irrelevant,” he said evenly. “I am fully qualified to represent my Church in this matter.”
“As am I,” Michael answered firmly. Then he smiled. “I suggest we don't let anything distract us from designing a uniform strategy that will help protect both of our Churches. When we received your message about the Gospel of Judas, I knew instantly that it was of the utmost importance, something I should address personally. The Gospel of Judas must be found. Koster and Robinson must be stopped. The allegation that Judas may have been murdered is more than just troubling, for who would be the most likely suspects but the apostles themselves? But the notion that Christ manipulated Judas into engineering His betrayal is beyond incendiary. It would cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Synoptic Gospels, on the Bible itself.”
“I'm glad we're on the same page,” Lacey said, “when it comes to the gospel's importance. I put it to you, Pastor Rose, that if we are not successful, the Catholic and Protestant Churches—indeed, Christianity itself, and all that it stands for—will be irreparably damaged. Overcome, perhaps, by alien creeds.”
“Or worse,” countered Michael. “By some new Gnostic hybrid, some blasphemy.” He reached suddenly into his herringbone jacket and pulled out a photograph. He gave it to Lacey. “You know who this is?”
The snapshot had been taken at some formal affair, for the woman in it was wearing a scarlet evening gown, Indian bracelets of gold and a long strand of luminous pearls. “Yes, of course,” Lacey answered. “Savita Sajan.”
“The Mystery Babylon. Revelation seventeen makes it clear: Arrayed in pearls and scarlet, adorned with gold. It's possible that if this gospel is discovered and published, it could usher in a new kind of Christianity, a Gnostic Christianity, based on gnosis, self-knowledge. A new world religion.”
“You can't be serious?” Lacey exclaimed. “It's just a photograph. She could have worn anything to that function.”
“She could have, but didn't. You think it's a coincidence she's working with Koster and Robinson?”
The archbishop took a deep breath. He had to be careful not to get bogged down in dogma and ecumenical differences. There was too much at stake here.
“While I completely agree we have to be unified in our efforts, Pastor Rose, I'm less inclined to view the Bible so literally. It used to be that the Catholic Church thought the New Testament Gospels were actually written by Luke and by Matthew and the rest of the apostles. But back in '64, the Pontifical Biblical Commission officially defined three basic stages through which the teachings of Jesus have come down to us. The first is represented by the actual words and deeds of Christ. The second is that of the Apostolic Church, when the apostles gave testimony to Christ's vision. And the third stage is recorded for us by the evangelists—‘in a way suited to the peculiar purpose each one set for himself.’ These are the exact words the Commission used, and they imply that the ‘gospel truth’ is not to be found in a naïve, literal interpretation of the Bible.”
