Contract With God Part 38

A: I felt an inner blow, both of fear and of pride. This child was my son! I gave him permission to keep the dog if he took responsibility for it. And he did. The creature lived another four years.

Q: I think I understand what you said before.

A: Even when he was a boy, my son knew that he didn't want to live in my shadow. On his . . . last day he went to a job interview at Cantor Fitzgerald. He was on the hundred and fourth floor of the North Tower.

Q: Do you want to stop for a while?

A: Nichtgedeiget Nichtgedeiget. I'm all right, dear. Isaac called me that Tuesday morning. I was watching what was happening on CNN. I hadn't spoken to him all weekend so it never occurred to me that he might be there.

Q: Have some water, please.

A: I picked up the phone. He said, 'Papa, I'm in the World Trade Center. There's been an explosion. I'm very scared.' I stood up. I was in shock. I think I screamed at him. I don't remember what I said. He said to me, 'I've been trying to call you for ten minutes. The network must be overloaded. Papa, I love you.' I told him to stay calm, that I'd call the authorities. That we'd get him out of there. 'We can't go down the stairs, Papa. The floor below us has collapsed, and the fire's coming up through the building. It's very hot. I want to . . .' And that was it. He was twenty-four years old. [A long pause [A long pause.] I stared at the receiver, caressing it with my fingertips. I didn't understand. The connection had been cut off. I think that was the moment my brain short-circuited. The rest of the day has been completely erased from my memory.

Q: You never found out anything more?

A: I wish it had been that way. The next day I opened the papers looking for news of survivors. Then I saw his photo. There he was, up in the air, free. He had jumped.

Q: Oh my G.o.d. I'm so sorry, Mr Kayn.

A: I'm not. The flames and the heat must have been unbearable. He found the strength to break the windows and choose his destiny. It might have been his destiny to die that day, but n.o.body was going to tell him how. He embraced his fate like a man. He died strong, flying, master of the ten seconds he was in the air. The plans that I had made for him all those years were over.

Q: My G.o.d, that's terrible.

A: All of this would have been for him. All of it.

72.

KAYN TOWER.

NEW YORK.

Wednesday, 19 July 2006. 11:39 p.m.

'Are you sure you don't remember anything?'

'I'm telling you. He made me turn around and then he punched in some numbers.'

'We can't go on like this. There are still about sixty per cent of the combinations to go through. You have to give me something. Anything.'

They were next to the lift doors. This panel was certainly more of a challenge than the last one. Unlike the panel operated by a palm print, this was a simple number pad like an ATM machine and it was virtually impossible to extract a short numerical sequence from any sizable memory. To open the lift doors, Albert had connected a long, thick cable to the entry panel, intending to crack the code using a basic but brutal method. In the broadest terms this consisted of having the computer try all possible combinations, from all zeroes to all nines, which could take quite some time.

'We have three minutes to get into this lift. It's going to take the computer at least another six to go through the sequence of twenty digits. That's if it doesn't crash in the meantime because I've s.h.i.+fted all the processor's power into the deciphering program.'

The fan in the laptop was making an infernal racket, like a hundred bees trapped in a s...o...b..x.

Orville tried to remember. He turned around, faced the wall and looked at his watch. No more than three seconds had gone by.

'I'm going to limit it to ten digits,' Albert said.

'Are you sure?' Orville said, turning back.

'Absolutely. I don't think we have any other option.'

'How long will it take it?'

'Four minutes,' Albert said, scratching his chin nervously. 'Let's hope it's not the last combination it tries, because I can hear them coming.'

At the other end of the hall someone was banging on the door.

73.

THE EXCAVATION.

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN.

Thursday, July 20. 6:39 a.m.

For the first time since they had reached Claw Canyon eight days earlier, dawn found most of the members of the expedition asleep. Five of them, under six feet of sand and rocks, would never wake again.

Others were shuddering in the early-morning cold beneath a camouflage blanket. They looked at the place where the horizon was supposed to be and waited for the sun to burst into day, turning the cold air into the h.e.l.l of what would become the hottest day of the Jordanian summer in over forty-five years. From time to time they gave a worried nod, and that in itself frightened them. For every soldier the night watch is the hardest; and for the one who has blood on his hands it's the time when the ghosts of those he has killed might come to whisper in his ear.

Halfway between the five resting underground and the three doing guard duty up on the cliff, fifteen people turned over in their sleeping bags; perhaps they missed the blasts from the air horn that Professor Forrester had used to get them out of bed before dawn. The sun came up at 5:33 a.m., and was greeted by silence.

Towards 6:15 a.m., roughly the same time that Orville Watson and Father Albert were entering the lobby of Kayn Tower, the first member of the expedition to rouse himself was Nuri Zayit the cook. He prodded his a.s.sistant Rani with his foot and stepped outside. As soon as he got to the mess tent he began to prepare instant coffee using evaporated milk instead of water. There weren't many cartons of milk or juice left, since people were drinking them to compensate for the lack of water, and there was no fruit, so the only thing the chef could do was make omelettes and scrambled eggs. The old mute threw all his energy and a handful of the remaining parsley into the meal, communicating, as he had always done, through his culinary skills.

In the infirmary tent, Harel untangled herself from Andrea's embrace and went to check on Professor Forester. The old man was connected to an oxygen tank, but his condition had only worsened. The doctor doubted that he would last beyond that night. Shaking her head to dispel the thought, she returned to wake Andrea with a kiss. As they caressed and made small talk, both of them began to realise that they were falling in love. Finally they got dressed and headed for the mess tent to have breakfast.

Fowler, who now shared a tent with just Pappas, started his day by going against his better judgement and made a mistake. Thinking that everyone in the soldiers' tent was asleep, he slid outside and made a call to Albert on his satellite phone. The young priest answered and impatiently told him to call back in twenty minutes. Fowler hung up, relieved that the call had been so brief but worried about having to try his luck again so soon.

As for David Pappas, he woke up a little before six thirty and went to see Professor Forrester, hoping that he would be better but also hoping to rid himself of the guilt he felt following last night's dream, in which he was the only archaeologist left alive when the Ark finally saw the light of day.

In the soldiers' tent, Marla Jackson was watching the back of her commander and lover from her mattress - they never slept together when they were on a mission but would sneak off together once in a while on 'reconnaissance'. She wondered what the South African was thinking.

Dekker was one of those for whom dawn brought the breath of the dead, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. In a brief moment of wakefulness between two successive nightmares, he thought he had seen the frequency scanner screen display a signal, but it was too quick to fix a position. Suddenly he leapt up and started giving orders.

In Raymond Kayn's tent, Russell was laying out his boss's clothes and urging him at least to take his red pill. Reluctantly Kayn agreed then spat it out when Russell wasn't looking. He felt strangely calm. At last, the whole purpose of his sixty-eight years would be fulfilled.

In a more modest tent, Tommy Eichberg discreetly stuck his finger in his nose, scratched his behind, and walked to the bathroom looking for Brian Hanley. He needed his help to fix a piece they needed for the drill. They had to get through eight feet of wall but if they drilled from the top they could reduce some of the vertical pressure and then remove the stones by hand. If they worked quickly, they could be finished in six hours. Of course, it didn't help that Hanley was nowhere to be found.

As for Huqan, he checked his watch. Over the past week he had worked out the best place from which to get a good view over the whole site. Now he waited for the soldiers to change s.h.i.+ft. Waiting suited him fine. He had waited a lifetime.

74.

KAYN TOWER.

NEW YORK.

Wednesday, 19 July 2006. 11:41 p.m.

7456898123.

The computer found the code in exactly two minutes and forty-three seconds. This was fortunate because Albert had been wrong in his calculations about how long it would take the guards to show up. The door at the end of the hall opened almost at the same time as that of the lift.

'Hold it!'

Two of the guards and a policeman entered the hallway frowning, their guns drawn. They were not too happy about all the excitement. Albert and Orville threw themselves into the lift. They could hear the sound of feet running on the carpet and saw a hand reaching in to try to stop the lift. It missed by a few inches.

The door closed with a scratching noise. Outside they could make out the m.u.f.fled voices of the guards.

'How do you open this thing?' the policeman said.