The Manhattan Puzzle. Laurence O’Bryan
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were picking a new pope. But at least she’d know where he was.
She felt like an intruder as she opened Sean’s laptop. But she didn’t care. The air in their home office was often musty. Now it felt stuffy. She wondered if Sean still used the same password he’d had a few years before, when they’d both used the same machine.
To her relief he did.
She was in.
She opened Outlook. He had two meetings in it for this morning. One was with Paul Vaughann at eight thirty. Another one, re: merger/Mr Li, was at nine thirty. That was it. It had to be. She relaxed a little. He’d gone straight to the office after staying somewhere last night. He’d probably arrived soon after she’d spoken to George. That would explain it all. He was in that meeting right now, looking at his watch, wondering how he could get out, call her. She launched his web browser. The last page he’d visited was the Wall Street Journal.
She swallowed hard, as if a frog was going down, when she saw the main headline on the site: BXH UNDER INVESTIGATION
She read the story, her face tingling as the words scrolled in front of her.
The merger with the Chinese bank had not been completed. A UK Fraud Squad investigation was under way. The bank was claiming short sellers were spreading rumours about the company. The next paragraph talked about the layoffs that would happen at BXH if the merger didn’t go ahead. She took a deep breath. Rose was right. Talk about reality sneaking up behind you. Sean had been telling her for a long time that there was nothing to worry about, that the contract with BXH would save the Institute.
Was it all a lie?
She looked out of the window, down at the street. A car horn beeped. A siren echoed distantly. That stupid bank. She banged the window frame with her fist.
Their train tickets were lying on the nearby bookcase. She picked them up and checked the date, before putting them in her back pocket. Whatever happened, they were still going to Paris. To hell with all the rest. She took up the phone handset from beside the laptop. The first thing she should do was check in with BXH. She tapped in his direct dial number.
But it wasn’t Sean who answered, it was George Donovan.
Damn.
He announced his name as if he was on parade.
‘Hi, George,’ she said. There was silence. ‘It’s Isabel. Is Sean around?’ If Sean wasn’t answering his phone, he could be in that meeting.
‘Hello, Mrs Ryan. Hold on a moment. I’ll get him.’ His tone was as flat as an unruffled page. The line went quiet.
A burst of relief tingled through her. He was there. He was going to come to the phone. At last!
Xena closed the door of the apartment. Pastor Stevson walked slowly into the main room overlooking Fifth Avenue.
He poured himself a coffee, then sat on the black leather sofa.
‘I didn’t get much sleep, Lord Bidoner, but I’m here.’
‘Thank you for coming. We need to move things forward.’
‘You told me to get ready, sir. I’ve done that. The money has been rounded up and the laboratory is up and running. I’ve even told my wife that His return is near.’
‘Have you told anyone else?’ said Bidoner.
‘No, no. I did as we agreed. She knows nothing about how His coming will be achieved.’
‘Tell no one else. I told you this already,’ said Lord Bidoner. ‘He will return, but we must keep every detail secret. No more talking.’ He pointed at Pastor Stevson.
‘You ain’t got nothing to fear on that count.’
‘There are many who will try to stop us.’
‘The devil’s workers are all around.’
‘Your tests are finished, you said?’ Lord Bidoner stood up and began pacing.
‘You bet, they can clone from any good cell sample now.’
‘Good. They should be congratulated.’
‘It’s all working, like you said. This doc did some research for another IVF clinic, he didn’t even put it on their website.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s amazing. The whole process is simpler than I thought.’
Lord Bidoner smiled. ‘But he has no idea of our real plans?’
‘No idea at all. He still thinks I’m some crackpot millionaire who wants to clone a dead relative. He’s happy to get his payoff and then disappear. And he’s all ready. He’s tested injecting a whole range of DNA cells into defective human embryos at least a dozen times. Each live embryo has been a hundred per cent clone of the DNA sample. He hasn’t had one single failure.’
Lord Bidoner smiled. The process of producing full clones had been done with mice for years. It was illegal with human embryos, but once the embryo was planted in a womb no one would know the difference between what they had done and standard IVF treatment.
‘All we need now is that DNA sample,’ said Stevson. He leaned forward. ‘You’re sure we can find it?’
‘Yes. We had the carbon dating repeated on the page with the symbol on it. It came back again as the period around Christ’s death. The symbol will verify the DNA, when we find it.’ He sat down.
‘Most people assume that such a quest is a romantic fantasy. They have no idea that there is truth at the heart of it.’
‘That book resurfacing now, out of the blue, when we can do something with it, has gotta be divine intervention,’ said Pastor Stevson.
‘I agree.’ Lord Bidoner smiled. ‘It is an intervention.’ He was staring out of the window. There were flakes of snow driving up against it now. It was a surreal view.
Pastor Stevson smiled. ‘You know, I always liked that story about Joseph of Arimathea catching Christ’s blood in a cup.’ He smiled. ‘But I really never thought I’d be involved in a search for it.’ He sighed, shook his head, as if remembering something.
‘You are sure DNA survives from dried blood that old?’
‘Human DNA can survive thousands of years. That’s been proven, again and again. DNA cells from long-dried blood have been extracted many times.’
‘And you’re near to getting into the site?’
‘Very near. I’ve managed to persuade someone to give us some useful security codes. We have access.’
‘You’re sure it’s the right site?’
‘It couldn’t be anything else.’
The pastor shook his head. ‘Like I told you, it’s divine intervention.’
He leaned forward, put his hands out as if he was appealing to the heavens.
‘We have been chosen to open the Seventh Seal.’ He closed his eyes, went forward until he was kneeling on the thick white carpet.
Lord Bidoner had his hands together too.
Pastor Stevson whispered, ‘And the vials of his wrath will be poured upon the earth.’
Lord Bidoner stared out at the twinkling lights of the city. The skyscrapers looked like shards of sparkling crystal as the snow flurries gathered in intensity.
‘Have you made the transfer into the fund?’ he asked, after a minute had passed.
Pastor Stevson opened his eyes, then rose to his feet. His legs were unsteady under him. ‘That was a lot of dough you needed, but it’s done. A hundred million