All four men sat staring down at the red Persian carpet in the pope’s study. With the grace of the track star he had once been, Pope Michael rose from behind his heavy wooden desk and walked around the room, refilling everyone’s wineglass before returning to his seat.
Reclining in his chair, he studied the faces of his guests as they sipped their wine in contemplative silence, each trying to draw some meaning from the images they had just seen on a wall that had been buried for two thousand years.
The pope wanted to hear from Lev Wasserman first. “Professor, I must confess that I am at a total loss as to how you and your team utilize this Bible code of yours to uncover future events. I mean, if it is really all that you say it is, then why didn’t one of your cryptographers find some kind of warning about the virus that struck New York?”
“Well, with all due respect, Your Holiness, the code is not mine. It belongs to the world as a true message from God … I am only one of its discoverers. Unfortunately, many people have made the mistake of assuming that the code is prophetic in the literal sense. It is not.”
Listening to the discussion, Morelli glanced down at the pope’s coffee table and noticed that someone had added a newly-released book on the Bible Code to his daily stack of reading material.
The pope smiled. “It’s obvious, Professor, that I still have a lot to learn about the subject. The world is changing so quickly and there is so much information to process, that I am forced to rely on others to obtain and analyze a lot of the information I need to make decisions for the Church. The rest I leave to God’s providence.”
Lev managed a tired grin. His actual face-time with the pope over the past year probably amounted to no more than a total of thirty minutes. Now, as he was becoming better acquainted with him, he was starting to see that this pope was not only a very special individual, but somewhat of a regular guy in the company of men.
“I’ve heard much about it, of course,” the pope continued, “but up until now the bulk of my information has been anecdotal, so for the most part, this supposed code within the Old Testament remains a total mystery to me. Would you be so kind as to enlighten an old Jesuit?”
“It would be my pleasure, Your Holiness. The discovery of the code in the Torah has been replicated in the United States by several senior cryptographers at the National Security Administration, using their most powerful computers. Its validity has not only passed academic peer review, as mentioned in several leading scientific journals, but has come under close scrutiny by many world renowned mathematicians who’ve been working independently at some very prestigious universities, both in America and here in Europe. To date, all of those who have set out to disprove the fact that the code exists have discovered just the opposite. Also, as you know, the code was instrumental in leading us to the discoveries we made last year, both here in Rome and in the Negev Desert.”
“Yes, most impressive, Professor, but I have to tell you that some of my most trusted advisors believe that the whole concept of a code embedded within our most sacred text seems almost heretical. What led you to the belief that there was a code in the Bible in the first place?”
“I’m sure a lot of people feel the same way your advisors do when they first hear about some kind of code being embedded within the Bible. But I also believe most people who’ve heard of it haven’t taken the time to learn all of the facts or take into account the most beautiful fact of all … that God is real and is now proving His existence to an increasingly secular and cynical world using an ancient code so complex that it takes modern computers to unravel it. Our team has come to believe that there’s another Bible within the Bible. It’s like a massive puzzle in layers, similar to a three-dimensional hologram. Some believe that the Bible itself is a computer program left to us by the Almighty, and there are an infinite number of encoded messages yet to be discovered. Even with all of our computers and code-breaking programs today, no one could have encoded the Bible the way it was done over three-thousand years ago.”
The pope continued to probe. “I have to admit that I’ve become fascinated by the subject, Professor, but I’d still like to know how you came to discover it.”
“Like most historical discoveries, I stumbled upon it by chance. Several years ago I was reading about the Genius of Vilna, an eighteenth-century Jewish sage in Lithuania who predicted 9/11 to the day and spoke about the possibility of a code being embedded within the Bible. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and learned that, throughout history, many Bible scholars had been trying to prove that there was a secret code in the Old Testament.”
“I’ve heard that Sir Isaac Newton believed there was a hidden code in the Bible that would reveal the future.”
“I see you’ve been doing your homework, Your Holiness. Most people have no idea that the father of modern physics believed there was a code in the Bible, and that he was obsessed with finding it.” Lev looked up to see the pope’s startling blue eyes staring at him with a piercing gaze, a trait that was slightly unnerving to people when they first met him.
Lev cleared his throat and continued. “Newton’s biographer discovered his obsession with the code when he went through his papers at Cambridge. Newton even learned Hebrew and spent most of his life in a fruitless attempt trying to find it. Apparently, he focused specifically on the Torah … the first five books of the Old Testament. As it turns out, Newton was on to something, because unlike the other books of scripture, the first five books of the Bible were dictated directly by God to Moses in an exact letter-by-letter sequence with strict instructions never to change or alter the sequence of any word, letter, or space.”
The pope stroked his chin and gazed toward the open window. “I don’t remember exactly where it was written, but there is an ancient warning about the Torah. It warned that if a single letter was added or omitted from the Torah, the whole universe would be destroyed.”
“Yes,” Lev continued. “It was a warning to the scribes. Every copy of the Torah since the days of Moses has been copied by hand from its predecessor along with a warning to every new scribe to copy it exactly as it was given to Moses. That’s also the reason the code only exists in Hebrew, because that was the original language of the Bible as it was first written. Translating it into another language would have altered the code, thus rendering it useless.”
Lev could tell by the look on the pope’s face that he was still waiting to hear how he and his team had come to discover something that had remained hidden for so long to so many brilliant thinkers throughout history.
“Evidently, Your Holiness, sixty years ago a rabbi from Eastern Europe, who coincidentally just happened to be a mathematician and fan of Newton, noticed in Genesis that if he skipped fifty letters, then another fifty and then another fifty, the word Torah was spelled out in the beginning of the book. He then used that same skip sequence again and spelled out the word Torah in the Book of Exodus. To his amazement, the word Torah was also embedded at the beginnings of the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. After this surprising discovery, he wrote a paper claiming that Newton was right all along … that the Bible contained some kind of code, but he was never able to unravel the enormity of what he had discovered. That was as far as he got.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. For sixty years this information lay on a dusty shelf at the university until one of my research assistants brought it to my attention. After seeing what this rabbi had stumbled upon, we realized that both he and Newton lacked the one tool that could have helped them unravel the code … a computer. We quickly enlisted the help of several of our colleagues at the University of Jerusalem, and within a few months we had developed a computer program that allowed us to scan literally millions of skip sequences in the Torah to see if we could find any meaningful words or groups of words embedded within the text.”
Lev paused to take a sip of wine as Pope Michael’s eyes narrowed in anticipation.
“Exactly what did you and your team find?”
“We began to see words grouped together on the same page … words and phrases that mentioned historical events that occurred thousands of years after the Bible was written. Both World Wars, the Holocaust, men landing on the moon and the exact date they landed … the horrific events of 9/11, the exact date of the collision of the Shoemaker-Levi comet with Jupiter, the Gulf War, the dates and locations of the assassinations of President Kennedy, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The names of their assassins were spelled out next to theirs, plus much, much more. The things we were finding sent chills up our spines … we all saw the hand of God at work.”
“So, what you’re saying is that this discovery wouldn’t have been possible until now, at this exact point in history … at a time that coincided with the invention of the computer.”
“Exactly. That’s the reason why even a genius like Newton was unable to find any evidence of it. The number of combinations and permutations were just too vast, even for a man of his superior intellect.”
“How much information is there?”
“All of our past and all of our future. The name of every person who has lived before us, who is living now, and who is yet to be born. All of our greatest historical events, plagues, disasters, wars, and future wars … all are encoded in the Bible. There’s no limit to the amount of encoded information the Bible contains.”
“But how is that possible? Are you saying we’re looking at an intelligence that encoded our past, present, and future almost three-thousand years ago using a mathematical model we’re unable to grasp even today?”
“Yes, Your Holiness … and being a man of faith, I’m convinced that intelligence is God. He has given us proof with a modern twist that He exists. He’s sending us a message! Try to think of the Bible as a cryptogram sent to us by God Himself … a cryptogram with a series of time locks that could not be opened until certain events had come to pass. One of these events is the return of the Jews to their homeland after the great Diaspora that lasted almost two-thousand years. The other key is one you just mentioned … the invention of the modern computer. This one leap in technology has finally given scientists and cryptographers the ability to prove what Newton and others believed was there all along. I mean, just think of it. Three-thousand years ago, a code that would be considered complex even by today’s standards was embedded within the Bible, and whoever put it there knew our future. That last part brings up your point about predictions, Your Holiness.”
“How so, Professor?”
“Even though the future is encoded within the Old Testament, I believe the true purpose of the code is to authenticate the Bible as a book of divine and supernatural origin. God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that one day the world would progress to the intellectual point where we would begin to question His existence. How do you convince an enlightened and cynical society that has progressed to our current level of knowledge that God exists? In the modern world, some of our intellectual elite have begun to equate God with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.”
“I know.” The pope exhaled as he looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve read some of their enlightened theories. But I still believe faith plays a greater part in our belief in God than any tangible scientific proof. I’ve always thought that those prone to intellectual debate about the existence of God have an agenda, although I have to admit that I’m not sure just what that agenda is.”
“I agree, Your Holiness, but the questioning, litigious society we live in today requires proof, and I believe God has provided it by giving us little snippets of our future through a hidden code in the Old Testament. However, it’s still our position that the code itself is not a tool for predicting the future. Humanity was never meant to know or predict its own destiny, for only God can know that.”
“But you’ve uncovered future events before.”
“Yes, but unless one knows exactly what one is looking for, or accidently stumbles upon a hidden phrase predicting a future event while running a random skip sequence, as we have done in the past on a few occasions, the future remains invisible. Nothing will be revealed to us unless God wants it revealed. Through the code, God has provided proof to a modern world that He exists and that the Bible was divinely inspired. Who else could have known our future? God is still talking to us through the code. I like to use the analogy of God talking to Moses thousands of years ago through the medium of a burning bush, but today He’s communicating with modern man using a complex code that can only be unraveled by a computer. Let’s face it, our lives have become dominated by computer technology … technology that was predicted thousands of years ago by whoever inserted the code within the Bible.”
Staring into his wineglass, the pope brought it up to eye level and swirled the red liquid around. “And the biohazard symbol we discovered today on the chapel wall … coincidence?”
“Obviously not,” Lev said. “I emailed the images to the villa in Israel. They’re being analyzed as we speak. Hopefully we’ll come up with a match in the code. Occasionally, a phrase or group of words jumps right out at you with startling clarity, while others seem almost hopelessly cryptic. It takes a lot …”
Lev’s cell phone erupted with the tune from the Hebrew folk song Hava Nagila.
“You’d better answer it, Professor. From the sound of your ringtone, I’m guessing it’s probably your team in Israel calling, and I’d like to hear what they have to say.”
Lev read the incoming number. “Yes it is, Your Holiness. Please excuse me.” Lev punched a button on the phone and walked out of the room to take the call.
The lull in the conversation provided Morelli with an excuse to begin exploring the pope’s wine cabinet, while Leo wandered over to the window to gaze out at the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica. The iconic structure had remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, and the seemingly ageless presence of a building designed by Michelangelo was somehow comforting to him. When it came to matters of faith, it had always provided a timeless reference point upon which to guide his thinking, especially now that the world was experiencing yet another horror. Some men were capable of creating such beauty, he thought, while others seemed destined from birth to commit abhorrent acts of evil-a dichotomy within the human species that had been an unnerving paradox to philosophers throughout the ages.
Looking down into Saint Peter’s Square, Leo was suddenly aware that the entire area below was literally undulating with movement. Where only hours before the square had been deserted, now thousands of people were crowded shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the windows of the pope’s apartment, and in the distance, he could see the streets around the Vatican were also filled with people heading in their direction. “Your Holiness … the people … they are here!”
Rushing to the window, Pope Michael and Bishop Morelli saw the mass of humanity flowing into the square from all directions. In the face of an invisible menace that could already be drifting on the wind over the Eternal City, the faithful were obviously flinging aside their fear and venturing outside, leaving the safety of their homes so they could be together to pray on sacred ground.
“What’s going on?”
The men at the window turned to see a pale-looking Lev Wasserman walking toward them with his cell phone still in his hand. Moving in beside them, he leaned forward and gripped the window sill. “We’ve got to stop them!”
CHAPTER 8
None of the men in the room had ever seen Lev Wasserman display an ounce of fear before. They stood there dumbstruck, waiting for an explanation.
“I’m afraid I have some disturbing news. Daniel just found an encoded passage in the code that mentions Rome as being the next target for the same mysterious illness that just struck New York. All of those people down in the square should have stayed in their homes. We’ve got to warn them somehow!”
The pope began waving to the crowd below as he looked back over his shoulder. “Have we received any reports of illness in the city?”
“None in the city, Your Holiness,” Morelli answered, “but we’ve just received a report that a few people have fallen ill in a village nearby.”
“This man who called you from Israel, Professor … this man Daniel … is he usually reliable?”
“Yes, very reliable. His full name is Daniel Meir, and like the other members of our team, he’s an Israeli Christian. He’s also a brilliant mathematician and one of the world’s premier code breakers. Daniel is the one who was responsible for finding most of the encoded passages we discovered in the Bible last year.”
The Holy Father turned away from the window, his public smile slowly fading. “I would like to speak with Bishop Morelli in private for a moment.”
Leo felt his face flush. “Why yes … of course, Your Holiness.”
This sudden, matter-of-fact dismissal by the pope had taken Leo by surprise. After all, he was a cardinal, a Prince of the Church-a member of a select group from which the next pope would be chosen. Had he lost the pope’s trust for some reason?
The pope placed his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Why don’t you and the professor go to my kitchen? Sister Marcella makes wonderful sandwiches and a decent cup of espresso.”
Sister Marcella was also known for her foul temper.
“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Leo said. “We wouldn’t want to put her to any trouble. We’ll just wait out in the hall.”
“Really, she makes delicious sandwiches, Cardinal … I insist. I have a feeling you’ll both need your strength in the hours ahead. This will just take a moment.”
Ten minutes later, Leo was watching a grumpy Sister Marcella make sandwiches as she glared at them from the kitchen. Sitting across from him, a very worried-looking Lev Wasserman stared down at a simple, white-painted wooden table and drummed his fingers. As a former Special Forces officer and member of the elite Israeli security service known as the Mossad, Lev had stared death in the face more than once, but he had always been the picture of calm and restraint, maintaining a thoughtful, almost relaxed demeanor in the face of danger. No opponent had ever seemed to faze him, except for one. Unbeknownst to others, Lev Wasserman had always harbored a secret fear-the fear of germs.
Ever since he was a young man, Lev had been acutely aware of the invisible foe that lived all around us-the unseen enemy that killed with the same indiscriminate finality of any gun or explosive. On the Israeli kibbutz where he had been raised, the constant threat of Arab attacks had forced him to confront terror on a daily basis, but nothing had frightened Lev Wasserman so much as one of mankind’s most insidious enemies-the microscopic bacteria that vastly outnumber all other living things.
At the age of nineteen, he had begun his mandatory service in the Israeli Army. After basic training, he had been standing guard duty one moonlit night along the Jordanian border when a soldier standing next to him was bitten on the leg by something neither one of them ever saw. Within days, the man’s leg had turned black from the knee down, prompting the army surgeons to amputate. But the infection had not been stopped in time. Within hours, it was obvious that the bacteria had continued up the body, and less than twenty-four hours later, Lev Wasserman found himself helping his fellow soldiers lift the young man’s plain wooden coffin into the back of an army truck for its journey back to his family in Jerusalem.
From that day forward, Lev had been left with a permanent fear of germs. He marveled at how divine providence had singled out the man next to him for an attack from a microscopic enemy that was invisible to the naked eye. There but for the grace of God go I-the phrase had played over and over in his mind ever since that fateful day.
Now, sitting at a table munching on a sandwich in the papal Apartments, Lev Wasserman suspected that the thing he feared the most was now already drifting silently through the air in their direction.
“Lev.”
Leo’s voice startled the professor.
“I’m sorry, Leo … did you say something?”
“Your phone is making a noise.”
“Oh.” Lev pulled the phone from his pocket and quickly read a text message on the screen. “It appears that Daniel wants to e-mail us some encoded phrases that he’s just discovered on a page from Leviticus, but he needs to send it on a secure network.”
Leo laid his sandwich on his plate. “I believe there’s a computer in the library.”
Both men pushed away from the table and crossed the hall to the pope’s private library. Lev spotted a black and silver laptop sitting on a small table next to a red wing chair.
“Is that a secure laptop, Leo?”
“Yes. All of the pope’s personal computers have military-grade encryption software installed.”
“Can we use it? Daniel will need the pope’s personal e-mail address.”
Without hesitating, Leo walked over to the computer and typed something in. “That should work.”
Looking down at the screen, Lev was unable to keep from smiling when he saw the address: [email protected].
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Morelli had too much wine one night and changed the pope’s e-mail address as a joke. Marcus … I mean, Pope Michael, got such a kick out of it that he left it like that. As it turns out, it’s a pretty secure address, because no one would ever believe that email address actually belongs to the pope.”
Lev began typing and fired off a short e-mail. They waited. A few minutes later, an e-mail with an attachment arrived. Lev hit the download button and soon they were looking at a page from Leviticus that contained several encoded phrases circled in red.
Running vertically on the page was the phrase-Same as New York. Running horizontally across the top of this phrase was a single word-virus. Then, at the bottom of the page, they saw another single word-Rome. Leo and Lev stood frozen in silence when they read the phrase next to it-many will die.
Lev hit print and grabbed the warm page off the printer. “We’ve got to show this to the pope.”
The sound of someone clearing their throat behind them caused both men to jump. It was Enzo Corelli. “His Holiness would like you to rejoin him in his study now.”
“Thank you, Enzo,” Leo said. “We’ll be right there.”
The old Jesuit started to leave, then stopped and turned around. “You’ll be saying a lot of Hail Mary’s for using that computer without his permission.” The old priest winked in their direction before turning back to leave the room.
Entering the study, Lev handed the printout to Pope Michael and watched as his blue eyes scanned the page. Removing his reading glasses, he handed the paper to Morelli.
“What would you like us to do, Your Holiness?” Leo asked.
“Nothing.”
Leo’s face turned ashen. “But … Marcus … I mean, Your Holiness … didn’t you say earlier that you wished we could have used the code to warn the people in New York? This is clearly a warning about the same virus striking Rome. We must do something!”
The pope remained silent as Morelli let the printout fall into his lap. “I’m afraid His Holiness is right, Leo. A warning now will only cause panic. People will want to know where we obtained our information, and when they find out we’re basing our actions on a hidden code in the Bible, they will only laugh at us. Most of them have never heard of the code, and those who have remain skeptical, despite the proof.”
“At least we could save some,” Leo said. He was thinking of the smiling children who had waved at him from the window earlier in the day.
“I understand your deep felt desire to preserve life, Leo,” the pope said, “but a warning from us now will only cause panic and confusion, and if the pathogen is already loose, then we are already too late.”
“How do we know unless we at least try, Your Holiness? It would be unconscionable for us not to act. We are men of God. If ever there was a time to stand and fight, this is it.”
“Spoken like a true Jesuit warrior, but I’m afraid the time for warnings has passed.” The pope’s eyes narrowed at Leo before he walked to the window and looked down at the square below. Raising his right hand, he made the sign of the cross before the thousands of people staring up at him. A loud cheer went up from the crowd as he waved and blessed them once more before turning away. Without speaking, he walked from the room and strode down the hall to his private chapel.
The men waited patiently for the pope to say his private prayers, and after several minutes of uncomfortable silence, the pope reappeared at the door looking totally exhausted. “Gentlemen, I fear it is only a matter of time before the city and the countryside around it is overrun by this invisible enemy. I must remain here in Rome to guide the Church, but you must all flee the city.”
“And just where are we to flee, Your Holiness?” Leo asked.
“I’ve given instructions to the Bishop. He knows where you must go.”
Leo glanced at Morelli, who was staring off into space, seemingly unfazed by the events unfolding around them.
“Naturally,” the pope continued, “I realize that a Jesuit’s first impulse is to stay and meet any threat to the Church head-on, and as much as I would like to have all of you here in Rome with me at a time like this, you are needed elsewhere. You must find whoever or whatever is causing this plague against humanity and bring an end to it with swift retribution. You are all sanctified combatants, and the time for battle is at hand.”
The men were spellbound by the tone of the Holy Father’s words.
“We understand, Your Holiness,” Leo said, straightening to his full height of six-feet-three inches. “We’ll begin making preparations to move out of the city right away.”
“What about the jet I flew in on this morning?” Lev asked.
“We already thought of that,” Morelli said. “Enzo called the airport and talked to the pilot. The crew is sick … it started an hour ago, shortly after they had lunch at the airport. If there is truly some kind of unknown pathogen circulating somewhere out there right now, then nowhere is safe. Any kind of public transportation could be a death trap, especially planes and trains.”
Pope Michael settled himself into a comfortable position on an oversized sofa and sipped his wine. His coolness seemed almost arrogant, but to those who knew him well, this seeming aloofness was a way for him to step back from an emotional situation so that he could think more clearly. An expression of total comprehension crossed his face, but behind the look of understanding there was also a secret, a secret that he was forbidden from sharing with anyone else, even his closest friends. Slowly, his aloofness seemed to fade as he sat forward and faced the others. “I’ve already made arrangements for you to travel overland. You’ll be taking one of the Vatican’s armored SUVs for your journey. Francoise is waiting for you downstairs.”
The emotional energy in the room was electric as the three men exchanged looks and set their glasses firmly on the table in a gesture of finality. They had been hand-picked by the pope himself and dispatched to an unknown location with orders to unravel an enigma-a mystery wrapped in a riddle, one they had very little time to solve. It was an impossible task.
Rising from the couch, the pope seemed to tower over everyone else. “Stay in touch, Gentlemen. I have no doubt that we will see each other again soon, whether it be in this life or the next. Now please, you must go. Time is growing short, and I fear that things will start to go very badly very soon.”
Reluctantly, the three men filed silently from the room without looking back. When they had gone, the pope’s secretary joined him in his study.
“Do you think they’ll be successful, Marcus?”
“Only time will tell, Enzo my old friend … only time will tell.”