The Crimson Code. Rachel Lee

and then you shall cleanse yourself as the law requires after touching a corpse. By this they shall believe I am dead and that you have buried me.

      “Then, by night, you shall return to me. We must go to the place where your real training can begin. The mysteries must pass down, and you will be their messenger.”

      Elezar’s jaw had fallen. “I am to lie?”

      “It will not be a lie, for I am returning to my fathers. And as far as my people are concerned, I will be dead and gone. As will you. It will be years before you re-enter the world, Elezar, and when you do, you will be a man much changed, for you will know the secret teachings of El Shaddai.”

      El Shaddai. The Lord of the Mountain.

      2

      Guatemalan Highlands, Present day

      Father Steve Lorenzo had no idea of the carnage spreading around the world on that Christmas. His goal in life had become very simple: to keep himself and his flock alive. For the past fourteen months, he and his Quiche companions had wandered these mountains, hunted by both the Guatemalan police and the rebels. His once smooth chin now sported a bushy beard, and he could hardly remember the sensation of a hot bath.

      And yet it was Christmas, and most of his friends were still alive to celebrate it.

      He had no vestments. His cassock had long since given way to peasant clothing offered to him by his friends, who could hardly spare even that. He wore sandals one of his flock had made from vine and sections of tire rubber.

      And never had he felt closer to God.

      When life seemed its worst, as it had often since the police attack on the village of these people, he found a deep well of spirituality that reminded him of the early days of Christianity, when to hold faith in Jesus brought persecution and often demanded flight. Those early Christians had possessed little more than his tiny flock of survivors. In this time he lived as the early martyrs had lived, and it refreshed his faith even as it wore him out.

      But his little band was well versed in the skills needed to survive in these mountains. The food might not be as reliable, nor always as familiar, as their rich fields of maize and their herds of sheep, but the forest was bountiful in its own right, and his friends knew how to use everything it provided.

      This Christmas morning he celebrated Mass yet again on an altar made of fallen trees, with tortillas made of corn flour he had managed to purchase—along with beans—from a village they had passed a few days ago, with the few quetzals remaining in his pockets. The women had made the tortillas, patting them back and forth to flatten the balls of dough with an expertise that came from lifelong experience. They had been lightly cooked on a rock set amidst the burning coals of a fire. A nearly smokeless fire. Steve was still amazed that they could manage that here in the jungle.

      He used the chalice and paten given him on his ordination so long ago by family and friends. The years had burnished them, and now when he touched them he remembered the faces of all his loved ones. Yet he was determined that when the time came, he would sell them without regret to keep these people alive.

      It had been a long time since he had even thought of the Kulkulcan Codex, or the reason he had been sent to these people. The Church’s concern was so far away now, so remote.

      He smiled into the faces of his flock and lifted a tortilla for all to see. Esto es mi cuerpo. This is my body.

      This was all that mattered.

      Fredricksburg, Virginia

      Earlier that morning, FBI agent Miriam Anson was in church with her husband, Terry Tyson, a D.C. homicide detective, when her pager began to vibrate insistently. She had been tempted to ignore it entirely until after the service—this was Christmas, after all—when it started buzzing a second time. She turned to Terry, about to whisper an apology, when she saw he had pulled his own pager off his belt and was looking at the number.

      Damn! The word exploded in her head, and she touched Terry’s arm. He looked at her, and she jerked her head toward the rear doors. He nodded and followed her just as the congregation stood up to sing a hymn. Nearly a thousand voices singing “Pass Me Not” followed them out into the frigid morning air.

      Fredericksburg, beneath a bright blue sky and a layer of fresh snow clinging to trees and patches of grass, looked beautiful this morning. Picture-postcard perfect, Miriam thought as she grimly pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed. Terry turned his back to her and did the same.

      If they were both being paged…

      “Anson,” Miriam said into her phone. “Kevin Willis called me.”

      Kevin’s voice sounded in her ear a second later. “Come in now,” he said. “Black Crescent.” The current code for terror attack.

      All Christmas spirit vanished from Miriam’s heart. “I’m on my way.” She flipped her phone closed and saw Terry turning to her, his dark face creased with consternation.

      “I have to go in,” he said.

      “Me, too.”

      Now, hours later, as she sat through one briefing after another on the growing worldwide horror, Miriam wondered at the hearts of men who could perpetrate such atrocities on this holiest of days.

      It would be so easy to give in to hate. But hate would not bring her any closer to justice. It would only push her closer to the very evil she fought.

      As the briefing officer presented yet more grim statistics and the anger flashed through her, Miriam reminded herself of the central truth of the Christmas sermon she had heard: God appears in this world in stables, not in mansions or palaces, in the quiet of the human heart and not in a blaze of herald trumpets.

      And not in the blinding, crushing explosions of bombs.

      No, she couldn’t blame God for this one. Humans had done this all on their own. And if Miriam could help track them down, in the dark, silent corners where they hid…that would be the coming of God in this madness.

      Rome, Italy

      “I have to go to Baden-Baden,” Renate said to the chief. Lawton Caine, who was in the office, too, looked at her with something between sympathy and concern.

      Jefe looked at her as if she were mad. “Are you out of your mind? You know the rules we play by.”

      “They murdered my family,” she said tautly.

      “I know.” The chief’s voice dropped with sorrow. “But you’ll do no good there now.”

      “I have to go.”

      “Damn it!” Cursing might be considered extremely impolite by Germans, but for once Jefe didn’t seem to care about cultural sensibilities. “Haven’t you noticed the pattern? Baden-Baden doesn’t fit.” He slapped his open hand against the paper map of the world on the back wall of his office, a map that covered nearly the entire space. “If you’re right, they’re after you!”

      Lawton stiffened and straightened. “They think she’s dead.”

      She shook her head. “After what happened in Idaho and Montana, they know better. There was absolutely no reason to pick that church in Baden-Baden if they thought I was dead. The grudge is an old one, Law. A very old one. What I did to the Brotherhood…”

      The chief compressed his lips tightly. “I’ll have to forbid it. You stay here, Renate, where your skills can actually do some good.” He sighed. Then he ran his fingers impatiently through his dark hair. “Okay,” he said. “Renate, why don’t you tell me who would have the funds to support this attack, apart from the Saudi royal family.”

      Renate regarded him stonily. “The Frankfurt Brotherhood.”

      “Precisely! So why hit a parish church in Baden-Baden? To get you there. They’re hoping you’ll go to find out what happened to your family. Bookworm shows up again in her hometown. Renate, you nearly exposed them a