“But to join the brotherhood,” Paolo continued, “a man has only to ask.”
Because he was not standing at the focal point, where the rays of the spotlight were focused by the mirrors into a searing pin-point, Shah’s blindness was only temporary. At first he saw the world as if through a red fog. His companions were indistinct silhouettes. He couldn’t even tell them apart. The loss of vision however was not the worst of it. Shah’s eyes felt like someone had driven shards of broken glass into them.
Some of the jihadists, who had not been looking directly at the mirror array, recovered even more quickly, though not quickly enough to prevent Jade Ihara from escaping. The blind followed the partly-blind back to the van, and one of the latter drove away from the piazza just as the police sirens became audible in the distance.
The red fog in Shah’s vision continued to diminish, though the relentless pain in his eyes made him want to claw them out with his fingertips. Gritting his teeth through the agony, he found the dark shape that he thought was Gabrielle. “Are you all right?”
“I can’t see,” she replied, her voice strangely calm.
“It will pass,” he said. “My vision is returning. Slowly.”
“Mine isn’t.”
“What?” He peered at the place where he knew her face was, as if by sheer willpower he might accelerate the restoration of his sight.
“I was looking right at it. I’m not sure this is going to go away.”
Shah turned to the driver. “We need to find a hospital.”
“No!” Gabrielle said. “No hospital. They may be looking for us now.”
“If this isn’t treated, you might lose your sight permanently.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter now. All that matters is stopping Jade Ihara before she finds the vault.”
“I don’t know how to do that. You were the one who told us where to find her.”
Gabrielle contemplated this problem silently for several seconds. “It doesn’t matter. I know where she will go next.”
“How do you know, Gabrielle? Don’t keep secrets from me. How do you know that?”
Gabrielle reached out a hand and groped for him. “You must believe me when I say that we want the same thing. I cannot tell you more. You will have to trust me.”
“Look where trusting you has brought us.” A volcano of rage built in Shah’s chest. His arms trembled with the effort of holding back the eruption. Though his vision was still dim, he saw everything clearly now. He had willingly permitted Gabrielle to enslave him with her seductive wiles and her empty promises of love, and she had in turn perverted his faith and twisted his mission to safeguard Islam into some agenda that, even now, she refused to share with him.
“Keep your secrets then. I no longer care. I will find Jade Ihara and I will kill her. And then, I never want to see you again.”
As angry as he was, some part of him hoped that she would beg his forgiveness and, at long last, confess her love for him and share her secret, but she did not. Instead, she merely nodded, and then told him their next destination.
“Freemasons,” Kellogg muttered as they followed Paolo into the Lodge. Jade shushed him, but he paid no heed. “It makes perfect sense when you think about it. They’re the puppet-masters orchestrating everything from behind the scenes.”
“Right,” Jade said. “And those little cars they drive around at parades are frigging terrifying.”
Jade’s antipathy toward secret fraternities did not extend to organizations like the Masons. She was merely indifferent toward them. While she did not doubt that the friendships and alliances forged in Masonic Lodges over the centuries had been pivotal in shaping the political landscape — particularly in the United State where, if certain popular authors were to be believed, many of the founding fathers of the country had been senior Masons — Jade suspected this was more a matter of ambitious men also being Masons, and not the other way around. Their reputation for secrecy, more than anything else, had made them a target for persecution by the Church and harassment by conspiracy nuts like Roche, but the truth of the matter was that, despite their reputation as the diabolical architects of the Illuminati’s New World Order, in the modern era, Masons were about as secretive as the Boy Scouts. The members of actual secret societies did not, as a rule, advertise their membership with signet rings and bumper stickers.
“Mock if you want. Mr. Roche warned about this. The Freemasons are the public face of the Changeling conspiracy.”
Jade jerked a thumb in Paolo’s direction. “He can hear us, you know. And do I need to remind you that he just saved our lives from the people who were actually trying to kill us?”
Kellogg gave a dismissive snort.
“Besides, I didn’t think you actually believed all that stuff Roche wrote.”
“Not in a literal sense. But he wasn’t wrong about the world being ruled by an invisible power elite.”
Jade shook her head and followed Paolo through the door and into a lobby that was about as sinister as a doctor’s waiting room. “Please. Make yourselves comfortable. You will be safe here.” He flashed a wry smile at Kellogg. “Our secret plan to rule the world does not include harming the two of you.”
Kellogg glowered.
“Did I hear correctly? You are associates of Signore Roche?”
“Not really,” Jade said, at almost the same instant that Kellogg said: “I’m his publisher.” Jade had to fight the urge to stomp on Kellogg’s toes.
“His publisher?” Paolo’s smile darkened a little. “Well, signore, I am not a hot-tempered man, though we Sicilians have a reputation for it, eh? But you are publishing lies.” He hissed the last word and Kellogg flinched.
Jade moved between the men. “Let’s just all take a step back, okay? I’m not fan of Roche either, but someone killed him a few days ago.”
The news seemed to genuinely surprise Paolo. “Killed?”
“The same people who attacked us at the museum. Not the Freemasons.” She threw a quick look over her shoulder to Kellogg before going on. “They’re trying to stop us from finding the Archimedes Vault. You said you could help us find it, right?”
“I said no such thing,” Paolo replied. “But I did promise you answers, and I will tell you what I can, but please, I must know. How did you learn of it?”
Jade saw no further reason to withhold that information. “Roche wrote about it an unpublished manuscript. He said that it was mentioned in the Archimedes Palimpsest.”
“Ah, yes. I know of the codex, but it is a book on mathematical philosophy. There is nothing in it about the vault.”
“But the vault is real?” Jade pressed.
“Real?” Paolo spread his hands. “Who can say? I know only stories that are passed down in our tradition. Stories that are to be kept secret. That is why I was surprised to hear you speak of it. Is there a real Vault? I do not know. But I can tell you this. If it is real, Archimedes did not build it.”
Jade raised an eyebrow. “Then who?”
“Do you know the story of Hiram Abiff, the widow’s son?” Paolo did not wait for an answer. “It is a very important part of our tradition. Hiram Abiff was the chief architect of King Solomon. He possessed all the secrets of the building craft, and was the grandmaster of the craftsmen’s guild of his day.