“I want something more definite to go on,” Max replied.
“This is precise. It is definite,” Fauvre replied. He drew the new triangle into the diagram Zabala had sent him. “This gives us the planetary alignments at the exact hour, day and year that this catastrophe will occur: 11:34 on the eighth of March.”
“Two days’ time,” Max said.
Fauvre held up the numbers he’d scribbled on a pad, taken from the crystaclass="underline"
7 24 8-10 4 9 12 25-7 11 9 17
“But this is one part of Zabala’s secret I cannot understand. What do you think these numbers mean? I do not believe they have any bearing on the astrological horoscopes. There is no relationship between them and the drawings.”
“It’s a code of some description,” Max said, and as he did so, his stomach plummeted. Sayid! His face intruded into Max’s thoughts. There was nothing he could do about his friend. Not right now.
Fauvre saw the look of anguish on his face. “There is something you haven’t told me?”
Max nodded. “There was a sheet of paper with a square of numbers, twenty-five numbers. It made no sense except they all added up to sixty-five no matter which way you added them.”
“Then that square holds a message. Zabala was passing on vital information, perhaps even telling us how the catastrophe might be averted.”
Max racked his brains. There was no way he could remember the magic square numbers. “To encrypt anything you need a word or a phrase. The people writing the code and those deciphering it have to know it. It’s like a combination for a vault.” Max was sunk even if he had the magic square. He did not have the key words.
“We only found the numbers in the square and those on the crystal,” he said. “We never found the key words to help us decipher it.”
“But don’t you see, Max? Somewhere Zabala has given you those key words to unlock his message. You’ve seen them, or been given them, or been told them. Where is the piece of paper?” Fauvre asked.
“My mate’s got it.”
“And where is he?”
“He should be home, but I haven’t been able to get hold of him. Maybe the cops have him back in England. It doesn’t matter right now.”
Max moved to a wall map. “The triangle brought me here from Biarritz. The other two sides join up …” Max’s finger traced a line. “Here.”
“Geneva,” Fauvre said, alarmed.
Fear twisted Max’s stomach. “The particle accelerator at CERN.”
“You know about it?” Fauvre said.
Europe’s organization for nuclear research. Max was supposed to have gone on a school trip there a couple of years ago but was in a cross-country competition instead. Sayid had gone and said it was stunning. A hundred meters underground, a huge circle of accelerator tubes, eight and a half kilometers across, twenty-seven kilometers in circumference. It was the size of London Underground’s Circle Line. Massive. Biggest, most complex piece of machinery in history!
Sayid tended to get excited about science.
This was every physicist’s dream. The big bang theory. They were going to accelerate beams of protons at very nearly the speed of light. The beams would smash particles together, creating an unbelievable burst of energy. “Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!” Sayid had shouted, stamping his feet like a madman, nearly falling over himself with exhilaration. In fact, he’d rabbited on for days about it. Drove Max crazy. Now Max wished he’d listened more attentively.
Fauvre tapped the map. “Those scientists are attempting to find out how this universe came about. They want to determine when the known forces of nature were born-one trillionth of a second after the moment of creation,” Fauvre told him. “It makes sense. Zabala once spent months in those mountains.”
Max’s gaze stayed locked on Lake Geneva. Suppose, just suppose, every single thing he had discovered was true? A disaster striking that area would cause death and destruction on a vast scale.
“The particle accelerator. Sophie must be taking the pendant to someone there,” Max said. “But when she delivers it and they discover it’s worthless …”
He didn’t say anything more. Fauvre’s stricken face reflected his own. Sophie would die.
Zabala had given them the date and time of the catastrophe, and now Max knew where it was supposed to happen: the French-Swiss border at 11:34 a.m. on March 8.
Their stunned silence was broken by Abdullah barging into the room, gesturing with Peaches’s photo. “That pattern on her ski suit, it can be many things.” And then he smiled. “But two things for sure it is!” He put a couple of printouts on the desk. “This is a photograph of chain lightning. See, it is like a piece of coral in the night sky. And this”-he shifted the other sheet into view-“this is the corporate logo of Perun Industries.”
“Lightning,” Max said, realization stabbing him, “brings light… Lux Ferre …”
“What? Zabala used those words in one of his letters …,” Fauvre said, scrabbling among Zabala’s documents. “Here!” He held up a crumpled sheet of torn paper. “Lux Ferre. This is what he feared! He says so. It made no sense to me.”
“They were clues,” Max said. “What sort of company is it?”
“Oil and gas. The exploration and commercial rights were sold years ago, but the man who owned Perun kept the name. There are no shareholders. It is a private company worth billions. It would appear the man became a recluse. His name is Fedir Tishenko, a Ukrainian. And he lives somewhere in Switzerland.”
Max knew he had found his enemy.
And Fauvre was correct-Zabala had given him the key word. He’d shouted it moments before he died.
Lucifer.
Sayid. Where are you?
L-U-C–I-F-E-R.
The key.
23
Fedir Tishenko massaged aloe vera cream into his scaly skin. Climbers used moisturizer because altitude and wind would parch their faces, but for Tishenko it had been a daily ritual since the lightning god had struck him. Small pieces of dead skin would peel away under his fingertips, and his hairless body was like that of a reptile.
Was it the cruel hand of nature that created monsters, or were they born? He did not care. Society had rejected most of those who worked for him. Either out of gratitude or out of fear, they did his bidding. Loyalty was bought one way or another. The core group of scientists, though, were his fellow outcasts. Some had a physical disability; others had experienced uncaring, almost cruel treatment because of their mental state. Each one driven into his own hell of desperate loneliness, all had wanted a better, fairer life, and they had found their champion in Fedir Tishenko. Only he among them had the driving ambition and desire for immortality, and the money to achieve it. He had offered them the chance to strike back at an uncaring world. Tishenko would harness the awesome power of the universe in a shattering moment of light and fire, the intensity of which had not been seen since the moment of creation.
Tishenko was going to create a new life form, so it was only to be expected that many others would have to die in order for his ambition to be achieved. He was no raving lunatic twisted with hatred, planning to commit wanton acts of genocide-he was chosen.
As far as anyone outside his group of scientists was concerned, Fedir Tishenko was investing everything he owned to research and create an alternative energy source, much needed by a wounded world. So Angelo Farentino, in all his ignorance, standing in the room and telling him of the enormous disaster that might befall vast tracts of Europe if he went ahead with his project, had no bearing on his plan.
“So the connection between Max Gordon and Zabala is purely coincidental?” Tishenko asked as he peeled another layer of skin from his cheekbone.
“Yes!” Did this madman not understand his real discovery-the disaster about to befall them at Tishenko’s own hand? This fool was going to kill them all.