“Probably when I was at Yale,” he added with a wink.
That seemed to penetrate her shield of inscrutability. “You went to Yale?”
His only answer was an airy wave. He hadn’t attended Yale as a student, but he had grown up in New Haven, where his father still worked at the University as a janitor. He’d spent a lot of time on the campus while growing up, and he had, for a short while, dared to dream of attending the Ivy League institution. It was a dream that could not withstand the harsh realities of socio-economics and race politics.
His higher education — still a work in progress — had come through distance learning programs, but Sasha didn’t need to know that.
“The article called it ‘the most mysterious manuscript in the world.’ An entire book written in a language that no one has ever seen before, and which no one is able to translate. Not even the NSA. That’s pretty crazy shi…ah, stuff.”
Sasha nodded. “It’s one of the greatest puzzles in cryptology.”
It was officially designated MS 408 of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, but it was more commonly known as the Voynich manuscript, so named for the early 20th century antique book dealer who brought it into public awareness.
The book’s vellum pages, over two hundred and forty altogether, were decorated with elaborate full-color illustrations, mostly of plants, rendered with extraordinary detail — almost like a biology textbook — which had led many to believe that it was a book of herbal remedies from the Middle Ages. The pages also depicted star charts, along with more symbolic pictures — several of the paintings featured crudely drawn, almost cartoonish images of naked pregnant women, cavorting about in green pools, dancing along the edge of spiral star clusters, or emerging from plant root systems that looked suspiciously like the veins and arteries of a human body. What made the Voynich manuscript remarkable though was its text. The entire book had been written using a completely unknown alphabet system that had confounded all attempts at decipherment.
Theories about its origin were diverse. Some believed it to be the work of an herbalist or apothecary, who had developed the unique code to protect his recipes from competitors. Others believed it to be a hoax — created by a confidence artist during the reign of Queen Elizabeth or perhaps even by Voynich himself in the early 1900s — and opined that the reason the book’s code couldn’t be cracked was that the text had been generated randomly, to make it seem that the book contained some great mystery. Hoax or not, since its appearance in 1912, more than a few people had wasted years of their lives in a vain attempt to solve its riddle.
The mystery of the Voynich manuscript was exactly the sort of puzzle that captivated Parker. He had read numerous articles about the book, staying current on the latest research and theories about its origin, so he had immediately recognized the text excerpt on Sasha’s computer screen. On a personal level, he was intrigued by the admittedly bizarre notion that Iraqi insurgents might be on the verge of cracking the Voynich code. The fact that this beautiful, if somewhat socially awkward cryptanalyst not only shared his interest but was obsessed with finding the solution, made it even more appealing.
But it sure as hell wasn’t a good reason for Cipher element to risk their lives.
He shook his head. “The Voynich manuscript is almost certainly a hoax. The best theory I’ve heard is that it was produced by an English charlatan who claimed, among other things, to be able to turn lead into gold. The reason no one can read it is that there’s nothing there to read; it’s just a jumble of random symbols that don’t mean anything.”
“You are talking about the Edward Kelley hypothesis?” Sasha shook her head. “That has been categorically disproven.”
“Categorically disproven? I wasn’t aware of that.”
“At my request, the agency secretly tested pieces of the manuscript. Carbon-14 dating confirms that the parchment dates to between the 13th and 15th centuries, at least two hundred years before Kelley lived.”
“So it’s old. That proves nothing. Different crook, same scam.”
She pursed her lips. “You could be right. But the documents your team recovered indicate that al-Awda is in the process of decoding it. They believe it will help them create a new bio-weapon.”
Despite his desire to impress her, Parker couldn’t hide his incredulity. “Really? A medieval cookbook is going to tell them that?”
“You must be unfamiliar with the science of ethnopharmacology.” Sasha’s tone was flat, matter of fact, but the statement was a disparaging slap in the face to Parker. “It’s the study of traditional medicines used by different ethnic groups, to discover new drugs and medicines. Traditional knowledge is the basis of modern pharmacology; there’s every reason to believe that the Voynich manuscript might contain important new insights into healing medicines. However, if the information you recovered is accurate, the book might also contain important historical information about the plague.”
That got Parker’s attention.
If the Voynich manuscript did date back to the 1400s, then it wasn’t too much of stretch to believe that it might contain knowledge about the Black Death, which had ravaged Europe less than a century earlier. The plague bacteria had already been used as a bio-weapon; it was widely believed that the first outbreak of the disease in Europe had occurred after an invading Mongol army catapulted infected bodies into the besieged city of Caffa. Seven hundred years later, the organism that had caused the plague—Yersinia pestis—remained a pathogen with deadly potential for exploitation as a germ warfare agent.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter whether the Voynich manuscript really contained information about the plague, or even if it could be decoded at all. Somebody was trying to cook up a nasty new weapon, and it was his job — his team’s job — to identify them and put them in the ground.
“That’s good enough for me,” he said, rising to his feet.
Sasha’s face creased in confusion. “You…believe me? Just like that?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe.” His grin was back, but this time it was a cold smile of anticipation. “I’ve got a job to do. It’s going to be a busy night.”
FOUR
Domenick Boucher waited patiently for the President’s daily national security briefing to conclude. As Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he’d been the first to speak, providing the Commander-in-Chief with a succinct snapshot of how the world had changed during the previous twenty-four hours. He had then listened attentively as other members of the National Security Council had done the same, but all the while his thoughts never strayed far from the one piece of information he had withheld; he clenched it in his mind, like a hand grenade with the safety pin removed. It was an apt simile. He was about to drop this particular grenade on Tom Duncan’s desk, and the odds were good that neither of them would be able to escape the shitstorm of political shrapnel that would follow.
When the President finally dismissed the meeting, Boucher stood with the rest of the attendees but didn’t join the exit queue. President Duncan settled into the executive chair behind the Resolute Desk and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Something on your mind, Dom?”
Boucher pursed his lips. “Mr. President…”
“It’s just us, Dom. Spit it out.”