Friedman gestured at the brace on Selena's leg. "What happened to your leg?"
"Oh, I slipped on some ice."
If Friedman thought her answers were vague, he said nothing.
She glanced at her watch. "I think I should head back and start working on this. There's a train an hour from now."
"Can I persuade you to have lunch with me before you go back to Washington?"
"I'd love to, Alan, but let's make that a rain check. I want to get this into a computer as quickly as possible. As soon as I have something definite, I'll let you know."
"I'll see you out," Friedman said. He helped her on with her coat.
Later, riding back on the train, Selena thought about the scroll. It was odd, the urgency she felt about it getting it translated, almost as if something was prodding her. As if time were running out, although there was no rational reason to think so. After all, that piece of parchment had been hidden for more than two thousand years. Another day or two to understand what was written on it wouldn't make any difference.
Would it?
CHAPTER 4
Selena walked into Project HQ, Friedman's drive in her purse. Everything felt different, now that she'd told Elizabeth she was quitting the field. It wasn't that anything appeared different. Elizabeth had given her full access. Selena's security clearance was still in place. It was subtle, as if something familiar had changed. She didn't like the feeling. It made her uneasy. In spite of herself, she knew she was going to miss the excitement of the missions.
She went down the spiral staircase to the lower level. Gunfire came from the range where Nick, Ronnie and Lamont were practicing. She passed the gym and wondered how far she could take her workouts, now that she was pregnant, and for how long. She headed past the pool and the operations room to the computer room, where she knew she'd find Stephanie.
Stephanie Willits was Elizabeth Harker's deputy, one of the smartest people Selena had ever known. When Steph was a teenager she'd hacked into the Pentagon servers for the fun of it. It hadn't been the first time she'd broken through the firewalls on someone's ultra secure computer system, but it was the first time she'd been caught.
In the days that followed, it had been made clear to her how much trouble she was in. After she'd shown the grim-faced agents who'd arrested her how she'd accomplished the breach, they'd offered her an alternative. She could work for the government, or she could go to prison for a long, long time.
It hadn't been a hard decision to make. They'd given her a console and a cubicle in the gigantic black building housing the NSA, which was where Elizabeth had found her some years later.
For Stephanie, her job was a hacker's dream come true. She had the enormous power of the Project's Cray computers at her disposal and the official blessing of the government to use her skills against America's enemies.
Selena stood in front of the double glass doors leading into the computer room and placed her palm on a biometric scanner. The doors slid open with a hiss. A blast of frigid air swept over her. The four big computers inside the room used a lot of power and generated a lot of heat. Stephanie kept the temperature low and cold. Selena shivered inside her heavy coat.
Steph wore a green sweater buttoned halfway, slacks and a blue blouse. Half a dozen gold bracelets on her wrist jingled as she spun in her chair to greet Selena. She was sitting at the console in front of her favorite computer, Freddie, studying one of three monitors.
Freddie was a maxed out, modified Cray XT. Stephanie had written a program that turned Freddie into the first computer with true independent artificial intelligence. Freddie processed information by using the countless connections available to him, in a way similar to the neural connections of the human brain. Unlike humans, he never forgot anything. Through the Internet and connections to other computers throughout the world, Freddie had potential access to every bit of human knowledge that had been entered into a computer or scanned into a database by anyone, anywhere.
It was an awesome resource, by anyone's standard.
"Hi, Selena. How was New York?"
"About what you'd expect. The weather was lousy and the taxis were expensive. I was only there for a few hours. I have something with me I want you to look at."
Stephanie had a pleasant, round face, the sort of face you didn't notice unless you paid attention. She was neither beautiful nor plain. Her nose was a little too long, her eyebrows a touch too heavy. Her best feature was her long brown hair. It glowed with vitality. At the moment, it was tied up in a ponytail.
Steph had heavy bones and a solid look. Like everyone else in the Project, she carried a pistol. It went with the job, even though Steph wasn't a field operative.
Selena held the thumb drive up.
"There's a document on here written in biblical Hebrew. I'd like you and Freddie to take a crack at it."
Mounted above Stephanie's console was a large camera lens. It moved and focused on Selena. Her image appeared on one of the monitors.
Hello, Selena.
The voice belonged to the computer.
"How are you, Freddie?" Selena asked.
I am always the same, Selena. How is your leg?
"It's better. Thanks for asking."
I am curious, Selena. Have you not terminated your position? You are no longer a part of the team. Why are you here?
One of the things Stephanie had not been able to program into the computer was something approximating what humans called tact. Freddie was always direct.
"It's true I'm no longer part of the field team," Selena answered. "But I'm still working for Elizabeth as a consultant. So even though I quit, I still work here."
That is illogical.
"Yes, it is, isn't it? Freddie, I have a challenge for you."
A challenge? Is it a game? I like games. Sometimes Stephanie and I play chess or Go.
"Don't ask who wins," Stephanie said.
"Stephanie is going to insert a drive that contains a scan of an ancient scroll," Selena said. "It's written in a variation of biblical Hebrew."
The language is in my database. Translation will be easy.
"If it were easy, I would have done it myself. The writing is in code. I would like you to try and break the code so that we can read what is on the scroll."
Please insert the drive.
Selena handed the thumb drive to Stephanie, who inserted it into a port on the console.
Processing.
The scan of the scroll appeared on one of the monitors. A second monitor filled with rapidly changing strings of computer code.
"I wonder if he can do it?" Selena said.
"Want to make a bet?" Steph asked. "A buck says he solves it."
"How quickly?"
"Within an hour?"
"You're on," Selena said. "I know Freddie is good but within an hour doesn't sound doable to me."
The voice of the computer interrupted.
The coded text is similar to a section of writing found on a scroll excavated near Hebron in 1986 that has been attributed to King David. The section that is similar has not been translated.
"I hadn't heard about this," Selena said. "Why hasn't it been translated?"
The scroll and other artifacts from the excavation are under control of the Palestinian Authority. Because they are Jewish artifacts, they have been dismissed as of no importance. They would have been destroyed at the time except for the protests of prominent archaeological experts.
"Where is this scroll now?"
It is stored in the basement of Hebron University, in the city of Hebron, on the west bank of the Jordan.
"I still don't see how this helps us if the scroll in Hebron can't be read either."