The Genesis Code (25 page)

Millennium Tower
Manhattan, New York

Madison lay on his side on the hard cement. Blood ran down the side of his face from a gash in his scalp as he looked up in horror at the Millennium Tower. He watched helplessly as a tremendous explosion rocketed through the mammoth skyscraper, blasting a maelstrom of dark smoke, glass, and concrete into the dawn sky. Above the deafening roar of the blast, the screams of men, women, and children echoed in the air.

One scream rose above the din.

Madison shut his eyes.

Justin was a ghost of a child, lying thin and frail under the starched white sheets of a hospital bed. A tangle of tubes and wires crisscrossed his chest, connecting his dying body with IV bags, monitors, and machines.

The monotonous beep of a heart monitor ticked off the passage of seconds. Christian Madison sat at his bedside, gently holding his son’s hand.

Most of the time, Justin didn’t seem to know what was happening. He stared straight ahead, his eyes glassy and vacant. His breathing was labored. At times, the rise and fall of his chest would stop completely. He would make a small gurgling sound, swallow, and then his breathing would start again.

Madison was utterly powerless. He worshipped science like a religion, but science refused to perform any miracles for one of its most faithful disciples. He prayed to a God he didn’t believe in, bargaining for the life of his dying son.

Madison intellectualized the biological processes taking place within Justin’s body.

He pictured Justin’s lungs, struggling to draw in enough air.

His cells starving for oxygen.

His heart growing weaker, as it tried to pump more blood through his arteries.

Madison had expected a dramatic end, a domino-like collapse of one system after another.

But that didn’t happen.

Justin just slowly faded away. Finally, as the last rays of the evening sun winked out over the horizon, he took one last small breath.

Then he was gone.

“Good-bye, Justin,” he whispered softly.

A voice rang out.

“Christian!”

The scream that rose above the cacophony of voices was Grace, frantically calling his name.

“Christian!”

Madison rolled over onto his back as Grace reached his side, kneeling down and taking his head in her hands. As Madison looked up into her eyes, small fragments of glass fell from his hair and shoulders.

“I’m okay, Grace,” he said.

Tears rolled down his face.

She leaned over, kissing Madison fully on the lips.

“We’re going to be okay,” he said, reaching up to brush a finger across her cheek.

Several feet away, Ambergris sucked in a deep breath and called out.

“Christian…”

Two paramedics lifted Dr. Ambergris onto a stretcher. His face was deathly pale and blood streamed from a gash in his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Christian. For everything.”

He reached out a shaky hand.

Madison clasped the hand between his own. “I am too. But none of that matters now.”

A grave look descended on Ambergris’ face.

“If I die, you must decide—”

He coughed violently, and dark blood bubbled against his lips.

“You must decide for yourselves what to do with this knowledge. You must decide whether to reveal the secret of the Genesis Code.”

The paramedics hoisted the stretcher off the ground. A third EMT slipped an oxygen mask over Ambergris’ face. His voice became a rasping whisper.

“You must decide…”

After the ambulance sped away, its flashing lights receding in the distance, Grace turned to Madison.

“We can’t keep this a secret,” she said finally. “We can’t keep the secret of the Genesis Code from the world.”

Madison sighed. “I know.”

“But how do we spread the word?” asked Madison. “And without endangering our own lives?”

Grace thought for a minute.

“I have an idea,” she said.

Three weeks later
Manhattan, New York

The Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche perched on the helipad like a giant bird of prey. The helicopter’s rotors beat a steady rhythm in the thick air.

“This doesn’t exactly look like a transport helicopter,” said Grace to their military escort. She smiled at Madison.

“No, ma’am, it isn’t. As I said, my orders are to transport you as quickly as possible to the project site and to ensure your protection and safety. The Comanche can do a hundred and sixty knots and sure as hell can take care of itself. Pardon my language, ma’am.”

She noticed two 430-gallon auxiliary fuel tanks strapped to the underside of the Comanche.

“Just how far are we going, Colonel?” asked Grace.

He smiled. “You know I can’t tell you that, ma’am.”

Within minutes, the Comanche was airborne. The ground rushed by a thousand feet below. Grace sat back in her seat and looked at Madison.

She looked down at the thick file in her lap. On the cover was stenciled:

THIS FILE IS CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
Examination by unauthorized persons is a criminal
offense punishable by fines and imprisonment
up to 50 years and $200,000.

It was titled: “THE GENESIS PROJECT.”

“I feel like Alice right after she went down the rabbit hole,” said Grace.

After Madison had been treated for his injuries at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Grace and Madison had gone directly to the FBI. After learning of Dr. Ambergris’ discovery of the ancient warning hidden in the human genome and its dire predictions of global cataclysm, the U.S. government launched a massive program to decipher the rest of the Genesis Code. Grace and Madison were recruited to serve on the Genesis Project team, housed in a secret military installation in a remote corner of Nevada.

“So what will Quiz do now that the government has finished debriefing him?” asked Grace.

Madison chuckled. “They used the carrot-and-stick approach with Quiz. Set him up with his own consulting firm, complete with lucrative government contracts. If he cooperates, he’ll be set for the rest of his life. But if he breathes a word of what he knows about the Genesis Code, he spends the next fifty years in a military prison.”

Grace looked out the window. “I’m going to miss him.”

“Me too.”

They passed the next few minutes in silence.

Grace reached over and took Madison’s hand. “So why did you run away from me after Justin died?”

Her eyes searched his face.

After a moment, he spoke.

“I think maybe it hurt too much to care about someone. Or maybe I didn’t believe I deserved to feel happy again. I don’t know.”

Grace smiled. “Or maybe you were just being an ass,” she said, as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Okay, I guess I deserved that,” said Madison, squeezing her hand. The lines of his face softened.

“But I’m here now,” he said.

Grace leaned in and kissed him gently. Her lips were soft and warm on his mouth. After several long seconds, she pulled away.

“How’s the arm?” asked Grace.

Madison moved his right arm up and down, pivoting his shoulder joint along a vertical axis.

“Still pretty sore,” he replied. “My shoulder too. But the doc says I’ll heal over time.”

Grace chewed on her lower lip.

“I still can’t believe that they’re gone,” she said softly. “Giovanni. Ambergris. And Bowman and Vasquez.”

“I know. I try not to think about it. I don’t do very well with death and loss.”

Grace smiled and took his hand.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “We both are.”

Flavia Veloso sat in her cubicle at WXNY, staring at the headline above the fold on the front page of
The New York Times
.

She didn’t believe it. Not for a minute.

Rumors were circulating about a government cover-up. In the days following the bombing, sources from Triad Genomics told her about the murder of Dr. Ambergris just days before the attack. There was talk of a groundbreaking scientific discovery, and the government’s suppression of that discovery to keep it from becoming public knowledge.

But she had no proof. No hard evidence.

A runner from the mailroom interrupted her thoughts.

“FedEx for you, Ms. Veloso.”

She took the FedEx box. It was addressed to Flavia Veloso, WXNY. No return address.

Strange.

She opened the box. Inside was a thick manuscript. Four hundred white pages filled with black type.

Madison and Grace had decided that the story of the Genesis Code must be told to the world. But perhaps there was some logic to the Order’s concerns that most of humanity simply wasn’t ready to face the dire warnings it contained. So they decided to preserve and present the story of the Genesis Code in the same manner that it had been preserved throughout mankind’s past—hidden within our myths and stories.

Fictionalized in the pages of the manuscript sent to Veloso, Grace and Madison told the story of the Genesis Code to those with the insight and wisdom to discern the kernels of truth hidden within paragraphs of fiction.

Flavia turned to page one and began reading.

She laid the cover page aside on her desk. On it was written the title of the manuscript:

THE GENESIS CODE

A veritable army of generous people gave their support to make
The Genesis Code
a reality. I would like to thank my agent, Susan Crawford, and my editor, Natalia Aponte, for taking a chance on a new author and believing in
The Genesis Code
when it was little more than a fledgling attempt at a first novel. My deep appreciation to Tom Doherty, for allowing me to join the ranks of Tor/Forge authors. Thanks also to Paul Stevens, for his guidance and assistance, and to all the good folks at Tor/Forge for their support.

Special thanks to author James Rollins, for his support and encouragement. If you haven’t read James Rollins’s novels, you simply must go out and buy them today. For the inspiration for this story, I gratefully credit the works of Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval.

Appreciation and love to my family: my parents, Betty and Jim, to whom I owe everything; my brother, Brett, for his unwavering support; my aunt, Bev Marshall, a truly gifted author who inspired me to write, and my uncle, Butch, who always believed in me; my grandfather, Ernest, the great storyteller; Steve Carle; Don Gouger; my stepson, Kyle; and my adopted parents, Ronda and David Raymond. Thanks also to my colleagues at the firm for their support and encouragement: Dave Bowman, Eugene George, Jim Toale, David Bowman, Jr., and Robert Scheb.

But first and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, my friend, and my soul mate—my angel, Amy—for sharing her life with me.