The Lucifer Code Read online

  About the Book

  What happens to us when we die?

  Oblivion. Or so believes Dr Miles Fleming, a brilliant, young neuroscientist who has developed a device capable of reading human brainwaves. But when his own brother contacts him after being certified dead for six whole minutes, Fleming wonders if he’s got it all wrong.

  His search for the truth uncovers a terrifying religious conspiracy to stage the most ambitious experiment the world has ever seen – to prove beyond doubt the existence of a heaven or a hell. As the world awaits the final judgement, Fleming must confront his own demons to save not only his own soul but that of all humanity.

  THE LUCIFER CODE pits the faith of religion against the certainty of science in a heartstopping thriller which explores our deepest fears.

  Michael Cordy worked for ten years in marketing before giving it all up to write. He lives in London with his wife and daughter. For more information on Michael Cordy and his books, see his website at www.michaelcordy.com

  Also by Michael Cordy

  THE MESSIAH CODE

  THE CRIME CODE

  THE LUCIFER CODE

  THE VENUS CONSPIRACY

  THE SOURCE

  and published by Corgi Books

  THE LUCIFER CODE

  Michael Cordy

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781446437124

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  THE LUCIFER CODE

  A CORGI BOOK : 9780552154475

  Originally published as LUCIFER in Great Britain by Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers in 1997 and by Corgi Books in 1998.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Corgi edition published 2006

  7 9 10 8

  Copyright © Michael Cordy 2001

  The right of Michael Cordy to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Condition of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Corgi Books are published by Transworld Publishers,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA,

  a division of The Random House Group Ltd.

  Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk

  The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009.

  For Jenny

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As ever, my greatest debt of gratitude is to my wife, Jenny. She, more than anyone else, helped bring Lucifer to light. Her inventive research and creative ideas were invaluable in developing characters and plotting story lines.

  In our research the following books proved particularly valuable: The Quantum Self by Danah Sohar (Flamingo 1991), Q is for Quantum by John Gribbin (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1998), Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakener (Pan 1990) and The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

  I am extremely grateful to everyone at Transworld Publishers for their warm encouragement and continued support, especially my excellent editor Bill Scott-Kerr.

  Major thanks are due to my friend and agent Patrick Walsh, and film agent Sam North.

  I also thank the following for their help in researching the book: Commander Jerry Plant of the Royal Navy, Giles Palmer for his ideas on quantum physics and Pete Tyler for his insights on theology and the Catholic Church. Any mistakes are mine alone.

  Finally, I should like to thank both my parents for their tireless enthusiasm and support. Outside the peerless Transworld sales force, they are the best sales team an author could wish for.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Michael Cordy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Part 1: Soul Searching

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Part 2: The Soul Truth

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Part 3: Lucifer

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Epilogue

  LUCIFER: Lu-ci-fer: from Latin – bearer of light

  (lux, light; ferro, to bear)

  PROLOGUE

  The bright circular lamp above the eight-year-old child dims as the anaesthetic kicks in. The little girl reaches for the hand beside hers on the operating-table. It squeezes and she returns the pressure, gripping as tight as she can, fearing that the encroaching darkness will separate them for ever. Like many children she has an instinctive fear of the dark, understanding at some primal level that light divides the universe into two: day and night; visible and invisible; good and evil; living and dead.

  But this darkness is merciful. It brings oblivion before the surgical saw cuts into her skull. She can’t hear the high-pitched whirr of metal grinding through bone, can’t see the fine red mist of bone and tissue refracted in the operating-theatre lights, or smell the blood and disinfectant. She is aware of nothing except her self – her mind – floating in a dark so intense it has a smell, colour and taste of its own. This velvet limbo feels womb-like, safe.

  The neurosurgeon lays down the saw and uses a laser scalpel to cut into the softer tissue. Supremely skilled, his hands are steady but he is aware that this operation is unique: it has never been attempted before. No textbook can tell him where to cut.

  After thirteen hours and twenty-seven minutes he allows himself an exhausted sigh as a nurse mops the sweat from his brow. The worst is over. Or so he thinks.

  Just seconds later the life-sign monitors by the operating-table erupt in a frenzy of insistent beeping.

  At that moment a pinprick of white light punctures the child’s velvet darkness. She is no longer floating. Instead she is rushing through a black vortex towards the light. It is just a dot at first but she is moving so fast towards it that the light is revealed as a cone, like the beam of a torch. Then she is inside it, part of the light. She is travelling at such speed now that light seems to stand still around her. It is no longer a solid beam but particles floating past into blackness, brilliant snowdrops of light. She becomes aware of a familiar presence beside her, pulling her, leading her through the silver blizzard towards the peak of the cone, the source. The connection is strong, comforting. She feels no fear now that they are together again.

  Then the pain hits her, not physical pain but emotional, psychic pain. Instantly an enormous force yanks her back into the vortex, away from the cone of light, ripping her from the presence beside her. She tries to scream, clinging desperately to the beloved presence that is being torn from her, sinew by sinew, cell by cell, as the receding light reconstitutes itself into a distant and diminishing whole.

  Suddenly she is looking down at herself on the table, watching the surgeon and nurses trying frantically to revive her. The operating-theatre is flooded with strong white lig
ht. Everything appears so clear, so bright. She stares at herself on the table, transfixed by the slick, gaping wound on the left side of her head and the bundle concealed under the green sheet beside her, and watches the nurse unclasp the small hand that had gripped hers so fiercely. She realizes that for the first time in her life she is alone.

  PART 1

  SOUL SEARCHING

  1

  The VenTec Foundation. Alaska.

  Twenty-nine years later

  Being unable to blink was the worst sensation. That, and the chill fear in her guts from knowing she was going to die.

  When she awoke to find herself immobile on the laboratory couch, head shaved and eyes pegged open, Mother Giovanna Bellini knew what fate awaited her. Not only had she witnessed a hundred similar experiments but she had also contributed to them, administering the last rites to the subjects. Unlike her, however, they had been terminally ill. The imminence of their deaths and the act of dying had made them indispensable to the project.

  Surely the scientists couldn’t be responsible for this. Over the last nine months she had worked with them, helped them in what she thought was God’s work. The Red Pope himself had appointed her to perform the last rites, explaining that she was contributing to a great and sacred mission. ‘Don’t question the scientists, Mother Giovanna, for they, like you, wear the scarlet crucifix of the Church of the Soul Truth on their chests.’

  But it had been impossible to remain silent. She had been faithful to the Holy Father since he was a senior cardinal in the Vatican, choosing to follow him when he left to found his own ministry. Now, having been entrusted with this most sacred responsibility, how could she betray that trust by saying nothing?

  Stinging liquid was dropped into each eye but she couldn’t recoil.

  Dear God! Help me!

  She willed the words from her lips but no sound came. Even her screams were silent. Her body had been switched off by the paralysing drug, which the blonde woman in the white bodysuit and reflective eye-protectors had injected into her veins.

  At the outset, it was understood that Mother Giovanna would leave the laboratory immediately after administering the last rites to each experimental subject, but recently she had lingered outside the tinted glazed doors, curious to observe how they pinpointed the crucial moment of death. After witnessing the final stages of the last three experiments she had felt compelled to contact Sister Constance, her oldest, most trusted friend, and seek her advice. Sister Constance had promised to respect her confidence and encouraged her to go direct to the Holy Father and tell him that the scientists weren’t waiting for the patients to die, but killing them.

  How did they know she had betrayed them? And how did they dare do this to her, knowing she had the Red Pope’s protection?

  Even as her upper body was raised and the hollow transparent sphere lowered over her head, she strained to see a flash of red in her peripheral vision – the tell-tale scarlet robes that would signal the arrival of Monsignor Diageo or perhaps the Red Pope himself. But as the glass sphere was sealed round her neck she saw no such sign of salvation.

  It was made up of different textured layers and the refracted light shining through them had a cold beauty, like moonlight on a dark desolate lake, and brought her no comfort. The blonde scientist raised the front section of the sphere as if it were an astronaut’s visor. Contact lenses, large enough to cover the exposed eyeballs, were inserted in Mother Giovanna’s eyes, scratching her corneas. Then a foil tab was stuck with gel to her right temple, making her shaven scalp itch.

  Worse than the discomfort, though, was the knowledge that she had unwittingly stood by while others had suffered the same fate. She had been told they were all volunteers who felt nothing before the end, but now she knew that wasn’t true. This frightened her more than anything else; she had sinned and needed absolution before she died.

  As fear bled into despair she wanted to weep but no tears came.

  Where are you, Holy Father? she screamed silently. Why won’t you save me?

  ‘The countdown’s starting soon,’ the blonde woman announced calmly.

  Mother Giovanna’s heart, one of the few muscles to defy the paralysing drug, pounded in her chest. She panicked, not because she was going to die but because she had not been absolved of her sins.

  Forgive me, Lord, and have mercy on my soul. The transparent visor was replaced over her face. Then an odourless gas entered the sphere, bathing the departing world in a green aura. She heard the countdown start and knew that death awaited.

  2

  Tate Modern. Bankside, London.

  Thirty-eight minutes earlier

  The mellow sunlight of a mild October afternoon had transformed the Thames to molten gold. The black limousine driving past the Millennium Bridge was a standard Mercedes, except for the heavily tinted windows and custom-built seals that allowed no ultraviolet light into the vehicle. Sitting in the rear seat, Bradley Soames glanced to his left at St Paul’s Cathedral, its magnificent dome inspired by St Peter’s in Rome. Looking right, directly across the river, a more modern cathedral loomed into view – a cathedral to technology. This angular brick edifice, with a high square chimney in place of a bell-tower, had once been a power station. It now housed the largest modern art museum in the world.

  Soames caught his reflection in the heavily tinted glass. He disliked his appearance: the blue eyes and wavy hair, which was the colour and consistency of gold wire, didn’t trouble him, but his skin, a pale freckled mosaic of scar tissue, made him turn away. ‘Walt, I know most of the press will be in the presentation by now but I still want to use the side entrance,’ he said.

  ‘As you wish, Dr Soames,’ replied his assistant, from the front passenger seat. Walter Tripp, an elegant, balding black man with round rimless glasses, was dressed in formal dark suit, white shirt and blood-red silk tie. ‘The gallery director’s arranged the viewing room above the hall as you asked, but there’s no UV screening over any of the entrances.’

  ‘No problem, I’ll cover up.’ Checking his watch, Soames noted that Amber would be starting her presentation in the turbine hall. His own appearance at the launch wasn’t scheduled for over an hour but he wanted to observe her and confirm his suspicions.

  As the car turned right over Southwark Bridge, he rolled down the cuffs of his lined black jacket until they formed gloves into which he pushed his hands. He grimaced as the fabric caught on the still raw scar on his left hand, where the most recent melanoma had been cut out. He sealed the gloves with Velcro strips to ensure that no skin was exposed then raised the hood and secured it over his head. He put on an oversized pair of tinted spectacles to protect the top half of his face, and attached to the hood a flap that hung over his chest so that it concealed the lower half like a yashmak. When the car pulled up his skin was protected from the autumn sunlight.

  Soames stepped out of the car and looked up at the windowless cliff of unbroken red brick that formed the south side of the building before he followed Tripp to the side door. To his left, by the main entrance, he could see banners hanging from flagpoles, announcing the title of the exhibition: ‘The Shape of Light’. The sponsorship of this exhibition and a multimillion-pound donation to the gallery had allowed Optrix to take over the turbine hall for today’s European press launch of the Lucifer soft-screen.

  Two gallery officials recognized Soames from his protective clothing and ushered him through the cavernous main lobby, past the throng of visitors milling around the glass-walled restaurant and the gift shop, and through the crowds waiting to go up to the upper galleries. They got into a lift, and went to a room on the fifth of eight levels. The temporary room had been partitioned off from one of the large galleries and overlooked the vast turbine hall below. It was laid out as he had requested, with a view of the proceedings below, an optical computer with access to the Optical Internet, and a small refrigerator of Coca-Cola.

  After the officials had left, Tripp retrieved a pen-sized ultraviolet detector from his jacket and, once he was satisfied that the room was safe, nodded to Soames, who removed his outer wear and focused his attention on the hall below.