Present day
Day One, early evening
The New York City Grille
In the dim light of the restaurant, Gil Pearson strained to check his watch. He'd give the Professor and Sabbie ten more minutes to show. No more. He was tired and hungry and wanted to go home, grab something to eat, and crawl into bed. This was the last sales pitch dinner that George was going to get him to agree to.
What a way to start a weekend.
"Do this one as a favor to me," George had cajoled. "You know you're the reason they come to us. All any client wants is a chance to meet the man who helped rid the world of CyberStrep. You're a celebrity, for God's sake. You know they'll pay triple just to be able to brag to their friends they have you watching over their systems," George added, trying to appear as endearing as his three chins would permit.
Although Gil hated to admit it, George was right. Since graduating top of his class from MIT two decades ago, Gil's anti-hacking discovery had changed the way virtually every major data protection company in the world approached the securing of high-risk and top secret information. For three years running, he had been named Man of the Year by the National Association of Artificial Intelligence, yet no client ever referred to these accomplishments. Only when the New York Times reported that Gil was the creator of the computer program that had eradicated the data-eating virus that held the Internet hostage for almost a month, did anyone take notice. The whole thing might have faded if People magazine hadn't jumped on the story. They spent three-quarters of the article describing his "rugged good looks" and barely mentioned his work.Lucy had teased him unmercifully. Within days of the article's publication, an ever-hungry storm of reporters and paparazzi began to beat a path to his?or rather to CyberNet Forensics, Inc.'s?door.
The company's worth had gone through the roof, Gil's salary had more than quadrupled, and he had been dragged, kicking and screaming, from the privacy of his little computer room to the bright lights of celebrity.
That had been four years ago. It couldn't have come at a worse time. Lucy had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, though every minute away from her felt like the greatest betrayal he could imagine, Gil had convinced himself that he had to cash in on his fame so that he could pump up his salary while he could. It was the only way he could be sure that Lucy would get the best possible care in the hard times that lay ahead.
A sour taste of bile rose in his throat.
Son-of-a-bitch doctor.
Right from the beginning the bastard had known that Lucy didn't have more than six weeks left. Had the quack told Gil the truth, he would have spent every precious minute with her. But, instead, the doctor had led him to believe that because of her youth and strength, Lucy's decline would be unmercifully slow. Months?maybe a year?of painful deterioration were inevitable, the doctor had said; an unthinkable time in which Lucy's pain could be eased by the best medical care that money could buy.
Instead, she was gone in less than a month, only two weeks before her thirty-fourth birthday. Gil had spent much of that time away from her, in endless interviews, answering asinine questions posed by one stupid reporter after another. Less than a week after it was over, one tabloid cover sported his photo, snapped at the cemetery. The inside copy reported that he was recently widowed and implied...
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In the ruins of a medieval monastery, the diary of a 12th-century monk has been uncovered ... and the murders have already begun. It is rumored the monk's writings offer clues to the whereabouts of a scroll dating back to the time of Jesus--the creation of a hitherto unknown intimate who recorded the actual words of Christ. Two people possess the combined skills to follow where the document leads: American cyber-sleuth Gil Pearson and Sabbie Karaim, former Israeli commando and biblical translator. But what awaits them on their strange odyssey across the globe and through two thousand years of history is both an indescribable treasure and an unrelenting terror. For all manner of zealots and devils are after the secrets they seek--to own the power to destroy the world we know.
