The Sacred Scroll Read Online Free

shape up, we’ll take steps.’
    ‘If she’s got the qualifications I requested, that’s good enough.’
    ‘Partly why we put this team together so fast.’ Hudson looked at him. ‘As I mentioned when we spoke earlier, your first assignment is, shall we say, rather special.’
    ‘That’s what I’m here for.’ Marlow shrugged lean shoulders, noticing the tightness return to Hudson’s expression. But the man relaxed slightly then, and said, ‘Yes. That’s what you’re here for.’
    As they walked down the corridors, heavily carpeted in grey, and took a series of whispering stainless-steel lifts, Marlow, as he listened to Hudson filling him in on tighter firewall controls, thought about his time with INTERSEC. INTERSEC, one of the few examples of successful international government collaboration, was known to very few people. But it spread its net wide. As far as Marlow knew, only a handful of rebel, unstable or minor states in the entire world had no representation in it, andwithin it the old guard, the USA and Western Europe, could just about maintain the balance between themselves and the new kids on the block: a transformed and dangerous Russia, and China and India. Just about. The game was changing daily. How much and how fast, Marlow reflected, he was about to find out.
    ‘Here we are,’ said Hudson, opening an unmarked white door. ‘Room 55. Your new home.’
    One end of the huge space they entered was partitioned off by a white wall, on which hung an original Matisse.
    ‘From my own collection,’ said Hudson, following Marlow’s gaze. ‘A good working environment needs tasteful surroundings.’
    Marlow nodded, but he was picking up on the stress in his boss’s tone, however hard the man tried to cover it. ‘And beyond the wall?’ he asked, looking at the sliding door, now closed, which punctuated it.
    ‘Leon’s domain – mainly computerized, but still part old-fashioned lab.’
    The room they stood in was an open-plan workspace in which there were three large tables, on which stood the usual array of computers, and five telephones – four black, one blue. One wall was lined with bookshelves. The window had an open view across Central Park.
    The door in the partition wall slid open and the familiar figure of Leon Lopez emerged through it.
    ‘Jack! You old bastard. Good to have you back.’
    Marlow had worked with him before, and there wasn’t much about him he didn’t know. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, forty-three years earlier, the oldest of four brothers, he’dbeen head of scientific research in the Special Operations Directive of INTERSEC for five years now.
    ‘Going grey,’ smiled Marlow, shaking his hand.
    ‘But no paunch to go with it.’
    Marlow knew there was more to the bespectacled, slightly stooping six-footer than just a back-room boy. Lopez’s other job was senior lecturer in the History of Science at Columbia University. They’d first worked together in Honduras, when Lopez and Marlow were doing a spell with the Marines in what had been called an ‘advisory capacity’.
    ‘How’s Mia? Still failing to teach you Swedish?’
    ‘She’s fine. And my Swedish has come on – even her mother approves.’
    ‘And the kids?’
    Lopez grinned. ‘Alvar’s thirteen now –’
    ‘Which makes Lucia what – ten?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘Surprised you’re still doing this.’ As he spoke, Marlow saw Lopez and Hudson exchange a glance. But then the main door opened and the woman came in.
    ‘Jack,’ Hudson said, ‘this is Laura Graves.’
    The woman looked at him levelly through clear blue eyes.
    Marlow knew all about her. She was a native New Yorker, born thirty-years ago on Long Island, where her parents – Irish/French stock – still lived. An only child, she was unmarried, and she’d been recruited by INTERSEC after collecting degrees from Yale, and Cambridge University in England. She’d then had a brief career in academic journalism.
    Marlow took her hand. Her handshake