Em found the page and scanned the line. "Oh," he said.

Victor looked up quickly. "What's the problem?"

"There's a hyphenated thing here. 'Grown-up.' Does that count as one word or two?"

"Count it as one," Victor told him decisively.

"Then the sixth word is 'son.'"

Charlotte wrote that down as well. "'My son'-good start. He wants to send a message to his son, so he begins it 'My son.' I think we're on the right track, Em. Couple more words should tell us whether the message really makes sense. Okay, find page fifty-seven."

Em flipped quickly through the book. "Got it."

"First line, second word?"

"'The.'"

"Back to page ten, line four, seventh word."

"'Riddle.'"

"Page thirteen, line thirty-four, sixth word?"

Em missed his line count and had to start again, but eventually he said, "'Disguise.' The word is 'disguise.'"

Charlotte scrawled disguise in his notebook. "Something tricky now. He's put four sets of numbers in parentheses, and there's a hyphen in front of the last one. Haven't seen that in a book code before."

"What's it mean?" Em asked.

"Not sure," Victor admitted, "but I'm going to assume the first three number sets refer to page, line, and word position like the others. Look up page fifty-three, line fifteen, word three. We'll worry about the hyphen four later."

Em did as he was told. "The word is 'sneer.'" He looked up when Victor failed to respond and repeated, "The word is 'sneer.'" To Charlotte he added, "Are you writing this down?"

Charlotte nodded. "Yes."

"I'm thinking," Victor told him. "The message isn't making a lot of sense after 'My son.'" He frowned. "'The riddle disguise sneer.' Just random words. Yet 'my son' seems spot-on."

Charlotte leaned over to look at the screen. "Why did he put it in brackets?"

"I was wondering that myself. And why hyphen four at the end?"

"Maybe it's not a hyphen," Em suggested.

"What else would it be?"

Em shrugged helplessly.

"Maybe it's a minus sign?" Charlotte said brightly.

Victor stared at the screen. "By God, you're right, Charlotte. That's exactly what it is. 'Sneer' minus four. Take away four letters from 'sneer' and what do you get?"

"Depends which you take away. If you take away the first four, you're left with r. If you take the last, you have s," Em told him "Last would be my guess, because s makes sense. Listen to this: 'My son, the riddle disguise' . . . then s in parentheses, which means it's not really a part of the message, just something he added in to make the rest of it read properly. Trust an academic to come up with something like that. So what we've got is a prophecy and a secret message about the prophecy. 'My son, the riddle disguises' . . . the riddle being the prophecy."

"The riddle disguises what?" Em asked.

"That's what we're about to find out," Victor said with another wide grin.

It took them longer than Em expected to decode the remainder of the message. His father had clearly lost patience leafing through Harry Potter and created several words using his minus-four principle to spell out every letter. It was a habit that slowed the decoding process down considerably. But they got there eventually.

"That's it," Victor said, pushing away the laptop.

"What's it say?" Em asked. He'd been so focused on the individual words that the overall sense of the message hadn't reached him.

Charlotte read aloud from her notebook: "'My son, the riddle disguises a planned vaccination program for Death Flu. Supplies contaminated. New lethal pandemic within six months provides solution to the population problem. Documented proof from Bederbeck Foundation three one point two eight seven oh six minus one one ten point nine oh two five one nine. Obtain proof at toe of blind man. Release to press.'" She hesitated for a moment, then added, "'Your father.'"

"He put that into the code? 'Your father'?"

Charlotte nodded. "Yes."

Em wiped one eye quickly with the back of his hand. It was a bizarre farewell. He swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to say briskly, "I'm not sure I understand what he means, Victor." Some of the message made no sense at all. Who was the blind man? What was the Bederbeck Foundation? And why was there a whole string of numbers spelled out in words?

"I think I do," Victor told him confidently. "You have to put this in context. Actually, you have to start with the secret prophecy."

"What do you mean?"

Victor must have memorized the prophecy, for he quoted it without having to check anywhere. "'In the days of the threatened plague . . .' Your father seems to have interpreted that as this so-called Death Flu the media has been making such a fuss about. Don't know if you've heard about it. Started with vultures in Africa, and they're worried that it might turn into a pandemic. Not that it would matter since it doesn't seem to be a particularly dangerous strain, but people are panicking because it's called Death Flu."

"So Death Flu is the threatened plague?" Charlotte asked.

"I believe Em's father thought so. But there's a lot more. You have 'When children shall be pierced with slender lance.' You could see a 'slender lance' as the needle the doctor uses to give you your shot. So when you get vaccinated, you're 'pierced with a slender lance.' The World Health Organization has pinpointed children as the highest risk group and recommended mass vaccination of all youngsters under the age of sixteen to prevent the disease from spreading. That's why they're concentrating on the under sixteens-not yet at the age of consent-but the vaccine will be made available to all age groups, of course; and the fear factor will ensure widespread uptake."

Em remembered Tom's remark about having Charlotte vaccinated and the comment that Em himself should have a vaccination too. If he hadn't got caught up in one crisis after another and the shots had been available, he was certain he would have been vaccinated by now . . . and with contaminated vaccine, according to his father. He gave a low whistle. "And Nostradamus managed to predict all this five hundred years ago?"

Victor shrugged. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. The point is, your father thought he did. Or maybe he was investigating several possible meanings for the prophecy when he stumbled on something very nasty. The really creepy thing is that there are hints of this in the prophecy as well: 'A new world rises from the suffering of the old . . . and all mankind shall forever bear the yoke of slavery.'"

"I'm not sure I follow that. . . ."

"Remember what I told you about the Knights of Themis?"

Em nodded.

"They talk about a 'new world order' to describe the slave states they want to set up." Victor shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know whether Nostradamus predicted this or not; it might all be pure coincidence. But it started your father on an investigation. He was a very, very clever man, and I think he turned up something certain people didn't want him to know."

"You're telling me he found out about the Knights?"

"I'm telling you he found out about a Knights of Themis plot. Whether he knew who was behind it, I don't know, although I suspect he might have from one part of the message." Victor turned to face him directly. "Here's how I read it. One of the Knights' most cherished aims is a drastic reduction in world population. By any means. I know for a fact they've encouraged wars in the past just so hundreds of thousands-millions-of people could be wiped out. But the problem from their viewpoint is that wars won't hack it anymore. World population is now so high that even a few million dead hardly dents the statistics. So they're always looking for new ways to reduce it."

"And you think my dad found out about one of them?"

Victor had a hot, excited look in his eyes and hardly seemed to hear the question. "If you were one of the Knights, Em, how would this sound to you? You pick a new strain of flu-the virus mutates a lot so there's a new strain nearly every winter. You pick one of these and give it a really scary name: bird flu or swine flu or, better yet, Death Flu. Then you get your tame experts to say it might turn into a pandemic, and you make sure the media plays this up. Remember, the Knights have huge influence on the media. They actually own some of our most important newspapers; and they have control of several other news outlets, including some TV networks. Next thing is Themis politicians or politicians in their pay are encouraged to call for something to be done. A lot of them might even believe something needs to be done because they don't know the whole story, and they may well believe the medical experts and the newspapers. With everybody making such a fuss, the government agrees to underwrite a large-scale vaccination program-maybe even make it compulsory."

Charlotte said a little stiffly, "I thought you said it was the World Health Organization that recommended vaccination?"

"You think the Knights have no influence on the World Health Organization?"

"Okay," Em murmured thoughtfully. He looked up to catch Victor's gaze. "So, what then?"

"What then, if you're a Themis bad guy, is that you get one of your pharmaceutical companies to manufacture a very special batch of vaccine, which they then offer to world governments at a fraction of the cost any other producer could manage. This vaccine claims to protect children, who are supposed to be most seriously at risk from Death Flu. Except that what it actually does is kill them."

"Kill them?" Charlotte echoed. "Like . . . poisons them?"

But Victor shook his head. "Hardly. If kids dropped dead after they had their shot, the vaccination program wouldn't go very far. The Knights are nothing if not subtle. My guess would be bioengineering."

Em looked at him blankly. "What has bioengineering got to do with it?"

"Do you know how a vaccine is made?" Victor asked him.

"Some sort of antibiotic injection, isn't it?"

Victor shook his head again. "Not even close. To make a vaccine, you take the disease virus or bacterium or whatever-and you weaken it. Then you introduce it into your patient."

"You give people the disease?" Em asked, appalled. He'd been vaccinated when he was little-against measles, mumps, and German measles. He'd been vaccinated again-against cholera-when he was a lot older prior to a trip abroad. He was only in his teens now, and he'd already been exposed to all those diseases! Cholera was supposed to be deadly.

"You give people a weakened version of the disease. Their immune system recognizes it for what it is and attacks it vigorously. And because the disease is weak to begin with, your immune system kills it off easily. But by then your immune system is stronger precisely because of the fight, and it has in place all the strategies it needs to defeat the same disease if it appears again. So when the normal version of the disease comes along, even though the disease hasn't been weakened, your body beats it off before it gets a grip. You've developed an immunity because of the vaccine."

"What's that got to do with bioengineering?"

"Well, weakening the disease is sort of bioengineering," Victor said. "But that's not what I was getting at. Suppose instead of a weakened version of Death Flu, you make the vaccine from a bioengineered strain of some other completely different disease . . . and you don't weaken it. Now, remember two things, Em. The first is that no vaccine is a hundred percent effective. You expect a few failures, so some patients who've had the vaccine will still get the original disease. The second is that your vaccination program is designed to stop the spread of Death Flu. If it does that, or seems to do that, it's successful."

It was horrible, but some really nasty ideas were beginning to creep into Em's head. Suddenly he thought he knew exactly where Victor was going with all this. But before he could comment or ask another question, Victor went on: "So you pump the world's children full of something you claim to be a vaccine against Death Flu. A few of them still go down with the disease, but everybody expects that anyway. But not very many people actually get it, because it's not a vigorous strain to begin with-you've only convinced people that it would be. And almost nobody dies from Death Flu, which allows you to announce that the vaccination program has been a complete success: it reduced fatalities, reduced infections, and prevented the spread of a deadly disease. Except that it was never deadly to begin with-the whole thing was just one big con game."

Em was getting confused. "But if Death Flu doesn't kill anybody, or hardly anybody, how does it reduce the population?"

"You haven't been listening," Victor told him. "Death Flu was never meant to reduce the population. Death Flu was just an excuse to introduce your vaccine. And your vaccine is bioengineered to work like a time bomb. It incubates very slowly in the body for months-your father says six months-long enough for people to have forgotten all about Death Flu and the vaccination program. Then suddenly, young people start dropping dead from a whole new disease. This one really is a pandemic; this one really is a killer. And worst of all, there's no way you can vaccinate against it because the Knights have already introduced the disease to a whole generation of children, and it's now erupting fully formed. No time to develop a vaccine, no time to find a useful treatment."

"Oh God," Charlotte murmured.

"Think of it. Can you imagine a more effective way of population reduction? You don't just kill off millions and millions of people, although that's a nice start; you specifically target the millions and millions of people who are most likely to have families in the not-too-distant future. You not only wipe them out, you wipe out their descendants as well. Take the long view, and you suddenly have a huge gap in population growth." He paused. "Plus the possibility of introducing another bioengineered disease targeting a different generation, which is why I think your father may have known about the Knights. His message talks about a so-called solution to the population problem."

Em said soberly, "We have to do something about this."

"We most certainly do," Victor agreed.

Em held his gaze. "What?"

Victor tapped Charlotte's notebook. "I think your father's told us that, don't you? 'Documented proof from Bederbeck Foundation.' God knows how he got hold of that." He looked at Em admiringly. "Your old man must have been some sort of Indiana Jones."

It was difficult to think of his father as any sort of Indiana Jones, but that wasn't what concerned Em at the moment. "What's the Bederbeck Foundation?" he asked. "Do you know?"

"Yes," Victor told him soberly. "It's one of the largest and most secretive bioresearch companies in the world. Section 7 has been keeping tabs on it for years. The actual ownership is hidden behind a maze of shell companies, but we've been able to establish that it's funded exclusively by the Knights. It all ties together. That's what makes me think your father's message is genuine."

It had never occurred to Em to think his father's message was anything other than genuine; but for all Victor's explanation, there was about half of it that he still didn't understand. "Who's the blind man?" he asked.

Victor shook his head. "No idea. I've no idea what a lot of his message means." He caught Em's expression and added, "Yet."

Chapter 34.

They were still wrestling with the message over a snack when a sudden burst of pop music stopped Victor in his tracks. "What the hell's that?" he gasped, looking around in panic.

"Sorry," Charlotte murmured, fishing out her cell phone. She thumbed a button and the music stopped. "It's Dad," she whispered, looking at Victor.

Victor nodded, "Take it. He's probably wondering where you are. Say you're with friends. Keep it vague."

Charlotte spoke softly into her phone for a moment, then covered the mouthpiece and looked up. "He wants me to come home."

Victor, who seemed to have changed his mind about the value of having Charlotte with them, said quickly, "Get back now-he'll just be worried about you staying out overnight. We can get together again here tomorrow morning and do some more work on the message."

"Okay," Charlotte said.

"Tell him nothing," Victor snapped fiercely.

"No, of course not," Charlotte said, a little impatiently. She uncovered the mouthpiece. "On my way, Daddy."

The following morning, before Charlotte reappeared, Victor's secure phone rang. He stared at it for a moment, frowning. "It's the office," he said.

By "office" he obviously meant Section 7. Em waited a moment, then asked, "Aren't you going to answer it?"

"This is too soon," Victor muttered. "We're not supposed to communicate until they've investigated how our last safe house was compromised. Like I told you, that usually takes weeks. Something's happened." He thumbed the ANSWER icon on the touchpad. "Yes?"

Em had a bad feeling too, although he didn't know why. He watched Victor's face carefully, but it showed nothing.

"Yes," Victor said again, in agreement this time rather than as a question. "And the apartment? . . . Mmmm . . . Okay . . . Okay . . . Okay, understood." He thumbed the DISCONNECT, slammed the phone down on the table, and spat, "Damn!"

"What's the matter?"

"They've taken Charlotte."

For a moment the words made no sense to Em. Taken? Taken where? Who'd taken Charlotte somewhere? Then the implications crashed in on him, and panic swept across him like a wave. "The Knights? They've kidnapped her?"

"That'd be my guess. Section thinks so too."