The Messiah Code
overnight as he climbed into his Mercedes and quietly eased out of the side gate, away from his guardians. He wanted to be alone, and didn't really share Jack's concern that the person who had tried to kill him in Sweden might have followed him to the States. Olivia's killer was probably on the run now and Tom wished the police would concentrate on catching him, rather than wasting time watching over him.
    The drive from Beacon Hill through the usually congested sprawl of Boston was eerily quiet. It was not yet six on a Sunday morning and he saw only a handful of moving cars on the fifteenminute journey, including an anonymous brown sedan that overtook him after the snow-capped bridge.
    The watery pink of dawn was just breaking when he arrived at the snow-covered fields of the cemetery. The wrought-iron gates were open and he drove to the top of the plot where he could still see the mound of Olivia's fresh grave under the overnight snow. He parked the Mercedes and blowing into his cold hands scrunched across the snow to where she lay. At the grave he sat in the snow next to Olivia, knees hugged close to his chest, and told her what had happened.
    Leaving nothing out he started from the beginning. It was as if Olivia was actually there listening to him, as she had done so often when alive.
    "So, what should I do?" he asked aloud. "Do I accept the inevitable and make the most of the time left to Holly? Or do I risk missing the precious year she does have left trying to find an accelerated cure?"
    As he sat there quietly watching the clear, cold fingers of dawn push back the darkness, he remembered Olivia's favorite poem and he smiled. He couldn't recall all the lines Dylan Thomas wrote to his dying father, but he remembered enough to know he had Olivia's answer. He would not let Holly go gently into any night. He would rage alongside her, using all his skill and resources to hold back the encroaching darkness.
    Jasmine would have told no one of DAN's verdict and Tom wanted to keep it quiet. He certainly didn't want Holly to know anything of her imminent illness yet. He'd tell Alex and Jack tomorrow, along with whoever else could help and be relied on to keep their counsel. Together they would work out what the best plan of attack should be. After all, if they couldn't save Holly, nobody could.
    It was then, just as the rising sun leaked its angled light on the cemetery that he saw the fresh footprints in the snow. They led his eyes from the grave, across the wide expanse of white to an anonymous brown sedan parked at the far end of the plot, and the broad-shouldered man standing next to it. The man was only a silhouette against the rising sun, but something about his posture told Tom he was watching him.
    Tom stood and looked down at the deep prints, following them back to the grave, and for the first time noticed the small cross-shaped wreath of blood-red roses on the snow behind the gravestone. As Olivia would have wanted, he had asked wellwishers to make a donation to their favorite charities rather than present any flowers, so he wondered about the donor. Intrigued, he leaned over the gravestone and picked up the wreath. An envelope fell from the red flowers onto the snow in front of him.
    With cold-numbed fingers he tore it open, revealing a small card. On the top was a quotation: "The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23 . And beneath it he read the words that chilled him more than the icy cold: "Your wife paid for your sin this time. But your punishment will come." It was unsigned.
    At last he felt something. All the anger and grief he had been denied since Olivia's death now came bursting to the surface. With blood pounding in his ears he squinted into the rising sun. Ignoring the pain in his leg he began to run in the direction of the lone silhouette. He pushed his legs through the thick snow as fast as he could, his breath visible in the cold air. But before he had covered twenty yards and been blinded by the sun, he

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