The Pharos Objective

by David Sakmyster

She increased the weight on his neck.

  “Aaaaaah—all right, all right!” he hissed, bringing his hand to his throat as Nina eased the stifling pressure. “It’s Water . . . Water! But you won’t get in. You don’t know the rest of the sequence. No one does.”

  “Don’t be coy,” Nina said. “Of course you know the sequence. What you don’t know is how to bypass the defenses.”

  “And you do?”

  “We will, soon.” Very soon, if Morpheus’s remote viewers continued with their hits, or if Caleb found his sight. But she guessed that the Keepers were in the same boat as far as the scroll’s recovery—hoping for a miracle. She tapped the barrel of her Beretta on the floor in front of his nose. “So you say it’s Water. What if I said I don’t believe you?”

  “I would say I don’t care. I already know my fate.”

  “Such pessimism.” Nina sat down again. “How long have you been here in Naples, Mr. Ullman? Well, not you, but you know what I mean—the Keepers. How long have you known?”

  “About the scroll?” Ullman gave a wheezing chuckle. “Be serious. As soon as the Villa was rediscovered, we put a man on the inside.”

  “All that time,” she clucked, “and nothing to show for it.” She sighed and shook her head in disappointment. Caleb probably had gotten closer to it in his one lifetime than six generations of Keepers. She checked her watch. “Well, Mr. Ullman, it’s been a pleasure. Your leader claims each of you has a successor lined up. In your case, I hope you haven’t delayed that obligation.”

  Ullman laughed again as he looked up at her with a bland grimace. “See you soon.”

  Nina frowned, tightened the silencer on her gun, aimed and fired, punching a hole through his forehead. She stood and contemplated the body, replaying the conversation, weighing his words, his gestures, debating whether his answer was reliable. In the end, she decided it didn’t matter. She was thorough in these matters of life and death. If a second independent confirmation was insufficient, she would simply seek another.

  13

  They returned to Alexandria just before midnight. Exhausted, the others retired upstairs to their rooms. Caleb fully intended to do the same, but there was something he had to do first. Today, after all, was the anniversary.

  Phoebe.

  Eight years ago.

  Looking ahead at the others, Caleb saw his mother who, if she had even thought of today’s importance, had given no indication. She was in the thick of the group, Waxman at her side, still talking, going over plans and relating visions.

  Caleb headed to the hotel’s lounge, where subdued techno music droned in contrast to an elegant mahogany-walled interior lit with evenly spaced blue-flamed oil lamps. He wanted to call his sister, needed to hear her voice, wanted to apologize, again. He checked his cell phone; the battery was almost dead. There might be enough juice, but in his head whirled an uncompromising swarm of thoughts about Alexandria, the Pharos, Caesar and Herculaneum; the impossibility of their task of recovering a vulcanized scroll from the ashes of a two-thousand-year-old library; and discovering the entrance to something that may never have even existed, except in legend.

  He reached the bar, a smooth black surface that reminded him of the tomb door back in Belize. He stood before it, staring at the surface as if paralyzed.

  “Martini,” said a voice behind him, “and whatever this guy’s having.” Caleb spun around as Nina slid into the seat beside him, crossed her legs and smiled. “Good idea, ditching that crowd.” She looked fatigued yet infused with an indefinite sense of vigor, a nervous hyperactivity streaming through her every muscle, as if she had just been on a thrill ride and the high hadn’t yet worn off.

  Caleb shook off the chill and leaned against the bar. The large bald man making Nina’s martini gave him a questioning glance. “The same, I guess,” Caleb said, then turned to Nina, whose penetrating stare made him so weak he leaned back and slipped into the chair. Cool air from the overhead vents breathed fresh life into his lungs, and seemed to pull out the heat and humidity.

  “Needed a little drink, I suppose. Been a long day.”

  “And it’s not over yet.” Nina held up her glass. The vodka glowed a cerulean blue with a lamp shining behind it. When Caleb received his drink, she said, “A toast?”

  “I love toast,” Caleb said, wearily. He felt stupid, but relieved when she smiled. “Raisin, Texas, wheat . . .”

  She leaned forward until he could smell her perfume—a deep mix of carnal power and animalistic subtlety. She clinked her glass against his. “How about . . . to us?”

  “Us?”

  “To us,” she whispered, “you and me. To us, finding the treasure first. Finding it and then getting the hell out of here.”

  Caleb lowered his glass. “How?”

  “Upstairs.” She drained her glass. “Come with me, I know a way.”

  “A way to what?” Caleb choked as he drank too much too fast, trying to keep up with Nina.

  “A way to get the mind working.” Her green eyes sparkled. “It’s a tantric thing, a combination of meditation and physical exhaustion that’s been known to—”

  “Wait.” Caleb put his hand on her wrist. “I don’t want any more visions. Especially tonight, of all nights, I can’t—”

  Nina gripped his hand, and then settled her other hand on his thigh, squeezing slightly. She whispered, “I know, Caleb. I know.”

  “What do you—?”

  “All about you . . . and Phoebe. I came down here because I know what day this is, and I know what it is that you’re facing tonight . . .”

  Caleb’s heart was pounding, his flesh chilled in the cool air, his temples throbbing, as he stared dumbly into Nina’s eyes.

  “. . . something you shouldn’t have to face alone.”

  He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had happened, at what point in the candle-lit darkness of Nina’s suite the visions had actually exploded, blossoming like a pinwheel fireworks display, because he had long since lost track of time.

  The memories blurred together: the door opening, Nina pulling him inside, both stumbling into the room, her fingers tearing at the buttons of his shirt, his already under her skirt, sliding under a silk barrier. Their lips mashed tight, tongues in a desperate duel. The bed had been nothing more than a prop to be used much later, after the walls, the couches, the tables and the floor had been put to punishing use. Nina had relentlessly and skillfully pushed him to further and further acts of extreme physical exertion, exploits he had never even contemplated, positions so exotic his muscles screamed even as the pleasure intensified.

  And when they couldn’t move any more, she coaxed him gently into a mode of breathing and visualization. Her legs locked around his back, they sat up, face to face, breath to breath, eye to eye.

  How long they had kept this position, with only barely perceptible synchronized movements, as if they thought with one mind and moved with one connected will, Caleb had no idea. But at some point, the green of her eyes had leaked out into the darkness and swirled into the shadows, twisting like serpents. And then the floor had given way and his spirit was tugged, gently at first, then ripped free and thrust into a kaleidoscopic world of sensation.

  The images came fast, full of vivid clarity. Caleb never knew exactly how remote viewing worked. Specialists in the field of parapsychology theorized it was some variation on Jung’s collective unconscious theory—that all the memories of everyone who had ever lived or ever would live out there, and anyone could dip into that collective pool and perceive anything in the mixture—people, places, events—anywhere in time and space. In such visions one used all their senses, fully experiencing their environment.

  Caleb’s own belief was that it had something to do with the fundamental nature of reality. Intriguing experiments had revealed that quantum particles shared some sort of telepathic bond; one particle instantaneously changed its characteristics when another, no matter how distant, was altered. Another theory held that the observer’s consciou
sness acted on these particles, implicitly changing them because, in a sense, the particles were not truly independent or distinct from the greater reality of Mind. What this and other properties of quantum behavior implied about the universe was astounding. The early alchemists—and further back, the disciples of the Egyptian Mystery Schools—adhered to the belief that everything from the smallest particle to the most massive planet was all related, one seamless tapestry. “As above, so below” was their sacred creed. They re-created the heavens structurally on the earth, and they read into the stars the nature of things terrestrial. The spiritual was a direct extension of the physical, and it could be accessed if one knew the proper codes and ways of belief.

  Maybe it was true. On some level, everything was connected. And that’s why, when Nina and Caleb entered the last trance before their descent, they shared the same visions. Unconsciously they tapped into something that revealed, in a succession of chronological scenes, what they needed to see. It started with a sense of impending disaster, and then the earth . . .

  . . . begins to tremble. Three men sit atop the lighthouse. They are dressed in heavy cloaks and turbans, warming themselves by the great fire. It is Naseer’s turn to make the descent and haul up more fuel, but he is too afraid to move. So he waits with the others for the quake to stop, praying.

  Outside, beyond the four renovated pillars surrounding the roofless circular platform, the stars burn fiercely, trying to compete with the smoke churning from the pyre. The bitter winds rise, snatching at their clothes and scattering the smoke, but the sea lies peacefully slumbering under the blanket of a hundred ships, the entire Muslim fleet, preparing to launch at dawn.

  Naseer and his two friends have been manning this lookout post and tending the fire for three years. They meet each other’s bloodshot eyes, and whisper their personal prayers to Allah. “It is happening again.”

  “No, Farikh, it is too soon. The earth shook only twenty years ago. My father was at this post, and he said the quake only succeeded in knocking free part of the lower balcony and a few stones from the east side.”

  “That only means the lighthouse has been weakened. A hundred years ago the highest section fell off, and we have been building these fires on the ruined top of the second level ever since.”

  “God willing,” Alim-Asr says, “it will hold again this time.”

  “Perhaps we should make our way down,” Naseer whispers.

  But it’s too late.

  The tower rumbles and sways. One of the pillars cracks down the middle. Naseer springs to his feet and races to the west edge. Balancing on the shifting floor, he risks a look down. A dozen stones tumble free from the midsection, consumed by the darkness. He spins, fighting his vertigo, before his knees buckle with the floor beneath him. He reaches for his friends—

  —but they are gone. Naseer is left alone, holding fast to the one remaining pillar on a jagged section of the floor while an open space yawns before him and a stairway ends in the night air.

  The fire is gone. Only darkness and smoke have taken its place. He perceives movement, an immense shadow sliding down and away. Screams rise from the precipice, but are cut off by a rumbling of masonry and the baleful whimpering of an old giant casting off its dead skin.

  He blinked, and . . .

  . . . it is now daylight. He is somewhere else. Someone else. Dazzling sunshine spreads over the metallic azure sky. The ships are gone, the harbor quiet but for a lone sail. The city’s beachfront looks different, with new domes and mosques, pillars and minarets dotting hills as far as he can see.

  He sits astride his horse, a beautiful Arabian with a bejeweled purple saddle and harness. It paws at the ground and shakes its mane in the shadows cast by giant slabs of stone. To the east, the cracked monoliths and the enormous piles of granite and limestone lead a twisting trail to the ruined heap of the once-proud tower.

  It still ascends nearly one hundred feet, and its foundation seems strong and defensible, buttressed on all sides by a low barrier, broken in places but repairable. Its lower levels breathe with potential. Many rooms are still intact despite the crushing weight of the collapsed superstructure. He hangs his head and can only imagine the way it once was. Forty years have passed since the last great quake finally brought down its magnificence. Forty years since a flame has burned at its top and led mariners to safety.

  He listens to the wind and the crashing of the sea over the ancient blocks, and he imagines the wondrous fragments lying just ahead in the pounding surf—the great stones, blocks and statues that had so long enjoyed the breezes and the awed stares of countless visitors. He turns as a man approaches.

  “Lord Qaitbey.” His lieutenant slows his horse and bows. “The men are ready. We have two hundred horses, enough rope and pulleys and carts. And stonecutting tools.”

  Qaitbey nods, satisfied as he looks over the ruined structure. He notes the placement of the fallen stones, the edges worn by rain and wind. “Do what you can to build it up,” he orders. “We must defend Alexandria.”

  “As you wish.”

  Qaitbey turns again to the haunting, desolate ruins, and he gazes into the few remaining windows and a half-collapsed doorway. A chill runs down his spine as he prepares the next question. “What of the descending staircase and the chamber below?”

  His man coughs. “We know no more, My Lord. It ends at that wall, the one with the devilish carvings. That snake and the staff . . . Your men, Lord, they . . .”

  “They are afraid?”

  “Yes. They know the legends. They fear what awaits below to defend the treasure. The hundred horsemen who were slaughtered.”

  Qaitbey nods, lost in thought. Legends are of no concern. His purpose is to protect this city from the Turks and to avenge past evils not to trespass into vaults locked away for good reason. Without turning, he instructs his lieutenant, “Cover the stairway entrance with a false wall, a slab of granite controlled by a secret lever on the eastern wall of the second floor.”

  “It shall be done.”

  “Then,” Qaitbey adds, smoothing his horse’s mane, “kill the men who build it, and swear yourself to secrecy.”

  After a moment of silence, he consents. “Understood, My Lord. I so swear.”

  “Thank you.” Qaitbey makes his voice heard above the rising winds. “What is down there must not be found, not by the likes of unworthy ones such as us.”

  “My Lord,” he bows.

  “Others will find it, infidels to whom the symbols mean something. And may they be cursed by what lies within.”

  The wind dies and the crumbled remains of the Pharos quiver in silence, anticipating the hammers and chisels that will come and shape the blocks and pillars into a new form, a dwarfish, stunted relic of its former glory.

  When Caleb opened his eyes Nina was breathing heavily, staring back at him. Her breasts still tight against his chest. She exhaled and lifted herself slowly off of him.

  With a sigh he fell backward onto the rug, the muscles in his arms like wet rags. “What did you see?”

  “A man in black,” she whispered, hugging her knees to her chest, as if suddenly feeling exposed, “on a horse, watching while hundreds of men and animals worked at building that fort—that place we were at last week.”

  “Qaitbey,” Caleb said. “What else? Did you see a door?”

  She nodded, wide-eyed. “I saw the switch, I know where they put it.”

  “It’s still there,” they both whispered at the same time.

  “Why didn’t anyone else see it?” Nina wondered. “No one else on the team?”

  “Not sure. I don’t think Waxman asked the right questions. He had them probing the harbor, not the fort.” Caleb looked up. “They’ve been looking in the wrong place.”

  14

  One hundred feet below the streets of Alexandria, beneath a dilapidated warehouse in the eastern section of the city and down a long corridor littered with construction materials, tools and concrete girders, with hallways th
at led into unfinished storerooms and antechambers, a polished set of steel doors parted slowly—too slowly for Nolan Gregory. He was late. The others were here already, impatient and, most likely, scared.

  He squeezed into the dusty chamber lit by a succession of floodlights connected by yellow extension cords to a generator below the floor. Forty feet overhead, the domed ceiling caught the shadows of the occupants at the central table. Nolan eyed them as he strode into the room, and he imagined them taking on their celestial counterparts in the freshly painted cobalt blue dome, soon to hold a host of stars and zodiac imagery. He buttoned his gray sports coat and quickly took his place at the head of the long mahogany table. Fifteen others sat around it, drinking tea and whispering among themselves.

  “Keepers.” Nolan’s voice was soft and controlled, as if humbled from recent setbacks. “Thank you all for coming.”

  “Is this wise?” asked a gray-haired woman at the opposite end of the table. “All of us in one spot?”

  “No,” Nolan said, looking over his dull-eyed counterparts, “it definitely is not. But we have no choice.”

  “We heard,” said a younger man on his right, “about Ullman and Miles.”

  “Horrible,” said the man to his left, who was perspiring despite the cool air filtering through ducts along the floor. His gray suit coat hung on the chair at his back.

  Nolan hung his head. “Yes, we’ll mourn their loss. But now we must consider succession.”

  “But their successors are not ready,” said the older woman, slapping her hand on the table. “It’s too soon, and they were too young, not prepared properly.”

  A younger woman, with short hair and sad brown eyes, stared up at the unfinished ceiling. “Who else is ready?”

  “Mine are,” said Nolan. “And if there are no objections—”

  “Why does he get two?” asked the young woman.

  “Because,” the older woman replied, making a face, “Nolan can’t decide which child he loves more.”