The Pharos Objective

by David Sakmyster

  “What?” he stood behind her and looked down.

  She pointed to the first item on the list. “The file. I had saved all the scanned photos in one big file, and someone just accessed it and deleted it. It’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Checking . . .” Phoebe pulled up a couple files, checked her emails, then threw up her hands. “I don’t know. It’s not even in the temp folder any more. I could scan everything back in, but—”

  “But someone else has it.” Caleb leaned in. “Did they get it all?”

  “Yep.”

  He cursed. “Who has access to your computer?”

  “I don’t know. I was online, so either someone came snooping and grabbed this file, or I had a virus put on my laptop at some point, a virus that let someone else spy in on me and steal what they wanted.”

  “That’s just freakin’ great!” he said, throwing his pencil. “The Keepers have it.”

  “Maybe,” Phoebe said, frowning.

  “What do you mean, ‘maybe’? Who else could it be?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m worried that it could be someone in the Morpheus Initiative.”

  “Come on, those guys? They . . .” Caleb stopped and looked at her closely. “But you’re not suspecting them.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You know who I’m thinking about.”

  He stood up and grabbed his things.

  “Waxman.”

  18

  After several attempts to reach them and getting only voicemail, Caleb wheeled Phoebe out to the street and a waiting cab. The sixty-mile drive back to Sodus took two and a half hours. The roads were slick. The rain had turned back to snow, and there were cars in the ditches every few miles. Fortunately the cab driver had a four-wheel drive and a strong sense of self-preservation. Even so, they skidded several times and fishtailed twice into traffic, barely missing oncoming cars.

  When the cab pulled up to the house, Caleb got Phoebe out of the cab and into her chair, then helped push her through the snow up the driveway.

  “No cars,” Caleb observed. “And no lights on inside.”

  “Shit,” Phoebe said.

  The house was empty.

  “I don’t believe this,” Phoebe said once they were inside. “Not Mom too! She wouldn’t just leave us.”

  “Unless she believed it was in our best interest not to come along.” He continued looking around the kitchen and the living room, where new drawings hung on the walls and lay scattered about the tables. “I don’t need to RV the scene. I can imagine Waxman telling her that it’s best they go on their own and get a head start without us. I bet he reminded her about what happened in Belize.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Phoebe said. “We’re different now, and besides, look at my condition! For all of Sostratus’s genius, I doubt he was progressive enough to include a handicapped access ramp for me.”

  Caleb continued digging through papers, scrutinizing the drawings. Everything lined up for the first six puzzles. “I don’t see anything about the Sun, about that final block. You didn’t—”

  “No. The scan was incomplete. Scroll was damaged.”

  Caleb turned to Phoebe, and saw her sitting hunched in her chair in the dark kitchen. “Could they have gotten anything from that scan?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Unless Waxman has some proprietary software or something that enhances resolution. There were fragments of the scroll missing, but some of what was there could be legible enough, and maybe a computer program could extrapolate missing letters from the position of the visible ones, and—”

  “So you’re saying they could have the answer?”

  “Or worse. They might think they have it, and be wrong.”

  Caleb pushed his hair off his forehead and cast a reflexive glance around the room, not looking for anything in particular, but hoping—hoping they were overlooking something simple. “Mom wouldn’t have—”

  “Caleb,” Phoebe cut him off, “look. A camera.” One of three Helen usually had rolling to document every step of the process.

  “What about it? They must have forgotten it in their hurry to get out of here before we got back.”

  “I don’t think so. Hook it up to the TV.” Caleb gave her a doubtful look. “Humor me, okay?”

  Caleb hooked the camera up to the TV’s input jack and turned it on. He rewound the tape until the time stamp displayed seven thirty, three hours ago, then pressed play and sat on the couch beside Phoebe.

  “Maybe we should make some popcorn,” she suggested, without a touch of emotion.

  “Shh. No talking during the movie.”

  On the screen, the living room sprang to life. Twelve people sat around the table, and at the left side, Helen stood, bending forward and holding up a sheet of paper. It was an enhanced photograph of the seventh stone before the door. The symbol for Sulfur. “Here is your target,” she instructed. “Imagine standing on this sign and then experiencing the door opening. How does it happen? What do you see? Draw what you feel.”

  “Alternately,” she said, “think about the hidden vault under the Pharos. Imagine the last puzzle, the final key. See it, and draw what you see.”

  Caleb scratched the back of his neck. “Mom seems a little rushed.”

  “Desperate,” Phoebe agreed. “Better to let them just focus on the symbol and see where the unconscious leads them.”

  “Right, I think she either just confused them or sent them thinking about something else.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Nothing happened for the next few minutes, as the psychics all sat in various poses, eyes closed or opened. The room was quiet. A few candles flickered in the background.

  Caleb fast-forwarded until he saw some movement. Nearly a half-hour had passed. Some people were drawing, but others were talking.

  “I saw my fingers covered in gold,” one middle-aged woman with dark bangs said. “And then I reached out and touched the staff. The door opened—”

  “I was also covered in gold,” a bald man in his seventies spoke up. “And I shuffled to the door, leaving trails of gold dust sparkling in my path.”

  “I didn’t see any of that,” said another woman. “I just saw a ship. Actually it might have been several ships. They were all a little different in shape, but they all had red and white sails.”

  A man in the back, wearing a turtleneck, cleared his throat. “I saw a ship, too, and I drew it.” He held up a sheet of paper. The ship had two masts, and roamed a sea beside a coastal town, where a tower guarded a harbor.

  Another man walked into the camera’s view. He bent over and whispered into Mom’s ear.

  “Waxman,” Phoebe whispered. “Mom’s shocked. Look at her eyes.”

  “People,” Helen said. “I think we might be done here. It’s clear the seventh puzzle is opened by one who’s covered in gold, or at least it’s on one’s fingertips. Information from George here supports it. We have verification from an ancient scroll that says ‘to pass the seventh, touch the staff with fingers of gold.’“

  “What about the ships?” the man in the turtleneck asked.

  “False reading,” Waxman suggested. “Who knows?” He stretched like a cat, reaching for the ceiling. “I think we’re finished. You people have done a tremendous job. You’re excused until further notice. Expect a hefty bonus check in the mail in about two weeks, and if you wish your names included in the study, please let Helen know.”

  People started shaking each other’s hands and saying goodbye. Helen walked to the camera and reached for the off switch. For a second nothing happened. Then her face appeared, full in the lens. Her eyes darted to the kitchen, then back to the camera.

  “Caleb, Phoebe . . . we’re going to Alexandria. George . . . George is . . . I’m sorry. This is something we both want, it’s what we need to do. If we succeed, everything will change. I promise. I’ll be there for you, and this will all be over. Love you both—”

  Caleb stopped
the tape and when he turned around, Phoebe was at the phone. She hung it up. “Nothing. Mom’s turned off her cell phone.”

  “Or they’re in the air.” He looked around helplessly.

  “Caleb?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think Mom’s in trouble. And I think she knew it.”

  “I know. My fear is that the next call we get will be from the authorities, telling us they’re dead.”

  Phoebe sighed. “Mine too.”

  Snow knocked against the windows, and the storm rattled the lighthouse frame.

  Caleb tapped his foot, staring into the distance.

  “What are you thinking? Do we go after them, or just wait for them to call?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think they have the right answers.”

  “To the seventh puzzle?” Phoebe asked. “It sounded right—”

  “Not the seventh,” he said. “I think that one’s right. But remember Mom’s instructions to the team? They came back with two distinct visions.”

  “One dealing with the gold, the other with ships.”

  “Right.” He took a deep breath and pictured the lighthouse again, magnificently rising in its three tiers, and then he saw its mirror image below. “How did she phrase the second set of instructions? She said to visualize the last key . . . whatever that is.”

  “Right, so that’s what they did. They saw the seventh sign, and—”

  “What if the seventh isn’t the last?”

  Phoebe opened her mouth. “Oh.”

  Caleb started to pace, something that always helped when he was researching a book. “We know the treasure has to do with the writings of Thoth. And we also know the seven steps of alchemy lead to spiritual rebirth, the seventh being to make permanent that state of consciousness imbued with the eternal.”

  “The Philosopher’s Stone.”

  “Right. But some sources also maintain there is an eighth stage. Beyond the seventh there is rebirth, complete transcendence. Setting everything in motion. God created the world in six days, rested on the seventh, then on the eighth, it all clicked into place. Same with Thoth. Eight is also the number of the octave, and Thoth was said to create the world through his voice, through music.”

  “Okay, I get it. Eight’s a powerful number.” Phoebe wheeled into the room. “But are we sure there’s another door?”

  “Think about it. The Keepers were furious with the Renegade, Metreisse. If there were only these seven puzzles, they should have been able to figure them out, being the studied alchemists they were. Instead, Metreisse, using psychic abilities, was the one to find the way into the vault. That makes it sound like the last door maybe isn’t something that you can use your intellect to pass. It might be more conventional, requiring the right physical key.”

  Phoebe nodded. “And Metreisse fled on a boat, exactly what Mom’s psychics had seen. But what does it mean? That the boat sank, and with it the key?”

  “Maybe,” he said, fearing the prospect of having to don scuba gear again at some point. Still, it didn’t quite sound right. “Then why would the Keepers of today still be convinced that we have it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But I should. I should know. Caleb rubbed his temples. The answer is close, hidden in plain view.

  It wasn’t the first time he had had that feeling, but again he couldn’t make out what he was meant to know, and he cursed his lack of intuition. As far as he had progressed, he still hadn’t transcended far enough.

  Phoebe whispered. “Mom’s in trouble, big brother.”

  “I know. We have to go. Maybe there’s a chance we can get there ahead of them.”

  “Doubt it,” she said. “Unless the storm delayed their flight.”

  “Let’s hope for nasty weather,” Caleb said, and went for the car keys.

  19

  Alexandria

  The Pharos protects itself.

  Somewhere over the Atlantic, while Phoebe was fast asleep beside him, Caleb had the sudden certainty that they would be too late. They’d had no luck at the Rochester airport. And not only did all the previous flights leave on time, but theirs was the first to be sidelined.

  Two hours they’d waited for de-icing and final runway clearance, then they were off to JFK, where they had another hour’s delay before boarding their flight to Alexandria, after a stopover in Paris. They had no way of knowing how much earlier Helen and Waxman had left. All they could be sure of now was that they would be too late.

  He buzzed the flight attendant and requested a pillow and tried to sleep, knowing that he would need his strength.

  It was ten thirty in the morning by the time they hailed a cab at the Alexandria airport. At eleven, they were stuck in horrendous traffic, behind slow-moving produce trucks, and held up by a gala event at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, where huge crowds surged around a festival-like atmosphere on the grounds in front of the enormous glass-roofed construction. Caleb marveled at the blue dome of the planetarium off to the side, and he noted the sturdy construction, the reinforced concrete girders and the enormous walls of the main library. As they slowly drove past, he recalled reading that four levels were dug under sea level, protected from the sinking of the land on a raft of concrete.

  Finally they made it to the causeway. Halfway across, Phoebe grabbed Caleb’s arm. They were both sitting in the back seat, neither talking. Barely breathing. It seemed like they were in a funeral procession.

  “Sirens.” Phoebe pointed, and Caleb saw the flickering lights up ahead. He rolled down his window and looked out. In the sky, a lone helicopter sped away, rising up from the Pharos promontory.

  “Bad accident,” the cab driver said, his English surprisingly good. “I hear it on my CB radio. Scuba divers have . . . how you say . . . accident?”

  “What happened?” Phoebe asked as they neared the parking area for Qaitbey. Her face had gone pale, her shoulders trembled.

  The cabbie spoke some words into his CB, and the answer came back, a garbled series of guttural consonants. “I am told an older woman was just lifted out in a helicopter, taken to hospital.”

  Phoebe’s nails dug into Caleb’s flesh. “Stop! Turn the cab around and take us there.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Do it!” Caleb said, his mouth dry. “Did they say what happened to her?”

  “Do not know. They find her on the rocks. No swimsuit, no air tank. They say she will probably die, I am sorry to say. Underwater very long.”

  “Was there a man with her?”

  “Yes, yes. Man with her. He is OK. He must be very powerful man. He survives accident and calls police.”

  Caleb shot Phoebe a look.

  She leaned forward. “Just drive to the hospital, please. Fast.”

  As they turned around, Caleb stared at the old sandstone turrets of Fortress Qaitbey, and he saw the red and blue lights flickering off its massive walls. For an instant, he could see a marble stairway ascending between two immense royal statues looking solemn and compassionate.

  Helen was on the second floor. And as Phoebe wheeled into the room and rolled beside her bed, Caleb glanced around for Waxman. His hands were tight fists, and he found himself grinding his teeth, fuming.

  “Where is he?” he asked the first doctor entering his mother’s room. “The man who brought my mother here, where did he go?”

  The doctor, a dark-skinned bald man, shrugged. “Your father checked her in—”

  “He’s not my father.”

  “—and . . . eh . . . he left immediately. Said you would be along to care for her.”

  Son of a bitch.

  Caleb went to his mother’s side. His arm around Phoebe, he sat in a chair and they both held her hands. She was so cold. Her head was wrapped in bandages, and a tube had been inserted into her nose. An IV fed fluids through her right arm.

  “What about a decompression chamber?” he asked. “Shouldn’t she be in one?”

  Phoebe shook her head. “The nurse told me she’
s too bad off. She needs the IV, morphine and rest. They chose to save her life.” Her voice cracked and she could barely finish the sentences. “They say she won’t wake up again, and if she does, she’ll be a vegetable. The damage to her brain, a severe stroke from the pressure . . .” Phoebe blew her nose and rubbed away her tears. “She won’t—”

  “It’s okay,” Caleb whispered, even though he knew it wasn’t. “Mom’s alive,” he said. “And as long as she is, there’s hope.”

  “What did he do to her?”

  “We’re going to find out.”

  Phoebe lifted her head. Her eyes were like steel ball bearings, cold and fierce. “Let’s do it now. Let’s view the bastard.”

  He took his hand away from his mother’s and held Phoebe’s. They had seen similar visions before, but never this direct, never such a match, detail for detail.

  It started with the caduceus. The door parting, the seventh symbol unlocked. This vision tunneled through Caleb’s consciousness like a sonic drill. He saw the great door ease open, and Helen and Waxman gave a shout of joy. Their skin glittered with a golden dust. They picked up their lanterns and a flashlight, and bounded forward. Caleb’s mind’s eye followed . . .

  . . . Waxman down another staircase. He shines the lantern’s brilliant light around. “Eight sides to this room.” They stand together in an immense, cavern-like chamber with high vaulted ceilings and what looks like two circular portals above, vents for bringing in the water used for the second trap.

  “We’re in the octagon section.” Helen pans the walls with her flashlight. “Caleb was right. ‘As Above, so Below.’”

  “Yeah, all credit and glory to your son, Amen!”

  “Stop being so cynical. He’s the reason we’re here.”

  “No, you are. It was your dedication, your focus, your drive that kept this dream alive long after he deserted you.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Whatever. We’re almost there. The treasure awaits.”

  They circle around and around on smooth stairs, through thin layers of dust shaken free in the quakes. Here and there a crumbled stone lies on the stairs, and pieces of the wall have fallen in places; but soon the steps end and they walk onto a flat floor that leads to another door, this one with a single image drawn on its surface.