by Nick Thacker
“Glad you were able to make it,” he said. “I like having you in the field.”
“I like being there,” she said. “Although I must admit that this operation has me feeling a bit unsteady.”
“Unsteady?”
She nodded. “We are going after a person, or persons, who we know nothing about. Further, we are not even sure Sarah’s father was kidnapped. He sent a cryptic message to his daughter, then turned up missing, but there is just a severe lack of information.”
“That’s why we’re the ones going,” Ben said. “It’s not a military operation, and Interpol won’t get further involved without more information. If anyone’s going to help Sarah, it’s us.”
“I know.”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t go?” he asked.
She threw her head back and laughed. “Hardly, Harvey. I am excited to go. Dr. Lindgren deserves our help. I am just pointing out that this mission may not be as fun as we all hope.”
“You mean there won’t be anything to shoot at.”
“Something like that, yes,” she said.
He smiled back at her. “Well, if there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that the CSO seems to always find trouble. We may not have been able to sneak any guns overseas this time around, but Reggie will be able to find some decent stuff for us once we’re on the ground. Whatever we run into out there, I think we’ll be ready.”
He waved over a flight attendant and ordered another whiskey from the man. When it arrived, he took a long, deep sip. He turned again to Mrs. E, who was drinking her own beverage — diet tonic water with a squirt of lemon.
“So,” he said. “You finally going to explain to all of us where we’re going?”
30
Julie
THE LAST DAY HAD BEEN A whirlwind for Julie. Mrs. E had sent them all a message — ‘Pack your bags. We have a destination.’ — and had informed them that there would be a company jet waiting in Anchorage for them by the next morning.
Mrs. E herself would join them on the mission, and while en route to their destination she would fill them in on the details. Apparently she had discovered something of interest while researching the work of Professor Graham Lindgren, and it was actionable enough to get them all a first-class ticket to wherever they were heading now.
Julie stretched. She had no way of knowing how long the flight would be, but she was hoping there would be time to sleep a bit after Mrs. E’s briefing. She wondered how Ben was doing. He had always been a horrible flier, but he’d gotten better in the two years she’d known him.
Flying was part of life, she’d told him. In the modern age, air travel was usually the best way to get somewhere, especially when you lived in the Alaskan backcountry.
He’d just shrugged, trying to be stubborn but not having anything valuable to say.
When they’d boarded the plane, she’d made a beeline for a seat at the back, as she knew it was capable of reclining all the way back. Ben chose one near the wing so that his peripheral view of the shrinking ground would be blocked, but she knew he would be struggling until they reached cruising altitude.
And unless he gets alcohol into his system, he’ll probably be struggling until we land.
Now that they were at their cruising altitude and the team had gotten an hour of sleep, she stood up and turned around to see what Ben was up to. He was laughing and joking with Mrs. E, and Julie walked up and sat in the seat behind her.
“You finally going to explain to all of us where we’re going?” Julie heard him ask.
Mrs. E nodded, standing up. “Where is Reggie?” she asked.
Ben and Julie looked around, only now noticing that their teammate was nowhere to be found. A few seconds passed, then Julie heard the click of a lock and the restroom door swinging open.
Reggie had a pained expression on his face, but he walked over to the group and plopped down across from Julie. “Good God, Ben,” he said. “That swill you forced me to drink last night is not agreeing with me.”
Ben laughed. “You sure it was the whiskey, or was it how much you drank of it?”
He made a face at Ben, but didn’t respond.
“Mrs. E was just going to tell us where it is we’re flying,” Ben said. “I personally hope it’s nowhere near Wyoming, Montana, Brazil, or The Bahamas.”
Julie smiled, but she felt the terror of what had happened in each of those locations coming back to haunt her. That she had survived until now was something remarkable.
“Don’t forget Philadelphia,” Reggie said.
“And Antarctica,” Mrs. E added.
“Okay,” Ben said, “so the list of possible vacation destinations for us is quickly diminishing. What does that leave?”
Mrs. E opened up her tablet and swiped around until she landed on a note she’d typed. She was quiet for a moment, then she clicked on an image, enlarging it to fit across her screen.
“Our destination is well away from our prior destinations, I can assure you,” Mrs. E said. “Anyone recognize this place?”
Julie leaned over the seat back and stared down at the tablet Mrs. E was holding. On the screen there was a satellite image, zoomed in and crisply focused on an island that sat alone in the middle of a deep blue ocean. The island was circular, rounded at the edges, but it wasn’t a solid mass of land. It looked like a bowl that had been pushed down into the water until only part of its rim was showing.
Mrs. E spread two fingers over the image, making it even larger still, and Julie could then see the faint outline of another, smaller circular island submerged just beneath the surface of the water.
“Beats me,” Ben said.
“An island somewhere,” Reggie said. “In the ocean.”
Julie shook her head. “Wow, Reggie. Quite the observation.”
“It is an island,” Mrs. E said. “And it is our destination.”
Ben groaned. “I’m not a fan of islands.”
Julie nodded. “I have to agree with him,” she said. “After Paradisum, I think I’ll stay away from Caribbean destinations for a bit.”
Paradisum had been a floating theme park off the coast of The Bahamas, and Julie and Ben had been on vacation in the Caribbean when Reggie had dragged them out to the island. There they had dodged saltwater crocodiles, jellyfish, and plenty of bullets, and the entire time had been a blur of fear and terror.
“Well, this island is not in the tropics at all,” Mrs. E said.
“And I’m assuming it’s not off the coast of Alaska, either,” Ben said. “Meaning we’re in for a long flight.”
Mrs. E nodded. “Total travel time, including layovers, refueling, and rest stops, is over forty-eight hours.”
Julie’s jaw dropped. “Forty-eight hours? That’s two days.”
“This place is on the other side of the world,” Reggie said. “Where are we going, E?”
Mrs. E pinched the image closed and swiped over to the next picture in the series. Another satellite image, this one of a city, many of the buildings white, scattered across wide, steep cliffs.
“Anyone?” she asked.
“Somewhere in the Mediterranean?” Ben asked.
Mrs. E snapped a finger. “Exactly! Greece, actually. Or rather, an island off the coast of Greece.”
“That’s where we’re going?” Julie asked. “It looks beautiful.”
“It is a huge tourist destination,” Mrs. E said. “But we believe Dr. Lindgren’s father is there somewhere.”
“What’s it called?” Reggie asked.
“This, my friends,” Mrs. E said, “is the famous island of Santorini.”
31
Graham
GRAHAM PACED AROUND THE INTERIOR of the room, trying to learn everything he could about his surroundings. He had examined every square inch before, finding nothing useful. There were no telltale artifacts of modern human innovation, like drill filings, screws, or leftover building materials. Besides the furniture and the lighting, there was nothing modern about the spac
e.
The walls, as he’d noticed before, were hewn from rock, three of the four sides carved out of what appeared to be a singular block of granite. The other wall was bricked together using smaller, but still substantial, stones. They fit with a precision that excited his inner archeologist, as they told him just a bit about his prison.
I’m in an ancient tomb, he thought. Or at least a temple or important structure of some sort.
All ancient peoples, whether they were from the Eastern or Western Hemisphere, north or south, no matter which out-of-the-way space they called home, all shared one important characteristic:
They were all human.
And to Professor Lindgren, who had spent his life and career studying the remains of human ingenuity, had come to understand that to be human meant to be efficient.
And efficiency meant taking care to spend effort where it would be best used, not where it wouldn’t matter in the long run.
The pyramids, both at Giza and in Central and South America, were a perfect example of this efficiency. So were the ruins of Ancient Rome, Greece, and Angkor Wat. The ancient wonders of the world were just that for a reason — they had stood against the evil stresses of mother nature and prevailed. They had proven that human drive and motivation were strong enough characteristics to hold up to the greatest oppressor the world had ever known: time.
Graham Lindgren had spent every waking moment of his life exploring these fascinations, and he knew that for the vast majority of human history, societies used whatever resources they could to better their lives, but they cared little for the long-term functionality of the structures they built. Dwellings and communal gathering places, whether the longhouses of the American Indians or the great halls of the Vikings, these buildings were well-crafted structures that utilized sound materials, but were otherwise temporary. They needed constant repair, and even a few years of ignorance could render them utterly useless.
More important places, on the other hand, were given a bit more care. Churches and other religious landmarks, cemeteries, castles, and guideposts were formed from stone and other sturdy materials, meant to last centuries or longer.
But the holiest of places, the most important of all, like the grand cathedrals and colosseums, the temples dedicated to gods and saints, and statues and shrines erected for purposes only now beginning to be understood, were built to last. These formations were meant to not only be impressive. They were meant to live forever.
Graham had stood inside the inner chambers of the Great Pyramid of Giza, atop the temple at Chichen Itza in the Yucatán, and walked the ruins of countless other archeological sites. He’d felt the weight of the presence of thousands of souls who had come before him, each equally in reverent awe of what their fellow man had created.
Now, standing in a dimly lit cellar-type space, Graham felt a similar weight. This weight was, admittedly, probably due to the fact his life was in the hands of a strange, unknown woman and her whims, but he sensed that there was more to the space than that.
For instance, he’d noticed the walls immediately upon entering. Even in the dim light he could tell that three of the walls were solid, single-stone behemoths. That was rare anywhere in the world. Bedrock tended to be porous, and therefore a conglomeration of many different pieces of rock. But it was expensive and difficult to haul in huge, thick stone slabs, as they had to be quarried and cut to size, then sanded and smoothed, as well as dragged a certain distance to their final location. Even then, they had to be placed with precision, as moving a multi-ton piece of rock wasn’t an easy task.
In addition, the fourth wall, made up of smaller bricks of the same material, was equally intriguing to Graham. The bricks seemed to have been cut to purpose, as if the builders had known all along what the use for them was going to be. And they fit together better than any modern-day building materials. He guessed that he couldn’t even have slid a piece of paper between them. From what he could tell there was no mortar holding the bricks together, either.
Fascinating, he thought for the hundredth time. It was certainly fascinating, but it didn’t give him any answers. Although it was uncommon, the style of building was nothing unique. Ancient, but not unique. He could be anywhere in the world. There were plenty of civilizations he knew of that had perfected the art of masonry.
The Inca and Maya of South and Central America. The Egyptians, of course. And the Minoans, Sumerians, Indians, and Chinese — they even had a 1500-mile-long wall to prove it.
Just looking around gave him no clues, so he broadened his search parameters: My captors.
The man who’d brought him here had dark features: black hair, dark caramel-colored skin, and deep-set eyes, with bushy eyebrows that seemed to haunt the man’s face. Graham would have guessed he was middle eastern, perhaps Israeli, but he could have been from anywhere around the Mediterranean. He could have been convinced the man was Basque, which would have opened up Graham’s interpretation to include other Spanish-influenced regions — the Americas, Indonesia, the Caribbean.
He could be from anywhere.
But the woman, Rachel Rascher, was a polar opposite. She had lighter brown hair. Long and straight, where the man’s had been slightly curled, and her eyes seemed to be bright and poised. She’d told him she was German, and she looked it. Germanic features, possibly even Scandinavian, with possibly a bit of Italian somewhere in her ancestry.
She’d told him she worked for the Egyptian government, but she didn’t look Egyptian, or even remotely middle-Eastern.
Again, Professor Lindgren was at a loss. These days it was nearly impossible to tell a person’s heritage from just their looks.
Her name was German — Rascher, from ancient Saxony — but that only told him that her parents or grandparents somewhere along her lineage had married into a German name.
There was a table in the corner of the room. He’d pushed it there after he and Rachel had eaten dinner together earlier, but it was now empty. The bed and chair next to it were the only other things in the room.
He took a deep breath. He’d spent many hours inside of small spaces such as this — he’d built a career around it. But he’d never been held inside of one as a prisoner. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it; he wasn’t sure if his senses were on high alert, ready to try to build a narrative from only the smallest threads, or if his analytical mind had somehow been compromised because of it.
He shivered. It’s chilly in here.
He suddenly realized something. Perhaps it was more data, more information he could use to build a narrative of where, exactly, he was. Or perhaps it was nothing.
It’s cold in here.
He hadn’t noticed it before, but it was definitely chilly. It hadn’t changed, either, and he hadn’t heard or felt any sort of change in the pressure inside the space, which meant there probably wasn’t any climate control system running.
Which means…
He stood straighter. It wasn’t much — it still didn’t tell him anything useful, but it was a piece of the puzzle. It was better than nothing. He looked again at the walls, the three that were fashioned from single stones, and the fourth that was crafted from perfectly sized bricks. It was obvious this was a man-made structure, and it was obvious this place had been made long ago, and that it had been built to last for a long time.
And now his experience and education were putting the pieces together for him in his subconscious, sending their message up through his brain into consciousness.
He thought about what he knew, what he was hiding from Rascher. What he had tried to convey to Sarah.
They would eventually figure it out — whoever this woman was, she was not going to give up easily. But he hoped he had at least bought Sarah enough time.
Time to figure out my puzzle, he thought. He was frustrated, scared. He wondered if it would have been better to simply give her the solution instead of the clues, but at the time he had no way of knowing that he was sending his daughter a puzzle. The artifac
t had been an intriguing way of reconnecting with his daughter; that was all there was to it. Now she would be worried about him, wondering if he was alive or dead.
He turned in a slow circle, putting everything together in his mind. What he’d discovered, what he’d predicted, was true. He knew it — he could feel it. He could stake his entire career on it.
Looking around at his quarters only confirmed it. Wherever he was in the world, it was all part of his prediction. It wasn’t much of a clue, but it wasn’t nothing, either. He nodded, knowing that he was right. He looked around one final time and silently moved his mouth to form the words.
I’m underground.
32
Reggie
“SANTORINI. INTERESTING.”
BEN AND JULIE looked at him. Reggie looked back down at the image.
“Santorini is a huge tourist destination. One of the most popular in Europe. Also called Thera, right?”
“Correct,” Mrs. E said.
“And why do we think Professor Lindgren is there?” Ben asked.
“Juliette,” Mrs. E said, “do you remember that article we were discussing? The one that had been unpublished?”
“‘Timeaus and Critias — An Alternative Explanation,’” Julie said. “That one? Did you find an archived copy of it?”
“No, unfortunately. We are still looking. But it was his most recently published work, and I was able to find out what the paper was about.”
“How’d you do that?” Reggie asked.
“Easy — I called his university,” she explained. “He is not a spy, Reggie. They were happy to discuss his work with me, especially since I told them I was trying to help locate him.”