by Greig Beck
Hammerson gripped the phone and glanced at the frozen images of the corpses on his computer screen. ‘You have a problem, Kemel … a bigger one than you realize. We know about the deaths of your soldiers, and the inscription in the cisterns. And we know a Russian Spetsnaz squad has moved into your neighborhood. There’s a gathering storm, and it’s forming up around you, my friend.’
There was a grunt on the line. ‘I cannot discuss this.’ Then a sigh. ‘Spetsnaz … here? I won’t ask how you know all this, but the investigation is ongoing. We have good leads, and we are sure we will make an arrest soon.’
‘Janus Caresche? Forget it; he’s dead. They’re all dead.’
‘No formal identification of the bodies has been –’
‘No. Look at the faces, Kemel.’ Hammerson knew the soldier on the other end of the line needed facts, not more theories. ‘Kemel, your chief suspect is standing right there, and he’s a block of stone.’
There was silence for a moment, and Hammerson heard Baykal’s bulk shifting in a leather chair. The words, when they came, were slow, as though fatigue had attached lead weights to every syllable.
‘This is a lot worse than you think, my friend. My superiors think there may be foreign forces involved in the … attacks. Now would not be a good time for me to be running to the Americans. The West is always a suspect. Leave it alone for now, my friend. I think we must deal with this on our own.’
The call disconnected.
‘Ah, shit!’ Hammerson hung up, and stared again at the images. ‘We’ll see.’
*
‘Sir.’
Hammerson turned to the hulking man standing at attention in the doorway and waved him in. ‘At ease.’
Sam Reid joined him in front of the computer screen. Hammerson hoped that one day the military’s regeneration work would give Sam back his own mobility. But for now, he could do anything he could before … with the additional bonus of being able to run at fifty miles per hour and kick a hole in a metal door.
‘MECH framework okay?’ Hammerson asked.
‘I forget it’s there most times.’ Sam grinned. ‘Unless I try and jump for something and end up ten feet in the air.’
Hammerson nodded. ‘Good, because we got work to do.’
‘Still no sign of Graham?’ Sam asked.
‘Not yet, but Borshov has just turned up with a bunch of heavy-hitters in Istanbul. His time of arrival, and the place, coincides with a local Spec Ops team mysteriously being taken out. Might be a new weapon – and might be Uli Borshov has dropped in to acquire it.’ Hammerson sat back. ‘We need to know what’s going on – firsthand.’
Sam pressed his large knuckles down on the desk and frowned. ‘Borshov the beast is in Turkey?’
Hammerson pulled up the VELA images of the Russian assassin in the Istanbul street. Even though it was dark, the bearded face and his size was unmistakable. Hammerson smiled without humor. ‘Like I said: we got work to do.’
Sam nodded. ‘Oh yeah, count me in.’
‘Knew you’d say that.’ Hammerson pulled up another screen. ‘Now take a look at this.’
Hammerson flicked through the range of images that Captain Gerry Harris had just sent through to him.
Sam read quickly. ‘Zoroastrian, Sumerian, proto-Greek … they’re all long-dead languages, or languages that have evolved into something linguistically different. I can read a few of the words, and some of it certainly looks like Greek, but I don’t recognize all of it … maybe it is nonsense.’
Hammerson sat back with crossed arms. ‘Maybe, but I don’t think so. The Turks are stumped. You know, if we can decipher some of this, we’ve got something to offer the Turkish Special Forces … something to trade.’ He looked at the big HAWC. ‘So who do we know who could possibly read this, hmm? Who’s helped us in the past, and I’m sure would be just dying to come and give us a hand again?’
Sam smiled. ‘Why, young Professor Matthew Kearns.’
Hammerson pointed a finger at him, gun-like. ‘Bingo. So let’s get him in here.’
CHAPTER 12
The front door opened and the Turkish policeman was led in, looking confident and brash. Borshov hung back in the shadows of the darkened room and examined him: young, handsome, shiny wedding ring – perhaps he had been passed over for an expected promotion, or had a new wife who liked gifts that were a little beyond his policeman’s wage. A little extra spending money might be welcome.
Borshov moved out of the shadows, and the young man stepped back, his face immediately losing its grin.
The giant Russian stuck out one enormous hand. ‘English?’
The man nodded warily, ignoring the Russian’s hand. ‘English … a little.’ He held his finger and thumb about an inch apart.
Borshov nodded. ‘Good. We must hurry. Please sit and make comfortable.’ He motioned to one of two heavy wooden chairs his men were bringing into the room. ‘Tea, coffee?’ he asked the policeman and raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes; coffee.’ The man sat down with legs splayed, confidence returning to his young athletic frame. He grinned. ‘This … ah …’ He sniffed as he searched for the right words. ‘This secret information is gold for you, yes?’
Borshov shrugged, then laughed darkly. He held up a thick wad of Turkish notes. ‘Gold for us, and maybe gold for you, da?’
The policeman allowed his turned-down lips to express his disappointment at the sum of money. ‘I could lose my job or go to jail if anyone finds out I tell you this. I think is very high value … maybe to others as well.’
Borshov smiled, dragged the other chair closer to the man and sat down facing him. One of Borshov’s agents brought a single mug of steaming coffee and held it out.
Borshov raised his eyebrows. ‘Hot?’
The agent nodded once.
‘Good.’ Borshov threw the boiling liquid into the young policeman’s face, eliciting a howl of surprise and pain.
Immediately a Spetsnaz agent grabbed his shoulders and held him in the chair. The policeman’s hands were over his face, and his skin had turned an angry red. His screams turned to sobs. ‘My eyes.’
Borshov nodded and his men grabbed the man’s hands away from his face and held them flat against the chair’s wooden armrests. In a few savage motions, they drove large nails into each hand, pinning them flat.
Borshov threw the empty cup to the side of the room and sat forward, gripping the man’s knees. ‘So, I think you might lose more than your job today, da?’
The man moaned and tried to hunch over, but Borshov’s men now held him securely in place again, as did the thick nails spiking his hands.
The big Russian patted one of the man’s knees. ‘Okay, no more playtime. We understand each other good now, okay?’
The policeman sobbed again, but nodded.
‘Good. Now, you tell me everything about the attack on your police, and the weapon that was used.’
Within fifteen minutes Borshov had what he needed. He knew that the man the Turks believed responsible for the attack was also killed – some sort of petrification disorder. Whether it was caused by a radiation, biological, or chemical weapon was still unknown. He stood in the front doorway, watching the dark street. Muffled screams still emanated from inside, but he knew anything else that dribbled from the man’s mouth would be less reliable and more a result of the madness caused by pain. He puffed on a cigar, and blew a plume of smoke out into the dark. The man responsible, Janus Caresche, an antiquities thief, had gone down there looking for something.
Borshov grunted. ‘Found more than you bargained for, da?’ His laugh sounded like two metal plates grating against each other.
He dropped the cigar and ground it out. He would contact his command, and find out more about this man and what he was looking for deep down in a 2000-year-old drain.
*
Matt Kearns tried to concentrate, but he couldn’t help staring at Sam. His head turned from the hulking HAWC to the computer screen, back to Sam, and then
back to the screen, as if he couldn’t quite make his mind up what to do next.
He cleared his throat. ‘You look … well.’
Jack Hammerson smirked. Sam just nodded.
‘You’re standing … by yourself,’ Matt went on. ‘And I heard you …’
Sam half-smiled. ‘The wonders of science, Professor.’ He motioned to the screen. ‘We got work to do.’
‘O-kay.’ Matt swiveled back to the computer and the images. ‘And this was recently found written, um, scratched into a wall in a newly discovered chamber beneath the Basilica Cisterns of ancient Constantinople?’ Matt rubbed his temples as he frowned at the computer screen. ‘You know, this new antechamber could be 2000 years old … or even older.’
Hammerson remained silent, watching the languages professor examine the data. He knew the young man hadn’t wanted to come, but he’d personally pulled the guy out of a pretty sticky situation in the Appalachians last fall. Kearns owed him. Normally, Hammerson kept those kinds of debts on ice, but he needed the man’s expertise, and he needed it now.
The professor pushed his long hair back from his face and shook his head as he read the Turkish notes. ‘Nope, nope, nope – not Zoroastrian. It doesn’t have this tight curling form, and its glyphs are more like Egyptian.’ He half-turned to Hammerson. ‘Way too sophisticated for Sumerian either. Who wrote these notes – some grad student?’ He shrugged. ‘However, I can see a lot of similarities to proto-Greek … Still, there’s too much circular imprinting of the letters that doesn’t exist in that early alphabet.’ He sat back. ‘As for it being nonsense, I can tell you right now, that’s wrong. It’s a language, all right.’
Jack Hammerson walked around the desk to stand directly in front of Matt. ‘If it’s a language, you can decipher it, read it, right?’
Matt shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ He looked back at the screen. ‘I’m not surprised they thought it might be an early form of Greek … I think they were close. Look, this is right out there, and just my own view … but I believe it could be Eteocretan, or perhaps even an authentic representation of Minoan, and if it is –’
Sam scoffed. ‘Minoan? Theseus and the Minotaur Minoan?’
Matt turned. ‘Got a better suggestion?’
Sam held up his hands. ‘Not yet.’
‘Well, let me know. And everyone knows those pumped-up Hollywood stories, but that was only one of their legends. They had mermaids, Cyclopses, Gorgons, dozens of light-and-darkness-dwelling entities – Crete is riddled with limestone caves that were inhabited for tens of thousands of years. In fact, the first real humans left traces there as far back as 130,000 years ago … that’s Paleolithic. On other continents, Neanderthals were still cracking heads with bone clubs.’ Matt sat back and folded his arms. ‘It was a strange thing. The Minoan civilization, one of the mightiest in the world, simply collapsed, and no one really knows why.’ He indicated some of the strange markings. ‘Whoever wrote this into the wall was a scholar of antiquities or a specialist in paleolinguistics – and I mean a real specialist. No one has spoken this language for about 5000 years, and only a handful of people in the world would even know what it is.’ He glared at Sam. ‘With even fewer being able to read it.’
Sam slapped him on the shoulder, making Matt wince. ‘And I’m betting you’re one of them?’
Matt rubbed his shoulder. ‘Ouch … Yes, but not well, and mainly by fluke. My first languages professor was captivated by Minoan art and culture, and taught me how to appreciate it, first, and understand it, second.’
Hammerson looked hard at Sam. ‘It’s okay, Matt – we appreciate and value your opinion. Where’s your professor now?’
‘Dead, I’m afraid.’ Matt sat back. ‘You could try Professor Gerhard Reinhalt in Germany, Doctor Francis Lin Bao in China, whereabouts unknown, or maybe the great Margaret Watchorn in England. She’s pushing ninety, but she’s recognized as the pre-eminent Minoan expert living today.’ He tilted his head. ‘She’s also the undisputed expert in their theological mythologies.’
Hammerson grunted and shook his head. ‘No, we’re happy to have you assisting us.’ He began to pace. ‘So, the million-dollar question – what does it say?’
Matt turned back to the screen, and adjusted the contrast and magnification. ‘Unfortunately, it’s what we call Linear-A form – classed as near unreadable. Basically, all we can do is take the later Linear-B form and use the Greek Euboean-derived alphabet as a guide. Not perfect, and far from exact.’ He sucked in a deep breath, and after a few moments shook his head. ‘Not a lot that makes sense, but from what I can make out it says: Fear is risen again, children of Zeus, slayers of …’ He turned. ‘Children of Zeus – that’s us by the way. According to ancient Greek mythology, we mortals were created by Zeus when he gave us the Earth as our home.’ He turned back to the writing. ‘… shall be forever locked in stone … Magera will consume … Hmm, Magera, that rings a bell. Obviously ancient Greek, but can’t place its significance.’
Hammerson stopped pacing. ‘That’s it?’
‘Pretty much,’ Matt said. ‘The rest is either undecipherable or obscured. Some of the words could be slightly wrong, but that’s the gist of it.’
Hammerson grunted. ‘Not a lot to go on.’ He paced some more. ‘Another question for you. Janus Caresche – heard of him? Could he understand it? Write it?’
Matt scoffed. ‘Janus the Anus … sure I’ve heard of him. He’s a liar, a thief, and an asshole. The guy’s responsible for the theft of dozens of high-value artifacts all around the world. He’s rumored to have removed an entire wall of Egyptian crypt art. He’s got a bounty on his head, and he’s –’
Hammerson held up one hand. ‘Okay, we get it, he wasn’t a great guy … but was he capable of writing it?’
Matt shook his head. ‘Absolutely not, no way. Understand it? Still no way. Could someone like Caresche recognize it? Maybe … that’s his job. He could have copied it from another source, I guess, but why would he?’
Hammerson shrugged; he didn’t have any answers.
‘I’d love to send some of this to Margaret Watchorn,’ Matt started, but Hammerson shook his head. ‘Okay, well then … next option is I need to see more. If you can get me more shots, maybe different angles, I might be able to be a little more conclusive.’ He looked at the writing again. ‘Interesting thought … it could be a warning. But if so, why write it in a language that hasn’t existed for thousands of years? That’s what’s so weird; whoever wrote this went to a lot of trouble to make sure it only a few people could ever read it.’ He looked up, his face excited. ‘Or they assumed more people could understand it … Fascinating, and intriguing. I’d love to see more.’
Hammerson was pacing again. He still didn’t have enough information … yet.
He heard Matt snort, then the professor said softly, ‘I’ll tell you one thing. If Caresche was down there, he wasn’t there as a tourist – he was after something. I wonder if he found it.’
Hammerson turned, frowning. ‘You think he went there for something specific – an artifact?’
Matt nodded. ‘Like I said before, that’s his job. He went down into those catacombs with a brief. That’s how he works. I think he was filling an order for someone; you just need to find out who that was.’
Hammerson looked at Sam, and the big man smiled in return. ‘Yeah, we can do that.’
‘Make it happen, Lieutenant,’ the HAWC commander said, then turned back to see Matt leaning in close to the screen, his forehead creased. ‘What is it – you got something else?’
Matt leaned back a few inches. ‘Maybe … something weird. Check this out.’ He enlarged one of the characters that had been gouged into the wall. Hammerson and Sam crowded in close. ‘You see that? Just at the edge of the letter stroke?’
Hammerson shook his head.
Sam pushed Matt along and took over the keypad. ‘Let me do this.’ He opened a box around the character, and the computer immediately zoomed in and digitally cleaned up the
image.
Jack Hammerson leaned forward and squinted. There looked to be a few quarter-sized chips or flakes stuck into one of the grooves in the stone. ‘What is that … a fingernail?’
Matt shook his head. ‘That’s what I thought, at first. Call me crazy, but I think a hand of sorts made these marks.’
‘Jesus, what sort of hand could make those gouges … in solid stone?’ Sam said, tidying up the resolution even more. The objects came into sharper focus.
Hammerson frowned at him. ‘You’re showing me how you do that before you get outta here, Reid.’ He stared at the image. ‘Could be nails. But I think you’d lose more than just a few of them if you raked your hand down a solid wall.’
‘You’re right; so I don’t think they’re nails at all,’ Matt said softly. ‘I think they’re scales. See the uniform size? But thick, like armor plating.’
Sam grunted. ‘Makes sense; there’s carp in the cisterns. Maybe they –’
‘Nope. That’s not a fish scale. I still remember my senior biology classes. C’mon, think, Sam.’ Matt nudged the big HAWC. ‘Fish have scales embedded into their dermis, deep but thinner; they also have slime glands. These babies are more rounded, thicker, and there are growth marks. I bet if we got a better look at one of those, we’d find it was pure reptilian keratin. Reptile scales actually grow like hair.’
‘What sort of reptile?’ Sam frowned, and folded his huge arms across his chest.
Matt snorted, and swung around in his chair. ‘Well, I’m not talking alligators in the sewers. I’m betting this is a reptile that knows Minoan, and, according to where these scales are located, stands about seven feet tall.’
Hammerson clapped his hands together. ‘Good work, Matt. Good information. I agree with what you said before – it is fascinating and intriguing. Hang around for a day or so, and we might have something even more interesting for you.’ He pointed to Sam. ‘Lieutenant, find me Caresche’s paymaster.’
*