Blown Circuit

by Lars Guignard

  I looked down at the ground at my feet. Nothing there but a few stones and a broken column. I walked to the far edge of the clearing, then back to the olive tree with the square hole. Then I started a slow, sweeping walk around the perimeter.

  “What are you doing?” Meryem asked.

  I didn’t answer, I just finished my walk around the clearing before circumscribing a smaller circle inside the larger one. It took me about thirty seconds to go around the second circle, and then I circumscribed a smaller circle again. That one took me twenty seconds, and then, three-quarters of the way around the fourth circle, I found it. The roughness of the rocky earth gave way to a flat, uniform surface. It was marble with chiseled writing on it like a tombstone. A stele. I cleared away the dirt with my hand until I could see the carved letters in the moonlight.

  “Can you read it?” Meryem said.

  It was English, not Cyrillic. I could read it just fine.

  “And I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness in the posture of a whore,” I read aloud.

  “What is he talking about?” Meryem said. “The posture of a whore?”

  “Follow me,” was my only reply.

  Chapter 36

  I LED THE way back along the ancient Roman road. I was thinking about the letters cut into the marble. They were precise and crisp, their edges hard, not weathered. That meant the letters were new. Not by today’s standards, my guess was that they dated back to 1955, but they were in no way ancient. And if they were new, in all likelihood they had been carved by Bayazidi. As to why the words were in English, I could only guess that a man who spoke a dozen languages found an added pleasure in quoting Shakespeare’s line in its original form. Given that Bayazidi obviously wanted to keep whoever found the journal on their toes, the whole thing made a kind of grudging sense.

  “Michael, I asked you a question. What is the posture of a whore?”

  “They didn’t make you read Shakespeare in high school?”

  “In Turkey we read some French literature. Some Spanish. Much Turkish. English, no. We did not study Shakespeare.”

  “It’s from Antony and Cleopatra again. It’s Cleopatra talking about her legacy and how a squeaky-sounding boy would play her on the stage and destroy her reputation.”

  “A boy would do this? Why not a girl?”

  “There were no female actors in Shakespeare’s time. A boy would have played Cleopatra. But that’s not the point. The point is, Shakespeare is breaking the fourth wall here. He’s talking directly to the audience about the stage. Bayazidi chose the line. He’s talking about the stage too.”

  “I do not understand.”

  Meryem walked two steps behind me as we passed several more eroding foundations and found ourselves back at the amphitheater. Instead of skirting it, however, this time I headed straight inside. The stone structure was built into the side of the hill, the seats arranged like those in a modern theater.

  And I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness...

  “Michael, please explain this,” Meryem said.

  I didn’t want to explain anything. Not until I knew I was right. So I strode down between the rows, until I reached the bottom of the theatre. I had a pretty good idea what I was looking for. There was scrubby grass down there among the rocks, but I was focused on the four-foot-high stone stage, or more precisely, backstage. I looked for an entrance, a way behind or underneath the monolithic stones. I found it on the farthest edge. Stage left.

  “Tesla’s friend was a poet,” I said. “He knew the history of this island. He knew that Mark Antony’s and Cleopatra’s romance blossomed here. He’s directing us as gently as possible. Directing us back to the theater.”

  A set of stone stairs led down into the subterranean tunnel beneath the stage. I entered the low tunnel. It was pitch black so I used the glow of my watch to guide me.

  And I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra…

  I was backstage now. No question. Meryem climbed down beside me. Then I heard a scratching noise and smelled sulfur. A single flame lit the darkness.

  “Where did you get the match?” I asked.

  “On the steps. A pack of cigarettes. Perhaps a tourist left it.”

  The match threw just enough light to see that we were in the middle of a tight, dark tunnel. As a rule, I don’t like tight spaces, but I could still see the way we had come in, so I was more excited than I was concerned. I pulled out the wet copy of the page from the journal again. I wanted to be sure. Meryem lit another match, the bright sulfur flare illuminating the cobwebs above us. But it didn’t merely illuminate the cobwebs. It illuminated the stones of the back wall. The old black ink bled through the wet page of the journal.

  “What do you see?”

  “Spiderwebs,” she said.

  “See the crates in the drawing,” I asked.

  Meryem looked over my shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you notice?”

  “They are a drawing of crates.”

  She was right. They were a drawing of crates. Pen and ink drawings shadowed and shaded to perfection.

  “But what else?”

  “I don’t know. Crates.”

  “Look at the position of the crates.”

  The two crates were stacked on top of each other like steps.

  “Now look at the wall.”

  She saw it immediately. It was impossible to miss really, once you knew what you were looking for. The match died out and Meryem struck another. There were two stones. Two stones that were whiter than the others, cleaner, and they were positioned in the wall exactly like the crates. Even their shading matched the rock. I was sure that we had found the spot.

  Except, we hadn’t.

  I touched the stone with my fingers. It was solid as rock. Because it was rock. Not a facade. Not a hiding place as in the wall, but solid marble, heavy and strong. I rapped on the other stones with the heel of my palm. It was the same thing. I dug my fingers into the dirt mortar cracks around the stones, but I could already tell it would be no use. The stones were too big, too monumental. I’d need more than my fingers for a pry bar. I’d need a jackhammer.

  I looked down. There was more stone. But stone with a difference. Stone slabs with cracks around the edges. I ran Shakespeare’s line through my head.

  …in the posture of a whore.

  I got down on my hands and knees, feeling the grit and grime beneath my palms.

  “Shine your match here,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “The line, it might mean on your back.”

  “That is not so creative for a woman in bed.”

  “Maybe not. But I think it’s what Shakespeare meant.”

  Meryem lowered the match. I remembered the ten-inch toilet float rod that I still carried in my back pocket. I took it out and tried it in one of the cracks between the slabs. Not levering, but cleaning away the dirt. Meryem's match went out, but I continued to work, hollowing out the crack. The dirt was mostly on the surface. After some fiddling, I was able to sink the rod several inches into the crack. I tried levering it. It was too heavy to lift with the rod, but I felt some movement.

  Meryem lit another match and I got a better look at the slab of stone. It was probably five feet long and three feet wide, but it was cracked down the middle, which meant that I might actually have a chance of moving it. Meryem peered over my shoulder as I cleaned out more of the joint between the slabs until it was wide enough for me to get my fingers in.

  “Here we go.”

  I lifted.

  My fingertips were hot and moist with sweat, but I felt the slab move a little at first, and then more, until it swung out toward me, a waft of stale air accompanying it. The match flickered down as Meryem poked the flame into the new hole in the floor. Beneath us was a small alcove. Nothing more than a dirt space really, except for the two wooden crates lying on the rocky floor. The crates were painted in silver with “CCCP” stenciled in black on the sides. I d
idn’t have to translate what they said because I already knew.

  A red hammer and sickle accompanied the Russian name of the old USSR, its paint shining brightly, even in the match light.

  Chapter 37

  THE BROKEN SLAB gave me enough room to slip inside the chamber. It was cramped in there, no more than four feet high, but it was difficult to determine exactly how far the chamber extended into the darkness. My first priority was to verify the contents of the crates. The wooden lids were secured down with metal bands on pivot points. I inserted the steel rod and levered back the band on the nearest crate.

  When I removed the lid I saw wood shavings. Long, curled wood shavings. Moving the shavings aside revealed a hint of the tooled metal components within but, honestly, I was already sold. However the triggers might work, they weren’t wrapped in polystyrene, and that meant that they were vintage. Nobody packed precision components in wood shavings these days.

  “Meryem, throw me a match,” I said.

  But I didn’t get a match. I got a Klieg light. A blinding xenon wash of 50,000 lumens. Probably enough to light up a parking lot, let alone the hole I was squatting in.

  “Hello, Michael,” a familiar voice said.

  Kate.

  It was not the voice I wanted to hear. I immediately scrabbled back farther into the alcove, my eyes adjusting to the bright light above.

  “Don’t make us come in there to get you, Michael.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” I said.

  Actually, I was thinking exactly that. The light revealed the alcove clearly for the first time. It was still a small space, blocked in on three sides, but hidden behind me was a passage leading out. It wasn’t a big opening at the other end of the passage, but there was a good chance it was passable—I knew because I could see a sliver of scrubby grass overlooking the sea.

  That was about when I heard Meryem scream. Not a huge scream, more of a whimper really, but it made the mission personal. It reminded me that I wasn’t the only one in the field.

  “Michael, please come out before this gets unpleasant,” Kate said.

  “Why don’t you come in here?”

  “OK, Michael.”

  That’s when I heard Meryem again. Only it wasn’t a whimper this time. It was a full-fledged wail. I evaluated my options. Even if I rolled the dice and tried to escape through the end of the tunnel, there was no way I could take the triggers with me. Plus, I’d be abandoning Meryem. So I faced a false choice really. All roads led back to Kate.

  I crawled forward and rose into the light, hands above my head. I squinted to see that Faruk held Meryem at knifepoint, the anodized steel blade of his combat knife creasing her neck. Kate, herself, held a gun pointed directly at my head. It was the same Glock 26 she’d brandished at me more than once in the past. A compact, efficient weapon. She smiled and I thought I saw laughter in her eyes in the bright beam of the portable spotlight.

  “Thanks for your hard work, Michael,” Kate said. “Now get out of that hole before you turn into a rat.”

  THE TRIP BACK to the boat wasn’t as pleasant as the trip to the island. Not by a long shot. They loaded us into the Zodiac at the dock and after a short hop, off-loaded us onto the yacht. I expected to be on the receiving end of a healthy interrogation, but I knew that Kate wouldn’t get rid of me. She still needed me. Instead of leading us up the rear stairwell, Faruk opened a hatch on the rear deck revealing a storage locker below. It was then that I realized that they were no longer bothering with niceties. Faruk brought his radio to his mouth and issued a command in Turkish. A moment later a glow was cast over the sea as the bridge lit up and the yacht’s diesel engines turned over. Then I heard the clank of the anchor chain and they shoved us down the hole.

  IT WAS PITCH black in the storage locker. So black you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Fortunately, it was also a soft landing. The locker was filled with coils of rope. I felt around in the dark, soon bumping into Meryem beside me. Then I smelled sulfur as she struck a match, filling the six-by-six-foot metal compartment with a warm, flickering light. Meryem had a small scrape on her cheek from the kick into the hatch.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  Meryem nodded. As I listened to the ship pulling up anchor, I felt bad that I’d gotten Meryem involved in the whole thing. Not the search for the Tesla Device—that was her career. But the part with Kate. Kate knew me and she was making the mission personal. Meryem didn’t need that. I draped my arm around her and pulled her close. She nuzzled into me, warm in the night.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she nodded sitting up. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  Easier said than done. I looked around. It was an impromptu place to store us, but it was solid. Nothing short of a welding torch would breach the steel-plate walls. And they hadn’t left us unattended either. I could hear the guard shuffling his feet above. A few moments later, the anchor chain stopped its clanking and I felt a vibration flow through the ship as the props started to turn. I repositioned myself and sat with my back to the metal wall, the mild vibration massaging my spine. Meryem struck another match.

  “Their schedule has changed. We need to hurry,” Meryem said.

  “What do you mean their schedule has changed?”

  “Think, Michael. They have the triggers.”

  “But they don’t have the focusing array,” I said.

  “No, not yet. But soon.”

  “Why do you say soon?”

  “Because I heard them. When you were under the ground. They think they know where it is.”

  “Where?”

  “I did not hear this.”

  I looked at Meryem, her deep, dark eyes liquid in the match light. She took my hand in hers. For the first time, I could tell that she was afraid.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  Meryem looked at me.

  “They say they are close to finding the focusing array, Michael. They are going to use it to destroy many, many people.”

  Chapter 38

  I DIDN’T KNOW whether Meryem was right. I wasn’t sure I believed that they were close to finding the focusing array. Not because I doubted her, but because I knew what a master player Kate was. She could easily manufacture a tidbit like that for Meryem to hear. And the part about murdering many, many people? It would be Kate’s idea of motivating me. The woman was ruthless. So while I didn’t doubt for a second that the Green Dragons would blow up New York or whatever other metropolis behooved them, I didn’t want to fall for the bait either. I wanted to keep my mind clear.

  So I waited in the dark, allowing my eyes to fall closed. Meryem did the same. She may have been worried, but she was a pro. She knew that there was nothing we could do for the time being. All in all, I expected that it was going to be a long night. And it was. But not in the way I thought. Because I couldn’t have been dozing for more than twenty minutes, before the hatch opened and the muzzle of a machine gun was pointed at the side of my head. Not to shoot me, but to wake me.

  To reach me with the gun, the guard had to hunch down low. I recognized him as one of the guys who had captured us back at the mosque. His front tooth was chipped and he was off balance, extending the weapon just beyond his comfort range. His finger wasn’t resting on the trigger either, but just behind it. True, he probably could have gotten his finger to where it needed to be, but it wasn’t there yet.

  I didn’t seize the opportunity because I didn’t see the upside. At that point the situation wasn’t life or death. It was still cat and mouse. Kate obviously still wanted something from me, or she wouldn’t be pulling me back out of the hole. And I wanted something from her too—I wanted to know how far she’d gotten. Not the theatrical version, but the reality. I judged that the better move was to play along.

  I got up, sending Meryem a look that I hoped told her to stay calm. The guard covered me as I rose. Then a second guard took over at the hatch. The first guard led me back up the rear stairs to the
salon. I started to think about how I could play the situation to my favor. The boat was sailing west, but it was still the middle of the night and we were a long way from anything, the world as black as ink except for a billion twinkling stars.

  I entered the salon to see Kate standing at the front of the space where the big windows raked forward. Faruk leaned at the bar, poring over the triggers. It was my first decent look at what we’d found. Each trigger consisted of an arrangement of cams and gears that would make a watchmaker proud. They were held together in what looked like titanium frames, about three feet long. There were thin metal caps on one end of the frames and fatter metal caps on the other, bundles of wire emerging from them. By virtue of the port in one of the thin metal caps, it looked as if the triggers daisy-chained together, forming one long device.

  “Sit down, Michael,” Kate said.

  Faruk laid the trigger back down and retreated down the corridor to the rear of the vessel. The guard remained at the door.

  “I’ve been cramped into a ball since you dumped me down that hole. Hard to sleep that way. I’d prefer to lie down.”

  “We need to talk,” Kate said.

  “Well, if you’re not going to let me sleep, then get me a coffee,” I said. “And a sandwich. Make it a club.”

  Kate nodded to the guard and he spoke into his collar mike in Turkish. I guess he doubled as the waiter.

  “Now please,” Kate said. “Sit down!”

  I stepped across the salon and took a seat on the far leather couch. It was firm and cool, the thick cream-colored leather fragrant with its factory scent. There was a matching ottoman on the floor and I put my feet up on it. Might as well be comfortable.

  “Thank you for leading us to the triggers.”

  “I’d say it was my pleasure, but it wasn’t.”

  “I can see that you don’t trust me, Michael, and I can’t say I blame you. But I’ve been thinking about our dinner,” Kate said.