by K. T. Tomb
“With things up north looking as if they’ll take a turn for the worst, the U.S. Embassy here is threatening to close up shop, so the local government is on an aggressive P.R. campaign to try to keep the diplomats calm and hopefully dissuade them from abandoning ship. Hence, the tight deadline to get the exhibit opened and turn some of the focus away from Homs and back on Damascus. You have two weeks to put the exhibit together; invitations to the opening have already been sent out.”
Chyna raised her eyebrows at his last statement. How presumptuous of the Syrians? She hated being put on the spot. Maybe her gut instinct had been right from the start and taking this assignment had been a big mistake. Ugh! Coulda, shoulda, woulda; she didn’t live her life in regret.
“We’re up to the challenge Dr. Epstein,” she replied confidently. “Before we get started, we’d like to see the exhibition space at the museum so we know what we’re working with and we’ll be back in the morning to get started. That should give you enough time to set up a workspace for us and get us the necessary clearance to access the warehouse and the artifacts.”
“That’s sound fair enough, Miss Stone,” he agreed. “Let’s drive over to the museum right away. I’ll just give Fatma a call; she’s the curator over there.”
“Would that be Fatma Maulidi, by any chance?” Chyna asked.
“Why yes, do you know her?”
“We did our post graduate degrees at NYU together but I haven’t seen her since then. It will be great to catch up with an old friend.”
The National Museum of Damascus was impressive to say the very least. They entered through a colossal façade which consisted of the preserved gateway of the Qasr al-Heer al-Gharbi, an eighth century castle that was built by the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik about fifty miles southwest of the township of Palmyra. It was evident from the very beginning of their experience at the museum that the Syrians took their history very seriously.
Fatma was waiting just inside to meet them and as soon as she saw Chyna she stepped forward eagerly with her arms open; the two hugged enthusiastically.
“Everyone, this is Fatma Maulidi,” Chyna said. “We went to NYU together quite a few years back. She’s a trained archaeologist like me.”
Lana and Oscar introduced themselves, shaking hands with Fatma. Dr. Epstein gave the young woman a friendly hug.
“So what brings you to Syria, my dear?” Fatma asked.
“We’re curating your next exhibit,” Chyna announced.
Fatma’s face lit up with excitement.
“I was told that we would have some celebrity archaeologist setting up the Hamah display but I didn’t know who it was. I can’t believe it. Chyna Stone, you’ve become quite a hotshot, you know.”
Chyna laughed. Fatma always had a hilariously cynical way of putting things but then again Chyna had found it was a common way for women in eastern cultures to make conversation.
“It would seem so, Fatma, but they have us on the deadline from hell and Jared here just let me know that the invitations already went out; so there’s no time for mistakes on this one. Where are you planning to set this up?”
Fatma took them over to the second wing where all exhibits of ancient Syrian relics were housed.
“We curate according to time period. This is the ancient Syria wing, so these Phoenician artifacts would fall in that category. This alcove is what you’ll be working in.”
Fatma pulled a long drape aside and allowed them to walk through. It was a fair amount of space, not too large, as Chyna had feared it might be. It was about forty feet deep and sixty feet wide. Display cases lined the back wall but the other two sides were comprised of twelve display pedestals each and two rows of stone benches ran down the middle of the room for visitors to sit on.
This is going to be a piece of cake, Chyna thought, smiling.
Back in Fatma’s office, Lana photocopied a floor plan of the area inside the alcove while Oscar and Jared looked through some old exhibit programs to get ideas for the print media they would produce for the opening.
“Fatma, may I speak to you alone for a minute?” Chyna asked, once everyone seemed to have gotten immersed in what they were doing.
“Sure,” Fatma replied.
“There’s a piece that came up out of the ground with the Phoenician artifacts that doesn’t seem to belong to the period nor to the civilization in the region. We have a few theories but I’m going to need to speak to an expert. Do you have any contacts at the Norwegian Archaeological Society that can help me?”
“I think I know just the person who can help you. He worked at the Oseburg Viking Ship exhibit for many years, even supervising a lot of the recent preservation work done on it.”
“Thanks so much, Fatma, I think he might be the right person to help with this mystery.”
With Bjorn Gunnarsson’s number stored in her Blackberry®, Chyna and the others said their goodbyes to Jared and Fatma and went back to their hotel for lunch. Eager to get started on selecting the items that would grace the Phoenician exhibit, Lana suggested they order room service and work through lunch. Chyna endorsed the idea fully. She wanted to get in touch with Bjorn about the falcon immediately.
To Oscar’s surprise, the missing case of computer equipment was waiting for them right inside the door of Chyna’s room. He snatched it up quickly and placed it on a nearby table, opening it up to see that everything was intact.
“Is everything there?” Chyna called over her shoulder as she took off her jacket and readjusted the gun holster she wore over her shoulder; she never took it off when she was on assignment these days.
“Sure is,” he confirmed, “but they’ve definitely been tampered with. It was probably returned when they realized they couldn’t crack it or that it would be traceable.”
Chyna sat at the table and shook her head, worried.
“That’s not good, Oscar,” she said. “Someone’s been expecting us. They know why we’re here and it seems we have something they want.”
“Do you think it has anything to do with the falcon, Chyna?” Lana asked.
“I’d take a wild guess and say that it does, Lana,” she replied. “Outside of that bird, this assignment would have been rather cut and dried stuff.”
“I’ll call Nigel and let him know we got the stuff back, but just to be sure I’m going to get them online and start running some diagnostics to see if we’ve been compromised.”
“That’s a great place to start,” Chyna said.
Later that day, they reconvened at the table in Chyna’s room for coffee and an update. Lana had been going through the government dossier selecting the items she thought would make the most impact during the exhibit. Oscar and Nigel had been running their checks of the computers and Chyna had spoken to Bjorn in Sweden and had also taken the initiative to let Anthony know what had happened with the computers.
“Lana, do you think you’ve settled on the forty eight pieces we need for the museum?” Chyna asked.
“I think so, but let’s have a look,” she said, rolling her pin board around so they could see her design.
She had printed pictures of each item she had selected and pinned them to an enlarged copy of the alcove floor plan in the places she thought made the most sense. There was a good mix of the more unique, singular items, such as statuettes, jars and jewelry, placed on the pedestals while the collections of plates, coins and weapons were situated in the rear display cases. It was perfect for an initial showing of the horde.
“I don’t even know why I came,” Chyna said shaking her head. “You could have handled this all on your own, Lana. Good job!”
“Thanks, Boss lady,” she replied beaming.
“So tomorrow I want us to separate the items we’ll put on show and do our own verification on them. For the rest, I just want us to check the work Dr. Epstein’s people already did, label and package everything and get them into the secure storage facility at the museum.”
“That shouldn’t take us m
ore than three days or so,” Lana said.
“That’s good because I think our biggest task is going to be getting that alcove looking like a million dollar showpiece. Once everything is in Fatma’s hands, we’ll need to sit down and come up with the look and feel of the exhibit. Could you find out from her who does her print media?”
“I’ll do that.”
“Oscar, is the equipment all checked out? Is it safe to use?”
“I wish I had good news for you, Chyna,” he began, “but it looks like whoever took it couldn’t hack it without getting online. They knew we’d be able to track it once they did that and they would have had no way of telling how fast we’d be able to locate them. So instead of taking that risk they uploaded about three thousand different viruses into the brain. Nigel’s still trying to isolate them. The only good news is, we haven’t lost any data or infected the main server.”
“I’m satisfied with that. You two keep doing what you’re doing. I made a call to Fatma’s contact, Bjorn Gunnarsson in Oslo. He gave me a little insight into what he thought we might be dealing with as far as the falcon is concerned, and then he put me on to a woman in Stockholm called Inga Mannusson at the Swedish History Museum. According to Inga, it sounds like Lana could be right. Based on the description I gave her, she thinks that the finial we have is a part of a two piece set. She said she has something similar on display at the museum there which could very well be the other one. I sent over the pictures to her so she could see what it is we have. I’m thinking I’ll hear back from her later tonight or tomorrow.
Other than that, I called Agent Stewart and told him about our troubles here. If we come across any more strife, he promised to get us any backup we might need from the embassy here, but he also warned me that the situation in Homs is getting worse and if the embassy decides to close he advises that we pack it up immediately and get out on one of their evacuation lifts. I’m not pleased about that; we’ve never had to abandon an assignment before but I guess if the country plunges into civil war the last thing on anyone’s mind is going to be a museum exhibit.
Chapter Four
While Chyna sorted through the pieces at the warehouse, ran tests and packaged up the relics, Oscar verified all the information that Dr. Epstein’s scientists had entered in the database and made corrections to some of the entries. They excluded everything that had been recorded about the Phoenician Falcon, as they had nicknamed it, and put that data into a separate file. Lana busied herself at the museum supervising the painting of the walls, cleaning of the display cases, lighting installations, security system upgrades and finalizing the layout. Fatma had brought in her media people and Lana had ordered the banners, storyboards and pamphlets from them. Oscar had already laid out some chic, modern designs for the entire thing that they had all liked.
By Friday that week, all the pieces from the warehouse were crated, labeled and categorized and being delivered to the museum for secured storing. Chyna was relieved to turn them over; she still wasn’t quite sure what to expect from whoever had hijacked their computers at the airport. With a whole week to get everything completed for the opening, they were way ahead of schedule so Chyna decided to lend Fatma a hand with the finer details. Lana and Oscar spent the afternoon running tests on the security systems and when they were satisfied, they set up all the items in their respective cases and admired their handy work. The collections looked magnificent; the lighting was complementary to each piece and the progression of the displays was flawless. All that was left was for the storyboards and banners to be hung and they had made arrangements to get that done the day before the opening.
Everything seemed to be right on track until they got back to the hotel that night. There were several messages from Nigel for Chyna to contact him on the secure office line because he didn’t want to discuss the issue over the public airwaves.
Quickly she dialed the number and Nigel picked up instantly.
“Nigel, I’m sorry but we just got in. What’s going on?”
Chyna pressed the hands free button and put the phone down on the table so they could all hear what he had to say.
“I managed to isolate and quarantine more than three thousand individual viruses on the computer. They were minor, only a few would have caused any serious complications.”
“That’s good news isn’t it?”
“In and of itself, sure; but there’s more,” he continued. “While I was distracted by the legion, a worm skipped by me and that’s where the problems started. It just gobbled up information at an exponential rate, duplicating and sending file after file before I could stop it. Once I managed to slow it down, I initiated a trace on where the data was being sent to.”
“Did you have any luck?” Oscar asked, eagerly.
“By the time I could stop it I had a good trace. They did an amazing job of trying to hide it; bouncing it off more than a hundred proxy servers all over the world but I tracked the location down to a computer at an internet cafe in downtown Damascus called ‘Hotspot and what not’.”
“Thanks, Nigel,” Oscar said. “Send me that I.P. address and we’ll take it from there. Make sure you upgrade the antivirus on everything today. You know the drill, find out what Emma’s using over at Quantico now.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
With that Nigel killed the call and got right to work.
“They know where we are,” Lana said, solemnly.
“Yes, they do,” Chyna replied.
She took the phone from the table and pressed the speed dial button for Anthony. When he picked up, she stepped away from the others.
“Hi there, beautiful,” he greeted.
“Hi, Babe,” she replied. “It’s not good news, I’m afraid.”
“Tell me,” he said.
“The computer was hacked when Nigel was cleaning up the viruses they uploaded to it. The hacker is right here in Damascus and we really don’t know how much they managed to get before he traced them and terminated the link.”
“Was there anything about the Syrian assignment on it?”
“Just a digital copy of the original communiqué and the dossier.”
“So they know you have access to the falcon.”
“We have to assume that.”
“It’s time to code it then, Babe, you know what to do. I’ll place a call to the local operatives at the embassy and call you back with the name of a handler.”
“It’s going to be hard to go under, Tony,” Chyna advised. “We’ve still got the opening to attend next Friday night.”
“That’s fine; I’ll let my guy know. You just need to get to a safe house with some properly secured communications; isolate yourself from the masses.”
“Got ya!” she agreed. “I’ll wait for your call.”
“Okay, Babe, don’t worry; we’ve got this!”
When Chyna, hung up the phone, she turned to the team with a strange expression on her face.
“We’re on a code red, guys. Pack it all up.”
Lana made arrangements for the rental car company to pick up the Land Cruiser at the hotel and meet her at a local shopping mall with a fully tinted, armored Land Rover later that afternoon. Oscar packed up the equipment and taped each bag shut with tamper proof security tape; if they were to be opened, someone would have to cut it to get inside. Chyna made a call to the ‘Hotspot and what not’ to reserve every computer there for three hours that afternoon and ask the manager to clear it out and shut the place down for them.
About fifteen minutes later, they received a call from F.B.I. Agent Marsha Branch at the U.S. Embassy. She introduced herself as their handler and told Chyna that she was sending a car to take them to one of the agency’s safe houses. They would be assisted by Special Agent Lawrence Major and he would be arriving at their hotel in five minutes. Chyna confirmed the information with her and told her they were packed and ready to go.
The safe house was located in the upscale neighborhood of Malki in the center of the city. Th
ere were eight bedrooms upstairs, each with an ensuite bathroom; downstairs they had a large modern kitchen with fully stocked pantry and fridge, a study, media room, living and dining rooms and a powder room. Off the kitchen were butler’s quarters, which Special Agent Major advised would be his lodgings for the rest of their stay in Damascus. Chyna was happy with the arrangements, she had contacted her usual security detail but Demetri and Thorin were not able to make it for another twenty four hours.
While Lana went with Lawrence to pick up the new rental car, Chyna let Oscar set up in the study while she made a few phone calls. She had to let Fatma know that since they wouldn’t be needed at the museum until Thursday when the printed media arrived, they would be on the road researching the falcon. If she needed them she should call Chyna’s cell phone; she had the number for the secure line. Then she called Anthony to update him on the situation and let him know they were now in good hands. She thanked him for his usual flawless arrangements. There was no need to let anyone else know what was going on yet; Oscar would email Sandra and Sirita to update them.
When Lana and Lawrence came back, everything was ready and Chyna had already printed out the information she received from Inga at the Swedish Museum. They had picked up falafel pitas and gyro sandwiches for lunch. As she put everything on plates, Oscar opened the fridge to look for some beverages.
“I know it’s not my awesome sweet tea,” he started, “but we’ve got Coke, beer and bottled water.”
“I really need a beer,” Chyna announced.