by K. T. Tomb
“I know it is.”
“And it's time.”
“Yeah, it is. Let’s go shoot some moose.”
The End
Chyna Stone returns in:
The Rosary Riddle
A Chyna Stone Adventure #7
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THE
ROSARY
RIDDLE
A Chyna Stone Adventure
#7
by
K.T. TOMB
The Rosary Riddle
Prologue
RSS feed. Lana Ambrose, 2014
The Queen: Isabella, ‘The Catholic’ of Castile and Leon was born on April 22, 1451, at Madrigal de las Altas Torres, to King Juan II and Queen Isabella of Castile. King Juan had ascended the throne when he was only 14 in 1419. His mother and his uncle, King Ferdinand I of Aragon, had both acted as regents during his teenage years. His first wife, Maria of Aragon, produced a male heir, Enrique, born in 1425, before she died in 1445. King Juan took on a second wife, Isabella, a bride sent from Portugal, in 1447, suggested by his trusted confidant, Don Álvaro de Luna. Although Juan was nearly 15 years older than Isabella, the two were a faithful and loving couple, and produced two children: Isabella, and a boy, Alfonso, born in 1453. Isabella saw Juan as controlled by Luna, and she urged his independence. Juan listened to his wife and finding Luna suspicious, had him executed the same year of Alfonos's birth. A year after Alfonso's birth, King Juan died at the age of 49, supposedly overcome by grief of losing Luna. Enrique was crowned King of Castile, and two years later he married the sister of King Alfonso V of Portugal, Juana, in May of 1445.
Chapter One
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.” -Pope John XXIII
Chyna Stone had never gotten along with God. Although an archaeologist by profession and used to dealing with the remnants of the religious pasts and sentiments of civilizations, she had never felt any direct affinity with the entity referred to as God. He was, for her, an idea that provided balance to the imbalanced, light to the darkened, and comfort to the lonely. He had always been a question of belief in her mind, a chimera of an omnipresent, omnipotent entity that she found hard to believe in. On that note, she was thankful for the secular surroundings passing through the streets of Geneva in her car; she was finding herself at war between the believer and the skeptical parts of her ever since what had happened in Lithuania.
She had flat out refused to go back to Turkey when the news had come from the destruction of the FBI home offices in Istanbul. Thirty-six agents had lost their lives that day. For the short time they had been established there, the city had become a home to her. Everything she had seen in her future had been based on her new life there. She was used to waking up to the Istanbul sun and going to sleep staring at the skyline of the city.
Now, it was as ruined for her as her heart. The bustling shops might have been on fire, and the beautiful, charming Hagia Sophia might have been the carcass of the time it was a remnant of. The sun seemed to burn through her skin, the sky seemed to darken her eyes more than they already were. Though she was grimly hanging onto her illusion of self-sufficiency, the light truly had gone out of Chyna Stone's life and had been replaced by mistrust, anger and regret. Things she abhorred with all her being and yet found herself completely consumed by.
Anthony Stewart was dead to her, or at least that was the little lie she held on to. All she wanted to do was to delete him from her mind, a dark part of a life that could have been. What was there that she could do to erase fifteen years of her life with Tony, from the minute they first talked in the cafeteria at Quantico to Dresden, where she sat with Mark bleeding in her arms; and a smug Tony circling her like a vulture would a carrion corpse.
Chyna Stone had been a strong woman in every sense of the word. She was tenacious, adventurous, eager, participative and had the physical ability to bring down a mammoth. Now, she felt weaker than ever, more emotionally than physically. She felt as if she crossed a void just trying to get back to the normal pace that she was used to. Even then, nothing was right, nothing quite fit. The air sat bitter in her lungs, and her eyes itched and reddened unbidden.
***
On her arrival, Chyna saw that the house was different from the rendezvous points that she was used to occupying with the Found History team. She thanked Lana mentally for not going overboard with the accommodations that she had secured and looked with hope at the apartment building. Set in the heart of the city with bustling crowds, it provided the perfect anonymity that Chyna seemed to crave these days. Maybe the busy environment would be just what she needed. She might be alone in love, but she knew she would never be alone in life with the people waiting for her inside this building. Her surrogate family, she had discovered, meant more to her than the partnership she had lost.
She parked the black, armored Range Rover in a vacant parking spot and made her way inside. No one stopped her; the concierge team clearly had been informed that she was coming. Security, however, was tighter than ever. Her team had the top floor to themselves, with only the private elevator to reach it, for which only Chyna and her team had keycards. Anybody else was required to check in with the front desk concierge and await clearance.
Chyna picked up her small duffel bag and walked uncomfortably toward the elevator under the impassive gaze of the moderately attractive woman behind the front desk. Two months in Alaska and she was still paranoid, a nightmarish thought formed in her mind as she swiped the card and the elevator began its journey. Tony was still out there somewhere. He had inside information on just about everything that she had worked on, every secret she had exposed and artifact she had recovered. Hell, he had provided indispensable back up on almost all her missions. It was only a matter of time before the proverbial shit hit the fan.
The ping of the elevator brought her back to the real world. She hoisted her bag over her shoulder, took the card and swiped it at the only door in the hallway, and it let her in. She held her breath as she entered but exhaled deeply at the sight of them all. She had not anticipated the relief she would feel seeing her team together again.
“Chyna.” Oscar was the first one to rush over to her. She was engulfed in his friendly arms, and she nearly choked at the thought of how much she had missed him.
“Hey, Oscar.” She smiled at him. “How've you been?” she asked him, and she could see the wariness in his eyes, as if she might break and begin sobbing like a little girl right there. Was she so fragile in appearance?
“Good, good. You?” She nodded.
“Better now that you are here. You’ll be pleased to hear we have beaucoup work ahead of us.” He waved an arm to draw her attention to a table brimming with folders and laptops. Clearly the team had not been idle in her absence. She looked over his shoulder to see Lana and Sirita, and she didn’t wait for them to come to her, crossing the room and wrapping them both in a firm embrace. Too firm for Sirita, who gasped slightly under the pressure of Chyna’s biceps. Chyna murmured an apology and relaxed her arms slightly to allow Sirita to draw breath. There was a moment of silence as the three of them hugged. Chyna felt great affection toward her girls, the tacit camaraderie that negated the need for words to describe emotions, fears, pain. When one of them hurt, all of them did, and Chyna’s pain was evident.
“How's married life treating you, Lana?” Chyna smiled at her friend, and tried to put in some semblance of true joy into it.
“It’s suiting me, to say the least.” Lana smiled at Chyna, but she didn’t go further despite her clear ebullience; any talk about the course of true love was evidently the last thing Chyna needed. Sirita broke the potentially uncomfortable moment by hugging Chyna again, this time with her arms over her employer’s.
“I missed you so much, Chyna.” Chyna returned the embrace with war
mth, or at least as much as she could summon.
“I believe I get the same reception?” A voice boomed from the corner of the room, and she raised her head from Sirita’s shoulder to see the only man she had been eager to see for the past two months; misandry being an easier path to tread than acceptance.
Mark Gunnar seemed like he had aged a decade since she last saw him. His blond hair—which had once been kept in flowing locks—was now shorter and cropped close to his head. The blue of his eyes was now more ice than azure, and he still winced when he raised his left arm. The doctors had been able to restore the use of it, but the same couldn't be said for its efficiency. In time, full function would return. Chyna noticed he was walking with a cane; a huge medical boot on his right foot. She had heard about his fall down several flights of stairs after he had failed to grasp a railing with his injured hand. His heel and ankle had been shattered.
Chyna felt that she had some kind of silent bond with Mark after all that had happened to them, and although Mark would never admit it, the feeling was clearly mutual. Friendships made in crisis situations had a habit of forming those kinds of links and Chyna was reminded of the similar bond she had once shared with Tony. Mark had seen the worst of betrayals in that church. The thoughts sent pangs of guilt at her own self-absorption running up Chyna’s spine. Her emotions had been hurt, tortured even, but he had received much more tangible and more permanent wounds.
“Mark.” Her smile softened and felt genuine. She was truly happy to see him.
“Chyna.” He walked over to where she was and engulfed her in his arms, and she felt her first feel of normalcy and warmth since she stepped foot in Geneva.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Ready for a marathon,” he said, tapping the cane on his leg and wincing slightly with an exaggerated hop. He was actually joking with her, despite everything that she had gotten him into in Dresden. Finally, a genuine feeling, a strange gurgling in her throat. It was a laugh.
She didn't need anything more than that, at least for now. Sirita picked up her bag and showed her to her bedroom.
***
“I think we need to talk about Tony,” Chyna announced abruptly. They were in the middle of a discussion led by Lana about an email request that Sandra had forwarded from the New York office, but Chyna found she couldn’t concentrate without getting what was troubling her off her chest. Lana stood open mouthed, cut off mid-sentence. There was dead silence in the room. Everyone had turned to stare at her like she was going to explode. Chyna ignored the looks and continued.
“I think he has something else up his sleeve. He has a plan, and we need to know what it is,” she said.
Oscar began to speak, but she silenced him with a wave of her hand.
“No one keeps up pretenses for that long unless they have an elaborate plan, Oscar. There must be something else, something we’re missing,” she said.
“Chyna, listen to me,” Oscar said, and this time he closed the laptop and stood up. “We should forget them.”
“Forget who?” Chyna said, with a raised eyebrow.
“Tony, the Illuminati, whatever—they're gone. They are old news, for us at least. It's been two months. I think if they had a game plan, they would have acted on it. After all, they are as out of the closet now as they could ever be.”
“They waited fifteen years, Oscar. Fifteen years. What's two months?” Chyna countered.
“We can act on it later, Chyna. Right now, we need to concentrate on this email Sandra sent us. It's a good opportunity, Chyna. It's freaking Asia for God's sake. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick of Europe and the goddamned Middle East,” Oscar said.
“Oscar, there will never be a better time than now. They think—”
“You know what I think? I think that you are eaten up, Chyna, and who could blame you? None of us do. Tony betrayed you. He betrayed all of us, and your desire for revenge is completely justified. But that's not the way to run things, Chyna; and you know it. I understand you want to get back at him for what he did, but you're blinding yourself with hate. We need you objective and on the mission.” Oscar let out his thoughts, and it was as if the elephant in the room had finally been noticed.
Chyna didn't know whether to feel rage or guilt. She knew Oscar meant well, but the way he had called her out was unacceptable to her. He had all but accused her of being an unthinking bitch looking for blood. She set her teeth and fixed him with a glare that quickly reminded him who was the boss and that he had stepped over the line.
“Oscar, trust me. I am completely in control of my faculties, and hear me when I say this; I spent two months without him, without any of you and it's given me perspective. I have thought about this long and hard. The Tony we knew never did things half-heartedly. He always had a plan and he knew when to execute it. You and I both know where it got him. We made a mistake once, and I'd like it if we didn’t make the same one again. I just know he had a reason for coming out when he did. My instincts scream out loud when I think of it. He had a plan and it’s moving to the next stage. The Ivory Bow was just a part of the puzzle, albeit a seemingly important one.” She found that she had stood up from the table and was pounding it with one fist; as if she were hammering for a clue about her erstwhile lover’s next move.
“Chyna, maybe Oscar is—” Lana began to say, but Lana brooked no argument.
“He had a plan and it’s moving to the next stage,” Chyna stated with finality.
With that, she walked out. Meeting adjourned. How dare they betray her now? She felt like screaming at all of them. Why couldn’t they see that she was right?
Chapter Two
RSS feed. Lana Ambrose, 2014
Reuters World News
Bouts of madness plague the faithful in Spain
Several strange cases of spontaneous madness in individuals visiting some of Spain’s most auspicious religious sites and cathedrals have reported all over the country. The latest occurrence has seen four persons visiting the Santa Iglesia Catedral de Córdoba falling into bouts of unexplained mild insanity. The four have remained on the premises of the church, undisturbed for days during which they have conducted lengthy rants about religious purpose and their work for God, have not bathed, slept or eaten. Well-wishers and concerned members of the public have been bringing food for the people who have now become known as the Mezquita pilgrims.
As she stormed out of the living room and into her bedroom, Chyna felt bad about how she’d treated her team. They were her only family now, and she had disregarded their input like a petty call center boss demanding hours at the desk from her workers. They had been with her in her lowest moments, albeit only in heart and mind rather than in body and she saw that her behavior toward them had been unwarranted. Maybe they were right. Maybe she was consumed by her desire for revenge. Had she lost her vaunted objectivity? Without her ability to pull herself back from a situation, see it from an impartial viewpoint, what use was she to Found History? She hadn’t even allowed anyone else to speak, to fill her in on what had happened in her absence.
No.
She knew she was right. She felt it in her bones. It was harder to trust her instinct now, yes, but she had known Tony intimately for fifteen years. And Chyna was nothing if not observant; despite missing that he would betray her, there was no possible way he could have hidden everything, there must be a clue in their joint history. He had a game plan, and she was sure that something must have happened to have made him reveal his carefully concealed identity and his so called reborn Illuminati. Anger be damned, she was going to get to the bottom of it.
“Chyna,” Mark called to her. She turned to see him in leaning against the doorway with his cane supporting his bad leg.
“Not now, Mark. I know—”
“I’m not here to berate you. Oscar just found something. We think you should see this.” His voice was grave, and it was only then that she noticed the worry lines on his face, more pronounced than before his ordeal.
“Okay,” she said and she followed him back into the living room, expecting some kind of reaction or at least castigation for her behavior, but found that everyone was more focused on the lone laptop screen and their phones than her. Something was definitely up.
“What’s going on?” she asked, and it was only then that they looked up. Yet, no one mentioned the incident that had taken place just moments ago, and for that she was thankful for their compassion.
“They’re gone,” Lana said. “The artifacts that we recovered on our adventures and expeditions? They’ve all been stolen.”
“What?!” Chyna’s eyes widened. “How?”
“We don’t know yet.” Sirita said, but her eyes were still boring into the laptop. “But we’re on it.”
“How could this have happened?” Chyna shook her head. “I mean, they’ve all been kept under proper security in their respective locations, right?”
“Yes, they have, but someone—or some people—got to them and stole them all, every last one.” The worry lines were stark on Oscar’s face.
“Everything? The Codex? The Armor?”
“Everything, Chyna. Every single thing we’ve ever recovered is gone,” Oscar said grimly.
“Not everything,” Sirita piped up. “The Minoan Mask is still in the University museum, and obviously the Babylonian display can’t just be put into the back of a pickup truck. There’s a pattern here though. It’s not much to go on, but there is.”
“What is it?” Lana said.
“Who owned the Codex?” Sirita said, standing up and wiping the whiteboard clear of numerous bubble charts and notes in many different hands and colored markers. She pulled the top off a fresh black marker and wrote codex on the whiteboard, in the top left corner, and looked at Chyna.