Knight's Cross (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 3)

by Christine Kling

  The young man nodded.

  “We’ll finish up in less than an hour. We’ll join you then.”

  The young man led Riley down the main hallway that overlooked the courtyard. He opened an unmarked door to a beautiful room with sunlight pouring in through the high windows. The furnishings—a desk, armoire, chaise, and chairs—looked like they should have been on display rather than put to everyday use.

  Peter pointed to the liter bottle of water on a side table with several glasses. “There is water there. Can I get you anything else?”

  She shook her head. “No, this is great. Thanks.”

  He slipped out the door. Riley settled down on the chaise with a glass of water and took her notebook and mechanical pencil out of her shoulder bag. She needed to see what she was doing.

  Cole thought it might be a shift cipher, so she’d begin with what she knew about those. She wrote out the cipher word at the top of the page in all caps. VYIPMMLU. Then she wrote out all twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Above the letter F she wrote the letter A and continued through U, then started back at the beginning with V all the way until she wrote Z over E. Then, in soft pencil, she wrote each of the corresponding letters above the cipher text letters. She tried using both alphabets as the cipher text, but the results QTDKHHGP and ADNURRQZ dashed her hope for an early success.

  Over the next half hour she worked her way through different combinations from Cole’s birthdate and wore the eraser on her pencil down to a nub. She used the difference between the month and day, tried adding the digits of the year, used just the number of the day he was born on. Nothing looked remotely like a real word. But then again, so many Maltese place names didn’t look like real words—how could she tell the difference? She used her phone to Google every combination, but she didn’t get any hits.

  When Cole and Najat came through the door, she was no further along in solving the cipher. She closed her notebook and asked, “So, are you now an expert on the Knights of Malta?”

  “He’s barely scratched the surface,” Najat said.

  “What have you been up to?” Cole asked.

  She smiled at him and held up her notebook. “Just playing with numbers.” Riley wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to know about the cipher. “It’s been a long day.”

  “If I had known you were coming,” Najat said, “I wouldn’t have booked this meeting tonight. I would love to take you out to dinner. Some other time, perhaps?”

  Riley said, “Next time for sure.” She got up and joined Cole by the door.

  “Excellent. So what are your plans for tomorrow?”

  Cole said, “I wanted to go see the National War Museum at Fort Saint Elmo in the morning. We leave on a six p.m. flight back to Turkey, so we’ll have some time.”

  “Perhaps I’ll see you there,” she said.

  They thanked Najat and headed for the street.

  “I’m starved,” Riley said. “We never got to eat much of our picnic.”

  “Dr. G. suggested a restaurant along the way back to the ferry dock. They serve Maltese and Italian food, and they’re famous for their rabbit stew.”

  “Weally? Wabbit stew?”

  Cole speeded up his pace. “I think I need to get some food into you.”

  Riley let Cole try the rabbit, while she had an amazing Sicilian seafood stew, which she mopped up with slices of hot and coarse Maltese bread. Seven o’clock was early for dining in Valletta, and there were only two tables occupied in the restaurant when they arrived. The waiter had tried to steer them to a window table, but Cole insisted on a table in the back.

  “At least in here we can be fairly certain no nano drones are going to be cruising by,” Cole said.

  “I’m worried about where that guy got hold of a drone that tiny. Seriously. I think that means he has military connections.”

  “Since he is your old boyfriend who used to work for the CIA, I don’t think you should be so surprised.”

  Riley was about to insist again that there was no way that man was Diggory, when the waiter came by to clear their dishes and tell them about their choices for dessert.

  Once the waiter returned to his post at the end of the bar, she realized that he had saved her from falling back into the same routine. She was supposed to be trying to help Cole, not criticizing him. She decided to change the subject. She told Cole about her efforts with the cipher text.

  “I don’t have any idea whether or not I’m on the right course.”

  “The double letters trouble me.”

  “I thought about that. I decided to look into common double letters, and which letters were never doubled in English.”

  “That doesn’t help much,” Cole said. “Only Q and Z never appear doubled in any words.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I found out. Words like vacuum and glowworm aren’t common, but they exist. Still, words that end with double consonants followed by two letters are not uncommon. Get it? UNCOMMON? That one could be our word.”

  Cole shook his head. “You’re getting silly,” he said.

  “So what’s your theory?”

  “I remember my dad telling me that he would sometimes introduce double letters like that to throw people off. In fact, the original word doesn’t have to have doubled letters. There’s another type of shift cipher called a variable-shift cipher. That means that the amount you shift varies for each letter of the cipher.”

  “Oh, great.” Riley pulled her notebook and pencil out of her bag. “Look.” She riffled through the pages she had filled that afternoon. “With a simple shift cipher, it took me four pages to get nowhere.”

  “No, that was good. It’s just as important to rule things out. You may not have found the right answer, but you ruled out lots of wrong ones.”

  “Fine,” she said. “So explain to me how a variable-shift cipher might work.”

  “Okay. Start with a clean alphabet on your page.”

  “Got it,” she said. “Right here.”

  “And you’ve got the cipher text on the page, too. Good. The cipher text is eight letters long, so we are looking for a number that is also eight digits.”

  “So that’s like tens of millions, right?”

  “It could be. But it could also be several numbers strung together. Have you thought about the distance between the real towns that are mentioned? There are four real towns, and if all the distances are in double digits, that would give us eight digits.”

  “Great. And we don’t even have a map of Malta here.”

  “You could use a map app on your phone.”

  Riley took out her phone and opened the browser. She had the entire passage from the journal stored in a note there. Then she set the phone down on the table next to her notebook.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Eight digits. I was just thinking. I was so sure it was going to have something to do with your birthdate, and then I thought—look.” She wrote the date of his birthday on the page with no slash marks or dashes between the numbers. 11191973. “See? November 19, 1973. It’s eight digits.”

  “Excellent,” Cole said. “So here’s how it works. Draw a grid with three rows of eight boxes. Write the cipher text in the middle row and the number key in the top row.”

  “Okay.” Riley drew the boxes. “This is starting to feel rather familiar.”

  “Now, for the first letter you have the letter V and the number 1. That means you shift one place to the right of V. For Y, you shift one place right to get Z.”

  “I’ve got it.” Riley counted off the spaces in her alphabet and soon had the letters WZJYNVSX written in the bottom box.

  “Crap,” Cole said. “That doesn’t even look like one of these weird Maltese words.”

  Riley took a sip of her wine and stared at the boxes. She had felt so sure they were on the right track when she’d realized Cole’s birthdate had the same number of digits.

  “Wait a minute. Remember when we were in the Caribbean and trying to follow your father’s clues to find S
urcouf? It often turned out that he did things in the opposite way you would expect. The natural thing is to shift right. I’ve been doing that all afternoon as I’ve tried different combinations. What if we shift backward? Go left.”

  “Oh, yeah. That sounds just like James Thatcher. Try it.”

  There wasn’t any eraser left on her pencil, so Riley crossed out the bottom row and drew a fourth row of boxes. She wrote the new letters in the boxes and came up with UVHGLDER. She dropped the pencil into the crease for the book’s binding and sighed.

  “I give up,” she said. “Let’s go back to Alex’s place and get some sleep.”

  Aboard the HMS Upholder

  Off the Coast of Tunisia

  April 9, 1942

  Tug was resting in the bunk he shared with one of the other officers, when he heard low voices speaking in Arabic. He sat up and swung his feet down to the steel deck. One of the two agents had been vomiting every night when the sub surfaced to run the diesel engines. Tonight, that would be a big problem.

  He grabbed a chart of the coast he’d been memorizing and made his way forward to the ratings’ mess. He found the two Arabs sitting there drinking tea. Tug slid onto the bench seat, and he made eye contact with the man seated across the table.

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Ben-sheikh Mohammed.” The man’s accent sounded more like London than Tunis.

  “Okay. Ben.” Tug turned to the other man on the seat next to him. “And you?”

  “Raheeb.”

  That one kept his eyes averted, so Tug decided the leader was the man opposite him. He turned to face the first man.

  “How are you both feeling?”

  “We will be fine,” Ben said.

  “We can’t make any noise going in, and these past few nights your buddy there has been making quite a racket in the latrine. Not sure if he just caught the Malta dog or if he gets seasick.”

  “You do not have to worry about us.”

  “That’s my job.”

  Ben eyed him with a look that told Tug the Arabs didn’t expect any special treatment. Tug liked that.

  “What brings you here?” Tug asked.

  “I was studying in London. Economics. I saw an advert for native Arabic speakers.”

  “But you’re Tunisian, right?”

  Ben nodded.

  “And a Muslim?”

  He nodded again.

  “So why risk your neck sending messages about troop and ship movements to your country’s enemies?”

  “It is not about religion. I don’t care for the French. Or the Germans. Or the Italians. I hope when this is over, my country will be independent. I believe our best chance for that is with the British.”

  Tug nodded. “Fair enough.” He looked back at the chart on the table. “Has either of you spent much time in small boats?”

  “As little as possible.”

  Tug laughed. “I can see why.”

  “Just get us to shore and keep our radios dry.”

  “I will. Look, we’re going to be landing you on the coast just to the north of Sousse. This afternoon we went in close and had a bit of a look through the periscope. Have you ever been there?”

  “Me, no. But Raheeb is familiar with the area.” Ben turned to the other man, and they spoke in Arabic.

  Tug didn’t like them talking and him not understanding.

  Ben turned back. “I apologize. Raheeb speaks little English. Only French and Arabic. He grew up in this part of the world. He has an uncle in Sousse. That’s where we’re going to stay.”

  “Good.” Tug unrolled the chart and spread it out on the table between them. “Can you ask him about this area?” He rubbed his finger over the section of coast where they intended to land. “We saw some buildings there. Are they inhabited? I’d appreciate any help your mate can offer us regarding what we’re going to find ashore.”

  The only charts available to them had not been updated in more than twenty years. The chart showed the village of Sousse as not much more than a dot. Tug had already experienced many inaccuracies between what their charts showed and what he actually found when he got there. This coastline had really grown up in the years between the wars.

  The two men spoke some more, and then Ben translated. “There are a few houses that far outside town, but not many. There are families living in the houses. But he says we should be able to find a deserted section of beach.”

  “And what about the railway line? Captain Simpson suggested you might use that to find your way into town.”

  Ben translated for Raheeb, who nodded and then traced his finger on the chart as he spoke.

  “Raheeb says he likes this idea to follow the railroad. He knows the area well.”

  “How far inland will you have to walk to reach the tracks? We couldn’t see the railway through the periscope today.”

  Ben conferred with Raheeb again. The other man raised his voice and pointed to an area on the chart. He shook his head. Ben seemed to be trying to calm him down. Then he translated. “It is about two kilometers inland. He says that here in this area”—Ben pointed to the section of the coast that had made Raheeb so animated—“there is a bridge over a ravine. It is a very narrow-gauge railroad, and he says it would be too dangerous to cross at night. Once, when he was a boy, he saw some children playing on the bridge, and another boy his age fell to his death. He says you should be sure to drop us south of that area.”

  Charlie appeared in the doorway to the mess. “What are you chaps up to?”

  “Just going over the mission and the chart. Turns out our friend Raheeb”—Tug nodded at the man—“grew up around here. He’s pointing out where the railroad is. They’re going to follow it into the town. And he says there’s a bridge right about here.” Tug put his finger on the chart and then looked up at his partner.

  “Does he, now?” Charlie said.

  “Says we should drop them off to the south of it and land them about here.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Ben, let me explain how this is going to work. We’ll tow you two in the rubber boat. We won’t be landing with you. We have another mission to accomplish after we set you blokes adrift. As soon as we get close to the surf line, we’ll release you. Can either of you swim?”

  Ben spoke in Arabic and Raheeb shook his head. Then Ben said, “I can.”

  “Hopefully, your boat will stay upright through the surf. If not, hang on to the boat. It will carry you to the beach.”

  Ben nodded. “And once ashore, we bury the boat, right?”

  “Right.” Tug looked at his watch. “We have about six hours before we launch. Get him to eat some bread,” he said, indicating Raheeb. “It might settle his stomach. Then try to rest. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  The National War Museum at Fort Saint Elmo

  Valletta, Malta

  April 13, 2014

  The streets of Valletta were nearly empty of tourists at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. Cole didn’t like the quiet. Though in fact it would have been easier for someone to follow them on crowded streets, the silence felt spooky. On the bright side, he’d certainly notice a drone if it got near.

  “Cole, slow down. We’ve got plenty of time, and I’d like to take some photos.”

  Ahead of them was a horse and carriage parked in a special taxi stand just for carriages. The driver was asleep on the front seat. He apparently didn’t expect much Sunday morning traffic, either.

  After she finished taking photos, Riley fell back into step next to Cole. They were following the perimeter road at the top of the fortified walls. The road would lead out to Fort Saint Elmo, where the museum was located.

  “You’re awfully quiet this morning,” she said. “You’ve hardly said a word since breakfast.”

  “I’m trying to figure out who’s behind this.”

  “Oh, Cole, it’s a gorgeous, sunny morning in Malta.” She reached up and stretched her arms toward the sky. The sun shone on the sun-bl
eached streaks in her hair.

  Cole thought she looked great, and in other circumstances he would like nothing more than to stop and kiss her. But these were not those circumstances. They were in danger, and he had to figure out what was going on before something happened to her. “Riley, you saw the drone.”

  “I did.”

  “You chased a man, and he shot at you. He could have killed you, and it would have been my fault.”

  “Cole, you’re not responsible for what some crazy guy did.”

  “But I’m the reason you were there.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m the reason I was there. I make my own decisions, and I choose to be here by your side.”

  Cole didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Besides,” she said. “If he just wanted to kill us, we’d be dead.”

  She was right. He’d had plenty of opportunity to kill them. It would have been easy to shoot them and push their bodies into the harbor yesterday. Instead, he had used a drone.

  “What would a drone like that be used for in the military?”

  “Cole, I’ve been out of the service for a long time, so I have no idea what sort of tech they have now, other than what I read online. But I don’t think something that small would be weaponized. It must be for surveillance only.”

  “So it was loaded with a camera and microphone.”

  “Probably,” she said.

  “What were we talking about just before we saw it?”

  “The cipher text,” she said. “You spelled it out, and I said that your birthday was possibly a key.”

  “And you think the drone recorded that.”

  Riley put the lens cap back on her own camera. “Yup,” she said.

  “Shit.”

  “I agree.”

  The National War Museum proved to be better than Cole had expected. When they bought their tickets, it looked like they were the only patrons that morning. At first, the guy in the booth couldn’t even find the tickets under his plate of breakfast and coffee cup.

  They walked from one exhibit to the next, silently reading the placards and looking at the displays. After all the research he had done in their searches for the World War II ships in the Caribbean and the Philippines, it was fascinating to see what had been going on in Malta during the same period. The museum showed several films with real footage of the terrible bombing raids Malta suffered during the siege. From the time Italy entered the war, Malta suffered constant bombings. Tons of explosives fell on the little island every day, and few supply ships could get through. The population was on the verge of starvation.