The Oracle's Message

by Alex Archer

Annja smiled. “Glad to help.”

  Spier nodded. “And of course you’re welcome to join us. I would miss your presence if you were not with us.”

  “As would I,” Hans said quietly.

  She smiled at him. “All right, then. I may take the afternoon and see if I can pull anything up on my computer about some of the things we’ve discussed.”

  Spier shrugged. “As you wish. I doubt you’ll find anything that would put us off our quest, however. My faith is, as is the faith of my team, very strong.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Annja said. “But until such time as I have faith of my own, I’ll stick to facts.”

  Spier smiled. “We’ll see you later, then.”

  He walked out into the pouring rain and quickly disappeared from view. The rest of the team dissolved into smaller conversations in quiet German that Annja could barely make out.

  Hans seemed happy to simply sit close by. “Still feeling well?”

  Annja nodded. “Totally. No problems at all. Just a bit tired.”

  Hans smiled. “Nothing like an afternoon nap to restore your energy.”

  Annja winked. “I suppose that would depend on exactly what the nap entails, wouldn’t it?”

  Hans leaned back. “I am a true believer in the power of a siesta.”

  “And what about an afternoon delight?”

  “Afternoon delight?”

  Annja sighed. “Never mind. If I have to explain it, then it’s already lost its appeal.”

  Hans narrowed his eyes, but after a moment he grinned. “Ah…I think I understand now.”

  “Do you?”

  “I suppose there would be only one way to find out for sure.”

  Annja grinned. “A fact-finding mission?”

  Hans shrugged. “Reconnaissance.”

  Annja nodded. “Recon works for me.”

  Hans smiled.

  Annja stood and yawned. “Guess I’ll grab a nap.”

  She walked out into the pouring rain.

  Hans followed.

  10

  When Annja woke a few hours later, rain continued to pelt the cabana. She’d left the veranda open again, welcoming the gusting winds. She looked out from the bed and watched as the waves battled one another beneath the dark clouds.

  A quick glance at her watch told her that it was after five in the evening. Presumably, dinner would be served soon in the main pavilion. But before she ate another meal, Annja wanted to do some research.

  She eased herself out from under Hans’s arm. He shifted, mumbling in his sleep. Annja looked down at him and smiled. He was handsome even with his eyes closed.

  She took a quick shower and dressed, then eased out the door, running softly down the main path toward the administration building. She could have used her own computer, of course, but she wanted a little privacy, and since she had a guest with her, it seemed a better idea to do this without Hans looking over her shoulder.

  She made it to the administration building without getting too wet. The rain seemed to be letting up some, but as soon as she thought that, another crash of thunder broke and the intensity of the rain kicked up another notch.

  She stood in front of the main desk and looked at the smiling woman sitting there. “Do you have internet access here?”

  “Of course. We have a bank of computers you can use.”

  Annja smiled. Even in the remotest places on earth you could still manage to access Google.

  The woman led her to a small room tucked away off the main corridor close to the dining pavilion. Annja entered and found the room was cooled with a small air conditioner. She welcomed the cool, dry feeling of the room, and sat down behind the computer.

  She spent the better part of the next two hours researching everything from lost civilizations to rumors of giant oysters. What she found didn’t do much to refute Spier’s theories, but neither did it support them.

  Rumors of lost civilizations were as plentiful as ever, but there was little proof to suggest that any had ever actually existed. Every few years someone seemed to come out with a new theory on their existence and why expeditions should be launched to discover if they were, in fact, real. But no one ever seemed to come back with any proof.

  Giant oysters, on the other hand, were real enough, and Annja found several newspaper accounts of oysters reportedly three times the size of a man’s hand. Pacific oysters, especially, seemed to be something of a nuisance to mussels and some naturalists called the oyster a plague that was spreading throughout the world’s oceans.

  Of course, whether any oyster or giant clam could produce a pearl the size of the one Spier was seeking was another question entirely. Annja did find mention of another large pearl, the Pearl of Allah, which had been located by a diver right in Palawan itself back in 1934. It measured an astonishing nine inches across, but didn’t resemble a stereotypical pearl at all. The Pearl of Allah was lumpy and misshapen. Of course, that didn’t mean it was worthless. Recent estimates had placed its value at around forty-two million dollars.

  Annja leaned back. Maybe there was something to Spier’s story, after all. A giant pearl didn’t seem to be out of the realm of possibility. Even if they weren’t smooth and round and black like the one in Spier’s story.

  Interesting.

  Annja did a little more digging, this time on Spier himself. What she found didn’t do much to help build a story around him. From what she was able to dig up, Joachim Spier was a self-made man who had started building his fortune after he got involved with investing. Teaching himself to be a day trader, Spier made millions and then invested those proceeds further, exponentially increasing his net worth. It was rumored that he now possessed a net worth of roughly one billion dollars, making him one of Germany’s wealthiest individuals.

  Prior to becoming an investment guru, Spier had served in the German military after World War II, eventually earning his parachute wings as one of the famed parachute commandos. There wasn’t much to Spier’s service record and several sections had been blacked out.

  After his discharge from the military, Spier lived in Munich and married his high-school sweetheart. Spier’s wife died from cancer in the late 1970s. They never had children. Spier never remarried, but then became something of a recluse. He was generous in his charity work, though, especially to foundations devoted to prolonging life.

  Annja sighed. Was Spier after some kind of fountain of youth?

  But at eighty, why had he only started looking for the pearl now? If he was so concerned about his vitality, wouldn’t he have started looking for it long ago?

  On a whim, she started to type in Hans’s name but then realized she didn’t know his last name. She switched her query and typed in news about German involvement in the Afghanistan war. She found a few articles detailing the friendly fire incidents that had caused so much political strife back in Germany. But there was one site that listed the extensive number of German casualties in the war. It seems they hadn’t all been pulled out, after all.

  But she found nothing much about German special-operations units deployed to Afghanistan aside from several German media reports that claimed up to twelve members of a KSK unit, which Annja learned stood for Kommando Spezialkräfte, had been killed. Whether Hans’s teammates were included in that number, she wasn’t sure. But Annja had been around enough soldiers involved in special operations to know that what happened and what got reported were often at opposite points in their peculiar universe.

  It was certainly reasonable to assume that Hans was telling her the truth about the failed operation. Certainly, other units had been bungled in their handling by higher-ups and bureaucrats before.

  She switched off the computer and got up from the desk. She could have stayed in the cool room awhile longer. She was completely dry, but checking her watch, she also discovered she was ravenous.

  Nothing like a lot of swimming to remind you how to eat, she thought.

  Outside, the pavilion was largely subdued and the rain c
ontinued to fall steadily. Annja doubted that Spier would be able to get his night dive in tonight.

  “And I thought I might have scared you off.”

  Annja jumped a little and turned. Hans stood there grinning at her. He looked freshly showered and shaved.

  Annja blushed. “No. I just needed to check some things out.”

  He frowned. “You couldn’t check them out in your room?”

  “You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  Hans grinned. “I apparently overexerted myself this afternoon.”

  “Apparently.”

  “You hungry?”

  Annja nodded. “Famished.”

  While they dined, other team members came in and sat with them. Annja watched the pounding surf and shook her head. “Feels like monsoon season around here today.”

  Gottlieb, who hadn’t said much so far to Annja, nodded. “I hear from the weather report that this may continue into tomorrow morning.”

  Hans sighed. “Not much chance of a night dive, it would appear.”

  “Gut,” Gottlieb said. “Then we can sleep in a little bit. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been quite tired.”

  “I could do with an early night,” Annja said. When no one said anything, she attacked her salad with renewed interest.

  “So, Annja, did you manage to find some time to do research?”

  The new voice belonged to Spier. He held a plate in front of him and sat down at their table. Annja noted he had a large pile of food again. She nodded at his meal and smiled. “I wish I could eat that much without putting on any weight.”

  Spier smiled. “It’s all in how you keep yourself active.”

  Annja shook her head. “I don’t know many eighty-year-old men who can eat like you do, Joachim.”

  He leaned closer. “I’d wager you don’t know many eighty-year-olds that are anything like me.”

  “That’s true. You’re quite unique.”

  Spier laughed. “Ha, always a pleasure to be an oddity, I suppose.” He bit into his steak. “So, tell me, what did you find out?”

  “Nothing much on lost civilizations. Just that a lot of people I would probably label as crazy seem to believe in them.”

  “I’m crazy now?”

  “No, you seem sane enough.”

  Hans chuckled. “That’s only because you don’t know him well yet.”

  Gottlieb joined in the laughter and Spier seemed to revel in it. “He’s right, Annja. Once you get to know me, you’ll see I’m just as crazy as any of those people on the internet.”

  Annja smiled. “Wonderful.”

  “But seriously, did you find anything of interest?”

  Annja shrugged. “Did you know about the Pearl of Allah?”

  Spier smiled. “Ah, so you did find out something.”

  “Nine inches across supposedly.”

  Spier nodded. “It is indeed.”

  “So finding a giant pearl isn’t necessarily out of the question.”

  Spier leaned closer. “Did you read the description of the pearl?”

  Annja nodded. “They said it was a misshapen mess. But it’s still worth forty-two million dollars.”

  Spier sniffed. “Money. It always comes down to money. I wonder what sort of a world we would have if mankind had not invented the concept of such a thing.”

  “You wouldn’t be worth almost a billion dollars, for starters,” Annja said.

  Spier nodded. “True. But the world might be a better place. One devoted to the furthering of mankind’s intelligence.”

  “Is that why you want the pearl?”

  Spier took another bite of his steak and shrugged. “I have many ideas for why I want to find the pearl. Perhaps this is my last great hurrah. I’m old. Soon, I will most certainly pass on from this mortal place and begin my next great adventure. But maybe I want one last mighty event before I do that.”

  Annja picked at her carrots. “The pearl we’re looking for is supposedly round, right?”

  “Yes. Round and as black as the very night itself.” Spier pointed outside where the light was fading. “Or perhaps as dark as the weather here.”

  “No diving tonight, I guess,” Annja said.

  Spier sighed. “Alas, we are sometimes forced to accept Mother Nature’s influence on our worldly desires.”

  They passed the remainder of the dinner talking about the pearl and what they expected to find out at the dive site. But as the hours passed and true night settled in, Annja found herself growing sleepy.

  She could see that Hans was interested in spending more time with her, but Annja begged off.

  “I think I’m going to call it a night,” she told him when they were done with dinner.

  “Was it something I did?”

  Annja smiled. “You’ve got nothing to worry about in that department. I think if anything you wore me out, is all.”

  “See you tomorrow morning?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Hans nodded. “Joachim wants to get started early again providing the weather decides to cooperate, of course.”

  “Call me if anything comes up.”

  “I will.”

  She watched Hans walk toward the other section of cabanas before turning and heading out through the rain. She smiled as she quickly grew soaked. The rain felt refreshing and she felt reenergized.

  Annja passed her cabana and continued walking around the resort. No one was out on a night like this and every breeze blew more water over her.

  She walked closer to the water’s edge and then over to where the dive master’s shack was situated.

  Ahead of her, she thought she saw movement.

  Annja squinted and then used her peripheral vision to scan the area.

  Someone was moving in the shadows down by the dock.

  Maybe it was Dr. Tiko keeping late hours at the medical clinic. Or maybe it was the dive master finishing up his work before calling it a day, she thought.

  But a quick glance at both places showed Annja there were no lights on in either one.

  And what’s more, the figure ahead of her seemed to be trying to keep his movements concealed.

  Annja squatted on the path and watched as he moved from the dive master’s shack down to the dock and back again several times.

  The realization came to her. Someone was planning to go diving tonight, regardless of the storm.

  Without thinking about it, Annja moved down the path to get a better look.

  11

  The pounding rain concealed any noise Annja made as she stole her way down the path. She thought briefly about going back to get Hans, but then just as quickly disregarded the idea. She’d told him she was tired, after all, and if he thought she had blown him off in favor of a walk, then he might be hurt by it.

  No, better to get a look at this herself.

  She froze as the figure came back up the walkway and vanished again inside the dive shack. Annja watched as he dragged out what looked to be oxygen tanks and then stowed them aboard one of the resort sloops like the one she’d ridden on out to the dive site.

  Who would be crazy enough to go diving in this weather? At night, no less? They’d need to be an expert navigator to get through the storm, and an even better diver if they hoped to find whatever they might have been looking for under the swirling waves.

  The whole thing struck Annja as verging on suicidal.

  Then again, anyone who had seen her go off on her own probably would have thought much the same thing.

  Annja moved closer to the dock and paused behind a large tree. A crack of thunder made her wince. If the lightning flashed at the wrong time, she’d be visible to the shadowy figure in front of her.

  But so would he.

  He vanished into the dive shack and Annja made her way down to the boat. She was right. There were four oxygen tanks and multiple mouthpieces and regulators aboard. Masks and fins completed the gear.

  She heard a noise behind her and had to si
nk down behind one of the pilings. The shadowy figure put down several bags and Annja saw what looked like high-powered lights going into the boat.

  Was it possible that Spier was launching the dive, after all? She frowned. That didn’t make sense. Spier didn’t have any reason to keep the dive from Annja. Unless he wasn’t being entirely forthright with his reasons for wanting to find the pearl.

  Still, it didn’t seem like something he would do. He’d invited her to dive in the first place. And then there was the matter of Hans. Would he go behind Annja’s back to do this? She mused about it for a moment and then decided that he probably would not. There was something there between them, she felt, and she doubted that he would spoil their blossoming relationship by being covert like this.

  Of course, he had been in special operations. Stuff like this was what they did all the time. Maybe to Hans and the rest of the team it didn’t even seem duplicitous. Maybe they just thought of this as a normal night out.

  But if that was the case, then where was everyone else?

  The shadowy figure covered all the gear with a tarp and then vanished into the dive shack again. Annja took a breath and moved closer to the boat. She looked under the tarp and confirmed that there were lights there.

  Whoever was in the dive shack was going for a little nocturnal exploration.

  She heard the twig crack and whirled, seeing the shadow come down toward her. Annja had no time to hide and instead found herself sliding into the boat and concealing herself under the tarp.

  Luckily, the waves in the tiny bay were already causing the boat to bob up and down. The shadow didn’t notice the commotion.

  He stepped onto the boat.

  Annja heard the roar of the engine and her heart jumped in her chest. She heard the rope as it was tossed onto the tarp that covered her and then felt the boat ease away from the dock. In this weather, the noise of the engine wouldn’t even penetrate the din. No one would know that the boat was gone.

  And no one would miss Annja.

  The boat bounced over the waves and Annja struggled to hold on to the sides of the boat without alerting the shadow. She could confront the person, of course, but she felt there had to be a good reason for why he was doing this in secret.