by James Ponti
The label on the file read ALEXANDRA MONTGOMERY.
23. Kat
KATHMANDU, NEPAL—THREE YEARS EARLIER
MOTHER AND MONTY WERE LOOKING for a coffee shop hidden somewhere in the maze of crowded alleyways that made up the Thamel neighborhood of Kathmandu, Nepal. Here there were no sidewalks—just narrow strips of pavement teeming with beat-up cars, sputtering motorbikes, and wayward pedestrians.
“I’ve never seen so many signs in all my life,” Mother said, shaking his head in amazement.
Signs were everywhere. They covered the walls of each building, adorned every light and electrical pole, and hung from balconies and banners that stretched across the street. They advertised everything from souvenir shops and Internet cafés to budget boarding houses and Himalayan mountain treks.
“Well, one of them says Lhasa Café,” Monty said as she gave him an encouraging pat on the back. “All we have to do is find it.”
He chuckled and replied, “I love your optimism.”
It took them about twenty minutes of looking, but they finally found the narrow storefront tucked between a money exchange and a small shop selling local crafts. The coffee shop was barely wider than the front door. Inside there was a bar with stools and three wooden tables. A young woman in her twenties was sitting at one of the tables. She looked up and smiled at them.
“Alexandra?” asked the woman.
“Yes,” replied Monty. “You must be Elaine.”
“I hope it wasn’t too hard to find, but my mum said you wanted to meet off the beaten path,” Elaine answered. “Besides, this place has the best coffee in KTM,” she said, calling the city by its nickname.
Monty introduced Mother, and they all sat around the table. Following Elaine’s recommendation, they ordered a breakfast of aloo chana, a curry dish of potato and chickpeas.
“You know, your mother’s my all-time favorite doctor,” Monty said.
“I think it’s something of a mutual admiration society,” replied Elaine. “She raves about you. She says you’re a mathematical genius and told me I should do whatever I can to help you, no questions asked.”
“Did she give you any indication where I work?”
“That was the one question I was specifically told not to ask,” she replied. “But judging from all the cloak and dagger, I have a pretty good guess.”
Monty smiled. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
“All right, then, what brings you to Nepal?”
“I know from your mum’s annual Christmas letter that you work for UNICEF helping children here in Kathmandu,” she said. “And as crazy as it sounds, I was hoping you could help me find a particular one.”
Monty pulled a piece of paper from her purse and handed it to Elaine. It was a photo printed from the Internet that showed a Nepali girl holding a piece of fabric with geometric designs painted on it. The girl was about ten years old, and rather than looking directly at the camera, she was focused slightly down and away from it.
“You want to find this girl?” asked Elaine.
“Very much,” answered Monty.
“You know there are over a million people in Kathmandu, not counting the tens of thousands who are here because they’ve been displaced by earthquakes and floods,” said Elaine. “It’s going to be really hard to find her.”
“Actually, finding this café was really hard,” said Mother. “It’s going to be practically impossible to find her.” Then he flashed a grin. “But practically impossible is our specialty.”
While they ate their breakfast, Elaine studied the picture, looking for clues that could help. “This is called a yantra thangka,” she said, pointing at the artwork. “It’s used in meditation.”
“I found the picture on a UNICEF website,” said Monty. “There were a couple of other girls, and the article said they were part of a program that teaches orphaned girls how to make handicrafts. But it didn’t list the name of the specific program.”
“There are a number of them,” said Elaine. “But I know one of the guys who writes the posts for the website. He should be able to help us.”
They spent the rest of the morning and all afternoon following one dead-end lead after another until they arrived at a small school just outside of the city.
“You have to be careful when dealing with the local agencies,” Elaine said. “Not all of them are legitimate, but with so many children in need, the social services are just overwhelmed.”
“How does this one rate?” Mother asked.
“Good,” she said. “The woman who runs it really cares about the girls. It’s what’s known as a transitional learning center.”
The three of them met with the director, and as they’d instructed her, Elaine introduced Monty and Mother as representatives from a British aid society.
“What brings you to us?” she asked.
“We would very much like to meet this girl,” Monty said, showing her the picture. “Is she here?”
The director had a slightly pained look on her face. A look that they would soon realize was one of pity. “Yes,” she said. “Her name is Amita.”
“And her family?” asked Monty.
The woman shook her head. “She lost her family in an earthquake two years ago.”
“Can we talk to her?”
“You can try,” she replied. “But Amita barely speaks at all.”
“Is she not able to talk?” asked Mother.
“Oh no,” said the woman. “It’s not that. She just chooses not to.”
“Not even to her friends?” he asked.
The woman thought about this as they walked out of the room and she led them toward Amita. “I don’t know that she really has any friends. At least, not like the other girls.”
The school managed to be both modest and impressive. There were dorm rooms along one hall and classrooms along the other.
“The girls live here and go to school here,” she explained. “We also try to teach them handicrafts so that they might have a trade when they’re grown.”
“Let me guess,” said Monty. “Amita is one of your best students.”
“By far the best,” said the director. “How did you know?”
Monty nodded knowingly. “Just a guess.”
They passed through a studio with several looms, where teenaged girls were learning how to weave decorative carpets, and finally found Amita in a room by herself. She was stringing turquoise and coral beads onto a necklace she was making.
Speaking in Nepali, the director told Amita she had visitors, but the girl didn’t look up. She just kept stringing the beads.
“Can you translate for me?” Monty asked the woman.
“Of course,” she replied.
“Hello, Amita, my name is Alexandra.”
She sat down on the opposite side of the table as the director translated for her.
“I want to ask you about your artwork,” she said. “Your yantra thangka.”
Monty slid the paper across the table to her.
“Where did you get your design?”
She waited anxiously during the translation. Amita didn’t respond at first, but then, still without looking up, she answered softly.
“She just made it up,” the woman told her.
“She didn’t have a pattern she copied?” asked Monty. “There wasn’t any kind of computer program that helped her?”
“No,” answered the director. “We have nothing like that.”
“Is it possible that she was ever exposed to calculus or advanced geometry?”
The woman laughed. “I’m afraid you think too highly of our school. We are not equipped to teach those types of subjects. Why do you ask?”
“Because the design on that thangka is the visual representation of a rather complex mathematical principle,” Monty said. “It’s made up of perfectly formed fractals, something I might expect to see produced by a doctoral candidate with a computer, not hand-painted by a ten-year-old girl with a limited mathemati
cal education.”
The woman looked at the picture for a moment as she considered this. “I don’t know what to say.”
Monty let out a sigh as she tried to think of what to do next. She looked at Amita, whose eyes were still focused on the necklace she was making.
“Can I speak to her alone for a moment?” asked Monty.
Mother laughed. “Did you suddenly learn Nepali when I wasn’t paying attention?”
“No,” Monty said. “We’ll talk in math.”
Elaine, the director, and Mother all left the room, and Monty quietly watched Amita continue working.
Monty was shy by nature, but nothing like Amita. During college, she’d worked part-time as a nanny for a family whose daughter was extremely shy. She recognized the same far-off look and the aversion to eye contact. She knew the key to communication was not to force anything but just leave the door open for Amita to connect with her.
“I’ve come a long way to meet you, Amita,” she said sweetly, even though she knew the girl couldn’t understand her. “Do you mind if I make a necklace too?”
She pulled a foot of thick thread off of a spool and tied a knot at one end.
“I learned how to make necklaces from my grandmother,” Monty continued. “But I always had trouble deciding which color beads to use.”
As she talked, she started sliding beads onto the thread. First, she put on a single coral bead followed by a turquoise one. She followed this with two coral, three turquoise, and five coral.
“Let’s see, what should I do next?” she said. “How about eight turquoise?”
She strung the beads onto the thread and laid it on the table directly where Amita was looking.
“How many coral beads should there be?”
She just waited, and after nearly a minute, Amita picked up the necklace and starting stringing coral beads. Monty counted while she did, and when Amita was done, she laid the necklace back on the table.
“I’ll call your thirteen and raise you twenty-one.”
Monty slid twenty-one turquoise beads onto the necklace and placed it back on the table.
Amita let out a faint giggle and picked up the necklace. She put thirty-four coral beads onto the string, and instead of laying it on the table, she handed it to Monty. For the first time, she looked up at her.
The two of them locked eyes for a moment, and Monty smiled.
“It’s nice to meet you, Amita. So very nice.”
Soon the others returned to the room.
“What a beautiful necklace you two are making,” said the director.
“It’s more than that,” Monty said. “It’s a Fibonacci series. Each number progresses by adding the last two numbers. It first appeared in ancient India and was introduced to the West in the 1300s by an Italian mathematician known as Fibonacci. I’m guessing you haven’t studied that here in school.”
“No,” the director said with a laugh. “We have not.”
“So you didn’t learn it,” Monty said to Amita. “You just know it.”
The woman started to translate, but Monty waved her off.
“No, tell her this instead.” Monty took a deep breath. “Amita, my friend and I live in a place that’s far from here, but is very nice. We’d like to know if you’d like to move there and live with us. You’ll have your own room, and you’ll get to learn everything there is to know about math.”
The woman paused for a moment, surprised at this development, but then she translated for Amita.
The girl looked up again and maintained eye contact with Monty. The corner of her lips slowly formed a smile, and she nodded.
24. Rosetta Stone
AISLING, SCOTLAND—PRESENT DAY
KAT WAS STILL QUIET AND shy, but not like she had been back in the orphanage. She’d come out of her shell in the three years since she’d left Nepal, especially here on the FARM, surrounded by the people who were now her family. Still, it was quite rare for her to call a meeting with the intention of purposefully getting in front of the group to speak. So when she did, Paris’s first thought was that she was joking. Especially considering the timing.
“Seriously?” he said. “You want everyone in the priest hole, now?”
“Yes,” she answered. “What’s wrong with now?”
“Actually…”
He’d been all set to sit down and watch Liverpool play Arsenal. It was a week after they’d had tickets to see the Liverpool–Chelsea game only to leave the stadium before kickoff. His chores were completed, his homework was done, and the snacks were ready and delicious. He’d looked forward to this for days. But in that nanosecond, it dawned on him how unusual it was for Kat to call a meeting. If she wanted them all together so she could tell them something, it had to be important. Even if for no other reason than it was important to her.
“Actually… now’s perfect,” he said. “I’ll help round everyone up.”
The group gathered around the conference table with Kat at the head and Brooklyn right next to her with a laptop. The others were beyond curious about why they were there.
“I don’t know about you guys,” Mother said as he settled into his seat, “but I’m guessing this is going to be amazing.”
Kat smiled shyly and simply said, “Yes.”
Kat saw the world as a series of interconnected math problems. To her, everything was some sort of equation or pattern, which is why she was such an incredible code breaker. The hard part was translating that. It was often much easier for her to decipher a code than it was to explain how she’d done so. That’s why she’d enlisted Brooklyn to help with the presentation.
First, though, she wanted to check one thing to make sure she was right.
“Mother, when you were on the spy team with Parker Rutledge, was Clementine on the team with you?”
“Yes,” Mother answered. “At MI6 we were known as the Zoo Crew because our cover was that we worked at the London Zoo.”
“And during this time, did she go by the name Robin?”
Mother gave her an astonished look. “Yes. How did you know that? Her alias was Robin Lynch.”
“That is very good news,” Kat replied, pleased. Then she turned to Brooklyn and said, “First slide, please.”
Brooklyn pressed a key, and a picture appeared on the wall monitor. It was one of the group taken a week earlier at the British Museum.
“What’s this?” asked Kat.
Rio looked around, not sure if this was some sort of trick question. “It’s us around the Rosetta Stone.”
“That’s right,” she said. “And why is the Rosetta Stone important?”
“It’s important because…” Rio started to answer, but then it dawned on him that he really had no idea why it was important. He just knew that it was a big deal and that everyone who came through the museum made sure to check it out. “Because it’s a… really old rock with writing on it.”
“That is less right,” Kat said with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s important because it broke the code,” said Monty.
“Yes,” said Kat. “Up until the Rosetta Stone was discovered, no one in modern times could understand hieroglyphics. But the stone was inscribed with a decree that was written in three languages: ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which was the language appropriate for the priests who made the decree; demotic, which was the language used by the people at the time; and ancient Greek, which was the official language of the government. Because ancient Greek had been recorded and translated into modern languages, linguists were able to compare the three versions of the decree and translate the ancient Egyptian. Then, once they understood those hieroglyphs and how they were used, they were able to decipher the entire language wherever they found it.”
“That’s great,” said Paris. “But why is that important to us?”
“To help explain this,” she said as she held up the pocket calendar that Parker Rutledge had mailed to himself. “This is the Rosetta Stone of Parker Rutledge. It is the key to under
standing everything.”
Mother leaned forward, excited by what she was saying.
“We have twenty-seven of his bird books dating back sixteen years,” she said. “Each covers a period of about six to nine months, and they are filled with notations that can be as confusing to decipher as the hieroglyphs.” She nodded to Brooklyn, who clicked her mouse.
Four images appeared on the screen. They were pages from different bird books, and they featured an amalgam of drawings, diagrams, symbols, maps, and numbers alongside short entries about birds. All of it was written in the same precise penciling they’d seen in his calendar.
“It’s a bloody mess,” said Sydney.
“Yes,” said Kat. “But it’s also a beautiful mess. I don’t believe they were meant to be read by anyone else. They were personal notes to himself. They detail his travels and the birds he saw in the field. They include information and scientific notations. But they also track his work for MI6 and the missions he undertook. And what makes it so confounding and beautiful at the same time is that he wrote about everything as if he were writing only about birds.”
Monty loved the fact that in what most people saw as confusion, Kat saw beauty.
“Remember you’re talking to a remedial group here,” Paris joked. “Can you explain what you mean by that?”
“When he was part of the Zoo Crew, Mother’s alias was Gordon Swift. Swift is a type of bird.” She walked over to the monitor and pointed to a page that featured a drawing of a bird. “This page is from that time, and this drawing is of a swift. When he writes about this bird, he’s really writing about Mother.”
She pointed at the next page. “Now, this one talks about a swift and a robin.”
“Also a bird,” said Sydney. “But it’s actually about Mother and Clementine.”
“Exactly,” said Kat.
“And how can you tell when he’s writing about birds or when he’s writing about other things?” asked Monty.
Kat held up one of the bird books and the pocket calendar. “These overlap by three months. So for those three months, I can compare the two.”