The Mountain Mother Cipher (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 2)

by N. S. Wikarski

  “Your associates?” the boy asked cautiously.

  Faye caught herself. Grogginess had caused her to slip up. “Did I say associates?” She laughed lightly. “How odd. That must have come from the dream I was having. I thought I worked in an office in downtown Chicago.”

  The banging started up again.

  “Be a dear and find out who that is while I get my dressing gown on.” She shooed him downstairs and slipped on her robe. As she hobbled to the top of the steps she heard two raised voices.

  “Where is she?”

  “Where do you think? She’s sleeping. What do you want?”

  Faye leaned heavily on the railing and made her way down to the landing where she saw Maddie, frizzy-haired and dressed in a jogging suit, glaring at her descendent. “Listen kid, I didn’t come here to get the third degree from you.”

  Zach wasn’t about to be intimidated. He stepped in closer to the dragon lady and stared up at her. “No you listen, Maisie…”

  “It’s Maddie!” she snapped.

  “Whatever,” he brushed the name aside. “Do you know what time it is?” He glanced at her wrist. “I bet you don’t even own a watch. How about a sun dial? They’re easier to read except, oh wait, the sun has to actually be up first!”

  “Why Maddie, how lovely to see you.” Faye smiled graciously as she descended the rest of the stairs. “What brings you round so early? Out jogging again?” She trained her eyes pointedly at Maddie’s attire hoping the Operations Director would take the hint.

  Maddie glanced down briefly at her sweat suit and hesitated. “Yeah, uh, that’s right. I was out jogging. And I saw this really weird thing and I tried to call you about it but I couldn’t get through.”

  “Couldn’t get…” Faye paused. “Oh bother, my phone must be out of order again. The signal keeps fading in and out. I’ll have to get in touch with the phone company.

  “What about your cell?” Maddie pressed.

  “I’ve had to lock up the cell phones during Zachary’s stay to keep temptation out of reach. Sorry I forgot to check my voice mails. I’ve become so distracted these days now that I have a house guest.” She put significant emphasis on the last two words.

  “I don’t suppose you checked your email lately,” Maddie persisted.

  “Not since yesterday evening.”

  The Operations Director rolled her eyes.

  Zachary had listened to this interchange in silence but the suspicious look never left his face. “You sure do ask a lot of questions, lady.”

  “It’s what I do. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Well, I’ve got a few for you too,” the boy pressed. “Do you make it a habit to come over and harass little old ladies in the middle of the night?”

  “Middle of the…” Maddie was speechless. Her face began to turn an unhealthy shade of red.

  Faye tried to forestall an explosion. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen and I’ll make some coffee.”

  “No time.” The Operations Director shook her head. She glanced briefly at Zach, apparently realizing the need to come up with a plausible explanation. “Look kid. You may not know it, but this nice old lady is the head of …”

  Faye caught her breath, afraid that Maddie would divulge too much.

  “The Neighborhood Watch.” Maddie completed the thought. “I saw something really strange when I was out—” She swallowed. “Jogging this morning. I can’t talk about it. Top secret stuff that might involve the police. Anyway, we need to call an emergency meeting of the watch and your granny is the only one who has the authority to do that.”

  Zach looked at his ancestor with surprise. “Huh, go figure. Who’d a thunk it? Harmless little old lady by day. Scourge of criminals by night. Gamma, you’re quite a character.”

  “You have no idea,” Maddie murmured under her breath. She shifted her attention to Faye. “So anyway. We’d better get a move on. No time to waste.”

  “How come you don’t have your meetings here?” Zach challenged.

  Faye intercepted her associate’s response. “We have a special meeting place.”

  “Like a bat cave?” Zach asked eagerly.

  “My dear boy,” Faye laughed. “What an imagination! Next you’ll picture me heading a secret organization to save the world or some such nonsense.” She turned back up the stairs. “I’d better get dressed. Maddie, please make yourself some coffee in the meantime. I’ll be with you shortly.” She paused as a new thought struck her. Turning around, she asked, “Zach, will you be alright alone? This could take a few hours to sort out.”

  The boy snorted. “Gamma, I’m not retarded. I think I can manage by myself for a whole ninety minutes without falling down and drowning in the toilet or getting myself lost in the backyard.”

  Faye smiled. “Of course. What was I thinking?”

  Zach smiled back but there was a glint of something in his eyes that Faye found troubling. Was it suspicion? Curiosity? Those were both impulses that led to a desire for answers. She hoped this wasn’t the day when she’d have to supply him with any.

  Chapter 29 – Sting Operation

  “Give me the phone!” a disembodied voice demanded.

  “No, me! Let me tell it.”

  The received dropped. There was the sound of a scuffle.

  Maddie was seated behind the desk in her office while Faye sat in the visitor’s chair. They were both staring at the speaker on Maddie’s phone which emitted a series of scraping sounds.

  Maddie drummed her long red fingernails impatiently for several seconds before deciding to take charge of the situation. “Hey!” she barked at the speaker box. “One of you pick up the damn receiver and say something useful right now!”

  There was dead silence on the other end. After a few seconds, Griffin’s voice emerged. “Very sorry about that. I’m afraid we’re struggling with a low-tech environment on this end. Couldn’t manage a video telecon since we’re stranded in a dead zone on the mountain. I suppose we ought to count our blessings that there’s a land line but only one of us can speak to you at a time.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Maddie replied coldly. “You woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me you had urgent information for me and Faye but you wouldn’t tell me what.” She regarded her superior with exasperation for a few seconds. “When I tried to reach Faye, she was incommunicado which means I had to jump in a car and drive to her house. This didn’t put me in a very good mood and that was before her great-great-whatever-grandson treated me to the third degree. That kid’s got a great future ahead of him as a Rush Street bouncer.”

  “Faye had children?” The amazed voice was Cassie’s. Apparently they were all listening in on the single earpiece on their end.

  “Another time,” Maddie said curtly. “Now what’s the big to do and I’m warning you it better be big.”

  “Oh, it is,” Griffin hastened to reassure her. “We’ve found it!”

  Faye sat forward eagerly in her chair. “Do you mean to say you’ve actually found the first relic?”

  “That we have.” Griffin couldn’t keep the elation out of his voice. “I wish you both could see it.”

  “Yeah, it’s really cool with all the little squiggly hieroglyphs on the wings. And shiny too after all this time,” Cassie chimed in.

  “Of course we haven’t had time to decipher the symbols but I suspect they are clues that will lead us to the second relic. It’s quite cunning how the Minoans—”

  “Hey, can the chatter!” Maddie cut in abruptly. “You still haven’t said what it is!”

  Faye gave her companion a reproachful look. “Let them tell it in their own way, Maddie.”

  “Do you know how many minutes of actual sleep I got last night?” the Operations Director countered. “Notice I didn’t say hours.”

  There was a pause on the other end as the receiver shifted to another person. “Nice going, chief. Now they’re too scared to talk to you at all.” The voice was Erik’s.

  “Then you t
ell me and keep it simple,” Maddie demanded.

  “It’s a bee. A solid gold bee maybe three or four inches big.”

  “A bee,” Faye repeated contemplatively. “The bee was one of the most sacred symbols of the Minoan goddess.”

  “Where did you find it?” Maddie asked. Now that her curiosity was satisfied, her anger seemed to abate.

  “That was all Griffin’s doing,” Erik conceded. “Better let him tell it but don’t yell at him, OK?”

  “I won’t.” Maddie actually smiled. “Scout’s honor. Put him back on the line.”

  The Scrivener cleared his throat. “Yes, well, Cassie deserves some of the credit. If she hadn’t pointed me in the right direction after reading Stefan’s artifact.”

  Faye smiled knowingly. “Synchronicity,” she whispered.

  Griffin was still talking. “I came to realize the connection between the pentagram and Sirius.” He then regaled them with an explanation of the star’s heliacal rising and the shadow cast across the calendar stones.

  “Very clever of you, my dear.” Faye leaned forward to address the speaker box.

  “We couldn’t have found the right spot without Fred,” Cassie chirped up again.

  “Who’s Fred?” Maddie asked. “Is he one of ours? Do I have to cover his expenses too?”

  “He works for Aydin Ozgur, the Anatolian trove-keeper,” the girl explained. “We sort of borrowed him to guide us up the mountain.”

  “Is he there with you?” Faye asked.

  “He’s right here.” The scraping sound indicated that Cassie was passing the receiver to someone else. There was a long silence. In the background, they could hear her urging Fred on. “Say something! Don’t be shy.”

  “H…hello?” A hesitant voice emerged.

  “It seems we owe you a debt of gratitude.” Faye addressed him. “Without your help, our hapless trio might still be searching in vain.”

  A brief pause. Fred swallowed hard. “Am I addressing the Memory Guardian?” he asked in a timid voice.

  Faye smiled encouragingly even though he couldn’t see it. “My dear young man, there’s no need to stand on ceremony. My name is Faye and you have my sincere thanks for the part you played in this retrieval.”

  “Y…y…you’re w...w...welcome.” Fred stammered. Apparently the glare of the spotlight was too bright for his eyes because the receiver was being passed on to someone else. This time it was Griffin’s voice which emerged.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have much time to rest on our laurels,” he cautioned.

  “Damn straight you don’t,” Maddie commented. “Last I heard, Daniel and Hunt were getting ready to move on to Istanbul.”

  There was an expressive sigh before Griffin spoke again. “Then it’s as I feared. We may only have days to make the substitution.”

  “What do you need from us, dear?’ Faye asked.

  “We have to get an exact copy of the artifact made. It will have to match down to the last detail and then we’ll need to bury it in the box where we found the original. If we’re very lucky, the Nephilim won’t realize it’s a fake. If we’re even luckier, we’ll be out of the country before they stumble across it at all.”

  “That’s gonna take some doing,” Maddie muttered, half to herself.

  “I don’t get it.” The voice was Cassie’s and she seemed to be carrying on a conversation offline with Griffin. “If you think those symbols on the bee are the clues to the next relic, why not just change some of them to throw the Nephilim off the trail.”

  The two at headquarters could now hear Griffin’s muffled voice answering Cassie. “Because we actually want them to find the trail of breadcrumbs we’re leaving for them. It’s far riskier to give them false information that will misdirect them. It might cause them to cast a wider net. Might, in fact, lead them straight to the Arkana.”

  “Oh,” the girl replied simply. “I didn’t think of that.” Another pause and then Cassie spoke again. “But you’ve got to admit, giving them accurate intel might mean that they get to the second artifact before we do.”

  “Then we’ll just have to make damn sure that doesn’t happen.” The terse voice was Erik’s.

  Griffin took control of the receiver once more and spoke directly to Faye and Maddie. “Can you locate someone at the Anatolian trove who has the necessary metal-working skills? We won’t have time to fly someone into the country from the Central Catalog.”

  “Don’t worry, dear. Maddie and I will make arrangements immediately to get you the assistance you need.”

  After another round of congratulations, the call was terminated.

  The two women at headquarters looked at one another in silence for several seconds.

  Maddie raised her eyebrows. “Tick tock,” she said archly.

  “Tick tock indeed,” echoed Faye pensively.

  Chapter 30 – Unmentionables

  Zach prowled the house moodily for at least half an hour after his Gamma and her early morning visitor left. At that point, his stomach began to rumble so he made himself some breakfast. He ate a bowl of cereal distractedly while he mulled a thought over in his mind.

  Something was off. Of that much he was sure. The crazy lady with the frizzy hair was a smoker. He could smell cigarettes on her clothes. He doubted she could manage one lap around the block if her life depended on it. He didn’t buy the idea that she’d been out for an early morning run. The story didn’t wash. Then there was the first time he’d met her. Gamma said she’d come over to borrow a cup of sugar. For what? A Neighborhood Watch birthday cake?

  He finished his cereal and rinsed the bowl in the sink. Then he wandered into the living room and threw himself down on the couch, still grappling with his mental dilemma. Absently, he picked up the remote and flipped on the TV. Basic cable! Nothing worth watching. Nothing to distract him from the idea that kept nagging away at him. He knew he didn’t believe the story they’d told him but he wasn’t quite ready to take the next step. Was he really going to do this? Search through his own Gamma’s stuff? Looking for what? A secret decoder ring? A sliding panel in one of the walls?

  He knew nothing was going to make his suspicions go away. Nothing short of actually ransacking the house and finding that everything was absolutely normal. But there were things about Gamma that had never really been normal in the first place. Like the fact that she never seemed to look any older. Sure she was ancient. But she’d looked that way when he was five. In the past ten years he couldn’t remember one more gray hair. Not one more wrinkle than she’d had when he was a toddler. Did people actually age slower once they got to be as old as she was? He didn’t know.

  And why was it his own parents didn’t know how many “greats” came before grandma? Somebody on the family tree must remember. Nobody seemed at all curious about it. His parents, and their parents before them always referred to her simply as “Granny Faye.” Why didn’t anybody else seem to know how old she actually was? His whole family ought to be featured in Ripley’s as the least inquisitive people on the planet. Absolutely unable to wonder or speculate about anything—except maybe how far you could push the expiration date on a carton of milk in the refrigerator.

  He sprang up from the couch. He’d reached a decision. His parents might not be curious but he sure was. He headed for the kitchen. He really didn’t expect to find anything unusual there but he had to take it in stages. He’d leave the upstairs for last because if she was hiding anything that was probably the place where he would find it. He almost didn’t want to. In fact he wanted to be proven wrong. Little old ladies were supposed to be harmless. They were supposed to live for their grandchildren and not have any other thought in their heads but coddling and spoiling the younger generation. He paused in the kitchen doorway. For the first time it struck him how selfish that idea was. Why should anybody be expected to live for somebody else’s convenience? When she was younger, when she was still Faye and not Granny Faye, what had she wanted for herself? He shrugged at the impossibilit
y of guessing the answer. Maybe someday he’d ask her if she’d ever had any dreams of becoming a pirate captain. He grinned at the idea. She would love the craziness of it. She was that awesome.

  He walked across the kitchen to the pantry. Gingerly opening the door, he started moving boxes and packages of cake mix aside, looking for something concealed at the back of the shelves. No luck. Everything was utterly normal though someday he was going to have to have a serious talk with her about refined carbs and what that did to a person’s insides.

  He moved on to the kitchen cabinets lining the walls. Nothing concealed in the upper shelves, nothing in the lower ones either. One of the drawers was locked though. He flashed on the moment two days earlier when she’d confiscated his cell phone and locked it in that drawer. She’d also thrown two cell phones of her own in there at the same time. What did she need two cell phones for? Maybe the second phone was a hotline for something? He almost laughed out loud at that idea. Yeah right. She’d be the first one contacted in case of a missile strike. Maybe he had too much imagination after all.

  He shrugged and moved on to the dining room. China, crystal, crocheted table cloths. It was the epitome of little old lady land. So was the living room. He anxiously glanced at the grandfather clock in the hall. He’d been searching for about half an hour already. He didn’t know how much longer she’d be gone or if he’d have the chance to get to the bottom of it all. He eyed the stairway with dread. There was no point in putting it off. He had to search the upstairs.

  He trudged up the steps, turning aside at the first door on the right. It was a bedroom that Gamma had converted into a work space. There was a sewing machine, lots of fabric in heaps on the floor. There was also a roll top desk by the window. He thought it might contain important documents. He rummaged through every scrap of paper the desk contained but there wasn’t anything unusual. Just electric bills, phone bills. Business cards from eye doctors and chiropractors. He nervously peeked out the window and down at the street. He saw a few commuters leaving for the train station but that was all.