Ninth Cycle Antarctica: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 2)

by JC Ryan

  “I think so. Just knock,” came the answer.

  JR opened the door without knocking and said again, “Hey, Sinclair.”

  The older man jumped a little, not having heard the door open. “Oh, hey, JR. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you know if anyone has drawn a mercury projection of the 10th Cycle geography?”

  “Do you mean a Mercator projection? I’m not sure, why?”

  “Summers wants one. I’m supposed to either find one that’s already been done or get Daniel to have one done.”

  “Sounds like something that might be useful. Give me an hour and I’ll see what I can find out.”

  His errand successfully passed on to Sinclair, JR made his way back through the cubicle farm, detouring to pull the hair of a redheaded girl, one of those who’d smiled at him when he came in.

  “Want to get a drink?” he asked.

  “My break’s not for another hour,” she replied.

  “It’s okay, you’re with me. I’m family,” he boasted.

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  Sinclair watched the exchange through the blinds of his glass-walled office. That boy was interfering with his department. He’d have to speak to Daniel again.

  When Sinclair had joined the research effort, no one knew what a big deal the Pyramid Code would be. He was the first translator to make a breakthrough, but the sheer volume of the data had required a veritable army of assistants, and even with two shifts of twenty working on it, they’d barely scratched the surface. Sinclair sighed and made a few calls to the research department, looking for anyone who could tell him whether a map such as Charles Summers was requesting had been made. When he couldn’t find one, he made a call to Daniel, unconsciously doing the other part of JR’s errand for him.

  “Daniel, can I order a Mercator projection map of the 10th Cycle geography as we understand it? Summers needs it.”

  “Sure, sound useful.”

  Sinclair called the research department back, this time asking to talk to Nicholas Rossler. The old man, Daniel’s grandfather and a noted archaeologist in his own right, had come out of retirement in his eighties to work with the Pyramid Code revelations, and was in charge of the research department. He often told his wife that he hadn’t had so much fun since he was in his early seventies and had to quit going on digs because of the University’s darned liability policy. Bess was happy that he was happy, but just as glad that he was no longer climbing in and out of kivas on potentially rotten Anasazi ladders.

  Naturally, much of the research was being carried out by people like Charles Summers, but a cadre of graduate students under Nicholas’s direction was working on extracting core information about exactly what the Library contained, as fast as it could be translated.

  “Nick, could you assign someone to work up a map of the 10th Cycle world, ASAP? An outside researcher has requested it, and Daniel just okayed it.

  “No problem, but I don’t have a cartographer on staff. I’ll have to send out an RFP and hire one.”

  “Jeez, can’t we just do it the old-fashioned way?”

  “Sorry, buddy. With all the government funding that comes our way comes red tape, too. A request for proposal is the way to get it done.”

  Sinclair muttered under his breath.

  “What was that?” Nicholas asked. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

  “Never mind,” said Sinclair. “Bess would have to wash your ears out with soap if I repeated it out loud.”

  ~~~

  After ordering the map Summers needed, Sinclair left his office for a face-to-face consultation with Daniel. He liked JR, they all did. But the kid was often out of control, and just as often lazy. Sinclair’s translator still hadn’t come back from her unauthorized break, but Sinclair laid that at JR’s feet.

  “Knock, knock,” Sinclair said, opening Daniel’s door. Daniel was on the phone but waved Sinclair inside and ended his call as soon as he could.

  “Hi! You’d think we’d see more of each other, working in the same building, but I seem to be on the phone 26 hours a day." Sinclair's ascetic face took on a look of commiseration.

  “Not what you anticipated when you were talking about escaping international spies and cracking ancient codes, was it?" Sinclair asked.

  "Not at all," Daniel said, "but I've got to admit that I'd do it again. The good we've done in four short years far outweighs any personal inconvenience. Sarah and I agree on that."

  Sinclair raised his eyebrows. "Are you implying that there are areas on which you don't agree?"

  Daniel shrugged. "What marriage has no points of disagreement? Don't worry, we're solid. Most of its pretty minor, and we have always been in agreement on the really big stuff like setting up the foundation here in Boulder near family."

  Sinclair sensed that he would get no more, nor did he really wish to hear of even the slightest trouble in paradise. Especially since he was here to raise a bone of contention with Daniel, himself. As he gathered his thoughts to determine how to approach it, Daniel sidetracked him for a minute. “What about you? I thought you’d have persuaded Martha to move out here by now. Aren’t you tired of flying to Providence every couple of weeks?”

  “You let me worry about that, boyo. Sure and I love the woman, but it’s hard for her to leave the house she’s lived in for thirty years and more for the likes of me.” Sinclair had the habit of dropping into a fake Irish brogue at random times in honor of his forebears, which often made his hearers guffaw at the mixture of brogue and the tangy vowels of a New York accent.

  Daniel understood it to mean mind his own business this time. He dropped it in favor of the reason Sinclair had come in the first place.

  "What can I do for you?" Daniel asked.

  "Well to be brutally honest, I'm here about JR." Sinclair said. Daniel hunched his shoulders ever so slightly and a frown began to knit his eyebrows.

  "What's he done now?"

  "Daniel, you know that I've been behind you all the way when you asked us all to give JR a break. It's great that you can give your brother a safe place as he recuperates from that god-awful sandpit." Sinclair began to digress a bit, unconsciously, as he went on. "Why our government in all its wisdom sends these boys back there fighting a pointless, endless holding action against terrorists on their own ground over and over again until their minds are ruined I will never understand.”

  Daniel's eyes darted around the room seeking an escape from the hard realities of JR's Marine Corps experience. The sunny, bright young man who’d had a potential future in the NBA and a more than passing interest in archaeology had quit school in the last semester of his senior year and impulsively joined the Marines when his girlfriend broke up with him right after Valentine's Day.

  Even that wouldn't have been so bad, as the young recruit had acquitted himself well on his first two deployments, rising to the highest noncom rank available in a little less than three years. It was the final deployment that had broken him.

  JR still refused to talk about what had happened, but Daniel could read between the lines. He had been in Afghanistan himself, embedded with a Marine Corps battalion as a young journalist. No matter how carefully intelligence was gathered, there was always the potential for a terrible mistake that cost the lives of innocent civilians. Daniel suspected that JR held himself responsible for such a mistake, though he had no evidence.

  Even if there wasn’t just one thing, long deployments in a war zone tended to eat at a man, especially if, like Daniel, JR had seen buddies horribly wounded or killed. JR wasn’t alone in carrying mental scars; it seemed that this condition was more the norm than not among this generation of soldiers. Probably had been in previous wars, too, if the truth were known. Only this time, it was being acknowledged. Bringing himself back to the present, he urged Sinclair to finish his thought.

  "The thing is, the boy’s devilishly handsome," Sinclair observed. "Even a crusty old mick like me can see that the girls fall over him. My problem is that
they're doing it on company time. This is the fifth or sixth time that JR has come into my department, teased one of the translators until she's agreed to join him for coffee and then disappeared with her for the rest of the day. It needs to stop."

  Daniel sighed heavily. "I know, I can't tell you how many times I've called him on the carpet in this very room and told him he had to quit messing around with the other employees. In the first place, it's a liability, since he's family. No telling when one of these girls is going to slap him with a harassment suit or worse, a paternity suit. I'll talk to him again. Sorry, man. I just hope he straightens up soon. I can't fire him, you know, that would be like throwing him to the wolves."

  As Sinclair left the office, he reflected that Daniels troublesome younger brother might be one of those areas where he and Sarah couldn't come to an agreement. Sinclair had seen Sarah press her lips together firmly to keep from saying something during meetings when JR's erratic behavior was discussed. Daniel had a blind spot when it came to that boy, Sinclair thought. He just hoped that the kid didn't bring the roof down around their ears.

  Once Sinclair had left, Daniel decided to visit Charles in his guest office and see if there was anything he needed other than the map he’d requested. While he was there, he planned to ask Charles if he felt comfortable taking on a sort of mentor role to JR, since he was benefiting from JR's assistance. He found Charles staring intently at the monitor on his workstation, his lips moving as if he were reading to himself.

  "Yo, Charles. How's it going?"

  Charles looked up, startled. He smiled when he saw Daniel in the doorway.

  "It's going well, thank you. I've reached a stumbling block in my examination of the maps so I've been going through the history section looking for anything about exploration or mapmaking that I could find."

  "So I heard," Daniel said "I’ll look at getting that map made for you as soon as possible but I'm afraid there's a little red tape involved. So have you had any luck in the histories?"

  "There's so much here," Sinclair answered, "I haven't even finished reading through the index for the category. I may have to press your young brother into service and have him look at certain sections for keywords I'm targeting. By the way, I haven't seen him since I asked him to find that map for me. Does he have specific work hours, or do I need to jot down anything I'd like him to do for whenever he turns up?"

  "That's what I actually came to talk to you about," said Daniel. "I wasn't exactly forthcoming with you when I saddled you with him as your assistant. I apologize." Daniel missed Charles's look of surprise, because he could not meet the other man's eyes. He rushed on, hoping he hadn't damaged their friendship by offering what seemed to be a favor but was instead a babysitting job.

  "I should have told you that JR is suffering from PTSD. He's erratic, sometimes angry and often irresponsible. He did set in motion your request for the map you need. But he did it in a way that shuffled off responsibility to someone else. I've come to set the record straight, apologize and ask if I can enlist you in our campaign to rehabilitate him."

  Charles didn't know quite what to make of the request. He was a guest researcher, nothing more, and certainly not qualified as a counselor to a young man suffering from a mental illness. He opened his mouth to object, then realized that it would be unkind if there were any way he could help.

  "How do you see me helping?" he said instead.

  "Just keep him busy, call him on his bullshit when he needs it. If he gets out of line in a way you can't handle, don't hesitate to call me and I'll deal with it."

  Charles thought he could manage that, since it was more or less the way he would deal with any research assistant. "He doesn't get violent when he gets angry, does he?"

  "He used to, and we do try to keep him from drinking too much, because that does tend to bring out his anger issues," Daniel replied, "but, he hasn't lashed out in that way while at work. He's getting better almost every day, so if he hasn't done it yet I doubt if he'll do it in the future."

  It wasn't a ringing endorsement for the young man's good behavior, but Charles was inclined to grant his host’s request.

  "I don't see a problem then," he said. Charles began making a mental list of the errands he’d give to JR; nothing that would jeopardize the research if it didn’t get done, but hopefully interesting enough to keep the young man engaged. Pity about his condition, Charles thought.

  ~~~

  No sooner had Daniel returned to his office, than his private, direct-line phone rang. Only his family had this number, and it was understood that he was not to be disturbed with personal business during work hours unless it was vitally important. Therefore, it was with some trepidation that he answered.

  "Daniel. It's your dime."

  "Hey Daniel, Luke. I've got some news regarding your old friends," he said. The way he emphasized ‘friends’ told Daniel that Luke was talking about, not friends at all, but the group that had plagued him and Sarah and almost cost them their lives as they labored to crack the Pyramid Code. The damn Orion Society.

  "I thought we had crippled them when we captured their mole," said Daniel.

  "Oh, you know, counterespionage is like housework. It's never done. So, we're seeing some activity that has their fingerprints all over it," he said.

  "What kind of fingerprints?"

  "The usual. Corpses with their heads and hands missing, disinformation showing up in unexpected quarters after we plant it, missing agents." Daniel's sensibilities weren't all that delicate, but he couldn't help a shudder when Luke described the mutilated corpses. The CIA agent who, as far as they knew, was helping them during the height of the code research, turned out to be a ruthless killer who had used similar methods of disguising his victims' identities. Daniel and Sarah counted themselves lucky to have come through that phase with their heads on their necks and all fingers intact.

  "So what are they up to now?" he said, weariness overtaking him at the thought that they may yet again have to take evasive action.

  "We know that a new mole took over David's role as soon as we picked him up," Luke reminded Daniel. "We've been trying to ferret him out with a disinformation campaign. With no luck so far, I'm afraid. But, we did pick up a fragment of conversation that leads us to believe you may have at least one mole in your organization."

  "We aren't researching anything that we don't intend to disseminate freely as soon as we have results," Daniel protested. "Why would they need a mole in the Rossler Foundation?"

  "It's more likely to be someone in your translation department," Luke said. "The idea would be that as soon as anything you might be required to suppress turns up, the mole would steal it and convey it to the Orion Society before anyone knew it was missing. And of course you realize that they’re after the method you’re using to extract the information to be translated, as well."

  "Causing us to be in violation of our contracts with all of the governments who signed the 11th Cycle Treaty," finished Daniel. It was a possibility that had been discussed when the treaty was being drawn up. What if information in the Pyramid Code would be a danger in the hands of terrorists or criminals?

  The countries who had signed the treaty, virtually all major world powers and the majority of the rest, agreed to fund the Foundation and its translation efforts each according to their ability, with the condition that a committee consisting of representatives from each would have oversight as the translation progressed. This committee would have sole discretion when it came to suppressing dangerous information.

  Neither Daniel nor Sarah had particularly liked the condition, but it was something they had discussed prior to breaking the code. They and their advisers, which included both of their families, Sinclair, Martha Simms and Raj, agreed that some sort of control had to be exercised. The rules governing the committee's decrees were complex and intended to keep only such knowledge as weapons of mass destruction, chemical warfare and biological warfare under wraps. Everything else, even if it could p
ossibly be used for a nefarious purpose, was to be made available to anyone who asked. Of course, they had reserved the knowledge of the extraction method for the coded information to those who already knew.

  "So, what do you suggest we do about it?" he asked Luke now.

  "Nothing at the moment. We'll be inserting counterintelligence agents into your translation department to try to catch out any mole that the Orion society has managed to plant, I just wanted to let you know about it."

  "Will I know who your agents are?" Daniel asked.

  "If you can give me a compelling reason why you should, otherwise no. They'll be more effective if no one there knows or suspects their role. Think about it. You would probably unconsciously treat them differently from the other employees, yes?"

  "I suppose I would, yes." Daniel mused. "Say, Luke. Sinclair was here just this morning complaining that my brother was interfering with his team. You might want to warn anyone you embed there not to get caught up in his shenanigans. I'm trying to rein him in, but you know the issues."

  "Don't say anything to him about our suspicions," Luke cautioned. "I wouldn't want him to get caught in the middle of a situation that he's unprepared to handle."

  "I'll keep it confidential. But, if your operative has their eye on someone that JR seems to be getting too close to, especially a woman, can you give me a heads up? He's been through enough, I don't want him involved with an OS plant."

  "Will do," said Luke.

  "Anything else?" Daniel asked.

  "No, that's about it," Luke said.

  "Would you and Sally be free to join us for dinner along with Ryan and Emma on Sunday?" Daniel asked, speaking to Luke as Sarah's uncle now, rather than his head of security.

  "I'll check with Sally, but I don't know why we wouldn't. Thanks. Unless you hear differently, I'll see you then." Daniel was always happy to see his in-laws, but the real reason for the dinner party was to mend fences with Sarah. Ever since he had hired JR, Sarah's silent disapproval had haunted their relationship.

  He understood Sarah's misgivings, and today's events had borne them out. But, JR was his baby brother. He had been dealt a bad hand, and Daniel felt obligated to help him if he could. Sarah also understood Daniel's position, they had talked about it. She wasn't pressuring him to fire JR, but she couldn't help but worry that his acting out would reflect back on the Foundation.