Lapointe looked at him for a moment.
“Let him call his family.”
Lapointe walked up the steps into the plane just to see for himself, it already filled with a large crew of investigators pulling open floor panels and searching luggage compartments for any stowaways, but Lapointe already knew the truth.
This plane was a decoy from the beginning, buying the hostage takers almost eight hours to make their escape.
Oberpfaffenhofen Airport, Germany
Present day, two days after the kidnapping
Grant Jackson felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. He scrambled in his seat, fighting to wake up, the unfamiliar surroundings sending a surge of panic through him. He opened his eyes and suddenly reality and his situation came into focus and he stopped struggling, smiling sheepishly at Chip.
“Sorry, I’m not a good sleeper.”
“No worries, bud. We’re about to land.”
Grant nodded, straightening his chair and himself. He glanced around and saw the others all strapped in. Looking out the window he began to have the same second thoughts that had tormented him most of the flight. He had at first wondered how they could possibly get away, but was assured they would be safe, a decoy plane having been sent just before them that would have everyone occupied long enough for them to land and make their getaway safely.
He had grilled Mitch on his father, finding out as much as he could about the Triarii, their history, their current status, how his father had become involved, and what he had done while a member. He had even scraped together enough courage to ask about his father’s death, managing to hold back the pain he felt in hearing the answers.
But in the end he still felt he had become part of a cult.
Crystal skulls? Explosive powers? The ability to influence the evolution of man?
It was all nuts. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized he had made a mistake. Staying with these men was not only stupid, it was dangerous. It had killed his father, and from the history, especially recent events he had been told about, it sounded like crossing paths with the Triarii or the crystal skulls could easily lead to your death, as dozens if not hundreds of others had found out the hard way.
But he was here, and as far as he could tell, committed to a path he wasn’t sure of.
He was certain of one thing, however.
He had no idea how to get out.
These men were crazy, and he no longer served a purpose. He had given them what they wanted, and now if he were to betray them, how long could he expect to live? There was a very good chance they might just let him go, perhaps even with a handshake and a slap on the back. But there was also a chance they might decide he had seen too much, or knew too much. And he didn’t trust Ben Cowan to not put a bullet in his head if he felt Grant were putting them at risk.
He would have to play it safe for now and go along with their plans.
But if he saw the opportunity for escape, he’d take it.
But they know where you live!
His heart sank as the plane touched down. There was no escape. Not permanently. The only way he could survive for certain was to play along.
Perhaps forever.
He turned to look at Mitch sitting across the aisle.
“Where are we?”
Mitch turned to face him.
“Munich. We’ve got some unfinished business here.”
Teufel Residence, Munich, Germany
Present day, two days after the kidnapping
“So good to see you again, Professor Palmer!” cried the elderly man who had opened the door, his accent thick but his English near perfect. “I was surprised to hear from you last night. I am of course delighted to show you the scroll again,” he said with a smile, then added with a little jab of the elbow, “but I have a sneaking suspicion you have something to show me as well, heh?”
Laura smiled with a nod. “You are a very perceptive man, Herr Teufel. We’re sorry for the early hour, but time is of the essence.”
“Of course, of course. I have the scroll already out for you and your friends to see.”
Laura slapped her forehead. “Forgive me, Herr Teufel. My manners!” She motioned at her fiancé. “This is Professor James Acton from St. Paul’s University.”
“A pleasure, Herr Teufel,” said James, shaking the man’s hand.
“Professor Acton, there is no need for an introduction. I have followed your career for many years. I understand you two are engaged?” asked the little man with a twinkle in his eye. “To be married? Soon perhaps?”
James laughed and winked at Laura. “Yes, we’re engaged. Haven’t set a date yet, things seem to keep getting in the way.”
Teufel batted the air. “You must never let things get in the way of love. You should set a date now, get married and make lots of babies!”
Laura blushed, something she rarely did, then beamed a smile at her beloved James as he too seemed a little taken aback by the man’s forthrightness.
Awkward! as James might say.
“And this is Special Agent Hugh Reading of INTERPOL,” said Laura, changing the subject and finishing the introductions.
“Ach! Your bodyguard!” cried Teufel as he shook Reading’s hand vigorously. “Too wonderful! Too wonderful!” He motioned down the hall. “Now follow me and I will show you what you have come to see.”
Their journey to Herr Teufel’s house had been uneventful. A quick plane ride from Rome then overnight in a nice hotel had refreshed them for what Laura was sure to be an exhausting day. Matching the two halves of the scroll would be one thing, but decoding them a completely other. Hours if not days of laborious mental work could be ahead of them even if Teufel had broken the code as he claimed.
But it would be fantastically exciting work!
To say she adored her job would be an understatement. She had only ever met one person whose passion for their work rivaled her own, and his hand she now held as they walked deeper into the large home by urban European standards.
She loved James, even more than her work, which was something she would have found unfathomable a few short years ago. But the bond that had been formed since they met was so strong, she ached every time they were apart. It was approaching the point where she was considering leaving her job in London and moving to be with James in America. She could take a position at one of the colleges in the area, perhaps raise some children.
Children!
The thought sent chills racing up and down her spine, the idea titillating and terrifying at the same time. She had never really considered children and felt she had at least another five to ten years to consider them. With the way they worked now, children weren’t a possibility, and if they were to have them, they definitely would need to be in America. She had no family, and James’ parents were still alive and healthy to help out.
Children!
She sighed.
Perhaps we should see if we survive until the wedding day first.
“Something wrong?” asked James, apparently hearing her sigh.
She shook her head with a smile, squeezing his hand. “No, everything’s perfect.”
He squeezed her hand back, three times, as they took in the home. It was modest appearing from the outside, but inside it was quite ornate, old timber beams crisscrossed the ceilings, plaster walls were trimmed with large carved moldings, delicate frescoes painted directly on many of the walls. The furniture was mostly antique, and the surfaces were filled with artifacts and collectibles of impeccable taste and, Laura had a feeling of questionable pedigree in some cases.
There was easily millions of pounds worth of items here, most of which she felt belonged in a museum.
After descending a set of steps into the basement, they entered the same room she had years before but gasped at the significant upgrades. It was still a large room but now had a glassed in smaller room in the center that appeared to be environmentally controlled for temperature and humidity—clearly Teufel h
ad money, a setup like this well into the six figures.
“I won’t ask you to put the bunny suits on today,” said Teufel with a chuckle. “There is nothing needing that sort of protection in here today.”
Laura exchanged a surprised glance with James as they each stepped through a clean-room entrance, air mixed with various gasses blasting any loose debris off them. She was the second into the lab, Teufel the first. She approached the table, already lost in the moment.
Carefully laid out on a table in the middle of the room was the scroll she remembered from years ago, it unwrapped and contained within a vacuum sealed glass to preserve it for future generations. Alongside the genuine article was a replica, on modern day paper so it could be handled without fear of its destruction.
“And I believe you have something for me?” asked Teufel after they gathered around the table.
Laura nodded and produced the ancient scroll from her satchel. “This I believe is the second half.”
Teufel rubbed his hands together in anticipation, bouncing up and down on his toes as his eyes, wide with anticipation, locked onto the scroll as Laura gently placed the case on the table, beside its partner, having used the Vatican’s own preservation tools to protect it from destruction.
“It’s a match,” whispered James as they all leaned forward, Laura carefully pushing her piece of the document toward Teufel’s, the precise cut down the center of each, seemingly designed to split certain words so they couldn’t be decoded without the other half, clearly a perfect fit.
“But it’s still gibberish,” observed Reading.
Laura slapped his arm. “Of course it is. It needs to be decoded.”
“Okay. How?”
Reading was right, it was just gibberish. An apparent mass of scrambled Latin lettering with no indication of how to decipher it, or even what language it might be written in, the Latin alphabet being used by dozens of languages including English.
“That is no problem,” replied Teufel. “I deciphered the other half years ago. With the second half, all we need to do is scan it into the computer and it will put the two together and give us the translation. Perhaps five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” exclaimed Reading. “What is it, some child’s code?”
Teufel chuckled, wagging a finger at him. “Never underestimate a child’s code! It can provide many challenges.”
“So it is a child’s code.”
Teufel positioned a camera over the scroll and took a photo with the computer. “No, it’s a slave code.”
“Huh?”
“To be exact, this is known as the Venice Code. It was used by the ancient Venetians to pass messages between themselves that they didn’t want their slaves to understand. Most couldn’t read, but some could, which could make private communication difficult, so they came up with this code. The slave would hand over the message, and as I learned through my own trial and error, the day of the week the message was written was the offset for the cipher.”
“So how does it work?” asked Laura as she watched the two halves being matched up on the computer by Teufel.
“It’s really quite simple. The message is written down, then each letter is moved alternately forward and backward by a set number of letters, the offset. Remember, it was meant for quick communication and they didn’t have computers back then. The code ended up breaking down eventually when slave owners too lazy to translate their own messages taught their slaves how to do it, thus defeating the purpose.”
“So how did you figure it out?” asked James. “I’ve never heard of this code.”
“And neither had I until I stumbled upon a piece of text purportedly written by Marco Polo that referred to a slave of his, someone named Giuseppe, and how he had taught him the Venice Code when they were children, not realizing slaves weren’t supposed to know it. He was severely punished, but it was too late. Marco and his slave then used it to exchange secret messages between themselves.”
“Not the typical master-slave relationship I’ve heard of,” commented Reading.
“Indeed,” agreed Teufel. The computer beeped. “Ahh, finally!” he gasped as he hit a button and the decoded text appeared on the screen, still a jumble of letters, but words could be made out though no spacing or punctuation seemed to be included.
“Is that Latin?” asked Laura.
James nodded. “Yup. How’s your Latin, Herr Teufel?”
“I assure you, much worse than yours even if you can’t speak it!” he said, laughing. “It took me days to translate the few words I managed to retrieve from my half of the scroll.”
James smiled, exchanging a glance with Laura. She could read the excitement on his face and it rivaled her own. This was a mystery he had been living with for a day. She had been living with it for years. A seven hundred year old scroll, perhaps about the crystal skulls, found amongst the possessions of Marco Polo upon his death.
Goose bumps covered her body.
“Okay, here goes, it will be a little rough. Somebody writing this down?”
“I’ve got it,” said Laura as she pulled out her smartphone, activating the note taking feature. Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard in anticipation.
“Okay, it says, ‘I am sorry I failed you master. After relentless pursuit, I am near death.’”
“It must have been written by a slave to his master,” said Teufel, his voice barely a whisper.
“Perhaps to Marco Polo?” suggested Laura.
“Translate the bloody thing and we’ll find out,” suggested Reading with all the subtlety of a hammer.
“Don’t take the fun out of our work, Hugh,” admonished Laura with a smile. “Continue, hon.”
James looked back at the screen, a grin stretching across his face. “‘I have been unable to deliver the idol as promised, and in my weakened state have been forced to hide it.’ That has to be the skull!” exclaimed James.
“Skull?” asked Teufel. “You mean this is about one of those crystal skulls your fiancée is so eager to research?”
Nobody said anything, fearing perhaps too much had already been said. Instead James said, “Let’s find out. ‘I will have trusted friends deliver this scroll in two parts, one to the Holy See, one to Khanbalig.’”
“Khanbalig? Where’s that?” asked Reading.
“Modern day Beijing,” replied Laura. “Kublai Khan built it to be his capital city.”
“Really? I always thought it was Chinese.”
“Very different world back then, Hugh. You should attend some of my classes,” said Laura with a wink.
“Like I’ve got bloody time for that,” muttered Reading. “Though it might be a good place to catch up on my sleep.”
“Touché!” said Laura, tapping James’ shoulder to continue. “Continue on, hon, I think our profession just got insulted.”
“Yeah, I heard that. Somebody could be catching their own plane ride home.”
“I know where you live,” reminded Reading.
“Uh huh.” James turned back to the screen. “‘I know you will immediately recognize the code to decipher this. When both parts are put together, you will see the location where I have hidden it below.’” James’ head dropped and Laura knew he was as eager as she was to get to the end and find the location, but his head quickly popped back up, realizing that jumping to the end of the book was never a good idea. “‘Should my new friends have followed my wishes, and been successful in their tasks, then you are reading this now. The idol is near Jericho in the crypt of the St. Gerasimos monks with my remains.’”
Reading grunted. “Jericho. Isn’t that in Israel?”
James shook his head. “Sort of. It’s in the West Bank.”
“Bloody hell, of course it is,” cursed Reading, throwing his hands up in the air. “What is it with you two?”
“I don’t know,” replied James. “My life was pretty good until I met you. Then all this shit starting happening to me.”
“I think that’s the other
way around, mate.”
“Shall I finish?” asked James.
“Please.”
James winked at Laura then returned to the screen. “‘Forgive me brother for having failed you. Your faithful servant, Giuseppe Polo.’”
Acton straightened, glancing at Laura’s phone. “Did you get it all?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Giuseppe?” murmured Teufel. “That must be the same slave he taught the code to, the one mentioned in the letter I read. And for a slave to call his master ‘brother’! Why, it’s almost unheard of!”
“They must have been very close,” agreed Laura. “We know from Marco Polo’s will that upon his death he granted freedom to a Tartar slave. Perhaps he treated his slaves well.”
“But ‘brother’? That is an equal. That is familial. And to use the family name? Very out of the ordinary,” said Teufel. He pointed at the phone. “You will of course send me a copy of that,” he said, handing her a business card with an email address.
Laura nodded. “But I must ask that you not share its contents with anyone until you hear from me.”
“Who would I have to share them with but you?” asked Teufel, his shoulders up, palms facing upward.
Laura had an odd feeling, as if there was some hint of deception on Teufel’s part. She quickly swiped her thumb and put the phone in airplane mode, killing its communications capabilities, then sent the email containing the text, leaving it in the Outbox.
“I’ve sent it but it looks like I have no signal in here. I’m sure you’ll receive it as soon as we get outside,” she said, smiling. She picked up their half of the scroll, returning it to her satchel and extended a hand to Herr Teufel. “Thank you so much for seeing us on such short notice.”
Teufel smiled, clasping her hand in both of his. “You have no idea how happy you have made me today, Fräulein. A decades old mystery for me, and a centuries old mystery for the world, has been solved.”
As they headed for the front entrance, Laura leading a slightly brisk pace that had the men scrambling to keep up, Teufel offered them tea.
“On any other day that would be delightful,” she said as she opened the door, “but today we are on a tight schedule.”
The Venice Code (A James Acton Thriller, Book #8) (James Acton Thrillers) Page 15