by K. T. Tomb
“You!”
Chyna stalked toward him, her eyes burning with determination. She grabbed Mark by the collar and slammed him up against the wall. “You will tell me everything! You are going to talk and talk fast! WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!”
“Wha—Chyna! What the hell are you talking about?!” Mark looked shocked and positively frightened.
“Shut up! Shut the hell up! Do not lie to me, Mark! Spit it out! Who are you relaying all the information to?”
Chyna slammed his head into the wall, and it surprised him how strong she was. Something told him that he could be sure she was restraining herself.
“No one! What the hell, you think I’m some sort of informant? How the hell can you say that?!”
At that point, Mark pushed her away and brushed his hair back into place. His head was hurting, but he said nothing to her about it.
“Oh, yes. I think you’re a mole! Tony just called me and told me he has evidence to prove that you have been leaking all our information to someone outside of this group, so don’t you try to pretend anything else!” Chyna screamed at him.
“Well, then ask him to show it to you! Tony’s been jealous of me and watching me like a damn hawk since I joined Found History, but that doesn’t mean that I’d betray you! I swear that whatever happens in this group has never reached anyone on the outside, at least not through me!”
Mark was stringent in defending himself. He would rather die than have someone question his loyalty.
“Then how did the neo-Nazis know where we were going to be? Do you realize what you have done? Two people died because of you! And a whole city out there might burn down to the ground before the sun rises tomorrow!”
Chyna was throwing her belongings into her bag as she spoke, suddenly realizing the fact that they needed to leave as soon as possible if they wanted to survive this.
“I swear to you Chyna that I had nothing to do with this! I am just as worried as you are, especially if someone is using me as bait! I did not tell anyone about anything, trust me! Have I betrayed you before? You should talk to Thyri about this. Hell, I think I should talk to Thyri about this. Maybe I made a mistake not taking her up on her offer in Atlanta.”
Mark ran his hands through his hair as if wanting to pull it out, and in that moment Chyna realized that he might be telling the truth.
Or maybe he is just a very good actor, she added to herself.
Whatever the case was, Chyna had other priorities right now. With riots ensuing in the city, she knew that the team’s lives were in danger. With Emilijus gone, the situation would only exacerbate. The first thing she needed to do was to get her team to safety. She could deal with Mark later. But she did not want to abandon the mission. If Tony had risked his life to get Chyna information about the bow, and Ethan and Emilijus had died for it, she knew what consequences would take place should it fall into the wrong hands.
A city was burning outside, and it was all because of a bow that was hidden in this corner of the world. Chyna knew she could not let any more harm be done. She was on a mission and she would complete it at any cost.
“Fine, prove it to me.”
She zipped up her bag, took it and approached Mark. “Prove to me that you haven’t betrayed us. If you do, I’ll let you live. If you can’t, I will make you hurt before I shoot you between the eyes.”
With that, she walked out.
***
When Sirita rang Tony’s office the third time, her hands were clammy and silent prayers were falling from her lips.
“Hey Bhagwan, pick up the phone Tony, please pick up!” She urged at no one in particular.
Her chest fell when the phone rang out and she heard the telltale sounds of his voicemail. Lord, what had happened there? She guessed that no news was perhaps good news, but she was dreading going back to Chyna with that thought. Something was troubling her boss, and she did not want to add to that quota.
Before Sirita’s fingers could dial for a fourth time, her phone rang. She checked the caller id to see that it was Thyri, and picked up, “Hello?”
“Ms. Patel, oh thank God! I have been trying to reach Chyna and Mark but I haven’t had any success. I have some news.”
***
“Pack up, we’re leaving.”
Chyna strode into the living room like a live storm, and Oscar had no difficulty picking it up. With all that had been going on in the city, he had expected that they would be leaving at a moment’s notice.
“Okay. Where are we going?” Oscar asked frantically. It would take time to pack up all of his equipment, and Chyna looked ready to bolt. Mark strode into the room behind her, and Oscar saw him grimace a little at the light.
“Where did that clue about the Illuminati lead?” Chyna asked Mark over her shoulder.
“Uh, it was a cathedral in Germany; in Dresden.”
Mark leaned against the armrest as if he was tired and held his head in his hands.
“There.” Chyna gave Oscar a dead look. The latter thought the exchange between Mark and Chyna was weird, but also thought the better of voicing it; Chyna looked ready to kill at the slightest provocation.
Sirita’s frantic voice interrupted his train of thought, “Chyna!”
The Indian girl whom Oscar had first thought of as meek, timid and incredibly sexy, and whom he had now come to admire for her intellect and wit, ran up to Chyna with a face streaked with worry.
“Thyri just called me.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“She said Rashid saw Tony’s apartment in flames yesterday and they’ve both been trying to reach him since then but there has been no sight of him. His phone is dead and he hasn’t had any contact with anyone at the Istanbul office for the longest time now. She’s worried.”
Sirita let it all out in one breath, and the silence that followed sickened Chyna to her core. She had promised herself never to compromise a mission by letting her feelings get in the way, but the prospect of losing Tony to the unknown without getting the chance to see him again scared her to death. Her throat felt constricted and her chest heaved with breaths that seemed like too much work. For the first time, she felt like her mind was a meaningless jumble, and she hadn’t a clue where to start sorting it all out.
“Did she say if Rashid tried to reach him at the consulate? If he was targeted at home, his unit would have gone underground and sheltered either in the FBI safe house or the consulate grounds.”
Sirita shook her head. Chyna slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand as she realized that none of the others would have known the true nature of his work. More importantly, the minute she had lost contact with him, she should have known to call the consul herself. She did the best thing she could think of, even after knowing that what she about to do was going to bring her chances down significantly.
“Sirita, Oscar, come with me,” she said quietly, and led both of her trusted comrades to the kitchen.
“Change of plans,” she said and turned abruptly once she had had a drink from a bottle in the fridge. It was only water, and she would have preferred something stronger at that point. “You two are going back to Istanbul. Get there, go to the office, and get me some news, any news.”
Oscar and Sirita looked at each other and then back at Chyna.
“But… you need us in Germany,” Sirita protested.
“I’ll be fine on my own. What I need you to do is get back home and tell me that Found History and Tony are okay. Do you get me?” Chyna insisted, and was relieved when both of her teammates nodded without any more questions.
“One more thing: Do not tell Mark about this. For all he knows, I am sending you to Japan to have sushi,” she emphasized, and taking in their confused and doubtful looks added, “I think he’s an informant. I think he has been relaying all our confidential information to outside sources. If that’s the case, I don’t want him to tip off whoever that source is and make things difficult for you.”
“What? Chyna, you de
finitely need us in Germany! How are you going to go there with him? He can’t be trusted now!” Oscar was vehement in his protests, and that pleased Chyna. At least someone was ready to stay true to their allegiances.
“Oscar, it seems that Mexico, and maybe the lack of the ever constant voice of reason which has always been Lana, has had a strange effect on all of you. Please try to remember who I am. You’re talking to Chyna Stone, resident bad ass of Found History Inc.”
Her little monologue evoked the lighthearted smiles she had been hoping for; she had even managed to make herself feel a little better.
“I told you. I will be fine. I have a plan and I promise, if anything goes wrong, I’ll tip you off before he can say ‘hot damn,’ okay?” she tried to placate him with the use of one of his favorite Tennessee cowboy expressions. It seemed to work.
Oscar stared at her for the longest time, but then he smiled and agreed nonetheless. Chyna nodded at her friends. Everything seemed to be set.
“Now, I believe you two have a flight to book.”
***
Oscar’s heart was beating at the speed of a formula one race car as he and Sirita landed at the airport. He couldn’t believe all that had happened in a matter of mere days. And Mark—he was most shocked about what he had learned about his Finnish comrade who had come to be a close friend over the few weeks since he had joined them. To think that Mark had been selling them out to someone—Oscar couldn’t even fathom the depths of hurt that he was facing.
He and Sirita did not say anything to each other as they went through the motions at the airport and then crossed the airport parking lot to load their bags into Sirita’s Range Rover. They had already agreed that it had been a great idea to ask Rashid Abdullah to take it there for them in anticipation of their arrival.
There was no talk in the car as it sped toward Istanbul’s museum district, nor were there any words when they arrived in front of Tony’s pristine home in the opulent neighborhood of Beyoğlu. The Beyoğlu and Galata regions of the city are interconnected webs of sophisticated and intellectual social districts where many nice cafes, theaters, second hand stores, terrace restaurants and language, history and art institutions, as well as wine bars, churches and schools are all located. In recent years, the area had gained enormous potential and had become bewilderingly popular among the trendsetters and trend followers settling within the city limits.
The building that had housed Tony’s FBI-issued apartment had been burnt black. Granted, it had never been the most attractive one on the street; with its harsh, brick red exteriors and tiny, old fashioned street facing balconies, but there was so much soot covering the walls that one could not see that it had ever been red before. The second floor, where Tony had lived, had been completely gutted by the fire; the rest of the safe house was destroyed as well.
When Oscar saw what was facing them, he sent up a prayer to heaven despite his belief in the wonders of technology. Dear Lord, what had gone down here? And where was everyone? The site was completely deserted. There were no cars, no yellow police tape or even pesky journalists who lived for such moments.
Oscar’s heart sped up as he and Sirita reached for the door and stepped inside. He didn’t know what to expect, but he wasn’t prepared for the horror that faced him. Everything in the building was charred. It looked as if a fiery tornado had toppled the office over before having its flames consume the victims. Chairs and tables were broken and blackened, as was stray stationary on the ground. The cupboards were opened and distorted, and black paper was sticking to many melted frames.
“Oscar!” Sirita called to him from the back of the mayhem, right where Tony’s bedroom had been. He ran to see what she was pointing at, and what he saw didn’t get his hopes up. Tony’s bedroom and his little office looked like an old, abandoned and destroyed space. His burnt coat lay in the middle of the pandemonium, but he was nowhere to be seen. That could very well have been a good thing or a bad one; a very, very bad one.
His table and chair had been toppled over, and his couch had been shredded. The shelves holding all his art and artifacts were bare, and all his cupboards and drawers were empty of their contents. Oscar guessed most of them were burnt and now scattered on the floor, but he also knew that what he saw thrown there was none of the important stuff. He could have said this was an accidental fire, but he was no fool.
“This was intentional. The place was literally bombed,” he stated, both scared and calm at the same time. It made all the more sense now, why Tony had disappeared. Good Lord, where was he?
“What?” Sirita was glued to her place.
“The place was ransacked before being set on fire. Look, all the artifacts from the case are gone, and I’m guessing the files that accompanied them. Somebody did this on purpose and burned everything else.”
Realization dawned on Oscar and Sirita at the same time. Whoever did this was no one friendly, and if he or she had all the information, it meant that Chyna was in potential danger.
“Sirita, we’ve got to go. Right now!”
Oscar knew he had some calls to make. He could do that on the way back to the airport.
***
Dresden Frauenkirche stood tall in the town of Dresden, the capital of Saxony. As Chyna and Mark’s car neared the church, she thought of the beautiful skyline of the city that she had been so mesmerized with when passing through Germany once, many years ago.
Dresden was built in the 11th century following Roman architectural patterns, but the main Baroque church was built in the early seventeen hundreds by George Bahr, who died before it could be completed. Earlier built as a Lutheran parish church, the structure had undergone years of remodeling before finally being baptized as a Protestant one. Many of the church’s features attested to that; for example the altar, pulpit and the baptismal font were built in the front so they could be in the view of the congregation.
One of its most distinctive features was the ninety-six meters high and twelve thousand tons heavy sandstone dome that stood the test of time and wars until it came down during the bombing of Saxony by Anglo-American allied forces during the Second World War. Only the altar, a relief description of Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the chancel behind it survived. The church then lay dormant for more than forty-five years before it was restored to its former glory as Communist rule enveloped Germany. One of the reasons for the delay was the tensions that ensued before the demolition of the Berlin Wall that divided East and West Germany.
As Chyna drove, she remembered the time when she had last walked through the halls of the huge and beautiful structure that she was approaching. Times had been different then, and she had had much better company.
Instinctively, she looked over to Mark, who was in the passenger seat with a bandage on his head. Chyna guessed she had been a little more than forceful while confronting him, and in the process had hurt him considerably. Her Finnish companion was now bent over Ethan Vitrak’s diary, frowning at something time and again and turning the pages. Chyna felt ready to drop from exhaustion. She had been driving for two days with not much rest, and was still waiting for an answer from Oscar. Her phone had lost connection long ago, and she had immediately switched to her secure satellite-enabled mobile which she knew her investigators would call her on once they couldn’t get through on her regular line.
Mark had suggested that he do some of the driving, but Chyna had refused. She had decided that she had let Mark into the fold too soon and because of his connection to Thyri Ragnarsson, whom Chyna respected immensely, she had let down her guard with him. Even Oscar, who had been with Chyna and Found History since shortly after her father had died, never drove Chyna anywhere.
Enough was enough, she had told herself.
“What is it?” she asked him, as he frowned yet again and clicked his tongue.
“Pull over for a minute, please,” Mark said, and Chyna parked the car a little away from the main square. “Look at this. I think it’s a riddle. It has
no place whatsoever in this diary, and I’ve been going over and over it. There are no references to this particular phrase anywhere. I think Ethan didn’t want to disclose the exact location of the bow, so he put it in a riddle.”
Chyna took the almost burnt book from Mark to see what he had been pointing at. Sure enough, at the bottom of the earmarked page were six words.
Take your aim. God protects it.
Memories of her time in the church came back to Chyna, and when she put her hand on the wheel again, she knew exactly where she was headed. It had taken less than a minute to solve this puzzle, and she knew why Ethan had worded it that way.
It could only be solved by someone who had visited the place.
***
“Chyna?” Mark asked from beside her. “Where are you going?”
“It’s at the altar, or somewhere around it,” Chyna explained to him, even though she did not want to. Mark might be a mole, but right now, she was all alone and he was her best bet for surviving if things went south.
“The altar?”
“Yes. The last time I came here, I found out that most of this church was destroyed in the bombings of Saxony during the Second World War. The only structures that survived were the altar and the chancel behind it. Like all places, this one too acquired its own rumors. Many believe that because the altar had a depiction of Jesus’ agony on it, God protected it. Do you get it now?”
By this time, both of them had reached the altar, and Chyna was already looking around for clues.
“Take your aim. God protects it… you think the bow is here.”
It wasn’t a question. Mark did not waste any more time and joined her in her search, only to be interrupted minutes later. Chyna called out to him, and he turned to find her bent over the depiction.