by A D Davies
Sure, it was frequently her bookwork and occasionally her on-the-spot deductions that sent the team on their way or solved a problem, but actual transactions and trades were always handled by others. She was allowed on site only when they were certain no danger would present itself. She was the group’s princess, enveloped in bubble wrap for the good of the mission.
Every damn mission.
After four years of growing into her academic role, she needed something more. Hence the outing in Prague. She’d cited her need to handle the object after Dan and Harpal liberated it from a salesman, “donating” gold coins dating from the early Roman Empire in exchange. Once Bridget confirmed the stone bangle appeared authentic, they were taking it to the man they knew only as “the Curator.” He was supposed to date the find and confirm or refute Bridget’s and Toby’s initial discoveries relating to its provenance.
Now Valerio Conchin had taken possession of it.
Julian Sibeko, meanwhile, insisted on flying commercial, which Bridget understood, but she could not pretend it didn’t disappoint her. Dan ribbed her about being “dumped,” but she shot back that the “new boy” hadn’t yet expressed a gender preference, meaning Dan still had a chance—a jibe she would not have dared express when she first met him. As a faintly homophobic ex-army type, he might have taken offense. Now it was second nature to her.
They touched down at an airfield outside La Rochelle at ten a.m., where Charlie played chauffeur in a minivan and drove them north through the French countryside to Chateau Caché, a property that Bridget’s parents leased to them for a dollar a year.
Julian was due to land at the main airport in Nantes at midday and had refused the offer of a ride, although Harpal would tail him covertly once they confirmed the flight. He was on Valerio Conchin’s radar, after all.
Charlie entered the grounds and sped along a two-hundred-meter driveway toward the house, its shape resembling a castle from the Middle Ages, albeit smaller and with a modern roof. It even had turrets, but you wouldn’t know it from the inside, which incorporated a more up-to-date layout.
They all disembarked, gathered their overnight bags from the trunk, and passed through a colonnaded front door into an anteroom that was paneled in mahogany.
“Toby!” Charlie called.
“Study,” came Toby’s reply, echoing through the wide passageways.
Charlie led the way to the room ten meters down the corridor, followed by Dan, then Harpal. Bridget hefted her too-large bag to her shoulder and trailed behind.
Despite a massive three hours of sleep on the jet, and the fifteen minutes she managed during the airport connection, she was ready to flop onto her bed in fresh flannel pajamas and read a book until she dozed off, awaiting Mr. Sibeko’s arrival. A hot chocolate would seal the deal. But first, she would endure Toby’s debriefing even though he already knew all he could.
As Bridget dragged herself into what people thought of as “Toby’s” study, she halted at the sight of her teammates frozen in place, a look of surprise across each face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Toby was sitting in his usual dark green leather armchair, an espresso cup in one hand, the saucer in his other. “We have a guest.”
Bridget waddled all the way in, hair strewn over her face. She dumped her bag and whipped her hair out of her eyes.
Occupying the couch beside a crackling log fire, Julian Sibeko sipped a glass of iced water.
He nodded, his face stone. “Hey.”
Toby explained how he found Jules in the control room on the second floor, but the new guy had refused to reveal how he (a) discovered LORI’s location, (b) arrived ahead of the Lear, or (c) broke in undetected. All he said was, “Because I’m smart.” It was agreed that Bridget should give their guest the grand tour in an attempt to earn his trust, so she donned a thick coat and strolled the perimeter of Chateau Caché beside the tall American, thankful for the unseasonal chill, which kept her awake. He never spoke except when responding to Bridget, and even then, only if it absolutely necessitated a reply.
“Calling it a ‘chateau’ makes it sound grander than it really is,” she said, forcing the small talk, “but it’s perfect for the five of us. A bit of privacy in a nosey world.” When her comments generated not even a flicker of a smile in response, she went on, “Large enough for a fine party, my momma tells me, but small enough to be homey.”
Jules nodded without looking directly at her.
“We’re spread over four floors, although we only really use three. Grounds are fifteen acres. Including a two-bedroom cottage for our housekeeper, Margarete.”
Jules gave that soulless nod again, but at least he spoke this time, his accent tinted with Brooklyn but not the full-on cabdriver drawl from the movies. “You keep your housekeeper isolated?”
“Actually, she insists on living away from the main building. She’s also our librarian but she isn’t exactly... comfortable in the main building. Partly because she’s always lived in her cottage, but also... well, she’s a lifelong catholic and lots of the books and plenty of the artifacts LORI deals with here... they’re sometimes heretical.”
Jules’s nod was turning into a robotic head bob. He still didn’t deign to look her way, his eyes roving the landscape and architecture. “You’re supposed to be filling me in about LORI. Not the house.”
Bridget swallowed back a firm retort, writing his short manner off as jet lag, but exaggerated her southern roots almost to stereotype. “Okay, yessiree, allow me to introduce us formally. We are the Lost Origins Recovery Institute.” She led him through a yard that used to house small farmyard animals, toned back her accent. “Essentially, we locate items that belong elsewhere and return them to their rightful place. Whether that’s negotiating the sale of a Persian bust from some too-big-for-his-boots businessman or a collection of gold coins looted from a poor village—”
“Or digging up new relics no one thought of before,” Jules added for her. “Treasure hunters.”
“You’ve done your homework. All since you dropped me off last night?”
“I’m resourceful.”
“We prefer the term ‘freelance archeologists.’”
The path curved away, over a natural rise into a copse of trees, which hid the building as they walked.
“But, yes,” Bridget said. “We also initiate our own explorations. We’re looking for items of real significance, something to... blow the archeological community away. And I know, I know, it makes us gosh-awful egomaniacs, but those things are out there. All of what’s known about human history currently is just scratching the surface.”
“Right. So ‘freelance archeologist’ translates as ‘conspiracy theorist.’ You make those snazzy videos I seen all over YouTube with the doomsday music, going on about lizard people and planet Nibiru?”
Bridget sighed but contained her frustration. It was a common response to her explanation of LORI’s work. “Conspiracy theorists base their assumptions on gut feelings. They figure something must be inaccurate because they don’t trust officials. For whatever reason. Then they go looking for evidence that fits their gut feelings and ignoring anything that doesn’t. We approach it from the point of view that the official record is correct, but when we find something that doesn’t gel with it, we don’t shoehorn the accepted version into our findings. We know there are gaps in history. And where there are gaps, the establishment—”
“Fills the gaps with theories,” Jules interrupted. “And they don’t like people tearing down those theories. You don’t profit from ‘blowing the archeological community away,’ even a bit?”
“We have to make some money. It keeps us going here. But what we find... it’s never to hoard for ourselves. Even in the days of antiquity, there was a trade in antiques. So you can imagine how old those things must be.”
She smiled. Waited.
Jules managed to chuckle at her lame joke, but it was so forced she wasn’t sure whether it was sarcasm or bad acting.
&
nbsp; “What I mean is, a trader might’ve brought an ancient tablet out of Persia in the 1200s and presented it to the king of France as an offering. It later gets plundered by the British during the Napoleonic Wars and sold on to a Russian oligarch after World War One. We find a way to return it to the rightful culture.”
“You steal it back.”
“We prefer to exchange it for an item that means more to that country. We use diplomacy where we can, or sometimes, if it’s very clearly a dishonest person who’s taken it recently, yeah, we use covert means.”
“Right. So you steal it back.”
Bridget let the comment hang a moment, allowing the cool breeze to swirl. “We’re not a government agency. We’re not even sponsored by any government. Charlie’s got automated programs running constantly to wipe any mention or photos of us from social media or public forums, so we keep our heads down. Obviously we can’t hide completely—”
“No,” Jules said as they emerged from the trees to a wide view of the house. “You’re Bridget Carson, and your parents are oil-rich billionaires who don’t approve of their daughter swanning ’round the world, digging up old bricks. Guessing there’s some conditions attached to this property, but they ain’t public record.”
She frowned. “How did you—”
“Graduated from Oxford University with a double first when you were just twenty. Must’ve started early. Seventeen?”
“How did you get that? It’s not public—”
“I found your hotel in Prague and then your ID. That got me access to personal info. I ain’t a hacker on the level you people play by, but I do what I gotta. Basic background, family, bit of hanging ’round the dark web. Didn’t take much to locate your ‘secret’ lair either.”
“It’s not a ‘lair.’ It’s our home...” Bridget tried to continue, but Jules was speaking again.
“So you guys don’t just do this for fun?”
“We’ll sure accept a reward if it’s offered. Mainly because we don’t have much choice. My parents, they lease us use the property, but I don’t get access to my trust fund until I start law school or a career they approve of. We do have one guy who funds some of our missions, but he’s mainly interested in religious items. How about you? What’s your financial interest?”
“If I can’t profit from a find, I don’t find it. But the ops where I go returning items to their owners? They’re the times I failed to grab my bracelet.”
“It’s a bangle.”
“Whatever.”
They crossed a stone bridge arching over a stream that flowed through the chateau’s land. Ducks splashed in the shallows, and a light mist rose from the surrounding fields.
Bridget glanced at him. “Everything you do is to track down that one thing?”
“Yeah. Mostly. So?”
“So... what will you do when you find it?”
“Eat pizza. What’s your interest?”
“Not everything is as it seems when you get right down to it.”
“Not everything is as it seems,” Jules repeated with a roll of his eyes. “Like this place?”
They passed the section housing the Demon Server’s main body.
“The core building is sixteenth century,” Bridget said. “They found tunnels too when they installed Charlie’s server. People say they were used in the Second World War to conceal Jews escaping the Nazis. Some apparently link up with the mining village ten miles that way.”
Jules’s eyes followed, then returned to the path. “Stories don’t get made up for the hell of it.” There was a bite of cynicism to him, exacerbated by his New York timbre. “People here, they want others to believe this place’s history is heroic. Helping people instead a’ hoarding money and valuables. History is written by the victors, right?”
Bridget paused to gaze out over the fields, the long grass unkempt due to budget issues. “That’s why we go to the source for our intel. If we find something in the historical record that differs from the conventional view, we probe that until we’re certain of the facts.”
Again, he sounded divided between bored and sarcastic. “All this helps you return artifacts to where they belong?”
“That and a few other things.”
“Like my mom’s bracelet,” Jules said. “You think that ain’t as it appears? That weird glow thing it did?”
“It’s a bangle. And you don’t know the half of it.”
She led him back inside, past the study, which was now empty, and into a wide, tall room where dozens of bookshelves formed a claustrophobic library. “Most are first editions, from prebiblical to Louis the Fourteenth to Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species. A lot have to be reprints or copies because the originals are owned by museums and in private collections.”
Jules followed, hands in his pockets, a teenager dragged against his will to his parents’ choice of venue. “Why so many?”
“Because, as you say, history is written by the victors. Many of these works are firsthand accounts. By people who were physically present at the time of events. I’ve had to learn so many languages, which is kind of a gift I suppose... I do that sorta thing quickly, and—”
“And you decode ancient symbols and pictographic language with ease,” Jules interrupted. “I also found the Guardian newspaper article from when you spoke at the British Museum. Your theory of links between Egyptian hieroglyphs and Native American cave paintings. The journalist called you ‘the Human Rosetta.’ True?”
“They exaggerated,” she said. “A little, anyway. How’d you find that so quickly?”
“I’m smart.” Jules edged out a thick black spine from the nearest shelf, the whole tome backed in matte leather, with Latin words formed of decorative gold. He said, “The Fabian Necronomicon.”
“You’re familiar with the work?”
He slotted it back in place. “I stole an original from a penthouse apartment in Caracas two years ago.”
They moved on, up a tight spiral staircase to a mezzanine, also crammed with books, which opened to another flight of stairs to the second floor. Or the first floor as the Europeans called it, something Bridget had never gotten used to: ground floor, then first, then second. She wondered if Jules ever got confused when speaking to Brits as she did. “Popping up to the first floor” seemed wrong unless you were in a basement.
“Final stop on the tour.” She led him into a room that reminded her of the bridge of a starship: the control center. “This is Charlie’s domain. Everything in here is connected directly to the independent banks of computers downstairs. She calls her setup the ‘Demon Server.’ Ninety percent of it is linked to the internet, but we keep a few air-gapped partitions. Meaning those drives have never been connected online. Can’t be hacked except on site—”
“I know what ‘air-gapped’ means.” Jules gazed about the place, seemingly impressed for the first time. “This must be expensive.”
“Charlie mostly built it herself, so it’s trade prices.”
A bank of five terminals lined one wall, each with a twenty-inch 4K screen, one of which displayed a rolling landscape that looked like it had been processed to resemble an X-ray.
“You got a LiDAR here?” Jules said, watching the feed.
“No, ‘LiDAR’ is a brand we can’t afford. This ground-penetrating radar is another of Charlie’s own.” Bridget stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder. “Cheaper and more efficient. You hook ‘the puck’ up to a drone and sweep over the land looking for anomalies. This is film taken three months ago in Derbyshire in the UK. We thought there was more to some burial mounds than the pros had worked out.” She pointed at the screen as a fuzzy perpendicular shape flashed by near a stone marker. “And there was more. Interesting to the local society, but nothing earth shattering. A grave for a Pict king’s mistress.”
Jules silently scanned the rest of the room.
Bridget had insisted on seats and desks for everyone, although they were rarely all present at one time. Toby loved the curved hundred-inch
glass pane in the center that acted as a holographic display, generating 3-D images without the need for those glasses from the movie theater. It was operated from the touch screen table in front of it, what Charlie called her “Demon Hub.”
Charlie had a thing for demons.
“So, that’s pretty much all of it,” Bridget said. “What do you think?”
Jules took a long, considered moment, pacing the room. He stopped at the touch screen. “I think you guys could be useful. Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You gotta tell me everything you know about my mom’s bangle. Then I’ll tell you everything I know. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Chapter Seven
Bridget hit an intercom, and when the little dude called Toby answered, she told him, much Jules’s relief, that their guest was ready to talk.
Although she’d relayed a lot of useless information, it was polite—according to Jules’s mom—to feign interest and come up with comments that convinced the boring person of your fascination.
Just tell me about my mom’s bracelet.
Sorry, I mean bangle.
Who cares about the property’s use during the Nazi occupation? How did that either help him locate his property or prove they could trust him, or vice versa?
Empty words. But people liked empty words for some reason.
Jules knew a lot of trivia, though, and that helped keep conversations going, such as his chat with Harpal about beer. He seemed to absorb it, cultural and physical idiosyncrasies, facts and figures.
Experts in his childhood termed his memory “eidetic”—what common language called a “photographic memory”—a condition that allowed him to retain all instruction, all teaching both physical and academic, and never lose it unless he chose to focus on rejecting it. Unfortunately, that meant a trade-off. Knowledge and skill and logic overrode the non-essential facets of life, like making friends and socializing; understanding psychology to degree level didn’t necessarily make for a great conversationalist.