by Matthew Rief
“You’re a genius,” Frank said. He read a few lines on the screen and added, “Charles the Bold was born the Count of Charolais.”
I patted Walt on the back.
“And which one of these crests belonged to the count?” Ange said.
Frank searched for a few seconds, then turned back to the chest.
“This one.”
He pointed to the image of a shield with an angry looking tiger on it. It had big sharp claws, and its head was turned back with its mouth opened. It looked like it was trying to bite its tail.
Frank let Walt do the honors, and he grabbed the dial and turned it to point at the crest.
“Two down,” I said. “And I think we owe you a few beers for that one.”
“A few?” Pete said, giving his old friend a hug. “You can have a whole keg. We’ll just keep that from your doctor.”
We turned our attention to the third riddle. It proved more difficult than the first two. Even with our combined efforts, it took us nearly three hours to decipher. Frank had to get a sub to fill in for his afternoon class, and we had a few pizzas delivered from Roostica to fuel us.
Frank was beyond impressed by the genius design of the chest. At one point I asked why he thought that Hastings had hidden the diamond and created the scavenger hunt to find it.
“This was a last hurrah from an incredibly intelligent and driven individual,” he said after giving the question some thought.
The fourth side completely stumped us all, so Frank called a friend of his from the University of Hamburg in Germany to help us with the final part to the elaborate lock. With three of the sides already solved, it would have been easy to just check each of the twelve remaining positions until we got the correct one. But Frank, being the romantic that he was, wanted to figure out the clues thoroughly.
“It would be a dishonor to Hastings if we don’t see this through to completion,” he said.
He also brought up that there could be some mechanism that prevented random guessing anyway. We consented, seeing his point and knowing that it would have taken us weeks to solve it all without him.
It was 1330 by the time he solved it, turned the dial into place, and we heard the welcome sound that signaled that our efforts had been worth it and that we’d managed to figure out the clues—a soft, nearly unnoticeable click.
Frank looked up at us and grinned.
The top of the chest was suddenly loose. Whatever secret it held was now ours for the taking.
I set aside the remaining crust of my fourth slice of pepperoni, wiped my chin, and hunched in close. The five others were huddled right beside me. We felt like we were Aladdin in the Cave of Wonders, reaching in for the genie’s magic lamp.
We agreed that Walt should do the honors. My heart raced as he placed his hands softly on the lid and lifted the chest open.
From my angle, it looked like the chest was empty. I couldn’t see anything inside it. But after a short pause and examination, Walt reached inside and pulled out a small rolled-up parchment.
No diamond yet.
“Look at that,” Frank said, pointing toward an intricate mechanism built into the lid.
There was a narrow glass vial with a clear liquid inside it.
“It’s a good thing you guys didn’t try and break into this thing,” Frank continued. “I’d be willing to bet that’s acidic and would have ruined whatever’s on that parchment.”
Walt untied a string that held the small rolled-up paper in place. Opening it carefully, he flattened it on the tabletop, allowing us to see what it said. To our surprise, there were no words. Just rows of numbers and dashes. Not even a title or explanation of any kind.
“Another clue,” Pete said.
Frank rubbed his tired eyes and added, “Yes. And a very confusing one at that.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Valmira Gallani sat on a cushioned chair in her private jet and watched through one of the windows as a team of inspectors spoke to the captain. She smiled and sipped a glass of raki, a popular Albanian alcoholic drink, while watching the interaction. She felt anything but nervous.
Before her father had passed away, he’d taught her everything he knew when it came to running a successful crime operation. That included how to evade customs agents and local police.
Maybe he taught me a little too much, she thought, her lips contorting into a wry smile. Winners strike first, Father. Winners are never content with second place. Winners in this business leave their morals at the door.
A vial of arsenic and a few .45-caliber bullets had ensured that she was the winner. And as far as her morals, if she’d ever had any, they’d not only been left at the door, they’d been locked outside for longer than she could remember.
She glanced to her left at the four men seated across from her. They’d arrived in the States just half an hour earlier. Some of the best killers in her organization, Val had called for them right after shit had hit the fan the previous evening.
Just as she finished off her drink, her phone vibrated to life on the small table beside her. She grabbed it, glanced down at the screen, and read a few lines of text. She laughed and set the phone back down.
I’ve got you now, old man.
The men outside finished their chat. The customs agents walked off satisfied, and the captain entered the cabin.
“Ma’am,” he said, “will we be leaving now?”
Val paused a moment. At first, the captain had thought that maybe his boss hadn’t heard him. She seemed preoccupied with something else. He was about to ask her again when she finally replied.
“Yes,” she said, “we will be leaving now.”
The captain nodded. He turned and strode toward the cockpit.
“But not for home,” she said, causing him to freeze in his tracks.
The four men seated across from Val raised their eyebrows and cocked their heads. The captain turned around, waiting for a moment before saying, “Where, then, ma’am?”
“Memphis International Airport,” she said, reading the words off the screen in front of her. “Tennessee.”
Just under two hours later, the jet’s tires touched down onto a wet tarmac nine hundred miles northwest of where they’d taken off. The sixty-degree weather was a welcome relief and was more like what she was accustomed to that time of year in her homeland.
She stepped out to the hangar and slid into a rental car. Two of her men climbed inside, and they drove to an affluent subdivision on the east side of town. It was just after three o’clock on a typical Sunday afternoon. A middle-aged woman was walking her shih tzu while chatting on the phone. A group of kids rode by on their bicycles. A UPS truck was parked a few houses down, the driver stepping out to deliver a package.
They pulled up to the curb in front of an opulent Southern-style house situated on a well-landscaped property. Judging from the home and the neighborhood, it was easy to see that the owners were well off.
Val spent a few moments scanning over the house. There appeared to be a garage around the left side, so she couldn’t tell for sure if anyone was home. It looked like there were lights on, but it was hard to tell in the early-afternoon light.
“Pull into the driveway,” she ordered the driver.
He didn’t hesitate. Putting the car in drive, he pulled them slowly into the driveway and stopped in front of an elegant black gate.
The moment the wheels stopped turning, Val reached for the handle.
“Now are you finally going to tell us what we’re doing here?” one of Val’s men said. “I thought we were going to take down that old man and get the diamond.”
Val tilted her head slowly, stared daggers at him.
“You question my leadership one more time, and it will be the last thing you do.” She eyed him for a few seconds to make sure that he got the message, then pushed open the door. “And leverage. We’re here for leverage.”
Val walked along the red brick walkway that wrapped around to the front of the house.
All of the plants and hedges were trimmed neatly. There was a wreath with flowers hanging from the large front door.
She stood still for a few seconds, then reached forward and pressed the doorbell. The two guys stood at her flanks a half step behind her.
A muffled welcoming jingle rang out inside the house. A dog barked. A kid called out something. And a man walked into view.
After a quick glance through one of the small side windows, he opened the door slowly. He was tall and had neatly trimmed dark hair. He wore brown shorts, boat shoes, and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“Can I help you?” he asked through the partly open door.
He looked suspicious, but not enough to be worried. People going door to door in their well-to-do neighborhood weren’t entirely out of the ordinary. Though it was usually a parent with kids trying to sell overpriced sugary treats.
“Yes,” Val said, answering honestly and trying to sound nonthreatening. She recognized his face from the photographs her investigator had sent over. Peter Adams had no idea how bad his day was about to get. “We know your father. Walt.”
Peter let out a long sigh.
“He isn’t my father,” he said. “Why are you here? Is he dead?”
“Not yet.”
He shook his head in confusion.
“What does that mean?”
Val was getting sick of the small talk. She glanced back over her shoulder and spotted a neighbor across the street.
A close-knit community like this, everyone’s up in everyone else’s business.
“It means that he’s in trouble and we think that you can help,” she said. “May we come in?”
There was a slight pause before he answered. It was so short that it was almost unnoticeable, but it was there. Maybe a voice inside his head told him it was a bad idea. Maybe a deep, primal part of him knew that something was wrong.
But when the moment passed, he opened the door the rest of the way.
“He’s always in trouble,” Peter replied. “I’ll do what I can. Can’t make any promises, though. What are you guys, detectives or something?”
The three of them entered. One of Val’s men shut the door behind them. The moment that they were hidden from view within the house, Val slammed her right fist into Peter’s face. His nose crunched, and he groaned as his head snapped backward.
Before he knew what had happened or could make an attempt at retaliating, Val was on top of him. She slammed him to the floor, pounding him two more times before ordering the two guys to go after the rest of the family.
They didn’t need an order. The two men were already halfway across the entryway, heading straight for the kitchen. Peter wailed and grunted. Blood dripped down his face, soaking the collar of his shirt and dripping onto the clean white carpet.
Holding him down, Val grabbed a small syringe and stabbed the needle into the middle of his right thigh. Peter struggled for a few seconds before his body went limp. Tilting his head up, he watched helplessly as his wife and two infant children were dragged into view. Their terrified faces were the last things he saw before he drifted into unconsciousness.
The three experienced criminals quickly knocked out the woman and the two kids as well. The two thugs duct-taped all of their captives’ mouths, then zip-tied their ankles and wrists while Val opened the gate and drove the rental van around back.
Less than ten minutes after arriving at the house, they had the family loaded up and were back on the main road.
“Back to the airport,” Val said.
That old-timer has really pissed me off now, she thought. Too bad he has no idea that he’s barely managed to scratch the surface of my ruthless potential.
TWENTY-FIVE
I filled a mug with coffee for what felt like the twentieth time since arriving at Frank’s office five hours earlier. We’d sat huddled around the mysterious parchment for half an hour, trying to figure out what the random assortment of numbers could mean.
I reached across the table, opened a pizza box, and pulled out yet another slice. Nearly all the excitement from figuring out how to open the chest was gone. It had been replaced by the disappointing possibility that Hastings had simply scribbled a bunch of gibberish on an old piece of paper.
Or maybe the man’s just messing with us from the grave.
During a momentary break in the conversation, Jack coughed, appearing to choke on his drink. He made a few abnormal noises, then cleared his throat. His eyes were wide, and he looked like he had something important to say but couldn’t get it out.
“You doing alright over there?” Frank asked.
We were all looking at him, making sure that he wasn’t really choking.
“Wrong pipe,” he said, waving a hand. He rose to his feet, stepped around the small table, and looked closely at the flattened parchment. “But I know what this is.” He laughed and added, “Holy crap, I know what this is!”
We all looked at him like he was crazy. Probably because he was acting like a crazy person.
“It’s an Ottendorf cipher,” he declared.
I smiled, taken aback by his words. It wasn’t that I knew what the hell an Ottendorf cipher was. I didn’t. I was just amazed that Jack knew such a big word.
“It’s been a long day,” Pete said with a laugh. “Maybe we should pick this up again in the morning.”
Jack punched our friend in the shoulder.
“I’m serious, man,” he said.
He was laughing as well, but it was clear that he believed what he was saying.
The only one not reacting was Frank. He was sitting quietly, staring intently at the parchment.
“He’s right,” Frank finally said. He looked up and locked eyes with Jack. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it myself.” He rose to his feet, shook Jack’s hand enthusiastically, then plopped back down into his chair and sighed. Shaking his head, he added, “Not that I’m complaining, and please don’t take this the wrong way. But how would that possibly be common knowledge for a guy who spends most of his time diving and fishing to his heart’s content?”
Jack laughed.
“It’s okay, Professor,” he said in a happy tone. “You can say it. I’m a beach bum, through and through. Proud of it. And I’ll grant you that one. It sure isn’t common knowledge for a conch like me.”
He raised his eyebrows, and we all remained silent, waiting for him to continue and wondering what in the hell they were talking about.
“You remember a few months ago when I invited you guys to the movies?” he said. If we had any expectations when it came to his explanation, he’d officially gone off that radar. “Well, I went to see National Treasure.” He paused a moment, then grinned. “I’m not exactly the biggest Nic Cage fan, but that movie was pure entertainment.”
“And this has something to do with an Ottendorf cipher?” Frank said.
“Yeah. If any of you saw it, you’d know it’s about a treasure hunt with clues. Kind of like what we’re doing now. Anyway, the main character, this guy named Gates, stole the Declaration of Independence and on the back of it were codes that looked just like this.”
He held up the old parchment.
“Can someone please tell me what this Ottendorf thing is already?” Walt said emphatically. “I’m about to have an aneurysm over here.”
Frank raised a hand.
“It’s simple, really,” he said. “Each of these numbers… actually, Jack, would you care to do the honors?”
Jack smiled.
“Alright, so basically these numbers correlate to words in a document of some kind,” he said, leaning over and pointing to the parchment. “The first number refers to the page. The second refers to the line on the page. The third refers to the letter on that line.” He looked up and shrugged. “It’s actually pretty simple.”
I smiled and patted my friend on the back.
I guess I need to watch more movies. Hard for me to justify a significant amount of screen time when I
live in paradise, however.
After each of us expressed our gratitude to Jack for his integral realization, Ange said what all of us were thinking.
“So, what document is it referring to?”
Walt was the one who perked up this time. Grabbing the parchment, he examined the lower corners.
“These numbers are out of place,” he said. “They don’t go with the others above. And there are twelve of them.”
“Coordinates,” I said with a smile.
Before another word could be said, Frank slid over his laptop and punched in the sequence of numbers. My mind ran over possible locations. I just hoped that it was someplace nearby. From what I’d learned about Hastings over the past few days, he’d traveled extensively in his life. The last thing we needed was to have to travel to some remote region in Africa or South America to find the next clue. But glancing at the coordinates, I knew that we were looking at somewhere in the Caribbean.
“Andros Island,” Frank said. “Looks like it’s near Spaniard Creek.”
Andros Island is in the Bahamas. Though it’s technically an archipelago, or a group of many islands, it’s commonly referred to as just Andros and is known as the largest of all the Bahamian islands. Though I’d only ever been there once and many years earlier, I remembered it being beautiful and knew that it was a top dive destination in the Caribbean.
Frank zoomed in on the map, then paused a moment.
“What is it?” I said, curious by his intrigued expression.
“Have a look for yourselves,” he said, turning the screen around.
We all leaned in close and stared at the point on the map. It looked like it was in the middle of nowhere and was directly over a near-perfect circle of water and a tiny sandy beach.
“A blue hole,” Jack said.
He grabbed the mouse and zoomed out.
“It’s right on the edge of Blue Holes National Park,” Walt added.
Jack shook his head. “This guy is just full of surprises.”