Sanskrit Cipher: A Marina Alexander Adventure

by C. M. Gleason

  She frowned. “It’s so old, we really should do it in a lab with the proper tools—”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t have the proper tools here,” he said, giving her a look. “Marina, this could be one of the most amazing discoveries of our time—”

  “Which means it really should be done in a lab with a lot of preparation and safety precautions,” she replied coolly. But she felt the spike of excitement that was blazing in his eyes inside herself. There was something about that little jar—when she’d held it in her hands, she felt something.

  Something real and strong. Energy. Warmth.

  Something that almost felt as if it were living.

  Was that just because it had been made from earth—from Gaia? And that Marina was becoming highly sensitive to her energy?

  Eli was still looking at the jar, holding it up in front of his eyes, turning it around and around. He tugged gently on the little stick that made the top’s handle, and it broke, then disintegrated under his touch. “Oops,” he said, looking flustered. “I really didn’t mean to do that. I just— Marina, the top moved. Just now. I think the seal might be broken.”

  She couldn’t contain a smile. The guy looked like a little boy on Christmas begging to open a package. “Could be because it’s been exposed to the air and been jostled around since Jill Fetzer opened the package—what, two, three days ago?”

  “Right.” He looked wistfully at it. “It’s not going to damage anything if we just take the top off, since it’s already loose, right?”

  Marina sighed, but she couldn’t deny her own thrill of excitement. And after all, it wasn’t as if she were an archaeologist who had found the object and needed to preserve its location—the jar had long been removed from its origination. She knew how to handle delicate artifacts, however, and it was better her than Eli, she decided.

  “All right. Let’s see how loose it is and then decide. I have tools in my office.”

  Moments later, she’d spread a lint-free white cloth down over the kitchen table, which had a good light over it. She’d donned gloves (although it was a little late now, since the jar had been handled and rolled over the floor when she nudged it under the sofa) and laid out a row of tools. Hardly able to contain his excitement, Eli hopped impatiently from one foot to the other as he watched her.

  “It’s not like we’re going to find a new specimen of insect in here,” she said with a laugh as she picked up a small scalpel.

  “Well, you don’t know that…but it’s very possible Jesus of Nazareth held that pot! What if there’s some sort of jewelry in there, or—or something else that belonged to him?”

  “Well, we’ll soon find out—you’re right, the top is loose. Whether it was from natural exposure or a little contemporary assistance, we’ll never know,” she added, giving him a wry look.

  She carefully slid the scalpel along the seam between top and bottom, slowly, painstakingly working the tip of it around the joint. Her phone gave a quiet ding from where it sat safely on the kitchen counter—a text message alert—and she said, “Can you check that, Eli?”

  Anything to get him from breathing down her neck and jockeying around for a minute. Good grief—she didn’t remember the guy being like this in his own lab.

  “It’s from Gabe MacNeil. He says, ‘Need to speak to you ASAP.’ Oh, now he’s calling.”

  “Just let it go. I’ll call him back in a sec— Ah, here we go.”

  “You got it?” Eli dropped her phone onto the counter and swiftly came back. His long fingers gripped the edge of the table as if to keep himself from grabbing at the pot.

  “Yes…all right…” Holding the jar steady with a gloved hand, she used the scalpel to slightly lift the top, then let go of the jar to grasp the broken part of the top’s handle and gently pulled it away.

  They nearly bumped heads looking down into the little jar, and Marina eased back with a little laugh. She’d had a glimpse of what was inside: some thick, dark substance. Not oil, but—

  “It’s honey,” Eli said, shock and awe in his voice. “It’s freaking honey.” He looked at Marina. “What do you want to bet it’s from that rosy-gold bee?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if it were, but would we be able to tell?”

  “Maybe…if we got to the bee’s habitat. That settles it—I’m going to Ladakh, and I’m going to find the place where Patty heard about the bee. You want to come?”

  Marina felt a jolt of excitement at the idea. But before she could respond, her phone rang again. “It’s probably Gabe. When he says ASAP, that usually means he’s just around the corner,” she said dryly. “Like someone else I know.”

  Eli gave her a little smile, then returned his attention to the pot of honey as Marina picked up her phone. Yep—it was Gabe.

  “Hey,” he said. “We’ve got a problem. Are you in Ann Arbor?”

  She gave Eli a look, then raised her eyebrows when she saw that he’d dipped a tiny spoon into the honey. “Yes, at the moment. But I’ll be leaving for Ladakh in the next day or two. What’s going on?”

  “Ladakh? Where’s that?”

  “Northeast India—mountainous region on the border near Tibet,” she replied, watching as Eli examined the little spoonful of honey. He’d flashed a broad smile when he heard Marina announce her intention to go with him. “What’s going on?”

  “Did you hear about those weird truck accidents—there was one in Ohio, one in West Virginia, and a third in Kentucky.”

  “The single-vehicle accidents where the truck kind of collapsed? Yes, I was actually in Ohio when the roads were blocked off from it. Why?”

  “We—Helen, Colin, and I—are pretty sure your people are involved.”

  “They’re not my people,” Marina replied flatly. “And if I recall correctly, there was a lot of hazardous material lost because of those trucks going down. That’s not typical of the Skaladeskas. They wouldn’t hurt Gaia by spreading dangerous environmental waste.”

  “Marina,” he said just as calmly and evenly, “Helen and Colin and I think you should know about what’s going on because the Skalas are connected. Maybe there’s something you can do to help—”

  “I haven’t talked to any of them”—oh, shit, except for Varden—“for years.” Technically, that was true—she hadn’t talked to them. She had received random messages from Roman via email or even in the regular mail over the last three years. But nothing substantive—only nudges to remind her that they still existed.

  Still wanted something from her.

  Not something, but everything.

  “Marina, can we meet?” Gabe said again in that deep, steady voice. “We need to talk to you about this.”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied reluctantly. It was merely a request now, but it was possible it would become an edict later—as she had learned previously when dealing with Colin Bergstrom. That was the bad part about being related to an ecoterrorist group. “But I’m leaving for Ladakh as soon as I can. I suppose you should just come here—I’m assuming you’re in town or can get here. Can you tell me more about what’s going on before?”

  She listened as he filled her in on the three accidents and how Helen Darrow’s people made the connection to the Skaladeskas based on a tip from the foreman at the trucking company. Just as he was finishing the explanation, Marina suddenly remembered that not only had she been in Central Ohio when she heard about the trucking accident—that was why there hadn’t been enough emergency staff to help at the Turncoat Don cave incident—but that Rue Varden had been there as well.

  Surely that wasn’t a coincidence.

  They agreed that the team—Gabe, Helen, and Colin—would be at her house in a few hours. Just then, another text message came on her phone. Marina didn’t even have to pull the phone away to look. She already knew who it was from.

  She just knew.

  She ended the call with Gabe and looked at the text from the random number she knew was Varden.

  Need to talk to you.


  Yeah? Well, she needed to talk to him too.

  “You put centuries-old honey on your skin?” Marina glanced at Eli as she settled on the couch. “Isn’t that a little…risky?”

  He settled back in the sofa and grinned as he scratched Adele between the ears. They were waiting for Gabe and the others to arrive—which would be any minute now. “Not at all. Honey never spoils. It doesn’t go rancid. As long as it’s not contaminated with water or anything, it’s as edible as it was the day it was scooped out of the hive. There have been urns of honey found in the Egyptian tombs that were completely fine, millennia after being sealed up.”

  “You didn’t eat it,” she said. “Tell me you didn’t eat any of it.”

  “Of course I ate some of it. Just a little taste. It’s Jesus’s honey!” His eyes were dancing, and she couldn’t tell whether it was from mischief or excitement. “And yes, I also smeared some—just a tiny bit—over the dart mark our priest friend gave me.”

  “Why?” Marina couldn’t contain a smile of her own—he looked so happy and self-satisfied. Nonetheless, she had a lot of unpleasant thoughts she hadn’t shared with him.

  According to Gabe, the Skaladeskas were responsible for the three truck accidents. She didn’t understand how that would be possible, knowing those trucks carried hazardous material. Dumping—or allowing a spill of dangerous waste—went against their very purpose of saving and protecting Gaia. Surely they weren’t involved.

  But why was Varden in Ohio if the Skaladeskas weren’t involved?

  Because he was following you.

  Yes, that was very possible. Coincidental. She did need to talk to him, but she didn’t want to do so when Eli was around, and she certainly didn’t want Varden showing up here when Gabe and Helen were around.

  So she’d responded to Varden’s text with a terse Soon.

  “Honey has antiseptic and healing properties,” Eli said. “Put it on a cut and it’ll help it to heal. I figured if this was Jesus’s honey, its healing power might be even more potent. Can’t hurt to try.” He was still grinning. “I can’t believe it. We might have found Jesus’s honey. Can you imagine what this would mean to the world?”

  Marina could, in a way. It would be an earth-shattering discovery for many reasons—whether or not this honey had any special properties. But she couldn’t dismiss that the idea was intriguing and exciting. She didn’t follow any organized religion, but there was no denying that Jesus of Nazareth had been a historical person of great interest. Any find related to him would have stunning worldwide effect.

  “It would turn things upside down,” she said.

  “Exactly. And that’s why our priest friend has been on top of this from the beginning,” Eli replied.

  “But he’s not working alone,” Marina said. “He confirmed it, didn’t he? When he said he arrived at the meeting with Jill Fetzer too late.”

  “I caught that too. Someone else killed Jill. The question is whether Father Dart Gun knows him or not. I’m going to ask Helen Darrow what she knows about that.”

  “Speaking of Helen Darrow, she just texted that they’re on their way from the Ann Arbor airport,” Marina said as she looked at her phone. “ETA ten minutes.”

  “Okay. That gives me time to check and see if that dart wound is looking any better.” Eli began pulling up his shirt to reveal a lean brown torso.

  Marina watched in amusement and admiration. Other than the clinical work of digging out the remainder of the dart, it had been a while since she’d had her hands on that torso, and she was looking forward to the possibility of doing so again soon.

  “It’s gone,” he said, his voice cracking with shock. “Holy shit. The puncture wound is completely gone, Marina. Look!”

  She stared. He was correct. There was no sign of any wound on his skin where she knew he’d been shot. The only evidence that something had been there was a small shiny patch that was probably the remnants of the honey. “That’s…impossible,” she said, even as she knew it obviously wasn’t.

  “Show me yours,” he said. “Let’s compare. We got shot within minutes of each other.”

  Marina unbuttoned the front of her shirt and opened it to reveal the place she’d been injured. The puncture wound was still there—a small, angry red dot in the center of a crimson wheal that was painful to the touch.

  They looked at each other, the only sound in the room their ragged, shocked breaths.

  Then Eli said, “We found Jesus’s honey.”

  Thirty-Five

  “Well isn’t this a little bit déjà vu,” said Helen Darrow as she walked into Marina’s home. During the copper beetle situation, they’d met here as well, so she was familiar with the place. “Dr. Alexander, I’d say it’s nice to see you again, but under the circumstances, we can probably both agree maybe not so much.”

  Marina gave her a wry smile. “Likewise. Nothing personal, Agent Darrow, but my life is a lot less frantic when you’re not involved in it.”

  They both chuckled, at ease with each other and their respective positions within the dynamics of the ad hoc team. As Helen greeted the two dogs, she noticed that Marina had grown her dark brown hair out a little longer since they’d last worked together, but it was still layered and choppy on the ends. She had intelligent hazel eyes that were devoid of mascara or eyeliner; in fact, the only makeup she wore was a swipe of lip gloss that might just as easily have been tinted SPF lip balm. Marina Alexander’s style was casual and low maintenance—bordering on earth mother. Which, Helen thought, was rather appropriate, all things considered.

  “Have a seat. I’ve got coffee and tea for anyone, and, yes, some Cottage Inn pizza,” Marina added with a nod at Gabe. She told the dogs to lie down, and they went to two different floor cushions and began to gnaw on their respective treats.

  “Dr. Sanchez.” Helen nodded at him as she settled into the comfortable chair her hostess had indicated. The seat seemed to have been positioned as the focal point in the room, and Marina was clearly giving her the lead. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” She lifted a brow and considered whether she should insist he leave. After all, this was a confidential meeting.

  Still, he’d been involved and instrumental in the previous debacle with the copper beetle, and Helen doubted very much that Marina Alexander would have brought him along if his presence wasn’t relevant—although how, she couldn’t imagine.

  “Why, Agent Darrow—you haven’t changed a bit since I last saw you several hours and a time zone ago,” said Eli with a smile. He was wearing the same uniform as he had been every time she’d seen him: an entomology-themed t-shirt and shorts with Birkenstocks. The only variety she’d ever noticed was that sometimes in deference to weather, a button-down shirt or lab coat flapped open over his tee, and he wore chinos instead of shorts. “Sorry to crash the party, but I was here with Marina when MacNeil contacted her, and I’ve got some information for you relative to our meeting—which was, I can hardly believe, only this morning. Both Marina and I have. And it might even be related to why you’re here.”

  There was an extra sparkle in his eyes that hadn’t been there when they met earlier, along with an underlying thrum of excitement that made Helen curious. He seemed ready to burst.

  But she had a meeting to run, and the topic was serious and urgent. There would be time for questions later.

  Marina and Eli greeted Gabe and Colin, and Helen noticed without even a blip of pique that Marina and Gabe exchanged warm embraces and quick kisses on the mouth. Their vibe was low-key. Whatever romance that had been between the two of them years ago had cooled into something like easy, casual friendship and mutual respect.

  As for Helen and Gabe’s relationship—such as it was—well, they lived too far apart and were too busy in their current jobs for it to be anything other than casual friendship and mutual respect as well.

  Once everyone was seated with their choices of beverage and, in Gabe and Eli’s case, slices of thick-crust pizza, Helen began t
he meeting without any preamble. She filled in Marina and Eli about the truck accidents and the cause of them.

  “So you’re saying the Skaladeskas have a bacteria that feeds on manganese, which can destroy anything metal in—in hours?” Eli said when she was finished. “That’s not good.”

  Helen almost laughed at the understatement. Instead, she nodded, then looked at Gabe and Colin. “Since we met yesterday, my team has collected and analyzed more information about this bacteria. It appears that this particular bacteria—and forgive me for the simplicity of what I’m about to say, because I’m not a bacteriologist and I’m reporting on how it was described to me as a layperson. But know that as simple as what I’m about to say might sound, my team has the science to back it up. Should any of you want to delve into it.” She gave Gabe a wry look.

  “No, no, layperson info is enough for me at this point,” he replied with a laugh as he wrapped a long string of mozzarella around his fork.

  Helen nodded. “As I mentioned previously, this seems to be a novel bacteria, but it actually is not. Apparently, there’s an academic paper that was published seven or eight years ago discussing this particular bacteria that feeds on manganese.” She glanced at Gabe and Colin. “Not the one that was discovered by the people at Caltech. I’m talking about the particular bacteria that caused these trucking accidents. It was discovered by a group of scientists in a variety of disciplines who were studying the Tazhnev Glacier in northern India, near the Chinese border.

  “Apparently, traces of this bacteria attached itself to some of their gear and anything that was stainless steel or other metal disappeared—or, more accurately, was used for resources to help the bacteria grow and spread. As the paper told it, the crew had no idea about it until a ring of keys to one of their UNICAT Volvos disappeared.”

  “Ouch,” said Eli.