The Dead of Night

by Peter Lerangis

  But necessity, Ian had decided, was the mother of combustion.

  “Turn right,” chirped the voice on his GPS device. “Now.”

  “Now?” Ian barked back. “All I see is a bloody narrow gap between trees!”

  “Recalculating,” the voice replied.

  Now Ian was detecting an attitude. Are we due for an eye exam, or did we fall asleep at that turn? I do have better things to do than recalculate every few seconds for the rest of my life.

  “Blast it,” Ian murmured, stepping on the brake. A buzz like a chain saw sounded in his ear, and he slapped a mosquito the size of a small nesting bird. At the airport, they had warned him to slather bug repellent above the neck. But he’d ignored them, and now his face felt like a Janus dartboard in a Lucian recreation room.

  Ian yanked the steering wheel and skidded into a U-turn, then backtracked to the turnoff. This time, he forced his way down the impossibly thin path. “I hope you’re happy now,” he muttered to the machine.

  “Destination reached,” the voice said.

  Ian slammed on the brake again. “Destination? Here?”

  He wanted to hurl the device clear to Venezuela. This couldn’t possibly be the South American headquarters of Aid Works Wonders. He was at the edge of a clearing in the forest — desolate, empty, neglected.

  Ian stepped out of the car, grabbing a camera off the seat — along with a photo printout from the Aid Works Wonders website. The remains of a fire smoldered in the center of the clearing. Stacked around the edge were several piles of wood and papers. A gray fox, warming itself by the fire, gave Ian a wary look and then loped away.

  As he stepped farther in, Ian could see the tottering frame of a hut, oddly lopsided. A broken sign dangled from the top of a door frame. Half of it was on the ground, the remaining part hand-painted with the words AID WOR.

  He held up the photo. It was the same building — the one with all the workers posed in front. But in the image, it looked strong and substantial, not slanted like this.

  Walking around the side, Ian saw why. It was only the frame of a building — a wall, a door. The rest had been propped up with rebar.

  The other huts in the clearing had long since fallen down, swept into the piles along the edge. Ian edged close to one of the piles. It contained a stack of papers, including the corner of a glossy photo. He slid it out carefully.

  The image of a young face smiled up at him — gap-toothed and impossibly cute. Two lines of text were stamped at the bottom: ROBERT J. RODRIGUEZ / REPRESENTED BY FILMKIDS TALENT AGENCY. But Ian knew the boy as someone else.

  “Carlos,” he murmured.

  A gunshot rang out behind him. Ian screamed, falling to the ground.

  “¿Quién es?” a voice bellowed. Three men came into the clearing. They were middle-aged and pot- bellied, wearing old shirts and straw hats. The man in the middle carried a pistol. Seeing Ian’s face, he smiled. “Americano?”

  Ian scrambled to his feet. “No, British! Look what you did to my trousers. These were custom tailored at Harrods. My tailor, Cedric —”

  He let the sentence go. In truth, he hadn’t seen Cedric in months.

  “If you prefer,” said the man in the middle, pointing his gun at Ian’s leg, “I can make the other side match.”

  “No!” Ian shrieked. “I didn’t realize you spoke a form of English. I am Ian Kabra. Ka . . . bra! Does that name ring a bell?”

  A flash of recognition passed across the leader’s face. He muttered something in Spanish to one of the other men, then lowered his gun. “I am Marcos. The woman . . . Kabra . . . she is your mother?”

  “Sí. Oui. However you say it. Yes.” Ian nodded, holding out the photo. “I came looking for this compound.”

  The three men gazed at it briefly and broke into laughter. “Look, there I am,” Marcos said, pointing to a face in the image. “Also Miguel. And José. And all of our families.”

  Ian gazed closely at the picture. All three men were in the crowd, dressed in AWW uniforms. “You don’t work for the organization?” he asked.

  Marcos scowled. “Your mother did not let us keep the clothing. She told us we were going to be in movies. But she left and we did not hear from her again.”

  Ian took a deep breath. “My mother,” he said as he took the photo back, “lies.”

  Amy hit the ground hard, just inside the observatory wall. The pain shot up her leg but she shook it off. In the darkness, she could hear Jake, Atticus, and Dan drop on either side of her.

  She listened for the shriek of a security system. Nothing. “Good job, Dan,” she said.

  “Thank my security guru, Lightfinger Larry,” Dan said.

  Her watch now read 9:47. The hike through the cemetery that bordered the observatory seemed to have taken hours, but Amy had decided going by foot was the only way to avoid detection. “We have exactly one hour and three minutes,” she whispered.

  She darted up the hill, hopping over the observatory plinth. The door to the Fakhri sextant loomed overhead, silhouetted by a thick canopy of stars.

  “Do you think Ulugh Beg will forgive us for breaking in?” Atticus asked.

  “We’ll make him an honorary Cahill,” Amy said.

  “Stand back, guys.” Jake spun sharply, lashing his leg out in a powerful kick. He connected with the door, just above the latch.

  It cracked open.

  “Where’d you learn to do that?” Dan asked.

  “Thank my martial-arts guru, Heavyfoot Harry,” Jake replied.

  “Come on.” Amy pushed the door open and stepped inside. Jake shone a flashlight around the tunnel, focusing down the long slope of the sextant.

  The air was frigid and penetrating. Amy shivered. It felt as if ghosts were flying up her nostrils. She pulled a copy of the poem from her back pocket and held it near the light. “‘Deep within Gurkhani Zij / Lies Taragai’s unfinished prize: / The unperfected instrument, / Though vast in power, small in size’ — that’s our first hint. The astrolabe is a small instrument. Jake and I are thinking it’s hidden here somewhere.”

  Her voice echoed eerily. She imagined it floating out of the observatory and over the graves, amusing the dead. “Keep the volume down,” she added.

  “What’s the next part?” Dan whispered, peering at the poem. “‘What of this work of Ulugh Beg, / Who dared to count infinity? / His catalog, though vast in scope / Yet of divisions had but three.’”

  “His catalog of stars numbered one thousand eighteen,” Jake said. “But that can only be divided into two numbers — two and five hundred nine.”

  Amy stepped to the top of the stairs leading down the sextant. She pulled aside a rope gate and said softly, “We never got a chance to look closely at the walls. That was where he recorded the stars. Maybe the numbers are there.”

  She descended the sextant steps, looking closely for the numbers two and five hundred nine. Jake fell in quickly behind her, shining the light on the wall. “Amy, the stuff eroded away long ago. There’s nothing here.”

  Amy nodded. He was right. “Read the rest of the poem, Dan,” she said.

  Without any light, Dan recited, “‘When listed in descending rank, / The Fakhri apex as a start, / Descend and rise, descend again, / And stand thee o’er my ruler’s heart.’”

  “How do you know that?” Jake asked.

  “Good memory,” Dan replied.

  “‘Descend and rise’!” Atticus exclaimed. “Like the sun or the moon! Is there any kind of sun or moon symbol you can recognize?”

  “Ssssh.” Amy grabbed the flashlight from Jake and began shining it around.

  “Guys?” Dan said, walking down the steps. “The sun and the moon are not the only things here that rise and descend.”

  “The stairs!” Atticus exclaimed. “Dan, that’s ama
zing. Maybe those numbers mean the number of steps!”

  “But there aren’t five hundred and nine steps,” Amy said.

  Atticus frowned. “Oh.”

  Amy thought hard. One aspect of the poem was bugging her. “I don’t get something. Why does the poem say, ‘of divisions, had but three’ — when it’s obvious the number of stars has only two factors?”

  “Maybe division was done differently back then?” Dan said.

  “Or maybe the number of stars is wrong,” Jake surmised.

  Amy nodded. “Yes. When we went on that tour — didn’t Umarov say there were other scholars, other estimations . . .”

  “One thousand twenty-two!” Dan shot back.

  “What?” Jake said.

  Dan’s fingers were pressed to his forehead. “Trying to remember . . . His exact words were ‘Well, some scholars say one thousand twenty-two, but who’s counting?’ Yes, that’s it! Try that number!”

  Atticus let out a whoop. “That is an awesome memory!”

  “SSSHHH!” Amy said, shoving the flashlight under her chin and pulling out her smartphone. In a moment, she had the answer:

  1,022 = 2 x 7 x 73

  “Three prime factors,” she said.

  Amy quickly read the last section of the poem:

  “When listed in descending rank,

  The Fakhri apex as a start,

  Descend and rise, descend again,

  And stand thee o’er my ruler’s heart.”

  “Descending rank,” she said. “So we start from the highest number — meaning seventy-three first. . . .”

  “The Fakhri apex would be the top,” Jake said. “But the left or the right?”

  “Try them both!” Amy replied. “Down seventy-three, up seven, down two.”

  “Atticus and I will do it!” Dan grabbed the flashlight. As he and Atticus descended the left side, they began counting the steps. Seventy-three got them to the bottom. They rose seven steps, then descended two. “Now what?” Dan murmured.

  Jake and Amy raced down to meet them. Amy knelt. She noticed the steps were actually made of small, oblong stones — like piano keys, or fingers. She pulled on each one. Jake sidled to the right side and pulled on those.

  “They’re solid,” Amy said. “This is hopeless.”

  “Atticus — I need the light!” Jake cried out. His neck was bulging as he pulled on one of the stones. “I . . . think . . . this one’s loose. . . .”

  Atticus put the flashlight down, angling it so it illuminated the stone. He knelt beside his brother and pulled. Amy joined them.

  The stone didn’t budge.

  As Amy was about to let go, a low thrumming sound began. At first, she thought it was her own stomach rumbling. Then she felt her body shift. Rocks began to rain down from the wall.

  “Whoa . . .” Dan gasped.

  In the center of the track, between the two long ribbons of curved stone, a trap door was opening. Two massive stones moved apart diagonally from each other, like hands pivoting at the wrists.

  Amy fell back. She scrambled toward the center, gazing down into the hole.

  Utter blackness.

  Now Jake was beside her, shining the flashlight. It caught the edge of a large box, blackened with soot and dirt. “What the heck is this?”

  Together they pulled upward, but the box wouldn’t fit through. Atticus dug into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He wedged the can opener under the top of box and pulled upward. With a loud squawk, the top pulled off.

  Amy reached inside and wrapped her fingers around a thick disc of heavy, solid brass. As she lifted it out, Jake shone the light on its fretwork of finely tooled metal. Complex symbols were carved on the outer rim, and on the inside were circular patterns and intricate designs. Through the middle ran a lever like a clock hand, attached at the center.

  “It’s like a giant watch,” Jake said.

  “This is the thing Ulugh Beg thought would match the power of the sextant?” Dan asked.

  “This is the thing Vesper One wants,” Amy replied.

  She looked at her watch. 10:31. “Nineteen minutes! We beat the deadline!”

  “No! No, we didn’t!” Dan was racing up the stairs.

  “What’s wrong, Dan?” Amy called out.

  Dan held up his phone. Even in the dark, his eyes shone with fear. “I have zero bars.”

  Amy’s insides lurched. If they had no reception, Vesper One wouldn’t be able to reach them. He wouldn’t know they found the astrolabe.

  Cradling the instrument, she bolted up the stairs.

  Jake barreled past her. At the top, he yanked Dan back. Whirling him around, he put his finger to his lips.

  A voice crackled outside. “What’s that?” Amy whispered.

  Jake forced Dan’s shaking hand to shine the flashlight on his face.

  He mouthed one word.

  Police!

  Dan switched off the light. The voices were quickly coming closer. Amy could hear the crunch of gravel beneath footsteps. “What are they saying?” she asked.

  “How sh-should I know?” Dan hissed. “I don’t speak Uzbek!”

  “Get back!” Jake whispered.

  Dan looked terrified. “B-but . . . Uncle Alistair . . . !”

  “Get to the bottom — now!” Jake shoved him. Dan’s hurtling body nearly toppled Amy, but they both managed to climb to the bottom with Atticus.

  Jake was still on the stairs — and now he was climbing!

  “Ja — !” Amy started to yell, but Atticus clamped his hand over her mouth.

  His footfalls echoed loudly. Outside, voices were coming nearer.

  Amy tried to run up after him, but both Dan and Atticus pulled her back. “He’ll get hurt!” she whispered.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” Atticus replied firmly. “If he told us to stay, that’s the best advice.”

  Now the tunnel ceiling was coming to life with reflected flashlights. It seemed like a cruel imitation of the night sky, a mockery of Ulugh Beg’s precise measurements.

  Voices rose as men entered. They were yelling at Jake in Uzbek, and as he answered in English, Amy could make out words: police . . . trespass . . . arrest . . .

  Footsteps came closer to the railing over their heads. “There’s no one else!” Jake was saying. “Just me!”

  But now a flashlight beam was swinging down the rutted wall, outlining the steps on the other side. . . .

  “Come back here!” a thick-accented voice bellowed from above, booming through the vast tunnel.

  Suddenly, the lights were gone. Footsteps were racing away, out the door again. Amy heard Jake’s voice yelling, but the sound was outside.

  Jake had run off, slipped away.

  “He’s creating a distraction,” Amy said. “Let’s go!”

  The railing area above, crowded a moment earlier, was now empty. Amy took the steps three at a time. At the top, she ran for the door and carefully peered out.

  Jake had somehow made his way across the plateau. An officer had caught him by the collar and was slamming him against a car. There were two cars, four officers, all of them with their backs turned.

  Amy’s breath caught in her throat. She fought the urge to run after him. But she knew that would only ruin what he’d set out to do.

  Jake was taking one for the team now.

  For Uncle Alistair.

  Amy turned. Silently she pointed toward the far end of the plateau, away from the driveway. And she ran.

  Atticus and Dan followed her to the edge. In the dark, all she could see was a sharp drop-off.

  Amy glanced over her shoulder. The frame of the sextant’s entrance blocked them from the sight of the police. Dan flicked on his flashlight and shone it dow
nward. The light traced a steep, rockstrewn path.

  “Come on.” Amy clutched the delicate tool to her chest and stepped off. Her heel dug into the gravelly slope. With a loud sssshh, it slid about a foot. She let out a squeal.

  “Go . . . go!” Dan said.

  She carefully lifted her other foot and set it down sideways, trying to keep her balance. The gravel slipped again, and this time the ground gave way beneath her.

  Amy’s back scraped against the soil. Her head hit it and then bounced back. She was sliding, head over heels, her arms hugging the instrument tightly.

  “Amy!” Dan shouted, tumbling after her.

  They collided at the bottom. Amy smashed backward into the trunk of a scraggly tree.

  “Yeow!” came a cry to their left. Atticus.

  Amy unfolded herself. Her chest throbbed. In the morning, it would have an indentation of the astrolabe.

  She glanced at her watch — 10:49. “Dan?” she cried out. “How many bars?”

  His eyes were as bright as a supernova. “Two!”

  One minute left. Vesper One could reach them now. He was a stickler for promptness. Amy looked up. The police voices were coming closer.

  “They must have heard us,” Atticus whispered.

  Amy scrambled behind the thin trunk of an olive tree.

  “Ow!” came Jake’s voice from above. “I twisted my ankle. I’ll sue! You’re going to hear from my lawyer!”

  An eerie beep pierced the night air. Amy stiffened.

  Dan’s phone glowed with a message. “He’s early.”

  I’ve been waiting to hear from you. After all, you have the ability to contact me, don’t you? Counting the seconds . . .

  “We have to use Luna’s phone!” Dan whispered.

  Atticus’s face was a rictus of fear. “We have twenty seconds!”

  Amy dropped the astrolabe. She fumbled in her pocket for the phone.

  It was gone. “I don’t have it!”

  “What?” Dan shot back. “What did you do with it?”

  “I don’t know!” Amy grabbed the flashlight from her brother and shone it around the area. She didn’t care if the police saw it.