All that had changed.
Desperate men did desperate things. Apparently, that included striking a woman.
It hadn't been a full-on punch to the jaw—just a backhand across the mouth. Her face stung, though. The man's hand who struck her was broad and strong. The knuckles caught her lips at the precisely correct angle.
She did a quick inventory of her teeth with her tongue. They were all intact.
Annie swallowed and stared into the eyes of the man they called Jack. She'd been afraid for the first several days in her cell. As time wore on, her resolve steeled, and anger slowly overtook the fear.
"I already told you," she said, "I don't know anything about those things." Her obstinate tone didn't do her any favors with her captor.
Another backhand struck her cheek this time and opened a narrow cut. Annie winced and clenched her teeth as a fresh surge of pain fired through the nerves in her face. The new gash began seeping blood parallel to the trickle coming from her lips.
"You can hit me all you like," she spat. "That isn't going to jog my memory of something that isn't in there."
Jack stared down at her.
He'd noticed the change in demeanor his prisoner had gone through. In this cocoon, she'd experienced a metamorphosis from a frightened little creature to a defiant older woman who had nothing to lose. But she still has one thing left to lose, Jack thought.
He pulled a pistol out of his belt. Then he screwed a suppressor to the end and pressed the long barrel to the top of her head.
Annie strained against the ropes holding her to the chair. She could feel the twine cut into her wrists and ankles. The knots were too tight. She couldn't even move them a centimeter. These men knew what they were doing.
"If you have no information, then there's no use in keeping you around, is there?" Jack said. He felt the trigger tense against his finger. He also let her see the pressure on his trigger finger's skin.
"I don't care anymore," she said. "You're going to kill me anyway. Might as well get it over with so I don't have to hear your redundant questions anymore."
She's gotten braver; I'll give her that, Jack thought.
He also knew he wasn't to kill her, not yet at least. They needed information to solve the riddle of the cube. Annie was the closest thing to an expert they had. If she couldn't help, it didn't mean she was useless. Having a hostage was always a good leverage point to use in case of an emergency.
"I don't want to kill you, Annie," a voice said from the doorway.
Her eyes shifted to the man in the suit she'd seen before.
"I want to let you go," he said. "Don't get me wrong, I'll have to send you far away from here. You'll leave your job, your home, all of it. You can be put on a nice little island somewhere. I have property all over the world. All I need you to do is help me understand what these things mean."
He held out the stone cube and stepped farther into the room.
Holmes put a hand on Jack's shoulder and pulled him away. Playing the role of an angel of mercy was a new strategy. Holmes figured they'd tried everything. Maybe it would work. If not, they'd lost nothing but a little time.
"This side here," he said, pointing to the paw print, "we know it's a wallaby. But wallabies are all over the country in many places. As best as we can figure, this cube is telling a story."
"What story?" she asked, full of resentment.
"We believe the story is the place we're to go next in our search. Our problem is we don't know what this other side means. We need your help, Annie. If you help us, I will make sure you are put somewhere safe where I will never bother you again. Imagine the warm sun on your face, the sand between your toes. You've worked hard enough your whole life. You deserve a retirement like that. Don't you?"
Annie wasn't stupid. This guy was up to something. He'd gone from threatening to overly flattering bribery in no time flat. That meant they were getting really desperate. Maybe desperate enough to let her go if she helped them. If she could help them.
She stared at the letters on the stone. "I already told your lackey here, I don't know what those letters mean."
"I know, Annie. I know. But try to think about this in terms of the story that's being told. There is a place where wallabies live. And it relates to these letters."
She shook her head. "You don't understand. You don't have enough information."
"What do you mean?" Jack said. He'd set the pistol on a nearby table.
"I mean you two blokes are trying to do the equation without all the information. Can't be done. There's something you're not telling me, something that is key to understanding your little code."
The two men looked at each other with a questioning glance. Then they turned back to her.
"Like what?" Holmes said.
If she could have shrugged she would have. "I don't know. You tell me. What is another element to your search that you haven't mentioned? Where are some places you've gone, things you've seen there, unique physical features of the land, anything like that?"
Jack thought about her point for a moment while Holmes looked to him for answers.
"The areas we visited are all different," he said after a few seconds of thought.
Figuring out things of this nature wasn't necessarily Annie's strong suit. Her type-A personality was geared more toward what most of her career entailed—collecting information, storing information, and documenting things. Often, her job required a high level of organization and detail. Maybe her attention to detail could help her with this puzzle and get her out of this mess.
"What did you see at these places?" she asked.
Jack shrugged. "I don't know. There were big rocks, like Uluru and Kata Tjuta."
That was less than helpful. Annie started getting the distinct impression that this Jack character was more muscle than brains.
"Bring me a laptop," she said, surprising herself with how commanding her tone was. "I need to look at every location you've been to so far."
The two men froze for a moment, uncertain as to what to do. Holmes wasn't accustomed to taking orders. He looked over his shoulder at the man by the door and gave him a nod. "Get one of the laptops out of the office down the hall." He twisted back around and glared at Annie. "You'd better not be wasting our time."
She honestly didn't care if she was wasting their time or not. If so, that would be a happy side effect. But if she could actually figure out the solution to their problem, maybe Annie would have a bargaining chip.
"You'll need to untie me," she said to Jack.
Jack turned to Holmes for confirmation.
"Do it," the boss said.
Jack took a knife out of his pocket, flipped it open in an almost threatening manner, and then made quick work of the ropes he'd so diligently tied.
Annie felt the circulation pump back into her fingers and toes. She hadn't realized the blood had been mostly cut off from her extremities.
The door guard returned with a black laptop in one hand. He set it down on the table and then returned to his post. Holmes flipped the screen up, and the monitor flickered on.
Annie stood up and moved her chair over to the computer.
As she eased into the seat once more, Holmes gave her a warning. "You know that if you try anything stupid, like sending an email—even if it's just one letter—we will kill you right now."
She nodded. "Sending an email like that won't get me to the beach you promised," Annie said as coolly as possible.
Inside, her nerves had returned. The funny thing about giving people hope is that it takes away all anxiety. Knowing there might be an escape from a dreadful future can be a calming thing. Now, she felt a glimmer of hope return. It was a mere crack of light shining through a dark wall, but it was there. And it caused her fingers to tremble as she typed away at the keyboard.
"Where was the first place you visited?" she asked.
"It's a place near a small town called Milbrodale. There's a cave there with rock art. Baiame Cave." Ja
ck's voice was deep and cold.
She typed in a few words and then hit the search button.
The search results appeared in only a few seconds. Images sat atop the top URLs for the given keyword phrases. Most of them were pictures of the cave drawings.
Annie clicked on one of the images and then scrolled through to a some of the others. Her eyes scanned the monitor, making sure she was getting everything.
"Where was the second place?" she asked.
"Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park," Jack responded.
She typed in the name of the park and waited. Repeating the process, she looked through some of the images and stopped at one that featured rock art. "Hmm," she said. "That's interesting."
"What's interesting?" Holmes asked.
"Before you slapped me," she said to Jack, "you mentioned you went to three places. What was the third?" Annie didn't try to hide the contempt in her voice.
"Watarrka National Park, a place called Kings Canyon."
Annie typed in the terms again and hit the search button. Once more, images popped up at the top of the results. This time, however, she didn't click on them. She didn't need to. She'd already drawn her conclusion.
"The common thread you two are missing is the rock art. Seems fairly obvious to me."
The epiphany washed over Holmes. "Of course. We forgot all about the rock art. That's the missing connection."
"Yes. So if you combine that with the wallaby paw, my initial thought would be that you're looking for a place where wallabies live and where there's rock art."
"That could be any number of locations," Jack said. "There are wallabies all over this country."
Annie nodded. "I suppose that's where the letters on your rock come into play. J & MC might be a company of some sort. Or it could have been two people."
She stopped her conjecture and looked at the stone in Holmes's hand. "What about that?" she pointed at the defaced side.
"It's nothing," Jack said. "They dug it out to remove what was there."
Annie wasn't so sure. "Let me see it."
Holmes hesitated and then reluctantly set the stone on the table next to her. She picked it up. The weight of it surprised her. Annie turned it over and examined the odd side the two men believed to be a victim of vandalism.
She stared at the anomaly for nearly a minute before she spoke. "This shape. It's quite unique, like a crater. Notice how the sides of it slope up, though."
"So?" Jack asked. "Who cares? Obviously they didn't want us to know what was there."
"Seems like a strange thing to do if they were going to leave the other sides in good condition."
"Maybe they were in a hurry."
Annie shook her head. "No. You can see here that it took a good deal of time to cut the stone in this way. This thing wasn't defaced. This is a design."
Holmes jumped back into the conversation. "A design of what?"
"Well," she thought for a moment, "if my memory serves correctly, I think it's a place in South Australia."
She turned back to the computer and started pecking away at the keyboard.
"Wilpena Pound?" Holmes said.
"Yes. It's in a national park in South Australia." She hit the enter key.
Seconds later, images of a plateau with a crater in the middle appeared on the monitor. She clicked one of them and circled it with the arrow to emphasize her point.
"See? Looks an awful lot like that side of the stone."
The two men stared in astonishment.
"How did you know about this place?" Holmes asked.
"My parents took me camping there when I was a child. It's in the Flinders Ranges."
The men didn't say anything for nearly a minute. Then Holmes said, "So that is the next place we will go. We'll find the boomerang there."
"Or maybe another clue," Jack corrected.
"Right. Still, now we have something to go on."
Annie stopped both of them. "Don't be too sure about that."
"What do you mean?" Holmes said, looking distraught. "You just said that's the place."
"You're forgetting the letters on that rock of yours. You need to figure out what that has to do with this area. Besides, you don't want to go traipsing around the bush at Flinders. You could be there for weeks and not find anything."
The idea of them doing that nearly caused Annie to smile for the first time in a while, but she held it back. The longer they took to find whatever it was they wanted, the longer she would be in this box of a room. If she could help them, though, maybe they would extend a little courtesy to her.
"I want a room with a window," she said.
"What?" Jack grumbled. His face took on an irritated expression. He raised his hand to strike her again.
"Wait," Holmes said. "She's trying to help us, Jack. Take it down a notch.”
"I know where you need to go next,” Annie muttered.
"How's that?"
It was the ace up her sleeve. She considered not playing it, but given the circumstances, she needed to try.
"During my time in the museum, I came across more names than I care to remember. These were people who usually had some sort of importance in regard to Australian history. I didn't pay much attention to this particular pair of names at the time, but now it seems like they're the ones connected to the letters on your stone.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because there are several areas named after those people."
Holmes grew tired of her game. "Annie, spit it out."
"I want a better room than this closet you've been keeping me in. Call it a down payment on the beach you're going to send me to."
Holmes rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll put you in a nicer room. Now please, tell me what we're looking for."
She flashed a devilish grin and then spun back around. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in the name of Mount Chambers Gorge.
"This is where you need to go."
Images of circles cut into dark red rock appeared on the screen.
"It's named after John and Mary Chambers. J&MC, as the stone suggests."
The men didn't speak for almost twenty seconds as they stared at the images on the computer screen.
Finally, Holmes cut through the silence. "Astounding. Good work, Annie. See? That wasn't so hard?"
Holmes turned and started for the door.
"Wait," she said. "My room?"
Jack picked up the computer and followed his boss to the doorway.
Holmes stopped mid-stride and spun around. "Jack, have Miss Guildford here moved to a better room. And get her a change of clean clothes."
Annie stared down at the table and smiled. She'd just given herself a way out.
31
South Australia
The drive back to Reece's place seemed to take forever. To say the air conditioning in Rick's truck didn't work well would be a vast understatement. During the day, the four men spent much of the time sticking their heads out the windows to let the wind evaporate the perspiration from their faces and heads. Fortunately, half of the journey took place at night when the temperatures were much milder.
As soon as Tommy's phone hit cell service, it started vibrating repeatedly in his pocket. He fished out the device and checked the screen. He'd missed a half-dozen text messages plus three voicemails from Tara and Alex.
"Got something from the kids," he announced, breaking the long silence.
"What is it?" Sean asked.
Tommy held up a finger and mouthed, "One minute," as he listened to the first voicemail.
He finished it and then put the phone against his ear again, listening to the second.
"They found something. The hackers weren't using a periscope. They put a trace on your accounts. That's how those guys were following us. They tracked our purchases."
"We didn't buy much," Sean said. "Except at that diner in Richmond."
"And getting gas on the drive."
"By then they were already on our
trail, could have been following us for hours."
"You didn't see anything unusual, did you?" Reece asked.
"No," Sean said. Admittedly, he'd been so tired, he kept dozing off on the ride out to Kata Tjuta. Though he never stayed asleep long on the journey, all those moments added up.
Tommy continued relaying information. "Alex said it wasn't any kind of traditional hacking job. He said it had to be done by someone on the inside of the credit card company."
Sean's forehead wrinkled as he frowned. "Most of them do operate on common systems. But for someone to have access to that...there would need to be significant resources behind them."
Tommy put the phone back in his pocket when he'd finished listening to the voicemail. "They're going to call me back if they find anything else."
"Sounds like they found a good bit," Reece said.
"Yeah. Unfortunately it doesn't tell us much, only that whoever is after us is adept at using computers."
"And has a ton of resources," Sean repeated. He stared out the window. "Back in the late 1980s there was a big hack job down here in Australia. Some hackers out of Melbourne used a worm to mess with a bunch of corporate computers."
"Alex said these probably weren't hackers, though," Tommy said.
"Right. Was just thinking out loud. Doing something like this requires knowing how to do it. I doubt a coder at the credit card company has it in for us. They were paid to tag our account."
"We've only used cash since we called the kids."
"Yeah, which we still need to do." Then out of nowhere, Sean had an epiphany. "Tommy, give me your phone. I need to make a call."
When they arrived at Reece's the next day, the men made a quick transfer of vehicles. They thanked Rick for his assistance and said their goodbyes before loading up supplies from the shed.
Reece had an assortment of rifles and handguns, nothing the Americans would pay money for back home, but definitely tools that would do the job in a pinch. Sean also asked if the big Aussie had any stump remover, sugar, and a few others items.
The Sean Wyatt Series Box Set 4 Page 22
