by Nick Thacker
“I told her… I told her I would…”
Ben put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “I know,” he said. “I know. I understand. Okay?”
The man looked into Ben’s eyes with a curiosity, a question.
Ben cleared his throat. “I mean I can’t know exactly what… how you feel. I don’t have a daughter. Or kids.” Ben felt his cheeks flush a bit. Am I embarrassed? “I just mean that I’ve been in a situation that’s life-or-death, more than once. It’s not easy to make that call.”
“Was it the right call?” Professor Lindgren asked, his voice shaking. “I — I killed her.”
“You did,” Ben said. “That’s done. How you go on from it is what matters.”
“But she —”
“She did things that are inexcusable,” Ben said. “Maybe she didn’t deserve to die because of it. Maybe she did.”
He shrugged and looked back at the doorway into what obviously had been the woman’s office. Julie and Reggie were still in there, now joined by Mrs. E. They were tearing through the drawers in the little side table, turning over what little furniture there was in the room, and Mrs. E was clicking around on her computer, trying to gauge whether it was worth salvaging the hard drives or destroying everything.
Ben hoped she’d decide to salvage; any evidence they found down here would be useful in the coming months — the forthcoming government debriefings, the political meanderings, and the eventual indictments of whomever might have been working with this woman.
Ben looked around the nearly empty antechambers. And where are those employees and scientists? he thought. There were a few people here before; they’re all gone now.
He got the feeling that the employees, staffers, and scientists who had been working with Rachel Rascher had fled the scene shortly after the shots starting sailing through the air, unwilling to risk their lives for their boss’s pet project.
Still, Ben wondered how many of them would turn up afterwards, intrigued by the discovery of the greatest archeological secret in modern history, hoping to cash in on the now-leaderless faction’s findings.
Ben also wondered how many of them were already working their own networks, plying information and favors out of their friends and colleagues, working to continue the research in a new and safer environment, out of reach of the impending fallout. Ben likened this thought to lopping off one of the Hydra’s heads — where one existed, two would sprout.
Where Rachel Rascher had implanted herself as the de facto head of a neo-Nazi regiment of scientists and then subsequently been removed, two or more new ‘heads’ would likely spring up, somewhere in the world.
Ben sighed and took in a deep breath. It never ends, he thought. Nazis had been defeated long ago he’d thought. And their modern counterparts were nothing but clueless pseudo-activists with underwhelming social skills, but now they had uncovered an entire network of capable, dedicated party members, operating in total secret for years.
That meant their work here was not finished. Or rather, their work somewhere was not finished. Whatever Julie and Reggie found inside the office, whatever Mrs. E found on the computer, everything was a clue that might lead them to the next place. Rascher had been planning something, and Ben doubted that plan would have died with its initiator. Whoever was still out there, working on the bell and its mysterious properties, would take the reigns and commence the final act of Rascher’s play.
“You’ll have to stop them,” Professor Lindgren said.
Ben had nearly forgotten the man was still seated next to him. He nodded. “We will.” Then he smiled. “And we will.”
“I’ll help,” Lindgren said. “However I can.”
Ben nodded again, slowly. “I know. And we might have to call in that favor, as well. For now, though, we all need a little rest. And you — I think you should go find your daughter.”
Lindgren stood up, groaning against whatever ailments his body had concocted, then stuck out a hand toward Ben. Sarah was hunched in the corner of the office, looking around at the CSO team as they made their rounds. She wasn’t speaking.
Ben grasped the man’s hand and shook it. “Thanks for everything,” he said.
Lindgren shook his head and scoffed. “You owe me nothing, especially not a thanks,” he said. “On the contrary, you all saved my life — and my daughter’s. There’s nothing in the world I can do to repay you —”
Ben waved it off. “Stop,” he said. “We’d have done it even if we didn’t like you.”
87
Reggie
REGGIE HAD BEEN SCOURING the room for nearly an hour, which seemed to be a task that leaned at least forty-five minutes to the side of in vain. There was no furniture in the room save for a computer desk and a small end table against the wall.
Mrs. E had confirmed that the hard drives on the machine would prove valuable to their ongoing search and exploration into what exactly had transpired here, and in the side table — after breaking into it with the delicateness of an overzealous jackhammer — Julie had found a small leather-bound journal. Inside the cover was an inscription from a Sigmund Rascher, no doubt the relative Rachel Rascher had spoken of.
The rest of the journal was in German, and none of the group could speak or read the language, but Reggie noticed a few instances of Greek, and assumed the work was a commentary and copy of the piece Rachel had mentioned earlier.
“What’d you find?” Ben asked as Reggie stepped out of the office.
“Well,” Reggie started, “if you don’t include a crappy old desk and a computer that was modern in the early 2000’s, nothing.”
Reggie saw one side of his friend’s lips press into his cheek. “Nothing?”
“…and a journal.”
Reggie laughed as Ben’s eyes shot open. “A journal?”
“We think it’s Rachel’s great-grandfather’s journal,” he said. “It’s in German, with long passages in Greek. So far, it’s looking promising that it’s a commentary on Plato’s lost work — the Book of Bones, the one that Rachel and Agent Sharpe were talking about. It’s not the whole thing, but it’s a start.”
“Wait a minute,” Ben said. “Where is Agent Sharpe?”
Reggie was walking stiffly, nursing his injured leg, but it appeared that the bleeding had stopped. As such, he hadn’t needed Ben or Sharpe or anyone else to help him along.
“He went ahead, to make sure we’d have a clear exit,” Reggie said.
Ben eyed him, but didn’t respond.
“Anyway,” Reggie continued, “it looks like the same journal they mentioned. Not the original Book of Bones, but more than we have otherwise.”
“I see.”
“Other than that, nothing. Mrs. E thinks Julie or her husband can figure out how to crack the security on the hard drives, but even then it’s a long shot — they’re encrypted with better-than state-of-the-art, which means… I have no idea. But it’s probably along the lines of getting Nick Cage out Alcatraz.”
Ben frowned. “You do know how that movie ended, right?”
Reggie shrugged. “Analogies aren’t really my thing.”
“Right. Anyway, we need to hightail it out of here before the Egyptian suits come in and ransack the place. We’ll be held up here for weeks, at best, answering stupid questions.”
“Got that right,” Reggie said. He turned to the rest of the group and called them over. “Ready to get?”
Julie and Mrs. E came out of the office. Professor Lindgren walked out closely behind, his arm over his daughter’s shoulder. Both seemed distraught but also eager to leave.
“Sharpe’s up ahead,” Reggie said. “We’ll head out the same way we came in. No sense trying to clean up here — the Egyptians already have a mess on their hands. We need to get out and stateside before the media and other ambulance-chasers get here. I imagine there’s a lot of money to be made in the soon-to-come legal proceedings.”
He looked around for any objections and, finding none, turned on a heel and star
ted toward the tunnel that led out of the antechamber and toward the causeway.
The route was simple, and even without much light was easy to follow. Reggie led the group in a single-file line, and when he reached the entrance of the Valley Temple, he waited for Ben to step up next to him.
“Need something?” Ben asked.
Reggie didn’t respond. Instead, he looked across the dark room, where pillars stood, methodically and meticulously spaced throughout the hall, providing numerous natural cover for anyone trying to hide.
He watched the shadows cast by the massive pillars. There’s someone here, he thought. Someone’s waiting for us.
He was wrong.
Instead of one person waiting for them, there were twenty.
Reggie jumped back into the causeway when he saw movement from a thousand different directions.
“Someone’s here,” he whispered.
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “But a lot of them. Twenty or more. All behind the pillars.”
A voice called out. “Harvey. Gareth Red. Come on out. We have you surrounded.”
Reggie looked over at Ben. Ben’s face didn’t match the surprise Reggie’s displayed. Instead, it was a twisted mess of pure rage.
Ben sucked in a breath. “It’s Agent Sharpe,” he said. “He double-crossed us.”
88
Ben
BEN WASN’T SURE WHAT to think. He wasn’t sure what to feel. He’d long been a man of few words, but of many emotions — many of them conflicting. He’d tried for as long as he’d been conscious of that fact to be as stoic as possible — to let his emotions show only in situations he was unable to control them. And he’d spent plenty of years trying to make sure there was no situation in which he’d lose control and let his emotions show.
But his practice of Stoicism hadn’t prepared him for a situation in which he would be double-crossed by an Interpol officer, promised camaraderie and support from a seemingly innocent man, then stabbed in the back by the same man, suddenly aided by twenty other gun-wielding agents.
He felt the surge of adrenaline kicking in, the telltale sign of emotion-filled drive starting to take over his better senses.
Thankfully — though he didn’t feel that at the time — his best friend was there to hold him back.
“Wait,” Reggie said.
“No,” Ben replied, his voice every bit as serious as Reggie’s.
“Wait,” Reggie said again. “They’ve got guns.”
“We have —”
“They all have guns,” Reggie said. “And they all know how to use them.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ben said. “We need to rush them. If we can get to the inside of the —”
“And what about Lindgren?” Reggie asked. “And his daughter? They’re supposed to hold a counteroffensive with us? Flanking the left side and moving forward toward the exit while maintaining their perimeter control?” Reggie sucked in a deep breath. “Hell, what about me? I’m almost dead here. I haven’t been able to feel my leg for almost an hour, and if it wasn’t for my heart rate coming back down, I’d already be on the ground.”
Ben seethed next to Reggie. He knew he was right. He’d been in tougher situations before, and Ben always leaned on Reggie’s professional military judgment in times like these. And if Reggie’s gut — and injury — told him to throw in the towel on this one…
“Come on,” Sharpe yelled, his French accented-voice reverberating through the hall. “Let’s get this over with. I have twenty-three men with me from the Egyptian Mukhabarat, and we have a statement from the Ministry of Antiquities’ Prehistory Division that we are to detain and question anyone involved with —”
Ben looked at Reggie. “A statement? Is that like an Interpol version of a mandate?”
Reggie shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like it’d have much weight here, considering. But those guns do say otherwise.”
“What’s our move, then?”
Reggie thought a moment. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been outnumbered twenty-four to three.”
“Sarah’s got a rifle too.”
“Okay, so twenty-four to four. Not sure I count, though, at the moment. So let’s call it twenty-four to three.”
Sharpe called out once again. “Last chance, Harvey. Let me see your hands. Step out slowly.”
Reggie looked over at Ben, and he could see his friend pleading silently with him. It’s over, man. He was trying to convey sadness, surprise, but Ben knew he was as upset as he was. He set his rifle down on the sandy floor of the temple, then stepped forward, into one of the beams of sunlight breaking through the stand of pillars.
“Okay, Sharpe,” he yelled. “I put my gun down.”
Ben and the others followed suit, each of them stepping out into the central corridor of the temple after adding their weapon to the growing pile. Each of them came out with their hands up, behind their heads.
Sharpe said something to one of the men next to him, and two of the soldiers stepped forward and grabbed Reggie, yanking him roughly behind one of the pillars. They pulled his hands behind his back and bound them using a zip tie, then led him away.
Ben received similar treatment from two more soldiers, and within minutes his entire team — including Professor Lindgren and Sarah — was bound and being led out of the temple. As he passed by Agent Sharpe, he sneered.
“What’s this about, Sharpe?” Ben asked. “We trusted you.”
Sharpe hung his head. “Sorry, Harvey. I know you did. But this was never just about my sister.”
“She was never here?”
“Oh, she was,” the man answered as he walked in step with Ben. “But she was killed shortly after the event in Athens. Rachel Rascher would never have let her live. I — I used to think I could save her, but…”
“So she murdered your sister. Rascher’s dead now, too. There’s nothing down there. So… what is it?”
“Look, Harvey,” Sharpe said. “It’s not that I’m on her side with it. They’re all quacks, as far as I’m concerned. But —” he stopped and looked around, then lowered his voice. “This is something that’s been going on for some time.”
“I know,” Ben said. “Rachel said her great-grandfather —”
“No,” Sharpe said, shaking his head. “I don’t mean her research. I’m talking about this investigation.”
“The Egyptians?”
He nodded. “The Egyptians, the Greeks, heck — even the Germans and the Russians are interested in the research and science. No one but the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities knows the entirety of what’s been going on here, but there’s no possible way they’re going to let some civilians waltz in and take it out from under them.”
“You mean there’s no possible way you’re going to let us take it,” Ben said.
Agent Sharpe looked at him, his eyes cold and calculating. “I’m just doing my job, Ben.”
“This is why you wanted us out of the picture back in Santorini, isn’t it?”
“My task has always been to protect whatever it is here so that the Egyptian government — and other interested parties — can keep it under wraps.”
“You were hired to help perpetuate a lie, Sharpe.”
“I was hired to protect history.” He stopped. “Bennett, listen to me. You were always playing with fire with this. I did the best I could to protect you and your team — calling off the police when they opened fire at you, and trying to keep these soldiers from blowing your brains out when you first landed in Cairo.”
“Gee, thanks for your support, Sharpe.”
“…and I could easily have let these goons take you out as soon as you left the causeway. You think the Egyptian government cares about a few civilians playing CIA agent in their country — without their own government’s support?”
Ben turned to size up the man. Sharpe was thinner and shorter, but he had a fit physique. But even with Ben’s hands bound behind his back, he knew he could ta
ke him out with a well-placed forehead shot to the man’s nose.
“You’re quite the hero, Sharpe. What would we do without you?”
“Enough of the bravado, Ben. We’re not going to murder you. And if I can swing it, I think I can get you all out of a prison sentence, too.”
“Again, what would we do without you?”
“But we’re going to need the notebook.”
Ben looked at him blankly. “What notebook?”
“Don’t be a fool, Bennett. You’re already in the thick of it. One phone call and you’re out of here, a free man, with your team intact and alive.” He paused, making sure Ben was following. “But if I don’t make that call…”
Ben turned to Julie, who was carrying the small journal they’d found in Rascher’s office. She’d tucked it into her back pocket, and the tail of her shirt covered it from view.
Julie shook her head. No.
Ben sighed. “Sharpe, I don’t know what you’re —”
Sharpe stepped forward abruptly and socked Ben in the nose. It was violent, and Ben felt his body faltering as stars swam around his vision.
“Harvey, do not make me ask you again.”
“There’s something happening, Sharpe,” Ben said. “A lot of people are going to die.”
“Rachel Rascher told you that?”
“You heard it yourself, Sharpe. What happened in Athens — that was only the setup. Something else was planned, and we’ve only got two months to figure it out.”
Sharpe smirked. “A dying woman told you two words, and now you’ve got a plan to save the world? You’re as delusional as she was.”
Ben’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched as he regained his balance. He glared down at Sharpe. “You’re an asshole, Sharpe. I knew it when I met you.”
“First impressions are hard to break, Bennett.”
“Sharpe…”
“Whatever you think is going to happen is something actual organizations, like Interpol, the United Nations, and any local governments involved can take care of. And I don’t think I need to ask you again to stay out of our way.”
