by AD Starrling
‘How did they find him?’ I said.
Anna frowned again. ‘I can only guess that he went back to Paris or Gif-sur-Yvette for some reason or another. The Crovirs must have been watching both addresses.’
I stared at her steadily. ‘Did you know that Burnstein was an immortal?’
‘No,’ said Anna, shaking her head. She looked at her grandfather. ‘It was only after Hubert disappeared that I discovered GeMBiT Corp was owned by a Crovir noble. I contacted Grandfather for help shortly after our return from Italy.’
‘How did you end up on the run?’ said Reid quizzically.
It was Tomas Godard who replied. ‘When I found out that the Crovir First Council was plotting something big in Europe, I suspected it was linked with Burnstein’s recent interest in Hubert and the latter’s disappearance. Anyone else involved in the matter was bound to be in danger from the Crovirs.’
‘The day after I got back from Italy, someone tried to break into my office at the FGCZ,’ Anna added quietly. ‘Thankfully, they couldn’t get past the security on the safe. Grandfather took me into hiding that very evening.’
Silence fell over the room once more. I suddenly remembered something. ‘Here, I believe this is yours.’ I took the daguerreotype from the inner pocket of my jacket and handed it to her.
‘Oh.’ Anna’s cheeks coloured as she took the frame from my grasp. ‘I thought I’d lost this.’ She rose from her chair and showed the picture to Tomas.
‘My goodness,’ murmured Godard. ‘I remember that day.’ A smile dawned on his face. ‘It was raining. You had just turned ten.’
‘Yes.’ Anna chuckled. ‘I was so bored on that trip, I must’ve driven you crazy.’
A flash of envy stabbed through me as I looked at the smiling pair. Shocked at the unexpected emotion, I turned and caught Reid’s shrewd stare. I flushed self-consciously and glanced out of the window.
‘What was in the safety deposit box in Zurich?’ Reid asked Anna while she gazed warmly at the daguerreotype.
Her head snapped up at his words. ‘How do you know about the safety deposit box?’ she said in a stunned voice.
‘We’ve been doing our own research,’ Reid replied with a shrug.
Anna stared at me. Her eyes narrowed. ‘You went to the bank?’ she said accusingly.
‘Yes,’ I said, not showing the least sign of remorse.
‘And they let you see details of the account?’ Anna sounded fairly appalled.
‘They kinda had to for Interpol Agent Petersen and FBI Agent Barnes,’ Reid said drily.
‘Oh.’ Anna blinked and settled down, though a frown still hovered over her face. ‘After what happened with Burnstein in Paris, Hubert and I decided it would be best to keep his research findings somewhere else,’ she explained in a more pacified tone. ‘We opened the Zurich account shortly after Burnstein made contact with Hubert.’
It was my turn to frown. ‘Wasn’t his latest discovery in there as well?’ I said, puzzled.
‘No. He didn’t include it in those papers.’ Anna hesitated. ‘I think he was too afraid to write down what it was exactly.’
I removed Strauss’s battered journal from my pocket. ‘Will this help?’
Anna gasped. She shot out of her chair and crossed the room to where I stood. ‘Where did you find this?’ she whispered hoarsely. She touched the journal reverently, her fingers lingering on the cover.
‘At Gif-sur-Yvette,’ I replied. The scent of oranges wafted faintly from her hair. I tried not to inhale the heady smell. ‘He hid it inside a locker,’ I added, deliberately avoiding Reid’s gaze.
Anna took the diary from my hands and leafed through the last few pages. Her brow furrowed. She glanced at me quickly. ‘Did you find something else with this?’ she said, her movements and tone growing desperate as she riffled through the rest of the journal.
‘Yes. There was a memory stick.’ I paused guiltily. ‘I’m afraid we lost it when we were getting away from the Crovir Hunters.’
‘What’s wrong?’ said Victor, coming to stand by her side.
‘Hubert encrypted the last twenty pages of the journal,’ said Anna. Her frown deepened while she gazed at the last entry in the diary. ‘The cipher must be on the memory stick.’
I stared at her. ‘Haven’t you used the same ones in the past?’
Anna shook her head. ‘No. We changed them all the time. Part of the challenge was decoding them.’ She looked puzzled. ‘I’ve never seen this one before. It looks like it might be a stacked cipher.’
‘What’s that?’ said Reid, frowning.
‘It’s a combination of different ciphers used together in a series,’ said Anna slowly, staring blindly ahead. ‘It’s quite difficult to unravel.’
‘Do you think you can decrypt it?’ I said tensely.
Anna glanced at me distractedly. ‘Given time, yes, probably.’
‘How much time?’ said Reid. ‘’Cause I get the feeling we’re running out of that precious commodity.’
Reid’s words mirrored my own thoughts. The feeling of trepidation that had been humming through my veins since the incident at the canal in Vienna had intensified when I heard what Strauss’s research was about. I sensed that speed was now of the essence in our race to find out what the Crovirs were up to.
Anna’s gaze switched from the journal to Victor. I could see wheels turning behind her eyes. ‘I need a computer,’ she said briskly. ‘And a few other things.’
‘Write down what you want,’ said Victor with a curt nod. ‘We’ll get it for you.’ Five minutes later, she handed him a short inventory. Victor made a call on his cell and listed the items that Anna had put down to the person on the other end of the line. He gave Bruno an address. ‘Go to this place. They should have everything ready by the time you get there.’
The bodyguard returned with a boxful of equipment around midnight. ‘Do you need a hand?’ I asked Anna as she started to unpack a laptop.
Her eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Are you any good with this stuff?’ she said, indicating the array of hardware laid out on the mahogany desk in the study.
I shrugged noncommittally. ‘I’m not too bad with them.’ I ignored Reid’s muffled snort from across the room.
Anna studied me for several seconds. ‘All right,’ she said, nodding curtly. ‘I should insist that you get some rest, but I could do with the help.’
On the other side of the desk, Tomas Godard turned to Victor. ‘Have you received any news from your father?’
Victor shook his head. ‘No. According to our intel, the spokespersons for the Crovir First Council have denied all knowledge of the incidents in Vienna and Vilanec,’ he said with a frown.
Tomas scowled. ‘They’re stalling for time,’ he said gruffly. ‘Has Roman or another member of the Bastian First Council actually spoken to Vellacrus yet?’
‘She’s currently unreachable,’ said Victor drily.
The old man was quiet for some time. ‘She’s playing a dangerous game,’ he murmured finally, staring at the flames in the hearth. His worried gaze shifted to Victor. ‘We all know that the attempt on your life is grounds enough for an official challenge to the Crovirs.’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ said Reid in the taut silence that followed.
Tomas sighed and shook his head tiredly. ‘It isn’t. If the immortal war was to start again, thousands of humans would be caught in the crossfire.’ The scowl returned to his face. ‘I’m not about to let six hundred and twenty years of peace end because of that damn woman.’
‘That won’t happen,’ said Victor with an adamant shake of his head. ‘Roman and the entire Order of Bastian Hunters will be behind us. He’s talking to the rest of our Councils as we speak.’ He paused. ‘Besides, you forget. We have friends among the Crovirs,’ he added quietly.
Tomas Godard hesitated before nodding slightly. ‘I hope you’re right, for all our sake.’
‘You should try and get some sleep,’ said Anna softly. She walked ar
ound the desk and placed a hand on her grandfather’s arm. ‘This is going to take a while.’
The others retired for the night. Alone in the study, Anna and I spent the next few hours poring over the information in Strauss’s journal and cross referencing the encrypted paragraphs with online deciphering programs. Time and time again, we hit a dead end.
‘This is impossible,’ Anna finally murmured just after two am. She ran a hand through her tousled hair, leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes.
I lifted the journal from the desk and randomly leafed through the encrypted pages. ‘How did you usually come up with the ciphers?’ I asked curiously.
A sigh left Anna’s lips. She opened her eyes and fixed me with a green stare. ‘They were mostly about things we had in common. Places we had been to, work we had done together in the past, even the music that we liked.’ She paused, a sad smile dawning on her face. ‘It was a bit of a game for Hubert. He loved nothing more than coming up with the most intricate ciphers.’
My fingers stilled on the last page on the journal. There was a small diagram in the margin that I had not paid particular attention to before. I pointed it out to Anna. ‘What’s this?’
Anna studied the sketch. ‘That’s a drawing of an Okazaki fragment,’ she said. ‘It’s a short section of genetic material created during DNA replication,’ she added at my puzzled expression. A tired chuckle left her lips. ‘He liked to doodle.’
I gazed at Anna blindly. The feeling that I had just touched on something significant would not go away. ‘I think I saw something similar earlier.’ I thumbed back over the pages and paused seconds later. I tapped my finger over a second drawing at the edge of the paper. ‘Here.’
Anna frowned at the diagram. Her eyes slowly widened. ‘It isn’t similar.’ She leaned over the journal. ‘It’s an exact mirror image of the other one,’ she said with rising excitement.
We stared at each other. ‘He drew them at the start and at the end of the encrypted pages,’ I stated tensely.
Thirty minutes later, after carefully piecing together the forty pairs of Okazaki fragments scattered across twenty pages of text, we had the first cipher. It took another hour to uncover the other two.
‘He used a combination of a polyalphabetic substitution, a transposition and a date shift cipher based on the first, middle and last encrypted pages,’ Anna whispered breathlessly while we stared at the three algorithms scribbled across a sheet of paper.
‘Is that common?’ I knew a little about the art of cryptography from my previous involvement in wars over the last four centuries. These days, I mostly relied on the power of the latest computer software to solve any complicated codes I came across.
‘No.’ Anna paused. ‘Even a professional cryptanalyst would have struggled with this. Had you not spotted the significance of the Okazaki fragment, we would have been at this for days.’ She looked at me gratefully.
I stayed silent, suddenly aware of how close we sat. I rose to hide my unease and offered to make coffee while she deciphered the encrypted sheets. An hour later, Anna was on the final page of Strauss’ diary. I watched her writing grow slower as she double-checked her work. Finally, she stopped and put the pen down carefully.
‘Dear God,’ she murmured in a shaky voice. ‘No wonder he didn’t want to put this on paper.’
I studied her pale face anxiously. ‘What is it?’
Anna glanced at me with a distracted expression. ‘Remember the “off” switch I was talking about?’
‘You mean the one that can slow down cancer cell production?’ I said. She nodded. ‘What about it?’ I added in a patient tone.
Anna stared at me. ‘Hubert found an “on” switch,’ she said flatly.
I frowned, unable to grasp the significance of her words. ‘What does that mean?’
Anna’s eyes reflected the fear in her voice. ‘It means that he discovered a way to control the cell cycle.’
‘When you say control the cell cycle ...’ I trailed off as understanding finally began to dawn. I felt my blood grow cold.
‘If what is written here is true, he has uncovered the Holy Grail of science,’ said Anna. ‘He’s made a genetically modified cell that can never die.’
‘Immortality,’ I said numbly.
Anna shook her head. ‘No, not just immortality as we understand it. At the rate at which this cell would be able to replicate, it means true immortality.’
My stunned voice broke the ensuing deadly silence. ‘You mean, beyond seventeen deaths?’
‘Yes,’ said Anna. A frown clouded her face. She turned to the desk and rifled through the papers from the Zurich deposit box. ‘But there’s something I don’t understand.’
‘What?’ I murmured, still trying to absorb the staggering implication behind Strauss’s research findings.
‘Hubert used a sequence of techniques both of us had worked with in the past,’ Anna said, clearly puzzled. ‘The only difference between the experiments would have to be—’ She suddenly froze and went ashen. ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered slowly, gazing blindly ahead in horror.
‘Anna?’ I rose from my seat when she stood up abruptly and ran from the room. Her footsteps faded on the stairs. I was still standing there frowning when she returned moments later, a metal flask in her hands. My eyes widened. ‘Is that—’
‘Yes. From that day at the Hauptbahnhof,’ Anna replied breathlessly. ‘This is what Helena was bringing me.’
‘What is it?’
Anna opened the canister and carefully removed a slim vial from it. I stared at the crimson liquid inside. ‘Is that blood?’ I said quietly.
‘Yes.’ Anna’s gaze shifted to me. ‘I have to get to a lab,’ she said, her voice edged with desperation.
I studied the nervous apprehension in her eyes. ‘Why?’ I said finally. Something was tugging at the back of my brain. As I stared at the vial in her hand, I felt a cold suspicion trickle through my thoughts.
‘I need to test this sample,’ said Anna. I opened my mouth to voice another question. She raised a hand and stopped me. ‘Please,’ she added tremulously. ‘I just have to do this. It’s the only way I’ll know for sure.’
I studied her stricken expression for a moment longer before turning to the computer. ‘What kind of lab do you need?’
Chapter Fifteen
At five in the morning, the Prague Institute of Molecular Genetics was dark and deserted. We broke in through a side door and went in search of the Functional Genomics and Bioinformatics department.
Reid and Anatole took up guard duty outside the room while Anna and I entered the lab.
‘How long will this take?’ I said, switching on the overhead lights.
‘Two hours at the most,’ Anna replied. She walked around the room, her face brightening while she studied the array of machines humming quietly on the countertops: already, her eyes held a far-away gaze. She found some gloves and removed the vial of blood from the metal canister. After carefully placing one drop from it into a smaller tube, she turned to me. ‘Can I have your sword?’
I stared at her, nonplussed.
‘I need a sample of my blood,’ Anna explained quietly. I lifted the wakizashi from my waist and passed it across reluctantly.
She nicked the tip of her thumb with the edge of the short blade and dripped a few scarlet droplets into a second vial. I removed a band-aid from the first aid kit on the wall next to the sink and wrapped it gently around her finger. ‘Thank you,’ Anna said softly.
‘You’re welcome,’ I murmured. I took a seat in the corner of the room and silently watched her work.
Anna moved swiftly from one complicated apparatus to another, her fingers gliding confidently over keypads and dials. All the while, a tiny frown wrinkled her brow. I looked out of the window, unsettled as always by the complex feelings her presence engendered: if Reid had been in the room, he would no doubt have had a sickening leer on his face.
Forty minutes later, Anna came and took a seat
next to me. ‘Now we wait,’ she said at my questioning gaze.
The next hour passed at a snail's pace while we watched a large machine hum quietly. Just as the sun peeked above the horizon and cast a pale light through the windows of the lab, Anna finally pulled a sheet of paper out of the printer attached to the instrument. She stared at the data crowding the page for timeless seconds. ‘It’s done,’ she said in a flat tone.
We left the campus and headed back to the estate.
Traffic had picked up and Anatole guided the new Volkswagen Transporter carefully through the busy streets. Anna remained subdued during the drive, green eyes gazing blindly at the landscape outside the window; I remained silent by her side, certain that my suspicions about the vial of blood would prove to be correct.
Victor and Tomas were waiting for us when we reached the mansion. ‘Well?’ said Godard anxiously as we entered the foyer. ‘What is this all about?’
Anna had deliberately refused to answer any questions a few hours ago, when we roused the rest of the household to organise our small expedition to the Prague Institute of Molecular Genetics. She studied her grandfather dully. ‘You had better sit down.’
After we gathered in the kitchen, Anna removed the metal canister out of the bag she had clutched with white-knuckled fingers during our trip. Her hands shook slightly when she placed it on the table in front of her. With her gaze fixed on the silver flask, she took a deep breath and started to talk.
‘Six months ago, I sent Hubert a sample of blood to use in his experiments. I am certain it’s this particular specimen that helped provide the breakthrough in his research.’ Anna hesitated and glanced around the table. ‘Hubert’s discovery was—immortality.’
Stunned silence descended on the room. ‘What?’ Victor said incredulously.
‘Hubert created a genetically altered cell that can replicate forever,’ said Anna.
‘You mean—’ Tomas started.
‘Yes,’ Anna interrupted with a sombre expression. ‘He made a cell that can never die.’
The shock that coursed through the room was almost palpable. Bruno let out a soft whistle under his breath.
