Oracle

by David Wood

  Time to see if I made the right choice. Professor raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  The helicopter lifted off again as soon as the last man was out, and rose high enough to allow the swirling dust cloud to subside. Five men—Professor figured they had to be EKAM operators, the special anti-terrorism unit of the Hellenic Police—surrounded the Mercedes, but their weapons were aimed up the hill at the Norfolk Group gunmen. The air bristled with tension and harsh shouts, but one by one, the killers, despite having superior numbers, began lowering their guns. Hodges was one of the last to surrender his. The man beside him, however, remained defiant. “This doesn’t concern you,” he yelled. Despite his fair complexion and dishwater blond hair, there was a hint of a Mexican accent to his speech. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

  One of the policemen took a step forward, thrusting his weapon forward meaningfully. “Drop your weapon or I will kill you.”

  The man took a step forward. “Do you know who I am?” His tone implied that it was a rhetorical question and that the policeman most certainly did know.

  “He knows, Andres.” Shouted back a different voice—clear, unaccented American English. “And if you don’t put your gun down he will shoot.”

  The gunman—Andres—gaped in disbelief. “You! You betrayed us.” He took another defiant step.

  A shot rang out, and then several more, the reports blurring together in a tumultuous peal of thunder. Andres upper body seemed to dissolve in a red cloud as scores of 7.62-millimeter rounds ripped through him.

  He remained upright for a moment, but the light had gone out of his eyes. As the last echoes of gunfire died away, Andres dropped to his knees and then pitched forward, sliding down the slope, leaving a long crimson stain in the dirt.

  Hodges showed not the slightest inclination to follow the other man’s example. He raised his hands in the air and dropped to his knees. The other men with him quickly followed suit.

  As the police operators moved cautiously forward to begin securing their prisoners, Ophelia abruptly rose to her feet and stepped out into the open.

  Professor hissed a warning, but was too late to stop her. She advanced and began speaking to the man who had moments before answered Andres. “I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so happy to see you.”

  “Well somebody has to keep you out of trouble.” The man’s voice seemed to fluctuate between irritation and amusement.

  Ophelia turned and waved invitingly. “It’s all right. You can come out. We’re safe now.”

  Professor felt Jade’s eyes on him. He could only offer an uncertain shrug, then he too stood up. His first good look at the man Ophelia was speaking to revealed two things immediately. First, the man was not an EKAM operator and did not appear to belong to any law enforcement agency; although he wore a helmet and body armor, he carried no gun and displayed no official credentials. The second thing Professor noted was his appearance. The man was tall and slender, with pale blonde hair and a handsome yet familiar face that looked almost too perfect,

  Professor was not the least bit surprised when Ophelia said, “I’d like you all to meet my brother.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Delphi, Greece

  “You are not under arrest,” the policeman told Jade as he escorted her into a small windowless cell and then started to close the door.

  “Wait,” she protested “Are you just going to leave me here?”

  “Someone will be with you shortly,” he said, and then the door clicked shut.

  The guy’s English was pretty broken; maybe she had misunderstood. Maybe he had actually said that she was under arrest.

  “Don’t I get a phone call,” she shouted. Maybe the phone call rule was only true in the States. Or maybe it was just something that only happened in movies.

  Jade sagged resignedly onto the cot that occupied the far wall of the cell. No matter how you sliced it, arrested was better than dead. And she was fairly certain that, once the facts came out, they would all be released. Surely, even in Greece, self-defense was a valid legal defense. Yes, she had stolen—and wrecked—a car, but aside from that, what crime had she actually committed?

  Oh, there was the small matter of the Shew Stone, which was probably, technically speaking, the property of the London Science Museum, but it wasn’t like she had stolen it from the museum herself.

  It rankled that she had only been in Greece a few hours, barely in Delphi for ten minutes, and someone had already tried to kill her. The worst part though was that it felt like it had all been for nothing. The Delphi oracle remained quiescent and the Shew Stone had failed to unlock the mysteries of the universe… or the multiverse.

  Whatever.

  She sat and brooded for what seemed like a long time, but probably was only about half an hour, until the door finally swung open. She jumped up, ready to demand her phone call.

  Ophelia stood at the threshold. She looked completely refreshed—new clothes, immaculate make-up, not a scrape or bruise from the wreck anywhere to be seen. She clearly had not been sequestered in a jail cell. “Jade. I’m so sorry they’ve kept you cooped up in here. You how know bureaucracy works, but the good news is, we’re all free to go.”

  It was good news, but Jade was immediately suspicious. “Just like that?”

  Ophelia laughed. “Well, I’m probably oversimplifying it, but yes. My brother and I have…ah, influence with the Greek government.”

  “Speaking of your brother…”

  “Oh, come along, Jade. You don’t want to spend all night in here, do you?”

  Jade had to admit that she did not, but she was still bothered by the almost too-fortuitous appearance of Laertes Doerner. She kept replaying the exchange between Andres, the man who was evidently leading the Norfolk Group band of killers, and Doerner.

  You! You betrayed us!

  She followed Ophelia through the police station to a waiting car. Ophelia slid behind the wheel and that struck Jade as odd.

  Where are the bodyguards? Then she remembered.

  A few minutes later, they arrived at the hotel. Ophelia led Jade straight to an upstairs room where she found Dorion and Professor already waiting.

  She threw a withering glance at Ophelia. “Chapman, Dorion, Ihara. I guess you played the ‘get out of jail free’ cards in alphabetical order.”

  “Actually,” Professor replied, using his best paternal tone, “Laertes just dropped Paul and me off.”

  “Ah, yes. Where is the mysterious Mr. Doerner? I’d love to know more about how he just happened to show up in the nick of time to save the day.” She turned on Ophelia. “That seems to be a family gift. Maybe you’ve already got the ability to see into the future.”

  “Jade has a point,” Professor said before Ophelia could respond. “There was a perfectly good reason for you to be in the right place at the right time to save our butts in Costa Rica, but Laertes showing up when he did, with the local gendarmes in tow, is just a bit too convenient.”

  “They don’t call them gendarmes anymore,” came a smooth voice from the doorway. Jade whirled and saw Ophelia’s brother, leaning against the lintel with a self-satisfied smirk plastered to his face. He too had taken the time to clean up after his helicopter ride. “I would think you, of all people Dr. Chapman, would know that.”

  “I was speaking in a general sense.”

  “Ah.” Doerner took a step forward and closed the door firmly behind him. “Please, sit down Dr. Ihara. Make yourself comfortable. I’ve got a lot of fires to put out right now, so I’ll have to be brief, but I think you are all owed an explanation. And an apology.”

  Jade could not help but notice Doerner’s smooth but folksy manner. He was a born politician, charismatic and oozing with what most people would call charm. Jade sat as directed and braced herself for what she expected to be a veritable downpour of dissembling and double-talk.

  “To begin with,” he said, “as you may have surmised, I am a charter member of an organization informally
known as the Norfolk Group. I guess you’ve heard a little about us, so I won’t deny that our goal is to prevent religious extremist groups from upsetting the delicate balance of our global economy. Myself and several other very influential men met several weeks ago to talk about exactly how we were going to do that, and we established a series of protocols; concrete steps that we would take to ensure that something like what happened at Norfolk would never be repeated.”

  Professor spoke up quickly. “You also recruited a network of spies to infiltrate legitimate organizations—law enforcement, the military. That’s not exactly legal, you realize.”

  “Dr. Chapman, the law exists to protect people. The Norfolk Group came together because your so-called legitimate organizations failed to enforce the law and protect our investments.” Doerner stopped abruptly and took a breath as if trying to get back on track. “The point is that even our very well thought out protocols did not anticipate a situation like this arising. Clearly, your work did not represent the kind of threat our group came together to fight. Andres Gutierrez lost sight of that. He was a loose cannon and he nearly caused an international incident.”

  “You’re saying it’s over?” Jade said.

  “Gutierrez is dead. His accomplices will be dealt with…discreetly. By tomorrow, you should all be free to return home to the States.” He glanced at Dorion. “Or wherever home is.”

  The physicist nodded wearily, but then Ophelia spoke up, in her familiar confident tone. “Now we will be able to resume our investigation without having to worry about looking over our shoulder.”

  Doerner’s forehead creased in a frown of irritation. “You intend to continue with this fool’s errand?”

  “Of course,” Ophelia said as if the question annoyed her. “Especially now. Paul’s discovery at Teotihuacan proves that there’s something to all of this.”

  Paul’s discovery? Jade almost said something in reply to that, but Doerner’s intent stare told her that there was a much more immediate problem. “Actually,” she quickly interjected, “we’ve got a lot to talk about, and I don’t think anything has been decided.”

  Ophelia looked ready to protest, but Jade shot her a look that said, ‘Shut up!’

  Professor seemed to be on Jade’s wavelength. “That’s right. This was supposed to be a scientific endeavor, and so far we haven’t exactly gone about this very scientifically.”

  Doerner glanced at each person in turn, and then broke into a big fake smile. “Well, I’m glad we’re all in agreement. Now, as I said, I’ve got some fires to put out, and a few ruffled feathers that need smoothing. Fi, meet me for breakfast at, say nine-thirty?”

  Jade realized she had no idea what time it was. Her body had just started getting adjusted to Greenwich Mean Time; Greece was two hours ahead of that. She shot a look at her watch and was dismayed to discover that the crystal had been cracked nearly in two. Must have happened during the wreck. Damn, I loved this watch. Maddock gave me…

  She had a mental image of Christmas in Germany, but instead of kissing her while snow fell all around them, Maddock was kissing Angel Bonebrake.

  Come to think of it, no great loss.

  She slipped it off and shoved it into a pocket.

  Doerner didn’t wait for an answer, but turned on his heel and strode confidently from the room. When he was gone, Ophelia rounded on them, focusing most of her ire on Jade. “What the hell was that about? Don’t ever contradict me, especially not in front of my brother.”

  Professor stood, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Ophelia, please take a breath. Jade was right to say something. Your brother just admitted to being part of the organization that tried to kill us, and you as much as said that you’re going to keep stirring that hornets’ nest.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You heard what your brother said,” Jade said. “The Norfolk Group wants to keep the status quo nice and…quo.” She wrinkled her forehead. “That sounded better in my head.”

  “Exactly,” Professor said, nodding. “We only have Laertes’ word for it that Gutierrez was a loose cannon. How do we know that your brother isn’t the one who’s gone off the reservation? These guys have enough money and influence to do whatever they want, and right now what they want is to make sure that discoveries like ours vanish into the abyss.”

  “So we just give up?” Ophelia shook her head, determined. “I can’t do that. Not now.”

  “We aren’t giving up,” Jade said. “But you can’t rub your brother’s nose in it.”

  “Maybe giving up is exactly what we need to do,” said Professor. “We’ve hit a dead end. I’m not sure what we’re even trying to find at this point.”

  “The Moon stone, of course,” Jade said quickly.

  “Why?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. Why do anything? Because it’s there. Because it’s an unsolved mystery. Because doing this is a hell of a lot more fun than lecturing and advising graduate students on their theses. None of those were very good reasons.

  Ophelia supplied an answer of her own. “My motives are the same today as they were when I met you all. I want to see into the future. Don’t correct me, Paul. I understand your theories and what they mean, but the distinction is meaningless. If Delphi doesn’t have what I want, then we’ll look elsewhere. If the Moon stone is what I think it is, then just tell me where we need to go.”

  Professor sighed, as if recognizing that his appeal to rational thinking had backfired. “Well, that’s the problem isn’t it? We don’t know where to look.”

  Jade considered this. “There still might be something in the Dee manuscripts. Some clue that only the Shew Stone can reveal. We still have it, right?” She shot a hopeful look at Dorion who in turn looked at Ophelia. The latter, almost reluctantly, took the crystal globe from her clutch purse and placed it on the tabletop.

  “If Dee really did have a vision of the Moon stone,” Jade said, “maybe he also saw where it would eventually end up. The only problem is finding the right manuscript.”

  “I suppose we could do some research online,” Professor said. “That might help us narrow it down. Then, of course, there’s the obvious. We try to find out what happened to Alvaro. Didn’t Perez’s journal mention that he saw himself presenting the Moon stone to King Philip? For all we know, the thing is gathering dust in a Spanish museum.”

  Ophelia clapped her hands together. “We can start looking right now!”

  She rose from her chair, went to the nightstand and returned with an iPad. She held it out to Professor. “Will this work?”

  Jade felt his eyes on her, as if silently asking: Are you sure you want me to do this?

  She wasn’t sure at all, but what choice did she have? She was drawn to unsolved mysteries like a moth to a flame, unable to turn away despite the threat of getting burned.

  Professor took the tablet from Ophelia and set it on the table facing up. “Okay, what should we start with?”

  The next hour was excruciating. Jade, Dorion and Ophelia crowded together behind Professor, looking over his shoulder as he navigated a seemingly endless maze of Google results. “John Dee Manuscripts” directed them to Dee’s diary and several other works that had been laboriously transcribed into plain text and also recommended several books for purchase by a certain Gerald Roche.

  “Scans of John Dee Manuscripts” was even less helpful.

  “It may not matter,” Professor told them. “If the manuscript Perez saw was written using some kind of special ink that’s visible only when viewed through a polarized crystal, it wouldn’t show up in a scan.”

  “So we would have to actually have the original parchment in hand,” said Jade. “Well, I know that Roche had a bunch. Those won’t do us much good.”

  “You could break in and steal them.”

  “Don’t tempt me. Where else can we find Dee originals?”

  Professor typed in “Where can I find original John Dee manuscripts?”

&nb
sp; “The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology at Oxford,” Jade said, reading the first result that didn’t mention Roche. “Wouldn’t mind going there.”

  “I’m not sure we’re going to find much more of use online. And if this is all we’ve got, then I don’t think we should get our hopes up.”

  “Try searching for Alvaro.”

  Professor dutifully typed in: “Alvaro Diego Menendez Castillo.”

  “I’m glad you remembered that,” Jade said. “I didn’t.”

  “That’s why you keep me around.” He scanned the results. “Nothing.”

  He tried different variations, but there was not a single result that linked back to the sixteenth century.

  “That’s not so unusual,” Professor said. “It could just mean that no one has digitized the historical account in which he appears.”

  He tried other searches relating to Spanish history, ships that sailed from Mexico in 1593, ships that might have sunk along the way. Finally, he tried Gil Perez.

  “Uh, Jade…”

  She looked at the list. “No way.”

  Jade had gotten used to results that had nothing at all to do with what had been entered into the search engine. Common names yielded personal websites and Facebook pages, and no shortage of advertisements for White Pages and other paid people-finding services. She was completely unprepared for what the search for Gil Perez returned.

  “‘The mysterious teleporting man’?”

  Professor clicked on the page and Jade began reading silently.

  On October 24, 1593, a Spanish soldier named Gil Perez was standing guard at the Palacio Del Gobernador in the Philippines. Governor Gomez Perez Dasmarinas had just been assassinated by Chinese mutineers and the garrison was on high alert while they awaited the appointment of a new governor. A weary Gil Perez decided to lean against a wall and rest for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he was in a completely unfamiliar place. Unsure of what to do, he continued to do his guard duties until he was approached by soldiers who began asking who he was. When he attempted to explain that he was guarding the governor’s palace, he learned that he was no longer in the Philippines, but in Mexico City’s Plaza Mayor. He had been teleported over 9,000 nautical miles away in the blink of an eye.