The Explorer's Code

by Kitty Pilgrim

  “Good, let’s go get them,” Sinclair said, moving back toward the door.

  “Wait! What on earth is that?” asked Charles, pointing to the whaling fork.

  “It’s a whaling fork.”

  “Oh,” said Charles.

  “It’s the only thing I could find,” explained Sinclair.

  “I found a ski pole,” said Charles, holding it up.

  That was the last thing he said. A man in a black parka was coming in the door with his gun drawn.

  Outside the seed vault, the afternoon light was still bright. Three gunmen stood looking at the circle that had been drawn in the dirt—a circle that looked like a cartwheel.

  “It wasn’t here before,” one said.

  “I would have seen it,” said another. “I stood guard here all morning. And this was definitely not here.”

  “I don’t think humans drew that,” said the third. “It’s a sign from God.”

  “Of course it is. It’s an ichthus wheel!” one said, with the glowing eyes of someone who had seen a miracle.

  “Why would anyone draw an ichthus wheel in the dirt here?”

  “It is a sign,” the first man declared definitively.

  They all walked around looking at it from different angles.

  “Its definitely an ichthus wheel. Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter—Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. All the Greek letters are there. Superimposed. It’s the real thing.”

  “It’s a sign from the Lord,” the tallest man said with utter conviction.

  “What could the sign mean?”

  “Think about it,” the first man said, weighing his words carefully. “We are about to destroy this vault. I think this is a sign of divine protection.”

  “Protection of the vault?”

  “Yes. It’s right in front of the door, isn’t it?”

  “This is a clear sign from God,” agreed the other man. “Who would draw an ichthus wheel in the dirt? Nobody. This is a sign from a heavenly messenger—an angel.”

  “We should stop Lance from blowing it up,” said the tallest man, urgently.

  “How can we do that? He’s already setting the charges.”

  They fell silent.

  “It’s the sacred symbol. I don’t think there is any question about what it means. We have to do something.”

  “Let’s tell Lance about it. He will know what to do.”

  One by one, they turned and walked back into the vault.

  The teenager pulled into the fueling station and Anna slipped off the motorcycle. There was a single red pump, and a weather-beaten shack stood a few yards away. The teenager unhooked the nozzle and began to pump the gas.

  “Is the seed vault far?”

  “No, not really,” he answered, changing hands to hold the cold nozzle. “Just up that road over there. I don’t know why you want to see it. It’s not much—just a door in the side of the mountain.”

  “So, we can’t go inside?” Anna asked.

  “No, it’s locked.”

  The boy hung up the gas nozzle and put out his hand for the money. Anna slipped some bills out of her wallet and gave them to him. She put the wallet back into her shoulder bag, worn bandolier style across her chest. The boy looked at her breasts, outlined by the strap of her purse cutting in between. Anna smiled at him.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, walking to the shed to pay for the gas. She watched him retreating. When he reached the shed, Anna jumped on the motorcycle, revved it, and pulled it in a tight circle to face the road. In less than ten seconds she was headed straight up the road toward the International Seed Vault.

  Lance approached the door of vault number 2. All the charges were ready to detonate. He didn’t care what Bob had said about letting Charles die in the fire—that kind of thinking was just plain sloppy. He pulled out his gun and opened the door. But when he entered the vault there was no sign of Charles. Another man was standing there. He was very tall, tan, and looked very fit. Lance had no idea who he was.

  “How did you get in here?’ Lance demanded.

  He leveled his gun at Sinclair, advancing a few steps. Suddenly Charles stepped out from behind a shelf. Before Lance could react, Charles swung his weapon. He cracked the ski pole with tremendous force down on Lance’s wrist, and the gun fell skittering across the concrete floor. Sinclair stooped to pick it up.

  Lance whirled to confront his attacker, but Charles already had the titanium ski pole pointed at his throat. Lance looked at Charles, surprised, off-balance. He tried to move his head to the side, but Charles, in a fencer’s stance, kept the tip of the ski pole against his larynx.

  “You killed Erin,” Charles said quietly. “And now I am going to kill you.” His voice was ice.

  Lance looked down at the ski pole. “With that?” he jeered, derisively.

  Charles stood as still as a statue, arm extended, the tip of the ski pole still pressed into Lance’s larynx.

  Sinclair closed his fingers around the gun. He was tempted to shoot the man on the spot and be done with it. But he didn’t want to risk it; he hadn’t fired a gun in a long time and Charles was standing too close. So Sinclair stayed immobile.

  “You’re too late,” Lance said. “The whole thing is going to blow any minute, and everything’s gonna be burned.”

  “Tell me how to stop it and I’ll let you live,” Charles replied. Lance just laughed and shook his head.

  “Then I am going to have to kill you,” Charles said.

  Sinclair stared at the two of them, poised in a macabre tableau: Lance strong in a defiant stance, Charles light and lithe with his improvised weapon—gripped as easily as he held his fencing sabre.

  There was a long moment of silence as Charles prepared to attack. Sinclair was familiar with that moment, an infinitesimal fraction of time drawn out and suspended. He had experienced it many times when fencing with Charles.

  Lance was regarding the ski pole with derision, totally unaware of the mortal danger it posed. He moved as if to step away, but the point of the ski pole followed. The muscles in Charles’s arm tensed. He was about to strike.

  Sinclair knew that there were no halfway measures; Charles would have to strike to kill. Charles had the necessary skill; he was one of the finest sabre fighters in the world. But his fencing had never ended in death before.

  Sinclair saw Charles narrow his eyes and a muscle in his jaw ripple in tension. It was an expression Sinclair had never seen. When he and Charles fenced each other, the wire masks hid all but the shadows of the eyes and face. The way Charles looked now was chilling.

  He attacked. The movement was so fast Sinclair only saw the devastation on the man’s face. Charles took out both eyes in less than a second, puncturing the corneas and leaving gaping holes. Blood wept down the man’s cheeks. Lance’s mouth opened, and he began to scream. After a moment his legs buckled, and he sank to his knees. His sightless eye sockets faced up to Charles as his mouth screamed in agony.

  Charles stepped closer and placed the tip of the ski pole in the soft indentation between the two collarbones. He found the hollow of Lance’s neck with the point. After he settled the tip, he reversed his grip. Charles rammed the pole down hard, with a brutal thrust. The blade of the ski pole punctured the esophagus and drove straight into the heart. Charles gave it an extra thrust, and then he pulled it back out again.

  There was a moment of awful silence. Charles stood there breathing heavily, holding the bloody ski pole. Lance slumped to the floor, dead.

  “For Erin,” Charles said, and turned away. The ski pole clattered to the floor.

  Sinclair stood immobile as he watched the carnage. There was silence in the vault after the last death scream. Charles was breathing heavily from his exertion and seemed spent, and mentally drained. He walked away, staring vaguely at nothing.

  Sinclair saw the door open again. Three men came into the room with guns drawn, and his mind went on alert. He was terribly outnumbered. He stepped forward, his hand wrapped
around the gun in his pocket.

  For a moment, no one spoke, then one of the three gunmen said, “We need to stop this.”

  Sinclair hesitated.

  “The Lord has given us a sign not to destroy the vault,” another said.

  Sinclair stood without moving. What did they mean?

  “Do you know how to disconnect the explosive device?” Sinclair asked.

  They all silently shook their heads no.

  “Lance is dead,” one observed. They all looked at his gruesome body on the floor.

  “We wash our hands of this,” the tallest man said. They laid their guns on the floor and walked out quickly. The door swooshed shut behind them.

  Charles turned; his face was pale from shock.

  Sinclair spoke quietly. “Charles, we need to move quickly. Where’s Cordelia?”

  The corridor was cold. As Sinclair and Charles ran back to the central guard post of the vault, they could feel warmer air flowing in.

  “The outside door must be open!” said Charles.

  “Could she have left?” asked Sinclair.

  “I don’t know. But we can’t risk it, we need to check the other vaults first,” said Charles.

  “I’ll take the one on the left and you look in the vault on the right,” said Sinclair.

  “No, let’s stick together. I don’t know who else is still here,” said Charles, starting down the one on the right.

  “Fine,” said Sinclair. “I’m with you. Let’s go.”

  Cordelia sat in the middle of the floor of vault number 3. She hadn’t heard a sound for at least five minutes. She had struggled against her bonds, but she couldn’t seem to loosen the duct tape. So she had started worming her way toward the door, making slow progress, sliding on her buttocks across the concrete floor.

  Lance had set his charges and left, putting an electronic device on the shelf across the room. Cordelia could see red numbers flashing, but she had no idea when the explosive charges would go off. She was mostly worried that Lance had gone back to shoot Charles. She figured that no matter what Bob had said, Lance would kill Charles anyway. He looked like that kind of man.

  She looked up and saw someone standing in the doorway. She gasped. It was Anna from the ship!

  The woman before her was quite a change from the glamorous woman she knew. Anna was wearing a parka and a shoulder bag. She looked like a guerrilla commando. She advanced into the room smiling, as if they were meeting for afternoon tea on the Queen Victoria.

  “Cordelia, we have been looking for you. Have you seen Evgeny?”

  “Who is Evgeny?” asked Cordelia.

  Anna didn’t answer. She looked around the room, and suddenly noticed the black digital device on the seed shelf. She walked over and examined it.

  “It says nine minutes,” Anna said. “Is this thing set to go off in nine minutes?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cordelia. “Please untie me so I can get out of here.”

  Anna shook her head. “Not unless you tell me where the deed is.”

  “I already told Bob and Marlene. The deed is at the museum,” Cordelia said. “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “Bob and Marlene?” said Anna in surprise. “I had no idea they were here.”

  Cordelia was confused. Weren’t they working together? They had all been at the same table on the ship. Was it possible they were all competing with one another to get the deed?

  “Untie me and I’ll help you find them,” improvised Cordelia quickly.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Anna replied. “I don’t think so at all.”

  She walked out the door and left Cordelia sitting on the floor.

  Sinclair and Charles were standing at the guard post in the central area of the vault when they heard footsteps running in their direction.

  “Who’s that?” whispered Charles.

  “Whoever it is, they’re coming fast,” said Sinclair.

  “Get down,” said Charles, squatting down in the well of the central desk. Sinclair crouched next to him on the floor. They had a clear view of Anna as she ran by. She never even noticed them.

  “Who’s that?” asked Charles again.

  Sinclair didn’t answer; he was already on his feet. He overtook Anna in three long strides and tackled her to the floor. She fought him fiercely.

  “Let me go! It’s going to explode!” she shouted.

  Anna was writhing, struggling with Sinclair, who held her easily with his superior weight and contained her with one hand.

  “It’s you! I should have guessed,” he growled.

  “Let me go! The vault is wired to blow up. We have less than nine minutes.”

  “Where’s Cordelia?” asked Sinclair.

  Anna didn’t answer. But the inadvertent “tell” of her eyes flicked toward the corridor on the left. Sinclair was off her in a flash and headed in that direction. Anna scrambled to her feet and began racing toward the exit.

  “Charles, leave her, come on!”

  Sinclair tore down the corridor on the left. It was the only place they hadn’t looked.

  Thaddeus Frost watched the three figures walking down the mountain with an easy, relaxed quality to their gaits. As the vehicle drew parallel to them, the Norwegian policeman lowered the window. The three men looked benignly at the officer.

  “Peace be with you,” said one of the young men. He spoke English with an American accent!

  “And also with you,” Thaddeus replied, leaning across to the window. He didn’t know where that response came from—probably the vestiges of childhood, and Mass with his mother, who had named him Jude Thaddeus after the patron saint of hopeless cases.

  The three men smiled in beneficent recognition of his piety.

  “I wouldn’t go up there, brother,” one of them advised. Frost looked at him. He couldn’t have been more than thirty years old.

  “Why not?” asked Thaddeus.

  “It’s the International Seed Vault.”

  “I know,” said Thaddeus.

  “It’s about to blow up,” the man said.

  Cordelia wormed across the floor of the vault number 3, her hands and feet still bound. Across the room, the numbers were relentlessly ticking down. Anna had left the door open, but Cordelia’s hands and feet were taped so tightly she couldn’t even crawl.

  Suddenly she heard the sound of feet running in the corridor. They were coming closer. Was it friend or enemy? She stared at the oblong of the doorway, her heart pounding.

  A figure appeared. It was John Sinclair! She could scarcely trust her eyes. He had come!

  He was totally disheveled, with blood smeared on his jacket, pants covered in dirt. He looked taller and more powerful than she remembered.

  He didn’t see her at first; his eyes scanned the room frantically. Then he noticed her, sitting next to the shelving on the floor. There was a moment of suspended astonishment as their eyes connected. He exhaled, shutting his eyes for the briefest second, as if in thankful prayer.

  The split second flashed by, and he was moving toward her, his face grim. He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her to her feet. This was no tender embrace; he spun her around and began stripping the duct tape from her wrists.

  “Sorry, Delia,” he apologized. “I know this hurts, but we have to get out of here.”

  He bent down and was working the duct tape off her feet.

  “John, there’s a bomb!”

  “We know,” said Charles from the doorway.

  She looked up and gasped. He was alive!

  He looked ghostly, his face pale and his blond hair almost silver in the light of the vault. Charles, lovely Charles! Her eyes started to tear up.

  “I thought he killed you,” she said. Her voice broke with emotion. Charles came over and threw an arm around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head.

  “No, he didn’t kill me, Delia,” Charles said quietly. “I’m not leaving you quite yet.”

  Anna ran out of the seed vault at full tilt and plowe
d straight into the arms of a member of the Norwegian police. She wrestled with him, but he grabbed her and held her fast. Several of the young police trainees were standing attentively, with their weapons leveled at her.

  Thaddeus Frost stepped forward.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Frost looked at her face and knew he had seen her before. He had total visual recall; it would come to him in a moment. And then it clicked. His eyes widened in astonishment. He replayed the mental tape from the airport lounge at Heathrow: leopard shirt, cleavage, coffee, rushing out for a late flight. He saw Gardiner drinking poisoned coffee.

  “Arrest this woman for attempted murder,” he said coldly.

  The red numbers on the bomb read 6:00 minutes. Sinclair, Charles, and Cordelia ran out of vault number 3 and careened down the corridor toward the main door of the seed vault. Cordelia could feel the seconds ticking in her head.

  Charles was the fastest, and kept looking back as he ran. She and Sinclair followed close behind, and Sinclair grasped her hand to pull her along. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. The corridor seemed so much longer than when she had first entered.

  The gray tunnel stretched before her endlessly, and she couldn’t help envisioning the fire that would blast through it, incinerating them if they didn’t make it out. Suddenly the fresh air from outside started to brush her face, and she could see the glare of the open sky in the doorframe.

  Charles was the first to burst out of the tunnel. He came face-to-face with the police and stopped. Sinclair and Cordelia drew up behind. They all looked in surprise. The entire Svalbard law-enforcement team was now assembled at the exterior of the vault.

  Thaddeus Frost was standing by the vehicles, talking on the radio. He turned at the sound of their steps and sprinted over quickly, his trench coat flapping around him.

  “Get these people out of here!” he called to the police recruits. They lowered their weapons and began to help Cordelia and Charles over to the vehicles. But Frost put a restraining hand on Sinclair’s arm.

  “Is it going to blow?” he asked quietly.

  “Five minutes. Less. It’s an incendiary device,” said Sinclair.