Changeling

by David Wood

  We should not be surprised at the lengths to which the Changelings will go to prevent the world from learning about the vault. Archimedes was no doubt aware of the Changeling conspiracy, even in ancient times. He almost certainly intended his Vault as a way to equip future generations with the weapons to unmask and defeat this insidious threat. The location of the vault was entrusted to his loyal acolytes, the Society of Syracuse.

  To be sure, the Changelings knew about the vault and feared what lay concealed within. The Roman siege of Syracuse was orchestrated by the Changelings for the sole purpose of killing Archimedes and wiping out all mention of the existence of the vault. Indeed, Archimedes was murdered despite the explicit orders of the Roman general leading the attack that he be taken alive.

  As the time-lock ticked inexorably toward the day when the vault would be unlocked, the Changelings took bold action to ensure that the secrets within would never see the light of day. Since they could not enter the vault or destroy its contents, they contrived a bold plan to confuse Archimedes’ successors, so that they would fail to recognize when the thousand year time limit elapsed.

  Archimedes sealed his Vault sometime before his death in 212 BC. Counting forward one thousand years, we arrive at AD 787. In AD 614, more than eight hundred years after the murder of Archimedes, Emperor Otto II and Pope Sylvester II, at the direction of Changeling agents, added approximately three hundred years to the calendar. The deception was so successful that, a century later, the scattered and persecuted remnants of the Society of Syracuse thought the opportunity to enter the vault had already passed them by.

  How does this knowledge affect us today?

  Based on the correction to the Gregorian calendar, we can surmise that about two hundred and ninety-seven years were added to the calendar, which means that instead of 2015, it is actually 1718, or 1,931 years since the death of Archimedes. While we do not know exactly when the thousand year cycle will be complete, we do know that the Vault of Archimedes will open sometime in the next sixty-seven years.

  Jade stopped reading. “I think I know why Roche came to me,” she said. “He wanted me to find the Archimedes Vault.”

  Kellogg looked at her again, longer than was perhaps safe given the road conditions. “You think it really exists?”

  “Roche certainly did.”

  There was a long pause before Kellogg finally said, “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

  Jade smiled in spite of herself. “Professor was right. I am predictable. Speaking of which…” She dug out her phone and started composing a text message. “I should probably let him know where I’m headed.” She hit the “send” button.

  “Where exactly is that?”

  “Syracuse. That’s in Italy, I think. It’s the logical place to start looking.”

  “Sicily,” Kellogg murmured.

  “Yeah?” The phone buzzed in her hand, signaling Professor’s reply to her text. That was quick, she thought.

  Just about done here. Will meet you there in a few days. Be careful.

  “Huh. That’s weird. I thought he’d freak out.” The brevity of his reply was surprising, but there was probably a good reason for it. Maybe he was driving. She wanted to inquire about the results of his investigation, but decided to let that wait until they were face-to-face again. The fact that he was wrapping up meant that he had either found something conclusive, or more likely, nothing at all.

  “You do realize,” Kellogg said, “if the vault is real, it would be pretty compelling proof that Mr. Roche was right. About Phantom Time and everything else.”

  She looked up from her phone. “Your point?”

  “You were the one who thought we should just let it go. Remember? Don’t pour petrol on the fire?”

  “The existence of the Archimedes Vault—if it exists—wouldn’t prove Phantom Time any more than the existence of the pyramids or the Nazca lines proves that UFOs are real.”

  “And if there is some kind of thousand year timelock?”

  “Look, the whole thing is probably a wild goose chase, but I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t at least look for it.”

  Kellogg pondered this for a moment. “Mind if I come along?”

  “Really? I figured you would be busy trying to get Roche’s book out.”

  Kellogg smiled. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, the book’s not finished. There’s still one more chapter left to write.”

  FOURTEEN

  Unknown location

  “‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep.’” Professor muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  Professor turned away from the edge of the all but impenetrable tree line and offered Carrera a smile. “You haven’t gone past this point?”

  “No. Boss made it very clear that there would be consequences if anyone did that.”

  There was no obvious sign of a security presence, which only confirmed Professor’s earlier suspicion. If this had been a North Korean prison camp, the perimeter would have been well defined, with guard towers, dogs, guns, land mines… The DPRK did not believe in subtlety. This was something else.

  While he and Carrera—or rather the woman claiming to be the First Officer of Flight 815—roamed the camp and strolled along the tree line, Professor surreptitiously worked out a rough estimate of the latitude—forty-five degrees, south. Most of the earth’s landmass was in the Northern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere was mostly ocean, and below forty-five degrees, there was a dearth of real estate. There were really only two places they could be: South America—Chile or Argentina—or New Zealand. The latter made the most sense. If the stubble on his chin was any indication, he had only been unconscious for a few hours, certainly not long enough to make the trans-oceanic flight to South America. What made absolutely no sense at all was why Carrera had lied about their location.

  She’s testing me, he decided. But is she working with the people who abducted me, or does she suspect I’m one of them?

  “Can you arrange some kind of diversion back at the camp?”

  Carrera stared back at him. “I can’t put the passengers in any danger.”

  “Just make some noise. Bang some stuff around. All I need is a few minutes to get from my cabin to the trees.”

  Carrera’s expression remained uncertain. An act? If so, she was an Academy Award caliber actor. He just hoped his own performance was as convincing.

  “Let’s get back,” he said, not waiting for a reply. “I should eat something and grab some shut-eye. I’ll make my move two hours after sunset.”

  “Not midnight?”

  “Everyone goes at midnight. It’s cliché.” He said nothing more on the subject as they made their way back to the cabins. He asked a few more perfunctory questions, paying more attention to how she answered than to what she actually said. The woman had no tells that he could discern, which he decided almost certainly meant that she was willingly working with his captors.

  Her story about the takeover of the airplane was probably the truth, only she had probably been the one drugging Norris, instead of the other way around. That part was easy enough to figure out, but it brought him no closer to solving the real mystery.

  Why?

  Why take an aircraft full of people just to eliminate one man? Why go to the trouble of constructing this elaborate ruse—Carrera, the bogus North Korean prison camp, the other survivors, if in fact that was what they were? And why had they brought him here?

  The scenario reminded him a little of a British television series from the 1960s, about a secret agent who had been abducted and taken to a bizarre village where no one was what they seemed. The villain of the story, the mysterious “Number Two,” played by a different actor in every episode, never revealed exactly what it was he wanted from the hero, just “information.” The program had been heavy with symbolism—a metaphorical struggle of the individual against society’s demand for conformity and homogeneity—and psychedelic to the point of self-pa
rody, but the tactics employed by the nameless antagonist were right out of the Cold War spy handbook. Gaslighting 101. Professor had a sneaking suspicion his captors had either read that book or watched the show. Probably both.

  On the return trip, Carrera took him to one of several cabins that served as supply depot and restroom facilities. He collected a box of MREs and a flat of bottled water, and carried them back to his own cabin, where he bade Carrera good-bye. He picked a meal at random and ate, though he barely tasted the unappetizing fare, and then settled onto the mattress for a nap. He had not been lying to Carrera about his intention to eat and sleep before making his escape attempt, but he had misled her about the timing of his attempt. He would not be waiting until two hours after sundown.

  Forty-five minutes later, and—judging by its position in the sky—a good hour before nightfall, Professor rose and left his cabin. He walked at a languid pace, casual but purposeful, strolling through the camp in the direction of the restroom cabin. As he went, he nodded to the handful of people he saw, all of them ostensibly passengers from Flight 815. Some waved back, others regarded him uncertainly, but no one spoke to him or made any move to stop him. When he got within sight of his destination however, he shifted course, moving away at the same pace, toward the tree line.

  He thought he saw, out of the corner of his eye, some of the passengers taking note, perhaps even following him, but he did not look back. He kept his eyes forward, his pace quickening ever so slightly, as if he had somewhere important to be. When he got within fifty yards of the woods, he broke into a run.

  At the edge of the woods, he risked a quick glance over his shoulder. No one was giving chase, which was not necessarily a good sign. He wondered if he had misjudged the allegiances of the people purporting to be his fellow prisoners. His strategy was predicated on the belief that some or all of them were actually working with his captors, and that security beyond the camp would be minimal. If he was wrong….

  I’m not wrong, he told himself, returning his focus to what lay ahead. Not completely, anyway.

  He scanned the woods in front of him, looking for tripwires or areas of disturbed ground that might hide pitfalls or even mines, checked the branches of trees for surveillance cameras. The most important thing was to establish short-range waypoints in order to stay oriented. Beneath the forest canopy, with so many trees clustered together forcing him to weave back and forth, and no direct view of the sun, he could easily wind up running in circles. Keeping a true course while maintaining a running pace required intense concentration. He did not dare look back again.

  He counted his steps, and was able to estimate both the distance he had traveled and the time that had elapsed since fleeing the camp. Five minutes out—give or take a minute—he figured he had gone about a quarter of a mile, with no sign of human activity and no indication that the woods would ever end.

  A quarter of a mile. Probably a lot less given the zig-zagging course he was obliged to take.

  Miles to go before I sleep.

  He strained to catch some noise of pursuit—shouts, alarms, the barking of bloodhounds—but the only sounds he heard were the crunch of his footsteps on the litter of conifer needles and dry seed cones covering the ground and the occasional snap of a low hanging branch breaking against his shoulder.

  Two or three minutes more passed by and then, without warning, the woods ahead grew brighter. Professor froze in mid-stride and remained that way while his heart hammered out a hundred beats. The light seemed to be natural, probably the result of a clearing that was allowing more sunlight to penetrate the canopy overhead, but it might also signal the end of the wooded area or worse, a secured perimeter. He crept forward, staying behind tree boughs until his field of view cleared.

  It was a clearing, of sorts, but not a naturally occurring one. A swath of bare dirt, at least two hundred feet wide, cut through the midst of the forest. The ground was uniformly flat, obviously packed down and graded with road building equipment, but Professor saw immediately that it wasn’t a road.

  It was a runway.

  A Boeing 777 sat idle more than a hundred yards away. Radar-scattering camouflage nets hung on poles all around the aircraft formed a shroud that would effectively hide the plane from satellites and search aircraft. The markings and registration number on the tail confirmed what was already plainly obvious. He had found Flight 815.

  He studied the aircraft for a full minute but saw no sign of activity, no guards posted, no workmen disassembling or modifying the evidently derelict plane. He fleetingly contemplated trying to fly the aircraft out—how hard could it be after all?—but shelved the idea. Even if he was able to figure out the controls, getting the plane moving would take time, time which he doubted his captors would allow.

  Still, there were other ways the aircraft could be useful to what he had planned.

  He moved laterally down the length of the runway, keeping to the woods and pausing often to check for signs of pursuit. The fact that there had been none was disconcerting. He felt conspicuously like a mouse being toyed with by a stealthy cat who felt secure enough in its ability to pounce long before the prey escaped.

  Tom and Jerry, the dueling cartoon characters, ran through his head, and the thought brought a smile to his face. Jerry always outsmarted Tom.

  He stopped a stone’s throw from the plane. The front hatch, where passengers normally boarded and debarked, was open and a makeshift staircase had been erected to facilitate access from the ground. The doorway was dark, the window blinds open to reveal no lights inside. It was almost certainly a trap, but Professor knew something that his captors did not. He was not trying to escape.

  He stepped from the trees and crossed to the steps, ascended and cautiously entered the plane. Although some light was getting in through the portholes, it did little to illuminate the interior. The atmosphere was surreal, like being inside the corpse of some immense cyclopean beast. Professor turned toward the front of the plane and found the door to the cockpit. It was open, revealing empty seats and a dark instrument panel.

  He sat down in the left hand seat and stared out the front windshield. The nose of the plane was facing west, giving him a view of the darkening sky. There were more trees at the end of the runway, another hundred yards or so distant, but beyond that, only sky.

  He folded his hands in his lap and waited. He did not think he would have to wait very long.

  FIFTEEN

  Syracuse, Sicily

  On the map, the island of Sicily looked like an enormous triangular rock poised on the end of the toe of the boot that was Italy, but Sicily was no footnote. The largest island in the Mediterranean, sloping away from the flanks of the majestic 11,000-foot high Mount Etna, the largest volcano in Europe and one of the most active volcanoes in the world, had been inhabited by humans for more than 12,000 years. Greek culture had taken hold in 750 BCE, and for 500 years thereafter, the island had been part of Magna Graecia—Greater Greece—until, in the time of Archimedes, it had been claimed by Rome. Its fertile soil had fed the Roman legions, fueling the rise of the Roman Empire and conquest of the entire region. In more recent times, the campaign to capture Sicily, spearheaded by the flamboyant American general George Patton, had been pivotal to breaking the Axis powers in World War II.

  Though her specialty was pre-Columbian America, Jade was not unfamiliar with the Classical period, and like any archaeologist worth her salt, could not help but be awed by standing in the presence of so much history. She only wished Professor could have been there to share the experience, but his last text message had indicated he was still in Australia and that it might be another day or two before he could get a flight out. Jade did not dare to hope that she would find the Archimedes Vault in that short a time, but she was not about to postpone the search to wait for him.

  Shortly after returning to London, Jade and Kellogg had caught an early train to Paris, and then transferred to a Eurostar train bound for Rom, followed by a third train ride and a t
rip on a ferry. The total journey lasted about thirty-six hours, including short layovers at the transfer points, putting them in Syracuse, Sicily shortly before midnight of the second day since the escape from the Kilmaurs fogou. Flying would have reduced the actual travel time, but trains offered a sort of anonymity that, given the ongoing threat from Islamic extremists—or whomever it was targeting her—seemed the most prudent method of getting to their destination.

  The late arrival necessitated finding lodgings for the night. Citing security concerns, Jade insisted on a five star hotel. It would have been too easy for an assassin to slip into a hostel or budget hotel and dispatch her in the dead of night—but after days on the road and weeks of camp life in Peru, a long soak in a hot tub and eight hours—okay, maybe more like nine and half—sleeping on 400 thread count sateen weave Egyptian cotton sheets were just what the doctor ordered. Kellogg grumbled at the rate, but Jade suggested he write it off as business expense. She awoke feeling refreshed and ready to dive into the search. It didn’t hurt one bit that Sicily was warm and sunny, and not nearly as humid as her native Oahu.