The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set

by N. S. Wikarski

  The memory guardian eyed her compassionately. “If you want to go to the bell tower for a cigarette break before we listen to Cassie’s explanation, perhaps it might have a calming effect.”

  “No,” Maddie waved her hand irritably. “With my luck, they’d get here the minute I walk away.” The serene burbling of the waterfalls was lost on her. She stood up abruptly. “You know what? On second thought, I will go have a smoke.” She snatched her pack of cigarettes from Cassie’s desk. “Murphy’s Law dictates that the minute I leave the room, they’ll show up, and I want to hear the story from them, not Cassie’s sugar-coated version. Maybe if I leave, they’ll get here faster.”

  Faye chuckled indulgently. “Oh, Maddie. You really must learn to relax.”

  “Serenity is not in my wheelhouse,” her companion muttered as she stomped toward the door. No sooner had she reached the threshold than she stopped dead in her tracks. “What the hell!” she exclaimed.

  Faye half-rose out of her chair. “What is it?” she asked with some concern.

  “It’s just the guys,” Cassie rushed to block the doorway, positioning herself between Maddie and her teammates. “No worries.”

  “No worries!” Maddie echoed, craning her neck to see around the corner. “Why is Erik limping? Why is Griffin in a wheelchair?”

  “A wheelchair! Good heavens!” Shocked, Faye sank back down into her seat.

  Maddie was about to lunge forward to interrogate the new arrivals, but Cassie spread her arms across the doorway blocking the operations director’s path.

  “Hold on, Maddie,” the pythia said. “The guys have been beat up enough already on this mission, and they don’t need the third degree from you right now, so back off.”

  The operations director shook her head in bafflement—like a bull after charging a red cape that turned out to be a brick wall. She glowered down at Cassie. “I could brush you aside with one hand tied behind my back.”

  The pythia returned the Amazon’s stare. “You’re welcome to try,” she replied evenly. “And while you’re doing that, I can show you some of those slick new fighting moves you ordered Erik to teach me. It took his ribs three weeks to heal. I think it’ll take yours longer.”

  Cassie could hear Griffin gasp. Erik, choking with suppressed laughter, developed a sudden coughing fit. Out of the corner of her eye, Cassie saw Faye’s hand fly to her mouth to hide a smile. The pythia maintained a deadpan expression.

  The two women studied one another in silence for several moments. Maddie was the first to break eye contact. She snorted in disgust and ended the impasse by stepping back a few paces.

  Only then did Cassie drop her arms and allow her teammates to enter the room.

  As Erik wheeled Griffin past her, he gave Cassie a conspiratorial grin and whispered, “Rock on, tiny terminator, rock on.”

  Limping forward, Erik told his superior, “Everything’s OK, chief. Chill.”

  Her face turned purple. “Do the three of you think I’m handing out insubordination vouchers today? Remember who signs your paycheck, kid.”

  Erik winced but made no reply as he positioned Griffin beside the desk.

  Maddie flounced down next to Faye while the security coordinator sank into the last chair.

  “Griffin brought his own seat,” Cassie quipped, hoping to break the tension as she resumed her own place.

  The two older women traded concerned looks but remained silent.

  After giving the newcomers a few moments to get settled, Maddie finally said, “OK, let’s hear it.”

  The men glanced at Cassie. She shrugged helplessly. “You guys got here too soon, and they didn’t give me a chance to explain.” Turning to Griffin, she said, “You might as well tell it.”

  “Right then.” The scrivener sighed. “I was shot.” He lapsed into silence.

  “Shot!” the two older women cried in unison.

  “He had a little scuffle with Hunt on the mountain,” Erik elaborated.

  “But Griffin’s going to be OK,” Cassie added cheerily. “The bullet missed all the vital organs, and the bump on his head is a lot better than it was.”

  “Bump?” Maddie echoed.

  “Yeah, when he jumped out and tackled Hunt. They were fighting, and his head got slammed into a rock,” Erik offered. After noticing the stricken looks on his listeners’ faces, he tried to back pedal. “I mean, he only blacked out for a couple of hours.”

  Maddie gave a timeout signal. “Whoa! Everybody back up and start at the beginning. Tell us exactly what happened right after you put the fake relic in the ground.”

  They all began talking at once, but somehow Maddie and Faye were able to piece together the string of events that led to Griffin’s and Erik’s injuries.

  “You should have been stationed inside the cave,” the operations director told Erik reproachfully. “If you’d been there, he wouldn’t have gotten shot.”

  The security coordinator rolled his eyes and murmured to his teammates, “I told you she was gonna blame me.”

  “It wasn’t his fault.” Cassie rushed to his defense. “He was on the summit trying to head off trouble when everything went down.”

  Maddie relented. “Since you’re all still breathing, I guess that counts as a win.”

  Faye nodded. “Indeed. That’s the main thing to remember. We are deeply indebted to the quick thinking of the Basque sentinel. A man like that ought to be working for the Arkana.”

  “Way ahead of you there,” Erik said. “Since Iker is basically out of the sentinel business because of us, he has a lot of free time. Ortzi asked him to head up security at the Basque trove.”

  “You might actually get a chance to meet him,” Cassie said. “I put him in touch with Grace Littlefield, and he’s decided to come to America to visit his long-lost relative. I told him Chicago was right in the neighborhood.”

  “That was a bit of a stretch,” Maddie objected.

  “So, I shaved off a few hundred miles.” Cassie equivocated. “You want to meet him, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Faye agreed. “We owe him a great deal.”

  “Then all’s well that ends well,” the pythia prompted. “Right?”

  “Certainly.” The memory guardian smiled. “Our team has returned alive, and the bait has been taken by the Nephilim.”

  “According to Hunt’s last call to Metcalf before he left Spain, everything was fine. Of course, he didn’t mention anything about a scuffle in the cave. Maybe that’s a good thing, or I would have been fretting.” She paused and added pointedly for Erik’s benefit, “Fretting even more than I already was.”

  The security coordinator adopted a blameless expression. “We didn’t want to worry you while Griffin was getting back on his feet.” He regarded his teammate ruefully “Sorry, man, bad choice of words.”

  “How long will you be confined to a wheelchair?” Faye asked worriedly.

  “I’ve been instructed to visit the vault physician for regular checkups, but it should only be a matter of weeks.”

  “Thank heavens,” Faye said. “We’re both very relieved to hear that there’s no permanent damage.” She glanced at the metal box on Cassie’s desk which had gone unnoticed during the interrogation. “Now that we’ve sorted out what happened last week perhaps we should turn our attention to this interesting little item. There was no time to talk about the artifact itself in the rush to have it duplicated.” She slid the box closer to Cassie. “Can you read anything else from it, my dear?”

  The pythia shook her head as she removed the relic from the box and held it in her palms. “Afraid not. I’m starting to notice a pattern here. It’s like each of these objects has a message for me when I pick it up for the first time. Once I get that message, it doesn’t have anything else to tell me. Whatever I was supposed to know got transmitted to me when Grace handed me the artifact at the Haudenosaunee trove.”

  She placed the object in the middle of the des
k. Her companions all moved closer to regard it with keen interest.

  “What kind of bird to you think it is?” the pythia asked.

  Griffin picked up the artifact to inspect it. “It appears to be a dove in flight.” He squinted appraisingly. “And it’s carved out of pure lapis lazuli unless I miss my guess. Very delicate craftsmanship on these outstretched wings.”

  “There’s some writing on the breast,” Maddie observed.

  “Yes,” Griffin agreed wistfully. “But it’s little enough to go on.”

  “Like I said back at the trove,” Cassie reminded him. “Fewer words don’t necessarily translate to an easier clue.”

  “What do the symbols mean?” Faye urged.

  Griffin placed the lapis dove back on the desk. “I had some time to work on the translation while I was recuperating in Spain. It says: ‘One dove flies to wake the helmsman. The course he sets reveals his fate.”

  “That’s it?” Maddie sounded shocked.

  “I’m afraid so,” the scrivener agreed.

  “I guess our Minoan buddies figured we should be on to their tricks by now,” Erik concluded.

  Maddie stared at him. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning they use these relics to give navigational bearings. They went easy on us with the first two sets of riddles. Now they’re writing in shorthand.”

  “Hmmm,” the operations director growled. “Cryptic is never good.”

  “At least we know that the dove is supposed to be used to find latitude,” Cassie observed helpfully. “If the riddle says she’s waking somebody, then that would mean morning. Since the sun rises in the east, that’s the direction we should go.”

  “East from Spain,” Griffin corrected.

  “Right,” the pythia agreed. “They had no way of knowing the relic would end up in North America.”

  “So, does that mean you have to go back to Greece and Turkey?” Maddie asked.

  Griffin shook his head. “I think not. Judging from the size of the dove and the fact that the riddle only mentions one for measurement purposes, the latitude in question is well south of either Greece or Turkey.”

  “But that could be only one place,” Faye murmured. “Africa.”

  “Yeah, we figured that much,” Erik agreed. “But Africa is a pretty big continent. Thousands of miles across.”

  “We thought we’d calculate the latitude and work our way from the west coast to the east,” Cassie explained.

  Maddie raised an eyebrow. “That’s still an awfully big chunk of real estate, and some of those countries are a little dicey as tourist destinations. Especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

  “This design may offer an additional clue.” Griffin pointed to the dove’s back. The area between the wings was encrusted with gems.

  Maddie focused on the jewels as if seeing them for the first time. “There’s a fortune sitting on that little birdie’s backbone. I know because I had to spring for the sparklers that went onto the fake.”

  “Why didn’t you just substitute paste rocks?” Cassie asked.

  “Because if Metcalf ever had the dove examined by a jeweler, the jig would have been up,” Maddie countered. “It had to look completely authentic.”

  “We think aside from the monetary value of the gems, the design is meant to tell us something.” Griffin traced his fingers over the dove’s back. “A circle of diamonds with seven emeralds scattered in the center.” His finger stopped tracing and rested on a red gem. “And then the diamonds that comprise the circle are interrupted at opposite ends by two rubies—one larger than the other.”

  “It’s a fair bet that the diamonds are meant to stand for calendar stones,” Erik remarked. “The Minoans really have a thing for big rocks in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Africa is riddled with megalithic formations,” Faye said. “And they’re scattered over thousands of miles.”

  “Looks like you won’t have much downtime,” the operations director commented.

  “We have to wait until Griffin can get around,” Cassie demurred. “And I don’t mean on crutches either. He’s got to be ready for the rough stuff in the field. That could take a month or two.”

  “In addition, there may be a time element associated with these mysterious stones,” the scrivener said. “If they’re anything like what we encountered on Ida, an astronomical event is a key component of solving the riddle. I haven’t cracked that bit yet.” His voice held a note of worry.

  “It doesn’t matter. You three have seen all this before.” Maddie tried to sound encouraging. “You know how the Minoans think now. This next retrieval should be a slam dunk.”

  The Arkana team remained ominously silent.

  Faye was the first to speak. “Things which appear simple at first glance are rarely what they seem to be.”

  “Like she said.” Cassie nodded vigorously. “I’ve got a feeling that whatever is coming next will be something we’ve never seen before.”

  “Does that thought disturb you? Does it make you want to give up?” Faye asked pointedly, apparently already guessing the answer.

  The pythia gave a mischievous grin. “As long as there’s a prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box, you know we’re gonna turn it upside down and shake it. It’s what we do.”

  “Was that some new kind of American slang?” Griffin asked in puzzlement.

  “Erik can explain it to you.”

  Maddie stood abruptly as a signal that the meeting was over. “It looks like you’ve all got enough research to keep you busy until Griffin heals up. As for me, I have someplace to be right now.”

  “An urgent meeting in the chimney,” Erik observed slyly as he rose to turn Griffin’s chair around.

  “Don’t be so cocky, kid. You’re still not off the hook as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Oh, Maddie, leave the boy alone. He’s injured.” Faye leaned heavily on the desk in an attempt to stand.

  Cassie flew out of her chair to assist the old woman to the door and then stood aside to allow Erik to wheel Griffin out.

  After they left, she remained leaning in the doorway and watched them retreat down the hall.

  She heard Erik say, “So, Grif, how about we shoot some hoops later?”

  “Shoot some hoops? Are you mad? I can’t even walk properly yet, nor can you.”

  “It was a joke, man, relax.”

  Then Cassie caught the echo of Faye confiding to Maddie, “...standing up to you the way she did. Our new pythia certainly has pluck, don’t you think?”

  “I can think of several choice words to describe what she’s got but pluck isn’t one of them.” She added grudgingly, “At least she’s on our side. Now, where the hell did I leave my lighter?”

  Cassie gave them all a final affectionate glance before shutting the door behind her. For the first time in her life, she felt that she was home.

  RIDDLE OF THE DIAMOND DOVE

  Riddle of the Diamond Dove

  Book Four of Seven—Arkana Archaeology Mystery Thriller Series

  http://www.mythofhistory.com

  Copyright © 2013 by N. S. Wikarski

  Second Revised Edition 2017

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1—Dirty Deeds

  Right Now—Halfway Across the World

  The truck came to an abrupt stop in a trackless expanse of nowhere. The driver cut the engine and climbed out of the cab. He surveyed the landscape. It was a moonless night, and that was a good thing. He could scarcel
y see his hand in front of his face, but it didn’t matter much. This terrain was so familiar to him that he didn’t need to. He switched on a flashlight and walked to the back of the truck. Opening the canvas flap, he motioned for the occupants to come out. Two men jumped down, each one carrying a shovel.

  The driver walked several yards away from the vehicle. Taking a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure nothing was moving out there in the dark, he pointed his flashlight at the ground. “Here,” he commanded. “Dig here.”

  The two others complied. The driver stood motionless, pointing his flashlight at the bottom of an ever-increasing hole in the ground. None of them spoke. The only sound was the relentless scoop and swish as dirt fell into a pile beside the depression in the earth.

  “Wait!” the driver hissed. He thought he’d heard a car engine. He flipped his light off—turning his head this way and that to catch the faintest sound in the distance.

  His companions leaned on their shovel handles and waited too.

  After a few minutes, the driver switched his light back on. “Just the wind,” he muttered.

  The others resumed their task. The hole grew bigger—a rectangular shadow even darker than the night sky. When the pit was about five feet deep, one of the workers paused.

  “Is this enough?” He peered up at the driver for confirmation.

  The man with the flashlight nodded.

  Needing no further instruction, the other two crawled out of the trench and walked to the back of the truck. One clambered inside and shoved a heavy wooden crate toward the edge. It was bound with thick strands of knotted rope.

  Both men heaved and strained to slide the object off the truck bed. Staggering under the full weight of the box, they carried it to the hole. The driver threw them two more coils of rope which they slipped around the box to carefully lower it into the ground.

  “Good,” said the driver with satisfaction. “Close it up. It will be dawn soon. We need to get out of here.”