The Sword of Cyrus: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 4)

by JC Ryan

  “We’re in deep shit if it gets out that we hired the most elusive al Qaeda spy in history as a CIA operative.” He gave Lewis a little shake, to snap him out of his stunned state.

  “We’re dead men, Luke,” he answered. “Harper will personally gut us.”

  “Maybe not. This could give us an edge, as long as no one else knows it. I think you’d better get the woman her protection deal, and then we’ll figure out how to deal with this.” Luke was already making his excuses in his mind to Sally. He wouldn’t be home for a while now. Maybe never, if they couldn’t stop this thing. But there was no question that Sam Lewis needed him. After all, he was the recruiter and handler for Arsalan, aka the infamous Dalir Jahandar, number one on the CIA’s most wanted list. No one had ever seen a picture of him, though his name was easy to hear when interrogations of Islamic terrorists were conducted. There wasn’t an adequate swear word in any language to express his rage at the trick Jahandar had played on him, on them, on the USA on the world. Now it was personal.

  The time puzzle

  June 27, 2020 D-day minus 33, Boulder

  Ever since the passage containing the plans for the remote time viewer, as Roy was calling it, had been translated, Roy had been busy attempting to build one. The stumbling block was that several components had to be fabricated, and the plans for those were elusive. Roy had lost the undivided attention of Raj, whose expertise was required to search the database for the words and phrases that held a clue. Raj was busy looking for more pictures, hopefully some that would show the world coming through the looming threat unscathed after all. Only that would prove that the fate depicted in the pictures they had so far could be averted. It was frustrating, because Roy felt that they could get direct proof, if only he could build a viewer for themselves.

  Stymied in that effort, Roy sought and received permission to gather the best minds in quantum physics and a few related subjects and reveal the discovery to them. He was directed to conceal if he could what the discovery had shown them about upcoming events. However, if they could explain or even postulate a viable theory about how to go around the cataclysm rather than through it, it would be Plan B, with Plan A being stopping the attack altogether.

  It had taken only a couple of days to arrange, since the respective governments pressured their scientists to drop everything and heed the call to assemble in Boulder. Not everyone who did so was pleased to be there.

  Salome asked to be included, not because she expected to understand everything that was discussed, but because observing would give her insight into Roy’s mind. Daniel said quite frankly that he thought all this interviewing was a funny way to go about profiling the key players, the instigator, and the author of the spy network. All Salome could tell him was that this was her process, and she had a pretty good track record. Daniel’s call to Sam Lewis’s office, where he was unable to reach either Lewis or Uncle Luke, revealed that the record was more than pretty good; it was stellar. One hundred percent of Salome’s cases were solved.

  On the day after she cracked Alica’s calm exterior, Salome slipped into the conference room at the Rossler Foundation with the intention of staying low profile. She found a seat in a rear corner, and kept her head down as a dozen or so men ranging from their mid-twenties to mid-forties assembled, a few at a time. She observed their youth with a little surprise, having assumed that they would all resemble the pictures she’d seen of Albert Einstein, with a shock of unruly white hair and a crazed look in their eyes. So much for assumption, she admonished herself. She knew better, after all.

  When the last scientist had taken a seat, Roy took the podium to explain why he’d requested their presence. Salome remembered her reaction to the news that the 10th Cyclers had some kind of time travel, and she’d observed the reactions of her colleagues at the briefing. Compared to the pandemonium that had set loose, the reactions today were minuscule. It seemed these men and women were already aware of the concept, or at least could grasp the principles as Roy explained them. Salome paid close attention to Roy as the presentation progressed.

  True to her observations in the previous few days, Roy was in his element when discussing all things science, and his social anxiety was at a minimum even when women were in the audience. As long as he could view females as scientists and colleagues rather than as women, he was fine. No stutter, no awkwardness at all. It gave her a way to approach him and get intelligible conversation out of him that she hadn’t been sure would work, until she saw him interact with the women in his audience. Strict professionalism, ask precise questions, even when they were of necessity open-ended. She’d have to dig out her glasses, to help him view her as a fellow scientist, she noted, amused that every face in the room sported a pair.

  The conversation was fascinating, if a little unsettling. The first discussions centered on what the 10th Cyclers had seen. Roy was unable to hedge enough to satisfy them, so the full story had come out, with varying expressions of disbelief, dismay and eventually acceptance. After their initial reactions, the scientists put their natural fear aside, and addressed the practical questions.

  Assuming that you could indeed see an event in the future, what did that mean about the nature of time? Were the 10th Cyclers only observers, or would they have been able to change the future, or for that matter, the past? If so, had they been complicit in this outcome? If not, was there any benefit in knowing what was going to happen? If you know what’s going to happen, and do something in reaction to that knowledge, will it change things enough to make that thing not happen?

  The consensus was that physical time travel into the past could not exist, or if it did, we can’t know it for certain. If someone were to travel back in time, actions taken in the past would affect the future to such a degree that we wouldn’t know our past had been changed. Because of the quantum nature of time, the physicists argued, there wouldn’t be even a ripple in the time-space continuum; those who were affected would simply be traveling along a string of events that would adjust to the change seamlessly. Salome noted that it was difficult to even express these ideas without using words that had no meaning if time were indeed what the physicists claimed it was. Or is. She was beginning to get a headache from trying to grasp the concepts.

  What she could understand with no difficulty was that only major events would likely to be viewable. Minor events would be under such a constant state of flux that the ability to capture a photo of an instant would be impossible. The photos that the 10th Cyclers left, in fact, had to have been the result of a viewer moving past the event in the time continuum, and then looking back on it as if it had been in the past, rather than far in the viewer’s future. The only way to affect such a large event would be for some large changes in the immediate future to be accomplished. Some physicists insisted that there were actually new timelines, for lack of a better word, created at every major event. In some world, that nuclear destruction was going to take place no matter what we might do to stop it. But the consciousness that we experience as a continuing existence will not have that event in our timeline.

  Salome couldn’t bear to think of her doppelganger, alive and aware in another world, experiencing the effect of a nuclear weapon, much less the same fate befalling her loved ones. She put it firmly out of her mind. This was something she could not solve. Her task was to save this reality.

  She was still trying to follow the discussion when Raj burst in, printouts in hand, shouting “Eureka!” It was so incongruous that she almost laughed. Roy, however strode to meet him and take the photos. He turned them toward the audience with a joyous expression. “Here’s the proof!” he cried. “Raj has found time stamped pictures that show the cities undamaged. Perhaps we are already affecting the future!”

  Roy’s mini-conference was interrupted long enough for Raj to fetch Daniel, who sat in on the rest of it with scientists who were overjoyed to see their theories proven in such a way. When it was done, Daniel made haste to inform Luke and Lewis, who would brief the
president. It was the first positive thing they’d found since the pictures were discovered. They just needed to find a way to make it happen.

  Welcome to Mother Russia

  June 28, 2020 D-day minus 32

  Alica had been stashed in a safe house for the night, while Lewis reported his progress to Harper and subsequently to the other heads of state through his security agency liaisons. In the wake of the news that the other pictures had been found, it was more urgent than ever to track down the planners of the catastrophe. Harper’s understanding of the situation was in the form of an analogy. He and his country, along with several others, were on a train hurtling toward a destroyed bridge over a deep ravine. The only way to avoid falling into it was to switch tracks, early enough that the bridge was no longer on their route.

  Harper had drawn up a limited pardon for Alica, covering only the activity she had perpetrated in the US. He didn’t have the authority, he explained, to pardon her for her previous crimes. If the FSB, or anyone else who wanted her, were able to find her, she’d be on her own with them. Bitterly, she realized she’d been outfoxed. It now remained to stay valuable enough for the US to give her its best effort at protection.

  A thought occurred to her and she asked Luke if they knew what Zlatovski looked like now. Luke requested that pictures from his file be showed to her, and she laughed. “He looks nothing like this now. You could walk down the street and pass him with this picture in your hands, comparing everyone you see. You would not recognize him.”

  To check her veracity, the same pictures were passed around among the other Rossler Foundation detainees, at an undisclosed location outside of the US. No one recognized him, and no one admitted to knowing his name. When that was reported back to Lewis, he extended a little more trust to Alica. So far, she was shooting straight with him, and as long as that continued, he’d do his best to protect her. It was going to get dicey, though, because he needed to communicate with Chustikov regarding Zlatovski.

  Lewis called Luke in to witness his next communication with Alica. Despite the fact that she’d earned a limited amount of trust, the woman was dangerous.

  “Alica, we’ve verified that you’re telling the truth about Oleg Zlatovski. None of the people who worked for your organization, did you call it the Sword of Cyrus? None of them recognized the picture or the name. We’d like your cooperation in getting an updated image. Are you familiar with the work of police artists?”

  Alica nodded slowly. “Yes. We, the organizations I have been associated with, have not such advanced methods as yours, but I know what you mean. I can do this. You must know that they did not recognize the name because it isn’t the name he uses now. Only I know his true identity.”

  Sam glanced at Luke to find a skeptical look on his face. Luke spoke up.

  “How do you know that?”

  “What, his true identity? Or that only I know it?” Alica had a smug expression, and Lewis feared the revelation that was surely coming next.

  “How do you know any of it? In fact, how do you know the name of the organization, and who’s in charge? None of the others know. What’s so special about you?” Lewis’s voice had taken on an edge, and now she was staring at him with an expression he was afraid to read.

  “Do you know what I am known for? What my specialty is?” Her expression turned sultry and inviting. Lewis began to thank his lucky stars that Luke was in the room.

  “Seduction?” Lewis ventured.

  “Precisely,” she said, her voice now a low purr that even Luke found distracting. “I would never put myself in the hands of a man I couldn’t control. While Oleg trained me, I made certain that no matter what happened, he would put my safety even above his. You’ll see. I will hand him to you without any hint that he is walking into a trap. As soon as I contact him, we’ll know where he is going to pick me up. You’ll be waiting for him.”

  They should have named her the Black Widow, instead of Beautiful Widow-Maker, Luke thought. She was certainly poisonous enough. What sort of control did she think she could exert over Sam Lewis?

  “What name is he using now?” Lewis asked.

  “Andreas Dimitriou,” Alica answered. “He was living in Greece when Jahandar’s organization contacted him. Let us proceed with the police sketch. I have an appointment to keep with my dear Oleg, you know.”

  At the appointed time, Alica attempted to log into the site where she was to contact Oleg and lure him into a trap. Her first attempt brought a screen full of suggestions for the correct site name. Impatiently, she tried again. This time a 404 Site Not Found error filled the screen. Luke listened in astonishment as she swore colorfully, first in Russian, then presumably Croatian and finally English. The last made him blush at the foul nature of her name-calling. Oleg had smelled the trap.

  Lewis left Alica under guard with an FBI sketch artist and Luke to watch her interaction with the artist.

  ~~~

  Harper pushed back his next appointment to accommodate Sam Lewis, who had urgent business with him.

  “What can I do for you, Sam?”

  “Mr. President, we’ve learned the name of the man who put together the spy network for this Sword of Cyrus group. According to our informant, he’s an ex-KGB double agent thought to have been dead for the past five years or so. We need the help of Aleksandr Chustikov if we’re going to track him down in time.”

  Harper had no need to ask what Lewis meant by ‘in time’. Everything about this crisis meant they should have been on top of it yesterday. “Have you contacted him?”

  “No, sir. I wasn’t briefed on whether you’ve informed the Russians of the threat. Besides, it would be better if I spoke to him in person.”

  “Okay, Sam. Give me a few hours to speak to the Prime Minister, and then you can set it up. Take any resources you require.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Sam, you’re volunteering to enter the lion’s den. I don’t need to tell you that what you’re doing by going there in person is dangerous. Thank you.” With a clap on his back, Harper dismissed Sam and immediately made the preliminary arrangements to speak to Prime Minister Shvernik.

  Once more, Harper was faced with breaking unbelievable and devastating news to a skeptical hearer. This time, he did it alone, since there was no love lost between Shvernik and the other great men who were privy to the classified information. It was not an easy nor a friendly conversation. In the end, Shvernik conceded to meet with Sam Lewis as Harper’s envoy, with Harper apologizing profusely that urgent domestic affairs dictated he must not leave the country at this time. Only when he saw the pictures for himself would he believe this nonsense.

  Lewis waited for Harper’s go-ahead and then made a call to his counterpart in Russia, FSB chief Aleksandr Chustikov. His objective was to determine whether the FSB knew of Zlatovski’s subterfuge five years ago.

  “Zdravstvujtye, my friend,” Chustikov answered, when the appropriate assistants had synched up the calls and the two were on the line with each other at last.

  “Hello to you as well, Aleksandr Tomasovich. I have news that may distress you, a lost sheep that we must find very soon.”

  “Sam, don’t try to match a Russian for eloquence. What do you want?” The mirth in Chustikov’s statement took the sting out, and Sam answered in kind.

  “What do you know about an Oleg Zlatovski?” he asked.

  For a moment, Chustikov considered denying any knowledge. Knowing Sam Lewis, though, that would not be believed. “Dead,” he answered. “Boating accident, five years ago. We were sorry to lose him.”

  “I’m sure you were,” Sam said. “We believe he was responsible for many of the networks that gave us such trouble when we were tracking the Orion Society. Care to tell me whether that was work he did on the side, or under official sanction?” As he spoke, Sam stared out his office window, seeing nothing but the faces of operatives he’d known, dead at the hands of the OS.

  “You know I cannot comment, my friend. Why do you
bring up this man?” Chustikov was tired of the game already. Sam remembered that the time difference meant the man was ready to retire for the night. Too bad, this took precedence over sleep. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time in several days.

  “Would you be surprised to know that he has surfaced, this time at the head of a sophisticated network of Middle Easterners?”

  A long silence on the other end of the line meant one of two things. Either the Russians were involved, as unlikely as it seemed, or it would indeed surprise Chustikov.

  “Where did you come by this information?” came the cautious response at last.

  “That’s classified. I can tell you this - the network we believe he put together has been instrumental in getting some dangerous information to some very nasty players. I’d like to show you what we’ve got so far. Can I count on a face-to-face with you if I come to Moscow?”

  “When?” Chustikov became more alert. It was almost unheard of for an active security head to visit another in a country that was not always friendly. In the past, a man in Lewis’s position setting foot on Russian soil would find himself held in a Siberian prison camp indefinitely for spying.

  “Immediately. There is no time to lose.”

  Lewis was serious, then, Chustikov realized. “I will look forward to your visit.”

  “Get some sleep, Aleksandr. It will be the last you have for some time to come.” Those words sent shivers down Chustikov’s spine.

  ~~~

  June 29; D-day minus 31, Moscow

  Sam Lewis considered taking Luke with him to Moscow, but thought better of it. Luke had been operating as if he were still CIA ever since this case began, but in fact he was still a civilian. He happened also to be still wanted by the FSB for his activities years before when he was active CIA. Diplomatic courtesy may not be extended to him, and Luke knew it. Sam would have to do without his extensive knowledge of the man he was going to see.