The Decrypter: Secret of the Lost Manuscript (Calla Cress Techno Thriller Series: Book 1) (42 page)

After what seemed like an eternity, the lights stabilized and switched back on. The train continued its journey.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for any inconvenience but we’ve just experienced a short circuit.  The problem has been fixed and we should be in London in good time.”

The train pulled into London’s St. Pancras International station.  She scurried off the speed train and bustled past disembarking passengers. 

She would get a head start.

Calla gripped her bag, assuring herself of the manuscript’s safety and scuttled for the exit.

* * *

5:40 P.M.

 Mason slid the phone into his slacks. “I’m sure you will find these documents useful. I expect your father’s signature tomorrow. Good day.”

He strolled to the end of the gallery and saluted her good bye.

Eva slumped into a bench along the gallery wall. Noisy visitors and museum tours did not faze her concentration. She studied document after document, hungry for any material she could use.

She stopped at one file.

Name:
Calla Iris Cress

Date of Birth:
May 30, 1982

Date of ISTF Employment:
19 July, 2009.

Curator, British Museum, Roman and Byzantine antiquities

Address:
27 Axton Way, West Kensington

Telephone:
0208 777 939 / 0799 212 777

Next of Kin:
Sharon and Carl Cress

“Damn you, Mason, none of this gives me what I want!”

She left the museum cursing him under her breath. Museums made her uncomfortable. As if the walls and the artifacts took on an unnerving life of their own - silent witnesses to her sinister thoughts.

She advanced towards her car, parked minutes away from the museum. Once inside, she scanned the files again and made note of Calla’s current cell phone number.

Could she muster the courage?

No.

Eva and Calla had never understood each other. And oftentimes, their interactions had not been cordial whatsoever. Maybe she could hunt Calla’s next of kin. Or even better, she would follow her for a while.

She started her engine, slid into first gear, then wove into the congested streets. It would take longer to reach West London. If only she knew the type of car Calla drove, or what she looked like now.

The files contained no photographs.

She read them again. Even though Calla’s adoptive parents were listed, the ‘whom to contact in case of an emergency’ field listed a completely different name - Dr. Austin Olivier.

Within thirty minutes, she stood outside the doctor’s listed practice in West London. Eva waited a few minutes before gathering enough tenacity to go to the door.

She rang the doorbell. A woman’s voice answered.

Eva searched her mind for a fictitious name, a habit she’d picked up in her journalistic career. “Yes, my name is Rochelle Richards. I would like to make an appointment with Dr. Olivier. He was a friend of my father’s.”

“Come back in the morning. The practice is closed.”

“This can’t wait.”

The heavy oak buzzed open.

* * *

9:29 P.M.

The Shard,
London Bridge

Calla glanced up the length of the Shard.  She recalled the electrifying laser shows that had inaugurated the Shard’s doors not too long ago. 

She scurried in after her attacker who’d secured her bag with the Deveron Manuscript and the stones, past the security guards who lay unconscious on the lobby floor.
Got in your way, huh?

She checked on the three men and a lanky woman.  They were breathing.  One man had endured a massive abrasion on his forehead.

Although the Range Rover chase had left Calla frazzled, she persevered. 
I need it back!

She squinted in frustration and calculated which way he’d gone. 

Calla darted to the elevator doors, positioned a few steps past the reception desk.  She called for it and scurried inside when the doors pulled open.

On the twenty-eighth level of the office floors, she stepped out, as the first set of elevators ended there.  For a moment, she considered taking the next car to the higher floors, until she heard flouncing footsteps behind her.  She spun round and caught a shadow disappearing behind the glass wall on her left. 

He fled out onto an open ledge he’d managed to jar open with a discarded wrench that lay inches from her feet. 

She charged after him, towards an abandoned building-maintenance-unit. The window-cleaning, cradle system had been installed to polish thousands of reflective glass panes.

He leapt, his obscure figure vaulting onto the scaffolding pipes that balanced the unit. They hung suspended around the perimeter of the pristine structure.  Ascending upward, he used it to support his rapid limbs and swung onto an adjacent scaffolding bridge.

Calla followed suit and watched him use the bridge’s frigid cables to scramble higher. 

Like an irate lizard, her assailant scooted up the cable that had been left on the building for cleaning work.

Breathless, Calla tailed close behind, not daring to look below.  Her rickety feet balanced in determination on the cold steelwork of the cleaning carousels.  She held on tight with her white-knuckled hands that numbed with each grip, causing the blood to descend down to the lower parts of her arms.

The pair scampered higher, past the unfurnished floors of the Shangri-La Hotel, housed inside the spire of the Shard - on the fortieth floor of the iconic tower. 

Calla took in the silence in the night air, almost as if each floor she climbed turned the city noise down a notch.

A strong breeze wafted past her, almost toppling her over.

The man slipped ahead of her, his boots loosing grip of the scaffolding.

She reached for him.

He veered his foot out of her reach and she missed his boot by mere inches.

Calla pursued the grunting climber, eager to retrieve her only connection to her family. 

The chase persevered to the seventy-second level of the soaring, thousand-foot construction. 

After the drawn-out climb, the man pulled himself onto the public viewing platform of the highest spire in Europe. It loomed over the vibrant streetscape of Southwark, along the south bank of the Thames. 

Calla steered to where he stood on the viewing gallery just above the seventy-two, habitable floors. 

She glimpsed around her.  They had reached the building summit. 

Both stood still, clasping onto the tension cables of the sophisticated equipment, as intermittent gusts of wind currents threatened to topple them over.

Neither moved, each studying the other for the first assault. 

The man edged back, holding onto the restraints while clasping her treasures. 

A meter below Calla cringed from the apex of the skyscraper, at the 360-degree view across London.  Unable to see any detail, no buses, cars, people, just rows of lights and track lines resembling converging, river paths. She took a deep breath. She tore her eyes away from the over-sized, urban circuit board.

The man shifted backwards, balancing his athletic frame, with only a foot of walking space left behind him on the suspension cable. An inevitable drop to sudden death. 

He swung his foot to trip her and missed.

Calla gripped the upper wires and launched both feet off the lower cable.

He lunged forward, purposing to topple her by the shoulder. 

She crouched in anticipation.

With a euphoric grin, the man held out her bag over the flimsy railing. It swayed slowly over the edge of the façade.  “How much do you want this?”

 She moved an inch towards him, as he oscillated the manuscript and her stones in the unforgiving, high winds.  Would the building-maintenance-unit withstand conditions at this height? 

A loose rope hung on the suspended cabling next to the wincing assailant, mistakenly discarded by the window cleaners.  He reached for it slowly with his free hand.

If she made a rapid move towards him, Calla could secure the bag and the rope as well.  She’d been a good rock climber once, and relied on any residue skills from her alpine climbing days.

The man took a quick glance behind him as he stood trapped between her dilemma and the three-hundred meter drop.

Calla inhaled deeply and shoved forward with an outstretched arm aimed at the bag.  Her other hand reached for the rope the assailant held on to. 

The ruffian tugged the rope out of her reach.

Calla caught a disturbing smirk on his face.

He had miscalculated his action.

She swiped her waist bag from his grasp.

His look of revulsion was the last thing she visualized before she lost her footing. 

The manuscript and the stones were secure.

She glanced down and failed to grasp onto the life rope.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

9:50 P.M.

Would Peter consider a personal favor?

Eichel pored over the last few sheets of papers he’d photocopied. Peter had often mentioned a former school acquaintance inside the British arm of ISTF by the name of Jack Kleve. Jack must have access to British intelligence. Eichel did not know him personally and was not one to use his team for information, but this was crucial.

Scratching his creased forehead, he wished he had managed to copy the entire file.

He strode the length of the room in deep contemplation. Why did SILVER X3 not want to take on the case of the Deveron Manuscript with MI6 and his wife?

The footnote on the reports suggested SILVER X3 had required much persuasion.

Eichel read further into the endnotes.

After the disappearance of COPPER J21, SILVER X3 lost all attentiveness to pursuing the Deveron case. A detachment to the operation was noted in his manner.

What happened to COPPER J21 to cause SILVER X3’s reaction? No evidence stood out in the documents.

The Secret Intelligence Service convinced SILVER X3 to accept the facts surrounding her demise. Two months after her disappearance, he resigned from service.

Possibly to search for her or her killer, thought Eichel. It was common for agents to take personal vendettas. The footnote ended there.

Eichel found the personal information section and scanned the report.

The Deveron case required the special cryptanalyst and anthropological credentials of COPPER J21. From 1962-1964, she served as a cryptanalyst with the British army. She read Russian diplomatic cypher traffic from Moscow to Kabul, Tashkent, and Turkestan.

Similarly, SILVER X3 was involved in all aspects of directing interception and traffic analysis and working on cyphers. After her disappearance and his resignation, the Deveron case was closed in May 1966.

Eichel read another footnote on the bottom of the following page, dated just a few days ago.

The Deveron case has been reopened. It has been discovered that the document resides within Priam’s Treasure at Pushkin’s museum in Moscow. It is to be returned to Germany and showcased at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. In SILVER X3’s absence, Allegra Driscoll will lead the operation and verify the Deveron’s validity and ownership.

The classic ring tone of his cell phone interrupted his reading. “Hallo?”

“Ja, Peter hier.”

“Hallo Peter.”

Eichel disliked getting to the point, but he was running out of time. “What have you found out from Kleve?” he asked in German.

“He didn’t confirm if he knew Calla Cress. Driscoll only asked Cress to do some documentation work with her in Berlin.”

“What could he tell us about Mason?”

“Just some information about Mason in relation to the manuscript,” Peter said.

Eichel was intrigued. He’d suspected Mason was hiding something that day at the ISTF offices. “Go on.”

“Incidentally, Mason has asked Kleve to trace three prominent people: Margot Arlington, Rupert Kumar and Samuel Riche.

“Will these people pay to get the manuscript and the golden goblet of Priam? Why?”

“I’m not sure, especially the Republican candidate Arlington. The British government seems to have her cooperation with anything related to Mason.”

“I see? Perhaps Mason is willing to sell the Deveron to the highest bidder. These three are quite prominent names.”

“I don’t know. Jack didn’t say.”

Eichel’s impatience got the better of him. “What does Arlington know?” His shoulders dropped. “Peter, I know you and Jack are close friends and his friendship with you is outside the realm of your profession. You’ve often told me of the way you bonded at McGill. I appreciate you taking on a personal request for this case, when you didn’t have to.”