The Tenth Cycle: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

“Luke, I can’t help but see that you’re worried about this. Mind telling me why?”

“I have some ideas about who that might be, but I’m going to need a few days to run it down. Suffice it to say, I’m certain you were right to come here, and that there is some danger. I can’t say more.”

Daniel gazed at him steadily, trying to read what was behind the mask of Luke’s poker face. He was about to ask a specific question, when Ryan said to Luke, “I think he deserves to know.”

At a nod from Luke, Ryan explained. “My brother is ex-CIA. If he thinks he knows who this Jones character is, chances are its black ops stuff.”

“I was afraid of that,” Daniel responded grimly. “Rather, that Jones wasn’t on the level. Sarah said that you were involved in something classified, Ryan, but she didn’t mention her uncle’s background.”

Luke broke his silence then. “There was never any need for her to know. She was just a little girl, and then I retired. I was an analyst, and I still do a little consulting. Obviously I don’t know everything about what’s going on today, but I have some contacts. I think I can find out.”

“I’d be grateful,” said Daniel. “We can’t keep running, this is disrupting Sarah’s life too much. She has a tenure hearing at the end of the semester.”

“What about your own work?” said Luke.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll work it out. But we have to make things safe for Sarah. I’m so sorry I got her into this mess. Thank goodness she has a light teaching load this semester, so we could cover for her being gone for a couple of days.”

Ryan put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “From what I can see, son, she walked into it with eyes wide open. No one could have predicted this. You did the right thing by bringing her home, and we’ll help you keep her safe. But, you’d better stay safe, too. She’d never forgive me if we managed to protect her and not you.”

“Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me.”

Luke observed this exchange with satisfaction. He was happy for his niece that she had found a good man to love and who loved her. Now he spoke up. “What’s the plan? Do we need to tell the women?”

Ryan said, “I think we have to. Everyone needs to be careful for the next little while, even out here in Colorado.” Daniel sincerely hoped that he hadn’t led trouble to the door of these people. Not only were they Sarah’s loved ones, but he liked them a lot himself. They headed back to the house, without ever getting to see the foal.

They found the women setting out a lunch fit for an army. Daniel remarked to Sarah that they’d better get some hiking in if her mom and aunt insisted on stuffing him full of delicious food like that. Sarah arched her eyebrow at him and responded that he wasn’t being held at gunpoint to take such large helpings.

“A reporter marches on his stomach,” he quipped.

Luke waited until lunch was over and cleared away before signaling that they should all join him in his study. Sally frowned at his manner, as he had turned very serious and was making small talk that had nothing to do with his actions as he herded them in. The last thing he did before joining them was open and then close the back door, as if they had gone outside. Now Sally was on alert. This was too much like old times, including the small device on his desk. What was going on? She didn’t have long to wait.

Ryan began. While Sarah booted the laptop that she had brought in unnoticed earlier, Ryan once again summarized the project. When he was done, Sarah demonstrated the technique that had resulted in the message being translated by the linguist. Emma and Sally attended carefully, although they were still clearly puzzled by Luke’s behavior. After they exclaimed excitedly over the message, Luke took over the narrative.

“Shortly after their colleague and friend Mark Simms showed them the message, he was brutally murdered.” He had to pause while Emma and Sally cried out. “They were implicated because they had been there only minutes before,” this time Emma moaned, overcome with belated fright for her daughter. When she had brought herself under control, Luke continued. “Fortunately, they had an alibi and were cleared, but we have reason to believe that the message or whatever other message lies coded in those stones, is of interest to someone who doesn’t mind killing to keep it from being made public.”

Sally had grown very quiet, knowing what this would mean, but Emma’s little scream of protest took her husband to her side to comfort her. Determined, Luke plowed on. “I’m going to call in some favors, see who this James Jones character is, and get whatever information I can from the division that studies ancient history for modern implications.”

At this, Daniel looked at him sharply. This was new to him.

“Yes, Daniel,” Luke went on. “Very likely this group has been monitoring your research. They know there’s information that has been lost over time, and periodically it turns up. If it would be dangerous to the US for others to discover it, they’re tasked with covering it up.” Daniel’s jerk of surprise didn’t faze him. “They keep track of researchers and archaeologists to get warning when anything like this turns up and looks like it might lead to more. I have no knowledge of how they make sure it doesn’t get out these days, but as I said, I have some contacts that can probably help us.”

“What’s our role in this?” Daniel asked.

“I think the best thing would be for the two of you to go back to work and pretend that you have given up the research. If you want to work on it, make sure you do it in such a way that your tracks are covered. I’ll give you some pointers before you leave. Meanwhile, I’ll look into it and get back to you.”

It wasn’t an entirely satisfactory plan as far as Daniel was concerned. For one thing, it left Sarah on her own with no physical protection. He said so.

“Sarah’s an excellent shot, and if I’m not mistaken, she still has a pistol I gave her on her eighteenth birthday,” Ryan remarked.

Sarah made a ‘told-you-so’ face at Daniel, who was still not certain he approved of a gun anywhere near his beloved, even if it were hers.

In the end, they decided it was the only practical solution. If they disappeared from work, not only would it raise suspicion among the very people they hoped to avoid, but their funds would soon run out as well. Besides, it would only be a few days, they thought, before Luke could get some information.

~~~

Later, back at Ryan and Emma’s place, Ryan put Emma to bed with a headache tablet and then once again summoned the young people to a conference outside. Swearing them both to secrecy, he revealed his business to them. Although he didn’t have one at hand, his company manufactured a counter-surveillance device that was small, portable and powerful enough to disrupt listening devices at a distance of about ten yards in circumference. Luke had used his that afternoon when letting the two older women in on the secret. Daniel’s sense of humor warred with his need to be serious and not offend Ryan, but eventually overcame his ability to behave. “Like a cone of silence?” he asked.

“What?” Ryan’s voice revealed he didn’t remember the series.

“Like Maxwell Smart,” he explained. “He and agent 99 had a cone of silence. Okay, I guess you had to be there,” he added, abashed. Then Ryan’s memory kicked in and he laughed.

“Not exactly, but good analogy.” He went on to tell them that he would pick one up from his lab the next day for their use.

Their plan was to spend just the next day in Colorado, and get Sarah back to her classroom in time for her Tuesday lecture. That should give Luke time to reach out to his contacts and maybe it would all be over after that.

Luke wasted no time in putting out feelers among his friends who were still actively on duty in the CIA. Without going into detail, he called each one, made small talk, and then as if it were a bit of a joke, asked if they had heard anything unusual about aliens, pyramids or Atlantis lately. Most took it as a joke and laughingly told him no, nothing that the nutcase conspiracy theorists hadn’t beaten to death already. Only one responded seriously. “Not on the phone,” he said.

With that corroboration that something may be on the radar of the CIA, Luke made plans to fly to Washington, DC for an in-person talk with his friend. He left on a red-eye flight that would get him in early on Monday morning, while Daniel and Sarah were still in Boulder, hoping to be back before they flew out the next day.

Luke arrived in DC at midmorning, and a taxi deposited him near the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, VA, CIA headquarters. Finding himself back in his old stomping grounds made him slip easily into the field craft that had kept him safe during his years as an active agent. Even when he had ‘come in’ and become a desk-bound analyst, he practiced hyper-awareness of his surroundings. Thus, he was both annoyed and alarmed when his contact failed to show up at the planned meeting place.

After more than half an hour, Luke decided that something had kept his contact, and that he should just have lunch and make another call. Just in case, he would buy a throwaway cell phone, but even so he couldn’t risk more than a few seconds on the call. He knew as well as the next man that all calls to CIA headquarters and even to the employee’s personal cell phones were monitored.

Luke chose an open-air deli for his lunch, a favorite from his years in the area. It was close enough to GBC that he could monitor the comings and goings from the main entrance. Of course, there were other entrances, and exits, but this was the most convenient to street traffic, and therefore the most likely to be used by his contact. Nevertheless, an hour later he still hadn’t seen the man. It was time to secure transportation and a place to stay for the night. Given the circumstances, he called Sally and told her not to expect him home for several days, asking her to pass the message to Sarah. This looked to be more complicated that he had at first believed.

Two days passed with the same frustration. He had called the man he was there to see on his personal cell phone in the afternoon on Monday, saying only his phone number without the area code. A few minutes later, his man called from a pay phone.

“Sorry, Luke, I got tied up. Try it again tomorrow?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

But the following day was another no-show. This time, the call came in only half an hour after the planned meeting time.

“Not sure I’ll be able to get together. Something’s going down.”

“Our subject?”

“Not sure. I’ll call.”

And with that cryptic message, Luke had to be satisfied until the next call came in. At least he now had a rental car, and could cruise around town, maybe see some old friends that had nothing to do with the CIA. On the morning of the third day, he called several friends to see if they were available for a visit, or to have dinner with him. He was between calls when the new cell phone rang. His friend sounded out of breath.

“No time. Forget this, can’t talk. Go home.”

The call was disconnected before he could protest that he couldn’t forget it, couldn’t go home, because it involved his niece. The instant redial reached a number that had been disconnected. Frustrated, he considered throwing the phone across the room, but decided it may still come in handy, so he curbed his temper. He would have to start over to find someone who could tell him something.

As Luke pulled into traffic later that evening, he was looking forward to seeing his old college roommate for dinner. When he had called that morning, Jack’s wife Cindy insisted that he have dinner with them. Luke had been the best man at their wedding, and their long friendship had kept the two couples close over the years. As frustrating as this trip had been for the purpose of information gathering, at least he would be able to see his old friends.

He had booked a flight home tomorrow, since he was stymied at every attempt at finding someone to talk to him about Daniel and Sarah’s research, or about the murder of her colleague. Bitterly disappointed at his failure, what he needed now was a chance to think about something else—anything else—for a few hours.

At the first red light he encountered, his calm was shattered by a quiet voice in his ear. “Hello, Luke.”

“Holy shit!” he exploded. “Son of a bitch, who are you?” The light had turned green and the motorist behind him had already honked impatiently. Without waiting for an answer, he drove forward and pulled over. The face that he could now see in his rearview mirror was as familiar to him as his own.

“David!”

“Keep driving, Luke, and don’t look back.”

“Got it. What are you doing here, trying to give me a heart attack?”

“You’re slipping, pal. You didn’t look in the back seat.”

“You’ve got me there. Seriously, David, what the hell?” Although his heart rate had returned to normal, Luke was annoyed, both with himself and with his old friend and colleague. Surely there would have been a safer way to get in touch with him. Luke thanked his lucky stars that David had at least waited until they were stopped at a traffic signal, otherwise there might easily have been a traffic accident.

“I hear you’ve been asking about something on the down-low over at the Shop.” David’s voice held a slight question, as if he was waiting for Luke to confirm or deny.

“Where’d you hear that?” Luke’s neutral tone of voice belied his consternation that his inquiries had caused talk.

“Doesn’t matter. Listen, I think I can help you, but you’ve got to keep this under your hat. No talking to anyone but me, got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good, now listen, don’t talk.”

Luke suppressed his almost automatic ‘okay’ and waited. David’s voice was hypnotic as he began.

“Luke, we think we have a mole in the division that looks into all this X-Files type stuff. You knew that we did that, right?”

Luke did have an idea that a division of the CIA was tasked with investigating every new lead, no matter how far-fetched, that had security implications for the United States. He had heard some crazy rumors, such as they were experimenting with remote viewing and psychic control. As unbelievable as it was, the movie ‘Men Who Stare at Goats’ was based on a true incident that was later repeated and brought about a huge study of paranormal powers. What it had to do with the Great Pyramid, he didn’t know, but hoped to soon find out. He nodded.

Receiving the non-verbal affirmation, David went on, “I can’t emphasize enough that if your questions come to the notice of the mole, it could jeopardize you and your wife, as well as our investigation. You talk to no one, and I mean no one, except me.”

The veiled threat to Sally got Luke’s attention in a way that little else could. He cocked his head, in a signal that he needed more.

“You’re wondering what this has to do with your niece’s research?” Luke jerked, causing the car to swerve. How did David know anything about Sarah, even that she was his niece?

“I can see you’re startled, so I’ll explain. We’ve known for a long time that there is information hidden in ancient texts and other places, lost to the world. Some of it is dangerous in the extreme, and when it turns up, we have to suppress it. I think you were at least partially aware of that.” David paused for Luke’s nod.

“To keep abreast of discoveries, we have informants and in some cases undercover operatives in all the best archaeology departments in the world. Needless to say, we’re aware of the buzz in academic circles about anomalies and coincidences in the Great Pyramid at Giza. We agree with Daniel Rossler that there is a message hidden there, and in fact we’ve been aware of that for years. But despite our best efforts, we haven’t been able to crack it.” Luke was no longer capable of being shocked that David also knew about his niece’s boyfriend. But this information was going a long way toward explaining what they had gotten themselves into. How to get them out of it was high on his priority list. He continued to listen without speaking as David went on.

“What you may not know is that we believe there are many such messages, from pyramids in the New World to the moai on Easter Island and other such monuments. But, we have reason to believe that the message in the Great Pyramid holds the key to all the others. It’s of critical importance to us to discover what that message says first, so that if it’s a national security issue, we can suppress it, or at least keep it out of the hands of the bad guys. Does that make sense?” Once again, Luke only nodded, not wanting to stem the tide of no doubt classified information that was reaching his ears.

“Okay. So it should also make sense that we flag everyone for domestic surveillance who starts asking questions about the Great Pyramid, whether academic, student or reporter. We monitor their phone conversations, internet activity, email, everything. It all goes to our friends and neighbors, the NSA, for execution and interpretation. Your niece and her boyfriend have dropped off the grid, after some very provocative communications. Want to tell me about that?”

“Why don’t you tell me? You seem to have more than I do anyway.”

“Very well. Your niece’s department head is one of our undercover operatives. She may not know, but he’s not only an expert in his archaeological field, but also an expert linguist. Shortly after he reported a breakthrough in her research with her boyfriend, a known associate of hers was killed and she was considered a suspect for some hours, along with Rossler. As I said, we believe there is a mole in the department, and that he’s looking to find the answer first. Your niece is in danger.”

For the first time, Luke was unable to suppress his need to speak. “Do you have any suspects?”

“Not specifically. We do know of an organization that seems to parallel our research, but they’re too slippery to pin down. Sometimes, we discover that something we want to quash has already been suppressed by someone else. They don’t leave tracks, more like holes where something is supposed to be. We do think they aren’t good guys.”

“That’s terrifying, man,” Luke exclaimed.

“Tell me about it. At various times, we’ve suspected mythical organizations like the Illuminati, all the way to big pharma and oil companies. They’re well-established, well-funded, and elusive as hell. We can’t even discover anything that’s illegal. Whoever they are, we now suspect that one of them is also one of us.”

“So, what does all this mean for Sarah? Can the Company protect her?” Luke’s agitation was beginning to get the best of him. This was bigger than he had suspected, too big for Ryan and him to handle on their own.

“Not much. If they see us sniffing around her, they’ll know their cover is blown, at least partially. The best I can do is meet with your niece and her boyfriend discreetly, give them some pointers, and try to convince them to let this go. It will have to be arranged carefully, though. In person only.”

“I understand. Give me a day to see them, set something up. How can I reach you?”

“You can’t. I’ll text you on your new toy.”

With a chill across his shoulders, Luke knew that his throwaway phone was already compromised. But David seemed to think it was safe to use, so he would follow instructions. David was an old and trusted friend, and would never betray his trust. After all, he had saved the man’s life twice when he was still active. David was saying something about dropping him off. Oh, at a Metro station. Fine, and also fine that he should continue his evening as planned. Only a few minutes late, he pulled into Jack and Cindy’s driveway, prepared to feign a carefree retirement when they asked him what he was up to.

~~~

             
Back in Providence Sarah paid Martha a visit to see how she was doing.

             
“I’m fine, dear. Of course I miss Mark terribly, but he wouldn’t want me to pine away. You know that.”

“You’re right, Martha. He’d want you to be happy.”
             
“I think happy might be a stretch, for a little while. But I’ll get there. By the way, Sarah, there’s something I need to give you.” Martha handed her a small black object. Sarah looked at it in wonder. The flash drive! Why in the world hadn’t Mark given that up? Then she realized that he probably would have been killed anyway. It had been such a senseless attack. One thing was certain, though. If they hadn’t gotten what they were after, the bad guys would still be after Daniel and her.

~~~

Luke changed his flight arrangements at the airport the next morning, hoping to catch the next commuter shuttle to New York. From a pay phone, he called Sarah and asked her to meet him there and bring Daniel. Then he called Sally to let her know he would be delayed one more day and sat down to wait for the flight. He would arrive in New York before Sarah, as the flight was less than an hour, but it would give him time to replenish his wardrobe, which hadn’t been packed for this long a trip. Engrossed in his planning, Luke was completely unaware that his face betrayed his worry, and that a watcher took note of it.

It was a weary and bedraggled uncle who greeted Sarah with a hug at the Little India restaurant where Raj and Daniel usually met. Daniel took in his appearance and grew concerned, but Luke waved it off as jet lag. Raj had declined to join them, and Daniel couldn’t blame him. As far as they knew, Raj’s involvement had not been discovered, and there was no reason to risk discovery now. They would fill him in later. After placing their late lunch order, Daniel and Sarah gave Luke all their attention.