The Tenth Cycle: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 1) (33 page)

As expected and promised by Uncle Luke Daniel and Sarah hadn’t heard a peep from David since the day of Sarah’s rescue. They hadn’t been thinking about him much lately as it seemed as if everything had returned to normal. But, in the back of his mind, Daniel did know he would turn up again sometime. So, it came as a bit of a shock when Daniel answered a knock at their door early the following morning, to see David. David had packed up and left without waiting to say goodbye before Daniel or the Clarkes returned to Sarah’s house from the hospital after the kidnapping

“May I come in?” David’s easy smile disarmed Daniel, who stood aside.

“Of course.”

Sarah had come out of her office, curious to see who was at the door. She was searching her memory because the man looked familiar, and Daniel eased the moment by saying, “You remember David, don’t you darling?”

Sarah’s face cleared. Of course, the CIA agent who had met with them before she was attacked.

“I think so. Nice to see you, David.”

Sarah knew from Daniel that David had also helped with her rescue, and that Sgt. Jackson was unhappy about the rest of that scene, with the kidnappers all being killed. Without being able to question them, everyone including Daniel and Sarah was still in the dark about the motive. As had become her habit when events in her recent past were brought up, she stayed silent and let Daniel do the talking. Some memories were very clear, but a few weren’t. Daniel had discussed with her the danger that their research had put them in, not to mention the men who had been killed. It was safest for her to pretend she remembered nothing about it and let Daniel take the lead.

“How are you doing, Miss Clarke?”

“I’m doing well, thank you. I’ve recovered 98% of my memory, but some of what happened is still fuzzy, I’m afraid. The doctors say that’s normal with a traumatic brain injury, especially if there was strong emotion at the same time.”

Ignoring her conversational gambit, David plowed ahead. “Do you remember whether Prof. Barry was dead when you got to his office, or whether he was shot while you were there?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t, and the doctors say I may never recover that particular memory.” Sarah’s voice betrayed the agitation that the subject still caused her. Daniel tensed, ready to interrupt if David continued that line of questioning.

“That’s too bad. It might have shed light on the murder.” David’s statement was as calm as if he were discussing the weather.

“Just a minute,” interrupted Daniel. “I’ve got a serious issue with you, David. What happened with the drones and the killing of the kidnappers? That left us with no way to question them about their motives. And while I am at it, I still want to ask you where the heck were you when I needed help to rescue my grandparents from kidnappers? You’ve got your nerve, waltzing in here and just bringing up traumatic memories for Sarah without even giving an explanation of your own movements. I’ve got half a mind to kick your ass from here to next Sunday.” Daniel had become more agitated as he spoke, the emotion of both the incidents overtaking him by the end of his tirade.

David held up both hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I know how you feel, man, and I apologize. If you’ll give me a chance, I’ll explain. No need to kick my ass,” he added half-humorously. And also remember I have been scarce because Luke asked me to lay off you for a while to give Miss Clarke time to recover.” 

Daniel gestured for him to sit down, while never taking his eyes off David’s face. Sarah seated herself, too, but Daniel stayed standing.

“Remember I told you I thought we had a mole in the Agency? Well, now we’re convinced of it, and it appears he has access to everything we do, all our communications, literally everything. I told you my phone was playing up the day you tried to call me about your grandparents, remember? I now believe that he was somehow jamming it. Obviously, he got past Sarah’s minders the day of her kidnap, and he managed to get control of those drones, too. It’s imperative we catch him, and we will.” Daniel paused after this long speech, leaving an awkward silence.

Daniel’s reporter senses were screaming. This all sounded highly unlikely, but he wanted to talk to Sarah before he let on that he didn’t believe David.

David took up the narrative again. “The thing is, the two of you are clearly targets for this guy. If you were in danger before simply because of what you’ve discovered, you’re in even more danger now because you’ve escaped his net. He’s bound to try again. Hey, what the hell?” he added, as Daniel stepped forward aggressively, fists balled, ready to attack.

Daniel hissed, “You miserable son of a bitch, you knew we were in more danger and you waited over four weeks to tell us? What are you doing about this? You
knew
the mole had gotten past Sarah’s guard, and yet you leave her with just that one useless guy sitting in his car two blocks away to protect her? What kind of fucking protection is that?”

Now Sarah jumped to her feet and put herself between the two men. “Daniel, calm down.”

“Yeah, man, calm down,” David started, causing Sarah to whirl on him.

“He’s right, you know,” she said between her teeth. “The only reason I’m stopping him from throwing you out of here bodily is that I don’t want him arrested for assault. But if you don’t explain yourself right now, I’ll throw you out myself. Make it good.”

Faced with two angry people, David began to backpedal. “No, wait, you don’t understand. I’ve increased your surveillance as I promised Luke I would. There are now four to six people around you at all times. You won’t see them, because they’re professionals. You wouldn’t
want
to see them, because if you can spot them, the bad guys can, too. We want to catch them, not scare them away.”

Daniel, still livid, could not control the contempt in his voice as he finally expressed his doubts. “I don’t believe you. Why should we believe anything you say? You’ve always got a pat answer, but your words and our experience don’t match up.”

Calmly, David answered. “All right, you don’t believe me? I’ll prove it. You and Sarah recently spent a night in Fisherville, where I believe you became engaged. On your return, you went to Mrs. Simms’ house to tell her about it. Sarah has conducted a conference and you both had private discussions with visiting scholars from Egypt talking about human history, I can show you a few pictures if you want. Your grandparents, Daniel, have been staying with your parents in Asheville, North Carolina, and a couple of men who look like ex-military of some sort have been guarding them. Your friend Raj recently moved from a house in Hoboken where he’d gone to ground from his primary residence, I can give you the address if you want. Do you want more?”

‘
Great
,’ thought Daniel. ‘
The CIA knows about Raj’s safe house. He’s going to kill me
.’ Aloud, he said, “Okay, I’ll concede you’ve got more surveillance around us. But so what? This impasse can’t last forever. Sooner or later, either your mole, or the bad guys, or you have to make a move. We can’t live like this.”

David said, “I’m sure you’re aware we have continued to investigate the murders as well as why anyone would be interested in your research.”

“No, I wasn’t aware of it,” Daniel answered. “Sgt. Jackson said the investigations were closed, considered solved.”

“He may consider them closed, but the Agency won’t be satisfied until we know who was behind them and why they were interested. From what our analysts can determine, you may be onto something, Rossler. We’d like your help in taking it the rest of the way.”

Sarah looked quickly at Daniel, who met her eyes with a small shake of his head. Then he addressed David, “I don’t know, David. We may just want to drop it. Look at all the trouble it’s caused, our friend Mark Simms dead, Prof. Barry dead, my grandparents terrorized and Sarah’s injury.”

“Daniel, I’m going to assume you’re a patriot.” David gave him a steady look that belied what he had just said.

Daniel answered, bristling at the implication, “Of course I am. But, I’m a civilian. And my first duty is to Sarah. She isn’t fully recovered.”

David held up his hand. “I understand your misgivings. However, no one but you has even come close to posing a viable theory about why that pyramid was built. You yourself say it couldn’t have been when and for the purpose that Egyptian scholars have accepted. Daniel, I’m telling you that national security could be at stake. People high in the Agency have taken an interest, and we’d really like your help. At least say you’ll consider it.” David’s tone turned conciliatory. “You’ll have all the help and protection you need. Say the word and we’ll get you whatever you require to finish the work.”

Daniel was still shaking his head, while Sarah stared at him impassively, maybe attempting to communicate with him through brain waves. David continued, “Think how you’d feel if the wrong people solved the riddles first. If they used it to endanger thousands of people. What if it’s the cure for cancer and they only use it for themselves? How can you take that risk?”

Sarah was staring at each man as he spoke, her head turning from side to side as if at a tennis match.

“Daniel,” she said. He put his finger to his lips in a shushing motion, thinking for a moment.

“All right, how about this. I propose that you give us some time to discuss it between ourselves and with our group.” Without saying so, Daniel had thought of something that bothered him. If David and his team were so diligent, why hadn’t he mentioned Sinclair? It was something he wanted to mull over and talk about with Sarah.

“Daniel, time waits for no man. What if someone else solves it before you do?”

“Then you’ll have your answers, won’t you? Look, let us talk about it in private. I’ll phone you tomorrow and give you our answer.”

“Make it the right answer, Daniel.” It almost sounded like a threat.

After David left, Sarah broke her silence. “Daniel, what’s going on in your mind? I could almost see the wheels turning.”

“Don’t you think it’s strange, if he put more surveillance on us, that he doesn’t know about Sinclair, or wouldn’t have mentioned him if he did? And what about the fifth kidnapper. He was monitoring those drones. He would have seen the guy get away.”

“Okay, and I appreciate you trying to protect me, too. But, Daniel, what if it really is a matter of national security?”

“It could very well be. And I think we should agree to help, but not for the reason you think. David wants our help pretty badly, and I think we need to know what the real motive is. Think about it, though, Sarah. From everything you remember about the CIA, all the revelations that were going down before your kidnapping about our government spying on ordinary citizens, would you really want something of global importance to be a secret known only to the CIA? Besides are we sure we can trust David? Remember we also trusted Kingston and Barry.”

Put that way, no, she didn’t. Sarah thought it through, and then said, “So we’re back to where we were before David came by, only with more questions. I think it’s time to call Luke.”

Luke listened without interrupting as his niece explained why they were calling. As soon as he heard that they had misgivings about David, he stopped them. “I’ll be on the next plane to Providence. See you soon.”

Sarah couldn’t help but feel like a little girl with a problem and that the adults were on their way. She and Daniel had been muddling through, and there was no question that Daniel was smart as well as courageous to a fault, but she felt they were both out of their depth when it came to the CIA. Luke’s help would be most welcome.

For his part, Luke’s gut was telling him things that he didn’t want to hear. He’d survived his field career in the CIA by paying attention to those gut feelings, though. Something was wrong, here, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it. For that, he needed to be on the spot to talk in person to some people who were in a position to investigate the matter. Once in Providence, he listened again to the whole story, and gave some advice.

“Kids, I agree that you shouldn’t trust just anybody, certainly not everybody. But it won’t pay to get crosswise with the CIA over this. I think you should tell David you’re ready to cooperate, go on about the research as if you have no suspicions, and let me look into it in the meantime.”

Daniel said, “In other words, keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.”

“Precisely,” answered Luke. “I’ll get to work on my end right away, and I’ll let you know what I find out. Then we’ll come up with a plan to rid you of this threat once and for all. Are we agreed?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Daniel answered, with Sarah’s nod confirming that she agreed.

Later, Daniel called David to tell him they had decided to carry on.

“Glad to hear it,” David said.

~~~

Two days later, the couple were in New York to talk with Sinclair and pull the team together to work on the research again.

"Let's talk about the data," Daniel suggested, after suitable social formalities had been met. "Here's where we are with it right now. Raj has entered all the languages you suggested into the database, along with the numerical values for the stones that we established last summer. The numerical values all turn out to be Fibonacci numbers, which we believe can't be an accident. What would you make of it, Sinclair, by the way?"

"Off-hand, I'd say they represent a syllabary."

"Why do you say that?" Sarah interjected.

Sinclair answered, "There are three main types of writing systems, one having graphic representations of words, which could be in their thousands, one having letters, which usually have fewer than fifty, and one that represents sounds, or syllables, that you can put together in various combinations to form the words that people speak."

"Sort of like shorthand," Sarah said.

"You could think of it that way. If that's what it is, you're going to need to find patterns of two or more stones together to form the spoken words. Have you done that?"

"No, Raj wanted to know what to do next, because so far he hasn't been able to find a correlation between the stones and any of the ancient languages we've looked at." Daniel answered.

"That's what I suggest, then, but I may be able to refine the recommendation if I could see the raw data."

"Then let's set it up for you to meet him at his place, where he's got it all on his computer. What do you say?"

"Sounds like the way to do it. When?" asked Sinclair.

"We're supposed to get a date and time from you and text it to him. We were going to do something fun to send him your address, but I guess that won't be necessary now."

"I know," said Sarah. "He'll need to know it's at his place. We can send him his own address."

"Good idea," said Daniel. We'll do that when we get home, so our minders won't associate it with this visit.

Sarah sat up very straight suddenly, and said, "Daniel, have we ever showed Sinclair the original message? The one in the passageway?"

"No, I don't believe we have. What an oversight!" Opening his laptop, Daniel pulled up an encrypted file with the original calculations and the message that Mark Simms' linguist friend had made of them.

"We think this was written in what amounts to clear text, to make sure that someone knew there was more elsewhere, but still keep it secret until something had happened to reveal the code."

Sinclair nodded, following the logic easily. With that, Daniel turned the laptop around and revealed the familiar words:

[Unknown word] traveler/person/human/man from future. [Unknown word] critical/important/significant [Unknown word] telling/story/message [Unknown word] read/browse/assimilate/learn all/ [Unknown word] everything here/in this place/at this location [Unknown word]

"Who translated this?" asked Sinclair.

"A linguist at Brown, a friend of Martha Simms' husband. He took off right after we got Sarah back and hasn't been heard from since."

Sinclair gave Daniel a steady look that emphasized his earlier story of people in his acquaintance disappearing. Then he said, "Let me see what he was working from."

Side by side, the images stared back at them from the screen as Sinclair gazed at them for a few minutes, long enough for his guests to become uncomfortable with the silence. As he looked, Sinclair muttered a bit under his breath, then scribbled something on a notepad he got from a drawer in the sideboard next to him. Then he said, "Okay, that's a very rough and literal direct translation, but here's what I think it says.

We salute and address you, Those Who Come After. All the knowledge we have gained in the Tenth Cycle is contained in this monument. Learn from it and use this knowledge wisely.

Sarah and Daniel gaped at Sinclair. How had he done that? No unknown words, no hesitation in the choice of words, just a straight message that made the utmost sense given what they had deduced about the interior message. Then, both of them speaking excitedly while Sinclair continued to stare at the images as if he weren't sure of his interpretation.

"Come after what? What's the Tenth Cycle? Oh, my God! It must be an encyclopedia. Wow, what all is in there?"

Out of the indecipherable jumble of questions, Daniel's voice rang out more strongly. "Sarah, what do you know about a Tenth Cycle in Egypt?"

"Nothing!" she cried. "I never heard of anything referred to as cycles, except what Ahmed told us. What can it mean?"

Sinclair finally came out of his reverie to answer. "I'm going to go out on a limb here. I think Those Who Come After referred to a civilization that the builders expected to succeed theirs. That would suggest that the cycle they refer to is the rise and fall of their civilization. If theirs was the tenth, what's ours? And what does it mean for our view of history?" Daniel and Sarah stared briefly at him, awed by the realization that they were in the presence of a genius. He had hit on the right answer without even hearing about the information they had gleaned from Ahmed, or their own theories, not to mention translating the rough message in a matter of moments. Nicholas was not exaggerating when he told them Sinclair was brilliant. 

To Sinclair's bewilderment, Sarah and Daniel stopped babbling questions and rushed into each other's arms. "It's true!" Sarah kept repeating, while Daniel lifted her slightly every few seconds, bouncing her on the floor as he would a child. "Daniel, you've done it! You've proved that the pyramid is impossibly old. Think what it will mean!"

"Will someone please explain to me what's going on?" Sinclair demanded. Only then did the breathless pair sit down and take him through the reasoning that Ahmed had explained to them weeks before during their meeting. A look of wonder crossed his face as he listened and assimilated the reason for their excitement. "We're not the first! Kids, do you know what this means?"

There was no question now. What they’d felt intuitively from the first rough translation was now proven beyond a doubt. Information of great importance was contained within the pyramid. There was no choice but to ferret it out. With Sinclair’s blessing, Daniel used his computer to send an email message to Raj using their usual ruse.

‘Translation refined. Here’s the text: We salute and address you, Those Who Come After. All the knowledge we have gained in the Tenth Cycle is contained in this monument. Learn from it and use this knowledge wisely. Imperative the data entry be finished ASAP. Translation on interior to start immediately.’ Just typing the words again gave Daniel the odd feeling that his head was floating, while his stomach, in contrast, was dropping. It made him giddy.

In a car 300 yards away a man put a strange looking device, something like a dish antenna, about eight inches in diameter, away on the back seat of his car. He took out his cell phone and dialed.

“Something just happened,” he reported, then listened for a moment.

“No, I don’t know what, as usual, I can’t hear anything when they’re inside. But, they were making enough noise that I could hear the shouting and laughter without the antenna. They were celebrating something. Now it’s gone quiet again.”

Again, he listened, then responded.

“Okay. I’ll stay on watch, but it’s just useless trying to hear what’s going on inside. Whatever they’re using to damp communications is way beyond our technology to break through.”

“Okay, I’ll call
when
anything else happens.”