The Pandora Chronicles - Book 1 (A Scifi Adventure Thriller) (19 page)

***

A few hours later, NSA Underground Office

The secure line rang, prompting the officer to jump in his seat and nearly drop his coffee. That line was reserved only for agents in the field calling in distress. It rarely ever went off, but when it did, the Army usually marched.

As soon as the officer picked up the phone, Nick Solomon’s voice crackled through.

“Director Briggs and Agent Excalibur,” he said. “I’ll only talk to them. Tell them I have the red book.” Then, in a lighter tone he added, “Don’t worry, I’ll hold.”

Less than ten seconds later, Excalibur and Briggs were taking the call on speakerphone in the director’s office.
 

“Solomon?” Excalibur asked.

“S’up.”

“We thought you were lost.”

She heard him snort through the line. “Who the hell ordered the air strike?” he asked.

Briggs frowned. “That was one of our agents on a different assignment. We had no clue of his double-play,” he said. “By the time we got wise to it our pilot had already reported a mission accomplished.”

There was an apologetic hint to his voice. Excalibur cocked her eyebrow at him. That was as close as Nick was getting to an apology. To a man like Briggs, mistakes like this were part of the process. He didn’t like it, but he had little choice. Collateral damage was always a part of the deal.

“Where are you now, Solomon?” he asked.

“We’ve been on this line for more than twelve seconds,” Nick replied. “I’m sure you’ve figured it out already.”

“Do you have the package?”

“Oh, come on, is that what we’re calling it now? Package? This isn’t James Bond. Yeah, I got the book.”

Briggs let out a sigh of relief. “Then, I will arrange for transportation-”

“Hold your horses, Mr. Director,” Nick interrupted. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Astrid: no one gets the book until I get some answers.”

The director’s eyes darkened, but he otherwise showed no behavioral changes. “That book is property of the United States of-”

“Bullshit.”

“What you are doing can be considered treason,” Briggs said in a warning tone, like a parent berating a child.

“You can try coming after me,” Nick replied. “And I can disappear. You know what I’m capable of, and you know that I know it. And even if you do catch me, I doubt you could fully understand the contents of the book. Face it, Stan, you need me.”

Excalibur watched as Briggs let out a steady breath. Nick was right, of course. They needed him, at least until he provided them with a location.

“What do you propose, then, Professor?” Briggs asked, his voice calm and deliberate.

“I’ll only deal with Excalibur,” Nick said. “No offense, but I don’t trust any of you. So, if I’m going to play spy, I might as well do it with the hot blonde.”

“Where would you like to meet?” she asked.

“Tomorrow, ten AM. Meet me exactly at this location, the one you’re currently tracing the phone call to. And I meant it when I said I’ll only deal with you. Only you,” Nick insisted.
 

A second later the line went dead.

Briggs turned to look at her. “Could be a trap.”

Excalibur shook her head. “He’s not the type. And he has no reason to harm anyone. We sent him out to spy on and sabotage a known crime lord, only to reward him with a helicopter assault. No wonder he’s jumpy.”

Briggs gave her a look. “Going soft, agent?”

Excalibur’s icy eyes seemed to harden as if made out of crystal. “I understand how his mind works, Director,” she said. “I know what he’s going to do, just as I know that we have to play this by his rules, or risk losing the package.”

She exited to the office and went next door, where an operator fiddled with a tracking program. “Where am I going?” she asked.

The operator frowned and zoomed several times on the triangulated location, a small cluster of islands.

“Call came from this island,” he said, indicating the largest of the islands. “Location: Valletta, Malta.”

Chapter 28

Triton’s Fountain was a second grade tourist spot on the tiny island of Malta, located at the entrance of the capital city, Valletta.
 

It was not the largest of fountains, nor the nicest-looking, generally filled with less-than-sanitary water, and the only attraction being a greened, bronze statue of Triton holding a pigeon-poop-covered trident. The entire thing was about thirty feet across, and tourists sat around it, some eating, others showing pictures, and most simply waiting for the bus to arrive. The main bus terminus of the island was situated around the fountain’s perimeter, permanently covering the area with car exhaust and the drone of machinery.
 

Between the crowds, open stalls and vendors, horse-drawn carriages and incessant noises of civilization, Valletta felt as if it had never advanced from the time it was built by the Knights of St. John, somewhere around the seventeenth century. Parts of it even retained the authentic smell of horse waste and moldy stone.

Nick sat on the fountain’s edge, eating a local pastry covered in oil and grease stuffed with ricotta, which he found surprisingly delicious. He had been sitting there for the past thirty minutes, patiently preparing for Excalibur’s arrival. He should have felt exhausted, but surprisingly, he found himself strangely refreshed.
 

Sticking one to the NSA seemed to agree with him.

Twenty four hours had passed since he had managed to sneak on the island, taking advantage of the steep cliffs and torrential waters. Once he had dried himself enough to blend in, he made it to the heart of the city, where he pick-pocketed a guy wearing a suit, riding a Mercedes, and yelling on the phone with a nasty attitude. Nick had found five different credit cards in the guy’s wallet, and something told him that the owner wouldn’t miss them for a while. The guy had even written the PIN numbers down on a folded piece of paper which was tucked into the folds of the wallet.
 

Feeling slightly guilty, Nick found the first ATM machine and pulled out enough money to stay at a discrete hotel and survive until the next day. Less than two hours later, the stolen wallet was sitting inside a mailbox, and Nick lounged in a café with a much-deserved burger and a pot of coffee.

Agent Excalibur is a hard woman to miss, with her small, lithe figure, and clad in a blue business suit. She made eye contact with Nick, who was sitting on his own by the fountain and made a bee-line towards him. Nick admired her stride—neither too fast, nor too slow, with just enough power to show confidence but not greed.

“You actually showed up,” Nick said, once she was within earshot.
 

Excalibur ascended the three wide steps leading to the edge of the fountain and took a seat next to him. “There are only so many courses of action we can take when someone threatens the NSA.”

Nick took one look at her ice-cold stare and burst out laughing. “Geez, come on,” he said. “You make it sound as if I’m a terrorist or something.”

“That’s pretty much your current label right now,” she replied. “We already have wanted posters of you.”

He snorted. “I hope it’s not a yearbook picture.”

“Facebook.”

“I’m mostly drunk there.”

“I hope so, otherwise you’re giving Charlie Sheen a run for his money,” she shot back. “Where is the book?”

“Does that ever work?” he asked. “Do the bad guys really tell you what you need to know if you ask nicely?”

“Are you suggesting we torture you?”

Nick winked. “Only if you’re into that stuff.”

He saw a vein pop in her neck and resisted the urge to laugh. He did, however, grin very widely.

“Let’s go about this differently,” she suggested. “On behalf of the Unites States, the NSA sends its apologies.”

“Too little, too late,” Nick said. “Besides, I kinda wanted Briggs to apologize face to face.”

Excalibur’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “It’s the most you’re going to get, Solomon.”

“Okay, then. How about you and I do this in yet another different way?” He took off his sunglasses, so as to look her directly in the eye. “All is forgiven if you drop the ice queen act and we go back to being two people who grew up together. No more code-names, no more titles. From now on, I only deal with Maddie.”

He extended his hand, and after leaving him hanging for a second, she shook it.
 

“A Maddie that still works for the NSA,” she said.

Nick smiled. “Sure. And Excalibur is kinda sexy.”

“Only to a history nut.”

“I
am
a history nut.”

They let go of each other’s hands, and Maddie went back on point. “The issue still remains,” she said. “The NSA wants that book.”

“Correction. The NSA wants the energy source,” Nick said. “The book is only a map.”

Nick kept his poker face steady, hoping she wouldn’t see through it. He wasn’t telling the whole truth. There wasn’t just one source of energy—the book contained possible locations to many more. But Nick decided to keep that little fact under wraps until he was sure the NSA wasn’t abusing that power. There was a reason why the Order had gone to such lengths to keep these artifacts hidden, and Nick wasn’t comfortable with just handing a source of unimaginable power over to a manipulative government.

“The book can only be understood by Select,” he explained. “The indications aren’t exact compass points. More like a hand pointing at a general direction. It’s a sea of metaphors and double meanings.”

“So, how do we get the energy source?” she asked.

“We go to the one person who was there himself,” Nick said. “Captain Jack Finnegan.”

“Finnegan?” she echoed. “You mean the pirate who died four hundred years ago?”

“Yes,” Nick replied with a straight face.

“Nick, you’re evolved, not a wizard.”

“Just hear me out.”

Despite her cynicism, Excalibur remained quiet and listened as Nick explained.

“I’m not saying we find him,” Nick said. “He’s a pound of dust by now. I’m saying we find the logbook of the
Belladonna
.”

“The
Belladonna
was later named the
Golden Hind
and given to Sir Francis Drake,” Excalibur said. “No one has ever found it.”

“We don’t need the ship,” Nick insisted. “Just the logbook. Think about it. Finnegan’s son was the one who funded the militia, the
new
Order we grew up in. But he could only do so if dear old daddy shared his stories. And if he had been trained by a Select, just like himself. Now, records say that Finnegan died at sea on his way back from Baja California, somewhere in the Caribbean, but if that were true how is it possible he raised a kid?”

Excalibur cocked her head pensively. “He faked his own death.”

“He faked his own death,” Nick repeated, with a nod. “He even went as far as to put a coffin in the water. And if I were privy to a secret so big it can change the course of mankind, I wouldn’t destroy all the evidence. I’d keep something as proof, even if it’s just to make sure I’m still sane.”

“You don’t think-” she began.

“He put the logbook in the coffin,” Nick finished. “Think about it—it makes perfect sense. He had to put it somewhere where no one, dead or alive, would be able to get their hands on it.”

Excalibur shook her head. “Amazing. He had us fooled all this time,” she said. “But it’s been hundreds of years. The currents would have carried that coffin from one side of the Caribbean to the other.”

Nick grinned mischievously. “I may have a solution to that.”

Chapter 29

Nick pulled up his sleeve and dunked his arm into the fountain water, all the way up to his elbow.

“It’s true,” Nick said as he felt around the ledge, “that in most cases finding a container that is that deep underwater, after such a long time, would be close to impossible. But Finnegan was a Select, and I’m starting to think like one. Ah-ha!”

He found what he was probing for, a bulging package taped to the edge of the fountain, and peeled the duct tape off.
 

Excalibur frowned at his actions and peered closely into the water. “What are you—no way.”

Nick pulled out the red ledger from the water. It was sealed in a waterproof bag, painted sky blue to match the interior of the fountain. He wiped water off the plastic covering before removing the bag, and exposing the red leather of the cover to the Mediterranean sun.

“Admit it,” he said with a grin, “you wouldn’t have guessed where I put this in a million years. No one looks for a book in water.”

“Hidden in plain sight,” she mused. “And how is that going to help us find Finnegan’s coffin?”

“As I was saying before,” Nick said, “I’m starting to think like a Select. For us, it’s not so much the object, but the meaning behind it.”

He opened the book and flipped through it until he found the page he was looking for. Having the book open and scanning through the symbols, he felt something buzz inside his head—not quite slipping into full Select mode, but rather, he felt his mind resting on a precipice, as if living a lucid dream.