The Decrypter: Secret of the Lost Manuscript (Calla Cress Techno Thriller Series: Book 1) (31 page)

Jack fired up his electronic tablet and within seconds had located each alarm spot surrounding them.  He steered them, by navigating Nash past each one, until they arrived at the desired spot.

“This is it,” Calla said.

The only access to the room was through a dated iron cage. 

Nash tugged at its grilled front. It was sealed shut.

He examined the lock.  “There are several motion detectors here.”

They heard voices in Italian behind them.  Tiptoeing to the far wall, they thrust their backs against it.  The shadows camouflaged their agile frames as two guards strolled past arguing in Italian, sidestepping right past without a glance. 

The trio held back until the guards had turned the corner.

Nash set his hand on the cage lock.  Using a night vision lens, he considered the best way to scythe it open.  He pulled out a tiny cylinder from his backpack and carefully opened the screw lid.  He then poured the contents into the lock.

“What’s that?” Calla asked.

“A little trick.”  He smiled.  “It’s Aqua Regia solution and melts quite a few metals.”

The lock broke open.

“That was quick,” Jack extorted.

Nash placed the empty bottle in his backpack and pulled out his miniature torch once more.  He searched the room through the grid cage and slowly pulled the weighty iron structure.  

It screeched open.

Their attention went straight to the back wall.

Interrupted by an abrupt clank behind them, they stiffened in their tracks.

Calla and Nash zipped their heads round in time to catch Jack plunge to the floor with his hand on the base of his neck. 

His tablet smashed beside his collapsing body.

* * *

Riche Enterprises, London Offices

“Papa, I need to speak to you!”

Eva ignored the promptings of the secretary trying to ward her off as she scurried into the boardroom.

“Miss Riche, your father is in a crucial board meeting!”

Eva was not fazed.  She always got her way - something she had learned from her father. She barged right in the middle of a presentation her father was giving to the board of nine smartly-clad members of his company. 

Samuel tightened his lips.  He half expected a repeat of the day’s earlier bullet debacle in Hertfordshire, but on balance, he relaxed when he saw his insolent child.

 He glimpsedover at Eva who’d crossed the length of the twelve-seat, board table and made her way straight to his side.

The board members sat startled at the intrusive charade and one by one, they observed the blunt disturbance of the defiant girl.  By now, they were quite accustomed to her assertive behavior and insubordination, having witnessed years of fatherly manipulation.

Samuel set down the presentation pointer beside his seat and clicked off the slides.  Eva managed to catch a glimpse of his latest endeavor - an oil rig planned for Africa. 

Not too long ago, a reserve of potentially 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil was discovered along Uganda’s border.  Samuel had decided to bargain with the East African nation’s government, hoping to secure an oil production arrangement.  The African oil, which lay underneath the forests and lakes lining the border with Congo, appeared to be his next pet project.

Samuel scanned the papers on the table and slowly pulled down his reading glasses; like a professor who’d been nullified by an over-ruthless pupil.

“What is it now, Eva?”

Eva soaked up the attention, pleased that she could still command the attention of her father.

She held her head high.  “I want to start my own media company.  I need you to help me.”

Samuel eased into a seat.  “I’m intrigued, Eva.”  He tilted his head.  “What new idea is twirling round in your mind, now?”

Eva hunched over him like an overbearing pest.  She ignored the others in the room and whispered in his ear.  “I need to follow a story.”

Samuel sneered, still absorbed.  Even though she wasn’t a man, she had more fortitude than his two boys put together.  “And why can’t you do this at the Guardian?”

“I quit!”

Samuel set his pen down on the table.  “Interesting, and why may I ask?”

“That idiot boss of mine wouldn’t let me follow the Deveron story.”  She stared at him, hoping he followed her drift.  “It was stolen in Berlin. Do you know about the Deveron Manuscript? She continued.  “Governments and individuals are looking for it.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes!” She thrust a German, newspaper clipping under his nosed.  “The German government is on a fierce hunt for it.  I want to investigate more.”

“Eva—”

She leaned forward.  “It will be a story worthy of the Albert Londres Prize!”

Samuel doubted that, but he was amused nevertheless.  Eva had always craved a trophy for her name. 

Disapproving mummers whispered across the room, each board member wondering whether Samuel would succumb to Eva’s latest thrill.

Samuel rose from his seat, engrossed in deep thought as he strolled to the window overlooking London’s skyline.  As if sensing the mood in the room, he turned to face the board.  “Putting aside Eva’s own ambitions, owning a media conglomerate would not be such a bad idea,” he announced. “Fellow board members, this way, we can further our plans, and actually control the public perception of our business interest, including this venture into African oil resources.”

He swept back to the table and glared each member in the eye.  “How does that sound?  Wouldn’t adding a media arm to Riche Enterprises be in our interests?  Think of it, we could control world perceptions around the new oil rig.”

The board each added their opinions.  Some were convinced and one or two saw it as just another occasion for Eva Riche’s scheming tactics.

Eva interjected.  “If this media company ends up with the only exclusive to what could turn out to be the story of the year, then I think it is in your interests to give this some thought
and
a quick decision.”

She marched around the room, commanding each member’s attention as her father had done only moments before.  Her persuasive manner infuriated some cynical onlookers.  “I intend to get to the bottom of the Deveron secrets that our governments are hiding.”

Samuel took over.  “I think we can take a vote here.”

He turned to the board secretary.  “Ms. Robertson, could you please take minutes on this?”

Raphael Leadstone, a spirited, thirty-something board member interrupted.  “I object.  What does Eva know about running a media company?”

Eva shot him a debauched glance.  Raphael had walked out of Harvard Business School with a coveted MBA.  He was young and ambitious, in many ways like her.  Employing him straight out of business school, Samuel had groomed Raphael for a few years now, and he’d ascended to a seat on the board quite quickly.

Eva despised the hold he had on her father.  She knew he saw him as the third son he never had in her. 

Her lips gathered into a pout as Raphael persevered with his suave tone.  “This is another one of those activities we’ll throw money at and when our dear Eva decides she needs a new project, we’ll have to clean up the mess after her.”

Opposing board members nodded, remembering a few of Eva’s enterprises that had ended in catastrophe.  There was the cosmetics company that had folded, leaving a stream of liabilities with which they had to contend.  Three years ago, she’d pursued an interest in establishing a girl’s college in France - another catastrophe.

Raphael turned Eva’s way.  “I propose we appoint a Chief Executive from within our midst.”

“Why?” protested Eva, glaring at Raphael with contemptuous eyes.

“In the interest of Riche Enterprises,” he said.

She twiddled with her thumbs.

Seven of the nine board members agreed to the proposal.

Samuel marched over to Raphael.  “Raphael, I’m appointing you as the new Chief Executive of Riche Media.”

Raphael shot Samuel a startled look.  He’d obviously not seen that remark coming. 

Heat rose to Eva’s cheeks and she gazed at her feet for fear of erupting.

“Okay, the decision has been made, Raphael will steer this media company with Eva as Director,” he cast Eva a disdainful stare.  “And Chief Editor.”

Eva shot up and paced the room before settling in a spare chair by the window. 
“Couchon!”

* * *

11:43 A.M.

Tajani Market Place

Agra, India

Mason sat in a clammy rickshaw, swatting flies away like a common street rogue.  The breeze filtering through the open vehicle carried caustic aromas from the market place only a few yards from where he sat. 

The scents arrested his nostrils. 
Could it be turmeric, saffron or Asafoetida?

Agra, the Hindustani capital bordering the banks of the Yamuna River, sizzled with an unforgiving scorch, even in April.  Though spring, the weather hovered at thirty-three degrees centigrade, a few degree points above his comfort level.  He observed busy pedestrians going about their business in the bazaar.  Several children played in the dirt with makeshift toys they’d probably made themselves out of metal scraps stemming from ignored rubbish heaps along the side of the road.  It was innocent play, unmarred by the materialistic tendencies he had grown accustomed to in the Western world.

The muggy air forced beads of sweat to collect on his bristly arms, dampening his cotton thin
Kurta
, the traditional clothing for men he’d been given at the airport.  Rupert Kumar had insisted he blend in, sending him a driver with a brand-new
Kurta
to pick him up at New Delhi’s Indira Ghandi International Airport.

Kumar had insisted they meet here at the bazaar in Tajani.  Mason disliked being kept waiting.  That was his privilege; anyone who worked with him or for him knew that. 

He glimpsed at his watch.  They were ten minutes late. 

It’s not getting any cooler!

He despised being commanded, especially by a rogue like Kumar, the best-kept secret in the industrial world.  Kumar had more global, financial influence than many cared to admit.  Perhaps it was because by looking at him, his comportment would reveal nothing of the sort.  He had discovered three oil reserves on land he owned, all purchased within the last few years.  So far, no one had questioned it.  One was in South Liaodong Bay, another in Kenya and a third along Brazil’s south-eastern coast.  The three reserves together rivaled those of Saudi Arabia and Libya put together. That fact alone meant he was certain to be courted by prominent individuals. Mason needed to schmooze him first.

Mason leaned back on the ripped, faux leather seats.  He labored to disguise his irritation at the tardiness by watching the streams of tourists make their way to the grounds of the Taj Mahal.  He could understand why Kumar had always stayed true to his Indian traditions by settling back in his home city of Agra.  This place enchanted him with its mystic traditions, architecture and people.

The Taj Mahal stood as an idyllic background for their appointment as Mason continued waiting in the sweltering rickshaw. Kumar had insisted he would find him, and not the other way round.
Fool!

“That color does not suit you, Mason!  You seem a little out of place here.”

The high-pitched holler came from across the road on the edges of the market stalls.  Kumar beamed a wide-tooth grin, parading in a yellow and white thread embroidered
Kurta
himself.  For a man of his stature, Mason was surprised that Kumar was not escorted by hoodlums as with most billionaires. 

Kumar looked both ways before crossing the colorful street bursting with rickshaws, cows left to their own devices. and several Hindustani Ambassador Cars huffing out black soot as they drove past.

Mason stepped out onto the pavement.  As he paced forward, he scrolled through some classified ISTF images on his smart phone. 
Yes that’s him. 

When Kumar reached his side, he set a lanky arm around Mason’s broad shoulders.  “Please, let’s take a walk.”

Just past high noon, the marketplace populated with scores of shoppers, tourists, and locals.  Several pedestrians made their way up through the lush gardens, along the riverfront terrace towards the Taj Mahal, the epitome of Mughal art.  Mason studied the eminent, Islamic mausoleum that seemed almost out of place in the urban setting, with its pristine, marble façades and cross-axial symmetry.  Known to some as the dwelling of a ‘queen in paradise’, its palace gardens, fit for the great nobles, lined both sides of the river. 

“Rupert, I’m not sure I’m a fan of your choice of venue to do business.”

Though a skinny man, with quite a musical Urdu accent, nothing about him resonated with witlessness.  Kumar grinned.  “That’s the problem with you Mason; you are too highbrow.  You need to take time to enjoy life.”