The Decrypter: Secret of the Lost Manuscript (Calla Cress Techno Thriller Series: Book 1) (58 page)

“This can’t be happening, Allegra.”

“We’ll find her.”

“It’s not that. Going on is all I can do. I lost two important people in my life. Jack and Nash’s lives have to account for something.”

“It’s not your fault. Direct your anger at Mason, not your failures.”

Calla was not to be appeased, even as she bled inside.  She raised her chin “Then, let’s go get the carbonado.  We’ll just have to rely on our instincts and not Mila.”

Allegra failed to keep contentment from her voice. “We never could.”

* * *

DAY 16

6:10 P.M.

Skies over Amman
,
Jordan

“The captain says we’ll arrive shortly at Amman International Airport,” said the flight attendant before meandering back to her quarters.

“Even I didn’t picture Jordan as the location for Solomon’s mines,” Allegra said.

“It didn’t occur to me either until I came across this.”  Calla shoved a tattered clipping of a National Geographic article into Allegra’s hand.

Allegra scanned it carefully.

“King Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem,” Calla said. “But he needed something to build it with. That’s when the thought dawned on me. According to ancient texts, the nation scavenged hundreds of tons of copper for the project, including large amounts of gold and silver. And that’s why we are here.  Jordan’s Khirbat en-Nahas site has intrigued archaeologists since the 1930s.”

Allegra mused over Calla’s insight.  “For its abundant metals. Solomon would’ve required great quantities of metal to complete such a task.”

Calla’s eyes remained meditative.  “Coming here is our best bet.  Especially now that we have less than forty-eight hours.  Copper mines in southern Jordan were active several centuries before what was previously thought.  The area we’re going to produced copper at the same time Solomon built the temple.”

Allegra returned the magazine clipping.  “All those years, we worried about you.  But you can handle yourself.  I admit it. The truth is you don’t need the operatives.  They need you.”

Calla placed the paper in the back pocket of her shorts and sighed deeply.  “Allegra, I started out wanting to find my parents so bad.  I still do.  Now, I only want to find the last carbonado to stop Mason because of what he did to Jack and Nash.  I don’t know which cause is more justified.”

“Perhaps both.”

“When my search started, it was all about me. Just girlish, selfish ambitions.  Now that I’ve lost him…them—”

“Go on.”

“I didn’t actually realize that in Jack and Nash, I had more than any family can give me.”

Calla’s left eye fought a rebellious tear. “I miss them so much, Allegra.”

Allegra slanted her head, empathy glistening in her eyes. “I know and I’m so sorry. I held them in high regard. I can imagine what this is doing to you.”

The jet touched down at Amman International Airport, jolting them forward as it came to a halt.  Calla collected her things.  “I’m only doing this for them.”

* * *

8:10 P.M.

Khirbat En-Nahas

Southern Jordan

Allegra padded her forehead with a silk handkerchief.  “
Khirbat en-Nahas
means ‘ruins of copper’ in Arabic.”

“Even though what we seek is a diamond,” Calla said.

They journeyed thirty-two kilometers south of the Jordan capital in a hired car.  Shortly after, they found the diggers’ entrance of the 450-square mile, ancient mining and metallurgy district. 

Most of the mine surface area was covered with black metallurgical slag and the international team of archaeologists had excavated the ancient copper production center at Khirbat en-Nahas all the way down to virgin soil.  Several site guards prowled the upper levels of the archeological dig site armed with nothing more than walkie-talkies.

Calla fished out a satellite image of the location.  “The depth of the waste alone is more than twenty feet.”

The sun had sunk behind the desert valley hills, yet the evening sky still glowed, flamed with Jordanian moonlight on its elliptical path, its exposure illuminating the excavation site.

The site’s size alone begged for industrial-scale production and incorporated close to a hundred ancient buildings.  Situated in the midst of mining trails, the excavations abounded on more than twenty-four acres of black slag.  Hailed by historians as the largest copper mining and smelting site of the ancient world, it lay in a desert valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. 

“We should be good to head down the shaft in about ten minutes,” Allegra said, as she scanned incoming intelligence from ISTF on her satellite phone.

Moonlight broke over Calla’s face as she whispered.  “It’s time.” 

They watched the lone guard angle away from the entrance before they skimmed down several feet on a timber ladder, into a rectangular cavity below ground level, measuring almost twenty feet wide. 

“This must be the main dig area,” Allegra said.

 They eased down until their feet hit the ground, and the dusty grit grated under their boots.  They paced several meters along the rock structure of the mine wall, until they found a run-down opening at the far end of the ancient space.

“Someone’s been here recently,” Calla said. “And not an archaeologist. Archaeological sites are usually divided into squares and use flat mason trowels, not gardening tools.” She ran her fingers over a breeding dent in the cave wall. “They also excavate horizontally and don’t dig holes.”

Calla peered down the path ahead of her that led further underground.

“Someone has tried to dig further than the original excavation,” she said.

“Let’s find out who,” Allegra said.

They shifted through the opening, evading collapsing rubble and pebbles as they scuffled down towards the virgin soil. 

The archaeological teams had left wooden panels making it easier to scout the area without damage to the soil findings.

As the women spiraled further inward, Calla turned on her hardhat headlight.  It emitted just enough light for a few steps at a time.  Walled in by several feet of mine walls, Calla glimpsed behind her.  “You okay?” 

She waited until Allegra caught up.  “There’s something I need to know, Allegra.”

Allegra rubbed her arm across her face. “What’s that?”

“I found something in your house when Taiven first took me there.”

“What’d you find?”

“Your birth certificate.”

Conflict of emotions followed one another in quick succession across Allegra’s face as she stood motionless studying Calla’s questioning face.  Shrugging her shoulders, she rested on a soiled pillar.

Calla ambled back slowly.  “Your birthday was registered as 1881.  How old are you?  I mean, I’m still trying to get to grips with this operatives stuff.”

“Sit down and take a breather.  Now’s as good a time as any to tell you,” Allegra said.

Calla sank to a boulder besides her. Whatever Allegra was about to reveal produced more hurt on her face than Calla thought possible of her accomplished friend. 

Allegra’s expression turned grim. “The truth is operatives can live a long time. Operative time is not measured in time as you and I know it.  And, sometimes it can be too long to walk alone.  It’s in our DNA,” confessed Allegra.

Calla absorbed Allegra’s gloomy words.  “How long is long?”

“It varies.  The Deveron Manuscript was created, as Vortigern explained, to lead operatives back to our former grandeur shortly after Cressidus decided to make a bold decision. To find Merovec and reunite all operatives.”

“How?”

“Cressidus and his family line were destined to guard it until the manuscript found its way to you.  That’s what makes it truly valuable. Its uniting factor.”

“Could he do it?”

“The Deveron was lost in the 1700s. It was later found by a little boy on a battlefield of Antrim, in Northern Ireland.  He was a mere infant and guarded it more as a boyish find than anything else for several years, never really knowing what he had.  That was when I was sent to retrieve it shortly afterward.  The boy’s name was Aston Deveron.”

“So you’re not one of those operatives that were left to ‘
roam the earth’
.”

“No.  As a baby, I was adopted into an Irish family.  Vortigern arranged it.  My job was to befriend the boy, retrieve the manuscript, and then restore it to the right operative family.” 

Calla swallowed hard taking in the smell of dry air, scented with ash and rotten dirt.  “You mean my family.”

“My adoptive father was not really sure what to make of my sudden appearance at his doorstep one morning.  He’d been unable to give his wife a child and sought out a solicitor who helped him obtain a legal birth certificate for me.  They were afraid I could be taken from them, because no one really knew where I came from. So the birth certificate you found was their security.”

“So they adopted you and forged the certificate?”

“Yes, they paid to have it authenticated.”

Calla digested the information.  “How long do operatives live?”

“Well,” answered Allegra, “usually as long as it takes.”

Calla sat confounded, but then again, nothing in the last week had made any logical sense to her.

“Anyway,” continued Allegra.  “The boy was about seven when I was adopted.  He and I grew up in the same town.”

Allegra rose to her feet as if what came next was the most distressful thing she’d ever experienced.  “When he was twenty-five and I was seventeen, we fell in love.”

Calla now understood. 

Allegra cast her eyes down in guilt.  “What happened?”

“Nobody ever tells you what falling in love is like.  That you abandon yourself and lose all focus.  Well, I lost focus, Calla.  I managed to locate your family and get the manuscript to them.  That’s how your great grandparents inherited it.  Right up until it fell into the hands of your father, Stan Cress.”

“Was I born naturally to my parents?”

“Operatives were condemned to live just like everyone else.  You must know that Merovec is still very much in control of the operatives, when he sees fit, he sometimes places us in families and sometimes, he sends a baby to raise.  It’s the nature of operatives.  No one ever questioned it.”

“I see?”

“Calla, you’re unique.  Very special because of your task.  Trust that, and everything will be okay.”

Calla rose slowly and her boots paced the damp soil.  The headlight on her head dimmed.  She glanced over at Allegra’s face, contorted with anguish and guilt.  “Tell me what happened after you delivered the manuscript to the Cress family?”

Allegra drew in a snuffle. “My mission was done.  In essence, I had to return back to my station.”

“Did you?”

Allegra unconsciously furrowed her brow.  “No.”

“You didn’t?”

“I rebelled in my own way and refused to return.  I wanted to stay with Aston.”

Calla’s judgment softened somewhat.  “Is that why Vortigern warned me about Jack and Nash?  No attachments.”

She nodded her head softly, not daring to look at Calla. “The worst was—” continued Allegra.

Calla lifted her head.
Was there more? Surely, she’d suffered enough.

“I was expelled by the operatives, Calla.  Mason’s operatives found out about my mission and Aston.  I was responsible, said Merovec.  They accused me, Calla. Prior to that, Mason didn’t know of the Deveron’s whereabouts.  I got careless in my relationship with Aston.”  She shot a pained look at Calla’s encouraging face.  “Mason has conspired to find the Deveron for years.  He has now found in this generation a way to finish his plans.  That’s why I had to take the Deveron when in Berlin.  One of the things you’ll find is the operatives’ advanced use of scientific technology what we call Military Economics.  This department engineered a
transporter-relocator
, a small gadget that when injected in my body was able to literally change my molecular makeup and give me advanced camouflage capabilities.  That’s how I left the museum and Berlin undetected.  You’ learn all about that soon.”

Calla digested the confession for several seconds.  “You left me alone in Berlin so I could discover all this the hard way, by myself.”

Allegra nodded quietly.  “I’ve always believed in you. You’re intelligent and logical. I don’t think just simply telling you would’ve convinced you.  You had to live it.”

Calla searched her face.  “How did the operatives allow you back into the fold?”

She hesitated for several seconds. “Aston and I got married.  When he died at a good old age of 106, I was left alone.  I had nowhere else to go.”

Calla kept her expression under stern restraint, yet she set a genial hand on Allegra’s shoulder “You didn’t do anything wrong. Love has to be free and if not, we have to fight for it to be. I know that now. I won’t let anyone take that from me. What’s been freely given, is freely earned.”