The Pharaoh Key

6

G​IDEON GLANCED AT Garza. The engineer was a lousy liar, and he hoped Garza would continue to be just as poor now. It was important Glinn continued to think their con was, in fact, a con.

“We need to go back to the last moments of the Rolvaag,” said Garza. “The ship was caught in the grips of the storm, dead in the water, broadside to the sea. If you recall, you, Captain Britton, and I were on the bridge when the captain gave the call to abandon ship. You protested and left the bridge in a rage. Remember?”

“Vividly and most unfortunately. Keep going.”

“You went down to the hold to try and secure the giant meteorite in its cradle. The captain followed you down in the hope of convincing you to return to the bridge and trigger the dead man’s switch—the one that would release the meteorite and save the ship. But you refused. As I saw for myself, watching that reconstructed video feed of the Rolvaag’s final moments several years later, in the forensic lab of the Batavia. Do you recall all that?”

“Of course I recall it. Get to the point.”

“After that, Britton returned to the bridge. The ship was in its death throes, at a twenty-degree heel from which it was unable to recover. I saw her grab the paper log and scribble something in it. Then she tore out the page, folded it twice. And handed it to me. ‘If you and Eli survive,’ she said, ‘give this to him. I’m going down to electronics to try and trigger the dead man’s switch from there.’ I stuffed the note into my pocket. The ship sank ten minutes later, carrying Captain Britton down with it.”

He paused and waited.

“And?” Glinn finally said.

“When I was rescued, I was unconscious. The rescuers, of course, stripped me of my frozen clothes. It wasn’t until a week later that I was in any condition to recall the note. Luckily the rescuers had gone through my pockets and everything was returned to me in a ziplock bag, including the note. I intended to give you the note at the first opportunity, but you were in a coma for almost a month and your recovery was agonizingly slow. The note was hastily folded, and I’m sorry to admit I read it.”

“That would be unlike you.”

“You try holding a note like that for a month and not reading it. I was astonished. I had no idea you and the captain had fallen in love with each other.”

At this Glinn shifted. “I wouldn’t put it in those terms.”

“Then you aren’t being honest with yourself. Of course you loved her. And she you.”

“Continue, if you please.”

“The note said such terrible things that I decided giving it to you would set back your recovery. So I put it away, intending to destroy it but never being quite able to.”

“But now,” Glinn interrupted, “after feeling ill used by me, you’ve decided to extort money via this same note.”

Garza crossed his arms and sat back defiantly. “You owe me. And Gideon.”

Glinn did not respond immediately. Gideon took the moment to examine Glinn’s face closely, but it had smoothed back into its usual impassive expression.

“Well,” said Glinn at last. “it’s quite a story. But remember that I know you, Manuel. I’ve studied your psychology. I have a QB Analysis on you a foot thick. You are not a good liar—despite having concocted a rather clever farce.”

“It’s not a farce,” said Gideon, breaking in. “Think about it: her writing a note to you when she realized she was going to die. It’s perfectly consistent with her own psychology, as far as I understand it. Think back to that moment. Doesn’t it seem logical she would write you a last note, a sort of farewell damnation?”

Glinn looked at the floor for a long time, then raised his head. “The transparency of this ploy is rather sad. Even if you showed me the alleged ‘note,’ I wouldn’t believe it. Frankly, I’m surprised the two of you couldn’t do better than this.”

“But it’s the truth,” Garza protested. “And this one time, you’re just going to have to take it on trust.”

Glinn swiveled his gray eyes on him. “You ought to know me better than that, Manuel. I never take anything on trust, especially in this kind of situation.” He paused, thinking. “Besides, I don’t have to. In fact, I’m sorely tempted to teach you two a lesson. Because in all your supposed cleverness, you seem to have overlooked a small fact.”

“Which is?” Garza asked.

“The bridge of the Rolvaag was thoroughly covered by CCTV cameras.” He looked from Garza to Gideon and back. “And thanks to the two of you, we have those tapes.”

Gideon and Garza said nothing.

“Those tapes will show the touching scene you describe on the bridge…or, more likely, not. Would anyone care to go down to the computer room and review them with me—before I have you thrown out on your ears?”

At this, Gideon glanced at Garza. He noticed that their exchange of looks did not get past Glinn.

“Well, shall we?” Glinn pressed.

“We can’t be sure the moment was captured,” said Garza. “Not all the tapes were recovered.”

“The bridge cameras had overlapping coverage. Since the tapes are indexed and sequenced, it will take all of five minutes to verify your story.”

Gideon could see Glinn was absolutely sure they were lying—but instead of leaving it at that and dismissing them, he couldn’t resist the triumph of exposing them. That was in keeping with his fatal weakness.

Glinn smacked his hands on the arms of his chair and rose. He pressed the button again, and the two guards returned.

“Please escort us to the central computer room. We’ll be watching a bit of video.”

Once again, Gideon found himself in the vast, cavernous central space of EES. The place looked even more abandoned than before, their footsteps on the polished concrete floor echoing in the empty vault. Their two escorts, once again in front and behind, stopped them at the security barrier.

“You’re going to make us go through security?” Garza asked.

“Naturally,” said Glinn.

“We never had to do this before,” Garza protested.

“Times have changed.”

After more grumbling, Garza emptied his pockets and Gideon did likewise. The guards took away their cell phones.

“What are those two USB sticks?” Glinn asked, pointing to Gideon’s tray.

“My private stuff. None of your business.”

Glinn motioned to the guards. “Put those aside with the cell phones.”

They walked through the metal detector. Glinn led them across the room to a low console of computers, which appeared to be among the last machines still hooked up and running. The machine that had deciphered the Phaistos Disk was now gone. This was a good sign—it suggested to Gideon that the data and log files had been transferred to the central system.

Glinn sat down at the console and booted up its workstation. Gideon watched as the man typed, drilling down through various files and folders.

“Here we are.” A huge series of video files appeared, with time stamps and locations. A quick database sort narrowed these to a list of relevant files.

“Five CCTV files from different cameras,” said Glinn, “all covering the same ten-minute segment on the bridge, in which you claim the captain wrote the note and handed it to you. I’m going to pull them up and play them simultaneously on these monitors. Do you really want me to proceed?”

“Absolutely,” said Garza. “You’ll see we’re right. Play it.” The bravado in his voice sounded hollow.

“If you insist.” Glinn pressed a button, and the videos winked into life on five of the monitors.

“There,” said Gideon, pointing. “The third one. That’s the one to watch.”

The monitor’s bird’s-eye view took in the navigational station and four large flat-panel displays: one with radar, one of the GPS chart plotter, a third a split screen, and the fourth the output from a sonar transducer. To one side stood an old-fashioned chart table, with paper charts, dividers, and parallel rules. Next to it was a series of cubbyholes containing bound logbooks, including the main ship’s log.

The video started dramatically, in medias res. The bridge, illuminated as was customary in a dim reddish light, appeared to be in chaos. Hurricane-force wind and rain lashed the windows. The roaring of the storm, the straining of the ship’s great engines, and the groaning of the superstructure under the weight of the shifting meteorite filled the speakers. The ship was listing alarmingly, and all personnel were hanging on to rails and handholds to keep from falling. The captain stood at the helm while the chief mate, Howell, stood behind the navigation station.

Captain Britton turned. “Mr. Howell,” she said, her reproduced voice crackling slightly as it emerged from a nearby speaker. “Initiate a 406 MHz beacon and get all hands to the boats. If I’m not back in five minutes, you will assume the duties of master.”

She vanished through the rear bridge hatch while Howell initiated the beacon. A siren sounded, red lights flashing, and a mechanical voice bellowed over the intercom: “All hands to abandon stations. All hands to abandon stations,” over and over again.

Three minutes passed as the ship careened still farther, with a vast metallic groaning; slowly righted; then began to heel again. This time, the slanting did not level out; the ship canted and great wallowing waves broke just below the bridge windows, cascading foam and water. One of the windows blew out with a bang and a howling of wind.

And then Captain Britton returned.

“This is it!” said Gideon excitedly, leaning over Glinn’s shoulder and pointing to the middle screen showing the navigation station. “Watch closely—she’s coming over. See…here she comes.” He leaned closer still, bracing himself on the console with one hand while the other stabbed at the screen.

And Britton did stagger over, speak to the navigator—her words lost in the roar—then turned and said something to Howell.

“Here’s the moment!” Gideon said.

Britton made a gesture to Howell, indicating something below, then disappeared again out the rear bridge hatch.

She never touched the paper log. She went nowhere near the logbook.

“Seen enough?” Glinn said acidly.

“Wait,” said Gideon, “she might come back.”

“Gideon, this farce is over. We know she went down to the electronics room, because that’s where her body was found!” Glinn’s voice was cutting. His face was pale and beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. The video, still running, had disturbed him—just as Gideon anticipated.

“Wait. Wait until the end.”

The slanting of the bridge continued. Howell and the navigator now left their stations, as did everyone else on the bridge, staggering out as the ship continued to heel. The groaning of metal became a shriek; a massive wave blew out an entire row of bridge windows; the sound dissolved into a screaming static—there was a flash of white and then the screen went dead.

Glinn punched off the feed. He turned and rose from the chair. His gray eyes bored into them both. “Not only was this a cruel trick, but it was monumentally stupid—to think you could game me like this. I never expected either of you could stoop so low.”

Garza mustered his self-presence. “All right, so we didn’t succeed. But it’s the principle. You deserved to see that again—as an example of the same kind of hubris that would prompt you to dissolve EES, threatening the livelihood of hundreds of people. And you still owe us. We’re going to get our money, one way or another.”

“If either of you two communicate with me again, I’ll slap you with a restraining order.” Glinn turned to the guards. “Get them out of here.”

Gideon felt himself grasped by the shoulders and propelled toward the exit, along with Garza. A moment later they were out on Little West 12th Street, in the cold afternoon sun.

They walked together in silence as far as Greenwich, turned the corner, and stopped.

“Did you do it?” Garza asked.

“Hell, yes.” Gideon reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny USB stick.

Garza’s face lit up. “I thought maybe you didn’t get the chance. I didn’t see you do anything.”

“Not seeing is the whole point. That’s a magician’s first trick—misdirection. If you control where the audience is looking, you can get away with anything. The video was a perfect foil. When I leaned forward and pointed at the screen, and told Glinn to watch closely, that’s exactly what everyone did—not only Glinn, but the guards as well. As I pointed, I braced my other hand on the console—where the USB ports are—and inserted this USB stick. When the video ended, I straightened up, plucked it out, and palmed it between my fingers—the same method I used to bring it into the room. You said the search program on the stick needed thirty seconds to auto-start, fetch the Phaistos log file, copy it, then redundantly delete the data from the EES system. But I gave it forty, just to be sure.”

“But how did you get it through the metal detector? I freaked when they took away your USB sticks.”

“Decoys.” Gideon laughed. “A mini USB stick doesn’t have enough metal in it to set off a detector.”

Garza grinned and mimicked Glinn’s cool, astringent voice. “To think you could game me!”

They both laughed as they made their way down Greenwich toward Garza’s apartment.