Jude Watson - A King's Ransom

“We run away hard and fast because we don’t want to die ,” Amy said.

Dan seemed mesmerized by the black holes in the skull. Amy was afraid of his expression.

Dan shook his head. “It all seems so … futile.”

“Futile?” Amy had never heard Dan use that word before. “You mean, pointless?”

“Yeah. I know the meaning of the word, Amy. I’m not quite as dumb as everybody thinks I am. I know, I’ve got the photographic memory, but you’ve got the brains, right?”

Dan’s tone was sarcastic. Not teasing, but flat and almost mean.

“Not right,” Amy said, shocked. Was that what Dan really thought? “Nobody thinks that.”

Dan turned his back on her to gaze at the bones. “Futile. Stupid and pointless.”

Amy took a breath. She felt the hurtful sting of Dan’s tone, but she had no urge to stamp off. There was something heading for Dan, something that cast a huge shadow, and her first instinct was to grab his arm and pull him away from the darkness she saw. But that would just make the darkness grow.

“It doesn’t seem that way to me,” she said. She kept her voice quiet. “It seems to me that we’re doing what all these people did. Just … trying to live in the best way we can. Protecting the people we love. We give it everything we have. Just like these people probably did.”

Dan didn’t say anything. It was like he hadn’t even heard her.

“And I don’t think you’re stupid,” she added fiercely.

She felt her cell phone buzz in her pocket. She checked the ID. Sinead.

“Are you in?” Sinead asked.

“We’re in. Nothing to see. Nothing but old bones.”

“Listen, I have another lead. We’re certain now that the text that Cheyenne got was not from a mobile device.”

“Meaning it was from a computer? In the church?”

“Exactly. And we figured out the altitude of the computer. It’s about six feet down from where you’re standing.”

Amy looked around. The church and chapel were up a slight rise and looked down on the cemetery. She walked a few feet away so that no one could overhear.

“So there must be a room below us,” she whispered.

“Exactly. Look around. And keep the line open, okay?”

“Okay, we’re moving.” Amy slipped on her earpiece and motioned to Dan. She saw with relief that he seemed to have shaken off his mood.

They walked around the perimeter of the church, under the fantastic ropes of bones. They cruised down the opposite side. A door had a sign in Czech, and they hesitated.

“It could say welcome , or it could say keep out ,” Amy said.

“Maybe we should do a spell-Czech,” Dan said, opening the door.

The door led to a narrow flight of stairs made of large pieces of stone. They were worn in the middle from the thousands of feet that had traveled down and up over the centuries. Dan closed the door behind them, and immediately they were plunged into darkness. Amy got out her penlight and shined it on the stairs. They crept down. The place smelled ancient and damp. The roof was low above their heads. It dripped.

When they reached the bottom, she swung the penlight along a narrow passageway. Even here, bones hung in garlands and were arranged in displays. Skulls lined a shelf that ran the length of the passage.

“I can’t see anything on the video feed,” Sinead said. “What is it?”

“It must be the passage to the cemetery,” Amy said. “I can’t imagine keeping a computer down here.”

“Amy? Look at this.” Dan stood in front of a metal grate. Behind it was a small room. He pushed open the grate and walked in. It was like a mini-amphitheater, only with dead people as patrons. Skulls were arranged in piles around the room, stacked atop leg bones and hip bones. Flat, narrow ledges ran around the room, serving as seats. There was a clear, flat, raised space along the far wall. Over it was an arrangement of bones in the shape of a giant letter.

“Maybe the original guy who did the chapel – maybe he was a Vesper,” Amy whispered. Somehow, whispers seemed appropriate here.

Dan moved around the space. “Look at this candle.” He held out a candle with wax dripped down into the holder. “It’s been used recently – there’s no grime or dust in the wax.”

“But there’s no computer here,” Amy said. “Please don’t tell me we have to dig through the bones.”

“No, look how they’re arranged – it would be impossible to move them and stack them again so perfectly. I think you’re right – it must have been a laptop.”

“But there had to be a power source,” Sinead insisted in Amy’s ear. “Can you find an outlet anywhere?”

Dan and Amy shined their penlights on the walls close to the floor. Suddenly, Dan caught sight of something. He knelt on the floor. “Whoa. This would be so easy to miss. Did they have USB ports in the Middle Ages?”

“Try it!” Sinead said quickly.

Dan fished in his pack for a cable and hooked up his computer to the USB port. He scanned the drive. Nothing came up. “It’s been wiped.”

“I’m going to hand the phone to Evan – he’ll talk you through it. You might be able to scrape something off it.”

Dan settled with his back against the wall, computer in his lap. As Evan read out a list of codes, he typed them into his computer. The USB icon flashed.

“I think something’s coming through … it’s a file.” Dan clicked on it. “Some kind of report. But it’s only a few sentences.”

“Save it to your hard drive and then e-mail it here.”

Dan read the document as he pressed SAVE. “It won’t save,” he said. “Or send. It’s encrypted somehow. And parts of it are blacked out.”

V-1 report

infiltrated family w/two children. Left MA w/mission complete. Information successfully destroyed. No suspicion from G. Coverup successful. Mother deceased. Children are

“It’s disappearing,” Dan said. “The words are disappearing!”

“It’s an automatic wipe!” Sinead cried. “There could be an alert attached to it. You’d better get out of there.”

Dan flipped over onto his knees to quickly stuff the computer in his backpack. He held his penlight in his mouth. As he zipped the pack, the light wavered on the old stones. He stopped. Someone had carved their initials into the wall.

Amy stood at the door. “Come on, Dan!”

He ran his fingers over the carving.

“Let’s go!”

Dan wrenched himself away.

As he followed Amy’s wavering shadow down the passageway, it seemed to flicker and then fade. And the shadow behind him seemed to grow.

infiltrated family

two children

MA

information successfully destroyed

Mother deceased

no suspicion from G

And the initials seemed to flame and burn inside his brain.

A.J.T.

At the end of a passageway was another door, small with a pointed arch. There was only a sliding iron lock. Amy pushed it back and opened the door. Gray light flooded the passageway. They stepped out into a soft rain and picked their way through the graves.

“Amy,” Dan said, stopping. The smell released by the rain was of dead leaves and cold stone, and he could taste it in his mouth. “Amy …”

His sister turned impatiently. “We have to make the bus… .”

“Amy.” He spoke her name for the third time. Wasn’t that the charm in every fable? Say a name three times? And the parent turns into a witch, a wolf, a beast.