Clive Cussler - The Kingdom

“As the King’s diary tells, he welcomed the missionaries into his court, and they soon became friends. A few months after they arrived, an attempt was made on the King’s life. The priests came to his aid, and one of them was wounded. He became convinced these two foreigners were part of the prophecy, sent to ensure the Theurang could one day be returned to Lo Monthang.”

“So he gave each of them a disk for safekeeping and sent them back to their home countries before the invasion,” Remi guessed.

“Exactly so.”

“Please tell me you found references to them somewhere,” Sam asked.

Karna smiled. “I did. Fathers Besim Mala and Arnost Deniv. Both names appear in Church records from the fifteenth century. Both men were dispatched to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in 1414. With the death of Genghis Khan, the weakening of the Mongol Empire, and the rise of Tamerlane, the Eastern Orthodox Church was keen on spreading Christianity to the heathens, as it were.”

“What became of our intrepid priests?” Remi asked.

“Mala died in 1436 on the Albanian island of Sazani. Deniv died six years after that in Sofia, Bulgaria.”

“The time line fits,” said Sam. “If they left Lo Monthang in 1421, they would have made it back to the Balkans a year or so later.”

Sam and Remi fell silent, each lost in thought.

Karna said, “A bit fantastic, isn’t it?”

“I’m glad you said it,” Sam replied. “I didn’t want to be rude.”

“I’m not offended. I know how it sounds. And you’re right to be skeptical. I myself spent the first year after I found the diary trying to debunk it, with no success. Here’s what I propose: I will turn over my research notes to this Selma of yours. If she can disprove my theory, so be it. If not, then . . .”

“Balkans, here we come,” Remi said.

From his living quarters, Karna retrieved his laptop, an Apple MacBook Pro with a seventeen-inch screen, which he placed on the coffee table before them. He connected one end of an Ethernet cable to the laptop’s port and the other to a wall jack leading up to what Sam and Remi guessed was Karna’s satellite dish.

Soon, Selma’s face appeared in the iChat window. Standing behind her, looking over each shoulder, were Pete Jeffcoat and Wendy Corden, and, behind them, the workspace in the Fargos’ San Diego home. Predictably, Selma was in her uniform of the day: horn-rimmed glasses on a neck chain and a tie-dyed T-shirt.

Accommodating a three-second satellite transmission delay, Remi made the introductions, then brought Selma and the others up to speed. As was her way, Selma asked no questions during Remi’s report, and was silent for a full minute afterward as she mentally collated the information.

“Interesting,” was all she said.

“That’s it?” Sam asked.

“Well, I assume you’ve already told Mr. Karna, in your own diplomatic way, how far-fetched this sounds.”

At this, Jack Karna chuckled. “They did indeed, Ms. Wondrash.”

“Selma.”

“Jack, then.”

“Do you have your research material digitized?”

“Of course.”

Selma gave Karna a link to the office’s server, then said, “Upload it there, and I’ll start working through it. In the meantime, I’ll turn the chest over to Pete and Wendy. The three of you can see about opening it.”

It took twenty minutes to upload all of Karna’s research notes. Once done, and after badgering Sam and Remi into having a nap in his guest room, Karna, Pete, and Wendy went to work on the box. Karna first asked to see enhanced pictures of the chest, including a close-up of the engraved characters.

He peered at them on his laptop screen, tilting his head first one way, then the other, until muttering something under his breath. He stood up suddenly, marched down the hallway, and returned a minute later with a tiny book bound in red-dyed textile. This he flipped through for several more minutes before calling, “Aha! Just as I thought: the characters are a derivation of Lowa and yet another royal dialect. The inscription is meant to be read vertically, from right to left. Roughly translated, it says:

“Through fulfillment, prosperity

“Through resistance, anguish . . .”

Wendy said, “I think I read that in a self-help book once.”

“I have no doubt,” Karna said, “but in this case it’s intended as a warning-a curse. I suspect these characters were inscribed on each of the Sentinels’ boxes.”

Pete said, “In short, ‘Take this to its destination, and you’ll find happiness; interfere with or impede that, and you’re screwed.’”

“Impressive, young man,” said Karna. “Not the words I would use, of course, but you arrested the gist of the message.”

“Would this have been intended for the Sentinels?” Wendy asked.

“No, I don’t think so. It was designed for the enemy or anyone who came into possession through illicit means.”

“But if the dialect is that obscure, who aside from Mustang royalty would have been able to understand the warning?”

“That’s beside the point. The curse stands, ignorance be damned.”

“Harsh,” said Pete.

“Let’s take a closer look at this box, shall we? In one of Remi’s pictures, I noticed the tiniest of seams along a bottom edge of the box.”

“We noticed that too,” Wendy replied. “Hold on, we’ve got a close-up . . .”

A few clicks of the mouse later, the image in question filled Karna’s screen. He studied the photo for several minutes before saying, “Do you see the seam I’m talking about? The one that looks like a series of eight dashes?”

“Yes,” said Pete.

“And the full seam opposite that?”

“Got it.”

“Forget that one. It’s a decoy. Unless I miss my guess, the dashed seam is a combination lock, of sorts.”

“The gaps are almost paper-thin,” said Wendy. “How can-”

“Two millimeters, I would say. You’ll need a shim, of sorts; a thin but strong type of metal or alloy. Inside each of those dashes will be a brass or bronze flange, each with three vertical depression settings: up, middle, and fully down.”

“Hold on,” Wendy said. “I’m doing the math . . . That’s over sixty-five hundred possible combinations.”

“Not overly daunting,” Pete said. “With enough patience, and time, you could eventually pick it.”

Karna said, “True, if not for one fact: you only get one crack at it. Enter the wrong combination, and the internal mechanism locks itself.”

“That does complicate things.”

“We’ve not yet begun to unravel the complications, my boy. Once past the combination, the real challenge begins.”

“How?” Wendy said. “What?”

“Have you ever heard of a Chinese puzzle box?”

“Yes.”

“Think of what you have before you as the mother of all Chinese puzzle boxes. As it so happens, I believe I have the combination to the initial locking mechanism. Shall we get started . . . ?”

Three hours later Sam and Remi, now awake, refreshed, and armed with cups of tea, joined Karna before his laptop just in time to hear Pete exclaim through the iChat window, “Got it!” On-screen, he and Wendy were leaning over the worktable, the Sentinel box between them. It was brightly illuminated by an overhead halogen lamp.

Another iChat screen popped up on the screen, this one displaying Selma’s face: “Got what?”

“It’s a Chinese puzzle box,” replied Wendy. “Once we got past the combination, a narrow panel popped open. Inside were three tiny wooden switches. Following Jack’s directions, we flipped one. Another panel opened, then more switches, and so on . . . How many moves now, Jack?”

“Sixty-four. One more to go. If we’ve done our job, it’ll open. If not, we may lose the contents forever.”