The Alexandria Code

Chapter 1

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The dark alley dripped with foreboding. The bricks of the building were slick and shined with the wetness from the Lake Superior mist. Dark, black puddles appeared as pits in the pavement meant to be avoided at all costs. There had been death here that much was sure. These old waterfront alleyways had been places of dark deeds for 250 years.

Isabella Carter had known death before, she recognized its mark. This was where she had been told to meet the seller. She knew now that it was a setup. She had been lured back here to the Sault where she grew up in a large cabin on Whitefish Bay. But for what purpose? Why bring her back all the way to the Soo? It made no sense. Isabella turned around and started to retrace her steps back to the street. Enough was enough. This alley wasn’t for her. Now she was acutely aware of the feel of the g*n that she carried inside her coat.

The mist stuck to her shoulder length black hair. It had a natural curl to it that now was going crazy with the mist. Her dark brown eyes scoured the old alley for the danger she was certain was out there. She had made many enemies over the years and lived her life wary and always aware of her surroundings.

Whoever had lured her here had been clever. They knew which buttons to push. The possibility of restoring a lost antique from the black market into the hands of academia had been too much to resist. Sault Ste. Marie was on the Canadian border which made it an easy entry point for contraband. She knew this town and it had been a hotbed for smugglers throughout most of its history. She thought of the bait that had brought her here, a jade statue of the Mayan goddess Ixchel. It would have enhanced University of Michigan’s archaeological studies tremendously not to mention their museum, but now she knew she’d been duped. She had shut off her phone, but had left the GPS on. That way she hoped someone would be able to locate her body after this was all over.

Two men stepped out in front of her. Isabella’s hand instinctively reached inside of her coat. Her legs tensed as she prepared to evade an attacker.

One of the men spoke, his words seemed muffled by the thickness of the air. “Dr. Carter?”

She didn’t answer hoping that ignoring them would make them go away. It didn’t work. The two moved to block her way. Years of experience told her that their next move would be to pull their guns. She beat them to it. Her practiced hand held the .45 automatic steady, deadly.

“Where’s the statue?” she asked, suspecting, no, certain that there had never been one.

“No statue, Dr. Carter, Just a ride.”

“Surprise,” she muttered. “But no thanks.”

One of the men moved towards her and the metallic click of her taking off the g*n’s safety stopped him short. She tried to get a feel of what they were thinking, their motivations, their mission. Isabella could only sense confusion. She wasn’t meekly following their gameplan and it had them uncertain. “Good,” she thought, at least she had them off balance.

The overpowering feel of death in the alley clouded her mind. It had been notorious during the prohibition. Executions had been carried out here in the past by bootlegger gangsters. Though it was rare these days, an occasional body would still be found, murdered. Probably by these two men, she thought, why else would they have called her here?

“We need you to come for a ride with us. Lazarus Fane wants to see you.”

“Well if you thought that would put me at ease, you’re dead wrong. The only thing I’m going to do with Fane is put a bullet between his eyes,” she retorted. So that was it. This was Fane’s doing. She should have known, should have guessed. The two enemies, over the years, had come to know each other too well. If she remembered correctly, Fane controlled a shoreline warehouse in the Sault. No doubt a front for illegal imports.

Lazarus Fane was the kind of person she fought to rid the world of, a black market antiquities dealer, no, looter. They were the bane of her profession, the blight of discovery, her lifelong crusade.

When Isabella had discovered the lost Mayan city of Itchen Balam, Fane had tried to take over her dig and discovery. He then had her close friend and Head Archaeologist on the project murdered. Fane had made it personal. The two of them had a long history. She had sought her retribution more than once, each time certain that she had rid the world of him. Fane simply wouldn’t die. But, she still had hope. Someday, she’d finish the job.

“Mister Fane wants to talk to you. Our job is to bring you. We can carry you, as easily as not.”

Isabella smiled at them, cold and hard.

“Now, now, that kind of behavior will get you nowhere with this one. She can put you both down and that would be embarrassing,” came a voice from behind the men.

Isabella stiffened at the sound of Lazarus Fane’s voice. Years of their war came flashing through her memory. He was ruthless, cold-blooded, evil, and she had been forced to become all of those things fighting him. She hated him for that. She could see his face now, pale and drawn, the poor lighting reflected off the scar that ran down the side of his face, the scar she’d given him. She smiled a little at the sight. The memory was sweet. Her free hand clenched as if she once again held the machete she’d tried to take his head off with.

“Dr. Carter, I have not brought you here to kill you, I’ve brought you here for privacy. This alley has a reputation, a reputation for death, one that I encourage, so it is avoided by everyone. Not even bums and junkies dare venture here. The only ones that visit here, don’t leave, so you can consider yourself lucky. You get to do what others have failed at, leave here alive. Funny thought, that, letting you go alive. Besides, I have something for you that I’m sure will pique your interest. Your help will be invaluable,” Fane continued, his pale blue eyes were but slits as he stared at her with intensity.

“My help? That’s not likely to happen.”

Fane nudged one of his men and ordered “Give it to her.”

One of the men slowly reached into his pocket. Isabella still had her g*n poised. He drew something out. Isabella’s finger tightened. He held something small in his hand. It wasn’t a weapon. Isabella’s finger relaxed a bit.

“Take it, please.” Fane still stood behind his men. “This is something I believe could change history as we know it.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“That’s what I want you to find out. Take it with you, back to NYU and look it over carefully. Study it. Closely.”

Isabella was on loan to New York University from U of M for the past year. She was working with them helping identify Central American artifacts and teaching a graduate class.

Isabella held out her free hand and the man dropped something into it. She looked at it. Shining, even in the gloom of the alley, was a quartz crystal. “OK, it’s a crystal. What’s so special about it?”

“That’s what I want you to discover. Believe me, there is something to discover. I just don’t want to taint your findings by too much information.”

“Why shouldn’t I shoot you where you stand? Rid myself of a lot of trouble.” It was a long awaited pleasure she was having a hard time not fulfilling. “That river over there could carry your body into the lower Great Lakes and they would never find you.”

“Because, when you come to some conclusion about that crystal, you’re going to want to know where the rest are. You know how to contact me.” He turned and was gone leaving behind his two shields. When Fane was safely away, they too then turned and left the alley.

Isabella Carter looked at the crystal in her hand. Even in the low light she could see its details. “What was the big deal?” she thought. It was the typical six-faceted clear quartz about three inches long and about ¾ of an inch thick. The only thing she saw unusual was that the crystal hadn’t been broken at the base, it was smooth and flat as if it had been cut or ground flat by some jeweler making it ready for a setting. This wasn’t Fane’s usual fare. Outwardly this didn’t relate to black market antiquities. Had he stolen this from some idol somewhere? Fane was insistent that there was something more to it, something deeper, and knowing him, something darker.

She returned to her car and drove to the airport at Kinchloe. She was lucky. There was a plane she could grab back to Detroit and then catch a flight to New York. Because it was Fane she was more than tempted to throw the thing away, but it was because it was Fane that she didn’t. He wouldn’t have given it to her if there was nothing there. He wouldn’t have risked his life for something as mundane as an everyday quartz crystal. There was something special about this crystal that he wanted confirmed. As much as it galled her, for the moment she was working with him. Thwarting him would have to wait until later.

When she got back to her office at NYU, Isabella put the crystal in a locked drawer in her desk. None of the students were around this time of night and this looked like a job for her graduate class. They could cover more ground quicker and get this over with as soon as possible.

The classroom was littered with tablets, statues and artifacts from all over the world. Isabella’s reputation had always been in her knowledge and discoveries of the Maya in Central America. The Maya were her true passion but she studied and taught all aspects of archaeology. Professor Carter lectured and taught across the world having worked dig sites in a dozen countries. She personally viewed all ancient civilizations fitting together in one neat package. The problem was that there were too many pieces missing for neat, let alone a package.

It was something that she diligently tried to pass on to her grad students. All five of them were filing in behind her. She let them settle down for a minute and then began. She held up the crystal between thumb and forefinger for them to see.

“I have a project for all of you. There’s something hidden about this crystal. I’m making it your task to find out what it is. Sometimes, in our field the smallest items may hold the greatest secrets. Subject this to every test possible. Assume that there is something to discover, it’s up to you to find the secret. Of course your grades will reflect your participation in this. Any questions?”

Jeff Barnes, spoke up. He had long brown hair, clean shaven with sharp intelligent blue eyes. “No hints as to where this came from and how it was discovered?” Jeff was the head of the class. He took over when Isabella couldn’t be there. He was on the fast track to his own Phd. He was smart, ethical and Isabella had a lot of confidence in him.

“None.”

“So what you’re saying is that you have no idea either and you want us to figure it out for you.” He grinned at her knowing she would take the joke.

“That about sums it up. This one is a bit personal. I don’t want to participate in the research, but I have to know what’s so special about this crystal. This is a private project. I don’t want a word of this to go beyond this group. Let’s brainstorm it first. What are the uses of quartz crystals?”

“Quartz has always been seen from an ancient perspective as a conduit for power,” said Jeff as he rolled it over in his finger and then held it to the light. “It is used in jewelry and particularly amulets and talismans. I’m guessing that’s why the sawed off bottom. It’s meant for a setting of some kind.”

One of the other students spoke up, Sandra Gonzales, “Quartz is used for everything, today. It’s in our computers, CD players, cell phones. Nearly everything is based on quartz technology. The ancients weren’t wrong in their beliefs that quartz was a power stone. It has conductivity properties that they seemed to instinctively be aware of. I always felt that maybe some of the ancients knew a lot more than we give them credit for.” Sandra was from Mexico and was studying to do Central American archaeology and be able to study the past of her heritage. She had the traditional dark hair, brown eyes and brown complexion.

“Of course that brings us too our ever popular crystal skull discussion,” began Bob Peters. He wore glasses and liked to delve into fringe theories of X-files types of subjects. He was also a programming genius that wanted to apply those skills to archaeology and deciphering languages through technology. “Skulls made entirely from quartz, flawlessly created so that they are near impossible to make, even with today’s technology and tools. They are believed to be endowed with supernatural power. No one knows definitively when or where these were made so they remain a complete mystery.”

Alicia Case, another student who had been occupying her time texting lifted her head up long enough to comment, “What about crystal balls? They’re believed to foretell the future.”

“Those are usually glass, not quartz,” Jeff reminded her.

“Seems to me the common denominator in all this is power. Electronic power, psychic power, magic power, computing power, quartz is even used in watches so time is involved. The ancients viewed it as a source of power and we see it as a source for technology. We’ve even learned to grow artificial quartz in methods similar to those of cultured pearls. After the quartz shortage of the 80’s, steps were taken to make sure that it didn’t happen again so now we even have laboratory artificial quartz,” Karen Arntsen added. She was from the mid-west, but it was obvious her ancestors were Scandinavian. Blonde hair, blue eyes and skin that rarely looked like it has seen sunlight. There was a definite snow queen appeal to her.

“Well,” it was Isabella this time, “This has to have some antiquities connection. The source of the crystal determines that. It also has to do with multiples, my source also mentioned that there were more of them.”

Jeff spoke up. “Maybe we should take a closer look. Let’s start looking at it on a micro level. Maybe it’s in the shape or structure of the crystal, possibly the molecular makeup. Maybe there’s some scoring or etching somewhere, but it feels perfectly smooth to me.”

The students took the crystal to the electron microscope computer lab. First they studied its surface. Over and over they scoured. It was a quartz crystal.

The next phase was to look deep inside of it, right down to the layerings that make up the interior itself. As a crystal grows, it does so slowly, building flat levels of quartz similar to the floors in a high rise building. Each one of these layers is a cleavage point where the stone can be broken. The microscope focused in on those. A computer next to the machine transferred the image to a monitor. The students surrounded the monitor and watched. The layerings were acutely evident at this magnification. Still it was a quartz crystal.

“What if we were to scan it and have the computer take a close-up, build a 3-D image. That would take us right inside of it, right to its heart.” Sandra suggested. “Then we can enlarge it, move it around to any angle and examine its smallest details.”

The crystal was moved to the laser scanner. The red light flashed up and down the crystal’s length while the computer built a model of the crystal. The digital enhanced image began to fill in, take on detail, that old familiar structure of a quartz crystal.

They began to magnify and enlarge it, look into the interior structure. Lines began to appear. They seemed to be in layers. They magnified more. The lines were definite. They flowed in an organized pattern running parallel up and down as well as across. They were not random. The patterns corresponded to the layers of quartz. Each layer had more of the lines. They enlarged it more and focused in on the lines. They were everywhere, thousands of them. They looked similar to Sanskrit, micro sized lines of what looked like language!

Sandra was first to speak up. “Is that writing?”

“Well, it definitely looks like something imprinted on there. This can’t be old,” concluded Jeff.

“I think it’s laser etched,” suggested Bob. “This has to be modern. This must be some kind of new technology that’s etching on crystals. It’s like a crystal version of a thumb-drive. The problem is the language. It’s not like any formatting language I’ve seen.” We need detailed printouts of every layer that has the etching. I can’t believe they’re antique. This has to be some new tech that we’ve never seen.”

“Of course we’ve never seen it or we’d recognize it,” Sandra’s sarcasm made them all turn. “Let’s think about this, I agree it’s probably something new, but what if it isn’t? What if it’s old like Professor Carter said? It changes everything just by its existence. “

“It can’t be, the technology it would take to create this couldn’t have existed. It has to be modern. Somebody better go get Dr. Carter,” said Jeff.

Alicia left and ran to get Isabella. “We’ve found something,” she said as she burst into the teacher’s office.

It didn’t take long. They came into the lab, Isabella showing some anxiety. The students showed her what they found. She studied the printouts. “You’re sure about this?”

“We’re not sure about anything,” replied Jeff, “You see what we see, inscribing on the interior of the crystal.”

She looked at the printouts. They were there, lines that appeared in the shape of symbols. Many were repeated while others were rarer. For all purposes it looked like some form of language. “Do we have an order that these appear in?” she asked.

“The printouts are in order but we’re not sure about anything beyond that. Being layered like this, the text could run in any direction. We’re going to need some form of reference. First for the direction of the text and then for what each character represents. Is this an alphabet? Is this a type of hieroglyph? Or is this maybe some type of new computer formatting. Essentially we need the key to the coding. The only thing that could do something this small is laser tech,” commented Bob.

“Tear it apart. See if you can make anything out of this.” Isabella gathered the stack of printouts. “I’m going to work on these in my office and see if I can find something in here. I have a call to make.”

She detested doing it, but she knew she was going to have to talk to Lazarus Fane. Certainly this was what he had wanted her to find, but why? This had nothing to do with antiquities. This was likely some new technological direction electronics was going, formatting crystals for data storage. It obviously wasn’t a binary coding, it was more complicated than that. The big question was: Why would Fane pass off new technology to her and then ask her to find it? It made no sense. Fane always made sense. Fane was up to something, she was sure of that much. That he was trying to involve her, there was no doubt. Was he setting her up? Was there some way he was arranging for her to take a fall for some black market scheme he had going? Did he think he’d finally come up with a way to destroy her reputation and her career?

She went into her office and called the number for Fane Imports Inc. The company was a front that appeared legitimate on the surface, but in truth it was one of the largest black market distributors of art and antiques in the world. Fane had a battery of accountants and lawyers doctoring the books so that prosecution was impossible. She was put through to Fane immediately.

“Well, what did you find?”

She went off on him. “What kind of game are you playing? You give me a crystal that has some kind of coding imbedded in it. What’s the idea of all of this. New technology isn’t my field. As sleazy as you are it’s never been yours either. What do I care if there’s more? Why did you bother me with this? Secret meetings. Alleys. I knew I should have shot you when I had the chance.”

He interrupted her tirade. “So you did find the information buried inside of the crystal?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“I’m assuming it’s too early for you to have an idea what any of it says.”

“Near as I can tell, it’s some kind of new computer formatting using crystals as data storage.”

“It’s not new.”

“That’s impossible, it has to be new. There’s no evidence that anything like this has ever existed. You’re doing this to set me up for something.”

“Alexandria,” was all he said.

“What about Alexandria?”

“That’s where it was found.”

“Found, what do you mean found.”

“It was found in Alexandria, Egypt. I’m sure you know about the recent project there where the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has been excavating and sifting through the rubble of old Alexandria in the bay. The rubble that was created when the earthquake toppled the Library, the lighthouse, and Cleopatra’s palace, are strewn across the bottom of the bay. The Egyptians have this idea that they can clean the seaweed and silt off the statues and remnants and create a kind of tourist attraction with an underwater monorail for sightseeing. In the process of removing some of the silt, some crystals were found. Of course I had some of my own people slipped into the project, thinking we might be able to come away with a few items of interest.”

“You mean steal a few items, don’t you?”

“Now now, we were getting along just fine. Let me continue. One of my men discovered that several quartz crystals had been found during the silt removal of the Library of Alexandria. The Egyptians didn’t think much of some common crystals found on the floor of the bay. They were looking for more traditional Cleopatra era treasures. My man came away with one, the one I gave you and brought it to me. I had to ask myself the question, why would there be dozens of crystals at the library? That was when I decided to have them examined, inside and out, right down to their molecular structure if I had too. That was when I found what you found, the embedding.”

“I’m not sure you haven’t been played. My students assure me that this could only have been done by micro-fine laser impression. It has to be modern.”

“You let your students have this? How much do they know?” she could hear the irritation in his voice. “I had hoped you would do the research yourself, keep this between us. I see I was wrong.”

What had she done? A dread filled her. She had put her entire graduate class in danger. In her effort to keep her hands clean, she’d only made matters worse. Fane was ruthless. He would have no qualms about causing them to have…accidents.

She back-pedaled. “They’re not involved.”

“You’re lying to me, but that’s alright. I’ll leave them alone on one condition. You help me. You have an uncanny ability to decipher language unlike anyone else. I want to know what’s on these crystals and where they come from, though I already have my suspicions.”

“Damn,” she thought, she’d given him the leverage he needed over her. She mentally berated herself for walking into it. “That’s why you gave it to me in the first place, you can’t do this without me. Stay away from my students and I will initiate my own research. Do you have the other crystals?”

“No, the Egyptian Ministry still has them. An academic like yourself might be able to persuade them to part with them as they are unsure whether they are simply a part of the seabed or Egyptian treasure or artifacts. Either way they aren’t viewed as any great discovery.”

“Another reason you need me, the ministry won’t take your calls.”

“My reputation precedes me.”

“I have no doubt of that. I still don’t think you’re playing me straight, that this is some kind of hoax, some kind of weird trap you’ve concocted. Just remember, if something happens to one of my students, there’ll be no place on earth you can hide.”

“And I remind you, if you cross me with this find, well, you already know well what I’ll do.”

“Those aren’t wounds I’d open if I were you. I’m still weighing whether killing you isn’t the better option.”

“You’ve tried. It hasn’t worked. Listen we both win with this. You get possibly the greatest discovery in the history of mankind.”

“And you get?”

“The information. I get exclusive access to all of the information in those crystals.”

It all made sense to her now. If these crystals were truly old, they had to have been founded on some technology that would at least have been equal or more advanced than mankind currently achieved. There might be histories, images, or …schematics! If genuine, she still had her doubts, the information could be worth trillions, especially on a corporate level. The implications and applications of it would effect every corner of the world. Cultural, theological, archaeological, historical, technological, the impact would be staggering.

She played dumb “What information?”

It didn’t work. “You know as well as I do the implications of this. If I control the discovery, I control the profits.”

“I’ll get back with you.” She hung up and went back down to the lab. “Lock this place down. Has anybody said anything about this project?”

She looked at the faces of her students. Jeff spoke up, “We’ve been hanging here. We’ve been discussing the encryptions.”

Sandra Gonzales spoke up. “I really think this could be related to a type of cuneiform. It has that look to it.”

Bob leaned into the group and pointed at a couple of images on the monitor. “You see that area there. Those two marks facing each other, they look a little like parenthesis, and separated by several of the other symbols. It looks like a type of code, formatting language. Like XML. It must be something experimental. Let me guess, this was an experiment from another grad group.”

The rest of the group just looked at him. He’d struck a nerve. Just for a moment they all considered it until Isabella laughed at them. “No that’s not what’s going on here. Tighten up. We may actually have something here. My source tells me these were found as part of an archaeological dig. We’re very possibly looking at something that should not exist.”

“Bob,” she continued. “Is it possible for you to write a program that will correlate, how many different symbols there are, how many of each, indexing their location throughout the crystal, and what appear to be repeat phrases?”

“It would take a while but I think I can. It should be fairly basic. It’s essentially combining database and object mapping programs.”

“Do it, please.”

“On it.”

“Now I want to proceed on this with complete confidentiality. If this is what it is supposed to be, the discovery is too big to leave this room. We dare not be wrong about this. First we have to analyze every aspect of this thing. We need a chemical analysis of the outside and carbon dating. Keep in mind you have to act like these tests are routine. Don’t show any urgency or impatience. I don’t even want a whisper of rumor. I want all information downloaded to portable drives and each drive will be handed into me and then checked back out. I will know where each one is at all times. Nothing is to be left on the university’s computers.” She handed out five drives. One to Bob. One to Jeff. One to Sandra. One to Alicia and one to Karen. She then produced her personal drive and handed it to Bob. “Download all of that imaging onto this. I need to be able to study it in my office.”

She waited for it and then walked back to her office. She had only one thing on her mind. Coffee, she needed coffee.