Chapter 12: Finding The Next Clue

"We need to talk," Cody said, as he stood, and walked towards the door to the cell.

"What about Mahdi's body?" Gabir asked, jerking his head in the direction of the bloody body.

Cody glanced over his shoulder, saying, "Leave it. The Lieutenant might need a reminder."

The Lieutenant shook his head frantically, a drop of blood from his own nose landing on the wall beside him.

"I don't need a reminder," Salim said shakily. "I won't lie, and I'll tell you everything that I can to help you. I'll do anything that I can to help you," he promised fervently.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Salim was completely sincere.

Cody nodded as if he expected nothing less, but repeated, "Leave him. They deserve each other. They can keep each other company," as he left the room.

Cynthia and Jamil followed Cody out, with Gabir a moment behind them. Neither of the women had said a word since the Sergeant had died. They hadn't released each other's hand, either. Both took a deep breath of the clean air outside the cell. The Sergeant's bowels had released when he died, and the air in the cell had grown foul.

Briana and Amy looked at each other, wide eyed, after seeing the way Cynthia and Jamil seemed to be gripping each other's hands for support.

"What happened," Maria asked, after seeing the women's expressions.

"Mahdi died, and we finished interrogating the Lieutenant," Cody said brusquely as he set his chair down. "Did anyone find any bottled water?" he asked hoarsely, while opening the small refrigerator and looking inside.

"There's some water in the cabinet beside the fridge, but none that's cold," Briana said. After a brief hesitation, he asked, "How did Mahdi die?"

"How did you finish questioning the Lieutenant already?" Shawn blurted out his own question. "You've only been in there thirty or forty minutes. That's fast, even when you have a cooperative captive."

"Let's just say the Lieutenant was more than cooperative," Cody said, his voice cold.

"I would say he was absolutely anxious to find things to tell you that you might consider interesting," Gabir said with a grimace."

No one mentioned the unanswered question about Mahdi's death.

"We've got to make some plans and we're short on time," Cody announced briskly, as he sat and opened a bottle of water. "The bad news is, the Lieutenant has a reinforced squad, fourteen Lebanese Army soldiers, on standby at the Army Barracks. They're all members of Viper and are waiting for a call from the Lieutenant. Now for the really bad news. The Adjutant of the Lebanese Army is a member of the Sons of the Viper. His name is Colonel Juno Baccus, and as far as Lieutenant Al Khoury knows, Colonel Baccus is very near the top of the Viper's command structure for the whole Middle East; possibly number two or three. Colonel Baccus is coming to Baalbek tomorrow with a full company of soldiers to arrest us. The Lieutenant is supposed to locate us and notify the Adjutant when we've been found."

"What is the good news?" Brian asked faintly.

"There isn't any," Cody replied, drily. "All we get today, Mr. Miller, is bad news and worse bad news."

"They don't know where we are yet," Gabir pointed out. "I think that's good news. I think we can use it to our advantage, too." He looked at Cody's water and said with a grimace, "I need one of those."

Cody nodded his understanding, and gestured towards the cabinet holding the bottled water.

"The Colonel is coming to Baalbek because this is where he thinks we are," Cody continued. "Maybe we could use the Lieutenant to redirect the Adjutant to another location."

Gabir nodded thoughtfully before saying, "That is what I was thinking, but it has a problem. We don't know what direction we need to go next. If we send the Adjutant someplace that is between us and our next destination, we could be trapping ourselves."

Cody nodded tiredly and said, "We need to find whatever it is that we are supposed to find at the Landing Site. We can't do anything until we find whatever it is."

Gabir looked at his watch and observed, "It's almost six. The Temple Complex that includes the Landing Site is probably closed by now."

"I don't think that will be a problem," Cody said drily. "Why don't I ask the Lieutenant to escort us? Who's going to object to an after-hours group tour, escorted by a Lieutenant of the Lebanese Army?"

"You might be able to persuade him, if you ask nice and say please," Gabir answered, just as drily, and smiling grimly. "How long do you think it will take to find whatever it is that we're supposed to find?" Gabir asked, as he got his own bottle of water.

Cody hesitated before saying, "I don't know. It could take a week, or a month. I just don't know."

"If there is something there to find, Cody will find it in less than a couple of hours," Cynthia said confidently. "I've been with him on digs. Plus," she continued in a quieter, sadder voice, "his abilities seem to have ... um ... grown ... since the last dig we were on together."

"Okay, then how about the translation once we find the tablet?" Gabir asked.

"That could take longer," Cynthia said, slumping dejectedly against the wall.

"No it won't," Briana and Amy said in unison.

They exchanged smiles, and Briana continued with, "Whatever we are looking for, it was put there by the same people that placed the tablet in South America. He had the first tablet translated within twenty minutes while we were driving down a dirt road."

"The second, the one that led us here, was translated in less than thirty minutes in a hotel room," Amy said, her pride in her Professor clear in her voice.

"Step one is finding the next key and translating it, so we know our next destination," Cody reiterated, pulling the conversation back on track. "We can't plan anything else until that step is done." He took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh before saying, "And everything else is time critical. We need to get going. Everyone is going to want to go to the temple grounds. I think that would be very bad idea. It would attract more attention and wouldn't help in finding whatever the artifact is. I propose no more than five people, including the Lieutenant, go to the Temple Complex that includes the Landing Site."

Everyone began talking at once, and quit just as quickly, when Gabir and Cynthia both held up their hands. Cynthia nodded to Gabir, conceding the floor.

Gabir nodded his acceptance, with a little smile, and said, "Five is acceptable on the grounds, but there should be at least five to ten more in a close reaction force. I would recommend a three vehicle convoy. The guards staying with the vehicles can stay in contact with radios. That will give you a loose outer perimeter that can give a warning if there is a problem external to the grounds. They can also react quickly if you have a problem inside the complex."

"Okay. That makes sense," Cody mused. "What were you going to say, Mom?" Cody asked.

"Basically, the same thing Gabir said," Cynthia replied. "The whole convoy would be too noticeable, but I don't want to see you unprotected either. The outer perimeter is a good idea. You and that slime ball Lieutenant need to be in the inner group. I think you should have one more archeologist, and the other two need to be guards."

"I suppose the archeologist should be you?" Cody asked drily.

"Heavens, no!" Cynthia shuddered. "I am much too old, slow, and weak," she added haughtily in explanation.

Gabir blew water out his nose, and started coughing. It took several minutes of Brian pounding on his back for Gabir to get his breath back.

He glared at Cynthia and said, "Cyn, you did that on purpose."

"What did I do, dear?" Cynthia asked innocently.

Cody was laughing with the rest of them, thankful for the break in the tension.

"What, exactly, happened on that little trip through three countries, that you two took?" Cody asked rhetorically, laughing, but he didn't dwell on it. "What's your recommendation, Mom?"

Cynthia turned to Cody, blushing slightly, but answering, "I think you should have Gabir with you, and one of his people. He's good in a tight situation." Her blush deepened as she realized how her words could have been taken, in light of the recent innuendos, but continued with, "The other archeologist should probably be Shawn or Briana. All the kids are good archeologists, but those two are the most dangerous. All of them are dangerous, but those two are scary dangerous."

Cody nodded thoughtfully and said, "Good ideas. Okay, I'll take Miss Jorgensen with me. I don't know which is more dangerous either, but Mr. McLaughlin has more experience managing teams. Mr. McLaughlin, you're in charge of the interns, Maria, and Jamil. Keep them safe. Is there anything else?"

"We need to buy some time," Gabir said. "We need to make sure that the Colonel doesn't jump the gun and leave tonight. We need to either find a way to keep him in Beirut, or send him in a different direction than we need to go. I don't think we can wait until we've found what we need and translate it."

"I know. I know," Cody said, shaking his head in frustration as he stood. "And we can't send him in another direction until we know where we need to go."

Cody stopped, and his face grew thoughtful before he said, "You said we need to keep Colonel Baccus in Beirut. What do you think would happen, if we let the Lieutenant call the Colonel before we leave? He can tell the Colonel that we didn't come to Baalbek. There are ruins in the north and south of Lebanon. We could have gone to them, as well as Baalbek. The Lieutenant can tell the Colonel that he has men checking both directions. The Lieutenant can suggest that, after we're located, he can move his men to attack us from this side of the mountains, while the Colonel attacks from the other side. That should hold the Colonel and his men in Beirut for a while. Then, when we know what direction that we're going, we can send them in the opposite direction."

"That should work," Gabir said slowly, as he considered the idea. A smile grew on his face, and he said, "That could really work. We can do this, and maybe, without getting into a major battle."

"Do the rest of us just wait for you to come back?" Maria asked, sounding more than a little concerned.

"We're out of sight here, dear," Cynthia pointed out patiently, "and, we're in a defensible position. I think it would be best if everyone not needed for Cody's little tour, stayed inside."

"Not everyone," Gabir disagreed. "I want to keep a security perimeter around this location, too."

"Good," Cody said impatiently as he stood. "Gabir, go pick your men that are going with us and detail the others. I'll get the Lieutenant so we can make that call to the Colonel before we go. Miss Jorgensen, gather your gear and stay with me."

Cody went to the corner of the room where their bags and equipment had been deposited, and opened his rolled up satchel. He quickly checked his tools before rolling it back up. He handed the South American tablet to Briana, instructing her to carry it in her backpack.

Briana shivered as she walked through another massive, late-afternoon shadow cast by the monolithic stone blocks. The temperature was still in the high eighties, but every shadow made her feel like she was stepping across a grave at midnight. Briana had always considered herself to be level headed, and tough minded. 'Mentally Stable' was the phrase that came to mind, when she thought about such things. The last hour had proven how tenuous that self-confidence had been.

Retrieving the Lieutenant from the cell had been a test of her mental stability. The frozen expression of terror on the dead Sergeant had chilled her to the bone. She had nearly bolted, and run from the cell, when she first glimpsed the Sergeant's face. Briana had seen dead bodies before, and the fact that the Sergeant was dead didn't bother her. But, the expression on his face terrified her. She couldn't imagine what horrors the Sergeant could have experienced to create, and freeze, that twisted expression of terror on his face.

Briana was hesitant to ask Professor Frost about the Sergeant, and she didn't know how to ask Gabir. The security chief's English was good enough to understand her question, but he had an air about him that discouraged casual questions asked to satisfy a girl's curiosity.

It had taken over thirty minutes, driving through the twisting streets of Baalbek, to reach the Temple Complex. That drive, with everyone's nerves on edge, was another test of Briana's calm equanimity. She had trained all her life with her brothers, and had always considered herself capable of handling anything that life threw at her. During this trip, Briana had to struggle to find the calm center that her sensei had taught her to seek. Their small group was surrounded by people that hated them. An organization that had existed for thousands of years was focused on killing them. The plan to get the information they needed and escape seemed pretty nebulous to her. Briana had pulled some pretty hare-brained stunts when she was a girl, and her brothers thought that she was nuts. If they knew about her current predicament, they would know it for sure.

Someplace in this mass of giant pillars and stones was the Baalbek Trilithon; the great stones that some called the Landing Site. Esoteric legends claimed that Baalbek was the first site that gods had visited earth. Some people claimed that those 'gods' were actually aliens visiting earth in space ships, tens of thousands of years ago. Of course, those claims had been debunked since the deaths of the proponents. Still, the men and women that believed the 'Ancient Alien' theory had a substantial following. Then, over the period of a few years, the primary proponents of the theories had died. Their deaths had been attributed to accidents, death during muggings, a few hit-and-runs, and a couple of questionable suicides. Their followers had faded away, and from her discussions with the Professor, that was nearly as much a mystery as the spate of deaths. Professor Frost said that the broadcast media had decided not to continue broadcasting programs espousing 'pseudo science' due to their poor ratings. Books that had been best sellers, were suddenly not available. He had obviously not believed the availability or the ratings story. The Professor's inference was that there was a more sinister reason behind the deaths, and the end of the broadcasts, and the lack of books. Why was silencing the 'Ancient Alien' theories so important that people were killed, and the broadcast media was silenced? How could a single person fight an organization with that kind of power?

A wall loomed in the growing shadows ahead of them, but there was still enough light for Briana to see the outline of the giant blocks of stone forming the Baalbek Trilithon. She had briefly read about the stones at the university, and believed their story and mystery ended with their age and massive size. The site dated to approximately 9000 BCE, according to the earliest organic material that science had available to evaluate. The weathering of the giant stones of the Trilithon indicated the site could be very much older. The stones each weighed approximately eight hundred tons. The calculated weight was based on the density of the stone. The stones were sixty-five feet long and fourteen feet tall by twelve feet wide. No technology on earth could move the massive stones, but Briana's studies of conventional archeology had indicated they had been moved into place with wooden rollers and wet sand. She normally accepted information in her text books as fact, but that was too much to swallow. Briana had questioned the information about moving the stones. She had been told an Engineering Degree would be needed to understand how they were moved, and her question dismissed.

Briana had assumed, from her studies at the university, that the stones were the foundation for something. Foundations normally placed the largest, and most stable, portion of the structure at the bottom, then built on that stable foundation. That was a primary principal of building structures. Professor Frost had corrected her misunderstanding, by explaining that the site had been built in reverse.

The Baalbek Trilithon, the three great stones, were at the top. Smaller, but still massive stones, were under the Trilithon. It was as if supporting the giant stones of the Trilithon was the sole purpose of the original structure.

Professor Frost had told them about another anomaly, as if the ancient structure, giant stones, and unusual order of construction wasn't enough. An examination of Trilithon rock fragments with an electron microscope had revealed fused, crystallized, microscopic structures that only occur when stone is subjected to very high, very intense, temperatures. The type of temperatures that could cause the fused crystals could only be found at the site of a nuclear blast, or in a hydrogen blast. Similar fused crystalline structures had also been found in the rocks of rocket launch sites in Florida and New Mexico.

"That direction," Cody said quietly, pointing to the right, towards the end of the wall. "Something that we need is in that direction."

Briana didn't understand how something could be hidden in this mass of crumbling stone. Archeologists had combed this site for clues to its past for hundreds of years. Even the Professor and his mom had studied the Baalbek Temple Complex, and hadn't found anything that could lead them to the discovery they hoped to make this evening. Professor Frost had explained, during the drive to the Complex, that searching for anything successfully required asking the right questions. That principal applied to archeology, computer database searches, or finding missing socks. His questions were very focused this time, and their lives depended on his success.

Cody stopped and looked at the towering wall beside him, his eyes following the lines of the stones. One of the massive Trilithon stones began fourteen feet above the ground. Two of the massive, smaller, foundation stones supporting the Trilithon and marched alongside the path, and into the shadows. He absently touched the wall, and let his fingers brush along one of the laser straight cuts in the stone that ran the length of the wall. The cut was close to seven inches high, and slightly deeper than three and one-half inches. The stone slot was slightly above his waist, and disappeared into the shadows ahead of them. Even the passage of time and corrosion of the stone hadn't affected the cuts to any great extent.

He continued walking, slowly, letting his fingers trail along the cut in the stone. Cody walked past the seam of two stones' flawless meeting, and the straight cut continued with the new stone. Briana thought the cut must have been made after the stones were in place. No other explanation made sense because the transition of the cut from one stone to the next was perfect. The slightly different color of the stone was the only indication they were walking beside another twenty foot long, seven foot tall stone. The laser straight cut continued to the corner of the wall.