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  After only a few minutes of scanning in a search pattern, Kirk communicated back to Maria.

  “I’m about ten yards under the water and can see what seems to be a cave in the cliff wall.”

  She was elated and replied,

  “Perfect. That’s what I was hoping for. Can the D-wing fit into it?”

  Starting to understand her plan, he enthusiastically replied, “Yes” and nudged it into the tunnel. He reported,

  “It’s a very large tunnel lined with the same vitrified rock as the shaft.”

  She asked,

  “What is your angle? Are you travelling up an incline?”

  “Yes, a slight one.”

  She was excited and yelled back at him,

  “I knew it.”

  She stood at the top of the empty pool patiently looking down at what she suspected was a drain in the floor. Her vigilance was rewarded when seeing the D-wing rise up out of the hole and into view. Lake water was pushed upward and into the holding area. With experienced hands, Kirk landed the D-wing right beside her. As he lifted the canopy, the water pushed into the holding area now drained, returning to where it had come. He said,

  “Well, that explains how the large pieces of equipment got into the cave, as well how the Anannaki came and went undetected by the people living around here at that time.”

  Maria looked at the draining water and added, “Genius.”

  Kirk looked at his watch and called an end to the exploration.

  “We should get out of here in case the army up there returns with reinforcements.”

  Maria agreed. Kirk grabbed the remaining pogo stick and ran back to the horizontal tunnel with it in hand. After a few minutes he came back and reported,

  “Just in case the soldiers snoop around, I jammed that rock back into the mechanism.”

  After cramming a few small relics into her knapsack and the pogo stick back into the D-wing, she was ready to go. After waiting for Kirk to take a few more quick pictures of the place, she maneuvered the D-wing back into the drain at the bottom of the pool. As soon as they left the cavern, the mysterious lights tuned off.

  A moment later, they emerged from the tunnel deep in the lake. Maria steered for the surface and within seconds shot through the surface and skyward. Because the D-wing was still in camouflage mode, all Professor Asker saw was a fountain of water swoosh high. He understood the House of the Nazarene had finished their search. Bringing out a note pad, he looked at his watch and noted the time of the splash. He then turned and began a long walk back to the village.

  Chapter 19

  Maria got home just in time to get Belle ready for school. Although she was exhausted, a reserve of energy surfaced and she volunteered to walk both Robert and Belle to school. Though both children are best of friends, there are differences of character. Belle, at the best of times is not a delightful morning child. For no apparent reason she can be testy and argumentative. It was something her mother many times had cruelly suffered. Robert, on the opposite end of the scale was always perky and cheerful in the morning. While walking the children to school, Maria discovered that those opposing traits were two conflicting war zones.

  When organizing the new House of the Nazarene on the Bulgarian estate, Helga was assigned the task of starting a school for the children of the scientists working for the House. Because of varying age differences of the children, some being teenagers, she found it better to simply bring in private tutors appropriate for each students interest and ability. At the school, for the better part, learning was generally sessions of private tutorage.

  The walk to school was only five minutes down a tree-lined path but within a very short time, Maria was already regretting her kindness in telling Helga she would walk them to school. Maria’s first hint might have been Helga’s strange grin and quick acceptance of the offer. Only a few minutes into the walk, Maria was not sure if her encroaching headache was an attack from lack of sleep or Belle’s quarrelsome insistence that her pencil was sharper than Robert’s was. Once dropping them off, she struggled home to her comfortable and quiet bed. She also made a mental note to ask Helga what she fed Robert in the morning that made him so pleasant and passive.

  As Maria walked out of the shower, having eyes only for the soft pillow on the bed, Santo entered the bedroom. Seeing his naked desire walking to the bed, an idea struck him. She turned just in time to see the lust in his eye and while still walking to the bed mumbled,

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  As any good soldier would do, he formulated a quick retreat strategy.

  “What? I just came in to change. I have a meeting with Jessika and Zak right now.”

  As she pulled the covers up tight, he gave up on a second attempt for victory, kissed her good bye, and left for his meeting.

  Kirk had stayed behind in the hangar to sign the D-wing back in and put the equipment away. By the time he got home, Jessika was up and getting dressed for her meeting with Zak and Santo. Kirk walked in just in time for his retinas to enlarge and he too captured a salacious thought. She turned around just in time to see him sneaking up on her. She quizzically asked,

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  Tired and exhaustion were quickly pushed aside and he said,

  “Let’s put that sexy red dress back on shall we?”

  Her reply was not what he was hoping for.

  “No, I have a meeting soon.”

  What she said next rejuvenated his expectations,

  “So the hell with the dress, we will have to hurry.”

  Despite unexpected delays, Jessika was the first to arrive at the computer lab. The computers were in one of the small cottages just down a narrow garden lined path from the manor. When approaching, Santo saw her waiting for him in the doorway. Before even a cordial greeting was exchanged, Jessika swiped a strand of hair from her eyes and blurted out.

  “It should be impossible but it happened again.”

  As he followed her into the main computer room, he naturally asked,

  “What has happened again?”

  There was frustration in her tone.

  “We have been cyber attacked again.”

  Surprised and knowing there must be some mistake, he responded,

  “But these are House of the Nazarene computers.”

  “Yes, like I said, it should not be possible. We are changing our access codes every few minutes with floating algorithms but whoever is doing this is still getting in.”

  Zak was sitting in his chair and over top of his glasses saw them approach. Jessika added,

  “Strangely, it is only happening to his computer.”

  Santo, not getting the information he wanted from Jessika, looked to Zak, and asked,

  “What’s happening Zak, talk to me.”

  Zak was mad.

  “Somebody is trying very hard to delete my work.”

  Jessika added,

  “It should not be happening. Somebody or something out in the voids of the matrix is trying to prevent him from researching his material.”

  Aware of her frustration and Zak’s anger, Santo recognized an investigative dead end and so started asking questions.

  “Could this supposedly impossible cyber-attack have anything to do with the Great Gray’s Step-down Interface component we took from the Duchess? Is it currently connected to any of our systems?”

  “No.” said Jessika, “For some reason or other the Great Gray interface computer only worked once. The three pieces shattered and the step down module burned out. We think it might have been a singularity transitory ---,”

  Not understanding the language, Santo shot up a halting hand and asked,

  “Where is the module?”

  Pointing to the far wall, she said,

  “It’s still over there in that crate.”

  Walking over to the box on the floor, he crouched down, inspected the broken step-down component and the charred glass pieces that he and Maria had gathered fro
m secret caches around the world. Even to him, it was clear that the parts would never function again. Holding two of the triangular pieces, he searched around the box for the third piece. It was not there. Thinking that Jessika might have it, he turned to her and asked,

  “There is supposed to be three of these. Where is the third?”

  Surprised, Jessika took quick steps to the box and scrambled through the pieces. Realizing that Santo was right, she turned to Zak and asked,

  “Have you been experimenting with any of these pieces?”

  From his befuddled expression, both saw that he had not. Santo said,

  “Well, it might have been mislabeled or stored somewhere else. Check both of your records and try to locate it.”

  As he stood, he added,

  “And try to figure out what the missing part was designed to do.”

  Santo walked over to Zak, who had not left his seat and asked,

  “What have you been working on? What sensitive information has the hacker obtained from us?”

  Still upset, Zak pointed to his computer and as if it were the most important thing in the world snapped,

  “My research on these three books.”

  He patted them and added,

  “These are the ones you found in the same place as the three pieces needed to neutralize the Sentinel Satellite.”

  Santo glanced at his desk and recognized two books he and Maria had recovered from the dome under the ocean and in the cave at the Grand Canyon but did not recognize the one Maria had first recovered in a Tibetan monastery.

  Jessika saw Santo’s perplexity and contributed,

  “Somebody with very powerful computers and I dare say, a greater genius than mine, does not want him to access the information coded in those books.”

  Fearing whoever was hacking into House security systems and obtaining damaging information, Santo asked,

  “What are you working on Zak?”

  Zak picked up the book Maria brought back from Tibet and held it close to his chest. He said,

  “The order you discovered them in was not the sequence of the books. As it turned out, the first book was the one you discovered in Australia in that underwater dome. The next in line was Tibet and then the Navajo book. The Australian book is the first of the Rosetta Stone.”

  Santo did not understand.

  “I’m not a scientist. Dummy it down for me.”

  In a voice implying annoyance, that it was basic knowledge, Zak said,

  “The Rosetta Stone was a stone tablet found in Egypt containing the same text repeated in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic script, and Greek. It was the key to deciphering hieroglyphics.”

  Seeing Santo’s frown, Zak decided to make it easier, “Okay, simplistically ---,”

  Santo quickly interjected his appreciation of the word ‘simplistically’ saying,

  “Thank you.”

  Zak again felt the curse of interruptions. As best he could, he continued without anger.

  “When the Greek in the Rosetta stone was translated it was discovered there were repeating patterns in the other two texts. It was theorized not to be a coincidence but rather a deliberate cypher to translate a dead language. It eventually led to the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs.”

  Hugging the book even tighter to his chest or as Santo thought, to his heart, he continued,

  “That’s what these three books are. They are the key to decoding the language of the Great Grays. This first book is in ancient Greek and in the same manner as the Rosetta Stone is a clue to the Great Gray language of the last book.”

  He then cast a condescending look to his Security Officer and added,

  “Do you understand? The first two books are giving me codes to understand and translate the Great Gray third book.”

  Santo saw no concern or danger in decoding the Great Gray Language. At least to him it did not warrant the massive effort needed to infiltrate their secure computers. Yet, somebody with colossal computer capacity and a clear understanding of Nazarene security satellites was doing just that. He turned to Jessika and asked,

  “Whoever is doing this, do they understand that we can detect the hack?”

  She again swiped dangling hair from her face and said,

  “They obviously know how to decode each Sleeper Satellite as well as decipher each algorithm. They have inserted complicated fluctuating rhythms in the hack stream making it impossible to trace. Because of the anti-trace worm inserted as a rider, it implies they knew we would discover the hack.”

  He gave her a hard stare and said,

  “You could have just said yes.”

  Turning back to Zak he asked,

  “What is in the Great Gray book that is so important somebody does not want you to know?”

  A frustrated Zak blurted out,

  “I don’t know. It’s not a hack for data so much as a program preventing access to the programs I need to decode it. The hacker keeps deleting or scrambling my research.”

  Anything having to do with computer security and cyber hacking had never been Santo’s strong point. What he was good at however was delegating. He turned to his computer genius and gave Jessika the only order he could think to give.

  “Get on it.”

  Turning back to Zak he commanded,

  “Clearly there is something important in that third book. If you cannot use the computers to translate it then do it the old fashioned way, pencil and paper. Let’s see if whoever is doing this can prevent you from translating it that way.”

  As he walked away, he heard Zak object,

  “I suppose you expect me to use an abacus and slide rule as well.”

  Pleased that he had delegated the right person to the investigative job, he walked out of the computer room. Although not understanding the complexities of computers, he did understand one thing. One of the three pieces of the Great Gray computer chips was missing. He could not believe that a clean sweep of Duchess Josephine de Mayer-David’s stronghold missed something as vital as that. Both Jessika and Zak understood its importance. They would not have treated it as frivolous and trivial. He understood there was only one person leaving the Duchess’ private destroyed island not from the House of the Nazarene. By simple logic, that person was the only one who could have stolen the third piece. Although not thinking that person was the key to the computer hack, he understood there was a connection that had to be investigated.

  That morning when Kirk woke up pleasant with memory and body, there was a stern message on his phone from Santo. ‘Get over here as soon as you wake up.’

  Stopping only for a quick coffee and bagel, he entered the main security office and saw Santo at his desk. Santo looked up and said,

  “I’m missing both reports from your return to Alakati and what you found there.”

  Apologetic, Kirk assured him,

  “Yes sir. We just got back last night. I’ll get on it right away.

  Thinking that was the intent of the meeting, Kirk turned to leave but was stopped with a question.

  “Do you remember last year when we blew up the Duchess stronghold? I asked you to drop that little worm Niko Waltz off at the nearest deserted island?”

  After a quick recollection, Kirk replied,

  “Yeah and that’s what I did.”

  Because there was no eye contact and the reply was weak, Santo was experienced enough to notice the possible lie. Disbelieving, he cast a one-eyed glare at Kirk and sternly asked, “Really?”

  Weakened by stern authority, Kirk melted faster than a snowman in a sauna. He admitted he softened and dropped him on a small island frequently used by fishermen.

  Santo asked, “Where?”

  “I don’t remember. However, I never erase the D-wing log from memory. If it’s important I could easily call it up.”

  Santo flipped his computer across the desk and Kirk took the hint. While accessing the D-wing log, Kirk asked,

  “What’s the problem Captain?”

/>   Santo told him about the missing piece of Great Gray computer chip and by logic, Niko was the only one who could have stolen it. Santo then asked,

  “What was he carrying when you dropped him off?”

  Understanding the intent of the question, Kirk nodded and replied,

  “He only had a knapsack supposedly filled with food and water.”

  After a thought, Kirk admitted,

  “Yes, I suppose he could have concealed something else in it.”

  Kirk then turned the computer back to Santo and said,

  “There are the coordinates, sir. Are you thinking of sending a recognizance satellite over the island? I doubt that he would still be there. I’m sure some fishermen would have given him a lift to somewhere else by now.”

  Recognizing the sad truth of the matter, Santo accepted that possibility. However, there was still the chance of finding an important computer piece among dried up bones somewhere on the island. There was something else to be considered. His first mission off the estate with Kirk to Turkey was invigorating. He craved another undertaking.

  Chapter 20

  Santo did not see the importance of what Zak was attempting to translate or why somebody would bother preventing him from doing it. After all, at least to Santo, they were simply ancient manuscripts. What harm could there be in discovering the truth or fallacy of antiquated legends? How was he to know that one of the books would change the world and alter religions for all of humanity? His biggest surprise was discovering who did not want the book translated and the extent they would go to keep that history a secret. Santo was not going on a simple mission. Even before reaching the island, his life would be in great risk.