Chapter 10 - See Chapter 1 for disclaimers.

***

Sydney watched as her car was lowered from the tow truck. The driver jumped down to release the chains. Sydney sighed and looked over to where Nigel sat beside Mrs Cameron's front door, his head in his hands. The driver came towards her.

"Okay, miss. I've used your spare tyre, but I'll have to get another one from my brother's garage in the morning." He shrugged apologetically. "It was really cruel, letting down two of your tyres like that. Nothing like this has ever happened in Ardonen before. But these days... Did you know, even the Burgh Halls were broken in to?"

"So I heard." Sydney said dryly. "Thanks for all your help."

"I hope your friend is all right." the driver nodded towards Nigel.

"He will be." said Sydney in a tight voice.

"I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yeah, thanks again." Sydney nodded and turned to Mrs Cameron's door. "Come on, Nigel." she hauled Nigel to his feet and knocked at the door.

***

Claudia looked around Mrs Cameron's sitting room with feigned interest, trying to ignore Sydney's relentless pacing and Nigel's dejected form.

"I don't believe you, Nigel. You speak seven languages, you've got two degrees, you're supposed to be of above-average intelligence. How could you be so stupid!"

Claudia's hands fluttered nervously. She'd never seen Sydney so angry, not even when Claudia had accidentally pressed the 'Escape' key on Syd's computer and erased four hours work in an instant.

"Come now, Professor." said Mrs Cameron as she entered the room. She crossed over to Nigel and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Nigel finally opened his eyes and took the home-made icepack from her holding it to his throbbing temple. A small sigh escaped and he nodded his thanks. "The important thing is," continued Mrs Cameron, "that we have Mr Bailey back, safe and relatively sound."

Sydney threw herself into an armchair. "The important thing is," she muttered, "he was nearly killed."

Nigel's head came up sharply and he did wince as a sharp pain arrowed through his skull, but it was almost drowned out by the warm glow from within. Now he recognised Sydney's blustering anger for what it was - deep concern, for him. Not for the loss of the Discoveror. He smiled lightly. "Just lucky I guess." Sydney looked as if she was about to start shouting again and Nigel quickly added, "At least, I am when you are around." He smiled more strongly this time.

Sydney sighed and shook her head. "What are we going to do with you, Nigel?"

"Reinstate me?" Nigel asked hopefully.

"Sorry, can't do that." Nigel's face fell and Sydney decided that his expression was as much revenge as she could take, under the circumstances. "My goldfish ate your resignation letter, so technically you never resigned."

"You don't have a goldfish." Nigel stuttered. Then realisation dawned. "Oh, right, I see. Thanks."

Mrs Cameron and Claudia exchanged relieved glances. "Friends again?" Claudia enquired brightly.

"Friends again." said Nigel.

"Good." Sydney spoke briskly. "Don't do it again and let's get back to work." The softness in her eyes belied the sharp words. Claudia groaned theatrically. "I'm serious, Claudia." Sydney spoke more gently. "I'm not worried about Troy using the Discoveror. He doesn't have the imagination. All he's interested in is how much he can get for it. But if Trevaylen gets his hands on it... there's no telling what he could do. That guy is a, a..."

"Nutter?" Claudia supplied helpfully.

"Right. We have to stop Troy giving the stone to Trevaylen."

"We can assume that he will make straight for the airport. Now that he has his prize he will want to be on his way as quickly as possible."

Nigel closed his eyes and settled back in the chair saying. "Troy doesn't have the Discoveror." He started to count under his breath.

"We should get after him right now."

"But Troy will be expecting us to follow him." Claudia protested. "What if he tries to leave the country by boat?"

"True. I wonder if we could get Sergeant Paterson to bring in the police. Spin him some story about Troy stealing something from the..." Mrs Cameron trailed off. Someone had said something important. She turned to Nigel. "What did you say, Mr Bailey?"

Forty five seconds, not bad going. "I said, Troy doesn't have the Discoveror."

"What!" three voices were raised in an incredulous chorus.

Nigel grinned. "I pulled a fast one. Troy got away with the regimental insignia."

"What?" Mrs Cameron repeated. Her hand came up to her throat in a gesture of distress. "You found the insignia? They've been lost since the war!"

Nigel was immediately contrite. "I'm sorry, Mrs C. It was the only thing to hand. But we will get them back for you, I promise."

Mrs Cameron relaxed slightly. "I have no doubt that you will, Mr Bailey."

"But, but I saw you." said Sydney in a bewildered tone of voice. "Troy had the box."

"Well I had to make it look good." explained Nigel. "I have learnt a few tricks over the last two years." He rubbed the bump on his forehead. "I just haven't learnt how to duck convincingly yet."

"Nigel, you are a genius! So where is the Discoveror?"

"Very close. Shall we?"

***

Troy stretched out. He could become accustomed to first class travel. And soon he would be rich enough to be able to. Dollar signs paraded behind his closed eyelids and a self-satisfied smirk crossed his face. Not long to go now. A quick refuelling stop in Manchester and then on to London. Trevaylen should be waiting with his cheque. And then it was the first flight out of there. Somewhere nice and sunny. Jamaica perhaps. Or maybe Antigua. Somewhere where the living was easy and the women were hot. Oh yeah...

Troy tapped the parcel on the seat next to him possessively. He opened his eyes and glanced down at it, suddenly curious to see what all the fuss was about. Carefully he undid the wrappings and pulled the heavy wooden box free. He made short work of the rusted padlock and slowly opened the box. A bright red cloth greeted him, impatiently Troy pulled it aside revealing...

"What the?" Frantically Troy pawed through the articles; a heavy leather bound book, some kind of short iron sceptre, a number of medals... "Oh my God." In his desperation Troy resorted to upending the box on the seat, everything tumbled out. There was definitely no crystal.

"I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead." the chant was a litany in his mind. He fell back against his own chair all the colour draining from his face and closed his eyes.

"Sir? Sir? Are you feeling all right?" the concerned tones of the stewardess washed over him.

Without opening his eyes Troy murmured, "Could I have a glass of water, please?"

"Of course, sir. There is a bag in the pocket, sir." The stewardess bustled away to get the water for her passenger, hoping that his sudden illness was not serious. Most people only got airsick on bumpy journeys, but you could never tell.

Troy tried to bring his breathing under control. He had a feeling he was going to need that sick-bag.

***

Chapter 11.

There was a steady drip of water as the group of people moved further and further into the hillside.

Nigel shone his torch over the dank walls and ceiling of the tunnel. "Must be high-tide." he muttered as he bent the light to the paper in his hand.

"Does that mean we're going to be flooded out?" Claudia questioned nervously. "You know what I mean," she snatched her hand back from the wall as it connected with something too slimy for her tastes. "We're walking along, quite the thing, and then we'll hear a far-off rumble and we'll think its thunder, but then we realise you don't get thunder underground, and we'll say 'Oh, what was that?' and one of us will say, 'I didn't hear anything', and we'll shrug and laugh and then a great big wall of water will come shooting around a corner and we'll all look at it and then we'll all scream and we'll all start to run. But it keeps coming and we're looking for a way out and we can't find a way out, and then we duck into a corridor and the water goes past, and it doesn't go down our corridor. And why doesn't it go down our corridor? It's water! It can go anywhere it likes!" Claudia stopped abruptly, suddenly aware of the three torches trained on her and the three pitying expressions of her companions. "It happens," she mumbled sourly.

"Better now?" Sydney asked.

"Much better."

***

"Last call for Flight 473 to London Heathrow. Would passenger 'Frakes' please make his way to Gate 11. This flight is ready for take-off." The airline operative's voice was rigidly controlled. Mentally, Troy translated the tannoy announcement; "Would the idiot passenger Frakes, who is either trying to chat up Marlene at the Check-in Desk or can't find Gate 11, despite all the signs showing him the way, please get a bloomin' shift on, otherwise we'll miss our take-off slot."

Troy pushed his way through the other passengers, straining to reach Gate 8 and the last flight to Ardonen. The very least of his worries was any inconvenience to the passengers on Flight 473 or the airline.

***

"This is it." Nigel sounded doubtful. "It should be it."

Sydney stepped up to the rockface. "Are you sure?" She played her torch over the seemingly impenetrable wall.

"Yes! No. I don't know!" Nigel gripped his torch between his teeth and fumbled with various pieces of paper, checking up and down the tunnel they were in with the sheets in front of him as well as his own internal compass. Finally he took a step back, gripped the torch and took a deep breath. "According to this," he flourished one of the papers. "That way goes back to the castle." he shone the light for emphasis, "That way goes to the smuggling tunnel," the torch whirled 180 degrees, "Which means that THIS way should be to the Discoveror."

"What is 'this'." Sydney asked.

"This is what I took from the bunker. It's a report of an official investigation into how Rudolph Hess escaped from his cell. He was found here, babbling about suffering the 'Curse of the Discoveror.' He was never the same again, apparently."

Four torches focused on the wall in front of them.

"It's just rock, Nigel. It's solid." Claudia sounded apologetic.

"We've seen that before." Mrs Cameron mused.

Sydney looked sharply at the older woman. "The chair." she whispered. Sydney's torch picked out the ceiling, then the floor. "Here, hold this." she tossed her torch to Nigel who caught it with one hand, and drew back her fist.

"Syd! What are you doing?"

Sydney ignored Nigel's concerned cry and ploughed her bunched fist into the wall.

***

Elliot Trevaylen impatiently scanned the passengers from the Ardonen flight.

He was so close. He could almost taste the power. Any moment now he would see Troy and the Discoveror would be his. His forefinger tapped the tip of his cane. He saw the tearful reunions, the vain platitudes of business contacts, the weary - glad to be almost home...

Trevaylen's face gradually darkened as passenger after passenger claimed their luggage - and there was no sign of Benjamin Troy.

***

"Are you crazy!" Nigel instinctively pulled on Sydney's arm, examining her hand for damage.

"Nope." Sydney flexed her fingers, reassuring Nigel and herself that she was all right.

Nigel fixed her with a stern gaze. "Don't ever do that again." he said. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Guess we really are even then." Sydney smiled. She turned to the hole she had made in what was now revealed to be a false wall.

"Wow." Claudia stepped up to the wall and flicked the tattered remains of the material. "You can go through walls!"

"Only in an emergency." Sydney smiled.

Mrs Cameron gripped the painted backing and pulled. "Hess must have been very well prepared." she said dryly. "Shall we get on?"

Claudia took the other side and between them, they ripped apart the flimsy ply-wood structure and cotton material. When the opening was large enough for them to step through Claudia and Mrs Cameron instinctively stepped back, allowing Sydney and Nigel forward.

"Wow." Nigel whispered as he entered the gap.

***

Troy belted into his television-repair-van cum spy-central. "Where are they?" he demanded.

Marcel raised his hands, palm up, in a classic gesture of confusion.

"Damn!"

***

Now this was more like it. High, smooth rock-walls, so high that none of the torches could pick out the ceiling. A clean, sandy floor that obviously had not been disturbed in decades. And a shoulder-high plinth standing free in the centre. The torches focused on the top of the plinth picking out a squat, dull stone.

"I thought the Discoveror was some kind of crystal?" Claudia questioned.

The four moved closer to the plinth and took up stations around it shining their torches to keep it lit.

"Oh my God." Mrs Cameron whispered slowly.

"This is not the Discoveror itself, Claudia." Nigel gently traced the ancient carvings on the stone. Highly stylised pictures of plants and animals wound over its surface and sides.

Sydney reached out her hand and brushed one of the pictures, a deer she thought. "They look almost Incan," she muttered, "but that can't be right. Celtic?"

Nigel silently nodded, still enraptured with the find. "I can't believe it's all true."

"What's true? If this isn't the Discoveror what on earth are we doing here?" Claudia sounded a little peeved.

Sydney looked at Nigel quizzically. "Well, Nigel? It is beautiful. But its not what we came for."

"Professor Fox, don't you realise what this is?" Mrs Cameron finally stepped up to the stone and laid a reverent hand over the top with a sigh. "This," she tapped her fingers lightly, beginning to smile, "this is the real 'Stone of Destiny'."

Sydney looked at the stone incredulously. "Nah. It can't be. I've seen the Stone of Destiny and it did not look anything like this!"

"But it is, Syd!" Nigel laughed openly. "It is also, possibly, the oldest practical joke in the world!" He and Mrs Cameron shook hands delightedly over the stone both giggling.

"I never thought I'd see the day when a Scotswoman and an Englishman would be shaking hands over the genuine Stone of Destiny!" Mrs Cameron wiped a tear of laughter from her eye.

"I don't get it." Claudia said flatly.

Sydney shrugged. "Neither do I. I know that the Stone of Destiny was the Scots' coronation stone. Every Scottish monarch was crowned on it. Edward I stole the Stone in 1297. He took it back to London and had it incorporated into his own throne. It stayed in Westminster Abbey for the next seven hundred years and it was finally returned to Scotland when the Scottish Parliament reopened in 1999. End of story."

"Ah, but its never the end of the story. The Scots had a legend that the monks at Scone Abbey knew that Edward Longshanks was on his way. And they hid the Stone of Destiny and replaced it with a worthless piece of granite. That's what Edward took back to England. Sneaky, huh?"

"Very." Claudia sniffed. "Hey, watch out!" She stepped back hurriedly as Nigel crawled around the base of the plinth running his fingers over the rock.

"Oops, sorry! Excuse me, coming through."

"What are you doing now?"

"It's all coming together, Syd. It came home after all. And the 'Giants' of course!"

"I think Nigel has officially lost it." Claudia opined.

Nigel ignored her. "Syd, remember what Napoleon said? 'The Giants kept their secrets of the resting place.' Now what else did Napoleon call 'Giants'?"

"I take it he was not talking about the New York Giants."

"The Pyramids, Syd! The Pyramids of Giza."

"What, are we going to Egypt now?" Claudia was frustrated. "This is some detour!"

"And Mrs Cameron how did the Scots get their name?" Nigel continued to tap at the rock.

"Mmn? Oh well, there are a number of theories. From the Latin for 'pirates'..."

"No. How did the Scots SAY they got their name?"

"Oh, erm. Oh yes. A Celtic king married an Egyptian princess called 'Scota'."

"And her dowry was?"

"Well, the Stone of Destiny, of course and..." Mrs Cameron's face cleared as she realised what Nigel was getting at, "... the 'Eye of Ra', the key to all wisdom - the Discoveror. Do you need a hand there, Mr Bailey?" She dropped to her knees to start checking the other side of the plinth.

"Now I'm lost." muttered Claudia.

"It's plausible." Sydney considered. She stepped up to start examining the Stone of Destiny itself.

"Wait a minute. Just hold on." Claudia stepped back making braking motions with her hand. "You said the Discoveror had been taken all over the world. If it belongs in Egypt why bring it back here?"

"Because they got it wrong. The Romans took it to break the fighting spirit of the Picts. Constantine sent it away for safety. Only Napoleon had the right idea. He realised it was not enough to possess the Discoveror on its own. For its true power you needed to find its 'resting place'. That's what he was doing in Egypt."

"And that's why Hess brought it to Scotland. He was not coming to sue for peace. He was bringing it 'home'." Sydney paused. "Good grief, if Hess had been right and transferred the power, Hitler would have been invincible."

All three relic hunters halted their search for a moment, contemplating the sobering thought.

"Let's be grateful that Hess was not such a good researcher as Mr Bailey." Mrs Cameron said lightly.

"So what will we do when we find it. Take everything back to Egypt?"

"No! The Stone of Destiny belongs here, in Scotland!" Mrs Cameron said with some heat.

"As I understand it, it's just a wedding present. Maybe it should go back to the original owners. Why keep it here?"

"Thousands of years of tradition. That's why it's staying here!"

Sydney and Nigel exchanged wary glances. "Um, ladies? Why don't we find the Discoveror before we start arguing about it?"

"Of course you're right, Mr Bailey." Mrs Cameron nodded to Claudia. "My apologies."

"Ditto."

"I think I've found it." said Sydney. She peered more closely at one of the short ends of the stone. The others crowded around to look. Sydney shone her torch at one of the pictures. "See that? Look at the eye of the deer. It's in the Egyptian style. That's called the eye of Ra too."

"I've seen that before, Syd." declared Nigel. He crossed to the other side of the stone. "There's another one here. It's an identical picture." he said excitedly.

"I guess this is the lock then. Okay, Nigel on three, press on the eye. Ready?" Sydney collected a nod from Nigel. "One. Two. Three!" Sydney pressed forward, she could see Nigel doing the same.

Nothing happened.

Sydney's puzzled eyes met Nigel's disappointed ones. "It must be something else then."

Then they all heard a low sound, the grumble of rock on rock. Claudia looked around nervously. "Now I know that's not thunder, it's probably not water, what is it?"

Sydney and Nigel stepped back from the Stone of Destiny in wonder as the relic began to rise from the plinth, balanced on two cylindrical stone pins. Cracks appeared at the sides and a line appeared across the top of the stone and then it split open like the petals of a flower, coming to rest on the plinth with a dull thud.

"Gosh."

"Wow."

"My word."

"It's beautiful." Sydney breathed.

All four stepped up close, keeping their torches trained on the Discoveror, almost afraid that it would be lost again if the light went out. They stared at it in awe. As Sydney said it was beautiful.

It was pale crystal, almost transparent, moulded into a perfect pyramid shape. The inside of the crystal seemed to catch the light in its many facets, absorbing it until it glowed with a soft yellow tone.

"Well we found it. What do we do with it now?" Claudia demanded.

Sydney gave her a warning look. "Go on, Nigel. Why don't you do the honours?"

Nigel glanced at her doubtfully, Sydney gave an encouraging nod. Nigel took a deep breath and ran his finger down the side of the crystal. "So smooth, like glass." he whispered. Then steeling himself he reached forward and plucked the Discoveror from its bed, hefting it in his hand.

Immediately the plinth shuddered and all four jumped back. The pins of stone started to sink back into the plinth closing the Stone of Destiny as they lowered. But it did not stop there. The entire plinth started to sink into the ground until all that was left was the blank floor. All that was left was the top of the plinth fitting snugly into the ground.

Mrs Cameron silently kicked some of the sand over the bare rock until it looked like the rest of the ground. "Well. That takes care of one problem. It looks like the Stone of Destiny wants to stay here." she said. "But I think the Discoveror would be better off in a museum. That, or find its proper resting place."

"I agree." said Sydney. "It would not be safe here anymore, that's for sure. Do you think you can find the 'resting place', Nigel?"

Nigel tore his eyes away from the Discoveror. "Sure." he said easily. "No one's looked for it in two hundred years. It shouldn't be a problem."

"That's what I like to hear. Confidence!" Sydney grinned.

"If we're finished here can we please go?" asked Claudia. "This place gives me the creeps."

"Certainly, my dear. I, for one, could do with a nice hot cup of tea. Any takers?"

"Yes please!"

Nigel carefully wrapped the Discoveror in his scarf and placed it gently in his pack.

"Don't lose it." Sydney stage-whispered.

"I don't intend to!" Nigel grinned. He took a last look around the chamber and then followed the others out.

***

Mrs Cameron unlocked her front door. "Come in, come in. Let's get that kettle on!" She opened the door to her sitting room and flicked on the light. "Milk, no sugar for you, Professor, is that right?" Mrs Cameron froze in her tracks as the chair behind her desk swivelled around.

Benjamin Troy sat indolently in the chair, his revolver aimed unwaveringly at the stunned group.

Behind them, Marcel quietly closed the sitting room door.

"We have some unfinished business." Troy smiled.

***

TBC