Chapter 27: "We need to talk…"

Juliet gaped awkwardly for a moment, then realised honesty was the best policy here. "I just… I noticed a sort of pattern. Something that was nagging at my mind, so I tried writing it down and, well, here it is." She removed her arm from the book and handed it to Nikko. "I thought it was odd that, given your now obvious connection to the Ring and the fact that you always have some part to play in the finding of the parts of it, you didn't have anything to do with the things we found in Jerusalem and Syria. Dorna showed up for all of those, but not you. Then I realised that, even though at least two of the three sets of finds were related to the Ring, none of them linked directly to it, but to the legends behind it."

"Okay," mused Nikko, scanning the page before him, "but why cause or effect? My abilities only showed up after we put the first three pieces together."

"Did they, though?" Juliet countered, drawing a questioning frown from her old pupil. "Your ability to move things only showed up then, sure, but what about other abilities? Your Dad was on the trail of the Ring back when I was his student, and probably way before that too. He would talk about legends and what if they had just one grain of truth in them that then snowballed into mythic quality. Things like the fate of the Olmecs or the possible placement of Camelot."

"Camelot's not real," interrupted Nikko with a slight laugh.

"Says the guy who moves things with his mind and seems to have some kind of magnetic link to the Ring of Truth?" Juliet pointed out. "How many things have we found that you didn't think existed?"

"Okay, point taken," admitted Nikko, handing back the notebook and holding his hands up in surrender. "But what's this other stuff: the manuscript that you've got linked to the legend and the Jerusalem stuff?"

Juliet looked down at the diagram, a flash of remembrance resurrecting a stab of grief. She hadn't known Ibrahim. She had only spoken to him once, via the satellite phone with Cal and the others before she and he had left Jerusalem. Cal had known him, though, as had Maggie, Vincent and Professor Zond.

"Do you know who Eratosthenes was?"

Nikko tipped his head to one side, surveying the ever expanding contents of his memory. "Dude who measured the circumference of the world, right? Lived in Alexandria? Liked prime numbers?"

"He was a little more than that," laughed Juliet. "He ran the Library of Alexandria for a time, and he read a lot of the scrolls stored there. It was one of the greatest centres of learning and knowledge of its era, possibly the greatest, and Eratosthenes just loved learning. He even described himself as 'Philologos': the lover of learning. But he wasn't just interested in numbers and geography: he read about all kinds of subjects. He was a Jack of all trades. Hardly anything is left of the Library of Alexandria, or of Eratosthenes writings, since it was almost all lost in the fire that destroyed the building. Ibrahim discovered a manuscript – we never did find out how – that he was certain had been written by Eratosthenes himself. That was what we were sent to Damascus to collect, but by the time we got there, Ibrahim was already dead."

"Dorna?" Nikko murmured, only half a question.

Juliet nodded. "We think so."

"So what did you do when you found out?"

XXXX

Just over 6 months ago, 8 days after the fall

The library had that hush that pervades all libraries everywhere. It settled on the air like a blanket, warm and comforting to the bibliophiles and scholars in its embrace. For Calvin and Juliet, however, that familiar and relaxing near-silence had become stifling. Juliet slid her hand over Cal's, easing apart the fingers that had tightened on the edge of the newspaper, crinkling its pages and turning his knuckles white. She could feel his pulse racing in his wrist and see the familiar profile of his face harden into a mask.

"Come on," she murmured, her voice as low and devoid of hissing sibilants as she could make it. "We'd better get out of here."

He let go his hold on the paper, his hand briefly intertwining with hers. As mechanically as any robot, he closed the laptop and packed it away. Beside him, Juliet folded up the newspaper and stowed it safely in her bag. By the time she was on her feet, he was already heading for the door. She hurried after him.

"Cal, slow down!" Juliet complained, dodging through the everyday pedestrians. "Come on: we need to talk and I can't do that if I'm running to keep up with you!"

Wordlessly, Cal slowed his steps. His jaw was still tight. Juliet looked up at him and decided she had better start the conversation.

"We should head to Ibrahim's place," she began, then stopped abruptly as Cal turned to her.

"What for? We know he's dead. Dorna are more likely than not the reason he's dead," he pointed out, almost hitting one of the passers by with an outflung hand. "And if Dorna are behind it, you can be sure they'll have searched everywhere until they found the manuscript."

"Yeah, they'll have searched, but that doesn't mean they'll have found it!" Juliet countered. "They didn't find the map in Paris, Nikko did."

"Well, Nikko's not here and we all know how that ended anyway! Either they've found it and we're too late, or they haven't and they're watching and waiting for us to find it for them."

"Maybe," she shrugged, "but we could at least look! If you don't you know you'll always be wondering, and you won't be the only one: Professor Zond will want to know what happened. He might even want to try and get it back from Dorna, which would be pretty difficult and really awkward if they never even had it in the first place!"

A short growl escaped Cal's throat. He knew she was right. One way or the other, they had to know. With a sigh, he took hold of Juliet's hand and led her across to the nearby park. It was a wide open area, especially at the beginning of February, with short-cropped grass and far-spaced trees making the most of the cloud-diffused sunlight. There were few places to hide from any of Dorna's operatives that may be near, but likewise there were few places such operatives could hide from them. In the middle of the park, Cal halted and dug around in his backpack for their map. He had circled the library and their hotel, but nothing else. Juliet watched his fingers dart across the paper, moving from green space to green space until they found their landmark.

"Ibrahim's apartment overlooks El Jahez Park," he explained. "He showed me the view from it once, when he moved in. Sent a picture of himself and his new view. That's here. It's not far. We'll have to find out more when we get there."

"Do you still have the photograph?" Juliet asked, tracing a route from where they were to where they were headed.

"Not here," replied Cal, shaking his head. "Not without secure internet access. I have a pretty clear recollection of it though."

"Okay," she nodded. "Let's go see what we can find."

XXXX

The team crowded round the table in the main lab, listening intently to the story read out to them by Solomon. There had been expressions of mild surprise when Antarctica was mentioned. With every coincidental adventure, those expressions grew ever more wide eyed and breathless. By the time Solomon reached the end of the tale, even Vincent was obviously aghast.

"How is this possible?" Maggie breathed. "Are you sure Haley wrote this?"

"The code is one Haley and I created, and only Haley and I knew, so yes," Solomon nodded, "I'm sure she wrote this. What I'm not sure about is where she got the story."

"She told me it was a family thing," offered Nikko. "Her mother had told her the stories as a child, the same way she told them to me."

"Except she never got the chance to tell you all of them," sighed Solomon. He smoothed down the edges of the paper, as if through it he could reach out to Haley herself. Finding the legend itself had caught him off guard. He had expected only Haley's letters to him in the pile of coded papers: something he hadn't read in years, not even once since her death. They had been a moment of weakness: of indulgence where he could, for a little while, return to brighter days. He had brought them out with the rest of Haley's papers, but hadn't intended to actually read them. Not really. Perhaps as a last resort, just in case they made some odd reference that might be the missing jigsaw piece that revealed, if not the whole picture, at least enough of it to know what you were looking at. But then he had worked late, fallen asleep at his desk as he had so often used to do, and looked up on waking to see that clock. The ghost of memory had laid her hands on him and turned his mind to the letters, and the desire to hear her voice again had taken precedence over everything else.

"Well, if it was a family thing," pointed out Cal, unfolding one arm to wave at the paper in Professor Zond's hand. He got no further.

"All Haley's family are long gone," said Solomon, shaking his head. "At least all the family I knew about."

"I only ever met her parents," agreed Maggie, "although I think she mentioned an uncle or godfather somewhere."

"Think you can find out which?" Solomon enquired, looking up to Maggie with a hopeful look.

"I can try," she smiled back.

Maggie turned and headed off to her lab. Vincent, a thoughtful expression breaking through his usual impassive mask, also stepped away.

"I believe I may have a lead of my own to follow here," he murmured. His eyes met Solomon's for the briefest of moments, asking and receiving permission he had never really needed quite literally in the blink of an eye.

Nikko, Juliet, and Calvin watched him depart, then looked back to the Professor, ready and waiting for their instructions.

"Cal, Juliet," he sighed, shouldering the yoke of leadership once more, "keep going with that translation. Once you're done, compare it with my transcription of Haley's legend and see what matches. Nikko, you and I are going through this story piece by piece and mapping all the links." Solomon paused as Vincent passed the door on his way out and halted, catching his friend's eye. The Professor winced, sighed and nodded. Vincent moved on. Solomon stood up. "You two will need the large desk here, so Nikko and I will work elsewhere."

"Dad?" Nikko frowned. There were many rooms in his father's house, but the only other table large enough to lay out a world map on was in the dining room.

"Come on," said Solomon, leading his son out of the room. "There's somewhere else we can work, and it's time I introduced you to it."