Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

Had the Voynich manuscript and the strange musical instrument, which evidently held the key to unlocking its secrets, traveled on the Silk Road from Europe to China? Had the manuscript traveled back again?

It was another variable, and one that didn’t square with the carbon-dating of the Voynich manuscript to the 1400s, but it would place the device and the Voynich script nearly fifty years ahead of the outbreak of the Black Death.

“What else did you find? Was there anything that might explain where this artifact originated?”

There was a sound that might have been a sigh. “Just stick to deciphering the code, Ms. Therion. I’ve already investigated all the other angles.”

“It’s a musical instrument,” she blurted. “Did you discover that in your investigations?”

A long silence followed. “A musical instrument, you say? Could it be an organ of some kind?”

“Yes. A primitive one.”

“Some of Guo’s writings refer to an ‘urghan’—something he took as spoil from the siege of Baghdad. It’s a Persian word and possibly the root word from which we get the name ‘organ.’”

Baghdad. Iraq again. The search was bringing her full circle.

“I need to see everything you have on this urghan. If I am going to crack this code, I need to rebuild the thing.”





TWENTY-ONE


“King, this is Irish, over.”

In the front seat of the rented Ford Galaxy minivan, King keyed his throat mic. “This is King. Send it.”

“We’re moving out now.”

King consulted his mental map of the area in which his team would execute the raid—an image that had been burned into his brain during the hours spent planning the op—and visualized Parker’s vehicle concealed a hundred meters or so off the main road, about five miles southeast of the objective. “Roger. Radio checks every half hour. King out.”

In his mind’s eye, he saw Parker and the two snipers—‘Dark’ Meyers and ‘Race’ Banion—moving like dots across the terrain map. Their job was to rendezvous with Shin Dae-jung and establish over-watch positions around the compound. King would be leading the main assault force up the single road that connected the compound with the main highway.

He’d felt a twinge of regret at assigning his friend to lead the recon team. He and Parker had been working together for a long time. They were like brothers, and it felt strange to be going into a potentially hairy situation without Parker at his side, especially on a mission like this, where they were practically flying by the seat of their pants. But recon and over-watch was just as important to success as the assault, and there wasn’t anyone he’d rather have watching his back. Besides, it was a foregone conclusion that Parker would be his top NCO in the new team, and this was a chance for his friend to show his abilities as a leader. King had no doubt that Parker was up to the challenge.

He was less certain about his own ability to take the reins of command, especially with the motley group crammed into the Galaxy that now sped along the main highway out of Mandalay, traveling east into the deepening dusk. Zelda Baker—who thanks to their ‘sparring match’ now looked like a supermodel on her way to a domestic violence shelter—was at the wheel, a logical choice given her familiarity with the country and its roads. King sensed that she was secretly pleased by the invitation to join the new team, but it was just as obvious that she didn’t yet trust him. She wasn’t happy to have been handed over to him like a trophy of war.

Behind him, Tremblay chattered away easily, bemoaning the fact that he had been unable to find replacement ammunition for his recently acquired Desert Eagle pistols, and generally throwing out observations about the scenery and one-liners that weren’t nearly as funny as he seemed to believe.

King liked the solid Delta shooter and his ability to shrug off the uncertain and ever-changing circumstances in which they all now found themselves—that kind of adaptability was essential to special ops, but he wondered if Tremblay was bottling up negative emotions deep inside, hiding the grief at having lost two of his teammates behind a fa?ade of humor. He worried about what might happen if and when that bottle finally overflowed.

Still, he preferred Tremblay’s near-constant monologue to the implacable silence of the other three men in the van. He’d served with Casey Bellows for over a year, so he was used to the man’s reserved nature, but he couldn’t say the same for the other two: Travis “Silent Bob” Roberts, Tremblay’s teammate from Alpha team, and Erik Somers.