“Good-bye Dr. McCauley, Dr. Alpert.”
As they were marched off, they heard the old man repeat the single, simple word. “Secretum.”
Eighty-two
“Do not turn around. Keep walking. No talking.”
The paramilitary soldier’s command was sharp and direct, uncompromising, non-negotiable.
Quinn and Katrina stepped through overgrowth that reached up to their thighs. The swooshing of their feet was the loudest sound, but boots rhythmically filled in behind them.
After two minutes, the weeds gave way to rocks. Now they only heard their own breathing and footsteps. Quinn figured the mercenaries had taken up their final positions. He squeezed Katrina’s hand as they approached the ledge.
“They’re going to make it look like we jumped off,” she whispered.
McCauley glanced left and right, trying to scope escape routes, at least one for Katrina. The landscape was too open for any successful run. “Maybe we can angle toward a soft landing.”
In another minute they were at the shelf. They stopped and faced a two hundred foot drop. Below, sharp boulders and dead trees. Katrina and Quinn looked deeply into one another’s eyes and dared a kiss. A deep, loving kiss.
Quinn didn’t know when or how it would come, but if the kiss was the last thing he’d know, he wanted it to last.
And it lasted. For ten seconds. For twenty. For thirty.
McCauley slowly released Katrina, turned toward his captors and opened his eyes.
They were gone.
Eighty-three
The early morning sun cast long shadows westward. The ground was wet from a late night thunderstorm. A family of turkey vultures squawked overhead. Aside from the birds, the only other sounds that cut across the landscape were the footsteps of four curious explorers.
They walked single file. Each carried a heavy backpack. Two knew where they were going. Two didn’t. Only one of them knew why McCauley was playing Kinks hits on his iPhone — Katrina Alpert.
Quinn McCauley was a great deal more careful now. McCauley was also attentive to a word that had echoed in his mind for more than a month. Secretum.
Katrina was second in line. Like the others, she wore a long sleeved shirt with a hoodie, jeans, and work boots. Her backpack contained even warmer clothes.
Behind Katrina was Peter DeMeo. He was alive, and quite amazingly in love with the Italian woman he’d met at the Vatican. McCauley’s concerns were apparently unfounded.
Last in the line, Al Jaffe, the only member of the summer class McCauley had invited back for this venture.
After trudging through the mud, McCauley brought them to a halt in the middle of the flats. Directly ahead — the hillside. The base was strewn with splintered rocks from the Cessna’s impact. Every piece of the plane had been painstakingly recovered and removed by the NTSB investigators. Remaining strands of police tape that had cordoned off the area fluttered in the light breeze. Soon all traces would be gone.
“The wind and weather are already taking their toll,” Jaffe said softly. “Like you said when we met, Dr. McCauley, we’re just visitors here.”
“No, Al, I was wrong. We’re more than visitors. We’re partners. We have been for a long time.” He pointed at the challenge that faced them. “Let’s see what we can learn about the earth.”
McCauley started walking in the direction he’d indicated.
“Wrong way, Quinn,” Katrina quickly corrected him. “To your right.”
McCauley stopped and smiled mischievously.
“What?”
He didn’t say anything.
“What?” she demanded.
Jaffe walked to her side and also smiled broadly.
“What?” she said for the third time. “The plane crashed there!” She pointed to a slightly different position, off axis of where Quinn was heading.
He walked back to her. “You’re absolutely right, sweetheart. That is where the plane hit, but I gave Al an assignment while we were driving to LA. Research a man named Maskelyne. Jasper Maskelyne. I think you were asleep at the time. My oversight for not mentioning it to you.” He laughed. He hadn’t intended on telling Katrina.
“Dr. McCauley had me look up what Maskelyne accomplished at the Port of Alexandria during World War II,” Jaffe added.
“So?” DeMeo was equally confused.
“Jasper Maskelyne was a vaudeville performer who enlisted in World War II,” McCauley explained. “A countryman of yours, Katrina. He believed his special talents would translate from the stage to the theater of war.”
“A clever turn of phrase. But what talents?” she asked.
“He was a magician,” Jaffe noted.
“A master magician. Masterful in fact,” McCauley continued. “He wanted to demonstrate that trickery had value to the Allies. He believed his illusions could help defeat the Germans.”
“I don’t get it,” DeMeo said.
“Well, neither did the British commanders at first. However, Maskelyne knew how to divert the eye. Deflect attention. Make his audiences focus on something they thought was real, but wasn’t. He was an expert in the art of deception. So to convince the officers, he created the illusion of a large German warship floating on the Thames. He used only a model and mirrors. From a distance and the correct angle it looked real. Absolutely real. Having proven his point, they gave Maskelyne a commission in the Royal Engineers. Soon he deployed to North Africa. For some time he simply entertained the troops. But in January, 1941, Maskelyne was allowed to pull together a team which he called ‘The Magic Gang.’ They consisted of a carpenter and painters, an architect, chemist and electrical engineer, and, this is vital — a stage set builder, all the people he’d need to put on a spectacular show.
“You’ve heard of Erwin Rommel?”
“Of course. He was the German general who rolled across North Africa,” DeMeo answered.
“Well, Maskelyne slowed him down. Rommel was poised to take out a British desert division. Surveillance told him the enemy’s strength and where they would be. Reports were based on aerial observations. Rommel prepared for a strategic and lethal strike, especially because the British tanks were advancing without support. Their supply trucks were heading in another direction rather than sticking with the tanks. As a result, the tanks were exposed; an easy target for Rommel.
“But that was what Maskelyne wanted the Germans to believe. At night, he and his Magic Gang painted and reframed the tanks, disguising them as trucks and transports. They also added cardboard, wood siding and tubing to the actual trucks, masquerading them as tanks. Diversion. Deception. Distraction. Rommel’s spotters saw what they thought were tanks. They went after them, only to leave their flank exposed to the real British firepower bearing down from another direction.”
“Unbelievable,” Katrina remarked.
“Yes, but his masterpiece was Alexandria, Egypt.” McCauley now cued Jaffe to explain.
“His greatest illusion of alclass="underline" the Port of Alexandria. German bombers were prepared to destroy the target. So, Maskelyne moved it.”
“Moved it?” Katrina said incredulously. “How?”
Al Jaffe continued. “The city’s ancient collections were priceless. The libraries and museums were too important to lose. It was the main British base in the region and Alexandria, in particular, held great strategic value for re-supplying oil to the Allies. Jasper Maskelyne did what only a magician could achieve in a short period of time. He moved the Port of Alexandria.”