The Message - Chapters 6 and 7

Chapter 6

7:30pm, Winchester

A distant rumble of thunder unsettled the silence that hung around the house in Sleepers Hill. Through an upstairs window, a soft, amber light could be seen that broke the darkness; attracting a swarm of midges that gathered at the ledge. Surrounded by a mountainous pile of books, Katie sat crossed legged within her study as she carefully flicked through each one in turn, discarding them into a pile once finished. She was looking for something, she had been all day.

Her Father always sent her books whilst he was working in Zurich, sometimes ten a week. They would range from books on Egyptology to the occasional biography, to paperback fiction. They would always come in batches of more than one, except for the last book he sent. That one came alone and had this strange message in the front. Having taken no notice of the message, she couldn’t remember which book it was and as she searched for it now, she felt that she would never find it.

Picking up another book, her porcelain white fingers flicked through the pages in turn; her bottom teeth gripping her lip as she did so. Nothing, empty. Where is it – she thought. There were no more than ten books remaining in the neat and tidy pile to her right, and probably more than three hundred discarded to her left. She rubbed at her forehead as she begun to realise that she had been wrong. There was no message.

As she picked up the next book from the pile, almost half-heartedly, she nearly missed the familiar hand writing of her Father, placed with a heavy hand in the blackest of ink. She stood up with the book in hand, its rustic leather cover soft in her hand, she walked across the study and over to the desk. Flicking on the desk lamp, she placed the book down and pointed the light at the page of interest.

As she started to read, her brow contorted and her eye’s appeared to strain. Now she remembered that the message had meant nothing to her when she first read it, shortly before her Fathers death. Now, after her chat with Robert – she looked at it again, realising that this message may be more important than she first thought.

Zurich – A3YA2T40I8K8

Scanning the remainder of the book, she felt sure that there must be something else contained within its pages – something else to help decipher this message. Nothing. Looking at her watch, she noticed that time had crept up and that she had promised to be at Anthony’s over an hour ago. He had phoned her a couple of times already, worried about her after the call she made to him earlier on. He had told her to meet him at his studio in town and she decided now, that she was going to go there now.

Wrapping herself in a log, fitted black coat, she made her way to the door. She paused a moment, her hand balancing on the door knob as she seemed nervous for a moment – nervous about leaving the house. A deep breath later, she emerged from the house with the leather bound book wedged safely within the inside pocket of her jacket, and to the sound of nearing thunder she made her way down the enclosed drive and onto the abandonment of Sleepers Hill.

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The rain begun to fall in torrents as Katie reached the bottom of the tree lined hill and approached the bridge crossing the railway line. Cast completely in darkness, this crossing never usually bothered her but for once, she caught herself looking over her shoulders only to find nobody around. Robert had certainly followed her home from the Cathedral this morning, and she hadn’t even noticed him. If what he had told her was true, then these people that were after her Fathers secret would stop at nothing to attain it. And if she was right, then she was walking along this darkened street with the only clue as to where it was.

Stopping at the foot of the bridge, she looked around a final time; glancing inconspicuously over both shoulders. Silence, deserted. Nothing, except for the lone sound of a cat’s meow as he crossed the deserted road behind her. Crossing the bridge, almost sprinting, her mind was filled with the conflicting thoughts of her Father. Part of her wanted so much to believe what Robert had told her, that her Father was in fact still alive. But her other half warned her that she had already grieved his death once before, and that she probably couldn’t survive going through that again if it turned out to be a lie. But still she hoped.

Arriving safely on the other side of the bridge, she turned into the bright street lamps and made her way along the side of Saint Cross Road, thankful for the safety that the hustle and bustle of this busy road brought. Her hair now clung to her coat in wavy, chocolate strands and the rain glistened on her cheeks. So occupied were her thoughts, that as she turned off the main road she had completely forgotten that only this morning had she graduated and celebrated the start of a new life.

Turning the corner, the Cathedral was just visible above the rain drenched rooftops and she saw Anthony standing in the doorway to his studio, mug of coffee in hand.
“Katie!” He exclaimed, as he placed his cup on the floor and ran out into the rain to greet her.
Cuddling her, tightly, he continued to speak. “Why didn’t you let me come over, I have been worried sick about you?”
“Ant it’s fine, honest. I just needed some time to sort a few things out – get a few things straight in my head.”
He smiled as he released his grip on her. “Come on my dear, let’s get you inside.”

As they walked back across the cobbled street, the rain made for a ripple effect upon the pavement as the warmth from the studio greeted Katie like a long lost friend.

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It took her no more than ten minutes to explain to Ant everything that Robert had told her; her Father, the secret, the Messages. Anthony had sat there quiet, hanging onto every word she said.
“And that’s about everything, Ant,” she said, taking a sip of thick, warm coffee from an oversized mug.
He shook his head slowly, his eye’s looking down at the floor. “Do you think you can trust him, this Robert guy?”
“I don’t see why not, he was a good friend of my Fathers.” She placed her mug on the table between them. “And he was right, there was a message.”

Katie moved across the room and retrieved the leather codex from her coat pocket. Moving towards Ant, she handed it to him and told him to open it to the front page. He did so.

“Zurich – A3YA2T40I8K8,” he said deliberately, reading from the title page. “What do you think it means?”
Katie shook her head nonchalantly. “I’ve got no idea. I found the book only moments before I left to come to you, I’ve been looking for it all day.”
“I remember you telling me about this when you first got it. It was just a few days before your Dad died wasn’t it?”
Katie nodded.

Anthony looked up to the ceiling as he silently recited the letters and numbers from the sequence, as if rearranging them in his mind. Finally, after a few moments of thought he dropped his eyes at Katie.

“What is your favourite book?”
She looked at Ant, puzzled as to what he was getting at. “It’s Shadow of the Wind.”
No sooner had she spoken than he was up out of his seat and up the stairs to his living quarters. Katie could hear him traipsing around amongst the carnage of the floor above, searching for something it appeared.
“Got it,” he cried, after a minute or so.
His eager footsteps bounced upon the wooden stairs as he came back into view, clutching a copy of the aforementioned book.
“What are you doing Ant?”
He sat back down, fingering rapidly through the pages. “I’ve just had an idea.”

His eyes were wide, lost, as they scanned the lines of text in the book, before making a note on a small writing pad and turning a few pages on. Katie watched on as he made a few more notes before her curiosity got the better of her and she moved around the table to stand behind him.

“What is it Ant?”

For a moment, he just carried on, sifting through the book and making the occasional note. Finally, he set the book down and spoke.

“It looks like it’s a code. Well, not exactly a code, more like hidden message within the book.” He held up Katie’s codex so that she could see it. “See, the message your Father left you contained groups of four numbers. As you can see there, the first set of numbers is 1-12-5-4.”
“Ok, but what are you looking for in the book?”
“Well, I just had the thought that maybe the four numbers were references to page, line, word and letter. Find the letter for each set of numbers, and you find the code.”
“Yeah, but if you look at some of the sequences, there are only three numbers in some of them?”
“Yeah I know, I am not sure how they work. I’ll have to wait and see what they find.”
“What have you found so far?”
“Well, not a lot. I have only done the first three sequences and as you can see…there are over twenty.” He paused a moment, letting it sink in. “So far I have the letters ZUR.”

Their eyes met and the unspoken words between them said to continue, it was after all the only lead to go on. Anthony quietly carried on paging through the ivory leafs, pausing every now and then to jot down the next letter in the sequence. Eventually, after a period of about ten minutes, he set down the notepad on the table and sat back, sighing heavily.
“Well, have you got it?” Katie said eagerly.
Ant frowned, meeting her anticipating stare. “Yeah, yeah I’ve got it.”


Chapter 7

8pm, Winchester

Pulling up slowly at a safe distance, the shiny black Hummer fell silent as the engine was killed from inside. As it sat there, like a steely shadow, the silence was broken by the clicking of a back door as it slowly opened outwards. Emerging from the darkness of the backseat, he stood up into the dimly lit street, a long black coat draped over his shoulders and a thin, brown cigarette hanging loosely from his lips; billowing thick grey smoke into the amber light. Taking a long, thoughtful look down the darkness of the drive towards the house, he slowly moved around the car as his three accomplices emerged from the car. Giving a purposeful nod of his head, the three men reacted by moving silently down into the darkness of the drive and out of his site. He would await their call on his radio.

Several moments later, he heard the crunch of the splintering of the front door, and in the distance could see a flashlight darting here and there as it disappeared into the house. Patiently, he waited. Eventually his radio cracked into life and a voice filled the airwaves.
“Herr, das Haus ist leer.”
Empty? – He thought to himself. Aggressively throwing his cigarette to the floor, he pulled his coat around himself tightly and made his way into the darkness towards the house.

Stepping over the collapsed, broken door, he moved quickly into the house and met with the other three men; a flashlight illuminating them in the dark.
“Sir, the house is empty.”
He nodded, thoughtfully. Moving around the room, the spotlight following his field of view, he placed his hands behind his back and inspected the place closely.
“We have checked upstairs sir, it’s a bit of a mess already.”
“Did you find anything?”
“No sir, nothing at all.”

Then, his vision freezing on something, he bent over and picked up a white card from the corner of one of the armchairs. “Give me your spotlight,” he ordered to one of the others, snatching it from his hand. Shining the light directly on the card, he read the information upon it.

“She knows,” the General said, directly.