Unknown 9 by Layton Green (each kindness read aloud txt) 📕

Suddenly Dr. Corwin recalled the wording of the inscription in the ledger. A toast to your wonderful hospitality that left me refreshed for the next leg of my journey.

A toast.

Was the man hidden at the edge of the photo Ettore Majorana? Had he made a special trip to Cartagena, risking the safety of his long-imposed exile, to meet with these two fellow geniuses?

If so, why? What did this mean?

Dr. Corwin studied the handwritten date again. It was almost as if someone had come along at a later time and added it. Alvaro, perhaps? Someone else?

Many questions loomed, but there was one thing of which Dr. Corwin was certain. This photo was imparting a message. Something important.

A toast.

A secret bounty awaits.

Whoever the man in the photo was—and Dr. Corwin believed it was Ettore—one of his hands was raising a wineglass, a toast to anyone clever enough to recognize it.

Did the other hand, resting on the old stone wall just outside that very room, conceal a secret bounty?

   11   

After fleeing through the neighborhood outside the Kolkata Science Institute, Andie and Cal found a taxi stand and jumped into a cab. They asked the driver to take them to a hotel they had spotted near a city park close to the cantilevered bridge over the river. It had seemed like a safe, central area.

Thankfully, their first taxi driver’s warning about unscrupulous members of his profession did not come to fruition, and they were dropped safely at a boutique hotel called the Krishna Palace. A noxious patch of smog hanging over downtown marred the view of the Victoria Memorial across the park.

The lobby was furnished with silk wall hangings, abstract Hindu art, and chair hammocks suspended from the ceiling. Andie liked the vibe, and there were no cameras in sight. Plenty of Western tourists mingled in the lobby, many of them similar in age to her and Cal. She paid for adjoining rooms without even asking the price.

Before they settled in, she used Zawadi’s credit card to withdraw a tidy sum of rupees from an ATM in the lobby. Relieved the PIN worked, they took the cash and walked down the busy street outside, weaving through the vendors and homeless people crowding the sidewalk. By browsing a handful of stalls, Andie managed to purchase some needed items: a new backpack, two changes of clothes, sunglasses, and a headscarf. Cal opted for a baseball cap pulled low, a shirt with a high popped collar, and a pair of oversize sunglasses. She thought he resembled an aging ’80s pop star.

The security presence in chaotic Kolkata was more akin to Alexandria than London. If they could stay out of sight and find the next location on the Star Phone quickly enough, they might have a chance to leave the city undetected.

On the other hand, the Ascendants had found them everywhere they had gone.

Later that night, after dinner in the hotel restaurant, they rendezvoused in Cal’s room. “So talk to me about this yantra thing,” he said as he settled into an armchair with a Kingfisher lager. “Is it anything like a, what do you call it, a mandela?”

Andie unscrewed a half bottle of white wine from the minifridge. “It is actually nothing like a Nobel Prize–winning South African with distinguished white hair. A yantra is, however, similar to a mandala. Both are heavy on the symbology and geometry. I’m sure there’s a correlation.”

“Mandalas are those circular things with shapes inside you see all over the place, right? Hippies made them popular in the sixties, and now they’re on everything from T-shirts to coloring books.”

“That’s right,” Andie said, drinking straight from the bottle. “‘Mandala’ means ‘circle’ in Sanskrit, and it’s supposed to represent the cyclical nature and complexity of the universe. Similar to an ouroboros, come to think of it. But a yantra is much rarer, almost unheard of in the West.”

“So what is it?”

“From what I recall, it’s a sort of mystical diagram. There are lots of different kinds, with lots of meanings. Some people use them as road maps for meditation. Some are used to worship specific deities. In the occult world, they’re believed to convey magical powers.”

“Magic? How does that connect to anything? Seems like a bit of a strange clue.”

“Maybe, maybe not. You’ve heard of that famous Arthur C. Clarke quote about all higher technologies appearing magical to a less advanced civilization?”

“Nope.”

“Well, think about it while I do some research. Personally, I think science is magic. Physics and chemistry are just names for miraculous things we’ve started to figure out the rules to.”

As Cal took a long swig of beer, muttering about techies and millennials, Andie reached for the phone Zawadi had given them and pulled up the web browser. Before she could start searching, he said, “Why don’t we take a step back for a sec?”

“I’m all ears.”

He belched lightly. “I’m about to fire off some inquiries. Quasar Labs, Aegis International, PanSphere Communications, even the Kolkata Science Institute: all that funding came from somewhere.”

“Sounds like a start.”

“Before we go too far down that road, we should also look close by. I don’t want to get blindsided by the obvious.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Think about the Archon. The height, those weird powers of hypnosis . . . What if it’s someone we know?”

“Like who?”

He held his palms up. “Hear me out. I’m just going out on a limb, exploring possibilities. What about Dr. Corwin?”

“No way,” she said, shaking her head fiercely. “He’s not that tall, and he was shot.”

“Okay. I just want you to keep an open mind. Who else could be involved? Platform shoes can add a few inches, you know.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Lars Friedman,” she said slowly. “When I researched him in Durham, one of the articles said he was six foot four and played basketball in college.” She put a hand to her temple. “Oh my God, why didn’t I think of