Charlie Thorne and the Curse of Cleopatra Page 2

  It was in Ahmet’s office at the more private end of the penthouse, where the bedrooms were. The door had a simple lock that Charlie picked with a hairpin in twenty seconds. Then she stepped inside and locked it again behind her.

  The walls of the room were thick and soundproofed, immediately reducing the raucous noise of the party to a distant murmur. A security camera was mounted at the far-upper corner of the room, facing the door; Charlie couldn’t do much about it except keep her head down so that there wouldn’t be a clear view of her face—and hope that if anyone was monitoring the system, they were too distracted by the rest of the party to notice her.

  The office was designed in traditional Western fashion, with a large oaken desk and built-in bookshelves. There was nothing on the desk, save for an unused notepad and a desk calendar that still showed April, even though it was June, indicating that Ahmet didn’t do much work in there. And there were very few books on the shelves, two of which were upside down, indicating that Ahmet didn’t read much either. Instead, the shelves were mostly lined with pieces of art: sculptures and bits of pottery, some of which were tacky junk, and some of which were incredibly valuable.

  The wall opposite the desk was dominated by a large, garish piece of modern art. The tablet Charlie was looking for was mounted to the side of the artwork, toward the corner, as though it wasn’t important.

  Still, it took Charlie’s breath away.

  Because Charlie, unlike Ahmet, knew what it was.

  In Ahmet’s defense, the tablet didn’t look very impressive. It was a pale slab of sandstone into which words had been crudely etched in Latin, and so old that the surface had been worn down, leaving much of the inscription only faintly visible. Furthermore, it was broken; a thin crack split it from top to bottom, and its edges had crumbled away, leaving the sentences—and many of the words—incomplete. As a result, even though Charlie knew Latin, she still couldn’t fully translate the text.

  The tablet was mounted to the wall with steel brackets. As Charlie had noted in the magazine photos, Ahmet hadn’t even bothered to put it in a protective case.

  Which was good, because Charlie needed to touch it.

  She snapped a few photographs with her phone first, but assumed those wouldn’t tell her everything she needed to know. The photos could barely capture the faint words, let alone the texture of the stone.

  To do that, Charlie removed a roll of thin, almost translucent paper from her dress, as well as a stick of red graphite. Then she set to work creating a rubbing. She unfurled the paper, pressed it firmly against the tablet, and then dragged the graphite back and forth across it. Wherever the paper touched the stone, the graphite left a coating of red, while the places that were sunken, like the etched words, remained white. In this way, Charlie was able to duplicate the tablet on the paper. The technique was simple but effective; even the faintest words on the tablet were easily readable on the rubbing. Although Charlie feared getting caught, she didn’t rush, making sure her rubbing was as accurate as possible; any mistakes she made in haste could alter the message left in the stone.

  She was almost finished when she heard the office door rattle. Someone was putting a key in the lock.

  There was no place for Charlie to hide. All she could do was back away from the tablet and drop the rubbing and the graphite in a wastebasket beside the desk.

  The office door opened, and Ahmet Shah entered. He froze in surprise upon seeing Charlie in his private office. And then his surprise turned to suspicion.

  “What are you doing in here?” he demanded in Arabic.

  Despite her fear, Charlie smiled at him brightly. “It’s a funny story…,” she began.

  TWO

  CIA headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  Six thousand miles and seven time zones away, Jamilla Carter was having her final lunch as director of the CIA. To her great annoyance, she was being forced to spend it with the man who was replacing her.

  They were eating in Carter’s office, which wouldn’t belong to her much longer, having sandwiches that Carter’s assistant had brought up from the commissary. Carter would have preferred to have her final meal as director in the Agency’s executive dining room, which was far more comfortable and served a poached salmon that she loved. But she wanted privacy today, because she was still somewhat embarrassed about being fired—and because their topic of discussion was extremely classified, even within the CIA itself.

  Carter was briefing her replacement on Charlie Thorne and Pandora. And how the operation to recover both of them had failed. Which was why she had been dismissed from her job two weeks earlier by the Director of National Intelligence.

  The office was large, as befitted the director of the most important intelligence agency in the United States, if not the world. It was on the top floor of the headquarters building, with a sweeping view of the Agency’s forested grounds, which were lush and green with summer foliage. There was a great, imposing desk, a sitting area, and a small conference table, where Carter was now dining with Arthur Zell.

  The classified files concerning Charlie and Pandora were spread out on the table before Zell. He was so engrossed by them, he had only taken two bites of his sandwich in the past fifteen minutes.

  Zell said, “Let me see if I have this straight: Pandora is an equation that was devised by Albert Einstein. It explains how to access the energy within an atom cheaply and easily, which could solve the world’s energy problems…”

  “Or allow almost anyone to build a nuclear bomb,” Carter finished. “Which is why we didn’t want it getting into the wrong hands.”

  Zell chuckled nervously. “Makes sense.”

  Unlike Carter, Zell had not worked his way up through the ranks of the CIA to get this job. He was a political appointee, a middling congressman who had risen by making friends in all the right places. Carter didn’t trust him one bit. Although Zell had been nothing but friendly to her, she suspected that the moment she was out the door, he would immediately try to take credit for all her successes (of which there had been many) and blame all his failures on her.

  Carter said, “Einstein recognized how dangerous Pandora was and didn’t think humanity could be trusted with it. So he hid it, hoping that people would be able to handle it better in the future. He originally constructed a complex series of clues to its location but then had second thoughts and tried to ensure that Pandora was never found. He almost succeeded. The equation remained hidden for decades—until a few months ago, when we became aware of a terrorist organization known as the Furies that was closing in on Pandora’s location. Faced with this news, I made an…” Carter paused for a moment to consider her words. “… unorthodox decision.”

  “Operation Hope,” Zell said.

  “Correct.” Carter went on to explain how a young, innovative agent named Dante Garcia had come to her with a proposition: The best way to find something that Albert Einstein had hidden was to recruit someone who was as smart as Einstein. Dante even had someone in mind: Charlie Thorne.

  “A twelve-year-old girl,” Zell said, disdain evident in his voice.

  “She’s not a normal twelve-year-old girl,” Carter told him. “Her IQ is off the charts, she speaks at least fourteen languages, she has a photographic memory, and she was acing college courses in theoretical physics without even bothering to show up for class.” She glanced at her calendar. “And, as of today, she’s no longer twelve. She’s thirteen.”

  “Still,” Zell began dismissively, “I’ve got kids that age, and I wouldn’t trust them to load the dishwasher properly, let alone protect the safety of the planet.”

  “This was not a decision that was made lightly. Desperate times called for desperate measures.”

  “But it ended in failure.”

  “It did not,” Carter said curtly. “With the help of Thorne and Agent Milana Moon, Garcia prevented the Furies from obtaining Pandora and neutralized the group.”

  “And yet, from what I understand,
Thorne escaped with Pandora.”

  “There were complications, as is the case with any mission. The fact is, if it hadn’t been for Thorne, Pandora would have been lost forever. Einstein’s copy was destroyed, but Thorne still has one.”

  “Where is it?”

  “She memorized it.”

  Zell’s eyes widened in surprise. “Do our enemies know?”

  “We believe that the Russians do. And maybe others.”

  “So then, this girl might be the most powerful asset in the world.”

  Carter hesitated a moment before answering. “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “We have a few. Garcia and Moon are still on the case, although it’s off the books.” Carter went to her desk, unlocked a drawer, and removed another classified file from it, which she brought to Zell. It was marked PROMETHEUS. “Although we failed to contain Thorne, Operation Hope led to a success that we hadn’t anticipated.”

  Zell opened the classified file. Inside were dozens of photographs of what looked like math problems.

  Carter explained, “Einstein had devised an ingenious code to hide his clues to Pandora. What looked like mathematical equations were actually encrypted messages. Once Thorne cracked the code, I suspected that perhaps there were other encoded notations throughout Einstein’s work, which had been overlooked. So I deployed a team of agents across the globe to comb through all of his papers.”

  “And you found something?”

  Carter flashed a proud smile. “Einstein wasn’t the only great scientist who concealed a landmark discovery. It has happened repeatedly throughout history. Einstein had been researching them…”

  “But how did he know about them?”

  Carter shrugged. “It’s unclear. Our best guess is that the information was passed down by the great thinkers themselves—as though there has been an exclusive society throughout the centuries, tasked with making sure these secrets stayed safe. Or maybe, as usual, Einstein simply noticed things that other people didn’t. Whatever the case, he detailed the starting points to tracking down many of these discoveries.”

  Zell flipped past the photos to some other documents, each stamped CLASSIFIED multiple times: the translations of Einstein’s notes. Zell’s jaw dropped as he skimmed through them, noting the names of the great historical figures who had hidden their findings. And yet, as badly as he wanted to believe what Carter was saying, disbelief nagged at him. “This can’t possibly be true.”

  “We have no reason to doubt it. As well as some evidence to back it up.”

  “What?”

  “Two months ago, Garcia and Moon caught up to Charlie Thorne in Ecuador. Together, the three of them uncovered evidence backing Einstein’s claim that Charles Darwin had made a landmark discovery in the Amazon.”

  “What was it?”

  “Sadly, that remains unknown. The team found a few clues but ultimately lost the trail. And they had some unexpected interference from Russian intelligence.”

  Zell sat forward, concerned. “Were the Russians after Darwin’s discovery—or Pandora?”

  “Pandora. Thankfully, they failed to capture Charlie, but their actions allowed her to escape…”

  “Again?” Zell snorted. “Are you sure Garcia and Moon are up to this task? They’ve lost this girl twice now.”

  Carter bristled. “They’re two of the best agents the CIA has. Read their files if you don’t believe me.”

  “I’ve read them.”

  “Then read them again. Like I said, Charlie Thorne is no ordinary girl. Not only is she brilliant, but she has extensive financial resources.”

  Zell looked to her curiously.

  Carter explained how Charlie had managed to steal at least forty million dollars from the Lightning Corporation via cybercrime—although, in Charlie’s defense, Lightning had stolen something from her first: a computer program she had written as a child that had ultimately earned Lightning considerably more money than the millions Charlie had stolen. Charlie had covered her tracks well—but not well enough. Dante Garcia had suspected she was the thief and used that information to blackmail her into working for the CIA.

  “How did he figure out it was her?” Zell asked.

  “Garcia had inside information about Charlie. He’s her older brother. Well, half brother, really.”

  Zell dropped the Prometheus file on the conference table. “They’re siblings? You can’t possibly keep Garcia on this operation! He has a conflict of interest!”

  “Maybe, but he’s still the best person for the job. I can’t task some random agent to work with a thirteen-year-old girl. Plus Garcia knows Charlie better than anyone else. In fact, he thinks he knows where she is right now.”

  “Where?”

  “Egypt. Looking for whatever Cleopatra hid.”

  “And why does he think that’s the case?”

  “He believes Charlie feels a connection with Cleopatra.”

  “A gut instinct isn’t much to go on.”

  “That’s still more than we’d have with anyone else.”

  Zell nodded thoughtfully. “Obviously, I’ll need to know how you stay in contact with your operatives on this mission. I want to get a message to Garcia and Moon right away.”

  “What do you want to tell them?”

  Zell gave Carter a pitying look. “I’m sorry, Jamilla. But since you only have a few hours left as director, I’m afraid that information is classified.”

  THREE

  Giza, Egypt

  Even though Charlie Thorne was smarter than almost anyone who had ever lived, she often found it was to her advantage to let people think she wasn’t smart at all. People tended to be more relaxed and talk a lot more when they thought they were more intelligent than you.

  Sadly, it was quite easy to fool people in this way, especially men; Charlie had discovered that most men tended to assume they were smarter than women anyhow.

  “I was looking for the bathroom,” she told Ahmet, using a slightly more high-pitched voice than normal. She spoke in English, which she knew he understood, and kept her hands loosely balled into fists, so he couldn’t see the red graphite on her palms. “But I ended up in here instead.”

  Ahmet’s suspicions quickly began to fade, although they didn’t entirely go away. “Wasn’t this room locked?”

  “If it was, then how could I have gotten in here?” Before Ahmet could usher her back out, Charlie turned her attention to the tablet on the wall. “I was going to leave, but then I noticed this. Why do you have this old piece of rock on your wall? Is it important?”

  “My great-grandfather used to think so. Many years ago, he paid a lot of money for it.” Ahmet came farther into the room, staring at the tablet as though he hadn’t noticed it in a long time. He had a glass of scotch in his hand and was slightly unsteady on his feet; this obviously wasn’t his first drink of the evening.

  The office door swung closed behind him, although not all the way, so that the sound of the party still filled the room, forcing Charlie to raise her voice to be heard.

  “How much money?”

  “I’m not sure. But it was plenty.”

  “What did he think this was?”

  “A message from Cleopatra.”

  None of this was a surprise to Charlie, although she had only been guessing at the truth up until this point. So it was nice to receive confirmation that what she had deduced was correct.

  Two months earlier, Charlie had hacked into the CIA’s computers and accessed the translations of Einstein’s notes. According to those, a stone tablet rumored to bear a partial inscription from Cleopatra had been discovered on an archaeological excavation of an Isis temple near the Red Sea in 1947. The inscription didn’t make sense, which led Einstein to believe it was a clue to something important that Cleopatra had hidden. The tablet was supposed to be delivered to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo—but the caravan delivering it had been robbed by bandits en route and the tablet, along with several other a
rtifacts, was never seen again.

  The story had been big news at the time; the tablet was even rumored to have been cursed by Cleopatra. However, over the decades, the tale of the tablet had mostly been forgotten. Charlie had spent much of the last few weeks in Cairo libraries, piecing together what had happened. It was assumed that the tablet had ended up in the hands of a wealthy collector, a fate that was unfortunately common with ancient artifacts, even in the modern day. Thousands of precious items that should have been in museums for everyone to see were instead hidden away in private homes. Back in 1947, the police even had suspicions as to who had been behind the theft: Ahmet Shah’s great-grandfather. But the elder Shah had been wealthy and politically connected, and a full investigation never seemed to have taken place. Instead, the story from the police began to change, which Charlie suspected meant that they had all been bribed to let the case drop.

  Charlie had found photos of the tablet in the original newspaper stories. They were too grainy for her to read the inscription, but she could at least learn what the tablet looked like. Then, figuring that it was still in the Shah family’s possession, she had scoured every photo she could find of their homes until discovering the one where the tablet appeared behind Ahmet, right on the wall she was facing now.

  Despite all this, she pretended to be impressed. “A message from Cleopatra? The Cleopatra? The queen of Egypt?”

  “Don’t get so excited. The whole thing was a hoax.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. Plus, it’s in Latin. Why would the queen of Egypt write in a Roman language?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie replied, although she did. Cleopatra had spoken at least seven languages. The two loves of her life had been Roman leaders, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and with them, she had given birth to four children, all of whom were potential heirs to the Roman Empire. They would certainly have known Latin, so it made sense that if Cleopatra wanted to leave them a message, it would have been in that language.