The Bloodline Cipher (22 page)

‘You've made some progress on the cipher?' Tye asked.

‘I think so.' He looked over to the promenade at the edge of the beach, fidgeting like a dog itching to chase a stick. ‘Well, better get on to Maya …'

‘Guess you had,' said Tye, watching him go and telling herself it was fine. ‘While we'd better jump in a couple of speedboats and get searching.'

Jonah soon found an internet café not far from the grand, colonial-style City Hall. It smelled of fish, and the chairs were sticky, but the PCs were fair spec and the only staff member seemed engrossed in the TV.

He bought ten minutes of time. Then he quickly bypassed the no-uploads protocol, hacked into the timer so it didn't count down and loaded some heavyweight security software to make sure his trail through the web couldn't be traced. Finally he loaded up Instant Messenger; Maya had suggested he message her instead of calling if anything came up, insisting it would be more secure. She'd had that spooky look in her eye that suggested she saw so much more than he did. And with stuff this big going down, he was taking no chances.

Jonah searched for her status and found she was online.

Hey maya
, he typed, and waited impatiently for a reply.

He sent a prod.

U asleep?

Then the little yellow envelope appeared by the Messenger icon. He clicked on the window.

I'm here
, her message read.
How do I know it's you?

Look in second drawer to your left u will find pants

There was a pause. Then she wrote again:

Ugh! What else will I find?

Jonah suddenly realised and swore.
Er … grotty magazine that isn't mine and I never saw before?

Next time let's agree a password. What's up?

What's ROUND u mean. :-)
He paused, smiling like the emoticon he'd typed.
Want to get excited?

Is it the circles?

Yeah some of the overwritten ones are perfect, u cant see where pen stroke begins. But then on others, u can. Check it out

He waited, drumming his fingers on the desk. After so much time spent staring at those bloody overwritten characters, he felt he was finally getting somewhere. And once again, the clue was in the
drawing
of the letters rather than any inherent meaning they might carry – an almost entirely self-reflexive cipher. Jonah found himself wondering about the guy who'd encrypted this. ‘You were a clever old bastard,' Jonah murmured. ‘But maybe not quite clever enough.'

A few minutes passed before Maya wrote back:

The start positions are all in different places!!!!!

Jonah smiled and typed again:
Yep. So we know DEF not normal handwriting. The author cycles through the different start points. It's a carefully
assembled pattern. And that makes me wonder if this really is a ciphertext – v convenient that random encoding allowed for such a pattern
.

There was a pause. Jonah waited impatiently for a response.

OK … you're far enough away over there that you can't come back and hit me
.

He frowned.
Wot u on about?

Promise you tell no one. Not Coldhardt, not Tye, not anybody. Swear it

He shrugged.
I swear
. And pretty soon he really was swearing, as her block of text blinked into being.

Remember I said before the manuscript *might* be plaintext – a written-down version of a hotchpotch of languages? Actually I know damn well it is. It is the written form of an obscure language system derived from a thirteenth-century Sino-Vietnamese dialect – with some other stuff thrown in. My tutor in Russia, the one who disappeared, member of that occult group I do translations for – he spoke a little
.

A few seconds later a fresh message appeared.

Hate me?

Jonah felt so angry he almost killed the exchange then and there. But that would let Maya off the hook too easily. He started tapping hard on the keys.

No wonder u weren't interested in main part of the manuscript. U already knew wot the bloody thing said. Bet u only went to Blackland cos he had a copy of manuscript with appendix
.

That's right … Sorry
.

Then you know what the Bloodline Cipher is!

No
.

Don't dick me around
.

A minute or so passed while Jonah fumed in the corner of the café. Then Maya wrote again.

Tutor thought the Bloodline Cipher was in the appendix only, with the key concealed throughout the bulk of the book. The key to something very powerful. That's why so many have tried to steal or destroy each copy of the manuscript. Blackland's is only copy with appendix intact
.

Why are you so bothered about it?
Jonah typed.

Told you. Don't like unsolved mysteries
.

So what does the main bit say
, he typed crossly.
Or can't u tell me?

I trust you
, came the instant response. Then a lengthy pause. Jonah imagined her, sitting at his desk, picking the right words to put in and leave out. He glanced nervously at the café proprietor – his ten purchased minutes were long since over – but the man was still absorbed in the TV.

Finally, Maya's response came through.

Manuscript gives higher understanding of the meridians of energy about the body. Depending on point of view it is either ultimate medical handbook – or DIY manual on How to Destroy a Human Body. Incredible knowledge
.

Jonah sighed.
And now we find it has an added mysterious pattern
, he typed.

But what does pattern MEAN?
she shot back.

Jonah sighed, feeling the nerves clench in his stomach.
May have to leave that to u to work out. Think gonna be busy

There was a pause. Then she wrote back:

Doing job tonight?

Jonah began to type:
If we find ship before sunset
.

Then he thought twice and deleted the line of text, tried again:

Could tell u. But then I'd have to kill u. See u (I hope)

He logged off and removed all trace of his uploads, then left the café. He stepped out into the bright sunshine, looked down the hill towards the wooded promenade and the indigo swell of the sea. And Jonah wished and wished that it would never get dark that night, while wishing too that this whole business was over.

If Maya was right about what the manuscript contained … then what further powers did the Bloodline Cipher promise?

Maya waited for another message from Jonah, just in case. It didn't come.

Sensing a presence behind her, she turned and started. Coldhardt was standing there, watching her from the doorway.

‘I think it's time we talked frankly,' he said.

Jonah wedged himself into an uncomfortable flip-down seat in the boat's cabin beside the door, the hot stink of diesel in his nostrils, the roar of twin engines deafening in his ears. Whoever thought that taking a trip out on a moonlit sea was romantic had clearly never gone for a three-a.m. jaunt in a ‘tora-tora'.

They'd secured it from a man in one of Zamboanga's sleazier bars, who claimed to be a gunrunner. Some soft, compelling words from Con in Tagalog had him eating out of her hand – the same hand that was clutching his ignition keys just five minutes later.

‘
I've sent him home to sleep with orders to say nothing
,'
Con told them
. ‘
No one will be able to tell what craft we're using
.'

The souped-up fishing boat was maybe sixteen metres long from prow to stern. The cabin was compact and crowded – particularly with a radar set built in as an optional extra. Tye was at the wheel. Motti sat at a table behind her with a stack of maps, marking out their course. But it was Con working the hardest, practically swinging from a handgrip in the low ceiling as she turned between Motti, the maps and
the radar screen, feeding through instructions to Tye, trying to keep her balance as the boat ploughed across the choppy sea. A bright red bulb glared down on the scene; red light didn't mess with your night vision, so your pupils didn't have to readjust to the dark. Out at sea in the seamless, shifting shadows, Jonah supposed losing that advantage could cost you big time.

Feeling about as much use as a fifth wheel, he gathered his black poncho around him and stole outside to see how Patch was doing. Since the boy was hanging over the rail at the side of the boat looking like death, Jonah figured the answer was ‘not so good'.

‘Seasickness or nerves?' Jonah asked.

Patch groaned, then threw up noisily over the side of the boat.

‘Enigmatic answer. Like it.' Jonah patted Patch's back sympathetically and crossed to the prow of the boat.

The night was hot, and the gibbous moon looked paper thin, shining eerily through a black mist of clouds. A few stars glimmered fitfully. The only other light came from distant fishing boats, parked out for the night, their decks lit by coloured strings of globe-sized bulbs hanging overhead.

In contrast, Tye had left their boat's lights switched off because it made them harder to spot, especially at speeds of sixty miles per hour. The bad news was, they would look suspicious if picked up by other ships' radar. There was no good reason for a boat to be speeding at night, only a dozen dodgy ones. Pirates would most probably leave them alone, but the Filipino navy had at least ten ships patrolling the area.
If their paths crossed just one of them, it would be Game Over.

Jonah itched the stupid lump on his neck, and sighed. They were eight miles from shore. It didn't sound like much. But Jonah watched the cresting waves swell and crash over the prow, and imagined floundering through that churning darkness, knowing you had no chance of reaching safety …

Not that safety was waiting ahead of them at the end of this little trip.

Tye and Con had sighted the
Aswang
just a few miles north of where Jonah had predicted after calculating the ship's average cruising time, course to date and final destination. So here they were, ready to sweep in and start marauding like good'uns – without even knowing what treasure they'd be taking away with them …

A wind was whipping up, and the boat lurched. The sound of Patch's heaving carried across the deck, and Jonah decided to go back inside. He skidded starboard to the cabin door, and opened it against the wind. He wasn't feeling brilliant himself.

‘Hope Patch is going to be OK,' said Jonah, joining Tye beside the wheel. ‘Can't see him opening much in that state.'

‘He'll get it together,' said Tye. She gave him an encouraging smile. This used to be her world, he supposed, night after night. It was just routine stuff for a smuggler, but it was going to take more than a smile to make Jonah feel confident.

‘We're getting closer,' Con reported, tapping her screen. ‘This dot is twenty-two miles away, towards the limits of the radar. But if it stays on this course,
and we catch it up no trouble, then it's definitely the target.'

Jonah felt a hard frisson of nerves. ‘What if the navy intercept us?'

‘There's over seven thousand islands in the Philippines, geek, with over half of 'em uninhabited.' Motti didn't look up from his maps. ‘We'll find someplace to hide.'

‘And if
pirates
intercept us?'

‘We mess our pants.'

All too soon, Jonah saw the cargo ship's silhouette loom ahead of them beneath the purple-black contusions of cloud. Their little ship was lurking off the starboard bow, and Jonah stood watching from the deck with Patch and Motti.

Patch looked up at Jonah, pasty-faced. ‘Bet now you're wishing we'd gone for the beach party.'

‘Just a bit. We are sure that's the
Aswang
, right?' But even as Jonah spoke, the clouds parted enough for him to read the plain white legend near the prow. The walls of the ship were thick with great dark continents of rust; the moonlight made them look like old bloodstains.

‘That's what we gotta climb. Maybe thirty metres.' Motti pointed to six rugged-looking launchers he'd laid out on the deck. ‘US navy issue. They use compressed air to send up a titanium grappling hook on a Kevlar line. Noiseless and accurate – and 'cause we all know Patch could only throw his hook about a metre.'

‘Shut your hole,' said Patch. ‘Why's the thing so dark?'

‘Ship that size, if they light up the deck, they can't
see pirates coming alongside,' said Motti. ‘But they're bound to have –'

A massive beam of white light arced out from the side of the ship, raking over the choppy surface. It scanned first one way, then another. Jonah heard the engines stir, felt the ship lurch as Tye turned the toratora, taking them out of range of the searchlights. As they circled round, he saw a spooky, eldritch glow from the port side of the ship, as similar spotlights skimmed the waves.

‘D'you think they heard us?' Patch fretted.

‘Not over the sound of their own engines,' said Motti. ‘Nah, that looked like a routine sweep, more a deterrent than anything else. We're dark and we're small and we're too close for their radar to work properly.'

‘Then they don't know we're here,' said Jonah, hoping it was true.

‘But now
we
know the range of those lights, and that there's someone port and starboard manning those things.' Motti nodded thoughtfully. ‘There'll be a chief mate on board with responsibilities to watch everything for the captain, who'll probably be sat on his ass someplace snoring. As for the rest of the crew … got no idea. A full crew complement could be as many as thirty if this was a working ship. Reckon we'll only find a handful, but they'll have radios and most likely be armed …'