The Kill Switch (Page 58)

“From some lost cave in South Africa?” Harper added.

“Yes.”

“And you think you can find this cave?”

“I believe so. Before I burned the page that explained its location, I set it to memory. But De Klerk plainly feared this organism, even bestowing it with the ominous title Die Apokalips Saad. He was so frightened that he encrypted his words, couching the route to the cave in obscure terms.”

“Can you recite it now? Give us an example?”

“Here is how it starts.” Bukolov formed a steeple of his fingers as he concentrated. “ ‘From Grietje’s Well at Melkboschkuil . . . bear twenty-five degrees for a distance of 289,182 krags . . . there you find what is hidden beneath the Boar’s Head Waterval.’ ”

Harper didn’t speak immediately. Tucker could almost feel the frustration coming through the speakerphone. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not a damned thing,” Bukolov said. “I tried for a solid week after finding this page. None of the locations are on any map. Not Grietje’s Well. Not Melkboschkuil. Not that Boar’s Head Waterfall. And as far as I could ascertain, there is no unit of measurement called a krag.”

Bukolov tossed his arms in the air. “It’s one of the reasons I called out to you all. Surely you’ve got cryptographers and map experts who could decipher it. Get us on the right path to that cave.”

“I will see what I can do,” Harper said. “Give me a couple of hours—let me do some research—and we’ll reconvene here.”

The line went dead.

As they all headed out, Anya reached an arm toward Bukolov, clearly wanting to talk, to smooth matters between them. When he ignored her, Tucker read the pain in her face, the crush of her posture. She stood in the hall for a long breath, watching the man stalk off.

When she turned away, he caught a glimpse of a single tear roll across a perfect cheekbone.

It seemed betrayal wore many faces.

10:22 A.M.

Tucker used the break to walk Kane amid the courtyards of the embassy. He had been ordered not to venture beyond its gates. The multilevel compound—with its industrial white walls and rows of cell-like windows—looked more like a maximum-security prison than a consulate.

Still, the small gardens inside were handsome, blooming with purplish-pink crocuses and tangled with roses. But best of all, the warm Turkish sun helped melt the residual Russian ice from his bones and thoughts.

Even Kane had more of a dance to his step as he sniffed every corner and bush.

But soon Tucker was back inside, back at the conference table.

“I may have a couple pieces of the puzzle worked out,” Harper announced as she came back on the line. “But I fear until we have boots on the ground in South Africa, the location of the cave will remain a mystery. From these obscure references, I believe De Klerk was trying to hide some meaning or significance that would only make sense to another Boer of his time.”

Bukolov leaned closer. “Understandable. The Boer were notorious xenophobes, suspicious of other people and races, and especially paranoid about the British. But you said you had a couple of the clues solved. What did you learn?”

“It took consulting with a handful of Smithsonian historians, but we may have figured out De Klerk’s reference to krag as a unit of measurement.”

“What is it?” Anya asked.

“During the fighting back then, a common weapon used widely by Boer troops was a Norwegian rifle called an M1894 Krag-Jørgensen. Over time, it became simply known as a krag. The rifle was thirty-nine inches long. If we assume that was De Klerk’s unit of measurement, the distance he described is around 178 miles.”

Bukolov sat straighter, some of his normal spunk returning. “So we now know the distance from Grietje’s Well to the Boar’s Head Waterfall!”

“And not much else,” Harper added, quickly popping that balloon. “I suspect the Boar’s Head Waterfall—where this cave is hidden—is not so much a name as what the place looks like, some local landmark that you have to see to recognize.”

“So obviously something that looks like the head of a boar,” Tucker said.

“And that’s why we’ll need boots on the ground. We need someone scouring that location, likely on foot or horseback.”

“To view the place from the same vantage as De Klerk did in the past,” Anya said.

“Exactly.” Harper shifted the topic. “But to even get there, we need to know where to start, where to set out from. Without that information, we’re nowhere.”

Bukolov nodded. “We must figure out what De Klerk meant by Grietje’s Well at Melkboschkuil.”

“Which brings me to the second piece of the puzzle we’ve solved. The historians determined that there once was a farm called Melkboschkuil, owned by the Cloete family, located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It’s historically significant because the farmstead eventually prospered and grew into the present-day city of Springbok.”

“Then that’s where we must go!” Bukolov slapped a palm on the table. “To Springbok . . . to find this Grietje’s Well. Then it’s a simple matter to measure out 178 miles at a compass bearing of twenty-five degrees, like De Klerk wrote, and look for this Boar’s Head near a waterfall. That’s where we’ll find the cave!”

Is that all we have to do? Tucker thought sourly.

Harper also lacked the good doctor’s confidence. “The only problem is I could find no reference to a place called Grietje’s Well. It’s likely a place known only to the locals of De Klerk’s time. All we’ve been able to determine is that Grietje is Dutch for ‘Wilma.’ ”

“So then we’re looking for Wilma’s Well,” Tucker said.

“That’s about it,” Harper conceded. “Like I said. We need boots on the ground.”

“And I intend to be a pair of those boots,” Bukolov said. “My knowledge of De Klerk may prove the difference between success and failure out there.”

Anya stirred, too, clearly wanting to go. Like the doctor, she was also well versed in De Klerk’s work—and if anything, more stable.

“Understood,” Harper said. “But all this presents one other problem.”

Tucker didn’t like the note of warning in the her tone; even her southern lilt grew heavier.

“If you draw a line from Springbok along De Klerk’s bearing, it puts you squarely into the Groot Karas Mountains—in the country of Namibia.”