The Secret of Excalibur

‘Bernard somebody. Hold on, I’ve got it here . . .’

‘Bernd?’ Nina said, suddenly intrigued. Maybe it wasn’t a crank after all. ‘Bernd Rust?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Lola replied, surprised, as she plucked a padded envelope from a sorting tray. ‘You know him?’

‘Only vaguely - but he was a friend of my parents.’ Nina took the envelope, opening it to find a DVD-R disc in a plastic case and a single sheet of paper. She unfolded it and read the crisp handwriting.

Dear Nina,

Firstly, I hope you still remember me - it is some time since we last met, at the memorial service for Henry and Laura. Even though it has been over a decade, their loss is still felt, as they were both good friends of mine.

It is vital that we meet in person to discuss the contents of the enclosed disc. Please contact me when you receive this. It is a matter of extreme importance, and it concerns your parents.

Bernd Rust

A telephone number was written at the bottom of the page, but there was no address. Nina checked the envelope. It had been sent by air mail within the last few days, and the postmark appeared to be German.

For a moment she considered returning to her office to examine the disc’s contents on her computer, but a glance at her watch deterred her. Besides, she was taking her laptop; she could check the disc on the flight.

It concerns your parents. What had Rust found? The German was a historian, Nina remembered, and she had learned years after the fact that her parents’ doomed expedition had relied upon secret Nazi documents to follow the trail to Atlantis. Had Rust been the one who provided the papers?

‘Are you okay? Nina?’

She blinked at Lola’s question, for a moment lost in thought. Then she hurriedly stuffed the disc and letter back into the envelope. ‘Fine, thanks. Just . . . yeah, I know him, just haven’t spoken to him for a long time.’ The blonde receptionist still seemed concerned. ‘It’s fine, Lola, really. I’ll have a look at it on the plane. And speaking of which,’ she went on, glad of the conversational segue, ‘I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you when I get back.’

‘Good luck with the family!’ Lola called after her.

This time, Nina didn’t react. She had something else to concern her.

Chase tilted back the seat as far as it would go, then stretched out with a contented sigh. ‘Ah, this is more like it. But I bet if you’d worn that medal at the check-in desk, we would have been upgraded to first class.’

‘I’ve got a gift horse here,’ Nina said mockingly. ‘You wanna look at its mouth?’ As far as she was concerned, business class was more than a good enough free upgrade from their original economy tickets - though she had to admit that when the woman at the counter recognised her and offered to upgrade their seating, the luxuries of first class had been what sprang to mind.

‘Neigh, lass. I’m just going to get some kip. I don’t want to get straight into a hire car after only having two hours’ sleep on a transatlantic flight.’

‘Well, I’m not tired yet.’ They were under half an hour into the overnight flight, and Nina was still very much on New York time. ‘Can you get my bag down?’

Chase grunted. ‘Great. First you demand the window seat, now you’re going to make me get up and down the whole flight.’ But he stood and opened the overhead locker, handing Nina her carry-on bag. She took out her MacBook Pro and the envelope containing Rust’s letter and disc, then handed the bag back to Chase.

‘If you wake me up five minutes after I get to sleep to go to the loo,’ he grumbled as he shoved it back into the locker, ‘I’m going to chuck you out of the emergency exit.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gone out of a plane without a parachute, would it?’ They shared a smile, then Chase returned to his seat as Nina opened her laptop and inserted the disc. After a few seconds it appeared on the desktop. She copied the single file on the disc to her hard drive, then double-clicked it . . . but to her surprise was presented with a password prompt.

So what was the password?

Nina looked back at the letter. Nothing suggested itself - except the telephone number. She typed it in and hit return. The laptop made a warning bleep, then cleared the prompt, ready for another attempt. If the password were some variation of the eleven-digit number, that meant - she quickly did the mental arithmetic to work it out - almost forty million combinations. Never mind the rest of the flight, it would take the rest of the year to try them all. So much for that.

She tried again, using her own name. No result. Then she moved on to her parents’ names, then Rust’s. Still nothing. She’d briefly met Rust’s wife at the memorial service - what was her name? Sabine? Sabrina? Not that it mattered, since neither worked.

‘Are you going to keep binging and bonging on that thing all night?’ Chase complained.

Nina muted the speakers. ‘It’s encrypted, and I don’t know the password.’

‘Why, who’s sending you encrypted files? Is it porn?’

‘No, it’s not porn,’ Nina snapped. ‘I don’t know what it is, actually.’

‘Then it might be porn! Here, let’s have a look.’ He sat up, Nina batting his eager hands away.

‘It’s from an old friend of my parents. He said he needs to talk about whatever’s on the disc - and about them. See, he gave me a phone number.’

‘So call it.’

‘What?’

‘He’s obviously not going to give you the password until you talk to him.’ Chase indicated the side of Nina’s seat. ‘There’s an airphone, give him a bell. Only do it on your own credit card, ’cause it’ll probably be about ten dollars a second.’

‘Cheapskate,’ Nina said with a smile. But it was a good idea, so she found her credit card and made the call. The phone rang several times, then:

‘Hallo?’ said a sleepy yet wary German voice.

‘Hello,’ Nina replied. ‘Is this Bernd Rust?’

‘Who is this?’ All tiredness was suddenly gone, but the voice was now more cautious than ever.

‘It’s Nina, Nina Wilde. I got your letter.’

‘Nina!’ His relief was clear even through the echoing crackle of the satellite link. ‘Yes, this is Bernd Rust, yes! Thank you for calling!’

‘I got your disc as well, but I can’t access it. The file on it is encrypted.’

‘I know. I wanted to be sure that the wrong people could not read it.’

‘So now that the right person’s got it, what’s the password?’

There was a pause. ‘I . . . I can only give it to you in person. Not over the phone.’

Nina immediately became suspicious. ‘Why not? What’s going on?’

‘Everything will make sense when I see you. But I must see you, face to face. Where are you now?’

‘On a plane, actually. I’m flying to England—’

‘England!’ Rust exclaimed. ‘That is perfect, I will take the first Eurostar this morning. Will you be in London?’

‘No, no,’ said Nina, trying to slow things down. ‘I’ll be in Bournemouth, I’m going to meet my fiance’s family —’

‘Bournemouth, I see. I will meet you there, then.’

‘What? No, I mean—’

Rust laughed. ‘Nina, I know this must all seem rather strange.’

Nina’s own laugh was rather more desperate. ‘Uh, yeah! Kinda!’

‘Do not worry. I will not take up much of your time. But I promise you, you will want to hear what I have to tell you.’

‘About my parents?’

She heard nothing but static for a moment. Then: ‘Yes. About your parents.’