The Exfiltrator by Garner Simmons (read after txt) 📗

six o’clock tolling of the bells in the tower of Salamanca’s New Cathedral announced the day.  Swinging his legs out of bed, Corbett crossed to the bathroom. Lifting the toilet seat, he relieved himself.  Then, turning on the cold faucet he cupped his hands and splashed water on his face.  Drying himself with a hand towel, he stepped back into the room and began to exercise.  A model of intense efficiency, no wasted motion, he worked each muscle group.  Then returning to the bathroom, he shaved and showered.

Dressed in a loose-fitting chambray shirt and linen slacks, he turned at last to his computer. Re-inserting the SD chip, he began to scroll through the images frame by frame, analyzing the suicide attack on Ahmed Abdul-Qadir al-Bakr.  Watching the young zealot defiantly pull the pin on the grenade and rush to embrace the cleric, it seemed clear to Corbett that he had acted alone, no doubt believing that his martyrdom in the Islamic holy war would be rewarded in paradise.  That was of course, he mused wit a grim smile, assuming Allah could come up with 72 virgins.  Shutting down his computer, he slipped it into its case and slung it over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

*****

The Universidad de Salamanca was only a short walk from the hotel.  Passing the twin cathedrals – Catedral Vieja and Catedral Nueva – Corbett could see the plateresque façade of university just ahead, dominated by the carved depiction of Ferdinand and Isabella, rulers of Spain at the close of the Reconquista, whose Inquisitors had so brutally expelled the Muslims and Jews from Iberia in the 15th century.  The so-called Spanish Golden Age.  And there, standing defiantly before the twin portraits of the monarchs, the statue of Fray Luis de Leon, the scholar and poet once imprisoned by the inquisition for translating the Hebrew Bible into Spanish.  The fact that his visage should still confront his accusers 500 years after the fact was surely an irony that de Leon himself would have appreciated.

Stepping through the massive doors of the university’s main entrance, Corbett joined the mix of young men and women making their way to class.  Looking more like a student than a teacher, he walked along the vaulted corridors and up the stone steps.  Passing the rapidly filling classrooms, he finally reached the door bearing Professor Asurias’s name and knocked.

After a long moment, the door opened to reveal Asurias standing there, a cordless phone pressed to his ear.  Seeing Corbett, he motioned him inside while concluding the conversation and returning the phone to its cradle.  To one side, two young male grad students stood looking self-consciously ill at ease.

“Michael, please come in. I’ve been speaking with the police since the moment I arrived.  Are you all right?  First, the airport and now this…” Leaving the thought unfinished, his eyes searched Corbett’s face for answers.  But Corbett merely smiled and attempted to shrug off his concern.

“It’s all right.  Just bad timing.  I’ve checked my room. Nothing’s missing. I must have caught him trying to break in.”

“At least you were not hurt.”

The taller of the two grad students nervously cleared his throat.  Corbett smiled. “These must be our interns.”

Asurias nodded and moved to introduce them.  “Ah, yes.  Please allow me to present Roberto Peña,” he said, indicating the taller one. “He is joining us from the University of Madrid. And señor Karim Akhtar,” Asurias nodded to the second young man, a pencil-necked geek with an uncertain smile.  “Karim is from Oxford.  They have been doing advanced postgraduate research in Photogrammetry and Laser scanning.  They will be in charge of Laser Mapping the cave.”

“Very exciting,” Peña said. “We’ve been running tests with the Riegel VZ-4000 Terrestrial 3-D scanner using modified RiMining 2.0 software.  Really extraordinary.”

“Impressive,” Corbett nodded extending his hand to Peña.  Then shaking Karim’s hand, he asked, “Which college…?”

“Merton.  Do you know it?”  His accent was British with a Pakistani lilt.

“I studied at Magdalen…,” Corbett said.  “But of course, that would have been a bit before your time – closer to the first Crusade.”  Unsure how to take this, Karim glanced at Asurias who quickly added “I believe that was a joke,” he said with a wink at Corbett.  Karim managed a self-conscious smile as the others laughed.

Hearing a soft knock at the door, all eyes turned to find an attractive young woman in her mid-twenties standing in the threshold.  Seeing her, Asurias motioned to her to step forward.

“Ah, there you are,” he said, turning to Corbett. “And this is our American graduate student, Ella Beckwith from Chicago.  She will be responsible for maintaining a complete photographic record of whatever art and artifacts you discover.”

Her hair was a lighter shade of auburn and cut short, giving her a look of defiant independence.  Wearing dark-rimmed glasses and no make-up, she was dressed in a dark blue blazer, white sweater and jeans.  Smiling, she held out her hand.  “Actually, I took my undergraduate degree from Northwestern,” she said as Corbett shook her hand.

“Northwestern…?  Interesting.  I spoke there a couple of years ago at a seminar on Early Man. Did you know Dr. Van der Hoven?”

“He was my advisor.  Your lecture was one of the reasons I changed my major.”

Corbett grinned.  “And you’re still speaking to me?  Encouraging.”  Half embarrassed, Ella tried not to smile.

“Actually, I did my senior thesis on the Galeras, an indigenous tribe from the Brazilian rain forest.”

“A long way from Brazil to the caves of Spain.”

“Not really.  In some ways, the petroglyphs of the Galeras are strikingly similar to several paintings found at Altamira.  Who knows what we’ll find in the Pyrenees.”

“Excellent point.”

“Actually, we were thinking you might join us for a drink this evening,” Roberto suggested.  “Perhaps give us a chance to get to know one another.”

“Sounds good…” Corbett began only to be cut off as