Rogue Angel 55: Beneath Still Waters by Alex Archer

Author:Alex Archer [Archer, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2015-07-01T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

IT WAS NEARLY midnight by the time they

arrived at one of the town houses Garin

maintained in the city. Despite the late

hour, the three of them gathered in the

den to continue their attempt to make

some sense out of Hitler’s secret

message.

Garin’s computer system, with its

multiple monitors and touch screens,

made Annja feel as if she was sitting in

the command console of an alien

spaceship, but after a few minutes she

got the hang of it. She fired up a web

browser on each screen, went to the

search engine and typed a phrase into

each.

The “list of places named Christmas”

search returned over 60 million results.

The “list of places named Phoenix”

search returned slightly over 11 million

results.

Annja decided to start with the later.

The very first result was an entry

under the title “list of places named for

the Phoenix.” Clicking on it, she found

two short lists: one for places in the

United States named Phoenix and one for

places in other countries with the same

name.

Annja

dismissed

the

first

list

automatically. As tempting as places like

Phoenix,

Arizona,

and

Phoenix,

Maryland, sounded, she highly doubted

that Hitler would have gotten within fifty

miles of the US mainland in 1945.

That left her with a list of nine other

possibilities,

from

Vacoas-Phoenix,

Mauritius, to Camp Phoenix in Kabul,

Afghanistan. She was immediately able

to scratch off Camp Phoenix, followed

quickly by Phoenix Park in Dublin,

Ireland; the Phoenix Concert Theater in

Toronto, Canada; Phoenix, British,

Columbia; The Phoenix, an opera house

in Venice, Italy; and the Phoenix Cinema

in London, England.

Three possibilities remained: Vacoas-

Phoenix on Mauritius, Phoenix in the

Durban township of South Africa, and

the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati.

Annja called up an online atlas and

put a map of Mauritius on the screen for

the three of them to see.

Mauritius, actually the Republic of

Mauritius, was an island nation in the

Indian Ocean about 1,200 miles off the

coast of Africa. The nearest large land

mass was Madagascar.

The fact that it was an island excited

Annja at first, since Insel Wolf meant

Island of the Wolf or Wolf Island, but it

didn’t seem to go anywhere. Drawing a

line straight east of Mauritius put them

smack in the middle of the Indian Ocean,

and there wasn’t anywhere within four

hundred miles that could even remotely

be called Christmas.

They turned their attention to South

Africa next. That Phoenix was an Indian

settlement that officially became a

township in 1976. Prior to that it had

been associated with the Phoenix

Settlement in nearby Durban, founded by

Mohandas Ghandi in 1904 and used by

him as a base for his nonviolent protests

on behalf of Muslim Indians in South

Africa.

“Ghandi and Hitler?” Paul said. “I’m

not seeing that one.”

Annja and Garin agreed.

They turned their attention at last to

the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati. The map

told them that the Phoenix Islands were a

small chain of islands in the central

Pacific Ocean, just east of the Gilbert

Islands. There wasn’t much to them—six

atolls and a couple of sunken reefs.

But then came the surprise.

“Look!

Christmas!”

Paul

said,

pointing at the screen.

Northeast of the Phoenix Islands was

another island named Kiritimati. Under

the name, in parenthesis, was the subtitle

“Christmas Island.”

Annja stared. “East of Phoenix…”

“…and southwest of Christmas,”

Garin finished for her.

Eyeballing it, Paul stuck his finger on

a spot in the middle of the Pacific

Ocean.

This map showed nothing but water.

“We need a better map,” Annja said

and hurriedly searched for one. She was

able

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