“So the box, and the hidden Tunguska fragment you suspect it contains, must have been tuned in some way to open the continuum to 1941.” Paul was analyzing all this new information, slowly piecing the puzzle together.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Elena, “but here we are. Yet I wondered why. Then I remembered another part of the story of these keys. The Watch knew there was once one hidden in the Elgin Marbles, only we didn’t discover that until it had already vanished, when the damage to the Selene Horse revealed it had once been there. You see, my key might fit into that impression left in the statue like a glove, which is why we knew it might be a very special key indeed. Then here you come in that uniform claiming you were the man who first discovered the key, and the very reason it disappeared.”
“Yours truly,” said Paul. “Guilty as charged. So when all this shenanigans started up again, and my key simply vanished, I came back to try and see if I could find it the very same way I encountered it the first time, in the one location where I knew it must exist—the hold of battleship Rodney. Well you may be interested to know that particular key is also associated with a hidden passage. Because I can tell you where it is. The shaft of the key had numbers engraved on it, and I deciphered their meaning.”
Elena was silent for a moment, then simply stared at him. “Do go on,” she said quietly.
Dorland reached into his jacket pocket and produced a paper with the number clearly printed out: 36.126225, -05.345633. “Unlike the number on the note you found in that box,” he said, “those are spatial coordinates. Why, in our time you could punch them into Google and get a map of the exact location.”
Tovey frowned, “Google?”
“It would take too long to explain just now, Admiral, but please indulge me. Let me make it a little easier for you, since I don’t think we have a nice handy internet connection to 2021. The key from the Selene Horse was targeted to another long time British possession—Gibraltar—a specific place on the Rock, to be precise, deep beneath Saint Michael’s Cave.”
Tovey was lost when the man spoke of an ‘internet,’ but mention of the Rock, and Saint Michael’s Cave brought him right back into the thick of things here.
“Yes,” he said grimly, “a former British possession indeed. That was where the garrison made its last stand. The Germans have it now.”
“Most unfortunate,” said Paul, “because that was one of those nasty little changes to the history. They never took it before the Russian ship went back to 1908 and generated a Heisenberg Wave. In fact, Admiral, this ship was never even built. All this is an altered meridian, and we, my friends, are now riding the edge of that very same Heisenberg Wave, and right into the Chaos Zone behind that Paradox. Who knows how far the zone of instability exists, how many days? Things will settle down again soon, or I can only hope as much.”
“Well this key can hardly matter now,” said Tovey. “It’s lost. We can’t use it, and neither can the bloody Germans. Do you suppose they’ve discovered what it might open? Might they have found that passage beneath Saint Michael’s Cave?”
“I would hope not,” said Elena, “Even if they did, it would take some doing to get through the door. The works I saw at Delphi were heavy titanium alloy, and very well made.”
“Yet the Germans can be very industrious,” said Paul, “and very determined. If they ever did stumble upon that passage, then it would certainly make them very curious. And as we have no way of knowing where it might lead…” The implications of what he was saying now were obvious to them all.
“Well,” Mack Morgan spoke up again, “all the more reason to make sure the Germans lose their lease on the Rock as soon as possible.”
“Here, here,” said Tovey. “Sir Winston has been in anguish over the loss of Gibraltar for months now. We all have. It was the most strategic base outside of England I could name, save perhaps Alexandria and Suez. Yet the loss of the Rock has closed the entire Eastern Med to convoy shipping. Yes Invincible made it through, with the able assistance of the Russians and Argos Fire, but none of our merchantmen would fare so well. I can