The Stepping Maze Read online

  Kotler laughed loud enough that some of the grad students and anthropologists in the mess tent looked their way. “That was Schrödinger. And no. But close. Sort of. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is one of the foundational concepts of quantum physics. The principle gets confused a lot with the observer effect, but for the sake of simplicity, we’ll say that’s a fair parallel. Basically, Heisenberg imposes a hypothetical limit to the degree to which certain measures can be known.”

  “Uh huh,” Denzel said, staring.

  Kotler smirked. “It means you can’t know both the position and the speed of a quantum particle because measuring one alters the other. Leaving some ‘uncertainty’ in the mix as you observe quantum effects.”

  “Got it,” Denzel said, yawning and then sipping from his iced tea again. He rose from his chair. “Pack your bags.”

  “Whoa, wait ... “ Kotler protested.

  He looked around. Through an open flap in the tent, he could see the dig site he’d just left. The work wasn’t finished. It was meaningful work. Important work. History lay there, waiting to be unearthed. How could he …

  “Kotler, two lives are in jeopardy here. And whoever did it is playing games. Games you’re meant to solve. You get that, right?”

  Kotler did get it. He just resented it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to pull away from this life for even so much as a breather.

  And yet, despite the frustration, he felt a thrill growing within his chest. There were riddles to solve here. There was a mystery, with its roots in a past that Kotler found fascinating.

  There were human lives at risk, too, and how could he turn his back on them? Forget his personal connection to them, these two men needed his help. They needed these riddles solved so they could stand a chance of rescue.

  Kotler had to go back.

  “I’m already packed,” he said. “Just let me grab my bag.”

  2

  FBI OFFICES, MANHATTAN

  The Historic Crimes division of Manhattan’s FBI headquarters had grown to encompass a floor of its own. Not only were Denzel’s agents given office and cubicle space, but one half of the floor was now dedicated to Liz Ludlum’s forensic lab.

  Kotler marveled at this. Where was the funding coming from? And why was the FBI so enthusiastic about this work? True, Denzel’s close rate was incredibly high. Even the cases that Kotler had nothing to do with were typically closed within a month. Historic Crimes was doing good work. Maybe that was all it was.

  The name still bugged Kotler, though.

  Technically, “historic” meant something was important to history. A landmark or an event could be historic. What the FBI was going for should have been “Historical Crimes,” which meant that the cases they investigated had some significance tied to history and the past.

  Kotler had brought this up when the department was first named, and Denzel had informed him that first, bureaucracy would make it near impossible to change the name now, and second, “Shut up, Kotler.”

  The forensic lab was divided into quadrants, and in a clean room Kotler and Denzel entered to find Dr. Ludlum and her team examining the contents of the government-locked room. The steel tables of the lab were practically buckling under the weight of recovered documents, antique instruments of various description, and a bulk of unidentifiable objects.

  Both Roland and Kotler were wearing clean suits, masks, and gloves, to prevent any further contamination of the evidence they’d collected.

  Ludlum was studying a sample taken from the manuscript.

  “Find anything useful?” Denzel asked.

  Ludlum motioned them over to her laptop and brought up the results of her analysis of the sample. “The paper itself is just shy of a hundred years old,” she said. “There’s enough collected dust and pollutants on it to give us a pretty good idea of when this was put in the room. The typed characters were made with a turn-of-the-century typewriter. Strikers on ribbon. I have scans out with a group that might be able to identify the make and model of the typewriter, though I’m not sure that will be very helpful. Other than that, there’s some evidence of carbon transfer paper being used with it when we test the back side of these sheets.”

  “What about the handwritten stuff?” Denzel asked.

  “Standard number two lead pencil,” Ludlum said. “The handwriting doesn’t exactly match anything in our database, which I expected. We’ve picked up a few fingerprints and some DNA, but nothing helpful so far.”

  “Hi Liz,” Kotler smiled.

  “Dan,” she said, smiling back.

  Denzel coughed. “So we’re at another dead end?”

  Ludlum looked at him and shook her head. “All I can say for sure is that this manuscript is exactly as old as it should be. The ribbon ink from Dan’s name matches the ink from the rest of the manuscript, so it’s reasonable to assume it was written at the same time.”

  “Just pointing out,” Kotler said, “it’s not actually my name.”

  “Noted, Kotler,” Denzel said. “But is there anything about this that might give us some clues? I got a team of engineers and experts trying to find a way into that vault, but even our best effort is going to take a lot longer than these two men have.”

  Kotler huffed, and leaned over the manuscript, turning some of the pages using a pair of tweezers. Ultimately, he flipped back to the cover and examined the handwritten note. “Could apply to stepping maze.”

  “Anything?” Denzel asked.

  Kotler reluctantly shook his head. He looked up at them. “We have a complete scan of this? Something I can take with me, to read?”

  Denzel nodded. “It’s in your inbox, along with everything else we thought might be part of this.”

  “I can forward all of the results of the analysis if you want,” Ludlum said.

  Kotler nodded. “Please. I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but you never know.”

  “You think the contents of that thing will be useful?” Denzel asked.

  Kotler shrugged. “I think the kidnapper thinks it will,” he replied. “Have we found anything on Dr. Daniel F. Kotler?”

  “We have,” Ludlum said, smiling. “I had someone run a search and background. A lot of his record is classified. We have some of his papers and a government file, but a lot it is redacted. We had better luck running his personal and family history. Turns out he was your Great Grandfather, Dan.”

  Kotler’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Seriously? I mean, I assumed we might be related, but that’s a pretty direct line. I’ve never even heard of him.”

  “Maybe you were named for him?” Denzel asked.

  Kotler thought about this. “I really don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t looked that deeply into my family history.”

  Now it was Denzel’s turn to be surprised. “You? I figured you’d have some kind of pro-level account on Ancestry.com.”

  Kotler looked from Denzel to Ludlum, shook his head lightly, and sighed. “There’s … a lot about my family history that I’ve just never wanted to look into.”

  Denzel and Ludlum both studied him for a moment, and finally, Denzel said, “It looks like you may have to deal with this, though. You good for this?”

  “Do you need help?” Ludlum asked.

  Kotler looked from one to the other and sighed. “I do,” he said. “But I think I’d better start by calling my brother.”

  Facetime’s ring was slightly piercing in Kotler’s AirPods, but he gritted his teeth and bore it. He wasn’t sure if the pain was real, or if it was a psychic translation of the slight anxiety he was feeling about this call.

  He was relieved when Alex, his nephew, was the one who answered.

  “Uncle Dan!” Alex said.

  “Alex! I didn’t expect you to answer. I’m calling for your dad.”

  “I can go get him,” Alex said.

  “First, tell me what’s going on with you,” Kotler smiled. “How’s the detective business?”

  Alex operated what Ko
tler called a “boy detective agency” out of an outbuilding behind their home. “Any mystery solved, but it’ll cost you a buck.” He took on local mysteries—stolen bicycles, missing lunch money, that sort of thing. There had been occasional hints of more dangerous cases, and Kotler had lectured Alex at length that he should stick to safe waters. His nephew was a little too like Kotler for anyone’s comfort, however.

  The boy was brilliant, exuberant, and pretty good with a puzzle. Kotler was constantly sending Alex souvenirs and objects of interest, encouraging the boy to keep pursuing his keen interests in science and mystery.

  The two of them had a bond that Kotler knew his brother, Jeffrey, wasn’t entirely thrilled about. Kotler tried to respect his brother’s preferences, but he adored Alex. He settled for being the distant, occasional influence on the boy, rather than dropping in for visits too often.

  “I found a lost book for one of my clients,” Alex boasted. “It was an autographed copy of ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Worth lots of money.”

  “Good work!” Kotler said earnestly. “I’m sure they were glad to get that back. But you’re staying safe when you’re on these cases, right? Not putting yourself in danger?”

  “Never!” Alex replied, with the sort of enthusiasm that Kotler immediately recognized as complete BS.

  Kotler sighed, gave his nephew the usual admonishments about being safe and careful and honest with his parents. “I mean it,” he said, and Alex swore he was being safe. Kotler really had no choice but to take his word for it.

  Now it was time to get down to business.

  “Can you put your dad on?” Kotler asked. “And tell him to use the earbuds.”

  “You got it, but you know he hates those things,” Alex said.

  “Tell him it’s important,” Kotler replied.

  He watched the world go chaotic as Alex raced through the house in search of his dad. There was a brief exchange, some grumbling from Jeffrey as he dug the earbuds out of a desk drawer, and finally Kotler saw his brother’s face appear as if looking down on him from the other side of the screen.

  “Hello, Dan,” Jeffrey said.

  “Jeffrey,” Kotler replied. “You’re looking good. I like the beard.”

  “It itches,” Jeffrey said, scratching lightly at one cheek. “But yeah, I like it. So does Christina. What’s up?”

  Kotler smiled and shook his head. Jeffrey was a nice guy, smart, and very stable. He was the younger of the two of them, but Kotler sometimes felt like Jeffrey was the suffering older brother, tolerating Kotler’s childish antics.

  Jeffrey had plenty of friends, Kotler knew, and he wasn’t afraid to interact with them. When it came to interacting with his brother, though, Jeffrey was guarded. He tended to frown on most of Kotler’s life choices. And though he certainly had as much money as Kotler, following the death of their parents, Jeffrey lived in a modest, suburban neighborhood, and worked the sort of job his neighbors might work. A secret multi-millionaire, living next door to guys who worked as plumbers and women who ran floral shops, completely undercover.

  Kotler would never admit this to his brother, but he admired him for his lifestyle. Where Kotler had decided to pursue an exploration of humanity through history and science, embracing his wealth and living a life of travel, notoriety, and the occasional torrid affair, Jeffrey lived a quieter life, out of the spotlight and contentedly quiet.

  Kotler wished they could have a better interpersonal relationship, but it just wasn’t happening. At best they were tolerant of each other. Brotherly love could carry them that far and no further.

  “I’m helping the FBI with another case, and something close to home has come up. You’re … well, you’re more of a family historian than I am. I was hoping you could help me learn a little more about our Great Grandfather.”

  Jeffrey nodded. “I can send you something with our family tree if you want. And some bios. I’ve managed to track the Kotler family back by about twelve generations, if you’d like to see it. Things get a little sketchy from there.”

  Kotler was surprised. “That’d be great, email me whatever you have. I’d love to take a look at the family line later. But let me ask you, what do you know about Dr. Daniel F. Kotler?”

  “Well, other than being our Poppa’s father, I know that he was a physicist. He had some ties to the Manhattan Project, actually.”

  “Really!” Kotler exclaimed. “Wait, you knew this and never mentioned it?”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “You don’t exactly come over for dinner.”

  That was fair. Kotler checked in with his brother from time to time, but he didn’t make much of a habit of dropping in. Things were … strained.

  He had a pretty good relationship with Christina, his sister-in-law. And Alex was one of his favorite people on Earth—the feeling appeared to be mutual. But Kotler and Jeffrey hadn’t spoken much since Kotler had left for college at eighteen. Even before that, they hadn’t exactly been best friends. After their parents died, they’d both become wards of Cristoff Valler, their father’s research and business partner.

  Life became a series of disjointed learning exercises at that point, with Kotler embracing Cristoff’s penchant for historical anomalies and ancient mysteries, and Jeffrey pining for a normal childhood of which he felt he was being deprived.

  They had drifted apart.

  “Daniel has a bigger file than almost everyone else on our family tree,” Jeffrey said. “I’ll send it over. I have photos, too.”

  “That would be very helpful, thank you. Did you happen to find anything in your research that would connect Daniel to the Signals Intelligence Service?”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t remember every detail, Dan. But the file is searchable. Hold on.”

  He turned away from the phone and Kotler could hear the clacking of keys from that side. He knew that Jeffrey still depended on an aging Windows laptop that Kotler had practically begged him to upgrade. Jeffrey was fine with “good enough,” though, and had no interest in doing anything that might be considered trendy, particularly with technology. It had been all Kotler could manage to get his brother to start using an iPhone, to make face-to-face communication a little easier. Kotler suspected Christina and Alex had something to do with Jeffrey caving on that one.

  “Ok, I just emailed everything to you. You need anything else?”

  Kotler looked at his brother’s face, studying him. It struck him, at that moment, how much Jeffrey looked like their mother. It was the eyes. And the nose. The beard obscured things a little, but Kotler could see her there. And maybe a touch of their father, in the brow.

  “No, I don’t need anything else. But … how are you? How’s work?”

  Jeffrey squinted just slightly. Suspicion. Kotler could read it clearly, and it made him a bit sad. There were too many miles and too many walls between him and Jeffrey. And he knew it was his fault. Jeffrey played his part, but it was Kotler who had put the distance between them. It had started after their parents died, and Kotler had just kept running from there.

  “Good,” Jeffrey said, a little guarded but softer.

  Kotler saw something else then, in his brother’s eyes. An old hurt. A yearning. A small boy wanting his older brother and his mom and his dad to all just be together again.

  “Just good?” Kotler asked.

  Jeffrey finally smiled a little. It touched his eyes and followed to his lips only a moment later. Tight. Guarded. But there. “Dan, things are good. Are you ok? I heard a few things.”

  Kotler hadn’t been prepared for that turn. He laughed lightly. “I’m … fine. You know me. I’m like a super ball. I bounce back.”

  “And usually twice as hard and right back to trouble,” Jeffrey said, the smile finally breaking out in full.

  Again Kotler chuckled. “That’s me. Bombastic, with trouble all around. What about Christina? I got a Christmas card. Nice photo.”

  “She’s good. She’s doing some volunteer thing, helping with the Historic Preservatio
n Society. We made a big anonymous donation last month, to try to restore the old library. Pretty nice old building and construction starts next month. They’re planning to turn it into a community clubhouse with a museum. Pretty nice.”

  “You have any hand in the design?”

  Jeffrey laughed and shook his head. “No, I just wrote a check.”

  It went on like that for the next fifteen minutes, and Kotler found he was reluctant to end the call. But he remembered that there were two men in grave danger, in a secret vault in New York, and time was short.

  It made him feel guilty.

  Guilty for having gotten lost in conversation with his brother while two people faced death. Guilty for having to end the call with his brother for any reason whatsoever, after neglecting their relationship for so long. But when he said he had to go, he caught a flash of relief in Jeffrey’s expression. Relief, but also a tiny bit of regret. So that was something, at least.

  With the call ended, Kotler opened his laptop and brought up the documents that Jeffrey had sent. He filed all of the family stuff, putting it in Dropbox. He’d explore that later. He’d avoided looking at his family’s past for a variety of reasons, but knowing his brother had such a keen interest in it, to the point of producing a library of research, made Kotler curious. He wanted to see his brother’s work.

  For now, though, he focused on Dr. Daniel F. Kotler and his frankly fascinating past.

  3

  DAN KOTLER’S APARTMENT, MANHATTAN

  Daniel Faraday Kotler.

  Kotler could hardly believe that anyone would name their kid “Faraday,” but he was thrilled to see a thread of scientific interest in his family. It spoke volumes about the influences that had led to Kotler’s own life and career choices, which was fascinating and intriguing all at once.

  Dr. Daniel Kotler, the man himself, had a fascinating history.

  The good doctor was born in 1896, in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana. He’d left Louisiana for Texas, at the age of seventeen, where he enrolled at Texas A&M to pursue an undergraduate degree in agriculture. His education was interrupted, however, as World War I erupted onto the world stage, drawing in all able-bodied and patriotic young men from across the nation.