The girl looked at him like he was crazy. “No, but you can go to websites where you can select characters and string them together.”
“Oh. Of course,” he said. “Do you know any?”
“Try Googling it,” she replied, and departed with a swing of her hips.
“An Indian Miss Congeniality, your little blossom is, my friend,” Drake said to Spencer.
“I don’t know. She’s got a certain something. She could probably make me miserable for a few months as well as anyone.”
“Gotta have a dream,” Allie said, sipping her coffee after inspecting the cup. “No flies in it, at least.”
Allie connected to the web from her tablet and found a site where she could enter a Sanskrit phrase. She duplicated the characters on the blade and then cut and pasted it into a translation engine.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, and clicked on the translate button.
Two seconds went by, and then an unintelligible string of gibberish appeared. Drake sat back with a scowl. “So much for that.”
Allie switched to another site and got the same result. She continued working at it as Spencer and Drake conversed in hushed tones, and then she looked up at them, her expression clouded. “Here’s a site that substitutes one character in Sanskrit for another. Apparently that was a common practice and was a skill that the Kama Sutra recommended learning: the art of secret writing. Want to bet this is encrypted?”
Spencer nodded. “Makes sense. Which means we’re screwed if we don’t know the key or have nothing but time to try every possible variation of character substitution. Like I said before on the other character string — substitution ciphers have been around forever.”
“Can I check my email while we’re preparing to slit our wrists?” Drake asked.
Allie tilted her head at the computers. “Might as well rent some time. Nothing’s going to happen fast, and there’s no point slowing things down by only using my tablet.”
Drake spoke with the waitress and she directed him to one of the systems. He pulled up a chair and tapped in some commands, and then studied his emails, reading quickly. When he was done, he stood and rushed back to where Spencer and Allie were sitting. Allie looked up at him.
“What is it?”
“Betty. She figured out what that string I sent her is.”
“Really? That was fast.”
“Yeah. She’s working pretty late. Anyway, it’s a bitcoin key — a public key.”
“A… what?” Spencer asked.
“Have you been living in a cave?” Drake said.
“Worse. Laguna Beach. I’ve heard of bitcoin, but I don’t know how it works.”
“There’s a wallet with a private key. To do transactions, you generate a public key — that’s what you use to send and receive money.” Drake hesitated. “I mean bitcoins. Same difference.”
“How did she know that was what it was?” Allie asked.
“She’s a big fan. A lot of people think it’s going to replace our monetary system eventually and do away with the need for banks for transactions.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“She sent me a site where you can see the transactions that were done for a public key. It’s all transparent.”
“Really?” Spencer asked.
“Yup. She ran that one, and there were only two transactions. One receiving bitcoins, probably where Carson made a buy of them in dollars, and the other sending the same amount to another public key.”
“That’s awesome! Then all we need to do is contact the owner of the public key, and we’ve found the dagger,” Allie said.
Drake shook his head. “Afraid not. There’s no way to know who owns it — it’s anonymous. There’s no registry we can access. That’s part of the appeal of crypto-currencies: they’re largely anonymous for users who want to keep it that way.”
“Then how does that help us?” Spencer asked, frustrated.
“We can run the other address and see what transactions it’s done. We might be able to pick up a thread we can follow.” Drake sighed. “Worth a try, right?”
He returned to the computer and went to work as Allie continued researching Sanskrit. When he next appeared by her side, his expression was excited. “The other address looks like almost all the recent transactions are with one key. Sending money. And that one’s not anonymous.”
“Who is it?” Spencer asked.
“An online magazine. Here, in New Delhi. Specializes in advertisements — kind of like a high-end paid Craigslist.”
“That would make sense,” Spencer said. “Carson mentioned he found the relic from a dealer.”
“Sounds like we need to pay a visit to the magazine. They might have the seller’s contact information,” Allie said. “And while we’re at it, we can stop by the university.”
“University?” Drake asked. “Why?”
“I ran a search for that Dr. Rakesh Sharma. There’s only one that comes up — a linguistics professor at the University of Delhi.”
Drake nodded. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Allie smiled. “Not a lot of reasons Carson would have had the name of a guy who could help him with Sanskrit, are there?”
Chapter 21
Allie and Drake neared the building that housed the magazine, a three-story structure painted Day-Glo orange, the bottom floor retail shops, with offices above. They’d agreed to split up, leaving Spencer to research the satellite imagery and mosaic at the café after buying a cheap cell phone next door. The owner of the shop had activated the device without seeing any identification, handing it to Allie after she promised to return with her passport later.
After another harrowing rickshaw ride across town to a seedy neighborhood on the east side of New Delhi, they found themselves in a crowded street, a small river of muddy fluid coursing down the center. The pedestrians moved slowly due to the heat, colorful umbrellas bobbing above heads to provide the slim relief of portable shade.
“What do you think?” Drake asked as they eyed the building.
“I’ll go in and you wait out here.”
“Why don’t we do this together?”
“A lone woman will be far less threatening than a couple.”
“It’s not like we’re going to rob the place.”
“Just let me do this my way.”
Drake parked himself in a shop across the street as Allie made her way to the building entry. An ancient doorman seated on a barstool just outside waved her through without question. Allie glanced around once inside and spotted a directory to her right, with the magazine offices identified as being on the third floor.
She mounted the stairs, the air stifling in the enclosed area, and exhaled in relief when she reached the third landing. The magazine had the entire level, and Allie paused at the door, the publication’s stenciled name partially peeled off, the paint in desperate need of repair.
Allie approached a heavyset woman seated behind a reception desk that, like the offices, had seen better days. After a brief discussion, the woman called the assistant managing director. Allie took a seat on a stained sofa and surveyed the large room, counting seven workers, all female, typing away furiously on computers, half of them wearing telephone headsets.
Ten minutes later a short man with all of ten strands of hair combed over a shining pate emerged from an office at the rear of the area and walked to the reception desk with the air of a man at home in his fiefdom. Allie stood, and his eyes roved over her before gracing her with a lupine grin. He offered his hand and she shook it, ignoring how his fingers lingered uncomfortably long on hers.
“Vikram Pradhan, at your service,” he announced. “Come back to my office. May I offer you a refreshment?” he said, his voice a musical purr.