Day of the Assassins Read Online Free PDF Page A

of Crime Scene Investigation .”
    “Yeah – all those weird maps, pictures, photos, notes… kind of linked together…”
    “And what the hell is a Timeline Simulation?”
    “No clue…” Jack looked along the wall at the various sheets. About halfway down the room he noticed that there seemed to be a whole wallchart missing – just the bare wall and plaster remained behind, pockmarked by the Blu-Tack that had been used to attach the sheet to the wall.
    “Funny…” Jack said. “Simulation 0107 seems to be missing…”
    Angus shrugged. “Come on – let’s take a closer look.”
    They rushed down the spiral staircase to the lower level. They had not noticed that a dim light had automatically come on as they entered the library. Soon they were in the midst of the lower room and it felt like they were drowning in a sea of paper, books, diagrams, pictures and notes. It was as if they had entered the brain of some ghostly intellect and caught it in the midst of solving some mind-bendingly difficult puzzle.
    Opposite the wallcharts, there was a series of floor-to-ceiling shelves and glass cabinets.
    “Look at all this stuff…”
    Each shelf and each cabinet seemed to be stuffed full of all sorts of historical paraphernalia. Jack had done enough history with Pendelshape to realise that much of it was military in nature – possibly from the world wars. He spotted a trench telescope, some medals, old maps, at least five different sorts of shell casings, uniforms, plus an array of rusty-looking revolvers and other equipment.
    “Amazing, do you think any of it can still be used?” Angus said, hopefully.
    Between two of the glass cabinets there was a large easel to which was pinned a map. Jack recognised it immediately from one of Pendelshape’s recent lessons – an old map of the Balkans. Just like the wallcharts opposite, various notes, photographs and diagrams were pinned to it. Some were connected to specific points by hand-drawn lines. The cities of Sarajevo and Belgrade were marked, but most of the other names he could neither recognise nor pronounce. The pictures pinned around the map included some sort of fortress in a town called ‘Doboj’ quite near Sarajevo and a picture of a country church or monastery.
    “What about that?” Angus was staring towards the far end of the library, his eyes on sticks. There, in the shadows, was a low steel platform set at about waist height. It was perhaps half a metre across and surrounded by eight curved pieces of metal that looped up from the floor, bulged out around the central platform and then rejoined at the top. The whole thing was encased in a canopy of thick green glass. Around the platform there was an intricate arrangement of metal pipework, cabling and wires. There were two main work areas next to the platform, housing an array of oscilloscopes, tools and old computer equipment, but in terms of the overall arrangement of all this technology, the platform was at the centre of things and therefore seemed in some way important.
    They moved over to the laboratory area at the far end of the library. As with the other objects, it was clear that a number of pieces of equipment had been removed. There were large spaces in the control panels where multicoloured wires hung loose, spaghetti-like, from empty metal framing.
    “Look at this thing.” Jack was examining the steel platform inside the thick glass canopy. He suddenly realised that a strange metal object had been left on the platform between a set of symmetrical markings etched into the steel surface of the platform. As he peered closer, Jack put out a finger to touch the glass. Suddenly the whole casing swung silently back from the platform. He snatched back his hand.
    “Help! It’s moving!”
    Soon the canopy had rolled back completely and the boys had a chance to study the object before them. It was a piece of flat shiny metal. One end was pointed. It looked incredibly sharp. The other end was clasped