He surprised himself in not surrendering the briefcase to the police. Of course he couldn’t be certain, but from the first moment he’d seen them he felt those cops just could not be trusted. One thing, however, was certain; those men, whoever they were, now knew where he lived. If they didn’t find what they were looking for, they’d probably come for him … sooner or later, they’d come.
       All these thoughts only made Dallas quicken his pace. Arriving at his apartment building, he sprinted across the lobby to a waiting elevator. Eleven floors up, he dashed off the elevator, hurried down the corridor, and flung his six-foot-five-inch frame against his door as he fumbled for his keys, desperate to get inside. Once inside, he locked the deadbolt and collapsed on the couch with the briefcase on his lap.
       He looked down at the dilemma resting on his thighs, wondering what he should do next. He conceded silently there could be only one choice. Dallas rubbed his hands gingerly across its fine ostrich leather construction. It felt firm, yet supple, and obviously expensive. Slowly, his thumbs slid the latches. It was well made, constructed of solid, heavy, brass fittings that yielded silently to his touch.
       The mystery only deepened as he examined its scant contents. Inside he found an unsigned, typewritten manuscript, a supermarket tabloid, and a pocket-sized daily diary. What caught his eye immediately though was a smooth, green, crystalline object about the size of a man’s hand.
       It seemed at once translucent and solid, like tiger’s-eye but without the bands of varying color, yet it shimmered through many levels. The object was tapered and faceted. Its triangular shape was without fault or flaw, totally unblemished, and smooth on one side. On the wide base, only a pair of small notches interrupted the otherwise straight lines.
       The reverse contained many small rows of carefully etched symbols. Grabbing a nearby magnifying glass, he began studying the markings, which bore an uncanny similarity to hieratic or sacred script. There were also alternating rows of a cuneiform-style script so small that their very presence demonstrated the remarkable craftsmanship of its engraver. Its polished surface reminded him of a river stone. Laying it aside, he turned his attention to the other items. He flipped through the diary and discovered what he reasoned to be the dead stranger’s name: Montgomery Todd, Ph.D. He turned to the F section of the addresses, hoping he might find some clue about the fisherman. No luck. He chided himself for thinking the mystery could be so simply resolved.
       The tabloid was folded to an article dealing with the most recent in the long series of missing Martian space probes. The string had now run to six straight lost ships, and NASA was unable to explain why. The article hinted at several “unofficial” reasons, including UFOs and aliens. These unofficial explanations made no more sense than that the space agency’s own musings.
       The manuscript appeared to be a report or academic paper on some obscure aspect of Mayan civilization. Dallas glanced at it briefly and found it vaguely interesting. The plentiful handmade corrections suggested that the stranger knew the author, or might in fact be the author. Dallas wasn’t sure which. He put it aside. The diary was, save for one obscure entry, empty. That entry, an appointment for tomorrow, was noted in a code or shorthand he could not readily decipher. The day and time were plain enough; the diary’s calendar format had seen to that. But the meeting’s location and subject were nonsensical: a single cryptic notation, “CFatAker.” What could it mean—“CFatAker”? All the letters ran together. Was it an anagram? Did the capital letters stand for something? Or was it just poor penmanship?
       His mind toyed with natural combinations: C Fat Aker?
       “Was that,” he asked himself, “see someone named Fat Aker? CF at Aker? Maybe CF was someone’s initials. Okay, meet CF, whoever CF might be, at Aker. What the hell’s an Aker?”
       Dallas decided this seemed as meaningless as Fat Aker and so went back to the initials CF. He reminded himself what the dying man had said, “Find the fisherman.” Was F for fisherman? Could CF mean “see fisherman”? That would mean note could be read as “see fisherman at Aker.” That exercise in logic brought him back to question of what Aker meant.
       He moved to his computer and logged on to the Internet. If there was a word “Aker,” he’d know soon enough. He stared at the search’s response and realized it would take more time than he thought. Let’s see, there’s an observatory in Arizona named after someone named Governor Aker. That might tie in with the article on Mars or not. The first search engine offered some thirty sites. Some, like those directing one to Pooh’s “100 Aker Wood,” could be instantly eliminated.
       Dallas tried to remember the old man’s dying words: Was it, “Beware, find the Order”? Or was it, “Beware the Order”? He typed in the Order, and the results were less than exciting. The first hundred entries had something to do with Harry Potter, then various religious orders, and book orders … too broad of a search.
       Returning to his original thought he entered “Aker” again, this time using a different search engine. He immediately hit an even bigger roadblock. This one offered over twenty-eight hundred different choices. Dallas let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair, thinking while his hand continued to work the mouse. The first choices seemed to be duplicates of the other search engine, so he clicked quickly past the first few pages. Suddenly an entry caught his eye.
       He rolled the cursor over the entry, “Egyptian god.” When the screen popped up the subject, he sat upright. “Aker,” Dallas finally remembered, was the Egyptian lion god, guardian of sunrise and sunset. Was that a link to the manuscript? Could the dead man have been talking in code? Was a lion somehow involved in the mystery? He bookmarked the page and moved on to other possibilities.
       Several hours and lots of coffee later, Dallas had viewed almost a thousand entries, mostly personal Web sites or Rotary Club chapters or some other damned thing. He decided to return to his two most interesting possibilities: the observatory and the Egyptian god. He considered the two options.

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