Scroll

by Ruth Hartzler

  3

  PENNSYLVANIA

  Dr. Abigail Spencer paused as some latecomers arrived. She let out a long sigh. Abigail’s hours had been cut to part time, and her under-qualified colleague, Dr. Harvey Hamilton, had been promoted over her simply as he was having an affair with the Dean, a woman who doted on his every move. Money would have been tight for Abigail if it hadn’t been for the retainer paid to her by a covert government organization.

  Abigail had recently been captured by agents of Vortex, a sinister group, but had managed to escape with a government agent, Jack Riley. After Riley recruited her, she hadn’t heard another word from him. At least the money kept coming on a weekly basis.

  Abigail looked up and saw that everyone was seated. She gestured to the screen once more. “And of course, to this day, no one has discovered what really happened to Croesus,” she said. “According to Herodotus...”

  A male student in the front row interrupted her. “What about the treasure?”

  Abigail pulled an expression of distaste. “Treasure!” she said with disgust. “That’s why the Egyptian civilization is so well-known at the expense of several other civilizations such as the Hittites.”

  She noted some of the students exchanged glances. They’d been on the receiving end of her displeasure over treasure before.

  “Has the Croesus treasure ever been found?” the young man persisted.

  Abigail nodded and then shook her head. “No, only in part. In 2006, it was discovered that two artifacts from Croesus’s treasure had been stolen from a Turkish museum and replaced by fakes. One was a hippocamp and one was a golden bird. They were eventually returned.”

  “What’s a hippocamp?” the same student asked. His question was met with groans.

  “A winged horse sea creature,” the student sitting next to him said.

  Abigail pushed on. “These were part of the treasure known as the Lydian Hoard or the Karun. There were three hundred and sixty-three Lydian artifacts.”

  “But there would have been much more Lydian treasure than that. Why wasn’t all the treasure found?” someone asked her.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s very rare that a whole stash of ancient treasure is found at once. Take Tutankhamen, for example.”

  She would have said more, but someone called out, “The curse!”

  Abigail resisted rolling her eyes. If there was one thing the students liked more than treasure, it was curses.

  Just then, she looked up as someone else entered. She pointedly looked at her watch and up again. To her surprise, it wasn’t a student, but Jack Riley.

  She stared at him fixedly. Some of the other students turned around to look. Instead of taking a seat, he continued down to her and bent close to her ear. “You have to come with me now.” His tone was insistent.

  She made to object, but his hand was already on her elbow, leading her out a side door, giving her barely enough time to reach for her jacket. “What’s this about?” she asked him.

  “I’ll explain when it’s safe,” he said.

  She gestured behind her. “But the students! What will they think?”

  Riley did not respond. He was looking around and guiding her through the corridors at speed. “We have a mission.”

  “A mission?” Abigail parroted. She could hardly believe her ears. Could the timing be any worse? “But I have to give a paper at an important conference next week,” she protested. “I haven’t heard anything from you for weeks and now you turn up and say there’s a mission?”

  Riley stopped his long strides to turn to her. “Your life could be in danger. Have you heard from Professor Hobbs lately?”

  Then he was off again, leading her along. Abigail was entirely confused. “Jason? What’s this got to do with him?”

  “He was murdered a few hours ago in Oxford.”

  Abigail was aware her mouth had fallen open. She grabbed Riley’s arm. “England? He was murdered? What was he doing in Oxford?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Riley guided Abigail to the left. “Why are we going this way?” she asked.

  “In case someone is waiting out the front for us.” Riley’s reply was curt.

  Abigail had no doubt a gun was inside his jacket. Abigail knew nothing about guns. Her knowledge only extended to ancient languages and ancient lands. They didn’t have guns in her area of expertise. Sure, she knew the difference between a Thracian broadsword and the hoplites’ short sword, the xiphos, knowledge that would be of absolutely no help in her current predicament. Moments ago, she didn’t even know she had a predicament.

  They reached the side door. She saw a black car with tinted windows outside. “Wait here,” Riley said. He looked out the door and then stepped outside, still looking around. He opened the door to the black car. “Get in as fast as you can.”

  As soon as Abigail stepped into the daylight, bees whizzed past her. It took her a moment or two to realize they were bullets. The next thing she knew, Riley was half pulling, half pushing her inside the car. He jumped in behind her, slamming the door. “Get down,” he said as he sped off.

  Abigail didn’t need telling twice. She stayed on the floor as the car swung this way and that. After the car straightened up and accelerated, she said, “Is it safe to get up now?”

  “Sure,” Riley said. “It’s a bullet-proof car.”

  Abigail wondered why he had told her to stay down. She was still trying to take it all in. It was all so surreal. “What’s this all about?” she asked for a second time.

  “It’s all about the Croesus treasure,” Riley told her. “There is apparently a copper scroll that gives its location.”

  Abigail scratched her head. She was going to ask a question, but Riley pushed on. “Apparently, the treasure was dispersed and hidden in several locations.”

  Abigail nodded slowly. “Jason Hobbs recently published a paper on an ostracon that stated that, although there’s believed to be a repository of the main treasure. Anyway, please go on. What happened to Jason?”

  “Someone from Ephesus contacted him purporting to have a copper scroll which gave the location of one of the stashes of the Croesus treasure. Hobbs went to the Bodleian library.”

  “What was he looking for?” Abigail said.

  Riley shot a look at her. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  She wished he would keep his eyes on the road, driving at such speed. “I don’t have a clue. You’ll have to tell me more.”

  “We don’t know. This has all just happened. We were only alerted to it because we had someone tailing one of Vortex’s men.”

  Abigail caught her breath. She knew the mysterious organization, Vortex, employed mercenaries who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.

  Riley was still talking. “Our man was waiting outside the Bodleian Library when word came that someone was dead. When we discovered it was Professor Hobbs, we wondered what he had that Vortex would want. We went through his phone records and email exchanges and discovered he’d been corresponding with a man from Selcuk about the copper scroll.”

  “Selcuk? That’s right next to the ruins of ancient Ephesus.”

  Riley nodded. “The man told Hobbs there was an earlier translation of the copper scroll.”

  Abigail tapped her forehead. “Of course! Hobbs did send me an offprint of his most recent article on the ostracon.”

  Riley shot a look at her again. “I’m hoping you can explain his dying words.”

  Abigail was still upset over the loss of her former colleague and friend. “What were his words?”

  “He said, ‘Tell her, Revelation two, verse two.’ Do you have any idea what that means?”

  Abigail didn’t have a chance to respond, as a car pulled up beside them and slammed into them.

  4

  EPHESUS

  Eymen Bulut wasn’t a paranoid man. At least, he hadn’t been until now. A respectable jeweler, Eymen had gone about his life in obscurity. Decades ago, Ey
men’s father had let him in on the secret of the copper scroll.

  His father had issued the dire warning that the scroll must not fall into the wrong hands. Eymen’s father had died in a car accident only weeks after Eymen’s sixteenth birthday, on which occasion he told him the whereabouts of the scroll and promised to tell him more about it later. Now, at the age of forty-seven, the burden still lay heavily on Eymen.

  For years, Eymen had kept an eye on all the relevant academic journals, the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Anatolian Studies on JSTOR, Belleten, the Journal of Greek Archaeology, and other journals that mentioned Lydia, searching for any mention of the Croesus treasure. He had read every report, monograph, and article published by Harvard’s The Sardis Expedition. When he read Professor Hobbs’s paper, he had tentatively reached out to him.

  From their correspondence, Eymen became certain that Hobbs was not after the money.

  Still, their latest correspondence had been different somehow, and Eymen wondered if someone was intercepting their emails.

  And so it was with great trepidation he caught a bus to the ruins at Ephesus to meet with Professor Jason Hobbs.

  Eymen wanted to speak with Hobbs in person. He considered himself a good judge of character. Hobbs wanted to go to Eymen’s apartment or jewelry store, but Eymen had refused, saying he would meet him at Ephesus. It was only a thirty-minute walk away, but Eymen wasn’t taking any chances. That is why he took the bus.

  Eymen walked through the ruins of Ephesus as he had done many times before. He had grown up in Selcuk, but no matter how many times he visited the ruins of Ephesus, the fact he was walking over the same ground people thousands of years ago had walked still filled him with awe.

  He had told Hobbs to meet him in the Bouleuterian. It was a fitting place as it was where city matters were discussed in ancient Ephesus. Theatrical performances were also held there.

  Eymen walked behind the Basilica Stoa and into the Prytaneum. The crowds weren’t as prolific as usual, given it was late winter and thus not the tourist season. A pang of anxiety hit him. What if Hobbs was simply there to procure the scroll and wanted the treasure for himself?

  Eymen had been consumed with misgivings before. Now it was too late. He would have to push forward and meet the man.

  Eymen took a firm hold on the handle of his leather briefcase and looked around for Hobbs.

  His eyes fell on a tall man. He had a slightly stooped, wearied expression and was wearing a tweed coat. Surely, this was the academic he was supposed to meet.

  The man caught his eye and smiled and waved. He walked over to him. “Eymen Bulut?” the man said, offering his hand.

  Eymen nodded. “And you must be Professor Hobbs.”

  The man shot him a good-natured smile. “Call me Jason.”

  All the hair stood up on the back of Eymen’s neck. The man was an academic—he expected him to have soft hands. These hands were hard and calloused. Eymen looked down to see the man’s fingernails were stained. These were not the hands of a person who spent his life indoors. He looked up into Hobbs’s face. He would have expected a pale face, but the man’s face was tan with deep lines, signifying he had spent much of his time in the sun. Even the loose jacket was unable to hide the bulging biceps.

  Realization hit Eymen like a ton of bricks. This was not Professor Hobbs.

  Without further word, he sprinted up the steps from the bottom of the Bouleuterian.

  Another man appeared at the top of the steps and made to block his way. Eymen took advantage of the group of tourists that appeared, veering around them and sprinting for the Prytaneum. He knew his way around the boulders.

  Eymen wanted to run in the other direction, but he risked a glance over his shoulder and saw five men now following him. He had to stick with the tourists. He had no doubt the men would shoot him if he ran for the solitude of the rocky hills. Right now, he thought he would be safe so long as they didn’t lay hands on him. He deftly ducked around the boulders of the Prytaneum and headed for the Pollio Fountain in the Temple of Domitian. The scaffolding was still over the Pollio Fountain, but that was of no help to him.

  His breath was coming in rapid bursts, but at least he was heading downhill from the top to the bottom of Ephesus. As he approached the ancient Curetes Street, he ducked behind the sculptured figures on the columns of the Memmius Monument to catch his breath. There were no tourists here.

  Eymen had no idea what he could do. A rudimentary plan to save himself took form in his terrified mind. He sprinted away, heading for the Hercules Gate. The glare from the sun momentarily blinded him, but he knew his way.

  Eymen figured if he left the briefcase, they might leave him alone. He ran past the two pillars on which were carvings of Hercules. He took a deep breath and flung the briefcase high in the air so his pursuers would see it. Eymen then took off at a straight sprint down Curetes Street, taking care not to trip over the paving stones. It wasn’t until he reached the Fountain of Trajan that he ducked behind one of the columns and peeked out. He could have cried with relief when he saw the five men crowding around the briefcase.

  Maybe they wouldn’t chase him now. They had what they wanted, but Eymen wasn’t prepared to take the chance. He looked up at the hill and the sparse bushes behind the Fountain of Trajan. No, he needed to stay closer to people, and the bushes didn’t afford any cover. He took off at a fast walk toward the Temple of Hadrian, figuring if he walked rather than ran he would be less noticeable.

  Eymen knew he had to find a hiding place, and quickly. Just behind the Temple of Hadrian was a mosaic footpath that led to the terrace houses at Ephesus. He had been in there before, although they had opened to the public only a few years earlier. He paid the fee and slipped inside. Today, he did not look at the beauty of the original paintwork or at the writing etched on the walls. He passed the ancient shopping lists and the prices of vegetables and meat scrawled on the walls and headed down to the living quarters. There, he sat on a magnificent floor mosaic surrounded by frescoes and clutched his arms around himself.

  Eymen reached for the phone in his pocket, but it must have fallen out. He shut his eyes tightly and wrapped his arms around his knees, willing the men not to find him. Maybe he should go back and ask someone to call the police for him. Still, he was reluctant to bring the police into it. The police would ask him why the men were chasing him, and the copper scroll had to be kept secret. He could no longer trust anyone. He had trusted Professor Hobbs, but this man was not Hobbs. For all he knew, Hobbs was already dead.

  Eymen heard a sound and looked up.

  There, framed by modern scaffolding and incongruous against the intact mosaics in their original setting, was a man. The man was pointing a gun at him.

  Eymen wondered why the gun was so thick and then realized it had a silencer.

  A shot rang out, but Eymen didn’t hear it.

  5

  PENNSYLVANIA

  Abigail clung to the sides of the seat as the dark SUV rammed them again. She shut her eyes tightly. Abigail’s head collided hard with the window as Riley swung the wheel to the left. “Sorry about that,” he said. She opened her eyes to see a blur of the landscape whizzing past. A wave of nausea hit her.

  Abigail was flung this way and that as the car skidded and then swung. Abigail realized they were heading away from the town, away from the safety of people, and wondered if that was a good idea. Still, Riley knew what he was doing.

  They passed a phone shanty, used by Amish people to make calls. Abigail knew the road they were on bypassed an Amish community. She hoped they wouldn’t pass any Amish buggies, as their speed would surely frighten the horses.

  When Abigail risked a look back, she saw they had gained some ground over the pursuing SUV.

  When they reached the outskirts of town, Riley turned hard down a dirt road, kicking up a trail of dust. Once more, Abigail wondered about the wisdom of such a plan, as the trail of dust would be visible for miles.

  Riley sudden
ly swung the car to the left. The car bounced along down to a creek until he brought the car to a sudden stop. “Stay down and keep the doors locked,” he barked at Abigail.

  She was only too happy to do as he said. After a few moments, she craned her neck and saw Riley running back up toward the road.

  Abigail felt awfully vulnerable sitting out there as a decoy despite the fact the car was bulletproofed. If only she were armed, but then again she would not know what to do with the weapon.

  It wasn’t long before she heard a car roaring toward her. She clutched her throat and shut her eyes tightly. What if Riley didn’t come back? She couldn’t sit in the car forever. But if Riley didn’t come back, that would mean he was hurt—or worse. Tears pricked the corner of her eyes.

  There was an exchange of gunfire. Abigail clutched her throat. She planted her hands over her ears and trembled.

  It seemed like an age before the gunshots stopped. Abigail looked up in fright as someone banged on the window.

  It was Riley. He opened the door and jumped inside. “Are you all right?” he asked, her searching her face.

  Abigail did her best to put on a brave front. “Fine,” she said. “And you?”

  Riley simply nodded. “I didn’t expect them to be here so fast.”

  With that, he sped off. Abigail had been hungry, but now the thought of food made her stomach churn. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps and she tried to slow it. “They won’t follow us?”

  “No, they won’t.” His tone was grim.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Selcuk.”

  Abigail was incredulous. Surely she hadn’t heard him properly. “What? Selcuk? In Turkey?”

  Riley nodded. “Yes, we’re flying there at once.”

  “But I don’t have my passport.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Abigail regarded him with narrowed eyes. Had the government given her another identity for this mission? And on the subject of missions… Abigail looked over at Riley. “What’s the mission?”