The Oracle Code (Thomas Lourds, Book 4)

by Brokaw, Charles

  Since the streets were so narrow in the old part of the city, they’d had to park the cars a couple blocks away and walk. Lourds enjoyed the hike because it reinvigorated him. It didn’t replace the need for sleep, of course, but his blood was moving well again, and his brain was functioning on all cylinders.

  They took a table in the back of the small café, and the middle-aged woman proprietor had smiled at the young soldiers. Lourds didn’t know if it was because they were good-looking young men for the most part, or if she knew they would bring big appetites.

  Counting the seven young soldiers, Captain Fitrat, Marias, and himself, there were ten at the table. It would definitely constitute a big ticket.

  Marias rubbed his hands together. “I take it none of you gentlemen other than Thomas has been to Greece before?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Ever had Greek food?”

  A few had.

  “May I order for us?”

  All accepted the offer.

  Lourds listened as Marias produced an order for a selection of foods. Usually the Greeks had a late breakfast after starting their day with coffee or hot chocolate to get them going. Then, at about ten or so, they ordered pastries and pies stuffed with feta cheese and eggs, yogurt, spinach, custard, or minced meat.

  When the woman went away yelling orders to the cooks in the back, Marias turned back to the group. “You will love the bougatsa. It’s rolled so thin you can read a newspaper through it, and the custard Mrs. Tselementes makes is phenomenal. Trust me, you will enjoy breakfast.”

  Lourds reached into his backpack between his feet and took out his journal. He turned to the last few pages where he’d been making notes and started reviewing them. By the time he’d finished, Mrs. Tselementes had returned with their coffees.

  “I suppose you didn’t have any momentous breakthroughs while I was napping?” Lourds sipped his coffee carefully. It was hot and sweet, exactly as Marias had promised.

  “No, you and I had agreed on the basics of the story Callisthenes tells. Figuring out that the key was Pittacus’s quote on Delos was genius.”

  “Not really. From the description in the scroll, it couldn’t have been any place other than Delos. Aristotle took Alexander there to discuss the beginnings of the Delian League.”

  “And in hopes of converting Alexander’s curiosities about other cultures into a force that would serve the Hellenic leaders.”

  “Yes.”

  Marias smiled. “But that deduction wasn’t so easy. Not one in a hundred scholars would have caught the reference to the ‘land where the dead do not rest.’ Much less been able to struggle through that language. You had more of it than I did. I only confirmed what you believed through other records.”

  “You had some insights that I didn’t. We both got the references to the Oracle at Delphi, but I didn’t catch the reference to Hades. At least, not in the context that you did.” Lourds frowned. “Still, though, the idea of Aristotle worshipping Hades seems rather...unsettling.”

  “Why?”

  “The God of the Dead? Doesn’t seem a likely choice.”

  Corporal Rahimi hummed the theme song from some horror movie that Lourds only vaguely recognized. A couple of the other soldiers cracked up, and Captain Fitrat shushed them all with a stern glance.

  Marias held up a finger. “Hades was not the god of the dead. That’s a popular misconception. He was god of the underworld. When the three primary Greek gods, and there you will have people split over the fact that there were twelve major Greek gods, got together to divide up the world, they drew sticks.”

  “Right. Hades got the shortest stick. I remember the story.” Lourds held up the placard he’d found on the table. The placard had a brief myth on it, of how the herb mint came to be. “He also had a very jealous wife.”

  “Well, listen to the story again, and this time pay attention. The land belonged to Gaia, so they could not take that. The rest, however, was up for grabs. Zeus won first choice and claimed the skies. Then Poseidon took the seas. Hades was left with the underworld, the caves and the forgotten places, and all the minerals that came from the earth.”

  “But, according to legend, Hades is where the dead go.” Corporal Rahimi looked embarrassed to have interrupted. “Excuse me. I did not mean to intrude.”

  “No intrusion.” Marias smiled, obviously delighted to be speaking to an audience of more than one. “The dead were merely a byproduct. They had to go somewhere. The true god of death in Greek mythology was Thanatos. He was the son of Nyx, the Night, and Erebos, the Darkness. His twin brother was Hypnos, sleep. Thanatos was considered one of the negative figures in Greek mythology. But Hades was not.”

  Lourds nodded. “He was simply the ruler of the underworld.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But, according to the legend we translated, Aristotle took Alexander to the Oracle at Delphi, and it was prophesied that he would be a great leader. In order to accomplish that feat more easily, Aristotle made a deal with Hades.” Lourds tapped the section he had copied from the text. “‘And so to secure my master’s place as a champion upon whom the world would find vengeance or succor, his teacher took him and a bargain was struck to get him the sword, the shield, and the armor that he carried into battle.’ And Callisthenes doesn’t mention Hades by name, just as the beloved master of the three-headed dog.”

  “Of course. Even the Greeks didn’t often use the name of Hades. They were fearful of meeting the god of the underworld too soon. Death wasn’t a thing to be feared, but the underworld was a place filled with gloom and despair. But how many three-headed dogs can you think of in mythology?”

  “Just the one. Cerberus.”

  “Then it has to be.”

  “But that means Aristotle worshipped Hades? I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that.”

  “No, Thomas. You’re a master linguist, but you don’t know all there is to know about Greek culture and mythology.”

  “Which is exactly why I came to you, as I recall.”

  “You did the right thing.” Marias grinned. “Aristotle didn’t have to worship Hades. He only had to offer some form of tribute in order to ask a boon of him.”

  “But there is no temple to Hades that I know of.”

  “There was one. In Elis. And the temple there was open just one day out of the year. Only the priest was allowed inside.”

  Corporal Rahimi leaned back in his chair. “Creepy.”

  Marias smiled. “Yes, it was.”

  “Is it still there?”

  “The temple?” Marias shook his head. “Look around this country. There has been devastation everywhere over the years. The temple of Hades at Elis was one of those losses. The temple of Zeus lies in ruins there too. Elis is also the birthplace of the Olympic Games, and a cook named Koroibos of Elis won the very first stadion race to become the first Olympic champion. All of that is gone.” For a moment, sadness lingered in the professor’s eyes. “But getting back to the point. The cult of Hades was not well thought of, even in those times. People knew that you had to offer tribute to all the gods, but you chose the one or ones you wanted to watch over you. No one wanted to choose Hades to look over them because they felt they would see him far too soon as it was.”

  Lourds thought about that. “Would Hades have access to enchanted weapons?”

  “He had his helm of invisibility, called the Helm of Darkness, which he loaned to various gods and goddesses and heroes in Greek mythology. But you have to remember, Thomas, everything eventually ended up in Hades. So, if you want to be fanciful and believe that Hades once gave Aristotle weapons and armor to give to Alexander, Hades could have done it. They could have belonged to other heroes and tales that have been lost. Or we could simply know them by other names.”

  Lourds nodded and looked at his notes. “‘And he that shall hold the weapons and armor that once belonged to my lord, to him shall go the power to rule the world.’” He leaned back and sighed. “Tha
t’s pretty heady stuff.”

  “Yes, and I’ve been thinking. You and I have exhausted our knowledge of the cult of Hades, but there is one man who might be able to help us.”

  “Professor Ian Westmoore. I had thought of him. Is he still in Berlin?”

  Marias smiled. “Does Germany still have beer?”

  46

  Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport

  Athens

  Hellenic Republic (Greece)

  February 21, 2013

  Dressed in jeans, a soccer shirt, and tennis shoes, Sergay Linko sat at a bar inside the terminal and watched as new arrivals filed through customs. He had been there for two hours, watching the early morning passengers leaving and arriving, but looking only for Anna Cherkshan.

  At a quarter after eleven, she walked from the security area and headed to the front of the terminal.

  Linko picked up the disposable phone he was using to keep in contact with the FSB agents backstopping his operation. Plugging the earphone into his ear, he used speed dial to call his driver. “She is here. Bring the car around front.”

  “Yes. I am on my way.”

  Everything was coming to a head now. Lourds and Anna Cherkshan were both here. He knew where the young woman was, but he had yet to find Lourds. As it turned out, the American linguist had many friends in Athens. With his limited manpower, finding all of them was difficult, and even FSB computer intelligence was drawing a blank.

  He followed Anna easily. She talked rapidly on the phone and even looked a little relieved. Something was going well for her. That was too bad. Because things were about to be the worst they would ever be for her.

  Linko dropped a hand into his pocket and took out a ballpoint pen. The pen was one of the most lethal things he’d ever carried. Lead lined its inner workings, protecting the carrier from the low but deadly dose of radiation contained in the rice-grain sized pellet of Polonium 210. Irradiated as it was, the pellet—once implanted—would cause sickness and major organ failure within twenty-four to thirty-six hours. There was no cure.

  The crowd of arrivals bunched up at the front of the terminal.

  Timing his move judiciously, practiced from past experiences with the delivery system, Linko closed on Anna, keeping only an elderly woman between himself and the young woman. A moment later, he kicked the woman’s left foot behind her right as she took her next step. As expected, the woman squealed, knowing she was falling, and reached instinctively for Anna.

  When the woman grabbed her shoulder for support, Anna turned to help her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  She spoke in Russian, and Linko was fairly certain that the elderly woman didn’t understand. While Anna supported the woman, Linko stepped in from behind, unseen, and poked her with the ballpoint pen just hard enough to inject the pellet into her shoulder near the woman’s hand.

  Anna didn’t notice. Her attention was solely on the woman who was clasping her shoulder.

  A uniformed airport worker trotted over to help as the elderly woman started apologizing profusely.

  Linko kept walking, staying ahead of Anna and offering her only the back of his head for identification. He felt confident she wouldn’t recognize him. He had let his beard grow and dyed his hair peroxide blond. He didn’t look much like the man she had seen at the dig outside Herat anymore.

  He kept track of her in the windows of the shops they passed, then in the windows lining the front of the building. He passed through the door and walked by the stand, where a taxi manager stood assigning drivers and passengers.

  Yamadayev sat in their car nine spaces back from the taxi stand. Linko slid into the passenger seat and glanced back at the front of the terminal.

  “There she is.” Yamadayev spoke quietly, and he did not point. He was Spetsnatz, Russian military special forces, and currently assigned to the FSB. He was not yet thirty, a lean killing machine with soft eyes and a distant manner.

  “I see her.” Linko waited impatiently, knowing that the ticking bomb inside the young woman was already counting down.

  ***

  The taxi driver spoke to Anna as he looked into the rearview mirror.

  Anna smiled. “Do you speak Russian or English?”

  The man smiled back and nodded. “English.”

  Anna switched to that language. “Can you take me to the Museum of the University of Athens?” That was where Lourds had told her he was.

  “Of course.” The driver flipped on the meter and pulled into the flow of traffic leaving the airport.

  Anna’s arm still stung from where the older woman had grabbed it during her fall inside the terminal. She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse and saw the scratch that marred her skin. She took her purse from her carryon, then located a tissue and wiped away the dot of blood, hoping it didn’t stain the blouse. She pressed the tissue against the wound to help stop the bleeding.

  The woman must have been wearing a ring. That was the only thing Anna could think of that would account for the small wound. After a moment, she removed the tissue and saw that the bleeding had stopped.

  All better.

  She crumpled the napkin and put it inside a pocket in her purse to dispose of later. Looking out the window, she remembered other times she had visited the city. She had been to Athens eight times before. The country was so relatively close to Moscow, less than three hours by plane, that it seemed idiocy to not come down to enjoy the beaches and the islands occasionally in the summer when she could afford it.

  She had told her parents about the islands, about the swimming and the historical sites and the nightlife. Her father had said he had no interest in swimming and that there were plenty of historical sites to see in Russia if he wanted to look at old things. He had refused to go even when Anna had offered to pay for everything. He had told her she was being too extravagant with her money to do such a thing.

  But he hadn’t told her not to go.

  She took her tablet PC from the carryon and opened up the file with her story about the Ukraine “reunification” and the coming coordinated terrorist attacks within Greece. She knew she didn’t have enough proof to put before any kind of court, and no one could try President Nevsky for anything he had done, but at least the story would make it possible for some of the right people to start asking questions and overturning stones.

  President Nevsky wasn’t bulletproof. Someone, somewhere, would find a way to stop him.

  And she intended to be the one to set that into motion.

  ***

  Lourds sat in one of the folding chairs that had been brought in for the meeting with Anna Cherkshan. The young woman appeared tired, and she obviously had a headache, judging from the way she kept rubbing her temples.

  “Are you certain you’re all right?” Marias seemed concerned as well.

  Anna waved him off. “Merely a combination of not enough sleep and jetlag. Once I get this story to the media, I will rest. But for now we need to concentrate and pool our resources.” She switched her attention to Lourds. “My father had books on Alexander the Great in his personal library. I saw them. He has never had an interest in him before.”

  Lourds still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that the Russian president was behind Boris’s murder. He wanted to play devil’s advocate to shore up his own logic. “Your father may have taken an interest in Alexander the Great since you were working on the story with us.”

  Anna cocked an eyebrow at him and smiled, obviously knowing what he was doing. “Oh, really? Then how do you explain the fact that my father bought those books before Professor Glukov had announced to the world that the tomb he’d found had anything to do with Alexander the Great?”

  “How do you know when your father purchased those books?”

  “The receipts were still in them. He keeps them to track his expenses for different accounts, and finding them later drives my mother crazy.”

  Lourds grinned ruefully. Tina Metcalf used to voice the same complaint when s
he had been his GA. “All right.”

  “My father would not have taken it upon himself to begin reading such a focused subject unless he was ordered to.” Anna paced slightly but appeared to be moving cautiously, as if she were somewhat dizzy. “The only person he answers to these days is President Nevsky. I am certain his newfound interest came from Nevsky.”

  Lourds nodded.

  Captain Fitrat and the two corporals listened attentively. There were no zombie remarks.

  “I have a friend who is very good with computers, yes? He breaks into them on a regular basis. Very dangerous work. He is the one who got these plans on the ‘reunification.’ I had him access my father’s appointment book as well. He had his first face-to-face meeting with Nevsky at around the same time Professor Glukov was investigating the dig out in Afghanistan. He ordered the books that afternoon.”

  “I see.” Lourds stroked his goatee thoughtfully. “Boris mentioned that his funding to work at the dig came through Nevsky.”

  Anna took out her tablet PC and a stylus. “I did not know that. It will be one more thing I can add to the story at some point. I am certain I can verify that, no problem.” She put the tablet aside. “But I must ask you, Professor: Do you believe there is any merit to the story that Alexander’s weapons and his armor have any supernatural powers?”

  Lourds shook his head. “It’s just a story.” Then he remembered how he’d read the words from the scroll to United States Vice President Elliott Webster and the man—or whatever he had truly been—had been defeated.

  “It does not matter if it is true or not.” Anna looked at the men in the room. “Nevsky has his man, Linko, an FSB operative, out there looking for it, as we have plainly seen. So anyone connected to the search for the lost tomb of Alexander the Great is going to be in danger. Of this you can be certain.”

  Marias tapped his journal with a pen. He’d been taking notes throughout. As Lourds remembered, the man was an excellent listener. “People—political leaders, athletes, common people—all have belief systems. They choose to believe in things outside themselves. That is why the mythology of the Greek gods and goddesses is so rich.”