The Atlantis Code

by Charles Brokaw

  “I still don’t see how you inferred that,” Leslie pressed.

  Gary broke a piece of pan bread off and dunked it into the stew. “Because the killers learned about the cymbal from the Web site, man. Either they were looking for that piece or they were watching Professor Lourds’s e-mail. Otherwise they would have taken it when it was first found at the dig site.”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “Hey,” Gary said, looking slightly unsettled, “I’m just saying is all. It’s what I’d do if I wanted something bad enough to kill for it. Grab it before it gets around. Doesn’t take much of a brainy bloke to figure out how the murderers happened to turn up at Professor Hapaev’s lab.” He paused. “Besides, they were looking for that bell Leslie found down in Alexandria, too. That was also listed on a Web site. The bad guys have a pattern.”

  “Professional collectors, then?” Leslie said.

  “Or professional thieves,” Natasha replied.

  “Either way,” Gary said, “you’re looking for someone who knows a lot about what’s going on in the antiquities arena. They swooped down on the goodies long before you professional blokes knew what you had.”

  “The bell and cymbal don’t offer much of a draw for collectors. They’re clay, not precious metal, they have inscriptions that haven’t been translated and maybe won’t be, and they come from a culture that seems to be unknown. Collectors love ancient objects, but they gravitate to the familiar and the coveted—Shang and Tang Chinese bronzes, Ming vases, Egyptian royal funerary items, Greek marbles statues, Mayan turquoise and gold, Roman bronzes and inlays. Things like that. Collectors love objects associated with powerful or famous rulers. I know people who would happily kill for a life-sized bronze charioteer from the tomb of Emperor Chin, for example.

  “These objects are different; they’re ancient and mysterious, so they appeal to scholars and historians. But it’s not like they’re the kinds of items that will attract the interest of rich or obsessed collectors. They have no provenance. They have no certificate of authenticity. We don’t even know what culture they come from. They’re old, and they’re interesting, but they’re not some kind of Holy Grail.”

  “If they aren’t after the instruments,” Leslie asked, “then what are they after?”

  “I think they are after the instruments,” Lourds said. “I believe Gary is right: I believe they have been looking for those instruments. But I don’t think it was for the instruments themselves. Rather, it was for what the instruments represented.”

  “So we’re looking for a specialized interest,” Natasha said. “And for the people that have it?”

  “Yes. I believe so.” Lourdes noted the cold glint in the woman’s eye. He had no doubt she could be a cold-blooded killer if she so chose. But he had no pity for the men who killed Yuliya. He wished her a clear shot, in fact.

  “Did Professor Hapaev have any clues as to the origins of the cymbal?” Leslie asked.

  “She did,” Lourds said. “Yuliya believed that the cymbal came out of West Africa. More than that, she was certain it was made by the Yoruba people. Or their ancestors.”

  “Why?”

  “The Yoruba people were noted for trade,” Lourds said. “They still are.”

  “They were also captured and sold by slavers by the boatload,” Gary put in.

  Everyone looked at him again.

  “Hey, I watch a lot of Discovery Channel and History Channel. Since we were going to do this special with Professor Lourds, I boned up on some of the material we might touch on. Cool stuff. It didn’t turn out like I expected it to, though. I figured on more digging, fewer bad guys, man.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Lourdes said. “According to Yuliya, the language of the Yoruba people is widespread as a result of the slave trade,” Lourds went on. “The language follows the AVO pattern.”

  “Now that one I don’t know,” Gary said, then stuffed more stew in his mouth.

  “Trade shorthand,” Lourds said. “AVO means agent-verb-object. It’s the pattern—the order, if you will—in which words appear in the spoken and written sentence of a culture. It’s also known as SVO. Subject-verb-object. The English language, as well as seventy-five percent of all the languages in the world, follow the SVO pattern. An example sentence would be Jill ran home. Do you understand?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “The Yoruban language is also tonal,” Lourds continued. “Most languages in the world aren’t tonal. Generally, the older the language, the more likely it is to be tonal. Chinese, for example, is a tonal language. Fewer than a fourth of the world’s languages exhibit that feature. Yoruban’s fairly unique in that regard.”

  “Why did Yuliya think the cymbal came from West Africa?” Leslie asked. “It was found here, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but she was sure it was a trade item, and that it wasn’t made here. The pottery doesn’t relate to the local types at all. Also, some of the inscriptions on the cymbal were done at a later date,” Lourds replied. “To denote ownership. Yuliya made note of that in her files. You can see those inscriptions in some of the pictures.”

  “They were in the Yoruban language?” Natasha asked.

  Lourds nodded. “I read enough of that language to recognize it. But the original language on the cymbal, what Yuliya believed was the original language, isn’t Yoruban. It’s something else.”

  “Must have been maddening for her,” Leslie said. “And it’s why she was trying to contact you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you decipher the language on the bell and the cymbal?” Leslie asked.

  Lourds scooped up a spoonful of stew. He chewed carefully and swallowed. “There are two distinct languages.” He shrugged. “Given time, I feel confident that I could decipher those inscriptions. It would help if I had more text to work with. The smaller the sampling a linguist works with, the more difficult the process.”

  “How much time would you need?” Natasha asked.

  Lourds looked at her and decided to answer honestly. “Anywhere from days to weeks to years.”

  Natasha cursed in Russian. Then she let out a long breath. “We don’t have that kind of time.”

  “A project like this,” he said finally, “can be daunting.”

  Natasha’s eyes blazed. “Those men killed my sister to get that cymbal. I believe they’re facing some sort of timetable. That’s why they’ve gone to such desperate measures. If they’re on a schedule, it’s going to make them vulnerable.”

  “If you’re right about them knowing about the bell and the cymbal before they turned up,” Gary said, “then whoever did this could have been looking for them for years. Maybe they were just desperate because they’d been looking for so long.”

  “I can’t hide you out here in the city while you look for information,” Natasha said. “In addition to my own agency, there’s the matter of the men who have tried to kill you.”

  “I don’t think we’ll find any more information here,” Lourds said. “If it was here to be had, I feel confident Yuliya would have turned it up.” He pulled the computer over to him and brought up another file. “She has left us something of a lead to follow.”

  “What lead?” Natasha leaned in.

  “She mentioned a man in Halle, Germany, who is something of an authority on the Yoruba people. A Professor Joachim Fleinhardt at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.”

  “Germany?” Natasha frowned.

  “According to Yuliya’s notes, Professor Fleinhardt is something of an authority on West African slave trade. She’d intended to contact him after she talked to me.”

  Natasha straightened and walked over to the window. She moved the curtain aside and peered out.

  Lourds ate the stew and bread. He watched her think. He couldn’t guess at everything that went through the woman’s mind, but he knew her desire to apprehend her sister’s killers had to be uppermost in her thoughts.

  Finally, Natasha turned back to face them. “I will
make some calls. Stay here till I return.”

  Leslie bridled at once. “You can’t just order us about.”

  “And I can’t protect you from those men if you go rushing through the streets of this city.” Natasha’s voice was hard. “They may want the information my sister left Professor Lourds. They do know you have it, you know. If you think you can do better without me, then leave. Perhaps I can figure out who they are when I investigate your murders.”

  “Inspector Safarov does have a point, Leslie,” Lourds stated gently. “Getting out of the country could be problematic. At least, in the conventional ways.”

  Leslie folded her arms under her breasts and didn’t look happy.

  “I will go,” Natasha said. “With luck, perhaps I can figure out a way to get us to Halle.”

  “ ‘Us’?” Leslie repeated.

  “ ‘Us,’ ” Natasha said. “None of you are trained to combat men like these.” Without another word, she left the apartment. The door banged shut behind her.

  CHAPTER

  10

  MOSCOW, RUSSIA

  AUGUST 21, 2009

  L

  ourds sat on the windowsill in the apartment and watched the corner drugstore that Natasha Safarov had entered. He could barely see her through the dusty window as she talked on the phone.

  “Who do you think she’s calling?” Leslie asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe she’s calling the police. If she is, they’re going to take us into custody.”

  “If that was what she wanted, she would have done that already,” Lourds pointed out.

  “She has a gun,” Gary added. “She’s already proved she’s willing to use it.”

  Leslie frowned at the cameraman.

  “I’m just saying, is all,” Gary said. “It’s not like it was a bloody news flash.”

  “My guess is that she’s trying to find out who she killed,” Lourds said. “The police might have had time to find out the man’s identity by now. Hopefully all of them were taken into custody.”

  “That still leaves us trapped here.”

  “Not necessarily,” Lourds said. “There are always circumspect ways into and out of countries.” He retreated to his backpack and took out his sat-phone. He dialed a number from memory.

  Natasha stood at the phone in a corner drugstore. The window beside the phone looked out over the building where she’d left Lourds and his friends. She peered up at the apartment and thought she could see the outline of someone sitting in the window.

  She scowled in disgust. Amateurs.

  A thin woman with three hollow-eyed children walked through the front door as Natasha’s superior answered his phone.

  “Chernovsky,” he said brusquely.

  “It is Natasha Safarov. I needed to talk to you.”

  A thick and repellent silence hung for a moment. Natasha disliked making Chernovsky angry. She hated disappointing him even more.

  Ivan Chernovsky had a lot of experience with the Moscow police. He’d been one of those who survived the fall of Communism and still remained on the job. That said a lot. Many policemen had hooked up with the criminals they’d chased and battled on the street. Chernovsky had remained loyal to his goals.

  He’d also vouched for Natasha, and—when the occasion warranted it—he’d helped cover for her. She didn’t always play according to the letter or the spirit of the law. Power and privilege still held sway in Moscow, perhaps more so now than ever. Natasha didn’t allow either of those to stand in her way.

  “What do you need to talk about?” Chernovsky asked coldly. “The man you killed in the street little more than an hour ago? Or something else?”

  Natasha didn’t respond to the questions. She bucked authority when she could. They both knew that. But when the day was all done, she also delivered whatever the department needed.

  “I’ve got a lead on my sister’s murderers.”

  “What lead?”

  “I don’t want to say at this point.” Natasha watched the pedestrian traffic passing by.

  “You are with the professor?” Papers rustled. “Thomas Lourds? The American, yes?”

  Natasha hesitated only a moment. “Yes.”

  “He is in good health?”

  “Yes.”

  The chair creaked again. “Tell me what is going on.”

  “I don’t know. Not all of it. Professor Lourds is connected to my sister’s death.”

  Chernovsky sighed. “He was obviously not responsible or he’d be dead.”

  “The same people who killed Yuliya are after him.”

  “To kill him?”

  “I don’t think so. At least, they don’t appear ready to kill him at once. I don’t think they’re so choosy about the British people with him.”

  “Ah.” More papers rustled. “The British television team.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you call me, Natasha?”

  “My sister left Professor Lourds information about the project she was working on.”

  “The cymbal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did she leave it for him?” Chernovsky asked.

  “Because she believed he could decipher the language that it was written in.”

  “No one else can do this? There are many professors in Moscow.”

  “Yuliya believed in him,” Natasha said.

  “Do you?”

  Natasha hesitated. “I don’t know. But there was something else that was stolen from Lourds and the Britishers.”

  “What?”

  “A bell.”

  The thin woman guided her children through the store. One small boy remained behind in the bread aisle. He couldn’t have been six years old. He looked like a bundle of sticks. He gazed at the assortment of sweet cakes out on display.

  “What kind of bell?” Chernovsky asked.

  “It’s equally as mysterious as the cymbal Yuliya was working on,” Natasha told him.

  Chernovsky was silent for a moment. “These musical instruments aren’t so mysterious to someone.”

  “That’s what Lourds believes as well.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “Go with Lourds. Yuliya was in contact with a professor of anthropology in Leipzig. Lourds intends to go there.”

  “Disappearing out of the country with someone wanted for questioning involving a murder would be a magician’s trick,” Chernovsky said. “Even if you weren’t a police officer equally as wanted.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t help you with that, Natasha.”

  “I’m not asking you to.” But if she’d thought he could have helped, she would have asked him.

  “Then why did you call?”

  “Because it was the respectful thing to do. And because I need information now and may need it again later.” If it hadn’t been for the possibility of the assistance Chernovsky might be able to provide, she’d have left straightaway.

  Both of them knew that as well.

  “Thank you,” Chernovsky said. “What do you need?”

  “Have you identified the man I shot?”

  “Not yet. But we think we’ll have an ID soon. The men tried to take the corpse with them when they fled the scene. They were successful in getting away, but they had to leave the body. The forensics department has it now.”

  Natasha sighed. She’d been hoping for fingerprint identification. That would have been best. Forensics was a much weaker possibility. Not even the Americans boasted the glittering array of scientific hardware of the CSI television shows.

  “Do you have your cell phone?” Chernovsky asked.

  “No.” Natasha knew he was reminding her she could be found through the GPS technology. “I will contact you as I can.”

  “From Leipzig?”

  “If I’m able.”

  “Be very careful, Natasha,” Chernovsky advised. “These men that killed Yuliya are professionals.”

  “I know that. But I’m used
to dealing with professionals. The criminals in Moscow these days are very dangerous.”

  “You can understand the criminals in Moscow, though. You know what they’re willing to risk. In this case, you don’t know what the stakes are. With these men . . .” Chernovsky took a deep breath. “They should not have still been here today, Natasha. They should have fled Russia.”

  “But they didn’t,” Natasha said. “And that will be their mistake.”

  “Don’t let it be yours,” Chernovsky chided.

  “I won’t.”

  “Stay in touch as you can, Natasha. I’ll do what I can to help. Your sister was a good person. So are you. Take care of yourself.”

  Natasha told him thank you and good-bye. She cradled the receiver.

  The mother walked through the store and made a few meager selections. Natasha dug in her pockets and found a little money. She crossed over to the boy with the hungry eyes. She could remember the times she and Yuliya had done without so many things. It wasn’t until she’d been fully grown that Natasha realized all the sacrifices her older sister had made for her.

  “Give this to your mother.” Natasha pressed the money into the little boy’s hands. “Do you understand?”

  The boy nodded.

  The mother saw Natasha talking to her son and became agitated. Sometimes children disappeared off Moscow’s streets and were never heard from again. Rumors and half truths persisted of black market organ harvesters who took children and young adults West to parcel them off to buyers.

  Natasha left immediately. Showing her police identification would only have frightened the mother more. Russia was a hard and sad place to live these days.

  And it was going to be even worse without Yuliya in it.

  ______

  “Danilovic’s Fabulous Antiquities,” a smooth male voice answered in English, then repeated the greeting in Russian and French. “How may I be of service?”

  “Josef,” Lourds greeted.

  “Thomas!” Josef Danilovic’s voice slipped from professional to near ecstatic. He spoke in English because he treasured his knowledge of the language. “How are you, my old friend? It has been far too long since I’ve last seen you.”