The Tiger Warrior

by David Gibbins

  The plane jolted violently. Jack opened his eyes with a start. Costas was staring across at him, in some kind of droll amusement. Jack guessed what he was thinking.

  “Looking forward to seeing Katya?” Costas asked.

  “Looking forward to seeing what she’s found,” Jack replied.

  “Dad.” Rebecca gave him a scornful look.

  “Okay, okay. Looking forward to seeing her,” Jack said. “But she’s stuck out there by the lake because I suggested it. I’m visiting her in a professional capacity. I have a vested interest in this project.”

  “When you meet her, Rebecca, just don’t use the word girlfriend,” Costas muttered. “If you don’t want to bring out the Genghis Khan in her.”

  “Give me a break,” Rebecca said. “What’s going on here? Sounds like you guys need a reality check. Katya and I are both women. We can talk.”

  “Fortunately,” Jack said, smiling sweetly at her, “you’re not going anywhere near Katya today. After finding those bodies in the jungle, I’m not taking any chances. Katya was close to her uncle and involved with his research. If he was on a hit list, then Katya might be too. And that puts anyone around her in potential danger.”

  “Have you told her about him?” Costas said.

  Jack held up his cell phone. “Just before we took off And she had some news to tell me too.”

  “So you’re saying I can’t come,” Rebecca said defiantly.

  “You’re going to stay with Ben and Andy at the base, and help them with the equipment. Then you’re going to fly east with them in a U.S. Air Force Chinook to the far end of Lake Issyk-Kul. That’s where submerged ruins have been found. I promised we’d check that out too, as well as seeing what Katya’s got for us. You’re going to help set things up there, and wait for us.”

  “So I miss all the action,” Rebecca said.

  “You’re going to be with a team of U.S. Navy SEALs,” Costas said. “Can’t get much better than that.”

  “You speak Russian, don’t you, Rebecca?” Jack said.

  She nodded, then looked at Costas. “The people my mother sent me to live with in New York are Russian. Petra and Michael defected in the mid-1980s, while they were in America at a conference. They’re both palaeolinguists. Petra had been allowed by the Soviets to study in Italy, where she became my mother’s best friend. That was before you two met, Dad, so you wouldn’t have known her. After she returned to Moscow she met Michael at the Institute of Palaeography.”

  “That’s where Katya’s based, isn’t it?” Costas exclaimed.

  Rebecca nodded. “I knew about Katya way before I first met you, Dad. The first time I ever saw you and Costas was when I was sitting down one evening at our summer cottage in the Hamptons with Petra and Michael, watching a documentary about Atlantis. Katya was being interviewed.”

  “Small world,” Costas said.

  Jack looked out of the window, suddenly overwhelmed. He still had so much to learn about his daughter. It seemed inconceivable that he had only known her for a few months. He took a deep breath, and sat back. They were on the final approach now, and the plane was rocking about in the turbulence. He looked at Rebecca. “It’s a serious job. Your Russian will come in very handy. The place you’ll be going to on the lake is a Russian submersible warfare testing facility, recently reopened on the site of the old Soviet base. It’s been a major coup getting them to agree to an IMU team operating in their restricted area, and for the U.S. military this is a lot more than just an interesting holiday for Special Forces out of Afghanistan. It’ll require tact, poise and charm. It’ll be your first official IMU role.”

  “But Costas hasn’t taught me to dive yet,” Rebecca said.

  “Because Costas hasn’t been allowed to take you to Hawaii yet,” Costas grumbled.

  “You can drive the boat,” Jack said.

  Rebecca perked up. “Where is it?”

  Jack pointed down to the aircraft’s floor. “Packed up in the hold. Brand-new Zodiac 6.5 meter rigid inflatable boat, twin 80 Evinrudes, state-of-the-art GPS navigation, position-fixing and bottom-profiling equipment.”

  “Cool.”

  Jack grinned at Costas. The plane’s wheels skidded on the tarmac, and the nose settled down. The engines went into reverse and Rebecca shouted over the noise. “So when will I see you?”

  “Don’t know.” Jack’s voice was shuddering with the plane. “Depends on what Katya’s found. Could be with you later today. But could be a little diversion.”

  “A little what?”

  “A little diversion.”

  Costas looked despondently at his Hawaiian shirt, then at Rebecca. “By now, you should know what that means.”

  JACK AND COSTAS STOOD BESIDE THE LAKE AND waved at the army truck as it trundled off east, revving through the gears and disappearing over the ridge. After leaving Pradesh and Rebecca at the air base they had endured an exhausting four-hour journey from Bishkek, crammed into the cabin with the Kyrgyz driver and his guard. The U.S. Army Chinook helicopter which was meant to have brought them here had developed mechanical trouble, and rather than wait in Bishkek and risk losing a day they had opted to hitch a lift on a supply truck heading to the naval test base at the far end of the lake. Jack’s anticipation had risen over the last hour as the truck had lurched its way toward the lake, through an extraordinary landscape of ravines and ridges formed by the raging cataract that had once flowed from the lake, now shaped again by the wind. He had imagined the thoughts of travelers who had once braved the pass, knowing that each dark recess might conceal a robber band, ready to inflict the murderous fate that had befallen so many on the Silk Route. And then the truck had mounted the final rise and they had seen Lake Issyk-Kul stretched out before them, with the snowcapped peaks of the Tien Shan Mountains lining the far side. The driver had stopped abruptly and gestured across a rocky field toward a solitary yurt, a traditional Kyrgyz tent. They had thanked him and jumped out, and now they slung their rucksacks and began to pick their way across the rocky landscape. Jack began to see the features that had made this place so beguiling to Katya: swirling, curvilinear patterns on the boulders, carvings that looked as old as the rocks themselves. He stopped at one, putting the flat of his hand against it, feeling the hand of the sculptor more than two thousand years ago.

  “A cemetery?” Costas said from behind. “They look like tombstones.”

  “Possibly,” Jack said. “But there’s lot of shamanistic stuff here too. It goes on for miles, where boulders have tumbled down the slopes and come to rest near the lakeshore. Katya thinks the earliest petroglyphs date from the Bronze Age, from the late second millennium BC, but nomads were carving here right through the period of the ancient Silk Route, to the later first millennium AD. As well as the nomads, traders made their way east or west among these boulders for thousands of years; stopping here after surviving that pass or before risking it. In addition to all the nomad art, there’s a chance of finding something really amazing, inscriptions made by those people—Bactrian, Sogdian, Persian, Chinese, you name it. Those traders are what give this route its place in history, yet they hardly left an imprint at all. Any discovery could be a huge revelation.”

  Jack shaded his eyes and looked across the field of boulders, away from the lake and back toward the pass. The late afternoon sun was in his eyes, and it was impossible to see much, flashes of light off the weatherworn surfaces of the rock, shadows where there were gullies and ravines. It would be very easy to get lost in this place, and very easy never to be found again.

  “There they are,” Costas said. “I can see Katya. Come on.” Costas looked faintly out of place in his baggy shorts, oversized Hawaiian shirt, hiking boots and wraparound aviator sunglasses, but he was surprisingly agile and leapt nimbly from rock to rock. He reached a tall man in a felt hat who stood up among the boulders and shook hands. Jack joined them and shook hands too. The man was about his own age, with blue eyes, his face etched by sun and wind in the way of steppeland people. K
atya stood behind him, looking as if she also had taken on the hue of the landscape. She caught Jack’s eye and flashed him a quick smile, but her expression gave little away. She turned to the man. “Meet Altamaty,” she said. “He’s curator of the Cholpon-Ata open-air petroglyph museum. As well as his native Kyrgyz, he speaks Russian and Pashtun, but he’s only just started to learn English. He’s got diving experience with the old Soviet navy. He wants to be involved in the underwater investigations at the eastern end of the lake. I spoke to you about him, Jack.”

  “Where’s the museum?” Costas asked.

  Katya gestured around. “You’re standing in it. It’s probably the largest museum in the world. And the most under-resourced. It’s basically a one-man show.”

  Jack looked at Katya. She was wearing faded military-surplus trousers and a khaki T-shirt, her forearms caked with dirt. Her long black hair was tied back and her face was deeply tanned, accentuating her high cheekbones. She looked more tired and weatherworn than the last time he had seen her, at the conference three months ago, but the color suited her. Jack knew that her mother had come from this area, and her face seemed at one with the tall Kyrgyz man beside her.

  “I’ve already briefed our people about Altamaty,” Jack said. “As soon as the Chinook’s airworthy, Ben and Andy are flying from Bishkek straight to the old Soviet naval base at the eastern end of the lake. The Americans have already got things up and running there, and I want divers in the water as soon as possible to show what we can do. Rebecca’s going with them.”

  “Your daughter is with you?” Katya said.

  Jack had told Katya about Rebecca for the first time at the conference. “I was going to bring her here, but not after what happened to your uncle in the jungle. This place might be over the danger threshold. And she’ll have enough on her plate with the guys on the lake. This is her first IMU expedition, and I want it to be a good experience, especially so soon after losing her mother.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Katya said.

  “The maintenance team thought the chopper would be grounded for another day. I’m hoping they’ll get there soon enough for things to be up and running before we arrive. Last time we were diving was in Egypt a week ago. I’ve never dived in a central Asian lake. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I might take a raincheck until I pass a Geiger counter over the water,” Costas said, rubbing his stubble. “Forty-odd years of Soviet submersible and torpedo testing. I know exactly how they fueled their gear. It was my master’s thesis at MIT.”

  “The biggest problem is the old Soviet early warning stations on the mountaintops, which were nuclear-powered so they could be left unmanned,” Katya said. “Locals have raided them and come back with pockets full of uranium, and been dead within a week. The nightmare is that any of this stuff finds its way onto the black market. It’s why the Americans are so keen to take over cleanup of the old naval base. It’s not so much environmental concern, but the war on terrorism.”

  Jack thought he saw a flash of light in the distance. He glanced up at the boulder-strewn slope behind them. It could have been a reflection off glass or metal, or just a trick of the eye. He shaded his eyes against the sun, looking hard, then turned to Katya. “Anyone else out here?”

  “The odd shepherd, sometimes a hunter who disappears up there and never seems to come back.” She turned to Altamaty and spoke to him in Kyrgyz. He followed Jack’s gaze up the ridge, then spoke quickly to Katya. “Altamaty has eagle eyes,” she said. “He says he saw breath from a horse when it was cold early this morning, far up on the ridge. The hunters sometimes stay in one place for days, waiting for deer.”

  “You’re sure it’s a hunter?” Jack said.

  Katya eyed him. “Who else do you think it could be?”

  “Are you armed?” Costas asked.

  “Altamaty has his old service Makarov pistol and an SKS rifle he liberated from navy stores here when the Soviet Empire collapsed. We go hunting together. It supplements the mutton that’s the staple out here.”

  “I forgot,” Costas murmured. “A palaeolinguist who knows about guns.”

  Katya gestured toward a cluster of boulders about fifty meters away, where the top of a tractor was just visible above the rocks. “Come on,” she said. “The light’s perfect now, just as it was yesterday when we found it. And Altamaty’s got some stew simmering in a big pot outside the yurt. You’re in for a traditional Kyrgyz feast this evening.”

  “I’m starving,” Costas said. “And I know mutton’s one of Jack’s favorites.” Jack gave him a withering look and swallowed hard. It was the one thing he had been dreading. He could stomach virtually anything, except boiled sheep. He had lived for several years as a child in New Zealand, and had once overindulged. Since then even the smell made him feel nauseous. He knew it was a matter of the utmost importance that he conquer the problem now. His manhood was at stake. He smiled at Altamaty, then followed Katya along a track between the boulders. The ground was hard, baked like brick, with only a few tufts of coarse vegetation growing around the edge of the boulders. It was as if a sea of mud and rock had slid down the mountainside and solidified in one mass, embedding the boulders. Jack saw more rocks with carved designs on them, some so eroded they were barely discernible. He stopped for a moment to peer at one, and Costas hurried past him to Katya. “I meant to say,” Costas said quietly, “I’m sorry about your uncle.”

  Katya glanced at him and nodded, saying nothing. She walked ahead, and they followed her in silence through the rocks until they came to the tractor. Costas stopped dead in his tracks, like a boy who had just been given a dream present. “A four sixty-five,” he murmured reverently. “A Nuffield four sixty-five. This was why I got into engineering. I had a summer job on a farm in Canada. This was the first-ever diesel four-cylinder I disassembled.” Altamaty opened the engine cowling, and the two men peered inside. Costas glanced at Jack. “I think I can bond with this guy. I think we just found a common language.”

  “No way,” Jack said. “We did not come here to disassemble a tractor.” Costas sighed, patted Altamaty regretfully on the shoulder, then followed Jack to where Katya was kneeling in front of a boulder a few meters away. They could see where it had been dragged away by the tractor, revealing another boulder that had been partly buried. Between the two was a marked-off excavation area of about four by two meters. In the center was a carefully excavated pile of smaller rocks, about a meter across and two meters long. Jack squatted down and stared at the markings on the freshly exposed boulder. It was why Katya had called him here. “Well I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

  “Another rock carving,” Costas said. “It looks better preserved than the others.”

  “Not just another rock carving,” Jack said. “It’s fantastic.” His mind was reeling. It was one thing hearing it on the phone from Katya, but another thing seeing it for real. He felt the power of the past as he touched it. Letters in Latin. “It’s the same number as in the jungle shrine, the same symbol. XV Ap. The Fifteenth Apollinaris legion.”

  Costas knelt down beside Jack. “I can see it. And that Roman inscription from the cave in Uzbekistan. The one Katya’s uncle recorded.”

  “It’s definitely the same sculptor,” Katya said. “I’ve photographed this and scanned it against the image from the cave. He has a distinctive way of doing his finials, ending each line by angling the chisel back and knocking out a triangular chunk of rock.”

  “A citizen-soldier,” Jack murmured. “One who remembered his trade, and still practiced it with care. He was the one they called upon when they needed to make an inscription.”

  “In the cave in Uzbekistan, I think it was a casual marking, ‘Licinius was here,’” Katya said. “Maybe the cave was where they really felt they had escaped from Merv, where the desert of Uzbekistan became the foothills of central Asia. From there, the Silk Route follows the ravines and mountain passes that eventually lead to this place. But this inscription here by t
he lake was for a different reason. You can barely make out the first line above the legion inscription, but it’s a different personal name, I think Appius. And look at those two letters at the bottom.”

  “D M,” Jack said, tracing his fingers down. “Dis Manibus. That means given to Dis, the god of the underworld. A funerary inscription.” He glanced at the pile of rocks between the boulders. “This is a grave.”

  Costas peered at the rock. “And that symbol above the inscription. It’s an eagle, isn’t it? Isn’t that what we saw in the jungle shrine?”

  “It’s the same legion,” Jack murmured. “Incredible.”

  “It’s exactly what I dreamed we’d find,” Katya said. “The burial place of someone who died here, or in the pass below. For some, this must have been a place for exultation, for recuperation before the next stage in the journey. For others, it would have been a place to die. There must have been many deaths among the traders, Persians, Bactrians, Sogdians, Chinese. But Roman? It’s astonishing.”

  “Did you find anything in the grave?” Costas asked.

  “It was a hasty burial, as you might expect,” she replied. “The ground’s rock-hard and there isn’t enough wood here to fuel a cremation. The body was covered with stones, maybe cut turf That inscription would only have taken an hour or so to cut, for a skilled mason.”

  “A skilled mason?” Costas said. “Are you really sure about that?”

  “There’s no doubt about it.” Jack traced his fingers over the symbols. “He had somehow fashioned a chisel with the right width of head, and he knew precisely where to place each blow. He knew the characteristics of this kind of rock, that it could take a glancing blow without fragmenting the surface. It’s what I said in the jungle shrine. A citizen-soldier.”