by JT Osbourne
He needed the national police in five different countries to lock down their borders—no easy feat. Countless treasures, most being smaller than a shoebox, could conceivably cross hundreds of borders without raising an eyebrow. Recovery was a hopeless task, Cale knew. Turkey boasted thousands of years of experience successfully smuggling goods north, south, east, and west. The artifacts would disappear, never to be seen again— at least not in Cale's lifetime—and he had no idea who his friends were.
He called Jacob again. No answer.
***
To atone for their absence the day before, Brook and Katy obediently let Rabbit drive them out to the dig in the morning. Chatting with him in Russian, Katy learned that Ali and Tom had gone in the first vehicle with Grekov.
"I think Grekov is angry," Kay whispered to Brook in the back of the SUV.
"Angry about what?"
"Us," Katy replied.
"Oh."
It was true. Ali and Grekov were still yelling at each other when Brook and Katy arrived.
"You dig here or you dig there, I don't care!" Grekov was screaming. "But you don't dig both! Not until you've finished one!"
"There is nothing here," Ali told the man. "World War II things. Pawn shop material."
"Then what's over there?" Grekov demanded, pointing to the other dig, still full of the Roman legion's remains. Tom had already crossed to the area. Down on his knees, he carefully worked the ground with a trowel.
"I don't know yet," Ali lied. "It has yet to be explored."
"Is that right?" Grekov asked, voice thick with sarcasm. "Then why are you digging?"
"We don't know till we dig!"
"You don't dig till you know," Grekov replied, poking Ali hard in the ribs with his forefinger. Orders given, Grekov turned his back and walked away. Ali turned too, catching sight of Brook and Katy, which filled him with embarrassment. He raised his shoulders and threw his hands out as if to say, "What can I do?"
Defeated, the three of them went over to Tom.
"The jig is up, I'm afraid," Ali told them. "It's Nazis only for a while."
"Does he know about the Roman material?" Brook asked.
"I don't think so.”
"Where'd you send it?" Brook insisted.
"I can't tell you that. I'm sorry," Ali replied. "Come on, before Grekov gets upset. Rabbit's already prepared to kill us all and bury us in the desert."
Brook held Ali back and signaled Tom and Katy to walk on.
"You take orders from Grekov?" she asked.
"No, from Strelov, but they come through Grekov."
"Have you ever met Strelov?"
"No, not in person."
"On the phone?"
"No, actually. I've never talked to him. Text messages, e-mails, a couple of letters."
"Are you sure Strelov exists?" Brook challenged.
"I'm sure he has a bank account, and the money's good."
"But you don't trust him enough to tell him there's a valuable cache of Roman artifacts a few yards from where he's digging?"
Ali thought about how to answer. "That may have been a mistake, I don't know," he said finally. "I'm willing to give him the Romans, but I'm not willing to give..."
"Cleopatra."
"Exactly."
"She's not here, I'm sure of it," Brook told him.
"Why?"
"Where did you get the Muller diaries?" Brook countered.
Ali frowned. "I can't tell you that—"
"What do you mean you can't tell me that?" she demanded.
"It's best you don’t know."
Brook paled. “Oh my God. You're looting an archaeological site."
"No, no, don't say that!" Ali urged. "The Roman material stays in Egypt. I'm recovering it for the people of Egypt."
"How do I know that?"
Ali looked hurt.
"I'm sorry," Brook apologized. Of course she trusted him.
"I understand your concern," he replied stiffly. "And as long we produce material for the backers, they're happy. It doesn't have to be ancient, just valuable. Can't we work as a team on this?" he complained.
"I'm not sure, Ali. I'm not sure." Brook walked away, glad she'd had the conversation but worried she'd burned a bridge she might need some day.
***
"What were you two talking about?" Katy wanted to know when Brook knelt down with her to dig.
Brook checked. There was no one else around. "He's keeping things from me."
"And you're keeping things from him," Katy countered.
"Yeah, I guess."
"It's love, that's all!"
Brook laughed.
"What's this all about?" Katy asked.
"I wish I knew. That's the problem."
"Let me try," Katy replied. "You're looking for Cleopatra and Antony. Ali's trying to help, and thought that maybe those Romans over there were a key clue. You think that's the 'lost patrol,' the troop that went out looking for Cleo and Tony. It’s a significant find in itself, proving the fact of the legend—more of a monumental discovery actually—but you don't care. You're greedy. You want the mother load. Nothing less than two mummified, asp-bitten royal corpses will do."
"Something like that," Brook answered. The blunt starkness of Katy's analysis highlighted her behavior as hopelessly pathetic.
"You're also worried about finding what you've been looking for all these years under the wrong circumstances, knowing it could all be swept away from you in an instant," Katy added.
"Yes."
"The lessons of the father visited upon the child."
"Do you know Strelov?" Brook asked sharply.
"Strelov?" Katy answered, stalling.
"You heard me."
Katy put down her trowel and sat back on the ground, crossing her legs.
"You have to think about it?" Brook challenged.
"I do, actually," Katy said. "I've never met him in person, but I've spoken to him on the phone, I think. Or was it just an assistant? Now that I think about it, I'm not that certain. I had dealings with him, years ago, but we communicated by computer, text, and fax machine. No, I don't know him, really. Why?"
"I'd just like to know who I'm dealing with," Brook answered, stabbing the ground angrily now, digging the dirt and flinging it absently away.
"I'd like to get all this on film," Katy said.
"Yeah, that would help," Brook replied sarcastically.
"So who do I need to get friendly with?" Katy asked, undeterred. "Who's gonna give us the inside scoop on all this?"
Brook laughed, her anger fading. "Rabbit," she stated definitively.
"Ugh," Katy replied. "Even I have standards. Besides, he doesn't know anything. And if he did, he forgot it already."
"Ali?" Brook ventured.
"Would that be okay with you?"
"Sure." Brook answered, unconvincingly.
45
Boğazkale, Turkey / Matrouh Governorate, Egypt
To say Cale Burlington's life was ruined on that one single night would be an overstatement. His demise had been a long, bumpy slide downward; this latest scam only the final cliff-dive to ultimate ruin on the rocks below.
The staid establishments who'd trusted him with their money, who expected untold results— both in ancient riches and significant academic research—now looked more like an angry mob at the door, pitchforks sharpened, torches lit.
Cale stayed only one more night in Anatolia; not at the pension vacated by Green, nor at the hotel where the supervisor stayed, but in a corner of the train station, sleeping behind a bench, out of sight, his existence only verified by a sympathetic station master who left the pot-bellied stove on so Cale wouldn't freeze to death.
At dawn, to the sound of a train-whistle, Cale made it to his feet and shook off the night's cold. He pulled a large fedora low over his eyes. His late-night interview with the police had turned against him, and although he had managed to slip away, he was pretty sure there'd be a warrant out for his arrest in a f
ew hours. He had no interest in grappling with the Turkish judiciary from prison.
He'd head for the coast first. The sea had always been Cale's friend, and sanctuary. Somehow he'd get to the bottom of this, but he needed to remain free. First, he intended to track down and interrogate the number one suspect; Associate Professor Stuart Green.
***
"That's it? That's how it ends?" Brook asked into the phone.
"Strange but true," Marta replied. "The diary just stops. Not exactly mid-sentence, but mid-thought. He says, 'I'm having trouble sleeping', and then that's it."
"You think he committed suicide?"
There was a long pause while they both considered that.
"Would you write things down if you were going to do that?" Marta finally countered.
"You might. People leave suicide notes, of course."
"Not these. These are to save. To create. Not to complain or explain. I don't think so," Marta stated firmly, as if to convince herself.
"He doesn't say where he is?" Brook commented.
"Never. He's very careful."
"Except for Giarabub."
"Did you go there?" Marta asked.
"Yes, we did.”
"So?"
"Muller killed a lot of people there, I think," Brook said.
Marta gasped like it had just happened before her eyes. "Not our Muller?" she whimpered.
"Yes, our Muller, I'm afraid," Brook said. "Don't tell me you fell in love with him?"
"I did," Marta admitted. "Don't tell me you didn't."
"No…yes, a little."
Marta sighed.
"Marta, I need you to do something..."
"I know. I already started it. You want me to find out what happened to Muller after the war. I already submitted a request to the authorities. There are many forms to sign. I had to give reasons. I pretended I was a niece; I hope they don't arrest me. We Germans are good with records, you know."
"I may have heard that," Brook stated, with a touch of sarcasm. "Let me know what you find out. I'd love to know what happened to Muller and where he was when he stopped writing his diary. Wait—did the daughter know anything?"
"The daughter?" Marta asked.
"The daughter of the girlfriend. The love letters girlfriend?"
"No, she'd never heard of Muller," Marta explained. "She wanted me to tell her. All she knew was that her mother was married, and it wasn't to anybody named 'Muller.' The daughter was born after the war. I think she's a little worried Muller's her real father, after seventy-plus years."
"Well, maybe you can put her mind to rest," Brook remarked sadly. "It sounds like Muller didn't make it."
"We'll see," Marta concluded.
What Brook learned at breakfast was even more of a mystery. Tom came in to the dining room looking for her. After nodding to Grekov and Rabbit at a nearby table, he sat across from Brook and nestled his laptop between her eggs and coffee cup.
"The first pages of the scrolls from the Sinai," Tom announced quietly. "Only two pages for the time being."
Brook stared as Tom clicked back and forth between two images; a simple animation, dots pixelating from one to the other—the illusion of motion.
"Hold it still," Brook told Tom, annoyed.
Obediently, Tom released the keyboard and sat back to contemplate Brook's face as she studied the image. It looked to her like one of those connect-the-dots games, the kind you see in a pediatrician’s office and nowhere else.
"What am I looking at?" Brook wanted to know.
"Beats me," Tom answered. "I was hoping you knew."
Brook shook her head. She touched the keyboard and looked at the second image. Again, it featured dots in a similar pattern, but slightly shifted.
"It's highly enhanced, they tell me," Tom explained. "The original was horribly compromised, they said."
"Uh-huh," Brook mumbled. This wasn't like any writing she'd seen before. Could the dots be code? Like Morse Code? And what was the underlying language? The prospects seemed hopeless.
"They said they'd have more tomorrow," Tom said hopefully.
"They're sending all the findings to you?" Brook asked.
"Yeah, that's part of the deal."
"But you'll send these to me?"
"Sure, of course. This is no use to me. What is it, do you think?"
"I don't know," Brook admitted.
46
Morgantown, WV
Annoyed, Professor Green looked up from his manuscript. Whoever was knocking was insistent. He could tell they wouldn't stop. Figuring it was someone trying to sell him something, convert him to some religion, or a real estate agent who wanted to sell his house, Green's annoyance grew on the way to the door.
"Trick or treat!" he heard.
A prank. A goddamn prank. Halloween was months away.
Professor Green swung the door angrily, prepared to read the offender the riot act, finger poised to tap the "No Solicitation of Any Kind" sign mounted permanently next to the jamb.
"Merry Christmas!" Emily Losser sang from the porch. Her husband Nelson stood behind her; a quieter, more reserved type, slightly embarrassed by his wife's exuberance. Nelson made the motion of tipping multiple glasses behind her back, which made Green smile. "Well, aren't you going to invite us in?" Emily asked, pushing inside without waiting. Nelson and Green shook hands.
"Stuart."
"Nelson. Come in, come in."
Emily was already popping open a bottle of wine and filling glasses in the kitchen. "We were pretty sure we'd find your corpse rotting in your easy chair," she told him as he entered. "We weren't far wrong, I see."
"Emily wanted to surprise you," Nelson stated uselessly.
"You did."
"We brought supper, too!" Emily announced. "You do have a working oven, I hope!"
Green pointed. He loved them both. They were right about him, too. He'd become a hermit, and it wasn't healthy. He needed company, social interaction, fun.
"Let me just get this in the oven—it's cooked, just needs heating—then you and I have a date with your computer—you do have a computer, right?"
"Yes, I do."
"I've made a most amazing discovery," Emily announced, "about those sculptures you gave me to look at."
They went back into his home office, and Green fired up the monitor displaying the photographs he'd sent to Emily in the Art Department. What Emily showed him was amazing, Green had to admit. The sculptor Neferu had been left-handed, Emily argued, and all his works revealed a definite signature beyond the actual signature.
"The way an artist uses a chisel is unique—I truly believe that," Emily told Green as they cycled through the slides. "A fingerprint. See how the marks line up?" She pointed at the screen.
Green peered, incredulous. "So which ones...?"
"I've divided them up for you," Emily explained. "The ones in this folder are all Neferu's. See? I labeled them."
"This is amazing.”
"I told you, you old toad!" Emily bragged. "Now, let's eat."
"I need to send these findings—"
"After supper. And more wine. We owe it to Neferu to celebrate, since he can't."
"Oh, all right then," Green agreed, smiling.
47
Boğazkale, Turkey / Matrouh Governorate, Egypt
The train was late, which wasn't unusual in this backwater of central Turkey. Cale Burlington shivered in the shadows outside, hoping the train would stop in a good position to sneak on board unnoticed. From this angle, he had a good view of both the platform and the winter-cut fields beyond the tracks. If it came to it, he could sprint to the line of trees in the distance, but if he was lucky a train might block pursuit.
Passengers gathered on the platform, checking watches and muttering about the lateness of the train. Cale recognized one man who didn't seem concerned with the tracks at all. It was the pension night-clerk, checking each face furtively, a hat low over his eyes—just like Cale—anxious to see the faces, but d
esperate to hide his own.
On a brave hunch, Cale stepped out from the corner and caught the man's eye. Careful to appear casual, he sidled over.
"I was looking for you," he said.
"You found me."
"I could not speak last night," the clerk told Cale.
"The train will be here in a minute," Cale pressed. "I don't have much time."
"If you had been nicer last night, if you had not pushed everybody around and threatened them—"
"I'm sorry, I really am," Cale told the man. "I come on too strong, I know. I'm American; I'm impatient, I can't help it. Please accept my apologies. I'm a decent guy, really."
The clerk's dignity took some time to return and there was nothing Cale could do but wait.
"Two men came to see Professor Green," he said finally. "The night before he left. One of the men was a young Russian, the other a rich American."
"Who were they?"
"I don't know. They did not give names, I had never seen them before."
The clerk stopped, as if that was it.
"So...?" Cale begged.
"The Russian was young. I have heard the word in the American movies...'thug?'"
"A Russian thug?" Cale asked.
"That's right, and a rich American."
"What was he like?"
The clerk shrugged. "American. Like you, but richer. I could tell by his clothes, and his shoes. With a driver, and big, big car. How you call it?"
"Limousine."
"Yes, limousine. They went up to the professor's room. Like you. Rude. Without permission. I hear loud words."
"What did they say?" Cale asked.
The clerk just shook his head, getting nervous again, aware that he'd let his guard down. He glanced down the platform, looking for danger. A blast of train-whistle made him jump suddenly. "Your train is here," he announced, scurrying away before Cale could stop him.
***
When Brook and Katy arrived at the dig, everything had changed. Almost all the workers had moved across the way, and were digging at the site of the doomed Roman patrol.