The Oracle

by D. J. Niko

  She stepped around the rocks that lined the river’s edge and lowered herself in. When the water washed over her midriff, her body tightened. She took a deep breath and held it, then submerged.

  The water was moving but clear. The pylons on which the bridge piers were built drilled into the seabed a good forty feet below the surface. She swam to the one closest to the western shore. It was the foundation of a pier that had been bolstered several times over the years and finally crumbled in the nineteenth century. That part of the structure, she estimated, was the weak link.

  Her hair floating like golden sea anemones around her face, Sarah hovered over the broken pylon and looked into the interior. Shattered stones, marble fragments, and pieces of clay mixed in a gray mortar stew had been pushed into the center of the structure. Her gaze darted to the other pylons. The same substance had been used to reinforce or seal the base of all three piers.

  Feeling the familiar pressure in her chest, she surfaced and swallowed a lungful of cold air. She took a moment to normalize her breathing and dove back down, this time exploring the base of the center pier.

  Swimming slowly around it, she noted the fill was darker and more textured. She took a closer look. One of the marble chunks—a shard no more than three inches wide—appeared to have been carved or possibly fluted, a sign that it might have come from a temple. It was more than she had hoped for.

  She continued her reconnaissance on the other sides of the structure, looking for anything unusual. A dark, textured surface caught her eye.

  Her fingers tingled, and sensation had all but disappeared from her lips. Too excited about a potential discovery, she pushed on. Whatever the toll on her body, she did not care. She stared at the object as if it were manna for the starving.

  Though much of the object was wedged into the fill, she could see enough to determine its mass was a modified cone, not unlike the beehive shape on the potsherd. The stone was the color of coal and vaguely porous, like volcanic rock. But it had undoubtedly been shaped by human hands. Not only was the surface meticulously rounded; it was marked by a relief of characters and forms that were linked together.

  Sarah let out a small puff of air. As the bubbles raced toward the surface, she ran her fingertips across the stone, following the raised forms toward the top of the object: two eagles with outstretched talons, holding a branch in their beaks.

  Her fingers explored further, stopping on a groove cut into the surface. Only part of the carving—a straight, horizontal line—was visible. She released another puff and was suddenly aware she had no more time. As her pulse hammered against her temples, she reached into the fill as far as her hand would go and felt more of the carved shape: a vertical line . . . another horizontal line . . .

  Eyes bulging, she pulled her hand away. Her suspicions had been confirmed.

  Sarah ascended toward the light. Her head burst through the surface, and she gasped for air. The sunbeams breaking through the clouds assaulted her eyes, disorienting her. Her head bobbed in and out of the river as she tried to stay afloat. She swallowed water, aspirating some.

  Coughing and sputtering, she swam to the riverbank and held on to a low oak branch, unable to summon the strength to pull herself out of the water. She stayed in that position for several minutes trying to regain her composure.

  By the time she felt strong enough to crawl onto the bank, her teeth were chattering and her body was quaking. She lay on the grass, curled in the fetal position, to warm herself.

  She felt utterly spent. It was a small price to pay for such a discovery. Her instincts had been correct: the object in the fill bolstering the Aesepus Bridge was the original omphalos stone that marked Delphi as the navel of the Earth and was central to the oracular rituals that so profoundly shaped the ancient world.

  The pagan rituals of which the monk spoke were likely a reconstruction of the oracle of Delphi. The ancient omphalos, which had been lost centuries ago without a trace, was central to the art of prophecy and perhaps even enabled the visions of the priestesses delivering the word of Apollo. Possession of the stone surely would influence such rituals today, legitimizing both the process and the outcome.

  Sarah could only imagine what sinister intent was behind the cult leader’s relentless hunt for the stone. She knew only it had to be kept out of his reach at all costs.

  Still shaking, she sat up and crawled to her backpack. She pulled out some dry clothes and quickly changed into them. There was no time to waste. She had to get back to Greece.

  It was well after midnight when she got to the border. Her eyes stinging and head pounding, Sarah leaned against a wall as she queued to cross over into Greece. There must have been fifty, sixty people waiting—remarkable, considering the hour.

  The one passport control officer did not seem to be in any hurry. He checked each person’s papers manually and barked a litany of questions before deeming a passport ready to receive a stamp. Entry was granted with a series of thumps as the rubber stamp slammed ceremoniously against the passport and each accompanying immigration paper.

  It didn’t help that half the people queueing carried vast amounts of baggage, much of it in cartons sealed with miles of tape and tied several times over with rope. Each time one of those boxes had to be opened and checked, it added half an hour to the process. One woman, dressed in the widow’s black uniform, carried a dog in a chicken-wire cage. Judging by its incessant barking, the animal was not terribly happy about its accommodations.

  Sarah closed her eyes and thought about a conversation she’d had earlier that night. Desperate to track down Daniel, she suspected he might have returned to Saudi Arabia or even the States. When she arrived in Istanbul on her way to the border, she had rung up Jackson Barnes, Daniel’s advisor and the head of anthropology at Rutgers University.

  The exchange had taken an unexpected turn. She could not get it out of her mind.

  “Dr. Barnes, Sarah Weston here . . . Daniel Madigan must have spoken of me.” She looked through the Plexiglas of the public phone booth to ensure she wasn’t being followed.

  “Yes, yes, of course.” There was a pause. “Is Danny with you now?”

  She sighed. He obviously didn’t know more than she did. “I’m afraid not. I don’t know where he is, actually.” She was careful not to say too much.

  “I’ve been looking for him myself.” His voice took on a somber tone. “I have some news for him.”

  “I normally wouldn’t ask for personal information, but I’m rather worried about him. Can you share that news with me?”

  “I know he trusts you . . .” She could hear him breathing uneasily. “All right. It’s his father. He’s been killed in a car accident.”

  “Dear God.” The blood drained from her cheeks. “When did it happen?”

  “Only last night. There will be a service on Tuesday . . . I thought he might want to know.”

  Though Daniel hadn’t spoken to his father in years, she knew this would be a blow. No one knew the depth of Daniel’s sensitivity better than she did. Losing a parent, even an estranged one, could be devastating if one was in a fragile frame of mind. Given what she’d found in his cabin in Thebes, she suspected he wouldn’t handle it well. “Of course. If I see him, I shall have him ring you. But I must be honest, Dr. Barnes.”

  “Jack.”

  “Jack.” Emotion leached into her voice. “I don’t know if he’s coming back.”

  “If he does get in touch, where can I reach you?”

  “Don’t worry. I will reach you.” Sarah regarded the busy Istanbul street and caught a glimpse of a twenty-four-hour DHL office.

  She hung up. Ultimately, her plan was to report the Aesepus Bridge find to the antiquities authorities via an institution like Rutgers that could provide neutral oversight to the excavation process. Sending the potsherd to Jack Barnes was the beginning of that process. Besides, she could not risk having it confiscated.

  Sarah was next up in the queue. The unshaven immigration office
r with the downturned mouth waved her over. She placed her passport on the counter. He looked through the stamped pages before turning to her photo. He held it up and shifted his gaze between the photo and the real deal, comparing the two faces. Frowning, he leafed through some papers on his desk.

  He stood. “Just a minute,” he said with a heavy accent.

  Her body tensed as he disappeared with her passport into a back room. She sensed trouble. She considered making a run for the Greek side, but she knew the border was heavily guarded. She had no choice but to wait.

  A few minutes later, the officer reemerged. “Come with me,” he said.

  Heart racing, she did as told. On the other side of the door were two gray-suited men. The taller, thinner of the two produced a badge.

  Sarah held her breath as she read the identification written in bold capital letters: INTERPOL.

  “Dr. Weston,” he said. “I believe we’ve spoken. I’m Heinrich Gerst. I’d like you to come with me.”

  Twenty-seven

  Gerst parked the black Mercedes-Benz sedan on a sidewalk in downtown Athens. Parking was at a premium in the capital, where roads were built hundreds of years ago for pedestrians and had never been modernized. In a city built wholly on ancient ruins, any construction was a time-intensive and expensive proposition and, therefore, avoided in favor of workarounds.

  Speaking in German into his mobile phone, he opened the rear door for Sarah. He clicked the phone off. “We are going to Solonos Street. Eight blocks from here.”

  Sarah nodded and followed Gerst. His associate walked behind her. Though they had made it clear earlier she wasn’t under arrest, she definitely was monitored, lest she try anything foolish.

  Maintaining a rapid pace, they walked in tight single file past swarms of pedestrians crowding the sidewalk. Acropolis Hill, the monolith on which the Parthenon was built some twenty-five hundred years earlier, stood over the city with all its gravitas, reminding all passersby of the former glory of the Athenian Empire.

  Sarah imagined Pericles, the statesman who called for the building of this grand citadel, standing on that very hill and addressing his fellow Athenians. Though he was known as the father of democracy and a great general who led his men on successful military excursions, Pericles considered the Acropolis his crowning life achievement: he had spared no expense in commissioning not only the monuments but also the art within them, most notably the marble statues that decorated the interiors, metopes, and friezes.

  The Parthenon’s devastation, and the subsequent selling off of the marbles, was one of the tragedies of modern history. The Ottoman Turks, who had occupied Greece for nearly four hundred years between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, had seen fit to use the Parthenon as a munitions storage facility during the Venetian siege of 1687. When a mortar shell hit the temple, the gunpowder exploded and blew the roof off, sending priceless works of art crashing to the ground and causing irreparable damage to one of antiquity’s greatest treasures.

  But the biggest blow came at the turn of the nineteenth century, when the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire decided to sell a good deal of the marbles to Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin and British ambassador to Ottoman Greece. Under a dark cloud of controversy that remained to that day, the marbles were transported to England and became the prize collection of the British Museum. Though she understood the politics, Sarah had always felt ashamed that her countrymen insisted on holding on to these relics instead of returning them to the nation of their origin, where they belonged.

  Gerst stopped at the glass-and-iron door marked number twenty-three and rang up to the third floor. Sarah questioned the location. Interpol’s National Central Bureau was based at the Greek police headquarters. Was this not official Interpol business?

  A loud buzzer sounded, and the door clicked open. The building, probably of early 1900s vintage, was dark as a tomb and smelled musty, like an old grandmother’s house that had not been opened in years. Gerst pushed a button to turn on the staircase light and led the way up the gray-veined marble treads to an office labeled Costantinos Argyros, Attorney.

  A female assistant met them at the door and waved them into a living room that was the antithesis of the building. The black marble floor was so highly polished that it looked wet, the cream leather furnishings were spotless, and bright light filtered through sheer white curtains. A pleasant, almost imperceptible, lavender scent embroidered the air.

  The woman took her leave and came back a few minutes later with five glasses of café frappé and a bowl of sweets individually wrapped in gold foil. If cutbacks were universal in Greece, Sarah thought, it certainly wasn’t apparent here.

  Twenty minutes later, a blue-suited, middle-aged man walked in with an air of authority. He was trim but for a paunch that made the buttons of his white shirt strain at the midsection. His thinning hair was combed straight back, revealing a wide, unwrinkled forehead and V-shaped brows. He offered Sarah his hand.

  “Dr. Weston, Demetrios Floros, head of Interpol Athens.” He pronounced every vowel and consonant distinctly. “I have heard a great deal about you.”

  She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Pleasure.” She glanced at the five glasses of iced coffee. “Who else is joining us?”

  He ignored the question and gestured for her to sit. “Dr. Weston, I will get right to the point. Our officers have been tracking an antiquities theft ring with arms throughout the world. There are many layers to these criminal organizations, as you no doubt know. This necessitates our collaboration with various intelligence agencies”—he paused and reached into his jacket pocket—“and sometimes with civilians.”

  Floros held up an iPhone. From the scuffed-up rubber case, she recognized it as her own. “It seems you forgot this in Thebes.” He tapped the screen several times. “We had to break your security code. I hope you don’t mind.”

  As if she had a choice. “I have nothing to hide.”

  He smiled. “I’m not accusing you of hiding anything, Dr. Weston. I merely want to point out a text message sent to your phone the night before last.” He held up the phone in front of her.

  Sarah read Daniel’s message: Flying into Athens from Cairo tonight. Need to see you. Her shoulders relaxed. He had returned after all.

  Floros placed the phone on the coffee table and leaned forward. “I need you to answer this question truthfully. Have you spoken to Daniel Madigan?”

  She glanced at him, then at the other two Interpol agents. They all wore the same grave expression. “No,” she said. “I have not.”

  Floros inhaled sharply. He seemed unhappy with her answer.

  “I don’t understand. Why are you after him?”

  “We are not after him, Dr. Weston,” Floros said. “We are trying to protect him.”

  She felt like the only one not in on some elaborate plot. “Protect him from what? Or whom?” She raised her voice a notch. “I demand to know what this is all about.”

  “There is someone who can answer your questions better—someone I believe you know.” Floros turned to his left.

  A male figure emerged from the shadows of the long hallway.

  Sarah stood, her gaze riveted on the ice-blue eyes she’d known for thirty-seven years.

  “Hello, darling,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

  Twenty-eight

  Sir Richard Weston walked up to his daughter and regarded her with the haughty glare perfected by the upper class. “Have you nothing to say? Not even a hello?”

  Sarah took a deep breath to steady herself. She didn’t know what was more shocking: seeing her father for the first time in almost two years, or realizing he played a part in this increasingly surreal game. She glanced at Floros, then at Sir Richard. “I want some answers.”

  “I will leave you two to talk,” Floros said. “I have a meeting at headquarters.” With the wave of a hand, he summoned Gerst and his assistant and they all left the room.

  As soon as the door closed behind them,
Sarah turned to her father. “Where’s Danny?”

  “It’s complicated, darling.”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world. I no longer have a job or a partner. I certainly haven’t got a family. So, please: tell me your complicated story.”

  “Very well.” Sir Richard sat and gestured for Sarah to do the same. “Some time ago, a prominent dealer was arrested in London for trafficking in illicit antiquities. One of the items he’d sold to an unspecified collector was of grave importance to Her Majesty’s government.” He paused. “Sarah, we are talking about the original Turkish firman proving that Lord Elgin had been legally granted rights to remove the Parthenon marbles and transport them to England.”

  Sarah raised an eyebrow. “That firman hasn’t been seen since 1809. The entire world presumes it lost.”

  “Yet we’ve been tracking it for three decades. The document surfaced in the 1980s in a bank safety deposit box owned by an Athenian woman. She died with no heirs, and the box went unclaimed for two years. When the bank staff opened it and found the firman, they called the Center for the Acropolis Studies, and it became minor news. But before anything could come of it, a next of kin surfaced—an estranged brother, apparently—and claimed it. We contacted him and offered to purchase the letter, but he ignored every attempt.”

  “Is the brother still living?”

  “No, he died some time ago. His estate was divided amongst three heirs, and we lost the document’s scent. This is the closest we’ve come to locating it since.” He leaned forward. “I’m sure you can understand why it’s so important we get our hands on it.”

  Of course she could understand. The original document would silence the Greeks’ claims, vociferous of late, to the marbles and placate the critics who’d been crying foul for decades. It could neatly put an end to this argument once and for all.