Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
PART I
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
PART II
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
PART III
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
PART IV
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
PART V
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
PRAISE FOR ON THE FIFTH DAY
“Terrific plotting, first-rate suspense. On the Fifth Day is a ripping good read.”
—Kathy Reichs, New York Times bestselling author of Cross Bones
“Not only is Hartley’s novel well paced, with enough twists and turns to keep most thriller fans satisfied, he avoids the missteps of most attempts to cash in on The Da Vinci Code zeitgeist by focusing on the faithful rather than freewheeling conspiracies . . . this slam-bang title is a very fun, surprisingly satisfying read.”—Publishers Weekly
“Full of historical mystery, rife with intrigue and suspense . . . a tour de force sure to keep pages turning deep into the night . . . A. J. Hartley is a rare discovery: a writer capable of challenging a reader as much as he thrills.”
—James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of Black Order
PRAISE FOR THE MASK OF ATREUS
“The Mask of Atreus is the perfect debut—a high-octane thriller crammed full of long-buried secrets, treacherous betrayals, jaw-dropping twists, and a healthy dash of romance. Deborah Miller is an engaging, sympathetic heroine, who you can’t help but root for. Move over Michael Crichton—A. J. Hartley is right at your heels.”
—J. A. Konrath, author of Fuzzy Navel
“Rich with historical and archaeological detail, this well-constructed debut . . . celebrates the power of legend while delivering an engrossing mystery that skips nimbly between continents and cultures . . . This intricate and absorbing thriller augurs well for Hartley’s career.”—Publishers Weekly
“An exhilarating thriller rooted in the dark side of history and myth. Enormously entertaining. Reading The Mask of Atreus is like looking down a very dark and very scary tunnel—you have no idea what’s looking back, waiting to pounce. Hartley is one terrific writer.”
—Jeff Long, New York Times bestselling author of The Wall
“This is exactly the kind of archaeological thriller I love—from its gripping opening on a battlefield in the waning days of World War II to its roaring finish. The Mask of Atreus is rich and dramatic—a compelling novel that will grip you in its swift, dark currents and sweep you over the falls . . . outstanding.”
—Douglas Preston, author of The Codex and Tyrannosaur Canyon
“Absolutely spellbinding . . . Compulsively readable . . . the terrible beauty of ancient Greece collides with the merciless obsessions of the twentieth century.”
—Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author
“Intriguing. A labyrinth of history and mystery.”
—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Templar Legacy
“I find The Mask of Atreus engaging because it’s a rare accomplishment: a genuinely thrilling thriller that’s also intelligent and brilliantly written. They said it couldn’t be done.”
—Phillip DePoy, author of The Fever Devilin Mysteries
“Terrific . . . A. J. Hartley provides a fabulous whodunit made fresh by its deep historical and archaeological base and an endearing heroine.”—Midwest Book Review
Titles by A. J. Hartley
THE MASK OF ATREUS
ON THE fiFTH DAY
WHAT TIME DEVOURS
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WHAT TIME DEVOURS
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To Bill, Jim, and all the teachers, colleagues, and students
who have shaped my love of Shakespeare.
To my wife and son,
and to the memory of Ira Yarmolenko (1988-2008):
“I hope that when you are reborn,
you are born as a snowflake . . .”
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
—SHAKESPEARE, TWELFTH NIGHT
PART I
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
—Shakespeare, “Sonnet 65”
CHAPTER 1
Thomas Knight froze, one hand on the coffeepot, the other extended to the faucet over the sink. It was still dark outside and the kitchen light should show only a fringe of green from the yew in the yard, but there was something else. Something at the window. He wasn’t sure if he’d gotten a flash of it in the reflection from the percolator, or caught a glimpse with the corner of his eye, but he knew something was there, something strange. Something wrong.
He stood there motionless for three or four seconds, as if waiting for it to move, but he knew it wouldn’t and that he would have to turn and look directly at it. Right now it was just an impression of colors that shouldn’t be there—a pale oval touched with yellow and red—sharp against the blackness of the yard beyond, but when he looked at it, it would take shape and meaning. He didn’t want to look.
He turned to it slowly, and even though he wasn’t surprised, the fact of the thing almost made him cry out. A woman’s face was pressed up to the glass.
Her eyes were wide, like she was staring at him, but Thomas didn’t wave her away, or threaten to call the police. There was something too fixed and vacant about the eyes. They were unaware of him.
She was standing at the window, he supposed, but there was an awkwardness to her posture and a slight smear of something on the glass: sweat? Makeup? She didn’t move at all, and Thomas took a small, reluctant step toward the window, half hoping the figure would turn out to be some store mannequin, dressed and propped there by one of his more enterprising students as an end-of-term gag.
But she was real enough. He took two wary steps toward the window.
The glass reflected black everywhere but where the face was pressed to the window, lit by the kitchen light so it seemed to float like a party balloon. He supposed she was in her late fifties. Her pale skin looked delicate and had the beginnings of translucence. She was expertly made up, her lips a trifle redder than suited her, and her teeth were unnaturally white. But it was the eyes that he couldn’t shake. They were wide, fixed in something that might have been surprise.
Or terror.
One was a dull, muddy green, the other an uncanny violet.
Thomas put down the coffeepot and picked up the wall-mounted phone, his eyes still on the motionless face pressed up against the window, but he didn’t dial. He would go outside first. He needed to know for sure.
The kitchen had two windows, one facing south—into the backyard—and one facing east, which was where the woman stood. Thomas stepped out into the predawn chill, cinching his bathrobe tighter as he walked barefoot onto the cold path. She wasn’t visible from the front of the house and it was only when he went around the dark yew that grew on the corner and turned down the narrow path between the house and next door’s dense privet hedge that he saw her. She wasn’t standing exactly, which meant that she was rather taller than he had imagined, but was slumped over one of the gold-flecked au-cubas that were planted along the shady foundation. Down here the only light was the startling and flat brilliance of the kitchen window, which had given an unearthly vividness to the woman’s face from inside. Out here the light only brushed a little green and gold over the edges of the aucuba. The woman herself was no more than the silhouette of her head, her body lost in shadow.
Thomas approached her slowly, watching for movement, anything that would shift the nature of the morning’s strangeness into something more mundane. She could still be just some disturbed old woman who had fixated on his house for reasons known only to herself, and who might yet bustle off muttering incomprehensibly.
“Excuse me,” he said, and when she didn’t respond, didn’t move at all, he put his hand on her shoulder.
Then he knew. He felt the cool slickness of fluid on her shaded shoulder and he recoiled.
Too late. His touch made her shift. She rolled as she fell away from him, and the kitchen light showed the terrible concave shape of the back of her head and the blood that soaked her back like a cloak.
CHAPTER 2
Thomas was already two hours late for work but the police were still there. He had recounted every detail of the morning’s grisly discovery but hadn’t had much to offer. No, he had never seen her before, and no, the spot where she was lying was not where he’d found her. She’d fallen when he touched her, and he was sorry for disturbing the crime scene, but he hadn’t been sure she was dead . . .
He told the story twice, once to a uniformed officer who treated him like some half-wit who had willfully compromised his investigation, and once to a female plainclothes detective called Polinski who was merely efficient. He gathered they didn’t know who the dead woman was.
“No purse, no credit cards, no ID,” she said. “Mode of attack suggests a mugging.”
“The mode of attack?” said Thomas, unnerved by his own curiosity, but also trying to suggest he had nothing to do with it. Thomas was a big man, six foot three and broad across the shoulders. People who didn’t know him expected him to be rough, physical. He had noticed a couple of the policemen sizing him up, though he suspected some of them already knew who he was.
“Looks like she was hit from behind with a half brick. We found it under the hedge. The lab has it now.”
Chastened, Thomas said nothing.
They kept him sitting around for another forty-five minutes and then said he could go. When he went back inside to get his things together, he found that his hand was shaking. He checked his face in the mirror. He was pale, dead looking. Suddenly he felt nauseated and ran to the bathroom, but when he got there, nothing happened. He sat for five minutes on the ed
ge of the tub, then drank a long glass of ice water and felt better.
Thomas dressed for work, feeling the silence of the house now that everyone had left and the strangeness of putting on his tie in the middle of the morning. He wanted to call his wife, Kumi, in Japan, just to listen to the sound of her voice until the world felt closer to normal. It wouldn’t matter what she said. It was enough that they were talking again.
The wheezy grandfather clock in the hall chimed eleven. He brushed his teeth again, ran his hand over his stubbly chin, and decided to shave. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed important to go to school looking composed and professional, looking different from the way he felt.
Perhaps if everyone else assumes it’s an ordinary day, he thought, it will be.
But it wasn’t an ordinary day and not because of the corpse at his window. In the morning’s chaos, he had forgotten that his early classes had been canceled, and the school had been closed for the Williams memorial. Thomas remembered as soon as he pulled into the empty parking lot behind Evanston Township High School.
He cursed, turned the car around and drove over to Hemingway Methodist on Chicago where Ben Williams had volunteered in the soup kitchen. The service was already over and people were drifting out, clustered together, so Thomas sat in the car by the curb, radio off. He recognized a lot of the kids, including a number who had graduated five or six years ago, most of them black. Was it that long since Williams had been here? It didn’t seem so, but then it never did, these days. Thomas was thirty-eight and had been teaching high school for a decade. Ben Williams had been twenty-three; a smart, thoughtful, popular kid and a wide receiver for the Evanston Wildkits. He had only joined the National Guard because it helped pay for college. After his tour he had planned to be a teacher, like Thomas. A week ago he had been killed in Iraq. Thomas didn’t know the details.
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