The Oracle

by Clive Cussler

  He handed Remi the roll of papers. She looked at a few and put them in the glove box. “I hope you’re wrong about Amal. She was so good with the girls. I couldn’t have asked for a better companion when Makao and his thugs broke into the school.”

  “You can question her tomorrow.”

  But Amal wasn’t at the dig the following afternoon when Remi and Sam arrived, nor was she at Renee’s house when they checked there.

  Renee, no longer using her crutches, invited them to the kitchen table for coffee. Hank was at the stove, stir-frying rice and vegetables, the scent of hot olive oil filling the room. José was at the sink washing his lunch dishes. He nodded in greeting as he set them wet in the rack. “Heading out,” he said when he’d finished.

  “Sit,” Renee told Sam and Remi, bringing over a pot of coffee and two mugs. “It’s sort of a free-for-all at mealtime.”

  “So I see,” Remi said. “Where’s Amal? Isn’t she usually out in the field in the afternoon?”

  “Usually,” Renee said as she poured their coffee. “Did she say anything to you, Hank?”

  He turned off the burner and looked back at them. “She took the day off to help her mother with the big dinner tonight. Anything wrong?”

  “Probably not,” Remi said. “She had one of her episodes yesterday at the market.”

  “But she usually recovers pretty fast,” Renee said.

  Hank scraped the vegetables and fried rice into a large serving bowl and carried it to the table. “Have you eaten yet? We have plenty.”

  Sam and Remi declined.

  “LaBelle. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Yes. Be right back.” She left the room, then returned a moment later, handing Sam the missing ledger. “I found it last night. Somehow, we looked right past it.”

  Sam opened it, turning the pages, studying the entries while they ate.

  “What is it?” Remi asked when she noticed him pausing and turning back to the previous page.

  “A few pages are missing.”

  Renee set her fork down. “That’s impossible. There was nothing missing when Hank and I went over them together.”

  “When was that?” Sam asked.

  “When we first discovered there was a problem.”

  “They’re not there now.” Sam opened the book wide. “You can see where they were torn out.”

  “The burglary,” Hank said. “We couldn’t figure out what was taken. That had to be it.”

  “Warren?” Renee leaned back in her chair, looking sick to her stomach. “I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but why can’t he just leave us alone?”

  Sam looked up from the book. “Where’d you end up finding it?”

  “With the other ledgers,” Hank said. “It was out of order.”

  Sam checked his watch and stood, tucking the ledger beneath his arm. “I’d really like to take a closer look at this, but not right now.”

  “You’re leaving?” Renee asked.

  “We have a few errands to run before dinner tonight. We’ll check in with you later.”

  Remi, picking up on Sam’s hint, turned to Renee. “If we get done in time, maybe I’ll swing by and we can visit some more.” She followed Sam out the door. Once they were in the car, she asked, “Why are we rushing out?”

  “This,” he said, handing Remi the ledger. “The dates of the missing pages are right around the same time Amal came to work at the site. I want to get a copy of it to Selma. I think we need a fresh eye.”

  Remi looked through it while Sam drove. “Please tell me you don’t think Amal’s behind the embezzlement and artifact theft?”

  “I have no idea. I’m just pointing out the obvious. After her odd reaction yesterday when she saw us looking for the journal, then the secret meeting at the market, we have to admit Amal is far more involved in this than we thought.”

  “I refuse to believe that.”

  He glanced over at her as she studied the ledger. “Refuse all you want, Remi. Something is going on with her. Remember when we saw her out at the ruins on our first day? You asked her about it. She denied being there.”

  “Maybe it was a misunderstanding.”

  “Maybe. But the guy I saw tonight looked an awful lot like the guy who stole Dr. LaBelle’s purse that same day. My suggestion? Watch her closely at dinner tonight. And keep an open mind.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  A small house will hold a hundred friends.

  – AFRICAN PROVERB –

  My mother, Yesmine,” Amal said, smiling at a woman who looked very much like she could have been Amal’s older sister. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Fargo and their friend Professor Lazlo Kemp. The Fargos are the couple who’ve financed the excavation.”

  “So glad you could join us,” Yesmine said, smiling at them. “Amal’s told me so much, I feel as if I know you all quite well. Please, come in. My home is your home.”

  “A very nice home,” Lazlo said.

  Nasha raced in from the kitchen. “You’re here. Wait until you see what I helped make.”

  “I can’t wait,” Remi said, wrapping her in a tight hug. As she let go, her gaze caught on the aged-bronze Sator Square sitting on the mantel. “The famed charcoal burner lid,” she said, walking over for a closer look. Slightly bigger than her hand, she marveled at the workmanship. “I hear this is why Dr. LaBelle expanded the search for more Bulla Regia ruins.”

  Yesmine beamed. “My daughter’s a very good storyteller.”

  “Amal regaled us with stories about this when we were”—Remi checked Amal, saw her worried expression, recalling that she hadn’t told her mother what had happened at the school—“discussing archeology to the kids,” she finished, noting the look of relief in the young woman’s eyes. “It’s a lovely piece.”

  Nasha’s eyes sparkled. “It’s a palindrome square. Sator, arepo …” She hopped as though skipping rope and suddenly stopped. “I don’t remember the rest.”

  Yesmine glanced at the artifact. “My mother found it when she was a girl.”

  “Amal tells me there’s supposed to be a curse tied into all of this,” Remi said.

  Yesmine laughed. “I’m not so sure about that. Like Amal, my mother was a bit of a storyteller herself. But yes, supposedly a curse that kept others from finding the ancient scroll buried by one of the Vandal kings.” Her eyes sparkled as she looked at the artifact, then at Remi and Sam. “The curse will bring death to any who try to take the scroll for their own. If I remember, it’s only one of royal blood who can return it without invoking the curse.”

  “Which,” Amal said, “I’ve never understood. It can’t just be a Good Samaritan, it has to be a royal Good Samaritan.”

  “Were your grandmother still here, she’d tell you that there was always a reason for those oddities in the old tales, even though it might not be obvious to the storyteller.”

  “I miss her,” Amal replied as someone knocked at the front door. She walked over to answer it.

  “As do I,” Yesmine said as Renee, Hank, José, and Osmond walked in. “My mother had much to do with nurturing Amal’s love of archeology.”

  Renee laughed. “Thank goodness or we’d all be out of a job.”

  Osmond, his face beaming, handed a bouquet of flowers to Amal.

  She thanked him and turned to her mother, saying, “How sweet. Osmond brought you flowers again.”

  “Again?” Remi whispered to Sam.

  Poor Osmond appeared crestfallen. Nasha tapped Amal on the arm, looking as if she was about to correct her as to who the bouquet was for. But Renee held up two bottles of chilled sparkling water, since neither Amal nor her mother drank alcohol. “We need something to toast with.”

  “Perfect,” Yesmine said. “This way. It’s such a nice evening, I thought we’d eat outside.”

  Twinkling lights strung across the branches of the nearest olive trees cast a festive glow across the picnic table draped with a white cloth. Amal and her mother brought out plates stack
ed high with the deep-fried brik triangles, followed by bowls of couscous, spicy chicken, and other Tunisian dishes.

  When everyone took a seat, Nasha slipping in between Remi and Amal, Amal’s mother raised her water glass. “To good friends, old and new.”

  Sam and Remi raised their glasses. “To good friends,” they said.

  Renee raised hers, saying, “To the best graduate students a professor could ever hope for.”

  Amal smiled and cocked her head, down the hill and through the dark grove, toward the house Renee rented for their crew. “Here’s to hoping this dig lasts for a long time. No long bus rides for me.”

  José laughed, saying, “Hear! Hear!”

  “‘Hear! Hear!’ What does that mean?” Nasha asked Amal.

  “A short way of saying that’s exactly what we want to hear.”

  Hank gave the final toast. “To good food. I vote we eat before it all gets cold.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Nasha said. Everyone laughed. And, with that, they passed the dishes.

  Remi was surprised when Yesmine handed her the plate of brik, saying, “Amal tells me this is a favorite of yours?”

  “My memory of it, it’s been years.” Remi took two and passed the dish to Sam, then Lazlo. “Not since I was here with Renee back in college.” She took a bite and closed her eyes, savoring the explosion of flavors and tang of goat cheese. “Even better than I remembered.”

  At one point during the dinner, Nasha elbowed Remi, grinning. She apparently had noticed the same thing that Remi had. Osmond spent almost the entire time stealing glances at Amal. It was clear he was smitten with her.

  Amal seemed totally unaware of his attention.

  Well into their meal, the conversation turned toward the new fragments the graduate students were uncovering. “Unfortunately,” Amal said, “it’s nothing as wonderful as the Sator Square my grandmother found. I’m not that lucky.”

  “Nonsense,” Renee said. “If not for you walking into my class that day, then writing your thesis, we’d never have found that subterranean chamber to begin with.”

  “You got that right,” Hank said. “LaBelle would still be digging in exactly the wrong spot on the exact opposite side of the archeological park if not for you. It’s a shame that Warren almost ruined it for the rest of us.”

  “Speaking of,” José said. “I heard the police don’t think he fell at all.”

  Hank lowered his water glass to the table. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “One of my friends at the British works,” José said.

  Renee glanced at Remi. “I suspected something like this. The police have asked me to come down to the station tomorrow morning. No doubt to tell me it was”—she gave Nasha a quick look, noting she seemed more interested in the brik triangles on her plate than the conversation at the table, Renee lowering her voice anyway—“self-inflicted, would be my guess.”

  Remi turned toward Sam. “We’re not letting her go down there by herself.”

  “Remi’s right. We’ll go to the police with you.”

  “Let me,” Hank said.

  “You’re needed here,” Renee told him. “The Fargos have more experience with this sort of thing. Offer accepted.” She gave a tired sigh. “I vote we change the subject. I actually have some good news. The university received an endowment and they intend to funnel some of that money into the archeology department—once everything’s sorted out, that is,” she said with an apologetic smile toward Remi.

  They tossed around ideas about where that money would best be put to use. Eventually, the conversation drifted into the happenings at other sites in the archeological park.

  Osmond pulled out his phone, accessing a video. “Did any of you see the prank that the Brits pulled off? They hung a plastic skeleton on fishing line in the entrance to the amphitheater … Watch.”

  Nasha gasped. “Were they scared?”

  “Very,” he said, passing the phone to Renee, who held it so she and Lazlo could see it together.

  “Brilliant,” Lazlo said.

  Renee laughed. “This is great. Where’s Amal? She needs to see this.”

  Her mother looked up at them. “I think she was clearing dishes.”

  Remi’s gaze wandered toward the olive trees and she was surprised to see a light at the bottom of the hill where none had been just a few minutes before. She nudged Sam with her knee. “I think someone might be in the office.”

  Sam looked that direction. “You’re sure it isn’t a reflection?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He studied it a moment longer, then stood, holding his hand out to his wife. “After all this great food, I need to stretch my legs. It’s a lovely night for a walk.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” she said.

  Lazlo bowed his head to them and launched into a tale of the treasure he hunted for but never found in Laos, drawing everyone’s attention.

  But Nasha saw them and followed. “I want to go for a walk.”

  “Nasha?” Yesmine called. “Ready to help me with the dessert?”

  That did the trick. As she raced back to the table, Sam and Remi strolled through the yard, ducking below the low-growing branches of the olive trees that surrounded it. The laughter and conversation faded as they continued down the slope through the grove, toward the small house rented to the archeologists.

  About twenty-five yards away, Sam saw a flash in the window. “Definitely something going on inside there.”

  “If everyone’s up at the party …”

  “My thoughts exactly,” he said, searching the front of the house. The door and windows were shut. Nothing looked disturbed. “Let’s check around back.”

  As he and Remi stopped at the corner, he peered around it, then pointed.

  The door was open.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  Tell your friend a lie. If he keeps it secret, then tell him the truth.

  – AFRICAN PROVERB –

  Sam drew his gun, moved to the threshold, and motioned for Remi to wait at the door. Whoever was in there wasn’t too worried about being overheard. He entered the kitchen, walked down the hall to the dining room, stopping at the arched entrance to the front of the house that the archeologists used for an office. When he looked around the corner, he saw Amal picking through the books on the shelves. He called her name.

  She jumped, turning toward him, her hand flying to her heart. “You scared me.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I … I wanted to find the missing ledger.”

  “Is there anyone here with you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Remi joined them, shocked to see Amal. “What on earth?”

  The young woman gave them a sad shrug. “I know this looks bad, but it’s not what you think. I came down to search for the missing ledger. I wanted to prove it wasn’t Warren who was stealing.”

  “Renee found it and gave it to us. There were pages missing.”

  Amal’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t know. But you have to believe me, I only wanted to help.”

  Sam moved to the window, peeking between the slats of the blinds, seeing Renee and Hank heading down the hill toward the house. “Yes, well, I’m not the one you’ll have to convince.”

  Amal jumped up from her chair to look out the window. “Oh no. What do I tell them?”

  “The truth,” Remi said.

  She looked at them in desperation. “I can’t.”

  “What about the market?” Sam asked.

  “The market?”

  Remi said, “When you took off on your own and knocked on that door.”

  Amal seemed surprised she’d been caught. “I … When I found out that’s where he tried to sell the stolen artifact, I had to see for myself.”

  The front door opened and she clamped her mouth shut. Hank stood at the threshold, Renee right behind him. “What’s going on?” Hank asked.

  Remi smiled at them. “Amal was asking about the girls
back at the school and if they’d found Makao. She didn’t want her mother to overhear. For obvious reasons.”

  Sam had no idea why his wife decided to defend Amal, but he wasn’t about to sideline her efforts. “We thought we’d have more privacy down here.”

  “Without the lights?” Hank said, turning them on.

  Renee moved past him, her focus on Amal. “You haven’t told your mother what happened?”

  “How could I?” Amal said. “If she knew, she’d never let me out of her sight again.”

  “True. I doubt she would,” Renee said. “And she’s going to figure out something if she discovers you’re not at the dinner.”

  “She’s right,” Remi said. “We probably should have left this conversation until tomorrow.” She moved to Sam’s side. “Why don’t we head back up to the house before we’re missed.”

  Thankfully, Nasha had kept Amal’s mother occupied, helping to serve dessert, and hadn’t noticed their absence, and Lazlo was still entertaining the two young men with treasure hunting stories. When the dinner ended and they bade their good-byes, Amal walked Sam, Remi, and Lazlo to their car. “Thank you for not saying anything.”

  Remi clasped the younger woman’s hand. “We’ll finish this conversation tomorrow. It’s important.”

  “Of course. I know.” When her mother and Nasha appeared in the doorway, Amal stepped back, waving at them as they drove off.

  “Nice dinner,” Lazlo said from the backseat. “How was your little adventure?”

  Remi buckled her seat belt. “Interesting. Just not sure what to make of it. It was Amal.”

  Sam glanced over at her. “Exactly why did you stop her from explaining what she was up to?”

  “A time and place for everything, Fargo.”

  “And what was wrong with that time and place?” he asked, driving down the hill.

  “It was clear she was uncomfortable talking about it in front of Renee and Hank.”

  “You think?”

  “I want to know why first.”

  Sam had learned long ago not to question his wife’s instinct even when it defied logic. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Because like it or not, Amal is involved in whatever’s going on.” He slowed at the sight of an SUV parked at the side of the road at the bottom of the hill—one he might not have seen had it not been for the moonlight reflecting off the vehicle’s roof.