The Atlantis Code (2 page)

“Nonsense,” Leslie said. “Enjoy it. We wanted you to know how much we look forward to working with you on this project. Have you stayed there before?”

“No.” Lourds shook his head. “I’m just a humble linguistics professor.”

“Don’t discount your training or your expertise. We’re not.” Leslie hit him with a dazzling kilowatt smile. “You’re not just a linguistics professor. You teach at Harvard and were trained at Oxford. And your background is hardly humble. You’re the world’s foremost expert on ancient languages.”

“Trust me,” Lourds said, “no few scholars contest that assertion.”

“Not at
Ancient Worlds, Ancient People
,” Leslie assured him. “When we complete this series, the world will view you as exactly that.”

Ancient Worlds, Ancient People
was the name of the show produced by Janus World View Productions, a United Kingdom affiliate of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It featured interesting histories and people, presented by lively commentators like Leslie Crane, who interviewed recognized scholars in various fields.

“You smile.” Leslie grinned, and it made her look even younger. “Do you doubt me, Professor Lourds?”

“Not you,” Lourds replied. “Perhaps I doubt the largesse of the viewing public. And please call me Thomas. Do you mind if we walk?” He thrust his chin toward a shady area. “At least to get out of this damnable sun?”

“Sure.” Leslie fell into step beside him.

“You said you had a challenge to put before me this morning,” Lourds reminded.

“Nervous?”

“Not so much. I like a challenge. But conundrums do leave me somewhat . . . curious.”

“Isn’t curiosity a linguistics professor’s best tool?” she asked.

“Patience, I think, is the best tool. Though it’s one we often struggle for. Records of a nation or empire’s intellectual life—be it history, mathematics, the arts, or sciences—took time for the scribes to write. Unfortunately, it takes even longer for today’s scholars to decipher those ancient works, especially when we no longer have access to the languages in which they were written. For more than a thousand years, for example, no one left on the planet could read Egyptian hieroglyphics. It took patience to find the right key, and then more patience to decipher the code of their meaning.”

“How long did it take you to crack
Bedroom Pursuits?”

Out of the direct glare of the sun and in the shade now, Lourds smiled ruefully and rubbed the back of his neck. The translation of those documents had earned him a lot of attention, as much negative as positive. He still didn’t know if the time spent on them was a career milestone or a misstep.

“Actually,” he said, “those documents weren’t called
Bedroom Pursuits
. That was the unfortunate nickname given to them by the members of the mass media who covered the story.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“You didn’t.”

“But those documents were the histories of the author’s sexual conquests, correct?”

“Possibly. Perhaps they were only his fantasies. Walter Mitty by way of Hugh Hefner. They were rather vivid.”

“And surprisingly explicit.”

“You’ve read them?”

“I have.” Leslie’s tanned cheeks flamed. “I have to say that they are quite . . . compelling.”

“Then you also know that some critics called my translation pornography of the poorest sort. An ancient version of
Penthouse Forum
.”

Delight shone in Leslie’s green eyes. “Oh, now you’re just being salacious.”

“How so?” Lourds raised his eyebrows innocently.

“A university professor with knowledge of
Penthouse
magazine?”

“Before I was a professor,” Lourds said, “I was also a college student. In my experience, most male college students have at least a passing acquaintance with it.”

“Even though that translation got you lambasted among the pedagogue crowd, I know several top professors who say it was an important piece of work on a difficult document.”

“It was a challenge.” Lourds warmed to the topic, hardly noticing the passersby. Voices out in the street offered bargains in Arabic, English, French, and local dialects, but he paid them no attention. “The original document was written in Coptic, which was taken from the Greek alphabet. The man who created it also added in a number of letters, some that were used only for words that were originally Greek. The document, written by a man who called himself Anthony, doubtless after the saint—though the man was more of a satyr, or at least he imagined himself so—at first looked like gibberish.”

“Other linguistic experts had tried to translate it, but none of it made any sense. You figured out that it was written in code. I didn’t know codes existed that far back.”

“The first known codes are attributed to the Romans. Julius Caesar used a simple letter substitution, or shift, to mask messages to his military commanders. His traditional shift traded three spaces.”

“
A
becomes
D
.”

“Yes.”

“We used to do those when I was a girl.”

“At the time, the shift was a clever scheme, but even then Caesar’s enemies quickly caught on. So it is today. Substitution codes are no longer used by anyone interested in keeping things truly secret. They’re too easy to crack. In the English language, the most often used letter is
E
, and the second most used is
T
. Once you can ascertain those values in a block of text, the rest of the letters fall into place.”

“But the
Bedr—
, that is to say, the piece that you deciphered, was unusual.”

“Against what we’ve uncovered so far from that time period, yes. Given the content, the writer had every reason to code his words.”

“The thing that made it even more interesting to me as I read your translation was that the Copts were an extremely religious sect. Even by today’s standards, that document is a bit shocking. So something like that document would have been quite . . .” Leslie faltered for words, evidently unsure of how risqué to be.

“Exotic,” Lourds supplied. “Or inflammatory, depending on your point of view. Of course, today’s standards are a lot more confined than they were back in the ancient world—a legacy left over from Saint Augustine, the Victorians, and the Puritans, among others. But even by ancient standards, those documents were inflammatory. Possibly even dangerous to the life of the writer. I agree. So he was careful. In addition to the coding, the document was also written in the Sahidic dialect.”

“What’s the distinction? Isn’t it still a Coptic language?”

“Not exactly. The Sahidic dialect was an offshoot of the original Copt language.”

“Which began as Greek.”

Lourds nodded. He liked the young woman. She was quick and knowledgeable, and she seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. Some of the doubts he’d felt about agreeing to this meeting started to fade. The university was always looking for ways to increase its exposure to the public, but that didn’t always turn out favorably for the professors put on the firing line. Most journalists and reporters listened only long enough to hear a sound bite they could use—even taken out of context—to make whatever points they wanted to make. Lourds had seen his share of what could happen when a professor was chewed up by the media. It wasn’t pretty. So far, he had held his own, but his work with
Bedroom Pursuits
had gone closer to the edge than he’d liked.

“Sahidic was originally called Thebaic, and was used in literary form beginning around
A.D.
300. Much of the Bible was translated into this language. Coptic became the standard dialect for the Coptic Orthodox Church. Later, in the eleventh century, Hakem b’Amr Allah pretty much abolished the Christian faith, chasing it into hiding.”

“So much turmoil,” Leslie commented.

“Here as well as around the world. Conquerors often try to destroy the language of a civilization they overpower. Look at what happened to Gaelic when the English conquered the Scots. The clans were forbidden from speaking it, from wearing their hereditary dress, even from playing the bagpipes. Killing their language breaks a conquered people’s connection with their history.”

“Takes away their knowledge, you mean?”

“More than that,” Lourds said. “Language is ingrained in people. I believe it gives them a sense of who they are and where they’re headed in their lives. It . . . shapes them.”

“By that definition, even rap singers create a language.”

“No. They don’t exactly create it. They’re lifting it from their people, then turning it into a unique art form. Much as Shakespeare did the English language.”

“Comparing rap singers to Shakespeare? That would be considered scandalous in some academic circles. Even dangerous.”

Lourds sighed. “Maybe. Probably more a flagrant violation of scholarship than a killing matter. But it’s true. If a section of people divide from the larger majority, they tend to develop their own language. Just as university professors and reporters—each with a defined field—develop specialized words that provide a shorthand method of commentary within that group. Or a culture may develop an entirely new language to avoid being understood by a larger population they exist within. A major case in point is the Gypsies.”

“I knew they had their own language.”

“Do you know how Gypsies came about?”

“Mother and Father Gypsy?” she guessed.

Lourds laughed. “At some point, yes. But in the beginning, they were probably low-caste Hindus recruited into a mercenary army to fight against the Islamic conquerors. Or they may have been slaves taken by the Muslim conquerors. Either way, or another if neither of those two answers is right, the Gypsies became their own people and created their own language.”

“Subjugation leads to the creation of a language?”

“It can. Or the destruction of one. Language is one of the most highly evolved tools and skill sets humanity has fashioned. Language can unite or divide people as quickly and easily as skin color, politics, religious beliefs, or wealth.” Lourds peered at her, surprised at himself for talking so much. And at the fact that the young woman’s eyes hadn’t glazed over as yet. “Sorry. Caught me in a lecturing moment. Am I boring you yet?”

“On the contrary. I find myself more fascinated than ever. And I can’t wait to show you our
mysterious
challenge. Have you had breakfast?”

“No.”

“Good. Then I’m inviting you to breakfast.”

“I’m honored,” he said. “And hungry.” And hopeful of getting an interesting meal here, though he didn’t say that to his hostess.

Lourds lifted the backpack he carried and heaved it over his shoulder. It contained his notebook computer and several texts he felt he couldn’t travel without. Much of the information in them was duplicated in his computer hard drive space, but he loved the feel and smell of books when he had his choice between virtual and actual text. Some of the texts had traveled with him for twenty years and more.

He walked beside Leslie as they made their way through the foot traffic and vendors, listening to the singsong voices of hawkers calling out their wares. Alexandria was in full swing, hustling for a living one more day between tourists and thieves.

An uncomfortable sensation of being watched grew in the middle of Lourds’s back. Over the years of traveling in foreign countries, including many troubled nations in the far parts of the globe, he’d learned to heed such warnings. A time or two, those feelings had saved his life.

He paused a moment, looking back, trying to see if anyone in the crowd was showing any undue interest in him. But all he saw was a sea of faces, all of them moving and jostling as they skirted the traffic.

“What is it?” Leslie asked.

Lourds shook his head. He was imagining things.
Serves me right for reading that spy novel on the plane
, he chided himself.

“Nothing,” he said. He fell into step beside Leslie once more as they crossed Hurriya Street. No one seemed to be following them. But the feeling didn’t go away.

“Did he see you?”

Standing across the busy expanse of Hurriya Street, Patrizio Gallardo watched the tall university professor striding away. Gallardo let out a tense breath. He still didn’t know everything that was going on. His contact, Stefano Murani—Cardinal Murani, these days—was closemouthed with his secrets. That was how their employers had taught them to be.

Both of them had been recruited by the Society of Quirinus for their respective strengths. Murani had come from an aristocratic family that lived on old money. With that as his stepping-stone, he’d gone into the Catholic Church, quickly rising through the ranks to become a cardinal. In his position at Vatican City, Murani had access to secret documents and papers that had never been in the public eye.

Gallardo came to the Society’s attention another way. His father, Saverio Gallardo, was part of an organized crime family in Italy that harvested money from the unwary. Patrizio Gallardo tried the organized crime route, but hadn’t been very happy with working under his father’s thumb, despite his talent for the trade.

He liked the work, and—working for the right person—it paid really well. Anybody could shove a gun in someone’s face and demand their money. But not everybody had the stones to pull the trigger and wipe the blood from their face afterwards. Patrizio Gallardo did. And that was what he did for the Society. It was what he was prepared to do today. All the Society had to do was point.