The Mask of Atreus (28 page)

CHAPTER 50

This time, she told the guards who, in turn called the police. Was he dead? they asked. She didn't know. She didn't think so, though he might be unconscious. It took over twenty minutes for a police car to arrive, and by the time they had secured flashlights and got to the mouth of the cistern tunnel, another ten or twelve had passed. The two policemen ventured inside, one with a drawn pistol, but the sound of a small motorcycle leaving the parking lot told her they would find no one inside. He had emerged, no doubt, from his rabbit hole while she was making her report, and had slipped quietly out through the postern gate, making his way round to his bike at the foot of the fortress walls.

She sat wearily in the late afternoon sun while one of them hunted through an ancient first aid kit for something to dress her wound. It was shallow on her neck, thank God, but deeper across her shoulder blade, and it had taken longer to stanch the blood. The policeman muttered encouragement, but she barely heard him and had to be prompted several times to answer their questions.

The police returned her cell phone and took her name and that of the hotel where she was staying but, when she said that she intended to be on the next plane back to America, they put their notebooks away and checked their watches. They did, however, drive her back to Corinth and the Ephira, sparing her another bus journey and a walk she wasn't sure she could make.

There were no messages for her at the hotel, and though she was tempted to return to the cyber cafe so she could check her e-mail, she was taking no chances. She instructed 233

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the woman on duty at the desk that she would be checking out first thing in the morning and locked herself into her bedroom with a sandwich bought at the bar in the lobby. She ate it quickly, drank some water, showered, and booked her return flight over the phone, requesting the kosher meal on impulse, something she had never done before.

Trusting to God in the face of murderous little white rab-
bits?

Hardly
.

She hadn't really planned it, not consciously anyway, but she called Calvin Bowers, dialing quickly so that she wouldn't have to consider what she was doing or what she was going to say.

"Hello?" he said. He sounded groggy and a little irritable. She ought to think about the time difference before making these calls. For a moment she just sat there, holding the phone, saying nothing, panicking like she was fourteen again and had phoned the starting quarterback out of the blue, cutting across all the spiderweb threads which gave high school culture its structure, its hierarchy. She was quite still, remembering making that very call, blissfully unaware of how stupid she was being until said quarterback (Tim Andrews, his name was: her brain kept it locked in a lightless little dungeon in her head) had begun to laugh.

"Deborah?" said Calvin Bowers. "Is that you?"

The voice, suddenly careful, nurturing, even hopeful, as far from Tim Andrews's gleeful contempt as could be imagined, brought her back to herself, or to something like herself.

"Yes," she said. "I'm sorry to bother you. I'm really terrible at figuring out--"

"It's fine," he said. "Where are you?"

"I'm coming home tomorrow," she said. "Someone tried to kill me today. Again. But I'm OK."

It had almost been a joke, that "again." She listened to her own deadpan composure as she made light of his concerned inquiries, and wondered where it had come from. The panic, 234

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the stress, the brutal, crushing disappointment, the sense of utter failure, the terror and exhaustion had all just evaporated like morning fog burned off by a strong noon sun, and she felt inexplicably content.

"What time do you get in?" he said. "I'll meet you at the airport."

She checked her schedule and parroted back the relevant numbers, wondering vaguely why he cared, and why it pleased her so much that he did.

"Good," he said. "It will be good to see you."

She smiled and just thought about that for a moment and answered simply, "Yes."

The next day she took the earliest bus to Athens, called the airport to confirm her flight was on schedule, then took a taxi from the bus station to the archaeological museum. Popadreus was in his office, wearing the same--or a very similar--

immaculate dark suit, but his hair was rumpled and he looked harried, and when he realized who it was, his good-humored and laconic smile took a moment to take hold.

"Miss Miller," he said. "How nice to see you. I am, unfortunately, rather busy today."

"I just came to say good-bye," said Deborah. "My plane leaves in"--she checked her watch--"three hours."

He relaxed visibly, and his smile grew warmer.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, apparently meaning it.

"Please, sit down. Will you have a cup of coffee? It's--"

"Not Nescafe," she finished for him, smiling. "Yes, please. That would be nice."

He made the request over the phone, keeping his eyes on her. When he hung up, she leaned forward and decided to get right to it.

"I won't take much of your time," she said. "I just wanted to tell you why I first came here."

He seemed to sense something purposeful in her manner, 235

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and he straightened in his chair, as if preparing to receive bad news.

"I didn't come here merely as a tourist," she said. "The man I work for, the man who established and funded the museum which I run, was killed a few nights ago. I found his body in a small but apparently rich collection of Greek antiquities which I believe he had intended to bequeath to the museum. There was, however, something missing. I never saw it, but I believe it to be a body wearing the death mask and other grave regalia of a Bronze Age king of Mycenae. I think that Richard--the man who was killed--believed it to have been discovered by Schliemann and smuggled to a private collection in Germany. At the end of the war the Germans tried to smuggle the remains to a town called Magdeburg and into Switzerland, but they were intercepted by an American tank unit. The collection found its way onto the black market, slipping through the fingers of at least one interested collector and the Russian government, who wanted to take them back to Moscow as they had already taken the collection known as Priam's Treasure. I also think that Richard believed the corpse to be the human remains of Agamemnon himself."

There was a pause.

"And what do you think?" the museum director asked. His voice was low and level, measured even. He had shown no sign of shock or disbelief so far. But Deborah had not really expected any.

"If there is an actual corpse, or parts of one," said Deborah,

"I'm fairly sure that it is neither Agamemnon nor especially old. I'm also fairly sure that the death mask and other grave goods were manufactured by a local Greek craftsman at the end of the nineteenth century. How they found their way to Germany and under whose auspices, I cannot say, but I know now what happened to them at the end of the war and that they wound up in a secret room connected to a small museum in Atlanta, Georgia."

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The coffee arrived. They both fell silent as it was presented to them, still watching each other, cautious.

"This is all very interesting," said Popadreus. "I'm curious as to why you wanted to tell me about it before you left, however."

It was his first bad move. He avoided her eyes and concentrated on putting sugar in his coffee.

"I think you know why," she said.

"Really?" It wasn't so much defiance as a real question.

"Why is that?"

"I think that the Greek government got word, perhaps through this institution, that a body had, perhaps, been smuggled out of Schliemann's dig, that it had been lost in Germany for almost fifty years, and then elsewhere for another fifty. It turned up in Atlanta, but the man who owned it might be persuaded to return it to its native land. He may have even made the offer of the body and its regalia in return for the rest of the collection staying in the United States. The minister for culture and antiquities (who I happened to meet in this very building) may have suggested the matter be pursued, perhaps authorizing a substantial payment in order to recover the missing items in the interest of Greek national and cultural identity."

Popadreus said nothing for a long moment, then he sighed and smiled.

"Interesting," he said. "Based on nothing but speculation, of course, but interesting all the same."

"Thank you," said Deborah, sipping her coffee.

"So interesting, in fact, that I am curious to hear how the story ends."

Deborah put her cup down and looked at him. He wasn't teasing or dismissing what she was saying. It was something else, something that showed in his eyes, something knowing and a little sad. It was a real inquiry, an invitation, almost a supplication, and it was intended to reveal as much as it asked.

"OK," she said. "Well, I would say that a pair of experts on Mycenaean artifacts, probably employed by this museum 237

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or somehow serving under it, were dispatched to Atlanta to meet with the owner of the corpse and to negotiate its return to Greece, pending tentative proof of its authenticity. At about the same time, a Russian man also went to Atlanta to try to secure the goods, though whether he was operating on his own behalf or was similarly serving his country, I don't know."

This much she was fairly sure of. There were a couple of alternate endings to the story, however, and she wasn't sure which to float first.

"When the Greeks saw the artifacts, they were satisfied enough to want to remove them immediately, but the owner made certain objections, and some sort of disagreement resulted, a disagreement which turned violent--"

Popadreus raised his hand to stop her. For a second he just sat there, one palm raised, a slightly pained look on his face. When he spoke, Deborah guessed he had read something in her manner, something which suggested she wasn't convinced of her own version of the story.

"Let us try ending B," he said.

"The two agents--cultural attaches or whatever you want to call them--are impressed by what they see," said Deborah,

"impressed enough to want to take the body with them for further examination. Richard agrees and lets them remove the display case containing the corpse and its treasures, glad to be returning the body to Greece, but still intending to hand the rest of the collection over to the museum. But after the Greek agents leave with the corpse, someone else comes, finds he has missed the transaction he had hoped to prevent, and kills both Richard and the Russian who was posing as a homeless person in order to monitor events at the museum. Meanwhile, the Greek agents scrutinize what they have recovered and decide that it is
not,
in fact, genuine. They opt not to try shipping the objects to Greece and go underground, afraid of being implicated in Richard's murder."

"And," the museum director inserted heavily, "of embarrassing their government. It would, after all, be extremely 238

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awkward for a country to go to such lengths to retrieve something which turned out to be historically and culturally without value."

It was, Deborah knew, as close to an admission that she was right as she was going to get.

"So someone else killed Richard?" she said.

"The Greek people are very proud of their past," said Popadreus. "They have good reason to be so, particularly of their ancient past. They need it. It helps them to keep a sense of who they are. That said, I do not believe that any Greek would sanction the killing of a living man in order to bring a dead one home."

He paused, suddenly small and defeated.

"Richard Dixon was," he said, "a man of principle and a friend to the people of Greece. That what he had to offer was not what he believed is--while not, perhaps, the stuff of ancient tragedy--a bitter and costly pill for him and for us. You have my heartfelt condolences."

Deborah looked at the floor. She wasn't sure who he meant by "us," but it seemed to include her, and she was unexpectedly touched by it, and could think of nothing to say in return.

"You will miss your plane," he said, rising.

She blinked twice and forced a smile as she got up.

"Thank you for the coffee," she said. "It was very good."

"You are more than welcome, always," he said.

France, 1997

Randolph Fitz-Stephens had turned eighty-seven two days before. His doctors said that the trip was inadvisable, possibly even dangerous, but he had waved them away. He had been waiting half his life for this, and he wasn't about to let his health stand in the way. Over half a century he had waited, searching files and registers, sponsoring dives, urging international inquiries: half a century with nothing to show for his labors except the derision of all those he confided in. All but his son. Marcus would want to be here when he saw it, but Marcus would have tried to prevent his making the journey in his current state, so Marcus would have to wait in ignorance to applaud his judgment.

In a matter of days they would bring Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, to England! Then, and only then, would they begin talks with the British Museum. If Randolph didn't live to see the hero of the Trojan War lying in state under the Parthenon frieze salvaged by Lord Elgin, he could at least trust Marcus to ensure it was done.

He had always known there had been some foul-up with the paperwork. The chaos of the war's last days and those which had immediately followed had been an administrative nightmare. It was not surprising that unscrupulous Americans had been able to slip away with cargo they were supposed to deliver elsewhere, nor was it entirely surprising that no adequate records could lead to where said cargo really had been moved. What had never occurred to him was that some nameless ship might have taken his precious treasure to the bottom of the sea, or that fifty years later a shifting sandbar 240