The Oracle Code (17 page)

29

Safe House

Kandahar

Kandahar Province

Afghanistan

February 15, 2013

After the bath, Layla had excused herself and left the room. Lourds knew she didn’t want to step too far outside the boundaries of her culture while they were in her country. He respected that, but he resented it at the same time.

She had told him that she knew he wanted to work anyway, which was true, but he still felt that separation.

He sat at the desk with the scrolls spread out before him, next to the notes in his journal that he’d made while reading them in Herat. While going through the scrolls again, he referred to his notes and paid attention to repetitive narrative and how the scribe, Callisthenes, had put his writing together. Even though the coded section was different, some of the narrative architecture would be the same. Finding the thread to pull the translation together was going to be difficult.

Someone knocked on the door.

Lourds swung around in the chair, instantly wary. There was still no word on the men who had attacked them. “Yes.”

“Dinner is ready.” Layla spoke through the door.

“I’m on my way.” Lourds hadn’t realized until that moment that he was starving. He reached for his hat out of habit, then left it sitting on the desk. He let himself out and smiled at Layla.

“How is the work going?”

“Slowly. I’m breaking some of the code down, then I’m finding other sections of it to be impossible again.” He walked downstairs beside her.

“Another code?”

“I believe so. Callisthenes was apparently a careful man.”

“Perhaps he had a big secret to hide.”

“He thought so. In the other scrolls, he mentions that Alexander the Great’s final resting place has ‘the power to change the course of nations.’”

“How?”

Lourds grinned. “That’s one of the things that he’s most secretive about. He claims that Alexander was somehow blessed by the gods, that he had been given a great gift, and that the only way people would be safe was if Alexander took that blessing down into the underworld with him.”

“You mean, like Hades?”

Lourds shrugged. “That would be the literal translation.”

“Perhaps Callisthenes hated Alexander.”

“No.” Lourds ran a hand through his hair and felt the ache between his shoulder blades that told him he’d been working on the translation for far too long. “You’d have to read the scrolls, Layla. Callisthenes thought the sun rose and set on Alexander the Great.”

“Wasn’t he a slave?”

“Not a slave, exactly. More like an indentured servant. He was one of the historians Alexander had chosen to document his life.”

“There were others?”

“Yes. But we don’t know how many there were or who they happened to be.”

“Aristotle was Alexander’s mentor, and I know Aristotle wrote about nearly everything. Maybe there is some overlap with his writings and the scrolls you are translating.”

“So many things were lost when the Library of Alexandria burned, I can’t even tell you. Many of the treatises and books that Aristotle wrote were lost.” Lourds thought about that for a moment. “But Aristotle was Alexander’s mentor, and Callisthenes was convinced that Alexander’s relationship with Aristotle was part of the
Great Blessing.
Callisthenes stresses that Alexander would never have become as cunning and as good a tactician as he was without Aristotle’s help.”

“As I recall, Alexander’s father, Philip II, chose Aristotle as his son’s teacher.”

“You’ve got a good memory.”

Layla made a face. “Many of the artifacts we tried to preserve in my previous job had histories that tie back to Alexander. I can’t help but know some things about this time period.”

“You’re right about Philip II choosing Aristotle as Alexander’s teacher, but Aristotle was Greek, remember? And at that time, there was a heavy anti-Macedonian reaction going on in the Greek city-states. If events had not happened as they did in Aristotle’s life, he wouldn’t have been available for the job of teaching Alexander.”

“What do you mean?”

Lourds reached the first floor and smelled the dinner coming from the kitchen/dining room. “Oh my god, that is wonderful.”

Smiling, Layla nodded. “As it turns out, Captain Fitrat is also an excellent chef.”

“A chef?”

“He says he just cooks. A very modest man, our Captain Fitrat.” Layla took him by the arm. “Let’s get a plate and sit down. The captain has worked very hard, and I don’t want to disappoint him.” She pulled him into the dining room. “Then I want to hear the rest of this miracle with Aristotle.”

***

Russian Army FOB (Forward Operating Base)

Command Center

Moscow, Russian Federation

February 15, 2013

The image that Anna had sent hadn’t been of good quality, but it had been good enough to get an answer when Cherkshan sent it through the system. He didn’t send it through normal FSB channels, though, forwarding it instead to a young lieutenant whom he knew could keep his mouth shut.

Emil Basayev was a friend of the family and one of Cherkshan’s most promising officers. When Emil had been younger, he had gone to school with Anna. He was a year older than her but had not exhibited the same proclivities toward the new Russian independence that his daughter did. For a time, Emil and Anna had been...close. And during that time, Cherkshan had been more satisfied with her. Katrina had hoped for a marriage and children for their daughter.

But that had not happened. When Anna had gotten old enough for university, she had gone.

Cherkshan had Emil on the speakerphone in his office. Emil had remained in Moscow to oversee some of the intelligence-gathering operations and to help hack into the Ukraine’s computer networks the next day.

“His name is Sergay Linko, General. He is a colonel in the FSB.”

That surprised Cherkshan. He knew the man by reputation but had never met him. Cherkshan’s stomach turned cold, and he became even more worried about Anna. Linko was a known killer, a hardcore executioner who enjoyed
wetwork
, which was what undercover operatives called their murders.

Cherkshan was of the opinion that murders were murders. It was better to meet a man on the battlefield. He took in a breath and let it out, staring at the picture on his computer monitor. “Can there be some mistake? This is a bad picture.”

“This is a very bad picture. That’s why I searched through the video footage that came out of Herat. I found this.”

A small box opened up on the monitor and showed a video of a man carrying an assault rifle and running across snow-covered ground. Almost in mid-stride, he shot a Taliban warrior in the face while his opponent lay in wait on the ground. Bright crimson blood sprayed out over the snow, and the camcorder operator turned away from the sight with a choked curse.

The video footage stopped then backed up slowly and froze. In the new image, Linko was more recognizable. He was wearing a
Russia Today
coat, which was ludicrous. Nothing the man did would ever end up on television. At least, not with his name or features attached to it.

Yet...here he was.

“General?”

“I am here.”

“I have confirmed Linko’s identity through our facial recognition database.”

“His face is in our database?”

“
Our
database, sir. Not everyone’s. No one else will be able to run this image of Linko and get a confirmation of his identity. He has been very circumspect in his work.”

“The man has left a trail of bodies after him.”

“According to his file, yes.”

“He’s a killer, not a soldier.”

Emil said nothing.

Cherkshan stared hard at the man.
And now he is after my daughter.

“Send the colonel’s file to me. My eyes only. Lock it tightly. I do not want prying eyes looking at this.”

“Yes, sir.” A moment later, Emil told him that the file had been sent. A few moments after that, it showed up in Cherkshan’s e-mail.

The general stared at the hard planes of his daughter’s pursuer and tried to make himself believe that everything would be all right. Dreading what he would find, Cherkshan clicked on the file in his mail, saving it off to another folder on his hard drive. He buried it among plans for the Ukraine invasion, but he would know where it was. Then he opened it and watched the file spread across his monitor.

One of the files showed the bodies of Colonel Linko’s confirmed kills. Linko obviously most enjoyed those assignments where discretion was not enforced. Several of the kills had been of Islamic terrorists, CIA agents, and black marketers. Those had been done in public, and they had been very messy.

The man was a psychopath on a very loose leash. It was no surprise that he had been hidden away in the FSB.

Farther back in the files, Cherkshan found more pictures, these of Chechen women who had been tortured. According to the accompanying information, Linko had demanded information from them, but they had died and taken it to the grave with them.

Cherkshan felt certain that the women had had no information worth knowing. No one could have been that dedicated to keeping a secret. Linko was a sadist who enjoyed hurting and killing people, that was all.

He closed the images and read through Linko’s service record. Much of it had been redacted, but enough of it remained to fill in the blanks. People summoned Linko like a
rusalka
, a succubus that came out to mesmerize victims then deliver them into death’s embrace. The gender was wrong, but the end result was the same.

Now this
thing
was after Anna, and Cherkshan felt certain he knew who had put Linko on Lourds’s trail. After his audience with President Nevsky and the man’s mention of Alexander the Great, Cherkshan had read up on the Macedonian king. Nevsky hadn’t said what had interested him so much about Alexander, and Cherkshan couldn’t fathom the reason.

During the past few months, the general had read dozens of books and grown more frustrated with his independent research. He had a small library of the books at home but had found nothing that would warrant the Russian president’s focus.

Growling a curse, Cherkshan closed down the file, took a final look at the image of Colonel Sergay Linko, and hoped that the men protecting Anna and Lourds would kill the FSB agent, or that he could at least tell Anna about the danger she was in, but that would circumvent Nevsky’s actions to apprehend or kill the American linguist and take whatever he was truly after.

That, too, was another mystery.

Cherkshan drank the dregs of his tea, now tepid, then grabbed his greatcoat and put it on. He wanted to walk among the tanks. That was when he felt most in control of a coming battle.

Turning out the lights behind him, he departed the room.

30

Safe House

Kandahar

Kandahar Province

Afghanistan

February 15, 2013

Seated at the long dining room table, Lourds reached into a basket and took out a small, fresh-baked flatbread. Breaking it open, he inhaled the
naan
‘s sweet aroma. He glanced at Fitrat sitting across from him. “Did you make this?”

“I did.”

Lourds scooped up a large bite of
qabili palau
, a rice pilaf prepared in a seasoned broth. The taste exploded in his mouth, and he sighed contentedly. “You set a very good table, Captain. My compliments.”

“You are most welcome, Professor.”

As he ate, Lourds parceled out the story he had put together in his mind. “In order to understand Aristotle and why his presence as Alexander the Great’s mentor was such a great blessing, you must first understand Plato.”

“The Greek philosopher and founder of the Academy in Athens?”

Lourds shot Captain Fitrat a glance, then remembered what Layla had told him of the man, how he had been schooled in America and his parents had expected him to become a doctor. “That’s right. He founded it on a piece of land called the Grove of Hecademus, also called Academus, hence the name Academy.”

Layla sipped her water. “The Greeks did have a way of naming things what they were.”

“They did.” Lourds ate a
bichak,
a small turnover stuffed with potatoes and herbs. “Aristotle was at the Academy when Plato was there. In fact, it was after Plato died—of natural causes, not hemlock like his mentor Socrates—and the position as head of the Academy came open, that Aristotle chose to leave Athens.”

Layla reached for a piece of bread. “As I recall, Aristotle was passed over for the position.”

“Yes. Even though he was the man best suited for the position, by all accounts. His work had already started to eclipse Plato’s, and Plato was even sitting in on some of Aristotle’s classes to learn the new methodologies his former student was creating.” Lourds sipped water. Wine had been offered, but he chose to honor the Islamic traditions of his hosts. “The position went to Speusippus, who was Plato’s nephew by his sister.”

“Ah, so the Greeks invented nepotism as well.” Captain Fitrat grinned again. “Very crafty, those Greeks.”

“Actually, they were practicing it, but the name didn’t come into favor until the Middle Ages with the Catholic popes and bishops who were busy trying to create heirs. That whole vow of chastity fouled up the normal fathers-to-sons inheritance. But I digress. After Aristotle discovered he was being passed over for the position and that it was being given to a man he felt was inferior to him, he left the Academy. There are some historians who think that he actually left before Plato died, that he already knew who was going to be appointed the head of the Academy. But that doesn’t matter. Xenocrates, his friend, also left.”

“I seem to recall that Xenocrates was head of the Academy.”

Lourds looked at Fitrat in surprise.

The captain looked a little embarrassed and shrugged. “I have a very good memory.”

“You must. Pity you took up being a soldier.”

“If I had not, perhaps you and Miss Cherkshan might not have survived your encounter earlier today.”

Anna, who had been mostly preoccupied, spoke up from her seat on the other side of Layla. “Personally, I am very glad that Captain Fitrat is who he is.”

Fitrat smiled at her.

Lourds held up his water and toasted Fitrat, who responded and clinked glasses with him. “Even without the death of Plato, Aristotle might have chosen to move on. He was thirty-seven and had to be feeling the pressure to develop something of a career.

“He and Xenocrates planned to start a school in Assos, which is near Lesbos. While Aristotle was in Assos, he married a young woman, Pythias.”

“I suppose Aristotle also felt it was time to take a wife?”

Uncomfortable now, the ring in his pocket pressing into his leg, Lourds squirmed in his chair. He caught Anna looking at him questioningly. He shook his head slightly, unnoticed by Layla, but not unnoticed by Captain Fitrat. The captain said nothing, but he looked appraisingly at them.

“Possibly, but their marriage only lasted ten years. She died, leaving Aristotle alone with a young daughter, named for her mother. He later married again, and he continued working at the school he founded with Xenocrates.”

“But not as the head of the academy?”

“No. Serving as second under Xenocrates, who would eventually be called to Athens when Speusippus died a few years later. But by that time, Aristotle was with Alexander. In 343 or later, depending on your resource, Philip II asked Aristotle to his court and presented Alexander to him. Alexander was thirteen, already a prime specimen of a man, tall and handsome and trained as a warrior. And in him, Aristotle must have seen his opportunity to make his mark in the world.”

“You make it sound like Aristotle groomed Alexander to take over the world.” Layla gazed contemplatively at Lourds.

“According to what Callisthenes wrote, that’s exactly what Aristotle did.”

“There’s no proof of that.”

“That was before Boris found these scrolls. Now academicians have fuel to add to that particular fire.” Lourds grinned sadly. “Boris would have been pleased to add something that would fan the flames of that particular argument.”

“Why is it an argument?”

“Some scholars say that Alexander merely wanted to see the world and the only way to truly see it was to conquer it so that he could travel safely. It also enhanced trade across the Middle East, then called Persia. Others see Alexander’s wars as a renewal of the Delian League.”

Anna was busy taking notes. “What was that?”

“The Delian League was a collection of Greek city-states, primarily under the guidance of Athens, that wanted to continue battling the Persian Empire. There was a famous battle, a win for the Greeks, and the end of the Greco-Persian Wars.”

“Okay, what were those?”

Lourds warmed to the subject. “Have you heard of the Mycenaean civilization?”

Anna frowned. “I’m thinking that doesn’t have anything to do with space aliens coming to Earth to take our water?”

Lourds laughed. “No. Mycenae was important to the Greeks because much of their Greek literature and myths, including Homer’s
Iliad
, were believed to have taken place there. Today, this is one of the most studied and most documented cultures of the Bronze Age. When Mycenae collapsed from disease and natural disasters and internal conflicts, many of the people might have migrated to the Middle East, then thought of as the Near East. As a result, the Greeks believed many of the inhabitants and cities of the Persian Empire were actually Greek in origin.”

“It was a land grab?”

Shaking his head, Lourds considered how best to explain. “It was more than a land grab. There was culture, history, trade routes. All of those things that would be necessary to help the Greek city-states become more powerful. Rome was beginning to flex its muscles at this time, and they had to have seen the writing on the wall. The Greek strategists knew that the war between the two cultures would be long and demanding.”

“They needed resources.”

“More than that, they needed conscripts for their armies. Someone to pick up the sword and spear and stand against encroaching armies. At the time, it was easier to conquer the Persian Empire than fight against Rome. But if the Persian Empire was conquered, if it was aiding the Greeks with resources and men, then the Delian League would be in a better position.”

“Aristotle was part of the Delian League?”

“No. The Delian League had been gone for a hundred years by that time. But the desire for the Persian Empire had not been quenched. Plato was a firm proponent of the ideals of the league, even though he was born long after the organization had officially ended. But Callisthenes believed that Aristotle saw in Alexander a chance to take back the lands that King Cyrus of the Persian Empire had taken from the Greeks.” Lourds shrugged. “As it turned out, Alexander was that chance.”

“Okay, I understand that the scrolls can be important documentation on Aristotle’s motivations and goals for taking the mentoring position—resources are important for everyone—but why would anyone be interested enough to murder to get them?”

Lourds shook his head. “I don’t know. Yet.” He bit into his
naan
and chewed, thinking of everything he’d read. “The one theme prevalent throughout Callisthenes’s scrolls is his insistence that Alexander had somehow won godly favors that helped him achieve all that he had done.”

“
Godly
?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mean that he believed the gods—the Greek gods—took part in this war?”

“I do. If you look at Greek mythology—which, by the way, is not nearly so dry as Aristotle’s discourses on dramatic theory—you will see that the Greek gods always interacted with the human world.”

“I know. I learned that in the Percy Jackson books.”

Lourds was familiar with the novels for young readers and thought they were some of the best books written for that age group. The author had managed to convey Greek history and the omnipresence of the jealous and very human Greek gods in a way that was both entertaining and informative.

“Then you know what I’m talking about?”

“You are telling me that something in the lost tomb of Alexander may be a lightning rod for the favor of the gods?”

“Not me. I don’t believe that for a moment. But some people might.”

Anna shook her head. “I do not see how anyone could believe such a thing.”

Captain Fitrat spoke up in his quiet, level voice. “Miss Cherkshan, you shelter tonight in a building that lies in a city torn apart by religious battles, where the Islam god and the Christian god are essentially the same being, but the people called to those beliefs differ in their opinions on how that god is supposed to be worshipped. People still wage wars to win the favors of God. They just fight over the one these days instead of many.”