The Oracle Code (2 page)

2

32 Miles Southwest of Herat

Herat Province

Afghanistan

June 18, 2012

Lourds trudged along beside Boris as they climbed the incline up the mountain. He wore one of his friend’s coats, which was too big and caught the wind more than deflected it. He carried the tools they would need in a bag in his right hand.

Boris was a fireplug of a man, a couple inches under six feet tall and at least fifty pounds overweight. Years of walking from one dig site to another had kept him fit, though, and he easily matched Lourds’s longer stride. His bushy, black hair was going gray at the temples, giving him a sophisticated look that didn’t go with the wrinkled khaki shirt and pants. He looked like a classic, Russian hard-line politician, but he dressed like a bum. He added his flashlight beam to Lourds’s, forming a big pool of yellow that lit up the craggy ground festooned with rocks.

“How did you figure it out?”

Lourds smiled. “I’d rather show you first.”

***

Boris Glukov was one of the foremost authorities on Hellenistic Greece. The timeframe began with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, and ended in 146 BCE, when Rome annexed the Greek peninsula and outlying islands.

Several times over the past few years, and over Finlandia Vodka, Lourds had heard Boris wax eloquent over some aspect of Alexander’s empire getting broken up and the resulting wars as the world seemed to turn against Macedon.

The period was rife with colorful characters as well. Ptolemy was left in Egypt to carve out an empire for himself, more or less. He had even arranged for the body of his friend and compatriot, Alexander the Great, to be brought to Memphis, Egypt, to consolidate his power. Those efforts were renewed when Ptolemy’s son, Ptolemy II, succeeded his father.

Philip V of Macedon had fought to keep the country free of Rome and had even brought peace to his people and the Greeks, temporarily holding the Empire at bay. His fatal mistake had been in forging an alliance with Carthage, Rome’s bitterest enemy.

Glukov loved the history that followed Alexander the Great, and in that, he had a bond with Lourds, who loved the Ancient Library of Alexandria. The Ptolemys had been the stewards of that great repository of knowledge.

The library had burned in 48 BCE, when Julius Caesar set fire to his ships in the harbor to thwart Achillas’s blockade. Lourds could only imagine how surprised the Egyptian general had been when he saw the Roman ships burning to the waterline, set ablaze by the same man that commanded them.

Lourds loved the idea of the library. Legend had it that the great library housed most of the knowledge of the known world at the time. There were still rumors and myths that not all of the library had burned that day. There were some who insisted parts of it had been carted off and hidden away.

Although none of the rumors had yet turned out to be true, Lourds believed that some of it must have survived. He’d spent a considerable portion of his life trying to find those caches.

“I was very fortunate when I found that scroll.” Boris referred to the scroll that had brought Lourds to the dig. Finding the scroll had been, as many archeological finds had begun, a fluke. Of course, archeologists and historians—and linguists, truth be told—hunted such flukes. He walked at Lourds’s side, and his face looked pale in the moonlight. “There are so many things that have been lost throughout history.”

“It’s good for us that many of them insist on being found.”

“That’s because some things are never meant to be hidden from the sight of man forever.”

Lourds didn’t think about disagreeing, but he knew that wasn’t true. The Vatican had some of the Atlantean scrolls, one of them in particular that would change the way people looked at the story of the Flood. There was another scroll that had lifted a Great Evil from the world, and that scroll would never be seen again. And more recently, there was another scroll, now in the hands of the Israelis, that would have ignited a religious war that might have consumed the world.

There
were
some things that were meant to be hidden away forever.

Boris continued. “I tell you, I was flummoxed. There I was, standing in a marketplace in Herat, looking at a document that was easily two thousand years old, and the man I bought it from had no idea what he had. But he saw my interest, and he gouged me with bloodthirsty enthusiasm.”

That was how things were in the Middle East. There was so much history in that area that a trained scholar couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over some forgotten historic record or ages-old document. The worst part about it was that so many of the people in possession of those things didn’t know what they had.

Of course, that could be said about the United States as well. In a country not quite two hundred and fifty years old, there were still many things that had been lost and subsequently found. The extra copy of
The Declaration of Independence
that had been found behind a painting only a few years ago was a good case in point. The possible number of things that had been lost in countries thousands of years old was staggering. And so many of those lost items were documents of one type or another. Some of them were on clay tablets, papyrus, even on turtle shells.

The trick lay in knowing how to read those things, and that was what Lourds excelled at.

“Of course, I immediately thought of you when I saw it.” Boris clapped Lourds on the shoulder hard enough to nearly knock him off his feet.

“You only thought of me
after
you couldn’t figure it out.”

“This is true. But at least I thought of you.” Boris sighed. “I have missed you, my friend. I’ve missed times like these. And I miss Lev.”

Lev Strauss had been one of Lourds’s best friends. Last year, he had been murdered, and Lourds had taken up the chase to solve the quest Lev had begun.

Boris shook his head. “The good ones always die so young. It is tragic.”

Lourds took a deep breath of the chill air, surprised to note how sober he was feeling. “You never told me what specifically brought you here.”

Boris shrugged. “Hellenistic history. What else am I to do? I love history, Thomas.” He held out a big hand. “Alexander the Great was incredible. Here was this big, handsome young man, only thirty-two years old, and he had the known world practically in his hand. All he had to do was close the deal.” He closed his hand into a fist. “But he never got the chance.”

“Persia got in the way. That might have been the tipping point.”

Boris heaved a sigh. “He was young. He fell in love with new ways too easily. Alexander came here, to Persia as it was then, and he grew enamored of the ways and customs.”

“That didn’t sit well with the hometown people.”

“No, but Alexander really tried to sell it. Gave his men wives, harems. Alas, all of that was to no avail. He was even going to send the older soldiers and the disabled ones back to Macedon while he was in Persia, but they didn’t trust what he was trying to do for them.”

“They rebelled at Opis, as I recall.”

Boris shot Lourds a wry grin. “You’ve heard this story before.”

“Drunk as well as sober, but you tell it well.”

“I do, don’t I?” Boris smiled happily, and the flashlight glow illuminated the expression. “Anyway, after the uprising and disagreement, three days later while he was still stymied by his men, Alexander started appointing Persians to command positions in his army. Can you imagine the shock and chagrin that went through his troops?”

“Probably on the same level with the dean of my school when I present him with an expense sheet.”

Boris hooted with laughter, and Lourds knew he wasn’t the only one still feeling the effects of the grape.

“Anyway, shortly after that, the army capitulated. But the victory was short-lived. Alexander returned to Macedon and discovered that some of his soldiers had desecrated the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. He had those soldiers executed at once, of course.”

The tomb still stood in Pasargadae, Iran, and was a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Lourds had seen it and had been awed by it. The epitaph had been particularly moving. He cleared his throat. “‘O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones.’”

Boris sniffed. “It sounds better in Russian.”

Lourds switched to that language and repeated the epitaph.

“Do you see? It
does
sound better in Russian. More threatening and less defensive. I think those words were meant as a warning, not a plea.” Boris glanced at the tall hill just in front of them. He flicked his flashlight over the cave mouth.

The cave was situated so that it was hard to see from any direction. Anyone looking for it had to know exactly where to search. Thanks to the document Boris had bought, he’d been looking for the cave. He’d found it three weeks before Lourds had arrived from Cambridge, done considerable exploring, and had finally given up in disgust.

Lourds shone his flashlight into the cave and felt a little more sober. “You know, now that I think about things with a little more clarity, perhaps going into this cave in the dark isn’t such a good idea.”

Boris laughed. “Seriously? Don’t you think the cave will be dark inside during the day as well?”

“I do, but there might be more people awake that we could ask for help if we needed it.”

“Help? Why should we need help? You and I have been in this cave several times over the past few days. Nothing untoward has yet happened to us.”

“True.” Lourds smiled in anticipation. “And there’s nothing like having a discovery all to yourself, is there?”

“Exactly.” Boris clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on then. Let’s go see if you’ve truly solved this riddle.” He led the way into the cave.

***

Standing in the dark a hundred yards from Lourds and Glukov, Dmitry watched the two men enter the cave and shook his head wearily. These two were idiots. There was no other explanation for their decisions.

“Lieutenant Chizkov, do you have your sidearm?”

“I do, sir.” The younger man seemed nervous. “Do you think I will need it?”

“How would I know? I don’t know why two professors would get up in the middle of the night to go spelunking.”

“It can’t be for any good reason, sir.”

Dmitry sighed at the ignorance of youth. “Lieutenant, if these men were common criminals, I would vouchsafe that, in the middle of the night, they were indeed up to something clandestine. But these are university-trained professors. They’re as curious and as incomprehensible as a child. They do things simply because they are there to be done.”

“Then we have nothing to worry about.”

“No, I did not say that. We will worry because that is our job. But we will be careful because I think we should be.” Dmitry checked the pistol in his waistband. “Do you have extra batteries for your flashlight?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then let us go and hope that this—whatever it is—will not take long.” Making his way by moonlight, Dmitry headed up the incline.

3

32 Miles Southwest of Herat

Herat Province

Afghanistan

June 18, 2012

The cave tunnel was tall enough for Lourds, and it was wide enough for Boris and him to walk side by side. The walls were worn smooth from the passage of time, but probably from lots of human traffic as well. Those caravans that crisscrossed the country had to stop somewhere, and the cave would have been a good campsite. Bandits had probably taken refuge there as well.

Phosphorescent chalk marks stood out on the walls after the flashlight beams passed over them. There were several tunnels throughout the cave system. The majority were natural, but some were man-made.

Lourds and Boris followed one of the natural ones.

“You know, Thomas, the scroll mentioned there was a treasure.”

“I know. I read it. I also noticed that it didn’t mention what the treasure was.”

“So?”

Lourds glanced at his friend. “You and I both know that a document that tells about a hiding place generally also mentions what is being hidden. If it is legitimate.”

“Not always.”

“At least it would mention who hid it.”

“Possibly, but that isn’t an ironclad law.”

Lourds took the next left from memory but confirmed the choice with the chalk mark on the wall. Now that he was moving and they were in the cold cave, he discovered he was sobering up rather quickly.

As ever, the excitement of incipient discovery made his pulse race. If they actually found a treasure, they wouldn’t be leaving the country with it, because anything they found belonged to Afghanistan, but—for a time—they would be royalty among the dig teams.

“How did you get on this dig?” Lourds took another left. “The last I heard, you’d been condemned to teaching at the university. And that’s your description, by the way, not mine. I enjoy teaching.”

“As to what I’m doing out in the field once more instead of spending my time in a classroom, I have the newly elected president of Mother Russia to thank for that.”

“His people aren’t as tight with a buck now when it comes to research?”

“Not his people, my friend. Mikhail Nevsky himself signed off on my funding. I even got to meet him. Briefly.”

“You met Nevsky? The man who said he was above kowtowing for backing?”

Wearily, Boris shook his shaggy head. “I grow tired of the classroom. It is four walls and dreary. These days I find myself gazing out the windows as much as my students. It is no place to be. I need to be rejuvenated. I need to...discover.”

“So what’s Nevsky’s angle?”

“Angle? Why an angle? Must he have an angle?”

“Ancient history.”

Boris grinned good-naturedly at his companion. “What possible interest would the president of Russia have in this stuff? For all I know, perhaps my grant writing caught his eye.”

“I’ve seen your grant writing. In Russian and in English. I wouldn’t be so quick to laud your abilities.”

“Faugh.”

“But why would Nevsky fund your work?” Lourds was curious. Nevsky was still somewhat of a cipher. The new Russian president was recalcitrant and talked only of Russia. “Nevsky is Old School Russian. From the talks I’ve seen him give, he wants to see Russia pulled back into the Communist way of life.”

Boris shrugged. “I have lived with Communism, and I have lived with capitalism. I have to say, the Communist way was a lot less complicated.”

“But what is Nevsky’s interest in your work?”

Boris sighed. “Thomas, what is the last thing a needy research scholar asks?”

Lourds smiled. “Why someone decided to donate money to fund that research.”

“Exactly. You’re supposed to thank your blessings and your good fortune, then go cash the check as soon as is politely possible.”

“You know, the old line about being wary of Greeks bearing gifts seems very opportune at this time, given the bit of history we’re studying.”

“Nevsky is a strange man. I watch him posture and preen, and I see him trying to convince Russia that he is the leader they have been waiting for. The scary thing is, there are several in the Russian military who like his points of view.”

“I don’t see Mikhail Nevsky as the kind of man who would waste his time with those who don’t share his views.”

“No, but the man can be rather charming.”

“When he’s funding a grant.”

“Obviously most appealing at that time.”

***

“So here it is, my friend. The riddle that has stymied me for weeks.” Boris shined his light over the dead-ended tunnel.

The beam picked up the engraving on the wall. There were two lines on the wall, all of them written in Old Persian. The cuneiform had been cut into the stone a long time ago and had gotten smoothed over during the years.

Lourds had first seen a copy of it, a rubbing Boris had shown him, at the Herat Airport upon his arrival. They had sat in a small café next to a group of newly arrived ISAF replacements and talked, in Russian, about what the engraving meant.

Boris, though he was no mean linguist, hadn’t been able to make a complete translation. Lourds had solved it—even though some of the cuneiform had worn away in places—within a couple of hours over three beers and a sandwich.

Looking at it now, Lourds smiled.

“Why are you smiling?” Boris seemed a little irritated.

“You will too, once you know the secret.”

“The secret? Do you mean to tell me that you translated the writing incorrectly?”

“No. Not at all.” Lourds shot his friend a grimace. “Truly, Boris? A wrong translation? From me? You doubt my abilities?”

“No.” Boris held up his hands. “You did not hear me say this.”

“Not in so many words.” Lourds looked at the inscription again. “The document you discovered—”

“Ransomed.”

“—at the marketplace told briefly of a merchant determined to hide his profits from the tax collectors during the Persian Empire.”

“The Achaemenid Empire.” Boris corrected Lourds immediately.

“I beg your pardon. The
Achaemenid
Empire, which everyone else knows as the Persian Empire.”

Boris blew out an irritated breath. “Inaccuracies and shortcuts abound. This is one of the reasons no one gets a decent education these days.”

Lourds took a pass on the verbal sparring for the moment. His argument was that information was passed on best these days when it presented quickly and understandably. “According to that document, the merchant hid a portion of his profits within this cave, always packing it away while he was on caravan returning to Herat. Unfortunately, the merchant died and was unable to reclaim his treasure.”

“It’s not the promise of gold and lucre that drives me, you know.”

“Of course not, Boris. I would never think that of you.” And in truth, Lourds never would. Boris didn’t follow his explorations for the money. He just wanted to know things. Lourds understood that implicitly.

“Good.” Boris gestured toward the wall. “‘My son, I love you, and if you would have your inheritance, you must seek beyond these words.’” He shook his head. “How can you have had an epiphany about this while you were with Dominique?”

“Because she surprised me, and I realized that she was more than meets the eye.”

Boris rolled his eyes, and they glowed white in the reflected flashlight beam. “If this is going to get into sexual athleticism, I will not be able to restrain myself. They will find your corpse stretched out in this cave on the morrow.”

“No. But realizing that Dominique held qualities that most men wouldn’t see because they were too busy taking in her beauty led me to thinking about the message here.”

“Perhaps I am just tired, because you are making no sense.”

Lourds knelt to his pack and brought out a special plaster mix he’d had in his tent from earlier casting duty to get copies of some of the clay tiles that had been written on. “I think there’s a message beyond the message the merchant left for his son. Something that probably his son would understand when no one else would.”

Boris trained his light on the cuneiform writing and stepped closer to the wall to see the inscription better. “Beyond the message?”

“Yes. Actually, I’m thinking
underneath
the message.” Lourds took a small tray from his backpack, poured in some of the plaster mix, then added water and mixed it into a gray-white paste with a trowel. He scooped some of the plaster onto the trowel and approached the wall.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

“Going to see if I’m right.” Lourds smoothed the plaster onto the wall, totally covering the message and extending beyond the edges of the cuneiform to make certain it was all covered.

He spent the next several minutes making sure the plaster was thick. When he was finished and he’d used all of the mixture, he stepped back and admired his handiwork.

The wall looked like it had a huge Band-Aid in the center of it.

Lourds cleaned the tray and the trowel with water from his canteen.

Boris surveyed the patch job. “What is this supposed to mean?”

“Remember when we did an analysis on the carving? Testing to see the depth to which the cuneiform had been cut into the rock?”

“Yes. They’re of various depths.”

“Right. That was the first clue. I just missed it. I blamed the differing tolerances on the carver. Totally my bad. As you can see, the carving is
very
accurate, almost machined in. The cuneiform is spaced precisely, and the symbols are all uniform. A very, very skilled craftsman created this. So, I reasoned, the tolerances had to be equally planned.” Lourds scratched his goatee and stood. The plaster was supposed to be a quick-drying compound, and it turned out that it was.

“Well, I still miss it.”

Lourds took out his Swiss Army knife and flicked the smaller blade open. “Give me a hand with this, and I’ll show you.” He set the flashlight on the ground on its butt so the beam would diffuse against the ceiling and fill the cave with light. Boris did the same.

Working carefully, Lourds inserted the blade under the edge of the plaster and gradually made his way around. Boris drew a pocketknife of his own and started doing the same on his end.

Gently, they pried the patch free and pulled it from the wall, lowering it to the floor.

The plaster form had reached into the cuneiform cuts, but the whirling spikes forming the layers of the depths of the carved niches could be plainly seen.

“I still do not see it.”

“Patience.” Lourds reached into his backpack and withdrew a roll of paper. “Let’s see if my theory is correct.”