The Oracle Code (22 page)

39

Kandahar

Kandahar Province

Afghanistan

February 19, 2013

Lourds sat quiet and tense in his seat as the SUV sped through the crowded streets. The driver applied his horn liberally, causing slower traffic to pull over. Occasionally, when there was room enough and no one was in the oncoming lane, he wound through traffic, following the lead of the other two vehicles.

Calmly, as if carved from stone, Captain Fitrat sat in the other seat. He watched the traffic intensely. “Keep your eyes on the side streets as well. Look at the intersections. See if you notice any speeding cars matching our direction. We are moving very fast. They will have to reveal themselves if they are there. They cannot hide.”

“I suppose you do this kind of thing all the time.”

Fitrat ran his hands over his rifle without looking. He had already changed the partially spent magazine for a fresh one. “Many times.”

“No wonder you enjoy cooking.”

“Cooking is relaxing. This...not so much.” He turned briefly and looked at Lourds. “But it is exciting.”

“I’m not sure that’s the word I would use, Captain.”

Fitrat grinned. “I think it is, Professor. After all, you could end this at any time. Simply leave the scrolls and walk away, and your part in this would be over.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Exactly, Professor.”

“Whoever did this killed my friend. I can’t just walk away.” Lourds looked at Fitrat and nodded at the assault rifle in his lap. “You have your tools. I have mine. When I decipher this final scroll, everything these people have been working for—whatever it is—will be beyond their reach.”

“Good.” Fitrat nodded approvingly. “I am glad Layla chose you to be her friend. She needs a strong man in her life. With all the work she does, I did not ever think she would allow herself the distraction of someone in her life.”

“I’m very fortunate.”

“I have learned that is a very good thing to remember when you’re dealing with any woman.”

***

Linko sped through the city with both hands on the wheel. An Uzi machine pistol rested between his thighs. He stared hard at the streets, picking his openings carefully then blazing through. Bicyclists didn’t count. Those he didn’t avoid. He went straight at them, giving the hapless riders the choice of getting out of the way or getting run over. Most chose to move, but Linko had left a lot of ruined bicycles, and more than a few dead and dying people, in his wake.

Achmed spoke in Linko’s ear over the headset. “I can see our target.”

“Where is he?”

“Over on the next street.”

Linko pinned the accelerator to the floor and sped through the next intersection, momentarily crossing bumpers with a delivery van, then dodging past a car just emerging from an alley.

Once on the next street, he reached for the tablet PC on the passenger seat. All of the pursuit vehicles he’d hired were equipped with trackers. The GPS software kept him up to date on where everyone was.

Achmed’s car was designated 3. It was currently three blocks ahead of him. The SUVs were staying on a straight course.

Linko looked up just in time to drive up onto the sidewalk, avoiding a collision with a car that was stopped ahead of him with mechanical problems. With a curse, he yanked the wheel hard left. The sedan skidded for a moment, then he muscled his way back onto the street by shoving over another decrepit sedan that promptly went out of control and plowed into a storefront.

“I am almost there. Everyone converge on Achmed. We will get ahead of the convoy and cut them off. We need to take out the lead vehicle.” Most of the mercenaries working with him already knew that. Their experience was why he had hired them in the first place.

He flew through the next intersection and spotted Achmed’s sedan ahead of him. At the same time, though, he spotted the first of the Afghan National Army attack helicopters swooping in from the west, from out of the afternoon sun. Two others followed.

“Achmed.” Linko stepped on the brakes, knowing the pilots would be looking for vehicles driving much too fast for the circumstances, because that’s what he would have ordered. He and his men had just gone from pursuers to the pursued.

Before Achmed could respond, the lead helicopter opened fire with a heavy-caliber machine gun. The bullets punched through metal and glass, causing Achmed’s sedan to shiver and shake under the impacts, and Linko knew every man in the vehicle was dead.

Freed from the hand of the driver, the car careened out of control, hit the corner of a building, then flipped several times before ending upside down and spinning like a turtle in the middle of the street.

Cursing, Linko watched another helicopter coming straight for him. A line of bullets dug craters in the old street as they zipped toward his vehicle. Hand over hand, Linko pulled the steering wheel hard right. The tires flirted with losing traction but somehow held on enough to help him guide the car into the nearest alley. Bullets thumped into the rear of Linko’s vehicle, and he hoped the gas tank wouldn’t explode.

The helicopter blurred by overhead, but he knew it would be back for him. The men aboard it had his scent now, and they wouldn’t be satisfied till they had him.

He brought the car to a halt in the alley and discovered it was too narrow for him to open the door. He was lucky to have gotten inside such a tight fit.

Desperate, he grabbed the tablet PC from where it had fallen in the floorboard and stuffed it into the carryall he’d brought his weapons in. He picked up the Uzi and fired several rounds through the windshield, shattering it. Kicking out the glass, he scrambled outside onto the hood.

The helicopter rotor wash sounded almost overhead. Linko jumped from the car and ran toward the end of the alley. When the chopper floated into view, he was still ten meters from the corner. He lifted the Uzi and fired on the fly, trusting instinct and experience to at least aid his aim.

His good luck continued though. One or more of the bullets struck the door gunner, and he slumped in his safety harness. The helicopter pilot, concerned for his teammate, pulled up again.

By that time, Linko rounded the corner and found himself standing in front of a small shop. He ran inside, brandishing the machine pistol and making threats. The restaurant patrons flooded out onto the street.

In the back of the shop, heart still beating wildly, Linko replaced the empty Uzi magazine with another, then dropped the weapon into the carryall. He found the bathroom, took off his jacket, reversed it from black to gray, and turned on the tap water. He cupped water in his hand, then splashed it into his face and used it to slick his hair back. When he looked into the age-spotted mirror again, he no longer looked wild-eyed and frantic.

He dumped the earpiece and the cell phone he’d been using to communicate with Achmed and his cohorts into the trash, picked up his carryall, and headed back out of the shop.

Out on the street, he kept walking. Black smoke plumed up from two places a couple streets over, and Linko guessed that the rest of his team hadn’t fared well. The ANA helicopters hovered protectively over the area.

His personal cell phone buzzed for his attention. When he checked the viewscreen, he saw that the caller ID hadn’t identified the caller. He was certain he knew who it was.

“Hello.”

“Good afternoon, Colonel Linko.”

Linko had expected the Russian president to sound irritated, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Nevsky knew about his latest failure regarding the apprehension of the American linguist.

“I have news for you, comrade. I know you have been tracking your target there.”

“Yes. I found him, but he got away.” Briefly, Linko detailed the attempted interception and the subsequent failure. “He is leaving, but I do not know where he is going.”

“The woman, Layla Teneen, has requested that tickets be held for your target and his protectors at the airport.”

“The airport has too much security. I will not be able to reach him there.”

“This I also know. I can also tell you that he is going to Athens.”

“Athens?”

“Yes, so I am to assume that he has managed to learn more from whatever he has taken from that tomb.”

An ANA military vehicle drove quickly by through the street. Linko only caught sight of it from the corner of his eye. “Then I will go there and ask him what he has discovered.”

“In time. But first, there is another mission I would ask of you.”

“Anything.”

“All that I have hoped for in the Ukraine has gone according to plan, but now we need to move again and strike quickly. Your mission to Athens can provide a two-fold strike.”

Linko kept walking and waited for his orders.

“Use the assets in Athens to find Lourds. I don’t think it will be too hard. He will be in visible places. Museums. Records halls. He is going there for access to documents that will help him in his search. So let him do that job for us. I want what it is he finds.”

“Do we know what that is?”

“Not yet, but soon. It will have something to do with Alexander the Great’s weapons.”

Old weapons? Linko couldn’t believe his talents were being wasted on such a thing. He had nearly gotten killed for museum pieces?

Perhaps Nevsky had gotten a sense of some of his thinking from his lack of response. “These weapons are not a simple matter, Colonel. They are more powerful than any nuclear weapon. Trust me on this.”

Linko shrugged, knowing Nevsky wouldn’t see it. Trust was irrelevant. It didn’t matter to Linko whether or not Nevsky knew what he was talking about. All that mattered was getting the job done.

“I have arranged a flight to Athens for you. Unfortunately, I was not able to secure the same flight as your target.”

“That is fine. I will be able to find him soon enough.”

“Give him some time to finish his task. I have another mission for you. We have made some inroads with an old ally in Greece. You have worked with 17N before?”

That surprised Linko. Revolutionary Organization 17 November, better known by the sobriquet 17N, was a leftist terrorist group that had spawned in Greece as a Marxist urban guerilla movement in 1975. The inciting incident that had sown the seeds for the group had been the 1973 Athens Polytechnic University student protest against the military regime under Georgios Papadopoulos, the leader of the Regime of Colonels, as it became known. Their primary goal was to get the Americans, especially the CIA and military bases, out of Greece. And they wanted to embrace the Marxist teachings that had drawn them together.

The very first target 17N had taken down had been a CIA station chief, the first ever to be killed in a terrorist attack. It was an impressive achievement.

At first, though, none of the American or Greek military officials had taken seriously 17N’s claims for the execution. They started paying attention shortly after that, though, when 17N killed Evangelos Maillios, the former intelligence chief of the Greek security police.

They were taken seriously after that.

For the past forty years, the terrorist group had remained active but had gone deep underground. Still, some splinter groups had remained in existence under the old name. Terrorists never completely disappeared.

With the economy as bad as it was now in that country, Linko knew that Greece was as ripe for “reunification” as the Ukraine.

“This will be a bold move.”

“I know, comrade, and that is why I am asking you to take this meeting with these people. I want you to be my liaison and to break ground between 17N and the other groups in that country that will be sympathetic to becoming part of this greater dream we are building.”

“I understand. What am I to tell them?”

“In the 1970s, the Russian government under Yuri Andropov funded 17N. Your contact there will be Nicolas Aigle, the current head of 17N. I want you to tell him that I stand ready, willing, and able to give him funding the like of which his organization has never before seen if he can pull the various troops together.”

“And if he is not amenable?”

Nevsky hesitated. “Then there is a younger man. Loukas Pappas. If need be, we will open negotiations with him.”

“I understand.”

“First the 17N, comrade. Then the professor. But do not lose sight of the professor.”

“It will be done.”

“Be safe, comrade. We are building a brand new world, and this must be done at a reasonable pace. But soon.”

40

The Aegean Sea

Hellenic Republic (Greece)

February 20, 2013

Getting into the country wasn’t a problem, but obtaining the necessary papers for Fitrat and his men to carry weapons had been difficult. Lourds had been forced to cool his heels in the hotel while the ANP officer had worked out the details.

“It would be easier to just buy guns from black market dealers here.” Lourds had gotten frustrated by the enforced wait and from the lack of sleep. He knew he was on the verge of putting together everything the scroll hid.

Fitrat had looked at him, obviously shocked. “You know about such things from the novels you read?”

The discussion of Lourds’s reading matter had come up on the six-hour plane flight. He hadn’t wanted to bring out the scrolls for obvious reasons, and his mind was too active to simply veg out. The captain had had his own emergency details to iron out, not the least of which was street clothing for himself and his men. Not to mention getting the proper credentials for the guns they now carried.

Lourds had simply nodded to the question. He hadn’t wanted to get into the gun acquisitions made by Natashya Safarov or Cleena MacKenna or Miriam Abata when they’d traveled with him.

Finally, the papers had come through diplomatic channels. According to them, Lourds was there seeking information about an archeological find based in Afghanistan that was important to that country and had to be protected from the Taliban.

Lourds hadn’t exactly been thrilled when he’d read the classification. “You do realize that if the Taliban weren’t interested before, if they weren’t behind Boris’s death and the pursuit we’ve been avoiding, they’ll be interested now. They have spies in many places.”

Fitrat nodded. “It is a risk, but one we must take in order to protect you. If we carry illegal weapons and a situation arises where we must employ them, then they will be taken away.”

“You can get more.”

“Not if we, too, are taken away. On the chance that you are not arrested with us, you will then be alone. Easier prey than if you remained with us.”

Lourds acknowledged that.

“And if you are arrested and put into jail with us, it would be in a very bad environment. It would be too easy for whoever is pursuing us to find you and to have you killed.”

“You’re right.”

So Lourds had remained an unwilling hostage in his room. This morning they had finally been able to leave.

Lourds sat in the back seat of the rented boat with Captain Fitrat as it sped across the green expanse of the Aegean Sea. One of the captain’s men drove and another rode shotgun. There was another boat carrying armed men ahead of them. Although everybody would have fit in one boat, Fitrat hadn’t wanted to reduce them to one vehicle with no options.

“Why do you think this place is so important?”

“Because it was mentioned in the scroll.” Lourds peered across the sea at the island as they neared it.

“Then why didn’t we come here sooner?”

“It wasn’t mentioned by name. There was a code for it, and it isn’t a simple letter-substitution code. The paragraph I broke regarding this place reduced Delos to
the place where the dead do not rest.
“

The young soldier in the passenger seat nearest the pilot looked over his shoulder at Lourds. “Zombies? You’re talking about
zombies
?”

“No. What is it with your generation and this love of zombies?”

The man shrugged and smiled. “How can you not love zombies? Have you not seen
The Walking Dead
?”

“No, but I’ve heard of it. If you ask me, it’s a lot like
Anabasis
.”

“Is that a movie or a television show? I am not familiar with it.”

“It’s a book written by a professional Greek soldier named Xenophon. It tells the story of a group of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger, a Persian king, to take the throne from his brother, Artaxerxes II. Cyrus led them into battle at Cunaxa in Babylon but was killed, so putting him on the throne would have been moot. The rest of the book was about the struggles of the Greek mercenaries to return to their homes without getting killed.”

The young soldier thought for a moment. “It sounds interesting.”

“Yes, it is. They were harried by the king’s men the whole way, and they had to cross the snow-covered mountains to reach the Greek cities. You should try reading it.”

“If Cyrus the Younger had turned out to be a zombie, then they could have still placed him on the throne. That would have been more interesting.”

“Because everything is better with zombies.”

“Of course.”

Fitrat chuckled but politely turned his head.

Lourds sighed. He saw the same kind of behavior in his college students all the time. “Getting back to my point, Delos was a meeting place for all the cults of Greece. Temples were built there to the gods, including the temple of the Delians, which was dedicated to the sun god Apollo. There was also a place dedicated to the Poseidoniasts—merchants, sea captains, and innkeepers who worshiped Poseidon, the god of the sea. All of the gods were supposed to have temples there, including Hera, Dionysus, Artemis, and the others of the big twelve. In fact, Apollo and Artemis were supposed to have been born there. The place became a pilgrimage for the Greeks, and people from all over the world went there to see the temples and fountains and other landmarks.

“Since this land was so important to the ancient Greeks, they didn’t want it tainted. Didn’t want to offend the gods and goddesses. They tried to purify the island. In the sixth century BCE, the tyrant Peisistratos founded the Panathenaic Festival, a series of games that lasted for days.”

“Like the Olympics.”

“Yes. Only never as big.”

“It is hard to be as big as the Olympics.”

“Peisistratos ordered that all graves that could be moved from any of the temples had to be relocated.

“Nearly a hundred years later, the Delphic Oracle declared that all graves on the island had to be emptied and that no one could be born there or die there.”

“You are talking about the Oracle created by Apollo?” Interest showed in Fitrat’s eyes.

“Absolutely. The Oracle was in full sway then. What do you know of her?”

“Only that Apollo chose the first woman.”

“That’s not exactly how it was, but that seems to be the common conjecture. According to legend, Apollo chose Cretans from Minos to be his priests, jumped onto their ship in the form of a dolphin, and led them to the site of the Oracle.

“Another story says that a goat herder named Coretas noticed that one of his goats was acting strangely after having fallen into a rift in the earth. When he went to investigate, he was overcome by strange visions that allowed him to peer into the future and the past.”

“This I know more about.” Fitrat shifted in his seat. “Scientists actually found that the visions might have been elicited by gas that was trapped within the earth. Carbon dioxide or something.”

“Close, but carbon dioxide was only one of the possibilities.” Lourds smiled. “Originally the gas was believed to have been ethylene, a byproduct of an oil deposit there. Although there are some who say the more likely culprit was methane or hydrogen sulfide.”

“That wouldn’t have made the Oracle a great environment to be in.”

“No, but it didn’t stop people from going there. Aristotle, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch—among others—are reputed to have visited the site.”

“So they cleaned the island of the dead, and that became the land of temples to the Greek gods.”

“Among others, yes. There were some Egyptian gods worshipped there too.” Lourds grinned. “One of the most interesting pieces is the Stoivadeion, the temple dedicated to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It’s a giant phallus.”

The two soldiers in the front of the boat totally lost it and started laughing hysterically. Even Fitrat laughed, and he wiped his eyes. “Who would do such a thing?”

“It was erected—if I may be so bold—”

The soldiers howled with glee.

“—by an ancient Greek grammarian named Carystius. Sadly, this phallus is practically all that remains of his works. Even that is broken.”

“Broken?” The young soldier in the front seat turned around again. He had changed to speaking English.

“Yes. In half.”

“So now it’s half-cocked? Is that how you say this in your slang?”

The soldier laughed and pounded his thigh with a fist.

“Yes.” Lourds covered his face with his hat and wanted to throw himself overboard.

***

Delos Island

The young soldier hopped out of the boat and quickly tied it up at the dock. Lourds grabbed the line from the stern and tied it to a cleat as well, wrapping it snugly.

“Where are we going?”

“To the Agora of the Delians. Remember, I told you that Aristotle and Plato were connected with that long-dead organization that wasn’t so long dead during Alexander’s time.” Lourds looked around at the island and the blue sky surrounding them. He’d been to Delos several times, but he never failed to be impressed by the pomp and pageantry that the sight brought to mind.

Now all that remained were fragments of what had once been. Broken, stone houses, tall, Doric columns that looked solitary and lonely, and stone parquets that showed wear from the countless visitors who toured the island even now.

“Why are we going there?” Fitrat adjusted his sunglasses. In casual clothes, he almost looked touristy.

“There’s an inscription that was mentioned in the scroll as being key to the parts that I haven’t yet figured out.”

Lourds took the lead, and they followed bare earth walkways and the stone-lined path that wound through the island.

“This is a beautiful place.” Fitrat walked at his side. “I could live somewhere like this with my family.”

“No one can live here, actually. It’s against the law. The only residents here are a French archeological group that have been working digs on the island since the 1870s.”

“They still haven’t finished?”

Lourds waved around them. “There’s a lot to dig up on this island. You’re talking about almost three thousand years of history since the Greeks landed here, and there were people who lived in these islands before that. It’s just harder to get to them. And with all the sites, space gets cramped.”

They walked past the shops in the Agora of the Competaliasts, the paved square directly behind the harbor. Lourds pointed to it.

“That’s an ancient marketplace. Slaves were sold on the island. Sometimes as many as five thousand a day. That particular market was devoted to the Competaliasts, a union of freemen and slaves who worshipped the Roman gods of crossroads.”

The sun beat down on them as they walked. Lourds took off his hat and mopped his brow. He couldn’t help looking around for gunmen to come charging out of nowhere.

“Feel safe while you are here.” Fitrat clapped him on the shoulder. “The good thing about an island as flat and small as this one is that no one can sneak up on you without you seeing them come.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Taken away by the history surrounding them, Lourds felt his fears melt away for the moment. He pointed at a small, circular building made of marble stones in the center of the agora. “There is the temple that was dedicated to Hermes, the god of commerce. This is where the slave trade proliferated.”

“It is a shame for a thing of beauty to be tied to such an ugly business.”

“Living is an ugly business, my friend. Many things haven’t changed.”

They stepped onto a stone path that was forty feet wide.

“This is the Sacred Way. It leads to the Sanctuary of Apollo.” Lourds pointed at the columns nearby. It looked like a large, stone square that had large porches that led up to it.
Ex-votos
, offering places meant to give tribute to the gods, lined the Sacred Way.

“I assume since he was the god of the sun that he found the idea of a roof offensive?”

Lourds grinned. “Perhaps. But inside there—see the long building?—that’s the Oikos of the Naxians, the house of the people from Naxos. That’s a nearby island, the largest in the Cyclades. The Cycladic civilization that lived there dates back to 3000 BCE. Some truly fascinating artifacts have been found there.”

He led the way down into the Agora of the Delians, where more long porches stood beside
ex-votos
. Carefully, Lourds began inspecting the
porticos
, looking for the name that had turned up in the scroll.

Fitrat began looking as well. “What are you looking for?”

“An inscription made by Pittacus of Mytilene.” Lourds kept moving, reading the inscriptions quickly. “And unless you’ve suddenly learned how to read Ancient Greek, you’re not going to be much help.”

Fitrat sighed. “I feel useless.”

“You can make dinner tonight as a way of apology.”

The captain grinned. “Sure. Who was Pittacus?”

“One of the Seven Sages of Greece, and that’s with capital letters. Each of the sages was supposed to represent an edict of worldly knowledge. Something everyone should know.”

“And what did Pittacus propose?”

“‘You should know which opportunities to choose.’”

“Under the circumstances, I suppose that is fitting.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Why Pittacus? Because of what he said?”

“I don’t think so.” Lourds kept moving and reading names. “Pittacus was from Mytilene, the people on the self-named island that was also called Lesbos.”

“Where Aristotle went for a time. I remember you mentioning that.”

“Exactly. Aristotle studied and taught there, and one of the people he would have covered in his material was Pittacus. Callisthenes knew that. I think the final bits of the code I’m struggling with are from the saying here because Pittacus was mentioned as having
words of wisdom
at Delos in the House. Furthermore, Lesbos tried to secede from the Delian League. As a result, the League made an example of them, ordering all men to be killed. They finally stopped the gendercide, to borrow a term from Mary Anne Warren, after killing a thousand men. The word lesbian was actually coined from the name of the island and referred to the fact that all those women were left alone, and too, the poet Sappho lived there. Sappho, as it turned out, was quite the ladies’ lady. If you read through her poetry, you’ll discover that it focuses almost exclusively on women and her sexual attraction to them.”