The Oracle Code

4



32 Miles Southwest of Herat

Herat Province

Afghanistan

June 18, 2012

Just as Dmitry was about to enter the cave after the two professors, shadows flitted across the incline ahead of him. He still wasn’t using a flashlight because he hadn’t wanted to alert Glukov and Lourds. Reaching back unerringly with his left hand, he caught Chizkov’s wrist and held the young lieutenant in place.

Chizkov froze instantly.

Dmitry’s hand closed around the butt of his pistol. He whispered almost in the lieutenant’s ear. “Be very still and do not say a word. Do not move.”

After that, Dmitry followed his own advice. He did not try to stare at the shadows ahead of him. He watched them from the corners of his eyes, where his vision would be at its sharpest.

Gradually, the shadows turned into men dressed in loose trousers and shirts. They carried bags over their shoulders and looked warily about. Some of them carried rifles in one hand.

Tomb robbers? Dmitry tried that logic in his mind, but it didn’t feel right. Men who were interested in stealing artifacts would be looking nearer to camp. This was interesting, and he had no explanation for it. He stood in the shadows and remained unseen.

After the last one entered the cave, Dmitry again leaned toward the young lieutenant. “Go get help.”

“Who?” Chizkov was nervous. They were the only two agents at the camp.

Dmitry thought quickly. During the time he had been at the dig site, he’d quietly assessed the people he came in contact with. That was how he had known Glukov was obsessed and the American linguist was a man who would get into trouble.

How much Lourds had to do with the men entering the cave had yet to be seen.

“You have met Layla Teneen, yes?”

“Yes.”

Dmitry had known the Afghanistan professor would have attracted the young lieutenant’s attention. She was a very beautiful woman, very strong in her independence.

“Go to her and tell her that she needs to bring security personnel to this place.” Dmitry felt certain that, as the liaison for the dig site, Layla Teneen would have access to the Afghanistan National Police and Afghanistan National Army. Perhaps she would even have someone in the International Security Assistance Force.

“What should I tell her?”

“That she should hurry. Now, go. I am growing a beard waiting on you.”

Chizkov sped away across the incline, almost tripping in his haste.

Pistol in hand, Dmitry squared himself and walked toward the cave. There would be numerous questions about his presence there if he was right, but there would be only dead men in that cave come morning if he took no action. He went forward.

***



“Hold the paper across the tips of the mold.” Lourds straightened his own end and placed it under his backpack, anchoring the paper to the ground.

On the other side of the mold, Boris stretched the paper to the end of the mold and waited. He looked expectantly at Lourds. “Am I to be given no explanation?”

Lourds grinned, enjoying the situation. “It’s magic. If I’m right, you’ll be amazed.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“I’ll be twice as embarrassed as Geraldo Rivera was when he opened Al Capone’s safe on live television.”

Boris grinned. “A good archeologist should be like a good magician.”

“How is that?”

“Before he performs for an audience, he should always know how the trick turns out.”

Lourds reached into his backpack and took out a stick of charcoal. “Hold that end taut.”

“I will.”

“It’s important that there is no play in the paper.”

Slowly, carefully, Lourds dragged a stick of art charcoal across the paper. The tips of the plaster where the charcoal touched was a dark gray, distinctly opposed to the light gray film that covered the rest of the paper.

Diligently, Lourds stayed with the task until he finished it. Once he had, the paper was covered in symbols that looked a lot like the cuneiform engraving on the wall. He put the charcoal away and picked up his flashlight. He traced the beam across the writing.

After a moment, he shook his head.

“I can’t read this.”

“You thought you would be able to?”

“Yes. There should have been a message here.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because of the carvings. Come here.” Impatiently, head still spinning, Lourds walked back over to the wall. He shined the flashlight beam into the engraving. “See? Do you see?”

Boris peered into the holes. “What am I supposed to see?”

“The tool markings on the edges of the excavations deeper into the writing.”

Dutifully, Boris looked again. “I see what appears to be tool markings.”

“It is. Trust me.”

“I trusted you enough to follow you up here. And I held the paper as you directed. Only to have you tell me that you cannot read what you thought you would be able to read.”

Lourds frowned and reconsidered. There was something he was missing, but it continued to elude him, flitting just beyond his mental reach. “It suddenly came to me that the only reason there would be so many markings was if the deeper excavations in that writing were to leave a second message.”

Boris looked back at the paper then back at the wall. Then he smiled. “You are a brilliant man, my friend, if there truly is a message here.”

“I would have sworn there was. That was why the writer had said, ‘you must seek beyond these words.’ Because there were other words that had to be ferreted out.”

“Absolutely brilliant, I will give you that. However, not above making mistakes. And you have made one.”

“What?”

Boris walked back to the paper, picked it up, and reversed it. “You were looking at it backwards.” He grinned in delight.

Lourds grinned as well, for there was a message on the paper, and it was written in the same Old Persian tongue. “Here. Hold it up with the flashlight behind it.”

Boris held one end of the paper in one hand and the flashlight in the other, shining it through the paper from underneath.

Slowly, Lourds used the charcoal stick to draw in the cuneiform symbols, making them easier to read. When he finished the whole message, he read it aloud. “‘Go north. Third cave on the east. Between the camel.’ At least, I think that says camel.”

Excitedly, Boris patted Lourds on the shoulder. Then he carefully folded the paper. “You are an amazing man, Thomas Lourds. I have always said that.”

“I seem to recall earlier that you weren’t so certain I’d even gotten the first translation right.”

“I’m certain now. Let us go see what we can find.”

Lourds grabbed his backpack and followed Boris back up through the passageways.

***



In her tent, Professor Layla Teneen stared at her notebook computer screen again and tried to think of how she wanted to compose the e-mail she was going to send. When she’d first been offered the job as liaison for the dig site, she’d been honored—and wary.

Afghanistan still didn’t like women in power. The old way of thinking was to keep the country a man’s world.

For the past seventeen years, since the age of sixteen, Layla had dodged the advances of men. Marriage for her in Afghanistan would have ended her life of independence.

She wasn’t willing to give up her dreams of being her own person. She was thirty-three years old, and most of the girls she had grown up with were already grandparents.

She could be an independent woman, but she would also be a lonely one. Shaking her head, Layla focused on the small LCD screen.

Someone rang the small bell she’d hung from the front of her tent. “Professor Teneen.”

Startled, Layla glanced at the time/date reading on her computer. It was far too late for someone to come calling. Unless something was wrong.

Layla got up from the small folding desk and walked across the tent floor in her sock feet.

“Yes. Who is it?” She answered in Russian, matching the speaker’s language.

“It is Chizkov, ma’am.”

“Chizkov?” Layla recognized the name. She was very good with names. Chizkov was an attaché for Dmitry Dolgov, who seemed in no way to be an archeologist and not very informed about history either. “What do you want at this hour?”

“It is Major Dolgov. He requests that you bring some security personnel.”

Anxiety shot through Layla’s stomach. The Taliban in the area had been very quiet for the past few months. She really thought she might get through her tour this time without seeing them.

And what about Major Dolgov? There had been no mention of a Major Dolgov. Only Professor Dolgov. The man’s papers had been checked and verified.

But it wouldn’t have been the first time someone had gotten into a dig and turned out not to be who he—or she—was supposed to be.

“Did he say why he needed the security people?”

“No. Only that he did. We were following Boris Glukov and Thomas Lourds up to the cave where the professors have been spending their time.”

Followed? Layla picked up her boots and pulled them back on. “Give me a moment, Chizkov.”

“Certainly.”

Layla picked up her satellite phone from her desk and used the speed dial.

A voice answered in Dari. “Yes.”

“Captain Fitrat? This is Director Teneen. I have need of you.”

“I am on my way.”

Before she left her tent, Layla took a flashlight, extra batteries, a first-aid kit, and the Beretta 9mm she kept in her tent for emergencies.