LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Three

      Zeke roared down a gravel road on his rented Harley-Davidson. The countryside sped by in a blur of dark green trees, pink and yellow wildflowers and gray rocky hills. But his mind wasn’t on the scenery. This morning, after the incident with the stolen disk, he’d nosed around the café and the market trying to get a lead on the men who’d started the fight. Either they were outsiders, or the locals weren’t talking.

      After steering the powerful bike off the road onto a rutted dirt path, he had to slow his speed to dodge a pothole that would have swallowed a tank. Around the next bend, he came to a sun-dappled clearing dominated by a mammoth granite boulder. For more than a thousand years, it had covered the mouth of a limestone cave. But infrared satellite analysis had yielded the secret of the interior, and reclusive billionaire Jacques Montague had quickly put together a team to explore the site.

      A dozen small tents surrounded a large one that served as both dining hall and artifact repository. The living conditions in camp were Spartan, not that much different from a dozen other underfunded sites Zeke had worked. But Montague had supplied some pretty sophisticated equipment—everything from heavy construction machinery to a portable cellular communications system. There were all sorts of rumors about the man. According to one, he had a terminal illness and was determined to find something as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls before he died. Even Victor Kirkland from the State Department had only sketchy information about their eccentric sponsor.

      The dig was usually bustling with activity. Today, it was quiet since few of the dig team had gotten back from town. Marie Pindel, the team leader, was hurrying toward the cave.

      Zeke pulled up beside her and cut the engine.

      She gave him a startled look. With her cap of dyed copper hair and large eyes, the petite Frenchwoman looked more like a fashion model in her designer jeans and knit top than a forty-seven-year-old anthropologist with two controversial best-sellers and three grandchildren to her credit.

      “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she said. “I was just going over to survey the damage. The local police have finally packed up their little meters and magnifying glasses and decided we won’t embarrass them by dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.” She shrugged expressively. “As if we didn’t have equipment ten times as sensitive as theirs.”

      Zeke unsnapped his helmet. “You’re breaking your own rule about going in alone?”

      “I won’t have to, now that you’re here. Let’s go take a look,” she called over her shoulder as she took off again.

      Grabbing his tool pack from the motorcycle’s carry case, Zeke trotted after her to the cave entrance. As always, it was a tight squeeze through the narrow opening for his six-foot-three, one-hundred-ninety-pound frame, and he had to take it sideways all the way to the main chamber where they’d been working. While Marie adjusted the battery lantern and checked the air quality, Zeke trained a high-powered flashlight on the damage from the homemade bomb.

      He grimaced as the beam played over the stone walls in the far corner of the gallery where only two days before he’d been transcribing picture script. Now much of the stone engraving had been obliterated by the blast. But that wasn’t the worst. A burial pit, which had yielded a decorative vase, a curved plow called a crook ard and several smaller tools forged from iron had evidently taken the brunt of the explosive. It was now black ash and rubble.

      Marie’s eyes flashed with anger. “How could anyone do such a thing?”

      “Who knows?” Zeke muttered. “At least we rescued some of the artifacts before the blast. And I’ll be able to work with the low light exposures of the wall script and the notes I’ve transcribed.” Disgustedly, he stepped closer to the scarred stone. The light beam caught on a crack that ran from floor to ceiling. Had the explosion caused that, too?

      Starting at the bottom and moving upward, he felt along the break. It seemed solid. Relieved, he stepped back and inspected the surface again. The beam played down the limestone and up again, illuminating a strange mark a good foot above his head. At first, he thought it was residue from the blast. On closer inspection, he could almost make out a faint imprint.

      “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Marie asked.

      “I don’t know.” Stretching, he pressed his palm against it. The stone seemed to warm. They both gasped as the hard rock split along a six-foot seam to reveal a small room no bigger than a walk-in closet.

      “My God!” Zeke exclaimed as the flashlight illuminated the space inside. A large, finely engraved bronze box sat on a pottery tile on the floor.

      Marie was by his side in an instant. “The explosion must have broken the seal on a hidden tomb.”

      His pulse raced with excitement. Gently, as if working with the most delicate glass, he felt over the surface of the box until his fingers found a hidden latch. Inside were several perfectly preserved panels covered with writing.

      “Well, I’ll be damned!”

      Marie leaned over his shoulder, shining the light directly on the script. “Can you tell what it is?”

      Being careful not to touch the material, he studied the characters. One panel resembled ancient Greek script, yet it appeared to be another language altogether. There was a picture, too. A naked man in a strange-looking capsule.

      Tentatively he touched the surface. “This doesn’t make sense,” he told Marie. “Feel the covering. It’s almost like plastic.”

      She touched the panel and nodded. “As far as I know, no one from the ninth century B.C. had anything like this. You think it’s a fake?” she asked.

      “Do you?”

      “I want you to check it out before we tell the others. We might be sitting on the most important discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls. Or...”

      “Someone could be playing a very nasty joke,” she finished for him.

      * * *

      TO HER EMBARRASSMENT, Cassie’s stomach growled.

      Thorn said something in his own language and made eating motions.

      She nodded. “I suppose there’s a kitchen somewhere around here,” she said in an artificially chipper tone. “But it may not have anything I’d recognize as a stove. And even if you’re willing to do the cooking, the equipment could explode in your face when you touch the controls. So why don’t I dig into my emergency supplies?”

      Thorn leaned back and watched her, apparently very interested in what she intended to do.

      The scrutiny made her feel self-conscious, and she lowered her eyes. She was coming to realize that in the confines

Скачать книгу