The Atlantis Code (13 page)

“I can be very convincing, Philip.”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“That was cheeky. And for your information, no, I’m not.”

“I’ve seen your dear professor. I wouldn’t blame you. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to be the type to look my way.” Philip was gay, though not many people at the studio knew that.

“He’s definitely not.”

“Pity.”

“One more thing. I would like for the studio to pick up the airfare and travel expenses for the Moscow trip,” Leslie said.

“That’s expensive.”

“Yes, but the professor is bankable and the story is big. If we’re bankrolling, he won’t try to lose me or hold out on me if he finds something out. And I want to bring one cameraman.”

“You’re going to be the death of me, you know that, don’t you?” Philip complained.

“Thank you, Philip. You’re a dear.” Leslie headed back to the bank of elevators. Her heart sang in her chest. “Could you ask Jeremy to arrange the plane and hotel? That would be absolutely brill.”

______

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lourds,” the airfare specialist said. “I don’t have any seats open headed north out of Alexandria until tomorrow.”

Lourds stood at the balcony and stared out over the city. Blazing heat shimmered out on the streets. Frustration chafed at him. He politely thanked the young man he’d been talking to, then hung up.

Someone knocked on the door as he looked up the next number on the Web page he’d pulled up on his computer. A wave of trepidation filled him. He looked around and once again found the iron, this time sitting on the bathroom cabinet.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Leslie.”

He gave a relieved sigh. This was getting to be a habit. Lourds checked the peephole and saw Leslie standing in the hallway. She looked agitated. Just as she was about to knock again, he opened the door.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

She smiled. “Actually, many things are very right. May I come in?”

Lourds stepped back.

Leslie cocked an eyebrow at his iron. “You’ve really got to get an upgrade.”

“A bigger iron?”

“I was thinking you might need a cricket bat, actually.” Leslie entered the room. “Have you had any luck securing passage to Russia?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ve just finished talking with my supervisor. He’s agreed to pick up the tab for your trip to Moscow.”

“You’ll forgive my impudence, but I’ve been too long in university surroundings to think that ‘free’ things or ‘help’ come without price tags.”

“The price tag on this one is simple,” Leslie responded. “I think you’d enjoy the company.”

Lourds liked that she didn’t bother to deny the charge. “You want to accompany me to Moscow. Why?”

Leslie folded her arms across her breasts. “I suspect that you’re not telling me everything about your friend.”

“I’m not,” Lourds admitted.

“You mentioned that she often duplicated her research.”

“Not ‘often.’ Always. Yuliya was fastidious about it.”

“So you’re going after that research.”

“Yes. And I’m hoping that she has better digital images of the cymbal than the ones she put on the Web sites. The more material I have to work from, the better my chances of translating the language.”

“If I don’t get in your way, do you mind if I go?” Leslie asked.

“No. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“You weren’t exactly forthcoming with information earlier.”

Lourds smiled. “I told you enough to get you interested in calling your studio.”

Pouting, Leslie said, “I do believe I’ve been, how is it you Americans seem so fond of putting it? ‘Played’?”

“Perhaps a little,” Lourds admitted.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t made the call to my supervisor? Or been able to convince him to make this trip happen?”

“Gone anyway,” Lourds replied. “By any means possible. But I had to assume that your studio’s ability to arrange for immediate travel visas, not to mention plane tickets, is vastly superior to mine. I’ve been banging my head against a wall talking to travel agents today.”

Leslie frowned. “You think you’re very clever.”

Lourds put his iron away. “I do try.”

BRITISH AIRWAYS FLIGHT BA0880
IN-FLIGHT FROM HEATHROW
AUGUST 21, 2009

Hours later, and once more back in Europe, Lourds sat in the quiet darkness that filled the large passenger jet’s interior. He’d had a few hours’ layover at Heathrow before he had to climb aboard this jet after deplaning from his flight from Egypt. Lourds had used his downtime to read the information he’d downloaded from the Internet. He had a small satellite link for his notebook computer, a top-of-the-line gadget he’d been persuaded to invest in. It had come in handy several times.

“You should get some rest,” Leslie said. She sat in the seat beside him.

“I thought you were asleep.” Lourds sat and buckled back into the seat.

“I was. Did you have any luck with your search?”

“No.” Lourds sipped the water. “I’ve looked in any number of places, hoping for more information about the bell and the cymbal, but it doesn’t appear to exist.”

“Is that unusual?”

“You’re dealing with thousands of years of existence. A great number of things have gone missing during that time.”

“Surely not important things.”

“How about the classical Egyptian language? That vanished for over a thousand years. It was a fluke that we could re-create it.” Lourds smiled at her, loving her curiosity. “And would you consider a nuclear weapon important?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The United States has lost at least seven of them since World War Two. That’s only counting what’s been confirmed. There may have been more. Not to mention all those nuclear weapons that ‘disappeared’ when the Soviet Union collapsed.”

“Those were secret things,” Leslie said. “No one was supposed to know about them.”

“Perhaps the bell and cymbal were secret things, too.”

Leslie stared at him with more interest. “Is that what you think?”

“I’ve contacted several friends in museums and private collections as well as insurance companies. When that bell went missing, I figured our unfortunate adversaries might have stolen other related artifacts. That I turned up absolutely nothing except the cymbal indicates to me that there were very few things like them made.”

“You think the bell and the cymbal were unique?”

“I’m not yet ready to make that assumption, but yes.”

“And that others are after them.”

“Indeed.”

“You know, the bell and the cymbal were so far apart . . . and relatively unknown. Neither item was in the care of a collector or an institution. But when they turned up, it appears that someone very ruthless was searching for them. I’m betting my reputation that you will figure out why.”

“There’s something here,” Lourds said. “Otherwise nobody would be killing for these pieces.”

DOMODEDOVO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
AUGUST 21, 2009

After gathering their carry-on luggage, which was all they’d brought with them from Alexandria, Lourds and Leslie walked through the tunnel to the security checkpoints inside the terminal.

Lourds glanced at his watch and discovered that the local time was barely after 5
A.M.
He was tired because he hadn’t rested well on the flight. Normally he could sleep like the proverbial baby on airplanes, but his mind had remained too busy this time. Leslie, on the other hand, had slept quite well.

They stood in line with the other passengers. Lourds gazed at a knot of uniformed East Line Group security guards.

One guard in his fifties fixed Lourds with dead gray eyes. He glanced at a photograph in his hand. “Mr. Lourds?”

“That’s
Professor
Lourds, actually,” Lourds said. He didn’t try to deny his identity. If the security men had his picture, he felt certain they knew he was on the passenger manifest.

“You’ll come with me, please.”

“What’s this about?”

“No questions,” the man said. “Come with me.”

When Lourds didn’t move fast enough to suit him, the man closed an iron grip on the professor’s arm and pulled him from the line.

“What’s going on?” Leslie asked. She tried to follow.

A young male security guard intercepted her and held her back. “No,” the guard said.

“You can’t do this,” Leslie protested.

“It is done,” the young man said. “Please stay in line. Otherwise we will have you detained or deported.”

Leslie stared after Lourds.

“Perhaps you might contact the State Department,” Lourds said, trying to sound calm, as if this sort of thing happened to him every day. It didn’t, though, and he was surprised to discover he was actually quite frightened. It was one thing to be a guest inside a foreign country. It was quite another to be treated as an enemy of the state.

DOMODEDOVO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
DETENTION ROOM
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
AUGUST 21, 2009

L
ourds tried to keep calm as he sat in the detention room, even though the windowless, featureless walls felt like they were closing in on him. The gray paint was a dismal addition; it felt to Lourds like it sucked all the life and color from the room and anything in it, including him. A scarred wooden table and three chairs occupied the center of the space. Lourds’s chair sat on one side of the table by itself.

The walls seemed to exude memories of harsh interrogations held here. Perhaps the new Russia didn’t indulge in strong-arm tactics with the same abandon that the old Soviet Union had, and the Czar’s special police before that, but Lourds knew his captors wanted him to remember that ruthless past.

They’d taken his computer, his baggage, and his cell phone.

He knew they were watching him. Since the blank gray walls held no mirror or one-way glass, he assumed they spied on him through hidden cameras embedded in the walls or ceiling. Every time he’d stood up to stretch his legs, a guard stepped into the room to tell him to sit down again.

The woman who walked into the room was beautiful. Rich red hair rippled to her shoulders. Her warm brown eyes regarded him. She wore a gray business suit that complemented her hair and fair complexion.

Without thinking, Lourds got to his feet. His parents had taught him manners so well that, even now, the lessons held.

The woman stopped him immediately, though. “Sit,” she ordered in English. Her hand slid to her hip.

Lourds sat. The move she’d made, he figured, meant she had a weapon.

“I meant no offense,” Lourds said. “When a beautiful woman enters a room, I was trained to stand. Out of respect. I suppose I have my mother to thank for nearly getting shot.”

The woman remained standing. Her eyes were flat and hard.

“Look,” Lourds said, “Whatever you think I’ve done—”

“Quiet,” the woman ordered. “You are Professor Thomas Lourds?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m an American citizen with a visa to travel in this country.”

“One word from me,” the woman interrupted, “your visa is canceled and you’re on the next plane out of here. Do you understand?”

Lourds knew she wasn’t bluffing. “Yes.”

“You’re here, at this moment, at my sufferance. Why are you here?”

“To see a friend. Ivan Hapaev.”

“How do you know Ivan Hapaev?”

“Through his wife.”

“Yuliya Hapaev.”

Lourds nodded. “Yes. Yuliya and I often consulted each other. I teach—”

“Languages,” the woman said. “Yes. I’m aware of that; however, Yuliya Hapaev is dead.”

“I know. I came here to offer my condolences.”