“You want to go after Grissom again?” Gabriel said. “You barely survived this time. And he’ll be ready for you next time.”
She shook her head. “I know I can’t take him on. No, my plan is to get to the second gemstone before he does. Uncle Daniel can help with that. He’s got the resources and expertise. If anyone can help me find it, it’s him. He found the Star itself, after all.”
Gabriel reached for his tea and took a sip, taking the time to think. Daniel Wingard was certainly an accomplished archaeologist; he knew what he was doing when it came to locating lost artifacts. But Daniel Wingard didn’t know his way around a gun and wouldn’t stand a chance if he were facing one. He could probably help her beat Grissom to the second Eye of Teshub, and if this were a simple case of professional rivalry among colleagues, that would be enough. But Edgar Grissom wasn’t just another academic looking to notch up a publication for his CV. He had an army at his command and no compunction about leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Even if they succeeded in finding the other gemstones before Grissom did, there wasn’t a chance in hell Joyce and Daniel would come back alive.
He tossed back the rest of his tea and put the cup back on the railing. “I can’t let you do this. Grissom is too dangerous.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t let me? Didn’t we have this conversation already?”
“Let me clarify,” he said. “I can’t let you do this alone. I’m coming with you.”
She looked surprised. She started to say something, but Gabriel cut her off.
“You’re right,” he said. “Grissom can’t be allowed to find the other gemstones. If it exists, he can’t be allowed to get his hands on the Spearhead. It would be catastrophic, Sargonia all over again, only on a global scale. And, no disrespect to your uncle, but Daniel’s not prepared to face a man like Grissom.”
She studied his face for a moment. “You’re willing to put yourself back in Grissom’s crosshairs just for me?”
“And for your uncle,” he said. “And the rest of the human race.”
“And,” she said. “And.” She rose up on her toes, took his face gently between her hands and kissed him. Her lips felt tender against his.
“Joyce,” he said, “you don’t have to—”
“Oh, I didn’t do it for you,” she said, her voice all innocence. “I did it for humanity.”
She picked up her tea and walked over to Noboru.
“I can’t go with you,” he told her. He smiled sadly. “I wish I could, but…” He touched his chest. “Tomomi is coming back from Singapore to check up on me. I haven’t seen her in so long. But you’ll be in good hands with Gabriel. The best.”
“Thank you, Noboru,” Joyce said. She bent down and hugged him. “For everything.”
“Any time,” he said. “Just give me a chance to recover from this time first.”
She turned to Gabriel. “Uncle Daniel said he’s gotten us tickets for an early flight to Antalya tomorrow morning. They’ll be waiting for us at the airport. Get some sleep—I’ll knock at six.” She slid open the glass door and stepped inside.
After she’d slid it closed again, Noboru looked at him curiously.
“What?” Gabriel asked.
“Is there something you want to tell me about you two?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing to tell. She’s an old friend of the family, that’s all.”
“Really.” Noboru raised his eyebrows and took a sip of tea. “I guess she must feel she can count on her old friends.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you hear what she said? Her uncle told her he was buying two tickets. She knew from the start you would go with her.”
Gabriel turned to the glass door, but Joyce was already walking with Michiko down the hallway toward the guest room.
Chapter 13
Antalya was nestled at the inland tip of a large bay along Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. From the air, it looked like any other resort town. Gabriel saw enormous luxury hotels sprawled along the coast, each surrounded by swimming pools, golf courses and beaches. A few miles to the northwest was the country’s more desolate mountain region, where archeological digs had been taking place nonstop for nearly a century. Just a few years ago, he remembered, a new site of ancient Hittite temples had been unearthed in the western city of Burdur, and the remarkably intact foundations of a Roman village had been dug up outside Ankara. It was no surprise, then, that Daniel Wingard had been drawn to Turkey. How could any archeologist resist the seemingly limitless treasures still waiting to be unearthed? And he’d been right to come, given what he’d wound up finding, even if he hadn’t had a clue at the time what the consequences would be. The entrance of Edgar Grissom and the Cult of Ulikummis into their lives could be traced back to the moment Daniel Wingard pulled the Star of Arnuwanda out of the dirt.
On the ground, Antalya was a good deal less generic than it had seemed from above. The Mediterranean had a flavor all its own. The smell of the sea, the ancient sunbaked features of the people, the sounds of the Turkish seabirds calling to one another as they circled over the water. It was as warm as Borneo had been but noticeably less humid, the breeze off the sea like a cool fan on the back of Gabriel’s neck.
They deplaned and took a taxi to the Peninsula Hotel, in the city’s center. Thirty floors of concrete and glass that covered most of a block, flanked by smaller buildings on either side. Balconies dotted the building’s façade. Thick cement ledges, each carved with traditional Turkish designs, wrapped around the hotel in bands between the floors. It was the city’s highestend luxury hotel and as Gabriel and Joyce walked into the vast air-conditioned lobby, Gabriel carrying his beat-up suitcase, Joyce with her rucksack hanging from one shoulder, the guests sitting on the couches and at the bar by the piano turned to watch them, murmuring among themselves.
At the front desk, the concierge, a young man in a gray blazer, looked up from what he was doing and blanched. “Are you all right?” he asked in Turkish. “Do you and your wife require assistance?”
“We’re fine,” Gabriel replied in the same tongue. He could see their reflection in the mirrored wall behind the desk. Their faces were covered in bruises and cuts, and there was still a dark raccoon circle around one of Joyce’s eyes. “Just visited some rough spots before coming here.”
The concierge looked like he wanted to ask more but he was too well trained. As long as they paid their bill, guests were free to do what they liked, even if it left bruises. “You’re certain you don’t need anything?”
“One thing,” Gabriel said. “We need Daniel Wingard’s room number.”
The concierge flipped through a box of index cards, found one marked “Wingard,” and read through the notes penciled on it. “You are checking in to stay with Professor Wingard? Mister, uh, Hunt, is it?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “He’s expecting us.”
The concierge told them to go to the penthouse, room 3002, and pointed to the elevators. He offered to have their bags taken up by the bell captain, but Joyce snatched her arm away when he tried to take hers off her shoulder. She wasn’t letting anyone near it. Not while the Star of Arnuwanda was nestled inside, wrapped in one of her old T-shirts. They crossed to the elevator bank, hit the call button beside the silver-plated doors, and as they waited Gabriel watched all the reflected faces in the doors watching them. Were they just curious bystanders? Joyce had said the Cult of Ulikummis had members all over the world. It would make sense that they’d at least be in Turkey, the ancestral home of the Hittite Empire. Any of the men staring at them from the lobby might have his own skull mask hidden away in his attaché case or tucked in a drawer back home.