“Severus,” Bourne said, reading the Latin word from the scramble.
“Which could mean any number of things,” Chrissie said, “or nothing.”
“True enough,” Giles said. “But now we come to the Old Persian.” He manipulated the cuneiforms. “See here, now we have a second word: Domna.”
“Wait a minute.” Chrissie thought for a moment. “Septimius Severus was made a Roman senator by Marcus Aurelius in about 187. Subsequently he rose to become emperor in 193, and he ruled until his death eighteen years later. His reign was a strict military dictatorship, a response to the horrific corruption of his predecessor, Commodus. On his deathbed he famously advised his sons to ‘Enrich the soldiers and scorn all other men.’ ”
“Lovely,” Giles said.
“Some interesting things about him. He was born in what is now Libya, and when he increased the size of the Roman army he added auxiliary corps, soldiers from the far eastern borders of Rome’s empire, which must have included many from North Africa and beyond.”
“How is that relevant?” Giles said.
Now it was Chrissie’s turn to have a mysterious lilt to her voice. “Septimius Severus was married to Julia Domna.”
“Severus Domna,” Bourne said. Something went off in the back of his head, deep down, beyond the veils his memory could not penetrate. Maybe it was a flash of déjà vu, or maybe a warning. Whatever it was, like all the free-floating bits of his previous life that suddenly, mysteriously surfaced, it would become an itch he couldn’t scratch. He’d have no choice but to run it to ground until he unearthed its link to him.
“Adam, are you all right?” Chrissie was looking at him with a puzzled, almost alarmed expression.
“I’m fine,” he said. He’d have to watch himself with her; she was as perceptive as her sister. “Is there more?”
She nodded. “And it gets more interesting. Julia Domna was Syrian. Her family came from the ancient city of Emesa. Her ancestors were king-priests of the powerful temple of Baal, and so very influential throughout Syria.”
“So,” Bourne said, “here we have an engraving-both a cipher and an anagram-made up of an ancient Western and Eastern language, merged.”
“Just the way Septimius Severus and Julia Domna merged West and East.”
“But what does it mean?” Bourne mused. “It seems that we’re still lacking the key.” He looked at Giles expectantly.
The professor nodded. “The third language. I reckon you’re right, Mr. Stone. The key to the meaning of Severus Domna must lie in the third word.” He handed the ring back to Bourne.
“So the language is still a mystery,” Chrissie said.
“Oh, no. I know exactly what it is. It’s Ugaritic, an extinct written proto-language that arose in a small but important section of Syria.” He looked at Chrissie. “Just like your Julia Domna.” He pointed. “You can see here-and here-and again here-that Ugaritic is an important link between the earliest proto-languages and the written word as we know it today because it’s the first known evidence of the Levantine and South Semetic alphabets. In other words the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin alphabets find their sources in Ugaritic.”
“So you know that this word is Ugaritic,” Bourne said, “but you don’t know what the word is.”
“Again, yes and no.” Giles walked up to the screen, and as he pointed to each Ugaritic character he pronounced the letter. “So I know all the letters, you see, but like the two others, this word is an anagram. Though Ugaritic appears briefly in the study of Middle Eastern languages, the study of Ugaritic on its own is quite a specialized field, and rather a small one, I’m afraid, because of the prevailing belief that it is a dead end-a facilitation language, rather than an active one. There are only two or three Ugaritic scholars in the world and I’m not one of them, so for me to decipher the anagram would take an inordinate amount of time-which, frankly, I don’t have.”
“I’m surprised there’s anyone studying it,” Chrissie said.
“Actually, there’s only one reason there are any scholars at all.” Giles walked back to his computer keyboard. “There is a small group that believes Ugaritic has, uh, shall we say magic powers.”
“What,” Bourne said, “like black magic?”
Giles laughed. “Oh my, no, Mr. Stone, nothing so fantastic. No, these people believe that Ugaritic is a key part to the workings of alchemy, that Ugaritic was created for priests, chants to make manifest the divine. They believe, further, that alchemy itself is a blending of Ugaritic-articulating the right sounds in the proper order-and the specific scientific protocols.”
“Lead into gold,” Chrissie said.
The professor nodded. “Among others things, that’s right.”
“Once again, the blending of East and West,” Bourne said, “like Severus and Domna, like Old Persian and Latin.”
“Intriguing. I hadn’t thought of it in that light, but yes. It sounds far-fetched, I know, and you have to take an enormous leap of faith, but, well, now that you’ve brought up Julia Domna and her origins, look here.” Giles worked the keyboard. The screen changed to a map of the Middle East that quickly zoomed in on modern-day Syria, and then, zooming in farther, a specific section of the country. “The epicenter of the Ugaritic language was the part of Syria that includes the Great Temple of Baal, considered by some to be the most powerful of the old pagan gods.”
“Do you know any of these Ugaritic experts, Professor?” Bourne asked.
“One,” Giles said. “He’s, how shall I say, eccentric, as they all are in this arcane and rather outré field. As it happens, he and I play chess online. Well, it’s a form of proto-chess, actually, enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians.” He chuckled. “With your permission, Mr. Stone, I’ll e-mail him the inscription right now.”
“You have my blessing,” Bourne said.
Giles composed the e-mail, attached a copy of the inscription, and sent it off. “He loves puzzles, the more obscure the better, as you can imagine. If he can’t translate it, no one can.”
Soraya, propped up on the bed in the guest room at Delia’s apartment, was dreaming of Amun Chalthoum, the lover she had left behind in Cairo, when her cell phone began to throb on her lap. Hours ago she had switched it to vibrate mode so as not to disturb her friend, fast asleep in her bedroom.
Her eyes snapped open, the veils of her dream parted, and, putting the cell to her ear, she said, “Yes,” very softly.
“We’ve got a hit,” the voice said in her ear. It was Safa, one of the women in Typhon’s network, whose family had been killed by terrorists in Lebanon. “At least it’s a possible. I’m uploading several images to your laptop now.”
“Hold on,” she said.
Soraya had a phone company Internet card plugged into her laptop, and she switched it on. A moment later she was connected. She saw that the file was delivered and opened it. There were three photos. The first was a file shot, head and shoulders, of Arkadin, the same one Peter had showed her, so it must be the only decent shot they had of him. This version was larger and clearer, however. Marks was right, he was a handsome specimen: hooded eyes, aggressive features. And blond. Positive or negative? She wasn’t sure. The other two were obvious CCTV photos, the images flat, the colors poorly rendered, of a man, large and muscular, wearing one of those inexpensive sports hats with a Dallas Cowboys logo, which he probably bought at the airport. She couldn’t see enough of his face to make a positive ID. But in the second CCTV image, he’d tipped his hat back on his head to scratch his scalp. His hair was very black, very shiny, as if it had just been dyed. He must have thought he was out of camera range, she thought as she studied the face. She compared it with the file shot.