The trick lay in knowing how to read those things, and that was what Lourds excelled at.
“Of course, I immediately thought of you when I saw it.” Boris clapped Lourds on the shoulder hard enough to nearly knock him off his feet.
“You only thought of me after you couldn’t figure it out.”
“This is true. But at least I thought of you.” Boris sighed. “I have missed you, my friend. I’ve missed times like these. And I miss Lev.”
Lev Strauss had been one of Lourds’s best friends. Last year, he had been murdered, and Lourds had taken up the chase to solve the quest Lev had begun.
Boris shook his head. “The good ones always die so young. It is tragic.”
Lourds took a deep breath of the chill air, surprised to note how sober he was feeling. “You never told me what specifically brought you here.”
Boris shrugged. “Hellenistic history. What else am I to do? I love history, Thomas.” He held out a big hand. “Alexander the Great was incredible. Here was this big, handsome young man, only thirty-two years old, and he had the known world practically in his hand. All he had to do was close the deal.” He closed his hand into a fist. “But he never got the chance.”
“Persia got in the way. That might have been the tipping point.”
Boris heaved a sigh. “He was young. He fell in love with new ways too easily. Alexander came here, to Persia as it was then, and he grew enamored of the ways and customs.”
“That didn’t sit well with the hometown people.”
“No, but Alexander really tried to sell it. Gave his men wives, harems. Alas, all of that was to no avail. He was even going to send the older soldiers and the disabled ones back to Macedon while he was in Persia, but they didn’t trust what he was trying to do for them.”
“They rebelled at Opis, as I recall.”
Boris shot Lourds a wry grin. “You’ve heard this story before.”
“Drunk as well as sober, but you tell it well.”
“I do, don’t I?” Boris smiled happily, and the flashlight glow illuminated the expression. “Anyway, after the uprising and disagreement, three days later while he was still stymied by his men, Alexander started appointing Persians to command positions in his army. Can you imagine the shock and chagrin that went through his troops?”
“Probably on the same level with the dean of my school when I present him with an expense sheet.”
Boris hooted with laughter, and Lourds knew he wasn’t the only one still feeling the effects of the grape.
“Anyway, shortly after that, the army capitulated. But the victory was short-lived. Alexander returned to Macedon and discovered that some of his soldiers had desecrated the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. He had those soldiers executed at once, of course.”
The tomb still stood in Pasargadae, Iran, and was a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Lourds had seen it and had been awed by it. The epitaph had been particularly moving. He cleared his throat. “‘O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones.’”
Boris sniffed. “It sounds better in Russian.”
Lourds switched to that language and repeated the epitaph.
“Do you see? It does sound better in Russian. More threatening and less defensive. I think those words were meant as a warning, not a plea.” Boris glanced at the tall hill just in front of them. He flicked his flashlight over the cave mouth.
The cave was situated so that it was hard to see from any direction. Anyone looking for it had to know exactly where to search. Thanks to the document Boris had bought, he’d been looking for the cave. He’d found it three weeks before Lourds had arrived from Cambridge, done considerable exploring, and had finally given up in disgust.
Lourds shone his flashlight into the cave and felt a little more sober. “You know, now that I think about things with a little more clarity, perhaps going into this cave in the dark isn’t such a good idea.”
Boris laughed. “Seriously? Don’t you think the cave will be dark inside during the day as well?”
“I do, but there might be more people awake that we could ask for help if we needed it.”
“Help? Why should we need help? You and I have been in this cave several times over the past few days. Nothing untoward has yet happened to us.”
“True.” Lourds smiled in anticipation. “And there’s nothing like having a discovery all to yourself, is there?”
“Exactly.” Boris clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on then. Let’s go see if you’ve truly solved this riddle.” He led the way into the cave.
Standing in the dark a hundred yards from Lourds and Glukov, Dmitry watched the two men enter the cave and shook his head wearily. These two were idiots. There was no other explanation for their decisions.
“Lieutenant Chizkov, do you have your sidearm?”
“I do, sir.” The younger man seemed nervous. “Do you think I will need it?”
“How would I know? I don’t know why two professors would get up in the middle of the night to go spelunking.”
“It can’t be for any good reason, sir.”
Dmitry sighed at the ignorance of youth. “Lieutenant, if these men were common criminals, I would vouchsafe that, in the middle of the night, they were indeed up to something clandestine. But these are university-trained professors. They’re as curious and as incomprehensible as a child. They do things simply because they are there to be done.”
“Then we have nothing to worry about.”
“No, I did not say that. We will worry because that is our job. But we will be careful because I think we should be.” Dmitry checked the pistol in his waistband. “Do you have extra batteries for your flashlight?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then let us go and hope that this — whatever it is — will not take long.” Making his way by moonlight, Dmitry headed up the incline.
3
The cave tunnel was tall enough for Lourds, and it was wide enough for Boris and him to walk side by side. The walls were worn smooth from the passage of time, but probably from lots of human traffic as well. Those caravans that crisscrossed the country had to stop somewhere, and the cave would have been a good campsite. Bandits had probably taken refuge there as well.
Phosphorescent chalk marks stood out on the walls after the flashlight beams passed over them. There were several tunnels throughout the cave system. The majority were natural, but some were man-made.
Lourds and Boris followed one of the natural ones.
“You know, Thomas, the scroll mentioned there was a treasure.”
“I know. I read it. I also noticed that it didn’t mention what the treasure was.”
“So?”
Lourds glanced at his friend. “You and I both know that a document that tells about a hiding place generally also mentions what is being hidden. If it is legitimate.”
“Not always.”
“At least it would mention who hid it.”
“Possibly, but that isn’t an ironclad law.”
Lourds took the next left from memory but confirmed the choice with the chalk mark on the wall. Now that he was moving and they were in the cold cave, he discovered he was sobering up rather quickly.
As ever, the excitement of incipient discovery made his pulse race. If they actually found a treasure, they wouldn’t be leaving the country with it, because anything they found belonged to Afghanistan, but — for a time — they would be royalty among the dig teams.