“Right. That was the first clue. I just missed it. I blamed the differing tolerances on the carver. Totally my bad. As you can see, the carving is very accurate, almost machined in. The cuneiform is spaced precisely, and the symbols are all uniform. A very, very skilled craftsman created this. So, I reasoned, the tolerances had to be equally planned.” Lourds scratched his goatee and stood. The plaster was supposed to be a quick-drying compound, and it turned out that it was.
“Well, I still miss it.”
Lourds took out his Swiss Army knife and flicked the smaller blade open. “Give me a hand with this, and I’ll show you.” He set the flashlight on the ground on its butt so the beam would diffuse against the ceiling and fill the cave with light. Boris did the same.
Working carefully, Lourds inserted the blade under the edge of the plaster and gradually made his way around. Boris drew a pocketknife of his own and started doing the same on his end.
Gently, they pried the patch free and pulled it from the wall, lowering it to the floor.
The plaster form had reached into the cuneiform cuts, but the whirling spikes forming the layers of the depths of the carved niches could be plainly seen.
“I still do not see it.”
“Patience.” Lourds reached into his backpack and withdrew a roll of paper. “Let’s see if my theory is correct.”
4
Just as Dmitry was about to enter the cave after the two professors, shadows flitted across the incline ahead of him. He still wasn’t using a flashlight because he hadn’t wanted to alert Glukov and Lourds. Reaching back unerringly with his left hand, he caught Chizkov’s wrist and held the young lieutenant in place.
Chizkov froze instantly.
Dmitry’s hand closed around the butt of his pistol. He whispered almost in the lieutenant’s ear. “Be very still and do not say a word. Do not move.”
After that, Dmitry followed his own advice. He did not try to stare at the shadows ahead of him. He watched them from the corners of his eyes, where his vision would be at its sharpest.
Gradually, the shadows turned into men dressed in loose trousers and shirts. They carried bags over their shoulders and looked warily about. Some of them carried rifles in one hand.
Tomb robbers? Dmitry tried that logic in his mind, but it didn’t feel right. Men who were interested in stealing artifacts would be looking nearer to camp. This was interesting, and he had no explanation for it. He stood in the shadows and remained unseen.
After the last one entered the cave, Dmitry again leaned toward the young lieutenant. “Go get help.”
“Who?” Chizkov was nervous. They were the only two agents at the camp.
Dmitry thought quickly. During the time he had been at the dig site, he’d quietly assessed the people he came in contact with. That was how he had known Glukov was obsessed and the American linguist was a man who would get into trouble.
How much Lourds had to do with the men entering the cave had yet to be seen.
“You have met Layla Teneen, yes?”
“Yes.”
Dmitry had known the Afghanistan professor would have attracted the young lieutenant’s attention. She was a very beautiful woman, very strong in her independence.
“Go to her and tell her that she needs to bring security personnel to this place.” Dmitry felt certain that, as the liaison for the dig site, Layla Teneen would have access to the Afghanistan National Police and Afghanistan National Army. Perhaps she would even have someone in the International Security Assistance Force.
“What should I tell her?”
“That she should hurry. Now, go. I am growing a beard waiting on you.”
Chizkov sped away across the incline, almost tripping in his haste.
Pistol in hand, Dmitry squared himself and walked toward the cave. There would be numerous questions about his presence there if he was right, but there would be only dead men in that cave come morning if he took no action. He went forward.
“Hold the paper across the tips of the mold.” Lourds straightened his own end and placed it under his backpack, anchoring the paper to the ground.
On the other side of the mold, Boris stretched the paper to the end of the mold and waited. He looked expectantly at Lourds. “Am I to be given no explanation?”
Lourds grinned, enjoying the situation. “It’s magic. If I’m right, you’ll be amazed.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I’ll be twice as embarrassed as Geraldo Rivera was when he opened Al Capone’s safe on live television.”
Boris grinned. “A good archeologist should be like a good magician.”
“How is that?”
“Before he performs for an audience, he should always know how the trick turns out.”
Lourds reached into his backpack and took out a stick of charcoal. “Hold that end taut.”
“I will.”
“It’s important that there is no play in the paper.”
Slowly, carefully, Lourds dragged a stick of art charcoal across the paper. The tips of the plaster where the charcoal touched was a dark gray, distinctly opposed to the light gray film that covered the rest of the paper.
Diligently, Lourds stayed with the task until he finished it. Once he had, the paper was covered in symbols that looked a lot like the cuneiform engraving on the wall. He put the charcoal away and picked up his flashlight. He traced the beam across the writing.
After a moment, he shook his head.
“I can’t read this.”
“You thought you would be able to?”
“Yes. There should have been a message here.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because of the carvings. Come here.” Impatiently, head still spinning, Lourds walked back over to the wall. He shined the flashlight beam into the engraving. “See? Do you see?”
Boris peered into the holes. “What am I supposed to see?”
“The tool markings on the edges of the excavations deeper into the writing.”
Dutifully, Boris looked again. “I see what appears to be tool markings.”
“It is. Trust me.”
“I trusted you enough to follow you up here. And I held the paper as you directed. Only to have you tell me that you cannot read what you thought you would be able to read.”
Lourds frowned and reconsidered. There was something he was missing, but it continued to elude him, flitting just beyond his mental reach. “It suddenly came to me that the only reason there would be so many markings was if the deeper excavations in that writing were to leave a second message.”
Boris looked back at the paper then back at the wall. Then he smiled. “You are a brilliant man, my friend, if there truly is a message here.”
“I would have sworn there was. That was why the writer had said, ‘you must seek beyond these words.’ Because there were other words that had to be ferreted out.”
“Absolutely brilliant, I will give you that. However, not above making mistakes. And you have made one.”
“What?”
Boris walked back to the paper, picked it up, and reversed it. “You were looking at it backwards.” He grinned in delight.
Lourds grinned as well, for there was a message on the paper, and it was written in the same Old Persian tongue. “Here. Hold it up with the flashlight behind it.”
Boris held one end of the paper in one hand and the flashlight in the other, shining it through the paper from underneath.
Slowly, Lourds used the charcoal stick to draw in the cuneiform symbols, making them easier to read. When he finished the whole message, he read it aloud. “‘Go north. Third cave on the east. Between the camel.’ At least, I think that says camel.”