Cherkshan took a deep breath and knotted all his pain into a ball in his stomach. It was what he had learned to do.
“When do you want this person dealt with?”
“Soon.”
“I will leave straightaway.”
“Do you know where Lourds is?”
“Better. I know his girlfriend. She liked me. Perhaps she can tell me. If not, I will follow Linko. Whether Linko comes to me while I sit on Lourds, or I track Linko as he follows Lourds, it doesn’t matter to me. Either way, I will have him.”
They stopped at the next street corner. Dmitry leaned into Cherkshan and hugged him fiercely. Then, without another word, they went their separate ways.
49
Disgusted and exhausted after hours of fruitless searching, Lourds walked the course he had set for himself on his search path. So much of archeology was this: laying out a grid and walking it till everything that could be found was found. He didn’t care so much for archeology during the boring times. He preferred finding things or having documents that had already been found brought to him. Translating was so much better than just walking and looking.
He sighed. At least walking and looking was better than digging. The wind nearly lifted his hat from his head. He took it off and resettled it, raking the terrain constantly with his gaze.
Captain Fitrat walked beside him like a hunting hound. Corporal Rahimi flanked Lourds on the other side. They seemed dedicated to the search as well, but now that they were in the evening of their second day at it, they didn’t have the same curiosity or anticipation. Those were always the first things to go.
And the confidence that the original assumption was correct. That was going too.
“Perhaps the temple location was in another place.” Fitrat was trying to be helpful, but the frustration in his voice was evident. He didn’t like Lourds being out in the open like that, easy prey for a sniper.
“No.” Lourds hitched his shoulders and drew his jacket up a little more. The wind blowing in from the west, out over the Adriatic Sea, was cool to the point of being uncomfortable. “It’s here. Somewhere. Adonis and I pored over that document. We didn’t make any mistakes. From the descriptions we found, the temple is here somewhere.”
“Times change the land. I know in my homeland that my city changes nearly every day.”
“Your city is still at war.”
“And the Greeks made war for generations. Things change. What points of reference do you have?”
Lourds halted and pointed west. “Over there, we have the Adriatic Sea.” He pointed to the north. “There, the mountains. To the south of us is Elis.”
“The old city or the new?”
“It doesn’t matter. They built the new city right on top of the old one. That’s why it has so many archeological digs in and around it.”
Fitrat looked around. “Surely there are other physical characteristics you were given? Trees? A group of rocks?”
“Those weren’t mentioned in the scroll. Trees would have been cut down. Rocks would have been used for buildings. Callisthenes only referred to things that would stay.”
“What about stone quarries? I know many of the cities, like some in France, dug out their own bedrock to build their homes and buildings.”
“Yes, and that practice has caused lots of problems as the city kept growing. Cave-ins, especially.” Lourds swept his gaze around. “We’re looking for a cave.”
“Callisthenes said a cave?”
“A passageway underground usually means a cave.”
Fitrat nodded toward a primitive structure at the bottom of the foothills. “There is no mention of a well?”
“A well?”
Fitrat pointed. “There. That one looks like one that was advertised on Delos Island, correct?”
“Yes, that’s a well. I think.”
Lourds saw a small depression in the ground, rectangular in shape and nearly ten feet by six.
Curious, wanting something to explore other than endless and similar-looking terrain, Lourds walked down the incline to take a look.
Linko lay up on the high ground behind Lourds and the men he traveled with. An AK-47 lay beside him, and he knew that the rifle had a much greater reach than the pistols the Afghanistan police assigned to Lourds carried. Killing them would be an easy matter, and he was looking forward to doing so.
But there remained the fact that Lourds hadn’t given up the hunt. The possibility existed that he might yet find whatever it was that he searched for.
Linko hoped that would happen. He was certain President Nevsky was not pleased with how things had turned out with Anna Cherkshan. But no one had known that she had discovered so much information or that she would be granted airtime on a television station.
Nevsky and his generals and his public relations people were working hard to undo the damage. Some of the control that had been taken in the Ukraine was crumbling, but the military operations there had been stepped up to compensate.
Things would be all right. Linko kept telling himself that as he followed Lourds with his binoculars.
Come on, you idiot. Find whatever it is you are looking for. Find it so that I may kill you and go home.
The well was ancient. Lourds estimated that it had been constructed centuries ago. Over the course of time, much of the rock that had gone into the building of the low retaining wall around the well had been scavenged and taken elsewhere. Weeds and brush had grown up around it.
Fitrat gazed down into the well. “Not very deep.”
Lourds nodded. “It didn’t have to be deep. It only had to reach the water table in order to keep a steady supply of water. Out on the peninsula here, the water table wasn’t very deep.”
He navigated the narrow stone steps that led down into the well at one end. Roots had twisted through the mortar, and stubborn grass clung to the stones in places where seeds had blown in the past. The well had no smell, no mold, no mildew.
And it was dry as a bone. The bottom of the well was overgrown with grass and weeds as well.
“You had good eyes to see this.”
Above, kneeling on the edge of the well, Fitrat shrugged. “Finding this only seems like another waste of time.”
Lourds took a flashlight from his backpack and shone the beam over the rough walls. There was some graffiti left by children or teenagers, drawings of monsters or declarations of undying love.
“Perhaps we will have more luck at the next well?”
Glancing up, Lourds saw Corporal Rahimi standing on the well wall across from his commander. “Next well?”
“Sure.” The young corporal nodded and pointed to the east. “I have found another one about a hundred meters to the east.”
Lourds clambered up from the well. “Where?”
“There.” Rahimi pointed again.
This time Lourds spotted the hint of a rectangular area in the grass. The shape was too uniform to have occurred naturally. He hitched up his backpack. “Let’s go.”
Dmitry Dolgov clambered from the boat at the harbor in Elis. The pilings were old and decrepit, and only a few people still lived there. The man who had rented Dmitry the boat had said that the old town had fewer than two hundred reglar inhabitants and that, in the summer, during tourist season, there were often more visitors than residents.