“… his obsession, which became your mother’s. I thought it quaint that your father, the son of a lighthouse keeper in Upstate New York, should adopt as his life’s passion the very first lighthouse, researching and learning everything about it.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said, “quaint. Like it was ‘quaint’ that his children should follow you around the world, risking their lives in the pursuit of whatever treasure you thought you could get your hands on.”
“Your mother—”
“—should have known better. We lost our father, and then, as if that wasn’t enough, we lost our childhood, tramping around through bug-infested jungles and submerged wrecks, all for your cause.”
“I won’t apologize for that. A better education you couldn’t have asked for.”
“I didn’t ask for this. Phoebe didn’t—”
“Caleb, enough. Listen. We’ll have to clear out of this area soon, so let’s get to the point. What did you see down there?”
Caleb hung his head.
“Draw it, if you like,” Waxman ordered, pointing to the paper and pencils.
“Don’t need to,” Caleb whispered.
“What?”
“I don’t need to draw it. And it’s nothing. It was nothing.”
“So, ‘nothing’ almost got you killed?”
Caleb looked up. “Nothing that will help you. All I saw was the lighthouse. The Pharos. The day before its dedication.” Waxman was silent — a breathless silence. “And …”
“And nothing. Sostratus, the architect, was there, and I was, I don’t know, somehow I was seeing through the eyes of Demetrius—”
“The librarian?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Fascinating.”
“Yeah, whatever. So Sostratus showed Demetrius around. It was… beautiful, majestic, soaring. But, I saw no treasure. I—”
“But it was here, the lighthouse?”
Caleb nodded. There had been enough speculation through the ages, since the remnants of the tower, long-wracked by earthquakes and disuse, had at last been shaken loose and crashed into the sea, as to where exactly it had stood. But Caleb’s vision had made it clear. “Yes, the view I had from the top — the orientation of the coast, the landmarks — yes, it was here, at the tip of the peninsula.”
“Where Qaitbey’s fortress stands?”
Caleb nodded.
“Anything else?”
“No. Yes. I saw the inscription. Sostratus signed the monument, then plastered over it.”
“Ah,” Waxman grinned. “I read about that, one of the anecdotes in Heinrich Thielman’s study. So it’s true.”
“If you believe my visions.”
“Why should I doubt them?”
Caleb shrugged, thinking of his father, of countless drawings of a man, possibly still alive, held captive in the mountains of Iraq. “Others have.”
“Well, Caleb, consider me your number-one fan, then. I’m in your corner, I believe you. And I confess, now that I’ve got you here, locked in my vault for the next six hours. I don’t want to let you go, not without something in return.”
“How about a kick in nuts when I get out of here?”
“Really, is that all the thanks I get?”
“Thanks,” Caleb said, turning and limping back to the cot. He lay down. “I’m going to try to sleep it off, and when this is done, I’d like to get back to my hotel. I have a plane to catch in the morning.”
“No you don’t.” Waxman’s face disappeared. “I, uh, took the liberty of calling the university and explained the situation, explained your near-death experience—”
“You what?”
“—and the fact that you have nitrogen narcosis, a life-threatening condition. Air transportation is out of the question. Besides, you need rest. A minimum of two weeks. And your colleagues, they quite agreed.”
“No, no, no.”
“Yes, Caleb, it’s for your own good. And your mother, she’ll be here in a few hours to take care of you.”
“Great.” Caleb sat back, fuming, but he knew Waxman was right. He’d never be able to fly in this condition. He should, by rights, be in a hospital.
As if reading his mind, Waxman said, “The offer still stands, I can drop you off at the local infirmary and you can take your chances.”
“All right, what the hell do you want?”
“I want two weeks, Caleb, just two weeks.”
“Of what?”
“Your time.” His face at the window again, beaming. “Your talents. The paper, the pencil… your visions. That’s all. Join the Morpheus Initiative again, just on a temporary basis.”
Caleb shook his head. “I’d be a waste. This is the first vision I’ve had since… since Belize.”
“It’s like riding a bike, I hear.” Waxman grinned. “You never really lose it.”
“What makes you think I can help?”
“Call it a hunch. Come on, kid. Spend some time with your mom, live in luxury on my yacht or at the five-star hotel in the city, not that dump you’ve been staying at. Just come to the sessions, try to remote view the targets, and let’s see if together we can’t solve one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world.”
Caleb held his head as the knocking sounds intensified and his temples throbbed in time to the pulsing of the boat’s engines. Again he thought of his father, surrounded by all those dusty texts; he thought of the two-story lighthouse above his childhood home, the long shadow it threw over the grass on summer days when he and Phoebe would chase each other on the hill over the bay.
“All right, I’ll help,” he whispered.
“Fantastic—”
“But not for you.”
“Fine,” Waxman said.
“And not for Mom, or even for Phoebe.” He looked up. “I’m doing this for my father. If I find it, if I help locate the entrance, the passageway or whatever it is you’re all looking for, I’ll have done it for him. For his memory.”
Waxman nodded, grinning. “Whatever works. Glad to have you back, kid.”
5
“Where’s Helen?” George called out when he returned to the yacht’s lounge. The motors were running, with Elliot at the wheel, turning the ship back toward the harbor as the sun started its long descent over the spires and mosques, over the scintillating glass dome of the newly completed Alexandrian library. In the lounge he found Victor and Mary watching the LCD screen, catching up on CNN. Behind the bar sat the dark-skinned Italian, Nina Osseni, with short curly hair and piercing green eyes. She wore a tank top that exposed her shoulder tattoos: Egyptian symbols, the two eyes of Horus, left and right. She leaned over in a pose at once seductive and restrained.
She was young but perfectly suited to Waxman’s needs. He had recruited her right out of Annapolis, where she had been planning for a career at the FBI. She knew seven languages besides her native Italian, including Egyptian and Saudi; she was skilled in hand-to-hand combat; proficient in most firearms, with a specialty in handguns; and to top it all, her psychic scores were off the charts.
“Haven’t seen Mrs. Crowe yet,” Nina said. “But we have another… situation.” She showed him two small dime-shaped objects with wires sticking out of them. “Found these on the boat just after the last sweep. We must have been careless.”
Waxman bristled. “What else?”
Nina angled the silver-plated Dell laptop slightly so that only Waxman could see the screen. It displayed a familiar man, the one on the pier, in his gray suit. “I took this with the zoom lens while you were talking with the Crowe kid. He’s on shore, trying to be discreet.”
Waxman smiled. “Not too good at it. You run the facial-recognition program against our database?”‘
“Of course.”