“Winchester’s message left little reason to expect I will be.”
“He’s not an expert.”
Hazelhurst chuckled humorlessly. “He was the best student I ever had. Doesn’t say much for me as a teacher, does it?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it!”
His hand touched the one of hers still resting on his shoulder. “Of course. I’m sorry. You’ve been good to have humored me for so long. Lord knows you had no reason to before I located those maps.”
Melissa eased her hand away. “You never told me where they came from.”
“Yes, I did. The museum.”
She hesitated. “No. I checked.”
“Through the museum, then. At least that was how the contact was made.”
“What contact?”
“The possessor of recently discovered archives in Germany that the museum knew I would have interest in.”
“Germany?”
“The archives contained materials from World War II, my dear. They belonged to the Nazis.”
Melissa was shocked.
“Makes perfect sense,” Hazelhurst continued. “Think of your history, Melissa. Hitler was obsessed with the mysticaclass="underline" astrology, the power of ancient artifacts, the occult. He had scores of archaeological teams scouring areas all over the Mideast in search of any object even remotely thought to possess some sort of spiritual or supernatural power.”
“Which led them here.”
“But the war ended before they had a chance to determine whether their findings were correct. The maps were stowed away and hidden, in all probability by parties already planning for the Fourth Reich.”
Melissa stared at her father for a long moment. “And now we’re picking up right where they left off.”
Benson Hazelhurst kept driving.
The drive took another ten minutes, their jeep bouncing and tilting along the uneven terrain. Winchester’s dig site was located in a secluded valley protected by small hills playing the role of time’s centurions. The area near Ephesus was for the most part composed of lush, fertile plains. But here there was barely any trace of green, as if all the flora had browned and died. Dirt and chalk dust blew about in the afternoon sun.
As the jeep drew closer, Winchester’s dig took shape in the form of layered piles of neatly excavated stone and dirt. The only vehicle present was a four-wheel-drive parked just beyond the heaps. The dust thickened against the windshield of the Hazelhursts’ jeep and, as if in a final act of protest, the engine sputtered and died a good hundred yards from the other vehicle. Melissa climbed out with canteens in hand and waited for her father.
“I don’t see anyone,” she said, stiffening.
“They could be, should be, down inside the excavation.”
“Winchester knew we were coming. He would have had someone waiting. And, besides, someone would’ve heard us coming.”
Hazelhurst rewrapped his bandanna over his brow to add protection for his eyes. “This wind can steal the voice of the man next to you, never mind a raspy engine. And I never advised Winchester of our plans.”
To reinforce his assertion, Hazelhurst plodded forward toward the site. Melissa lingered slightly behind him. She squinted her eyes against the flying dust, the leather of her well-worn boots chipped by the onslaught of the unforgiving ground.
“Damn,” she muttered.
“Shield your eyes,” her father called back to her.
She had been on digs before, but had never experienced anything quite like this. It was almost as if there was some sort of force intent on keeping them beyond the piles of excavated rubble. Hazelhurst reached the stationary four-wheel-drive vehicle and leaned against it for protection from the wind. Melissa nestled near him. One of her hands slid onto the hood.
“It’s still warm, Father. Winchester or someone in his party must have returned within the last hour.”
Hazelhurst turned away from the vehicle and headed for the excavation.
“Dad!” Melissa called after him, trying to keep pace.
Hazelhurst reached the rim and peered down.
“Good lord,” he rasped.
Melissa saw the body an instant after her father did. It lay facedown not far from a yard-square rectangular opening in the ground, created when what looked like a massive stone tablet had been slid backward. The dust and dirt had already showered the body, soon to render it invisible.
“Is that—”
Melissa interrupted her question when she saw her father locate the rope ladder and begin to climb down. It wobbled, and the old man clutched a rung for dear life, his bones brittle from decades of exposure to the calcium of limestone.
“Hold it steady, child.”
“Let me go first.”
“Do as I say!”
She obliged and then followed her father down, joining him near the body he had just flipped over.
“Winchester,” Benson Hazelhurst muttered, kneeling over his ex-student, who stared up at him now with eyes glazed over by death.
In the center of Winchester’s forehead was a small black hole. It was jagged, as if someone had jammed in a thick Phillips-head screwdriver and twisted it around a bit. Beside the bullet hole’s dried edges, there was no blood.
Hazelhurst’s eyes wandered about. “There should be workers here. Winchester hired over a dozen, perhaps more by the look of things.”
His gaze fell on the rectangular opening that accepted the blowing dust and dirt like a vacuum. The thick stone tablet had obviously been parted from the slot it must have occupied for centuries.
A shuffling from above made Hazelhurst break off his thinking. He grasped Melissa and drew her behind him as he gazed upward into the sun and blowing dirt. A figure was standing at the rim above, directly over the rope ladder.
“Who are you?” Hazelhurst screamed up, while behind him Melissa cursed herself for not bringing a rifle with them from the jeep. “What do you want?”
“Professor Hazelhurst?” the confused reply followed in English.
“Yes,” he yelled, his own echo blown back at him. “Who are you?”
“I am the foreman — Kamir. What has happened?”
Hazelhurst felt himself relax. “You’d better come down here.”
“Sayin Winchester sent me to Izmir for more men and—”
“Come down here,” Hazelhurst repeated, “but leave the men up there.”
Kamir said a brief prayer over the body.
“Who did this to him?” he asked, looking up at Hazelhurst and Melissa.
“I thought it might have been you.”
Kamir’s eyes bulged indignantly. “No, Sayin Hazelhurst. I left Sayin Winchester here and went to hire new workmen after the others fled this morning.”
“Fled? Why?”
Kamir gestured toward the massive tablet. “The work frightened them. The warning …”
Hazelhurst exchanged glances with Melissa and then moved toward the tablet. With his hand he brushed away the dust and dirt that had collected atop it and traced the carvings with his fingers as well as his eyes.
“I’ve seen this before — only a few times, but I recognize it. Dates back to an ancient religion that predates Christianity by over a thousand years.”
“One of the men who fled insisted the words were a warning, that we had already gone too far and must turn back before it was too late.”
“And then they fled.”
Kamir’s eyes darted briefly to the rectangular opening. “But not before Sayin Winchester ordered us to move the tablet. They were gone in the morning.” His eyes grew fearful. “I do not blame them.”