The Oracle Code

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10



Dean’s Office

Boylston Hall

Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

United States of America

February 10, 2013

“Are you out of your mind?”

Over the years of their association, Richard Wither, dean of the Department of Linguistics, had asked Lourds that question several times. Usually it was in response to a funding request for a research project or travel money for a conference.

Lately, though, with all the notoriety afforded from publication of The Bedroom Pursuits as well as the Atlantis book, Lourds hadn’t asked for money. He’d asked for time off to go do the projects and conferences he’d been invited to and fully funded for. Having his name attached to various things brought a cachet these days, and he was proud of that.

“No.” Lourds kept his voice even, but inside he was a maelstrom of emotions. He didn’t think he’d ever been so scared or so excited at the same time.

Dean Wither sat across the immaculate desk that was the antithesis of Lourds’s own—any desk, no matter where he was. A gaunt, gray man in a dark suit, he looked like an undertaker.

The office reflected care and a lifetime of achievements. Books neatly lined the shelves on one wall. Certificates, awards, and photographs of Wither shaking hands with important political figures—and a few movie stars—occupied another wall. A large, saltwater aquarium filled with vibrantly beautiful fish sat against the third wall. The tank was Wither’s pièce de résistance and held fragments of Grecian urns and pottery carefully placed around a shipwreck.

Lourds suspected Wither dreamed about doing the things that Lourds himself did on a regular basis. The dean was almost sixty, almost old enough to be Lourds’s father. Maybe he even wanted to be treated like a father figure to a degree, but Lourds wasn’t interested in a mentor.

Before Wither could react to Lourds’s response, Lourds changed his mind. “Maybe.”

Wither’s eyebrows knitted. “Maybe?”

“Maybe I am out of my mind. I honestly don’t know. Being in love is more complicated than I’d imagined.”

“What?”

“Being in love.” Lourds lounged in his chair across from the dean. His hat sat on the desk between them.

Wither shook his head. “You’re not in love.”

“I’m afraid I am.”

Wither sighed. “In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never found a woman who could pull you away from your work.”

“Yes. But that’s only because I’ve never been in love before.”

“On that, we can both agree.” Dean Wither paused, then went on, “You’re asking for another leave of absence.” He checked his computer screen. “Ten days, in fact, this time.”

“Yes.”

“It’s out of the question. We’ve just gotten the semester underway. Your classes can’t afford to be without you for the next ten days.”

“I understand that, and I’ve already talked to Tina Metcalf. She’s willing to take over my classes.”

“Professor Metcalf has classes she’s teaching.”

“No, she’s teaching a class. Singular. One.”

“She’s currently an adjunct.”

“An adjunct who took her doctorate under me. In addition to being my graduate assistant. If anyone knows my classes, Tina does.”

“She’s already busy. We’re not going to pay her for classes we’re already paying you to teach.”

“I’m going to pay her out of my own pocket. And she’s going to be co-author on a book I’m doing on languages spoken along the Silk Road.” Lourds’s time out in Afghanistan with Boris had inspired the book, and Lourds had presented it to a publisher, promising a lot of anecdotal stories that would give the reader a flavor of what it was like on the trade caravans.

“Tina is impressive,” Dean Wither said grudgingly.

“Of course she is. And she’s more than qualified to work with the classes I currently have. She welcomes this opportunity. And, frankly, the money. She’s trying to make a living wage, you know. Working for me will keep her from serving at the diner where she also works. We can’t have a potential adjunct coming in smelling like burgers and French fries every day.”

Wither sighed. “Why do you need this time?”

Lourds reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. He opened it to show the sparkling diamond ring nestled inside. “Because I’m going to ask Layla Teneen to marry me.”

For a moment, Wither was speechless. “Oh. My. God.”

***



The Dingo Diner

Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, Massachusetts

United States of America

Lourds strode into the diner and looked for Tina Metcalf, spotting her easily in the sparse afternoon crowd. He waved, she waved, and he sat in a booth against one of the long walls.

The diner was small, with booths all down one wall and the opposing wall outfitted with booths halfway down, then stools in front of the counter and grill area.

Lourds dropped his hat on the table and slid his backpack over. He took out his Kindle and opened the e-book he was currently reading. Despite his love of thriller literature, he was having a hard time staying focused on the storyline.

“So? How’d it go? Do I get to sub for you?” Tina stood beside the table and smiled at him. In her late twenties, she was gorgeous, a petite brunette with an upturned nose and smattering of freckles. She was lean and athletic, and her jeans hugged rounded hips. The T-shirt advertised the diner. She had her hair pulled back and gazed at him through her glasses.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, you do.”

“Cool.” Tina’s grin widened. “In fact, thank god. If I had to keep schlepping burgers back and forth to tables much longer, I was gonna scream.”

“Well, we can’t have that.”

“I miss being your GA, prof.”

“I miss having you there. You were the finest GA I’ve ever had.”

“That’s what you put on all my rec letters. I thought you were just being nice.”

“No.” Lourds held up a hand. “Nothing but the truth. Otherwise, I would have never asked you to do that book with me.”

Tina’s grin grew. “Did I tell you I was totally psyched about that?”

“I believe you did mention it.” Lourds couldn’t help being happy for her. He’d spent three years with her as a doctoral student, and he’d watched her grow in so many ways. She had truly come into her own. He took pride in her. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”

“You should try schlepping burgers.” Tina sat across from Lourds. She held her forefinger and thumb a fraction of an inch apart. “I’m going to take a little break.” She sighed. “This is killing my ankles. And I will love being back in front of a class.”

“You’re a natural. You’ll do splendidly.”

“I saw you pop into my class last Tuesday.”

“Really? I thought I was being covert.”

“Kind of hard to miss the hat.” Tina picked up the hat brim and let it flop back down onto the table.

Lourds grinned ruefully. “I suppose it is.”

“Checking me out?”

“Not your ability. You’re an excellent teacher. But I didn’t want to push you under with the increased workload and cause you to sink before you’d truly gotten started.”

“Not me. I’m unsinkable.”

“That’s what I gathered.”

“So tell me...”

“What?”

“Why are you going to Afghanistan?”

Lourds hesitated. After enduring Dean Wither’s reaction, he didn’t know what to expect. “Do you remember me mentioning Professor Layla Teneen?”

“Mentioning? Please. You only talk about that woman all the time.”

“Well, we’ve been in contact a lot since I met her last June.”

“You’ve flown out there five times in the past eight months. House sitter when you’re gone, remember?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the deal?”

“I have never met a woman like her in my life.”

Tina blinked and looked astonished. “You’re in love with her?”

Lourds nodded. “Emphatically so. She’s beautiful, intelligent, giving, independent, self-aware. During these months I’ve been away from Layla, I’ve been thinking about her more and more. I can’t stop. It’s like a disease, or an aberration.”

Tina laughed. “Yeah, love can be like that. I can remember when I met Joey, couldn’t stop thinking about him.” Joey was her significant other, and they had been together since high school. Tina had told Lourds the story a number of times. “Still can’t, actually.” She focused on Lourds. “So, how in love are you? Obviously enough to go see her for Valentine’s Day. Which, may I remind you, is named after Saint Valentine, a Christian martyr, and not one presumably embraced by someone of Islamic faith.”

“I hadn’t actually thought about that. I thought all women loved Valentine’s Day.”

“It’s not genetic, though you’d think it might be. So is she excited that you’re coming?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“If it’s a surprise and Valentine’s Day is a Western holiday, she might not be expecting you.”

“She isn’t. If she was, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

“Well, it might be a really big surprise.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a surprise. This is Valentine’s Day. If she’s not expecting you, but she does know that this is Valentine’s Day, she could be expecting something else when she sees you.”

“You mean, like this?” Lourds took out the ring box and popped it open. The fluorescent lights sparkled from the diamond’s facets.

“Wow!” Tina snatched the ring and looked at it more closely. “Look at the size of that sucker!”

Lourds chuckled. “A doctorate in linguistics and that’s the best you can come up with?” But he hoped Layla was equally impressed.