The Oracle Code

23



Herat

Herat Province

Afghanistan

February 14, 2013

When he reached Herat, Lourds parked the truck in an alley, left the keys in the ignition, and got out.

Anna hesitated. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving the truck. It’s not safe to keep driving it. Fursin knows what it looks like, and it’s shot up so badly that it’s only a matter of time before the police get curious.”

“But it will get stolen.”

“I hope so.” Lourds glanced down at the end of the alley and noticed a small group of pre-teen boys. “And things are certainly looking up.”

“But shouldn’t you return it to the rental agency instead?”

Lourds shook his head. “Only if I want to leave a trail.” Over the past few years of dealing with assassins and mercenaries, he had gotten smarter about such things. Escape and lying low weren’t quite as easy in real life as they were in the potboilers he enjoyed, but there was a certain amount of truth in those novels. “If I return the truck, that’ll give our pursuers a place to start.”

“You sound paranoid.”

“After everything that’s happened, you bet I’m paranoid. Yakov back there seemed pretty determined. And he shot Boris right in front of me.” Lourds still felt numb over that. There’ll be time to grieve later. Right now you need to concentrate on survival.

Anna hesitated a moment more, then climbed out of the truck and joined him. Together they walked to the street.

“What do we do now?”

“We find a public place and try to figure out what our next step is.” At the curb, he flagged down a taxi. The driver parked at the curb and waved them inside.

Lourds opened the back door of the taxi and allowed Anna to get in first. She slid over immediately and made room for him. Lourds got in and dropped his backpack at his feet.

The driver turned around to face them with a generous smile. “Where to?” His English was serviceable.

Before Lourds could reply, the white pickup roared out of the alley and swerved recklessly out onto the street. The three pre-teen boys inside seemed to be having the time of their lives.

The taxi driver shook his head in disgust. “Foolish children.”

***



“Are you certain this is the best place we could find?”

Lourds led the way through the booths and tables of the small restaurant’s outer dining area. “I like the view. We’ll be able to see anyone coming.” He claimed a table and sat, putting the backpack on the bench beside him.

“The view?” Anna sat beside him and wrapped her arms around herself. “It is cold out here.”

“And that’s just one of the reasons the people who could be looking for us won’t think to look in this place.”

The restaurant booths sat outside a small building used for preparing food. A curved canopy overhead was supported on metal struts. A low brick wall enclosed the dining area, and engraved concrete squares marked the walkway across the floor. There were no walls and no windows. To the south, tall government buildings stood, but they were dwarfed by the mountains that rose against the horizon. Only a short distance from the government building, a blue-domed temple squatted.

Despite the fact that it was February and winter, the temperature was in the low fifties.

Lourds took off his coat and placed it on the bench on the other side of his backpack.

“You are insane. You will freeze out here.”

“No. I’m quite comfortable, thank you. If you want to see cold winters, you should stop by Cambridge, Massachusetts, in January. We have cold winters there.”

“Not as cold as those in Moscow.”

“Then you shouldn’t be cold here either.”

Anna frowned, then shivered. “I do not mean to be disagreeable.”

“You’re not. You’re in shock.”

“And you are not?”

“Of course I am.”

“You do not appear to be.”

“I’m working. It’s my way of coping.”

He took his notebook computer from his backpack, then the scrolls in their protective case, and his digital camera. The camera came out in pieces. Evidently the bullet that had struck the backpack had torn through his camera and his trail bars. Granola and nuts lay strewn through the backpack as well. The ring box was intact, and he held it for a moment before placing it on the table.

Seeing the broken camera and the full extent of the damage to his backpack and its contents, it suddenly struck Lourds just how close he’d come to death. Again.

Anna seemed to understand what he was feeling. “You are alive, Professor. Do not forget how fortunate you are.”

“But Boris wasn’t very fortunate, was he? That tomb, Boris lived for finding something like that. And in less than a day, it was lost. And so was he.”

“I am sorry for your loss. I wish there was something I could do.”

“There isn’t. I can’t do anything either.” Lourds thought of Lev Strauss. Lev had been a friend much longer. His death had hurt more than Boris’s, and the pain was still there too.

“So what do we do?”

Lourds looked at the protective scroll case, then at Anna. “It’d probably be better if you got out of this now. Just walk away and return to whatever it was you were doing.”

Anna spoke precisely. “What I was doing was interviewing Professor Boris Glukov on the discovery he had made. I had hoped to follow that up with an interview with Professor Thomas Lourds.”

“We’re past that now.”

“I’m not.” Anna’s gaze dipped to the protective case, then back at Lourds. “Something in there got your friend killed. We need to find out what that is.”

“I need to. You need to be safe.”

Anna frowned at him. “Yakov Fursin saw me with you. He is still alive. Do you not think that perhaps I am in danger now, too?”

She had a point.

“All right. As long as we can stay ahead of this thing. If this gets worse, you can go home to your father.”

“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “That I will not do. I left his house to become my own person.”

“This isn’t about being a person, Anna. It’s about being alive. You said your father was a military man. If this thing turns any worse, he should be able to protect you.” Lourds sighed. “If Boris had known investigating that tomb would get him killed, he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She turned her hand toward the scrolls. “Yet here you sit with those scrolls, determined not to abandon them or whatever secrets they protect.”

Lourds didn’t have an answer for her. For him, it wasn’t a choice. This was something he had to do. For Boris, and for himself.

The waiter came up and politely inquired if they wanted anything. They had been speaking in Russian, and Lourds hadn’t even noticed until the man tried speaking in Russian.

In Dari, Lourds ordered hot tea and gosh feel, a type of fried pastry covered in powdered sugar and ground pistachios, even though he was certain neither of them felt like eating.

There was enough sugar and protein in the dish to break through some of the lethargy left by the post-adrenaline rush. When the waiter walked away, Anna turned her attention to Lourds. “What did you order?”

“Elephant ears.”

“Not truly.”

“That’s the literal translation from Dari. They’re a pastry. I think you’ll enjoy them. But if you want something else...”

She shook her head. “I am afraid I cannot eat.”

“There will be hot tea.”

“Tea would be nice.”

“Good.” Lourds picked up the scroll with the snakes carved on the ends of the wooden roller. He tried reading it again but couldn’t make out any more than he previously had. After a few more fruitless minutes, he turned his attention to the other scrolls. Somewhere in the histories, there had to be a clue.

***



Linko was in a car dealer’s office renting a vehicle when Mikhail Nevsky called his satphone. “Colonel, I see you have some bad news.”

“Things did not go as planned. There were many problems. Not the least of which was the Taliban attack and the arrival of the United States Army.”

“I saw that on the news. Have you taken custody of Boris Glukov?”

“No. Glukov is dead.”

“How did this happen?”

“I killed him.” Silence stretched on the phone line, and Linko knew his life hung in the balance. He hurried on. “Glukov found some scrolls in the tomb that had details about Alexander the Great.”

“What kind of details?” The Russian president sounded interested now, not angry.

“I do not know. Glukov could not read them, that is why he called for Lourds.”

“Were the scrolls lost in the avalanche?”

“No. They are with Lourds.” Linko watched through the door window as the car dealer pulled a late model sedan up out front. “Glukov and Lourds became separated during the attack. I could not get them both. After ascertaining Lourds had possession of the scrolls, the only thing that was removed from the tomb, I killed Glukov to reduce the elements I had in play. That left me only Lourds with the scrolls.”

“Under the circumstances, that is understandable, but still most regrettable.”

“I am in pursuit of Lourds now, but I do not know where he has gone. According to his file, he has a woman friend in Kandahar.” Linko pulled up the woman’s name from memory. “Layla Teneen. She is a public figure. I looked up information on her. It was also in Lourds’s file. She is part of the International Monetary Fund. There is a fundraising drive in Kandahar tonight. I thought Lourds might show up there.”

“That is good thinking, Colonel.”

“I will need an invitation to get in.”

“I will see that you have one. I will also arrange for you to have support from the FSB. Is there anything else you need?”

“Not at this moment. I will get this man for you.”

“I know you will, Colonel.”

The call ended with one of the most menacing clicks Linko had ever heard.