The Atlantis Code

CHAPTER 18

What do you know about the bell and the cymbal?” Diop asked. He held the eight-by-ten photos of the two instruments that Lourds had directed Gary to make. He’d taken a pair of glasses from his pocket for the close-up work.

“Not enough. They’re part of a set of five instruments,” Lourds replied. “The other three still missing are a pipe, a flute, and a drum.”

Diop studied Lourds over the glasses for a moment. “Do you know where any of these instruments are?”

“No. I know where two of them have been.” Lourds quickly relayed the story of the bell and the cymbal and how they’d been taken.

During that time, the young woman returned with fried plantains and pastels — a Portuguese-style stuffed pastry that was deep-fried. She also brought fresh beers. Natasha opted for water instead, and Lourds knew it was because she didn’t want to risk getting intoxicated. He doubted she ever let her control slip enough to indulge.

“Patrizio Gallardo,” Diop mused. Then he shook his head. “A number of artifact dealers — legitimate and black market — ply their trade here and on the mainland. The past is always for sale to collectors.”

“Do you know anyone who’s been looking for these instruments?” Lourds asked.

“No.” Diop handed the pictures back.

“I’ve read your work.” Lourds put the photos into his backpack. “What have you heard about them?”

“There’s an old Yoruba tale about five instruments,” Diop said. “Perhaps it’s about the same five instruments you’re searching for. I don’t know. I’ve concerned myself more with the history of this place than the fables of the various cultures that have passed through here.”

“But you have heard the story?” Leslie asked.

“Yes.” Diop shrugged. “It isn’t so different from a lot of creation myths.”

“Can you tell it to us?” Lourds asked.

“Once, long and long ago,” Diop said, “the Creator — call him whatever you wish according to your own religious beliefs — grew angry with his children here in this world. In that time, they lived only on one land.”

“What one land?” Gary asked.

“The legend doesn’t say. It merely calls it the ‘beginning place.’ There were some scholars I tipped a few beers with who insisted that the land might have been the Garden of Eden. Or perhaps it was Atlantis. Or Lemuria. Or any of other countless supposed lands of wonder that disappeared into the dark recesses of time.”

“When you put it that way,” Leslie said, “it sounds like pure hokum.”

Lourds glanced at the young woman briefly. Was she really beginning to lose faith in what they were searching for? Or was she only saying that to needle him? Or maybe it was to challenge Diop. Lourds didn’t know. He tried to keep from being irritated, but he wasn’t altogether successful.

Evidently Diop took no offense. He grinned. “If you stay around Africa long enough, Miss Crane, you’ll hear all kinds of things. But if you stay around even longer than that, you’ll find that many of those things — each in their own way — have a kernel of truth.”

The server returned, followed by two others. All of them carried huge platters of food. As the food was placed, Diop quickly explained what they were about to eat.

Thieboudienne was the traditional Senegalese dish, consisting of marinated fish prepared with tomato paste and an assortment of vegetables. Yassa was chicken or fish simmered in onion with garlic, lemon sauce, and mustard added to enhance the taste. Sombi was a sweet milk rice soup. Fonde was millet balls rolled in sour cream.

Eating and talking, Lourds noted, didn’t bother Diop. The scholar left the conversation at appropriate places for questions to be asked while he ate.

“After his anger had passed, the Creator saw what he’d done to his children and he was sorry,” Diop said. “So he made them a promise that he would never destroy the world again that way.”

“Sounds like the covenant of the rainbow,” Gary said. “Or the whole lost Ark business with Indiana Jones.”

“As I said, many of these tales are similar,” Diop agreed. “Even the animal stories — such as how the bear lost his tail — are similar in regions that have long had those animals.”

“So you think a bear actually used his tail to go ice fishing?” Gary asked. “Then froze it off in the ice?”

Diop laughed. “No. I believe the bear was lazy and tricked the kangaroo into digging for water. As an act of vengeance, the kangaroo used his boomerang to cut the bear’s tail off.”

Gary grinned. “Now that one, mate, I had not heard.”

“The Australian aborigines tell it.” Diop forked up some spicy couscous and ate. “The point being, every culture tells stories to explain things they don’t know.”

“But there’s more to this story,” Lourds said. “I’ve seen the bell. And I’ve seen digital images of the cymbal. They both share a language that I can’t decipher.”

“Is that so unusual for you?”

Lourds hesitated a moment. “At the risk of sounding egotistical, yes, it is.”

“Ah, no wonder you’re so intrigued by these things.”

“Some other intrigued person killed my sister for that cymbal,” Natasha stated flatly.

“But you have the name of one of the men who murdered your sister,” Diop pointed out. “You could pursue him.”

Natasha didn’t say anything.

For the first time, Lourds realized that. He was amazed he hadn’t noticed that fact himself.

“Of course, if Gallardo and his people are truly searching for the same five instruments that Thomas is,” Diop said, “it only makes sense to stay with the professor. Sooner or later they’ll come to you, eh?”

Natasha’s eyes remained frozen like ice even when she smiled. “Sooner or later,” she agreed.

Gallardo nursed a beer while he leaned against the Auberge Keur Beer guesthouse and watched the festivities taking shape in the courtyard. Children played soccer with homemade balls while men wrestled in the sand and women pounded millet. Vendors sold baguettes and iced drinks to the tourists and locals.

Tired from the long trips he’d taken lately, Gallardo longed for a soft bed and plenty of time to rest. He didn’t know how Lourds and his companions kept going.

He stared at the table where Lourds sat with some black man. It irritated Gallardo that they sat there with impunity. All of them—

All of them?

For the first time Gallardo realized the Russian woman had disappeared from the table where Lourds and the others sat under a broad umbrella. Candlelight played over their faces and showed they were deep in conversation.

Dammit. The woman is missing. Where the hell is she?

Gallardo finished his beer, left the bottle sitting on the nearby windowsill, and stepped back into the shadows. His hand dropped to the back of his waistband and closed around the handle of the 9 mm he’d purchased off a black market dealer soon after his arrival in Dakar. He continued sweeping the area for the woman but didn’t find her.

“I know a man,” Diop said as they sat at the table, “who might be able to help you with this legend. But it will take you a few days to reach him. He lives in the old Yoruba lands.”

“Where?” Lourds asked.

“In Nigeria. Ile-Ife. It’s the oldest Yoruba city that anyone knows of.”

Leslie looked up from her beer. “How far away is that?” she asked.

“You can get there by plane in a matter of hours,” Diop said.

“Who’s the man?” Lourds asked.

“His name is Adebayo. He’s the oba of Ile-Ife.” Diop pronounced the title as orba.

Lourds recalled from his reading that oba meant “king.” The bearer of the title was the traditional leader of a Yoruba town. The title might be traditional, but the position still carried weight. Obas were often consulted by present-day government bodies — they said more out of respect and an effort to keep the peace than to acknowledge any power they might have. But, in fact, it acknowledged what really shaped the society they were dealing with.

“He knows the story?” Lourds asked.

Diop grinned. “More than that, Thomas. I believe Adebayo has the drum you’re looking for.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I’ve seen it.”

Natasha hated being without a gun. She was better with one. She’d left her weapons behind for their plane flight. Still, that situation might remedy itself in the next few moments.

She paused in the shadows next to the bed-and-breakfast overlooking the courtyard. The mortar in the stones was loose and had crumbled away under the attack of years, vines, and salt spray. Plenty of finger and toe room existed between the stones.

In the darkness, she stepped out of her shoes and peeled off her socks. Then, knife clenched between her teeth, she started her assault on the side of the building up to the window where she’d spotted the man watching Lourds and the others.

There were other men. She knew that from studying the darkness and seeing them move.

Only moments ago she’d excused herself from the table. She’d barely drawn the attention of the others because they’d been so rapt in their conversation with Diop. When none of the watchers had followed her, she figured she’d eluded them as well.

Her arms and legs strained a little under her weight. It was one thing to use arm and leg strength to assault a vertical climb, but it was another to use only fingers and toes. She breathed in and out rhythmically and worked to clear her lungs of carbon dioxide buildup.

Soon enough, still under the cover of darkness, she reached the fourth-floor balcony and gradually shifted her weight over to it.

The man she’d spotted lounged in the darkness and watched Lourds and the others.

They wouldn’t last an hour on their own, she thought. Moving slowly, she hauled herself over the side and silently crossed the terraced balcony floor. Only two chairs, a potted palm, and the watcher shared the space. She took the knife from her teeth and gripped it tightly in her hand.

The man stood almost six feet tall. He was European, pale white in the night. He smoked a cheap cigar that stank so badly, Natasha could have found him by the scent of that alone.

At the last moment, the man turned as if he sensed something. Dormant senses from a less-than-civilized lifestyle came online.

But it was too late.

Natasha slid behind the man, gripped his chin in one hand, and put the point of her blade against the side of his neck with the other.

“Move,” she whispered in English, “and I’ll slit your throat.”

The man froze, but she could feel him quiver in terror.

Heart thumping wildly as she battled her own fears, Natasha reached under his shirt and relieved him of the 9 mm pistol in shoulder leather. He carried another at his waistband. She took it as well.

The radio receiver crackled at his ear. Someone spoke in Italian.

“What does he want to know?” she asked the man.

“He wants to know where you are,” the man replied.

The fear intensified inside Natasha. She removed the knife and placed the barrel of one of the 9 mms she’d just acquired against the back of his head.

“Don’t shoot me,” the man whispered hoarsely. “Please don’t shoot me.”

“What is he saying?” Natasha asked.

“He’s noticed that you’re missing,” the man added.

“Is it Gallardo?” Natasha asked.

The man nodded.

“Give me the radio.” Natasha held out her hand.

The man gave her the radio.

Natasha keyed the SEND button. “Gallardo.”

There was a moment of silence; then a man’s voice demanded, “Who is this?”

“You killed my sister in Moscow,” Natasha said. “One day soon, I’m going to kill you.”

“Not if I kill you first.” His voice was hard and arrogant.

“I hope you can get off the island tonight,” Natasha said. “Otherwise you’re going to be answering a lot of questions from the police.”

“Why?”

Without betraying what she was about to do, Natasha shoved the man over the low balcony. The fall was a short one by some standards, with nicely tilled garden soil at its end. She doubted it would kill him, but he screamed on the way down. Then he stopped — abruptly.

Natasha stayed back from the balcony’s edge and resisted the impulse to look down. The rush of conversation below let her know that the man’s fall had drawn a crowd.

She walked back into the room, emptied a small suitcase on the bed, and found two boxes of ammunition for the pistols. There was also a small package containing what looked suspiciously like marijuana. The drug wouldn’t cause too much of a disturbance on the island, but it would make for a long question-and-answer session with the Gorée police until payment could be arranged to buy the man out of trouble.

She left it and the clothes behind.

She dumped the ammunition and pistols into the suitcase, zipped it closed, and walked out the door in her bare feet.

“I think he’s broken his leg,” someone said.

“What happened?” another asked.

“He fell from the balcony.”

“Is he drunk?”

“If he isn’t, I’m betting he wishes he was about now.”

Standing on the outside of the crowd of tourists that had gathered around the man writhing painfully on the ground, Lourds glanced around. An uneasy feeling dawned in the pit of his stomach.

“Where’s Natasha?” Leslie asked at his side.

Lourds shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think she—?” Leslie hesitated.

“Wasn’t her,” Gary said. “I’ve seen her work. She’d have shot him.”

“Not if I simply wanted to create a disturbance so we could get out of here.”

Lourds turned and found Natasha standing behind them. She held a suitcase.

“Where did you get the suitcase?” he asked.

“From his room.” Natasha nodded toward the man curled into a fetal position on the ground.

“You did that?”

Natasha returned his gaze without guilt. “I considered shooting him. But I doubt we would have been able to walk away without answering a lot of questions.” She shrugged. “As it is now, it simply looks like a tourist had an accident.”

“I don’t suppose he’s a tourist.”

“No. Gallardo is here. I hope dumping his minion over the balcony will attract enough law enforcement attention to chase him into hiding for now. Meanwhile, we need to go into hiding ourselves.”

Lourds marveled at how coolly and calmly she handled everything. She hadn’t even worked up a sweat facing an armed man and overpowering him.

“You’re lucky you weren’t injured or killed,” he said.

“You’re lucky Gallardo doesn’t want you dead.” Natasha nodded toward a nearby alley at the foot of the bed-and-breakfast the man had fallen from. “We needed a diversion to get out of here.”

Diop shook his head in wonder. “Well, then, that’s certainly what I’d call a diversion.” He glanced back at Lourds. “You do keep interesting company, Thomas.”

You don’t know the half of it, Lourds thought.

“I’d also suggest we not spend the night on the island.” Natasha found her shoes in the alley and stepped into them. “In case the police decide they want to talk to us as well. Gallardo’s little friend might be persuaded to give up information about us as well as his employer.”

“I know a man who has a boat,” Diop said. “He can take us to the mainland tonight.”

“Good,” Natasha said. “The sooner, the better.”

Gallardo stood in the stern of the rented powerboat as it beat a hasty retreat back toward Dakar. The trip was twenty minutes by ferry. The powerboat cut that time considerably.

Unfortunately, the powerboat also made him stand out as an outsider. When the Gorée Island police started looking into the life of the man who had ended up in the middle of the courtyard, as Gallardo was certain they would — and he knew the Russian woman had guessed that as well — they were going to track him back to Gallardo in short order.

If the man didn’t give Gallardo up outright, he would certainly have to own up to the relationship when challenged by the boat-rental person or the black market dealer who sold him the weapons he carried.

Gallardo cursed his luck and stared out bleakly across the moon-kissed white curlers rolling across the sea. His sat-phone rang. He knew who it would be, and he thought about whether or not he should answer.

In the end, though, there was no choice.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did you find him?” Murani’s voice sounded coldly efficient and much closer than Gallardo would have wanted.

“I did, and if you’d let me deal with him as I wanted, it would be done by now.”

“No. He’s still of use to us.”

Gallardo paced the short length of the boat. “Only if we can keep him under observation.”

“What happened? Where are you?”

“On our way back to the mainland. There was a problem.”

“What problem?”

“The Russian woman made us. She rendered it impossible for us to stay in position.”

Murani was quiet for a time. “Keep after them. Things are getting hard for me, too. I need you to stay on Lourds.”

“I know. I’m trying. If it weren’t for the woman, he wouldn’t even have known we were there.”

“Have you figured out what he’s doing there?”

“The man he met with today is a professor of history. The kind who specializes in African studies.” Gallardo got that from the street talk he’d paid for in the bars while his men had watched Lourds over on Île de Gorée.

“Ah. Lourds is searching for the other instruments.”

“What other instruments?” Gallardo didn’t like the fact that Murani was withholding information. Especially when that information might get him killed.

“Three other instruments go with the bell and the cymbal,” Murani said. “It’s possible they were all in that area at one time.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Because I didn’t know. I keep researching. I’m still learning about these instruments.”

Gallardo swallowed an angry response. Murani usually knew everything when he put him into the field. The fact that he didn’t meant the stakes must be higher than they’d ever been before.

“Find Lourds,” Murani coaxed. “Stay with him. I don’t want him harmed. Yet.”

The phone clicked dead in Gallardo’s ear. He folded the device and put it away. He turned back to the east. In the distance he saw the lights of the city. He hadn’t expected it to be so big. Dakar was new to him, but the movement of the black market was the same. He was good at his work. No matter where Lourds went, Gallardo was confident he could trail the professor.

And when the time came to kill the man and his companions — especially the redheaded Russian bitch — he was looking forward to it.

Lourds labored over the languages. He had enough pieces of the puzzle to start putting them together. Assuming that he had the right legend, assuming that the three different languages were all talking about the same event, then he could attempt to replace some of the words/symbols with words he had to assume were in those texts.

He kept a short list of words that he exchanged throughout the text.

Those all ought to be in there somewhere.

The Russian encryption method provided for plain text to be rearranged before the encryption process, so headers, salutations, introductions, and other standards in texts were all pulled out. That process mixed up the written language enough that decrypting the finished result without a key was almost impossible because it reduced the redundancy that normally took place in encrypted messages.

Lourds sighed and stretched. He tried in vain to find a comfortable position, but his back and shoulders ached fiercely. He glanced at the television set, tuned to ESPN but silent. He used the images to rest his eyes and change the distance of his focus.

Someone knocked at the door.

Remembering the man Natasha had caused to plummet to the cobblestones on Île de Gorée, Lourds got up cautiously. In a way, it gave him a sense of déjà vu. He crossed to the closet and looked for an iron. The one the hotel provided was skeletal and had no heft. It was a sorry weapon at best.

The knock repeated, more insistent this time.

Lourds peered through the peephole. Leslie Crane stood in the hallway with her arms folded over her breasts, looking a little put out.

For a moment Lourds debated answering the door. It was almost midnight. He could claim that he’d fallen asleep. Then again, she could — as she had last time — have kept one of his room keys. He hadn’t checked this time.

He gave in and opened the door, but he didn’t step back.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I thought maybe we could talk,” Leslie said.

Lourds crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“Well?” Leslie demanded.

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to ask me in?”

“I thought I might find out what kind of mood you were in first.”

“I’m in a fine mood,” Leslie said crossly.

“Fine. You can come in. But the ground rules are that if you become unpleasant, you’re leaving. Even if I have to carry you out myself.”

Leslie bristled at that. “You weren’t so quick to throw me out a few nights ago.”

Lourds smiled. “On that night I found you quite fetching.” He stepped back. “Lately, not so much so. But, please, come in.”

Leslie entered the room and glanced around. Her gaze landed on the computer.

“You were working,” she said.

“Yes.” Lourds closed the door and locked it. Having assassins creep into the room — even though the hotel was rated five stars — would be embarrassing. Not to mention deadly.

“Are you having any luck?”

“I don’t know yet. Breaking languages, especially when you have so little to go on, is a laborious process.”

“Do you think Diop knows what he’s talking about? About the drum?”

“I certainly hope so.” Lourds sat on the couch and gazed at the young woman. He tried to keep his mind on business. It was too easy to remember what she’d been like naked and in his arms.

Leslie paced for a moment. “I’m getting a lot of pressure from my superiors. They want more of the story.”

“We don’t have anything more to tell them.”

“My job is on the line here.”

“I understand. If you want to separate company from me now and declare it a loss, I’ll understand. I’ve got some money put back. I can continue this for a while.”

She stopped pacing and gazed at him. “You’d do that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Because of Yuliya Hapaev’s death?”

“Partly, although I see that as work for the police rather than a linguistics professor. But it would be nice to give them everything they need to put Yuliya’s killers behind bars.”

“That isn’t where Natasha wants to put them.”

“No, I suppose it’s not.”

“She’s going to get us into trouble.”

“As I recall,” Lourds said, “Natasha’s been far more apt to get us out of trouble than into it.”

“She kills people.”

“I know. I can’t say that it’s something I would do, but if I were to meet those people under the same circumstances—”

“But you have. We have.”

“—and people’s lives were on the line, I don’t know if I wouldn’t do the same thing.”

Leslie shook her head. “You’re not like her. She’s cold and detached.”

“When she chooses to be, I have no doubt of that.” In fact, he was sure of it. Pushing a man from a fourth-story window into the street was pretty callous.

“You couldn’t do it.”

“I don’t know. I might surprise you,” Lourds said softly.

“You already have.” Leslie’s voice softened, too. Without another word, she approached Lourds and pushed him back onto the bed.

She kissed him. At first Lourds wasn’t going to respond, not certain at all about what he was getting into. And not at all certain that the flesh wasn’t too weak. But then, when he found out the flesh was responding just fine, he decided to go for it.

Their hands pulled at each other’s clothing.

Exhausted and running on fumes, Natasha forced herself out of the too-comfortable bed and paced the floor. She didn’t trust herself not to sleep too deeply in the plush bed.

And she didn’t trust that Gallardo wouldn’t be able to break through the hotel security. He’d already shown he was capable and willing to do such a thing in Leipzig.

In the end, though, she knew she was going to need a few hours of sleep. There was only one place she could think of to get it.

She picked up the suitcase containing the guns she’d taken and left the room. Across the hall, she knocked on Lourds’s room. After a few moments, the peephole darkened.

Lourds opened the door and looked at her. “Is something wrong?”

Natasha took one look at the disheveled clothing and hair, then noticed the lingering scent of Leslie Crane’s perfume, and knew exactly what was going on. When Leslie stepped into view behind Lourds wearing only her blouse, which barely covered her modesty, there was no doubt.

“You,” Natasha declared fiercely in Russian as she felt anger and embarrassment sting her cheeks, “are a goat.” She reached out and pulled the door shut.

Cursing to herself, Natasha walked to Gary’s room door. She knocked.

A moment later, he let her in. Thankfully he was still clothed. He carried his PSP in one hand. Aliens danced across its little screen.

“Hey,” Gary said. “What’s going on?”

“I need a place to sleep,” Natasha declared. She brushed by him and entered the room.

“Okay. Sure.” Gary closed the door behind her. “I guess that’s cool. Got two beds in here.”

Neither of the beds had been used. Evidently Gary had been playing video games for a while.

“Let me have three hours of sleep while you stay awake,” Natasha said. She lay back on the bed and kicked off her shoes. Taking the pistols from the suitcase, she held them in her hands, which she crossed over her breasts. “After that you can wake me and then you can sleep.”

“Sentry duty, huh?” Gary asked.

“Yes.” Natasha closed her eyes and felt them burn with fatigue.

“Maybe I should get a gun.”

“No.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Because I said so. Now be quiet and let me sleep. And there’s one thing further.”

“Yeah?”

“If you try to touch me while I’m sleeping, I’ll shoot you through the head.”

Then sleep dragged her off into a welcome darkness.

The excavation crews played lights over the waters roiling in the cave as the pumps worked.

Father Sebastian stood to one side and listened to the pumps and generators fill the cavern with noise. Fear rattled inside him. Even though the excavation foreman, Brancati, had told him the structural integrity was sound, Sebastian knew that if the patchwork they’d done to the breached wall gave way again, they might all drown.

Along with the water, though, the excavation crews also brought out the bodies of the ancient dead. They lay like undead sunbathers on top of body bags. Their textiles were much the worse for wear, but that was no surprise. The experts on the dig staff seemed to feel that the materials could be easily restored. But there were many more of the crypt’s occupants that had been shattered by the floodwaters and now lay in pieces. The Atlanteans apparently had superb techniques to preserve the bodies of their dead, but even so, the power of an ocean unleashed upon the site had been too much for them.

It would be years, perhaps many years, before all those bodies would be returned to sacred ground.

Sebastian couldn’t help but pity them, even as he knew that studying them would open new windows into humanity’s distant past.

Even then, Sebastian thought, we won’t know your names.

The loss was monumental. Somewhere in the recesses of the burial vault, or perhaps the caves beyond — if, indeed, any caves yet existed — there might be a record book that listed all the dead. Perhaps there would be a history with those names as well.

Were you Adam and Eve’s true sons and daughters? Were you really the last of those who lived in the Garden of Eden? Did you taste immortality only to have it stripped away for daring too much against God?

As he stared into the darkness of the flooded cave, Sebastian remembered all the old stories from the book of Genesis. As a child, he’d imagined what it must have been like to walk with God and see firsthand all the wonders he’d wrought.

The illustrations in his childhood Bible had shown thick, lush forests filled with animals that had no fear of Adam. He’d roamed freely among them and given them their names.

God had also given Adam Eve to be his wife. And she had been tricked by Satan in the guise of a serpent and he had gotten her to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

When God found out they had done the one thing he had forbidden them to do, he drove them from the Garden and placed a cherub with a flaming sword to guard over it.

Would the cherub still be there?

The question haunted Sebastian. If indeed this was the Garden of Eden, as Pope Innocent XIV believed it was, what would he do if God blocked the way?

Sebastian shook his head. Merely thinking the question was sacrilege. If God blocked the way, then the way would be blocked. There would be no going past that.

“Father Sebastian.”

Recognizing his name amid the thunder and crash of the big machines operating around him, Sebastian turned. One of the young men from the construction crew stood before him.

“Yes?” Sebastian said.

“You need to put your hat on, Father.” The young man pointed to the hard hat now cradled in Sebastian’s hands.

“Of course. You’re right. I was just thinking about God. I never stand before him with a hat on.” Sebastian pulled on the hard hat.

“In the future, you might want to do your thinking about him in a safer area.”

Sebastian nodded but didn’t say anything. The young man went on his way. After a moment more, Sebastian turned his attention back to the flooded cave.

Soon, he told himself. Maybe only days remained before they could reenter the cave. In truth, though, he didn’t know whether to look forward to that or be fearful of it.

“Have you been to Ile-Ife before, Thomas?” Ismael Diop asked. He sat beside Lourds in the middle seat of the forty-year-old Jeep Wagoneer.

Natasha sat up front with the young Yoruba driver Diop had negotiated for them after they’d touched down in Lagos the day before. While they’d been in Lagos, Natasha had outfitted herself with a hunting rifle and holsters for the pistols. She’d been mildly insulted that none of the rest of the party wanted to carry weapons.

Leslie and Gary occupied the rear seat.

The old four-by-four rode better than Lourds had expected upon seeing it. Most of the paint and the wood grain sides had been lost over the years, but the engine and transmission sounded strong.

“Once,” Lourds admitted. “A long time ago. Shortly after I graduated university I was asked down here by a linguistics professor I had. She had come from Nigeria.”

“She asked you to come for further study?”

Lourds grinned at the memory. “You might say that. She was a very strict professor. No dating the students. Graduates were an entirely different matter.” He glanced over his shoulder and made sure Leslie was still occupied with Gary.

Leslie pointed out spider monkeys and brightly colored birds. The tall forest was alive with animals around them. It was still early morning, and breakfast was the first order of the day for the wildlife.

The occupants of the car had already taken care of their morning meal. They’d struck camp early that morning, had a hasty breakfast, and gotten onto the road. During the night, Leslie had learned a lot about maneuvering around in a sleeping bag. She’d left Lourds’s tent before Gary had woken, so their trysting was still presumably secret from him. But Natasha had been at the campfire and given them both scathing looks of disapproval for their nocturnal activities.

“Ah. I see,” Diop said. “So after you graduated you were — fair game for this professor?” Diop’s eyes crinkled in merriment.

“Exactly.”

“How long were you here?”

“A month. Five weeks. Something like that. Enough for us to find out that we were compatible. We had a good time together.”

“But not enough of a good time to form a more permanent arrangement?”

“No.” Lourds shook his head. “I’m not the marrying kind. I love my work too much.”

Diop nodded. “I understand. I found myself in similar straits. I married and I tried to make the best of it, but I often found myself torn between my family and my work. In the end, my wife left me for someone who was more inclined to stay at home.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Actually, I think it was for the best. We were both happier for it. And now I have three beautiful daughters and seven grandchildren to visit when I feel the need for family. I believe they understand me more than their mother ever did.”

Spider monkeys leaped from treetop to treetop. Antelope stood at the roadside with twitching ears, then shied away as the jeep roared past. A short distance farther on, the driver had to swerve to avoid hitting a forest elephant that wandered out onto the dirt road leading up into the bush country.

“The man we’re going to see,” Diop went on. “The oba of Ile-Ife—”

“Adebayo,” Lourds said.

Diop nodded. “Yes. You have a good memory. Anyway, this man is very much taken with the old ways. He is lately come into the office he holds, but he’s always been protector of the drum.”

“The drum isn’t part of the office of oba?”

“No. The drum has been handed down through his family for generations.”

“For how many generations?”

Diop shrugged. “To hear him tell it, since the beginning of the Yoruba people.”

“For many hundreds of years, then.” Excitement sang within Lourds. Despite the knowledge that Gallardo was on their trail, but buffered by the fact that they hadn’t seen the man since leaving Île de Gorée, Lourds felt hopeful. “Do you believe him?” Lourds asked.

“Not so much when he told me as when you showed me those pictures of the bell and cymbal. Although I’m no expert, I think the writing on the drum is related to those.”

Lourds shifted restlessly in the seat. They’d traveled most of the day yesterday, by plane and then by jeep. Last night’s encounter with Leslie had been relaxing, but he was consumed with curiosity. His impatience today was only escalating.

“Do you speak Yoruba, Thomas?”

“Passably,” Lourds said. “My professor was Yoruba, and we worked with Yoruba artifacts.”

“That’s good. Adebayo speaks a little English and more Arabic, as many need to in this region to conduct their business affairs, but in the process is painfully slow. Besides, he’ll be more impressed if you speak his language.”

“How much farther is it?”

“Not so much. We’re not going into Ile-Ife proper. Adebayo lives in a small village north of the city. He travels into town when he needs to in order to let his voice be heard. But don’t let that fool you. He’s an educated man.”

“Stay back,” Gallardo instructed DiBenedetto, who drove the Toyota Land Cruiser they’d purchased back in Lagos. “I don’t want to get too close.” He gazed at the notebook computer screen on the lap of the man next to him.

The computer screen showed the Nigerian terrain they traversed. A blue triangle marked Lourds’s position. One of the computer geeks Gallardo hired for jobs had hacked into Lourds’s cell phone and was able to track the GPS locator as long as it remained on. They’d also hacked into Leslie Crane’s phone service. They hadn’t yet been able to get the Russian woman’s.

The red square following the blue triangle marked Gallardo’s own progress. A small satellite receiver mounted on a pole on the Land Cruiser’s bumper connected them to the geosynchronous satellites that orbited the earth and painted their position.

DiBenedetto nodded and reduced his speed.

Gazing behind him, Gallardo looked at the three other vehicles that carried the small army of mercenaries he’d hired back in Lagos. They were white, black, Chinese, and Arabic, a real global collection. Men like them were always for hire in the right bars. Africa remained torn by wars and greed. The dogs of war stayed close to the battles.

All the new men were armed to the teeth.

Gallardo settled back into the seat and felt the day heating up around him. He felt certain it wouldn’t be long now. He’d get the instruments. Then that redheaded bitch was going to get what was coming to her.