The Oracle Code

14

Lourds woke to an empty bed. Layla had left a note on the pillow next to his. She’d written in her language, knowing full well he could easily read it.

Groggy from jetlag and from the lack of sleep, Lourds forced himself out of bed long enough to sit on the edge and look out the window over the city. The blue towers in the distance looked like something out of a fantasy world. He thought of going to the Kharabat neighborhood, thinking that perhaps a casual stroll through the workshops where musicians made their own instruments and composed daily might be a diversion.

When the Taliban had been in power, the musicians left the historic quarter, but they’d been coming back since the terrorists had been routed. That section of the city had almost been destroyed during the Soviet occupation during the 1980s, but the musicians had returned then as well. Now, their sons and daughters worked to rebuild the area after the Taliban had been sent packing.

There was something eternal about walking through the neighborhood. Musicians occupied half-built workshops, and they sang and laughed amid the rubble, finding their muse in the darkest corners. The trips Lourds had made through the Kharabat had always been uplifting.

But he didn’t feel like going today.

Normally, he’d be excited to greet the new day while in one of the ancient cities. There was so much to study, so much to imagine. But the familiar wanderlust wasn’t in him at the moment. He felt…empty. And that wasn’t something he’d ever experienced in quite this way before.

He didn’t know what he was going to do. He didn’t want to do anything. He simply wanted Layla back with him. Reaching into his pants, which were neatly folded on the nearby chair, he took out the engagement ring and examined it again.

Sunlight filtering through the curtains covering the window splintered light from the diamond. After a while, he closed the box, put it away, and lay back down on the bed.

Mercifully, he slept.

The phone beside the bed rang and woke Lourds. Instinctively, he threw out a hand and managed to snare the handset. “Hello.”

“Mr. Lourds?”

Lourds almost corrected the man, ready to tell him it was Professor or Doctor, but not mister. But that was irritation at being awoken, and at being alone, not a true pride thing. Instead, he just confirmed his identity.

“This is the hotel desk, sir. I have an urgent phone call for you.”

That announcement woke Lourds more fully. His first concern was for Layla, that she might have fallen asleep while driving and had an accident.

“Of course. Put it through.” He glanced at the clock and saw that it was a few minutes before nine. The whole day still loomed before him.

The phone clicked a couple times.

“Thomas?”

It took Lourds just a second to put a name to the voice. “Boris?”

“Da.”

“You’re calling early.”

“It’s almost nine.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“I called your office number, hoping you were working late, and talked with some young woman named Tina. I’m also told nuptials are in order. Quite surprising, actually, but not so surprising in another light.”

Lourds worked out the time differential between Kabul and Cambridge. It was almost midnight Monday in Cambridge. The only way she would have gotten Boris’s call was if she was working late at the university or had forwarded his phone calls to her phone the way she used to do. He resolved to have a talk with young Dr. Tina Metcalf when he returned to Harvard. She was far too free with his surprises.

“Well, keep the nuptials to yourself, Boris. I haven’t gotten to ask Layla yet.”

“I tender my good wishes anyway. You two will make a fine couple.”

“Thanks. I’m going to have to have a word with Tina in order to make sure the first person Layla hears this from is me.”

“Layla won’t hear it from me. And don’t punish Miss Metcalf for me calling you. I told her that it was a matter of life and death.”

That caught Lourds’s attention immediately. “Are you in trouble?”

Boris chuckled. “No. I am in euphoria. But I thought it would be better to deliver more dire tidings to that dear girl. She wasn’t going to give me your location at first.”

“Why didn’t you call my sat-phone?”

“I did. In fact, I left several messages.”

Lourds fumbled with his pants and extracted his sat-phone. He looked at the blank screen. “I forgot to turn it on when I deplaned.” He powered it up now, then saw that he had missed several phone calls from Boris and other people.

There was no phone call from Layla. He resisted the urge to call her.

“Thomas?”

“I’m here.” Some of his friend’s good-natured ebullience touched Lourds and awakened him even further. “Why are you in euphoria?”

“Because, my friend, I have made the find of a lifetime. Of course, it doesn’t rival Atlantis, but it could be quite possibly the most striking contribution I will ever make to the field of archeology.”

“You’ve got a lot of good years ahead of you, Boris. Don’t sell yourself short. What did you find?”

“A tomb. Tucked away in the mountains only a few miles from where you and I discovered the ossuary. This is a complete tomb, Thomas. The body is still in the sarcophagus, in almost pristine shape. I’ve held up any further exploration of the tomb and the remains until you arrive. How soon can you get here?”

“I’ll have to get a car, then drive to Herat. It’s four hundred miles of bad road.”

“Don’t drive. Charter a plane.”

“If I can find one.”

“There are plenty of local pilots who would be willing to make a short hop. You can be here in three hours or so. I’ll pay for it.”

“You’re awfully free with the museum’s money.”

“This is important, Thomas.” Boris sounded deadly serious. “I need you. I need your expertise to decipher some documents that were with the body. And if they’re what I think they are, this will be a nice feather in your cap as well.”

The mention of documents captured Lourds’s attention immediately. He loved doing translation work on things no one in the modern world had ever seen, the chance to try to decipher something before anyone else ever laid eyes on it.

“Who’d the body belong to?”

“I don’t know, but I suspect this corpse was once Macedonian.”

“Why?”

“Because I can pick out some things in the scroll, but not much. Enough, though, to pick out the name of Alexander the Great.”

Galvanized for the first time that morning, Lourds smiled. “I need to get off the phone so I can find a plane.”

“You’ll have to hurry. News has already leaked to the media about the discovery.”

“Really? Did you call them first thing?”

“I called you first. You didn’t answer. And I might have mentioned your name.”

“That’s going to start a circus.”

“Oh, it already has.” Boris sounded pleased with himself. “Rather nice turn out, if I must say so. Of course, the crew from National Geographic has been here since the beginning. And there is one young lady whose reacquaintance I’m sure you’ll look forward to.”

“Who?”

“Do you remember Anna Cherkshan?”

Lourds only had to think for a moment. “Yeah, I remember her. Young? Pretty? Reporter for The Moscow Times?”

“That’s the one.”

“I do like her. Every quote in her piece was exactly what we said and not taken out of context for once.” Lourds started toward the closet and quickly reached the end of the phone cord. He wasn’t used to talking on corded phones these days. He stopped. “I’ve got to get off the phone and get moving if I’m going to find a plane.”

“Hurry.”

Lourds started to get off the phone, then caught himself. “Boris?”

“Yes?”

“Congrats on the find. You deserve it.”

“Thank you. And I do deserve it. And I’ll feel better once you’re here to straighten away the documentation. I want to know what I’ve truly found as soon as possible.”

“I’m on my way.”