The Sanctuary

Chapter 28

The hakeem adjusted the glass slide under the microscope and tapped a few buttons on his keyboard. Another magnified image came up on the flat screen. He studied it carefully, as he had done with all the data that the tests had thrown up.

She’s clean, he thought. Evelyn’s blood work hadn’t flagged anything unusual. No foreign substances, no tampering. Her readings were in line with what he would expect to find in a reasonably healthy woman of her age.

He stared through the cells on the screen and revisited her words. There was no doubt in his mind that she had told him everything she knew. He was working off a solid base.

Tom Webster. He couldn’t get the name out of his mind.

Could he be one of them?

The possibility electrified him. He ran it through his mind, again and again. It seemed too far-fetched. So many years had passed…. But what other explanation was there? Every time he tried to dismiss the idea, to put another spin on it, his initial suspicion came back, slicing through his doubts with Occam-like sharpness and implanting itself firmly in his consciousness. Why else would he appear like that, unannounced, at the first sign of the discovery, and then disappear when the trail seemed to die out? No, there was no other rational explanation.

He had to be one of them.

Tasked with protecting their secret.

Keeping an eye on archaeological digs in the region, making sure that no one stumbled across something that they had gone to great lengths to suppress. Something they’d kept — something they’d hoarded greedily, he scowled — to themselves for centuries.

His pulse quickened.

He thought back to her pathetic tale of lost love and replayed her story in his mind. The man — Tom Webster, the name was branded onto his consciousness, not that he believed it to be his true name — had swooped in and out of her life with clinical efficiency. The discovery had led nowhere, or so he’d led her to believe. What had he really uncovered, what hadn’t he shared with her? He’d then pulled a disappearing act, leaving her with an unborn child and a numbing spiel about why he couldn’t be with her, for reasons he couldn’t share with her.

Déjà vu.

He’d heard — read, actually — something along those lines before.

Many years ago. Back home, in Italy.

In Naples.

It was part of what had triggered his journey.

Yes, of course, he knew it was something some men said. When they lost interest. When they wanted to move on to new conquests. Chapter one of the idiot’s guide to dating. A he’s-just-not-that-into-you kind of thing. Normally, his cynical, jaded view of humanity would have supported that take on it.

Not this time. This felt different.

It fit.

And the very idea that this Tom Webster could actually be part of something he wasn’t sure even existed, something he doggedly wanted to believe, against all rationale, was out there…He smiled inwardly.

This is real. Just as I always suspected.

The principe was right.

A wave of exhilaration coursed through him, coupled with an anger at the way fate dealt its hand. Evelyn had discovered the chamber in 1977 and left the country three years later. He’d arrived in Iraq a couple of years after that.

He cursed his misfortune.

If he’d been there at the time of the discovery of the chambers, he might have heard about it. He might have met this Tom Webster. And he might already possess what he was searching for.

Fate. Timing. The right place at the wrong time. But maybe this was a chance to make up for it.

He needed to find this Webster. The number Evelyn had for him was in her organizer, in her apartment. Omar and his men should have brought that back from the woman’s apartment, but that effort had been thwarted — he’d have to have a serious talk to someone about that. He knew he could easily find the number using the Internet, but he didn’t expect it to yield much. Webster probably didn’t want to be found. He’d surely covered his tracks.

The hakeem also needed to get his hands on that slippery antiques dealer. He had to get his hands on the book, which he knew could be the key to everything. But this woman and her story…she was, indeed, a godsend. Not that he actually believed in such inanities.

But there were complications he needed to better understand.

The woman’s daughter, for one. She’d risked her life by interrupting his men and allowed the dealer to escape. Then there was the issue of the man who was with her at the archaeologist’s apartment. The hakeem had dispatched Omar and his men to go over it and bring back anything of interest — and anything bearing the sign of the snake. Not only had her daughter been there too, but the man she was with was clearly a professional. A well-trained player who’d outgunned Omar — who wasn’t exactly a slouch when it came to that kind of wet work — and killed one of his men. From what Omar had told him, he was American. Who was he, and what was he doing there with her? Was he a new player in this game — another one? Was he also one of them? Was it all suddenly coming alive? Or was he there for other, more trivial reasons, without knowledge of what the game was really about?

The hakeem tried to rein in his exhilaration. He’d waited for so long, tried so hard. He had devoted his life to this pursuit. And now, he felt with growing certainty, it was all coming together.

Finally.

He had to know who these new players were.

But until then, he had to tread carefully.

He would use his contacts to check up on Webster, though he suspected the man would be difficult to trace. Omar would call his contacts in the Lebanese police and intelligence services. Find out what he could about the American. Most pressing, the hakeem had to find the antiques dealer. He couldn’t lose sight of that. He glumly realized that there were no guarantees that the man would be found. Omar had really screwed up on that front, though the hakeem knew his man would do everything necessary to make up for his mistake.

His spirits rose as a realization broke through the questions swamping his mind. If the archaeologist wasn’t just another deluded victim, if this Webster did really harbor strong feelings for her…The hakeem might just be able to use her to draw him out.

The lure of the damsel in distress.

It always worked in the movies.

He just had to make sure that her cry for help was loud enough.