The Temple Mount Code

22

‘You’re leaving?’

Lourds paused in his packing. Gloria Chen stood in the doorway of his personal quarters.

‘Yes.’ He tossed a shirt into the suitcase and tried to sort out his cleanest socks.

Without a word, she shouldered him aside, dumped all the contents from the suitcase, and started folding his clothes.

Feeling irritated and invaded, Lourds stepped back. ‘Those are dirty.’

‘Doesn’t matter. They’ll pack tighter and travel better if they’re folded.’ Gloria picked up a pair of jeans and started folding those as well. ‘Want to tell me what’s going on?’

‘Honestly, I don’t know.’ Lourds cracked open a beer from the ice chest on the floor and offered her one. She accepted, and he gave her his, then reached for another, hooking the chilled bottle out with two fingers.

Finished with the suitcase, she zipped it closed and sat on the bed.

‘I got a message from an old friend,’ he said.

‘Delivered by the guy the Sherpas brought in.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t your friend call?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You could call him.’

‘I tried.’ Lourds sipped his beer.

‘You’re just going to walk away from everything we’ve got going on here?’

‘I don’t have a choice.’

‘Yes, you do.’ Anger tightened Gloria’s face and darkened her eyes. ‘Thomas, there’s a lot of work to be done here. A lot of cataloguing, a lot of PR. If we play this right, we can interest enough universities or television-production-company deep pockets to fund our studies for years. Something like this makes careers.’

‘I know.’

‘“I know”?’ Gloria looked exasperated. ‘If you know, why aren’t you staying?’

‘Because I have to go.’

She studied him and shook her head. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never seen anyone who could give himself to his work so completely.’ She paused. ‘It makes me curious about who could send a message and have you drop everything you’re doing on a huge find like this. I mean, I know this isn’t as big as Atlantis, but this is something, Thomas. You don’t just throw something like this away.’

‘I’m not throwing it away. I’m leaving it in very good hands. Yours and David’s.’

‘You know this isn’t going to be the same if you leave. A lot of those people, especially the media people, are here to photograph Professor Thomas Lourds in his element, finding another mystery that history had kept locked up for so long.’

Lourds smiled. ‘And now this place has been found.’

‘So now you’re through with it? Just going to ride off into the sunset?’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Who can just call you away like this?’

‘A friend. An old friend.’

‘A woman?’

‘No. A man named Lev Strauss. He’s an archaeologist in Jerusalem. We were friends, classmates, and competitors. Over thirteen years ago, we were on a plane that went down over the Dead Sea.’ As he talked, Lourds remembered the screaming engines and panicked voices all around him. ‘Everyone was certain we were going to die. A lot of people did.’ The smell of burning flesh flooded his nose, and his heart was suddenly thudding in his chest as he relived those frantic moments. ‘I hit my head when we crashed. Lev got me out of that plane, saved other people, and when the fuel tanks blew up, a piece of shrapnel cut off the bottom half of his left leg.’ He took a breath and focused on Gloria. ‘I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for him.’ He shrugged. ‘So when he calls for me, I’m going to go.’

Gloria held his gaze with hers. ‘Even so, I can’t believe you’re walking away from this.’

‘I know you can’t, and I wish I could make you understand.’ Lourds stood, slung his backpack on, slid his hat into place, and picked up the suitcase. Big Mike was already waiting.

He took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got what you wanted, Gloria. You’ve got a great find, a book deal, a chance to continue your studies on something meaningful. You don’t want anything else. Not really.’

‘You want to know the saddest part?’ She looked up at him with shiny eyes.

‘What?’

‘You’re right. This is what I want. I’m not going to let go of this site till they pry my fingers off it. Nothing else matters. Just this chance to become something, to see something no one else has seen.’

‘I know. Look, I’m taking copies of the language with me. If I get anywhere with it, I’ll let you know. Please let me know how your work goes.’

‘Sure.’ Gloria crossed her arms. ‘But there is a difference between us, you know.’

Lourds didn’t say anything.

‘You’re weak enough to let a friend pull you away from this. I didn’t think that would matter to you.’

Guilt flushed through Lourds, but he didn’t say anything. He knew in his heart that it wasn’t just the friendship for Lev that was drawing him to Jerusalem. It was the hint of the mystery, all the things that Lev hadn’t mentioned, that was pulling Lourds from the temple.

Maybe he wasn’t as good a friend as he should have been, or even the friend that Lev had expected him to be. Pushing those thoughts out of his head, Lourds walked out the door.