The Temple Mount Code

2

‘You have that whole “distracted professor” thing going on, Professor Lourds.’

Thomas Lourds glanced over his shoulder and smiled at the pretty, young Peking University student assigned to him by Professor Hu. Gloria Chen was a graduate student of linguistics with a minor in archaeology. The emphasis in both fields of study centered on the Neolithic Yellow River Period. Jiahu was one of the most important, and, until recently, largely unexplored sites that had been discovered. Lourds and Gloria were both there to further the study of evolutionary linguistics, trying to unlock the mystery of how human language was created over the millennia. In particular, Lourds hoped to find clues to some of the earliest protolanguages in existence.

‘Sorry, Gloria. Still recovering a bit from last night.’ Lourds spoke in Cantonese, which was Gloria’s first language. He squatted at the soft edge of the grave he’d been contemplating. Dirt tumbled into the hole from his movement, and he slid his foot back, fearing the lip might crumble and send him sprawling.

The original resident lay inside the rectangular hole. The grad assistants working on the project with the Peking professors had partially excavated the skeleton, but the bones lay semisubmerged in dirt, dust, and debris.

‘I heard about your little adventure.’ Gloria’s tone was neither fawning nor disapproving.

‘Did you?’

‘Oh yes, it was the talk of the camp this morning. This might help.’ She joined Lourds and handed him a bottle of chilled water, which he took gratefully.

‘What can you tell me about this person?’ Gloria was slim and beautiful, in her midtwenties. She wore her black hair short, and it only brushed her shoulders. Prescription sunglasses covered her eyes, but Lourds had noticed they were a peculiar yellow hazel. She wore canvas pants and a T-shirt.

Lourds grinned, set the half-empty bottle of water down beside him, then lifted his battered Australian Outback hat and ran a hand through his black hair. ‘I’m not a forensic anthropologist.’ He replied in English. ‘You’d have to ask Professor Chaoju or one of his grads for information like that.’ He looked back at the skeleton. ‘I can speculate that this was a man or a very young girl because the hips are too narrow for a mature woman. But I could be wrong about that. Probably am.’

The young woman laughed. ‘Somehow, after the way Professor Hu talked about you, I just expected you to know everything.’

‘Not hardly. Professor Hu is too generous with his praise.’

‘But you’re the man that discovered Atlantis.’

‘I also lost it. Never forget that.’ Lourds had had the find of a lifetime in the palm of his hand, and it had slipped away to the sea bottom.

Lourds finished the bottle of water and slid it into the cracked leather backpack containing his tools, books, and cameras. Then he stood and stretched. Despite the fact he was tall and lean and stayed active, his body didn’t always meet the demands he put upon it the way it once had.

Lourds looked around. A lot of people from all over the world were working the Jiahu dig. He’d already seen a number of archaeological teams he knew from past acquaintance and from reputation. As far as he knew, he was the only Harvard University professor currently on-site. And that had been at Professor Hu’s express invitation, which Lourds hadn’t hesitated to accept.

‘Where’s Professor Hu?’ Lourds shaded his eyes with his hat as he scanned the various dig groups.

Hu had a tendency to wander off and socialize. The man was a Facebook demon and seemed to have the ability to keep up with the whole world. But it had been Hu’s reputation that had pried Lourds free of Harvard and sent him off to Peking.

Gloria pointed. ‘There. Why?’

‘I want to get someone who knows what they’re doing to exhume this skeleton.’

‘I think they plan on doing it soon.’

‘I know, but I’d rather they get to this one sooner.’ Lourds walked in Hu’s direction.

Professor David Hu was a small, slight man. His black hair had gone gray years ago, but hadn’t completely given up. Strands of charcoal black threaded through the shoulder-length mop. He was talking quickly to a group of fellow archaeologists. Spotting Lourds coming over, Hu waved at him to join them.

‘For those of you who haven’t had the great fortune to previously meet my colleague, this is the world-renowned Thomas Lourds, Professor of Linguistics at Harvard, and the hero of the Jiahu dig, after his exploits of last night.’

The introduction embarrassed Lourds, but he’d learned to endure the attention. His translation of Bedroom Pursuits, a journal regarding the amorous adventures of a merchant in the fourth century, had garnered praise and damnation, depending on who voiced the opinion. However, the discovery of Atlantis had served him up into the public eye in a way he was still trying to deal with.

He shook hands all the way around, called by name the men and women he knew, and was introduced to those he didn’t know.

The conversation quickly turned to questions directed at Lourds, but he held up his hands to deflect them. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d be only too glad to entertain you at our tent tonight if Professor Hu is all right with that—’

Hu nodded happily.

‘In the meantime, I need to borrow Professor Hu.’

Good-byes were quickly said, and Hu fell into step with Lourds and Gloria.

‘Sorry.’ The professor looked a little embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to be away for so long, but I just got to talking.’

‘Not a problem.’ Lourds clapped the man on the shoulder and smiled. ‘If I hadn’t found something, I wouldn’t have bothered you.’

Gloria looked surprised. She took a quick step in front of Lourds and put a hand on his chest. ‘Wait. You found something? And you didn’t mention it?’

‘I didn’t. I felt Professor Hu should see it first. And if the object turns out to be worthwhile, I don’t want to disturb it until we can get a cameraman to record the event.’

‘What object?’ Professor Hu waved to one of the two-person film crews that had tagged along with the archaeological team.

The two-person crew, an Asian man and a young woman, broke free from shooting footage of the open graves and unhurriedly walked over. The young woman, Baozhai, seemed serious and intent, overdressed for the weather in long khakis and an olive drab button-up over a white tank, but she would look good on film. The guy carrying the camera wore a Green Lantern T-shirt, cargo shorts, and red Chuck Taylors. His hair fell down into his face.

‘Hey, dude, what up?’ He held up a hand for Lourds to high-five.

Lourds returned the high five and smiled. Jimmy Woo might have been born and bred Chinese, but he mainlined twenty-first-century American pop culture.

‘Professor Lourds has some filming he’d like you to do.’ Professor Hu waved the film team forward.

‘Cool. What’d you find?’ Jimmy resettled the camera over his shoulder.

‘Show you in a minute.’ Lourds headed for the grave.

Once more, Lourds squatted at the edge of the grave and stared down at the skeletal remains. At his direction, Jimmy took video footage of the grave and its grisly inhabitant.

‘Now, Thomas, what did you find?’ Professor Hu waved Jimmy and Baozhai away.

Carefully, Lourds reached down through the dead man’s empty rib cage. After so many thousands of years, the bones were fragile and easy to destroy.

A smooth stone lay on the ground to one side of the spine. Lourds touched it with his fingertips, rocked it slightly, then redoubled his efforts to scissor his fingers and remain steady. With the stone caught between his fingers, Lourds withdrew his hand. He sat and crossed his legs, totally involved with his prize.

‘What is it?’ Hu knelt and peered closely, sliding his reading glasses on as he examined the stone.

‘I don’t quite know.’

‘Then how do you know it’s anything at all?’ Gloria sounded a trifle put out.

‘Because this stone is smooth.’ Lourds twisted it in his fingers, showing off the smooth surface. Shaped something like a hen’s egg, it was half the size of his fist. ‘None of the other rocks down there are smooth.’

As one, the others peered over into the grave for a moment. Then they pulled back and looked at the stone in Lourds’s palm.

‘That still doesn’t mean anything.’

Lourds remained focused on his perceived prize. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t. But do you know what?’

‘What?’ Hu looked at Lourds over the top of his glasses.

Lourds smiled. ‘I don’t think this is a stone at all. It’s actually not heavy enough.’ He looked around the ground beside him and found a rock that had a semiflat side. Laying the stone on the ground, he lifted the rock and prepared to bring it down.

‘Wait!’ Hu held up his hands. ‘We can x-ray that—’

Lourds brought the rock crashing down.