Serpent (8 page)

"You had a productive day?" he said.

Nina wiped the sweat out of her eyes and downed a swig from a warm bottle of lime Gatorade. Nina was no absentminded professor. In a field where a bead or a button can be a major discovery, an archaeologist is trained to look for the tiniest of details. She couldn't figure Gonzalez. She had noticed little things about him, especially when he thought nobody was looking. She had caught him studying her, the bigtoothed grin absent, the eyes under the fleshy brow as hard as marbles. Nina was an attractive woman and often drew sidelong glances from men. This was more like a lion watching a gazelle. Finally, there was just the way he was always there looking over your shoulder. Not only her. He seemed to be stalking everyone on the expedition.

Nina's elation at her discoveries overcame her normal caution. "Yes, thank you," she said. "It was productive. Very productive."

"I would expect no less of such a knowledgeable scientist. I'm very much looking forward to hearing about it." He carried the bag over to her tent and placed it out front, then wandered about the encampment as if he were an inspector general making his rounds.

Gonzalez told people he had retired early on the money he made selling Southern California real estate and was indulging his lifelong amateur love of archaeology. He looked to be in his midforties or early fifties, shorter than Nina by several inches, with a thick, powerful blacksmith's body. His slicked down hair was as shiny and black as a bowling ball. He had joined the expedition through Time-Quest, an organization that placed paying volunteers on archaeological digs. Anybody with a couple of thousand dollars could get a week's worth of spooning dirt through a sieve with a child's plastic shovel. The third degree sunburn was thrown in at no extra cost.

Counting herself and Dr. Knox, there were ten people in the party. Gonzalez, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Bonnell, an older American couple from Iowa who had come in with another pay-as-you-go organization. And to Nina's regret, there was the insufferable Dr. Fisel from the Moroccan Department of Antiquities, who was said to be a cousin of the king. Completing the party were Fisel's young assistant, Kassim, a cook, and two Berber drivers who did double duty working on the dig.

The expedition had assembled from various parts of the world in Tarfaya, an oil port on the southern coast. The Moroccan government arranged for the lease from an oil company of three nine-passenger Renault vans to carry people and equipment. The vehicles had made their way along dusty but serviceable roads, following the coastal plain for a couple of hundred miles.

Even today, much of the country was desolate and uninhabited except for small Berber settlements here and there. The territory had been largely unexplored until Mobil and a few other companies started looking for offshore oil deposits.

The camp was behind the dunes, in a parched field dotted with prickly pear at the edge of a featureless plain that rolled off to a distant high plateau. A few pitiful olive trees sucked enough moisture from the dry soil to maintain their wretched existence. What shade they cast was mostly psychological. The site was dose to piles of masonry and fallen columns where the land excavations were being conducted.

Nina made her way to one of the colorful nylon domes pitched in a circle on a flat sandy area. She washed the salt out of her face and changed into dean shorts and Tshirt. Taking her sketch pad to a folding chair, she sat outside the tent and in the afternoon light made drawings of her findings. She had covered several pages when people began straggling in from the dig.

Dr. Knox's khaki shorts and shirt were sweatstained and caked with dust, and his knees were scraped raw from crawling on hard ground. His nose was shrimp pink and starting to peel. The transformation from the halls of academia was amazing. In the classroom Knox was impeccable in his dress. But in the field he literally threw himself into an excavation like a child in a sandbox. With his pith helmet, his baggy shorts, and epaulets on his thin shoulders, he looked as if he had stepped out of an old National Geographic magazine.

"What a day," he fumed, slipping his helmet off. "I truly believe we'll have to burrow down another twenty feet before we find anything dating back any earlier than the Rif rebellion! And if you think working with me is a bloody trial, I dare you to go a few rounds with that pompous ass Fisel." The glee in his voice at being on a dig belied the grumbling. "Well, you certainly look comfortable," he said accusingly. "How did it? Never mind, I can see it in your eyes. Tell me quickly, Nina, or I'll assign you extra homework."

Knox's use of her first name recalled her days as a student. Nina saw her
 
chance to avenge the gentle taunts she had endured in the classroom. "Wouldn't you like to freshen up first?" she said.

"No, I would not. For heaven's sakes don't be a sadist, young lady; it doesn't become you."

"I learned my craft from a good teacher," she said with a smile. "Don't despair, professor, While you drag your chair over, I'll pour us some iced tea and tell you the whole story."

Minutes later Knox sat attentively by her side, head inclined slightly as he listened. She described her explorations from the moment she stepped into the water, omitting only the discovery of the sculpted head. She felt inexplicably uneasy discussing it Later, maybe.

Knox was silent during the entire account except when Nina paused for breath, when he'd impatiently urge, "I knew it, I knew it. Yes, yes, go on."

"That's the story," she said, finishing her tale.

"Well done. Conclusion."

"I think this was a very old port," she said.

"Of course it's old," he replied with mock annoyance. "I knew that when I saw the aerial photos of your little pond from an oil company survey. Every bloody thing within a hundred meters of where we're sitting is old. But how old?"

"Remember the hungry dogs of skepticism," she reminded him

Knox rubbed his hands together, enjoying the game. "Let's assume the dogcatcher has captured the annoying creatures and for the time being they languish happily in a pound. What, dear lady, is your educated guess?"

'As long as you put it that way, my guess is that it's a Phoenician military and trading post." She handed over her sketch pad and pieces of the pottery she'd found.

Knox studied the potsherds, lovingly running his fingers along the ragged edges. He put them aside and looked at the sketches, puckering his mouth so that the mustache did a little dance on his lip. "I think," he said with obvious and melodramatic relish, "that we should run your story by the esteemed Dr. Fisel."

Gamiel Fisel sat under a large umbrella. His round body practically hid the chair it was perched on, and with his tan slacks, shirt, and matching complexion, he resembled a large caramel apple. On the table in front of him was a scattering of potsherds from the dig. He was peering through a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass at one fragment. At his side was his assistant, Kassim, a pleasant young man, supposedly a university student, who served primarily as Fisel's tea boy.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Fisel. Dr. Kirov made some interesting observations today" Knox said with undisguised pride.

Fisel looked up as if an annoying mosquito had just landed on the tip of his nose. He was not unused to women in the workplace. Many Moroccan women worked as professionals. He simply had trouble dealing with a female who was his equal in academic rank, his superior in the number of degrees held, and at least a foot taller. As a nondiver, Fisel was at Nina's mercy on the underwater site, and he didn't like not being totally in control.

Nina cut right to the chase. "I think there was a small but important port here, and that it was Phoenician."

Fisel said, "More tea, Kassim." The young man hurried over to the camp's cooking area. Fisel turned to Knox as if Nina were not there. "Your assistant has a vivid imagination. You've told her, of course, that our excavations at the primary site have produced Greek and Roman artifacts." He had a quick, nervous way of speaking, firing off sentences like bursts from a machine gun.

Nina had deferred to Fisel, but she could ignore his rudeness no longer. "First of all, I'm not Dr. Knox's assistant," she said coolly. "I'm his colleague. And second, while I have no doubt of Greco-Roman influence, the main center of activity was in the water, not on dry land. And it was Phoenician."

The sketch pad plopped onto the table, and Nina tapped the drawing of the cothon. "The Phoenicians were the only ones who cut artificial harbors like this out of dry land. I believe these shards will provide the dating to back me up:"

She dumped out her pottery fragments, not caring that they might be mixed with the others. Taking his time, Fisel picked up a piece, examined it, then studied another one. After a few minutes he looked up. His moist brown eyes boggled behind the thicklensed glasses, but he was trying hard not to show his excitement.

He cleared his throat and addressed Knox. "Surely you're not going to accept this as definitive proof of Dr. Kirov's theory."

"Of course not, Dr. Fisel. There's much work to be done, and Dr. Kirov knows that as well as we do. You must admit it's an intriguing beginning, however.

Assuming he had detected a crack in Knox's advocacy, Fisel's putative scowl turned into a fourteenkarat smile. "I am compelled to admit nothing until the case is made."

Kassim arrived with a glass of hot tea. Fisel nodded and picked up his magnifies The audience with the cousin of the king had ended.

Nina seethed with anger as she and Knox walked away from Fisel's tent. "Imperious little bastard! He knows damned well that I'm right."

Knox gave an avuncular chuckle. "My guess is that Fisel agrees entirely with your findings and will waste no time reporting them."

She grabbed the professor's arm and peered into his dusty face. "I don't understand. Why the act?"

"Oh, it's perfectly dear. He wants to claim the credit for discovering your Phoenician port."

"That's it!' She started back toward Fisel's tent. "If he thinks he's going to get away"

"Hold on, my dear. I promised you'd get credit for all underwater finds, and I meant it. Remember, we hold the important cards. You're the only one on this expedition who knows how to dive."

"He can bring in other divers."

"Yes, he can. Short, plump, bald, and nearsighted though he may be, Fisel swings a lot of weight, figuratively and literally, within his antiquities department. He can bring in all the resources he will need. In the meantime, I want you to finish your sketches, classify what you've found, and continue your survey using scientific methods."

She was still unconvinced. "What if he tries to stop me from diving?"

"This is a joint expedition. I am equal in command to him. He can only go so far until he gets permission. It will take days. If you think our red tape is formidable, remember Morocco is heavily influenced by the French, who invented the word bureaucrat. I will massage his ego, but I want you to do a very difficult thing. Consider giving Fisel some credit for this coup, if it truly turns out to be Phoenician. This is his country that we're digging up, after all. He may have some Phoenician forebears." .

Nina calmed down and allowed herself a laugh. "You're right. I'm sorry for the outburst. It's been a long day."

"No need for an apology. He is a bastard, but I'll remind him that if he doesn't have our cooperation in making this a joint find, he will have the credit taken from him by one of his own bastards at a higher level."

Nina thanked the professor, kissed him on the cheek, and returned to her tent. She worked on her sketches until the dinner bell rang. Fisel avoided her eyes at the table. The Iowa couple, who had dug up an intact water jug handle, held center stage. No one paid attention when Nina excused herself and went back to her tent.

After she finished writing a report of her findings on an IBM laptop computer, Nina propped up her noted and shot some pictures of the sketches with her digital camera. Then she fed images from the camera into the computer. The photos and sketches were razor sharp.

"Okay Fisel, let me see you try to get a jump on this. "