Serpent of Moses (22 page)

“It’s good to see you, my friend!” Romero said.

Jack reached over and squeezed Romero’s forearm, but his eyes didn’t leave Espy.

Neither of them spoke for a long while as Jack simply took in the sight of her. There was much he’d learned over the past few weeks, and he and Espy were due for a long talk to cover all of it. But an airport terminal in Turkey was not the proper place for that discussion.

“Thanks,” he said—a simple word but one vested with much meaning and he knew she would understand.

When he glanced at Romero, he saw the man’s eyes on the thing in Jack’s hand. As he’d been carrying the thing around with him for what seemed far too long, he extended it to his friend. Romero took it gingerly and, after glancing around, pulled the bed sheet back. He didn’t regard it long—perhaps twenty seconds—but when he had replaced the makeshift wrapping and held the item out to Jack, he wore a satisfied smile.

“Was it worth it?” Romero asked him.

Jack drew in a deep breath, his eyes moving to Esperanza.

“If you’d asked me that a few weeks ago,” he said, “I may have said yes. Now . . . I’m not so sure.”

Seeing her emerge from the terminal, Imolene’s first thought centered on her beauty. He usually insulated himself from such considerations and suspected that it was a testament to the woman that she could make him lose focus on what he had to do.

The Egyptian watched her brother—a man as large as he was—set their bags next to the rental car. With them was Hawthorne, and Imolene’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the man. The Israelis had called him only an hour ago to tell him that Hawthorne would likely join the Habillas in Tripoli. The American held the staff as casually as if it were a piece of luggage, and the man’s demeanor—and the fact that he’d eluded Imolene thus far—angered the Egyptian. He kept the anger in check, though, understanding that he would have time to work out his issues with the American once they reached the ruins. After loading their bags in the trunk, the trio got into the car and it pulled away. Imolene let it get a few car lengths ahead before he told the driver of his cab to follow.

In the seat next to him sat Templeton, who still had said very little. Indeed, the man seemed to have lost his spirit entirely, and nowhere was that more evident than in his apparent unwillingness to attempt an escape. It had been in his mind since Medenine that the only reason Templeton had given up, had thrown his lot in with the man hunting him, was because he’d had little choice. Hawthorne had thrown him to the wolves and his only hope of survival rested in turning the wolf. Once they’d reached the airport, however, there had been ample opportunity for the Englishman to simply walk away, knowing that there was little Imolene could do to him in such a crowded place. And once they’d reached Istanbul, the chances to flee had increased exponentially. It left Imolene wondering if Templeton had something in mind that was hidden from Imolene, or if perhaps the Englishman had lost his senses.

It was something he didn’t have time to consider at present, he told himself—although he had no doubt that the proper moment would come.

The fifty miles from the airport to Cyme passed too quickly for Jack’s liking, which was as good an indicator as any that something was wrong with him. Under normal circumstances he would have been chafing at the bit to reach the ruins, to begin the process of searching for the missing piece of the staff. But as the car Romero had rented chewed through one mile after another, it was all Jack could do not to ask him to slow down.

He’d slipped into the back seat with Espy and had taken her hand in his almost the moment he sat down and neither of them had let go. Romero didn’t seem to mind that he was alone in the front and left his sister and his friend to whatever discussion he imagined they needed to have.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said after a long silence.

She’d been watching out the window, but after he said it she turned her attention to him.

“That’s something I’ve heard a lot of from you over the years,” she said.

“But this time I mean it,” he said, and for once there was nothing in the way he said it to leave any doubt as to its truth.

She studied his face for a while, as if searching for something. “Do you know why I went to Milan?”

“You already told me. I went missing and you came searching for me.”

She was shaking her head before he finished. “Why would I have been searching for you? You go missing all the time. I probably wouldn’t have started worrying until you were three weeks late.”

While Jack could appreciate that, it also puzzled him.

“I went to Milan to tell you we’re through,” Espy said, no humor in her voice. “I was going to meet you at the museum when you showed up to sell the staff to Sturdivant, and I was going to tell you I didn’t want to see you again.”

Hearing that, Jack found himself at a loss for words, but what really struck him was that he didn’t feel any of his normal defenses rising. Perhaps it was because he knew she was right—that she’d said nothing he did not deserve.

“And I wouldn’t have blamed you for it.” It was an admission that she must not have been expecting because her eyebrows rose. “I’ve spent a good portion of my life digging up things that people have lost, thrown away, or considered valuable enough to place in pottery and surround with gold. And the one thing I’m starting to realize is that sometimes what you pull out of ancient trash piles is the priceless stuff, while the things people tried their best to preserve wind up being sold on eBay for ten bucks.”

“I have no idea what that means,” she said.

“It means he’s finally starting to realize that you’re worth a lot more than the old musty things he pulls out of the ground,” Romero said over his shoulder.

Jack nodded in agreement. He wasn’t sure if the back seat of a rental car in Istanbul was the proper place for such a talk, but he was willing to try. Yet before he could continue, his phone rang. Releasing Espy’s hand, he fumbled around in his coat pocket and pulled it out. When he saw the number, he broke into a grin.

“Hey, Ducks,” he said.

Duckey said, “If you decide to go after Noah’s ark next year, you’re on your own. I’ve had it.”

“Duly noted.”

“They made me wear a dress.”

The mental picture Jack formed from that statement made him shudder. “Was it your color?” he asked. Hearing Duckey laugh pleased Jack more than he could say. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I spoke to Stephanie this morning, and she didn’t know anything so I figured you were still working things out.”

“I was,” Duckey said. “In fact, I still am.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m not about to let you have all the fun. Look behind you.”

Incredulous, Jack turned and saw Duckey waving in the car behind them.

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“My flight landed right after yours. I saw you in the terminal, but you slipped out before I could get to you.”

“You want us to stop?”

“Why? We’re just about there.”

Jack swung back around and looked ahead and saw that Duckey was right.

“How old are they?” Espy asked.

“No one knows for certain, but there are records dating back to the fifth century BC,” Jack said.

He held the staff, still in its wrappings, and with it began to walk around the ruins. Like many ancient cities, much of it had been reduced to rubble—so much so that the only standing structures were a single wall from the temple to Isis, a pair of freestanding pillars, and a wall from a building of indeterminate use. Jack had read about Cyme but had never visited, something he regretted now that he needed the information.

“What are we looking for?” Romero asked. He’d appeared at Jack’s side and, hands on hips, looked every bit the expert ready to dig in.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Jack said. “But we’ve proven that this thing hasn’t gone untouched for thousands of years. It’s seen the light of day a few times or else Espy wouldn’t have found the Gafat text in Milan.”

“So we’re looking for a structure that’s still standing,” Romero reasoned.

“I’d say that’s a good bet.”

They separated, with Romeo heading toward the neglected temple and Duckey in the direction of the lone wall.

Espy tugged at Jack’s arm. “That leaves the pillars for us.”

As they started toward them, Jack found himself reaching for Espy’s hand. But she moved it out of reach.

“There’s time for that later,” she said, a hint of a smile in her voice. “Right now we have work to do.”

The four of them worked beneath the sun for more than an hour, scouring every inch of every piece of stone that rose more than two feet above the ground. Jack and Espy were on their third round of studying the second pillar when they were joined by Romero, who wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

“I have touched every inch of that accursed wall,” he grumbled. “There’s nothing there.”

“I’m in agreement with him,” Duckey said as he walked up.

“Well, I can’t be in agreement with him too, because that would mean we came all this way for nothing,” Jack said.

“Which is a distinct possibility,” Romero added.

Espy, who had been studying the pillar from the other side, came out from behind it, brushing the dust from her pants. She gave Jack an apologetic look and shook her head.

“In my opinion, these pillars are the only place where someone could hide a relic while still retaining a marker for its eventual recovery,” Romero said.

“That’s my thought too,” Jack said. “But I’m at a loss.”

He glanced over at Duckey and then back at Romero, who was also wiping the dust from his hands. Jack watched as the fine particles went up and scattered with the breeze. When he turned back to Espy, she had an odd expression on her face. She looked at her hands.

“Espy?” Jack asked.

She reacted as if Jack had startled her.

“‘You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life,’” she said.

“Excuse me?” Jack said.

“It’s from Genesis,” Espy said. “The curse God placed on the serpent that tempted Eve.”

“And what’s it mean?”

Instead of answering, Espy went to her knees in front of one of the pillars and began to dig, removing dirt from around the pillar down to a few inches below the surface. Not entirely understanding what she was up to—although in looking at Romero, who appeared to be tracking with his sister—Jack began to do the same around the next pillar.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

“A snake hole,” Espy replied.

A half hour later, they found it after digging out a foot of earth. The hole was small and would likely have gone unnoticed except for the fact that it was a perfect circle.

Jack stepped into the ditch they’d dug and lowered himself until he was on his side. He peered into the hole but saw only darkness.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

Espy took a turn looking and came to the same conclusion.

“That’s impossible,” Duckey said. “It has to be here.”

“Nothing has to be anywhere,” Jack said. “Even if it was here at one time, there’s nothing that says someone couldn’t have beat us to it.”

“In my store I sell a number of totems,” Romero said. “Much smaller than these, of course, but similar in proportion.” He paused and regarded the inscrutable hole. “Some of the totems contain primitive pressure locks. Places where one would insert a crude key—either a rock in a certain shape, or later, one made of metal.” He lapsed into silence, continuing to stare down at the hole, as if he expected a snake to emerge at any time.

“But we don’t have a key,” Duckey said.

“I think we do,” Romero said.

And then Jack understood what Romero meant. Stepping out of the ditch, he hurried to the staff and unwrapped it, then held it up for examination. The top of the staff was too wide, as was the base. He looked closely at the serpent’s truncated tail.

He hurried back to the pillar and, taking a knee, angled the staff so that he could slide the snake’s tail into the hole. A few inches of the staff disappeared into the stone before Jack felt resistance. He slowed but kept pushing, and through the staff he thought he felt something click. Before pulling it out, he shared a look with Espy, who returned with a wide smile.

Pulling the staff free, he stood and presented the holy relic for inspection. The tail had added a good seven inches to its length and it was difficult to find the seam. However, the large stone at the tip of the tail made a review of seams a secondary concern.

“What is that?” Jack asked.

“A ruby,” Romero said. “A very large one.”

The two old friends shared a look, and Jack shifted his attention to take in Espy as well, who beamed with the same thrill of discovery. He was turning to congratulate the last member of their party when he heard a gunshot, followed by the disintegration of the pillar six inches to his right.

Jack had been shot at enough in his life for his response to be instinctual. He crouched down, making himself half his normal size, and then ran, grabbing Espy’s hand and dragging her along in his flight, dropping the Nehushtan in the process. Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he saw at least four men emerging from the cover of the trees that provided a border for the ruins.

He saw that Romero was also running, heading for the wall he had spent hours exploring. That left Duckey who, as Jack watched, pulled a gun and began firing on the attackers.

“Libyans!” Duckey shouted.

The attackers scattered, and even with the difficult task of running while looking over his shoulder, Jack thought he saw two of the men carrying a third between them.

Jack and Espy had almost reached cover where several large trees would offer some protection, yet as he closed to within a few steps of the nearest tree a shape suddenly loomed before him. At first, Jack couldn’t process the man’s identity, but then he realized that was only because the prospect of the man turning up in the ruins of a Greek city in Turkey was something he’d never considered.

Jack couldn’t halt his momentum before Imolene raised a giant fist and sent it sailing toward Jack’s nose.