The Atlantis Code (51 page)

Her words hung over the group.

“And one further thing,” Lourds said, not wanting the potential future of the world to hang on a chance at vengeance—which he didn’t personally see as a positive thing. “It’s possible that the people looking for the instruments might know more about them than you do.”

“They have already proved themselves our enemies. They won’t tell us anything.”

“If we get to negotiate with them at some point, we might learn something.”

“We won’t give up the instruments,” Blackfox said quietly.

“No one’s asking you to.” Lourds made his voice stronger. “You won’t have to do that.”

“You could go to Cádiz,” Leslie said.

“No,” Lourds said immediately. Going to Cádiz meant losing the instruments. His chance to translate the language would be stripped from him. He wasn’t afraid of losing the fame—he didn’t believe in that anyway—but challenge was everything. Besides, the bit about the end of the world worried him, even though he hated to think he was driven by superstition. “That’s a bad idea.”

Leslie frowned in displeasure. She obviously wasn’t happy about that.

“Just give me a little more time,” Lourds said. “I can crack the last inscriptions. I know it. Time. That’s all I’m asking for.” He glanced at the men. “Please.”

“Are you sure about this?” Gary asked.

Leslie almost cursed him out. She would have, too, if she could have been certain she could get another cameraman in five minutes or less.

“Yes,” she snapped. “I’m certain.” She smoothed her blouse to make sure it was wrinkle-free. “Let’s do this. I want to get it to Wynn-Jones as soon as possible.”

She stood out in the street in front of the Hempel Hotel. Night had fallen, and the West End was alive behind her.

Despite her angry words to Gary, she was hesitant about what she was doing. But she figured she was owed it. She’d put her job in jeopardy by believing in Lourds.

Gary stood in front of her with his camcorder over his arm.

“Okay,” Leslie said. She took a deep breath. “Let’s do it. On my mark. Three, two—”

Strident ringing dragged Lourds from sleep. He flailed for the room phone and finally dragged it to the side of his head. Only whoever was speaking—angry and quick—sounded garbled. Then he realized he had the headset to his ear upside down. He reversed it.

“Hello,” Lourds said. He cracked an eye open to read the clock radio. It was 11:41
P.M.
locally. The voice on the other end of the phone was American. There was a five-hour time difference between England and the East Coast.

“Professor Lourds,” the crisp, perfectly enunciated voice spat. “This is Dean Wither.”

“Hello, Richard. Good of you to call.”

“Well, maybe you won’t think so in a minute.”

That brought Lourds up short. Dean Wither hadn’t been cross with him for years.

“I thought you were in Alexandria filming a documentary for the BBC,” Wither said.

“I was,” Lourds replied. He swung himself around and sat on the edge of the bed. He was still fully dressed. When he’d gotten up from the computer an hour ago, he went to lie down for just a moment to rest his eyes.

“Now you’re in London?”

That woke Lourds entirely. He hadn’t called anyone connected to the university and let them know where he was.

“How did you know that?” he asked.

“Because you’re on CNN. Right now.”

“What?” Lourds scrambled for the remote control and switched the television on. He flipped through the channels till he reached CNN. He recognized his face immediately. Below him, a text line read:

HARVARD LINGUISTICS PROFESSOR DISCOVERS
ATLANTIS CODE.

“Did you?” Wither demanded.

“Did I what?” Lourds asked.

“Discover an Atlantis code?”

Lourds wasn’t sure how he was going to answer that. He stared at the television and wondered how CNN could possibly have gotten the story.

“Something turned up in Alexandria,” Lourds said weakly. “We’ve been following it.”

“ ‘We’?”

“Miss Crane and I. And some others.” Lourds didn’t know how he was going to explain everything he needed to explain in such a short time. “We found an artifact with a language on it I couldn’t read.”

“You?”

“Yeah. Precisely,” Lourds said.

“Many of you may recognize Professor Lourds’s name,” the young male anchor said. “A short time ago he translated a manuscript that has become known as
Bedroom Pursuits
.”

The particularly lurid cover that graced—and wasn’t that a poor choice of words?—the trade paperback edition showed on the screen. The pose was straight out of the
Kama Sutra
.

“Oh, God, not again,” Wither said.

Lourds winced. When he’d done the reading at the dean’s house, it had been something of a sensation. However, once the translation got out into the publishing world—and hit the
New York Times
extended best-seller list, Dean Wither hadn’t been happy. He’d often said—

“If I was going to have this university remembered for anything,” Wither said, “it wouldn’t be for pornography. How many times have I told you that?”

“I honestly can’t remember,” Lourds responded.

“Now it appears that Professor Lourds has channeled his incredible mind into a new pursuit,” the CNN anchor said. “Here to tell us about the Atlantis Code is Leslie Crane, hostess of
Ancient Worlds, Ancient People
.”

“So you’re in on this together?” Wither accused. “The BBC may find humor in this, but I assure you that I don’t.”

“I didn’t know about this,” Lourds objected.

The video picked up on a street corner in front of the Hempel Hotel. Leslie stood looking radiant with a microphone in her hand.

“I’m Leslie Crane, hostess of
Ancient Worlds, Ancient People
,” Leslie said. “Many of you have heard of Professor Thomas Lourds. His bestselling translation of
Bedroom Pursuits
remains a favorite in bookstores. While we were filming a segment for my show,
Ancient Worlds, Ancient People
, Professor Lourds discovered an ancient bell that has led us around the world. But it was here, in London, that Professor Lourds finally cracked the code that has hidden the last secrets of Atlantis.”

The television cut back to the anchor. “Miss Crane has promised us further information as it becomes available. But until then, it remains to be seen if Father Sebastian and his team will manage to open the mysterious door to the caverns they claim are linked to Atlantis, or if Professor Lourds’s research will put an entirely new spin on the efforts there.”

Lourds switched the television off. He didn’t need to see any more. His very soul ached.

“You didn’t know about this?” Wither asked.

“No,” Lourds replied. “I didn’t.”

“Did you find an Atlantis code?”

“I believe so.”

“So the story is true?”

“As far as I know, yes.”

“But you didn’t know she was going to talk to CNN.”

“No. If she’d requested it, I would have asked her not to. I think she knew that, though.”

“Then why did she do it?”

“To get back at me.”

“Why would she—?” Wither stopped.

Lourds knew he’d said too much.

“Oh, Thomas,” Wither groaned. “Tell me that you didn’t sleep with her.”

Lourds didn’t say anything.

“My god, man, she looks young enough to be your daughter.”

“Only if I’d started having children really early,” Lourds pointed out in his defense.

“So I’ve got that scandal to look forward to as well?”

“It won’t be a scandal.”

“Of course it will be. How could it not be? You’re the only professor I’ve got that is personable enough to be on
Good Morning, America
, quick enough to swap barbs with Jon Stewart on
The Daily Show
, and still manage to plummet to the pits of puerile interests and juvenile shenanigans on
The Jerry Springer Show
with your sexual indiscretions.”

Personally, Lourds didn’t feel sex had to be discreet. And he believed he’d always been accountable for his part in his dalliances. But the dean’s admonition truly surprised him.

“I wasn’t aware that you watched
The Jerry Springer Show
,” Lourds said.

Wither took a deep breath and audibly counted to ten. “You need to be very glad you have tenure here, Professor Lourds.”

“I am. And some days I’m amazed.”

“You do realize that this is going to look like you’re trying to horn in on all the media attention the dig site is promoting, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Is this connected to Atlantis?”

“I believe so.”

“Much as I hate to say this, then get out there and prove it. You can’t back off this horse in midstream.”

Lourds was pretty certain Wither had mixed his metaphors in there somewhere, but he was too tired to sort it all out. “All right.”

“Make sure you do this right,” Wither cautioned. “We could swing a lot of enrollment from this, and additional funding.”

Lourds shook his head. That was what most things came down to for the dean. He said good-bye and started looking for his shoes. He had to find Leslie, and then he was going to—

He stopped there because he honestly didn’t know what he was going to do.

Lourds met Natasha in the hall. The Russian woman looked angry enough to kill someone. Lourds had a sinking suspicion he knew who that was.

“You have seen the news, yes?” Natasha demanded in Russian. She strode down the hallway toward Leslie’s door.

“Yes,” Lourds replied. “Maybe I should talk to her.”

“We will
both
talk to her,” Natasha declared. “By revealing this story now, she could have scared off the people who are responsible for Yuliya’s death.”

Lourds really didn’t think that would be the case. Gallardo and his cronies had proved willing to kill over and over again. He didn’t think a little thing like CNN would worry them at all.

“Those men won’t run from a fight,” Lourds said.

“No, but they will scatter in all directions like cockroaches in the light. They will be harder to find.” Natasha stopped in front of Leslie’s door. She rapped her knuckles hard against the door. “We should have left her in Africa.”

Lourds stood beside her and waited. The whole thing was getting entirely out of hand. He could almost
feel
his opportunity to translate the inscriptions sliding away from him.

“Or Odessa,” Natasha said. “We could have left her in Odessa.” She rapped again, louder than before. She glared at Lourds. “What could you have ever seen in her?”

That question took Lourds aback. He was certain that no matter how he answered that, it would blow up in his face. He tried to stand there and look wise and experienced.

Natasha snorted at him angrily. “Men.” She said it like a curse word. Or maybe like it was a takeout container that had been left in the refrigerator for months, rotting and stinking up the space. She rapped again.

Heads popped out of the next room and two on the opposite side of the hallway.

“Maybe you could keep it down out here,” a balding man suggested.

“Police matter, sir.” Natasha spoke in English. Her voice carried that officious police tone effortlessly. “Please go back inside.”

The people grudgingly disappeared back into their rooms.

Natasha hit the door again, and Lourds would have sworn it jumped on the hinges after each impact.

Just then Gary poked his head out of his room. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Lourds said.

“What’s going on?” Gary asked.

“Where’s the harpy?” Natasha asked.

Gary blinked. “Uh, she’s not here. She went home.”

“When?”

“After we shot the trailer for the new series she’s suggesting to her director.”

“It was just on CNN,” Lourds said.

“No way,” Gary said.

“Way,” Lourds said.

“It wasn’t supposed to be on television. Leslie’s gonna have a cow.”

“At least she’ll breed true,” Natasha said. “And it’ll probably have a doctorate from Harvard.”

Ouch
, Lourds thought.

“She made that trailer to show her boss. Philip Wynn-Jones. If this Atlantis thing pans out, she figures she can get you another series to do for the corporation after the one you’re already doing.”

“On Atlantis?”

“Yeah. She sent that trailer to her boss via the Internet. It was supposed to have just been for corporate use. To get him some leverage for all the money they’ve spent transporting you guys around. He must have double-crossed her.”