Gallardo quickly went through the dead woman’s pockets. He took everything out and dropped it into a large plastic bag. When he had everything, he sealed the bag. He doubted there would be anything worthwhile in the clutter, but there was a Zip drive that looked promising.
Standing, Gallardo waved to the room. “Burn it,” he ordered.
Two of the men ran through the lab and knocked flammable liquids onto the floor. The burning stink of alcohol filled the still air.
A third man stood near the door with an assault rifle.
Gallardo walked back to the small office in the back, drawn by the blue glare of the computer monitor. Inside the office, he looked at the screen.
The e-mail client showed a list of messages. Some were in Cyrillic, but others were in English.
A name caught Gallardo’s eye.
Thomas Lourds
Gallardo cursed, remembering the uncanny luck the professor had back in Alexandria. Now the man’s name had turned up here.
Gallardo didn’t believe in luck, good or bad, but he hated the insistence of fate. Lourds’s constant turning up in the chase for artifacts for the Society of Quirinus wasn’t something he was prepared to tolerate.
He listened to the gunshots, then spoke into the microphone. “What the hell is going on out there, Farok?”
“It’s the woman,” Farok replied. “The archeologist.”
“The archeologist is down here,” Gallardo corrected him. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Then who is this one?”
“Her sister. She’s a police inspector.”
“She’s deadly as anything with her pistols,” Farok said. “She’s killed two of our men and injured three others.”
Gallardo couldn’t believe it. The mercenaries he’d hired for the assault on the college were good. “Is she dead?”
“No. In fact, she’s headed back toward your position.”
Cursing again, Gallardo said, “Get the bodies and the wounded loaded up. I’ve got what we’ve come for. We need to get out of here.”
Farok hesitated.
Gallardo knew that Farok hated to walk away from a fight. “If she’s a police inspector, then there’s every chance she’s called in reinforcements. It’s time to clean house and get out of here.”
“All right,” Farok said, his reluctance clear in each word.
At the doorway, Gallardo took an emergency flare from his combat harness, armed it, then tossed it onto the floor. The flare sparked only a moment later, then caught the spilled alcohol and chemicals on fire. The wavering blue haze quickly spread across the liquid pooled across the floor.
Natasha saw that the men were pulling back as she reached the back of the medical building. She was torn for just a moment over the thought of pursuing them. But there was no choice. Even if it meant they escaped, she had to find Yuliya.
The back door was locked.
Stepping back from the door, Natasha took deliberate aim at the lock and fired three times. The bullets ripped through the metal in a flash of sparks. She was aware that the muzzle flashes clearly marked her position, so she kept low to the ground.
A warning Klaxon roared to life.
She tried the door again, and this time it opened. Yanking the door wide, she dashed inside just as a brief flurry of bullets struck the door and the alcove.
Staying low, Natasha sprinted down the hallway, looking for a stairwell that led to the basement level. She told herself to slow down, that the men might still be inside the building. But all she could think of was Yuliya.
When she found the stairwell, she hurled herself down it, crashing against the back wall of the landing. The impact hurt her shoulder, but she forced herself to keep moving.
At the bottom of the stairwell, she stepped through a door with her pistols crossed over her wrists. Her breathing rasped in the emptiness of the hallway.
No one moved.
For a moment Natasha stood frozen, not certain which way to go. Then she spotted the gray pallor of smoke pouring from a room to her left.
Yuliya!
Natasha ran, unable to control the fear that thrummed through her. Shoving her left pistol into her duster pocket, she grabbed the knob and pulled the door open.
Smoke roiled from the room, pressing toward Natasha and clinging to her. The acrid smell of burning chemicals pinched her nose. Holding her duster sleeve over her mouth, she breathed through the fabric and ran into the room, desperately searching for her sister.
Flames danced across the floor, licking at the alcohol spilled across the tiles. Fire covered the back wall. Several glass containers along the shelves to the left exploded.
A quick inspection of the office revealed that Yuliya wasn’t there. Looking at the blazing inferno continuing to gain strength, Natasha thought that it was possible the men had taken Yuliya prisoner. She hoped so.
Then that hope died as she moved around the room and spotted Yuliya lying on the floor. The blood that had seeped from Yuliya’s head held back a line of flames.
No!
Natasha ran to her sister. One look at the grievous injury done to Yuliya’s head told Natasha that there was no hope for her sister.
Tears, from the burning chemicals as well as from the emotional pain, blurred Natasha’s vision as she dropped beside her sister’s body. Firelight danced across the smooth pool of blood. The heat blackened the blood at the edges.
Natasha put her pistol down on the floor and cradled Yuliya’s head. Crying, Natasha thought of all those mornings when there had only been her sister and her after their father had gone to work. If not for Yuliya—
The door rasped open behind her.
Whirling, Natasha plucked her pistol from the floor and pointed it at the dark figures that entered the room. The men were dressed in uniforms that identified them as campus security.
“I’m Inspector Safarov of the Moscow Police,” Natasha said loudly.
“Inspector,” one of the men said, “I’m Pytor Patrushev. I work security here at the college.”
“Keep your hands up.”
The man complied. “You need to get out of here. I’ve called the fire department, but these chemicals—”
“Come closer. Let me see your identification. Use only one hand.” A coughing fit tore at Natasha’s words.
Patrushev approached her and proffered the clip-on ID attached to his coat lapel.
Blinded by tears from the chemicals, denying the pain, physical as well as emotional, that raked at her, Natasha could barely see the rectangle. She felt that the man offered no threat and trusted her instincts.
“We’ve got to get her out of here,” Natasha said.
Together, Natasha and the man carried Yuliya’s body from the room before the fire or the smoke could take them.
Firemen carried Yuliya’s body to a waiting ambulance. Natasha steeled herself, pulling herself from the abyss of despair. The scene was like too many she’d gone through in Moscow. Shoot-outs with Mafiya members, confrontations with drug dealers, and hunts for murderers all spun into a surreal confection that bloated her skull.
The Ryazan’ police arrived with the fire department. The police, however, stayed back from the area the firemen had roped off. But a few of them were starting to ask questions of the spectators.
Natasha sat with Yuliya. She felt certain the men who had killed her sister were gone.
The fire lit up the first floor, but the powerful streams of water gradually beat it back.
A cell phone rang.
Automatically, Natasha reached for hers, but when she brought it from her hip holster, she saw that it wasn’t her phone ringing. She turned to Yuliya and tracked the shrill tone to the pocket of her sister’s lab coat.
She pulled the sat-phone to her face and shielded the mouthpiece with her body. She spoke in Russian. “Hello?”
“Yuliya?” The voice was distinguished, speaking Russian with a slight American accent.
“Who is this?” Natasha
continued in Russian.
“Thomas Lourds,” the man replied. “Look, I’m sorry to call at such a late hour, but it’s important. I just saw the cymbal you’ve been working on. It ties in with an artifact I recently came into contact with.” The man hesitated.
Natasha forced herself to be calm. The man didn’t sound like he would be one of the men who had killed Yuliya and hunted her. There was something familiar about the man’s name. She felt certain Yuliya had mentioned him to her.
“What I wanted to tell you,” Lourds went on, “is that there could be some danger attached to your artifact.”
“Excuse me,” Natasha said. “What did you say your name is?”
Lourds didn’t answer immediately. “You’re not Yuliya,” he accused.
“My name is Natasha Safarov. I’m—”
“Yuliya’s sister,” Lourds replied. “She’s often talks of you.”
For a moment the pang of hurt that lanced through Natasha’s heart stilled her tongue. She struggled to speak.
“I’m a colleague of Yuliya’s,” Lourds said. “May I speak to her?”
“She can’t come to the phone.”
“It’s important that I speak to her.”
“I will give her a message.”
Lourds didn’t speak for a moment. “Tell her that I think her life may be in danger. I’m in Alexandria, Egypt. I was—briefly—in possession of an artifact that might tie in with the cymbal that she’s contacted me about. A few days ago, men attacked us and took it. They killed two people during the theft. These are dangerous men.”
“I’ll let her know.” Natasha forced herself not to look at Yuliya’s body. “Do you have a number where she can call you back?” She pocketed her pistol and took out a pen, quickly jotting the number down on her notepad while she balanced the sat-phone on her shoulder.
“Ask her to call me at her earliest convenience. And let her know that I apologize about being remiss in not responding to her e-mails.”
Natasha made a note to check Yuliya’s e-mail as well. She promised that she would, then hung up.
Looking through the crowd, Natasha spotted a young police officer in uniform. She called him over and showed him her identification, asked the name of the inspector in charge and where she could find him, then ordered the officer to watch over Yuliya’s body.
“You’re sure you wounded some of the men, Inspector?” Captain Yuri Golev asked politely. He was a blunt, squared-off man in his late fifties. His hair was silver, but his mustache and eyebrows remained black. He put a cigarette to his lips and took a deep pull. The flashing lights of the fire trucks and police cars carved deep hollows under his sad eyes.
“I killed at least two of those men,” Natasha said.
Golev gestured with his cigarette, waving at the college grounds where uniformed policemen searched the dark landscape with flashlights. “Then where are their bodies?”
“Obviously they took them with them,” Natasha replied.
“Obviously,” Golev echoed, but he didn’t sound sincere. “Why did those men come here looking for your sister?”
“I don’t know.”
Golev looked at her. “Or perhaps they were looking for you.”
“No one knew I was going to be here. Yuliya had been here for days.”
“Did anyone wish your sister ill will?” Golev asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Golev smoked in silence for a moment while staring at the medical building. The fire department had gotten the chemical fires out. “Your sister was an archeologist?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes those people find interesting things.”
The statement was deliberately leading. Natasha knew what Golev was thinking, and she knew he was aware that she did.
“She was working on a state assignment,” Natasha said. “She wasn’t working with anything valuable.”
“Something this highly organized, especially if they took their dead with them—an unusual occurrence in the sort of bottom-feeding criminal I generally come in contact with—wouldn’t be initiated on a whim.”
Natasha agreed but didn’t say anything.
“She gave no indication that she feared for her life?” Golev asked.
“If she had,” Natasha said as evenly as she could, “I would never have left her.”
“Of course.” Golev sighed and his breath plumed gray in the night. “This is a very bad business, Inspector.”
Natasha didn’t reply.
Golev looked at her then, and his gaze was softer. “Are you sure you want to be the one who tells her family?”
“Yes.”
“If there’s anything you find you need, Inspector, please let me know.”
“I will.” Natasha said good-bye and trudged back to the parking lot where she’d left her car. Thomas Lourds was uppermost in her mind. Even if the man wasn’t involved in Yuliya’s murder, he might know something that would lead to those who were. Natasha intended to find out everything he knew.
CHAPTER
6
ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
AUGUST 20, 2009
W
ake up. It’s on the news.”
Lourds woke slowly. A fog enveloped his mind. He knew from the uncomfortable way he was sleeping that he wasn’t at home. He slitted his eyes and saw blurry movement in front of him.
Before he could sort things out, bright light stabbed into his eyes. He growled a curse and covered his eyes with a forearm.
“Sorry. You have to see the news. They’re talking about Yuliya Hapaev. She’s dead.”
Dead? That got Lourds’s attention and burned away the fog in his mind.
Across the room, Leslie folded herself back onto his bed and pointed the remote control at the television. The volume increased.
Blinking away the pain as his pupils adjusted, Lourds looked at the television screen. The headline, MOSCOW ARCHEOLOGIST SLAIN, screamed in large letters behind the male news anchor.
“—as yet Ryazan’ police officials say they don’t know why Dr. Hapaev was murdered,” the anchor said.
The television cut away to a blazing fire in a building. The dateline tagged the scene as
RYAZAN’ STATE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY
RYAZAN’, RUSSIA
“There’s still no explanation for the fire that broke out in one of the lab buildings at Ryazan’ State Medical University, destroying everything within it,” the anchor said. “The blaze claimed the life of Professor Yuliya Hapaev.”
A small picture appeared inset in the footage of the fire. Lourds saw that it was a recent photograph of Yuliya working at a dig. She looked happy.
“Professor Hapaev has been involved in a number of notable studies,” the anchor went on. “She’s survived by her husband and two children.”
The camera cut away to one of the constantly developing stories in the Middle East.
“That’s all there is?” Lourds asked.
“So far.” Leslie looked at him. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
“So am I.” Lourds forced himself up from the couch where he’d spent the night after Leslie fell asleep on his bed. He retreated to his computer and quickly linked to the Internet. “Was there any mention of the cymbal?”
“No.”
Lourds brought up the news sites in quick order, sorting through them for more information. He even read through the Russian news services, but there was precious little more information than FOX News had just presented.
“Do you think the cymbal had something to do with her death?” Leslie slid from the bed and walked over to join him. She still wore her clothes from yesterday and went barefoot.
“Of course. You don’t?” Lourds countered.
“It would be a stretch.”
“Not much of one.” Lourds clicked through the news stories, saving them as documents he could review later. “You posted images of the bell, and it was only a short time before we had armed men beating the door down,
ready to kill us to get it. Yuliya sent out photos of the cymbal, and she’s dead in a suspicious fire, one that destroyed her lab. It connects.”
“But she sent the pictures to you.”
“Yes. Still, I wasn’t her only resource,” Lourds said. “No archeologist or researcher exists in a vacuum. Each of us is only as good as the network we can assemble. Yuliya’s network was extensive. I’m sure she sent pictures to others beside me.”
“But if she didn’t post the cymbal publicly—”
“Then logic would dictate that someone close to her, someone she sent the pictures to, would be the guilty party for her murder. Which is why I’m going to track everything I can about that cymbal.” Lourds bent to the task.
Within a few minutes, Lourds had ascertained that Yuliya posted inquiries about the cymbal on at least five different archeological boards. All the pictures were identical to the ones she’d sent him. All of them showed the inscription that was so disturbingly like the inscription on the bell.
Part of him—the part that wasn’t consumed with the mystery of what it all meant—felt the loss of his friend.
Yuliya had been bright and witty. He’d met her and her family on a dozen different trips into Moscow. Twice Yuliya and her husband, Ivan, had put Lourds up in their home while he was there doing research.
“Is there any way to see everybody who viewed these images?” Leslie asked.
“Not everyone,” Lourds said. “These pages are open to the public.” His worst fears confirmed, he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to put the rest of your series on hold for a little while.”
“What do you mean?” Leslie looked troubled.
“I’ve got to go to Moscow.”
“To visit the family? I understand that, but—”
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