The Emerald Scepter

by Paul Kemprecos

As he walked the short distance to the former poorhouse, the captain chewed over the gaunt man’s assessment. He didn’t like the way Hawkins had taken command of the situation. Didn’t like it one bit.

  But the chaos theory analogy bothered him even more. He shook his head and muttered under his breath.

  “Predictable unpredictability, my ass.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Quisset popped out of the doggy door on the front porch and greeted her master, then padded behind him as he climbed to his study carrying a computer disk Fletcher had given him and a glass of the whiskey Fido had liberated from the ocean bottom.

  He settled behind his desk and slid the disk into the laptop. While the computer chirped through the booting up process he sipped his drink, wondering if he’d taken on the role of Johnny Carson in the old Mission Impossible parody, when the comedian gets stuck in the phone booth as the tape self-destructs. Funny, he thought, unless you’re the one in the exploding phone booth. Hawkins was no wide-eyed child. The war college meeting stank worse than a week-old codfish. The participants could have come from a casting company. The script had been orchestrated perfectly, with the navy guy playing bad cop to Fletcher’s good cop.

  His instincts told him that the assignment was insane, but he needed to take it. Having his discharge reversed, his navy contract reinstated, and the Osprey reimbursed would be nice, but what he really wanted was to learn the truth about what happened five years ago to set him on the course to official derangement. And he was convinced he would find the answer back in Afghanistan.

  The computer finished booting up, and Hawkins opened the folder on the disk. The first file it contained was a biography of Cait Everson. He gave her photograph more than a casual glance, memorizing the even features of the dark-haired woman.

  Cait was a California girl. San Diego. She had majored in Middle-East and Central Asian history at UCLA, ultimately working her way up to her doctorate degree. She went on to teach at Georgetown as an associate professor. She had visited every country in the Mid-East region at least once and was fluent in or familiar with all of the region’s major languages. She had written several books on her specialty, the Silk Routes. She was in her thirties and already divorced.

  He looked again at the photo. Hawkins’ love life had been sporadic since his divorce. Women liked his rugged good looks and his sense of humor, but they were put off when they learned that Hawkins viewed a long-term relationship as anything beyond three dates and a sleep-over.

  Dr. Everson was smart as well as pretty. He hoped she hadn’t come to harm.

  Hawkins next clicked on the report Cait had sent the State Department. It was entitled:

  A New Look at the Prester John Legend.

  The report started with a detailed historic overview, fleshing out the Prester John summary Hawkins had heard in Newport. He quickly blew through this part and got right to Cait’s summation, which said:

  “Based on the evidence, I have come to the following conclusions. Prester John was a real historical figure who ruled a kingdom whose location is yet to be determined. He received Pope Alexander’s letter and responded by sending the Pope a letter and a treasure, which disappeared in Afghanistan en route to Rome.”

  He scrolled down to a document marked Exhibit A and entitled The Kurtz Expedition.

  The document contained copies of newspaper articles, dating back to the 1920s, that chronicled the expedition Kurtz had led to Afghanistan. An archeologist with the expedition described the project as “desert road archaeology.” He explained that the ruins of ancient settlements often could be found along ancient caravan routes that seemingly led nowhere. The articles were arranged chronologically, spanning a number of months. The first headline read:

  Mining Tycoon

  Leads Archaeology

  Team To Mid-East

  Hiram Kurtz Looks

  For Amazon Women

  On His Expedition

  Datelined Ouray, Colorado, the article said that Hiram Kurtz, 58, owned a copper mining empire, but the newspaper apparently held him in little esteem, evidenced by the headline’s mocking tone. Still, it was essentially correct in describing the expedition’s purpose. Kurtz was quoted as saying that he hoped to locate archaeological sites along the forgotten trade routes, but he was particularly interested in stories of legendary women warriors.

  Other clips, based on dispatches from Kurtz himself, told of him sailing from New Orleans on his private yacht across the Atlantic. He sailed across the Mediterranean, and through the Suez Canal to India, where he met up with a ship carrying his expedition staff and gear, including a customized Cadillac modified for desert driving. Then came the train journey to Kabul.

  The dispatches became less frequent as the expedition set off into the wild countryside, until they eventually ceased altogether. Sensing a lost explorer story, The New York Times got in touch with an enterprising Reuters correspondent who learned that the expedition was still intact. He came across a list of supplies that had come through Kabul for delivery to Kurtz in the field. On the list were two pieces of gear called Schraders. It appeared that Dr. Everson had circled this term on her report and written the words “diving gear” beside it.

  Hawkins took a moment to gaze at the Schrader helmet in his collection, then he looked back at the documents. Several months later, Kurtz had been in the news again when his expedition quietly arrived back in Kabul. The Reuters reporter caught up with him and reported that the Cadillac had blown its engine and been left behind. He asked where Kurtz had been. The laconic reply became the headline as well as the story:

  “I have been to the Valley of the Dead.”

  The article reported that a member of Kurtz’s team had died in an excavation cave-in, suggesting the reason for the tycoon’s mournful reply. But the expedition’s misfortune didn’t end there. It made tragic headlines again just a few weeks later. The archaeologist and other key expedition people died when the Kurtz company minerals carrier they were traveling on sank in the Mediterranean during a fierce meltemi. Kurtz was sailing separately on his yacht or he would have been lost as well. The reclusive Kurtz went back to Colorado. His health had been compromised by the rigors of travel and he died a short while later.

  The next few documents detailed more of Dr. Everson’s findings. In one, she described how she had been hunting for traces of lost trade routes in Afghanistan and had come across a lake that was still called the Valley of the Dead.

  In another, she revealed how her research had led her to an out-of-print book about the Kurtz expedition, written in 1933, called “The Emerald Sceptre.” The author had relied mostly on news reports, but he had learned from the widow of a project archaeologist about a sheet of ancient vellum the expedition found that may have been part of a longer document.

  A message on the vellum, written in Latin, mentioned a great treasure that included an emerald scepter as a gift to the Pope. The letter was signed by Prester John and had what appeared to be a crude diagram on the back. Since no treasure had ever been found, the author speculated that it might have been carried on the freighter Kurtz lost. End of story. Or not.

  Hawkins sat back in his chair.

  The evidence was sketchy, but Cait believed it suggested that the legend of the treasure was true, and that it might still be in Afghanistan. Believed it enough, at least, to contact the State Department.

  Hawkins glanced at his watch. It was one in the morning. If he was going to assemble a team, he needed to get started. He reached for his phone and punched in a name. After several rings, a female voice answered with a sleepy hello.

  “Matt? Is that really you?” the voice said.

  “Isn’t caller ID a wonderful thing, Abby?”

  “Only if you have the brains not to answer the damned phone. How’s my “ex” these days?”

  “Fine. I have to see you. How about tomorrow?”
<
br />   Pause. “Hell, Matt it’s already tomorrow. I’m in the middle of a bunch of big projects. Can it wait?”

  “No. It’s important.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In my house at Woods Hole.”

  Another pause. “The only time I have free is at eight tomorrow morning.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be there,” Hawkins said.

  They said their good-byes and hung up.

  Matt then made a quick phone call to make arrangements for the next day. After he hung up, his eye again fell on the photo of Cait Everson, and he wondered if she were dead or alive. And if she were alive, where she might be.

  He ignored his instincts and took the positive view. “Good night, pretty lady,” he said. “Can’t wait to meet you.”

  Then he shut down his computer and went to bed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Afghanistan

  The 1921 butternut-colored Cadillac touring car with the over-sized tires churned up a dusty rooster tail as it raced across the desert at more than sixty-five miles per hour. Amir Khan had an expression of child-like joy on his face as he looked over the steering wheel down the length of the long louvered hood that covered the powerful 5.1 liter V-8 engine.

  Sitting next to Amir in the seven-passenger vehicle was a ghost-like figure whose hair and face were shrouded under a light blue keffiyah. In the back seats were four men wearing traditional tribal garb: round Pakol caps, long shirts, vests and baggy pants. Cartridge belts encircled their waists and they clutched AK-47s with the barrels angled in the air.

  The car swerved off the dirt track, bumped over the rough terrain, and came to a skidding stop near the edge of a large lake. The armed men jumped from the car and shouldered their guns. Each man grabbed a wooden pole from the trunk.

  Amir got out next, followed by the shrouded figure who partially removed the keffiyeh, keeping the hair covered but exposing the face of Cait Everson. Cait unfolded a sheet of paper and glanced at a drawing that looked like a camel’s hump. She compared it with the hill set back a mile or so from the lake. The mound was flatter than in the sketch, but it may have been higher in the past. She and Amir walked to the edge of a cliff that overhung the blue surface of the lake around thirty feet below. The guards stretched out in a line, roughly three feet apart, and walked slowly, striking the ground with the pole tips. Cait and Amir followed. After advancing several yards, one of the men stopped and pointed to his feet.

  Amir stepped ahead and struck the ground near the guard with his cane. A hollow noise echoed up from the earth. The guards used knives to scrape away the top soil, uncovering a square metal plate around four feet across. They lifted the plate off to reveal a rectangle of darkness.

  Cait produced a flashlight from under her smock and dropped to her knees. Ignoring Amir’s warning to watch out for the crumbling edges, she leaned over the opening. The flashlight beam was absorbed by the darkness.

  “The Kurtz mine shaft,” Cait murmured. She stood up and dusted off her hands. “I’m going in.”

  “The mine is very old. You may be putting yourself in danger.”

  “The supporting timbers along the walls look okay,” Cait said. “I’ll be all right. You can pull me out if I get into trouble. Don’t forget, I’m an experienced archaeological field worker.”

  Amir had mentioned the shaft to Cait over dinner the previous day. He had assumed it was the work of Russian geologists who surveyed the area years before, but Cait had become excited and insisted on seeing it. Amir had come to regard Cait almost like a daughter. And as with the pleading of his own daughters, he found it difficult to say no.

  He gave an order and a man drove the car close to the shaft. Cait retrieved her duffle bag from the trunk and dug out a yellow hard hat equipped with a headlamp, and a pair of fingerless gloves, goggles and knee pads. She kept the head covering in place, but slipped out of the smock she had been wearing and shed her pajama-like pants. Underneath she wore a tan long-sleeve shirt and cargo slacks. She tucked a walkie-talkie into her shirt pocket and gave another one to Amir.

  She dug into the duffle again and pulled out a nylon harness attached to a two-hundred-foot-long length of half inch manila rope. Cait’s explorations of old ruins sometimes brought her into tunnels and shafts where she might need help getting out. While she buckled into the harness, Amir’s men tied the other end of the rope onto the front bumper of the car. Cait put on the goggles, knee-pads and gloves and sat down at the edge of the shaft with her legs dangling. Four guards picked up the rope. She slipped over the edge and was lowered several feet until she ordered a halt to look around. As she dangled there, she reflected on the events that had brought her to this dark hole in the desert.

  She had visited Afghanistan three years before to do research into the vast transcontinental network of paths that had extended more than four thousand miles between China and western Asia and Europe and northern Africa.

  The routes were collectively called the Silk Road, but they had been used to transport other goods, including amber, slaves, incense and precious stones. The roads were also conduits of culture, technology, disease, such as the Black Death, and they had laid the foundation for the global economy,

  Cait had been researching the southern silk route which still existed in part as the Karakoram Highway, a paved road connecting Pakistan and China. Using a technique known as desert road archeology, she had followed old traffic routes looking for commercial settlements around caravan stops that were often rich archaeological troves. One route in particular piqued her interest. On an old map she acquired, this route branched off from the main road for no apparent reason, eventually coming to a dead end near a lake. She suspected that the area around the lake may have been the site of commercial activity.

  Returning to Kabul, she showed some Afghan colleagues her findings and said she wanted to see the site firsthand. They told her the territory was dangerous, controlled by warlords who made their living in the drug trade.

  The lake was under the control of a warlord named Amir Khan. Cait expressed interest in learning more about Amir. A friend at the American embassy arranged a meeting with a cultural attaché, a title Cait knew was often a cover for CIA personnel. Frank Brady was a trim man in his fifties who had a thoughtful professorial manner that suggested he was probably an analyst rather than a field agent.

  “Amir was on the American payroll during the war against the Soviets,” he said. “Got wounded in action. He suffered some nerve damage and almost didn’t walk again. He was brought to the United States and treated at Walter Reed hospital. Spent months in therapy. While he was recuperating, he studied at Georgetown University. From what I hear of the efficient way he runs things as a warlord, he must have majored in business administration.”

  Without hesitating, Cait said, “Can you get a message from me to the Amir?”

  “What sort of message?” Brady said warily.

  “Tell him that a Georgetown history professor is interested in doing research in his neighborhood and see what he says.”

  Brady chuckled. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “It never hurts to ask.”

  “I’ll see if I can make a connection. Where are you staying?”

  “At the Serena Hotel. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  That night Cait got a call from Brady. “You Georgetown alum must be pretty tight, Dr. Everson. The Amir would be pleased to have you as his guest.”

  Cait was stunned. The alumni ploy had been a gamble.

  “I’d be pleased to accept his invitation,” she said. “Any idea how I get there?”

  “Be at the airport at seven tomorrow morning.”

  Cait thanked Brady, and as an afterthought, asked if he had any advice on how to deal with a warlord.

  “Keep your blinders on and you’ll be fine,” Brady said.

  Cai
t packed a bag with her field clothes and equipment. She spent a restless night and was awake when the sun came up over the mountains. It was only a twenty-minute taxi ride to Khawaja Rawash airport and she arrived well ahead of time.

  What followed was like something out of a spy movie. She was met by a man who said he was the Amir’s assistant in Kabul, led to a private two-engine plane, and ushered on without a word. After a two-hour flight, the plane angled down for its descent. On the approach, Cait glimpsed the figure-eight lake she had seen in the satellite photos. Minutes later, they bumped down onto a crude unpaved landing strip near a large metal hangar.

  After the door was unlatched, Cait climbed down the gang way, blinking her eyes in the bright sunlight. An antique touring car was parked at the edge of the runway. Leaning against a front fender of the convertible was a tall man dressed in a traditional Afghan outfit. He waved and then walked over with the aid of a cane, and extended his hand.

  “Welcome, Dr. Everson. I am Amir Khan.”

  His voice was deep and resonant, and he spoke in American English with a trace of an Afghan accent. He had a raffish handlebar mustache that looked bleach-white against his dark skin. He wore a flat mushroom-shaped cap over gray hair.

  He opened the door on the passenger side for her, and then got behind the wheel. The car passed acres of agricultural fields and a number of large sheds. Cait heeded Brady’s advice and kept her blinders on. Eventually, the car arrived at a walled cluster of buff-colored, flat-roofed buildings, passed through an unmanned gatehouse, and made its way along an unpaved street toward the largest building in the village.

  The stone-and-mud house was surrounded by well-landscaped greenery. Amir pulled the car up in front of the high arched wooden door. A man appeared seemingly from nowhere and carried Cait’s bag to the doorstep.

  An attractive woman in her thirties opened the door. Her head was covered with an orchard silk scarf and she wore a traditional black smock. A little girl with huge brown eyes hung on her dress.