The Emerald Scepter Page 29

  “What did he say?” Cait said.

  Hawkins gently closed the professor’s staring eyes. “He said that he was sorry.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Amir surveyed the killing field on the far side of the lake, his gaze sweeping over the bullet-riddled bodies and the burned-out wreckage of the troop carrier. “It seems this Prester John treasure causes death wherever it goes. I would appreciate it if you removed the curse as quickly as possible.”

  “We’ll start the search and survey as soon as we finish here,” Hawkins said.

  “Then we had better get busy with our grim task,” Amir replied.

  Amir supervised a work crew and Hawkins and Calvin helped collect the corpses so they could be transported by truck back to the village for a speedy burial according to Islamic custom. Amir stopped at one point to answer his chirping satellite phone. A smile replaced the frown on his face.

  “One of my scouts reports that a ground force is a few miles from the village,” he said.

  “Those must be the guys who were supposed to mop up after the choppers destroyed your village,” Hawkins said. “They don’t know that the air assault was a flop.”

  “If you will excuse me, I must prepare a warm welcome for them,” Amir said.

  “Need any help?”

  “The spirits of the men who died here will guide our hand,” Amir said. Before getting into his car he said, “Thank you both for preventing this from happening to my village. Miss Abby and Dr. Cait have been a great help to the women and children.”

  “Glad to hear that. Could you send them back to give us a hand with the dive?”

  Amir nodded, then put the car in gear and led the truck with its load of dead bodies back to the village. Hawkins and Calvin did a damage assessment. Calvin poked around the shredded remains of the tents and picked up a bullet-punctured MRE.

  “It’s not all bad news,” he said. “My jambalaya ingredients may have survived.”

  “We’ll have to put it off for now. Fido’s hungry.”

  They plugged a compressor into the generator to refill their air tanks, changed the batteries in the Pegasus units and laid out their dive gear. As they were preparing to suit up, Abby and Cait arrived in the Russian jeep.

  “We ran into Amir on our way here,” Abby said. “He said you were looking for us.”

  Cait glanced around at the blasted campsite. “We saw the bodies coming back to the village. It’s hard to believe the destruction.”

  “Amir thinks it’s the curse of Prester John,” Hawkins said. “I promised him that we’d dive on the treasure as soon as possible. We’re about ready to check out the lake and could use a couple of dive tenders.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Abby said. She turned to Calvin. “Would you mind if I made the first dive? I promised myself that I would see this mission through to the very end. I’ve passed the SEAL dive course with flying colors, of course.”

  Calvin shrugged. “Makes sense, Matt. I’d be more comfortable up here keeping an eye peeled for outlaws.”

  “I would too, Cal. Let’s see if we can fit Abby out in your suit.”

  Abby started to peel her clothes off. “Avert your eyes, gentlemen.”

  The dry-suit sagged on her athletic body, but it would do the job of warding off the chill. With Calvin and Cait lending a hand, Hawkins and Abby slipped into the lake and tested their communications system, which allowed them to keep in touch with Calvin as well. Then they let the Pegasus thrusters propel them down the underwater slope. In the light from their flashlights, they saw that the boulder had disappeared, leaving an opening about eight-by-eight feet square.

  Hawkins said, “There’s a big hole where the boulder used to be, Cal. The booby trap explosion must have crumbled the lower ledge of the hole. Plug popped right out of the drain.”

  He flicked the beam of his flashlight at the opening and turned to Abby. “Shall we?”

  Abby jerked her thumb in the air and with a series of strong flutter kicks she swam ahead of Hawkins. They passed through the opening into a tunnel which made a gradual turn to the right after a hundred feet. They were rounding the curve when Abby stopped so suddenly that Hawkins crashed into her.

  “Hell, Abby!” Hawkins said as they untangled their arms and legs.

  She made no reply, but instead pointed at the apparition blocking the way.

  The figure with a bulbous one-eyed head was framed in the yellow twin halos cast by their flashlights. The thick arms and legs made a slight waving movement that gave the illusion of life.

  They swam closer. The vacant sockets of a copper-hued skull peered at them through the glass of the circular visor.

  “Guess we found Kurtz’s diver,” Hawkins said. “Time frame for the design of his gear is about right for the expedition. That’s a Schrader helmet manufactured around 1918. I’ve got a similar one in my collection.”

  The diver’s weighted boots had torn away from the rubberized canvas suit and the bottoms of the legs were fringed like an oriental rug. The bronze helmet and breastplate had lost their shine and were a dull brown. A couple of feet of thick black air hose dangled from the back of the helmet. The suit hung from the end of rubber-encased chain attached to the back of the breastplate.

  The chain emerged from a hole in the ceiling that was packed with rocks large and small. There were more rocks below the diver on the mine floor. “Looks like the shaft caved in and cut off his air,” Hawkins said.

  Abby squeezed Hawkins by the arm. “What an awful way to die,” she said.

  “He never had a chance. Cait saw the other end of the hose when she explored the shaft from ground level. The fact that he made it this far means Kurtz accessed the tunnel and maybe the treasure.”

  “Yes, but was this the first dive or the last?” Abby said.

  “That question may soon be answered. Let’s keep going.”

  The discovery had tempered Abby’s enthusiasm to be in the lead. They swam abreast past the forlorn figure only to stop again. The tunnel was blocked by a mound of earth that reached to within a few feet of the ceiling.

  “It’s going to be a tight squeeze,” Hawkins said.

  “We’ve come too far to turn back,” Abby said.

  “If I can make it through you’ll have no problem,” Hawkins said.

  He swam up to the opening, which was about a yard wide. The ceiling seemed solid enough. He extended his arms like Superman in flight. Slight kicks of his fins propelled him forward inches at a time. The beam of his flashlight showed that the way actually widened after a few yards. He kept moving, crawling more than swimming. Seconds later he was through the opening. He turned around and waved his light.

  “I’m in,” he said. “Come ahead.”

  Abby navigated the passage with the ease of an eel. Hawkins tried to call Calvin, but there was no answer. They were too deep in the tunnel for their communications systems to work. They encountered no further obstructions and covered ground rapidly. After another fifty feet or so the tunnel ended abruptly in a wall. A rock shelf jutted out and behind the ledge was a large alcove around six feet long and two feet deep.

  Hawkins flashed the light around the floor and walls of the empty tunnel.

  “Looks like we’ve hit a dry hole, Abby,” he said in a rueful voice.

  “Damnit, Matt. Kurtz got it all.”

  Hawkins floated up so that he was level with the ledge and peered into the alcove. He drew his sheath knife and poked the biggest of several lumps lying in the recessed shelf. Within moments he had exposed a skull. The mud that had preserved it had colored the skull a dark brown.

  “There are bones here,” Hawkins said. “Someone laid out a body for burial.”

  He used his knife to peck away at the other chunks of concretion. The point quickly dislodged layers of hardened mud and revealed fragments of le
g or arm bones. Hawkins brushed away some of the sediment and saw something shiny in the skeletal remains. He picked up an encrusted object that had a glint of gold, showed it to Abby, then put the object into his vest pocket.

  Abby glanced at her wrist computer. “We’d better get back. Our friends are going to worry if they don’t hear from us.”

  Hawkins signaled Abby to take the lead. She approached the earth barrier blocking the way and glided up and through the opening. Hawkins was right behind her. He watched her as she wiggled through, surprising himself with the thought that her backside looked good even in Calvin’s oversized wetsuit.

  When they emerged from the water a few minutes later, they saw Calvin and Cait waiting at the lake’s edge. Hawkins crawled out and wasted no time with his report. “We found an old tomb that lies directly under the shaft and discovered what was left of the diver and another body, much older, that was apparently laid out for burial.” Hawkins hated to break Cait’s heart with the truth, but he had to be up front with her. “There was no treasure,” he said.

  Cait seemed to shrink within herself.

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “The tunnel ends around a hundred-fifty-feet in. We went over every square foot.”

  “Then that’s it.” Her words had a hollow ring. She looked around at the devastation. “All this was for nothing.”

  “Maybe not. We found this with the older skeleton.” He removed the lump from his vest and handed it to Cait. She examined the object, then borrowed a knife and carefully chipped away the chunk of concretion. Underneath was a gold cross. Cait translated the inscription on the long part of the cross:

  “GOD SPEED PHILLIP”

  Inscribed on the cross’ short section was the word ALEXANDER.

  “You were wrong about finding nothing,” she said. “The skeleton you discovered belongs to Philip. It proves my theory that he made it as far as Afghanistan.” She pursed her lips in thought. “What it doesn’t prove is whether he was coming from or going to the kingdom of Prester John. Maybe we’ll never know now, but even without the treasure, this is one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the century.”

  Hawkins’ eye fell on the piece of concretion that had broken off from the cross. He took the knife back and chipped away the covering. Inside was a coin. He examined the palm tree engraved one side and then flipped the coin over.

  “I’m happy to say that you’re wrong, Cait,” he said. “Looks like the cross will be the second most important discovery. This is the first.”

  He gave Cait the coin. She studied both sides, then passed it to Abby, threw her arms around Hawkins and planted a warm kiss on his lips.

  Abby was irritated at Cait’s reaction until she examined the coin. She understood after she examined the side of the coin with the face pictured on it. Engraved in Latin under the profile were two words.

  Presbyter Johannes.

  Hawkins gave the order to break camp. They loaded the gear onto the desert vehicle and with the Russian Jeep leading the way, headed back to Amir’s house. His daughter greeted them and said they had been invited for dinner and to stay the night.

  After being shown to their rooms and given the chance to clean up and change, they assembled for dinner in the big dining room. Amir arrived a few minutes later. He sat down next to Cait and said that his men had ambushed a force advancing on the village. All the invaders were killed, he said.

  “My men have been buried and avenged on the same day.” He turned to Hawkins. “And did you find the treasure my friend?”

  Before Hawkins could answer, Amir noticed that Cait’s eyes were moist with tears. He put his hand on her arm. “What’s wrong, Dr. Cait? Are you ill?”

  Cait cleared her throat. “I’m fine, thank you. No, that’s not right. I feel terrible. It was my research that led to the deaths of so many people. If I hadn’t come up with my treasure theory, your men would still be alive.”

  There was a heavy silence in the room.

  Hawkins had gone through a self-hatred phase and knew that once guilt got its claws into you it was hard to dislodge.

  “Not so fast, Cait,” he said. “You didn’t ask that creep to attack you at the caravan stop. You didn’t murder the men at the lake. You didn’t attack the village. You have no right to blame yourself.”

  Her pale cheeks flushed pink. “That’s easy for you to say, Matt.”

  “It’s not easy, Cait. Not easy at all.”

  Calvin jumped into the discussion. “What Hawk is saying as that we’ve both been there. He thought it was his fault that we lost guys in an ambush back in the day. I tore myself up for years because I didn’t have his back when they pushed him out of the navy.”

  Abby sighed loudly. “Guess I should get on the guilt band wagon. I could have tended to a deeply-wounded friend and I didn’t.” Abby turned her head to avoid Hawkins’ surprised gaze and spoke directly to Cait. “What we’re all saying is that you can’t blame yourself for the actions of a bunch of sleaze-bags.”

  Cait threw her hands in the air. “Enough! I didn’t know this was going to be an intervention. Okay, I absolve myself of blame, but the Prester John treasure still had a role in this.”

  “I agree,” Hawkins said. “But Prester was only one in a cast of dozens. Let’s not forget the professor or the twin assassins who tried to kill me.”

  “I never suspected that Professor Saleem was an agent with the Pakistani intelligence. I feel so betrayed,” Cait said. “He always seemed like the perfect gentleman scholar.”

  “Maybe that’s exactly what he was,” Hawkins said. “Marzak must have suspected he was on our side, and that’s probably why he killed him.”

  “Saleem’s connection to the Shadows is not surprising,” Amir said. “The ISI maintains contacts with terrorists and insurgents which it sees as buffers against the greater enemy. India.”

  “Where does Marzak fit in?” Calvin asked.

  Hawkins said, “Marzak was running the military operation for the Shadows. The professor suggested he was more than just a soldier for hire like the others.”

  “What did he mean?”

  “Marzak’s role is more complicated. He and his twin tried to kill me, which suggests that they wanted to torpedo our mission even before it started. Somehow, they knew about the operation.”

  “I don’t get it. How could that happen?” Calvin said.

  Hawkins laughed. “Because the security surrounding our top-secret expedition seems to have sprung more leaks than the Titanic. I suggest we go back to the beginning, the Prester John legend, and carry it to the present,” Hawkins said. “As our resident historian, you have the podium, Dr. Everson.”

  A smile came to Cait’s face. She was happy to be back on familiar territory. She went to her room for her computer, placed it on the table and pushed back the cover.

  “I’ll run through what we know. Let’s go back to the 1100s. Rumors of Prester John circulate in Europe. The Pope writes a letter to John suggesting an alliance and entrusts it with his personal physician, a man named Philip. That fact is well recorded. So is the fact that he made it as far as Jerusalem. He disappears from sight after that. Now we know what happened to him. Defying the odds, Philip apparently found the lost kingdom of Prester John.”

  She opened an image on the computer.

  “This is a fragment of the vellum scroll that Kurtz found in Kabul. On the front is part of a letter Philip carried from Prester John to the Pope, in which he mentions a gift that will allow for an alliance that will rally the troops against the infidels.”

  “The emerald scepter,” Hawkins said.

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” Abby said. “The Shadows want to use it for the same purpose, to rally people to their flag.”

  Cait nodded. “History is merely the same things happening over and over. On his return trip, Philip p
asses through the caravan stop and sees the wall map showing a short cut to the Mediterranean coast. Somehow, he strays off the intended route into a box canyon named the Valley of the Dead, a region thick with bandits. For whatever reason, Philip takes refuge in a tomb where he dies. He or someone else draws a map on the back of the vellum and hundreds of years later, it ends up in Kabul where Kurtz finds it. Finally, we find the coin, which may have been placed on his eyes as was the custom.”

  “The coin proves that the treasure made it to the mine with Philip,” Abby said.

  “And raises the question of what became of the rest of the treasure,” Calvin said.

  Hawkins said, “You’ve got a couple of narratives here. Philip’s story and Kurtz’s expedition. The tomb is the nexus where those two story lines meet.”

  “So old Hiram ran off with the treasure?” Calvin said.

  “Let’s look at what we know about his expedition,” Cait said. “Kurtz was looking for the Prester John treasure. We know too, from the chisel we found, that he was at the caravan stop. He sees the map of the Silk Road trade routes and uses it to track down the Prester John caravan route.”

  “But first he obliterates the location of Prester’s kingdom with a chisel so no one will follow in his footsteps,” Hawkins said.

  “Exactly,” Cait agreed. “He heads for the valley and finds that it is now a lake. That’s when he calls in a diver who goes into the lake, but the tomb is blocked. Using the camel’s back hill as a reference, Kurtz drills a shaft to the tomb, which is flooded.”

  “We saw what’s left of the diver,” Hawkins said. “It’s clear that the mine shaft collapsed and plugged up access. But when Abby and I entered the shaft, there was no treasure, which suggests that Kurtz found it before the cave-in. Based on the historical house of cards we’ve built, if we follow Kurtz, we’ll find the treasure.”

  “I’m not sure if I even care about the treasure anymore,” Cait said. “I have my proof in the cross and the coin. The scepter has caused so much misery.”