The Atlantis Code (29 page)

“Easy for you to say, mate,” Gary cracked.

“He was the leader of an invading army who came to West Africa from Egypt or Nubia, according to the Yorubans. Muslim sources document that Oduduwa came from Mecca. He was supposed to have been fleeing the country over a religious argument.”

“What argument?” Natasha asked.

Lourds shook his head. “The records I looked at don’t say. He could also have been outrunning an invading army. The point is that he fled with the cymbal.” He smiled. “Interestingly enough, Oduduwa is thought to be descended from the gods.”

“The bell was found in Alexandria,” Leslie said. “Do you think that’s where the cymbal came from?”

“Do you mean, was it there?” Lourds asked. “Given the legends I’ve uncovered, I’d say it was there once. But I’m not satisfied that we’ve yet found the land of its origins.”

“Because the languages don’t match anything from those areas,” Natasha said.

Lourds nodded and smiled. “Exactly.”

“What if the instruments were planted there? Intentionally put there.”

That thought hadn’t struck Lourds, and he found it highly interesting. He took a moment to mull it over.

“Wait,” Leslie said, “what makes you think anyone planted the bell and the cymbal there?”

“Because they don’t fit,” Lourds said, carrying on with Natasha’s insight. Her idea made everything fall into place so much better. “They don’t spring from that culture. The materials used. The work that went into them. The languages. All of them jar with what we know of that area.”

“If they wanted the cymbal to disappear, why attribute it to a god? Or a near-god? Or whatever O-dude is supposed to be?”

“Maybe they didn’t do that. Maybe that story followed the O-guy out of Egypt,” Gary said.

“It’s possible,” Lourds said. “According to the legend, Oduduwa was sent by his father, Olodumare—”

“That name’s on a Paul Simon album,” Gary said, interrupting. “It was released in the early 1990s. It was called
Rhythm of the Saints
or something like that.”

“No way,” Lourds responded.

“Way, mate,” Gary replied. “You get Wi-Fi in here, right?”

Lourds nodded.

“Lemme borrow your computer.”

After pushing the computer across, Lourds turned his attention back to his meal. As chief speaker during the debrief, he was usually the one who ended up eating a cold meal.

In minutes, Gary smiled in triumph. “And Bob’s your uncle, mate.” He spun the computer back around and displayed the singer’s song lyrics.

The reference to Olodumare was in the eighth line down.

“ ‘Olodumare is smiling in heaven,’ ” Gary said.

“You’re turning out to be a fount of information,” Lourds said. “Why didn’t you ever go to university?”

“I tried. It was too boring. A lot of the time I knew more than the professors did. One of the first things you learn at university is that the professors aren’t a whole lot smarter than you are, and sometimes they don’t even know as much.” Realizing what he’d just said, Gary held his hands up defensively. “Wasn’t referring to you, mate. You’ve been right impressive, you have.”

“I’m glad to know that. Let me see if I can impress you a little more.” Lourds sipped his wine. “The Yorubans refer to themselves as ‘Eniyan’ or ‘Eniti Aayan.’ The literal translation of this reference is, ‘The Chosen Ones to bring blessing to the world.’ ”

“Do you think the cymbal was supposed to be a blessing?” Leslie asked.

“The question did enter my mind,” Lourds admitted. “After all, it did arrive there in the hands of a near-god.”

CAMBRIDGEPORT
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

The best time to burgle a home wasn’t at night. It was during the day. At night nobody was supposed to be around, and anyone who was stuck out.

But during the day, people came and went and were around all the time.

Bess Thomsen was a professional thief. She’d been breaking into other people’s homes since she was eleven. Now, at thirty-three, she was an old hand at the game.

She was five feet five inches tall, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a face that was mostly forgettable. In other words, she was totally nondescript in her appearance. But she had a figure. Part of that was from working out so she could do her job. Part of it was that it kept people’s eyes off her face. But today she kept that figure disguised beneath loose orange coveralls.

Her partner for the burglary was a twenty-something named Sparrow. She’d brought him along in case they had to do any lifting. Sparrow was six-two and over two hundred pounds. Bess was convinced ninety percent of it was attitude. She’d never met a more arrogant person.

He slouched in the van’s passenger seat and flicked cigarette ashes out the window. Beard stubble turned his cheeks and jawline into sandpaper. His surfer-blond hair was cropped even with his shoulder line. Cool blue sunglasses covered the upper part of his face. Earbuds filled those orifices, though Bess had thought about shoving them in other orifices.

Even with his earbuds blocking some of the sound, Sparrow played his music—hard-driving rock—loud enough for Bess to want to scream.

She checked the phony work order for the address one last time and pulled into the driveway of the house. She leaned under the window shade and studied the structure.

The house was a generous two-story. Not overly large, but more than was necessary for the single occupant she’d been told who lived there. Cambridgeport was mostly residential, with single-family homes as well as rental properties, since Harvard University and access to the Charles River were nearby. It was a good walking neighborhood for those so inclined. That was another reason to do the job in the daytime as opposed to night.

The notes Bess had on the job were spare. The homeowner was supposed to be a university professor currently out of the country. Bess had taken down the notes, but she didn’t count on that. People got back at the oddest times.

It would have been better if the prof had been at work in the city. Steady hours on the job were a lot better than counting on an occasional vacation.

She got out of the van, took her hard hat up from the seat, and put it on. Clipboard in hand, she walked to the door. Sparrow fell in beside her.

The lock was a good one, but it took her less than thirty seconds to pick her way through. As soon as she entered the front door, she heard the
peep
of the burglar alarm fire up.

According to the alarm-company reports she’d hacked out of the system, they had forty-five seconds to get to the keypad in the foyer to shut the alarm down. She made it with time to spare, then entered the code she’d also rifled from the files.

She turned to Sparrow. “Did you lock the door?”

He frowned at her and folded his arms across his chest. His tool belt, all the tools untouched in case he had to run for it, dangled at his hip.

“Screw you.” Sparrow took out the earbuds. “I got the top floor,” he said. “See you when I see you.” He headed in the direction of the stairs.

Bess cursed out him and his arrogance. Both were big enough to merit their own time, and both were deserving of the epithets.

She locked the front door and did a walk-through of the lower house to make sure she was alone. Once she was satisfied, she returned to the office area on the first floor and powered up the computer.

RADISSON SAS HOTEL LEIPZIG
LEIPZIG, GERMANY
SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

“You’ve heard about the dig in Cádiz, haven’t you?” Lourds asked.

“The one where they’re looking for Atlantis?” Gary asked.

Leslie sipped her wine and watched Lourds. She found she’d missed him during the days he spent at the Max Planck Institute.

Don’t go there, she told herself. This isn’t the time or the place.

“I don’t know if they’ll find Atlantis there,” Lourds said. “A half-dozen places have potentially been Atlantis. Greece claims a submerged Atlantis just off the coast. So does Bimini. There have even been claims for an Atlantis site off the coast of South America.”

“I hadn’t seen anything about that one.”

“The South American claim comes in because a man named J. M. Allen postulates that Atlantis was actually on the Altiplano, a Bolivian plain. According to research Allen has done, it’s not unusual for that area to become flooded. In fact, they did surveys and found out that the plain was flooded in 9000 B.C.”

“Why are you talking about Atlantis?” Natasha asked. “Has there been anything in your research that’s indicated anything should be of Atlantis?”

Witch
, Leslie thought. Things hadn’t been so much fun since Natasha joined them. When it had been her and Lourds going to Moscow—with Gary in tow, even—things were potentially interesting. Now it was hard to get five minutes of conversation with the handsome professor without the Russian cop butting in.

Leslie felt sorry about the loss of Natasha’s sister, of course. But she still didn’t see why the woman had to invite herself along.

“Interestingly enough,” Lourds said as he leaned back and stretched out, “the topic of Atlantis did indeed come up during the research. Some theories say that Yoruba might have been Atlantis.”

“No way, mate,” Gary said.

“Way,” Lourds said.

Leslie smiled at that. The stoner banter probably would have been condemned at Harvard. Lourds didn’t seem to care. That was what she most liked about the professor. He seemed
real
.

“Ile-Ife is a Yoruba city located in Nigeria. The documents I looked at claimed the city has existed at least as far back as 10,000 B.C.”

“That fits with the time frame that’s been established for Atlantis,” Gary admitted.

“Some historians believe that Yoruba was once a mighty sea power,” Lourds went on. “I’ve seen documents that suggest the existence of a great fleet of ships that were destroyed during an oceanic cataclysm that came far inland.”

“Like the sinking of an island?”

“And the resulting tsunami.” Lourds nodded. “The society was known for its traders who dealt in goods and services. The Aromires were admirals and Olokos were merchants who usually traveled for a year at a time. Scholars think they traveled to Asia, Australia, and North and South America.”

“What does any of this have to do with the cymbal that my sister was killed for?” Natasha demanded.

That sobered up the two men. Leslie resented the ease with which Natasha had taken control of the conversation. She always had to be so calm and cool and in control.

“There was an interesting fact I turned up during my studies,” Lourds said. “I digressed. But here it is: During those early years of Ile-Ife, only a few people could read and write their language. The Yoruba scribes kept such knowledge out of the hands of everyone except a select few.”

“Do you think the inscriptions on the cymbal and bell are Yoruban?”

“It’s possible.” Lourds yawned. “I’ve got more research to do now that I’ve ferreted out this much. According to Yoruba legend, Oduduwa and his brother Obatala—who was also the son of Olorun, the sky god—created the world. Obatala created humans out of clay, and Olorun breathed life into them.”

“Creation myth,” Gary said. “Every culture has them.”

“And it gets fascinating to see what all those myths have in common,” Lourds said.

“You’re going to continue to search the institute for any inscriptions that may match that on the cymbal and bell?” Natasha asked.

“That’s the plan.”

“How long will that take?”

Lourds shrugged. “I don’t know. The problem is that I’m getting close to exhausting the material these people have.”

“What happens if you do?”

“Then we need to think about taking a look at the source material.” That caught Leslie’s attention. “You mean travel down to West Africa?” Lourds looked at her and nodded. “If it becomes necessary, yes.”

CAMBRIDGEPORT
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Bess was working in the office when the operation turned ugly. She’d booted up the victim’s computer and was downloading everything on the hard drive to the external drive she’d brought with her. She was also going through the paper files in the filing cabinet, but most of the folders there concerned presentations and class course lectures.

That was when the front door opened and someone entered.

Bess went into motion at once. She stepped toward the office doorway and flattened herself against the wall. Her heart rate barely elevated. Over the years, she’d had people walk in on her before. Today she looked like a natural gas employee.

Sparrow wasn’t so cool. He came down the stairway with the earbuds in and didn’t see the man until it was too late. Sparrow was also carrying a pack over his shoulder, looking like an evil Santa. Evidently he’d swiped one of the pillowcases from the target’s bedroom and filled it with whatever had caught his eye.

That hadn’t been part of the plan.