The Atlantis Code by Charles Brokaw

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