The Atlantis Code by Charles Brokaw Page A

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—”
    “Not just to visit the family,” Lourds said. “To track down more information about the cymbal. Yuliya was a brilliant archeologist. Even though the lab burned, she never kept all her research in one spot.”
    Leslie was intelligent. She read between the lines immediately. “You think she might have left information about the cymbal somewhere besides her lab.”
    Lourds nodded. There was no reason to lie. Leslie didn’t know what he did about Yuliya.
    “She would have kept an alternate book about the artifact,” Lourds said. “She was very careful about things like that. Sometimes it can be hard to protect research. Scholars take every precaution.” He frowned. “I’m sorry about the show, Leslie.”
    “That’s no problem,” Leslie assured him. “We have a tight deadline, but I’m sure we can sweat a couple days out of production.”
    “It may be more than a couple days,” Lourds said.
    Leslie looked at him.
    “Something ties the cymbal and the bell together,” he told her. “If I can find the trail, I’m going to try to find out who killed Yuliya, as well as James Kale and the shopkeeper’s son.”
    “That could be dangerous.”
    “Oh, I don’t intend to be foolish about this,” Lourds told her. “Once I have enough to go to the police with, I fully intend to do that. I’m a linguistics professor. If Yuliya hadn’t been a friend, if I wasn’t certain that I might be able to do more at this juncture than the police can to track her killers, I wouldn’t try.”
     
     
    Later, after Leslie had gone, Lourds turned his attention to scheduling an immediate flight to Moscow. Unfortunately, he didn’t meet with any great success. Russia, even these days, wasn’t the hottest of destinations, the kind that had flights leaving every thirty minutes.
    After dealing with three airlines and not getting much in the way of satisfaction, he turned his attention to getting packed. One way or the other, he was going. He also knew he was going to need to buy clothing because he had hardly packed for the current Moscow temperatures.
    As he stowed his gear, he grieved for Yuliya and her family. He