Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs

“Mama zamanha gaya,” I yell, getting on my hands and knees and making my way through the small opening, careful not to disturb the soft dirt overhead. “Mama is coming!”

* * *

Half an hour later, the little boy is gulping down cool sheep’s milk with his anxious mother holding him and mumbling how thankful she is to me for saving her baby. Ahmed hugs and kisses me on both cheeks over and over, something he’d never do under ordinary circumstances, then we go to work. With the help of my team, I bring up the amphora I found and, on closer inspection, identify the two-handled jar with a narrow neck and vertical handles that arches high above the mouth as twelfth, maybe thirteenth century. I can’t contain my excitement. According to my calculations, this entire area is believed to have been used for secret burials and human sacrifice long before the Crusades. The tombs unearthed in the area all date back more than two thousand years ago. If this is a buried tomb, and the size and shape of the vault indicates it is, then an interloper from a later time must have found the shaft and used it as a shelter.

A knight from the Crusades? I question. The archaeologist in the photos found his sword and part of his shield near the site, didn’t he? I sense the dead live here, waiting for me to find them.

Digging through the feet of soil filling in the rectangular shaft, we uncover a stone stairway consisting of sixteen steps leading to a tomb chamber roughly oval in shape. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I stop, my ears attuned to that distinct sound so familiar to my soul. I hear the whispers. When I come across another unbroken pot, my heart jumps. I’m a woman with a dream, focused, committed, not deterred by academic bickering or jealous rivalry among colleagues. I’m free to follow my gut. Legend says the lost Crusader knights headed toward Palmyra, located midway between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. I believe the knights deviated from the route and were looking for a popular oasis in this area, an essential watering place for the many camel caravans that traversed the route in the time of the Roman Empire, when they were attacked by advancing Turks or a local desert tribe.

Shining my flashlight, I channel my previous trepidation into unbelievable excitement when I see two statues of lions, winged and human-headed, forming a portal. Mouth open, eyes trying not to blink, I bend down to creep under them and make my way deeper into the moist vault. I see another winged figure, this time an eagle with a human head, and two alabaster slabs with bas-relief faded not only from time but the dripping water seeping down through the earth. I make my way in small, careful steps, arcing the beam of my flashlight on specific areas, revealing portions of the wall decor in increments so it seems the pictures keep changing, like a dazzling slide show. Figures of slaves bearing objects of tribute such as earrings, bracelets and monkeys are painted on the walls, though the once-brilliant colors have faded. Broken pottery, trash, all lie strewn about the chamber, along with lachrymatories, tear-bottles, so named because they hold the tears of the people burying the dead. I unearth an arm here, a finger there, broken skulls. Not unusual because grave robbers dismembered the bodies to yank the trinkets from the dead. I see distinct tracings where the bodies were buried in wooden coffins, long decayed but lined with bitumen and a whitish material that gives off an eerie glow.

But no treasure lies hidden here. None.

Voices of a different nature play over and over in my head, their rich timbre giving me a headache, ominous voices commanding attention, telling me I’m a fool. Robbers long ago ravished whatever artifacts were buried here, but it could have been a royal tomb. The elaborate wall drawings and statuary decorating the antechamber attest to my theory. I have to admit to a major disappointment taking up residence in my mental adobe, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing my search.

Determined to validate the objects I’ve unearthed, my crew and I set to work, and within a few days, I’ve recovered several broken amphoras and gathered up the pieces of human bones scattered around the floor of the chamber and in a pile against a wall. I’ve found no jewelry fashioned of silver, gold or lapis lazuli, though I do recover a lump of iron, possibly from a meteorite, as well as ceramic vessels, some containing animal bones that may have been part of funerary animal offerings. Still, it’s a fascinating discovery, though disappointing not to have found any intact human remains or evidence the knights stopped here on their journey homeward. No doubt the tomb was plundered long before I tumbled down the sinkhole.

Yet still I hear the voices.

I’m a stubborn woman to the point of obsession when it comes to my work, treating every excavation like a crime scene, making certain my crew wears white hospital masks to keep the dust out of their lungs, plastic gloves to examine the pieces, and I never give up. Never. I go over every inch of that vault, the beam of my flashlight painting white streaks of sheer light from end to end, like a painter illuminating a celestial canvas, and somehow I miss it: a faint square about three feet in size outlined on the wall painting and nearly invisible to the naked eye. I would never have found it if I hadn’t been curious about the stones embedded in the faded mosaic of a beautiful woman in a swirling chemise, her hand outstretched and beckoning, as if calling out to me.

“Ahmed!” I call out. “Come quickly!” My team leader leaves his work gathering up pottery and hurries over to where I shine the flashlight on the wall. “What do you think of her?”

He nods. “Beautiful lady. Like you, Missy Breezy.”

I smile at his compliment, then point to the faint square outlined with my flashlight. “Look closer. Do you think that could be a door?”

He flicks on his flashlight and the double beams focusing on the spot confirm what I believe. “Yes. Another room?”

“Let’s find out.”

He calls for two men to help us, and, using a crowbar, we pry open the small door. It moves easily, which surprises me, as if it’s on a track. I train my flashlight beam through the wide fissure, Ahmed and his two workers peering over my shoulder and chatting with excitement. We all gasp at the same moment. The sight of a small side chamber or annex beyond makes me weak at my knees; the sight of two human skeletons lying side by side on the floor makes me lean closer, hoping to hear the whispers. Soft at first, then louder, the sounds lift me until I’m virtually beside myself with anticipation.

“This may be what I’m looking for, Ahmed,” I say in a soft voice so as not to disturb the dead. “Follow me.”

“I go anywhere with you, Missy Breezy,” he says with-out hesitation, then he adds with a catch in his voice, “You save my son.”

I nod, smiling, then with Ahmed behind me, I crawl through the opening to the other side. I shine my flashlight on remnants of clothing, chain mail from armor and a helmet that completely covers the face with a faded heraldry inscribed on it that I can’t identify. Thirteenth-century Crusaders wore such helmets, I tell Ahmed. At the same time, a story I read when I was a teen races through my mind, bringing up the same excitement I knew when I’d sneak off to read stories of history and lore, mummies and queens. My sister, Peyton, would hide my books, then dare me to tag along with her and her friends. I couldn’t. She never understood I felt different from other girls and I wasn’t interested in gossip and shopping. I wanted to travel to exotic places and break bread with the past to taste it, to embrace it and to understand it.

Now I’ve found my dream.

I hear Ahmed draw in his breath. “May Allah be praised, we’ve found a secret room.”

“We’re not the first to discover it. Look.” I shine my light on the smaller skull, most likely female, covered with dirt and deteriorating cloth fragments. She wears a necklace with fine, round, dark gray objects. With black dust billowing up around me every time I move a piece of the female skeleton, I tap on the round objects, one at a time, their tinny sound echoing in the chamber like footsteps marching back through the centuries. “Hand me a brush, Ahmed. These pieces might be silver.”

Not taking his eyes off the skeleton, he draws a paintbrush from his pocket and hands it to me. I kneel down beside the female skeleton and, with a gentle touch as if I were opening a book with thin, delicate pages, I begin dusting the dirt away. Little by little, I see glints of color.

“It’s gold, Ahmed.” I hold in my hand a gold necklace and a gold headband with thin layers of gold covering her features in the shape of a grape leaf. “That doesn’t make sense,” I ponder out loud. “If the grave robbers took everything of value, then why didn’t they take the gold jewelry off this woman? Unless—”

She took refuge in here years, centuries afterward, I finish in silence. Who was she? What were her last thoughts before deathclaimed her? A tightness grips my chest and the weight of my responsibility to preserve this woman’s final moments becomes real to me. I’m determined to tell her story.

“Over here, Missy Breezy!”

“Have you found something, Ahmed?”

He speaks as if he’s reciting a prayer. “Yes.”

I spin around to see him moving his flashlight jerkily over a moon-faced object lying on a small slab. It looks like a mask, the glimmer of azure then deep red then green flickering ever so brief ly in the demanding glare of his light, as if unwilling to wake up from their somnolent centuries-long sleep.

What can it be? I flip through the files in my mental catalog, bringing up what I can remember about lost Byzantine artifacts, many known to archaeologists because they’re mentioned in ancient texts or painted on tapestries and mosaics. I remember being enchanted by the story of a gold mask that belonged to an empress, a gift from her husband that was stolen from her tomb during the Crusades.

Do I dare dream this mask can lead me back centuries to the time of the cradle of civilization and give me the opportunity to pad out the bones of a beautiful courtesan who became an empress? And to recover a treasure taken from the famed city of Constantinople and lost for a thousand years?

“Hold my flashlight,” I say, handing it to him. “And keep it pointed on the mask while I remove the dirt.”

Using the paintbrush, I wipe away the layers of centuries with a reverence I’ve never felt before settling into my bones. I revel in the even flow of my movements, experiencing an emotional high, and though I’m involved in a physical act, I have no feeling in my fingers, as if they’re moving without effort. The tremendous power of my belief presses me to continue, enlightening me, until I become one with the object, my own self vanishing into the depth of the mask’s rich history. Even before the first golden sparkle warms the cold, damp vault with its shine, I know what it is.

A gold mask crafted in the likeness of this powerful woman and set with pearls, rubies, sapphires and emeralds mounted in gold, which hung in festoons from her temples to her breasts. A treasure worth untold millions.

The Mask of Darkma.

8

Present day

I start to shiver and light perspiration dribbles over my lips. Whatever the Russian drugged me with, I can’t shake it. It’s pulling me back and forth in a replay of events that haunt me. I’ve no doubt finding the Mask of Darkma was the beginning of my ascent into hell, a spiraling of events I couldn’t control, but that doesn’t lessen the fear I have of my present predicament. Where am I?

I detect a steady shaking under my body, and is that an AC vent blowing cool air in my face? I touch my hair, damp and sticking to my cheeks. My beaded black wig is gone. A sharp pain bounces from my head to my shoulders down to my pubic area. Without hesitation, my hand shoots down to my crotch to soothe the nagging ache in my groin. I hesitate when my long nails catch on a smooth fabric covering my legs, my hips. I tug on it. What’s this? I’m wearing wide jersey pants? And a T-shirt? I assume the clothes are courtesy of whoever brought me here. I’m tempted to bend my knees, kick my feet in frustration, but a more pressing need to know where I am and what happened gnaws at me. I shift my weight on the hard bunk beneath my butt as the wall—

Vibrates? Before I can drag open my eyes to survey my surroundings, my ears pop and a loud whoosh shakes me.

I don’t move. Take slow, deep breaths. Focus.

I know where I am, but I can’t believe it.

I’m on a train.

I always feel the pressure in my ears when another train passes the opposite way at a high speed. We must be traveling more than a hundred and fifty, sixty miles an hour. Trainà Grande Vitesse, a high-speed train. I didn’t realize it before because I don’t hear the usual clickety-clack as the train wheels go over the tracks. The TGV rails are longer and fit close together between the joints.

So I’m on a train, the prospect of which intrigues me.

But where am I going? And who is the man laughing?

What the hell happened to me?

“He’s dead,” I hear him say. Who’s dead? He must be speaking into a cell phone, or so I assume. He can’t be talking to me.

“No, I got there too late,” he continues, hesitating, then: “Yes, he was alone.”