Healer of Carthage (3 page)

Nigel shook his head. “Too much political unrest in Egypt.” He swiped his brow with his sleeve. “I’m going to have to sneak this crate down Libya’s spine, then fly smack dab over blisterin’ sand to get to your old man.”

“When has working for the great Professor Hastings ever been easy?” Lisbeth belted in.

“Even with the added patrols, that godforsaken sandbox he’s diggin’ in again ain’t no place for a camel, let alone a pretty lass.”

Lisbeth retrieved the letter and showed Nigel the single sheet of notebook paper. “What does ‘found your mother’ mean?”

Nigel glanced at the shaky script. “That I best be haulin’ your arse to that cave, I reckon.”

“Don’t you think twenty-three years is a long time to hope for the impossible?”

Nigel patted her hand. “When hope’s all a person’s got, they can act a little daft.”

“Daft?” She slipped the letter back into the envelope, fear thumping in her chest. Had years in the sun fried the brain of the man who’d taught her how to use a soft-bristle toothbrush to free a fragile artifact from its tomb, or how to layer tobacco leaves in the meerschaum bowl of a calabash pipe, or how to search the stars to find the one that would always lead her home? “You don’t really think Papa’s losing it, do you, Nigel?”

“You wouldn’t spend your life looking for your lost love?” Nigel folded into his seat. “Bet the man that put that rock on your left hand would be a bit disappointed if you said no.”

Craig had been conveniently tied up in surgery during her morbidity and mortality conference. His testimony might have smoothed things over, but he hadn’t wanted to risk tarnishing his reputation defending her mistake . . . or her.

“Are you going to help me get Papa out of there or not?”

Nigel’s sigh vibrated his mustache. He slammed the door and revved the engine. The plane bounced toward a cluster of fishermen’s dwellings blocking the end of the airstrip. At the last possible second, Nigel pulled hard on the stick. The plane’s nose lifted. They skimmed over several flat roofs.

Lisbeth used her sleeve to wipe grime from the window. “Can we buzz the Roman ruins?” She glanced at Nigel. “For old times’ sake?”

A crooked grin lifted his mustache. They banked toward the shimmering emerald waters.

“I forgot how beautiful it is here.” Lisbeth pressed her nose to the glass.

Passing centuries had taken a bite out of Carthage’s circular historical treasure. A few crumbling stone walls, a smattering of stubby pillars, and a steady stream of cruise ship tourists were all that remained of the ancient harbor that once ported Rome’s powerful navy. Like Papa, she despised the visitors who tramped through archaeological ruins with their new sneakers, cheap guidebooks, and total disregard for the forgotten. Maybe she should have become an archaeologist like Papa instead of trying to fulfill his wish that she be more like Mama. Mummies didn’t circle the drain and die without warning.

Lisbeth let her hand slip inside her pants pocket. She fingered the steel bell of the stethoscope engraved with the initial
M
. Mama was the real doctor. If Papa was slipping mentally, Mama should be here making the decisions. That’s what families do. They take care of each other, support each other, and make decisions together. They don’t disappear and never come back.

“Seen enough?” Nigel shouted over the roar of the engine.

She could never get enough of this exotic land she’d once called home, but she gave a reluctant nod. Nigel cranked the stick. The
plane abruptly circled back toward the scrappy mountain range that sliced this huge continent into two very different worlds.

They cleared a series of barren peaks and a thin ribbon of grassland. Miles of sand stretched in every direction. Unlike the lesser deserts that dotted the globe, the Sahara had varying degrees of hell, each one more damnable than the last. Of course, her father
would
choose to make camp in the most condemned sector.

Blinding sunlight warmed the tiny cockpit. Lisbeth fought claustrophobia by allowing the rising heat and steady engine hum to quickly sedate her. She slept, deep and hard, for the first time since Abra’s death.

Several hours later, Nigel elbowed her awake. “Cave’s up ahead.”

Lisbeth shifted and dug at her eyes. In the distance, the immense flat-topped shelf of Gilf Kebir rose from the desert floor. The plane skimmed a series of highland cliffs, then dropped over the edge into the Aqaba Pass, a dry river valley lined with huge white dunes.

Twenty-three years ago her family had approached the cave from the ground, yet even from this totally new perspective, she immediately recognized the strange rock formation. The upside-down ice cream cone had haunted her dreams since she was five.

In the shade of the giant conical granite, Lisbeth spotted tents. Fear, nerves, and excitement tangled in her throat.

“Shall I buzz ’em?” Nigel teased.

She shrugged. “Aisa will poison your supper.”

“That dodgy fry cook’s been tryin’ to kill me for years. Might as well give him a reason.”

“It’s your funeral.” Lisbeth’s stomach tightened over the memory of Queenie saying those exact same words right before Abra’s Code Blue.

Nigel whizzed low over the makeshift settlement, tipping the
wings at the series of white tarps stretched over PVC poles. A wiry little man, his head wrapped like a sheik, hopped around, shaking his fist at the sky.

Lisbeth released a nervous laugh. “It’ll be camel chips for you tonight, Nigel.” A flash of metal on the bluff quickly sobered her. “What’s with the armed guard?”

“The good professor’s sittin’ on a volcano about to blow. Government’s threatening to shut him down.”

“After they just let him in?”

“Bandits.”

“Oh.” Maybe she shouldn’t have ignored the international travel warnings. She slid Craig’s engagement ring over her knuckle and slipped it into her pocket for safekeeping. “The skeleton of a twenty-first-century woman can’t be worth
that
much on the antiquities market.”

“It’s the water they want.”

“Well, who doesn’t in the desert?” Lisbeth remembered Papa’s insistence that a labyrinth of underground caverns, full of fresh water from rains that occurred over ten thousand years ago, existed thousands of feet beneath the Sahara’s sand. “Papa couldn’t possibly have tapped those subterranean aquifers.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Hard tellin’ with the professor.”

“How many guards?”

Nigel looked over his shoulder, his eyes meeting hers. “Not enough,” he said. “Not nearly enough, lass.”

The plane touched down with a jolt. Sand pelted the fuselage. Nigel held a steady course toward the cave. Two wheels sliced through the crusty riverbed, leaving a deep incision that rivaled the work of an accomplished surgeon.

Lisbeth’s mouth went dry.

Time had changed the size of the cave. Or had time changed her? The entire geological structure seemed smaller than she
remembered, not nearly the mammoth demon of her memory. Yet, something about returning to the place she’d hated for years felt like coming home.

They taxied to a stop less than thirty yards short of her reckoning with Papa.

She fiddled with the latch on her seat belt. Someone yanked open the passenger door. Heat engulfed the cabin.

“Lisbeth.” Her father’s cook smiled up at her, his mouth a dental student’s dream of rotting or missing teeth. He held out two stringy arms.

“Aisa!” Lisbeth bailed from the plane.

“I told the professor that when the moon was right, you’d come.” Aisa’s Arabic had an Egyptian spice, mild with a surprising afterburn. His scraggly beard, a bit grayer than she remembered, had not been trimmed since she left for med school. Duct tape held together dark-framed glasses that sported thick lenses etched by the desert winds. The vision correction magnified his black eyes to twice their normal size.

Lisbeth gave the camp a quick survey. Except for a muscled man toting a cooking drum to the shade of a tarp, the place appeared deserted. “Where is he?”

“Hardly eats. Digs in the cave all hours of the day and night.”

“I’ll fetch Papa, Aisa.”

While Aisa and Nigel continued their ongoing battle over the missing supplies, sand in the soup, and who had the bigger grievance against whom, she set out for the cave.

“Papa,” she called.

“Beetle Bug!” Papa’s radio-perfect bass boomed from the cave entrance. “You came.” His unbuttoned, faded chambray shirt flapped behind his lean body as his long legs ate up the distance with the agility of a man half his age. “My beautiful girl.” He scooped her into his arms and twirled around.

Lisbeth held on tight, burying her nose in the smell of pipe tobacco and dust. “I missed you, Papa.”

“Your mother will be so glad you’ve come.”

“Mother?”

He set her on the ground, clasped her shoulders, and leaned back. They exchanged their first up-close looks at each other. He’d aged ten years in the six months since her med school graduation. Why had his physical health declined so rapidly? She didn’t know what she’d do if his mental capacity had followed suit.

“
Doctor
Hastings.” The prideful way her father said “doctor,” as if his dreams had materialized and she had miraculously become just like her mother.

It seemed he was not so mentally gone that he’d lost his expectations. The truth of her failure would gut him like a double-edged sword. How could she disappoint the man who’d taught her everything he knew and sacrificed so much to send her to learn more? She couldn’t tell him, not until she knew for sure how much he could handle.

Trying to forget that her father was carrying on as if a dead woman were busy in the camp kitchen, Lisbeth said, “Let me look at
you
, Papa.”

Hazel eyes clear, focused, free of cataracts, and completely without a trace of the insanity she’d anticipated. Papa appeared more than lucid. In fact, this brilliant son of an Arkansas chicken farmer seemed sharper than ever. But she knew not to get ahead of herself. Accurately diagnosing dementia or Alzheimer’s required more than an initial evaluation. She needed a complete medical history, a mental status evaluation, a clinical examination, and a battery of lab tests. Even if Papa managed to jump through all of those hoops, she wouldn’t have a definitive diagnosis. Time was the truest test.

Lisbeth pulled free of her father’s grasp. “When can I see
Mama?” She couldn’t help quizzing him to see if he’d abandon this impossible notion.

Papa’s eyes shot toward the cave, then darted back to her. “There’s time. Let’s get you settled, Beetle Bug.”

Her father’s tent had been arranged to his usual meticulous specifications. A Coleman lantern sat upon a wooden trunk wedged between two cots. An extra pair of work boots waited at the foot of Papa’s perfectly made bed, socks pulled over the openings to keep out sand and snakes. Neat stacks of reference books on the Roman Empire took up every other spare inch of space. The warped card table sagged under his selection of brushes, trowels, stakes, and string. She noted that a stack of small brown paper bags designed to hold recovered artifacts appeared untouched. So far, Papa had collected nothing.

“Papa, exactly what have you found?”

“A way for you to forgive me.” Had her resentment been so obvious? It must have, because instead of giving her a straight answer like the papa she knew would have, he quickly changed the subject. “We have forever to catch up.” He kissed her forehead. “Rest.”

The retreat of Papa’s boots upon the sand stirred to life eerie similarities to the night her mother had walked away from this very place and never come back. Papa’s outlandish claims reminded Lisbeth that there was more than one way her father could leave her alone.

What would she do if she lost Papa, too? If she could no longer access the brilliant heart and soul of a man who had made her feel cherished, despite the empty spot created on that night so many years ago?

Lawrence Hastings was the only family she had left, and she would fight to keep him.

3

Cave of the Swimmers

T
HE AROMA OF LAMB
kabobs roasting on a spit prodded Lisbeth from a fitful nap. She poured water into a tin basin, splashed her face, and finger-combed her hair into a thick ponytail.

Feeling inadequate to tackle her father’s possible declining mental health, Lisbeth left the tent and joined Aisa at the Land Rover.

“Where’s Papa?”

Aisa alternated between slinging balls of bread dough onto the truck hood and flattening the rounds into tortillas with a jack handle. “Where he’s been since he claimed he saw your mother. At that blasted cave.”

“Have you seen her?”

Aisa handed her a pronged grilling fork. “Fry the pitas. Take your mind off your worries.”

Her question had clearly made Aisa uncomfortable. Had he seen her mother’s spirit drifting among the dunes? Was he worried she’d freak out if he said something? She remembered Aisa’s insistence that the cave was haunted on her family’s first expedition. Considering how upset the little fry cook had been after Mama’s disappearance, she couldn’t believe Papa had talked him into returning. Papa was lucky to have such a friend, someone who’d stand up for him no matter what.

Just as the sun began to drop behind the plateau, ten armed
guards hustled Papa from the cave and back into camp. Guns slung over their shoulders, they eyed her carefully as they shoveled mounds of charbroiled lamb onto the fried cakes. Most of them appeared to be Libyan nationals. If a border war erupted, a few dinars would not keep them loyal to Papa. No wonder Nigel did not consider Papa adequately protected.

“Join us at the fire.” Papa took the fork from Lisbeth’s hand. “I’m anxious to hear about this doctor who wants my daughter’s hand in marriage.” He cupped her chin. “Another doctor in the family. Your mama will be so proud.”

Lisbeth cringed at the confusion bottled in his words. Caring for her father seemed a bigger job than she was prepared to handle. She wiped her hands on her pants. “Let me get my sweatshirt, and I’ll tell you about him.”