The Babel Codex (2 page)

Chapter Two

“I just thought we’d have some fun. You know, take the abandoned trading fort to the next level.” Burris Coronet was a big, handsome guy in his mid-thirties. He had surfer-boy hair, bronze skin and hazel eyes—not unlike her own—which she could only see after he pushed his sunglasses up on his head. Titanium aviator sunglasses like the ones Brad Pitt favored. Dressed in slim-fit tan chinos, a baby-blue cotton pullover under a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tails left out and Doc Martens, he could have passed as a beach bum.

Except that his hundred-watt megasmile—a cross between boyish and a shark’s feral grin—was plastered across billboards all over California. Burris Coronet, as Doug had been reminding Annja, was a Big Deal. He was a shock jock of the airwaves, what some were calling the next Howard Stern.

Annja wasn’t a Burris Coronet fan. She’d listened to a few of his taped shows in her hotel room after Doug had called to say Burris wanted to meet her while he was in Ethiopia. Burris was a hatchet man on the airwaves, attacking whomever and whatever he pleased with impunity. She still didn’t know why so many people liked his show. Or him.

In person, at least over the past couple days, he was toned down. More obnoxious than confrontational. Annja thought maybe Burris was still trying to find her hot buttons. She’d been good at deflecting him.

The skeleton, however, had been a tipping point.
Now
he was infuriating.

“Having a drunken skeleton jump me in the dark was your idea of fun?” With her arms crossed over her heavy, olive-drab T-shirt, Annja stared up at Burris, despite that she herself was a good five foot ten.

Burris held his palms up in a placating gesture. “Hey, the guy wasn’t supposed to jump you.”

“He did.”

They stood in one of the rooms unearthed in the dig, not far from where she’d had the last encounter with the skeleton, which had been carried out on a gurney. He’d last been heard in his falsetto voice threatening to sue Burris.

Ten feet by twenty feet, the room had probably been used for storage when the trading post had been a viable operation several centuries ago. Roots erupted from the walls, and several tendrils that looked like spaghetti stuck down in places. The stink of fresh earth filled the room.

The dig’s location outside Addis Ababa was a building, an abandoned hotel that dated to World War I. Communities tended to build on older cities. People evolved over time, but they didn’t move away as long as the resources were there.

“I know. I heard.” Burris grinned and nodded, then pulled out an earpiece. “He was rigged with a body mic. Got the whole thing on tape.”

The archaeology team had set up a small desk in this room, which provided enough space for three laptop computers and preliminary identification tools. Recovered items were logged in at the workstation, then transported outside where they were further documented and cataloged. Electrical cords connected to the generator, which throbbed distantly outside, crisscrossed the floor, powering the laptops and the electric lanterns hanging on the walls. And, apparently, enabled Burris to rig “skeletons” with body mics.

“Man, the sound of him hitting that wall is awesome!
Splat.
Pure gold. That is going to play beautifully when we put this special together.”

A radio show about Annja’s time in Addis Ababa with Burris was, as Doug Morrell had pointed out, advertising
Chasing History’s Monsters
simply couldn’t afford to buy. A special segment was supposed to be a gift. Burris’s
Unacceptable!
was a soapbox statement against everything he disagreed with. But what sealed the deal with Doug was Burris’s agreement to reciprocate with a cameo on the TV episode Annja was there to film.

She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She’d worn it pulled back off her neck because this meet was supposed to be all about business. Hence her khaki cargo shorts and hiking boots. “Your friend has a broken nose and a possible concussion.”

The skeleton had been loaded up by one of the archaeology students and driven back to the city for treatment.

Burris shook his head and counted off on his fingers as he said, “First of all, he’s not a friend, just some guy I hired out of a bar who fit the skeleton suit. Second, a guy who gets handsy with a woman without her permission gets whatever is coming to him. I’m just glad you were able to take care of yourself.”

He sounded so sincere that Annja was tempted to believe him. However, she’d heard him sound sincere on the radio show when he wasn’t. He was good at acting innocent. He’d probably been doing it since he was a kid. He was thirty-five going on nine.

“Third, this whole rooting around in the dirt thing is getting pretty boring.” He glanced meaningfully around the room. “Can you imagine me telling my listeners about digging in the dirt?”

“Then why did Doug tell me you wanted to do this segment?”

He snorted dismissively, ignoring her. “My gardener, Luis, and his guys could go through this place faster than the people working here.” He paused as he had a new thought. “I hope they’re not getting paid by the hour. Man, talk about milking it.”

Annja made herself count to ten the way she’d been cautioned back in the orphanage in New Orleans where she’d been raised. Around Burris the past few days, she’d been counting to ten a lot.

“Most of these people are
not
getting paid. They’re college students helping Professor Sordi for college credit or experience they can put on their résumés.”

Shaking his head, Burris turned to the nearest graduate student, a spindly guy who reminded Annja of Sheldon Cooper on
The Big Bang Theory
. “Say, pal...”

The grad student looked at Burris, blinked, looked at Annja, blinked again, then looked back at Burris. “Yes?”

“You’re not getting paid for digging?”

“No. I’m a graduate assistant to Dr. Sordi.” His English was flawless, but held a hint of Florence.

“Then why are you here?”

The student took a step back and raised his iPad as a barrier between Burris and himself. “To gain experience, to enhance my résumé and to learn what I can of this place. Getting chosen for this dig was a very fortunate thing for me.”

“You call reeking of dirt, sweating yourself stupid and being trapped underground
fortunate?
”

The grad student blinked again. “No, I call discovering this Aksumite trading fort fortunate. You couldn’t drive me from this place with all the bulls in Pamplona.”

“You ever run with the bulls there?”

The grad student shifted uncomfortably. “No. It was simply a meta—”

“Well, I have.
Three
times.” Burris hiked up a shirt sleeve to reveal a long scar. “Got that my second time.” He reached for his belt buckle. “Third time, I got gored in the—”

Face burning with embarrassment, the grad student turned to the artifacts in front of him. “Please excuse me. I must return to my work.”

Burris looked at Annja. “You want to see my scar?”

“If you show it to me, you’re going to have a bed next to your skeleton and that scar will never look the same.”

A wide grin split Burris’s face as he released his belt buckle. “Maybe after we get to know each other a little better.”

“Trust me, we’ll
never
know each other that well.”

“Ouch.” Burris drew back and frowned. “Your guy Doogie said you could be difficult.”

“Doug.”

“Whatever.”

“I was told you had something to show me.”

“I tried.” Burris grinned.

Annja just stared at him.

“Wow. Total flame-out there, I guess.” Burris gestured to one of the tunnels. “I wanted to show you some stuff that’s been recovered. Get your take on them for your show.”

“What
stuff?
”

“C’mon. You’ll see.” Plucking a flashlight from one of the nearby tables, Burris headed off down the tunnel.

Reluctantly, wishing she could get back to helping Professor Sordi and his team, Annja followed.

Chapter Three

“I wanted to do something more interesting than playing
in the sandbox with the other kiddies.” Flashlight in hand, Burris entered
another excavated room in the older section of the dig that didn’t relate to the
original find or the Aksumite discovery. “Thought maybe I’d show you some
artifacts that a few of the local tomb raiders have dug up. Get your take on
them.”

Doug
,
you
so
owe me.
Annja stepped into the
room and felt as if she’d entered a Hollywood set. The earthen walls stood out
in sharp relief under the camcorder lights and other lights. The wall to Annja’s
right was covered with artifacts that looked hundreds of years old but weren’t.
They were knockoffs that tourists bought in the
mercato
, the city’s large open market.

Thick, apelike skulls occupied center stage of the
presentation. Given the flaring cheekbones and pronounced canine teeth, Annja
felt certain the skulls were based on Lucy and Ramidus, two hominid skeletons
recovered from the area.

Around them, fake jewelry, period costumes and stone weapons
hung on the wall. A mummified monkey in swaddling clothes sat on the ground
beneath them, its glass eyes gleaming. The monkey mummy’s feet were perched on a
clay brick. Nearby, a bronze lion wearing a crown tipped at a jaunty angle
carried a pennant. A small collection of pottery sat on either side.

Two young male camera operators stood on the other side of the
large room filming Annja and Burris as they entered. Part of Burris’s entourage,
they’d mostly stayed in the bars with their boss.

Burris immediately ratcheted up his showman performance. “And
here she is, folks, your favorite archaeologist, fresh from the historic dig in
Addis Ababa where an old site from the Kingdom of Aksum has recently been found
by Dr. Vittorio Sordi, of the Università degli Studi di Milano.”

The radio personality’s flawless Italian caught Annja by
surprise.

“For those of you who don’t know Dr. Sordi, he has uncovered
two previous rare digs. He was involved in the discovery of the first complete
Etruscan house at Poggiarello Renzetti in Vetulonia, Italy, in 2010, and in the
dig site of the
vampire
skull on the island of
Lazzaretto Nuovo in 2009.” Burris smiled. “Ooooh, vampires! Wish we could have
been there for that?” He mugged for the camera. “Me, too. Dr. Sordi gets around,
but not nearly as much as the beautiful Annja Creed.”

Burris waved Annja forward.

She folded her arms and frowned at him. She
so
did not want to be part of whatever freak show the
radio personality had planned. “It would have been nice to have gotten prepped
for this.”

One of the cameramen looked up. “Want us to cut, boss?”

“No.” Burris waved a hand in a circular motion and kept his
eyes on Annja. “Keep rolling. We’ll edit and clean up later. We can work with
this.”

Struggling to keep from getting angry, knowing that Doug had
spoken the truth when he’d said Burris Coronet and his radio show could bring
attention to
Chasing History’s Monsters
, Annja
forced herself to look around the room.

“Do you recognize anything, Ms. Creed?” Burris’s tone was
singsong, stopping millimeters short of taunting.

“Other than the fact that most of these artifacts are souvenirs
from the market?” Still, there was something about that clay brick under the
mummy’s feet that sparked her interest.

“Hey.” Burris had lost some of his jokey demeanor. “These are
first-class fake artifacts. The best money can buy. I had guys scrounging the
city looking for this stuff.” He picked up a spear from where it leaned against
the wall and brandished it.

The spear looked like it might have been genuine. It was almost
five and a half feet long, and the narrow fluted blade was at least eighteen
inches long. At least the spearhead looked like it might be real. The haft was a
fairly recent addition.

“Do you know what this is?” Burris whipped the blade around
theatrically, spinning it end over end with skill that showed martial arts
experience.

“Ethiopian military spear. Probably dates back to the mid- to
late 1800s. The government checked them in and out as warriors needed them.
Which was often given this country’s history. The spearhead looks original, but
that haft is a definite new addition. If the spearhead is that old, it probably
went missing in the 1990s when an accidental explosion destroyed the government
arsenal.”

Burris halted the spear’s spin and gazed more critically at the
weapon before shifting his attention back to Annja. “How do you know the
explosion was
accidental?
”

Ignoring the question, Annja knelt on the floor and looked at
the clay brick beneath the mummified monkey’s feet. She set her backpack on the
ground within easy reach. The brick was plain and chipped, ancient. It was
square instead of rectangular as most modern-day bricks were made. The light tan
color showed some wear, but the brick was cleaner and in better shape than Annja
would have thought possible.

“Ah, the monkey got you, right?” Burris put down the spear and
picked up the mummified monkey. “I thought it might. Who can resist a dead
monkey all wrapped up like a baby?” He prodded one of the exposed feet with a
forefinger. “Looks like he could just reach out and grab your finger, doesn’t
he?”

Annja ignored Burris and took a mini-Maglite from her pocket.
She turned on the flash and played the beam over the brick. Spotting writing on
the brick’s face now that it was revealed, she took out a brush from her shirt
pocket and whisked the dust away.

“You’re passing up a dead baby monkey for a rock?”

“That monkey isn’t a baby, it’s an adult.”

“It’s still little.” Burris looked the monkey in the face.
“Kind of cute in a dreadful, ugly sort of way. But it’s too big to put on a key
chain or hang from a rearview mirror. Probably give that taco dog a run for his
enchiladas, though.”

Pulling her 35mm camera out of her backpack, Annja took
pictures of the brick. “Where did you get this?”

“The brick?”

“Yes.”

“I dunno.” Burris held the monkey by its hands and made it
dance. The cameramen closed in on the sight, cracking up. “I paid some vendors
at the market to bring some stuff over. Can’t believe you don’t love the monkey
more than a paperweight.”

After she put the camera away, Annja gently lifted the brick
from the floor.

“Why are you so interested in the brick?”

“Because out of everything here, I think it’s real.” The brick
weighed less than it looked like it would. Ancient bricks were made out of soil,
water and dried grass. Once they’d been baked, though, they turned out
extremely durable, lasting thousands of years.

“No crap?” Burris tossed the mummified monkey to one of the
cameramen, who scrambled to make a one-handed catch but failed.

The monkey hit the floor at the same time three men with
pistols clenched in their fists stepped through the door at the other end of the
room.