The Stone of Archimedes (5 page)

The senator laughed and then kicked his horse hard while letting up some on the reins, sending his horse into a quick trot. He could hear his lawyer and advisor screaming like a little girl as his gelding rushed to keep up with its mother, bringing a satisfying smile to the senator's face.

Rome, Italy

Having caught the first flight out of Trapani, Sicily, Jake Adams was dragging slightly from lack of sleep. The Tunisian prison was terrible, but not the worst he'd ever experienced. That record went to his extended stay at a former Soviet prison, where the GRU had tortured him relentlessly and gotten nothing for their Draconian efforts. Nothing but bogus misinformation. Jake's favorite weapon.

But Jake's lack of sleep the previous night came from the quiet hotel where he had stayed. That, and the fact that he had to keep one eye open for those two Greeks he had run across on the ferry, made for some marginal rest. In fact, he had gotten more sleep on the small commuter flight from Trapani to Rome, with a quick stop in Palermo.

Now, closing in on noon, his mind drifted as the taxi he was riding in from Leonardo Di Vinci Airport to the Sapienza Università di Roma near the Roma Termini, the main train station of Rome, came to a halt at the curb. Considering it was summer, Jake thought the place looked very active, with young coeds in shorts and halter tops strolling along the sidewalks much like they did anywhere else in the world. The main entrance to the university resembled the main gate for a military installation.

He paid the driver and stepped off toward the gate, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. Earlier that morning, before getting on the plane, he had wiped down the Glock he'd taken from the Greek and dropped it in a bathroom trash can. He could have simply shoved it into baggage, if he had more than the small backpack, but he couldn't trust that the Italian authorities wouldn't find it. Since he had never shot the gun anyway, he couldn't be sure of its accuracy or reliability. However, he was quite familiar with Rome, having worked there with the Agency and after, and knew a few places to get his hands on a reliable weapon.

The man at the gate entrance gave Jake a map of the campus, which looked like an elaborate maze. Being the largest campus in Europe, with nearly 150,000 students, he would have been lost without the map, even though he had been to the campus a few times in the past.

It took Jake twenty minutes to make it to the building that housed the Museum of the Near East, where he expected to find Professor Carlo Bretti. According to Jake's information, Sara Halsey Jones had been directed to Professor Bretti after her research in Athens. There was no reason to go all the way to Greece, since she more than likely had been gone from there a long time ago. As far as Jake knew, there was no report of the other two investigators getting beyond Rome. In fact, based on the map and what he had seen so far, Sara Halsey Jones could be hiding right here at the campus, blending in with students and faculty. She looked young enough to pass for a grad student.

Jake found Professor Carlo Bretti hunched over a desk in his basement office of the museum, his eyes concentrating on an object under a magnified light.

“Excuse me,” Jake said, not even bothering with Italian, since he knew the professor spoke English. He introduced himself with only his name. Not who he was or who he represented.

The professor didn't even look up at Jake. “Another American? I can't believe this many people are interested in pre-Roman culture.” His English was better than that of most Americans.

Stepping into the office and his eyes glancing about the room at a jumble of ancient items, from manuscripts to artifacts, Jake said, “I'm not here to discuss ancient artifacts. I'm here looking for something thirty-five years old. One Sara Halsey Jones.”

With her name mentioned, the professor raised his head and turned to consider Jake. He was completely bald but made up for that lack of hair with a full beard, six inches long, gray and with specks of his lunch still intact. “What do you want with Sara?”

Jake thought about what approach to use. He could be coy and the good professor would surely see through that. The direct approach seemed best. “Professor, I was sent to find Sara. She was due to return to her teaching position in Texas weeks ago. They're worried about her.” Okay, this was a lie. But it was close to the truth.

“Interesting,” the professor said as he returned to his work. “Another man came here looking for her last week. I guess he didn't find her. But I'll tell you the same thing I told him. She came here to discuss the works of a Greek historian named Polybius. She was referred to me by a colleague of mine in Athens. I told her what I knew, which wasn't much.”

Jake moved closer to the professor. “Such as?”

Professor Bretti turned to Jake and said, “Didn't the other man tell you anything?”

“He's missing. What did you tell Professor Jones?” This came out as more of a demand than a question, a fault of Jake's short attention span and overall disposition.

The professor cleared his throat and turned to confront this new American. “I told her to talk with an old friend of mine, a former professor.”

Jake just had to know something. “Who was Polybius?”

Professor Bretti's eyes widened. “Who was your John Adams?” He hesitated but not long enough for an answer. “The man was perhaps the most important historian in Greco-Roman history. Although he was a Greek, he spent his adult life in Rome. He chronicled the Roman defeat of Hannibal and the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC. The American founders, including John Adams, used his idea of separation of powers in the American Constitution. Polybius wrote his
Histories
in forty volumes, covering more than fifty years of Roman history. But it's more than that. His writings helped develop the Roman Republic and many civilizations since then. He even talked of the opposite nefarious counterpart to the republic. Europe has seen this firsthand.”

And should have heeded the Greek's warning. “And what is Professor Sara Halsey Jones interested in understanding?”

The professor shuffled some papers on his desk as if looking for something. Finally he found a piece of scrap paper with nothing on it and he scribbled something in pen. Then he handed the note to Jake.

He studied the name and the address, but he was confused. “This is Istanbul.”

“That's correct. Only five of the forty volumes in the Polybius
Histories
remain intact. Before Istanbul there was Constantinople. Before that it was Byzantium, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
The Histories
, what remain of them, were all written in Greek and are housed at that museum.”

Now Jake was thoroughly confused. “But I'm guessing there would be no way for Sara Halsey Jones to gain access to these ancient texts.”

The professor shook his head. “The five volumes and the excerpts from the other volumes are all available online, translated to English. You can probably download a copy to your cell phone from Amazon.”

“Then why would I want to go to Istanbul?” Jake asked.

“I sent Sara to Venice to talk with a former professor from this university. He was the expert on Polybius and his works. This friend of mine called me last week and told me that Professor Halsey Jones had been there and seemed convinced that she could find the lost volumes.”

“A week ago?” That's the closest anyone had gotten to Sara's current location. It meant she was still out there somewhere.

“Yes. He sent her to Istanbul, not to read
The Histories
in their original Greek, but to talk with another historian. The man whose name I just gave you.”

“Does this man speak English?” Jake asked.

The professor shook his head. “Turkish is his native tongue. But he speaks and reads Italian, Latin, Greek, and I believe Arabic.”

Great. Jake could get by in Italian, but not on an advanced intellectual level. Besides, he wasn't sure he wanted to go to Turkey. He had made a number of enemies in Turkish Kurdistan a number of years ago, and those folks had great memories. Also, that was a week ago. Sara could have moved on somewhere else by now. “Would you please call this man and see if Sara made it there?” Jake felt his pockets and realized he had gotten rid of his cell phone in Sicily.

Professor Bretti raised his finger and picked up the phone on his desk. After punching in a number from memory, he waited. Finally, he started speaking very quickly in Italian. Jake picked up about fifty percent of what was being said. Finally the professor put the phone against his chest and said to Jake, “She was there until two days ago.”

“Does he know where she went?”

The professor asked his friend this and then listened. He seemed to have a concerned look on his face.

“What?” Jake asked.

“He said two men came there yesterday asking similar questions. Just a minute.” The professor talked fast again, almost arguing based on his tone. Then he smiled, thanked the man and hung up.

“That didn't sound good,” Jake said.

“My friend said the two men were from the Turkish Ministry of Culture, but he doubted that. Regardless, they had credentials and he was forced to tell them all about Professor Sara Halsey Jones.”

“And what was that?”

“Just that she had been there until the day before studying
The Histories
by Polybius. They had no idea who that was, which is why the professor suspected they were not who they said they were.”

“Where did Sara go after leaving Istanbul?”

The professor laughed and said, “Where indeed. My friend told them she came back here to see me. But she didn't come here.”

“He lied to the men?”

“Yes. Sara actually went to Malta.”

“Malta? Why there?”

“He didn't know for sure. Something she read in
The Histories
. It turns out Sara is quite fluent in Greek. But she wouldn't tell him what she was seeking. She said he could read about it when her book came out.”

Jake was used to cases going from screwy to incomprehensible, but this one seemed to be taking that track much quicker than any other. Although he was confused by all this, he couldn't get all caught up in the why of her disappearance when he really needed to know the where of her current location.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” Jake asked.

“I'm sure Sara is fine,” Professor Bretti said. “She's a very determined woman. Brilliant as well. She's more than likely just caught up in her research somewhere.”

Wishing that was the case also, Jake started for the door and stopped when the professor got up from his desk.

“Just a minute,” Professor Bretti said. “I meant to ask you if you were distantly related to John Adams.”

“I don't know. One of my uncles once told me we were descendents of Samuel Adams, which would also make us related to John and his son.”

“Interesting. I could be talking with a remnant.”

Jake thanked the good professor and gave the man his e-mail and cell phone number, just in case Sara came back. He would need to get a new cell phone and activate it with his sim card. Walking upstairs to the bright skies of Rome, he wandered down the old cobblestone sidewalk toward the main gate. He was hungry and still tired. But at least he had a direction. Jake had been to Malta only once while with the Agency. A Russian GRU officer, Soviet at the time, wanted to defect and Jake was tasked to bring the man in. Jake had done his job, getting the man all the way back to Langley for a debriefing and light interrogation. But the man died within a week from some strange illness. So much for freedom. Couldn't handle fresh air and real food.

Instead of grabbing a cab, he walked off toward the train station a few blocks from the main gate of Sapienza Università di Roma.

●

Just as their target got to the sidewalk outside the main gate of the university and seemed to be looking for a taxi, the Greek in the passenger side of a dark blue Fiat van nodded his head toward the man. “There he is,” Demetri said to the driver. Demetri had been a captain in the Greek army years ago, had worked with Zendo, and had been put in charge of the Rome operation. His thick black hair stuck straight up like that of a hedgehog. This wasn't a fashion statement on Demetri's part, it was just the way his hair grew without using a thick gel to tame it somewhat. He ran his stubby fingers through his locks now, a nervous habit that reminded him he needed a haircut soon.

In the back of the van another man leaned forward for a better view. “He doesn't look that dangerous,” Niko said, his thick jaw tightening with each word. He was the biggest and strongest of the three in the van, but had only been a corporal in the army, having worked for both Demetri and Zendo during his years of service. He owed his life to Demetri, who had saved him from a sniper's bullet during a peace-keeping mission in the Baltics. And he owed his freedom to Zendo, who had testified on his behalf during a court's martial following an incident that had killed a group of civilians when he had called in an airstrike in Iraq. Niko was still haunted by the images of those killed, even though he knew these things happened in the fog of war. His biceps were the size of the thighs on most men. The result of daily weight lifting.

“He just about broke the arm of your cousin on the ferry from Tunis to Sicily,” Demetri explained to his young friend. “He did take his gun. Then he somehow lost them in the tiny city of Trapani. They only found out he took a flight to Rome after the plane had already taken off.”

“Hard to believe,” Niko said, settling back into a bench seat. “My cousin can almost lift as much weight as me.”

“I was sent a full briefing on this Jake Adams from Zendo himself. If he is a believer, you should be as well.”

Kyros, the driver, peered over the top of the steering wheel, pointing a finger toward the target. He was a short, stocky man, with wispy hair that tried desperately to hide his bald pate. Secretly he wished Demetri could give him some of his hair. “Should we follow him?”