clung to her stubbornness because it was her only shield—and her only weapon. “Well, I have not. Thomas Lourds risked his life to protect me, and I am not going to desert him as long as I think I can help him.”
Her father was quiet for a moment. “So...am I to tell your mother that you are not coming home?”
“I have already told her that.”
“All right. But if you get into trouble that you see is over your head and beyond your ability to deal with, please let me know. If it is within my power, I will help you.”
Anna knew she had to give him something. He was her father. “I will. You have my promise.”
“Thank you.” He seemed a little more at ease. “This man that is pursuing you, Anna, you said you have a picture?”
“I do.”
“Send it to me, please. I will see what I can do to learn his name. Perhaps it will help you and Professor Lourds.”
“All right. Do you want me to send it to your personal e-mail?”
“No. Let me send an e-mail to you. Attach it to that one and send it back.”
Anna understood then. Her father—the general—was always watched.
“This is not to hide my involvement with you, Anna. Anyone who knows me knows I would do anything in my power to protect you.”
“I know.” Hot tears brushed at the back of her eyes, and her chin quivered a little.
“However, I want to keep our business private. You understand?”
“Yes. And thank you.”
“I only hope I can help.” He told her goodbye and that he loved her, then he hung up.
For a moment longer, Anna looked at the picture of her father on the cell phone. Then she wiped the tears from her face, not knowing why they were there, and turned her attention back to her computer.
29
Safe House
Kandahar
Kandahar Province
Afghanistan
February 15, 2013
After the bath, Layla had excused herself and left the room. Lourds knew she didn’t want to step too far outside the boundaries of her culture while they were in her country. He respected that, but he resented it at the same time.
She had told him that she knew he wanted to work anyway, which was true, but he still felt that separation.
He sat at the desk with the scrolls spread out before him, next to the notes in his journal that he’d made while reading them in Herat. While going through the scrolls again, he referred to his notes and paid attention to repetitive narrative and how the scribe, Callisthenes, had put his writing together. Even though the coded section was different, some of the narrative architecture would be the same. Finding the thread to pull the translation together was going to be difficult.
Someone knocked on the door.
Lourds swung around in the chair, instantly wary. There was still no word on the men who had attacked them. “Yes.”
“Dinner is ready.” Layla spoke through the door.
“I’m on my way.” Lourds hadn’t realized until that moment that he was starving. He reached for his hat out of habit, then left it sitting on the desk. He let himself out and smiled at Layla.
“How is the work going?”
“Slowly. I’m breaking some of the code down, then I’m finding other sections of it to be impossible again.” He walked downstairs beside her.
“Another code?”
“I believe so. Callisthenes was apparently a careful man.”
“Perhaps he had a big secret to hide.”
“He thought so. In the other scrolls, he mentions that Alexander the Great’s final resting place has ‘the power to change the course of nations.’”
“How?”
Lourds grinned. “That’s one of the things that he’s most secretive about. He claims that Alexander was somehow blessed by the gods, that he had been given a great gift, and that the only way people would be safe was if Alexander took that blessing down into the underworld with him.”
“You mean, like Hades?”
Lourds shrugged. “That would be the literal translation.”
“Perhaps Callisthenes hated Alexander.”
“No.” Lourds ran a hand through his hair and felt the ache between his shoulder blades that told him he’d been working on the translation for far too long. “You’d have to read the scrolls, Layla. Callisthenes thought the sun rose and set on Alexander the Great.”
“Wasn’t he a slave?”
“Not a slave, exactly. More like an indentured servant. He was one of the historians Alexander had chosen to document his life.”
“There were others?”
“Yes. But we don’t know how many there were or who they happened to be.”
“Aristotle was Alexander’s mentor, and I know Aristotle wrote about nearly everything. Maybe there is some