"This is fine." She watched Tavak set up the encrypted Internet connection with her lab. "But you're right, this hotel is definitely a change of pace from anything within the known universe."
"But memorable. If life is the sum total of our experiences, we should always seek the most memorable experiences we can." He grinned. "You're sure you don't want to go back to your room and bask in those fur-trimmed mirrors?"
"That's exactly where I'm going. But I'm going to turn out the lights and go to bed." She turned toward the door. "I can do without any more bizarre experiences to night. Good night, Tavak."
* * *
Rachel was up at seven and knocking on Tavak's door by seven forty-five.
"Good morning." Tavak opened the door. "Did you sleep well?"
"As well as could be expected," Rachel said. "Those pink walls seemed to pulsate even in the dark."
"I could have changed with you, but the waterfall on my wall might have been more distracting." He nodded at the laptop on the table. "I've set up the connection. Val should be on the—"
"Tavak?" Val Cho's voice suddenly blared over Tavak's laptop speakers.
"Yes, Val." Tavak angled the laptop to include Rachel in the video feed they were sending to Houston.
Rachel leaned forward. "Hi, Val. Did you get the new symbols we sent you?"
Tavak pushed a key to enlarge the tiny desktop window to show Val full screen on his laptop. She was sitting at her desk in the computer lab.
"Yep. Simon has been entering them in. We've been wondering how many laws you had to break to get those."
Tavak smiled. "We won't go into that."
"The grad students you took to Vegas are talking about the party you had on the strip the other night. I'm still bitter I wasn't invited, you know."
"We needed people who could blend in. That's not Val Cho. If we ever need someone men can't look away from, we'll call you."
Even through the fuzzy laptop window, Rachel could see the faint flush on Val's cheeks.
"Simon tried to lay that line of bull on me," Val said. "I could have dressed down."
"Maybe next time," Rachel said. "I need you there to babysit Jonesy and make sure it's scaling to all the cycles we added last week."
"So far, so good. Norton didn't waste time hogging every bit of computing power we doled out to him."
"He hasn't called for a couple of days. I think we've finally managed to shut him up. How has Jonesy been doing on the code?
"Nothing yet. It's difficult enough to translate ancient languages that are meant to be understood. For this code, Peseshet's disciple could have been using a language that's now lost."
"That's why we need Jonesy to figure it out for us," Tavak said. "With your help, of course."
"I'm on it. But I don't need to tell you that the more pieces you can give me, the easier it will be to crack this."
"We're working on it, Val," Rachel said. "Thanks for all of your help." She leaned forward and cut the connection.
Tavak turned to her. "Val is a good person to have on your team. It's obvious she'd do anything for you."
"Not only is she willing, she's able. That's a rare combination."
He studied her for a moment. "You demand the best from her, just like you demanded it from those students in Las Vegas. People come alive when they suddenly find themselves capable of things they never imagined."
"Yet you're the one those kids are talking about," she said dryly.
"I know how to reward good work and how to align my needs with those of others, but that's not the same. I envy you."
"Why would you—"
"I may have some potentially good news," he interrupted. "We may not have to go digging for the next piece of the puzzle."
He obviously wanted to change the subject from the personal, she realized. Tavak had come too close to soberness and sincerity, and he was quickly backing away.
"When did you decide that?"
"Last night." Tavak picked up several sheets next to his portable printer. "I couldn't sleep, so I started looking into our pig who builds cities."
"You actually found him?"
"I believe so. But it would be more accurate to say that he's a pig farmer who built cities. Although a good deal of his wealth came from construction, he may have been even more successful raising pigs."
Rachel took the pages and glanced through them noticing that they featured photos and text relating to an excavation site. "Who was he?"
"A nobleman named Nimaatra. He lived during Peseshet's time, in the area where she lived. The upper classes didn't eat pork, but some, like Nimaatra, did make a fortune selling pork. And he was also a renowned builder."
"That's a unique combination," Rachel said. "There probably weren't that many people with those two specialties."
"My thought exactly. He was known for constructing large homes and institutions. He may have even built the headquarters for female doctors that Peseshet headed. He could have been another one of her grateful patients."
"Do we know where his tomb is?"
Tavak double-clicked an icon on his laptop screen, and a window opened up with video of a museum exhibit behind Plexiglas barriers.
"Most of the tomb is still in Egypt, but the most distinctive part is now thousands of miles away. This is probably what we need to look at."
Rachel leaned closer to the screen. The video was small, and the exhibit was occasionally obscured by museum visitors wandering in and out of frame. But she could clearly see a large, stone wall adorned with Egyptian characters.
"Where did you get this?"
Tavak smiled. "YouTube, believe it or not. We're looking at someone's vacation video. I haven't been able to find any photos of it online yet, but I sent requests out to a few friends. I'm sure I'll have a scan e-mailed to me in the next few hours."
"Where is this?"
"St. Petersburg."
"I'm guessing we're not going to be lucky enough that it's St. Petersburg, Florida."
"Afraid not. The Russian one. This is the Hermitage Museum."
"The Winter Palace?"
"One and the same. This tomb relief is a centerpiece. It depicts a feast as an offering to the gods."
"I think this may be a bit more difficult to break into than Hearst Castle was."
"A tad. Although a few thousand revolutionaries were able to storm those gates once."
"Maybe we can come up with a plan that involves a few less executions."
He smiled faintly. "If you insist."
"So what now?"
"We wait to see if the photographs tell us what we need to know, but I doubt we'll be that lucky. We'll probably need to be hands-on with that tomb wall."
"And how are we going to do that?"
"We show up and assess the situation. After that… "
"Yes?"
He shrugged. "Why, we'll find a way to get exactly what we want."
Again, that damnable calmness and confidence that had at first so annoyed her. But that was what she needed right now, Rachel realized. What Allie needed.
Allie.
"If we need to go to St. Petersburg, we can catch a flight out of Houston."
Tavak shook his head. "I'm sure we can get a direct flight out of L.A."