If Napoleon had wanted to keep the Second Stone hidden, Gabriel thought, he couldn’t have chosen a better place for it—doubly so if he’d believed the stone to have mystical properties. Growing up in Corsica, he must have heard every fable and legend about the strange powers of this territory, and the endless maze of caves and rock structures buried in the hills certainly offered no shortage of hiding places.
With his money belt refilled from the stash on board the plane and a new Hunt Foundation credit card in his pocket, Gabriel had no difficulty renting a Renault Laguna 1.8 at the airport. He and Sammi drove it into the city and spent an hour and a half at a hardware store buying supplies: water and food, rope, climbing tools, flashlights, pickaxes. The final expenditure, because it was dark by the time they got out, was a hotel room for the night. At the front desk, Gabriel found himself confronted by the baleful eye of the manager, whose glance flicked from Gabriel to Sammi, from their naked ring fingers to their ankles, where no luggage stood. “Is monsieur certain he wishes but a single room, and not two? I can offer a most reasonable price on a second . . .”
Sammi stepped forward and matched the man glare for glare. “Monsieur is certain,” she said coldly in French, “and so is madame. One room will do, and I suggest you make it one without neighbors on either side if your guests are as sensitive about these things as you.”
The man handed over a key glacially. “Very well,” he said.
But in the end, the only noise they made in the room would have been inoffensive had their neighbors been librarians on one side and nuns on the other. A room service dinner of sadly overcooked steak and undercooked vegetables was followed by a phone call back to New York, where it was two in the morning but Michael nevertheless answered on the first ring.
“Have you heard from Lucy?” he wanted to know.
“I wouldn’t know,” Gabriel said. “I don’t have e-mail, and my phone’s . . .”
“Your phone is what?” Michael asked.
“Not so much a phone anymore as a collection of phone pieces. Lying somewhere in Cairo.”
Michael was silent for a moment, no doubt mourning the $30,000 piece of equipment. But only for a moment—his primary concern lay elsewhere. “If she couldn’t get you, she’d at least have called me, don’t you think?”
“I asked her to,” Gabriel said. “She didn’t make any promises.”
“Her plane landed hours ago,” Michael said.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Gabriel said. “If you want to worry about something, let me give you something else to chew on.”
Gabriel gave him Amun’s name and a quick summary of what Sammi had said about him. “I’ll have someone check him out,” Michael said. “See what I can find out. But, Gabriel . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to try to find Lucy first. I know she doesn’t want to talk to me—and she doesn’t have to. But I need to know she’s okay. I have a bad feeling somehow.”
“You have a bad feeling about everything,” Gabriel said.
“And how often have I been right?”
“Not more than ninety-eight percent of the time,” Gabriel said.
Sammi came over as he was hanging up the phone. “Something wrong?”
“He’s worried about Lucy because she hasn’t called.”
“Well, don’t you think—”
“Sammi,” Gabriel said, “she hasn’t called him in nine years. She’s fine.” Silently he added, And if she’s not, we’re on the trail of the one thing that might help.
“They went to a hotel,” Naeem reported over his cell phone. “I can get the room number from the clerk, enter while they’re sleeping . . .”
“No,” Amun answered. “Do nothing of the sort. Do you understand? I am on my way. Just watch them—that is all. Do not touch them, do not speak to them. We need them alive.”
“You need Hunt,” Naeem protested, “and his sister. But the French woman . . . ?”
“Are you questioning me?” Amun said.
“Of course not,” Naeem said.
“Good,” Amun said. “Now do your job.”
Naeem tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Understood.”
They checked out of the hotel at dawn.
Corsica was a beautiful country, in a rough-hewn way. There was nothing soft about it. Mountainous throughout much of its middle, it was a country as rugged as any Gabriel had been to and not only physically. Although technically part of France, Corsica was more Italian in culture and sensibility, and its people had a quality all their own, strong and unsentimental, almost brutal. The word “vendetta” originated in Corsica, and the Union Corse—the Corsican mafia—had been a powerful force in daily life on the island for most of the past century. Even now, officially crushed, it still had its tentacles in businesses throughout the country. Corsicans were hard people, living in a hard environment.
Gabriel drove south toward Propriano and the small community of Sollacaro, which hosted the Filitosa site. If there was something to be found, this was where they had to start looking.
“They are headed toward the site,” Naeem reported.
“Excellent,” Amun said. “You know what to do if he makes it inside the Web.”
“What about the Corsicans who guard it?”
“Kemnebi will take care of them. He is assembling a team. If it proves necessary, we will intervene.”
“Understood,” Naeem said. Then after Amun had disconnected and the cell phone was safely closed, he said contemptuously, “If it proves necessary.”
They reached Filitosa by midmorning. It was in the middle of a dense forest that seemed to be untouched by modern civilization. Gabriel parked the car, took the pair of rucksacks they’d filled with their gear, and handed one to Sammi, who shrugged it on. Together they went into the Repository Museum building, where visitors bought tickets to visit the site. The museum contained a number of specimens excavated from various archaeological digs on the property. Glass display cases held artifacts such as obsidian arrowheads and pottery from the late Neolithic period. Gabriel led Sammi past the ranks of cases and straight to the outside path that led through an ancient olive grove to the first monument. Walking down the hill from there, they came to the monument, which consisted of menhirs with crudely carved faces erected around an open-air shrine. A number of hut platforms also surrounded the area.
Gabriel studied the map he had drawn. “We need to go to the very bottom of the hill, where the Western Monument and torri are located.”
“What’s a torri?”
“A type of circular stone structure. It’s thought they were used as temples. Come on.”
They continued along the path. Menhirs were arranged in a ritualistic circle near walls of stone that had once enclosed—what? No one knew. Gabriel had asked Michael once. It was obvious that the ancient Corsicans had used the structure for religious purposes, but historians weren’t sure what that religion was.
Beyond the monument was a fence—the end of the Filitosa property.
“We have to get over that fence without being seen,” Gabriel said. There weren’t too many people around—it was still early. They walked to a section of the fence partly concealed behind a stand of large olive trees.