“It’s going to be a tight squeeze,” Hawkins said.
“We’ve come too far to turn back,” Abby said.
“If I can make it through you’ll have no problem,” Hawkins said.
He swam up to the opening, which was about a yard wide. The ceiling seemed solid enough. He extended his arms like Superman in flight. Slight kicks of his fins propelled him forward inches at a time. The beam of his flashlight showed that the way actually widened after a few yards. He kept moving, crawling more than swimming. Seconds later he was through the opening. He turned around and waved his light.
“I’m in,” he said. “Come ahead.”
Abby navigated the passage with the ease of an eel. Hawkins tried to call Calvin, but there was no answer. They were too deep in the tunnel for their communications systems to work. They encountered no further obstructions and covered ground rapidly. After another fifty feet or so the tunnel ended abruptly in a wall. A rock shelf jutted out and behind the ledge was a large alcove around six feet long and two feet deep.
Hawkins flashed the light around the floor and walls of the empty tunnel.
“Looks like we’ve hit a dry hole, Abby,” he said in a rueful voice.
“Damnit, Matt. Kurtz got it all.”
Hawkins floated up so that he was level with the ledge and peered into the alcove. He drew his sheath knife and poked the biggest of several lumps lying in the recessed shelf. Within moments he had exposed a skull. The mud that had preserved it had colored the skull a dark brown.
“There are bones here,” Hawkins said. “Someone laid out a body for burial.”
He used his knife to peck away at the other chunks of concretion. The point quickly dislodged layers of hardened mud and revealed fragments of leg or arm bones. Hawkins brushed away some of the sediment and saw something shiny in the skeletal remains. He picked up an encrusted object that had a glint of gold, showed it to Abby, then put the object into his vest pocket.
Abby glanced at her wrist computer. “We’d better get back. Our friends are going to worry if they don’t hear from us.”
Hawkins signaled Abby to take the lead. She approached the earth barrier blocking the way and glided up and through the opening. Hawkins was right behind her. He watched her as she wiggled through, surprising himself with the thought that her backside looked good even in Calvin’s oversized wetsuit.
When they emerged from the water a few minutes later, they saw Calvin and Cait waiting at the lake’s edge. Hawkins crawled out and wasted no time with his report. “We found an old tomb that lies directly under the shaft and discovered what was left of the diver and another body, much older, that was apparently laid out for burial.” Hawkins hated to break Cait’s heart with the truth, but he had to be up front with her. “There was no treasure,” he said.
Cait seemed to shrink within herself.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “The tunnel ends around a hundred-fifty-feet in. We went over every square foot.”
“Then that’s it.” Her words had a hollow ring. She looked around at the devastation. “All this was for nothing.”
“Maybe not. We found this with the older skeleton.” He removed the lump from his vest and handed it to Cait. She examined the object, then borrowed a knife and carefully chipped away the chunk of concretion. Underneath was a gold cross. Cait translated the inscription on the long part of the cross:
“GOD SPEED PHILLIP”
Inscribed on the cross’ short section was the word ALEXANDER.
“You were wrong about finding nothing,” she said. “The skeleton you discovered belongs to Philip. It proves my theory that he made it as far as Afghanistan.” She pursed her lips in thought. “What it doesn’t prove is whether he was coming from or going to the kingdom of Prester John. Maybe we’ll never know now, but even without the treasure, this is one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the century.”
Hawkins’ eye fell on the piece of concretion that had broken off from the cross. He took the knife back and chipped away the covering. Inside was a coin. He examined the palm tree engraved one side and then flipped the coin over.
“I’m happy to say that you’re wrong, Cait,” he said. “Looks like the cross will be the second most important discovery. This is the first.”
He gave Cait the coin. She studied both sides, then passed it to Abby, threw her arms around Hawkins and planted a warm kiss on his lips.
Abby was irritated at Cait’s reaction until she examined the coin. She understood after she examined the side of the coin with the face pictured on it. Engraved in Latin under the profile were two words.
Presbyter Johannes.
Hawkins gave the order to break camp. They loaded the gear onto the desert vehicle and with the Russian Jeep leading the way, headed back to Amir’s house. His daughter greeted them and said they had been invited for dinner and to stay the night.
After being shown to their rooms and given the chance to clean up and change, they assembled for dinner in the big dining room. Amir arrived a few minutes later. He sat down next to Cait and said that his men had ambushed a force advancing on the village. All the invaders were killed, he said.
“My men have been buried and avenged on the same day.” He turned to Hawkins. “And did you find the treasure my friend?”
Before Hawkins could answer, Amir noticed that Cait’s eyes were moist with tears. He put his hand on her arm. “What’s wrong, Dr. Cait? Are you ill?”
Cait cleared her throat. “I’m fine, thank you. No, that’s not right. I feel terrible. It was my research that led to the deaths of so many people. If I hadn’t come up with my treasure theory, your men would still be alive.”
There was a heavy silence in the room.
Hawkins had gone through a self-hatred phase and knew that once guilt got its claws into you it was hard to dislodge.
“Not so fast, Cait,” he said. “You didn’t ask that creep to attack you at the caravan stop. You didn’t murder the men at the lake. You didn’t attack the village. You have no right to blame yourself.”
Her pale cheeks flushed pink. “That’s easy for you to say, Matt.”
“It’s not easy, Cait. Not easy at all.”
Calvin jumped into the discussion. “What Hawk is saying as that we’ve both been there. He thought it was his fault that we lost guys in an ambush back in the day. I tore myself up for years because I didn’t have his back when they pushed him out of the navy.”
Abby sighed loudly. “Guess I should get on the guilt band wagon. I could have tended to a deeply-wounded friend and I didn’t.” Abby turned her head to avoid Hawkins’ surprised gaze and spoke directly to Cait. “What we’re all saying is that you can’t blame yourself for the actions of a bunch of sleaze-bags.”
Cait threw her hands in the air. “Enough! I didn’t know this was going to be an intervention. Okay, I absolve myself of blame, but the Prester John treasure still had a role in this.”
“I agree,” Hawkins said. “But Prester was only one in a cast of dozens. Let’s not forget the professor or the twin assassins who tried to kill me.”
“I never suspected that Professor Saleem was an agent with the Pakistani intelligence. I feel so betrayed,” Cait said. “He always seemed like the perfect gentleman scholar.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what he was,” Hawkins said. “Marzak must have suspected he was on our side, and that’s probably why he killed him.”
“Saleem’s connection to the Shadows is not surprising,” Amir said. “The ISI maintains contacts with terrorists and insurgents which it sees as buffers against the greater enemy. India.”