It was an old, black-and-white image of the coiled snake, taken from a centuries-old woodcut. Mia studied it more closely than she had before.The beast in the image was more than a snake. It had exaggerated scales and fangs, more akin to a dragon. Its eyes were cold and stared blankly ahead, as if the act of devouring itself were the most natural, and painless, of acts. It was a sinister image that harked back to a primal fear, a yellowed, weathered copy that reeked of malice.
She looked up at Corben. “What is it?”
“It’s called an Ouroboros. It’s very old, it’s been used at different times by different cultures.”
“What does it mean?”
“It doesn’t seem to have one specific meaning. I think it’s more of an archetypal, mystical symbol that meant different things to different people, depending on where it was used. I found many instances of it, from ancient Egyptian myths to Hindu legends, and later with alchemists and gnostics, and that was without spending too much time on it.”
Mia was finding it hard to draw her eyes away from the image. “The relics aren’t important. Whoever’s got her is after that book.”
“Possibly. This might tell us more.” He tapped a finger on Evelyn’s file. “I haven’t yet had time to go through it properly. Either way, it’s not really the issue. It’s only relevant in that it’s why she was kidnapped. And right now, the best lead we have for finding her is the guy who I think brought these to her, this man from her past, the Iraqi fixer you said she mentioned. He knows more about what’s going on and about who else is involved in this. We don’t know anything about him, but…” Corben paused, hesitating. Mia could see that something in him didn’t want to continue, but, after a brief moment, he said, “You could well be right in that he was the same guy who was with her when she was kidnapped. And if he was, well, you saw him. You can identify him. And I’m hoping that if he’s the same guy, then maybe”—he turned the file so it was now facing her the right way—“just maybe, there’s a picture of him in here somewhere. And that would help us a lot.”
She looked at him uncertainly, feeling somewhat shortchanged by his answer, then nodded and opened up the file again. Much as she felt drawn to the materials in it — the sheets of notes, handwritten in ink with a graceful, classic penmanship that she knew well from the letters her mom had sent her when she was growing up; the photocopies of documents and pages of books, in English, Arabic, a few in French, with sentences underlined and notes scribbled in the margins; the maps of Iraq and of the broader Levant, with markings and arrows and circled notes; all of it with many, many question marks — she flicked through them after no more than a cursory glance, looking for the photographs she needed to examine.
She came across a batch of old snapshots, scattered between the pages, and studied them closely. She recognized a younger, slimmer Evelyn in some of them, decked out in khaki field pants, mesh hats, and big tortoiseshell sunglasses, and found herself imagining the exciting, unconventional life her mother must have led at the time: a single woman, a Westerner, traveling to exotic, sun-drenched locations, meeting different peoples, immersing herself in their cultures, working with them to explore the hidden treasures of their past. A driven life, to be sure, and more than likely a fulfilling one, but one that had to come at a price, which in Evelyn’s case seemed to be a wistful loneliness, a guarded solitude.
Her fingers paused at a shot of Evelyn standing alone with a man. His features were too obscured by the sunglasses, the shade of his hat, and the downward, slightly turned angle of his face. She felt a prickling at the back of her neck. She knew that shot. She’d been given a copy of it when she was seven, which she kept safely tucked into her wallet, always close. The man in the photograph was her father. Evelyn had told her it was the only picture of him she had. They’d only spent a few weeks together. It saddened Mia that she didn’t even know what he really looked like.
She stared wistfully at the photograph, then a troubling realization crept into her mind. Her father was there. He had been with Evelyn when she’d found the underground chambers.
And he’d died a month later. In a car crash.
A sharp pain spiked inside her heart. For a second, it felt as if it stopped beating altogether, and she felt the blood draining from her face.
Corben seemed to spot it. “What is it?”
She handed him the picture. “The man in the picture.” Her words came out as if emerging from a fog. “He was my father. He was there.”
Corben studied her, waiting for more.
“He died a month later. In a car crash.” Her eyes were alight with questions. “What if he was killed? Murdered. Because of this.”
An uncertain look crossed Corben’s features. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. There’s nothing here that indicates that Evelyn had any trouble over this before. If his death was related to all this, then she would have been under threat too. Which doesn’t seem to be the case, I mean, she lived a pretty open life.”
He handed her back the picture. She took another lingering look at it, then nodded. “I guess you’re right,” she conceded.
“I’ll take a look anyway, just to cover all the bases. What was his name?” Corben asked.
“Webster,” Mia said. “Tom Webster.”
The name pummeled Corben like a shotgun blast.
Tom Webster.
Evelyn had tried to reach Tom Webster last night. And mediums didn’t usually call the switchboards of academic institutions to reach the deceased.
He wasn’t dead. At least, Evelyn didn’t think so. He was alive. And she’d lied to her daughter all these years.
Adrenaline surged through Corben. This was important. He had to put a high-priority trace on the name. He needed more information from Mia about where he had supposedly died, what else Evelyn had told her about him, although, given that she’d lied to her about his death, Corben didn’t think anything Mia could tell him about her long-lost father would turn out to be true.
It could wait.
He watched Mia as she put the shot to one side and moved on, checking out a few more shots until her eyes fell on something that seemed to snare her interest.
“The man from the alley. I think that’s him,” she said.
Chapter 28
The hakeem adjusted the glass slide under the microscope and tapped a few buttons on his keyboard. Another magnified image came up on the flat screen. He studied it carefully, as he had done with all the data that the tests had thrown up.
She’s clean, he thought. Evelyn’s blood work hadn’t flagged anything unusual. No foreign substances, no tampering. Her readings were in line with what he would expect to find in a reasonably healthy woman of her age.
He stared through the cells on the screen and revisited her words. There was no doubt in his mind that she had told him everything she knew. He was working off a solid base.
Tom Webster. He couldn’t get the name out of his mind.
Could he be one of them?
The possibility electrified him. He ran it through his mind, again and again. It seemed too far-fetched. So many years had passed…. But what other explanation was there? Every time he tried to dismiss the idea, to put another spin on it, his initial suspicion came back, slicing through his doubts with Occam-like sharpness and implanting itself firmly in his consciousness. Why else would he appear like that, unannounced, at the first sign of the discovery, and then disappear when the trail seemed to die out? No, there was no other rational explanation.
He had to be one of them.
Tasked with protecting their secret.
Keeping an eye on archaeological digs in the region, making sure that no one stumbled across something that they had gone to great lengths to suppress. Something they’d kept — something they’d hoarded greedily, he scowled — to themselves for centuries.