"Suppose the scrolls were buried somewhere along the northern coast of Sweden or Russia?"
Rothberg bent his head thoughtfully. "I suppose the freeze would preserve them, but during the summer thaw they would rot from the dampness."
Pitt could smell defeat looming down the road. This was one more nail in the coffin. Hope of finding the Library manuscripts intact seemed farther than ever.
Lily did not share Pitts pessimism. She had the glow of excitement on her face. "If you had been Junius Venator, Dr. Rothberg, what books would you have saved?"
"Hard question," Rothberg said, winking at her. "I can only guess he might have attempted to save the complete works of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristotle and Plato for a start. And of course, Homer. He wrote twenty-four books, but only a very few have come down to us. I think Venator would have saved as many of the fifty thousand volumes on Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian history as his fleet of ships could carry.
The latter would be extremely interesting, since the Library's monumental store of Egyptian literature and religious and scientific material has all been lost. We know practically nothing about the Etruscans, yet Claudius wrote an extensive history on them that must have sat on the Library's shelves. I'd certainly have taken religious works on Hebrew and Christian laws and traditions. The revelations of these scrolls would probably knock the socks off modern biblical scholars."
"Books of the sciences?" added Giordino.
"That goes without saying."
"Don't forget cookbooks," said Lily.
Rothberg laughed. "Venator was a shrewd operator. He'd have saved a general spread of knowledge and material, including books on cooking and household hints. Something for everyone, you might say."
"Especially the ancient geological data," said Pitt.
"Especially that," Rothberg agreed.
"Has anything come down on what kind of a man he was?" inquired Lily.
"Venator?"
"Yes. "
"He was the leading intellectual of his time. A renowned scholar and teacher who was hired away from one of the great learning centers of Athens to become the last of the Alexandria Library's prominent curators. He was the great chronicler of his age-We know he wrote over a hundred books of political and social commentary that covered the known world going back four thousand years. None of which has survived."
"Archaeological researchers would have a field day with data compiled by someone who was two thousand years closer to our past," said Lily.
"What else do we know about him?" Pitt asked.
"Not much. Venator attracted a large number of pupils who went on to become recognized men of letters and science. One student, Diocles of Antioch, mentioned him briefly in one of his essays. He described Venator as a daring innovator who struck out into areas other scholars feared to tread. Though a Christian, he saw religion more as a social science. This was the main cause behind the friction that existed between Venator and the Christian zealot Theophilos, Bishop of Alexandria. Theophilos went after Venator with a vengeance, claiming the museum and Library were hotbeds of paganism. He finally persuaded the Emperor Theodosius, a devout Christian, to burn the place. In the uproar and riots that occurred between Christians and non-Christians during the destruction, it was supposed Junius Venator was murdered by fanaticw followers of Theophilos."
"But now we know he escaped with the pick of the collection," said Lily.
"When Senator Pitt called with the news of your discovery in Greenland,"
said Rothberg, "I felt as excited as a street sweeper who'd won a million-dollar lottery."
"Can you give us any thoughts on where you think Venator hid the artifacts?" asked Pitt.
Rothberg considered for a long moment. Finally he said quietly, "Junius Venator was not an ordinary man. He followed his own path. He had access to a mountain of knowledge. His route would have been scientifically planned, only the unknowns were left to chance. He certainly did an efficient job when you consider the relics have remained hidden for sixteen hundred years." Rothberg threw up his hands in defeat. "I can't offer a clue. Venator is too tough a customer to second-guess."
"You must have some idea," Pitt persisted.
Rothberg looked long and deeply into the flames wavering in the fireplace. "All I can say is, Venator's burial place must be where no man would think to look."
0758, read Ismail's watch. He flattened himself behind a small blue spruce and peered at the lodge. Wood smoke was curling from one of two chimneys while steam issued from the heater vents. Kamil, he knew, was an early riser and a good cook. He rightly reasoned that she was up and making breakfast for her guards.
He was a man of the desert and not used to the icy cold that gripped him. He wished he could stand, flail his arms and stamp his feet. His toes ached and his fingers were becoming numb inside the gloves. The agony of the cold was filling his mind and slowing his reaction time. A creeping fear fell over him, a fear that he might botch the job and die for no purpose.
Ismail's inexperience was showing through. At the initial stage of the mission he was coming unstrung. He suddenly wondered if the hated Americans somehow knew or suspected his presence. Nervous and afraid, his mind began to lose its ability to make hard-and-fast decisions.
0759. One quick glance at the van just above the entrance to the road.
Shifts were alternated every four hours between the guards in the warm lodge and those huddled inside the van. Two relief men were due to make the hundredmeter walk from the lodge at any time.
He turned his attention to the guard walking a well-beaten path through the snow around the grounds. He was slowly approaching Ismail's tree, his breath coming in clouds of vapor, his gaze alert for any sign out of the ordinary.
The monotony and the bitter cold had not slackened the Secret Service agent's vigilance. His eyes swept back and forth over the area like radar. Less than a minute remained before he would see Ismail's trail in the snow.
Ismail swore softly under his breath and pressed more deeply into the snow. He was, he knew, exposed. The pine needles shielding him from view would not stop bullets.
0800. Almost on the dot, the front door of the lodge opened and two men stepped out. They wore stocking caps and down-filled ski coats. They automatically scanned the snowy landscape as they moved down the road in quiet conversation.
Ismail's plan was to wait until the relief party reached the van and then take Out all four guards at the same time. But he had misjudged and moved into position too early. The two men had only walked fifty meters down the road when the guard circling the lodge spotted Ismail's footprints.
He stopped and raised the transmitter to his lips. His words were cut off by a loud series of cracks from ismail's Heckler & Koch MP5
submachine gun.
Ismail's amateurish plan had gotten off to a bad start. A pro would have snuffed the guard with a single shot between the eyes from a silenced semiautomatic. Ismail stitched the guard'S COat in the chest area with ten rounds; a good twenty others sprayed the woods beyond.
One of the Arabs frantically began lobbing grenades at the van while another pumped bullets through the sides. Sophisticated assault was beyond the scope of most terrorists. Finesse was as foreign to them as liquid soap. Their only salvation was luck. One of the grenades found its way through the windshield, bursting with a loud thud. The explosion bore no similarity to motion-picture special effects. The gas tank did not go up in a fiery ball. The body of the van bulged and split as if a cherry bomb had gone off inside a tin can.
Both occupants were killed instantly.
Excited with blood lust, the two assassins, neither older than twenty, kept up their attack on the mangled van until the magazines of their rifles were empty, instead of concentrating on the Secret Service agents on the road, who took cover