those bodies in the jungle, I’m not taking any chances. Katya was close to her uncle and involved with his research. If he was on a hit list, then Katya might be too. And that puts anyone around her in potential danger.”
“Have you told her about him?” Costas said.
Jack held up his cell phone. “Just before we took off And she had some news to tell me too.”
“So you’re saying I can’t come,” Rebecca said defiantly.
“You’re going to stay with Ben and Andy at the base, and help them with the equipment. Then you’re going to fly east with them in a U.S. Air Force Chinook to the far end of Lake Issyk-Kul. That’s where submerged ruins have been found. I promised we’d check that out too, as well as seeing what Katya’s got for us. You’re going to help set things up there, and wait for us.”
“So I miss all the action,” Rebecca said.
“You’re going to be with a team of U.S. Navy SEALs,” Costas said. “Can’t get much better than that.”
“You speak Russian, don’t you, Rebecca?” Jack said.
She nodded, then looked at Costas. “The people my mother sent me to live with in New York are Russian. Petra and Michael defected in the mid-1980s, while they were in America at a conference. They’re both palaeolinguists. Petra had been allowed by the Soviets to study in Italy, where she became my mother’s best friend. That was before you two met, Dad, so you wouldn’t have known her. After she returned to Moscow she met Michael at the Institute of Palaeography.”
“That’s where Katya’s based, isn’t it?” Costas exclaimed.
Rebecca nodded. “I knew about Katya way before I first met you, Dad. The first time I ever saw you and Costas was when I was sitting down one evening at our summer cottage in the Hamptons with Petra and Michael, watching a documentary about Atlantis. Katya was being interviewed.”
“Small world,” Costas said.
Jack looked out of the window, suddenly overwhelmed. He still had so much to learn about his daughter. It seemed inconceivable that he had only known her for a few months. He took a deep breath, and sat back. They were on the final approach now, and the plane was rocking about in the turbulence. He looked at Rebecca. “It’s a serious job. Your Russian will come in very handy. The place you’ll be going to on the lake is a Russian submersible warfare testing facility, recently reopened on the site of the old Soviet base. It’s been a major coup getting them to agree to an IMU team operating in their restricted area, and for the U.S. military this is a lot more than just an interesting holiday for Special Forces out of Afghanistan. It’ll require tact, poise and charm. It’ll be your first official IMU role.”
“But Costas hasn’t taught me to dive yet,” Rebecca said.
“Because Costas hasn’t been allowed to take you to Hawaii yet,” Costas grumbled.
“You can drive the boat,” Jack said.
Rebecca perked up. “Where is it?”
Jack pointed down to the aircraft’s floor. “Packed up in the hold. Brand-new Zodiac 6.5 meter rigid inflatable boat, twin 80 Evinrudes, state-of-the-art GPS navigation, position-fixing and bottom-profiling equipment.”
“Cool.”
Jack grinned at Costas. The plane’s wheels skidded on the tarmac, and the nose settled down. The engines went into reverse and Rebecca shouted over the noise. “So when will I see you?”
“Don’t know.” Jack’s voice was shuddering with the plane. “Depends on what Katya’s found. Could be with you later today. But could be a little diversion.”
“A little what?”
“A little diversion.”
Costas looked despondently at his Hawaiian shirt, then at Rebecca. “By now, you should know what that means.”
15
Jack and Costas stood beside the lake and waved at the army truck as it trundled off east, revving through the gears and disappearing over the ridge. After leaving Pradesh and Rebecca at the air base they had endured an exhausting four-hour journey from Bishkek, crammed into the cabin with the Kyrgyz driver and his guard. The U.S. Army Chinook helicopter which was meant to have brought them here had developed mechanical trouble, and rather than wait in Bishkek and risk losing a day they had opted to hitch a lift on a supply truck heading to the naval test base at the far end of the lake. Jack’s anticipation had risen over the last hour as the truck had lurched its way toward the lake, through an extraordinary landscape of ravines and ridges formed by the raging cataract that had once flowed from the lake, now shaped again by the wind. He had imagined the thoughts of travelers who had once braved the pass, knowing that each dark recess might conceal a robber band, ready to inflict the murderous fate that had befallen so many on the Silk Route. And then the truck had mounted the final rise and they had seen Lake Issyk-Kul stretched out before them, with the snowcapped peaks of the Tien Shan Mountains lining the far side. The driver had stopped abruptly and gestured across a rocky field toward a solitary yurt, a traditional Kyrgyz tent. They had thanked him and jumped out, and now they slung their rucksacks and began to pick their way across the rocky landscape. Jack began to see the features that had made this place so beguiling to Katya: swirling, curvilinear patterns on the boulders, carvings that looked as old as the rocks themselves. He stopped at one, putting the flat of his hand against it, feeling the hand of the sculptor more than two thousand years ago.
“A cemetery?” Costas said from behind. “They look like tombstones.”
“Possibly,” Jack said. “But there’s lot of shamanistic stuff here too. It goes on for miles, where boulders have tumbled down the slopes and come to rest near the lakeshore. Katya thinks the earliest petroglyphs date from the Bronze Age, from the late second millennium BC, but nomads were carving here right through the period of the ancient Silk Route, to the later first millennium AD. As well as the nomads, traders made their way east or west among these boulders for thousands of years; stopping here after surviving that pass or before risking it. In addition to all the nomad art, there’s a chance of finding something really amazing, inscriptions made by those people- Bactrian, Sogdian, Persian, Chinese, you name it. Those traders are what give this route its place in history, yet they hardly left an imprint at all. Any discovery could be a huge revelation.”
Jack shaded his eyes and looked across the field of boulders, away from the lake and back toward the pass. The late afternoon sun was in his eyes, and it was impossible to see much, flashes of light off the weatherworn surfaces of the rock, shadows where there were gullies and ravines. It would be very easy to get lost in this place, and very easy never to be found again.
“There they are,” Costas said. “I can see Katya. Come on.” Costas looked faintly out of place in his baggy shorts, oversized Hawaiian shirt, hiking boots and wraparound aviator sunglasses, but he was surprisingly agile and leapt nimbly from rock to rock. He reached a tall man in a felt hat who stood up among the boulders and shook hands. Jack joined them and shook hands too. The man was about his own age, with blue eyes, his face etched by sun and wind in the way of steppeland people. Katya stood behind him, looking as if she also had taken on the hue of the landscape. She caught Jack’s eye and flashed him a quick smile, but her expression gave little away. She turned to the man. “Meet Altamaty,” she said. “He’s curator of the Cholpon-Ata open-air petroglyph museum. As well as his native Kyrgyz, he speaks Russian and Pashtun, but he’s only just started to learn English. He’s got diving experience with the old Soviet navy. He wants to be involved in the underwater investigations at the eastern end of the lake. I spoke to you about him, Jack.”
“Where’s the museum?” Costas asked.
Katya gestured around. “You’re standing in it. It’s probably the largest museum in the world. And the most under-resourced. It’s basically a one-man show.”
Jack looked at Katya. She was wearing faded military-surplus trousers and a khaki T-shirt, her forearms caked with dirt. Her long black hair was tied back and her face was deeply tanned, accentuating her high cheekbones. She looked more tired and weatherworn than the last time he had seen her, at the conference three months ago, but the color suited her. Jack knew that her mother had come from this area, and her face seemed at one with the tall Kyrgyz man beside her.
“I’ve already briefed our people about Altamaty,” Jack said. “As soon as the Chinook’s airworthy, Ben and Andy are flying from Bishkek straight to the old Soviet naval base at the eastern end of the lake. The Americans
